9 files changed, 66378 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..6833f05
--- /dev/null
+++ b/.gitattributes
@@ -0,0 +1,3 @@
+* text=auto
+*.txt text
+*.md text
diff --git a/34361-8.txt b/34361-8.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..8283559
--- /dev/null
+++ b/34361-8.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,22097 @@
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Song of Songs, by Hermann Sudermann
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere 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
+
+
+Title: The Song of Songs
+
+Author: Hermann Sudermann
+
+Translator: Beatrice Marshall
+
+Release Date: November 18, 2010 [EBook #34361]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SONG OF SONGS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Charles Bowen, from page scans provided by the Web Archive
+
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber's Notes:
+
+   1. Page scan source: http://www.archive.org/details/3398065
+
+   2. The diphthong oe is represented by [oe].
+
+
+
+
+
+                           THE SONG OF SONGS
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                           BY THE SAME AUTHOR
+
+                  REGINA; OR THE SINS OF THE FATHERS
+                  JOHN THE BAPTIST
+                  THE INDIAN LILY
+                  THE UNDYING PAST
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                           THE SONG OF SONGS
+
+                          BY HERMANN SUDERMANN
+
+                 A New Translation by BEATRICE MARSHALL
+
+                   With an Introduction by JOHN LANE
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                   LONDON: JOHN LANE THE BODLEY HEAD
+                   VIGO STREET                MCMXIV
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                            _Third Edition_.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                 THE ANCHOR PRESS, LTD. TIPTREE, ESSEX.
+
+
+
+
+                          THE PUBLISHER'S NOTE
+
+
+In 1898 I published a translation of Sudermann's "Der Katzensteg,"
+under the title of "Regina"; in 1906 of "Es War," under the title of
+"The Undying Past," and in 1908 of "Der Täufer," under the title of
+"John the Baptist." All these books were translated by Miss Beatrice
+Marshall, and the translations were received in England, America, and
+Germany with enthusiasm alike by critics and the public. I was
+therefore naturally anxious to publish Herr Sudermann's great novel,
+"Das hohe Lied," on which he had been working for a great number of
+years, but I found that Mr. B. W. Huebsch of New York, the well-known
+American publisher, had purchased the world rights in the translation.
+My only chance therefore was to purchase from him the translation he
+had had made, and this I acquired in sheet form, as he had already
+copyrighted the book in this country. My edition of the work appeared
+here in October, 1910, under the title of "The Song of Songs."
+
+Serious objections were then raised to it in certain quarters, and I
+should like to place on record here exactly what happened and in proper
+sequence, by first of all printing a letter which I wrote to Sir
+Melville Macnaghten. Chief of the Criminal Investigation Department,
+Scotland Yard; a circular letter which I sent to the book trade; and a
+circular letter which I sent to the Incorporated Society of Authors and
+the following well-known novelists, together with such replies as I
+received:
+
+         E. F. Benson               Eden Phillpotts
+         Mrs. W. K. Clifford        G. B. Shaw
+         Sir A. Conan Doyle         Miss May Sinclair
+         Sir Gilbert Parker         Thomas Hardy
+         Miss Beatrice Harraden     Miss M. P. Willcocks
+         A. E. W. Mason             Israel Zangwill
+         H. G. Wells
+
+                                         London, W.,
+                                         _December 9th_, 1910.
+
+
+Sir Melville Macnaghten,
+      Criminal Investigation Department,
+            New Scotland Yard, S.W.
+
+Dear Sir,
+
+I am told that Inspectors Lawrence and Duggan called at my office
+to-day to inform me that complaint had been made of "The Song of
+Songs," by Hermann Sudermann, which was described as an obscene book.
+Through ill-health I have not been at my office for several weeks,
+although I happen to be in London to-day on my way to Brighton; but my
+manager immediately came to me and communicated what had passed. The
+officers informed him that you do not associate yourself at the present
+juncture with the opinion that has been expressed upon the book, but
+that their object was to draw my attention to the fact that complaint
+had been made.
+
+I very much appreciate your kindness in causing the officers to call
+upon me, and they were quite right in their assumption that I should be
+the last person to wish to publish an obscene book. Although I am under
+doctor's orders, I have delayed my departure for Brighton to write
+letters to some of the most distinguished novelists of the day and to
+the Society of Authors, to whom I am sending copies of "The Song of
+Songs," asking them to acquaint me with their opinion, at the same time
+informing them of what has occurred. As soon as I receive their views,
+I shall be guided by them in my action and will inform you of my
+decision. I presume that this action on my part meets with your
+approval.
+
+                                    Yours faithfully,
+
+                                                   John Lane.
+
+PS.--I enclose a copy of my letter to the authors.
+
+I feel I must add a personal word of thanks to you for your
+consideration in this matter. You will, I am sure, see my position. I
+am dealing with the reputation of one of the greatest literary figures
+in Europe, and it is absurd for me to assume the rôle of judge,
+especially as you do not associate yourself with the--to me--anonymous
+accusation. It is all the more difficult from the fact that this same
+translation has been sold in tens of thousands in the U.S.A., where the
+reading public is much more prudish than here.
+
+                                          London, W.,
+                                           _December 9th_, 1910.
+
+
+Dear Sir or Madam,
+
+For some weeks I have been laid up with a serious attack of bronchitis,
+but I am fortunately in London to-day, although not at my office, on my
+way to Brighton.
+
+I have just been informed that Inspectors Lawrence and Duggan, from the
+Criminal Investigation Department, have called to-day at my office,
+saying that a complaint has been made against Hermann Sudermann's
+novel, "The Song of Songs," which was published in Germany under the
+title of "Das hohe Lied." It is described as obscene, but the officers
+assured my manager that the Chief Commissioner does not at the present
+juncture associate himself with this expression. They explained that
+their call is to draw my attention to the fact that a serious complaint
+has been made, so that if the Public Prosecutor takes action I shall
+not be able to say that, had I known the book to be objectionable, I
+should immediately have withdrawn it. The book has been read by the
+Officers of the C.I.D., for so they told my manager. The translation is
+by an American, and it was printed in America, where it has been in
+circulation for many months past, and has been one of the most
+successful books of the year. I am writing to the Chief Commissioner,
+informing him that it is my intention to lay the matter before the
+Society of Authors and the most distinguished novelists of the day,
+whose advice I am ready to take. I am therefore sending you a copy of
+the book in the hope that you will find time to read it in the course
+of the next few days and let me know your opinion, and I shall
+certainly be guided by the consensus of opinion.
+
+                              I am,
+                             Yours very truly,
+                                        John Lane.
+
+PS.--May I suggest that this is a question for the consideration of the
+Council of the Society of Authors?
+
+                                          London, W.,
+                                           _December 10th_, 1910.
+
+
+Dear Sir,
+
+Yesterday morning I received a call from two inspectors from the
+Criminal Investigation Department, who stated that complaint had been
+made about Hermann Sudermann's "The Song of Songs," which was described
+as "an obscene book." The police declined to express any opinion of
+their own, but warned me of what had occurred.
+
+I immediately wrote and thanked the Chief Commissioner for his
+courtesy. I then wrote letters to the principal novelists of the day,
+asking their advice, for I could not myself sit in judgment upon one of
+Europe's greatest writers. In the meantime I have withdrawn the book
+from circulation.
+
+It is only fair that I should put the trade in the possession of all
+the facts of the case. I took the book in good faith. I had seen that
+it was for months the best-selling book in America, the most
+puritanical of all countries. I should just as soon have thought of
+changing the text of Shakespeare, Ibsen, George Meredith, Mr. Hardy,
+Mr. Maurice Hewlett, and Mr. George Moore. I must give the trade the
+option of returning the book.
+
+                                                        John Lane.
+
+                                            7, Chilworth Street,
+                                                    Paddington, W.
+                                            _December 14th_, 1910.
+
+
+Dear Mr. Lane,
+
+The book is very outspoken and occasionally nasty, but I shouldn't call
+it obscene, and the reputation of the author is your justification for
+publishing it. Personally, I think the first half brilliant and the
+last half tedious and unpleasant. A great many authors not nearly so
+famous as Sudermann could write a somewhat bald catalogue or series of
+risqué episodes. It is a book, in my opinion, for the student of
+literature and the mature, certainly not for the young person; but the
+student, I take it, would be able to read it in the original.
+
+                                    I am,
+                                      Yours sincerely,
+                                         Lucy Clifford.
+
+                                                Windlesham,
+                                                   Crowborough,
+                                                           Sussex.
+
+
+Dear Sir,
+
+Many thanks. I read the book with great interest. To say it is ever
+"obscene" is an abuse of words. That there are passages which are
+coarse, and unnecessarily coarse, is on the other hand indisputable. I
+should not like any woman under forty to read it. And yet it is not
+written for the purpose of being coarse, and that is the essential
+point.
+
+                                         Yours very truly,
+                                                  A. Conan Doyle.
+
+                                                 Max Gate,
+                                                    Dorchester.
+                                         _December 15th_, 1910.
+
+
+Dear Mr. Lane,
+
+I am sorry to hear that you have been laid up with bronchitis, and hope
+that you are on the way to health again.
+
+I finished reading last night the translation of Sudermann's novel,
+"Das hohe Lied," that you sent me a few days back. I am not in a
+position to advise positively whether or not you should withdraw it,
+but I think that, viewing it as a practical question merely, which I
+imagine to be your wish, I should myself withdraw it in the
+circumstances.
+
+A translation of good literary taste might possibly have made such an
+unflinching study of a woman's character acceptable in this country,
+even though the character is one of a somewhat ignoble type, but
+unfortunately, rendered into the rawest American, the claims that the
+original (which I have not seen) no doubt had to be considered as
+literature, are largely reduced, so that I question if there is value
+enough left in this particular translation to make a stand for.
+
+                                    Believe me,
+                                            Yours very truly,
+John Lane, Esq.,                                  Thomas Hardy.
+   The Bodley Head.
+
+
+                                    3, Fitzjohn's Mansions,
+                                            Netherhall Gardens,
+                                               Hampstead, N.W.
+                                                _December 17th_.
+
+Dear Sir,
+
+Many thanks for your letter and the copy of "The Song of Songs."
+
+I read the book carefully several months ago. I consider it to be a
+most wonderful book, and should deeply regret to see the work of so
+great a master as Sudermann suppressed in England. It is an absorbing
+psychological and physical study; and I see nothing obscene in its
+frank presentment of a woman's life, given over, it is true, to
+passion, and yet with a thread of finer aspiration clearly and
+continuously to be traced throughout the course of her career.
+
+                                    I am,
+                                         Yours very truly,
+                                                Beatrice Harraden.
+
+                                           17, Stratton Street, W.
+
+
+My Dear Lane,
+
+I have now read the "Song of Songs." The translation is obviously an
+undistinguished piece of work; and possibly it adds here and there a
+coarseness which the original book is without. As to that I cannot
+speak. Herr Sudermann is no doubt outspoken to the point of brutality,
+but with his theme brutality is the better way. Pruriency is the bad
+way; and with that he has never had anything to do. That the "Song of
+Songs" might offend some people I can understand. That it would do any
+harm I cannot.
+
+                                    Yours very sincerely,
+                                             A. E. W. Mason.
+
+                                     Riviera Palace Hotel,
+                                                Monte Carlo.
+                                      _December 30th_, 1910.
+
+
+Dear John Lane,
+
+Please pardon the delay. I've been seedy, and have not written a single
+letter for ten days. I'm all right again, and am sending to tell you
+briefly what I think of "The Song of Songs."
+
+I can see no reason why it should be banned, tho' to my mind it is
+lacking in the essentials of that Art which makes all things possible
+if not expedient. There is no real tragedy in the life of a _born_
+prostitute such as Lilly was, and certainly there is no comedy. There
+was never for an instant a problem for her to solve, and all the effort
+to present a struggle is vain and empty. She went her accustomed course
+like the fly-away she was, and that is what the book shows with very
+remarkable photography and in a light which reaches into every corner.
+It isn't a sweet book, but _Salome_ isn't a sweet drama, and to attempt
+to ban the one and let the other go is sheer stupidity and crass
+prejudice. One divorce case in the grimy Weeklies is more lurid and
+pornographic to the impressionable eye than all this book of masterly
+observation and graphic literature. The Public must set the standard,
+not the Censor, and as one of the Public I resent any attempt to
+regulate my diet.
+
+                                           Yours truly,
+                                                   Gilbert Parker.
+
+                                                          Torquay.
+                                            _December 22nd_, 1910.
+
+
+Dear John Lane,
+
+I have read Sudermann's "Das hohe Lied" very carefully, and if I were
+inclined to be flippant should say the only things obscene therein were
+the Americanisms of this translation.
+
+But in truth there is more to be said.
+
+I consider that in spirit the book is not obscene, but inasmuch as many
+of the characters are obscene, because the artist has been making a
+study of certain obscene-minded human beings, then it follows that, as
+a true artist, he has created an atmosphere of obscenity for those
+persons to move and breathe in. You do not ask for a criticism of the
+book, and I should not presume to offer it if you did (being happily
+without the least itch ever to criticise anything or anybody); but upon
+the one point where you invite opinion I would say the book is obscene,
+as it was artistically bound to be, because it offers a picture of an
+obscene corner of society--a society entirely preoccupied with the
+sexual man and woman hunt. It is not obscene in the sense that many
+lesser novels written in all countries are obscene.
+
+I hope that I make the distinction clear as it exists in my mind.
+
+                                   Very faithfully yours,
+                                             Eden Phillpotts.
+
+
+                                         10, Adelphi Terrace, W.C.
+                                            _December 20th_, 1910.
+
+Dear John Lane,
+
+At your request I have read the American translation of Hermann
+Sudermann's "Song of Songs." There is no reason why you should not
+publish it except the risk that you may be prosecuted. But as it is
+impossible for an English publisher to conduct his business without
+running that risk daily, I presume you will not allow it to deter you.
+
+The book is a fictitious biography of a _femme galante_. It is not the
+sort of book that is given as a prize in a girl's school, though I am
+by no means sure that it would not be more useful than many of the
+books that are put to that use. It says what ought to be said about its
+heroine without any of the sentimental lasciviousness and avoidance of
+the unpleasant side of clandestine gallantry which makes most of our
+novels so dangerous to young people. Sudermann is blunt, frank, and
+contemptuous, where the English hack-writer would be furtive,
+inferential, discreet, and superficially decent. He strips the romance
+off Bohemianism ruthlessly, and takes care that if you are curious
+about the sort of life that is open to a woman who has lost her
+position in respectable society in Berlin, you shall know the truth
+about it. Not that he attaches any false consequences to it for the
+sake of an edifying moral. His heroine does not starve, does not
+jump over the bridge, and fares better than most ugly, honest, and
+hard-working women as far as her circumstances are concerned. She is
+left at the end of the book in a position which many respectable
+English families would be very glad to see their daughters in. The
+author makes no attempt to flatter society by denying or hiding the
+fact that immorality pays a penniless girl who is pretty and amiable
+better than morality, and that it even leaves her a better chance of
+being married than the drudgeries and disfigurements of singing The
+Song of the Shirt. But that it damages her soul cruelly and incurably
+he brings out mercilessly. He deliberately leads you into all sorts of
+foolish sentimental sympathies with her, only in the end to bring you
+the harder up against Dr. Johnson's opinion of her. She is left, as
+such women often are left, with an adoring husband, a luxurious income,
+and everything the most virtuous heroine could ask from British
+fiction, but hopelessly damned all the same. You need not fear that
+anyone who reads the book will envy her or be tempted to go and do
+likewise. It is worth adding that what began the mischief with her was
+having nothing readable within her reach except popular novels which
+made everything that tempted her seem poetic and delightful and
+honorable, and were therefore not suppressed by the censorship.
+
+You will understand from the above account why you have been threatened
+with censorial proceedings for proposing to publish this novel. Instead
+of baiting the trap, it shows it to you shut, with the victim inside.
+That, our library censors and their dupes will say, is disgusting.
+Precisely. Do they ask Sudermann to make it attractive? The attraction
+of the book lies in the interest of the picture it gives of the phase
+of contemporary society with which it deals. It is full of vivid
+character-sketches which not only amuse us as we read but give us a
+whole social atmosphere to reflect on. If the reflections are bitter
+and even terrifying, serve us right: it is not Sudermann's business to
+keep us in a fool's paradise. The suppression of this book would not
+only be a deliberate protection of vice--which is always best served by
+turning off the light--but the reduction of every English adult to the
+condition of a child under tutelage. But even if the book were as false
+and mischievous as any of the romances which make the same theme
+agreeable and seductive I should object to its suppression all the
+same. No harm that the worst book could possibly do even if people
+could be forced to read it against their wills could be as great as the
+intellectual suffocation of the whole nation which a censorship
+effects. If Germany may read Sudermann and we may not, then the free
+adult German man will presently upset the Englishman's perambulator and
+leave him to console himself as best he may with the spotlessness of
+his pinafore.
+
+                                    Yours faithfully,
+John Lane, Esq.                         G. Bernard Shaw.
+  The Bodley Head,
+    Vigo Street, W.
+
+
+                                    4, Edwardes Square Studios, W.
+                                            _December 13th_, 1910.
+
+Dear Mr. Lane,
+
+I've waited before writing to you till I had finished "The Song of
+Songs."
+
+I have read every word of it carefully, and I think it would be a
+national disgrace if so fine a work of so great a master were
+suppressed.
+
+The book is powerful and sincere and absolutely moral in tendency and
+intention. Of course it is a terrible subject and there are bound to be
+terrible things in it, things that I, personally, dislike extremely;
+but I see that none of these things are insisted on for their own sake.
+None are unnecessary, except, possibly, the violent scene in
+Kellermann's studio, and _that_ would not really do anybody any harm.
+
+Judging the book as it ought to be judged--by tendency and intention--I
+cannot find anything in it to which the adjective used by the
+complainant could apply. It is a long and elaborate work, and the
+"terrible things" are comparatively few and far between. They offend my
+taste, but not my moral sense--_that_ remains appeased by the tragedy
+of it all, as in "real life."
+
+I would even say that from the point of view of morals and the
+portentous young girl, the book should do good, should act as a
+deterrent by its ruthless analysis of "Schwärmerei," by showing where
+it leads and what it is stripped of its dangerous glamour.
+
+Altogether I see nothing to justify complaint. As for criminal
+prosecution--we are ridiculous enough, as it is, in the eyes of our
+neighbours!
+
+                                                Faithfully yours,
+                                                     May Sinclair.
+
+
+                                                 17, Church Row,
+                                                        Hampstead.
+
+My Dear Lane,
+
+I have read "The Song of Songs" very carefully. I find it unsympathetic
+work; there is a harshness and hardness about Sudermann's effects that
+I do not like and that reminds me of the exaggeration of wrinkles and
+blemishes one finds in over-focussed photographs. None the less it is a
+very sincere and able piece of literature, and I cannot understand
+anyone who is not suffering from some sort of inverted sexual mania
+wanting to suppress it. It deals with sexual facts very plainly but
+without a suspicion of pornographic intention, it presents vicious
+tendencies and their indulgence in an extremely deterrent way, and I
+cannot imagine anyone not already hopelessly corrupted who could gain
+any sexual excitement from reading it.
+
+                                       Yours very sincerely,
+                                                H. G. Wells.
+
+
+                                                     Exeter.
+
+Dear Mr. Lane,
+
+The morality of a novel depends upon three points:--(1) Subject; (2)
+Purpose; (3) Treatment as to detail.
+
+(1). The subject of "The Song of Songs" is that of a girl ruined by an
+old roué and then bandied about from man to man till every trace of
+soul is gone. She has no existence apart from the lowest passion. The
+book is a tremendous indictment of the idea, only now beginning to
+disappear, that a woman should live for the sole purpose of gratifying
+a man sexually--whether in marriage or otherwise.
+
+(2). In aim it is certainly not impure in the sense that it paints a
+career of vice as alluring. The girl is living in hell and is at times
+aware of it. The sordid misery of her life is there, though--and here
+Sudermann differs from English--writers she never becomes an outcast
+physically. She has always a certain well-being and even beauty. The
+ruin and destruction wrought is of brain and soul, a much more terrible
+matter.
+
+(3). In treatment as to detail the book stands condemned; the pictures
+given are not only revolting, but painted with entirely unnecessary
+fulness. There is a cruel gusto, for instance, that places the book on
+a far lower level of morality than "Madame Bovary." The thought of the
+novel is feeble compared with its physical atmosphere. But in the
+matter of detail, on the whole the difference between English fiction
+and all continental work is one purely of fashion. Our people in
+English novels sin vaguely: in continental novels they sin garishly. It
+is the difference between a dream and a cinematograph. But for the law
+to interfere in England with books touching on vice is supremely
+ridiculous, since our law, framed entirely for man's convenience and
+not at all for woman's protection, is one of the greatest means by
+which vice itself is kept flourishing. The farce of police supervision
+and the insults of the English law sin against morality fifty times
+more powerfully than any of Sudermann's novels.
+
+My opinion is that all sane, healthy-minded women ought to read novels
+like this, because they ought to know the truth, the entirely accursed
+truth about these things. For the ignorance of women is the chief
+reason why other women like the heroine of "The Song of Songs" are left
+to rot in body and mind. It is to men that such books are injurious,
+for they are so written that the vicious details strike their eye
+first, and the cruel pleasure taken in them would appeal to the worst
+in men. It is only women and somewhat exceptional men who would see the
+horror of degradation that Sudermann depicts the heroine as enduring.
+It is hell to a woman, but to the average stupid man it would simply
+appear amusing.
+
+Such books should be labelled "For Women Only." There are comparatively
+few naturally vicious women, and these "The Song of Songs" won't
+injure, for they are beyond that. The others will be benefited by its
+knowledge. As to whether this book should have been published, I think
+it is six to one and half a dozen to the other: you will enlighten
+women; you may possibly injure some young men. But at the present
+moment the essential thing is that women should have their eyes opened.
+That is, indeed, the task of this century; the next will see the
+results of it--good ones, I firmly believe.
+
+                                                  M. P. Willcocks.
+
+
+                                               Far End,
+                                                 East Preston,
+                                                           Sussex.
+                                            _December 12th_, 1910.
+
+Dear Lane,
+
+I am very sorry to hear of your illness and of the trouble that the
+police may give you. Unfortunately, I am far too busy at present to
+spare time to read a book of 640 pages, and unless one read it all one
+might miss the impugned passages or the other passages which justify
+them. I readily, however, corroborate your view--although no
+corroboration is needed--that the high position of Sudermann in
+European literature must raise any work of his far above the plane of
+police interference. His motives are sure to be ethical, and he must
+not for a moment be confounded with those mercenary scribblers who
+spice their wares for the market. Indeed, if I were a publisher, I
+would never even read an MS. of Sudermann's beforehand. I should put it
+into the hands of the printers in blind faith, as no doubt you have
+done.
+
+With best wishes for your rapid recovery.
+
+                                       Yours sincerely,
+                                                  Israel Zangwill.
+
+
+It will be seen that although the consensus of opinion was in favour of
+the circulation of the book, yet there was a very strong objection to
+the translation. I therefore wrote to Herr Sudermann as follows, at the
+same time sending him copies of the correspondence--
+
+
+To Hermann Sudermann, Esq.,
+  Berlin.
+
+                                              The Bodley Head,
+                                                     London, W.
+                                             _February 8th_, 1911.
+
+Dear Sir,
+
+You will probably have heard that I have had difficulties over the
+publication of "Das hohe Lied," which was translated by an American for
+Mr. Huebsch, the New York publisher who has the translation rights of
+your book, and from whom I bought it in sheet form for the British
+market.
+
+On December 9th, Sir Melville Macnaghten, Director of the Criminal
+Investigation Department, sent two of his representatives to my office,
+informing my manager, in my absence through illness, that serious
+complaints had been lodged against the book as being obscene. I
+immediately wrote letters to Sir Melville Macnaghten, to the
+Incorporated Society of British Authors, and to our leading novelists;
+and I am sending you copies of the correspondence, as I am sure that
+many of the replies will give you great pleasure. I had, however, no
+satisfactory answer from the Society of Authors, although one would
+suppose it the duty of a properly constituted society of that nature to
+defend or at any rate support your case. Had I had the least support
+from them I should have defended your position with an assurance of
+victory for the book, but as the matter stood I did not feel justified
+in allowing your artistic reputation to be at the mercy of a British
+judge and jury. The verdict might have been an insult to literature. In
+any case the position would have been most undignified for an author of
+your eminence.
+
+The failure of the Authors' Society to take up your case must not be
+confused with the opinions of our leading novelists, for I should
+explain at once that the only qualifications for membership are the
+publication of any book or even pamphlet and, of course, the
+subscription of twenty-one shillings per annum. It is not therefore a
+society of any distinction, though it happens to include among its
+thousands of members most of the eminent writers of the day.
+
+Our most distinguished realist novelist, Mr. George Moore, in writing
+to the president of the Society on this occasion, says--
+
+"I once belonged to the Society of Authors, but I seceded from it
+because it seemed to me to have entirely dissociated itself from
+literary interests; but I do think that the opportunity has come at
+last for the Society of Authors to justify its existence. A better
+opportunity than Sudermann's book will not be found."
+
+After much consideration I have come to the conclusion that all
+interests would be best served if you could obtain permission from Mr.
+Huebsch for me to have the book retranslated by Miss Beatrice Marshall,
+whose versions of "Der Katzensteg," "Es War," and "Der Täufer" met with
+your entire approval. The present translation is fraught with
+Americanisms and has been made without due regard to the genius of the
+two languages and the prejudices inherent in the English character.
+
+I feel bound to give you all these particulars so that you may
+appreciate my reasons for withdrawing the book in a manner least
+calculated to do harm, and for appealing to you now for help to place
+the book before the English public in a form which will be acceptable
+to your numerous friends and admirers in this country.
+
+                                         Yours very truly,
+                                                  John Lane.
+
+His reply was as follows--
+
+Mr. John Lane,
+       Publisher,
+  Vigo Street, London, W.
+
+Dear Sir,
+
+Please accept my sincerest thanks for your kind letter and your
+detailed account of the suppression of my novel "The Song of Songs"
+(Das hohe Lied). Naturally I can only look forward with pleasure to the
+possibility that this work, to which I have devoted years of unwearied
+artistic care, should not be lost to England, and so I gladly follow
+your advice to persuade Mr. Huebsch, the American publisher, by my own
+personal intervention to resign the English rights to you. I have at
+the same time written to him, and I enclose a copy of this letter for
+your kind consideration.
+
+That I am heartily grateful to my English colleagues for their kind
+sympathy requires no assurance on my part, but I beg you, dear sir,
+when you meet one or the other of them to convey to each my feeling of
+deep appreciation.
+
+In conclusion, permit me to hope, dear sir, that your health, which at
+the time you wrote was not good, has been completely restored.
+
+With expressions of my highest esteem for your services in this matter.
+
+                                      Believe me,
+                                             Yours sincerely,
+                                                Hermann Sudermann.
+
+
+In conclusion, I had better say that on receiving Herr Sudermann's
+reply and from Mr. Huebsch his consent, I entered into negotiations
+with Miss Beatrice Marshall for a new translation of the book, which is
+now offered to the public with every confidence that it will meet with
+a wide and enthusiastic reception. I should like too to add my thanks
+to the various writers who responded to my circular letter with such
+readiness and sympathy.
+
+                                                        John Lane.
+
+The Bodley Head,
+  Vigo Street, London
+_1st May_, 1913.
+
+
+
+
+
+                                 PART I
+
+
+
+
+
+                           The Song of Songs
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER I
+
+
+When Lilly was just fourteen her father, Kilian Czepanek, the
+music-master, suddenly disappeared. He had been giving lessons all day
+as usual, cursing the heat--which was terrific--and drinking seltzer
+water and moselle in the intervals. Now and then he had rushed into the
+dining-room to snatch a cognac and arrange his disordered tie. He had
+playfully pulled Lilly's brown, flowing curls, as she sat pondering
+over her French verbs, and then vanished again into the drawing-room,
+where pupils came and went and only discords and curses went on for
+ever.
+
+Contrary to his custom, he had not reappeared in a fury, with a
+tremendous appetite, after his last unfortunate victim had strapped up
+his portfolio and slammed the front door behind him. Instead, Czepanek
+had stayed where he was. He neither whistled nor wept, nor gave vent to
+his rage on the keys of the piano, as he was sometimes in the habit of
+doing when the day's work was over. No sounds of any sort, except a
+deep-drawn groan, proceeded from the other room.
+
+Lilly, who was greatly interested in everything this handsome papa of
+hers did or did not do, let her French grammar slide from her lap to
+the floor, and crept to the keyhole. Through it she saw him standing
+before the long mirror absorbed in self-contemplation. Now and again he
+raised his left hand and pressed it with a gesture of despair to the
+silken, dark artist locks, which mamma tended regularly every day with
+bay-rum and French brilliantine.
+
+There he stood glaring fiercely at his reflection, his cheeks flushed
+and damp, his eyes rolling wildly, and Lilly's heart went out in
+admiring love to her idolised papa. This was not the first time she had
+seen him pose before the glass; she knew the attitude well. It was his
+way of conjuring up once more the life he had missed and the loves he
+had lost; that grand vanished world where all the duchesses and prima
+donnas never ceased to think of their lost favourite with longing and
+regret. Like an elderly Cupid he stood there, with little bags under
+his eyes and a budding corpulency apparent in his person. Both mamma
+and Lilly coddled and spoilt him with unremitting care and never-tiring
+enthusiasm. They regarded him as some gorgeous bird of paradise, which
+happy chance had captured between four walls--a bird that it was their
+duty to exert strenuous efforts to keep in its cage.
+
+Lilly, by rights, should long ago have been seated at the piano; for in
+the house of Czepanek silent keys were considered a shameful waste of
+time and an unpardonable sin. She had to practise four or five hours
+daily. Often, when her father in the throes of creative inspiration
+forgot the time allotted to his daughter's practising, she did not set
+to work till nearly midnight. Then she would sit half frozen, with
+heavy eyes, swaying on the music-stool till dawn. Lilly's mother had
+found her many a time in the small hours, her head pillowed on her
+arms, which were stretched out on the keyboard, wrapt in a profound
+childish slumber. Such hardships gave Lilly a distaste for the career
+of artist, for which her father's ambition destined her. She preferred,
+to serious study, getting up on her own account forbidden polkas out of
+old albums, the brilliant but incorrect performance of which drove her
+father distracted. But this evening her lesson was to be on the Sonata
+Pathétique, and that, as everyone knew, was no joke.
+
+For this reason she was thinking of breaking in on her father's
+introspective meditations, when she heard the door of the other room
+open. Lilly, with a bound, deserted the keyhole and ran into her
+mother, who was carrying up the supper things on a tray. The
+prematurely sunken cheeks of the lady of the house were flushed from
+the heat of the kitchen fire. She held her lean figure proudly erect,
+and in the once beautiful eyes, which gnawing connubial disappointments
+had converted into dull, restless slits, there was something like a
+gleam of joy and expectancy; for to-day she entertained high hopes that
+the result of her culinary skill would appeal to her husband's appetite
+and put him in a good temper.
+
+The sound of plates rattling, as the table was laid, brought papa to
+the door between the two rooms, and his head, with the sunlight playing
+round its halo of frizzy dark hair, appeared.
+
+"Heavens! Supper-time already!" he exclaimed, and cast up his eyes with
+a peculiarly wild expression.
+
+"In ten minutes," replied his wife, and a smile at the thought of the
+surprise dish that awaited him hovered about her dry chapped lips like
+a delectable secret.
+
+He now came into the room, and breathing deep and hard he said, with an
+effort as if speaking hurt him:
+
+"I've just been looking at my portmanteau. The strap is in two."
+
+"Do you want your portmanteau?" asked mamma.
+
+"It should always be ready in case of emergency," he answered, and his
+eyes wandered round the room. "A man may be summoned at any moment to
+this place or that, and then it's well to be prepared."
+
+It was true that, the winter before, a Berlin pianist who had agreed to
+appear on tour in the next town had been detained by the snowing up of
+his train, and the committee had telegraphed to Czepanek to take his
+place. But, in the height of summer, the probability of such a thing
+occurring again was more than remote.
+
+"I'll send Minna to the saddler's with it directly after supper," said
+his wife, as usual taking care not to contradict her irascible husband.
+
+He nodded a few times, lost in thought; then he went into his bedroom,
+while mamma hurried to the kitchen to put the finishing touches to the
+dainty dish.
+
+A few minutes later he reappeared carrying the portmanteau, which
+seemed rather full. He paused in front of the linen-press.
+
+"I was going to try, Lilly dear," he explained, "whether the score
+would fit into the bag. You see, if one had to go to rehearsals
+later----"
+
+The score of "The Song of Songs" was kept in the linen-press, being a
+handy place for the family to rescue this priceless treasure in case of
+a fire breaking out when papa chanced to be away.
+
+Lilly looked round for the bunch of keys, but mamma had taken it with
+her to the kitchen.
+
+"I'll go and ask for the key," she said.
+
+"No, no," he exclaimed hastily, and a slight shudder passed through
+him.
+
+Lilly had often noticed that he shuddered when the conversation had
+anything to do with mamma.
+
+"I'll run over to the saddler's myself."
+
+Lilly was horrified at the idea of her famous parent going on his own
+errands to a common little shop.
+
+"Let me," she cried, reaching out her hand for the bag, with the
+intention of saving him the trouble. He pushed her away.
+
+"You are getting too old for that sort of thing now, little girl," he
+said. His eyes rested with satisfaction on her tall, girlish figure,
+already developing the soft rounded curves of womanhood. "You are quite
+a signora."
+
+He patted her cheek, and fidgeted a moment with the lock of the
+linen-press, his lips compressed into a bitter line; then, with a
+half-alarmed, half-sneering glance towards the kitchen Lilly knew that
+glance too he went quickly out of the room went never to return.
+
+
+                           *   *   *   *   *
+
+
+The night that followed that rosy summer evening was never to
+fade from Lilly's memory. Her mother sat by the window, in a cotton
+dressing-jacket, and looked up and down the street with anxious,
+feverish eyes. Every footfall on the pavement made her start up and
+exclaim: "Here he comes!"
+
+Lilly knew that it was all over with her Sonata Pathétique for this
+night at least. A feeling of depression prompted her to appeal to her
+dear St. Joseph, to whom she had always confided all her small troubles
+since her confirmation. Many an hour had she passed in St. Ann's before
+his altar, the second chapel in the right aisle, dreaming and musing,
+as she gazed up into the kind old bearded face, and sighing without
+reason. But now his consolation failed her utterly, and she gave up the
+quest, disappointed and baffled.
+
+The last cab was heard in the streets at midnight. At one the footsteps
+of passers-by became rarer. Between two and three nothing was heard but
+the shuffling footsteps of the night-watchmen echoing through the
+narrow alley. At three, market waggons began to rumble, and it became
+light. Between three and four Lilly made a cup of boiling hot coffee
+for her mother, and herself ate up the cold supper, for which waiting
+and weeping had given her a ravenous appetite.
+
+It was nearly five when a string of belated young revellers went by,
+kissing their hands to the watching woman at the window, thus forcing
+her to withdraw. They then started a serenade in their pure clear
+voices, which Lilly, in the midst of her trouble and anxiety,
+appreciated. The singing was good, and devoid of the pedantic tricks
+that her father abhorred. Probably these youths were pupils of his, who
+had failed to recognise his house.
+
+No sooner had they gone than Lilly's mother resumed her post at the
+window. Lilly struggled hard not to allow herself to be overcome by
+sleep. She saw as through a veil her mother's scanty fair hair ruffled
+by the breeze, her sharp pointed nose--reddened by crying--turning
+first to the right and then to the left at every sound, her
+dressing-jacket flapping like a white flag, her thin legs crossing and
+uncrossing perpetually in nervous excitement. She was told to relate
+the story of the portmanteau and the linen-press for the fiftieth time,
+but her eyes would not keep open. Then suddenly she sprang up with a
+shrill cry. Her mother had slipped down in a dead faint, and lay like a
+log on the floor.
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER II
+
+
+Kilian Czepanek did not come back. Of course, there were
+kindly-intentioned friends who said they had always foreseen it would
+happen; indeed it was a wonder that a man, so divinely gifted, with the
+brand of genius imprinted on his stormy brow, could have endured the
+trammels of convention as long as he had. Others called him a scamp and
+a good-for-nothing, who corrupted innocent girls and led young men
+astray. They considered Frau Czepanek lucky in being rid of him, and
+advised Lilly to pluck her father's image from her memory. Worst of all
+were the people who held their tongues, but sent in bills.
+
+Frau Czepanek pawned or sold all the little articles of luxury
+belonging to her bourgeois youth, and every present that her husband
+in moods of sheer wanton extravagance had lavished on her. These soon
+came to an end, and furniture, dress, and linen--all save absolute
+necessities--followed. Then at last the duns were satisfied.
+
+The choral society, which Kilian Czepanek had conducted for fifteen
+years, and which under his _régime_ had won no less than half a dozen
+prizes, expressed its appreciation of the decamped conductor's services
+and talents by holding the post open for six months, and paying the
+widow a half-year's salary. But this gracious grant came to an end
+also. And then began the heart-sickening begging expeditions to the
+houses of local magnates and wealthy residents in the town; the timid
+pulling of front-door bells, and scraping of feet on strangers'
+door-mats; the long, anxious waiting in shadowy halls and ante-rooms;
+the sitting down on the extreme edges of chairs; the sighing,
+stammering petitions, accompanied by wiping of eyes, meant to be
+sincere yet sounding all the time hypocritically mercenary, and failing
+to make the intended impression.
+
+Next came the hunt for work in shops and factories where sewing was
+given out--depôts of sweated industries where cheap _lingerie_ was
+turned out by the gross, cheap lace sewn on to cheap nightgowns and
+chemises, and the whole galvanised for use by the addition of buttons
+and buttonholes, ribbons and tapes.
+
+Now followed the period of eternal grinding at the sewing-machine,
+fingers covered with needle-pricks; inflamed eyes, swollen knees,
+vinegar and brown-paper bandages for fevered temples; the stewed tea at
+four in the morning; the sweet diluted coffee, warmed up three times,
+the so-called bread-and-butter instead of the midday roast meat, and
+the evening eggs--in fact, the period of wretchedness and approaching
+destitution.
+
+And, strange as it may seem, the further the day on which Kilian
+Czepanek had vanished receded into the past, the more surely did the
+forsaken wife count on his return. The six months had passed, and a new
+conductor was appointed to challenge comparisons with the old. For a
+fortnight the newcomer was annoyed by flattering eulogies of his
+predecessor in the provincial press. Then these too ceased. Oblivion
+followed, and the man who had so mysteriously disappeared seemed to be
+almost entirely forgotten. Only in a restaurant-bar here and there, or
+a girl's heart, did his image linger. But the wife, who at first had
+bitten her lips in silent anguish when his name was mentioned, now
+began to talk of his return as an assured and long-planned future
+event.
+
+What was more, she became vain again, she who in the course of married
+life had let her youthful prettiness and sprightly gaiety--all that he
+had married her for--pass under a cloud, and had fretted and worn
+herself to a shadow by needless self-reproaches and anxieties. After
+not having decked her shrunken breast with ribbon or jewel for years,
+or curled a lock of her straight hair, she screwed and scraped out of
+her meagre earnings something to spend on powder and cosmetics. When
+she could hardly stand for tiredness, she would paint her thin lips,
+and at eight o'clock in the morning come to the sewing-machine from the
+kitchen hearth with a freshly frizzed fringe covering the forehead that
+she had before allowed to get higher and balder every day.
+
+Thus she prepared for the moment of reunion. Rouged, and adorned like a
+bride to meet her bridegroom, she would hold out her arms to meet the
+repentant profligate. For it was certain he must come back. Where else
+would he be greeted with a smile of such perfect sympathy as hers,
+where else find the understanding soul whose silence is consolation and
+whose prayers bring peace and happiness? Would there be anywhere else
+one who without complaint or regret slaved for him body and soul, and
+submitted, as she did, to be taken or left according to his whim?
+
+So it was that she had given herself to him when she was a fair young
+laughing thing, careless and unsuspecting. Without conditions she had
+let him take her, simply because it pleased him. She had not regarded
+it in the light of a just recompense when her father, an honest
+attorney, had insisted on his leading her to the altar, a measure which
+had saved him from being ostracised by the whole town as a seducer. She
+had only cared to know that she was happy, and had not the slightest
+presentiment of the consequences of her gentle yielding. She accepted
+what came uncomplainingly, as the natural cost of the gift he had
+bestowed on her in himself.
+
+He would come back; whether he liked it or not, he must come back. Did
+she not possess something that linked her to him for all times,
+something that he was bound to cross her threshold to claim? Not Lilly!
+No doubt he loved his child, loved her with tenderness, and took
+delight in her outward and inward charm. Yet she was but a toy to amuse
+him in his idle hours; in his vagabond heart there was no place for a
+steady paternal love. Even in hours when he felt most lonely and
+depressed, he would never have dreamed of seeking solace in the company
+of a child. The tie was something that bound him closer to her than
+their child. It was a roll of music in manuscript, and that was all. It
+would have been easy enough for him to stuff it into the portmanteau on
+the day that he had started on the memorable journey. He had indeed
+thought of doing it, but at the last, in his eagerness to seize the
+moment of escape without again facing his suspicious wife, he had
+forgotten everything else.
+
+This roll of manuscript contained all that had been his anchor during
+the fifteen years of stagnation in a narrow middle-class groove, all
+that had linked his future with the fiery aspirations of his youth and
+the glorious hopefulness of his adolescence. Slender as it was, this
+roll of manuscript embraced his whole life's work. It was his "Song of
+Songs." As long as Lilly could remember, nothing in the world had ever
+been spoken of with such bated breath, such reverent awe, as this
+composition, of which no one save Lilly and her mother knew a single
+note. It was something as yet altogether unknown and undreamed of; it
+opened out new realms of sound, inaugurated the beginning of a musical
+development destined to rise to mystic heights and be lost in the
+clouds of the unattainable. It embodied the Art of the future as
+represented by oratorio, opera, after reaching its culmination in
+Wagner, having descended into abysmal depths, and the symphony no
+longer meeting the demands for regeneration in modern music. Oratorio
+was to accomplish this, not in the old exploded wooden form which
+pandered to an outworn ecclesiasticism, but in the new world of harmony
+introduced by "The Song of Songs." The score had been completed years
+ago, and laid aside. It would have been sacrilege to entrust its
+rendering to the tender mercies of provincial performers, so there it
+lay and rusted, unperformed. It shed beams, unseen but felt, of hope of
+a golden future into the grey present. It filled a child's heart with
+such ecstasy, devotion, and love, that it would rather have ceased to
+beat than be deprived of this source of noble and exquisite dreams on
+which it nourished itself daily.
+
+For Lilly, those sheets, held together by an india rubber band, lying
+in the top drawer of the linen-press, were like sacred relics, which
+radiated and sanctified the household. She reverenced and adored the
+scrawl of curly-headed black notes, and her earliest recollections were
+bound up with the melodies they expressed. Lilly's papa, however,
+objected to his sublime motifs being dragged into the light of common
+day, and when he caught wife or daughter humming them he would tell
+them to sing things more on their level. In time there was no need for
+his remonstrances. Mamma gave up singing altogether, and Lilly withdrew
+into herself. When she was alone in the house she amused herself by
+making a kind of drama out of "The Song of Songs," and acting it before
+the glass. She arrayed herself in sheets and muslin curtains, braided
+her hair low round her brow, and adorned it with tinsel pins. Then she
+declaimed, danced, laughed, and cried; went down on her knees and posed
+in passionate attitudes, acting Solomon's bridal rhapsody, which papa
+had made live again, after a lapse of twenty-five hundred years, in his
+great masterpiece.
+
+And now that the master had left his manuscript behind him on his
+disappearance from the house, it became more than ever the keystone of
+his family's hopes and longings. It was conceivable that he, Bohemian
+to the core, might cast off his wife and child, emulating the example
+of his own parents, who had turned him out into the streets at a tender
+age. But it was not conceivable that he should do anything so
+preposterous as weakly abandon the great work of his life, the weapon
+with which he might conquer the world.
+
+So the manuscript of "The Song of Songs" reposed in the drawer of the
+linen-press, which had been saved from the wreck when Frau Czepanek and
+her daughter moved to a humble attic, where the sewing-machine
+continued to hum and whir day and night. Here, as a symbol of coming
+reunion, it spread a miraculous influence around it; while the deserted
+wife became more withered in face and gaunt in form, and paint could no
+longer conceal her projecting cheekbones or the hollows beneath her
+haggard eyes.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER III
+
+
+In these days Lilly bloomed into a tall, well-developed girl, who
+carried her satchel of books through the streets to school with the air
+of a princess. She was generally dressed in a green plaid woollen frock
+much cockled from rain, which, despite perpetual letting down, always
+remained too short. Her feet were shod in a pair of down-at-heel and
+worn boots. She wore woollen gloves, which, pull them up as she would,
+left below her sleeves a hiatus of bare slender red arm.
+
+No one who saw her swinging down the street, with her easy graceful
+carriage, a picture of radiant health and youth, with her vivacious
+small head--too small for her tall figure--set on a long stemlike
+throat rising from broad shoulders, her white and rather prominent
+teeth beneath her smiling short upper lip, and with those eyes,
+afterwards known as "Lilly eyes"--no one noticed the poverty of her
+dress, or suspected that those erect, delicately formed shoulders
+stooped for hours over a sewing-machine. Who could guess that this
+magnificent young frame, with the vigorous blood coursing visibly
+through it, prone to blushing and paling without cause, was reared on
+salt potatoes, stale bread, and bad sausage?
+
+The college students went mad about her, and the verses written to her
+in the lower school were legion. Lilly was not indifferent to their
+boyish homage. When she saw a batch of students coming towards her in
+the street, her eyes grew dim from self-consciousness. When they
+saluted her--for she had made their acquaintance on the ice--she felt
+dizzy and ready to sink through the earth to hide her blushes. But the
+sensation felt after such meetings was quite lovely. She recalled for
+hours with delight the face of the boy who had greeted her most
+courteously, or the one who had blushed as rosy red as herself. He was
+her chosen cavalier till next time, when she fell in love with another.
+
+In spite of her numerous admirers, her school-fellows did not torment
+her as much as might have been expected. There was an innocent
+defencelessness about her which made it impossible to be her enemy. If
+her satchel was hidden, she only said, "Please, don't," and when the
+girls perched her on top of the stove, she sat there and laughed, and
+in addition to letting them copy her English exercises she did their
+sums for them. The only trouble was jealousy among her bosom friends,
+who flew at each other's throats on her account, for she was fickle,
+and dropped old friendships to take up new with an ease which startled
+herself. She could not help responding to every fresh overture of
+friendliness made to her.
+
+With her masters, too, she was popular. The rebuke, "Lilly, you are
+dreaming again," that came sometimes from the dais, had no sting, but a
+tone of playfulness in it. And when she was a new-comer, and had sat at
+the end of the sixth row in Class I, B, more than one hand had stroked
+her brown head with paternal fondness.
+
+Her nickname was "Lilly of the Eyes." Her school-fellows declared such
+eyes were uncommon to the point of being uncanny. They had never seen
+eyes like them. Sometimes they called them "witch's eyes," sometimes
+"cat's eyes." They said their colour was violet, and some were sure she
+darkened the lids with a pencil. However that might be, to look at
+Lilly meant looking at her eyes, and not caring much to look at
+anything else.
+
+Lilly went into the advanced class, called "Selecta," when she was
+fifteen and a half, for it had been settled that she was to earn her
+living as a governess. This was a great change; everything was
+different--teachers, girls, lessons, and friendship meant a different
+thing. You were not called by your Christian name. There was no
+throwing of paper pellets and going home to find blotting-paper in your
+hair. Much was said about "the sacredness of vocation," of "noble
+living," and consecration of life to work, and at the same time there
+was no end of chatter about love affairs and secret engagements.
+
+Lilly felt for the first time in her life a little envious. She was
+neither engaged nor had she any love affair to boast of. Anonymous
+presents of flowers, with verses signed "Thine for ever," of course
+didn't count. But in time it came. Love began to dawn in an imaginary
+atmosphere of marble statues and pillars, of dusky cypresses and
+eternally blue skies; it was the adoration of a schoolgirl for a
+master, and the longing to be a benefactress to the adored one. He was
+the assistant science-master, and taught in the junior school, where
+knuckles were rapped with the ruler and tongues thrust out in retort.
+He did nothing in the higher school, but he gave lectures to the young
+ladies of the Selecta on the history of Art. The very name of "Art"
+fills the budding soul of a young girl with ecstasy; how much more
+intense then was the sentiment when Art was associated with an
+interesting young man of delicate health, with deep-set burning eyes,
+and a snow-white brow--a young man who was called Arpad?
+
+Here romance ended. What remained behind it was a poor consumptive
+young fellow who had painfully accomplished his university career by
+private tutoring, only to be doomed to an early grave at the moment
+that he hoped to reap the fruits of his drudgery. The authorities did
+the best they could for him. They gave him easy work, and when they saw
+the hectic flush on his cheek they supplied his place and sent him home
+for a term. But this could not last, and, feeling that he was becoming
+a burden to the staff, he strove by suicidal efforts to show himself
+still capable of working. He volunteered to undertake all sorts of
+duties outside his province, and what men in health shirked he with one
+foot in the grave cheerfully took on his shoulders.
+
+Lilly never forgot the day on which the principal brought him into the
+Selecta. It was between three and four, and the last lesson was in
+progress. The stout figure of the principal was closely followed by the
+slim, rather handsome young man with a slight stoop, who had stood
+during prayers in the big hall at Fräulein Hennig's side, and turned
+down the leaves of his book while the hymn was being sung. He wore a
+tight-fitting grey frock-coat, which revealed the lines of his
+emaciated figure, and a fashionable silk waistcoat that gave a false
+impression of the world to which he belonged. He made a series of
+abrupt military bows, and appeared shy and embarrassed.
+
+"This is Dr. Mälzer," said the principal, introducing him. "He will
+initiate you ladies in the art of the Renaissance. I hope you will pay
+particular attention to the subject, which, though not obligatory, and
+one you will not be examined in, is of the greatest importance to
+general culture, and by-and-by will accelerate your progress in the
+study of Lessing, Goethe, and Winckelmann."
+
+The principal, with these words, retired, leaving the young lecturer
+nervously tugging at the blond moustache, the thin ends of which
+drooped on either side of his mouth. A half-sarcastic, half-shy smile
+hovered about his lips. He looked uncertain whether he should sit or
+stand on the dais. Meta Jachmann, who was always inclined to be silly,
+began to giggle, and set half the class giggling too. His transparent
+face flushed. In a voice which, weak as it was, shook his whole narrow
+person, he said:
+
+"Yes, ladies, laugh. You can afford to laugh in your position, for life
+lies before you full of possibilities of endeavour and attainment. I
+too may laugh over the privilege of being allowed to address you soul
+to soul. That does not often fall to the lot of a man at the outset of
+his teaching career. You will soon experience for yourselves what a
+happiness it is."
+
+The whole class became quiet as mice, and from that moment onwards he
+held it spellbound.
+
+"But my good fortune does not end there," he went on; "the authorities
+of this institution have been generous enough to place such confidence
+in my poor abilities as to entrust me with a theme that is the noblest
+in existence. Till the Renaissance, every thinker in history, no matter
+how much a revolutionist and free-lance at heart, has been made by the
+interpretations of history to play to the gallery in the personal
+expression of his ideas. The sages have labelled Plato as a mere
+shield-bearer of Christianity, Horace as a pedant, and Jesus as the Son
+of God; but no one has attempted to show Michael Angelo, Alexander
+Borgia, Machiavelli in any other light than that of an ego defying the
+world and relying on its own power in its lust for creative or
+destructive activity."
+
+The pupils pricked up their ears and listened. They had never heard
+anything like this before. They felt that he was talking out his life's
+blood, and at the same time that this established a tie of protective
+freemasonry between him and them. He continued in bold, rapid outline
+to draw vivid pictures of the men and period, making dead bones live.
+What had long been repressed and dammed up within him poured from him
+now in passionate eloquence. His hearers realised that this was
+something more than an ordinary school lesson, more even than the
+fruits of ripe scholarship. It was a confession of faith, and they hung
+on his lips with all the abandon of woman's enthusiasm for what she
+doesn't understand.
+
+Lilly, being a younger pupil, sat close under the dais, and she felt
+vaguely as if a vast flood of new melody was floating over her head;
+music having always played the supreme part in her life and
+imagination, pictures and thoughts came to her first through the world
+of sound. She grew pale, and gazed up at him in dawning appreciation.
+Through a mist of tears, her handkerchief crushed into a ball in her
+hand, she saw the nervous heaving of his chest, the drops on his
+forehead, the burning excitement that flamed in his cheeks, and she
+longed to laugh and cry together, to call out "Stop!" But, as she
+couldn't do this, she sat motionless, listening to the poor, thin voice
+as it proclaimed the gospel of that ancient yet ever-glorious time, and
+then she heard another voice deep down in her heart crying jubilantly,
+"It's coming!"
+
+"But what of the world," he went on, "in which that exalted life
+developed? Like Moses on the mountain-top, I have only seen it from
+afar, only lingered in its outer courts; but I have seen enough to know
+that, as long as breath is left in my body, my soul's yearning for it
+will never cease. There, gleaming palaces and temples rise like part of
+the soil, white among dark cypresses and evergreen leafy oaks. All that
+is clay here is marble there; what is here cribbed and cabined by
+convention, there flourishes in free creative opulence; here we have
+barren imitativeness, there spontaneous growth; here laboured culture,
+there Nature's happy abundance; here the deadening sense of utility,
+there luxuriant revelling in the beautiful; here, plain hard,
+matter-of-fact Protestantism, there the joyous _naïveté_ of Catholic
+paganism."
+
+Lilly's heart bounded at the compliment to her faith. In a Protestant
+country she had been brought up a Catholic, and though there was not
+much time, and never had been, for piety in her home, her soul was
+capable of a fair amount of religious fervour. It warmed her heart to
+hear her faith praised, but why it should be coupled with heathenism,
+which she had always been taught was wicked and deplorable, puzzled
+her. A whirl of chaotic, questioning thoughts distracted her attention;
+she found herself unable any longer to follow the speaker, and it was
+only after some time that she woke up to a consciousness that he was
+painting the South in low, loving tones. Now she took up the threads of
+his discourse again, and saw a gold and blue summer heaven rising above
+the Elysian isles, and the sun's blood-red globe drop into a violet
+sea, ruffled by the sirocco. She saw the shepherds feeding their goats
+in meadows of shining asphodel, playing on their flutes like Pan--saw
+the ever-verdant beech-woods stretching up to the snow-clad summits of
+the Apennines; breathed in the perfume of laurel, arbutus, and olive,
+and heard the music of the Angelus ascending heavenwards in the glow of
+eventide; and as she gazed up once more into his face, she was almost
+frightened at the martyred expression of devouring longing with which
+his eyes stared beyond the heads of the class into space.
+
+The school-bell sounded; the lecture was over. He looked round him
+bewildered, like one who had been walking in his sleep, seized his
+hat, and rushed out of the room. The class-room was silent as the
+grave. Then the tension was broken by shy whispers and fumbling for
+school-satchels. Lilly, without speaking a word to anyone, escaped
+into the street to hide her emotion. Sobbing and singing softly to
+herself she ran home.
+
+
+                           *   *   *   *   *
+
+
+The next morning excitement reigned in the Selecta. No one thought or
+talked of anything else but what had happened the day before.
+
+Anna Marholz, the daughter of a doctor, had interesting particulars to
+impart about the young teacher, who was a patient of her father's. She
+said it was urgently necessary that he should go to the Italian Riviera
+for the winter, as it was probable he could not live through it in his
+native climate.
+
+Lilly's heart stood still. The others laid their heads together to
+think of how he was to be helped. It could only be accomplished in a
+private way, because he had no money and no official position, and the
+town would therefore not bear the expenses of his foreign trip.
+
+"We will start a committee," someone proposed, and all the others
+agreed to the proposal with acclamation.
+
+"Thank God!" Lilly said to herself, and felt that now his life would be
+prolonged to fifty or sixty, at least. During the ten o'clock break a
+council of war was held, and Lilly, to her great delight, was appointed
+secretary of the committee.
+
+The first meeting was held at Klein's, the confectioner's, a few days
+later. They dared not go to Frangipani's, the resort of young officers
+and barristers. Fifteen girls consumed fifteen iced meringues and
+fifteen cups of chocolate, the cost of which they shared, and at the
+same time brought forward some practical suggestions. Emilie Faber's
+idea was to get up a Shakespeare reading in the town-hall and to assign
+the part of Romeo to the leading "star" of the provincial theatre.
+Everyone approved, because all the girls were crazy about the favourite
+actor. Not less well received was a scheme of Käthe Vitzing's, whose
+cousin sang tenor in the college choir, to organise an amateur concert.
+Rosalie Katz, more businesslike than the rest, thought of getting blank
+subscription-forms printed and taking them round to all the well-to-do
+people in the town. This plan was not so popular, but finally it was
+decided to accept it and to try and put all three plans into execution.
+Lilly, in her _rôle_ of secretary, made a note of all the suggestions,
+and kept saying to herself, "Hurrah, it's for _him_!"
+
+Meanwhile, the lectures on the history of art continued, as well as the
+sittings of the committee. The bill for refreshments mounted higher and
+higher, but enthusiasm for the object of the meetings became visibly
+damped. Not that Dr. Mälzer's lectures were in any degree less
+fascinating. They still held his listeners in thrall with their rich
+imagery and flowery language, but serious obstacles arose in the
+carrying out of the plans to aid him. To begin with: the popular Romeo
+had to appear in another town during the autumn season, and was not
+available; secondly, the college chorus could not get leave to join
+with the Selecta in giving an amateur concert; and the house-to-house
+collection could not be set on foot without the sanction of the police,
+and this no one had courage to ask for. So the great scheme of lofty
+benevolence gradually died out, and Lilly found herself three marks to
+the bad for confectionery. She knew the way to the pawnshop, alas! too
+well, and it required comparatively little pluck on her part to
+sacrifice the small gold cross she wore round her neck--a last relic of
+more prosperous days. She did it gladly, because it was done for him.
+
+Autumn came, and Dr. Mälzer grew worse. He coughed a great deal, and
+now and then covered his mouth with his pocket-handkerchief, afterwards
+examining it with an anxious, furtive eye. And then came the
+announcement that the lectures on Art would be discontinued till
+further notice. Anna Marholz brought the news to school that he had
+broken a blood-vessel. Lilly, without stopping to ask for further
+details, jumped to the conclusion that he was dying. After dark she
+found her way stealthily to his house, Anna Marholz having got his
+address from her father's books. There was a lamp with a green shade
+burning faintly in the window. Not a shadow stirred. No hand drew down
+the blind, but the lamp went on burning faintly the whole time that
+Lilly paced the damp street. Her conscience pricked her for not being
+at home helping her hard-worked mother; yet the next evening and the
+next she repeated the pilgrimage. She became more and more distressed,
+and fancied him lying there in his death-throes with no loving, gentle
+woman's hand to minister to him. On Saturday her anxiety took her from
+the work-table at home early in the afternoon. It was impossible to
+walk up and down before the house in broad daylight, but once there she
+didn't like to go back. Then suddenly she acted on an heroic impulse.
+She went to a florist's and spent the two marks fifty that was left
+over from the pawning of her little gold cross on a bunch of
+brownish-yellow autumn roses. With these she sprang up the steps of the
+house and rang at the door of the second floor, whence the light of the
+green-shaded lamp had proceeded. The door was answered by an old hag in
+a dirty blue-check apron. Lilly stammered forth his name.
+
+"He lives at the back," said the old woman, and shut the door.
+
+Then the green lamp wasn't his after all; it belonged instead to an old
+woman who wore dirty aprons and champed with her toothless gums. She
+had been worshipping at the wrong shrine for more than a week.
+
+Lilly, utterly discouraged, was about to descend the staircase when his
+name caught her eye on one of the brass plates inside the lobby. Her
+heart gave a bound, and before she realised what she was doing she had
+knocked.
+
+A pause ensued and then his head appeared through the half-opened door.
+The collar of his grey coat was turned up, apparently because he had no
+collar underneath. His hair was dishevelled, and the ends of his
+moustache drooped more than ever on either side of his mouth. His eyes
+seemed to ask in embarrassed surprise, "What have you come here for?"
+
+"Fräulein--Fräulein----" He evidently recognised her, but could not
+recall her name. Lilly wanted to give him the roses and run away, but
+she was paralysed with shyness, and remained glued to the spot. "I
+presume you have been sent by your class?" he asked.
+
+"Yes," assented Lilly eagerly. This saved her.
+
+"I could not invite you to come in otherwise," he said, smiling
+nervously. "The consequences might be serious for both of us. But if
+you come as an emissary, that makes all the difference. Please come
+in."
+
+Lilly had pictured him in a suite of lofty apartments filled with
+books, curios, instruments, and statues of great men. She was horrified
+to find that he lived in one small room. The bed was still unmade;
+besides the bed there was no furniture except a couple of chairs, a
+folding-table, a clothes-rack and a stand for books containing a few
+shabbily-bound volumes and paper-covered periodicals.
+
+"This is a worse place than ours," she thought, and felt less shy as
+she sat down on one of the two chairs. Poverty seemed a bond between
+them.
+
+"How very kind of the young ladies to think of me!" he said.
+
+Lilly remembered the flowers that she held in her hand. "Will you
+accept these?" she asked, offering them to him.
+
+He took the bunch of roses and held them against his face without a
+word of thanks.
+
+"They have no smell," he remarked. "They are the last roses, but my
+first, so you can imagine how much I appreciate them."
+
+Lilly's eyes grew dim with delight. "Are you still in great pain, Dr.
+Mälzer?" she stammered forth.
+
+He laughed. "Pain? ... Oh dear no! I am feverish now and then, that's
+all. It's quite amusing to be feverish. One's soul floats away in an
+airship far away over cities, land, and sea, over centuries; one is
+visited by distinguished persons, if not so beautiful as----"
+
+He paused in the middle of his compliment, thinking of their relations
+as master and pupil. His confusion seemed to clear his vision. He fixed
+his eyes, which burned like two flames in blue cavities, on her and
+asked in a voice which sounded higher pitched and hoarser than usual:
+
+"What's your name?"
+
+"I am Lilly--Lilly Czepanek."
+
+The name conveyed nothing to him, because he had not lived long in the
+town.
+
+"You think of taking up teaching?"
+
+"Yes, doctor."
+
+"Listen to my advice. Don't! Go to Russia and hurl bombs. Go to a
+hospital and wash feet. Marry a drunken scoundrel who'll ill-treat you
+and sell the very bed you lie on. Anything rather than being a teacher.
+You mustn't be a teacher, not _you_."
+
+"But why shouldn't I?" she asked.
+
+"I'll tell you.... The qualifications for a teacher are a flat chest,
+weak eyes, poor hair, and a character that can see one side of a
+question only. People whose nerves and blood are too feeble to live
+their own lives are good enough to teach others, but those whose blood
+courses through their veins like molten fire, whose eyes are filled
+with longing, to whom the problems of life are there for seeing and
+knowing, not for blind mechanical vivisection, they--but I mustn't go
+on, though I should like to."
+
+"Oh, please go on--please," Lilly besought him.
+
+"How old are you?"
+
+"Sixteen."
+
+"And a woman already!" He looked at her with an expression of tortured
+admiration.
+
+"Look at me!" he exclaimed. "I too was once a human being, though you'd
+hardly believe it. I held my arms stretched out to heaven, full of
+burning desires. I too looked into a girl's eyes with longing, though
+they were not such a pair of eyes as yours. Let me chatter. You see, I
+am a dying man, and it'll do you no harm."
+
+"You mustn't die! you shall not die, Dr. Mälzer!" she cried, jumping to
+her feet.
+
+"Sit down, child," he said with a laugh; "don't excite yourself about
+me. A friend of mine once broke the backbone of a wild-cat with one
+blow of a stick. The cat couldn't run away, couldn't cry or do anything
+till the next blow came. It just crouched on all-fours, coughing and
+choking. That's like me. There's nothing to be done. You had better go,
+child. I've made my peace, but when I look at you it becomes difficult
+again."
+
+She turned her face away not to show her tears.
+
+"Must I?" she asked.
+
+"Must?" he laughed again. "I'll devour greedily every minute of your
+presence here as the hungry beggar devours the crumbs he turns out of
+his pockets. You sat, didn't you, at the end of the first form on the
+left? ... Yes, of course I remember. I said to myself, 'What
+extraordinary eyes!' They are like the eyes of the magic dog in
+Andersen's fairy tale, which grew bigger the more they were asked not
+to."
+
+It was Lilly's turn to laugh.
+
+"There, you see," he said, "I've made you merry again. You shall
+not carry away from here nothing but the memory of a corpse and
+death's-head. We enjoyed our lectures, didn't we?"
+
+Lilly answered with a sigh.
+
+"You gasped for sheer longing when I talked of Italy. I used to think:
+she gasps like yourself, though she has no need to gasp."
+
+"You want to go there very much, doctor?"
+
+"You might as well ask a man on fire whether he'd like a cold bath."
+
+"And it's the only thing that can do you any good?"
+
+He looked at her for a moment with a dark savage expression.
+
+"What are you cross-examining me for? Have you come to find out
+something? I am very indebted to you and the young ladies of the class
+for such sympathetic interest but----"
+
+A fit of coughing stifled his voice.
+
+Lilly sprang up to see if she could do anything for him. Involuntarily
+she snatched up a glass filled with a pale fluid from the table and
+held it to his lips. He took it eagerly, and after drinking fell back
+exhausted and gazed at her tenderly with grateful eyes. She returned
+his gaze with a faint smile, feeling it was infinite happiness to be
+there.
+
+It was so quiet in the half-dark stuffy little room that she could hear
+the tick of his watch, which hung on the opposite wall. He made an
+effort to sit up and go on talking, but appeared not yet quite equal to
+it. Lilly gave him a look of entreaty and warning; and, smiling, he
+leaned back again. So they continued in silence.
+
+"Oh, how happy I am!" thought Lilly. "How happy I am to be here!"
+
+Then he held his hands out to her with a weary gesture. She caught them
+in hers eagerly. His skin felt hot and clammy, and it seemed as if his
+pulse beat in his fingertips. Hers was beating fast too, but could not
+keep pace with it.
+
+"Listen to me, my dear child," he murmured. "I want to give you some
+good advice before you go. You overflow with a superfluity of love;
+three kinds of love--love emanating from the heart, from the senses,
+and from compassion. One or other is necessary to everybody who isn't a
+dried-up fossil, but two are dangerous, and all three are likely to
+lead to ruin. Be on guard where your power of loving is concerned.
+Don't squander your love. That is the advice of one on whom you cannot
+squander it, for God knows he needs it."
+
+"Have you no one to take care of you?" she asked, dreading to hear that
+anyone but herself was privileged to nurse him.
+
+He shook his head.
+
+"Mayn't I come again?"
+
+He flinched. The fervour of her question was startling. "It depends on
+whether the class send you."
+
+Lilly now cast off every shred of deception. "That was not true," she
+stammered. "Not true! The class didn't send me. No one knows I've
+come."
+
+He bounded to his feet--almost as if he were quite well. His face
+lengthened with dismay; his eyes filled with tears. He stretched out a
+trembling hand, as if he would ward her off.
+
+"You must go at once," he whispered; "at once!"
+
+Lilly did not stir.
+
+"If you don't go," he went on excitedly, "your prospects will be
+ruined. It is not customary for young girls to call on unmarried men in
+my position, even when the man is their master, and such a wreck as I
+am. Mention to no one that you have been here, not even to your
+greatest friend. Remember, your living depends on your reputation, and
+I should be taking the bread out of your mouth if I let you stay. Go
+instantly!"
+
+"Am I never to come again?" Her eyes pleaded.
+
+"No!" he thundered in a voice of iron resolve.
+
+The next minute Lilly was pushed out of the room and the key turned in
+the lock behind her.
+
+
+                           *   *   *   *   *
+
+
+She lost no time in disobeying his urgent instructions, and went
+straight to Rosalie Katz, her chosen friend for the time being, to whom
+she confided everything, and in whose company she relieved herself by
+having a good cry. The little brown Jewess was soft-hearted and
+desperately in love with him too, so they mingled their tears. They
+forgot to shut the door, however, and it happened that the portly and
+wealthy Herr Katz, whose waistcoat buttons were always bursting off,
+came in to ask his daughter to sew one on. Finding the two girls locked
+in a tearful embrace, he tactfully withdrew; but no sooner had Lilly
+left the house than he extracted the whole story from Rosalie, of the
+invalid master, the abortive committee meetings, and wasted iced
+meringues.
+
+"I dare say we can arrange the matter," he said, twisting the thin gold
+watch-chain that dangled from the third button of his waistcoat. A
+thick gold watch-chain was the insignia of being left behind in the
+social race among the gentlemen of the corn trade.
+
+So it happened that Dr. Mälzer received a few days later a registered
+letter from two "well-wishers." In it he was told that means had been
+found to defray the expenses of his foreign tour. All he had to do was
+to draw a cheque on the firm of Goldbaum, Katz & Co. He started on a
+chilly October evening, and the staff saw him off at the station. Lilly
+and Rosalie, who had found out the time his train departed, were there
+too, but they kept in the background. He passed close by them, muffled
+in a thick plaid, his eyes aflame, fixed on the distance. After the
+train had gone, the two girls threw themselves in each other's arms,
+and wept for joy and pride in what they had done for him. Rosalie stood
+her friend an _éclair_ on the way home, it being too cold now for iced
+meringues. Half an hour later they were sitting in the confectioner's,
+smiling happily over pictures in the illustrated papers.
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER IV
+
+
+Spring brought renewed hope and promise of brighter times for Frau
+Czepanek. So certain was she that in a very short time now her husband
+would return, that she determined to give up the needlework drudgery
+and find a pleasanter way of making a living. It would be simple enough
+to rent a floor consisting of nine rooms, to furnish them on credit,
+and put up a plate with the inscription "Board and Lodging for
+Students." Once start the enterprise and the rest would follow. The
+idea took possession of Frau Czepanek's brain, half dazed as it was
+from the perpetual maddening whir of the sewing-machine. Lilly, though
+she liked the prospect of a less strenuous life, entertained doubts as
+to the scheme working. She remembered, with a shudder, the abusive
+threats of the duns who had bombarded them after papa's departure, and
+she failed to see where enough students were to come from to fill nine
+rooms when the summer term had begun and all had found other
+accommodation. But her mother would not listen to reason. The attic
+resounded with her triumphant "I shall do this," and "I shall do that."
+She announced her intention of calling on the mayor, and going to the
+council of the college to get them to recommend her.
+
+In these days she set out on mysterious expeditions alone, and when
+Lilly came in from school she was no longer greeted at the bottom of
+the stairs by the familiar din of the sewing-machine. She would find
+the front-door key under the mat. Her mother became more reserved and
+secretive as the time for the great plunge drew nearer. Her face wore
+the suppressed smile of parents before a Christmas tree, only that
+there was a certain defiant contempt in it as well. She painted herself
+more thickly than ever, and the rouge-pot, which once had been hidden
+from Lilly's eyes, stood flaunting itself openly on the chest of
+drawers. Money did not grow more plentiful. Lilly had to devote every
+minute she could spare from her lessons to make up for mamma's neglect.
+Frau Czepanek set her feet on the treadles only on rare occasions when
+Lilly urged her to resume the work, which was delivered more and more
+irregularly, so that mother and daughter stood in danger of losing the
+employment on which their existence depended. Lilly, young and vigorous
+though she was, felt her strength severely taxed, but she took it
+calmly, assuring herself optimistically that "something would turn up
+before long." She would not have grudged her mother the intoxication of
+her new-born hopes so much, if she could have had her proper nights'
+rest instead of having to lie in her clothes on the outside of the bed
+from two till six in the morning. In school Lilly sat with heavy red
+eyes, unable to see or think as she was expected to do, and masters
+began to complain of her, more and more frequently.
+
+It was high time for the change to come, and fate ordained that it
+should come on a sultry grey July day, when Lilly, returning home from
+school, saw two vans standing at the door, crammed with furniture
+smelling of recently applied varnish, and heard her mother's shrill
+tones in converse with strangers. With a beating heart she ran up the
+steps. Two carmen in leather aprons, with amused red faces, one with an
+open bill in his hand, were demanding payment. Frau Czepanek, running
+her fingers through the hair which she had just frizzed with the
+curling-tongs, marched up and down the room and shouted bitter
+reproaches about broken promises and extortionate rascally conduct. The
+men simply laughed at her, and reminded her that they wanted to get
+home that night. Then Frau Czepanek, in a fury, tried to snatch the
+bill from the carman, and when he declined to give it up she started
+belabouring him with her fists. Lilly quickly sprang between them,
+seized her struggling mother's wrists and ordered the men to go,
+assuring them everything would be arranged. They obeyed, and now her
+mother's wrath descended on Lilly.
+
+"If you had not interfered," she yelled, "I should have got the receipt
+out of them, and the furniture would have been unpacked to-night in the
+new flat. You've spoilt it all, and I shall now have to be at them
+again to-morrow."
+
+"The new flat!" echoed Lilly. "What new flat?"
+
+Frau Czepanek laughed. How stupid Lilly was! Did she think that she had
+been doing nothing all this time? And then it all came out. The flat of
+nine rooms had been taken and they were to move in at once. The plate
+even was already engraved, and when hung up would have a magical
+effect. She had made every sacrifice, strained every nerve, that the
+rooms should be furnished in a way worthy of their exterior. She had
+bought curtains for twelve windows in a Chinese pattern; six good rugs
+to bear the tread of students, who wore out cheap carpets like muslin,
+and large-sized English jugs and basins, in white and gold, to put on
+the marble washstands. The dinner service, which she had also
+purchased, was not ready, as it took some time to get a monogram burnt
+in, but they could make shift with a common set of sixteen pieces for
+the present. She had expended great care and thrift on her choice of
+things, and everything would be in perfect taste.
+
+She wandered restlessly, as she talked, round the table in the middle
+of the room. Her small narrow eyes, that looked as if they hadn't
+closed in sleep for many a night, glittered, and under the rouge on her
+hollow cheeks burned the scarlet flush of fever.
+
+Lilly, who began to feel a little uncomfortable, ventured to ask what
+had been done about paying for the things.
+
+Her question was laughed to scorn. "If you are a lady, you can do
+anything with the tradespeople. They know that I, as the wife of Kilian
+Czepanek, musical conductor, am entitled to respect and to credit; or
+they ought to know it."
+
+"Has all the furniture been taken to the flat?" Lilly queried again.
+
+Frau Czepanek's merriment was renewed. "Before the rooms are ready, you
+goose? Not likely! Rooms have to be painted, papered, and decorated. I
+have taken no end of trouble to select artistic papers," she added,
+with the grand air of a person whose powers of paying are unlimited.
+
+A sickening feeling of perplexity took possession of Lilly. It was like
+not being sure whether your school-fellows were making a fool of you or
+not. There was nothing for dinner too, which made matters worse. Lilly
+set the coffee on the hob to boil and put the rolls on the table. They
+would have to skip dinner to-day. The Czepanek household had become
+quite expert in the art of skipping meals.
+
+Lilly's mother said no time must be lost before beginning to pack, and
+she gulped down her coffee hurriedly. Then suddenly she got into
+another towering rage.
+
+"If only you hadn't held my hands, you idiot!" she screamed, "we should
+have got that lovely new furniture into its place by to-morrow. Now we
+shall have to move in with this rubbish. What will people think when
+they see it?"
+
+She ran her fingers through her singed locks and brandished the
+bread-knife with which she was cutting her roll in half. Next she
+turned up her sleeves, put on her blue working apron, and declared that
+she would start the packing that very instant. She turned out the
+wardrobe and piled clothes on the foot of the bed. Underwear and linen
+out of the linen-press she scattered over the floor in wildest
+confusion.
+
+The veins stood out in knots on her shrivelled arms, perspiration ran
+down her face. Lilly, with a feeling of oppression at her heart, looked
+on. When she saw the score of "The Song of Songs," their dearest
+treasure, carelessly thrown on the floor, she stooped to pick it up
+from amongst the litter of sheets and nightgowns.
+
+"What are you doing with 'The Song of Songs'?" cried her mother, rising
+in haste from her knees.
+
+"Nothing," said Lilly in surprise. "I was merely putting it on the
+table."
+
+"You're a liar," the woman screeched, "and an abandoned girl! You want
+to steal the score from me as you stole the receipt. But I'll be even
+with you!"
+
+Lilly, to her horror, saw a sudden flash of steel before her eyes, felt
+a sharp pain at her throat and something warm trickling soothingly over
+her left breast.
+
+It was not till her mother attempted a second thrust that Lilly
+realised it was the bread-knife that her mother held in her hand. With
+a piercing scream, she grasped her mother's wrist; but she had
+developed all at once the strength of a lioness, and Lilly would most
+probably have been worsted in the struggle if neighbours had not rushed
+in to see what all the noise was about.
+
+Frau Czepanek was caught from behind and bound with towels, the
+bread-knife still clenched in her hand with a tenacity that no power on
+earth could loosen. Not till the doctor, who was called in to give her
+a soothing draught, came did she let it fall. Lilly's wound was
+dressed, and she was taken to the hospital, where she was kept because
+no one knew what to do with her. There she learnt, in due course, that
+her mother had been removed to the provincial lunatic asylum, of which
+she was likely to be an inmate for the rest of her days. Lilly was
+alone in the world.
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER V
+
+
+"Yes, my dear young lady," said the distinguished lawyer, Herr Doktor
+Pieper, "I have been appointed your guardian, and have accepted the
+post because I considered it my duty. Ah! you want the papers _re_
+Lemke _versus_ Militzky," he went on, interrupting himself to speak to
+the head clerk. "What was I saying? Oh, to be sure. I considered it my
+duty, although I am a very busy man, to befriend, as far as lies in my
+power, the widow and orphan."
+
+He passed his well-manicured left hand over his shining bald pate and
+straw-coloured beard, which half concealed the mouth of a man of the
+world and an epicure.
+
+"My wards all do well," he continued. "I am proud of their success. How
+do they manage it? Well, that's my affair--a secret of business, as it
+were. I am certain, my child, that you too will fall on your feet
+eventually. I should hardly be so interested in you if it were not
+highly probable. The first thing to be considered is a suitable
+situation. Plain young ladies are the most difficult to suit, unless
+they happen to be humble and unassuming. It pays them to boast of
+so-called Christian virtues. You, of course, do not belong to the plain
+sort. Possibly you are conscious of it, and I only tell you in order
+that you should learn to assert yourself. The main point in the art of
+living is to discriminate between self-assertion that is justified, and
+the reverse. You must, that is to say, gauge your own power according
+to circumstances. Now, young girls such as you----"
+
+At this moment the head clerk, tall and lank, again appeared at his
+elbow, with a portfolio.
+
+"At five o'clock the Labischin divorce suit comes on," he said to the
+man, as he took the documents from his hand, "At quarter past, Reimann
+and Reimann _versus_ Fassbender. Get everything in readiness and see
+that someone accompanies this young lady. You will learn where from the
+papers."
+
+The man vanished.
+
+"Well, my dear young lady," her guardian continued, "the time which I
+can spare you is at an end. You will not be able to resume your school
+studies, of course. The means are not forthcoming. Even if they were, I
+rather doubt its being advisable. Governesses do sometimes make
+brilliant marriages certainly, though oftenest in the pages of English
+novels; but they are exposed--excuse my plain speaking--to all sorts of
+temptation, and are sometimes led astray. I should like to get you a
+place in a large photographic studio, where your duties would be to
+receive customers; but you would hardly have enough self-assurance for
+such a post at present. I have therefore found a position for you in a
+lending library, more as a trial than a permanency. There your light
+will not be altogether hidden under a bushel. The salary--I need not
+emphasise the fact--will be moderate: twenty marks a month with board
+and lodging. You will have every opportunity of letting your fancy
+browse among the literature of all people and all ages. So, my dear
+young lady----Good God! why are you crying?"
+
+Lilly wiped tears from her eyes and cheeks. "I'm only just out of the
+hospital," she explained. "I feel rather----I am very sorry."
+
+The distinguished lawyer, smiling, shook his head, the baldness of
+which appeared to be as tended and cared for as the face of a beautiful
+woman.
+
+"You'll have to give up the habit of crying. Tears are quite out of
+place till you have a settled career before you.... There's something
+else I have got to say. Your poor mother's small effects must be sold.
+The proceeds of the sale will serve as a little competence for your
+rainy days. It is very important that you should make sure of this
+capital, such as it is. Now, under the escort of my man, you shall go
+back to your home--I have the key in my bureau--and select a few
+articles which you may care to have either for use or as mementoes.
+Good-bye, my dear.... In six months come to me again."
+
+Lilly felt in hers a cool, flabby hand that seemed incapable of giving
+or returning pressure. Then she found herself staggering down the dark
+staircase, conducted by a clerk who had the key and was to take her to
+her old home. She wanted to ask questions, to protest about what she
+didn't know. The clerk swung the key in silence, and didn't look round
+till he opened the door of the room in which she and her mother had
+lived. It was close and smelt musty; shafts of light came through the
+blinds, piercing the dusk. As she stood there, Lilly felt as if she
+were standing on the grave of her childhood and youth, that everything
+had come to an end, and there was nothing to be done but shut herself
+up here and die.
+
+The clerk unfastened the shutters and threw open the windows. The
+clothes were still piled on the bed, the linen strewed the floor, and
+on the boards were dark brownish stains--the blood which had flown from
+her throat. The knife, too, still lay there. Lilly was ashamed to cry
+before the clerk, who stood staring vacantly and whistling to himself,
+as she threw her things into the basket-trunk which her mother had
+intended to use for the move to the nine-roomed flat. She chose a few
+books at random, and put some copybooks on top; then she looked about
+her for keepsakes. Her head swam; she saw things without recognising
+them. But there on the table, held together with india rubber bands,
+splashed with her blood, was the score of "The Song of Songs." No one
+had touched it because no one knew its value. She caught it up, shut
+down the lid of the box, and with the roll of music under her arm she
+stepped out into her new life, thirsting for new experiences.
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER VI
+
+
+Frau Asmussen had two daughters, who had run away for the third time.
+All the neighbours knew it, and Lilly was given full particulars almost
+directly she set foot in the badly-lighted room, smelling of leather
+and dustiness, where torn volumes, ranged on shelves of pine, mounted
+to the ceiling.
+
+Frau Asmussen was a dignified-looking and portly person, who received
+Lilly at the entrance of the library, and amidst kisses and tears
+assured her that she had loved her as her own daughter before she saw
+her, and now that they had met she was perfectly enchanted with her.
+"Who can ever say that strangers are cold and distant again?" thought
+Lilly, delighted with her reception.
+
+"Did I say my own daughter? I should have said, ten times more than my
+own daughters. One's own daughters are vipers who turn and sting; one
+must pluck them from one's bosom----"
+
+She had to pause, because the lethargic clerk who had come with Lilly
+in the cab was bringing in her box. When he had gone, Frau Asmussen
+continued:
+
+"Do you suppose I loved my daughters, or that I did not love them?
+Haven't I said to them every day: 'Your father was a blackguard, a cur,
+and may God forgive him!' And what do you think they did? Went off one
+fine morning--went off on their own hook--leaving a note on the table:
+'We're going to father. You bully us more than we can put up with, and
+we are sick of everlasting milk puddings.' You see what I am, my
+dear--I am kindness itself. Do I look as if I could hurt a fly, much
+less my own daughters? And they did it not once, but three times; this
+is the third time they have exposed me to the scoffs and jeers of the
+town--the third time they have disgraced me. Twice they came back in
+rags and misery, and I have taken them to my heart and forgiven them.
+But just let them try it on again--let them come back a third time!
+There's a broomstick behind the door ready for them. Directly they show
+their noses inside, out they shall go into the street. I'll beat them,
+and then sweep them out at the door like so much waste-paper." And with
+an air of unspeakable disgust Frau Asmussen swept an invisible
+something through the hall and gave it a kick over the step.
+
+"Poor, poor woman!" thought Lilly. "How much she must have suffered!"
+and she vowed inwardly to do her best to make up to the mother for the
+loss of such unworthy daughters.
+
+At this point a young man came in to change a book. He asked for a
+volume of Zola, and looked at Lilly as much as to say, "You see what a
+dog I am."
+
+Frau Asmussen shook her head reproachfully, and fetched down the book
+required from an upper shelf. He clutched it eagerly, without heeding
+in the least the glance of warning with which the old lady handed it to
+him.
+
+"You see, my dear," she said when he had gone, "that's how the young go
+to perdition, and I am condemned to help them on the way."
+
+"Why?" asked Lilly.
+
+"Do you know how a chemist's shop is arranged?"
+
+Lilly said she had often been in one, but couldn't remember.
+
+"One place is marked 'Poison,'" her employer went on, "and in it are
+kept the most deadly poisons known to humanity. On that account the
+door is kept locked, and no one may touch the contents save the chemist
+and his assistants. Now, just look round; half these books are poison,
+too. Nearly everything that's written in these days is pernicious
+trash, and lures the reader on to destruction. Yet I am bound to keep
+these books, bound to distribute them, though my heart is wrung as I
+hand them over the counter. My undutiful daughters are an example. They
+read, read--did nothing but read the whole night through; and when they
+were stuffed full of impudence and nonsense, they turned up their noses
+at the food I gave them and the cooking, and went out for walks, till
+at last they sneaked off to their father--that miserable worm! that
+swindler and scum! with his face all out in pimples! I warn you, my
+child, against that man. Should you ever meet him, gather up your
+skirts as I am doing now, to avoid contamination."
+
+Lilly shuddered at the account of this vile monster in human shape, and
+was happy that she had found a protectress in his deserving wife.
+
+An hour or so later they sat down to supper, which consisted of milk
+pudding and slices of bread and dripping. Lilly, unused to anything but
+the simplest fare, was easily persuaded that no milk puddings in the
+world were as delicious as Frau Asmussen's, and that the Kaiser himself
+could not sit down to a more daintily prepared meal than was spread on
+her table. She missed, it is true, the slice of ham which she had been
+given every night at the hospital; if this had been added, her supper
+would have seemed the acme of gastronomic delights.
+
+More enjoyment awaited her when she went to bed. The library was part
+of a big room with three windows, which was divided into four
+compartments by two long bookcases running from the wall where the
+windows were, and by a counter opposite the door that communicated with
+the entrance, and thus there was only one narrow gangway to connect one
+compartment with another. At bed-time Frau Asmussen carried into the
+furthest compartment two forms, on which she laid a mattress and made
+up a bed. The space was so confined and filled up that Lilly had to
+jump over a bench at the foot of her improvised bed to get into it, and
+she thought this great fun. She fell asleep wedged in between two high
+upright bookcases, the window above her head, a chair beside her on
+which her things were piled, and "The Song of Songs" clasped in her
+arms.
+
+The next morning she was initiated into her duties as librarian. She
+learnt the system by which the thousands of volumes were arranged on
+the shelves, and as she knew her alphabet she would have mastered it in
+five minutes, and been able to fetch any of the popular books from
+their places, if Frau Asmussen had followed her own system, instead of
+placing the books anyhow and so courting confusion and muddle. A worse
+task was to find the names of books and authors in the general
+catalogue, and entries of customers in the ledger, which were also
+supposed to be alphabetical; but the carelessness of Frau Asmussen and
+her daughters had reduced the whole to chaos. Lilly set to work with
+burning zeal to put things in order, and for several weeks the
+attainment of this desired goal was her sole object in life.
+
+Frau Asmussen provided her with some surprises, even on the day after
+her arrival. Lilly saw nothing of her after the morning hours till
+supper-time; then Lilly found her nodding over a steaming teacup which
+exhaled an agreeable odour of rum and lemons.
+
+"I suffer from nasal catarrh," Frau Asmussen explained, blinking at
+Lilly with her rather watery grey eyes, "And one of our most noted
+physicians has prescribed this medicine."
+
+Lilly ate her milk pudding while Frau Asmussen continued sipping at the
+contents of her teacup, giving now and then a melancholy groan.
+
+"Have I told you about my daughters?" she asked, after a pause.
+
+"Oh yes," responded Lilly respectfully. All the morning there had been
+scarcely any other topic of conversation than these two scapegrace
+daughters and the wicked man they called father.
+
+"But I don't think I can have given you any idea how charming they
+are," Frau Asmussen went on. "Though I say it that shouldn't, there
+isn't their match in the world for beauty and talent and lovable
+qualities. In such young girls, filial devotion, self-sacrificing
+industry, and touching modesty like theirs is not often found. They are
+so practical too, so thoroughly reliable in all that relates to
+business, besides being brimful of affection. You should take example
+from them, my dear, for you are very far from being anything like those
+models of perfect girlhood."
+
+Lilly's spoon dropped from her fingers. She could hardly believe her
+ears, and the old lady maundered on:
+
+"It was heartrending to part with them, and they cried themselves ill
+for days and nights beforehand. They were obliged to go to their
+father. Have I mentioned my husband to you? The best and noblest of
+men, from whom fate has parted me, but who cherishes for me an undying
+tenderness, and whom I shall love till death.... What a man! Pray, my
+child, on your knees that you may one day be the wife of such a man,
+and worthy of him. Alas! I was not--not worthy, no, not at all."
+
+Two tears of unutterable remorse ran down her cheeks. She had a deal
+further to say about the superlative virtues of her two daughters, her
+husband's lofty character, and her own abject inferiority, and after
+several more doses of the medicine prescribed by the eminent physician
+she sobbed and moaned herself to sleep.
+
+The next morning Frau Asmussen began the day's work by scolding Lilly
+for sweeping out the library with the broom standing behind the door.
+
+"It's kept there for one purpose only," she said, "and that is to
+chastise those two hussies when they appear at my door; and if you ever
+dare to touch it again you will be the first to feel what it's like."
+
+After this, Lilly began to regard her future through less rose-coloured
+glasses. A worse blow was to come. Frau Asmussen, who seemed deeply
+concerned about Lilly's spiritual welfare and the purity of her mind,
+strictly forbade her to read any of the books in her library.
+
+"After what I have experienced with my daughters," she said, "I know
+the evil results of novel-reading, and I'll take care that you don't go
+the same way."
+
+While the work of rearranging the catalogue and the ledgers lasted, the
+temptation to disobey orders did not occur frequently. But when autumn
+set in, and, in spite of the increase of subscribers, her time became
+less occupied and the hanging lamp was lighted early over the library
+table, when Frau Asmussen yielded sooner to the effects of the medicine
+prescribed by the eminent physician, and fell into a stupor, Lilly was
+driven by curiosity and boredom to do what she had been forbidden.
+
+She was first put up to it by a girl who came to change the first
+volume of a novel for the second. The second volume was out, and the
+girl positively wept for disappointment. She declared that she
+couldn't wait to know how the story ended. It would kill her. Lilly
+good-naturedly advised her to go to one of the other circulating
+libraries, which were said to be larger and superior, and she went so
+far as to return the girl her three marks deposit. The novel devourer
+thanked Lilly and departed with renewed hopes.
+
+Lilly scanned the outside of the dirty, torn volume she had left on the
+counter, then cautiously peeped inside. "Debit and Credit," by Gustav
+Freytag, was on the title-page. She had heard them raving about this
+book when she was in the first class at school, but there was no time
+for novel-reading in the life of a sweated machinist's daughter. She
+glanced timidly at the first page, then went to the glass door and
+listened for a few minutes to the peaceful snores that came from the
+back parlour. Soon afterwards she was launched with full-spread sails
+on the wide ocean of romance. At four in the morning, when she had
+finished the first volume, she was in desperation at the thought that
+she could not go on with the story, and wondered who had the missing
+volume, and how she was to get hold of it. Then she fell asleep.
+
+The next day she pored over the ledger to try and trace the name and
+address of the subscriber who had not returned the second volume of
+"Debit and Credit." But, as the entries were made by the numbers and
+not by the titles of the books, she missed it over and over again in
+her excitement. So at last she was compelled to seek an outlet for her
+newly awakened craving in another book.
+
+Henceforward her life became an orgy of novel-reading. She went about
+her daily task with heavy lids and aching limbs, burnt a huge amount of
+midnight oil, and only escaped the suspicions of Frau Asmussen by lies
+and tricks. Then one dreadful winter morning it all came out. The stove
+in the library burning low towards midnight, Lilly's feet became cold,
+and she took to reading in bed with the lamp, which she removed from
+its hanging socket, on the window-sill above her pillow, where there
+was plenty of room for it. Though this involved the bitter discomfort
+of having to get out of bed again in order to put back lamp and book in
+their places--Frau Asmussen was often now in the library earlier than
+Lilly--she would have rather gone out in the cold street in her
+nightgown than have sacrificed those dearly bought extra hours.
+
+So it came about that one morning she awoke in a fright to behold Frau
+Asmussen, already dressed, dangling a black strap over her white
+nightgown, while the lamp, which Lilly had secretly refilled at one
+o'clock, still burned on the window-sill. She had never in her life
+before been whipped, and at first hardly grasped what was going to
+happen, when Frau Asmussen leapt as nimbly as her corpulence would
+permit on to the counterpane over the bedrail, and crouching there like
+some fat old plucked hen, began to belabour her over the ears with the
+strap.
+
+A bad time now began for Lilly. What was the good of being sincerely
+repentant, and swearing to herself and to Frau Asmussen that she would
+not do it again? The new craze so intoxicated her, she was so absorbed
+with the new, beautiful imaginary world in which there were no tiresome
+servants sent by subscribers to change books, no wet umbrellas, no
+missing volumes, no back numbers of magazines that refused to be found,
+no insipid milk puddings, and no thrashings, that, had she had a
+martyr's joy in renunciation, she could not have returned to her former
+unbroken routine. She was now so completely governed by her imagination
+that her actual everyday existence, with its deadly monotony and lonely
+hours, seemed to her an unreal dream, and her life had no reality till
+she opened a book and turned over its sticky pages. She was too docile
+and unresisting to attempt to justify this passion even in her own
+eyes. It was wrong, she knew, to feed her mind on this heaven-sent
+food; but she could not help it.
+
+Frau Asmussen hit on a fiendish method of humiliating Lilly still
+further. She regarded religion, like many orthodox Protestants, solely
+in the light of a penance, and, though hitherto she had not concerned
+herself in the least about Lilly's creed, she now took to beginning
+every meal with a long-winded prayer, in which, in face of the steaming
+soup-tureen, she commended Lilly amidst tears and sighs to the Lord,
+and begged Him to forgive her sinful depravity.
+
+Woe to Lilly if there was any backsliding! That first chastisement did
+not by any means remain the only one. She was cuffed and beaten on the
+slightest provocation, and storms of abuse descended on her unprotected
+head. In fact, she scarcely dared breathe till the soothing medicine
+prescribed by the eminent physician began to do its work. Then Lilly
+seized the first book she came across, and suffered all the agonies of
+the heroines in the stories about lost wills and broken marriages,
+about poison, arson, and murder; with them she loved, and conquered,
+and died, finding in it all a never-ending source of ecstasy.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER VII
+
+
+It was a spring-like evening in March, with bright sunshine. The last
+grimy heaps of snow lying along the gutters had melted into radiant
+paddles, and a shower of silvery drops fell from the icicles clinging
+to the roofs. The glow of sunset lay on the houses facing south like
+brilliant decorative carpets, sharply divided from the shadows on the
+opposite side of the street. The window lattices shone as if they
+themselves were suns reflecting their own light, and sparrows twittered
+on the dripping eaves. But most welcome feature of all in this early
+spring of city streets was the peculiar spicy fragrance of the melting
+snows, rising in vapour from the gutter with promise of meadows growing
+green and of boughs bursting into bud. Lilly, who had hardly been out
+more than two or three times during the winter, sat at the counter
+gazing wistfully into space.
+
+Everywhere windows and doors were wide open. Everywhere lungs thirsty
+for fresh air inhaled the zephyrs of coming spring. At last she too
+pushed open the casements, and gave the hall door a kick, which made it
+swing back and knock down the broom that stood in the corner behind it.
+She saw through the opening of the door into the rooms of the opposite
+tenant, who had also thrown his door wide to greet the spring.
+
+There was a cherry-coloured sofa with embroidered chair-backs stretched
+over its old-fashioned scroll-shaped arms; there were wreaths of dried
+flowers with inscriptions framed on the walls; the helmet of a cavalry
+officer with swords crossed; china lions used as cigar-holders; ballet
+girls supporting tallow candles; photograph groups with peacock's
+feathers stuck between them; a glass bowl of goldfish; a goatskin rug.
+In the midst of all this wilderness of knick-knacks a youth paced up
+and down with a book in his hand, conning something diligently; one
+minute he vanished from view, only to reappear the next. At the first
+glance, this young man attracted Lilly's sympathetic notice. His wavy
+fair hair was brushed carelessly back from his forehead, the carriage
+of his head was erect and nonchalant, and he wore a mauve and brown
+striped necktie, which Lilly thought the height of refined taste.
+
+She tried to think which of her favourite heroes he resembled most, and
+came to the conclusion that it was Finck in "Debit and Credit." The
+young man did not observe her, so she had every opportunity of studying
+him. When he was in sight, a warm thrill ran through her, directly he
+disappeared and remained hidden from view for the fraction of a second
+she felt a sick sensation as if someone were robbing her of her dearest
+possession. So it continued till he glanced up from his book, and,
+seeing the young lady who watched him through the door, withdrew
+hastily to the invisible part of his room. When he next disclosed
+himself he had adopted a much stiffer and more self-conscious air. He
+bent over his book with a studiousness that was hardly natural, moved
+his lips too obviously, and frowned heavily. Lilly, too, thought it
+necessary to improve slightly the picture she presented. She smoothed
+the hair that was parted Madonna fashion on her forehead, and let
+her arm fall carelessly over the side of the chair. A couple of
+maid-servants who came to change books for their mistresses put an end
+to this silent duet by shutting the door as they went out. Lilly did
+not dare to open it again. But from that evening the new hero became
+part of her dreams.
+
+It was hopeless to think of asking Frau Asmussen questions so late,
+because she was now in the habit of preparing her medicine before the
+evening meal; but the next morning, as she seemed in a fairly good
+temper, Lilly ventured to make a few inquiries about the neighbour of
+whose existence till now she had been ignorant.
+
+"What do the neighbours matter to you, you inquisitive thing!" retorted
+Frau Asmussen, in that tone of polished urbanity with which she had
+addressed Lilly after the raptures of the first night were over.
+
+Lilly plucked up courage to invent a tale of a regular subscriber who
+had asked her the day before for information about their neighbours,
+which she had been unable to give him. Frau Asmussen's esteem for this
+subscriber was so great that she instantly became communicative.
+
+They were respectable enough people over the way, but of low birth, and
+she, as a woman of a more highly-cultured mind, could not associate
+with them. She believed the husband was a pensioned-off sergeant-major,
+now working as a clerk, and that his wife made cravattes for a living.
+Lilly flushed, remembering the mauve and brown tie which had so dazzled
+her eyes the day before. How vulgarly these common people lived might
+be gathered from the fact that on high-days and festivals they indulged
+in potato soup with slices of sausage in it, which made anyone with a
+delicate palate like Frau Asmussen's shudder to think of.
+
+Like the erring daughters, Lilly had long ago got tired of the eternal
+milk pudding, and found herself unable to agree that potato soup was
+vulgar. Indeed, her mouth began to water at the mere mention of it, and
+she changed the subject by asking if anyone else lived next door.
+
+"I believe there's a son," replied Frau Asmussen. "He goes to the
+Gymnasium, though why people in that class of life should have their
+sons educated I don't know."
+
+"I know why," Lilly said to herself. "I know why: it is because he is
+great, and genius looks forth from his eyes, because he must succeed
+and become a ruler of men."
+
+The same afternoon she pushed open the swing-door again, but the
+weather was raw and cold, and there was no friendly face opposite to
+cheer her eyes. After she had gazed longingly for an hour or more at
+the door-plate bearing the inscription:
+
+                              L. Redlich,
+                        _Kindly ring and knock_
+
+she was forced to close the door, her legs feeling like icicles, and
+with a feeling of humiliation that she had been snubbed. Henceforth she
+looked out for one o'clock, the hour when the Gymnasium students came
+home from school. With her nose pressed against the window-panes, she
+could recognise at an almost incredible distance the blue and white
+college caps. When he flew up the steps, she slipped behind the
+curtains, trembling with joy at the bashful glances he cast at her. But
+if he looked straight in front of him she was extremely unhappy, and
+hoped that she had done nothing to hurt his feelings.
+
+There were other wearers of blue and white caps who came up the steps
+to the house, friends who came to cram for their examination with him.
+Lilly adored them all. She felt that a bond existed between her and the
+little circle, who had the world all before them, and intended to
+conquer it. In spirit she sat in their midst.
+
+Some of them passed so quickly that she distinguished them by their
+caps more than by their faces. There was the forlorn-looking cap, the
+faded, the smart, the limp. Each of the youths too had his
+characteristic way of walking and knocking at the door. She could tell,
+even when she was busy giving out books, and without looking, how many
+of young Redlich's chums had come or had not come to work with him.
+
+Meanwhile, the days grew longer and spring was advancing. The tenants
+of the house began to sit on the terrace in front, where there were
+chairs and tables.
+
+The boys often lingered there chatting with their friend before going
+in to their studies, and when they were gone he leaned over the
+balustrade in the twilight alone, dreaming doubtless of his great
+future.
+
+Then Lilly, with beating heart, stationed herself behind a book-rack,
+from which she had artfully cleared away enough volumes to form a
+peep-hole, whence she could admire to her heart's content the leonine
+brow so full of thought and profound intellect.
+
+The seats on the terrace in front of the library windows were mostly
+unoccupied, as they belonged to Frau Asmussen, who preferred taking her
+medicine indoors, and Lilly could not screw up courage to ask
+permission to sit there.
+
+One May evening, however, when showery spring clouds sailed over the
+dark blue sky, more alluring than threatening, when it was all so still
+that you could hear the splashing of the market-place fountain, and the
+swallows were the only passers-by, Lilly simply could not contain
+herself any longer in the library atmosphere, smelling of old leather
+and parchment; and taking her embroidery, more for show than because
+she was industriously inclined, she went out, determined to sit on the
+terrace. She knew that he was out, and that he always came in before
+ten. He would have to pass her whatever happened. Half an hour, another
+half-hour, than a quarter went by, and she saw a blue and white cap
+coming jauntily down the street. Her first thought was to run back into
+the library, but she was ashamed to do this, and sat where she was. He
+came, saw her, raised his cap, and went in.
+
+"He has at least bowed to me," she thought blissfully.
+
+Scarcely ten minutes had elapsed before he appeared again. He seated
+himself on a bench belonging to his side of the house, played with
+pebbles, whistled to himself softly, and seemed altogether oblivious of
+her presence.
+
+Lilly sat on in her corner rolling and unrolling her embroidery, and
+now and then giving vent to her tender feelings toward him by a sigh,
+though she told herself she only sighed because it was so hot. Half an
+hour sped away thus, and Lilly began to abandon hope of anything more
+happening, when all of a sudden he addressed her, with his cap in his
+hand:
+
+"They will soon be closing the front door, Fräulein," he said.
+
+"Not already, surely!" she exclaimed, feigning consternation. Then,
+reflecting that to act on his hint would be to put an end to their
+acquaintance making any progress, she added in a more indifferent tone:
+
+"It doesn't matter; the window isn't shut."
+
+"The window!" he repeated.
+
+She could not make out whether in approval or blame. The conversation
+would have certainly come to a standstill here if she had not made a
+gigantic effort to keep the ball rolling.
+
+"We are neighbours, I think," she remarked.
+
+He sprang up from his bench, sweeping his cap down as low as his
+trouser pockets, and answered:
+
+"Allow me to introduce myself. I am Fritz Redlich, prefect."
+
+Lilly felt the old thrill of reverence with which the very word
+"prefect" had inspired her in the Selecta when her class companions had
+uttered it. Then she burned with shame to think that she was now
+nothing better than a shopgirl. But she was determined to impress him
+by alluding to her more distinguished past.
+
+"Up till last autumn," she said, "I was a Selecta pupil. I used to know
+some of you fellows."
+
+"Which of us?" he asked in excitement.
+
+She mentioned the names of two young men who had once fluttered round
+her at the skating-rink, and asked if they were friends of his.
+
+"Rather not," he answered with a contempt that didn't seem quite
+genuine. "They are slackers, and loaf about too much. They intend to
+join a corps, too, I believe. That's not in our line."
+
+There was a pause. Lilly could only discern the outline of his figure
+as he leaned against the balustrade, it had grown so dark. Drops of
+soft rain fell on her hair. She would have liked to stay there for
+ever, watching the dark young figure before her, and with the gentle
+moisture of spring anointing her head.
+
+"You are engaged now in the Circulating Library?" he asked.
+
+Lilly assented, and was grateful to him for the nice word "engaged,"
+which seemed a little to ameliorate her lowly position.
+
+"And you are going in for your examination?" she inquired.
+
+"In the autumn--if all goes well," he replied with a sigh.
+
+"And afterwards you will go out into the world," she gushed in
+copy-book language, "and fight your way in life? Ah, how I wish I were
+in your shoes."
+
+"Why do you wish that, Fräulein?" he asked in surprise. "You are
+fighting your way in life now, are you not?"
+
+Lilly laughed shrilly. "Oh, but if only I were you!" she exclaimed.
+"What wouldn't I--oh!"
+
+She felt exultant; her limbs seemed to stretch, so that she scarcely
+knew how to sit still; the light of conquest flashed from her eyes, but
+there was no conquest really, for it remained unseen in the darkness.
+
+She was so overcome, so mad with happiness, that she positively could
+not stay there, uttering stilted phrases, while within her something
+shouted: "You standing there with your arms on the balustrade, I love
+you."
+
+She bade him a hurried good-night, and ran in, bolting the door
+behind her. She paced up and down the narrow gangways between the
+books, laughing and sighing. She stretched forth her arms like a
+high-priestess at prayer, knocking and bruising her elbows against the
+shelves.
+
+
+"I sought him whom my soul loveth, but I could not find him; I called
+him, but he gave me no answer. The watchmen that went about the city
+found me, they smote me, they wounded me; the keepers of the walls took
+away my veil from me."
+
+
+She sang the familiar words in a sweet, uncertain voice, not too
+subdued to be heard through the window. But when she looked through her
+peep-hole, to assure herself that he was listening, he had gone. Now
+she sang louder and leaned out, tearing open her tight-fitting bodice,
+and letting the raindrops fall on her bare breast.
+
+An unspeakable wretchedness suddenly took possession of her. She could
+not account for it, but she felt as if she must die. It was she whom
+the cruel watchmen were seizing; the wounds their rough hands made on
+her soft skin smarted; she could feel how they tore off the garments
+which veiled her nakedness from the world. In shameless nakedness, yet
+weeping tears of blood from bitter shame, she tottered through the
+streets, seeking and seeking her Soul's Beloved; but he was further
+off, more unattainable than ever.
+
+She dropped down on her knees at the window, and, burying her face in
+the sill, wept bitterly out of sweet compassion for that symbol of
+herself wandering through Jerusalem's streets at night. And, after all,
+what made her feel like this was happiness--sheer happiness.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER VIII
+
+
+She continued to enjoy this happiness. It nestled in the cobwebby
+corners, perched on the books, spun golden threads from beam to beam,
+and it rode astride on every shaft of sunlight, which, reflected from
+the opposite windows, crept along the leather backs of the books. All
+the time Lilly heard humming within her a wonderful medley of tremulous
+tones, snatches of melodies, harp-strings vibrating, chirping of
+crickets, and twittering of birds. Waking or sleeping the concert went
+on, with now and then a few majestic bars of "The Song of Songs" thrown
+in.
+
+Nothing was changed meanwhile in the ordinary daily routine. Frau
+Asmussen was alternately sober and the blissful victim of comforting
+drugs. Husband and daughters one hour ascended through the scale of all
+the virtues to the dizzy pinnacle of saints, and the next were plunged
+into deepest depths of infamy. Now a volume of Tolstoi was hunted for
+in vain, and then a Spielhagen seemed to have been spirited into space.
+
+Sometimes little gusts of wind wafted showers of powdery gold on to the
+shelves. Like ordinary dust, it was swept away, yet it was a message
+from the tossing boughs, in the country, laden with blossom. This was
+all Lilly saw of the spring, save passing market-carts on which were
+heaped bunches of lilac and may. Her young hero opposite had made no
+further advances. She still trembled at the sound of his step, and
+received with frantically beating heart the two shy daily greetings;
+but there things ended.
+
+He came no more to the terrace. The poring over books with his chums
+now lasted far into the night. It was often nearly two o'clock before
+she heard the last depart. Not till then did she fling herself on her
+bed, and, staring into the summer twilight, let her fancy roam over
+vast territories to find a throne worthy of her hero's attainment. She
+saw him in the gorgeous uniform of a field-marshal winning victories on
+the battlefield; she saw him a poet being crowned with laurels; an
+inventor of world renown steering his own airship through the clouds; a
+founder of some new religion.... But when she came to this point her
+Pegasus halted in alarm, for she remained a good Catholic at heart,
+though under the smart of bodily and spiritual castigation she had not
+dared to take refuge in her religion. The courage to ask Frau
+Asmussen's leave to go to St. Ann's every morning had soon evaporated,
+and she had almost forgotten that confessions and masses existed.
+
+Now, however, in an exuberance of emotions never before dreamed of, she
+longed to unburden her spirit, and resolved to confess to Frau Asmussen
+that she was a Catholic, and beg to be allowed to visit St. Joseph's
+altar--kind, smiling St. Joseph, who stood with upraised finger behind
+his golden-circled candles.
+
+Frau Asmussen found in Lilly's avowal the secret of all her vices, her
+artfulness, her laziness, her hypocrisy, and her lack of method; and
+she included in her nightly prayer at table a petition for Lilly's
+immediate conversion. All the same, she did not refuse Lilly permission
+to go twice a week to early mass, which was as much as she had dared
+expect.
+
+Touching was the meeting between Lilly and St. Joseph after such a long
+estrangement. It was like going home to come back to him. The angels in
+the coloured glass window over his altar seemed to flutter their wings
+and greet her like sisters and brothers, assuring her that her penance
+would not be severe. The yellow and orange carpet invited her
+hospitably to kneel down, and from the Virgin's shrine not far away
+came the perfume of flowers.
+
+The saint himself at first seemed a little hurt because she had
+neglected him for such a long time. But when she had confided to him
+all her woes, her loneliness, her beatings, her dislike of milk
+puddings, he became softened at once and forgave her. He had been
+presented width three new silver hearts since she had last knelt at his
+shrine. They shot up flames as long as her hand, and she felt she would
+like to dedicate one to him too: but why, she didn't know, for the
+miracle in her case was yet to be performed. Maybe it was jealousy or
+vainglory that prompted her desire, for she did not like the idea of
+others standing on a nearer footing to him than herself. "But what can
+I expect," she reasoned, "when I've treated him so badly all this
+time?"
+
+After confessing everything, except, of course, her love affairs--he
+had become too much of a stranger for that--she hurried out of the
+church. It was striking a quarter to eight, and her morning devotions
+would have been objectless and thrown away had she not met her hero on
+his way to school.
+
+It was at the corner of Hassertor that she came upon him and his
+companions. He lifted his cap and passed on with the others, but she
+stood still, drawing a deep breath, as if she had just escaped a great
+danger.
+
+Meetings of this kind occurred twice a week from this time onwards. Her
+dearly cherished secret desire that she would meet him alone one
+morning, that he would stop and engage in friendly conversation, was
+never fulfilled. There was not the faintest gleam of pleasure in his
+face at her approach, the strained anxious expression of his eyes did
+not relax in the least, though he blushed slightly as he raised his cap
+and walked on.
+
+
+                           *   *   *   *   *
+
+
+She had long ago given up all hopes that he would ever speak to her
+again, when one wet Sunday evening in July she heard the bell tinkle,
+the front door being closed on Sundays to subscribers. She opened it
+and there he was.
+
+"Good heavens!" she exclaimed, and nearly shut the door again in her
+confusion.
+
+He asked if she had Rückert's poems in the library. She knew quite well
+that she hadn't, but she was afraid that if she said so there would be
+no further pretext for conversation, so she replied that she would see.
+Wouldn't he come in?
+
+After a moment's hesitation, he sat down on the chair for subscribers
+close to the door. Lilly hunted for a long time, for she feared if she
+didn't that he would go away; rather aimlessly she looked on the
+shelves, and kept saying half to herself, "I am sure I saw it not long
+ago." Then she too sat down behind the counter to try and recollect
+where she had seen the book. But he stimulated her to search further.
+
+"If you saw it a short time ago, it must be there," he said. And when
+it became clear that it was not there he sighed deeply, and murmuring,
+"I don't know what I am to do," he departed.
+
+Lilly could only stare aghast at the empty doorway, which a minute ago
+had encircled his tall figure. She longed to cry out, "Stay, don't go!"
+but the opposite door banged and it was all no good. She crouched on
+the window seat, and mapped out in her thoughts what might have
+happened if he had not gone away. Her heart beat so violently that she
+felt as if she must faint.
+
+A quarter of an hour later the bell rang again. She bounded up. Could
+it be he come back? It was; he had left his umbrella. "You shall not
+get off so easily a second time," she said to herself.
+
+He caught hold of his soaking umbrella, which she had not noticed,
+although it had made a puddle, which was running along the cracks of
+the floor, and prepared to go away again.
+
+"What do you want Rückert's poems for?" she asked, seizing the
+opportunity of opening a conversation.
+
+"Life is so full of difficulties," he lamented. "You've no idea,
+Fräulein, how full."
+
+Then he told her how they had to deliver extempore orations on subjects
+sprung on them, with no preparation, whether they knew anything about
+them or not. This time, however, it had leaked out that to-morrow, in
+the literature lesson, a comprehensive _revue_ of Rückert's works would
+be demanded. For this reason he wanted to glance through the poems,
+because he could not remember exactly who were buried in "The graves at
+Ottensen."
+
+Lilly was beside herself with joy. She could help him. She, the little
+lowly sparrow, could be of assistance to him, the big soaring eagle.
+Timidly she sketched the story of the poor beaten Duke of Brunswick and
+the pious poet of "The Messiah." The only thing she could not remember
+was who were the twelve hundred exiles who were buried in the first of
+the graves.
+
+He appeared incredulous at his unexpected good fortune. Was she
+positive? He knew from his tables and history of literature it was all
+right about Klopstock, but he shook his majestic head over the rest in
+grave doubt. Lilly eagerly set his mind at rest. It was more than a
+year since she had left school and had learned all these beautiful
+things, but her memory was good and she wouldn't tell him wrong. At
+last he seemed convinced. He breathed more freely, and remarked again,
+turning his mind to more common things: "Yes, Fräulein, life is hard,
+very hard."
+
+Now that the ice was broken he recounted his likes and dislikes.
+Mathematics weren't bad, indeed he had got on very well with Euclid and
+geometry. But there were languages, and history, and, worse still,
+German composition. Alas! it was a troublesome world, enough to drive
+one to despair.
+
+Lilly quite agreed with him. She, too, had little reason to be
+satisfied with the way the world wagged, and she expressed her thoughts
+about it with passionate eloquence.
+
+"And how you must detest," she concluded, "to be hampered in your high
+ambition by the narrow limits of school life."
+
+He looked slightly astonished and then said: "Yes, it's beastly."
+
+"If I were in your place," she told him, "I shouldn't bother at all
+about dry facts and dull lessons. I should just follow my own bent,
+like the great poets and philosophers."
+
+"That's all very well, my dear Fräulein, but there's the examination,"
+he cried, horrified.
+
+"Oh, never mind stupid examinations. It doesn't matter whether you get
+through them or not."
+
+He became excited. "You don't in the least understand, Fräulein.
+Examinations are the entrance to every good position in life, no matter
+whether you stay at the university, study law, architecture, or go into
+the Civil Service. Not that I should dream of doing the last."
+
+"I should think not, indeed!" she broke in. "A man like you!"
+
+He smiled, well pleased at the flattery.
+
+"I am not going to take the world by storm," he said, "but I have my
+dreams, of course. What would a fellow be worth if he hadn't any?"
+
+"Nothing!" she exclaimed, looking up at him delighted, with beaming
+eyes. She was sure this was the happiest hour she had ever known in all
+her life.
+
+When he got up to go she felt actual physical pain, as if a limb were
+being torn from her body. He had almost closed the door when he turned
+as one feeling his way, and said:
+
+"If it's not giving you too much trouble, Fräulein, I should be glad if
+you'd have another hunt for the poems." And then once more coming back
+he added: "You might put them under the door-mat if you find them."
+
+Lilly lit the hanging lamp at once, and obediently began to look for
+what she knew she could never find.
+
+
+                           *   *   *   *   *
+
+
+He passed the long vacation in the country with a friend in misfortune,
+with whom he crammed. Directly after the beginning of term the written
+questions were to be set, and in the middle of September came the _viva
+voce_.
+
+Lilly's hero looked pale and haggard, and bristles, like red shadows,
+appeared in the hollows of his cheeks. Lilly could not bear to see his
+misery without speaking, so one morning on her way from mass, when she
+met him alone in the empty street, she stopped.
+
+"You must not overwork, Herr Redlich," she blurted out anxiously. "You
+ought to consider your health for your parents' sake and the sake of
+all who care for you."
+
+He seemed more embarrassed than gratified, and before he answered cast
+nervous looks around him.
+
+"It's very kind of you, Fräulein," he stammered, "but we'll discuss it
+later--later, if you please," and he dashed on, scarcely raising his
+cap.
+
+It dawned on Lilly that she had done something dreadful. The
+houses began to dance before her misty eyes; she gnawed her
+pocket-handkerchief, and thought everyone she met must be laughing and
+jeering at her. When she was once more in her corner behind the
+catalogues she felt convinced that by her folly she had lost him for
+ever. Yes! he would never speak to her again.
+
+The next day he came in without greeting her, and went out again after
+tea, and didn't look her way as he passed. It was all over, all over!
+And then someone came and knocked in the twilight; one could hardly
+call it knocking, it was more like a dog scratching to be let in. Lo,
+and behold! it was he standing there. He had not the shy yet important
+manner he had worn on that Sunday evening when "The graves at Ottensen"
+had been on his mind. His air now was more that of a burglar who has
+not learnt his trade.
+
+"I say, is Frau Asmussen there?" he whispered.
+
+"No; she never comes in here at this time," she whispered back,
+trembling with joy.
+
+"Than I may come in for a minute or two, perhaps?"
+
+She drew back and let him in, wondering whether it was possible to feel
+such bliss and live. He murmured apologies for his conduct at their
+last meeting. She stammered that he mustn't reproach himself, and that
+she had not meant to be so stupid. They sat down together on either
+side of the counter as they had done that Sunday evening. He was the
+first to lead the way back to their former point of intimacy.
+
+"A fellow would often like to chat with a girl with whom he has
+something in common," he said a little pompously, "but his time is not
+his own, and there are so few opportunities."
+
+"As for opportunities," Lilly thought to herself, "they could easily be
+found."
+
+He went on to say that, owing to her kindly interest in him, he felt an
+interchange of ideas between them would be salutary, especially as he
+believed in the emancipation of women.
+
+Here he halted, not knowing how to proceed, but still retaining his
+dignity. He challenged Lilly with his eyes, as much as to say: "You see
+how tactfully I am dealing with this delicate situation."
+
+Lilly hadn't a notion what he was driving at, but it did not matter.
+The one thought that obsessed her was to save him from working himself
+to death.
+
+"We had a master when we were in the Selecta, Herr Redlich," she began,
+"whose lectures were simply glorious. I shall never forget them! Like
+you, he overworked. By this time I am afraid he must have died of
+consumption, and if you don't take care you may come to the same end."
+
+He nodded dejectedly. "Everything's so deuced hard," he muttered to
+himself.
+
+"You ought to have more sleep and take walks--plenty of walks----"
+
+"Do _you_ go for walks, Fräulein?"
+
+Lilly couldn't say truthfully that she ever did such a thing. Since she
+had been incarcerated in this den of books she had not seen a field of
+white snow or a green tree.
+
+"I!" she exclaimed, shrugging her shoulders. "Why should I go for
+walks?" Then, rejoicing inwardly at her own boldness, she suggested:
+"Couldn't we go together one day?"
+
+He looked amazed. "There would be all sorts of objections," he
+said, shaking back his forelock. "People might talk. For your
+sake--especially for your sake--one must be careful."
+
+Lilly had read about gallant young knights who set more store on their
+lady-love's reputation than their own passion. She glanced up at him
+full of grateful admiration.
+
+"As far as I'm concerned," she cried, "you needn't be alarmed, I should
+simply shirk mass."
+
+Though she may have felt a slight stab of conscience as she made this
+sacrilegious announcement, she was conscious that for the sake of this
+walk she would cheerfully have sacrificed all the saints, even St.
+Joseph himself.
+
+"I must wait till after the examination," he explained.
+
+So the matter was allowed to rest. He took his leave, Lilly speeding
+him with warnings and good wishes, while he glanced uneasily up and
+down the street, round the terrace and the entrance.
+
+
+                           *   *   *   *   *
+
+
+Lilly's life from this time onwards was one enraptured trance of hope
+and delightful anticipations. She lay awake half the night, and
+pictured herself wandering at rosy dawn with him through golden
+meadows, her hand pressed against her side to still her joyously
+beating heart, her arm brushing his elbow. And each time that she
+thought of this, a little thrill ran through her, to the tips of her
+toes. She read nothing but stories of glowing love and passion, pages
+full of "transports," "intoxicating raptures," and "clinging kisses."
+But of kisses in connection with herself she did not dream. She checked
+herself when her thoughts drifted in that direction. He was too exalted
+a being, too far above mere earthly desire. Now she felt that she had
+good reason to promise St. Joseph a silver heart.
+
+One Sunday morning she told St. Joseph the whole story of Fritz
+Redlich's examination throes, of his high ideals, and her anxiety about
+him. But on the subject of the arranged walk she was silent, for she
+could not very well mention that she intended to shirk mass.
+
+Lilly had saved during this year about sixty marks, which she carried
+next her skin in a leather purse. The silver heart would cost at most
+twenty marks, and there would be more than enough left to buy her
+friend a present. She vacillated for a long time between purchasing him
+a gold-embroidered cigar-case, equally ornate slippers, and a revolver.
+Finally, she decided on a revolver in a case, for she anticipated that
+in the struggle for existence he would often find himself in perils
+that he could only be saved from by mad, daring, and swift action. The
+revolver cost twenty-five marks, the gold thread for embroidering a
+monogram on the case, five marks. So she thought she had managed very
+satisfactorily.
+
+The morning of the examination she saw him come out on the terrace with
+a face as white as the gloves he waved in farewell to his parents. He
+appeared to have forgotten her. She felt half inclined to run after him
+and press the revolver into his hand, but she reflected in time that
+the examiners might not appreciate his being so armed, and was glad
+when at the last moment he turned round and gave her a timid glance of
+recognition.
+
+At one o'clock there was quite a little stir outside. They were
+carrying him home on their shoulders. He looked exhausted, but his
+friends cheered and shouted with glee. The old pensioner, in ragged
+slippers, ran to meet his son and embrace him. She saw how he scrubbed
+his greenish-grey goat's-beard against the hero's cheek. From the
+kitchen at the bottom of the house came an appetising odour of fried
+sausages. Lilly ran about between the bookshelves clapping her hands,
+and crying inwardly: "St. Joseph is a brick!"
+
+The next morning Lilly went to order the silver heart, and with blushes
+requested that the initials L. C. and F. R., entwined, should be
+engraved on it. When she came back from this errand she found in the
+letter-box--among subscriber's slips--an envelope addressed to herself.
+Inside, written on the back of an old menu card, were the words: "Be on
+the terrace Sunday morning at five."
+
+
+                           *   *   *   *   *
+
+
+Grey dawn pierced the chinks of the library shutters. Lilly jumped out
+of bed and threw up the window. The street looked like a big bowl of
+milk, the mist of early autumn rose so densely from the ground. The
+damp soft vapour cooled her burning cheeks, and she held out her arms
+as if bathing in it. Her thin summer dress, which she had washed and
+ironed with her own hands the night before, hung on the whitewashed
+wall like a blue cloud. She had never made herself so smart as she did
+to-day; for a picnic so fraught with fate she must be worthily adorned.
+
+The small sum left out of her savings, after the purchase of her gifts,
+had been spent on a burnt straw picture-hat with pale blue ribbon
+strings tied under the chin, and did instead of a neckscarf. A pair of
+long open-work silk gloves, which she had forgotten all about, were
+unearthed from the depths of her trunk.
+
+She put the heavy revolver in her hand-bag, after kissing it several
+times first and murmuring over it:
+
+"Protect him, destroy his enemies, and lead him to victory." Thus she
+consecrated the weapon dedicated to his defence.
+
+Punctually at five she heard the opposite door open and shut. She
+slipped out at once, and they met on the terrace. He shook hands. His
+eyes were haggard, yet there was an expression of energy in them. There
+was something of the dandy almost in his air and apparel. His hat was
+tilted slightly on one side. He flourished a bamboo cane in his hand
+with a silver knob.
+
+Lilly murmured shy congratulations. He thanked her with lofty
+condescension. The examination was now a very small matter, hardly
+worth mentioning.
+
+"We are playing the fool now to a frightful degree," he added. "I can't
+say I find it congenial, but a man must know something of the frivolous
+side of life as well as the serious."
+
+As they passed St. Ann's, a happy thought occurred to Lilly. It would
+be delightful to enter the church for a few minutes, and by removing
+the burden of deception win St. Joseph's blessing on their day's
+outing. She made the suggestion timidly, and found she had put her foot
+in it.
+
+"I am a Freethinker, Fräulein," he said, "and have the courage of my
+convictions. Still, all enlightened people should be tolerant, and if
+you would like to go in I will wait for you outside."
+
+Lilly felt she didn't care about it any more and blushed for shame and
+vexation. Of course, he didn't know how much St. Joseph had to do with
+his success, or he would not have been so ungracious.
+
+They walked on in silence through the still deserted streets of the
+suburbs. The mist lifted a little. Lilly, chilled to the bone, shivered
+at every step she took. She thought she shivered from excitement, and
+yet she was much calmer than she had expected to be. Everything was so
+different. What had disenchanted her? She didn't know. She gazed
+wistfully before her at the trees that appeared at the far end of the
+street. "Let us only get out into the country," she thought, and
+clenched her teeth to prevent them chattering.
+
+The silence began to oppress her. She wanted to begin a conversation,
+but could think of nothing to say. In front of them a baker's boy
+started whistling on his round.
+
+"We used always to buy hot rolls after we had worked all night," said
+young Redlich suddenly. "We might buy some now."
+
+Lilly felt happy again. If he had said "We will steal some," she would
+have been happier still.
+
+The boy was not allowed to sell his rolls. They were on order, but
+there was a shop open opposite. When Lilly saw her hero come out of the
+shop with a big bag of rolls under his arm, she had a nice sort of
+feeling as if they were setting up housekeeping together.
+
+Now they were passing gardens, and showers of drops fell on their heads
+from the branches. Lilly bent her shoulders and stamped her feet. She
+was simply frozen. At last they were out in the open fields. Masses of
+silvery gossamer cobwebs, weighed down by the heavy dew, hung about the
+stubble, which had grown high; and the outline of yellowish hilltops
+bounded the circular landscape on one side, while on the other in the
+distance rose a wall of dark woods. Lilly struck out her arms like a
+swimmer and breathed deeply several times.
+
+"Aren't you well?" he asked.
+
+"Oh, I don't know! I must make up for all I've missed," she answered.
+"You see, I haven't really breathed for a whole year."
+
+As she still shivered from cold, she started running. He tried to keep
+up, but soon was left behind, panting and stumbling. When they reached
+the first hill the sun began to rise over the fields. The undergrowth
+seemed aflame and the cobwebs glistened like diamonds; the dewdrops
+glittered like sparks of fire.
+
+Warmed and excited by her run, Lilly pressed her hands against her
+throbbing heart, and gazed with dizzy eyes into the sea of glowing
+light. "Oh, look, look!" she stammered, and then turned an appealing
+glance of inquiry on him. She had half expected that he would spout
+odes, sing songs, and, if it had been possible, play the harp. But he
+stood struggling for breath, and appeared entirely absorbed in himself.
+
+"Do recite something, Herr Redlich," she besought him. "A poem of
+Klopstock's--anything."
+
+She hadn't got as far as Goethe when she left the Selecta.
+
+He laughed, a short scoffing laugh. "No, thank you," he said. "Now the
+examination is over, the whole of German literature may go hang for all
+I care."
+
+Lilly felt snubbed. She had probably done a very ignorant thing in
+asking him to recite. When she next looked at the view the glow had
+faded, though the fields still sent up a faint golden haze towards the
+sun, the face of which had grown hard and indifferent.
+
+They continued their way in the direction of the woods. He swung the
+paper bag, and Lilly picked blackberries, which hung on the bushes like
+strings of beads in a filigree of cobwebs. A little further on, close
+to the outskirts of the wood, they came to a seat; and without
+discussing whether they should sit down or not they took possession of
+it. It was just what they wanted. Lilly was a little awed. This was the
+spot where the soul of a young genius was to be revealed to her, by
+whose clear vision she was to be guided upwards to the sun. He opened
+the paper bag, and she laid her handkerchief full of blackberries
+beside it. The revolver in the bag was put under the seat for the time
+being. Lilly cut the rolls, scooped out the middle, and filled them
+with blackberries, and they had a delightful breakfast together.
+
+The magic glow of early autumn cast its spell upon them. Lilly's head
+swam with delight and longing. She could have thrown herself at his
+feet and pressed her forehead against his knees to find a support in
+the approaching joy of fulfilment. He had taken off his cap, and a
+curly forelock fell over his eyebrows, which gave him a sombre,
+world-challenging air. The lock of genius had been the fashion in the
+Upper Prima, and was assiduously cultivated by all who didn't aspire to
+the smartness of a Students' Corps. His gaze rested on the church
+spires and towers of the old town, which stood up like sleepy sentinels
+watching over the clustering roofs of the houses stretching in all
+directions.
+
+"I wish you would tell me your thoughts," Lilly said in a tremor of
+admiration. The great, crucial moment--had it come?
+
+Again he gave that short rather scoffing laugh.
+
+"I am calculating how many parsons get their living in a hole like
+that," he said, "and what a comfortable thing it is to go in for
+theology."
+
+"Why don't you go in for it?" she asked. "All sources of knowledge have
+a common fountain."
+
+"You don't understand anything about it, my dear Fräulein," he rebuked
+her gently. "What matters is not knowledge, but conviction. A man must
+suffer everything for his convictions; he must drudge and starve for
+his convictions. The town has in its gift six livings for theological
+students. But I would rather cut off my right hand than accept one. For
+your convictions' sake you must go out into the world and fight your
+way. That is what I am going to do. I begin the day after to-morrow."
+
+His small, short-sighted eyes flashed. He pushed back the lock of
+genius from his forehead with a trembling hand.
+
+Now he was talking according to her expectations. She wondered if this
+would be the right moment to present him with the revolver. But she
+deferred the presentation out of respect for the grandeur and
+significance of his new mood.
+
+Taking up the bag with the weapon in it, she clasped it tightly, and
+then aired her sentiments with the same enthusiasm as she had done that
+night on the terrace.
+
+"Oh, Herr Redlich," she cried, "can there be anything more splendid
+than to fight like that--to plunge into the ocean of life, to wrest
+happiness from the grim powers of fate, to become ever stronger and
+more iron in purpose, no matter how things go against us? Oh, it must
+be sublime!"
+
+But, as before, her appeal failed to wake any response in him.
+
+"Good heavens, Fräulein, when you come to consider it, of what does the
+much-vaunted battle of life consist?" he said. "Letting yourself be
+trampled on, sleeping in a cold bed in the winter, and getting nothing
+for dinner all the year round, I am going to try it, of course, but
+it's hard all the same. If I had an income I shouldn't feel so bad."
+
+"And is this all the spirit with which you enter the battle?" asked
+Lilly.
+
+"Dear Fräulein," he replied, "how can a fellow who starts in life with
+a few darned shirts and socks, and borrowed money, feel any different?"
+
+"He is the very one who should conquer," Lilly urged, eager to inspire
+him with her own confidence. "You, with your consciousness of being
+great and different from other people, are bound to carry all before
+you."
+
+She waved her arm with an impassioned gesture, which took in the whole
+prospect before them: the plain with its silver streams and its green
+trees, the city embosomed in its gardens, perched among its meadows
+like a lark's nest. She would show him a small symbol of the future
+kingdoms over which he was to reign.
+
+He nodded gloomily, convinced that he knew more about it than she did.
+
+"Life is hard--hard," he repeated.
+
+She still did not despair of infecting him with her own ambition for
+his future, and in an outburst of eloquence she went on:
+
+"If only I could express what I feel and know is true--if only I could
+make you courageous and hopeful.... Look what a pitiable creature I am.
+I have neither father nor mother nor friends.... I hadn't even the
+chance of staying at school and finishing my education. Here I am,
+without position, money, or even winter clothes.... Look at my feet."
+She thrust out her shabby boots, which till now she had been careful to
+hide beneath her skirt. "I never have enough to eat, and if I am late
+home to-day I shall be thrashed. Yet I am certain that somewhere
+happiness is waiting for me.... It is there, in every little breeze
+that blows in my face--though invisible--in every sunbeam that greets
+me. The whole world is made up of happiness, really, and of music....
+Everything is a Song of Songs--a Song of Songs is everything."
+
+She turned away from him sharply so that he should not see how moved
+she was.
+
+Below in the town the bells began to chime. St. Mary's, which once had
+been the Catholic cathedral and was now the chief Protestant church,
+led off with its deep triple clang. St. George's, once the Church of
+the Order, gave out a clear E G third; on feast-days it added a C. More
+bells sounded, and among them the modest tinkle of St. Ann's,
+unmistakable and insistent, making itself clearly heard in the chorus.
+To Lilly's ears it whispered, "We know and love each other, and St.
+Joseph greets us."
+
+Her friend meanwhile had been recovering his mental equilibrium. He
+assumed his little air of pedantic dignity, feeling that he had got the
+best of the argument.
+
+"I don't think you and I altogether understand one another," he said.
+"I have made a deep study of the problems of life, and so see things
+rather differently from you. I call a spade a spade, and am not taken
+in by the so-called illusions of youth. I know what men are, and should
+advise you to be a little more careful in what you do and say."
+
+"What on earth do you mean?" Lilly asked in astonishment.
+
+He smiled with a half-embarrassed and half-superior air as he glanced
+askance at her.
+
+"Well, you know, beauty has certain dangers connected with it."
+
+"Beauty!" Lilly cried, burning all over. "What nonsense!"
+
+"Those on whom nature has conferred this gift have special reasons to
+be more cautious than others less favoured. For instance, it is lucky
+for you that you have fallen in with anyone so correct, old-fashioned,
+and honourable in his ideas as I am. Another, less steady, more
+frivolously inclined, might easily, you know, have taken advantage of
+such a walk as this. You may indeed be quite sure that he would."
+
+Lilly stared at him in dismay. She was overwhelmed in a whirl of far
+from agreeable reflections. What did he want her to do? Was he
+reproaching her, or making fun of her most sacred sentiments?
+
+"Oh, good heavens!" she exclaimed, completely losing her composure. "I
+wish we were at home."
+
+"You mustn't misunderstand me, Fräulein," he began again. "I am not a
+saint. I am fully acquainted with the weaknesses and failings of human
+nature. I am only offering you a word of counsel, for which you will
+one day be grateful to me. Principles count for something, and in
+after-life, if we meet again, you will, it is to be hoped, have no
+reason to be ashamed of the acquaintance made in your youth."
+
+"Ashamed," thought Lilly. "I ought to feel ashamed of myself now."
+
+She felt all at once that it had been fast, undignified, almost common
+of her to have proposed this morning walk. Before it had not seemed
+wrong, why did it now suddenly seem so awful?
+
+The chimes still sent forth their melody; the sun still spun a network
+of gold around them. She saw nothing, heard nothing, so deeply hurt and
+ashamed was she. She would have preferred to run away there and then,
+but dared not stir a finger.
+
+He for his part no longer seemed a person in need of sympathy and
+consolation, but very self-satisfied and proud of what he had done. He
+removed a blackberry stuck in the lattice-work of the seat, and put it
+in his mouth.
+
+"It would be a pity to get our clothes in a mess," he said, as he
+crunched the seeds slowly between his teeth.
+
+Lilly grew more composed and stooped to pick up the bag.
+
+"What is in that?" he inquired. "It looks a heavy thing to carry."
+
+In alarm Lilly clutched it to her heart.
+
+"It's only the door-key," she faltered.
+
+Then they set out homewards.
+
+"If only I could make him change his opinion," she thought, "and think
+better of me again!"
+
+The only thing that occurred to her was to gather a nosegay of all the
+most beautiful wild-flowers she could reach.
+
+With downcast eyes, she offered him the nosgay as a parting souvenir
+instead of that other gift of which she now could not think without
+feeling a fool.
+
+He thanked her with a courtly bow and a flourish of the bamboo cane
+with the silver knob, an heirloom, of which he had only just come into
+possession.
+
+Lilly was too depressed and humiliated to utter a word.
+
+"Doesn't something tell you," he asked, "that we shall meet again
+sometime in the future?"
+
+She turned aside; it was all she could do to suppress the tears that
+rose to her eyes.
+
+"If we do," he went on, "I hope I shall prove to you what incessant
+work and unwavering loyalty to one's convictions can accomplish, even
+without money."
+
+His voice now vibrated with gleeful self-confidence and importance.
+
+It seemed almost as if, in reducing her to a state of insignificance
+and despair, he had imbibed something of her former gay courage. When,
+however, they drew near the old market-place, he became exceedingly
+uneasy again, as he looked up and down the streets. They were very full
+now, he remarked; it would be better if they parted here, and pursued
+their way home by different roads.
+
+He said "pursued," to show that his studies in German literature had
+not entirely been wasted.
+
+
+                           *   *   *   *   *
+
+
+A few days later he left on his travels. The atmosphere was long heavy
+with the odour of the garlic in the sausage with which Frau Redlich had
+flavoured her son's soup at parting.
+
+Poor Lilly crouched behind the window curtains with a sore heart, and
+wished that she had never set eyes on him.
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER IX
+
+
+One grey, hazy October morning, when winter's approach was tempered by
+a muggy warmth, a wonderful thing happened. Frau Asmussen's runaway
+daughters returned.
+
+Without giving a hint of their coming beforehand, they suddenly
+appeared in the library, gave Lilly an astonished stare, and asked her
+to pay their cab as they had no change. Lilly's heart beat with
+excitement. Directly she saw the two imposing figures of the girls,
+who, though somewhat travel-stained and jaded, victoriously took
+possession of the field, she had no doubt who they were. She gave a
+scared glance at their pretty little snub-nosed faces, out of which
+their bright grey eyes looked inquiringly from the door of the back
+room to the door behind which the broom of welcome stood. Its hour had
+now come, and Lilly ran out in a panic to escape the painful scene that
+would inevitably follow on the opening of Frau Asmussen's door.
+
+She gathered up from the floor of the cab two faded bouquets of
+stephanotis, a tartan shawl rolled up in a hold-all, from which two
+bizarre umbrella-handles, topped with blue glass balls, projected in
+company with two soiled embroidered cushions and a flask. Besides
+these, there were a tin box of acid drops without a cover, a cardboard
+box falling to pieces, and disclosing not only hats, but such
+miscellaneous articles as a comb and pieces of bread-and-butter.
+
+Lilly, with the things in her arms, paused in the entrance, listening
+in terror for the sound of cries. But all was quiet, and when she
+ventured into the room she saw mother and daughters locked in each
+other's arms, hugging and kissing.
+
+As there was no time before the midday meal to kill the fatted calf, in
+addition to the ordinary cabbage a huge pile of cakes from the
+confectioner's was provided as a second course. The daughters helped
+themselves to these before the meal began, laying them aside for a
+rainy day, Frau Asmussen beamed with maternal tenderness and pride.
+
+"Well, did I exaggerate?" she asked Lilly. "Aren't they a splendid
+pair? Isn't it a wonder that I could do without them for so long? But I
+mustn't be too greedy; I am only thankful to get as much of them as I
+do, for I know their filial hearts are torn between their father and
+me. They cannot bear to pain either of us by absenting themselves," And
+she seized and patted the hands of the girls sitting on either side of
+her, and all three exchanged looks of rapturous affection.
+
+The absent husband and father was also touchingly alluded to. The girls
+said that the lively, talented darling was on the point of giving up
+his business to manage vast estates in south Russia, where he had been
+urgently summoned. Later, in a gloomier hour, Frau Asmussen interpreted
+this announcement as meaning that the spotted scoundrel had to hide
+himself in the fastnesses of Odessa till the air cleared, owing to some
+shady transactions of his about bonds.
+
+At first, to Lilly's unpractised eyes, the two home-flown birds
+appeared as like as two sparrows. Both of them were pert, quarrelsome,
+fickle, and flirtatious. After a time she learned to distinguish
+between them. Lona, the elder, she discovered to be the best-looking in
+a coarse, barmaidish sort of way. Her hard commercial character was
+also the stronger. She led Mi, who set up for being a wit, by the nose.
+For the time being their attitude towards Lilly was one of friendly
+neutrality. So far she gave them no cause to adopt a hostile line,
+though hints were dropped that if a certain young lady dared to usurp
+their position she would be taught her place and war to the knife would
+follow.
+
+When, however, they had satisfied themselves that Lilly was tractable
+and inoffensive, they made her the recipient of their confidences,
+which they poured forth late at night as all three girls sat together
+on the bed, undressing and brushing each others' hair. They sucked
+contraband bonbons and discussed different styles of coiffure. Now
+Lilly, whose mind had hitherto remained pure and innocent, was
+enlightened on subjects she had never dreamed of. They whispered
+mysteriously of love intrigues and man-hunting, revealed sexual secrets
+in a stream of sordid chatter.
+
+What they cared for more than anything, it would seem, was to have
+their figures admired.
+
+"When I turn my shoulder like this, am I not like a Greek statue?" one
+would ask.
+
+"Isn't my bust like marble?" was another question.
+
+"If I were not so modest, I should like to let down my night gown and
+show you my hips. They are divine."
+
+Much more rarely did they challenge Lilly's criticism of their
+features.
+
+"We know we are good-looking; we've been told so hundreds of times.
+There can be no doubt about it," they would say.
+
+All the same, when the draughts of a chilly autumn necessitated their
+throwing scarves over their heads in the house, they did not fail to
+draw attention to the classic way in which their hair grew on their
+foreheads, and to the fascinating curve of their profiles.
+
+Sometimes they were even severe critics of themselves.
+
+"We haven't fine eyes, we know--yours, for instance, are, strictly
+speaking, finer. But if _you_ were to make eyes at anyone it wouldn't
+have any effect, whereas if we so much as cast a sidelong glance out of
+the corner of ours, the men are after us like lightning."
+
+Their small cat's eyes would sparkle with satisfaction in their sense
+of limitless sway and triumph over the weaknesses of masculine
+strength.
+
+The advice they generously gave Lilly was summed up in the phrase: "Go
+as far as you like, so long as you don't make a present of yourself to
+any man."
+
+They told, without stint, piquant stories, describing exciting and
+thrilling situations in which they themselves had been true to this
+motto. There was patent in everything they said a strong vein of coarse
+sensuality. Once, when one of them remarked, "I should like to be a
+Queen of the Bees, but have no children," the other, whose temperament
+appeared to be more given to ethical contemplation, quickly retorted,
+"I would rather be a nun, only with no morals."
+
+She pursued the topic, shocking Lilly's pious reverence with
+Boccaccio-like details. In spite of their latitude of thought, all
+their hopes and dreams were really centred on marriage. Marriage, the
+speediest and most advantageous possible, appeared to them in the light
+of a career and salvation from all earthly troubles, the consummation
+of all heavenly bliss. That was to say, the bridegroom must be old, he
+must be rich, and he must be a fool.
+
+They demanded this triple qualification of fate. In the same way as
+others invested their intended husband with a halo of all the virtues,
+these maidens revelled in depicting his infirmities, and showing him as
+the miserable dupe of their abounding power and superior strategy.
+
+They were not always at one on the point as to how this valuable
+acquisition so indispensable to their happiness was to be obtained, and
+a favourite bone of contention between them was the question of whether
+it was expedient or not to compromise oneself before marriage.
+
+Lona, whose daring in dealing with problems of conduct knew no bounds,
+was of opinion that it was expedient. Mi, who was more cautious and
+liked to feel her ground, took the opposite view.
+
+"If you knew what men are as well as I do," Lona snapped at her sister,
+"you'd know that the best way to get hold of them is to make them
+afraid.... Let them sin, and then make their sin a halter to hang them
+with. Then you've got them fast."
+
+Mi ventured to wonder that Lona had not tried to put the theory into
+practice; if she had she would certainly long ago have----
+
+Here she discreetly came to a pause, for her sister's fingers looked
+like scratching.
+
+And, in fact, only eight days after their return, these two did
+come to blows, and the air was thick with flying hair-pads and
+petticoat-strings. Mi emerged from the fray with a wound, which Lilly
+spent the night in bathing with vinegar and water.
+
+The cause of the quarrel was a "swell" who had followed them during
+their afternoon walk, and who, according to Mi's account, had been put
+off from making further advances by her sister's discouraging reception
+of him.
+
+Lona maintained that it was a dangerous principle to take up with
+"swells," while Mi asserted that he might, at any rate, have been good
+enough for a husband.
+
+The chief and all-engrossing occupation of their daily routine was
+parading the streets and getting spoken to by men. Lilly's fears that
+they might take the reins of management into their own hands she soon
+discovered were groundless. They lay in bed till nine, took two hours
+to dress, and then started for their morning walk, to take stock of the
+garrison officers who at this time were promenading the town in groups.
+
+The first half of the day being thus devoted to the military, the
+second half was given up to civilians. Afternoon coffee was, as a
+matter of course, ordered and partaken of at Frangipani's, where a
+handful of lieutenants joined city magnates and young barristers at
+chess or bridge, and where perhaps a solitary schoolmaster, priding
+himself on his smartness, would put in an appearance and attempt to cut
+a dash with the rest.
+
+After an hour spent in devouring all sorts of sweets came the twilight
+stroll, very favourable for making chance acquaintances, and serving as
+a subject of conversation afterwards in the house.
+
+It cannot truthfully be stated that Frau Asmussen had given this mode
+of life her sympathy and blessing. It was scarcely likely, considering
+that the first spell of seraphic calm that succeeded the homecoming of
+her prodigal daughters had given place to mutterings of a storm, and
+the storm itself had soon burst. Rows took place in rapid succession
+and became such a matter of course that Lilly, who had at first wept
+and howled with the combatants, began to accept them as part of the
+normal family life. Abusive epithets of extraordinary vigour flew
+hither and thither, boxes on the ear resounded through the library, and
+even the broom, the existence of which at first had been ignored, was
+now introduced into its limited sphere of activity.
+
+Not till the evening, when Frau Asmussen's soothing medicine claimed
+her attention, was peace restored. The sisters were now at liberty to
+take more walks, only their sense of propriety forbade them to go out
+at so late an hour.
+
+"Anyone who met us now would take us for fast girls," they said, "and
+then it would be all up with marrying."
+
+Indeed, it was hardly credible how many were the rules and restrictions
+by which these young ladies ordered their apparently unlicensed method
+of life.
+
+You might be kissed, but on no account must you return kisses. Men
+might address you by your Christian name and call you "_du_" in
+conversation, but to write in the same familiar strain would be an
+unpardonable insult. You would allow a man to pay for your coffee and
+cakes, but not for your bread-and-butter. A stranger might press your
+foot under the table, but should he squeeze your hand you must
+instantly rise, and so forth.
+
+Lilly had not the slightest comprehension what all these pros and cons
+meant. Man in the abstract for her, up till now, had been merely a part
+of existence that had no separate individuality--that passed her in the
+streets without attracting her notice in the least. The only men she
+had admired were those who existed in her dreams, in her novels, and
+imagination. The creature that stared at her from the pavement, that
+came to get books and found ridiculous excuses for starting
+conversations with her, that held aside the baize curtain at the church
+door for her to go out, that smiled over the counter in shops--this
+creature was something stupid, contemptible, scarcely tolerable, to
+whom she was utterly indifferent, and to give a thought to whom would
+be degrading.
+
+She was now to learn that a girl could exist solely for the sake of
+that gross, coarse thing called "man," that she could think of nothing
+but him from the moment she got up till the time she went to bed, as if
+she were created for him, and must put him before her work and faith
+and God.
+
+Though Lilly knew that she was far above being influenced by the two
+girls' example and precepts, she could not help feeling a slight
+curiosity awake within her to learn more of what these creatures were
+like who caused such a flutter in the dovecot of feminine emotions,
+whose approval was so keenly to be sought, and whose coldness meant
+absolute annihilation.
+
+A nervous dread began to torment her about that unknown vortex of
+wickedness outside, from which dirt was now brought every day and laid
+at her threshold, and about the timid curiosity that it aroused within
+her. Whether she would or not, her thoughts were always recurring to
+the panorama of pictures, painted in vivid poisonous colours and
+unrolled before her nightly by the two degenerate sisters. It was quite
+a relief when the hot friendship, after a month's duration, began to
+cool.
+
+The coolness was caused by an unaccountable deficit, which occurred not
+once, but many times, in the cash-box, and became a standing mystery.
+Lilly, in a fever, added up the figures. She counted every pfennig over
+and over again; at last she was forced to conclude that someone had
+taken advantage of her absence for a moment to open the drawer and dip
+into the cash-box.
+
+She knew that she would be accused of the theft when it was discovered,
+so, in order to save herself, she took the key of the drawer with her
+when she left the room, as if by accident. She repeated the ruse
+several times till she was certain that she was on the right track, by
+the change of manner in the girls, who regarded her with increasing
+scorn and displeasure.
+
+At last they could no longer contain themselves for wrath and
+disappointment. Did she, miserable interloper, imagine that she was
+mistress of the business? they burst forth. She should have both books
+and keys taken out of her hands if they chose. In her terror, Lilly ran
+to their mother, and threatened to leave the house on the spot if she
+was not allowed to have a free hand in the control of the shop as
+hitherto.
+
+Frau Asmussen, knowing too well her daughters' character, took Lilly's
+part and the storm blew over. The girls resumed their intimacy with
+Lilly, and again confided to her the secret depths of their soul. Did
+she think that they wanted money to spend on ices and meringues at
+Frangipani's? She was very mistaken. They were cute enough to lay up
+for the future. It was impossible to stay for ever with the old
+tippler, especially as the place had turned out a barren wilderness as
+far as the prospect of making a good match was concerned. How could
+Lilly, with her petty ambitions, have any conception of theirs, and of
+what they suffered, struggling against the temptations of meringues and
+chocolate cakes at the confectioner's? They had been saving up for a
+long time for another journey. They were literally starving themselves
+for this praiseworthy object.
+
+Lilly remained unmoved. She refused to be wheedled or talked over
+again, and black looks were turned on her. They began to regard her
+with an offended air of hauteur without speaking, and approaching
+events were to fan their smouldering wrath into a blaze.
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER X
+
+
+It was in the twilight of a rainy November day. Every roof dripped, and
+grey drops slid down the iron railings of the terrace in endless
+succession to splash into the pools on the pavement below.
+
+It was poor sport to watch them, but there seemed nothing better to be
+done.
+
+Then the door opened--the bell ringing loudly--and a fair, dapper
+little man came in, with his coat collar turned up and his hat pulled
+low over his eyes. He stamped and shook the raindrops off the brim of
+his hat. His glossy, fair hair shone like satin, and he brought into
+the atmosphere an aroma of Russia leather and Parma violets. He glanced
+at Lilly with narrow, arrogant eyes, feigning disillusionment, said
+good-evening brusquely, and then stared beyond her, as if he awaited a
+greeting from someone behind the book-shelves.
+
+Lilly asked him what he wanted.
+
+"Ah, I suppose you are the young lady in charge of the library?" he
+answered, and seemed to find in her existence a subject for careless
+levity.
+
+Lilly assented, and he exclaimed, "Capital! That's capital!" and from
+under his blinking light-lashed lids scintillated a thousand little
+shafts of merriment.
+
+Lilly next asked what book he wanted.
+
+"Do you know, my much-respected and learned young lady, I am not
+exactly at home in German literature and the other sciences, but since
+yesterday evening I have been fired with a fabulous, positively
+student-like thirst for culture. Now, if you would give me your
+valuable assistance----"
+
+He stopped suddenly, stuck an eyeglass in his eye, looked her up and
+down, first from the left side, then from the right, as one judges the
+points of a high-stepping horse before purchase; then he murmured,
+"Damn!" and asked her to light up.
+
+There was no reason why Lilly should not obey, as it was so dark she
+couldn't read the numbers on the backs of the books.
+
+As she stretched up to lift the shade from the hanging lamp, disclosing
+the splendour of her outline, he said "Damn" a second time. When the
+light shone on her and she looked at him with a questioning shyness in
+her enigmatic eyes--those "Lilly eyes," whose brilliancy had so long
+been under eclipse--he sank, quite overcome, on to the chair set for
+customers, folded his hands and asked to be forgiven.
+
+A hot feeling of resentment burned in Lilly: so contemptible was her
+position in the eyes of this young aristocrat--the first who had found
+his way here during a year and a half--that she was not deemed worthy
+of being treated with ordinary courtesy.
+
+"Unless you wish to borrow a book, sir," she said with a lofty air, "I
+must ask you to leave this room."
+
+"A book? What?" he repeated, outraged. "One solitary book, one beastly
+book? No, thank you. Every five minutes I am allowed to stay here, I
+will take out new books, a whole shelf--a whole case of books, if you
+like; but on condition that I may return them to-morrow. I will make a
+contract with a van proprietor to cart the cases of books backwards and
+forwards. But wait a moment! Haven't you to plank down a three mark
+deposit if you take out a book?"
+
+Lilly, with a stare of astonishment, said "Yes."
+
+"Well, as I don't happen to have that amount with me just now, you must
+keep me as a deposit. You see, I give myself up as a sort of prisoner.
+Awkward for both of us--eh? But what's to be done?"
+
+Lilly could not help being amused, in spite of herself. She laughed out
+loud.
+
+"Ah! now she has forgiven me!" he exclaimed in triumph. "Her gracious
+young majesty smiles on me. Now let us chat together like real friends.
+Just look at me a moment, my Fräulein. Do I appear to you like
+a fellow who reads much? The only books I care about are Schlicht's,
+Roda-Roda's, and Winterfeld's authors who are supposed to know the
+humours of military life. My object in coming here is not books. May I
+take you into my confidence?"
+
+"If you must, yes," stammered Lilly, her eyes dazzled by the glint of
+gold from under the sleeve of his tan overcoat. It was a revelation to
+her that men wore gold bangles.
+
+"I like to change into mufti of an evening," he went on; "by day, you
+know, I wear uniform ... but it won't be for much longer. In a week or
+two I shall be at a loose end. Debts ... I say, you don't know what
+debts are? Happy you! Debts are the bitter dregs in the lemonade of
+human existence, and this lemonade isn't oversweet at the best. But
+what was I going to say? Oh, I know! Of an evening I play the part of a
+Harum al Raschid in order to win the favour of the common herd, by
+paying a little attention to the daughters of the people. Do you
+understand me? Yesterday, sauntering in a remote wilderness of wild
+hedges and new villas, I followed up two young women, ogling over their
+shoulders, and swinging their skirts, behaving, in fact, as all nice,
+well-brought-up girls are wont to do----"
+
+"I do not care to continue this conversation," said Lilly, colouring
+deeply from shame.
+
+"Why not? You, my dear Fräulein, of course, are a perfect lady, and
+would not descend to anything of the kind. I was only confessing to you
+in order to gain your absolution."
+
+Instantly Lilly was pacified, and she let him babble on.
+
+"The two young women in question walked in front of me arm-in-arm, but
+directly I got up to them I slipped between like the sausage between
+two slices of buttered bread. They became very sociable, and told me
+that they were the owners of a large circulating library, and intended
+shortly to open a fancy art business in Berlin, etc. They did not tell
+me their address, and, as I am ashamed to say that till a few minutes
+ago I thought they were worth cultivating, I looked up all the
+circulating libraries in the directory. I find that there are only
+three besides the leading bookshops, so I have been to two, and now I
+am at the third. I swear the future proprietresses of the fancy art
+business may go to the deuce, as far as I am concerned."
+
+Lilly could not suppress a feeling of rising scorn and malicious joy,
+but she took care not to betray the whereabouts of the two sisters.
+
+Then, to show how completely in the presence of her majestic beauty his
+desire for a vulgar flirtation had evaporated, he formally introduced
+himself.
+
+"I am Lieutenant von Prell," he said, "soon to be _ex_-Lieutenant von
+Prell!"
+
+She gave him an inquiring glance, and he added:
+
+"As I hinted to you just now, Fräulein, my days in the regiment are
+numbered. This umbrella, which now serves one purpose only, will
+probably before long be held over my head as a sunshade."
+
+Did he not care for an officer's life any longer? Lilly asked.
+
+"I don't know that there's any kind of life that I couldn't enjoy," he
+answered, with mirth dancing in his light-grey eyes; "but the paternal
+exchequer is low, and my pay as a slave in the army is about sufficient
+to keep me in radishes, and even radishes are dear at Christmas. The
+best thing I can do is to charter an old herring-cask and get myself
+pickled. If you can tell me where one is to be got cheap, I'll pay the
+damage."
+
+Lilly laughed gaily in his face, and he laughed with her, putting his
+arms akimbo and emitting a thin, soft giggle in an almost inaudible
+treble, which nevertheless convulsed his too spare figure with
+hilarious merriment.
+
+They sat down opposite each other, like two good comrades, on either
+side of the counter; and Lilly devoutly wished this hour could last for
+ever.
+
+When a maid-servant came in to change a novel for her mistress, he
+settled himself for a stay by examining the titles of the books and
+acting as if he were perfectly at home. He held open the door for the
+little maid-servant when she went out, as if she were a duchess.
+
+Lilly grew more and more amused, and couldn't restrain her laughter.
+
+"Before another subscriber comes in, you must go," she said, "or people
+will talk."
+
+"Why? let them talk!"
+
+But Lilly was firm, and he began to plead earnestly with her.
+
+"You know, gracious Fräulein, I enjoy the reputation of having no moral
+sense whatever. I want you to be my support and anchor through life, at
+any rate till the door opens next time. While I sit here I am safe from
+playing the fool, and this fact I am sure must be cheering to your
+benevolent heart."
+
+So it was agreed that he might stay till the bell went again.
+
+He sat back comfortably in his chair, and regarded Lilly with an air of
+possession.
+
+"All earthly troubles can be traced to talking too much," he began. "If
+Columbus had kept the secret of the discovery of America to himself, no
+unpleasantness would have arisen. I intend to be cleverer, and to keep
+my discovery a sacred family secret between you and me. It would be
+nuts to other fellows. But let them stick to twilight moths, like the
+two future art-shop proprietresses to whom I am indebted for my budding
+friendship with you."
+
+The sisters had been forgotten by Lilly. It was about their time for
+coming in. What if they were to open the door at this minute!
+
+The bell tinkled. It was not they, however, but an old maid who
+devoured every day a volume full of strong "love interest," and came in
+the evening for more.
+
+The volatile lieutenant remembered his compact. He started up from his
+seat and composed himself to speak with a business-like air:
+
+"Will you kindly let me have the last new book of----" he hesitated,
+evidently at a loss to think of the name of a popular German author;
+then, after racking his brain a moment, he added, "by Gerstäcker?"
+
+Lilly fetched him this newest of new novels, bearing the date 1849, and
+he counted out his three marks deposit, made an exaggerated bow, and
+took his leave with little devils dancing between his light lashes.
+
+A little later the sisters came in. They glanced suspiciously at
+Lilly's flushed cheeks, and passed on without saying anything.
+
+Nothing happened for the greater part of the next day, but Lilly was
+full of excited premonitions, like a child before its birthday. She
+felt on the threshold of new experiences. She was scarcely surprised
+when at last the door opened and two slim and elegant youths entered.
+They lisped "Good-evening," and asked her to recommend them a book to
+read, in a tone of mingled diffidence and self-assurance, while they
+measured her with the stare of expert judges.
+
+Lilly's limbs grew numb, as they usually did, when she was conscious of
+being observed and admired. Yet she retained her dignified manner, and
+when the visitors had selected their trash without looking at it, and
+attempted to engage her in jocular converse, she drew herself up and
+took refuge behind the bookcase L to N, which was her shelter when she
+sat in the window busy with her accounts and ledgers.
+
+The young gentlemen, after a whispered consultation, took their
+departure in silence.
+
+He had betrayed her then--her lively new comrade. And henceforward Frau
+Asmussen's shabby library became the crowded resort of tall, slender
+young men of fashion, all animated by a passion for reading and a
+desire to exchange one trumpery old novel after another.
+
+Only a few dared come in uniform, but they did not shrink from signing
+their names in full in the subscribers' book, which took on the
+appearance of a veritable _Almanach de Gotha_.
+
+Some assumed the cloak of business-like severity, others came in
+careless certainty of victory. One began love-making on the spot,
+another had the impertinence to bandy risqué jests over the counter,
+the most ingenuous of them went the length of asking on what day he was
+to be honoured by a visit.
+
+Lilly soon saw that there was nothing particularly injurious or
+flattering to her in these attentions. She chatted innocently with
+those who treated her politely, took no notice of the impertinent, and
+directly a conversation seemed to be drawing out to too great a length,
+she retired behind the bookcase L to N.
+
+It did not take the Asmussen sisters many days to discover the
+aristocratic intruders. Their jealous fury exceeded all the bounds of
+decency. Every possible insult was hurled at Lilly, and she was abused
+like a pickpocket. Unheard-of expletives were poured on her head in a
+filthy stream.
+
+The daughters demanded of their mother that Lilly should resign her
+place at the counter to them. When this concession was refused, they
+resorted to physical violence. Frau Asmussen came to Lilly's rescue in
+her extremity. The broom rained heavy blows on the white night-jackets
+of the furious mænads, and drove them into the back parlour, where the
+battle ended in torrents of tears. But hostilities continued, and, if a
+curb was put on emotions during the hours the library was open to
+subscribers, all the more unbridled was their rancour in the evening.
+Lilly's life became a hell on earth. Her soul grew encrusted with a
+hardness and bitterness that filled her with both dismay and
+satisfaction. Only at night, when she buried her face in the pillow,
+did her defiance melt and her wretchedness find relief in silent
+weeping.
+
+The merry comrade with the light eyelashes, who had caused the whole
+uproar, kept away. Not till a fortnight after his first visit did he
+turn up again. He came in with rather a halting gait, and his eyes were
+swollen and watery.
+
+"These are picotees or clove carnations," he said, undoing a tissue
+paper parcel in his hand, "which last longer than any parting pangs."
+
+The sight of him brought a little comfort to Lilly, and she took the
+bouquet as if it was something to which she had a right. Then she
+reproached him for not having held his tongue.
+
+"Didn't I tell you," he explained serenely, "that I haven't a vestige
+of moral sense?"
+
+He went on to tell her that he had finally left the regiment and been
+fêted by his fellow officers at a farewell dinner, and now there was
+nothing to be done but to take his passage somewhere. The question was,
+where? "Still, we needn't bother our heads about that yet," he went on;
+"brilliant folks such as you and myself are bound to have brilliant
+careers. My path in life will lead me by cool streams of champagne
+through streets paved with _pâté de fois gras_. That is Kismet, and
+should it end in a fruit farm in Louisiana, I don't mind. Something new
+is always interesting. In the meantime the old colonel is dead nuts on
+me, and wants me on his estate as a sort of Fritz Triddelfitz."
+
+He laughed his curious, almost inaudible laugh, which convulsed his
+slight form.
+
+Lilly asked who "the old colonel" was.
+
+That she shouldn't know seemed to him inconceivable.
+
+"Is it possible that you live in this world and have never heard of the
+old colonel?" he asked. "The old colonel is the almighty; the old
+colonel decides what is good and what is evil on this earth; he ruins
+one man and pays another's debts with equal ease. He is the great
+receptacle for all our virtues and all our sins. Above all, the old
+colonel is eternally a boy. If he were to see you he would say, 'Come
+along, little girl. I am a hoary-headed old monster, but I want you';
+and then your courage will only permit of your saying, 'When do you
+want me, your high and mightiness?' You see, my dear child, that is the
+old colonel. They have put him on your track long ago, and if he finds
+his way here, Lord have mercy on you! It will be all up then with my
+beautiful young queen."
+
+"But I still don't know who the old colonel is," interjected Lilly,
+feeling a little uncomfortable at his mysterious prognostications.
+
+"Then don't ask," he answered, and held out his freckled hand in
+farewell. "It's really a pity," he added, blinking at her through his
+half-closed light eyelashes with tender compassion. "We might have
+given history another famous pair of lovers."
+
+He leant over the counter. "As I am a man totally devoid of any moral
+sense, may I borrow a kiss before I go?"
+
+Lilly laughed and held up her mouth in reply.
+
+He kissed her, and then dragged himself stiffly to the door.
+
+"I can't run," he said. "Last night's banquet has made me a bit lazy,"
+and he was gone.
+
+The same feeling of uneasiness, which Lilly had felt after her lively
+comrade's first visit, took possession of her again. She felt as if
+someone was playfully lashing her with switches. Her anxiety caused her
+torment mingled with pleasure. It was as if behind a closed golden door
+her unknown fate crouched ready to spring on her--its prey.
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER XI
+
+
+The midday December sunlight made the hilt of a sword and the buttons
+of a uniform glitter in the street outside.
+
+"Some one fresh," Lilly thought, for the upright bull-necked figure of
+the man clanking up the terrace steps was unfamiliar to her.
+
+An imperious stamping before the door, and the bell sounded more
+sharply than usual. No, she had not seen this person before. Here was
+no frivolous young lieutenant, nor one of the maturer officers, who
+were on their dignity till the first shy smile told them how far
+they might go. Here was a piercing falcon eye, set in a circle of
+crow's-feet, an aquiline high-bred nose, prominent cheek-bones with a
+fixed red colour; a small hard firmly closed mouth, which smiled with
+cynical benevolence under a bristling moustache, a chin--highly
+polished from shaving--retreating in two baggy folds behind a high
+military collar.
+
+She saw these details with a heart throbbing so violently that she had
+to lean against a bookcase for support.
+
+"This must be what I have been feeling so frightened about," she said
+to herself. "This is the dreadful old colonel."
+
+He raised his hand to his cap in careless salute without taking it off.
+
+"Colonel von Mertzbach," he said in a voice the harsh sound of which
+suggested unlimited authority and power. "I must speak to you for a few
+minutes, my Fräulein. There are reasons that compel me to make your
+acquaintance."
+
+Lilly felt that she was to be subjected to a humiliating
+cross-examination, which she was not in the least bound to tolerate.
+But never in her life had she seemed to herself so utterly defenceless
+as at this moment. She was standing before a judge who had taken on
+himself the right to pardon or condemn her according to his pleasure.
+
+She murmured something like consent with trembling lips.
+
+"You appear to be a most dangerous young woman," he said. "You have
+turned the heads of all my staff; that is to say, the juniors among
+them. They are simply crazy about you."
+
+"I don't understand your meaning," answered Lilly, gathering courage as
+well as she could.
+
+"Humph!" he ejaculated, and glued his eyeglass into his eye, to look
+her up and down as far as the point where her figure was cut in two by
+the counter. "Humph!" he repeated. Then he continued: "In these cases
+it is easy enough to play the innocent. Nevertheless, I can fully
+sympathise with my young men. In their place I should probably have
+done the same. But it looks, Fräulein, as if, in spite of your youth
+and inexperience, you have a fair share of feminine wiles at your
+command, otherwise you would scarcely have drawn these somewhat
+fastidious young men here so often with that immaculately reserved
+manner of yours; but, after all, perhaps it's the manner that's done
+it."
+
+Tears rose to Lilly's eyes. She could easily have flung back his
+insults, but the man's personality mastered her. She searched in vain
+for words to oppose him; his piercing eyes seemed to go through and
+through her and deprive her of speech; his cynical smile held her in
+thrall. So she merely sat down and cried. He on his side rose and came
+nearer the counter.
+
+"How much you have reason to feel hurt, Fräulein, in your _amour
+propre_, I cannot say. It's not my intention to make you cry. On the
+contrary, I want you as calmly as possible to give me a little
+information about yourself. It may be of importance to your future."
+
+Lilly felt the necessity of pulling herself together, because this man
+desired it.
+
+She wiped her eyes and looked at him penitently, sniffling a little as
+she used to do when a child after being scolded.
+
+He inquired her name, her antecedents, whether she had a father and a
+mother, what school she had been at, and what she was doing there. On
+her mentioning her guardian's name a mocking smile flitted over his
+face.
+
+"I am acquainted with that gentleman's philosophy of life," he said.
+"You are, then, utterly alone in the world?"
+
+Lilly said "Yes."
+
+"And you would not object to have a helping-hand extended to you by
+someone to whom you could turn in time of trouble?"
+
+Lilly did not think there was any likelihood of such a person turning
+up.
+
+"I will think it over," he said, frowning. "Anyhow, you cannot stay for
+ever in this hole. Do they treat you well?"
+
+"Pretty well," Lilly answered; and half laughing, half crying, she
+added, "I don't get enough to eat, and sometimes I am----" she was
+going to say thrashed, but stopped in shame, and said "punished," which
+hardly stated the case.
+
+The colonel burst into a laugh, which sounded like the cracking of a
+whip.
+
+"Greatly to your credit to be able to take a humorous view of the
+matter," he said, and he rose to go. "I have ascertained what I wanted
+to know, Fräulein. My young men may continue to come here as much as
+they like. In the whole town they could not find more irreproachable
+society. Should any of them forget themselves, and not treat you with
+proper respect, just communicate with me. But I am sure there will be
+no necessity. I wish you good-day, my Fräulein."
+
+Lilly looked after him, and watched the heavy cavalry swagger with
+which he crossed the paved terrace. The winter sun seemed to be shining
+with the sole object of illuminating his figure and dancing on his
+accoutrements.
+
+He looked back at her window when he reached the street, and saluted
+courteously, giving her as he did so a searching, almost threatening,
+glance from beneath his knitted brows. Then he vanished.
+
+Lilly's mind was now besieged by the following questions: "What did it
+mean? What did they want her to do? Why couldn't they leave her in
+peace?" She would have liked to cry and lament and be pitied. But, deep
+down, there was a festive note, almost a note of vanity in her
+feelings. She congratulated herself on her new hopes. Had he meant when
+he asked her if she would like a helping hand, a prop and stay in
+trouble, that he would be that prop and stay? It soothed and did her
+heart good to think of it. Perhaps he was to be the guide and protector
+so bitterly needed in her stumbling young life? He might perhaps
+relieve Herr Pieper, who didn't trouble himself about her, of his
+guardianship. Perhaps he wanted to adopt her himself? There was no
+knowing. If only his eyes hadn't pierced like daggers, if he hadn't
+laughed so mockingly and given her that evil look at the last! And then
+she remembered the warning of her lively comrade: "If he finds his way
+here, the Lord have mercy on you."
+
+What nonsense! As if anything could happen to her behind her counter,
+of which no one had ever dared to raise the flap and come on the other
+side; and how safe she was behind the bookcase L to N, where she
+couldn't even be seen.
+
+The visit of their colonel to the library seemed to have damped his
+young men's ardour; in spite of the permission given them, perhaps
+because of it, none of them put in an appearance during the next few
+days. Lilly asked herself if this was a sign of the protection he had
+promised to exercise over her. But something was the matter with her;
+she scarcely knew what.
+
+One morning, a week later, the younger of the sisters, who, in
+expectation of some love-letter, kept watch for the postman, threw an
+envelope on the floor at Lilly's feet, with the exclamation, "A
+'coronet' for you, you officers' hack!"
+
+This, coming from the sisters, was quite a mild form of address.
+
+Lilly opened her letter and read the following:
+
+
+"My Fräulein,
+
+"Will you allow me on the strength of our recent interview to make the
+following suggestion? I want a private secretary and reader. Are you
+open to accept the post? As I am not a married man, you could not of
+course reside in my house, but I would undertake to find a home for you
+in a respectable and suitable family. I have consulted your guardian,
+and the plan has his approval.
+
+                             "Yours truly,
+
+                                                   "Von Mertzbach.
+
+"Colonel commanding the ---- Regiment of Uhlans."
+
+
+Ah, here it was at last! Happiness--happiness standing on the other
+side of the snowy street, beckoning and calling to her: "Come out of
+your vault, out into the world. I will show you life, and something
+new." "Something new is always interesting;" had not her lively comrade
+said so?
+
+Then she pictured herself seated at the colonel's big writing-table.
+The colonel dictated to her, and all the time his eyes pierced her
+through and through, and searched, always searched, and her pen fell
+from her hand. She wanted to jump up and run away, but she could not;
+his eyes held her in thrall.
+
+She sat down and wrote a correct little note declining the offer.
+Though she appreciated the honour he did her, she felt she was not
+qualified for so onerous a post, and that it would be wiser to remain
+in her present position, which, though not altogether happy, was one of
+which she was capable of discharging the duties. She signed herself,
+"Yours in grateful esteem, Lilly Czepanek."
+
+So that was over. Now things must go on in their old groove,
+peacefully, if the wicked sisters would allow peace.
+
+Christmas was approaching, but it cannot truthfully be said that the
+preparations for the festival at Frau Asmussen's were marked by much
+rejoicing and goodwill. She grumbled at the bad times, and the
+ridiculous custom of giving all the world presents. Her daughters
+argued shrilly, and at every opportunity, the question as to whether
+refined and superior girls like themselves were called upon to gather
+round a Christmas tree in the company of common minxes! There were none
+of those treasured little mysteries on foot, which at such a time bring
+joy and gladness into even the saddest and most poverty-stricken of
+homes.
+
+Lilly knitted her mother a brown woollen cross-over, bought her two
+picture puzzles and a wooden flower vase--china being forbidden--and
+sent them with a box of chocolates to the lunatic asylum.
+
+Her thoughts just now often wandered from her mother to her father, who
+had now absented himself for more than four and a half years, and had
+given no sign of his existence.
+
+In her loneliness Lilly clung to a hope of his reappearance. On
+Christmas Eve, between six and seven, he would be sure to come in, his
+great-coat covered with snow, and embrace her with the demonstrative
+affection peculiar to him. She could almost smell the perfume from his
+burnished locks. Or, if he didn't come himself, he would send a
+messenger-boy with a preliminary greeting and a mysterious parcel full
+of costly silks. And a winter hat, too; for that was what she wanted
+more than anything.
+
+When the others had gone to bed she took from the bottom of her trunk
+the score of "The Song of Songs," and hummed over to herself her
+favourite airs. There were many passages in it that she could never
+sing without tears. In these days she was constantly in tears,
+notwithstanding that there was all the time a hesitating earnest of
+happiness dawning faintly on her horizon.
+
+It was an exquisite vague sense of being lifted up, a growing of wings,
+a listening in wonder to inner voices, which sounded as familiar and
+gentle as a mother's, yet strangely prophetic and solemn.
+
+Sometimes she found herself on her knees, not praying but dreaming,
+with arms outstretched and fascinated eyes lifted to the lamp, as if
+from that region of light the foreshadowed miracle was to come.
+
+Thus she celebrated her Christmas feast in the sanctuary of her soul,
+and the actual Christmas Eve drew nearer and nearer.
+
+At the last minute, with groans and moans, a few presents were
+mustered. Lona and Mi ran about wildly from shop to shop making their
+purchases. They even bestowed a few civil words on Lilly, who
+recognised their kindness by looking the other way when Lona hovered
+round the cash-box. She knew exactly how much, or rather how little,
+was inside, and that if there was anything missing it wouldn't ruin her
+to replace it out of her own purse.
+
+Before supper she was called into the back parlour, where the Christmas
+tree stood alight on the table--apparently shy of itself.
+
+The sisters shook hands with Lilly, and Frau Asmussen, sitting already
+over her medicinal glass, delivered a few platitudes on the
+significance of Christmas, and expressed her regret at not being able
+to spend it with her excellent husband. Then everyone apologised
+because the presents were not handsomer. At first it was the feeling
+that you were expected to give something, that it was your duty to
+give, which had disgusted these generous souls who thought giving
+should be spontaneous; then, when they had got over this feeling, it
+was too late to buy anything worth having, not that the red check
+overall apron wasn't decent enough, and the penwiper was not so bad
+either--considering business was slow.
+
+"I am ashamed to say I have nothing at all to give," Lilly answered.
+But what she was most ashamed of was that she was once more on friendly
+terms with the Asmussen sisters.
+
+"I have no strength of character, not a scrap," she told herself as she
+crunched a piece of marzipan, which the elder and worst of the sisters
+had given her.
+
+The library bell rang loudly, and a man, loaded with parcels, was
+asking if Fräulein Czepanek lived there.
+
+Lilly's heart bounded. "From papa--it must be from papa!" she murmured
+in jubilation.
+
+For a few minutes she scarcely dared trust herself to touch the
+parcels. She skipped round them aimlessly tidying her hair. Only on the
+sisters' exhortation did she undo the strings. With what envious eyes
+the two girls looked on!
+
+Such beautiful things came to light. A faced-cloth dress, lace-trimmed,
+a delicate blue foulard, a pink silk petticoat, shoes of glossy patent
+leather and tan suède, six pairs of gloves, three pair elbow-length,
+all sorts of jabots and cravats, a fichu of Brussels lace to wear with
+Empire frocks, pocket-books, stationery, bonbons--more and still more
+things; even the sorely needed winter hat was included, a soft fluffy
+grey beaver in a picture-shape, that always had suited her noble style
+of features. It was trimmed with ribbon and ostrich feathers.
+
+Altogether it was quite a trousseau.
+
+The faces of the two sisters grew longer and longer. Lilly herself
+ceased to be delighted. She began rummaging in wild anxiety through the
+boxes for a clue to the sender, a letter or card. She had long ago
+abandoned the idea of her father having come back to heap on her such
+generous gifts. Yet an instinct of self-preservation made her keep up
+the deception.
+
+At last, at the bottom of the glove-box, she found a card. She ran away
+to read it in the library. Under the hanging lamp she scanned,
+blanching with fright, the visiting-card of "Baron von Mertzbach,
+Colonel in Command of the ---- Regiment of Uhlans." Beneath his name he
+had written in the thick stiff handwriting she knew already, "With good
+wishes to his lonely little friend from his own lonely hearth."
+
+She went back to the parlour where the sisters, green with envy,
+received her with a chilly smile, while Frau Asmussen muttered
+enigmatical phrases over her steaming glass.
+
+"They really are from papa," Lilly said, and wondered why her own voice
+sounded so toneless.
+
+The Asmussen sisters laughed jeeringly, and began putting the things
+away in the boxes.
+
+Lilly held in her hand a little china bonbon box, filled to the brim
+with curious, rich-looking and fragrant-smelling sweets. She glanced
+from one sister to the other, uncertain as to whether she might dare
+offer them some of the sweets. She was afraid they might refuse with an
+abusive epithet, so she let fall the lid, which represented a cupid in
+a garland of roses, and buried the _bonbonnière_ in the depths of one
+of the boxes. Then she crept away to bed in her corner and cried
+bitterly.
+
+The sisters went on whispering together for a long time. They built the
+boxes up into a tower on the library counter, and then haughtily made a
+détour so as not to come in contact with them.
+
+The next morning Lilly called a passing messenger, and sent back the
+whole pile of packages to the donor without a word. Afterwards she went
+to the sisters and said:
+
+"It wasn't true what I told you last night. Papa didn't send the
+things, and I have returned them."
+
+The two girls, who had intended to make themselves agreeable to her in
+a malicious sort of way, could not conceal their disappointment.
+
+"I should never have taken her for such a ninny," said the younger.
+
+"She is not so simple as you think," scoffed the elder, true to her
+character of scenting out ulterior motives, "only very designing. She
+wants to drive her admirer still more distracted, but she'd better take
+care she doesn't outwit herself. The stupidest man can soon distinguish
+between what is genuine and what is put on." As if to illustrate what
+genuine simplicity was like, Lona drew her petticoat tightly round her
+limbs with one hand, drew her night-jacket decorously together over her
+bosom with the other, and, tossing her head, cast a look of withering
+scorn over her shoulder at Lilly, displaying all the virtuous
+indignation that exalted natures sometimes betray.
+
+In spite of this, Lilly noticed that the sisters' manner towards her
+had changed somewhat. She was evidently of more importance to them than
+she had been before, and they refrained from offending her.
+
+Nothing much happened during the next few days, with the exception of a
+few of the young officers resuming their visits to the library. They
+exchanged their books hurriedly, and were extremely correct in their
+behaviour. None of them seemed inclined now to sit on the counter or on
+the back of a chair in a free-and-easy attitude.
+
+On New Year's Eve, Lilly was the recipient of a second note. It ran
+thus:
+
+
+"My Fräulein,
+
+"You have grossly misconstrued my motives in sending you a small
+remembrance at Christmas-time. Matters must be cleared up between us. I
+would rather divulge the plans I have in mind for you verbally. But,
+owing to my position, I cannot very well call on you again. If you have
+your future at heart, come and see me to-morrow sometime in the
+evening. I will expect you up till eight o'clock. I give you my word of
+honour that you shall return home in safety.
+
+                                   "Yours,
+
+                                                 "Mertzbach."
+
+
+Should she go or not go? The question kept Lilly awake the whole night.
+If only she could rid herself of that feeling of dread, the fear that
+robbed her almost of breath at the very thought of him. What might not
+happen if she stood face to face with him again? She decided not to go,
+knowing all the time that she would go.
+
+She lived through the day in a kind of stupor. Towards evening she
+asked Frau Asmussen's leave to go to New Year's Eve Benediction. The
+two sisters exchanged significant glances, but to-day they were too
+occupied with their own affairs to pay much attention to Lilly's.
+
+She put on her old felt hat, battered and discoloured by exposure to
+many a shower, and her winter coat, which was so shrunk it made her
+look narrow-chested. Pull the sleeves down as she would, nothing could
+make them reach to her wrists.
+
+If she had thought of the matter at all, she would have thought twice
+about going so shabbily clad to call at a grand house. But she didn't
+think. She felt as if she was doing nothing of her own accord. Strange,
+mysterious powers were pushing her hither and thither, like a pawn on a
+chessboard. Unseen hands helped her to dress. They loosened the plaits
+on her neck, unfastened the tight buttons of her coat so that her
+contracted chest should have room to show its young contour, and
+painted her cheeks, wan from want of sleep, with a rich glow of
+excitement and triumph.
+
+Not till she stepped out into the frosty air did she feel properly
+awake.
+
+"Where do you want to go?" a voice asked within her, "I might go and
+see St. Joseph," she answered herself.
+
+But she did not go to St. Joseph. She made a wide circuit round St.
+Ann's, crossed the market-place, where she saw the Asmussen sisters
+sitting in Frangipani's with two admirers, escaped a gallant follower
+with difficulty, and then suddenly found herself in front of the
+latticed shutters of the house where, up four flights of stairs, the
+whirring sewing-machine had ground the last shred of reason out of her
+poor, ruined mother's head.
+
+There was a light in the windows of the attic where she had once lived.
+Probably someone else sat there now, slaving day and night, night and
+day, at the drudgery of making cheap underclothes. Perhaps one day she
+too would sit there, regretting bitterly her lost youth, as if it had
+been a crime.
+
+"If you have your future at heart," he had written.
+
+And now she turned and ran--ran for her life, and didn't stop till she
+stood on the threshold of a brilliantly lighted house, before which a
+freezing sentinel with drawn sabre paced up and down, as he kept guard
+over the most important dignitary of the town.
+
+"Where are you going?" asked the voice again. For answer she sprang up
+the wide carpeted stairway and ran into a lackey with silver braid on
+his knee-breeches. Without speaking, he quietly took her umbrella,
+while a slight malicious smile flitted over his imperturbable
+countenance.
+
+Softly, white doors flew back before her, lights with rosy shades like
+magic flowers shed soft radiance, lovely barenecked ladies with diamond
+tiaras looked down smiling on her from gilded oval frames.
+
+How quiet and beautifully warm it was in these spacious rooms; on that
+thick soft carpet one might lie down and go to sleep.... If only that
+feeling of fear would not clutch at her throat, her brain, her temples,
+gripping them as in a vice.
+
+Another door flew open. Green duskiness lay beyond, like the interior
+of a dense forest on a summer day, and out of the dusk his figure came
+towards her, broad, imposing, clanking.... Her hand was taken in his
+and she was drawn into the green twilight. Dark walls of books rose on
+all sides, and from somewhere came the flash of deadly weapons,
+helmets, and coats of mail.
+
+She could not trust herself to look at him. Even after she had been
+seated some minutes in a high-backed carved oak chair, which projected
+over her head like a canopy, she had not given him a glance. She heard
+his voice, the reverberating harshness of which seemed mellowed now to
+the rolling notes of an organ.
+
+Nothing that she saw, felt, and heard smacked of the earth, yet neither
+was it heaven nor hell. It was like a terrifying phantasmagoria where
+human souls floated, vacillating dully between misery and happiness.
+
+At last the sense of the words he was speaking penetrated to her
+understanding. There was nothing at all unearthly about them; on the
+contrary, they dealt in a practical way with the return of his
+Christmas presents, which he still considered hers, and had stored in a
+cupboard to await her gracious acceptance.
+
+Lilly shook her head with a mechanical smile. She could not find
+courage to utter a protest.
+
+"And now, my dear child," he began again, "you may ask what induces me,
+a man getting on in years, to pursue you with all the ardour of a
+youthful lover?"
+
+When he said "getting on in years," she involuntarily looked up. There
+he sat, with the light of the green-shaded reading-lamp full upon him,
+with the orders on his breast giving forth a golden radiance. The
+silver fringes of his epaulettes quivered at every movement like small
+snakes. He radiated the same glory as those haloed figures of saints in
+churches, tricked out in their draperies of gold and brocade.
+
+Lilly's eyes dropped in shame and confusion before so much splendour.
+
+"My object in looking you up that day," he continued, "was to inquire
+into the cause of a dispute that had arisen among some of my younger
+officers. It promised to be rather a serious affair, and I was
+compelled to take steps. I expected to find a little flirty shopgirl,
+and I found--well, to put it shortly--I found you. You will perhaps go
+on to ask, 'What of that?' for you cannot yet be aware of what your
+power is, or rather what your potentialities are, for with you, my dear
+Fräulein, all is in process of development. I am what is called a judge
+of women, and I can see in what you are to-day what you may become
+to-morrow if--and remember a great deal depends on this 'if'--if your
+development is directed into the right channel. To stay where you are
+now would simply be your ruin. Have the courage to entrust your fate to
+me, and I can guarantee all will be well with you."
+
+His tone was calm and paternal, at least so it sounded to Lilly.
+Feeling a little reassured, and with a hope for her future leaping up
+within her, she ventured once more to look at him. This time, through
+the shimmer of gold and silver, she beheld a pair of penetrating glassy
+eyes fixed on her full of eager inquiry.
+
+Again she became a prey to paralysing terror. She sat speechless and
+shuddering.
+
+"Whatever I do," she thought to herself, "it will be no good. He will
+get his way."
+
+"I have a fine old place," he went on: "Lischnitz in West Prussia, not
+far from the Vistula, where military duties do not allow of my going
+often. A well-bred middle-aged lady, a Fräulein von Schwertfeger, keeps
+house for me there. If you paid Lischnitz a visit, I can promise you
+beforehand that she would welcome you with open arms. Under her
+chaperonage you would have excellent opportunities of developing into
+what I foresee you will be in the future. In this way you would be
+provided for, and I should have the great satisfaction, when I come
+backwards and forwards, of finding my home brightened by youth and
+beauty."
+
+He had risen, and in the excitement of conversation walked about the
+room with short swaggering steps, and at every step his medal and his
+epaulettes tinkled and jingled like sleigh-bells. At last Lilly heard
+nothing but this metallic clinking, and ceased to grasp what he was
+saying.
+
+When he had finished speaking, he paused in front of her, so near that
+she could smell the scent of the hairwash he used.
+
+She leant back in her chair feeling somehow as if she were going to be
+bound hand and foot and carried away beyond the reach of help. She knew
+that she would neither scream nor resist, so completely was she in his
+power.
+
+"Look at me," he said.
+
+She tried to, she was so obedient, but she could not.
+
+He put his hand under her chin and gave her head a backward tilt, but
+she kept her eyes almost shut, and saw only the scarlet border of his
+military coat.
+
+And then she felt herself suddenly begin to sink; the red border went
+up to the skies ... all round was the buzzing of bees ... and then
+nothing more.
+
+When she came to herself, there was something wet and cold on her
+breast, and a woman's print skirt, with a smoky smell, brushed her
+face.
+
+It was still green twilight. A breastplate hung opposite her, reminding
+her of a scoured and brightly polished kettle. She felt so comfortable,
+she didn't want to stir.
+
+A rough, bony hand stroked her forehead and a kindly voice murmured
+over and over again: "Poor young thing! poor child!"
+
+Lilly, thinking it was time to give a sign of returning consciousness,
+moved, and the strong hand slid under the back of her neck and propped
+her up, and the kindly voice asked what she would like to do.
+
+"I want to go home," said Lilly.
+
+"That can't be done this minute," said the voice, "because he gave
+orders that he must speak to you again before he goes. But take my
+advice: just say 'Thank you' and 'Good-bye,' and be off as fast as you
+can. This is no place for a young girl like you."
+
+Lilly sat up and arranged her collar. It was the cook bending over her,
+with her rugged, weather-beaten, thick-lipped face full of compassion.
+
+She asked Lilly, as she patted her shoulder, what she should bring her
+as a pick-me-up--egg and wine, or a liqueur.
+
+"Nothing, thank you," Lilly answered. "Let me go home."
+
+"You shall, my dearie, but I must call him in first."
+
+She shuffled to the door, and Lilly reached for her hat, on which she
+must have beep lying, for it was more out of shape than ever.
+
+"I shall have to get a new one now," and she tried to calculate how
+much she could afford to give out of her narrow means.
+
+The door opened and he came in, followed by the old cook.
+
+Lilly was no longer frightened.... Everything seemed far, far off--he
+too. Nothing seemed to matter.
+
+"Now she's ready to be put into a cab," suggested the cook.
+
+"Your presence here is not required any more!" he thundered at her.
+
+The cook ventured to mumble an objection.
+
+"Go!" he roared. And she scuffled out.
+
+Lilly's sensations were now only those of languid fear.
+
+"I wonder what he means to do with me?" she thought. Her own fate
+scarcely interested her at all.
+
+He paced up and down, the silver spurs on his heels clanking.
+
+"We must have some light," he said. "Clearness is essential to the
+matter in hand."
+
+He rang for the man-servant who had smiled in that sly, mocking way.
+The man lighted the jets of the chandelier and retired, with a sidelong
+inquisitive glance at Lilly--but no smile this time.
+
+She was still sitting on the couch where she had been when she regained
+consciousness. Her mind seemed a blank as she twirled her old felt hat
+round and round.
+
+In the brilliant light cast from the ceiling she saw the colonel in all
+his resplendence, still silently brooding, as he paced up and down.
+
+She could look him quite calmly in the face now. "It's useless to try
+and defend myself," she thought, "so I don't care what he does."
+
+Next he seized a chair and planted it in front of her, so close that
+when he sat down his knees nearly touched hers.
+
+"Listen to me, child," he began, his words ringing out clear and
+incisive, like words of command. "While you lay here in your swoon I
+was thinking over in the next room very earnestly what's to be done. I
+came to a decision about your future; but of that later. You, of
+course, must have observed by this time that my sentiments with regard
+to you are not exactly paternal. The older I grow the less am I able to
+understand what so-called paternal feelings are. To cut the matter
+short, I have conceived a passion for you which astonishes myself....
+If I were ten years older--I am fifty-four--I should attribute it to
+senility. Do you know what that means?"
+
+Lilly shook her head. She could see his face now so clearly that to her
+dying day she could never have forgotten what it was like.
+
+His eyes flamed in their red sockets and pierced her with the
+rapier-like sharpness that had at first filled her with terror. In grey
+bristling strands his hair was brushed back from the temples; but his
+moustache, on the other hand, was coal-black, and shadowed his gloomy
+mouth like a patch of ink through which his teeth made a white line of
+demarcation. From the corners of his mouth the heavy folds of flesh
+descended into the collar of his uniform.
+
+"How funny it is," reflected Lilly, "that I am doomed to be the love of
+this bad old man!"
+
+Well, if it was his will, she was powerless to resist.
+
+"The world could tell you that I am reputed to be, in spite of my
+years, a subduer of women; it may be because I have never had much
+respect for them. But now comes a case which ... how shall I express
+it? ... a case that is somewhat unique. I have decided that before the
+old year dies I must make up my mind one way or the other." He looked
+at the clock. "I have still half an hour to give you, then I am due at
+a reception. Well, not to waste time, I may as well confess ... my
+intentions towards you in the first place were not honourable. To say
+that I wanted to seduce you would hardly be correct, considering how
+little there can be of a seductive nature about a man of my years. It
+wouldn't have been here, and not to-day, as I gave you my word of
+honour in my letter; but you would have been mine sooner or later, of
+that you may rest assured."
+
+"I've no doubt of it," thought Lilly, who listened as calmly as if she
+were reading an exciting novel. Still, her old horror of him did not
+return; and still she waited with dull curiosity to see what would
+happen next.
+
+"If you had resisted and shown fight, all the more certainly would you
+have been overcome. I am an old hand, you know. Then came your fainting
+fit, which gave me some insight into your disposition. I was forced to
+admit to myself that a conquest by force in your case would give me no
+satisfaction. You are made of noble stuff, and I do not require a
+languishing companion.... Whimpering mistresses have always been my
+abhorrence. I don't care to have my comfort disturbed by scenes. I have
+had experiences of the kind, which I am unwilling to repeat. So while
+you lay here being tended by my cook, I came to the conclusion I had
+been on the wrong tack. I resolved to adopt another course."
+
+Lilly was overcome with a pleasing sense of gratitude, as if she had
+been the recipient of an enormous benefaction. "How splendid of him,
+how kind," she thought, "to let off a poor stupid thing like me!"
+
+She cast a stealthy glance at his hands, which, long and yellow, hung
+listlessly between his knees. She would have liked to imprint a kiss on
+them to show how grateful she was, but shame deterred her; she was
+almost sorry that so glorious a man didn't want to have anything more
+to do with her.
+
+"Well, I took further counsel with myself," he continued, and his voice
+sounded sterner, as if steeled by the force of his resolution. "It was
+not altogether a new idea; I had often, indeed, thought of it. But it
+seemed ridiculous at first, and only to be resorted to as an extreme
+measure--a way of escape which I am now cutting off. Finally, I asked
+myself, why shouldn't I? I am not ambitious. I know too well the rotten
+machinery of diplomatic and military service; it's not worth while to
+give one's sweat and blood to oil the wheels. So the idea of
+resignation doesn't displease me. Of course, I should have to retire in
+the circumstances, perhaps anyhow, because there are mornings when I
+can hardly sit on my horse from the pain caused by that cursed
+sciatica."
+
+"I wonder why he is telling me all this?" thought Lilly, and felt
+flattered that so distinguished a man should discuss such important
+matters with her.
+
+"What is more fatal still for me is that I foresee the rising of a
+whole generation, thirsting to be revenged on the robbery that has been
+perpetrated at its expense. Naturally, the unflinching eye and the firm
+hand can accomplish much.... In either case, one must dare something.
+Well, my dear child, what do you say?"
+
+Lilly was silent, ashamed of being so stupid that she was not in the
+least able to follow him. It all sounded to her like double Dutch.
+
+"Well, will you ... or not?"
+
+"Will I what?" stammered Lilly.
+
+"Good God! All this time I have been asking you to be my wife," the
+colonel replied.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XII
+
+This was the moment in which Lilly's hopes and wondering astonishment
+reached their climax. Could it be Lilly Czepanek to whom all this was
+happening, or had she changed places with someone else--some heroine
+who only lived inside those old brown-covered books, and who would
+cease to exist directly the last page was turned? He did not urge her
+to consent at once. As she sank back in a helpless heap, incapable of
+speaking, he took her hands tenderly in his, and with the smile of a
+beneficent deity, reasoned with her more gently than she could have
+believed possible. She might think it over, he said, for three days, or
+he would even allow her ten. So long he could be patient, but she must
+promise in the meantime to say nothing about it to anyone.
+
+She gladly acceded, still too terribly ashamed to look him in the face.
+
+Then she ran home and cried and cried without knowing why she cried,
+whether for joy or for grief. She was still sobbing when towards four
+in the morning the sisters, who had relaxed their strict etiquette in
+honour of the New Year, crept in and passed through the room.
+
+When she got up in the morning she was sure that he could not have been
+in earnest, and that before the day was over he would send to say that
+he had changed his mind. She wouldn't care much if he did. Indeed, she
+would breathe more freely and thank God to be relieved from a haunting
+burden of perplexities.
+
+At ten o'clock there was a ring, and a basket of roses was handed in.
+The size and costliness of the blooms filled the sisters with astounded
+disapproval. They knew the price of roses in winter, and calculated
+that these had cost a sum greatly exceeding Lilly's wages for a month.
+
+"Really," remarked the elder, "I cannot see why you shouldn't give in
+to such a gorgeous admirer. If it was one of us, it would be different,
+of course. We are in society, and could not afford to lose caste. But
+you, a mere shopgirl without any family to disgrace, why shouldn't you?
+Besides, such a life has its charms and advantages. If I were you, I
+should certainly try it."
+
+The younger and more sentimental of the two protested. "The first
+step," she said, "should only be taken for love. That is what is due to
+yourself, even if you are nothing but a shopgirl."
+
+They were still debating this knotty question when they went off to New
+Year's parade. They wanted to see Colonel von Mertzbach in command of
+the guard. They had heard he was "awfully handsome," and that all the
+fashionable girls in the town were setting their cap at him.
+
+Lilly caressed her roses and would have kissed them all, only there
+were too many.
+
+Then she took courage, locked up, and went out to St. Ann's to consult
+St. Joseph. She would have met the officers riding to parade if she had
+not turned down a back street in the nick of time.
+
+High-mass was over, and had left an odour of incense and poor people
+lingering in the aisles. A few worshippers remained praying at the side
+altars. Lilly knelt down before her dear saint, pressed her forehead
+against the velvet padding of the altar ratings, and tried to pour out
+her torn heart to him, begging for advice and consolation.
+
+"Ought I to ... May I? Can I?" Oh! She hoped she might so very much.
+Such a chance was not likely to come more than once in a lifetime. She
+would be rich, a baroness, with the world and all its splendours at her
+feet. When did such things happen outside fairy-tales?
+
+If only one thing about him had been different. For the first time it
+struck her clearly what that one thing was.
+
+It was not his eyes, whose glance was a dagger-thrust. It was not the
+grey bristly hair on his temples, nor the harsh commanding voice of the
+martinet. No; now she knew that it was none of these, but the folds of
+skin hanging down from his chin to his throat. It was these that must
+always form a barrier between him and her. They couldn't be got over,
+nothing could conceal them. She shuddered at the thought of them. And
+yet the Asmussen sisters had talked of him as a handsome man. The
+daughters of wealthy and distinguished people were said to run after
+him.
+
+It would have been folly on her part to refuse him. Wasn't he the best
+and noblest and most high-principled of men? Wasn't he nearly as good
+and kind as God Himself? Then she mapped out a future in which she was
+to live and breathe only for him; to sit at his feet as a disciple. She
+would flutter about him in gayer moments like a dove, though she could
+not exactly picture herself being ever lively in his presence. But she
+might be poetic; she might gaze at the stars in the distant firmament
+and the evening clouds, and look the image of a pale, noble, saintly
+creature to whom young strangers would lift their eyes in devouring
+longing without being rewarded by a single glance from her. All this
+would be possible, because her life would be consecrated to him, who
+was her friend, protector, and father, to whom she looked up on the
+heights whence no gleam had ever descended to her before.
+
+"Yes, I will--I will!" an eager voice cried within her. "Yes, dear St.
+Joseph, I will!"
+
+For answer St. Joseph held up a warning forefinger. Of course, he would
+have done it in any case. He couldn't help himself, for his artist had
+presented him thus. And yet there was something disconcerting about
+that raised forefinger. It didn't somehow help a poor distraught human
+being on its way through this troublesome world.
+
+The next day Lilly got a letter from Herr Doktor Pieper, making an
+appointment with her at his office.
+
+She turned hot and cold. "He knows," she said to herself.
+
+When she asked leave to go, Frau Asmussen remonstrated severely with
+her.
+
+"You receive costly presents and flowers, and you are always wanting to
+go out; if you continue like this, I am afraid I shall have to offer up
+daily prayers for you again."
+
+But when Lilly showed her guardian's letter, Frau Asmussen gave her
+permission. Lilly had not seen him since that day, a year and a half
+ago, when she had come out of the hospital, so weak she could hardly
+stand. She had been too shy to accept his invitation to call on him
+again. Besides, there had been no reason why she should. From time to
+time a lanky, dried-up looking person, whom Lilly recognised as the
+head clerk, had come to Frau Asmussen's, and after a brief conversation
+conducted in an undertone, departed. This was the only sign that the
+man under whose guardianship she had been placed ever thought of her
+existence.
+
+"Herr Doktor Pieper will see you now," said the head clerk.
+
+As Lilly entered, the distinguished lawyer was sitting at his
+writing-table in the same position as she had last seen him. He raised
+his head and contemplated her with a long scrutinising gaze. Then he
+smiled and rubbed the mirrorlike surface of his bald patch. "Ah! So
+it's you!" he drawled.
+
+Lilly's respect for this man deprived her of breath. While he studied
+her from head to foot as if she had been a marketable object, she made
+an awkward movement, which was a cross between a nod and a bow, and
+tugged at the short sleeves of her coat.
+
+"Ah! I perceive, my child, that you have developed into something that
+makes masculine folly, not of course justifiable, because we are
+endowed with masculine intellect to restrain the tendency, but, at any
+rate, excusable.... But I haven't wished you good-morning."
+
+He rose and offered her his cool flabby hand, which felt as if it had
+no bones in it.
+
+"Please let me look at your gloves," he said next.
+
+Lilly trembled, and drew back her elbows like a thief caught in the
+act. She stammered out, growing very red, "I was going to buy a new
+pair to-day."
+
+"Don't, dear Fräulein," he answered, smacking his lips with
+satisfaction; "those holes are touching, and awake sympathy. Your
+winter coat, too, awakes sympathy. These are mere matters of detail,
+which contrast piquantly with the main features of your appearance.
+Anyone sentimentally inclined, even if he were not born a poet, might
+easily be inspired to an outburst of lyrical verse by such a pathetic
+appeal."
+
+As he spoke, he put his arm familiarly through hers and led her to an
+easy-chair, upholstered with many springs and cushions.
+
+"Sit down in this victims' chair," he said, "though I promise you there
+will be no drawing of teeth to-day. Altogether, you've done very well
+for yourself, my child. I am perfectly satisfied with you."
+
+He smoothed his well-kept fair beard and showed his teeth in a
+satisfied smile, like a conjurer after performing a specially clever
+trick.
+
+"When do you intend the wedding to come off?"
+
+"It's not even an engagement yet," murmured Lilly.
+
+"Oh, as far as that goes, there will, of course, be no engagement,
+properly speaking--that is to say, no formal announcements to friends,
+cards, visits, and other courtesies. Have everything done as quickly as
+possible--as quietly as possible; that is my advice to you, Fräulein.
+You see, in the very delicate situation of affairs in which we find
+ourselves, adverse influences are always to be feared."
+
+"But I haven't so much as said 'Yes,' yet," Lilly ventured to put in.
+
+This seemed vastly to amuse him.
+
+"Ho! ho! We're assuming the possibility of a refusal, are we? A
+refusal! Very clever! I shouldn't have credited you with so much
+capacity for business, dear Fräulein."
+
+"I am sure I don't know what you mean," said Lilly, a flush of
+indignation rising to her face--she knew not why.
+
+He thrust his hands against his sides and continued to be amused.
+
+"Yes, yes; that's all very well and practical, but a joke can be
+carried too far, you know. I advise you to leave it in my hands for the
+time being.... I understand these matters, though I must confess I
+haven't often handled so important a case. I will do my utmost to hurry
+on the wedding.... For reasons already stated, I must demand absolute
+secrecy till his resignation is a _fait accompli_. When the banns are
+once put up, providing you with a trousseau will be a minor
+consideration. My advice to you, young lady, is to behave for the
+present in as maidenly and ingenuous a manner as you can. A rosebud
+unfolding with the freshness of the dew upon it should be your example.
+But I would suggest the use of a better soap.... I think there's no
+room for improvement in anything else. The necessity may arise for you
+to take up your abode with another family, in which case the sum
+realised from the sale of your mother's effects--one moment, please."
+He opened a big ledger which he took from a rack by the writing-table.
+"A, B, C--ah, here we are--Czepanek. Sums amounting to one hundred and
+thirty-six marks will come in very usefully just now. My purse, too,
+out of a purely aesthetic enjoyment of the romance, is at your
+disposal. So much for the period before the wedding. As for the time to
+follow, which is of infinitely greater importance, I should not like
+you to go away from here without my giving you a few gentle hints,
+though, unfortunately, I am not in a position to"--he paused for a
+moment, and a satyr-like grin widened his loose-skinned cheeks--"take a
+mother's place and impart to you the precepts with which she would
+speed you on your way as a bride."
+
+Lilly understood this time well enough what he would imply, and redhot
+shame wove a fiery mist before her eyes.
+
+"In all matters connected with arrangements for your future, such as
+insurance, settlements, alimony in case of divorce, provided you are
+the guiltless party--or even if you were guilty--you may implicitly
+trust me. I was not made your guardian for nothing. But there is one
+contingency, very common in marriages such as yours, in which my
+professional help can give you no security. You must keep your eyes
+open for yourself.... We are placed in this world, my dear child, to do
+what we like; anyone who says the contrary would rob your heaven of its
+sun. But I give you a threefold warning: first, don't exchange
+superfluous glances; second, don't demand superfluous rendering of
+accounts; thirdly and lastly, don't make superfluous confessions. You
+cannot be expected to-day, perhaps, to understand clearly what all this
+signifies"--as a matter of fact, Lilly understood nothing at all--"but
+think of my words when occasion arises. They may be of use to you. Let
+me see. Another thing! Are you fond of jewels?"
+
+"I have hardly ever seen any," said Lilly.
+
+"Not at the jewellers' in the market-place?"
+
+"At school we weren't allowed to look in at the shop-windows," Lilly
+answered.
+
+He smiled his most unpleasant smile. "Then I venture to advise that
+every time you and your husband go out together you stop and look in at
+every shop-window. Such little hints are seldom ignored. Be specially
+charmed with pearls, my dear young lady. You will in this wise lay up
+for yourself treasures which, when your time of trouble comes--and,
+remember, it will come--will be of invaluable assistance to you."
+
+Lilly nodded, and thought to herself, "I shall certainly do nothing of
+the kind."
+
+Heir Doktor Pieper passed his soft plump well-kept hand over his glossy
+bald patch several times, and continued:
+
+"Well, what more have I got to say to you? A good deal, but I am rather
+afraid of being misunderstood. There is one thing, however, which must
+not be omitted. The early days of married life, no matter what its
+nature may be, are apt to have a disturbing effect on the nervous
+system. When you first feel depressed, take bromide. In fact, take a
+good deal of it. Draw a protective cap of indifference over your head
+in moments of strong excitement, whether caused by love or antipathy,
+so that you will not see, hear, or feel anything. You must deaden your
+perceptions and be unconscious of your will-power. In time you will
+become used to the oppressive hot-house atmosphere, probably in a few
+months; and afterward you will again breathe the fresh air, and then,
+instead of the bed-canopy above you, there will stretch again before
+you the heaven of your girlhood. When one's nerves are over-strained it
+is dangerous to think too much of one's immediate surroundings and to
+seek compensation there. Dream rather of the distant blue mountains.
+Let your happiness linger afar off. You are young, and it will
+certainly draw nearer as years pass. Give it time to grow up.... I
+expect you do not understand the very least bit what I am saying?"
+
+"Yes, of course I understand," Lilly stammered.
+
+She didn't wish to be thought stupid. But he was right. His words
+rained on her like hailstones of which she could only gather a few here
+and there--except the blue mountains. She had caught that, and liked
+the expression.
+
+"Never mind," he went on. "Something of what I have said will occur to
+you, I've no doubt, at times. Now I come to the last and most delicate
+point of all, because it deals, as it were, with spiritual conditions.
+Don't fret if your environment does not respond to you and echo your
+ideas. You must leave it, and not try to make things different. Bells
+that are cracked can never be made to ring in tune again. Rather
+provide music for yourself. I shouldn't be surprised if you have a
+whole orchestra at your command."
+
+"I have 'The Song of Songs,'" Lilly thought with pride.
+
+"You have no conception, my child, how essential it is, when you live
+in harness with another human being, not to lose touch with yourself.
+To hold a private court of your own flattering thoughts is an excellent
+diversion. Anyone who wants to eat fresh eggs must keep poultry; never
+forget that. But don't let anyone suspect. Display no unnecessary
+opposition, no obstinacy. You must arrange to run your life from the
+start on double paths, so that you can travel in both directions as
+your needs require. I shouldn't wonder if in these circumstances your
+marriage were to turn out happily, apart from its exceptional worldly
+advantages, the duration of which depend mainly on good luck and the
+exercise of tact and powers of adaptation. I shall send you the
+marriage contract sealed. Till your coming of age in two years' time I
+shall always be at your service. If you feel in after years that your
+temper is permanently tried, break the seal by all means. A good lawyer
+can interpret a contract very differently from a layman, and read all
+sorts of things into it. As I indicated, there is one case in which he
+is impotent to do this. Be on your guard against it. Technically, it is
+called _in flagrante_.... Sometime or other you will doubtless acquire
+information as to what the word means. Now, may I give the colonel your
+final consent?"
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XIII
+
+The train rumbled on through the night, showers of sparks flew up from
+the engine. When it was fed by the stoker, clouds of fire illuminated
+the darkness, and you saw in a flash purple pines, snow-covered gables,
+and wide-stretching golden spaces appearing out of black nothingness.
+How beautiful, how strange it all was!
+
+Lilly leaned her head, drowsy from champagne, against the red velvet
+cushions. It was over, and everything had gone off well. A kaleidoscope
+of confused pictures, half real, half imaginary, whirled through her
+brain. She saw a great black inkstand with a small grey-bearded man
+behind it asking lots of useless questions; a white lace veil with
+myrtle-leaves attached thrown over her head by the adjutant's wife, who
+went from one rapture into another; a hateful Protestant minister,
+with two ridiculous white bibs under his chin. He looked like a
+grave-digger, but at the end he gave such an exquisite address that
+Lilly would have liked to cry on his bosom. Two gentlemen in black, two
+in gay uniforms. One of the gentlemen in black was Herr Pieper, one of
+those in uniform the colonel. And she was the colonel's wife the
+colonel's wife! How the wheels seemed to murmur the words: "Colonel's
+wife!" But if you listened more attentively they also said--what the
+gentlemen at the wedding had said--"Most gracious baroness; most
+gracious baroness," always in time.
+
+The ice-cream had been so wonderful--a positive chain of mountains with
+peaks, and pinnacles, and little lights that shone through the
+crystals. She could have sat admiring it for ever, only she had to dig
+into it with a big golden spoon, and so overturn a whole mountain. She
+had asked him if she might have ice-cream every day in the future, and
+he had laughingly answered, "Yes, if you like." She must have been
+rather tipsy, or she couldn't have had the courage to ask such a
+question. She would find an opportunity of begging his pardon later.
+
+Now he sat opposite her looking her through and through with his
+piercing eyes. That was the only thing that embarrassed her, and if she
+hadn't been such a coward, she would have asked him to look the other
+way for a change. Not that she felt her old fear of him to-day. Of late
+she had gradually become more at home with him; how could it be
+otherwise when he was so kind, and she had only to express a wish to
+have it fulfilled instantly?
+
+Then there was something she had noticed that she would never dare
+breathe to anyone. He was bow-legged. They were the heavy cavalry legs
+all over, rather too short for the imposing figure they supported. They
+made him sway in his gait from side to side as if he were trying to
+walk on a tight-rope. You noticed it even more when he wore mufti and
+stuck his hands in his pockets as he was doing now.
+
+Every now and then he leant forward and asked, "Are you all right,
+little woman?"
+
+She should think she was "all right" indeed! All her life she would
+like to sit there leaning back against the red velvet cushions,
+looking at her new soft _suède_ gloves, and the shiny toes of her
+patent-leather boots peeping out from the hem of her travelling dress.
+
+There had been quite a crowd at the station. No uniforms, because he
+had dispensed with a military escort, but plenty of ladies had been
+there, thickly veiled, trying to appear unconscious, as if their errand
+at the station was an ordinary one. As she passed them on the colonel's
+arm and got into the _coupé_, she had caught two or three admiring
+remarks--and not from too friendly lips. It came back to her now with
+heart-felt satisfaction. At the very last moment two bouquets had flown
+in through the window, and she had looked out again. There stood the
+Asmussen sisters, bowing reverentially and crying buckets full. Her
+colossal good fortune had disarmed their envy and changed ill-feeling
+into a sort of melancholy rejoicing.
+
+And, opposite, sat the man who had worked the extraordinary revolution
+in her lot. For a moment she was so overwhelmed with a feeling of
+well-being and gratitude that she went down on her knees before him,
+and, clasping his hands in hers, gazed up at him in adoration.
+
+But when he caught her to him with one arm, and with the other caressed
+her, she became frightened again and retreated to her place. He let her
+be with a smile, conscious that his hour was not far off.
+
+And it came sooner than she had expected. "Get ready," he said
+abruptly; "we shall be getting out directly."
+
+"Where?" she asked, startled.
+
+"At the junction, from where there's a loop line to Lischnitz."
+
+"Are we going to your estate, then?" she inquired anxiously. He had
+talked of going to Dresden.
+
+"No," he replied shortly; "we shall stay here."
+
+Then they stood on a dark platform with their trunks and bags. The
+frosty haze cast rainbow halos round the few dim gas-lamps, and shadowy
+forms were enveloped in clouds of their own frozen breath as they
+emerged into the light. The train steamed out of the station.
+
+There they stood and no one heeded them. Then the colonel uttered one
+oath after another. He had acquired the habit of swearing violently at
+drill, when irritated. His fury fell on Lilly like a thunderclap, and
+made her tremble, as if she were the culprit. At last the colonel's
+oaths reached the ears of the station officials, who associated them
+with something familiar in the past, and they began contritely to make
+amends for their negligence by loading themselves with the luggage.
+They got into the hotel omnibus which was waiting, and Lilly squeezed
+herself into the furthest corner of it. Weird shadows flickered from
+the miserable little oil carriage-lamps, on his sharply defined
+features, giving him a new aspect, beneath which his long-slumbering
+wrath still seethed.
+
+"What has this dreadful old man to do with you, or you with him," Lilly
+asked herself, a shiver running through her, "that you should be at his
+mercy so completely? Why not rush past him, tear open the door, and
+leap out into the night?"
+
+She pictured what would happen if she acted on this impulse. He would
+stop the omnibus, pursue her, calling and shouting after her, and, if
+she was so lucky as to hide herself, he would set the police on her
+track. The next morning she would be found cowering under an arch
+asleep, perhaps frozen to death.
+
+At that moment he stretched out his hands, groping for hers, as people
+in love are wont to do. The shadows dissolved and she responded to his
+caress, wreathed in smiles. Yet on their arrival at the hotel, where
+the proprietor, waiters, and commissionaires received them with
+deferential bows and an effusive welcome, Lilly's thoughts, in the
+midst of all the bustle, light, and warmth, reverted again to flight.
+
+"I'll say I have left something in the omnibus, run out and never come
+back."
+
+She was already ascending the stairs on his arm.
+
+A spacious, awe-inspiring apartment swallowed them up. It had a
+flowered carpet and a glaring three-armed chandelier. In one corner
+stood a huge wide bedstead, covered with a smooth white damask
+counterpane. It was carved at the head and foot. She looked round in
+vain for a second bed. "St. Joseph!" she breathed to herself.
+
+The colonel made himself perfectly at home. He grumbled, turned up the
+lights, and tossed his overcoat into a corner. Then he lit a cigarette
+and threw himself down on the sofa, whence he watched with the eye of a
+connoisseur her movements as she reluctantly took off her coat and drew
+the pins out of her hat.
+
+There was a knock, and a waiter came in with cold refreshments and a
+silver-necked bottle on a tray.
+
+"More champagne?" questioned Lilly in alarm. She had not yet recovered
+from the amount that she had imbibed at midday.
+
+"Nothing like champagne," he said, "to give a little woman courage to
+consecrate the pretty blue silk _négligé_ waiting in her box to be
+unpacked."
+
+He poured out the foaming liquid into the two glasses. She clinked
+glasses with him obediently, but scarcely touched a drop of her wine.
+
+When he rallied her on her abstinence, she answered pleadingly, "I
+don't want to be tipsy on such a sacred night as this!"
+
+Her reply seemed to entertain him immensely. He burst into hilarious
+laughter, and exclaimed: "All the better! All the better!"
+
+He would have drawn her to him, but, as every touch of his caused her
+acute discomfort, she evaded him quickly and said, "I must look for my
+_négligé_."
+
+She knelt before the box, which she herself had packed the night
+before, lifting out the trays, and produced from the depth a garment of
+filmy lace and washing silk, which he, with all the other beautiful
+clothes, had bought for her before the wedding.
+
+She looked round in search of a sheltering alcove into which she could
+retire to change, but there was none no escape from those eyes, almost
+softened by their desire for her, watching everything she did.
+Shuddering, she stood there, clinging helplessly to the collar of her
+dress, which she hadn't the courage to unhook.
+
+He grew impatient and sprang to his feet. He nearly caught her in his
+arms, but the imploring look she gave him was so full of pathos that he
+chivalrously desisted, and stooped instead to pick up something which,
+in her search for the _négligé_, she had turned out of the box on to
+the floor. The next minute Lilly saw a white roll between his dark
+fingers.
+
+"It's 'The Song of Songs,'" shot through her brain.
+
+With a cry she hurled herself upon him, and tried to snatch the roll of
+music from his grasp, but his fingers were like iron. He defended
+himself and repulsed her attack with ease, laughing all the time. She
+was beside herself at the thought that her life's secret should be
+tampered with by strange hands, and she cried, implored, and beat him
+with her fists.
+
+Now the matter began to appear to him in a suspicious light. Doubts
+began to rise within him as to the unblemished purity of her soul, and
+even of her body.
+
+"Be careful, my little girl," he said. "Prevarication and deceit are
+out of the question now. You will kindly let me see what this is
+without delay, or I'll pin you down so that you can't stir a limb."
+
+"Oh, please, dear colonel," she begged and prayed, "give them up. They
+are only two or three sheets of paper covered with music, the music of
+songs--nothing else, I swear. Please let me have them, dear colonel."
+
+Her innocent pleading touched him, and the comical unconscious humility
+of her "dear colonel" made him laugh again. Besides, as the daughter of
+a professional, she might cherish musical ambitions.
+
+"Do you compose yourself?" he asked.
+
+"No, no, no! It's not my composition, but don't look at it," she
+entreated, "or I'll jump out of the window. I swear I will by all the
+saints."
+
+He was so delighted with the picture she made, her eyes wide with
+alarm, her hair loosened and dishevelled, the tragic mute expression on
+her sweet childlike face with its clear-cut features, that he wanted to
+prolong the struggle for a few minutes. So he looked very black and
+pretended to be what he really had been a little while ago--full of
+jealous suspicion.
+
+Then she fell on her knees, and, clasping his legs, she whispered in a
+voice half suffocated by her emotions of shame and distress:
+
+"If only you give it back to me, I won't mind what you do. I won't
+attempt to defend myself."
+
+The bargain struck him as advantageous.
+
+"Your hand on it," he said.
+
+"Yes, here is my hand on it," she replied. "And you'll never ask any
+questions? Promise."
+
+"Not if you swear by your blessed St. Joseph that it's really nothing
+but music."
+
+"Yes, nothing but music and the libretto, I swear."
+
+He gave her the roll, and she yielded herself entirely to him ... sold
+herself at the price of "The Song of Songs" to the man to whom she
+already belonged.
+
+
+                           *   *   *   *   *
+
+
+The early morning sunlight, shining straight in her eyes through the
+yellow striped curtains, awoke her. She felt herself resting on a sort
+warm pillow, and was conscious of having slept splendidly. Slowly it
+dawned on her what had happened. She leaned over to him with the
+intention of giving him a kiss. He lay with his head thrown back and
+his mouth open, and the light from the window played on his shining
+bristled chin. Over his haggard cheeks little red and blue veins ran in
+all directions like rivers on a map. His ink-black moustache glistened
+with pomade, and his eyelids were so wrinkled into folds that they
+must, it seemed, have reached down to the top of his nose if they had
+been ironed out.
+
+"He's not so bad-looking," Lilly thought to herself; but she omitted
+the kiss.
+
+She got up noiselessly and dressed herself without his moving. The old
+cavalry officer was a sound and heavy sleeper.
+
+Lilly scribbled on a sheet of notepaper which she found in the hotel
+blotter: "I am gone to church," laid the note on his pillow, and
+slipped down the stairs, past the porter, who was so astonished he
+forgot to say "Good-morning."
+
+The streets of the little town still slept in the peace of the late
+winter dawn. The snow had been swept from the middle of the road into
+heaps along the gutter. A party of crows sat in a circle round the
+frozen fountain in the market-place. From the distance came the faint
+music of sleigh-bells. Down the main street boys with satchels were
+loitering to school. In some of the smaller shops lights still burned
+and apprentices were sweeping and cleaning the steps, their faces blue
+with cold. As Lilly went by they stared hard, or called to others
+inside to come out and gape after her.
+
+The swinging tread of marching footsteps was behind her. A long train
+of infantry, wearing gloves but without cloaks, came tramping along in
+the middle of the road. They puffed, in regular time, clouds of frozen
+breath before them. Their eyes with one accord turned to the left in
+Lilly's direction as if by word of command. The officers, walking
+beside their men, exchanged significant glances and shrugged their
+shoulders.
+
+She had not far to look for the Catholic church of the parish. The
+clumsy stone fabric, with its remnants of Gothic bricked over, stood
+high above the roofs of the town. The side aisles were crammed with
+altars in barbaric colours, much gilded and adorned with paper roses in
+cheap vases. She could not find St. Joseph anywhere, and had to be
+content instead with Our Lady of Sorrows, between whom and herself
+relations seemed strained.
+
+A feeling of oppression and emptiness, which she could not explain,
+took possession of her soul. It was as if she had done something wrong
+and didn't know what. She kneeled down and gabbled her prayers so
+thoughtlessly that she felt ashamed, then she caught herself absently
+eyeing with contentment her _suède_ gloves, which moulded her fingers
+with such perfect ease and distinction. Every now and then a shudder
+ran through her, which made her shut her eyes and clench her teeth, and
+then she felt ashamed again.
+
+Soon she gave up attempting to pray, and gazed up at the Mother of God,
+with her tearful face, who appeared to be saying, "Please take these
+things out of me." Yet the seven swords piercing her heart were set at
+the hilt with pearls and precious stones.
+
+"If only I was really unhappy, I should have some excuse," thought
+Lilly. "Then I might talk with her as I used to with St. Joseph, and
+the swords in my heart would be costly to behold." As costly as the
+pearl necklace he had put round her neck just before the wedding.
+
+She saw herself as she had been two months ago, when she had stolen out
+in the grey dawn to lay her poor distraught heart at the feet of her
+favourite saint; how soon, with the reaction of youth, she had walked
+on air again, intoxicated at the thought of what was coming to her in
+the fair future. And all the time she had been actually steeped in
+poverty and wretchedness, forsaken and friendless.
+
+"Happiness takes on strange aspects," she thought, and she gave her
+shoulders a petulant little shrug.
+
+Then suddenly a great dread came over her that those times would never
+come back, that she must go on like this eternally, barren in soul,
+disturbed in spirit, persecuted by gloomy, inexpressible fears.
+
+"It must all come of not loving him enough," she confessed to herself.
+
+Now she knew what she had to petition of the Virgin Mary. She bowed her
+face in both hands and prayed long and fervidly--prayed that she might
+learn to love him with as much passion as she had blood in her veins;
+with as much devotion as she had hopes of her soul; with as much
+joyousness as there was laughter in her heart. And, lo! her prayer was
+answered.
+
+She rose from her knees with shining eyes, a burden lifted from her
+soul, and hurried away, back to him to whom she belonged, to serve him
+with all humbleness and confidence, either as his daughter, his
+handmaiden, his mistress--in any capacity he wished.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XIV
+
+
+They passed Berlin without stopping, because the colonel had no desire
+to encounter his military friends so soon after his _mésalliance_.
+From here in three hours they reached Dresden, and took up their
+quarters at Sendig's, where the hotel proprietors had arranged to
+provide the newly-married pair with the comforts and privacy of a home.
+Drawing-room, bedroom, and dressing-room were all they needed, for the
+closer their outer intimacy the nearer would their inward relations
+approximate. And, indeed, the colonel had every reason to be satisfied
+with his honeymoon. He, who in the course of his not too short life had
+held hundreds of girls on his knee, who thought he knew every type
+through and through, the sweetly clinging, the coyly coquettish, the
+brazenly bold, the sham and the true, and all their different kinds of
+kisses--this old amorous hand, who ought to have been surprised at
+nothing, was simply full of incredulous amazement at his last lovely
+find. In his whole carefully cultivated career as a _roué_ he had never
+come across so much yielding and so much pride, so much fire, ready
+wit, and quick understanding, so much naïve simplicity, as were
+comprised in this one dreamily smiling Madonna-faced child.
+
+Perhaps he was most taken aback and puzzled by her utter
+unpretentiousness. When they dined _à la carte_, she invariably
+selected for herself the very cheapest items on the menu, and would ask
+if she might have lemonade to drink with as much shy modesty as if she
+were making a love confession.
+
+Once, on their way back from the public gardens, when they wandered
+home through queer little back streets, Lilly, who resolutely declined
+as a rule to look in at shop-windows, stood transfixed before a small
+greengrocer's. The colonel, on inquiring what interested her, elicited
+gradually that she loved eating sunflower seeds, and would he mind very
+much if she bought some?
+
+The mote he loaded her with presents, the less able did she seem to
+realise that money was being spent on her account. So long had been the
+dearth of money in her life, that now she had no discrimination as to
+the value of it. However big the sum he placed in her purse, she did
+not hesitate to hand it out to the first beggar they met. But when he
+paid a flower-girl two marks for a rose she thought it wicked
+extravagance.
+
+Once when she had tickled his fastidious palate beyond belief by her
+_naïveté_, he asked in sudden distrust, "I say, little woman, are you
+acting?"
+
+She didn't know what he meant, and with the wide melancholy eyes of
+childlike innocence, which she used to turn on him at such questions,
+she replied, "Acting indeed! Since papa went away I haven't seen any
+acting, or been inside a theatre once."
+
+The same day he took a box for the play, and she danced about the room
+with the little blue tickets in her hand, half mad with delight. But
+her joyous enthusiasm was somewhat damped by being told that the
+occasion demanded evening dress. It was incomprehensible to her that to
+appreciate Shakespeare's "Winter's Tale" you should be obliged to bare
+your neck and shoulders. The evening gowns, besides, seemed far too
+grand for her. In selecting one to wear, she hovered round them with
+their glittering, jewelled trimmings and exquisite lace as gingerly as
+if they were a bed of nettles. In a generous mood the colonel had
+ordered the gowns, for no particular reason, for to take Lilly into
+society as yet was not to be thought of.
+
+When she came to him dressed, stiff and stern-eyed from embarrassment,
+yet glowing with a feverish joy in her finery, taller and more of a
+budding Venus than ever, her delicate rounded breast half hidden in a
+mass of soft lace, the fabulously beautiful chain of pearls on her
+swan-like throat, the elderly robber went into such ecstasies over his
+booty that he was near ordering the finery back into the wardrobe, and
+throwing the theatre tickets into the waste-paper basket; but she
+implored him so fervently to keep his promise that he thought better of
+it and got into the carriage with her.
+
+Then, he, who imagined he had long ago outlived the commonplace vanity
+of delighting to show off his possessions in public, experienced a
+triumph. The _blasé_ old bachelor found himself enjoying the sensation
+of being envied, and, though he accepted it disdainfully as a matter of
+course, he was tremendously flattered.
+
+Directly Lilly entered the box she was the cynosure of all eyes.
+Everyone speculated as to what the relationship could be between this
+extraordinarily handsome and distinguished pair, and when after the
+first act a thousand tongues of light leapt out again from the ceiling,
+opera-glasses were levelled at them, and a hubbub of questioning
+comment passed from mouth to mouth.
+
+It was the first time Lilly had ever witnessed a play from a box, and
+her first instinct was to hide herself at the back, but she had already
+learnt blind obedience to his commands, and when he pointed to the
+chair beside him she meekly subsided into it. Then, as she became aware
+of the universal notice she attracted, that strange numbness and
+feeling of detachment came over her. It seemed to her when she moved,
+smiled, or spoke, someone else was doing it all--another person with
+whom she herself had only a chance connection.
+
+Not till the lights were lowered and the curtain went up again did she
+awake from her lethargy. Then she followed the poet into his enchanted
+realms with breathless excitement and delicate thrills of suspense.
+After this two Lillies sat in the box--one Lilly in blissful
+self-oblivion flitted through heaven and hell on the rainbow wings of
+her childhood's phantasy; the other, like a wound-up doll, made stilted
+gestures and strove unconsciously to imitate the manners of the
+well-bred, feeling all the time a hot sweet torturing sensation
+creeping over her, the intoxication of vanity.
+
+Afterwards the colonel, not satisfied with his triumph at the theatre,
+instead of having supper as usual served upstairs, went with Lilly on
+his arm into the public dining-room where an Hungarian band was
+playing, and elegant people supped and displayed their fine feathers.
+Here the little drama of the box was enacted over again, save that
+Lilly, carried away by the wild dreamy melodies of the violins, let her
+awkward shyness drop from her, and expanding a little, with flaming
+cheeks and shining eyes, dared to play her small part.
+
+Opposite them, two tables further on, sat a fair young man, with
+expansive white shirt-front and black tie, like all the others. He
+stared at her with unflinching persistence, as if she were some rare
+wild animal.
+
+She writhed under the fire of this gaze, that caressed and hurt her at
+the same time and spoke a foreign language to her with the violins, the
+notes of which quivered down her spine and throbbed feverishly through
+her being.
+
+Suddenly her husband turned round and caught the admirer in the act of
+staring. He pierced him with his dagger-like glance to such effect that
+the fair-haired man speedily rose and disappeared. But the colonel's
+pleasure seemed spoilt. "Come, it's late," he said, and led her away.
+
+As soon as he had her to himself again his pride in his treasure broke
+out anew. It became a sort of unbridled frenzy. Lilly had to undress,
+as she had often done before, and pose in numerous attitudes, both
+classical and the reverse. Then, to wind up, she was compelled to don
+the silver-spangled gauze garment, which he had bought for her during
+their first days in Dresden, arrayed in which he liked her to dance to
+him before going to bed. The metal threads sent ice-cold shivers down
+her limbs, and pricked her skin like needles, but as it was his wish,
+and his wish was law, she made no demur.
+
+In bed he lit another cigarette, and while she sat on the edge of the
+bed he amused himself by telling her risqué anecdotes, which he
+described as "his little girl's lullaby."
+
+After this, the colonel preferred to take meals regularly in the
+dining-room. He wished to enjoy to the full the piquant pleasure of
+seeing his young wife openly admired and unblushingly desired. The
+value of his property seemed to rise in proportion to the extent that
+he was envied by others for its possession.
+
+And Lilly, for her part, could watch for the intoxicated sensations of
+that evening to awake in her ever anew. She might under drooping lids
+see and feel all those young, hot pairs of eyes around her hang
+burningly on hers, full of hopeless passion and desire; might,
+accompanied by the sad wail of the violins and the clash of the
+cymbals, take flight into those Elysian fields whither her road had
+been barred--she knew not how or why--since her great good fortune had
+come to her.
+
+Never did she dream of permitting herself, even by the quiver of an
+eyelash, to return any of those ardent glances. The young men who gazed
+at her were only accessories to the scene, as indispensable as the
+lights, the band, the flowers, the white tablecloths, and the cigarette
+smoke which rose to the ceiling in little blue columns.
+
+Nevertheless, one day, as she was walking arm-in-arm with her husband
+in the street, one of those glances shot her through the heart like an
+arrow. It proceeded from a pair of dark eyes, which even from a
+distance were fixed on her inquiringly, and flared up as they came
+nearer into a flash of melancholy fire and recognition.
+
+She felt as if she must run after him as he walked on, and ask, "Who
+are you? Do you belong to me? ... Do you want me to belong to you?"
+
+Then she committed the indiscretion of turning round to look at him. It
+was only for the fraction of a second, but her husband had remarked it,
+for when she again looked in front of her, she felt his vigilant eye
+was upon her, full of threatening suspicion. He nodded two or three
+times as if to say, "So it's come to this already." For the rest of the
+day he was preoccupied and bad-tempered.
+
+The incident was but the first of a series for Lilly. Not that she ever
+met that identical youth again, though she kept on the lookout for him.
+He was succeeded by innumerable others. Those she met, from this time,
+were no longer unsubstantial shadows of a vision she saw as if they
+were not there. Now, when she beheld a slight youthful figure coming
+towards them, she wondered what he would be like near, and if he would
+look at her. And should his aspect please her, and his gaze without
+being impertinent express admiring astonishment and longing, she would
+often feel a pang at her heart and say to herself, "You are far more
+suited to him than to the old man on whose arm you are leaning." And
+every time it happened she felt very sad.
+
+Still sadder did she feel when someone, whose appearance she liked,
+took no notice of her. "I am not good enough for him," she would think.
+"He despises me. I wonder why he despises me?"
+
+In fashionable resorts, such as the dining-room of the Brühlische
+Terrace, where there was a perpetual crossfire of covert glances, her
+attitude towards the outside world began gradually to alter. She would
+acknowledge the incense burnt at her shrine by an ever so slight
+grateful uplifting of her eyes. She returned without shyness the
+scrutiny of ladies, and in spite of being blessed with sight as keen as
+a falcon's, she would dearly have loved to possess a lorgnette like
+theirs.
+
+She was often tormented with a desire to look deep into eyes that
+rested on her without reserve, fear or restraint. It would have been a
+mystical union of souls, which would have done her infinite good; for
+she could not disguise the fact from herself any longer--she was
+hungering for something, hungering as she had never hungered in her
+life before.
+
+The colonel appeared perfectly oblivious of what was passing within
+her. But he waged bitter warfare with all who laid siege to her with
+their glances. The old Uhlan was incessantly on the watch, and was
+ready to stab on the instant with his eye's deadly darts the too
+persistent and ardent adorers. But there were some who were not in the
+least discomposed by his threatening demeanour, and who even had the
+audacity to return the compliment and look daggers at him. This made
+him uneasy, and he would fidget with his card-case, look as if he were
+going to write something, then put the pencil away; and generally he
+ended by saying, "We seem in undesirable company here. Come, let us
+go!" Yet, despite these uncomfortable experiences out of doors, he
+found it less and less possible to live at home completely _a deux_
+with his young wife. From his youth upwards he had been accustomed to
+gay society, and he liked noise, laughter, and light around him.
+Nevertheless, his suspicions grew and centred on Lilly.
+
+One day he put a stop to her early church-going, in which she found her
+greatest solace. The impulse she had followed on the first morning that
+she awakened by his side had become by degrees a habit. While he slept
+on in profound slumber, she softly rose and dressed herself and glided
+out in the freshness of the dawn. It is true that her church-going
+consisted often of merely dipping her fingers in the holy water and
+curtseying three times. Now and then she contented herself by passing
+the church door with an untroubled conscience and not going in at all.
+
+This was her hour of freedom, precious to her as gold, the only one
+that she had entirely to herself in the course of the whole day. She
+hurried first to the Augustus Bridge, offered her face to the breezes
+that blew there from every point of the compass, and watched the water
+rolling under her feet. Next she flew along the bank, like a whirlwind,
+for she wanted to take in as many fresh impressions and pictures as she
+could, before creeping back into the connubial yoke. Everything that
+happened in this blessed hour was fraught with significance.
+
+It was all experience, all happiness--the rosy early morning mist
+hanging over the hills and descending in golden shafts on to the river;
+the jangle of bells from the Altstadt; the first coy bursting of the
+buds on the russet boughs; the big waggons rumbling to market; the
+hissing of the swaying electric wires overhead when a tramcar passed.
+On these excursions she might even indulge in shop-gazing, as there was
+no fear of Nemesis in the shape of a present. How greedily she gloated
+over pictures and _objets d'art_!
+
+And now all this was to end. It was over. The gates through which she
+escaped for one single hour from the perfumed idleness and hothouse
+closeness of her gilded prison clanged behind her. But so pliable and
+yielding was her nature that not once in the secret depths of her heart
+did she complain. He wished it, and that was enough. Such powers of
+love lay idle within her, crying out for employment, that at this
+period of inward struggle she was obliged, whether she liked it or not,
+to give him a double share of tenderness, even whether her thoughts
+were with him or cantering off on a secret path of dreams.
+
+She was his slave, his plaything, his attentive audience. She valeted
+him, praised his personal beauty, massaged his thighs with salves,
+arranged the hare-skin on his loins to charm away his gout, gave him
+his carbonate of soda to correct indiscretions in diet, dressed his
+grizzled locks with a hairwash, the pungent odour of which turned her
+sick, and looked on, giving him the benefit of her artistic taste and
+advice, while he tinted his moustache. And she did it all with eager
+zeal and naïve self-reliance, as if in tending and coaxing him she had
+found the very aim and end of her existence.
+
+In the process, however, he became divested for her of every rag of his
+godlike attributes, so that nothing was left but a once soldierly,
+though now vain, and capricious man--mentally effete, for all his
+vaunted intellect; brutal, for all his refined tastes, with his
+appetites prematurely sated and enervated.
+
+Not that she was really clear in her mind with regard to these defects
+of his qualities. If she had been, it is possible that she might have
+loathed and despised him. She was too young and ignorant of the world
+to know that life is like a witch's cauldron, which brews out of the
+souls of all men much the same mess, when ideals bleach with their hair
+and they have no altar on which to gain salvation through sacrifice.
+
+The pictures her imagination painted of him faded and shifted from day
+to day, first in one direction, then in another, until something like
+pity mingled with her childlike respectful awe of him, and a certain
+motherliness that would have been unnatural, had it not had its
+foundations in the goodness of heart that found in the weaknesses of
+others an object for its fostering care.
+
+Ah! if only she did not long for so much. Every day she sat at a
+sumptuously spread table and longed for more!
+
+She read eagerly every morning the notices posted up in the vestibule
+of the hotel, giving a list of the evening's amusements. But the
+colonel would hurry her on--in the narrow groove of his small garrison
+he and the arts had become estranged. The organs necessary for the
+enjoyment of such things from long disuse had become decayed, and he
+shrank from the mental exertion required to galvanise them into
+activity once more.
+
+The music-hall variety performances, boxing matches, ballets, and
+garish living-pictures, in which he took pleasure, were abhorrent to
+Lilly after she had once witnessed them out of curiosity. He declared
+that wild horses should not drag him again to Shakespeare or Wagner,
+nor to the concert-room, where Lilly longed to go.
+
+One day Beethoven's Symphony in C Minor was among the
+announcements--the great work which was associated by a thousand tender
+ties with her childhood. She said nothing at the time, but afterwards
+she threw herself on her bed and cried bitterly. When he asked the
+cause of her grief she told him, and with a laugh he consented to be
+bored for once, and took her to the concert.
+
+She had not been into a concert-room since her father's last pianoforte
+recital. She trembled as they took their places, fought back her tears
+and drew in the atmosphere in deep-drawn draughts.
+
+"You are snorting like a horse when he smells oats," the colonel said
+jocularly.
+
+"Haven't you noticed that it always smells the same in concert-rooms?"
+she asked in joyous excitement. "It was just like this in ours at
+home."
+
+He couldn't remember what the concert-hall atmosphere was like, nor
+could he remember anything about the Symphony in C Minor.
+
+"It's all rot," he said.
+
+The part of the programme that preceded the Symphony was of no interest
+to her. She only wanted to listen to the trumpet-blast of fate--the
+call that she had heard first as she stood on the threshold of
+womanhood, and had been shaken to the foundations of her soul by a
+feeling of presentiment. And it came--came and thundered at every
+heart, and set trembling the knees of all those who were bound up
+together as fellow-combatants in the struggle against the mighty
+strokes of fate, and set them writhing as impotently as worms under the
+spell of a great power and a common fear.
+
+Her husband hummed to himself, half-amused, "Ti-ti-ti-tum." That was
+all it meant to him: "Ti-ti-ti-tum."
+
+As she turned to rebuke him softly into being quiet, she observed a
+tuft of yellowish-grey hair sprouting out of the cavity of his ear. She
+had never noticed it before, and it revolted her.
+
+"What can you expect, when he has hair growing out of his ears?" she
+thought, as if this physical defect accounted for his lack of an ear
+for music. A profound feeling of dejection came over her. Never again
+would she be able to rejoice in the beautiful; never again stretch out
+her arms in worship of great heroic deeds; never again slack her thirst
+for higher and purer things at the fountains of inspiration.
+
+The man who hummed "Ti-ti-ti-tum" and had hair growing out of his ears
+would be a barrier for evermore between her and all lofty living.
+The soothing sound of the violins did not console, the melancholy
+self-surrender of the Andante awoke no responsive echoes within her,
+the victorious jubilation of the Finale brought her no victory.
+
+She left the hall with her yawning husband, humiliated, miserable, and
+disgusted with herself. But her joy in life was of too robust a growth,
+her faith in the sunny side of human nature too unwavering, for such
+moods of depression to be of long duration. Soon after the concert
+something happened, which gave her hopes new wings and raised her again
+to giddy heights.
+
+Without having made any definite plans, it had seemed to be an
+understood thing that they were to stay in Dresden, or some other large
+town, till May, when they would proceed to Lischnitz, where, in the
+absence of the master of the castle, the often talked of Fräulein von
+Schwertfeger held the reins of management. One evening, however, the
+colonel, who was eternally vacillating between confidence in and
+distrust of his girl-wife, was seized with a panic of doubt, and in
+order to lay bare the innermost secrets of her soul he began to
+cross-examine her on her previous love affairs.
+
+Lilly, as usual, unsuspecting, related glibly first the story of Fritz
+Redlich, because he was the more important love, and, secondly, that of
+the poor consumptive assistant master.
+
+Her husband, in spite of his jealous misgivings, had retained his
+clearness of judgment sufficiently to appreciate the guilelessness of
+Lilly's conscience, and he now threw his suspicions to the wind with a
+laugh that he generally reserved for his broadest jokes.
+
+Lilly, having begun, was anxious to play further on her husband's
+emotions, so she went on to describe the wonderful lectures on the
+history of art, and how the poor invalid lecturer had infected her with
+his own burning yearnings to see Italy.
+
+Her cheeks flamed, her eyes swam under her heavily drooping lids, as
+she went on giving voice to her dreams and drawing word-pictures,
+almost forgetful that she had a listener.
+
+Suddenly he asked, "Shall we go there?"
+
+She couldn't answer. The very proposal seemed too much bliss. Then he
+began to think it over seriously. A man might just as well get into the
+train and be landed at Milan or Verona as mope in one place and be
+worried to death by stupid fools dogging your footsteps. Lilly flung
+her arms round his neck, then threw herself at his feet. This was
+indeed too much happiness.
+
+Her life now became an alternate dream of ecstasy and a fever of
+anxiety, for something might always happen to prevent their going.
+First, they had to wait for the knickerbocker suit, which he ordered at
+a tailor's as the correct get-up for travelling, and then there were a
+dozen other delays. The truth may have been that he was pondering
+whether he could command enough youthful agility to keep pace with her
+excessive _élan_ and capacity for enjoyment.
+
+Then a certain incident hurried on their departure. For several days
+they had been shadowed by a fair-haired, bull-necked young man, six
+feet in height, who with stubborn pertinacity tried to attract Lilly's
+attention. Judging by his appearance he was probably an Anglo-Saxon
+tourist. There was in his manner a lofty nonchalance which rendered him
+absolutely indifferent to the threatening darts of the colonel's eyes.
+
+For the first time Lilly saw her husband plunged in deep thought. He
+paced the room, muttering to himself repeatedly, "I shall have to box
+his ears"; or, "I must find a second."
+
+The next day, when this irrepressible person followed them at a few
+yards' distance across the Schlossplatz, the colonel wheeled round and
+confronted him.
+
+The fair giant measured him from top to toe without removing his short
+pipe from between his lips.
+
+"I may look at anyone I choose to," he said in broken German, "and I
+may go anywhere I choose to."
+
+He made a gesture as if he meant to turn up his coat-sleeves and struck
+an extremely pugilistic attitude, which discouraged all idea of
+inflicting on him a chivalrous correction.
+
+The colonel, with a final attempt to bring the matter to an honourable
+issue, handed him his visiting-card, which the stranger put in his
+pocket with a friendly "Thank you, sir," without evidently the least
+notion of what this formality portended. A little crowd began to
+collect, and there was nothing left for the colonel but to turn his
+back on him.
+
+The result of this passage of arms was, that in future the Englishman
+considered it his right to bestow on Lilly and her husband a greeting
+when they met. And the colonel, who tried unsuccessfully to stifle his
+consciousness of having made himself ridiculous in a torrent of oaths,
+resolved to leave Dresden on the spot.
+
+In Munich, where they stopped a few days, it being the middle of April,
+to pay their respects at the Hofbräuhaus, nothing happened of a
+ruffling nature. But the colonel had become nervous. He cast furious
+and intimidating glances at the most harmless admirers, and began to
+heap reproaches on Lilly's head. It seemed as if everyone at a first
+glance, he said, could divine she was not a lady, otherwise she would
+not attract so much vulgar notice. At another time Lilly would have
+been bitterly grieved, but now she was unmoved. She only smiled
+absently, for her spirit was far away, and already she fancied that she
+breathed the air of the promised land, on whose threshold she believed
+she was standing. One night more in the train, a short day in Bozen,
+and then the magic gates would swing back. Nothing now could prevent
+the fulfilment of bliss.
+
+
+                           *   *   *   *   *
+
+
+They were in a compartment of the express, which leaves Munich late in
+the evening and crosses the Brenner Pass in the gloom of early morning.
+Lilly and her husband sat in the corner seats by the windows. Not far
+from them, on the corridor side, a young man had taken his place with a
+pleasant smile, and then, without heeding his fellow-travellers, had
+soon become deep in a book that appeared to be written in Italian.
+Probably he was Italian too, an ambassador from that earthly paradise
+come to bid her welcome. Her interest in him was thus instantly
+arrested. From under her lowered lids, apparently asleep, she studied
+him. His severely cut even features were of a peculiar milky ivory
+colour. There was not a line or wrinkle in his clear skin, which looked
+as smooth as enamel. A small, dark, slightly curled moustache adorned
+his upper lip. The crisp hair on his temples was so closely cropped
+that the skin underneath gleamed through. She wanted to see what his
+eyes were like, but these were kept obstinately bent on his book,
+though he seemed to be only skimming the pages.
+
+What excited her admiring wonder about him most was the finished grace
+of his movements. It was almost as if a young woman were disguised in
+that black and white check suit, which charmed her eye with its
+_distingué_ cut. His throat disclosed a peep of a violet and dark-red
+striped silk shirt, under the soft collar of which a green tie was
+carelessly knotted.
+
+All this was not in the least bizarre in effect, but harmonised
+perfectly. The costume apparently had been chosen with care and taste,
+and, together with his total disregard of herself, it exercised a
+fascination on Lilly. She could almost believe that this young
+stranger, by his dress, bearing, and especially by his disregard of her
+presence, was compelling her notice.
+
+Absurd as it was, she felt quite nervous. When they reached the
+Austrian frontier and the custom-house officials entered the carriage,
+he said a few foreign words in a low tone, which the officials
+evidently understood, for they turned away from him with low bows.
+
+At the same moment he raised his eyes and let them wander round the
+carriage, and while the colonel was opening his bag, they rested for a
+second on her. What curious eyes they were! A dark, diamond-like
+radiance shot from them, yet they caressed, yes, caressed with a wicked
+confident tenderness, full of impatient questions--questions that made
+you blush.
+
+The next minute it was as if nothing had happened. He bent over his
+book as before, and appeared not to have seen her.
+
+Her husband gave her a look of watchful cunning as if he had discovered
+something in her face for which he had long been searching. Then, when
+the train went on again, he settled himself to sleep. For greater
+comfort he moved to the unoccupied seat next to the corridor. The
+stranger, wishing to avoid being opposite him, involuntarily shifted
+his position more towards the middle, so that the distance between
+himself and Lilly was appreciably diminished. A little more, and he
+would have been sitting directly opposite her.
+
+Had Lilly been on her guard she would have paid more attention to her
+husband's sleep. But all her senses were centred on a desire to elude
+the stranger, whose proximity pricked her with a thousand needles.
+
+She drew far back into her corner and looked intermittently out of the
+window, on the dark background of which the interior of the carriage
+was reflected as in a mirror. In this way she could contemplate him in
+peace, untroubled by a fear of his looking up and catching her. The
+light from the lamp in the ceiling sharply illumined his smooth, soft
+cheeks, with their polished surface merging into blue shadows on the
+temples. Such cheeks were surely made to be stroked and pressed
+against yours; to pass your hand over them would be a joy. And how
+long his eyelashes were--longer than her own--their shadow cast dark
+semi-circles as far down as his finely chiselled nostrils.
+
+Suddenly he raised his eyes again and looked at her. There it was
+again, that dark caressing glance--cold, and yet how seductive!
+
+She shrank back frightened, and was more frightened still at the
+thought that he might have seen her shrinking away from him.
+
+He gave a scarcely perceptible smile, and went on again with his book;
+and still she continued to weave anxious and flattering thoughts around
+him--thoughts that were criminal in themselves, which descended on her
+like an avalanche that she hadn't the power to ward off. And then, all
+at once, with an icy chill at her heart, she felt a soft, tender
+pressure on her left foot, which she must by accident have thrust
+towards the centre of the gangway, for a moment before it had been
+resting on her right foot, which was still pressed close to the door of
+the compartment.
+
+What was to be done? An indignant "I beg your pardon," an angry rising
+from her seat, would have awakened the colonel, and given cause for
+fresh suspicion and perhaps a duel. So she slowly, with extreme
+caution, withdrew her foot from under his and pressed it against the
+cushions, to be quite sure that she had rescued it. But she felt that
+the moment of hesitation had made her a participator in the crime, and
+this conviction oppressed and weighed on her more than her train of
+sinful thoughts had a few minutes before tormented her.
+
+In her own eyes she appeared dishonoured, polluted, a prey to any and
+every licentious man who crossed her path. But why blame him? Was not
+his impertinently expressed desire merely the fulfilment of her own
+impure wishes? The reflection half suffocated her. She wanted to spring
+up, cry aloud, and ask to be forgiven. The stranger, however, went on
+reading calmly, as if nothing at all had occurred.
+
+There was a glimmer of grey dawn when Lilly started up out of a
+half-waking doze. She saw a waterfall tossing its white foam beneath
+her; beyond towered huge moss-crowned rocks against the sky. It was a
+picture she had dreamed of, but never seen, appealing and impressive in
+its rugged grandeur and massive strength. All that had passed before
+she fell asleep seemed now a grotesque phantasmagoria devoid of
+reality. She glanced round the carriage nervously, and saw the stranger
+stretched out at full length, repulsive in sleep, his cheeks inflated
+and puffy as his breath came and went in heavy gasps. He looked to her
+now pasty and effeminate, and she loathed him.
+
+She turned away in disgust and caught her husband's eyes wide open,
+fixed on her in severe reproof. She started guiltily.
+
+"Can't you sleep any longer?" she asked, with a forced smile.
+
+"I have not slept at all," he answered.
+
+There was something in his voice that set her trembling anew. It
+accused and condemned at the same time. And how angrily he looked at
+her!
+
+The journey was continued in silence, and she paid no further heed to
+the stranger.
+
+After taking rooms at Bozen, the colonel came to Lilly and said: "Look
+here, my dear girl, this can't go on. I am tired of the unpleasantness
+to which I am subjected day after day. How far your appearance and
+behaviour or my age are accountable, I cannot say. We will not discuss
+the point. I have no charge of glaring misconduct and bad taste to
+bring against you. One does not expect the manners of a _grande dame_
+from anyone who a few months ago was serving behind a counter. It
+requires time to instruct you in such, and I can with confidence hand
+over your further education to our excellent Fräulein von Schwertfeger.
+So, if you please, we will change our plans and return to Germany by
+the midday train. On the evening of the day after to-morrow, perhaps
+earlier, we shall reach my estate."
+
+Lily was too crushed and miserable to make any objection. And the land
+of promise, the goal of her dreams, sank beneath the waves.
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER XV
+
+
+They arrived at Lischnitz in the small hours of Sunday morning. The
+colonel had forbidden any ceremonious reception, so that there was
+nothing to be seen in the faint moonlight as they drove up but the dark
+mass of shadows cast by the castle and its outbuildings. A couple of
+maid-servants stood on the steps with lanterns in their hands, and a
+tall lady, with a too slight figure, a wasp-like waist and a flaming
+aureole of red-gold hair sprinkled with grey, threw two thin arms round
+Lilly's neck, and in a plaintive, discordant voice spoke motherly words
+of welcome, which instead of warming Lilly's heart filled it with
+shyness and dread.
+
+Worn out, Lilly sank on to a billowy white bed, on the gilded posts of
+which pale-blue satin bows were perched like strange and wonderful
+butterflies. On the wings of these butterflies Lilly was carried out of
+a restless sleep into the new day of a new life.
+
+A gold lamp, with opalescent glass and pale-blue silk shade, hung from
+the ceiling. The walls were wainscoted with white enamelled woodwork,
+and between were panels of brocade in the same shade of pale blue as
+the counterpane, hangings, and lamp-shade. Through the heavy curtains a
+ray of sunlight revealed all this on its way over the old-gold Persian
+carpet, patterned with pale-blue wreaths.
+
+Lilly, with an ecstatic exclamation, jumped out of bed and tripped
+about on the soft carpet, the pile rising like waves of velvet over her
+feet.
+
+Nothing was to be seen or heard of the colonel. He had told her long
+ago that they would have separate rooms, but his must be somewhere
+near, perhaps on the other side of that glossy white carved door.
+
+She opened it cautiously and peeped in. The window curtains were
+hardly drawn back, the monster dark mahogany bed, with its tumbled
+pillows, was empty. There were prints of race-horses on the walls,
+hunting-crops, pistols, and military accoutrements. On the round table
+by the sofa was a pipe-rack and tobacco-jar, and close to the bed lay
+the familiar tube of gout ointment. Last night, then, he must have
+massaged himself, and had thus deprived her of her sacred duty. In the
+midst of her wounded feelings a shiver ran through her. Everything here
+was so strangely hard and relentless; threats seemed to be lurking in
+the corners. Hastily she shut the door again and withdrew into her pale
+blue kingdom.
+
+The room boasted two more doors; one led into the corridor, for through
+it Fräulein von Schwertfeger had brought her the night before. And once
+more she shivered. Without any preliminaries, as a matter of course,
+the thin melancholy person with lustreless eyes and imperious manner
+had yesterday taken possession of her. She and the colonel had
+exchanged a glance--a brief glance of understanding which meant, "I
+hand her over to you," on one side, "And I am ready to do my best," on
+the other; she was therefore at the spinster's mercy. Certainly she had
+made an attempt to cajole Lilly by petting and addressing her by
+endearing names, and bringing tea with her own hands to her bedside;
+yet the girl, who was ordinarily so frankly responsive and trustful of
+everyone, whether man or woman, felt conscious of an inward voice where
+this woman was concerned calling aloud, "Beware!"
+
+Now, as she gazed at the door which the claw-like fingers had thrown
+open for her, and recalled some of the chilling incidents of her
+arrival, a great loneliness and despondency oppressed her heart in
+spite of her newly acquired splendour.
+
+With impetuous hands she flung on the morning wrapper, which Fräulein
+von Schwertfeger must have unpacked, for it was hanging beside the bed.
+The third door remained to be explored, and Lilly hoped that it would
+lead her into the open air. She raised the latch softly, inquisitively,
+and with a little cry recoiled. Her eyes were dazzled at what she saw.
+
+A small room, flooded with sunshine and filled with flowers, laughed at
+her like a garden from paradise. Azaleas, as tall as a man, spread
+their coronets of pink blossoms over a lounge piled with cushions; a
+sweet little escritoire stood near it, inlaid with tortoise-shell and
+mother-of-pearl, and above waved the fronds of a feathery palm. But
+that was not the most beautiful thing; the most beautiful and
+surprising thing of all was the toilette-table. Veiled in white
+lace, it greeted her modestly from a corner. The top was a sheet of
+thick crystal glass polished at the edges, and on it stood a tall
+three-sided swing-mirror, in which you could see every part of yourself
+at once--your back hair, profile, dress fastening and all. Long had she
+wished for a mirror like this, but would never have dared to ask for
+it.
+
+This enchanting little room was, of course, the boudoir. Lilly Czepanek
+with a boudoir! Was such a miracle to be believed? An array of articles
+was laid out on the glass top of the dressing-table. You could not take
+them all in at a first glance, however wide you opened your eyes:
+ivory-backed hairbrushes, a set of four, hard and soft, a hand-glass
+with a daintily carved handle, a powder-puff in a round ivory box, a
+glove-buttoner and shoe-horn--all silver and ivory. And more, still
+more! Whoever saw such things? Only by degrees could you learn for what
+mysteries of the toilette they were designed, and on every single one
+flaunted in glistening gold the monogram "L. M." under the coronet with
+seven points.
+
+It was enough to drive you crazy with delight! Having gloried in
+everything to her heart's content, she proceeded on her triumphal march
+through her new territory. The room she was in had only one window, or
+rather a glass door. This opened on to a balcony, where a rocking-chair
+was placed, and where over a high iron trellis-work young creepers
+rambled. Later in the year, when the leaves were fully out, you would
+be quite shut in by high green walls; but now, in early spring, you
+could easily be seen through the spaces in the leaves from below.
+
+She slipped cautiously out through the glass door into the open air.
+The stables and barns were seen on her left above the kitchen-garden
+wall, forming a quadrangle round the yard; to the right were gigantic
+trees, their trunks green with moss, their tangle of boughs only thinly
+covered as yet with tender young leaves and buds. In them the birds
+were making a vociferous riot, almost deafening to hear. Straight
+opposite, at a few yards' distance, a gabled roof rose among the trees,
+belonging to an ancient one-storeyed shooting lodge that abutted on the
+park, and apparently had its entrance in the yard. Here at last some
+human creatures were visible. Two gentlemen, one with a short grey
+beard, the other middle-aged, stout, and as brown as a berry, walked up
+and down together smoking, and deep in conversation. And a third----
+
+Why! what did this mean? That slim, muscular youth with the high collar
+and light yellow gaiters, sitting on the outside of one of the windows
+at the gable end, while he coaxed a red puppy on a leash to climb
+his knee--who was he? No other than Walter von Prell! Yes, there could
+be no doubt about it! It was her lively comrade, the dear little
+ex-lieutenant who boasted that he was unblessed with any sort of moral
+sense, the only man in all the world who had kissed her lips ... except
+the colonel, who didn't count.
+
+Yes, she recognised the light eyelashes, and the jingling gold bangle
+and the light almost inaudible laugh, which every time the red dog with
+pricked ears fell off his knee convulsed him like an earthquake. The
+one thing different about him was that his hair, close cropped of old,
+like yellow velvet, was now rather long and straggling.
+
+Lilly stretched out her arms toward him playfully, with a light-hearted
+laugh.
+
+"Herr von Prell! Herr von Prell!" she would have liked to call out, but
+fortunately stopped herself in time.
+
+Well, at any rate, she was no longer quite alone in this strange world.
+Her merry comrade was here to be her knight and playmate; she owed all
+her good fortune to him.
+
+Then it came back to her how he had said that the old colonel was "dead
+nuts" on him, and wanted him to come and play "Fritz Triddelfitz"--she
+knew her "Stromtid"--on his estate.
+
+Only, it was funny that the colonel had in all these weeks never
+mentioned that he was there. He did not talk much about his home,
+however, and Fräulein von Schwertfeger was alone alluded to when his
+young wife needed a reprimand.
+
+Did he suspect that it was no other than Prell who had discovered her
+and brought her into the light of day? Anyhow, she would certainly not
+let the morning pass without telling the colonel and Fräulein von
+Schwertfeger that they were old acquaintances. It would not be
+necessary to say anything about the kiss. After all, it had meant
+nothing more than a kiss in a game of kiss-in-the-ring.
+
+No sooner had she got back to her bedroom and pulled back the curtains
+than someone knocked at the door, three short, impatient taps which
+seemed to freeze the marrow in her bones. It was Fräulein von
+Schwertfeger, of course. Who else could make her tremble so with
+fright? Her forehead was kissed, her cheeks stroked with every sign of
+approval and liking. But the glance of the great colourless eyes
+measured her from head to foot; a sour suppressed smile hovered about
+the hard-cut mouth, round which the skin was red and baggy, as is often
+the case when women with once good complexions age prematurely.
+
+Over her arm was thrown a pile of clothes, which Lilly recognised as
+her own.
+
+"I have brought you what you will require, my dear child," she said,
+"so that you may dress properly for the morning. In the country it is
+not customary to fly about the house in a morning wrapper. Meanwhile,
+after breakfast, we are to make a little tour of the estate, so that
+you can become acquainted with the people and see how the household
+works."
+
+"Shall I do the housekeeping?" asked Lilly, shyly.
+
+"If you understand how," said Fräulein Schwertfeger, and bit her lips
+while her half-closed eyes squinted askance.
+
+Lilly dimly apprehended that her harmless question had been taken as a
+suggestion of infringing rights. So to make amends for her want of tact
+the added haltingly, "At least, I should like to do it if I----" She
+was going to add, "am allowed," but Fräulein Schwertfeger interrupted.
+
+"My dear," she said, drawing herself up, "you have come here as
+mistress, and I am perfectly aware of the fact. But, if I may venture
+to advise, I should make no demands in your place to begin with; you
+will have enough to do in attending to your own behaviour. On this will
+depend your ever becoming in reality what you are now in name only."
+
+Lilly felt too snubbed and depressed to answer.
+
+The duenna was showing her hand already.
+
+"I should advise you further," she went on, "to feel very carefully the
+ground on which you will afterwards have to move. For this you will
+need a guide who is more familiar with it than yourself. Otherwise you
+may be landed in difficulties from which you can never be rescued, and
+that, considering your relations to the colonel, would be a great
+pity."
+
+Tears began to rise in Lilly's eyes. The old feeling of impotence,
+which she considered her greatest fault, overcame her.
+
+"Oh, please, don't _you_ be my enemy," she implored, clasping her
+hands.
+
+There was a sudden ray of light in Fräulein von Schwertfeger's eyes,
+which lay usually like extinct volcanoes beneath their heavy lids, and
+whether it meant inquiry, astonishment, or compassion was not quite
+clear. For a moment she continued to stare before her into space, and
+Lilly beheld a grand noble profile that looked as if it had been
+chiselled out of marble and seemed to belong to someone quite
+different.
+
+Then she found herself being encircled by two long thin arms, and held
+in an embrace warmer and sincerer than any of the endearments Fräulein
+von Schwertfeger had previously lavished on her.
+
+"My dear child!" she exclaimed, "you really are a dear child," and she
+departed.
+
+Half an hour later Lilly, attired in the clothes Fräulein von
+Schwertfeger had chosen for her, entered the dining-room, where old
+Ferdinand, a withered, spindle-legged specimen of the ancient retainer,
+was laying the breakfast. The impudent footman with the significant
+smile was not there, Lilly was thankful to see.
+
+The colonel came in from his early morning ride. His eyes sparkled with
+the landlord's pride in his property. His thin cheeks glowed and
+dewdrops hung on the grey bristles on his temples. His tweed jacket
+became him, and his bowlegs were hidden beneath the table. Altogether
+he looked a fine old Nimrod, both wicked and pleasing. Lilly flew into
+his arms, and with a glance round he asked:
+
+"Well? How do you like your home?"
+
+Lilly kissed his hand for calling it _her_ home.
+
+The dining-room was long and lofty, vaulted at each end, and filled
+with dark carved-oak furniture. In spite of three bay windows opening
+on the terrace the room was dimly lighted. From the terrace, railed
+flights of steps led down into the park, where the sunbeams, playing on
+the young foliage, made a lacework of green.
+
+At breakfast they discussed the circular route which was to be taken to
+show the young mistress her new domain. The colonel had no idea of
+presenting her formally to the tenants. She was to take them as she
+found them in their Sunday best, and they might gaze their fill at her
+as she passed.
+
+The head men on the estate, who from time immemorial had dined at the
+castle on Sundays, would pay their respects to her later at dinner.
+
+"The latest addition to them was once one of my officers, a Herr von
+Prell," the colonel remarked, giving Lilly a reflective look. "He left
+the army before I did, and has come here to learn farming," he added
+quickly.
+
+Here was Lilly's golden opportunity of telling her husband that she
+knew him, but the confession died in her throat. She couldn't tell him;
+it wouldn't do. She would at once involve herself in a mesh of
+suspicions.
+
+The great pale eyes of Fräulein von Schwertfeger were already fixed on
+her face full of searching scrutiny.
+
+Anyhow, one thing was clear, the colonel knew nothing. He had not
+mentioned the young reprobate's presence on the estate before,
+evidently because he didn't think him worth it.
+
+"How is he behaving?" he asked, turning to Fräulein von Schwertfeger.
+
+"Good gracious, colonel, don't ask me!" she exclaimed, regarding the
+nails of her long thin fingers, which shone like mother-of-pearl. "You
+know I never find fault till I am obliged."
+
+"Damned young scoundrel!" the colonel laughed, and Lilly, who
+involuntarily took her comrade's part, felt that was fault-finding
+enough.
+
+After breakfast the tour began. Lilly walked between the colonel and
+Fräulein von Schwertfeger. They were joined by a pack of dogs, with
+whom she was instantly on friendly terms. First they went to the
+kitchen. It was a simply wonderful kitchen. It had walls of Dutch
+tiles, copper taps out of which streams of hot and cold water gushed,
+and a hearth of solid porcelain. Everything was so astonishing you
+hardly knew what to look at first. And there was a face, an old rugged,
+weather-beaten, thick-lipped face that looked up with moist eyes,
+dumbly inquiring, "Don't you remember me, then?" And Lilly's eyes
+answered, "Yes, I remember you." But she dared not speak with her lips
+as well as her eyes, in case Fräulein von Schwertfeger should be
+started on investigations of the most crucial hour of her life, and
+have a greater contempt for her than she had already. So she gave the
+old cook her hand in silence, which renewed their bond of friendship.
+Next they wait to the farm-servants' kitchen, where the Sunday soup was
+boiling and bubbling in a huge copper cauldron like a stormy sea. Then
+to the laundry, where the wringers and mangles shone like plated
+dreadnoughts and the fragrance of soap lingered pleasantly in every
+corner and cranny. The dairy and storerooms came next. Great hams hung
+from the rafters like giant bats, wrapped in grey muslin; sausages,
+too, like brown polished bolsters; and on straw there lay, even now in
+April, piles of winter apples, golden pippins, and other rare kinds.
+Rows of wide-lipped jars stood on the store-closet shelves. They
+contained the preserves and dried fruits, to which one might help
+oneself. Now the trio crossed the paved yard, where the waggons and
+threshing-machines stood in line like soldiers on parade, to the barns
+and stables. The saddle-horse stable! Heavens! what a palace! Wicker
+chairs with cushions and footstools in front of them were scattered
+about inviting you to rest. Over the stalls ran a matting frieze, with
+porcelain plates on which the names of the thoroughbreds who dwelt
+inside were engraved. Glossy slender necks and silken manes were thrust
+forth to greet the beautiful young mistress, and intelligent human eyes
+looked at her beseechingly.
+
+"You must choose one of these to ride," said the colonel.
+
+"But I can't ride," replied Lilly, embarrassed.
+
+The grooms in red coats, who stood about with their caps in their
+hands, grinned incredulously. A "gracious" lady who couldn't ride had
+never come their way before.
+
+Then they visited the stalls of the cart-horses. These were less
+interesting. Some of them were dirty and not sweet-smelling. As for the
+cowsheds, they made you feel nearly ill. But she took care not to show
+what she felt, and, eager to learn, listened attentively to all the
+colonel's and Fräulein von Schwertfeger's explanations.
+
+The severest ordeal was yet to come--the progress through the
+labourers' quarters. The people had just come home from church, and
+stood in little expectant groups before their doors. The worthiest and
+most venerable were the first to be introduced. There were many names
+difficult to master, dirty hands and faces that stared at her awed, but
+with a subdued "Who are you?" expression.
+
+Lilly, nevertheless, acquitted herself of her task as if born to it.
+She had little kind speeches ready that went straight to the hearts of
+the sick and aged, and when she fell on her knees to draw a toddling
+baby into her arms and kiss it, a murmur of approval cheered her on her
+way. At the further end of the settlement were two or three barnlike
+buildings that seemed to have been made into dwelling-houses as an
+afterthought. They had irregular windows with casements painted red and
+blue, and the single doorway had been partially bricked up. Here the
+Polish immigrants were housed. They came originally as hirelings from
+distant provinces to help with the harvest, and had never returned.
+
+The district in which the castle was situated had always, from ancient
+times, been Teuton, and staunchly Teuton it had remained through the
+Slav invasion. It was necessary, therefore, Fräulein von Schwertfeger
+said, to uphold the banner of Teutonism. She spoke in so warning a tone
+that Lilly felt ashamed, as if she had done something to pull it down.
+
+Scarlet head-kerchiefs prevailed here, and great blue hunted-looking
+eyes gazed at her, imploring sympathy. Here and there an obeisance was
+made to the very hem of her skirts, a shy kiss was pressed on her
+sleeve. "Niech bedzie pochwalony Jezus Chrystus" fell fluently on her
+ear, and she responded instinctively: "Na wieki wiekow! Amen." For she,
+the Catholic, knew from childhood that this was the correct answer to
+the Polish greeting.
+
+There arose a joyous hum and glad whispering among the little herd as
+they huddled cringingly together. This fair young Pana had spoken to
+them in their own language and the language of their God.
+
+"I never knew that you spoke Polish," remarked the colonel, with a
+jarring note of blame in his voice; and Lilly, laughing nervously,
+explained how she came by the phrase.
+
+They did not linger long at the next building, where a group of youths
+in gray blouses stood awkwardly bowing and twirling their caps. She was
+scarcely given time to bestow on them a kindly smile and nod, and even
+this was evidently not approved. Though she said nothing, Fräulein von
+Schwertfeger's aristocratic nose held Teutonism aloft by sniffing in
+the air.
+
+"Now, darling," she said, when they were on the castle steps again,
+"you will change into your dark-blue cloth gown. I have had it unpacked
+and pressed out, and you will find it in your dressing-room with a lace
+collar. It is the fitting costume for Sunday dinner."
+
+Lilly arrayed herself obediently in the dark-blue cloth, in which she
+looked extra slight, and her heart beat in trepidation at the thought
+of meeting her merry friend, who could not be supposed to know that she
+had disowned him, and who might betray both of them at the outset by
+some careless allusion to their former friendship.
+
+The dinner-gong sounded through the house, and the next minute came
+those three quick, incisive taps on the door.
+
+She started back from the mirror, for on no account must Fräulein von
+Schwertfeger guess she was vain. The latter regarded her silently for
+a moment from head to toe, then, seizing both her hands while her
+pale-blue eyes burned into her, she said, "God grant that you don't
+work too much mischief in this world, my child."
+
+"Why should I do mischief?" stammered Lilly, once more humiliated. "I
+have never done anyone any harm."
+
+Fräulein von Schwertfeger smiled. "The one good thing about you is that
+you are ignorant of what you are," she said, and drew her by the arm
+out into the corridor and down the creaking old staircase to the
+dining-room.
+
+There, with the colonel, drawn up in line, stood four dark manly
+figures ready to greet her. He of the pointed grey beard was introduced
+as "Herr Leichtweg, our head steward." He of the stout form and
+sunburnt coppery skin as "Herr Messner, our book-keeper"; and then
+another, and then--"Lieutenant von Prell, agricultural pupil," said the
+colonel.
+
+A slight inclination of her head to him as to the others. She dared not
+let it be more.
+
+"But, oh!" she thought, "my poor merry comrade, what have you done to
+yourself?"
+
+A long frock-coat fell to his knees, his small pointed head was lost in
+the high collar. All was correct to a fold. His expression, gestures,
+bearing, everything about him was marked by obsequious formality and
+rigid propriety.
+
+Lost in pitying amazement, she contemplated him. Had she not seen him
+that very morning so different!
+
+"You should shake hands with them," the Schwertfeger voice prompted
+behind her.
+
+She collected herself, and returned the pressure of the two honest
+countrymen's sun-tanned palms with more warmth, perhaps, than became a
+stately young chatelaine; but from Prell's freckled but still carefully
+kept hand she withdrew hers quickly.
+
+"What a blessing! I needn't be afraid of his giving me away," she
+reflected.
+
+Then came grace.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XVI
+
+
+The finches were the worst behaved, though the tomtits and the
+nuthatches ran them very close in the noise they made. As for the
+blackbirds and thrushes, they seemed to think the place belonged to
+them; much more so than the starlings, who kept to themselves, and
+apparently cared for nothing in earth or heaven. The wrens and
+hedge-robins contributed their fair share to the chorus, but nothing
+could beat the fanfare of the finches, which was almost more than ears
+only accustomed hitherto to the tiny song of a caged cock-canary could
+endure.
+
+The aged Haberland in his felt slippers knew them all apart. The old
+gardener's office had become a sinecure, as he was too infirm now to do
+anything more than sprinkle the lawn with the hose. Old Haberland knew
+exactly which birds built their nests in the trees and which on the
+ground, at what hour they began to sing, and the best post of
+observation to take up if you wanted to study their habits and plumage.
+
+It was horrible that the squirrels must be shot. She could almost have
+hated the old fellow when she saw him going out with his rifle under
+his coat to wage war against those jolly little beasts. For he declared
+that the artful little robbers knew the gun when they saw it, and
+scurried off and outwitted him if they caught sight of it. He wasn't on
+friendly terms either with the jays and magpies. His favourite was the
+shy green woodpecker, which he had coaxed to nest in the park. Then
+there was that curiosity, the parti-coloured hoopoe, so tame that it
+came fearlessly at all hours of the day close up to the castle, sang
+its "Hu-tu-tu," and then with his crooked sabre of a bill cut the worms
+out of the grass.
+
+Since the world began there could not have been such radiant glorious
+mornings as these. When you put your head out of doors at five o'clock,
+the cool purple mist wrapped you about like a royal mantle. Over the
+pond, where the reeds and rushes seemed to grow up in a night, forced
+by invisible hands, lay sunlit vapours which lifted gradually and rose
+into the sky in luminous columns. Vapour arose everywhere. Often it
+looked as if white fires had been kindled on the slopes of the lawn;
+clouds of light rolled heavily from the glittering fronds as if
+satiated with the dew they had absorbed. Oh, what mornings!
+
+Then, when things burst into flower, you never grew tired of wandering
+about, filling apron and basket with great sprays of snowy and purple
+lilac and trails of golden chain, till you were almost drowned in a sea
+of blossom. The mad joy of the dogs was indescribable, when their
+lovely young mistress appeared smiling on the garden steps in her white
+blouse and short skirt, armed with scissors and shears. Patiently they
+waited for her, whining and yelping if she came later than they
+expected; for they had given her without hesitation their canine
+allegiance, regardless of pitying, benevolent smiles from Fräulein von
+Schwertfeger, whom they abhorred.
+
+The cleverest of them all, Bevel the terrier, was not numbered among
+her admiring bodyguard, as he never failed to attend at the colonel's
+heels when he took his early morning survey of his acres. But there was
+Pluto, the long-eared setter, who now in the spring was out of
+employment, and went on his own account hunting rabbits in the park.
+There were Schnauzl the poodle and Bobbi the dachshund, who lived in
+constant state of jealous feud with each other because of her. But most
+beautiful of all was Regina, the huge panther-like Dane, whose left
+foreleg had been injured by a stone, and who, ashamed of her lameness
+in the daytime, always slunk out of the sight of strangers, though at
+night she made up for it by keeping indefatigable guard and terrifying
+the neighbourhood by her bay.
+
+Indescribable, too, were the gambols of the colts in the paddock beyond
+the rose garden, the craving for caresses of the two-year-olds, when
+their sugar-squandering mistress pulled back the hurdles and stretched
+out her arms, to pillow on them the slender heads of her young pets.
+
+Nothing, too, could equal the fury of the turkey-cock when the
+pheasants stole a march on him and got the first crumbs; though he
+surpassed himself in jealous rage when those idiotic ducks dared to
+squat on Lilly's feet as if it were a perfectly natural thing to do. So
+bristling with anger was he that he would sometimes peck at Pluto's
+drooping ears, an attention which the setter declined with a
+contemptuous shake of the head.
+
+Oh! those were mornings worth living!
+
+After the early stroll round the estate came breakfast, at which she
+arrived so brimming over with happiness and affection that it didn't
+matter whether she threw her arms first round the colonel's neck or
+Anna's; for now in confidential moments she was permitted to call her
+by her Christian name, and felt more drawn to her, though still full of
+fear of her displeasure and harsh judgment. For indeed she found in her
+a severe schoolmistress. No word, gesture, or movement of Lilly's
+escaped observation, or if necessary, reproof. There was a right and a
+wrong way of sitting at table, or in an arm-chair, pouring out tea, of
+asking someone to sit down, of beginning a conversation, and making
+visitors known to each other. Lilly learnt to glide over the difficulty
+of forgotten names and to show each one the proper degree of
+friendship. These and a hundred other little matters Lilly was
+enlightened upon. There seemed no end to them.
+
+This was only practising in the small compass of the castle and on its
+occasional guests. The real thing was to come later, in the autumn,
+when Lilly was to call on the wives of the proprietors of the
+neighbouring estates. Till then the colonel desired to live quietly at
+home with as little outward social intercourse as possible. It was easy
+for him to find an excuse, as, after his many years of bachelorhood, it
+was not unnatural that he should wish to prolong his honeymoon. By the
+autumn Lilly's education would be complete, and she would emerge into
+society a _grande dame_ capable of holding her own at the functions of
+the landed nobility and in the casino with a tact that would not
+disgrace her husband's name and rank; and Fräulein von Schwertfeger
+kept this ideal, as the highest attainable, before Lilly's eyes every
+hour of the day. It was like preparing for an examination in the
+Selecta, Lilly thought, as she anxiously modelled herself after the
+prescribed pattern, and dreamed day and night of her _début_.
+
+In reality, she was only at ease when wandering about out of doors or
+shut up in her boudoir. "Boudoir!" No, she mustn't call it that.
+Fräulein von Schwertfeger said that it was a sitting-room, and only
+very rich butchers' and bankers' wives--according to Fräulein von
+Schwertfeger they were the same--owned boudoirs.
+
+Thus Lilly stumbled at every step. Sometimes, as if to put her social
+development to the test, the colonel permitted Lilly, under Fräulein
+von Schwertfeger's wing, to do the honours of his table when he chanced
+to entertain fellow-officers who turned up from neighbouring barracks.
+On these occasions the same thing always happened. At first she would
+be as stiff as a wound-up doll, incapable of making a spontaneous
+remark to the military guests in their resplendent uniforms; but in a
+few glasses of wine she found courage and became by degrees more
+lively, not to say merry, till at last she simply bubbled over with
+innocent little jokes--how they came into her head she didn't know--and
+so charmed these men, who had mostly passed their prime, that they paid
+her court in every word they said, and kept their gaze fixed on her
+face in delight and desire. The colonel would become uneasy, and
+Fräulein von Schwertfeger, who generally stared at her plate with a
+scoffing little smile, received a sign from him; whereupon the ladies
+instantly rose and retired, deaf to all the loudly expressed regrets at
+their going on the part of the men.
+
+The ecstasy, however, that she had awakened in her husband's guests
+recoiled on herself: made her exultant and sorry together, and
+compelled her to sit till past midnight, with wet cheeks, beating
+heart, and strained nerves staring out into the blue twilight of the
+park.
+
+Foreshadowings of undisciplined madness and uncontrolled self-abandon
+swept like lightning flashes through her brain. A consuming fever
+within her relaxed her limbs. It made the dress she wore, the room she
+was in, the park, the world seem too small for her, and filled her soul
+with a crowd of dancing fiery shapes, a whirl of reflected masculine
+passions.
+
+On such nights as these the colonel would come to her, in a more or
+less intoxicated condition, when the guests were gone, and reproach her
+mildly for not being "ladylike" enough; then, when she tried to defend
+herself, he would kiss her tears away and throw himself beside her on
+the bed. Shivering with disgust at his drunkenness, her conscience a
+prey to groundless pangs, yet for all that happy and relieved to feel
+herself released from a torturing anxiety, she fell asleep in his arms.
+
+There were other nights when she felt restless and lonely and would
+have been glad of his company, when she longed in soul as well as body
+to cling humbly to him; but he did not come, and locked his door. On
+the whole, he treated her kindly. To him she was a light fragile toy,
+not to be played with too often in case of damage, but to be put away
+carefully after use till next time--and this suited her well enough. At
+least she personally was spared the terror of his outbursts of fury,
+which two or three times a day threatened to shiver the walls of the
+castle to atoms. Even Fräulein Von Schwertfeger hardly knew how to meet
+them, and bowed her head and bit her lips as to an inevitable fate when
+the storms burst.
+
+Lilly could never quite make up her mind as to what were the relations
+between these two. Generally, it seemed as if, during long years,
+mutual sympathy and understanding had bound them together by
+indissoluble ties, though at other times they appeared to have nothing
+in common and to avoid each other, he with frigid hauteur, she with
+scorn in her squinting sidelong glances. It had often occurred to
+Lilly, too, that when Fräulein von Schwertfeger was young and fair to
+look upon, she and the colonel might have had a love affair. But
+gradually she abandoned this idea, for if anything of the kind had ever
+existed, Fräulein von Schwertfeger would have been far too proud to
+endure their present companionship, and he was too domineering to
+tolerate the presence of any such uncomfortable reminder of a dead
+amour. All Lilly could gather of the aristocratic spinster's past was
+that as the orphan of a poor officer she had been forced to earn her
+own living almost since her confirmation. She had presided over the
+colonel's house for nearly twenty years. That she, like herself, was
+without resources and dependent on the whims of the same old man seemed
+to Lilly to form a bond of sympathy between herself and Fräulein von
+Schwertfeger, yet she never could get rid of the undefinable dread she
+had been inspired with at the outset. She really was indebted to her
+for many things. Without the spinster's untiring surveillance she must
+have fallen innumerable times from the straight road, which was to lead
+to her apotheosis as noblewoman and Lady Bountiful. When she was
+disposed to err on the side of over-humility, there would have been
+scoffers to take base advantage of it; and her easy-going manner with
+those who were not her equals might, if uncorrected, have got her into
+serious trouble. As it was, she was popular with everyone. In the
+kitchens and the stables, the villages and the agents' offices,
+everywhere she was greeted respectfully with beaming smiles. But it was
+in the Polish quarters, where the women dried their washing behind
+great fires of brushwood, that she was simply idolised. It may have
+been that they had got wind of her Slavonic name and her Catholicism.
+Anyhow, by all those poor despised foreign folk, who drifted about
+among the proud stolid Germans, with humility in their downcast
+childlike eyes and snatches of their native song on their lips, Lilly
+was regarded in the light of a saviour and patron saint. She loved to
+visit and busy herself with these gentle grateful people. She tended
+the sick and took compassion on the forsaken. The girls were to her
+like her own sisters, who needed a watchful eye over them; and as for
+the boys, they were a sacred trust whose welfare she would always have
+at heart.
+
+Fräulein von Schwertfeger grimly disapproved of this attachment between
+Lilly and the Poles.
+
+"The people on the estate are beginning to complain," she said, "that
+you prefer the aliens to themselves. If I were you I should take my
+walks in another direction."
+
+Lilly objected to doing this, and so Fräulein von Schwertfeger bore her
+company when she went in the direction of the barn dwellings, in case
+they should exercise too great a fascination over her. She succeeded,
+too, in converting Lilly to Protestantism--only outwardly, of course.
+
+"You may worship your Blessed Virgin and St. Joseph as much as you
+like," she said, "but do remove those images and relics from your
+bedside. And then with regard to going to church, certainly if you like
+you can drive five miles in to Krammen to attend mass. The colonel will
+allow you, but, all the same, I would like you, my sweet, to come to
+church with us and sit in the ancestral pew; do, to please me. You
+won't regret it."
+
+And when Lilly unresisting had given in, Fräulein von Schwertfeger
+presented her as a reward with a tiny folding domestic altar. The
+outside looked like a dainty jewel-box, but when you opened it--oh,
+joy!--there was the Holy Child in the arms of the Virgin painted on
+glass, with St. Anne on the left panel and St. Joseph on the right.
+
+Lilly almost wept, she was so pleased with it. Still, she could not
+bring herself to love the giver as she ought. Often when they sat
+together chatting confidentially, Lilly felt solitary and--frightened.
+She even dared not satisfy her hunger. Since the days of Frau
+Asmussen's milk puddings, Lilly had developed an enormous, well-nigh
+indecent appetite, and Fräulein von Schwertfeger's aghast expression at
+her piled-up plate often was the cause of her rising from table still
+unsatisfied, and falling back on raids on the storeroom cupboard
+between meals. The dear old cook, her fast ally, guaranteed to guard
+Lilly from surprises on the part of Fräulein von Schwertfeger, and when
+she came into the kitchen Lilly accounted for her presence there on the
+plea that she was learning to cook, an announcement which was received
+with patronising merriment.
+
+If it had not been for old Grete the cook, she would have known nothing
+at all about the conduct of the household, for, either from caution or
+greed of power, Fräulein von Schwertfeger chose to conceal everything
+that might have led to a practical and intelligent comprehension of the
+_ménage_. When she offered to help she was told help was not wanted,
+and she must take care of her hands and not tire herself. So it went on
+day after day.
+
+She would have given anything to learn riding, but there again
+Schwertfeger interference prevented her by discovering signs of
+motherhood, which invariably proved later to be a false alarm. She
+might not so much as cultivate her musical talent. The old tin-kettle
+of a piano, the rattling yellow keys of which looked like a set of
+teeth decayed from tobacco smoke--just as the colonel's were--was not
+to be replaced by a new one till they went to Danzig for the day in the
+autumn.
+
+So her life dragged on, half in bliss, half in regret. She felt like a
+pilgrim who against her will had strayed into paradise. She looked back
+on the time before her marriage as on a long, long vanished youth, and
+would have laughed at anyone who had pointed out to her that at barely
+nineteen most of her youth lay before her. It was well that opposite,
+in the bailiff's lodge, there was at least one person who could testify
+to her having been a girl once; otherwise she might have told herself
+that her girlhood was a dream, and she had been a full-fledged married
+woman and the colonel's wife before she was out of her cradle.
+
+All this time she had only met her merry comrade at dinner on Sunday,
+when, in his long frock-coat, with his reverential awed manner, he cut
+a rather comical figure. Neither of them by a single word or glance
+recalled the past. Often from her balcony, now completely secluded by
+its growth of rambling vines, she looked across to the gabled house and
+saw him gambolling with the red little fox of a puppy. Then it seemed
+to her that this blond-haired good-for-nothing, who flirted with all
+the pretty girls on the estate, so old Grete said, was the only
+creature with whom she had anything in common in this cold world. Grete
+told how he nearly rode the horses to death to get back from his secret
+outings before dawn; and then sometimes behind the closed shutters of
+his den---- Here old Grete could not proceed, and Lilly concluded that
+things too dreadful for words went on behind those closed shutters.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XVII
+
+
+One hot August morning Lilly, with her arms full of dewy roses, herself
+besprinkled with dew from head to toe, entered the dining-room where
+Anna was making tea, looking lean and tall in her simple blue-grey
+linen gown. Her manner and greeting were the same as usual, yet Lilly
+divined instantly that something out of the ordinary had happened. She
+also noticed that Käte, the maid who helped old Ferdinand with the
+waiting, had red eyes, and was biting her lips till they bled almost as
+she laid the table. Käte was pretty and superior to the average
+servant-girl, also better educated, her father having been a
+schoolmaster. For this reason Fräulein von Schwertfeger had chosen her
+from among the other maids to help Lilly with her toilette.
+
+When she had gone out of the room, Lilly began to ask questions.
+
+Anna von Schwertfeger kissed her with redoubled tenderness and
+affection.
+
+"My darling," she said, "why sully your pure mind with disagreeable
+matters? When people are bent on breaking their necks, what is the good
+of trying to prevent them?"
+
+"If it's a question of breaking necks," thought Lilly, "Walter von
+Prell must have something to do with it."
+
+Then she said aloud that she thought as mistress of the house she ought
+to know what was going on, especially as in future she intended to do
+the housekeeping herself.
+
+The modesty of her "in future" impressed Fräulein von Schwertfeger
+favourably, and she yielded.
+
+"I am sure it will give you pain," she said, "because I know you like
+him."
+
+"Him!" echoed Lilly; and she was conscious that she blushed.
+
+"Indeed, we all like him," she went on in an excusing tone; "the
+colonel is extremely fond of him. So long as he carried on his little
+games at a distance I kept my eyes shut and refused to listen to
+gossip; but when it comes to his breaking into the castle, it's a
+little too much, and time to stop it."
+
+"What has he done, then?" Lilly asked, shocked.
+
+"There has been a great deal to excite suspicion lately. At several
+places the creepers on your balcony appear broken off and withered."
+
+"On my balcony?" She drew a step nearer the speaker, overwhelmed by an
+unutterable fear, and taking hold of her arm said, "What _can_ my
+balcony have to do with Herr von Prell, Anna?"
+
+"Calm yourself, dearest," said the speaker, unable to meet her eyes.
+"People in my position are bound to keep their eyes open; it is part of
+their duties. And what I have done has been solely for your sake....
+Then, how easily could anyone who doesn't know you as I know you
+misinterpret this climbing on to your balcony----"
+
+Lilly began to cry. "Oh! it's too low--too low!" she sobbed.
+
+Fräulein von Schwertfeger drew her down into the corner of the sofa and
+stroked her forehead.
+
+"I have experienced worse things than that, dear," she said. "Anyhow, I
+was determined to get on the right scent, and although it is needless
+to say I didn't suspect you"--again she averted her eyes--"I took the
+precaution of watching in the dark outside your door for several
+nights."
+
+Lilly bounded up. While she had been sleeping innocently unsuspicious,
+close by, someone had been lurking and keeping watch on her. So much
+was she a prisoner.
+
+"And this morning at about one o'clock I caught him red-handed. To
+think of his dare-devilry! He had the audacity to place one of
+Haberland's ladders against your balcony--that accounts for the broken
+vine-shoots--and to get in through the glass door of your sitting-room.
+By the way, dearest, glass doors should never be left open at night. He
+slunk past your bedroom door into the corridor, without seeing me, of
+course, Käte is the only one who sleeps anywhere near, and this
+morning, early, when I taxed her with it she denied nothing.... I
+acted, as I always do in these cases, with every kindness and
+consideration. I told Käte that she might be the first to give warning,
+and that nothing would be said.... But what is to be done about the
+young man? This is his only chance for the future. If the colonel sacks
+him it will be his ruin. On the other hand, I cannot very well keep
+silence to the colonel on a point that concerns, in a way, his wife's
+honour----"
+
+"How do Herr von Prell's intrigues with the housemaids concern my
+honour?" Lilly ventured to interrupt, hoping, by playing the innocent a
+little, to gain time for thought as to how her friend was to be helped
+out of this scrape.
+
+Fräulein von Schwertfeger was beginning to enlighten her on what all
+the disastrous results might be of such profligate conduct, when the
+tea-things rattled at the approaching footsteps of the colonel.
+
+"Say nothing ... yet," implored Lilly; and to hide her fears and
+confusion she rushed into his arms.
+
+He did not notice that anything was wrong. His once ever-wakeful and
+easily irritated suspicion had slumbered since he had confided his
+young wife to the vigilant care of the duenna.
+
+In these days he was no longer the zealous lover, aping the gallantry
+of youth, who had wished to be master of her every look and word. The
+playful patronage with which he now regarded the antics of this lovely,
+gentle-souled child gave him quite a paternal air that became him well.
+His expeditions to the casino in the nearest garrison town, at first
+rare, had become more and more frequent. He often went by the afternoon
+train, but as a rule started after the evening meal, when he did not
+come home till two or three in the morning, as there were no trains
+back earlier.
+
+To-day he told them good-humouredly at breakfast that he had to go to
+town on business, to get rid of the barley crop to the Jews.
+
+A happy thought struck Lilly, filling her with infinite satisfaction.
+The colonel's absence must be utilised to save _him_. How it was to be
+done she didn't know. But save him she would. If she did not intervene
+on his behalf, who else was there to steer this stormy petrel into safe
+harbour?
+
+When the colonel had retired to his room, she took heart and made her
+cautious plea to Anna, who, however, declined to relent.
+
+"He will only be worse next time," she said, "and then the disgrace
+will be greater for all of us."
+
+"Oh no!" said Lilly, "he will not get worse; he will reform. Just give
+him a lecture."
+
+"I am of an age to do it, certainly," said Fräulein von Schwertfeger,
+with a sour old-maidish smile, "and I have the authority; but, to speak
+frankly, the subject is too delicate. I would rather not be mixed up
+any more in such unpleasant affairs."
+
+The pale eyes, almost hidden under their heavy lids, gazed with that
+sphinx-like fixity which Lilly had often noticed before--it seemed like
+the resurrection within her of an old and bitter hate. But she returned
+to the topic voluntarily. All she would commit herself to was that, if
+he came of his own free will and apologised, she might listen to him.
+That was the most she could do without playing a double part.
+
+"But how can he apologise when he has no idea that he has been
+discovered?" put in Lilly timidly.
+
+"I wouldn't mind betting," replied Fräulein von Schwertfeger, "that
+Käte will run over to him the first moment she is free."
+
+"But if she doesn't, what then?" asked Lilly, unable to control her
+eagerness.
+
+Fräulein von Schwertfeger took her face between her hands.
+
+"If I didn't know, my pet, what a dear, ingenuous young creature you
+were, I might think there was something rather suspicious in your being
+so keenly interested in this young rake. No, no; you needn't blush. Of
+course I know there is nothing behind, and, at all events, I will wait
+till to-morrow afternoon before taking steps--simply because you
+intercede for him, darling."
+
+Thereupon the conversation ended. Nothing more was to be hoped for from
+that quarter.
+
+"If I don't save him, he'll be dismissed; and if he is dismissed, he'll
+inevitably go to the dogs; and if he goes to the dogs, I shall be to
+blame."
+
+Lilly's thoughts thus revolved in a circle till she felt quite
+exhausted and giddy.
+
+The most straightforward course would have been to interview Käte, but
+that would have been beneath her dignity. Besides, it was evident that
+the poor girl had no thought of running over to warn him. She glided
+about in a spiritless fashion, and finally had to be put to bed with an
+attack of colic.
+
+At four o'clock the colonel drove off to the station. He had stuffed a
+packet of blue banknotes in his pocket-book first, a sign that he would
+not be coming back till dawn.
+
+Evening approached. The wheels of the returning manure carts rang on
+the flags of the yard. The bellow of oxen and the cracking of whips
+announced that the days' work was over.
+
+Lilly crouched in ambush behind her creeper-covered trellis and watched
+the bailiff's lodge. At last the ne'er-do-well appeared from his gable
+end, dragging the unfortunate red foxy dog at the end of a taut chain.
+He had on a greenish-grey tweed jacket with innumerable pockets, each
+of which seemed to have something sticking out of it. He looked quite
+bulky. But, all the same, he was a dear smart little fellow, worth
+taking some trouble for.
+
+Should she make him a sign, and throw down a note which later he could
+pick up unobserved? She went into her rooms and scribbled in pencil the
+following lines.
+
+"Everything is discovered. Fräulein von S---- promises to say nothing
+provided you----"
+
+Here she paused. This would never do. The stupidest fool who chanced to
+get hold of the note could only interpret it in one way, _i.e_., as a
+confession of guilt.
+
+"I'll speak to him instead," she decided, as the bell sounded for
+supper.
+
+How curiously the Schwertfeger eyes regarded her, just as if they could
+read at the bottom of her soul what her bold intention was. But no
+reference whatever was made to the miscreant, and when they rose from
+the table she put her arm into Lilly's arm, just as she did when she
+wanted to keep Lilly from visiting her Polish friends.
+
+"She won't let go the whole evening," thought Lilly, gnashing her teeth
+inwardly.
+
+At that moment someone came to say Käte was much worse, and should they
+send for the doctor?
+
+Fräulein von Schwertfeger left the room reluctantly, saying as she
+went, "I shall be back before long."
+
+In the flash of a moment Lilly had opened the verandah door and was
+slipping down the terrace steps into the dusky park. The intense
+silence was only broken by a faint splashing from behind the cypresses,
+where old Haberland was filling his cans, as he had not finished
+watering the rose-trees. She walked straight towards the gable end of
+the lodge, wondering how she should attract his attention and bring him
+to the window. She was spared the trouble, however, for he was lying
+full length on the green bench outside the house, puffing serenely at
+the end of a cigarette. The red dog, whose chain he had twisted round
+his wrist, was asleep at his feet. None of his colleagues were to be
+seen. She could scarcely breathe, her heart beat so violently.
+
+"Herr von Prell!"
+
+He started up, the dog with him.
+
+"Herr von Prell, I've something to say to you."
+
+He grabbed at his head to take off the cap which wasn't there.
+
+"At your service, gracious baroness."
+
+"Will you come and take a little stroll with me?"
+
+"If the gracious baroness wishes, certainly."
+
+He threw away the end of his cigarette, cast a rapid look round for his
+missing cap, and then walked beside her, bareheaded, as stiff and
+correct in his bearing as an automaton.
+
+Lilly led the way into the middle of the park, where groups of trees
+and grassy clearings melted into purple-fringed darkness. She had
+recovered her calmness. The desire to save him endowed her with a
+strength of will of which she had never dreamed herself capable.
+
+"You must not misunderstand what I am doing," she began.
+
+"Oh, of course not, gracious baroness," he answered with a polite bow.
+"It is such a charming evening, and old acquaintances enjoy a chat."
+
+"If that was my object in wishing to see you," Lilly said, unable to
+conceal that she was hurt, "I should have asked you to the castle. You
+may conclude from my coming that the matter is something of
+importance."
+
+"What could be of more importance to me, baroness, than walking here
+with you?" he replied.
+
+She shrugged her shoulders. "Oh, Herr von Prell, if only you knew the
+scrape you were in, you would hardly use such empty figures of speech!"
+
+Lilly was amazed at her own haughty tone.
+
+"A scrape, gracious baroness, more or less, what can it matter?" he
+said, raising his eyebrows. "To be doomed to live so near and yet so
+far from a certain fair lady is all that matters. The question is
+whether Tommy and I have enough moral fibre to endure such a trial with
+patience--Tommy, don't be an ass! Our gracious baroness has no
+objection to you as long as you don't chew her train." And he began
+tugging the wilful little dog off his forelegs as if he were some
+mechanical toy.
+
+"You'll throttle the poor animal if you don't take care," said Lilly,
+glad to revert momentarily to less personal topics.
+
+"Then he will suffer like his master," he retorted, catching at his
+throat to illustrate his meaning and gasping horribly.
+
+Such conduct must not be tolerated a moment longer. She owed it to
+herself and her position.
+
+"I suppose that you are quite unaware, Herr von Prell, that probably by
+this time to-morrow you will have been dismissed?" she said loftily.
+
+At last he seemed impressed. He scowled and twirled the fine ends of
+his young moustache. Then, knitting his brows, he said:
+
+"However bad things may be going, there is some satisfaction to be
+derived from the fact that the gracious baroness seems to take not a
+little interest in my affairs."
+
+Now Lilly was really angry. "I wonder you are not ashamed, Herr von
+Prell!" she exclaimed. "Here am I running great risks to help you, and
+giving myself a lot of trouble, and yet you persist in talking
+nonsense."
+
+"We must be careful, Tommy--careful," he said, lifting the fox-like dog
+in his arms. "First, we are flayed alive, then kicked. But we ought to
+find comfort in the consciousness that we are innocent, my poor Tommy."
+
+"Please don't try to excuse yourself," she scolded. "Fräulein von
+Schwertfeger has found out everything ... about your connection with
+... you know--your nocturnal excursions to my balcony and entrance
+through my sitting-room. Everything! Do you suppose that it is any
+pleasure to me to have to treat you, whom I have always liked, as a
+criminal? Do you suppose I wouldn't much rather have reason to be proud
+of you than to see you sent away in disgrace? If you can say anything
+in your own defence so much the better. I shall be pleased to hear it."
+
+She had worked herself up into such a fever of righteous indignation
+that she quite overlooked the impropriety of her present proceedings.
+
+Now she was enacting a _rôle_ that enchanted her. She was the
+benevolent chatelaine, doing her best to rescue an inferior, and her
+breast swelled with a sense of her exalted virtue. They had emerged
+from the dusky shadows of the ancient avenue of limes, a ray of light
+from the afterglow in the west pierced the boughs and suffused his thin
+freckled face with a deep flush. He appeared to be absolutely crushed
+and penitent, and Lilly was already regretting that she had been too
+hard on him.
+
+"I quite see," he began after a pause, and his voice trembled with
+suppressed emotion, "that I ought to clear myself from such a grave
+imputation. I am asked to set up a defence, and I can; but in so doing
+I am forced to reveal a secret ... and I am not sure whether it would
+be fair to your gracious baroness to enlighten you on the awful failing
+that has shipwrecked my whole life."
+
+"Tell me at once what it is," urged Lilly, burning with curiosity.
+
+"Well, if you must know, it is this. From childhood I have been pursued
+by a ghastly fate, which overcomes me at moments when I am most
+powerless, and fastens on me the responsibility for crimes of which I
+am utterly innocent. Be prepared, therefore, to hear something
+terrible. I am--I am a somnambulist."
+
+As he glanced sideways at Lilly, there was such a droll, wicked twinkle
+playing under the light lashes that she burst into a fit of light
+laughter. He joined in with his dear old noiseless giggle that shook
+him like an earthquake. So they stood still and both laughed till they
+cried; and Lilly forgot all about her exalted duties as chatelaine and
+her mission of salvation. Then, instinctively, their footsteps turned
+together into the most deserted and overgrown part of the park, where
+its bounds were lost in a dense thicket of birches. It grew darker at
+every step. The foxy little dog had abandoned himself to his fate and
+trotted obediently after his master.
+
+"The truth is, my dear friend," said he, when they had recovered
+partially from their levity--"why should I make any false pretences?--I
+am a poor fish here floundering out of water. Can you imagine what it
+is to have to lead a vegetable existence in the society of plebeians,
+and from morning to night practise the arts of virtue and seriousness?
+I can assure you it's often as bitter as a dose of aloes. Tommy helps
+me over the worst hours, but even Tommy is sometimes a disappointment....
+May I take this opportunity, by-the-by, of asking you a very interesting
+question, my gracious baroness?"
+
+Delighted at his returning gravity Lilly assented.
+
+"Can you move your ears up and down?"
+
+She was again seized with laughter as with an illness. She leaned
+against the trunk of a tree, and struggled in vain with her merriment,
+while he continued in a tone of profound despondency.
+
+"I mastered this modest accomplishment, of which I am not in the least
+proud, when I was in the Quinta at school. There it was considered the
+very acme of attainments, and I thought it would be a nice trick to
+teach my Tommy, who, however, declined to be taught it, though I have
+wasted hours and expended a lot of mental effort in trying to make him.
+But one day, by accident, I found out that he could do it much better
+than I ever could. I came to the conclusion, too, that he had been able
+to do it all along when _he_ liked, but not when _I_ liked. Is that not
+very depressing, a symbol of the utter fruitlessness of all human
+endeavour? Indeed, my dearest baroness, I believe I shall be compelled
+to become philosopher, out of sheer unutterable boredom."
+
+Lilly could see nothing now but the outline of his figure, behind which
+the eyes of the foxy one glowed like balls of fire. Not since her
+schooldays had she enjoyed such a bout of pure fun, and she had to wait
+for a break in her laughter to remind him that it was time to be going
+home. He turned obediently, changing Tommy's chain from one hand to the
+other.
+
+The danger that threatened him seemed to be totally forgotten. As time
+was precious, Lilly took the bull by the horns and told him what
+Fräulein von Schwertfeger's conditions were for keeping silence. But
+she could not regain the dignified pose of a Lady Bountiful holding out
+the rescuing hand with an air of sublime superiority, and every now and
+then she broke off in what she was saying to giggle.
+
+"I know that good lady's unquenchable penchant for treading on other
+people's toes," he said; "but since we have got into her bad graces,
+dear little Tommy and I will have to wriggle out. I am grateful to you,
+my dear and gracious friend. I will take your hint and put myself on
+the right road to absolution. I'll polish up my vocabulary of
+repentance. I'll be more than repentant. I'll be cheeky. That works on
+these respectable spinsters like magic; and I'll kill two birds with
+one stone, and take care, while I am about it, to improve our future
+chances of intercourse--always supposing that your majesty is
+agreeable."
+
+Oh, how very agreeable she was! "But how will you manage it?" she asked
+anxiously.
+
+"Leave it to me," he answered. "Your duenna is a clever old girl, but I
+am even cleverer. I shan't be surprised if after to-morrow I am
+honoured with warm invitations to supper at the castle, which will be
+very convenient; and I shall, I warrant, succeed in looking into the
+eyes of my queen unobserved by the two mighty watchdogs."
+
+There was much in this speech that jarred on her. He might make fun of
+Fräulein von Schwertfeger if he liked--she was fair game; but of the
+colonel he ought to speak with respect. And now that she had satisfied
+herself that he was out of danger did she first fully realise how
+atrocious his conduct had been, and how weak it was of her to be
+strolling about with him in the dark, tolerating his silly jokes.
+
+"Allow me to remind you, Herr von Prell," she said, "that it is only
+owing to our former friendship I have warned you. Having done it, we
+had better be strangers in future. I must go now. Good-night."
+
+Whereupon she began to run away from him. But, as she sprang along the
+dark woodland path without looking round, suddenly something warm,
+soft, and alive slipped between her feet. She cried out shrilly, and
+turned back to seek Prell's help; at the same moment the chain got
+twisted round her ankle and held her fast.
+
+The foxy little dog in his eager desire to get home had taken her
+flight as a signal to break loose from his master's restraining hold,
+and had run under her skirts. The more she pressed forward the more
+painfully did the chain cut into her flesh. It was all over now with
+her anger.
+
+Herr von Prell had to kneel down and hold the little rascal in his arms
+till she had released her foot from its chain trap.
+
+"Tommy, Tommy, what mischief have we done? We have hurt our mistress's
+august foot. That comes of straining on our chains and getting under
+ladies' skirts. A grave offence. Aren't you ashamed of yourself, you
+scoundrel?"
+
+And then he imprinted a kiss on the dog's sharp-pointed little nose.
+
+"Doesn't he ever bite you?" she asked, interested.
+
+"He has had the advantage of a rigorous military training," he replied,
+"and consequently he is used to kisses."
+
+She burst out into a new fit of merriment, and he held out to her the
+struggling woolly little animal, asking her if she would like to kiss
+Tommy too.
+
+Laughing, she declined; laughing, she walked on in his company. "Weak
+as ever," she told herself.
+
+Still in fits of silvery laughter, she came into the lighted hall,
+where Fräulein von Schwertfeger met her, with large reproachful eyes.
+
+"Where have you been, child?" she asked, prepared on the spot to
+subject her to a calm and judicial cross-questioning.
+
+"Oh, he's such fun!" was all Lilly could gurgle forth as she buried her
+face, flushed from laughing, on her duenna's shoulder. "Such fun!"
+
+"You don't mean to say----?"
+
+"Yes, I do. Do you think I would leave him in the lurch, my charming
+little old pal?"
+
+The Schwertfeger countenance froze into rigidity.
+
+Lilly, with a whoop of joy, freed herself from the elder woman's arm,
+flew to her room, nestled her head in the pillows, and laughed herself
+to sleep.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XVIII
+
+
+It was begun in laughter--and with laughter it continued. The next
+morning when Lilly awoke the objects round her--the lamp, the
+washstand, the sentimental pictures on the wall--seemed to have taken
+on a different aspect, and the sun shone in at the windows with
+redoubled brilliance.
+
+In her night clothes she stood before the glass and smiled again at the
+reflection she saw there; it was the face of a gamin, with eyes roguish
+and sparkling, and a tipped-up saucy nose.
+
+At breakfast she scintillated with small witticisms, chased the
+stiff-kneed colonel round the table, and cherished sentiments of
+glowing gratitude towards Fräulein von Schwertfeger. She on her side
+smiled eloquently to herself, and when the colonel had retired, chucked
+Lilly under the chin, and said, "What a child you are!"
+
+She made no allusion to the confession that had escaped Lilly the night
+before. It almost seemed that it had not been heard.
+
+Lilly ran up to her balcony, pushed apart the creepers, and gave him a
+nod to come in as he walked up and down uncertainly between the castle
+and the bailiff's office. He understood her signal, bowed low, and
+disappeared in the direction of the terrace steps.
+
+What passed between him and Fräulein von Schwertfeger remained a
+secret. There was no finding out whether she interrogated him on his
+previous relations with the young baroness. But that the result of the
+interview as a whole was successful there could be no question. Instead
+of the colonel giving him his _congé_, the colonel himself brought him
+in to supper that evening. He wore his best coat, white waistcoat, his
+most respectful expression, and looked as if he was going to sink into
+his collar.
+
+"A little bird tells me," said the colonel to Lilly, "that Herr von
+Prell is rather dull and lonely over there sometimes. So, if you have
+no objection, we will ask him in oftener than we have done."
+
+She hadn't the very least objection, only the thought that Käte might
+appear any moment in the doorway prevented her from speaking.
+
+Instead of Käte another maid handed old Ferdinand the plates and
+dishes. Lilly's eyes turned inquiringly to Fräulein von Schwertfeger,
+who said, in an undertone so that the men should not hear, "The poor
+girl, owing to her illness, has gone home, and probably will not come
+back."
+
+Lilly squeezed her hand under the table from sheer relief. She had a
+dim notion that Käte had been sent away to spare her unpleasantness.
+
+The other two were deep in cavalry talk, much interlarded by technical
+terms and dry names.
+
+Herr von Prell leaned towards his old superior officer, blinking his
+lids with reverential and eager attention. The colonel laid down the
+law like a wrathful deity, spoke in gruff, fierce tones, and shot about
+him dagger-like glances, as if there were enemies all round to mow
+down, which of course was mere professional vainglory.
+
+Lilly listened, and would have liked to join in. But apparently both
+men had forgotten her existence, and she became depressed and jealous
+without being exactly sure which of them she was most angry with.
+
+When Prell rose to take his leave, the colonel laid his hand on his
+shoulder, and asked:
+
+"Why haven't we done this before, my boy?" And the look he gave Lilly
+seemed to add, "There has really been no necessity for so much
+caution." After this, Prell's invitations to supper became more
+frequent as the September days grew chillier, and the colonel's gout
+made his visits to the town rarer. Groaning and swearing he mounted his
+horse with difficulty, but he would not listen to Lilly's entreaties to
+him to give up the early morning ride.
+
+"I might ride round the place instead of you," she said, "if you
+weren't so ridiculously nervous about my having an accident."
+
+The colonel and Anna exchanged glances.
+
+"It certainly is a disgrace," he remarked, "that the girl hasn't learnt
+yet to sit on a horse. She ought to be taught. What do you say, Anna?
+Can we trust that scamp Prell to give her riding lessons?"
+
+Lilly's face beamed with delight.
+
+Fräulein von Schwertfeger's lids were lowered meditatively. After a few
+moments' silence she raised them, and said very slowly and
+emphatically:
+
+"If the harum-scarum young man brought our pet home one day with a
+broken arm or leg, what should we do? I think the proposal, at any
+rate, needs to be further considered."
+
+Lilly forbore from expressing her longing, and did not contradict Anna,
+who, however, must have divined her thoughts, for when they were alone
+together she suddenly said, taking Lilly's face between her hands:
+
+"Dismiss the idea from your mind, darling. Take my word for it, it will
+be best."
+
+It was about this time that Lilly, who loved to explore the spacious
+and only partly inhabited old castle, made a remarkable discovery that
+excited her curiosity not a little. In one of the guest chambers on the
+third floor, which was hardly ever used, she was rummaging one day in
+the drawers of a bureau when she came across a transparent garment of
+silver net, fringed with spangles and fastened at the shoulder by
+curious barbaric clasps. It resembled the one in which, in the Dresden
+days, she had danced at bedtime, and which now lay at the bottom of her
+wardrobe enjoying undisturbed repose. She had never shown it to
+Fräulein von Schwertfeger, being somewhat ashamed of it. But this
+duplicate she folded up and took downstairs to her friend, for she was
+anxious to learn its history.
+
+Fräulein von Schwertfeger looked up from her account-books abstractedly
+till she saw the glitter of spangles in the sun, and then a shudder
+convulsed her whole frame, her eyes became distended, and she seemed as
+paralysed with horror as if she had seen a ghost.
+
+"What's the matter? What's the matter?" laughed Lilly.
+
+"I thought I had thrown away all the rubbish," she said, and gave
+herself a little shake.
+
+She snatched the flimsy thing out of Lilly's hands, rolled it in a
+sheet of paper, and took it to the kitchen. Lilly, who followed, saw a
+thin cloud of smoke rise from the hearth, carrying with it a whirl of
+charred tinsel rags. Old Grete stood by, glancing first at Anna and
+then at Lilly in perturbed surprise.
+
+She appeared to know of what transactions the discovery was evidence,
+but when asked by Lilly to explain she held her tongue.
+
+"I was not much here, but away in the town," she excused herself, "when
+the colonel was there with the regiment, you know. Ask the Fräulein;
+she will tell you."
+
+The Fräulein would not tell. With grimly compressed lips and vacant
+gaze she avoided the subject, and for three days or more scarcely
+answered when Lilly spoke to her.
+
+Then suddenly, as they sat at supper, without any apparent cause, her
+whole manner changed. She became facetious and talkative, and
+sympathetic towards her employer, suggesting remedies for his gout and
+wringing from him a promise to give up the injurious morning ride.
+
+"I have been thinking over Lilly's riding lessons," she went on. "I
+really don't think there can be any danger after all in entrusting her
+to the boy, if one of us is present to see that all is right--anyhow at
+the start."
+
+Lilly gave a sigh of joy, but neither by her eyes nor facial expression
+did she betray the smallest sign of pleasure, so severely in the
+meantime had she learned to school herself.
+
+The next morning the lesson began.
+
+Walter von Prell appeared in riding get-up. His body was bent forward
+as much as to say, "I await orders," and his whole bearing bespoke
+submissive respect as he stood first on one foot, then on the other.
+
+A quiet grey mare, with narrow flanks and somewhat overstrained
+forelegs, but a smart, well-groomed little mount, had been chosen for
+the first ride. Her instructor explained to her the principle on which
+bridle and bit were constructed, showed her how the girths were
+buckled, how the snaffle and curb-reins were to be held, and how to
+prevent the curb throttling the horse.
+
+Then came learning to mount. When Lilly planted her foot in his joined
+hands she felt a warm thrill creep up her spine to the back of her
+neck, as if this contact were a sign of the secret understanding
+between them.
+
+He counted "One, two, three," and, presto! there she was in the saddle.
+
+The colonel clapped and applauded, and Walter blushed to the roots of
+his fair hair with delight.
+
+Henceforth he had the game in his hands.
+
+"Who would have thought that jackanapes had so much of the pedagogue in
+him?" the colonel remarked to Fräulein von Schwertfeger, who nodded
+silently and drew a deep breath as if something weighed on her mind.
+
+When Lilly dismounted she had learnt how to draw in the reins and
+slacken them, and to turn to right and left. She had even got as far as
+a trot round the yard. The colonel said good-humouredly she promised to
+be the most dashing horsewoman in the army.
+
+One lesson followed another. Either the colonel or Anna was always
+present, so there was little opportunity for a confidential
+conversation. Walter did not drop his stiff and obsequious manner,
+though Lilly longed for a flash of the old devilry that she alone
+understood.
+
+Then came a day when it happened that both sentinels were absent from
+duty. The colonel was busy giving directions for the making of a
+covered riding-way where his gouty limbs would not be exposed to
+chills, and Fräulein von Schwertfeger was nowhere to be found.
+
+Lilly's heart beat fast as she and her merry friend met, and she gave
+him her hand with a smile of suppressed triumph. He responded with a
+sly wink in the direction of the terrace, where her duenna was wont to
+stand.
+
+"She's nowhere to be seen," whispered Lilly.
+
+"What are we to do, then," he said, wringing his hands in mock
+lamentation, "without the protecting eye of the illustrious Fräulein?
+How are we to mount?"
+
+The September sky was very blue; a crisp breeze, heavy with the perfume
+of damp freshly turned sods, blew across the courtyard. He pointed with
+his whip to the open gate. She laughed and nodded assent. The next
+moment she cantered beside him along the grassy road, whither no Argus
+eye could follow them, inwardly rejoicing and exultantly scenting all
+sorts of mad pranks. But he seemed unwilling to make the most of their
+unexpected freedom. He kept his eyes fixed in front of him; every now
+and then he caught at her rein, altered her stirrups or corrected her
+seat in the saddle. He was the riding-master and nothing more.
+
+"What's Tommy doing?" she asked, finding things dull.
+
+"Tommy sends his love," he answered with his gaze still fastened on the
+road, "and wishes to say that to-day we had better attend to the
+horses, for if anything happens we shall not be allowed out again."
+
+"My love to Tommy," she retorted, "and tell him he's a little goose."
+
+"I'll not forget," he said, and bowed over the saddle.
+
+They came to a coppice of larch-trees where the ground was slightly
+boggy and required careful crossing. But she saw nothing but the silver
+sheen of the trunks, and the golden mist made by the delicate leaves
+dancing in the breeze and nearly brushing her cheek.
+
+"Oh, look, how lovely!" she said with a sigh of satisfaction.
+
+Then a demon within her prompted her to an act of madness. She touched
+the mare with her whip and started off on a wild gallop, regardless of
+all the rules and regulations laid down by her riding-master.
+
+In a few seconds he came up with her, seized her bridle, and with a
+dexterous jerk brought both horses to a standstill.
+
+Their eyes flashed into each other. She felt as if she must throw
+herself on to his saddle to be nearer him at any cost.
+
+"What do you mean by that, dear little comrade?" he roared.
+
+"And what do you mean by calling me 'dear little comrade'?" she
+retorted.
+
+Then they turned their horses and walked them slowly and in silence
+homewards.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XIX
+
+
+For a long time the threshing-machine had been in tune for its autumn
+song. Far beyond the courtyard, penetrating every wall and hedge, its
+melancholy hum was now heard. There was no suggestion in it of golden
+harvest blessings and consolidated sunshine. Like an Æolian harp it
+moaned and howled from morn to eve in the storm-tossed branches.
+Sometimes it seemed to shriek as if the sheaves of grain it tore and
+tortured had found a voice wherewith to express their agony.
+
+Once more Lilly's soul was so full of dreamy bliss that she heard in
+this music nothing but a seductive yearning. It impregnated her morning
+slumber, and often she lay with closed eyes half awake so as to listen
+the better to the monotonous singsong. And all the time he was in her
+thoughts. What she had always wanted was now hers--a playmate, a
+comrade; someone to rejoice and grumble with; someone who confessed all
+his sins to her, the very blackest, and then received a laughing
+absolution. Then whatever he did, he himself was not guilty; it was the
+youth in him that sinned, the same sweet, wicked youth that charged her
+own soul with melancholy and filled her body with thrills, which
+dominated them both like a tormenting deity, smiling on one and
+frowning on the other.
+
+Yes, he must be saved; saved from his own folly, from that fatal
+cynicism of his which threatened to enmesh him in a network of vulgar
+intrigues. There was no silencing the rumours of the sort of life he
+was leading. She had only to set foot in the servants' quarters to hear
+the stream of unsavoury gossip of which he was the subject. All that
+must be ended. Her first interference was to be but the beginning of
+the great mission she had to perform in his life. She would be his good
+genius, standing in his path with raised hands to ward off all horrid
+temptations, so that he should become as pure and devoid of evil
+desires as herself.
+
+So she dreamed to the accompaniment of the threshing-machine's melody.
+
+The first ride outside the castle gates, though taken without leave,
+was praised and approved; permission was given for others to follow.
+But Lilly hesitated. She would like to be sure of her cantering powers,
+she said, before venturing on unknown ground. The truth was, she was
+dying for another such hour, and only lacked the courage to hurry it
+on.
+
+The very next morning he had been the stern unbending riding-master
+again, treating her with extravagant courtesy. She had thought he would
+be certain to whisper tenderly, "little comrade," or some other
+familiar greeting--he could have found the opportunity if he had
+liked--but nothing of the sort came to pass either this time or the
+next.
+
+They had no thought indeed of riding beyond the courtyard for several
+lessons after, till one day the colonel himself issued the command.
+
+"Enough of this ambling about round the yard. Go out and let the wind
+of the fields blow through you," he said.
+
+"As the colonel wishes," replied Walter, with his hand raised to his
+cap in salute, and he turned her horse with his own towards the open
+gates.
+
+Her heart stood still, and she forgot to send back a farewell greeting
+over her shoulder, so occupied was she with the contemplation of coming
+delights.
+
+In a minute they were riding in the same direction as they had followed
+ten days ago, when the great event had taken place. The weeping willows
+dripped with dew, and at the slightest movement showered down drops
+upon her. Lilly laughed and shook them off. Instead of joining in the
+sport, he tried to make her keep to the middle of the road.
+
+"But I love getting wet," she protested.
+
+"Very well, if the gracious baroness pleases," he answered with his
+stupid exaggerated formality.
+
+They rode on in silence. When they came to the place where ten days
+before the great event had happened to which all his conduct to-day
+gave the lie, she dared to shoot a reminiscent side glance at him. But
+he made no response, and appeared not to see. His cap pulled down over
+the back of his head as far as his neck, his thin smooth face sprinkled
+with dewdrops, his boyish figure all muscle and sinews, he sat his
+horse as if he and the animal were one.
+
+"How fond I am of him, in spite of everything, dear little fellow!" she
+thought, and pictured what her desolation would be if one day he were
+suddenly to vanish from the scene. And then she realised all at once
+that her equable gaiety of soul, the feeling of living her life to the
+full, were all due to his nearness to her day after day.
+
+They rode along even ground steadily. The chain of brown ridges on the
+far side of the river came nearer, and he seemed to be steering for
+these; but this did not serve her purpose, for the hour of serious
+converse had sounded. To-day or never! And with a laborious effort of
+thought she began to calculate all the things she had to say to him.
+But she could not arrange them methodically in her mind, especially as
+her attention was half taken up by her horse. In the saddle she was too
+completely at his mercy, so plucking up courage she proposed that they
+should dismount. While he paused to consider she sprang to the ground,
+and he had to be quick to catch the mare's snaffle.
+
+He scolded her a little, but finally had to do as she wished. They
+proceeded on foot, and he led the horses.
+
+The road lay through a marshy declivity where there was a scanty growth
+of alders and oaks. Yellow marigold buds starred the damp ground and
+burr reed spread out its prickly fruit on distorted branches. Red-dock
+leaves swayed on their withered stalks, and sedgy grass curled itself
+up in anticipation of autumn frosts. A mountain ash felled by a recent
+storm bridged the ditch at the side of the road. Its scarlet berries,
+which should have been dead, still glowed like fire, as if deriving
+life from some mysterious source of their own.
+
+"I should like to sit down here," she said.
+
+He bowed acquiescence.
+
+"But you must sit down too."
+
+"I must hold the horses, gracious baroness."
+
+"You can tie them to a tree."
+
+He reflected a moment. "So I can," he said, and knotted the reins to
+the fallen trunk.
+
+Then when he came to sit beside her she shifted her position more
+towards the middle to make room. Her feet hung in the air over the
+ditch-water. He pushed himself after her along the tree, hand over
+hand.
+
+"That's far enough," she said; for she did not want him too close.
+
+"Very well, gracious baroness," he answered, and swung his legs.
+
+The formality of his address caused her fresh annoyance.
+
+"Don't you think when we are alone together you might drop titles?" she
+asked, looking him straight in the eyes.
+
+"I might ... but I mustn't."
+
+"But how about the other day?"
+
+"Oh, the other day was my birthday," he answered, "and as I wanted a
+pretty little present I gave myself that!"
+
+"And to-day is _my_ birthday," she jested. "What present am I to be
+given?"
+
+"Anything the gracious baroness likes."
+
+"Then I like you to call me 'Comrade.'"
+
+"Always, or just once in a way?"
+
+"Always."
+
+"Shall I call you comrade, or be comrade?"
+
+"Be comrade; be--be comrade. That's the chief thing!" she cried.
+
+"A bargain," he said, and cautiously crept a little nearer along the
+wobbling trunk to give her his right hand.
+
+"A bargain," she said, and shook hands.
+
+"But there are other items to be settled in connection with this," he
+said, clearing his throat.
+
+"What are they?"
+
+"Well, for one thing, does a comradeship mean Christian names?"
+
+"Certainly not," Lilly replied, feeling that she was making a great
+sacrifice.
+
+He accepted the condition as final, and said submissively, "Just as you
+like, comrade."
+
+Now was her chance to speak out. She drew a deep breath and said:
+
+"You know I want to talk seriously to you, Herr von Prell."
+
+"Ugh!" he ejaculated, prepared for a bad quarter of an hour, as he
+gnawed his gloved thumbs.
+
+Lilly plunged off at a tangent. She would not say anything about his
+last misdemeanour, for bad as it was, it was all over, and what was
+forgiven ought also to be forgotten. But if he imagined that the loose
+life he had been leading was a secret in the castle household, he was
+very much mistaken. It was an open scandal, and even the laundry and
+scullery-maids sniggered about it; but how could he expect anything
+else after ... Here she enumerated the sum total of his misdoings, as
+she had gleaned them from remarks the servants had let fall.
+
+She was ashamed to retail them. This was not what she had intended to
+say at all.... She had wanted to speak grandly of the high purpose of
+human existence, the nobility of self-renunciation, the glory of pure
+and lofty ideals, of the spiritual tie uniting the elect on earth, and
+so on. But inspiration failed her when she saw him sitting there with
+bent shoulders and turning his big toes inwards so that under the soft
+leather of his riding-boots they looked like excrescences, and she
+could think of nothing better.
+
+He did not interrupt her. Even when she had done he was silent,
+absorbed in watching an insect wriggling in circles on the surface of
+the water.
+
+"Have you no answer," she asked, "after all the disgraceful things I
+have accused you of?"
+
+"What should I answer, most learned judge?" he retorted. "My one claim
+to distinction is that I am absolutely devoid of moral sense. Do you
+want me to lose it?"
+
+"If you are so weak and have no reliance on yourself," she exclaimed in
+growing zeal, "let me be your mainstay and support. Lean on me, your
+friend, adviser, your----"
+
+"Foster-father," he suggested, and stirred the slime in the ditch with
+his whip.
+
+She awakened to the fact that what she had said had not made the least
+impression; he was laughing at her all the time.
+
+"Get up and let me pass," she said. "Why should I try to do my best for
+someone who is not worth it?"
+
+He made no sign of moving from his place.
+
+"Now, look here, comrade," he said, pointing down at the black mirror
+of ditch-water. "There goes a water-spider with its legs in the air and
+its head downwards. If you were to ask it why it swims like that, it
+would say because it knows no other way. That's its nature. Well, do
+you see, it's my nature. What's to be done? You can't alter it."
+
+"Anyone can restrain his evil passions," she exclaimed, flaring up in
+indignation. "Anyone can, if he likes, keep his eyes fixed on a high
+ideal and struggle to attain it--can listen to a friend when she would
+help, and say to him----"
+
+"Well, what would the friend say?" he asked ingratiatingly, swinging
+himself nearer.
+
+She did not answer. She had put her hands before her face and was
+crying--crying till her sobs convulsed her body.
+
+"For God's sake, sit still!" he exclaimed, circling his arms towards
+her, for on the wobbling trunk of the mountain ash she might at any
+moment lose her balance. "Child, dear little comrade, sit still."
+
+She quivered all over. She heard nothing but the sweet, caressing,
+criminal "dear little comrade," which her soul had been yearning to
+hear.
+
+And then he promised her to turn over a new leaf. He would not flirt
+any more. He would give up tippling with the bailiffs; he would read
+stiff agricultural literature; he would do anything--oh, what wouldn't
+he do?--if she would only stop crying.
+
+"Give me your word of honour?" she asked, raising her wet, reddened
+eyes to his.
+
+He gave it without hesitation.
+
+Comforted and grateful, she smiled at him.
+
+"You'll never repent it," she said. "I'll stand by you. I'll be a true
+friend, and do all I can for you."
+
+"All that the two watch-dogs permit," he added.
+
+To-day she didn't mind his saying "two watch-dogs." She shrugged her
+shoulders and said, "Yes, of course, what _they_ permit."
+
+Then they both laughed so heartily that they narrowly escaped falling
+into the ditch, after all.
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER XX
+
+
+Then came a delightful time in which she played hide-and-seek with her
+emotions: drank long draughts from the never-exhausted fount of
+pleasures anticipated and rehearsed, fulfilled and enjoyed, which left
+behind them a delightful after-taste and a glow of memories. Every day
+brought new happiness and a boundless wealth of experience.
+
+Often when Lilly opened the shutters and the rosy September dawn
+greeted her, she felt as if the Creator had spread a mantle spun out of
+golden sunbeams across the sky on purpose to wrap them in cosy
+seclusion, so that the whole of the world beneath vanished, leaving
+them alone, clinging to one another intoxicated with laughter and
+light.
+
+She felt that she grew lovelier from day to day, that there was a sort
+of radiance surrounding her that made everyone she met gaze at her with
+admiring wonder, and with a little sadness too, as one looks at a
+flower unfolding too proudly, too gloriously, for its miracle of
+blossom to endure.
+
+The two watch-dogs were not blind to the change in her.
+
+The colonel, who was full of craft and guile, failed to diagnose in
+this case the symptoms. His suspicions would have been aroused directly
+if she had been melancholy and absentminded, had hung about him
+nervously, in alternate moods of fervid affection and cold
+estrangement. Then he would have subjected her to a severe espionage.
+But her yielding tenderness and happy serenity was a riddle to which he
+could find no solution; so he gave it up, and tolerated with paternal
+equanimity his young wife's rollicking gaiety and the embraces she
+lavished on him to give vent to the ecstasy within her.
+
+Anna von Schwertfeger was also apparently well satisfied with Lilly's
+happy state of mind and radiant spirits. She seemed as little as the
+colonel to think it suspicious, or to associate it with the influence
+of a third person, otherwise she would scarcely have countenanced so
+willingly the frequent meetings of the two young people.
+
+Lilly now did her best to return the worthy Anna's warm affection, the
+display of which at first had worried her and left her cold. Fräulein
+von Schwertfeger often drew her in the evening into her own private
+room, where she sat with her account-books. It was quite an old-maids'
+paradise, with its canaries in cages, plants and flower-pots, and faded
+photographs of family groups and friends. It was full of old bits of
+china and gilded knick-knacks, such as one meets in ancient and
+impoverished houses as relics of former grandeur. Or she would come at
+an incredibly late hour stealing into Lilly's bedroom, seat herself on
+the bed, and not move till the wheels of the colonel's returning
+carriage were heard on the gravel. Then there would be discussions on
+such profound topics as life and death, the loneliness of old age, and
+the exuberance of youth, which caused grief and trouble when indulged
+in to excess. She asked no questions, she gave no warnings, yet the
+astonishing irrelevance with which she jumped from one subject to
+another, often contradicting flatly her own opinions, indicated that
+her thoughts were really far, far away.
+
+While her voice droned on monotonously, Lilly sometimes looked up and
+caught her eyes fastened on her with a expression of melancholy
+compassion that she was at a loss to understand. Then she was kissed
+and stroked with such heartfelt, pitying tenderness that she felt
+touched, and when left alone in the dark began to be afraid of
+something, as if an avenging fate crouched at the foot of her bed ready
+to spring on her and devour her.
+
+What misfortune could possibly fall upon her? Was she not securer and
+more sheltered than she had ever been? Whom did she deceive? What was
+her offence? And even if her innocent relations with Walter should come
+to light, would she merit any severer punishment than a lecture such as
+children get when they have been careless?
+
+These reflections consoled her even before the after-taste of those
+nocturnal visitations had been lost in blissful dreams.
+
+September wore to a close. Nearly every day brought a ride or an
+apparently chance meeting at twilight in a deserted part of the park.
+They would discern each other from afar lingering at some appointed
+rendezvous, and if a previous arrangement for meeting were frustrated,
+they resorted to the pea-shooter.
+
+By means of this accommodating instrument, which he had brought back
+one day from the town--and in a corner of her balcony passed as a
+superfluous curtain-rod--she was able to blow her messages through the
+vine tendrils straight in at his open window. Sometimes it was a simple
+"Good-morning, comrade," at others an appointment to meet, or a
+harmless joke born on the spur of the moment's gaiety.
+
+On the evenings that the colonel was at home he was usually invited to
+join them. Then, of course, he assumed his most correct and formal
+manner, though there was often opportunity for a little by-play between
+them, so skilfully managed that the watch-dogs remained quite
+unsuspicious.
+
+Nevertheless, Lilly had a rival on these occasions, which she feared
+and hated, because it deprived her of the "comrade's" attention for
+hours. Its very mention was enough to reduce Lilly to a mere cipher.
+This rival was the Regiment. It was the time of the autumn
+man[oe]uvres, and both men followed with feverish interest the tactical
+movements of their old division as reported in the newspapers.
+
+One evening they despatched a joint picture-postcard congratulating the
+Regiment, and a day or two later the compliment was returned, a card
+arriving through the post scribbled over with numerous signatures,
+which it was the work of the world to make out. Two or three were
+abandoned as hopeless, till at last Walter hit on a solution. They
+belonged to three outside lieutenants who had joined the regiment
+for the man[oe]uvres, and had signed their names with the other
+officers--von Holten, Dehnicke, von Berg. They made no impression on
+Lilly, except that "Dehnicke" struck her as sounding a little bourgeois
+and discordant amongst the music of the old patrician "vons."
+
+This greeting from his active past seemed to affect the colonel
+unpleasantly. He became moody and cantankerous, and Lilly felt his eye
+upon her now and then full of a grim savage reproach that made her jump
+with terror. Henceforth his expeditions to the neighbouring garrison
+town became more frequent than ever, and when an invitation to join a
+shooting party arrived, he didn't refuse, in spite of his gout.
+
+The first Sunday in October came. The colonel started off early to
+visit a neighbour, and was not expected to return till late at night.
+
+A soft grey mist, shot with violet and gold, as a promise of sunshine
+later, enveloped the world, when Lilly, arm-in-arm with Fräulein von
+Schwertfeger, came out of church, almost groaning--she had been so
+bored.
+
+The sunflowers in the labourers' cottage gardens were already drooping
+their scorched heads, and the asters showed signs of having suffered
+from the first severe nip of frost. Yet the air was balmy and
+sweet-scented as spring, and larks made a babel in the fields.
+
+"To-day, to-day!" thought Lilly, and stretched herself in a vague
+longing for private talk and jubilant pranks.
+
+It seemed as if her thoughts had been heard, for Anna von Schwertfeger
+asked suddenly, "What is the matter with you to-day?"
+
+"I hardly know myself," Lilly answered, blushing. "I just feel as if
+to-day were a festival."
+
+Anna looked at her sideways, then, clearly emphasising every word, she
+said, "I really might make a festival of it, and visit a friend in the
+town. But the colonel being away, I don't know whether ..."
+
+Lilly started so violently that for a moment she could not recover her
+breath. Then she pulled herself together tactfully, and urged her
+companion to go. She had not had a day off all the summer. She lived
+like a prisoner, and must sorely need a holiday.
+
+Anna nodded meditatively, and the fixed glassy stare that Lilly did not
+like came into her eyes.
+
+At the midday meal, which the two ladies took alone to-day, she was
+still undecided, but directly it was over she ordered the carriage and
+drove off without a word. Lilly, who, instead of resting, had been
+watching from the upstairs landing, now flew to the pea-shooter. The
+dense foliage of the Virginian creeper still so completely shut her in
+that he could not catch a glimpse of her. But she saw him as he sat at
+the open window frowning over his book.
+
+"My good influence!" she thought triumphantly; and it seemed almost a
+pity to decoy him away from his improving occupation.
+
+The steward and book-keeper were pacing up and down, not far from the
+house, smoking their Sunday afternoon cigar; so it was necessary to be
+more cautious than usual.
+
+The paper pellet that conveyed her message hit him on the forehead and
+rebounded on to the grass outside. So well had he himself in hand that
+he did not so much as raise his eyes to show he understood, but a few
+minutes later he let his book fall out of the window, as if by
+accident, and rose indifferently to pick it up.
+
+Half an hour afterwards they met behind the carp-pond. He had on a new
+black-and-white check suit similar to the fateful one worn by the
+foreigner that night in the railway carriage.
+
+"You are much too fine for me to-day," joked Lilly. "I would rather not
+be seen with you."
+
+"That would be an awful shame," he remarked, "for I ordered these
+things on purpose for this day's outing."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Because it's to be our festival."
+
+"What has put that into your head?" stammered Lilly, shocked to think
+of the communion of ideas it testified to.
+
+"A fellow has his presentiments," he replied, smiling significantly.
+
+Simultaneously they turned their footsteps to the secluded beech-wood,
+whither they had wandered in the deepening dusk on the evening they had
+renewed their friendship.
+
+"Where's Tommy?" she asked, thinking of the third member of their
+alliance.
+
+"He's biting a hole in the boards," was the answer, "and making himself
+a kennel to his own mind. He roosts in it like a screech-owl. I
+shouldn't advise you to put the finger you wear your rings on into it;
+you'd lose the rings and possibly the finger too."
+
+"Why do you let him get so wild?" she asked reproachfully.
+
+"Why do I let myself get so wild?" he asked in turn.
+
+"Oh, you--you know you are becoming quite tame and gentle," she
+replied, regarding him affectionately because it was all her doing.
+
+"You really think so?" he asked; and his aspect assumed the
+masterfulness of his lieutenant days.
+
+"Of course I do. Didn't you give me your word of honour?" she boasted.
+
+"Rot!"
+
+Still Lilly gloried in the success of her work of salvation.
+
+"You may underrate my influence if you like," she replied, "but I can
+assure you everyone else notices the change in you. Herr Leichtweg says
+you are always punctual now; and then you borrowed that great
+agricultural encyclopædia from the colonel--that greatly impressed
+him--and Fräulein von Schwertfeger declares you look quite 'delicious'
+in these days!"
+
+"Come, baronissima, shall we have a game of catch?" he asked. "It will
+be good for the circulation of your noble blood."
+
+At once with a shout of joy she started off running at a mad pace up
+the slope, which was veiled in the purple autumnal haze. But she didn't
+go far. She caught her foot in the plaid that she had refused to let
+him carry for her, and fell full length on the ground. He was there in
+a moment to help her up, yet the fall had cured her of her desire to
+run.
+
+They walked on at a sedate pace and climbed the heights on the other
+side, whence their eyes could wander over a sea of waving foliage right
+away to the open country. The beeches glowed pure red, the maples
+danced in all the colours of the rainbow, the birches quivered like
+slender flames of fire, the elm let fall coins of gold, while the oak
+alone retained the sombre green of his late summer dress. With folded
+hands she gazed at the distance, which was lost in a veil of violet.
+
+The sun went down behind vagrant shafts of fire from out the lap of
+gilt-edged clouds. A band of rosy mist lined the horizon, spangled with
+sparks from the sun's reflection.
+
+"Shall we sit down here?" he asked.
+
+"No, not here," she answered, seized with a vague anxiety; "here I
+should soon begin to cry."
+
+She ran on ahead of him, back into wood, and found the path again
+beside the brook. Here it was as dark as evening, but the magic of the
+sun's radiance was still felt, and filled her with worship of Nature.
+
+Oh, how happy she was! how happy!
+
+No danger, nothing to be afraid of ... not even of her own secret
+heart ... for he with whom she was walking was her comrade and
+playfellow--nothing more. He must not, could not, be anything more. She
+felt conscious of no evil; he gave her no furtive glances of desire,
+and she did not try to lead him on.
+
+The bond between them and everything connected with it was above-board
+and clear as daylight, and though it was politic to keep it from
+others, there was not the least sin to hide. Their intercourse was
+purely fun for both.
+
+She wanted to take his hand in her warm-hearted, impulsive way, but
+refrained in case her action should be misunderstood. Thus side by side
+they went on till they reached the spot where the brook, confined in a
+basin of rotten wood, gushed with a low murmur out of the earth. The
+pale green mossy floor was covered with rugged fronds of red-lined
+ferns, and leaves from the branches of the beeches fluttered down
+lazily.
+
+"Here is the place to rest," said Lilly.
+
+"But rather damp, isn't it?" he objected.
+
+"We'll spread the plaid," she exclaimed, eagerly snatching it from him,
+for he had insisted on carrying it after her fall. She unfolded and
+threw it over the carpet of ferns. She crouched on the extreme right
+side of it, leaving him the lion's share, so that he should not spoil
+his beautiful new suit.
+
+"Now we must have something to eat," he said.
+
+"But we, poor church-mice, have nothing!" she laughed.
+
+"Who told you so?" he asked, and produced proudly a paper bag from his
+coat pocket.
+
+It contained a squashed crumbly piece of confectionery. He laid it
+between them and they spooned the crumbs up to their mouths with their
+hands. It had a sweet winey flavour, and Lilly identified it at once as
+punch-tart, for which she had a special weakness.
+
+"The English call it tipsy-cake," he said. "You can get quite screwed
+on it."
+
+"I don't mind risking it," she answered gleefully.
+
+She threw herself on her back, folding her hands as a cushion behind
+her head. She lay thus motionless for a few minutes, gazing up at the
+round patch of sky that gleamed through a parting in the masses of
+foliage above. Luminous pink flakes of cloud floated in the ocean of
+ether; a little further away a blue shimmer broke through the lower
+sky, like the earnest of another heaven. Lilly stretched up her arms in
+longing.
+
+"Are you trying to catch larks?" he asked.
+
+"No, not larks, but the falling leaves," she said.
+
+Like maimed birds, they kept dropping from the boughs, fluttering about
+in spirals when they reached the ground, as if uncertain where to sit.
+
+"Let us see on which of us a leaf falls first," he said, and he too
+stretched himself on his back.
+
+"The first to get one will have a great piece of good luck," she added.
+
+They both lay still and waited, and then came a leaf floating towards
+his nose; but he refused to let it settle there, for she deserved the
+first great piece of luck, so he blew it over to her.
+
+She was too proud to accept such a noble gift from him, and blew it
+back.
+
+So the game went on. They laughed and threw themselves about after the
+whirling leaf. Then suddenly, in the heat of combat their lips met, and
+the next minute their arms were round each other.
+
+
+                           *   *   *   *   *
+
+
+The brook babbled on, and the leaves rained down as if nothing had
+happened. But the earth seemed clothed in a mist of fire, and
+everywhere rainbow suns glittered.
+
+Why had they done this thing? She sank back, dazed, and noticed that
+the sky too was on fire. Her comrade sat next her, with his back bent
+like a schoolboy awaiting a flogging.
+
+"Ah! now we may as well go home," she said despondently.
+
+"Certainly, if the gracious baroness wishes," he replied in mock
+politeness.
+
+She laughed a tired joyless laugh. Evidently his one desire was to
+forget what had passed as speedily as possible.
+
+"It doesn't matter now," she said, "whether we call each other by our
+Christian names or not."
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XXI
+
+
+Fear, the same unreasoning fear that had taken possession of Lilly
+during her engagement, consumed her again. It paralysed her spine,
+bound her arms, and made her knees shake and the veins in her neck
+throb. It wrapped her brain in a blank impenetrable darkness. But after
+the first meetings were over and nothing occurred to excite the
+smallest gleam of suspicion, her fear died down, leaving behind it an
+ever-ready watchfulness, a tension at all times on the lookout for
+awkward questions, a warily assumed innocence by which to avoid
+pitfalls.
+
+Extraordinary to relate, the colonel saw nothing. He who was the most
+jealous and suspicious of husbands, utterly devoid of illusions, was
+for once blind. He even swallowed the headache myth, and came to
+sit on her bed in half-playful, half-cynical sympathy to help Fräulein
+von Schwertfeger change the compresses, which she prepared with
+over-zealous attentiveness. To submit to this woman's caresses taxed
+her heavily, for behind them was a furtive pair of eyes that strove to
+look harmless, yet could not disguise their insatiable curiosity.
+
+As anxiety with regard to her husband gradually lulled itself to sleep,
+the more wakeful did it become in the case of the self-sacrificing
+female friend, who at any moment might assume the _rôle_ of a
+full-fledged enemy and traitor.
+
+Lilly dared not cry till night, when she was alone, and then she would
+spring out of bed to wash away traces of her tears, only to cry herself
+to sleep after all.
+
+It was not remorse that she felt, nor shame, nor yearning love, but
+simply an unfathomable loneliness, a dismayed facing of the question
+"What next?"
+
+Would it be confession and retirement into a convent, or elopement and
+suicide?--events which in Frau Asmussen's old novels had been the quite
+ordinary sequel to such a misdeed.
+
+A week went by. Her headache was well. She had been up again quite a
+long time, but hadn't seen him. Not a vestige of him was to be seen
+when, with the doors of her room bolted, she rushed on to the balcony
+to look across at his quarters.
+
+The colonel kept urging her to resume her rides. The exercise would do
+her good, and Herr von Prell was ready to escort her.
+
+By the time Saturday came she felt she must give in, for they would be
+forced to meet the next day at dinner. The horses were stamping before
+the door. Now the moment of meeting, which she had been anticipating
+with trembling fears, had come, and confronted her like a new danger.
+But when she had beheld her friend swagger over the terrace in his
+high, polished riding-boots, pale and haggard, bowing like a doll on
+wires to show his hypocritical respect, something in her grew rigid; a
+feeling came over her that this young man was an utter stranger to whom
+she was going to speak for the first time.
+
+The next moment they rode out of the gate together. The colonel had
+gone to the stables, but Fräulein von Schwertfeger stood with clasped
+hands looking after them.
+
+The road across the fields was like a morass from the standing pools of
+rain, and squelched under the horses' hoofs. A chill breeze stirred the
+young autumn wheat. Beyond the ragged twigs of the birches was a faint
+yellow glow, in which a watery-looking sun was sinking. Everything
+looked fatigued and sad; even the winter crops seemed to think it had
+been hardly worth while to sow them.
+
+They trotted on side by side in silence; every minute seemed an hour.
+
+"Surely he must speak at last," she thought, biting her lips till they
+bled, as she rose in the saddle.
+
+He kept his eyes fixed with an unfaltering gaze on the road, and only
+moved his right hand now and again to adjust his reins.
+
+"He'll begin again before long with his 'gracious baronesses,'" she
+thought bitterly, and felt ashamed of herself and him in anticipation.
+
+At length it was she who broke silence.
+
+"Do walk your horse!" she implored, nearly crying.
+
+"Of course we will, comrade," he said, reining in his chestnut.
+
+"Comrade! Comrade!" she echoed derisively, and sought his eyes with a
+passionate glance. "We've made a nice mess of our comradeship!"
+
+He shrugged his shoulders, the gesture with which he always met a
+scolding, and did not answer.
+
+"I wish you would say something!" she cried, quite beside herself.
+
+"What do you want me to say?" he asked, making a movement as if he were
+going to scratch his head reflectively. "It's a nasty affair--we admit
+that," and he repeated, pondering to himself, "nasty affair, nasty
+affair!"
+
+"And is that all you have to say?" she exclaimed.
+
+"My gracious friend," he replied, "I am little, and my heart is little
+in proportion. It's hardly an adequate platform whereon to parade great
+anguish of soul!"
+
+"Who is talking about anguish of soul!" she cried. "What is to become
+of us? That is what I want to know."
+
+"Directly I inherit an unencumbered ancestral manor," he replied, with
+a gesture that denoted invitation, "containing house, stable, horses
+and carriages, and other animate and inanimate necessaries, I shall
+permit myself the honour of asking your husband for your hand."
+
+She could no longer control her despair.
+
+"If you continue to make your insulting jokes," she almost screamed,
+bursting into tears, "I'll ride straight away from you now, and break
+my neck."
+
+"Rather a difficult thing to accomplish on that sober nag of yours,"
+was his cool reply.
+
+She was at a loss what to retort and so let her tears fall silently.
+
+At last he adopted a different tone.
+
+"Be sensible for a change, my child, to please me," he said. "All I
+meant to do was to clear your soul of superfluous tragedy. As soon as
+you put a bright face on the matter I'll give it practical
+consideration; I promise you."
+
+She wiped the tears from her eyes with the gauntlet of her riding-glove
+and forthwith smiled obediently.
+
+"That's all right," he said with approval. "Not in vain did the poet
+sing:
+
+           'O weine selten, weine schwer.
+            Wer Tränen hat, hat auch Malheur.'
+
+Well, now, I'll tell you a fairy tale. We two pretty orphan children
+were just planted down here in this enchanted castle for each other. We
+were obliged to come together here, even if long ago we had not been
+two hearts united somewhere else. The colonel, as a matter of fact,
+wedded us from the first. The only pity is that your marriage contract
+with him did not make provision for the circumstances. But there it is,
+and we have no choice but to resort to some secret arrangement between
+ourselves. Don't you see, dearest child, we are both tacking the same
+way on life's ocean. The risks you and I have to run are one and the
+same. So buck up, and let's go it! We are poor vagabonds, anyhow."
+
+"Thank you, I am not a vagabond!" Lilly flared up. "I have my pride and
+my honour to maintain, and even if I have sinned, I know how to die for
+my sins."
+
+"Dying is not so easy," he remarked; "generally the opportunity is
+lacking, and then when it comes one funks it."
+
+She felt her old burning desire to protect him from his own low
+estimate of himself.
+
+"You don't mean what you say!" she cried. "You are amongst the boldest
+and bravest of men, and would face death for the sake of your honour, I
+know. And if you liked you might have the whole world at your feet. I
+shall never cease to remind you of that. I have not sacrificed myself
+for you for nothing. I will interest myself in you till you get back
+your faith in yourself, till you feel you are once more on the upward
+path. I will share all your trials and temptations, and stand between
+you and evil. What am I here for except for your sake--yours?"
+
+At that moment her enthusiasm for him was so great that she could
+gladly have thrown herself under the hoofs of his horse, and when she
+compared this with her feelings when they had first met that day, she
+could hardly comprehend how it was that he had appeared to her in so
+alienated and repulsive a light.
+
+"You are a most emotional creature," he said; "it is a good thing that
+the creepers hide your balcony so effectually."
+
+"What do you mean to imply by that?" she faltered, in shocked
+foreboding.
+
+"And the ladder luckily is still in its place," he went on, "ready to
+be used. The creepers might break this time and no one would notice
+anything amiss, not even the Schwertfeger, eh?"
+
+His light eyelashes blinked at her persuasively.
+
+She did not know which way to look, she felt so dreadfully ashamed.
+
+"Never, never will I have anything to do with you again!" she cried.
+"I swear by all the saints I never will! I should loathe myself if I
+did, and despise you with all my heart and soul!" She finished with an
+exclamation of disgust.
+
+He merely shrugged his shoulders. "A pity," he said; "it would have
+been a splendid opportunity ..."
+
+
+                           *   *   *   *   *
+
+
+He came to dinner the next day the picture of all the virtues in his
+frock-coat and black cravat. He bowed and scraped, pursed his lips, and
+was so absurdly deferential that he seemed afraid to take his cup of
+Mocha coffee from her hand. Fräulein von Schwertfeger's eyes wandered
+watchfully and inquiringly from one to the other.
+
+Late that Sunday night, after the colonel had gone into town, and
+Fräulein von Schwertfeger retired early to her room, Lilly was sitting
+on her bed brushing her hair in her night attire, when she became aware
+of a soft rattling sound at the window. It sounded as if a branch were
+being blown by the autumn wind against the shutters, only that it
+occurred regularly at intervals, growing weaker and stronger, but
+always persistent. Seized with fright, she first thought of going down
+to Fräulein von Schwertfeger. But, recollecting herself in time, she
+threw on a dressing-gown, and cautiously opened the window and a bit of
+the outside shutter.
+
+For a moment she saw nothing. It was a starless night, and the
+bailiff's house opposite seemed plunged in darkness; then it dawned on
+her that something like a rod was oscillating close to the shutter. She
+opened it a little further--and recognised the pea-shooter!
+
+Then she knew what it was.
+
+Springing backwards she drew the bolt, flung herself into bed, and
+stopped up her ears with her fingers. But every time she drew them out
+to listen she heard that persistent regular rattle, which had now
+become almost an unblushing knock.
+
+The watchman who patrolled yard and park every hour had only to see the
+ladder leaning against the balcony, and all would be lost. Anxiety
+deprived her of her senses. Trembling like an aspen-leaf in every limb,
+she ran into her dressing-room again, where there was no light, opened
+the balcony door slowly and noiselessly a finger's depth, and whispered
+through the crack into the darkness: "Go away at once, and never
+attempt such a thing again." But when she tried to close the door again
+it wouldn't shut. She listened, but nothing was to be seen or heard.
+Then she groped with her hands and found the obstacle. It was the
+inevitable pea-shooter. She moaned aloud, buried her face, and the next
+moment was lying half-fainting in his arms.
+
+After this evening she was completely in his power, defenceless, and
+without a will of her own--a victim of his every wish and whim.
+
+It couldn't be called happiness or even ecstasy. That followed later,
+when she had overcome her horror of their monstrous conduct and fear of
+discovery was deadened by nothing happening to disturb them, and she
+could revel in a defiant sense of security. Then it became a blissful
+skating over awful abysses--a delirium of the senses full of intangible
+joys--a beatific offering of herself to a lacerating scourge, an
+alternative ebullition of self-scorn and degradation and blasphemous
+prayer.
+
+She began to laugh again--not that old silly childlike laughter which
+till recently had dominated her frivolous nature. No, it was a mocking
+exultant laughter, the laughter of a hunted thief when, behind the back
+of his pursuer, he drags his hard-won booty into a place of safety.
+
+There was a feeling of justification in it too. "I am only doing what
+my destiny ordains," she would tell herself. "I am coming into the
+heritage promised me by fate, that the old man has cheated me of for so
+long."
+
+There was something more that scored over everything, and almost gave a
+sanctity and purity to this arrant deception, and this was the
+reflection that their intercourse meant salvation to him. He would
+learn to despise vulgar and shameful intrigues under the spell of this
+elevating passion, and on the wings of a woman's redeeming love he
+would rise into the pure ether where the spirits of great men and
+heroes dwell.
+
+She drugged her conscience ever anew with these delusions, and when he
+lay in her arms at their secret rendezvous, gave expression to them in
+a whisper, for walls were thin, and it was as well not to speak too
+loud.
+
+He laughed and kissed the words from her lips, and when she grew uneasy
+and begged for pledges of constancy, he swore by all his stars to be
+true.
+
+
+                           *   *   *   *   *
+
+
+Fräulein von Schwertfeger's visits to Lilly's room now never lasted
+later than eleven. At about this hour he was permitted to come; at
+half-past one he had to be gone. Of course, this was only on nights
+when the colonel went to town. The train service made it impossible for
+him to return before two, and, besides, the clatter of approaching
+carriage wheels could be heard as a warning on the courtyard
+paving-stones. Before his departure Walter had to smoke a cigarette to
+clear the room of the odour which he brought with him of stable and
+leather. For sometimes the colonel, if wine made him talkative, would
+look in on Lilly as he went to bed, and even come and sit by her for a
+little, regaling her with the latest "good stories" from Berlin, that
+he had heard in the Casino. She for her part pretended to be very
+sleepy, would yawn and purr like a kitten, and often in confidence of
+safety actually fall asleep in the middle of a laugh.
+
+If only there had been no Fräulein von Schwertfeger! Not that she had
+noticed anything--the terrors of such a contingency were not to be
+contemplated. But her restless comings and goings, the almost nervous
+eagerness with which she spied round her, gave quite enough food for
+anxiety. She began to look haggard and pale, only the flesh round her
+mouth, like her sharp-tipped nose, was a deep red. It looked almost as
+if she drank, but if she did it was in secret, for at table she hardly
+touched wine.
+
+"I don't mind what she does," thought Lilly, "as long as she doesn't
+play the spy on me as she did on Käte."
+
+Sometimes it struck Lilly rather forcibly that she herself was now not
+much better than the poor girl who had been sent away from the castle
+in disgrace.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XXII
+
+
+Fräulein von Schwertfeger had said "Good-night" and gone out of Lilly's
+room about half an hour before midnight one November evening. The
+colonel had driven off to the town, and close to Lilly's pillow sat the
+hero, wet and frozen, for he had been waiting a long time in the
+drizzling rain below before the signal--a double click of the shutter
+bolt--had been given to summon him to her side.
+
+Now, however, all was going smoothly. The house slept, the watchmen had
+gone by, and the ladder, which he for greater safety dragged after him
+on to the balcony, reposed peacefully in its corner. The blue-shaded
+lamp bathed the warm, perfumed atmosphere of the room with a midsummer
+brilliance. Showers of drops dripped softly from the bars of the
+shutters, and the November wind whimpered in the chimney like a beggar.
+Lilly lay comfortably stretched beneath the pale blue satin quilt. She
+held his hand and gazed dreamily up into his face, which even in
+moments of self-abandonment never quite lost its expression of
+schoolboy sheepishness. She gazed at the freckled bridge of his nose,
+the blinking pale-lashed eyes, and the sharply pointed unshaven chin,
+half hidden in the turned-up collar of his green Norfolk jacket. He
+dared not brush himself up for her any more, or it would have excited
+remark from his colleagues.
+
+They did not talk much. It was enough that he was there, he who
+belonged to her in life and death, with whom she had been cast adrift
+in this cold, strange world. She drew his head down to hers and stroked
+the forehead, on which his easy-going career had left no lines. A few
+raindrops still hung on his temples.
+
+The clock ticking on the wall drew breath for a gentle chiming of the
+hour, the hanging lamp swung a little, casting long wavering shadows on
+the ceiling, like rocking cradles, or the flapping of ravens' wings.
+Then there came from the courtyard the sound of the dull rumble of
+wheels. Whether the sound was advancing or receding was not easy to
+decide.
+
+Both started and looked at the hands of the clock. Could that possibly
+be the carriage already, which had gone to fetch the colonel from the
+station? At twelve? Surely not. The horses were never put in before a
+quarter to two, or they would have had to wait at the station for an
+hour and a half. Probably it was the milkman, who had been delayed in
+bringing back his cans. They grew calm again. A whole long precious
+hour was before them, an hour of sweet enjoyment and oblivion of
+everything except each other. To show his relief he made a popping
+sound with his mouth. She stretched out her arms and lifted herself up
+to his level with a contented smile. At that very moment there were
+three short peremptory raps on the door opening into the corridor.
+Fräulein von Schwertfeger's voice called out, "Open the door, Lilly;
+open the door immediately."
+
+Walter bounded up. Before she could look round he had glided out of the
+room. She felt as if bells were pealing in her ears, and a vague
+longing to sink through the bed before the knock was repeated and drew
+her to the door to turn the key. Overcome with shame, she had hardly
+time to bury herself under the quilt again before Fräulein von
+Schwertfeger's eyes took a hasty survey of the room and alighted on
+something grey and round in a corner. She darted at it, and only later
+did Lilly recognise that it was Walter's cap. She drew back the bolt of
+the door into the colonel's room, and then with apparent calm, as if
+nothing had happened, seated herself on the edge of Lilly's bed.
+
+"Whatever you do, don't cry," she whispered hurriedly, and then the
+colonel's footsteps were heard in the corridor.
+
+"Good gracious, is it so late? How time flies when two women get
+gossiping!" was the speech Fräulein von Schwertfeger greeted him with.
+Her tone expressed the most unbounded surprise.
+
+There he stood, and appeared not altogether pleased at not finding his
+young wife alone.
+
+"Where do you spring from all at once, colonel? You can't have ordered
+a special train, and if you came through the air, I never knew before
+you had mastered the art of flying; and I am sure your wife didn't--did
+you, my pet? You see, she is rendered speechless with astonishment."
+
+Thus she talked on, giving Lilly a few moments in which to collect
+herself.
+
+Forced to render account of his movements, he said that as he drove to
+the station he had remembered that it was a neighbouring squire's
+birthday, and, changing his plans on the spot, had turned round and
+gone to help in the celebration of the happy event instead of going to
+town.
+
+"That is always the way," said Fräulein von Schwertfeger; "the most
+extraordinary events have the simplest explanations. Good-night,
+dearest. I hope you will sleep well, and wake up without headache."
+
+The colonel was on the alert. "Why, if she had a headache, didn't you
+leave her to go to sleep long ago?" he asked.
+
+Fräulein von Schwertfeger was equal to the occasion, and without
+hesitating a moment she replied:
+
+"Lilly asked me to get her compresses again, but I thought it wiser
+just to lay a cool hand on her forehead. Now I think we ought to leave
+her alone, don't you, colonel? Goodnight!"
+
+Thereupon she extinguished the blue lamp.
+
+Lilly felt she must scream out: "Don't go! stay here, or he'll strangle
+me!"
+
+She was already out of the room, and so effectual had her diplomacy
+been, that the colonel, with a few civilities about her headache,
+retired to his own room without further questions. Otherwise a
+breakdown of Lilly's nerves might have brought things to the inevitable
+crisis there and then.
+
+Paralysed with a dull fear she lay listening, first in the direction of
+the colonel's room, then of that where the wind moaned, and where there
+was an almost inaudible rustling of the leaves, caused by the ladder
+which Walter was sliding over the railings of the balcony. As long as
+there was light in the room he discreetly remained where he was. She
+could hear afterwards how he removed the ladder and put it in the old
+place. Not till now, when she knew they were safe, did she realise with
+a shudder the gravity of their escape, and she felt an inclination to
+call out and cry for mercy.
+
+Anna's conduct seemed inexplicable. Why had she made herself a party to
+their misdeeds, she whose reputation, existence, and employment were at
+stake? Did a wretched sinner like herself deserve such a sacrifice?
+
+Her heart went out to her in gratitude. She could no longer rest
+quietly in bed. She must at once go and thank her.
+
+Noiselessly she threw something on, and taking the precaution to bolt
+the door of communication between the two rooms, she slipped out into
+the corridor, having assured herself that the colonel was already
+asleep.
+
+The old oak staircase creaked terribly, but it often did this when no
+one was creeping down it; its music resounded through the house at
+intervals all the night through. From under Fräulein von Schwertfeger's
+door came the glimmer of light. Heavy footsteps paced up and down
+restlessly. At last she ventured to knock, and was answered by "Who's
+there?"
+
+"It's Lilly.... Anna!"
+
+"What do you want? Go back to bed!"
+
+"No, no, Anna! I must speak to you; I must."
+
+The door opened. "Come in, then," was the not very cordial invitation.
+
+Lilly was going to throw herself on her neck, but Fräulein von
+Schwertfeger shook her off.
+
+"I am in no mood for disturbing scenes," she said in her trumpet voice,
+which she tried in vain to muffle. It had lost every vestige of its
+sympathetic tone. "You needn't thank me; I haven't acted as I have done
+for your sake."
+
+Lilly felt very small, and very like a scolded child. Since the days
+when she had accepted meekly Frau Asmussen's chastisements she had not
+been so snubbed.
+
+"At first you help me ..." she hesitated, "and then ..."
+
+"As you are here, you shall answer a few questions," said Anna. "Fasten
+up your dress--it is cold here--and sit down."
+
+Lilly obediently did what she was told.
+
+"To begin with, have I ever done anything to bring about a meeting
+between you and that young man?"
+
+"No; when could you?"
+
+"That's just what I am asking."
+
+"It was quite the contrary, for you wouldn't even consent at first to
+my having the riding lessons."
+
+"And when I did consent, have I allowed them to take place without
+supervision?"
+
+"Without supervision?" echoed Lilly. "No, I should think not, indeed.
+You were nearly always there from start to finish."
+
+"Was it I who proposed your riding about the open country with him
+alone?"
+
+"You? Why, of course not. The first time we went without leave, and
+afterwards it was the colonel who wished it."
+
+"Lastly, have I or have I not taken care to watch that everything was
+right in your room?"
+
+"I am not sure, but I think so. You used, anyhow, to come in the last
+thing to say 'Good-night.'"
+
+"Have you taken me for your enemy--your jailer?"
+
+"Not exactly ... but I thought you didn't really care much about me."
+
+Anna laughed a hard, cheerless laugh.
+
+"Your utterances are very valuable," she said. "It proves to me that I
+haven't blundered in carrying through my scheme, and that I have
+nothing to reproach myself with."
+
+"What scheme?" asked Lilly, quite at sea.
+
+Fräulein von Schwertfeger measured her with a glance of pitying scorn.
+
+"I knew everything, child, from the very beginning. The first moment
+you met him here I saw what was coming. I could reckon it all up as I
+do the cost of dinner. I just let things go as they were bound to go. I
+could do it without lowering myself in my own self-esteem. Besides,
+what end would have been served by interfering? You were simply bent on
+rushing headlong to your ruin."
+
+"What have I ever done," faltered Lilly, "that you should hate me so? I
+have never tried to upset your position in the house. I submitted to
+you from the first moment I arrived. I put myself entirely in your
+hands and now you treat me like this!"
+
+"My dear, if I had hated you," replied Fräulein von Schwertfeger, "you
+would not be here now. You would probably at this very minute be
+wandering on the high-road. A dozen times or more I might have crushed
+you like dust in the palm of my hand, and I haven't done it. But I'll
+be honest.... Yes, I did hate you--that is to say, before I knew you. I
+pictured you a little pert, designing minx, who had drawn the colonel
+on, out of mercenary motives, to resort to that extreme measure which
+is the last resource of old libertines when they are thwarted. But when
+you came and I saw what you were, a dear, ingenuous child, without
+suspicion of evil, full of good intentions towards him and myself, I
+had to pocket my hate. Then you became to me nothing more than a
+harmless little pet dog that one uses so long as it is any pleasure to
+one and then kicks aside. I have done with you, my dear child, long
+ago. You're not in it. I and the colonel alone are playing the game. I
+have to reckon with him now, and then my work is over."
+
+Lilly's soul was full of a dull sickening wonder. She felt as if doors
+were being thrown open and blinds drawn up, and she was looking
+straight into human hearts as into a fiery abyss.
+
+"I thought that you and he were so much to each other," she said. "I
+thought----" Then suddenly it occurred to her that her first idea had
+been the right one. This imperious and hardened old maid, of whose
+beauty there were still traces, had ten or fifteen years ago been
+admired by her employer, after a time neglected, and now wished to be
+revenged.
+
+Fräulein von Schwertfeger guessed her thoughts and speedily dispelled
+the delusion.
+
+"If that had been it," she said, "I should have known how to keep
+silent, and have regarded the castle as my sanctuary had I been allowed
+to remain in it. No, no, my child; things are not always so simple in
+this world, and there are worse hells than you dream of."
+
+Then Lilly heard a story which filled her with horror and pity, the
+story of which she was the last chapter.
+
+The colonel, always a man of tyrannical will, with a mad infatuation
+for young girls, had, under the pretext that when he was at home on
+leave he liked to have youth and gaiety about him, advertised for
+pupils to learn housekeeping. He selected the successful applicants
+himself, having known beforehand whom they were to be. For a long time
+Fräulein von Schwertfeger suspected nothing, till the servants began to
+talk. They came to her with stories of secret orgies at the top of the
+house, of wild races up and down stairs after frightened girls clothed
+in silver spangles--transparent garments of silver being apparently an
+old weakness of the colonel's. Her eyes were fully opened to these
+disgraceful goings-on when one of the girls attempted suicide, and she
+left the house. But she was poor and used to ruling. She could not keep
+subordinate posts, and sank into poverty and wretchedness. The colonel
+did not lose sight of her, and when he thought she had suffered
+sufficient punishment for her independent line of action, he asked her
+to return once more to the castle as his lady-housekeeper. He promised
+her that there would be nothing more to complain of, so she crept back
+to his house like a starved dog. He soon broke his word, however; the
+orgies were resumed, but she hadn't any longer the courage to protest.
+She learnt to be blind and deaf when amorous glances were exchanged at
+table, and late at night shrill cries and laughter reached her bedroom.
+She even went so far as to keep the scandal from the curious servants,
+and thus to screen the house's reputation, while she offered his girl
+friends a motherly interest and affection.
+
+"I shouldn't be surprised," she added, "if he hadn't made you the same
+proposals, and suggested that I should look after you."
+
+And it came back to Lilly's remembrance how in that hour of fate, when
+she had become engaged to him, he had walked round her, eager but
+irresolute, and spoken of a worthy and distinguished lady under whose
+fostering care she was to develop on his estate into a woman of the
+world.
+
+Fräulein von Schwertfeger had not done. She went on to say that the
+bitter consciousness of her shameful position ate into her soul like a
+canker, and finally took such possession of her that her one thought
+was to be revenged. His marriage was to be the instrument. She would
+continue to be blind and deaf as he had once demanded she should be.
+That was all. Matters should take their natural course. Such had been
+the state of affairs till to-day. To-day the catastrophe must have been
+unavoidable, and would have fallen on the colonel if at the last
+decisive moment her strength of character had not failed her. She found
+that the young, good-hearted, guilelessly guilty wife had won her
+affection too deeply to be sacrificed to her plans of vengeance.
+
+"But I thought you said just now," Lilly ventured to interpose, "that
+you had not done it for my sake."
+
+Fräulein von Schwertfeger fixed her with a stony and awful stare.
+
+"My child," she answered, "if you were not quite such a stupid young
+thing, whom sin alone can mature, you might understand the conflict
+that is perpetually going on in anyone like myself. For the present, be
+satisfied that you are out of danger."
+
+In a burst of gratitude Lilly flew at Fräulein von Schwertfeger and
+kissed her face and hands. Anna no longer repulsed her; she caressed
+her hair and talked to her in a tone of friendly patronage. Then Lilly,
+crouching at her feet, confessed how the affair with Walter had arisen,
+how their friendship had originated, and how he in reality had been the
+author of her happiness.
+
+"Happiness!" echoed Fräulein von Schwertfeger, and she made a sound
+through her tight lips like a whistle of disdain.
+
+Lilly stopped short, looked at her inquiringly, and then understood.
+The question burned in her brain, "Am I any better, really, than if he
+had dragged me here as his mistress?"
+
+It was eleven months since that night of courtship. What had they made
+of her? She threw her arms round Fräulein von Schwertfeger's neck and
+cried, cried, cried. It did her such a lot of good to have a sisterly,
+or rather a motherly, bosom on which to pillow her head. It reminded
+her of the days which had ended with the flourish of a knife.
+
+Of course, now it was all over; that was an understood thing. They must
+not meet again--not once. Fräulein von Schwertfeger demanded it, and
+Lilly without opposition agreed.
+
+"If only it weren't for my mission!" she sighed.
+
+"What mission?" asked Anna.
+
+Then Lilly told her that too--of her sacred responsibility with regard
+to his life, of the influence her love had upon him, awaking him to
+higher and purer things, and how she would be answerable with the last
+drop of blood in her veins for his ascent to a noble plane of
+endeavour, where his work, inspired by her, would bear fruit and not be
+wasted.
+
+It was Fräulein von Schwertfeger's turn to be astounded, and she
+listened to her with distended, incredulous eyes, paced the room
+excitedly, and murmured to herself, "It's unbelievable! unbelievable!"
+And when Lilly asked her what was unbelievable, she kissed her on the
+forehead and said, "You poor, poor thing!"
+
+"Why poor?" asked Lilly.
+
+"Because you are bound to suffer in this life."
+
+Hereupon it was settled that Anna would speak to him once more herself,
+and, as the price of her silence, require from him the breaking off of
+every sort of relation between them. Not even the rides would be
+permitted. Lilly pleaded for the writing of one single letter of
+farewell. That, she thought, she owed him in order that he should not
+be cast into despair about her and his future.
+
+Then they separated. Lilly ran upstairs; elated, redeemed, borne on the
+wings of new hopes, she cast all precautions to the winds, but, thank
+God, the colonel was still snoring.
+
+The clocks struck four, and the clodhopping step of the stable-boy was
+already heard in the yard. Before she flung herself into bed she
+allowed herself one farewell look across at the bailiff's lodge and
+rejoiced that renunciation was so easy.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XXIII
+
+
+"DEAREST HERR VON PRELL,
+
+"You will have concluded from what has happened that all must be over
+between us. Yes, everything has come to an end. We shall never meet
+again except at table. If you ask whether this makes me sad I will be
+brave and say 'No,' in the hope that it will cause you to feel our
+parting less. But the question is not whether we find it difficult or
+easy. We have to consider whether our feelings in the matter are
+elevating and humanly disinterested. True self-sacrifice must be the
+keystone of our lives. Yes, I expect from you the nobility of
+renunciation. The whole of our future must be dedicated to memories
+alone. Are we ever likely to enjoy again such exquisite hours as we
+have spent together? I have done with thoughts of happiness, and so
+must you too. Henceforth my one sacred duty will be my husband's
+welfare, and I must request you to devote all the energy you are
+capable of to the reordering of your life. You know life is a very
+sacred thing. I feel that it is so, since I have had a kind woman
+friend to set me on the right road, and I want you to feel it too.
+
+"This letter is my last. You may write to me just once. Please do, and
+put your answer in the pea-shooter, which still stands as before in the
+corner of the balcony. Ah! indeed, I shall have no peace till I know
+that our souls are united by the same desires. Good-bye, and when you
+come to meals, be sure you make no secret reference to what has been.
+It would only be painful to me, and I should doubt your good faith.
+
+"Always yours in true sisterly affection,
+
+                                               "L. v. M."
+
+
+"Gracious Friend and Lady,
+
+"The profound emotions I have experienced since my last interview with
+our honoured Fräulein von Schwertfeger are only deepened by your most
+kind lines. I feel a great impulse to perform deeds of atonement never
+yet attempted. I am ready to heap scorn and contumely on the seven
+deadly sins. I will take as example all the paragons of virtue the
+world has ever known, and will try to find in the lofty renunciation
+you demand of me that undiluted happiness which is the only kind devoid
+of the sting of remorse--an advantage which cannot have much weight
+with one so fatally constituted that he has heard of such a thing but
+never felt it.
+
+"Thus, dearest and most charming of women, farewell! We certainly had a
+good time. I can swear to this without committing perjury. Should you
+require more pledges for the future, I can also swear, first, to abhor
+alcohol; second, to shun the fair sex like the plague; third, to devote
+to the Encyclopædia of Agriculture unremitting love and attention, two
+volumes of seven hundred and twenty pages each notwithstanding.
+
+"Once more, farewell! The ladder of my hopes, which I have climbed for
+the last time, shall find a wintry grave under fir cones and branches.
+When the times comes, may it rise therefrom to greet a new spring.
+
+"Till then, I kiss in all constancy your slim and refreshingly large
+hand.
+
+                                   "Yours,
+
+                                       "Already reformed,
+
+                                            "Walter von Prell."
+
+
+Lilly found this letter, on the morning but one after the foregoing
+events, stuffed in the mouth of the pea-shooter, which reposed
+innocently against the balcony glass doors. It cannot be said that it
+gave her unlimited satisfaction. There were expressions in it that
+raised scepticism with regard to the sincerity of his conversion. Yet
+his assurances of amendment were so frank and concise, one could not
+doubt that the sentiment that prompted him to make them was genuine. It
+was only that he could not give up the incorrigible levity with which
+he expressed himself. Those who loved him must tolerate this
+eccentricity, whether they liked it or not.
+
+She kissed the letter and put it inside her blouse, that it might rest
+there comfortably for a little while before being torn up.
+
+In the afternoon she went for a stroll round the castle, and found
+under the balcony a heap of fir-branches freshly gathered, out of which
+a rung or two of the buried ladder greeted her confidentially. Pleased
+at this tender evidence of his pain at parting from her, she ran on to
+the boggy outskirts of the park, and marvelled every now and then at
+the easiness of renunciation.
+
+Yet it proved not so easy after all. She began to discover this during
+the next few days of reaction, when life seemed hollow and barren of
+excitement, when the sad grey autumn hours passed drearily and evening
+came, followed by morning, apparently without rhyme or reason.
+
+She did not did in Anna von Schwertfeger's society the solace and
+support she had hoped for. Although her friend did not withdraw her
+promises, she remained behind a wall of reserve, which made any close
+and loving intimacy out of the question. It almost seemed as if she was
+afraid of being implicated in the sinner's guilt, if she encouraged
+Lilly's advances.
+
+At this time Lilly had to put up with a great deal from the colonel.
+His outbursts of ungovernable fury now fell on her, as on the rest of
+the household. But what she dreaded more was the gloomy, threatening
+glance he fixed on her at moments when she sat indulging in quiet
+introspection; she felt instinctively that something was in his mind
+that boded her no good. She began even to fear that he had got wind of
+her affair with Prell. But Fräulein von Schwertfeger would not hear of
+such a thing.
+
+"If that were so," she said, "he would adopt a rather different
+procedure. Broken chairs and smashed lamps would be the consequence of
+his first-awakened suspicion. I think the matter stands thus: he is
+bored to extinction at home, he is hankering for the regiment, and he
+holds you, child responsible for the change in his manner of living.
+God forbid that he gets to hate you for it, otherwise, as far as I can
+see, you will have no choice but to get a separation--or commit
+suicide."
+
+All this was not very consoling. No less discouraging was his
+persistent refusal to introduce her to his neighbours. Anna assured him
+Lilly's education was long ago complete, and no colonel's dame could
+find anything amiss in her manners. Yet he looked at her in distrust,
+and put off the visits week after week.
+
+Nevertheless, Lilly cheerfully endured her troubles. Belief in herself
+and in him buoyed her up, and gave her strength and composure. She made
+herself out a time-table, so that every hour of the day should be
+occupied. She learnt Goethe's lyrics by heart, she read Shakespeare in
+English, pored over Art books and studied the labyrinthine history of
+the French Revolution. Especially attractive reading did she find in a
+big geographical tome containing illustrations of Southern harbours and
+tropical forests, rocky mountains, and the like. Italy, too, was
+represented. There were pious pilgrims praying at shrines, mystic
+churches and buildings, slender pillared porticos, and all filled her
+with the old hunger to wander under those sunny skies.
+
+And so she lost her way travelling in spirit in foreign countries, to
+look round suddenly and find herself face to face with a fair young man
+with freckles in a black and white check suit stiffly bowing and
+saying, "as gracious baroness commands." Then tears sprang to her eyes.
+Her only distraction now was to stand at the balcony door, and over the
+rampart of Virginian creeper, the last leaves of which fluttered about
+like red flags, to gaze across at the outside of the bailiff's house.
+Of course, he had no idea she was there. Oh, how proud she felt of him!
+For she saw him spending all his spare hours with the Encyclopædia of
+Agriculture on the window ledge. Quickly she caught up her geographical
+work again, fired by his example not to idle.
+
+In the evening he closed the shutters early, and drew the heavy
+curtains, which he had put up in his wild days, so close that not a
+crack of light glimmered through. But Lilly hadn't the smallest doubt
+that the lamp went on burning far into the night, and that he sat over
+his books copying memorable passages, and revelling in great creative
+ideas. And she revelled with him, for now she knew he could not fall.
+She had his word, and he her honour in his keeping. This must be his
+talisman leading him on to a higher life. So the weeks went on.
+
+He excused himself from appearing on Sundays, and she was grateful to
+him. Another thing she congratulated herself on was that in that fatal
+night she had caught a cold, which the doctor said was severe enough to
+prevent her rides for the rest of the winter. Probably Fräulein von
+Schwertfeger had a hand in this too.
+
+
+                           *   *   *   *   *
+
+
+One morning early in December it happened that the colonel varied his
+ordinary confirmed grumpiness and appeared at table in excellent
+spirits. He chuckled to himself, looked into vacancy with eyes that
+twinkled, and seemed to be shaking inwardly with suppressed laughter.
+
+Lilly ventured to inquire what was the cause. At first he declined to
+tell her. "Rubbish! Mind your own business," he said, but finally he
+could not keep the news to himself.
+
+"Now, would you believe it?" he began. "I was warned lately at the
+Casino to keep an eye on my young Prell. It turns out from all accounts
+that he has been haunting low quarters at night, and has distinguished
+himself in a brawl about some little baggage of a barmaid."
+
+Lilly felt a freezing sensation rise from her feet and slowly creep up
+her spine. Her limbs became numb. She smiled, and the smile cut into
+her cheeks like the sharp corners of a stone.
+
+"At first I laughed at them," he went on, "for, in the only train that
+goes out and comes in of an evening, I have been a passenger myself, as
+you know, every day. No horse could stand twenty miles each way for
+long. And the pocket-money I give him wouldn't pay for a special train.
+So I told our major. But he stuck to his story, and said he had
+heard it from the younger men, and that it would be a pity if the boy
+was stripped of his uniform. When I got to the station at one, it
+struck me that I had time to search the train from end to end, which I
+did--fourth class and all. Not a sign of him of course. I did the same
+the next night and the next, and went on doing it till I was sick, even
+calling up the inspector to ask if he could give me a clue. He
+couldn't, he called out from inside, half asleep. So I began to think
+the whole thing a swindle. Now, just listen to this: yesterday evening
+when I got to the station here and was already in the carriage, I
+remembered that I had forgotten my umbrella, an appendage to which I
+can never get accustomed. So I went back for it. The station was quite
+empty, but the train was still standing there; and just as I passed the
+luggage van, which had its doors wide open, I saw someone jump out on
+the line on the other side. I shouted 'Stop!' but he bolted off into
+the woods. It flashed into my mind that it was Prell. I told Heinrich
+to drive like the devil, and in less than ten minutes we were here.
+Then I reflected he must have heard the sound of wheels from the
+footpath, and I went straight to my room and turned on the lights. I
+wanted him to think I was there. Did I disturb you, Lilly? By Jove,
+Lilly!" and he started, "I never saw such a face!"
+
+"What's the matter with it?" she asked, faintly smiling again.
+
+"She hasn't been well all day," interposed Anna hurriedly. "Your story
+too, colonel, is rather exciting. I am quite wound up."
+
+"Humph!" he ejaculated, twisting his dyed moustache, and he seemed
+unwilling to take up the thread of his tale again. But Lilly could not
+maintain her composure.
+
+"I must know the rest, I must!" she cried, clasping her hands
+imploringly, quite beside herself.
+
+"Very well," said the colonel, fixing his eyes on her. "I went down
+again quickly and stood in ambush before the bailiff's house. Two
+minutes--and my gentleman comes along, slouching like a pole-cat,
+stands still, looks up and eyes my room, sees the light, and thinks,
+'Ha, ha! it's all right.' Then just as he puts his latchkey in the
+door, I collar him."
+
+Lilly burst into a fit of wild laughter. "Oh, how funny! How very
+funny!" she exclaimed, and this time the colonel believed her.
+
+"Yes; but something funnier is coming," he continued. "I said to him,
+'If you confess the whole truth, I'll forgive you; if not, you'll go
+packing to-morrow early.' And then it came out--what do you think the
+rascal has been up to? Carrying on with the barmaid at the _Golden
+Apple_, if you please--the resort of non-commissioned officers and
+clerks. So that he might loaf there at his ease, he bribed the porters,
+and actually went and came back in the same train with me evening after
+evening concealed in the luggage van. If that isn't impudence, I don't
+know what is--eh, Lilly?"
+
+There was a pause. She felt herself tossing on a stormy sea, a boiling
+and singing in her ears, and felt at the same moment Anna's hand
+closing on hers under the table, in warning pressure.
+
+"Yes, it certainly is very funny," she said.
+
+The tone in which she spoke was not convincing, for another pause
+ensued.
+
+Then the colonel rose, took her head between his hands, pressing it so
+hard she thought her ears would split, and said:
+
+"You certainly appear in need of rest."
+
+With this he turned on his heel and went out of the dining-room.
+
+"Now pull yourself together, dear," Lilly heard her friend's voice
+urging her, "because after this he'll be on the _qui vive_."
+
+Lilly was going to throw herself on Fräulein von Schwertfeger's bosom,
+hoping to be petted and consoled, but she held herself aloof, as if she
+feared being caught in too intimate converse with Lilly, and said in a
+tone of strained friendliness:
+
+"Excuse me, Lilly dear. There is something I must attend to at once,"
+and she too left the room.
+
+"What now?" she thought.
+
+She looked about her. The remains of their abruptly finished meal were
+still on the table. The dark oak furniture cast shining black shadows
+into the wintry half-light of the room. The old brass chandeliers
+gleamed dully. All was as it always was, and yet there was nothing
+there--only a cruel, all-devouring void, an abyss which lured her into
+its depths as if drawing her with hooks and pulleys.
+
+She went to the window, and looked out apathetically. The bare branches
+shook in the wind, the ivy on the railing swayed; even the bent
+rose-trees, the shoots of which the old gardener had protected with
+straw, moved quiveringly backwards and forwards. All of them writhed in
+the grip of winter, and only the fallen leaves lying in heaps on the
+thin coating of snow were still, but they were dead eternally.
+
+What was to be done now?
+
+If this could happen, then all was in vain. There was no hope, no
+rising to loftier heights, no more strength of purpose, and no more
+truth. You might as well throw yourself down on the ground beside the
+dead leaves and die.
+
+She heard the clatter of plates behind her. The maid-servant, as no one
+had rung, had come unsummoned with old Ferdinand to clear the table.
+She thought of Käte and of that other creature, in whose arms he had
+made a mock of her and of her faith in him. She dragged her lifeless
+legs upstairs to the only room in the house where she ever felt at
+home. As she passed she heard the colonel raving in his bedroom, and
+almost running as he paced up and down.
+
+"Let him rave!" she thought indifferently.
+
+Next she heard him give orders from behind the closed door for the
+carriage to come round.
+
+"He may stay or go, for all I care," she thought.
+
+She stepped on to the balcony. The icy-cold sensation that still
+stiffened her neck crept down her arms to her finger tips.
+
+Over there sat Walter, employing his leisure as usual in deep study of
+the great Encyclopædia of Agriculture. He lifted his hand every now and
+then wearily to his brow and knocked the ash from his cigarette against
+a flower-pot without looking up. He hadn't time to look up. Good God!
+
+Confronted by this abominable farce, enacted solely with the object of
+deceiving her, Lilly was seized with such mad, accusing fury that she
+was rendered almost senseless. A pricking and stinging ran through her
+benumbed arms. Then an excruciating burning fever throbbed painfully in
+her temples and hung a blood-red curtain before her eyes.
+
+She saw nothing more, heard nothing more.
+
+She rushed down the stairs, tore back the bolt of the garden door,
+sprang down the terrace steps, and flew like mad across the lawn to the
+bailiff's lodge.
+
+What did she care whether anyone saw her or not? At this moment she
+minded nothing. She didn't so much as knock at his door, but opened it
+with a vigour that sent it swinging against the wall. A hateful,
+pungent smell like the interior of a menagerie greeted her nostrils. He
+was still at the window, and bounded up when he saw her.
+
+The grey daylight shone on the top of his head.
+
+"He's got his hair cut like a clothes-brush again," she thought. "The
+fast life he's now leading requires that it should be so. He must look
+a swell."
+
+"Lord in heaven!" he said, crumbling his lighted cigarette between his
+fingers. "This is a pretty rumpus."
+
+"Why--why have you----?" she shrieked incoherently. "Oh, you
+blackguard! you dishonourable scoundrel!"
+
+"Damn it!" he said, looking round him in despair, "I don't see how the
+gracious baroness is to get out of this without compromising herself."
+
+"I don't care! You have broken your word; you have thrown away what was
+sacred between us--thrown it to a low barmaid ... a barmaid, a person
+who would hang round the neck of any man who gave her twopence ... You
+are a miserable wretch, not worth trying to save ... You won't be saved
+... You insist on going to the dogs as fast as you can ..."
+
+"That's all well and good," he said, "and you may be stating very
+deplorable and indisputable facts; but what I should like to know, dear
+baroness, is how you mean to save yourself?"
+
+"I am absolutely indifferent with regard to myself!" she exclaimed. "I
+have come here to have it out with you ... I demand an explanation
+here--now--instantly--on the spot."
+
+"With pleasure, gracious baroness," he answered, "but first, for God's
+sake, move away from the window."
+
+Whereupon he cast a swift, keen, nervous glance across at the windows
+of the castle, which so far looked unsuspecting enough.
+
+Shocked by his rudeness, she fled into the interior of the apartment.
+It was low-ceilinged, dark, and badly furnished, like a labourer's
+dwelling. The obnoxious doggy odour was here more strongly apparent.
+Where it came from was a mystery revealed a moment later, when, as she
+approached the wall at the back of the room, something snapped
+viciously at her foot, and two little circlets of fire gleamed angrily
+in the dusk.
+
+"Behave yourself. Tommy," he commanded as she drew back with a cry.
+
+So it was Tommy, the third party to the Triple Alliance!
+
+She leaned against the back of the old spindle-legged sofa. Its worn
+springs creaked and its bristly horsehair pricked her hands. The
+thought shot through her brain: "What am I doing here? How does it
+concern me?"
+
+He glided meanwhile, listening hard, from door to door.
+
+"If old Leichtweg happened to be in the next room," he said, "there'd
+be the devil to pay. But if you go away at once by the front entrance
+into the yard, it might be supposed you only came to ask a question,
+and we may still save the situation."
+
+She saw in this proposed move nothing but a crafty attempt at evasion,
+and a fresh volume of wrath overwhelmed her.
+
+"I shall not go," she said, "till I hear what you've got to say for
+yourself;" and to give force to her resolve, she sank on to the
+creaking sofa, which was covered by a dirty, odoriferous grey
+horsecloth, folded several times to protect whoever sat down or lay on
+it from the projecting springs.
+
+He was forced to yield. "Well, then, look here. A man is, so to speak,
+a man, isn't he? And when he is given up in a beastly mean sort of way
+he----"
+
+"Mean way!" Lilly faltered. "What was there mean in my letter? Didn't I
+pour out my whole heart in it, and didn't dear Schwertfeger----?"
+
+She could not go on, she was so choked with scorn and anger.
+
+In the meantime he had arrived at the right policy to pursue, after
+being completely nonplussed at first.
+
+"That's just it," he said, growing more offended every moment. "Can it
+be supposed that a love affair like ours was to close with a lukewarm
+moral sermon? ... and from that Schwertfeger woman too? Did I deserve
+it of you, to be dismissed through a third person that shabby, hideous
+old thing too? Wasn't it enough to drive a fellow desperate ... after
+all I have done for you?"
+
+"Done for me?" echoed Lilly. "What have you done for me, pray?"
+
+"Well, wasn't I always ready to be your self-sacrificing comrade?
+Haven't I even sacrificed my loyalty to my old colonel for your
+sake--the man I honoured and reverenced, who you may say picked me out
+of the gutter? That's no trifle, I can assure you. Do you imagine it
+didn't go against the grain? Do you imagine I didn't get awfully
+depressed? And then night after night to have nothing to do but fool
+round with a dog that stinks; for that beast Tommy does, you know. Can
+a man be blamed in the circumstance for trying to deaden his feelings,
+to still the qualms of his love-anguish? How you can expect that I
+shouldn't entirely amazes me. We speak different languages, my child, a
+yawning chasm divides our two natures. You actually don't mind risking
+both our lives for the sake of a petty grievance. I don't belong, as a
+rule, to the prudes; but the devil knows what I wouldn't give to get
+you out of this room."
+
+During this lengthy oration he had walked round Lilly with one hand in
+the belt of his shooting-jacket, his short, jerky steps expressing his
+indignant consternation.
+
+She for her part sat rigidly erect, turning her head, with great
+despairing eyes, towards him mechanically, first to the right, and then
+to the left.
+
+When he had finished he took a new cigarette from a case and
+energetically brushed off the superfluous tobacco with his forefinger.
+
+She rose to her full height, leaving the sofa and sofa-table a long way
+below her.
+
+"Listen, Walter," she said; "from this moment all is at an end between
+us."
+
+"Wasn't it so long ago?" he asked.
+
+"I mean inwardly too," she explained.
+
+"Oh, indeed ... inwardly!" He made a grimace. "That means, I suppose,
+in your case, when you are sick and tired of one."
+
+When she saw her love so vulgarly derided and jeered at, her
+self-restraint completely collapsed. With a loud moan she ran behind
+the sofa and hid her face in the wall.
+
+"Don't go near the window," she heard him hiss, as he ground his teeth.
+
+But what did she care about the window?
+
+In his distraught anxiety he took to pleading.
+
+"Do come away from the window," he entreated. "I was only rotting. I
+wanted to make you laugh again; nothing else, I swear. Please come away
+from the window."
+
+She did not stir. She wanted to crawl into something--crawl away with
+her shame.
+
+Then she felt herself roughly seized by his hands.
+
+So it had come to that, too! She was to be beaten by him!
+
+She struck at him, wrestled with him, dug her fingers into his throat,
+and then suddenly ... A whizzing, clashing, and clattering, and
+splinters of glass flew over their heads; and an oblong, dark, slender
+thing glanced by them, like the shaft of a lance, hit something,
+rebounded, and lay at their feet.
+
+At the same time she felt a gust of wind blow on her forehead and
+awaken her from the stupefaction of the moment.
+
+One of the upper window-panes was shivered to atoms. But no sign of a
+living person was to be seen. Only the balcony door, which a minute or
+two had been shut, stood open, showing blackness within as it swung to.
+
+"A near shave, by Jove!" said Walter, and stooped to pick up the
+mysterious weapon, the splintered panes of glass crashing beneath his
+feet.
+
+"The pea-shooter!" faltered Lilly.
+
+Yes, it was the pea-shooter that a quarter of an hour ago had stood on
+her balcony.
+
+"It's a good job he hadn't his gun at hand," said Walter, "or we should
+be riddled now like sieves."
+
+He wiped the anxious sweat that beaded his brow away with the back of
+his hand.
+
+For all that he was a plucky little chap, and knew exactly what to do.
+He sprang to the wardrobe under which the foxy dog roosted, got out his
+military revolver, drew back the trigger, and tested the barrels.
+
+Then he said: "Now, oblige me by going into Leichtweg's room. Bolt
+yourself in. He's simply gone to load, and then he'll be here."
+
+But Lilly wouldn't. Her anger against him had completely evaporated.
+
+"Let me stay with you. Please let me stay."
+
+"It won't do, child," he said, wrinkling his forehead into the old
+masterful folds. "What is to follow now is man's business."
+
+"Then I shall stay in the passage, and receive him at your door."
+
+He gnawed his moustache. "Well, if you will take it like that, I can't
+reason with you," he said. "Please be seated."
+
+He took the key from the outside of the door, put it in the lock on the
+inside and cautiously turned it several times.
+
+"There's a vast difference between loading and shooting," he said, "the
+devil only knows."
+
+Hereupon he drew out his watch, and listening attentively to every
+sound outside, he counted: one, one and a half--two minutes.
+
+"It looks as if he couldn't find his cartridges," he said; and then,
+with a commanding air, he added, "Sit down; you will need your legs
+later."
+
+She sank into one corner of the sofa and he took the other. He laid the
+watch between them on the bumpy seat. Both counted now with their
+eyes fixed on the minute-hand. "Two and a half--three, three and a
+half--four, four and a half--five minutes."
+
+Nothing was to be heard but the wind whistling through the branches.
+Then it seemed as if they could hear horses' hoofs in the courtyard and
+a trotting away on the other side of the gates.
+
+"Whom can he be going to fetch?" asked Walter. "It hasn't come to
+seconds yet."
+
+Lilly saw red suns dancing before her eyes. The ceiling of the room
+began to descend on her.
+
+And Walter went on counting: "Seven--eight, eight and a half." Still
+nothing. "Nine, nine and a half--ten----" Then he suddenly uttered a
+low whistling sound and seized his revolver.
+
+The front door grated on its hinges, steps drew near, but not the
+threatening thunder of an outraged husband's, bent on revenge; these
+crept softly, catlike, hesitatingly onwards.
+
+Then for a while silence again, only broken by the breathing of two
+anxious beings, and of someone else's breathing on the other side of
+the door.
+
+"Who is there?" called out Walter.
+
+Next came a tap, low, broken, unassertive, as if made by fingers that
+trembled and failed.
+
+"Who the devil is there?" he shouted again.
+
+"Anna von Schwertfeger."
+
+He jumped up and opened the door.
+
+There she stood, ashen-grey, and only red about the mouth and eyelids.
+
+"The colonel has just driven to Baron von Platow's, and will be back in
+three hours. He has bidden me tell you, Lilly, that when he returns he
+does not wish to find you in his house or on his estate."
+
+"And what has he bidden you tell me?" sneered Walter von Prell.
+
+Fräulein von Schwertfeger, without heeding him, took Lilly's hand.
+
+"Come," she said, "there's not much time. We must begin packing at
+once."
+
+"Yes, but where am I to go?" she asked helplessly as she slowly rose to
+her feet.
+
+
+                           *   *   *   *   *
+
+
+Directly they were outside she saw the carriage that was to take her to
+the station drive up.
+
+
+
+
+
+                                PART II
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER I
+
+
+She was Lilly Czepanek once more. The divorce suit had been quickly
+settled. There had been no attempt at defence, and after the colonel's
+evidence the judges decreed that Lilly had forfeited the right for ever
+to bear her husband's honourable name.
+
+"There is nothing to rescue from this wreck," wrote Doktor Pieper,
+"except the jewels which I hope, acting on my advice about looking in
+at shop-windows, you have industriously accumulated. The pearls which
+your ex-husband--prompted, I may confess now, by me--put round your
+neck on the wedding day I will get permission for you to retain, and
+they alone will keep your head above water for many a long day."
+
+In consequence of this letter, Lilly, who after her flight had found
+the pearls in one of her trunks among her gala dresses and rare lace,
+took them to a jeweller's to be carefully packed, and returned them
+then and there, addressed to Fräulein von Schwertfeger.
+
+The less valuable ornaments she kept, feeling that they might justly be
+considered her personal property. She had disposed of a good many to
+start with, and what remained would scarcely keep her for another year.
+After that she would be destitute. But she did not think of the future.
+It was hidden from her behind the veil of tears that she had shed.
+Regret for what she had lost, acute consciousness of her grievous
+position, occupied her mind to the exclusion of almost everything else.
+
+Oh, how she cried and cried--she understood now what crying meant. She
+learnt to gulp down her tears as one gulps down seawater; she sucked
+them back with her lower lip, she shook them off her cheeks as if they
+were raindrops; but always they gushed forth afresh. After the pain
+that caused them was deadened they still welled up, from habit. Whether
+she was asleep or awake, her tears came.
+
+Trembling and stunned, without defending herself, without complaints or
+reproaches, she had driven away that grey, gusty December evening
+between the hour of vespers and nightfall. Away, it did not matter
+where, only away as quickly as possible.
+
+She landed in Berlin, the harbour for all wastrels and wrecks. In that
+world where oblivion lays its hands in blessing on the heads of
+righteous and unrighteous alike; where eternal hopes illumine drab days
+of depression like firework sparks; where grief for the past is soon
+changed into an eager expectation of coming happiness; where the great
+god, Luck, holds sway as lord and master--in that world of the unknown
+and stranded, where only those who are old and poor together sink
+hopelessly, into that world crept Lilly on her hands and knees. She
+stayed in pensions for many a dreary month, frequented by guilty
+_divorcées_ who congregate together in such places like apples rotting
+in heaps, by Chilian attachés and agents of mysterious businesses in
+Bucharest and Alexandria, who gave a tone to the roof they sojourned
+under. As inoffensively as she could she avoided the confidences of
+companions in tribulation, who wished to console her, and kept at bay
+the advances of olive-complexioned neighbours at table.
+
+After a time she began to think of finding a situation. It would have
+to be something quite special--something between a lady-in-waiting and
+chaperon, which would not be at variance with her former high station
+and ladylike dignity.
+
+This sort of position seemed remarkably scarce. The only result of all
+her efforts was to win the tender regard of a few old gentlemen who
+called on her at dusk and would not go till they were shown the door.
+So, utterly discouraged, she gave up calling at employment agencies and
+ringing at front doors, though she could not resign herself yet to
+joining the ranks of shopgirls and dressmakers' apprentices. The day
+was still far off when she would have to do that; indeed, she would
+never sink so low, because she was labelled all over "Generalin," and
+wherever she went and whatever she did everyone recognised her supreme
+gentility.
+
+On this seething human ocean she tossed anchorless, without so much as
+a straw to cling to. Nothing but Walter's letter, which two months
+after her dismissal and his was forwarded to her by Fräulein von
+Schwertfeger. In it the poor fellow, whose own prospects were utterly
+blighted, made an unselfish suggestion of support for her future. It
+ran:
+
+
+"Gracious Friend,
+
+"I am broke. He shot me through the arm. A trifling misfortune when it
+happens to someone else, but, when it falls on yourself, a damning
+obstacle in the way of founding a career on the other side of the
+Atlantic as head-waiter.
+
+"Nevertheless, I cannot be grateful enough to fate for having thrown in
+my path so touchingly virtuous and lamblike a guardian angel as my
+baronissima. You will readily understand, most dear and too-kind lady,
+that I now feel an obligation on my side to act as guardian angel to
+you. How is it to be done? There are difficulties in the way,
+certainly. Were I to commend you to the care of my former friends and
+equals, your future, I am afraid, would be settled too easily, 'For,
+still, leaves and virtues ever fall in hours of tenderness.'
+
+"For this reason I prefer to descend a degree lower, to where citizens
+crawl on their stomachs before our coronets, even if they be tarnished
+and dented.
+
+"In Alte Jakobstrasse in Berlin there dwells a highly respectable
+manufacturer of bronze wares, by name Richard Dehnicke. He was a
+comrade of the Reserve, and feels himself particularly indebted to me
+because I borrowed money from him on more than one occasion. I am
+writing to him by the same mail as this. Go boldly in among his lamps
+and vases. The former I trust will illumine your nights, and the latter
+ornament your path through life. He will not, I believe, demand the
+price from you which others of our compatriots customarily consider
+their due where pretty women are concerned.
+
+"There must be some cranks in the world, I suppose.
+
+"My address in future will be--
+
+                       "W. v. P.
+
+                      "Street-loafer and Fortune's aspirant,
+
+                          "Chicago (first stockyard on the left).
+
+"PS.--Tommy would send his love, only I took care to plant a bullet in
+his forehead before leaving."
+
+
+Lilly took this last and only communication from her comrade very
+calmly. She heard afterwards through Fräulein von Schwertfeger that he
+had sailed for America with a maimed arm. As he could think of her
+without bitterness or reproach, so she would try to think of him. Their
+love deserved honourable burial, even if its raptures had been a sham,
+and its elevated sentiments dragged through the dirt in shame.
+
+He would like to be her "guardian angel," the dear little man had
+written. Well, anyhow, his letter offered a certain guarantee of
+protection in time of trouble, and indicated where a helping hand would
+be held out to her. But the course he advised she had no thought of
+adopting. Never would she avail herself of that helping-hand. She was
+in deadly terror of desirous masculine eyes reading her face, of
+masculine lips pouring out persuasive and convincing arguments.
+
+She would take her fate in her own hands and go her own way. Whither it
+would lead her of course was not clear. In truth, grief and anxiety had
+rendered her so irresolute, that it needed but a breath of wind to
+drift her in a direction that would have decided her future once for
+all. The breath of wind, however, did not blow on her.
+
+Month after month went by. Fräulein von Schwertfeger gave up writing.
+Want of money caused her little hoard of jewels to dwindle rapidly. The
+pensions she boarded in became more and more modest. Instead of Chilian
+attaches and Greek merchants, bankrupt auctioneers and clerks out of
+employment offered to cheer her evenings by forcing their company upon
+her; and the ladies who paid her visits in soiled tea-gowns glanced
+covetously at the few bracelets, brooches, and rings which she still
+had left. Thus she decided to end this mode of living and find a new
+one.
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER II
+
+
+Among highly recommended "best rooms" in Berlin belonging to apartments
+which had known much-boasted "better days," and now were let for thirty
+marks a week, including breakfast and attendance, to respectable young
+gentlewomen, were those of the widow, Klothilde Laue.
+
+The furniture was upholstered in crimson plush, which had been the
+latest thing in decorations at the time of the Franco-Prussian war.
+There was a long mirror, the sides of which from top to bottom were
+fantastically plastered with new years' and birthday cards, and
+advertisements of soaps and powders. On the walls hung photographs of
+once famous actors, whose fame had meanwhile faded like the ink in
+which they had inscribed their autographs. The marble-topped washstand
+had an embroidered splasher bearing the following cryptic couplet:
+
+                 "If you would wash yourself clean,
+                  Take care that your conscience is pure."
+
+There were also endless photograph-albums, card-cases, a sandal-wood
+windmill meant to clip cigars, a green frosted glass punch-bowl, and a
+rickety pitch-pine bedstead, behind blue woollen curtains. Finally, to
+crown all, there hung over the sofa in a gilded glass case a mysterious
+globular-shaped creation, consisting of six plaited strands of tissue
+paper radiating from a common centre, and through its covering of gauze
+an ornamentation of pressed flowers was dimly discernible.
+
+In this best room of 10, Neanderstrasse, situated up four flights of
+stairs above a china shop, a piano business on the hire system, and a
+studio for repairs, Lilly landed one day, to look out from the window
+on the greenish-grey waters of the Engelbecken and a strip of Berlin's
+smoky sky.
+
+Frau Laue, an overworked, prematurely aged woman of fifty, with a face
+like a dried apple and great eyes that always looked tearful, revolved
+round her in incredulous admiration. She seemed unable to grasp that so
+much brilliance and beauty had positively strayed into her abode.
+
+On the day of her arrival Lilly heard her whole history. Her husband
+had been cashier and book-keeper at one of the most popular variety
+theatres in Berlin, but twenty years ago he had died, leaving her
+pensionless in an unfeeling world where no rosy stage glamour disguises
+solitary tears, and no comic patter stills the pangs of hunger.
+
+At this juncture that mysterious paper-creation, which on nearer
+inspection proved to be a lamp-shade, became her salvation. She had
+once been made a present of it by an artistic friend, and in her need
+she hit on the happy idea of making others after the same pattern and
+offering them for sale.
+
+After years of hawking her wares about, after drudgery and
+disillusionment of all kinds, she had wrung from the public a market
+for "pressed flower lamp-shades," and a reputation as a specialist in
+this line of business.
+
+In her back parlour, with one window, which smelt of hay and paste, and
+where on a long white deal table lay in their hundreds and thousands
+the skeletons of floral denizens of the Thuringian Forest--she could
+not, of course, afford the time to gather them herself--she had drudged
+for nearly two decades, tapping, daubing, pasting, drying, and
+threading sixteen hours a day, and had earned, thanks to her reputation
+as a specialist, enough to enable her to let her best room--her
+treasure-trove and sanctuary--to a stranger for thirty marks a month.
+
+The two did not long remain strangers, however.
+
+Into the back-room existence of this downtrodden being, before whose
+eyes the pictures of a few bedizened ballet-girls shone and glittered
+as paragons of unattainable magnificence, Lilly descended from the
+real aristocracy like a heaven-born divinity. Her landlady idolised
+her as an emissary from regions that she had believed hitherto were
+only possible in fiction; where such expressions as "footman,"
+"drawing-room," "pearl necklace"--Lilly took care to tell all about
+hers--came quite naturally instead of being rolled on the tongue and
+allowed slowly to melt as with closed eyes one conjured up the
+surroundings to which such a vocabulary belonged.
+
+Frau Laue became in very early days Lilly's confidante and adviser. She
+helped her to live down the shame following her divorce, she cheered
+her when a feeling of desolation overcame her, and painted for her a
+future in radiant colours.
+
+No one need perish in a great powerful miracle-working city like
+Berlin. Every day there were dozens of happy chances that might set you
+on your legs again. There were lonely old ladies dying to find someone
+to whom they could leave their money; there were aristocratic young
+ones who yearned to hold out a hand of sympathy and friendship to a
+poor, beautiful orphaned sister; there were famous artists who would
+gladly escape from the snares laid for them by female admirers in the
+arms of a good woman; and there were great poets with whom the post of
+muse was vacant. In fact, one of the greatest capitals in the world, it
+would appear, had only been waiting for Lilly's advent to lift her to
+its throne as conquering heroine.
+
+Again the months passed. Regret for her wasted opportunities became
+gradually less acute. Her nights were calmer and no longer disturbed by
+this or that scene from her lost paradise rising before her vision with
+horrible clearness, when she was in a state between sleeping and
+waking, to make her start up and cry aloud.
+
+One lesson, however, she had not learnt, and that was to estimate
+correctly how brief had been her sojourn in high places: she could not
+accept it as a mere episode that had interrupted the ordinary course of
+her real life like a capricious dream. In her inner consciousness she
+continued to be a kind of enchanted princess who, in the disguise of a
+beggar, went about unknown and unrecognised till such time as Divine
+dispensation should reinstate her and restore her lawful rights.
+
+With anxious solicitude she clung to everything that reminded her of
+her vanished splendour. In Frau Lane's wardrobe she hung the festive
+raiment that the colonel had ordered for her in Dresden, Frau
+Lane's empty drawers were filled with the snowy fragrance of her
+coronet-embroidered underclothes, and in front of the big mirror in
+Frau Lane's best room were ranged the costly ivory and gold toilette
+articles, which once had proudly graced her dressing-table in the
+"boudoir." These, too, still bore the seven-pointed coronet, and to
+think of parting with them would have seemed an outrage to Lilly on her
+most sacred property. She stood waiting meanwhile for what the future
+would bring forth. She still studied advertisements and wrote letters
+applying for vacant situations, but very often forgot to post the
+letters.
+
+For the sake of having something to do, and craving for companionship
+of some kind, she began to sit with Frau Laue in the back room and help
+her with her work. Soon she tapped, cut out, daubed, pasted, and
+plaited as diligently as her instructress, and as in her cradle she had
+been endowed with a gift and taste for all things artistic, she
+speedily excelled Frau Laue, who, when she returned from disposing of
+the lamp-shades, would relate without envy that the flower pattern
+Lilly had designed had been singled out for admiration, and that the
+shades she made were preferred to her own.
+
+Her ambition was aroused. She strove to produce works of art, and never
+tired of toiling for this end.
+
+"If you didn't waste so much time over every little bunch of flowers,"
+said Frau Laue, who shared honestly with Lilly the proceeds of their
+joint labours, "you might earn more than I do."
+
+But Lilly was content with the forty or fifty marks a month that her
+work brought in. Her new craze for lamp-shade making led her on to
+higher aims. The dried grasses, or grass flowers, as Frau Laue called
+them, specially took her fancy. Their slender graceful stalks, the
+delicacy of their veinings, the melancholy charm with which they
+drooped, reminded her of little forest trees, weeping willows beside
+brooks, ashes bending over marble tombs, or palms waving yearning
+fronds on torrid rocks.
+
+She dreamt of starting a new kind of art. She would paint on
+transparent plaques of glass with dried grass foregrounds. She would
+paint lamp-shades and window-blinds with woods of flowering grass and
+ferns, with little cottages in relief, with their doors and windows cut
+out as if light were shining from inside; fleecy clouds, pink sunsets,
+lines of misty hills, dark-blue rivers in which the moon was reflected,
+building across them bridges of light.
+
+The pictures succeeded each other in her brain with inexhaustible
+fecundity; there seemed no end to them. It was difficult to know where
+to begin with such a vast wealth of ideas at one's disposal.
+
+Frau Laue, who had been pasting her oil paper in exactly the same way
+for twenty years, had a horror of innovations, and warned Lilly to
+stick to her last. But a demon of inventiveness possessed Lilly. One
+day she made a tremendous coup. She took her arrow-shaped brooch set
+with six small emeralds to a jeweller, who gave her eighty marks for
+it--needless to say, the brooch was worth five times as much--and
+purchased on her way home after the transaction several cut-glass
+plaques, held together in pairs by screws, so that they could be easily
+attached to the window-panes. She also invested in a paint-box, and
+while Frau Laue clasped her hands in dismay to her head, Lilly set to
+work gallantly. But her practical knowledge of art had no foundation
+except in the memory of a few water-colour lessons at school, and it
+failed her utterly. The colours ran into each other, and the woods in
+the foreground would not look as if they had anything to do with the
+landscape behind, but remained simply grasses straggling about
+objectlessly.
+
+For a long time Lilly struggled to gain her effects, then, crying
+bitterly, she threw the rubbish into a corner, and returned sorrowfully
+to lamp-shades again.
+
+Frau Laue, who had sulked and scarcely spoken during the weeks of
+Lilly's apostacy, began once more to make plans and to build castles in
+the air for her. All the wild schemes that for the last twenty years
+had taken shape in her poor brain were now, when she had no hope of
+maturing them for herself, freely poured into Lilly's outstretched
+palm.
+
+She listened eagerly, yet as her days passed thus a feeling of
+depression grew--almost imperceptibly. She felt herself sinking into
+this sordid groove, and a feeling of repulsion took possession of her
+for the narrow-minded creature in whose great moist red-rimmed eyes
+still lingered a hope for an unattainable happiness, though her
+lamp-shade drudgery had brought her nearly to the brink of the grave.
+
+This repulsion was often so powerful that she was compelled to rush
+out; she didn't care where so long as it was out into the world, into
+life.
+
+She did not stay long; in an hour or less she was back again. The
+streets frightened her. The painted women who jostled her, the bold,
+adventurous youths who followed on her heels, the callous indifference
+with which everyone elbowed his way through the hurly-burly--all this
+scared and made a coward of her.
+
+A gloomy foreboding told her that she would never regain her
+self-reliant joy in combat. When she compared what she was now with the
+little shopgirl who gave out Frau Asmussen's trashy volumes in
+sheltered security, confident that she was doing her duty and always in
+the right, even when beaten for telling lies and obviously in the
+wrong, she felt she was a helpless straw drifting on the waters.
+
+Then this waiting, waiting; this sleepless, hungry waiting! What for?
+She did not know herself. But something must happen. She could not
+exist for ever among these snippets of oiled paper, live and die making
+lamp-shades. Sometimes the thought of Walter's rich manufacturer of
+bronze wares cropped up in her mind with a longing which had to be
+suppressed. She was alarmed to find herself clinging to this shadow,
+and chased it away.
+
+A year had passed since that letter of introduction was written. It
+would be far too late to avail herself of it now. So she went on
+waiting.
+
+Often as she undressed and caught the reflection of herself in the
+glass, her form consecrated by beauty, round and slender limbed, her
+long-lashed wistful eyes, her ripe mouth shaped for kisses, she would
+be seized with glad ecstasy, and say to herself, "Am I like that?" And
+then she would revel in a sense of her youth and readiness for love.
+Then the whole world seemed there for no other object than to press her
+to its heart. Then this dreary round of drudgery was a good thing in
+disguise, for it was bracing her up for flights of intoxicating
+enjoyment. When she stretched herself on the sofa at dusk to rest, and
+she saw the blue flash made by the electric tramcars flit across the
+ceiling, blissful dreams stole upon her and transformed that burning
+fever of expectancy into half-fulfilled delights; a feeling of having
+been saved rose like a thanksgiving in her soul, and what she had been
+bewailing as lost happiness became nothing but a nightmare from which
+she was grateful to be relieved. But these moods were rare, and they
+resembled the mirage of thirsty travellers rather than the refreshing
+waters.
+
+
+                           *   *   *   *   *
+
+
+The winter passed in rain and fog; mild March evenings came when rosy
+cloudlets floated over the housetops, and then spring was really there.
+The trim little trees in the squares put forth their brown buds, which
+by degrees burst into pale green leaves. Lilly saw as little of the
+riot of blossom out of doors, the white foam of the cherry-trees, the
+red glory of the hawthorn, as she had done when she swept the golden
+dust that sprang from Frau Asmussen's bookcases. Frau Laue did not care
+to take walks and expose herself to temptation. For to see a park and
+not collect plants, a garden gate, and not thrust your hand through it
+to pick flowers, was to her an altogether inconceivable act of
+self-restraint. Lilly would not go out without her, for she dreaded
+being alone in a crowd.
+
+Warm, oppressive Sunday afternoons followed, when endless troops of
+townsfolk make pilgrimages to the suburbs and country round, when the
+streets stretch away in empty desolation, and the sultry skies seem to
+weigh down suffocatingly on the unfortunate people left at home,
+panting within four walls. On such afternoons Frau Laue put on a pair
+of real Rhinestone earrings, a brown velveteen dress with a collar of
+black sequins on the square-cut neck, and in this festive attire paid
+Lilly a formal visit in the best room. Then the Dresden evening gowns
+came out of the wardrobe, and entered into competition with those worn
+twenty-five years ago by frail ladies in the stage box of the variety
+theatre. The faded photographs of long-extinguished stars would be
+brought down from the wall and their charms examined. Apropos of these,
+thrilling stories would be related of personal adventures, in which,
+amid much laxity of morals and gay peccadilloes, matrimonial fidelity
+had maintained its modest value.
+
+The summer Sunday afternoon would wear away, wan and exhausted as a
+fever patient, a stifling breeze blow in at the window. The varnish on
+the cheap rosewood furniture would reek, the houses opposite shine as
+if they were perspiring, and Frau Laue, munching her bread and cheese,
+would once more repeat the oft-told tale of her virtuous married life.
+
+When at last she took her departure, Lilly would sink groaning on her
+bed, hide her face in the stuffy pillows, and listen to the shouts of
+the merry-makers in the street below returning from their trips. The
+next morning the pressing and pasting of flowers would begin again with
+renewed vigour.
+
+July came, and she could stand it no longer. One Monday morning, when
+daylight found her awake and waiting, her pillow soaked with tears, a
+sudden longing for life so warm and irresistible filled her heart that
+she bounded out of bed with an exultant cry.
+
+Resolve cried within her, "I'll do it to-day--to-day! Go on a begging
+expedition to that unknown man." No, it would not be begging. God
+forbid! Long ago she had settled in her mind what line she would take.
+She would merely ask for advice such as he, a connoisseur with a wide
+experience in arts and crafts, would be able to give the inquiring
+amateur, anxious to learn, in a few minutes.
+
+Where and how she could get good lessons in painting transparencies on
+glass plaques, was the question she wanted to ask him. And whatever his
+answer might be, it would be the first step in a new phase of life.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER III
+
+
+Was it the path of fate that she pursued?
+
+The street looked the same as usual. Vans rumbled along, housewives
+crowded in front of the butchers' doing their marketing, young men
+hurried by with rolls of music and books under their arms, but were not
+in too great a hurry to turn round and look after her, causing her, as
+of old, mingled feelings of satisfaction and annoyance.
+
+The path of fate? Yes, said the throbbing of her heart. She felt almost
+as if she were on her way to exhibit herself for sale. Herself? How
+much was there of her left, of her little stock of pride, of her faith
+in herself as one of the elect, her belief in the great miracle that
+was to happen to her? How much?
+
+Her walk took over an hour. She lost her way and was put right by
+policemen. She stopped to look at her reflection in the shop-windows,
+for she was afraid of not pleasing. But every time she saw the soft
+curves of her slight tall figure, with its nonchalant dignity of
+carriage, she breathed a sigh of relief.
+
+At last, when she read the name of the street in which he lived, she
+started. She had hoped in secret that she would not be able to find it
+after all, and have to go home. There was nothing remarkable about his
+house. It was a grey four-storied building, with a wide unadorned
+entrance, across which a board was erected.
+
+
+                         Liebert and Dehnicke,
+            Bronze Founders and Manufacturers of Metal Wares
+
+
+was inscribed in gold letters on a massive wrought-iron plate, which
+extended half the width of the house.
+
+From the opposite side of the street she took in every detail,
+still asking herself whether she should not turn round and go home.
+The windows on the first floor were closely hung with delicate
+primrose-coloured curtains embroidered with gold thread in a broken
+conventional pattern. Out of snow-white china flower-pots nodded
+geraniums and pinks, and on the whole everything here looked better
+kept and more prosperous than its surroundings.
+
+"He lives on that floor, I expect," she thought, feeling slightly awed
+at the chaste severity of the exterior decorations.
+
+Then she took heart, crossed the street, and made straight for the door
+of latticed ironwork, which was close to the carriage entrance, and
+probably led up to that impressive first floor. But this door was fast
+locked, and before ringing she glanced through the lattice and beheld a
+stately garden stairway flanked by cypresses and laurels ascending to a
+landing where a stained-glass window cast ruby and sapphire rays on a
+fair white statue. It was the bust of Clytie, which she had always
+admired in the art shops because of its gentle melancholy.
+
+Her heart sank again at all this splendour. She seemed unworthy of
+breaking in on such decorous calm, so she sprang down the steps again
+and preferred to enter by the general entrance, where some workmen were
+busy facing the bare bricks with ornamental stucco. In the yard men
+were at work, too. The cobble-stones, with which it had evidently been
+hitherto covered, were piled in clumsy heaps, and mosaic tiles with
+white circles on a grey ground, such as one sees in churches, were
+being laid. At the back of the yard rose the red bald brick walls of
+the factory itself. But this too appeared to be included in the
+universal beautifying scheme, and was undergoing alterations. As far as
+the second story the walls were being inlaid with a dado of yellow and
+blue, which looked very gay. In fact, the old dingy aspect of the yard
+was being gradually converted into the elegance of a room.
+
+"They are doing things artistically here," Lilly thought, and felt
+still more nervous.
+
+On her left she saw a corner building that so far had escaped a
+drop of renovating paint or varnish. In contrast to the rest, its bare
+plaster walls presented a dirty, chalky, and almost forlorn appearance.
+At the top of its plain iron steps was a brass tablet bearing the
+words "Office" on its face. Lilly ascended the steps and entered an
+ill-lighted dusty apartment divided into two parts by a wooden railing.
+In the farther division half a dozen young men sat at desks covered
+with shabby green baize. At her entrance they riveted their eyes on her
+in gaping astonishment, and it did not apparently occur to any of them
+to ask what she wanted. It was evident that such a dazzling apparition
+as herself had never been seen in the office within the memory of man.
+Not till she had taken a card from her brocaded wrist-bag and laid it
+silently on the table did the petrified company show signs of life.
+Then they all jumped up with one accord and scuffled for the card. It
+was almost a free fight.
+
+A lank, pasty, overgrown youth, who seemed to have authority over the
+rest, finally sent the others back to their places, and bowing and
+scraping to Lilly, murmured that he would inform "the Chief" of her
+presence, and he disappeared with the card in his hand into a back
+room.
+
+A few moments elapsed. Lilly heard through the half-open door a lowered
+voice say, "Czepanek? Don't know the name. Ask her what she wants.
+What's she like?"
+
+The answer, which was inaudible, lasted several seconds and evidently
+was satisfactory, for the clerk came out, and without further inquiry
+let Lilly through, and ushered her into the private room at the back of
+the office.
+
+Now she saw him in the flesh. He was a thick-set man, of middle
+height--shorter than she was--inclined to corpulency, with a round
+fresh-complexioned face, nice greyish-blue eyes, without any
+expression, a high forehead, and arched eyebrows. His hair was light
+brown, brushed smoothly back from his temples, and his moustache turned
+up abruptly at the ends to mark the Lieutenant. He had remarkably small
+ears and small hands. His whole person breathed scrupulous neatness and
+cleanliness, and, if anything, he was too well groomed.
+
+He was clearly taken aback when he saw Lilly. His eyes widened with
+polite amazement.
+
+Consciousness that she had made an impression gave her back her
+self-assurance and _sang-froid_. Not in vain had she gone through
+Fräulein von Schwertfeger's training.
+
+"The introduction of a mutual friend, who has, I think, prepared you
+for my visit, brings me to you," she began, inwardly rejoiced to have a
+chance once more of playing the great lady.
+
+In a mirror hanging opposite Lilly saw with satisfaction the reflection
+of her heliotrope toque, with its wreath of violets and swathing of
+tulle, her heliotrope tailor-made costume, with its correctly cut long
+coat, and felt as if she had stepped out of the picture of a society
+portrait-painter.
+
+In silence he offered her a chair. The surprise that his manner had at
+first shown was succeeded by an air of distrustful perplexity.
+Apparently he was puzzled as to her social rank.
+
+His head was inclined slightly to the left, as if it were stiff from a
+recent attack of rheumatism. This pose increased Lilly's suspicion that
+he did not altogether trust her.
+
+She looked down at her brocaded wrist-bag and pretended to be
+suppressing a smile.
+
+He grew more embarrassed. "May I ask," he stammered, "who the mutual
+friend ... er ... is? I don't seem to ... recollect."
+
+He turned over the visiting-card, which his clerk had handed to him, in
+desperation.
+
+She shrank from being forced into mentioning the name of her former
+lover, and so exposing her shame to this man who lived behind china
+flower-pots.
+
+"Is it possible that you don't remember," she answered hesitatingly,
+"receiving a letter from a comrade in your regiment, asking you to
+interest yourself in a ... a lady----?"
+
+He jumped to his feet and flushed to the roots of his hair. His pupils
+dilated so visibly between his wide-stretched lids that she thought his
+eyes were going to start out of his head.
+
+"I beg your pardon," he stammered. "You refer to a letter which I had
+nearly a year and a half ago from Lieutenant von Prell?"
+
+"Yes," Lilly said.
+
+"But, gracious baroness," he exclaimed, completely losing his
+self-possession, "if I had suspected ... could have had the least idea
+that the gracious baroness ..." And his face depicted so much
+grovelling reverence that Lilly's feeling of innate aristocracy again
+came to the surface, but he had to be undeceived.
+
+"I call myself Lilly Czepanek now," she murmured, congratulating
+herself on the happy phrase, "I call myself," which left it open for
+him to suppose that she had chosen voluntarily to resume her maiden
+name.
+
+Alarm at the blunder he imaged himself to have committed was to be read
+on his features.
+
+"I am sorry," he said; "I ought to have remembered that the gracious
+baroness must have gone through many trials." Then he blurted out: "Why
+didn't you come sooner? I waited, waited, and waited a month, six
+months.... Then I started searching for you, with no results; but I
+half thought of employing a detective, only I feared to transgress the
+bounds of delicacy ..."
+
+Lilly nodded encouragingly. She appreciated his scruples.
+
+"Unfortunately, it never struck me to search for you under another
+name.... So I had to abandon the hope of ever having the great
+pleasure ..."
+
+Here, in the intensity of his emotions of delight, he would have
+grasped her hand, but he had the tact to resist the impulse when he saw
+that she did not respond.
+
+Lilly was conscious of being mistress of the situation. She felt so
+saturated with the romance of martyrdom, so surrounded by the delicious
+incense of lofty aloofness, that it was as if she had stepped out of
+the pages of one of Frau Asmussen's novels into the light of day.
+
+"I am grateful to you, Herr--Lieutenant." She could not bring the
+plebeian name of Dehnicke over her lips. "Now I fed that I have not
+knocked at your door in vain."
+
+"I can assure you," he replied, cocking his head still more to the left
+as a sign of his good-will, "that I place myself entirely at your
+service, all I am and all I----" He was going to say "have," but as an
+astute man of business he hesitated to commit himself so lightly.
+
+"Of course, I shall not impose on you too much," she replied airily, in
+order to damp his ardour a little. "I simply wish to be put in the way
+of earning my living, and to have someone who will advise me, and, as
+Herr von Prell"--now his name was spoken--"said that I might have
+absolute confidence in you----"
+
+"Indeed, you may rely on me as on yourself," he could not forbear from
+assuring her.
+
+"That would not mean much," she thought, but took care not to betray
+what passed through her mind by even a smile.
+
+"Have you, by-the-by, heard anything from him lately?" he asked.
+
+She blushed. To admit that she hadn't would expose his treatment of
+her. So, not to appear in the light of being neglected and cast off,
+she said:
+
+"We promised each other at parting not to write. We thought it would be
+best in the struggle that lay before us not to be always looking out
+for letters, and expecting to hear from one another. But you probably
+have heard from him, have you not?"
+
+He started and reflected a moment. "Yes ... that is to say ... not
+recently.... Some time back he wrote that he was getting on all right.
+He was starting a career. He made urgent inquiries after the gracious
+baroness's whereabouts, and I, of course, was not fortunate enough to
+be able to enlighten him."
+
+This sounded scarcely likely. A moment before he had asked her for news
+of Walter, and now when she asked him what Walter's address was, he was
+compelled to confess that his letter had given no address.
+
+It was plain that he had lied.
+
+It may have been that he hoped to raise her opinion of him by
+representing himself to be still on terms of friendship with her lover,
+and, as she for a similar motive had not strictly adhered to the truth,
+she could not very well blame him.
+
+She now went on to explain the purpose of her visit. She told him of
+her difficulties with the delicate art which she had taken up a few
+months ago, of her desire to improve and perfect herself. Would he be
+so kind as to put her on the right road by recommending some artist who
+would give her lessons? This was really the only reason why she had
+called on him.
+
+He listened with close attention, as if he took a professional interest
+in her future. But behind his gravity there lay something that
+disquieted her. It was certainly not pity, rather was it a sort of
+restraint, a concealment of the fact that the more she revealed the
+helplessness of her position the more he felt he was gaining some
+advantage.
+
+"A perfectly simple matter, gracious Frau," he replied, and his manner
+was more natural than heretofore. "I have several good painters among
+the artists who supply models for my business. One of them," he turned
+over the pages of an address-book, "Kellermann ... is the very man ...
+but of that we can talk later. What seems to me of the first importance
+in the art you have chosen are other things. So you will pardon my
+indiscretion, I hope, if I ask you a few questions?"
+
+She nodded assent.
+
+"What training have you had in Art?"
+
+"That is just it," she replied, struggling with her embarrassment; "it
+is because I have had no training that I want to learn."
+
+He did not move a muscle.
+
+"What are your means of support?" he asked next.
+
+She was silent. She began to feel as if she were being stripped of
+every rag she had on.
+
+"You understand, of course," he added, "that I haven't the least
+intention of prying into your private affairs, but as you did me the
+honour of asking my advice ..."
+
+"I have a few ornaments," she said, looking him straight in the eyes
+with proud defiance. "When they come to an end I shall have nothing."
+
+He inclined his head as much as to say, "I thought so."
+
+"And one more question: Where are you living at present?"
+
+"I am living, as befits my means, up four flights of stairs with a poor
+woman who has taught me how to press flowers."
+
+As she said this she caught sight, in the glass opposite, of the
+elegant woman of the world who had condescended to pay Herr Dehnicke,
+"comrade of the Reserves," a visit in his gloomy hole of an office.
+
+He rose and paced up and down a few seconds between the writing-table
+and door. His clothes were so tight and new that he crackled and
+creaked at every movement. He looked as if he had just stepped out of a
+bandbox, he was so polished and rotund. He was a little bit bald too,
+already. His face remained very serious, almost careworn. It seemed as
+if her hard lot weighed him to the earth.
+
+"My dear madam," he began, pausing in front of her, and his voice
+trembled a little, "what I am going to say to you is only prompted by
+the memory of the many years of sincere friendship that have existed
+between Herr von Prell and me ..."
+
+The scornful, patronising way in which Walter had referred to him in
+his letter came back to Lilly.
+
+"I have had so many happy, jolly hours in his society. I am indebted to
+him for so much kindness ..." He stopped. He could not, indebted as he
+was, name the kindness.... "All my life long I shall be grateful to
+him."
+
+Lilly recalled Walter's words: "He feels himself particularly indebted
+to me because I borrowed money from him on more than one occasion."
+
+It was really refreshing to meet with such touching loyalty.
+
+"But what I am most grateful to him for is that he should place such
+confidence in me as to entrust his fiancée to my care."
+
+"Fiancée!" Her ears had not deceived her; he had actually pronounced
+the word. She was startled, but did not contradict him. Until that
+moment it had never entered her head to consider that there was any
+binding tie between her and Walter--the poor little irresponsible
+fellow who could not be expected to look after himself, much less a
+wife and child. But in the eyes of this man of middle-class morals, and
+perhaps not only in his but in the eyes of the world, and in her own,
+the only excuse for her irregular, bungled existence lay in this
+contingency. If she centred all her hopes and wishes on the absent one
+whom she never imagined she would see again, she would have a new
+anchor to cling to. She might even justify herself before God and hope
+for absolution.
+
+This all flashed through her mind while Herr Dehnicke continued to
+assure her of his friendship for Walter, and fasten on her round eyes
+of disinterested adoration.
+
+"As his representative, and for his sake," he said, coming to the
+point, "I would urge you most seriously, dear madam, to quit
+surroundings that are not congenial to you, and find others more
+fitting to your former rank. It is absolutely necessary if you wish to
+put your plans into execution."
+
+"What have my surroundings to do with my art?" she asked, shrugging her
+shoulders.
+
+"Well, to begin with, you certainly must have a studio in which you can
+receive your customers, ... where you can show them who you are, and
+what you can do, and how far you are capable of carrying out your
+designs. This is the only method of ensuring those who give you orders
+treating you as a crafts-woman and not a mere ordinary work-woman."
+
+"But they won't come to me to give their orders," she interposed.
+
+"They should do so, undoubtedly," he exclaimed, working himself up into
+a decorous enthusiasm. "An artist who has any self-respect ought never
+to step outside his door to offer his wares to the public, and I advise
+you to act on this principle."
+
+She mentally calculated the number of rings, pendants, and bracelets
+that she had left, and replied, smiling:
+
+"It's more easily said than done."
+
+He grew bold. "My old and intimate friendship with Walter"--he used
+his Christian name for the first time--"entitles me to the privilege
+of--how shall I put it?--making provision ..."
+
+She foresaw what was coming and choked him off.
+
+"I am quite content where I am," she declared. "And till I am able, out
+of my own resources, to provide myself with the surroundings you are
+kind enough to wish for me, I do not feel justified in making a
+change."
+
+He bowed, his zeal perceptibly cooled. He asked her at least to leave
+her present address, so that he might send her the desired information.
+
+Hesitating, she gave the number and name of the street where she
+lodged, and added the request that he would not think of calling on
+her.
+
+He bowed again stiffly. His coolness increased and he became almost
+rigid.
+
+She felt glad that she had understood so well how to keep him at a
+distance. No one could say she was a beggar after this.
+
+She took leave graciously, for it was not her intention to snub him too
+mercilessly.
+
+He was quick to take advantage of her warmer tone, and became ardent
+again.
+
+"Was there anything else that he could do for her?... Did she feel
+lonely? Did she wish for society?"
+
+She glanced at his right hand, on which there was no wedding-ring, and
+shook her head, smiling.
+
+He had perfectly understood both glance and smile, and, struggling with
+a fresh attack of embarrassment, he cleared his throat and said:
+
+"I live alone with my mother, but, unfortunately, I cannot ask you to
+come and see her, as she is in very poor health, and since my father's
+death sees nobody. But I might introduce you to a few people of
+irreproachable position, of course if you cared to know them."
+
+"Thank you very much," Lilly replied patronisingly. "Naturally, I
+should take for granted that you would only introduce me to nice
+people. But, in spite of that, I think I would rather not. It will be
+best, at present, for me to do without society."
+
+With this she made a regal inclination of her head, held out her hand,
+and departed.
+
+He followed her deferentially to the door, and the six young gentlemen
+stood up with one accord in a row and bowed like their master.
+
+She passed out through the unfinished alterations in the courtyard,
+with flushed cheeks. When she was out in the street her mood was one of
+mingled triumph and disappointment. "No, that was _not_ my path of
+fate," she said to herself.
+
+But she had unexpectedly acquired a fiancé, and that was something.
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER IV
+
+
+August Kellermann passed for an artist of considerable reputation,
+though his pictures did not sell. He was a sharp-witted, sharp-tongued,
+good-natured person in the middle of the thirties, well-versed in all
+the vices of the capital. He had a sandy Rubens beard, prominent little
+eyes, with an eternal weariness in them as if he had never been in bed
+the night before.
+
+He rented a studio that had once been a photographer's. It was of huge
+dimensions, like a magnified glass case. He had draped the roof, as a
+protection from glare and heat, with Turkish rugs propped by poles,
+giving his studio the air of a Bedouin's tent.
+
+When Lilly stepped out of the dim twilight of the anteroom into the
+garish brilliance of the studio, which was so lofty it seemed part
+of the sky, she found him in a plum-coloured overall, with green
+down-at-heel slippers over which his red plaid socks hung in rucks,
+seated on the floor, beside an Oriental coffee apparatus, stirring an
+extinguished spirit-lamp.
+
+"Good Lord!" he exclaimed, without getting up to return her greeting;
+"this is a visit worth having."
+
+Lilly turned to go away again, and he immediately sprang to his feet,
+pulled up his trousers, and with a shrug of his shoulders dusted a
+bamboo chair with his sleeve.
+
+"Sit down, my child. Though I have nearly given up painting for
+pottery, and couldn't make use of Helen of Troy herself as a model, I
+am not going to let you slip through my fingers."
+
+Lilly handed him her benefactor's letter of introduction, and pointed
+out his mistake. "Now he'll change his behaviour," she thought. But
+nothing of the sort happened.
+
+"What a bore!" he said, scratching his head. "Most noble of women, why
+are you so beautiful? Ex-general's wife!"--here she was, labelled
+again--"I should have expected eye-glasses and pimples, and _you_ come
+along!"
+
+"You probably know my reasons for coming to you?" asked Lilly, too
+downhearted to resent his manner.
+
+He clapped his fleshy hand to his forehead.
+
+"Let me see! Let me see! The worthy Dehnicke, who is my dry-bread
+giver--'dry' referring to giver as well as bread--did, I think, mention
+the matter to me a day or two ago; but I suffer from a congenital
+dulness of comprehension, perhaps you will kindly ... er ...?"
+
+Lilly explained what she wanted, and he burst into uncontrollable
+laughter.
+
+"Yes, my fair noblewoman, I'll give you the benefit of my
+instruction--and would do it, even if you hadn't entered the world like
+Venus! Such a chance doesn't come in my way every day. I promise to
+charm sunsets out of the sky and perpetrate them on glass for you in
+hues so vivid that you'll never care to look a raspberry in the face
+again."
+
+Lilly was quite aware that if she had stood on her dignity as
+"noblewoman" she would have at once left the studio. But her desire to
+turn his readiness to teach her to account was too strong. She could
+not sacrifice the opportunity so carefully obtained.
+
+"I wonder what Anna von Schwertfeger would say?" she thought. And then,
+with a toss of her head, she said:
+
+"There are certain preliminaries to be arranged before we go on. First,
+I wish to know distinctly what your terms are, so that I may make up my
+mind whether I can afford your services."
+
+He looked a little dashed, and said that he supposed Herr Dehnicke
+would arrange the matter.
+
+"Herr Dehnicke has nothing at all to do with my financial affairs," she
+replied. "Should there be any misunderstanding on this point ..." She
+took up her sunshade; her gloves were already on.
+
+"Now, now, don't be so hasty," he said; and after reflecting a few
+moments he, named a charge of five marks for the morning's lesson.
+
+"My ruby ring will just do it," Lilly thought, and agreed to the sum.
+
+"Well," he said, "I am curious as to the other preliminaries."
+
+"It's only this. I wish to be treated like a lady."
+
+"Ah, indeed! I'm not refined enough for you, eh? But I tell you I can
+be as much as you like. I have six degrees of refinement, so you've
+only got to choose: extra refined, super-refined, highly refined,
+medium refined, unrefined, and beastly vulgar. Now take your choice."
+
+Lilly was so delighted with this pleasantry and others of the same
+sort, that she yielded her claims to consideration as a _grande dame_,
+and was content to be on terms of "hail fellow, well met" with him so
+long as he didn't pay compliments. However, her reminder was not
+without effect, and when she came again the next day he had even put on
+a pair of boots.
+
+On the whole, he proved to be an intelligent and kindly master, who did
+not expect too great things of his pupil; and took an encouraging
+interest in her childish ambition. He contrived a medium out of
+gelatine especially for her work, which threw up the brilliancy of the
+transparent colouring, and he was indefatigable in suggesting new
+combinations.
+
+"I'll make you half a dozen blood-red sunsets," he said, "that will
+knock all competitors out of the field, including that unconscionable
+old lady who commits the most glaring impertinences. I mean, of course.
+Dame Nature."
+
+While she splashed colour on a window-pane he stood smoking Turkish
+tobacco and chewing ginger before one of the modelling easels that
+filled the middle of the studio. Here he "pottered" away, as he
+expressed it, at his modelling in bronze. For the most part it was
+human figure that he created out of "the depths of his soul," half or
+three parts life-size: armoured knights with banners, girls in old
+German dress with problematically outstretched arms, allegorical female
+forms likewise employed, heralds trumpeting, and now and again
+impressionist nudity, long, too-slim limbs, and nixie bodies wriggling
+off into mermaids' tails; ash-trays, finger-bowls, and other
+utilitarian articles. And all the time there hung or leaned against
+the walls, covered with dust, half-finished pictures and sketches of
+daring originality and riotous delight in colour, every one stamped
+with unpremeditated power and joyous ease in execution. There was a
+half-ruined chapel in a tropical forest, on the high altar of which a
+herd of monkeys were gambolling; in a monotonous desert background a
+group of stubborn-eyed camels drew round the dead body of a lion,
+sniffing it; best of all was the nude figure of a woman loaded with
+chains, her white limbs shining out in relief from a rugged barren
+rock, and round her head swooping a horde of red-eyed vultures. There
+was much else that showed restrained strength and wealth of
+imagination; but the woman in chains remained Lilly's favourite.
+
+One day she ventured to ask her master why he left all these things
+unfinished, instead of working them up for exhibitions.
+
+"Because I have to turn out pot-boilers, you unsuspecting angel," he
+replied, laughing, and slapped a clod of wet clay against the leg of
+the allegorical lady whom he had in hand; "because the world wants
+lamp-stands and flower-vases, but no immortal beauty, with mother-wit
+inside her body to boot; ... because there are manufacturers of
+imitation bronze wares who keep you from the workhouse; and because I
+am a chap with sound teeth who wants a few crusts of life to masticate
+after twenty years of fasting, and will hunt for once with the
+worshippers of Dionysus. Can you, with your five-o'clock tea soul,
+grasp that ...?"
+
+"But could you not at least finish the woman with the chains?" she
+urged.
+
+He broke into a shrill laugh of self-contempt, and threw himself full
+length on the fur-covered couch which stood in the most shadowed corner
+of the glass-walled room. Then he sprang up again and offered Lilly
+ginger out of the pot he always kept handy.
+
+She thanked him and pressed for an answer to her question.
+
+"Dear God! Have you no conception of how heavily loaded everyone is in
+this world with his own chains? Divine fire would have to descend from
+heaven and melt my handcuffs or the goddess herself must appear in the
+flesh, throw her clothes on that chair, and say, 'Here I am, dear sir.
+This is the body born from the foam.... Now, fire away; look and paint
+your fill.'"
+
+He had stopped in front of her, chewing ginger, and raised his clasped
+hands to her in an attitude of petition.
+
+"How funny you are!" she said in confusion. "What does it concern me?"
+
+"I am not going to say," he said. "I am by a long way too damnably full
+of respect.... But if one day my chain-loaded beauty is sick of crying
+to be set free--she cries to be set free day and night, and often keeps
+me awake--then maybe a miracle will come to pass and someone who is now
+flushing up to her eyes will come and----"
+
+"I think we had better go on with our work," Lilly cut him short.
+
+From that day she was careful to keep off the subject of the picture,
+and she did not dare so much as to glance across at it if Herr
+Kellermann was looking; but, all the same, he made constant allusions
+to his presumptuous idea, which seemed to obsess him, and at last Lilly
+had to forbid him to mention it.
+
+Her enthusiasm for her work grew day by day. She was not content with
+the lessons in the studio, she practised at home, and when she tried
+her newly acquired talent on the glass plaques she had purchased, the
+results were, both in her own and Frau Laue's opinion, highly
+creditable. The sunsets ran blood-red over cornflower blue hills, and
+in the foreground stood dark silent primæval forests of grass and
+ferns, shading huts which had been built and brilliantly illuminated
+apparently by a prehistoric race of men.
+
+She had never shown any of her performances to her master, for
+he had declared that he could not on principle tolerate such
+paste-and-scissors atrocities. But Herr Dehnicke would have been
+interested, she was sure, in her progress, and she would dearly have
+loved to show him her works of art.
+
+Unfortunately, since his letter of introduction to Herr Kellermann she
+had heard no more from him, and she felt a little piqued at being so
+easily forgotten.
+
+One day Herr Kellermann said suddenly: "By Jove! The bronze business
+has begun to boom all at once. Our Herr Dehnicke keeps me at it with
+orders. He's up here nearly every day to see how things are getting
+on."
+
+Something in his manner as he said this, with his eyes blinking at her,
+made Lilly redden and feel uncomfortable, though it filled her at the
+same time with a quiet satisfaction. And when at last the seven pairs
+of glass plaques were finished, she was so brimming over with pride in
+them that she couldn't keep it all to herself, and boldly wrote him a
+note on her superb ivory paper, with the seven-pointed gold coronet, of
+which she had about twenty sheets left. Would he, she wrote, come next
+Sunday afternoon, as he had been so good as to take an interest in her
+work?
+
+An answer came at once. Nothing could have given him greater pleasure
+than her kind letter; he had been longing to come and see her, and he
+hoped that she wouldn't doubt that it was only out of regard for her
+wishes that he had kept away.
+
+On the appointed Sunday afternoon he appeared. Lilly arranged a plant
+of gladiolas in the punch-bowl, and pink carnations round the box
+containing the specimen lamp-shade. Fastened against the windows by
+ribbon bows hung the glorious sunsets like conflagrations, casting a
+magic glow over the room and the tawdry treasures which Frau Laue had
+preserved with her own character from "better times." Lilly presented a
+gay and charming appearance in the white lace blouse washed and ironed
+by her own hands; and when she went to receive her guest, who stood at
+the door in patent-leather boots, with a top-hat in his hand, she was
+quite the self-possessed, condescending, unapproachable fine lady who
+had entered his office a few weeks before.
+
+Her benefactor was all the more embarrassed. He sniffed the frowsy
+odour which reached Frau Laue's best room from the other part of the
+house, cast uneasy glances at the walls, and behaved altogether as if
+he were poaching on forbidden ground.
+
+He could not express how happy he was that she had at last given him
+permission to call ... he had not wished to be intrusive ... he would
+have deferred coming still longer if her note had not set his mind at
+rest ... and so on. He repeated all he had said in his letter in a
+nervous, stumbling way, which was hardly in keeping with his elegant
+attire and naturally frigid manner.
+
+She, on her side, thanked him in a friendly tone for all the favours he
+had done her, and she was sorry to have given him the trouble of coming
+to see her; and as she said all this she felt, against her will, quite
+the "Frau Generalin" doing the honours of her drawing-room with
+sociable courtesy.
+
+By degrees she brought the conversation round to her work, deplored her
+artistic incompetence, and pointed to the sunsets glowing on the
+window-panes.
+
+Herr Dehnicke sprang up, and after a moment's silent contemplation
+burst into raptures of enthusiasm, for each of which he had to draw
+fresh breath and repeat himself rather mechanically, while he
+maintained an awkward smile. But Lilly was far too delighted to suspect
+that his favourable criticism wasn't genuine. He asked if she had shown
+the transparencies to Herr Kellermann, She confessed that she had
+lacked the courage. "Besides, I wanted you to see them first," she
+said.
+
+His eyes did her grateful homage as he remarked, "If you haven't yet
+done so, I strongly advise you to omit it altogether. The man, obliging
+as he seems, is really a mass of professional conceit, and he would
+probably ..."
+
+He seemed afraid to say more.
+
+Lilly plucked up courage to ask casually, as if it didn't matter much,
+whether he thought she would find purchasers for her work.
+
+He was silent again, and scratched meditatively the place to which the
+left end of his moustache was glued. Then, putting his round smooth
+head very much on one side, he said, carefully weighing his words:
+
+"You had much better, dear lady, entrust the sale of your stuff to me.
+You see, I have my customers, and I know what buying is. I might set
+your glass-work in bronze frames or something similar, and they would
+pass, doubtless, as goods of my own."
+
+Gratitude bubbled up warmly within her.
+
+"Oh, will you really do that?" she cried, grasping his hand. "I shall
+be very pleased to let you, till I have found customers for myself."
+
+The pressure of her hand turned him scarlet to the roots of his hair.
+
+"To achieve that," he said, looking the other way bashfully, "it is
+above all things necessary that the gracious baroness doesn't hesitate
+any longer to establish herself in a home that is worthy of her."
+
+"I shall be only too glad," she replied merrily, "when I can afford
+it."
+
+"It may be years before you can," he interposed.
+
+"Well, I don't mind waiting years."
+
+"Allow me," he stammered, "to remind you once more, that as an old and
+intimate friend of your fiancé, I am entitled----"
+
+She drew herself up. "If my fiancé," she said, "was, or is ever likely
+to be, in a position to support me, I perhaps should not refuse; but as
+matters stand I can permit no one in the world, not even his dearest
+friend, to make me offers that can only humiliate me in the end."
+
+She turned her face aside to hide how hurt she felt.
+
+He instantly hung his head in penitence, nevertheless there was a gleam
+of triumph in his eyes.
+
+It was then arranged that one of his vans should call the next day for
+the transparencies, and business thus being concluded, he begged
+modestly to be allowed to stay a few minutes longer. He would so enjoy
+a little chat about the absent friend; he had so few opportunities.
+
+"I shall enjoy it too," Lilly responded, inviting him to sit down.
+"It's a great happiness for me to find someone who knows my fiancé."
+
+The word "fiancé" now fell glibly from her lips as something quite
+natural. As the chance of his staying longer had been foreseen and
+provided for, she had only to ring, and Frau Laue appeared in the
+famous brown velvet gown with the black sequin square décolletage,
+which was now decorously filled in with one of Lilly's white silk
+fichus. She bore a tea-tray with two dainty cups of mocha coffee; and
+when presented to Herr Dehnicke she made a curtsey, which would have
+graced a ball at Prince Orloffski's. After she had added a few remarks
+about the great histrionic artists of the past and the photographs to
+which they had affixed their autographs at her special request, she
+retired, as it beseemed her to do.
+
+Then Lilly displayed her charms as a hostess, and with the aroma of
+mocha coffee the spirit of "better days" pervaded everything.
+
+
+                           *   *   *   *   *
+
+
+Nearly a week later the post brought Frau Lilly Czepanek a money-order
+for two hundred and ten marks, from Richard Dehnicke, of the firm of
+Liebert & Dehnicke, metal-ware craftsmen, "Due for seven landscapes
+painted on glass, with dried flowers, sold at thirty marks apiece."
+
+Thus the foundation of a future career seemed to be laid.
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER V
+
+
+Bright times followed. With part of the sum she had earned, Lilly
+invested in new materials, and soon more sunsets flared behind woods of
+dried grass and flowers pasted on glass.
+
+As she lay sleepless, through the hot summer nights, from overwork, she
+made plans of all the great things she would do when her art had
+conquered the world. She would have a workshop like Herr Dehnicke's,
+and employ a dozen women-hands with Frau Laue as forewoman. Then she
+would advertise for her lost father, and move her poor insane mother to
+an expensive private asylum.
+
+She would, of course, provide for Walter too. Now that she had worked
+herself up into imagining herself his fiancée, it would be her duty,
+and she cheerfully took the responsibility on her shoulders. He must,
+however, first make some sign, or how was she to know where he was? She
+felt sure that one day, when he had no one to turn to, he would think
+of her, and find some way of communicating with her. Then out of her
+abundance she would send him money without stint, all that her art
+poured into her lap.
+
+No, not all. She must think first of that great and sacred task which
+dominated her life with such a gigantic influence. Whether she traced
+her father or not, his work, his immortal masterpiece, must never be
+allowed to sink into oblivion. Awaiting its resurrection, the score of
+"The Song of Songs" still lay slumbering at the bottom of Lilly's
+locked box, but it slumbered not quite so dreamlessly as in past years.
+It began to be restive and to exhort, sobbing and humming an
+accompaniment to the day's work, breaking out in the night and at other
+times, when one least expected it, into harmonies and melodies.
+
+From over the sunlit, cornflower blue hills it came, as if wafted by an
+evening breeze, "How beautiful are thy feet with shoes, O prince's
+daughter!" and from the dark interior of the mythical woods echoed
+snatches of song concerning the lily of the valleys and the rose of
+Sharon. It almost seemed as if the invisible inhabitants of those
+illuminated pasteboard cottages were singing, as evidence of the
+pleasant lives they led; and so one day would all the people of the
+earth enjoy those treasures of song, of which fate had appointed her
+guardian.
+
+Everywhere she went, whatever she might be thinking of or doing, hope
+smiled and beckoned to her from all corners of the world. A new, more
+exalted and pure, life must be coming. That golden thread, which her
+poor mad mother had severed with the bread-knife, became again
+interwoven with an ambition to climb upwards, ever upwards, and with
+presentiments of some sacred blessing to be prayed and struggled for.
+
+A few months more, and all might be accomplished; and on the top of
+this recovered happiness came another. Wonder upon wonder--her
+so-called future bridegroom suddenly gave a sign of life.
+
+It was early in September, at about twelve, that Herr Dehnicke
+appeared unannounced at her door. As she had not quite finished
+dressing she was at first unwilling to admit him. But when he explained
+that his mission was urgent, she received him, in her _peignoir_, with
+a thousand apologies. He eyed her with shy admiration, and then drew a
+folio-shaped, strange-looking piece of paper out of his pocket, which
+purported to be a cheque drawn on the Lincoln and Ohio Bank for two
+thousand and odd marks.
+
+"What am I to do with it?" Lilly asked.
+
+"Read the letter, which accompanied it, addressed to me," he replied,
+unfolding a large sheet.
+
+In the letter "Dear Sir" was informed that Mr. Walter von Prell had
+paid in five hundred dollars to his account, and wished the sum to be
+handed over to the "Baroness" Lilly von Mertzbach.
+
+Lilly trembled with excitement. She paced up and down the room in a
+storm of emotion, pressing her handkerchief to her eyes. She had been
+planning to help him and now he helped her.
+
+A sudden feeling of suspicion took possession of her. She stood still
+and looked at the cheque and then at Herr Dehnicke. Both stood silent.
+
+"I must ask you to explain," she said at length.
+
+"What is there to explain, gracious lady?" he answered. "I am only the
+middleman, or, if you like it better, the agent, in a little private
+business that concerns you and your betrothed alone."
+
+"But why couldn't he give his address?" she exclaimed.
+
+"It looks almost as if he wanted to remove all traces of himself,"
+remarked Dehnicke.
+
+It was all so romantic and adventurous and unlike Walter ... one didn't
+know what to think.
+
+But there stood the name: "Baroness Lilly von Mertzbach." Walter was
+possibly ignorant of her having been obliged to renounce her married
+name. This pointed to the genuineness of the cheque.
+
+Herr Dehnicke had inclined his head to the left side, as usual, and
+gazed at her with placid deference. He played the part of the
+middleman, and that was all.
+
+"After this unexpected turn of events," he said in conclusion, "you
+will, I earnestly believe, no longer hesitate to return to the manner
+of life suited to your social status, and which is so requisite to the
+success of your work."
+
+She shook her head, biting her Ups.
+
+Thereupon he became authoritative, more so than she would have given
+such an exceedingly modest person credit for.
+
+"You really must make the change," he urged her. "You must do it for
+_his_ sake. I am, as it were, responsible. When he returns with the
+intention of marrying you, he must not find that you have become
+_déclassée_ in his absence. As I say, I am responsible."
+
+She begged to be allowed time to think it over.
+
+Henceforth the thought of her distant lover ruled her destiny. What had
+before been a play of the imagination became almost stern reality. Not
+that she accepted the story unconditionally of his being at the back of
+the mysteriously sent cheque. On the contrary, she could not silence a
+voice that suggested someone might have tricked her, but she could not
+trust herself to make further inquiries, or to draw conclusions. She
+dreaded to think what would become of her if she lost the one friend on
+whom she could at present rely, and in order to dispel all doubts from
+her mind she worked more industriously than ever--nearly ever week a
+fresh batch of sunsets was ready to be taken away. In the mean time
+Herr Kellermann had given her new ideas: a Gothic cathedral perched on
+perpendicular rocks, a castle with ever so many illuminated windows,
+and, greatest achievement of all, the moon shining on a calm grey sea,
+its silver beams represented by pressed fern-fronds.
+
+
+                           *   *   *   *   *
+
+
+On the first Sunday in October, Herr Dehnicke called to take Lilly for
+a walk. He had done it twice before, and Lilly had been charmed to go.
+Had he offered to take her into the country she would have liked it
+still better.
+
+The autumn sunlight lay peacefully on the ragged foliage of the stunted
+town trees, which had been half bare of leaf for a long time. Groups of
+people sauntered about aimlessly. They looked depressed and bored, for
+winter was already laying its nipping fingers on men's spirits.
+
+Their walk took them through various crowded streets, and Lilly
+experienced the pleasant feeling of having someone to protect and look
+after her in the throng.
+
+Herr Dehnicke, after a long brooding silence, began at last with the
+question:
+
+"Have you come to any decision about your future abode, dear lady?"
+
+Lilly did not answer. She was firmly resolved to make no change, and
+yet it was heavenly to be pressed on the point. It made you feel that
+you were again of some importance in the world.
+
+"If I had the privilege of selecting for you," he said in his
+unpretentious, formal way, "I believe I could find you a nook which
+would be to your taste."
+
+"I don't suppose you could," she replied, half in joke. "We are sure
+not to have exactly the same tastes."
+
+"I am not so presumptuous as to say that we should. But, nevertheless,
+I have lately seen a small flat which, unless I am very much mistaken,
+you would be delighted with. It belongs to a customer, a lady, who is
+travelling."
+
+"Oh, that's a pity! I should like to have seen it, if only to know what
+you think my tastes are."
+
+He was lost in thought for a few minutes; then he said, "It can be
+managed. The maid-servant will not be at home to-day as it is Sunday;
+but the porter's wife, who keeps the key, knows me, and if you
+like----"
+
+Lilly demurred a little to intruding into a stranger's flat, but Herr
+Dehnicke overruled her scruples, hailed a cab, and they drove to a
+westerly quarter of the town, where the houses looked more imposing and
+the people more distinguished, and where stately chestnuts shading
+velvety green turf flanked the blue waters of a canal.
+
+"Oh, happy people to live here!" she exclaimed, and then the carriage
+drew up at the corner of the Königin-Augusta-Ufer.
+
+Dehnicke jumped out and said a few words at the window of the lodge. A
+key was handed out, and they ascended the carved oak staircase, which
+was covered with a thick cherry-coloured carpet. How different from the
+stone flights of steps which led up to Frau Laue's, and were painful to
+the feet! He paused on the second floor, pulled the bell as a matter of
+politeness--for it might happen that the maidservant was at home after
+all--and then, when no one came, put the key in the door and turned it.
+
+Lilly tried to read the name that was engraved on an oval porcelain
+door-plate, but in the dusk that prevailed on the landing she could not
+distinguish it.
+
+They entered a very dark little hall smelling of fresh paint, and
+passed into a carpeted room, on the walls of which were cupboards with
+glass doors curtained with green silk. The rest of the furniture
+consisted merely of two armchairs, a few small gilt chairs, and a
+round, brightly polished dining-table.
+
+"This has been used as a dining-room," said Herr Dehnicke; "but it
+would do very well for your private studio and showroom."
+
+Lilly agreed, though she would rather have contradicted him.
+
+Opening out of the dining-room on the right was a bedroom, with Rose du
+Barri chintz hangings, a pink enamelled suite, and a canopied bed with
+a billowy silk eider-down quilt, and curtains fastened with an old-gold
+seven-pointed coronet.
+
+"Is your customer nobly born?" asked Lilly, feeling vaguely envious.
+
+"I wasn't aware of it," he answered; "but it's possible she may be."
+
+Lilly sighed a little, recalling her own ivory toilette treasures and
+her coronet-embroidered underwear lying in Frau Laue's fusty drawers;
+how beautifully they would fit in here! She inhaled with rapture the
+delicate lilac fragrance that pervaded the whole room like an
+aristocratic spring, and, shuddering, she compared it with that
+plebeian smell which, no matter how indefatigably she aired the Dresden
+treasures, invaded them with deadly persistency.
+
+"Happy woman!" said Lilly in a low voice.
+
+She rather wondered that the occupant of the flat had left no trace of
+herself behind--no ribbon, peignoir, or trinket.
+
+"She must have locked up everything, or taken it all away with her,"
+suggested Dehnicke.
+
+Next they went back to the studio, and, passing through its other door,
+came into a little corner drawing-room, which was completely flooded
+with rosy sunshine.
+
+Lilly clapped her hands in unbounded delight. There was a soft old-rose
+carpet with a vine pattern; a charming little crystal chandelier, the
+prisms of which set rainbow colours playing on the dark polished
+mahogany furniture; and bronze statuettes representing such subjects as
+a nymph bathing, a reaper folding his hands in prayer at the sound of
+the Angelus, and so on. Then there were a few choice paintings on the
+walls, an escritoire, a little bookcase, and there was even a piano.
+
+"Oh!" sighed Lilly, "a piano!" And she shut her eyes in sheer
+melancholy bliss at the thought of it.
+
+There were live things, too. In front of one of the three windows was
+an aquarium, full of sunlight and goldfish, with a palm overhead; and
+from another window chirruped a tame bullfinch.
+
+Lilly thought of her pale-blue silk domain. In comparison with that,
+what a plain, confined little nest this was; yet how inexpressibly
+attractive and cosy when contrasted with the revolting place in which
+she was dwelling.
+
+"It's a positive paradise!" she said ecstatically, though half crying.
+
+"Here is another room," said Herr Dehnicke, opening a door that Lilly
+had not noticed. "It can be entered separately from the hall, and was
+probably intended by the lady for a guest-chamber; but if you settled
+here, it would come in handy as a workroom for your assistants."
+
+Lilly peeped in. The room was more simply arranged than the others, but
+with considerable care. Greenish-grey upholstered chairs were set round
+a wide table, and in one corner was a comfortable-looking brass
+bedstead.
+
+"The bed, of course, could be taken away," Herr Dehnicke explained.
+
+It really was marvellous how exactly suited everything was to her
+requirements.
+
+They returned to the drawing-room, and Lilly noticed what had before
+escaped her attention, and that was an almost life-size portrait in an
+ornate frame hanging above the sofa, as if every other object in the
+room was there to pay it homage. The features and figure were, however,
+hidden by a covering of mauve stuff, which made it impossible to
+recognise them.
+
+"What does that mean?" Lilly asked.
+
+Dehnicke shrugged his shoulders and pointed to a photograph on the
+escritoire veiled in the same mysterious fashion.
+
+Lilly, full of curiosity, took hold of a corner of the drapery which
+screened the big picture from her view, and raised it a little.
+
+"I wonder if I dare?" she asked timidly, as if she were about to commit
+a crime.
+
+"Certainly, if you care to," he replied; and it seemed as if he were
+breathing more heavily than usual.
+
+She tugged, tugged energetically; the drapery fell upon her ... and
+there in front of her eyes stood Walter von Prell, boldly sketched in
+pastel, wearing the uniform of his old regiment. Walter--her friend and
+fiancé!
+
+Her knees shook. Icy-cold fingers crept through her hair. She refused
+to understand--to believe. Then she felt that Dehnicke took her hand
+and led her into the outer hall. He struck a match, and Lilly could now
+read on the plate the name she had before failed to decipher,
+
+
+                            "Lilly Czepanek.
+                        Pressed Flower Studio."
+
+
+She gave a shrill cry, rushed back into the little drawing-room,
+and, burying her face in a corner of the sofa, gave vent to her
+long-restrained emotions in a burst of hot, blissful tears.
+
+When she looked up again, she saw him standing beside her, unassuming
+and correct in his bearing, his expression sober and grave.
+
+She was ashamed that she felt so happy, and held out her hand to him in
+shy gratitude.
+
+"May I venture to hope that in my capacity as Walter's deputy I have
+succeeded in pleasing you?" he asked.
+
+After that there was no further question of refusing.
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER VI
+
+
+The gold-tinted tops of the chestnut-trees faded, and ever wider grew
+the gaps that autumn's march made in their foliage. At places where a
+little while ago one saw nothing but a leafy lacework, the ripples of
+the canal now gleamed through. Along it, heavy barges towed by poles
+drifted in their laborious fashion, and the shaggy watch-dogs barked up
+at the windows of distinguished residents. Rainy dull weather stole on
+the city like a thief in the night, and solitude clutched your heart
+with its clammy hand.
+
+She had her work, it was true. Her work! Lilly clung to it day and
+night, as long as the first infatuation lasted and she could build
+hopes of realising her ambitious plans.
+
+But the eagerly expected "boom" in painted glass with pressed-flower
+foregrounds never came. The prospectuses she had printed and sent out
+were ignored, and Herr Dehnicke, who remained her one patron and
+purchaser, told her in a hurried and nervous way not to lose heart so
+soon, as the market was decidedly dull at present.
+
+Gradually her zeal began to wane. She had given up going to Herr
+Kellermann for lessons, his importunities with regard to the release of
+his "chained Venus" having become too insupportable. She locked her
+"samples" away in the glass-doored cupboards, and only finished Herr
+Dehnicke's "orders."
+
+Oh, those cruel, empty days, with no laughter to brighten them and
+nothing to wait or live for!
+
+In the kitchen a silent young servant held sway. Her eyes had a greedy,
+far too intelligent expression. The goldfish were fed and given fresh
+water every morning, and the bullfinch was encouraged to chirp. In the
+evening, when the chandelier was lighted and radiated its dazzling
+white light, things were better. Then she would wander from room to
+room, rearrange ornaments, and say to herself over and over again that
+no one ever had been so happy as she was, or had a prettier home.
+
+Of what avail was it all--the soft old-rose carpet with its faint
+vine-leaf pattern, the red-brown shiny furniture and those bronze
+figures with their shimmering lustre of gold that were nothing
+underneath but zinc alloy manufactured by Liebert, Dehnicke & Co.? Of
+what avail the gold-coroneted note-paper, of which Dehnicke had
+instantly ordered five hundred sheets, on the neat writing-table? There
+was no one to rejoice in it all with her, no one whom longing could
+summon to her side. Often she sat down at the piano and let her fingers
+wander over the notes. But it was not the pleasure to her she had hoped
+and expected. The rigorous technical training she had once had under
+her father's tuition had long ago been forgotten. She could not
+remember one of the things she used to play by heart, and she lacked
+the patience and nerve to learn new pieces.
+
+It was strange what a fever of unrest attacked her directly she touched
+the keys. A fierce anxiety, a sense of terror and inward unworthiness
+overwhelmed her. She could do nothing else but strike the instrument
+with a bang, and fly from room to room till her feet ached; and she was
+glad when ten o'clock called her to bed.
+
+In these unemployed, joyless days there awoke in her a piercing,
+tormenting desire for man's society, a sweet torture of shuddering
+thrills. For two whole years her senses had lain dormant. What the
+colonel's senile corruption had kindled, and the autumn weeks of
+passion lashed into a blaze, had been drowned by tears of remorse--for
+ever, she had vainly imagined. But here it was risen again, shaming and
+enrapturing her together, and refusing to be silenced by prayers and
+self-reproaches. Often she felt as if she must rush into the streets,
+if only to meet the eyes of a stranger, as in the Dresden days, and see
+veiled desire leap up in them. But in the streets people were vulgar
+and rude, and she shrank trembling from going anywhere alone, except to
+visit her old landlady.
+
+The walk there took her an hour, and before she reached her former
+lodging she had been accosted by many ingenuous chance admirers; and
+many experienced _flâneurs_ walked by her side and tried to begin a
+conversation. She would cross in a hurry to the other side of the
+street, and wish when she got there that she had spoken to her
+molesters.
+
+As she lay in bed dreaming with closed eyes, she fancied she saw
+strong, clear-cut, masculine features hovering round her, into which
+she looked up with confiding admiration.
+
+She often dreamed too of Herr Dehnicke, the faithful, loyal little
+business man, who was ready to stand by her so staunchly through thick
+and thin. Suppose that he were to come to her one day, and in the
+deprecating, stumbling manner that she had got to like say, "I love you
+to distraction, and will make you my wife!" What should she say? Every
+time she contemplated his doing this it brought her a certain sense of
+comfort.
+
+Of the man who really stood nearest to her, and on whom she had the
+most claims, she never dreamed. It was true that in her desultory
+longings those heavenly November nights came back to her vividly, but
+instead of Walter, any other man might have been their hero. Walter had
+grown to be a sort of tyrannical ruler over her conscience. Of course,
+she loved him. How could she help it when he was her destined
+"bridegroom," working hard for her? Yet often when she stood by the
+sofa under his portrait, and his cold blue eyes rested upon her with
+imperious hauteur, she remembered what a scurvy part he had played, and
+how fickle he had been; and she felt as if she would like to sever
+every tie that bound her to him, and shake off every thought of him
+from her like a detestable nightmare.
+
+She wished that Herr Dehnicke would leave off talking of him with
+devotion and respect, and looking forward to the time when he would
+have to render account of his modest guardianship of her to his dear
+friend, on his return in honour and glory to his home and hearth. He
+came with the utmost punctuality twice a week to see how she was
+getting on, and to have tea with her. He left in time to be back at his
+office before it closed. No wonder that Lilly looked on these visits as
+festivals. He was her only link with the outside world. She had no one
+but him to bring a little brightness and interest into her life.
+
+She spent hours arranging the tea-table and the lights and flowers for
+him. For him, too, she stood before the mirror, dressing her hair.
+
+When at last he was sitting opposite her, they talked long and
+seriously about his business worries, his plans, and the trouble he had
+with artists who thought it a disgrace to work for the trade, and could
+only be induced to execute orders when, as it were, he held a pistol to
+their heads. He spoke of the rivals with whom he competed in business,
+who built palaces for their workshops in order to dazzle customers, so
+that he too was forced to transform his good solid old business house
+into a modern structure with the latest improvements.
+
+His customers too were a source of endless anxiety to him. Some,
+actuated by the newest ideals in art which were the fashion in the
+capital, demanded his pandering to the "Secession" movement, and
+putting on the market long-necked, narrow-whipped bodies in exaggerated
+attitudes of insane distortion. But the steady public of mediocrity,
+which was really the purchasing public, would have nothing to say to
+this trash, and insisted on having knights in armour and their dames in
+fancy-dress, damsels picking flowers and drawing water, hunted stags
+and swinging monkeys, the same, in fact, as had been in vogue thirty
+years before. So he stood, as it were, between two rocks, on one of
+which he might be wrecked as out of date and old-fashioned, on the
+other as too advanced and modern. In the latter case he would forfeit
+most of his old and well-tried patrons. It was extremely difficult to
+steer a middle course, but it had to be done.
+
+He spoke often, too, of the factory and its hundreds of industrial
+hands who from early morning till late at night worked for the welfare
+of the business, and of the alterations which were nearing completion,
+and which, judging by the architect's designs and the sum which he had
+spent, ought to be something worth seeing.
+
+"You see what competition compels a man to do," he wound up.
+
+Lilly, with beaming eyes, listened attentively. She took interest in
+everything. She wanted to hear details of life in the factory with its
+whirling machinery, clatter of wheels, its hissing furnaces and
+shrieking files. She never wearied of asking questions about the
+appearance and behaviour of the workpeople, their wages, their
+condition, and what became of them afterwards. She felt as if there, in
+the great hum of the factory, was living reality, while outside her own
+existence was a shadowy illusion.
+
+"How I envy you," she would exclaim sometimes, "to have so many men's
+lives in your keeping!"
+
+"They keep you always on the go," he replied; "it's an enormous
+responsibility and worry."
+
+She was sure he was a benevolent master, even if he would not own it
+himself. He had such great influence, and his heart was so kind.
+
+He liked to hear her talk like this, though often in the middle of what
+she was saying he would spring up and walk about the room with excited,
+short steps, and then stand still in front of her, and stare down on
+her with gloomy solicitous eyes, as if he could not control his
+contending emotions.
+
+Lilly appeared to notice nothing, though she knew perfectly well what
+was passing in his mind at these moments.
+
+"I shall not help him out," she said to herself. "He must do what he
+likes in his own way, or in future he may cherish resentment towards
+me." And in palpitating hope she awaited events.
+
+If she could only do away with that ridiculous superstition about
+Walter, which he probably half believed, like herself, and half
+bolstered up for the sake of propriety. And then another thing gave her
+food for reflection. In spite of her often-expressed desire to see the
+factory, he never volunteered to take her over it. It almost seemed as
+if he objected to be seen with her on his own premises.
+
+He often talked about his mother, however, and was not shy of
+confessing how much he was influenced by her, though he made it plain
+that he would prefer to have more freedom to carry out his schemes and
+develop his powers.
+
+When his father died--twelve years before--he had not been of age, and
+had been obliged to submit to his mother's rule. The old lady's régime
+continued, and every new enterprise was discussed with her, and if she
+approved it was put into execution, even if he were opposed to it.
+Lilly felt awaking within her a dull aching terror of the old lady who
+lived behind the bourgeois flower-pots and issued commands from her
+armchair, which were obeyed by so great a man as her benefactor. She
+pictured the moment of making her acquaintance with a sinking heart.
+
+
+                           *   *   *   *   *
+
+
+Towards Christmas she was again busy. Two dozen new designs for windows
+had been ordered, and must be finished before the festive day. A future
+seemed once more to open before her. For the first time in four years
+she forgot to send her mother's Christmas present to the asylum.
+Instead, she made Herr Dehnicke's mother a particularly "poetic"
+lamp-shade, and sent it anonymously to the house on the morning of
+Christmas Eve. Why she did it, she did not know herself. Perhaps it was
+a propitiatory offering such as nervous souls were in the habit of
+making of old to unknown gods for unknown offences. She had made a
+little pile of gifts for her friend, though uncertain that he would
+turn up, and she listened for his ring with a beating heart. Her fears
+were groundless, for at half-past five he appeared, in the twilight of
+the hall, as loaded with parcels as old Father Christmas himself!
+
+He had selected them with tact and discretion. There were little things
+that she wanted for domestic use in the flat, a set of embroidered
+collars, a Persian lamb boa--to save her sables--a few trifles from the
+factory to adorn the still bare top of her escritoire. At every
+exclamation of delight she gave he modestly disclaimed thanks.
+Everything came, as she knew, from Walter.
+
+"And is there nothing from you?" she asked.
+
+"Nothing!" he replied, and turned his palms outwards.
+
+"Well then," she said, "if you'd like to know, there is something you
+can give me that Walter can't."
+
+"What can that be?" he asked.
+
+"Take me over your factory."
+
+This time he did not put her off, but fixed a definite day and hour. It
+should be the first working-day after the new year, when everything
+would be in full swing again. "Please wear something dark and plain,"
+he added, when it was settled.
+
+"Am I generally dressed loudly?" asked Lilly, horrified. She felt as if
+someone had boxed her ears.
+
+"Oh, I didn't mean that!" he stammered in confusion; "but you might
+hurt your good clothes."
+
+
+                           *   *   *   *   *
+
+
+At noon on January 2nd she stood in front of the house in Alte
+Jakobstrasse, which she hadn't seen since her first memorable visit.
+"After all," she reflected, "it did prove a path of fate in one way."
+She looked up stealthily at the porcelain flower-pots on the first
+floor, and started, for she fancied she saw a white head move behind
+the lace curtains. "That's what comes of having a guilty conscience,"
+she thought, and with a shy sidelong glance of awe she passed the door
+that led to the laurel-flanked private staircase, which her feet were
+not worthy to tread till she was again received into the bosom of
+middle-class respectability.
+
+The other entrance stood hospitably open. The scaffolding had been
+taken down, walls and pillars gleamed in the mirror-like glory of
+imitation marble, and the splendour of the courtyard beyond made her
+feel diffident again. By this time even the grimy old office had been
+transformed. It now boasted a projecting façade of sandstone, with the
+busts of famous artists in the niches. The ascent of worn and rickety
+wooden steps had been replaced by a gorgeous gilded gateway.
+
+Her friend hurried down to meet her, bareheaded, in spite of the biting
+cold. As he held out his hand in welcome, he cast a furtive searching
+glance up at the windows. It looked almost as if he too were troubled
+by a guilty conscience.
+
+He led her first into the show-room. Its brand-new smartness exceeded
+her expectations. Pillared aisles with vaulted ceilings made it look
+like a museum. There were interminable avenues of tables and cases,
+sending forth the sparkle of gold and silver and prismatic hues, the
+warm glow of deep-red copper fading into the pale green of patina, from
+hundreds of works of art--products of German industry, those so-called
+"bronzes," which were to be displayed in shop-windows all over the
+country, and endow even the cottages of the poor with an air of
+prosperity.
+
+The subjects included, among others, fat monks and lean beggars,
+dancing gipsy-girls with tambourines, elegant young men with
+eyeglasses, postillions blowing horns, chickens picking corn, and
+hounds retrieving game. There were calendars set in horse-shoes,
+cigar-clips shaped like champagne bottles, pelicans three feet tall
+holding aloft lamps in their bills; fancy figures, both male and
+female, stretching out arms as they had done in Herr Kellermann's
+studio, but not without reason here, for they all held up vases,
+candelabra, or basins. Arbours screened loving pairs, and had red
+electric bulbs hidden in the foliage, goblins sat astride on mushrooms;
+sea-shells served the purpose of ash-trays; punch-bowls, antique
+cream-jugs, night-light holders, snakes coiled round flower-stems or
+china ducks-eggs. The whole gamut of vulgarity and poverty in artistic
+invention seemed herded together here, ready to be let loose in rampant
+distribution over all the four quarters of the globe.
+
+When Lilly gave her friend an inquiring or mystified look now and
+again, as she examined some monstrosity, he shrugged his shoulders and
+remarked, "That is what the public likes."
+
+In spite of a feeling of being jarred, Lilly would not have minded
+spending hours amidst this glitter. She would have been in her element
+if her judgment had been appealed to, and she would have said
+unhesitatingly, "That is bad, weed it out; throw that away, and that
+... and this too." But no one asked her opinion, and everything seemed
+to get on very well without it.
+
+Her friend next took her across to the factory. Unfortunately the
+foundry, which was the first stage and basis of all the work turned
+out, happened to be temporarily closed. But Lilly saw through an open
+window the black yawning throats of the furnaces and the dirty trucks
+standing about. Everything was covered with a mist of grey ash--the
+chimney-pieces, casks, and utensils all seemed to float in the same
+impenetrable sea of ashen greyness.
+
+They went down some dirty steps and passed through damp cellars
+smelling of poisonous chemicals, where huge vats containing foul fluids
+were ranged. Men prematurely aged by work and disease hovered about
+here looking like ascetic phantoms, when they were only common
+labourers. As Lilly came in they gave her a quick glance of surprise,
+and then didn't trouble to look again. They had no greeting for their
+employer.
+
+"This is the galvanic department," explained Herr Dehnicke. "Here is
+the nickel-plate bath, the steel bath, the quicksilver, and so on."
+
+He pointed to a loft surrounded by an iron crate, where the wheels of a
+machine whirled and the light of electric lamps gleamed.
+
+"There the current is generated which galvanises the various baths," he
+said.
+
+Lilly did not understand, but she took pleasure in the rapid whirl of
+the wheels and the subdued buzz which they made as they spun round.
+
+"There will be some that whirl more madly still," she thought, and
+expected to hear, when the next door was opened, a deafening thunder.
+But nothing of the sort happened. This was the one machine in the whole
+factory to provide her with entertainment.
+
+In the workroom where the chiselling was done, dozens of men stood at
+long tables, levelling the uneven surface of the cast metal, and making
+the separate parts of an ornament ready for joining. This was done in
+the room adjacent, where the flames of the blowpipes leapt and hissed,
+and clouds of metallic vapour shot up sparks. Each workman had a little
+pile of burnished arms and legs beside him that looked as if they had
+been amputated and had left the body they belonged to behind.
+
+Then they came to the "filigree" department, where all the flowers and
+foliage were elaborated--the ribbons, tendrils, and arabesques,
+everything of a light, curly, and daintily twining character. So
+delicate was the work that it made the men engaged on it look all the
+clumsier and coarser. They scarcely raised their eyes, and hammered on
+in a dogged mechanical way.
+
+Lilly, wherever she went, had a keener eye for the appearance and
+manner of the workpeople than for the work itself. She drew comparisons
+inwardly, decided who was well-to-do and who the reverse, who pursued
+his avocation because he liked it, and who only because he was goaded
+to it by necessity and sickness at home. Each department had its own
+marked physiognomy. In one the majority would be fresh and active; in
+another, weary and exhausted. Lilly felt as she had done when Herr
+Dehnicke first told her about his workpeople: an insane desire to have
+the wielding of their fate in her hands, to help them when help was
+needed, to bring sunshine into their gloomy lives, and to be a good
+angel to the suffering. But she was careful not to confide her absurd
+notions to Herr Dehnicke.
+
+"Now we come to the most critical part of the business," he said, "the
+patina application, which gives the figures their style."
+
+He opened the door of a workshop which exhaled the odour of a thousand
+more poisons. Here women were at work with the men, putting on varnish
+and acids, rubbing and brushing busily. They looked haggard and tired
+out. At the sight of Lilly they dropped their implements to stare at
+her in blank amazement.
+
+"One would have to begin here," she thought, "to win the confidence of
+all." So she nodded at them pleasantly and spoke a few friendly words.
+But her little advances were wrongly interpreted. They thought she
+mocked them, and with an almost contemptuous grimace went back to their
+work. Lilly's appearance in the packing-room, where women and children
+alone were employed, produced a happier impression. The girls giggled,
+whispered, and nudged each other. Only one woman, who was _enceinte_,
+took no notice of her. She seemed hardly able to stand on her feet and
+was near to sinking on the floor. She kept her relaxed pale lips
+tightly compressed, her cheeks wore a hectic flush, and her arms moved
+in feverish zeal as she wrapped one sheet of paper after the other
+round the limbs of the figures standing before her on the table,
+swaying first to the right and then to the left under her touch.
+
+"May I give her something?" asked Lilly, in an aside to Herr Dehnicke.
+
+"She is being looked after," he answered uneasily, as if displeased,
+and he quickly led the way to another door.
+
+"This is where the figures are stored," he said, "until sold, with the
+exception of those, naturally, that are made to order."
+
+Lilly looked down a long dusky gallery and met an icy-cold draught.
+Ranged on stands and shelves she saw endless regiments of ghostly
+objects, dwarfs, gnomes, monsters, shapeless in their wrappings of
+paper, yet looking somehow human, and as if they had been petrified by
+accident.
+
+"How strange this is!" said Lilly with a slight shiver, and she
+prepared to walk down the narrow gangway, the windows of which were
+covered with ice and frost-patterns.
+
+The same moment she observed that her guide gave a start and seemed
+suddenly to have lost his presence of mind. Then he walked before her
+and barred the way.
+
+"What has happened?" Lilly asked in surprise.
+
+He coloured, and said: "We had better not go on. We'll go somewhere
+where there's more of interest to see. There's nothing at all here."
+
+He planted himself firmly in front of her so that Lilly could not catch
+a glimpse of the shelves along the wall. Of course, this completely
+aroused her curiosity.
+
+"But I should like to go on," she said, and she assumed the defiant
+naughty manner which generally gained her the day with him.
+
+"No, no!" he exclaimed hurriedly. "There are secrets of business here
+that I can reveal to no one. Even the employés are not allowed to come
+in. I am very sorry, but I really cannot."
+
+"Then you should not have brought me in at all," said Lilly, and she
+turned back in high dudgeon.
+
+He exhausted every excuse he could think of, his excitement made him
+hoarse, and he coughed perpetually. He led her up the dirty steps again
+and over the gorgeous mosaic floor of the courtyard to the shoddy
+marble entrance, where a bitter wind was blowing.
+
+"You'll catch cold," she said, wishing to hasten her departure.
+
+A brilliant idea occurred to him. "The storeroom was not heated," he
+said, "so I could not----"
+
+"You should have thought of that sooner," Lilly retorted, as she gave
+him her hand with a half-conciliating smile. She could not help pitying
+his helpless confusion.
+
+Nevertheless, she continued to feel hurt and slightly perturbed. The
+day that she had joyfully looked forward to for months had ended with a
+_contretemps_. And no matter how earnestly she pressed him afterwards,
+she never could cajole Herr Dehnicke into unveiling the mystery of that
+forbidden room in his warehouse.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER VII
+
+
+Lilly's health began to decline. She was troubled with lassitude,
+headache, palpitations, and sleepless nights. The doctor called in at
+Herr Dehnicke's instigation was a busy practitioner, who went the round
+of innumerable houses every day. His eyes first took in the
+arrangements of the flat--he seemed familiar with the setting--then
+after a brief and cursory diagnosis, he prescribed social distractions,
+exercise, and iron--any quantity of iron.
+
+Social distractions were out of the question, and even walks were not
+so easy to manage. Lilly had a distaste for strolling about alone, and
+her only escort, Herr Dehnicke, evidently did not care to be seen too
+often with her in the streets. He said he did not wish to compromise
+her; but if the real reason was known, it was probably that he did not
+care to make himself too conspicuous by appearing in public with a
+companion whose beauty was so striking and uncommon.
+
+For, whatever happened to her, in spite of all her heavy sorrows and
+degrading humiliations, her boredom and unsatisfied cravings, nothing
+detracted from the charm of her person. On the contrary, the soft milky
+paleness which had succeeded the healthy golden-brown tint of her
+complexion lent her a new loveliness. The great narrow, long-lashed
+eyes with the heavy drooping lids, those enigmatic "Lilly eyes," had
+now acquired a weary, languishing brilliance, as if they hid in their
+depths a solution to all the painful problems of the universe. Her
+figure, too, had returned to the regal splendour of its girlhood's
+bloom, after having become too slight and thereby losing some of its
+reposeful stateliness.
+
+It was not astonishing, then, that many heads were turned to look back
+at her and her lucky companion who, being shorter than she was,
+provoked a kind of contempt as well as envy in the breast of the casual
+passer-by. And as he was fully aware of this, Herr Dehnicke, the astute
+man of business, to whom the idea of being the subject of gossip was
+not pleasing or advantageous, preferred to hold his _tête-à-tête_ with
+her indoors.
+
+In the middle of February she received by post an invitation from Herr
+Kellermann, whom she had not seen for months.
+
+
+                         "Grand Studio Carnival
+
+         "Living Pictures, Opportunities for Flirtation, etc."
+
+
+Here at last was something that promised to be entertaining, and Herr
+Dehnicke, who chanced to be invited too, urged her to conquer her
+shyness and accept.
+
+When the day came, Lilly was so full of dread that she would gladly
+have got out of the engagement. She beheld herself running the gauntlet
+of a crowd of sneering strangers, who would exchange significant
+glances with each other at her expense, and narrate the history of her
+rise and fall in whispers. She saw herself given the cold shoulder and
+made the object of derisive remark. She went through all the tortures
+of the "unclassed," and felt as if she were doomed to bear the brand of
+sin on her brow till the end of her days.
+
+She selected from her Dresden gowns the loveliest that she possessed: a
+white silk embroidered with gold vine-leaves and made in the Empire
+style, which in the meantime had become the height of fashion. She
+wound a gold chain round her head like a diadem, and threw a filmy
+Oriental richly worked veil lightly over her hair. If necessity arose,
+she could use it as a covering for her bare neck and shoulders.
+Finally, she felt sure that she looked hideous and abominably _outré_,
+and that this alone was sufficient ground for not showing herself.
+
+Only when her escort appeared and held on to the handle of the door
+with an astounded exclamation, at the sight of her in evening dress,
+did she take heart.
+
+"Shall I do?" she asked with a timid smile, which implored approval.
+
+He could not answer, but plunged about the room breathing heavily, and
+half choking over his incoherent words. Lilly had no difficulty in
+understanding what he wanted to say.
+
+In the _coupé_, as she sat beside him, another attack of terror seized
+her.
+
+"You promise not to leave me?" she besought him. "You'll stay with me
+all the time, won't you, and not allow any stranger to speak to me?"
+
+He promised everything. They went up the four flights of stairs, an
+ascent she was familiar with. The landing had been turned into a
+ladies' cloak-room, where were hanging imposing furs and lace evening
+coats that humbled you to the dust to look at.
+
+She clung to his arm. "Now I'm in for it," she thought.
+
+The big ante-room, which was always dark in the daytime and used as
+kitchen, bedroom, and dining-room by Herr Kellermann, had been
+transformed with fir-trees and candles into a rose-lit, fairy-tale
+forest, in which couples sat close together on bamboo seats, smiling
+and whispering. They were so absorbed in each other that they had no
+attention to spare for the new-comers.
+
+A tremendous reception awaited Lilly in the studio itself, which was
+filled with a brilliant, glittering throng. There was a chorus of "Ah!"
+then profound stillness, and a path was made, down which the pair
+seemed expected to make a triumphal progress. Lilly tried to hide
+behind her companion, but as he only came up to her nose she did not
+succeed.
+
+Then Herr Kellermann hurried forward to welcome them. He was in a brown
+velvet get-up, consisting of knee-breeches, lounge-jacket, and Phrygian
+cap. Most of the company, indeed, seemed to be dressed in anything that
+they thought specially original and becoming to their style of beauty.
+
+"Goddess, Queen, welcome!" cried the host in a voice for everyone to
+hear, and then he fell to kissing her gloved hand from wrist to elbow.
+
+Next he asked to be allowed to take her round and show her how
+excellent were the arrangements of his new Court of Love. And she
+followed him, after warning her friend not to go far away, but to be
+within hail.
+
+Electric lamps had been hung in the open air directly over the
+skylight, converting it into a many-coloured, star-studded sky. On
+looking up the effect was really as if a thousand tiny suns were
+shining down out of the night. On the left gable-side of the room,
+where the roof sloped, was an evergreen trellis draped with rugs and
+divided into several little arbours, before which hung curtains of
+Japanese beads. Each of these was significantly placarded.
+
+The first was called something which made Lilly turn a shocked look of
+inquiry at her guide. Whereupon he replied, smiling:
+
+"That's nothing, merely a beginning for flappers and afternoon-tea
+souls like you. What do you say to this, now?" he added, pointing to
+the placard over the next arbour.
+
+"Dreadfully wicked!" she exclaimed, really scandalised, and Kellermann
+shook with laughter. He read aloud to her the inscriptions over four
+more arbours, and at every one Lilly's cheeks grew hotter. "Worse and
+worse," she thought, but said nothing.
+
+"Now I will take you over to the 'Criminal Side,'" he said, and steered
+her through the crush, which set up a hum at her reappearance. But it
+was devoid of all envy, hatred, and malice. It was rather an ovation, a
+suppressed cheering. Her breast expanded. A slight, humble sensation of
+joy crept through her body like warm wine. She threw back the ends of
+her tinsel veil, feeling she no longer need be ashamed of her naked
+throat and shoulders. In the glances that met hers she read that no one
+would despise her.
+
+She did not reach the "Criminal Side," for there were so many
+interruptions by the way. Man after man wanted to be introduced to her,
+and Herr Kellermann was fully occupied in saying their names. From this
+moment the whole carnival became perfectly unreal, a dreamland, a
+fairyland meadow, in which large-eyed flowers bloomed, where rosy mists
+and heavy perfumes saturated the senses, where laughter, whispering,
+and unheard-of compliments mingled--where all only existed for her
+amusement, to be admired, petted, and loved by her.
+
+Yes, and she did love them all, these men and women, just as they came.
+All of them were noble and good, sparkling with merry wit, full of
+eagerness to do little friendly services; golden souls, each awaking a
+new hope and bringing a new delight.
+
+She felt her cheeks flaming, her eyes shining, with the intoxication of
+the hour. And now and then she would see, as if reflected in a mirror,
+a response to her own happiness in the eyes she looked into. This was
+no longer a strange Lilly, an animated puppet, but it was herself, the
+real Lilly, who laughed and made bright repartees as she romped and
+passed from arm to arm, feeling regret at each transition. This was
+herself--twofold, threefold herself. And, when sometimes the man with
+whom she conversed became too bold, and the _double entendre_ behind
+his jokes transgressed the bounds of decency, so that she grew alarmed,
+she had only to turn round to find her friend somewhere near, ever
+ready to rescue her from an awkward situation. That gave her a truly
+blissful sense of security, a feeling of being hidden under a wing and
+taken care of, so that she could afford to be merrier still--even
+hilarious--and take the most audacious sallies in good part.
+
+Once she heard behind her the question: "Whose mistress is she? The
+lucky dog!"
+
+The answer came contemptuously: "A little polisher, or something of the
+kind. He's over there."
+
+For a moment this speech gave her food for reflection, though how could
+she possibly be supposed to know to whom it referred? In the
+excitement, the incident soon passed from her mind.
+
+What lots of people she got to know!
+
+There were young fops in swallow-tails and white brocaded silk
+waistcoats, who paid her wild attention, and asked incidentally though
+with patent eagerness which day in the week was her "_jour_" for
+receiving. She was sorry to say she hadn't a day, she lived so very
+quietly.
+
+There were sombre pessimists with long lank hair and enormous ties, who
+loved to converse on such topics as "spiritual high-pressure,"
+"specific gravity of individual affinities," and it did Lilly's soul
+good to hear them. One of them addressed her as "Excellency," and when
+she asked why he did, he seemed amazed, and stuttered he had heard that
+she was---- Then, quickly correcting himself, he turned it off with the
+wretched joke that as she excelled all women present, he could not
+think of a more fitting form of address.
+
+There was among others a well-preserved old man, a fast liver, whose
+signature Lilly had read with reverence on many a beautiful picture. It
+would have given her greater pleasure to kiss his hand than to have him
+dancing round her, aping youthful gallantry.
+
+There were many others who aroused her curiosity, but whose rank and
+character she could not learn. There was even a real prince, a pale,
+fair, extremely young fellow, who dared not ask to be introduced to
+Lilly because his mistress kept guard on him and would not let him out
+of her sight. The women, of course, were not so gushing to her as the
+men, though the one or two whose acquaintance she made were very warm
+in their overtures of friendship.
+
+A brunette, with a small, voluptuously beautiful figure, bright
+restless eyes, and a seductive smile, approached her with: "You and I
+ought to be friends. I'll introduce you to my particular pal, and we'll
+have supper together at a little table, and be quite a cosy family
+party."
+
+Another, a very thin young girl, taller than most of the men present,
+with wells of blue fire for eyes, swept about in long white
+"impressionist" draperies like a figure in a dream, undisturbed by the
+tumult in which she moved. She spoke without moving her head, and
+smiled without curving her lips. She was a fair young Dane, who had
+come to study painting and to "live life," as she expressed it.
+
+"Who are you?" she asked Lilly. "You are different from the rest. You
+must have strong arms, if you do not want to be washed along by the
+current."
+
+With a bold gesture, she flung back the wide sleeves of her gown, and
+displayed two marble-white perfect arms, with wonderfully supple
+movements. Then she glided on.
+
+A flaxen-haired, extremely graceful woman, no longer young, whose
+pretty, laughing face was burnt as brown as a berry from exposure to
+sub and wind, held out her hand to Lilly with a merry twinkle in her
+eye, as if they had known each other for years.
+
+"How sweet you are, and how beautiful!" she said softly. "We've all
+flown into this cage and don't know why; and we don't even know whether
+we shall get out unhurt or not. But where do you hail from? I am----"
+She mentioned the name--the name of a great musician who in the house
+of Kilian Czepanek had been a kind of demi-god.
+
+"Yes, I am Welter's former wife.... Positively I am," she added gaily,
+and again took the arm of the man she was with and turned away.
+
+"A sort of '_Generalin_,' like me," thought Lilly.
+
+There were thrown in a few married couples, mostly very young and
+foolish, who herded for a long time timidly together and then frisked
+wildly about like monkeys let loose.
+
+One pair, however, seemed to have been invited as a practical joke. The
+husband was a thorough-paced beery Philistine, his spouse a fat, stolid
+person in a high black silk. Someone told Lilly that he was the
+landlord of the house, who was bribed by an invitation to the carnival
+to countenance the use of his top floor for such a purpose. The two, to
+all appearances, were not feeling at all _de trop_, and always found a
+laughing audience for their coarsest jokes.
+
+Towards ten o'clock, when Lilly was deep in an abstruse discussion with
+one of the long-haired and unwashed guests on the fallibility of human
+values, a sudden howl was raised, first by one throat and then by
+another, till it swelled to a chorus; the words "hungry" and "food"
+alone were to be distinguished.
+
+Herr Kellermann's voice was raised in soothing remonstrance above the
+clamour. The slices of bread-and-dripping which the guests were to be
+given for supper--a poor devil of a painter could not rise to anything
+more _recherché_--were not quite ready. Meanwhile, would the ladies and
+gentlemen kindly be patient? Those who were absolutely starving might,
+however, still their hunger by a visit to the "Poison" arbour, where
+they could obtain as many arsenic sandwiches and prussic acid tartlets
+as they liked.
+
+The whole mass of human beings now made a rush for the "Criminal Side,"
+where, in order to play at "_crimes passionels_," a complete arsenal of
+deadly weapons had been collected. Gallows were suspended from the
+glass ceiling, ladders led down to bottomless pits, and cannons went
+off. The company greedily snatched the poisoned viands, and people who
+didn't even know each other took bites out of the same sandwich.
+
+The supper itself soon followed. Under the fir-trees of the ante-room a
+buffet was erected, piled with mountains of York hams, cold game-pies,
+lobster salads, mayonnaise salmon, and every conceivable savoury
+waiting an assault. The assault when it came was so furious that though
+the buffet, which was planted against a wall, resisted it, the forest
+of fir-trees collapsed branches snapped off, trunks cracked, twigs flew
+about, and among the _débris_ waltzed a crush of laughing, swearing
+revellers.
+
+Then the brilliant idea occurred to someone to hurl the whole forest
+downstairs to the next floor. The Chinese lanterns were put out, and
+soon the uprooted firs were flying over the stairs tree after tree, in
+spite of the protests of the landlord, who was afraid of his other
+tenants being disturbed by the noise. The ladies' light dresses were
+covered with pine-needles, and pine-needles stuck in their hair and
+necklaces. Everything smelt of Christmas. It was difficult to eat for
+laughing, and there were not tables and chairs enough to go round. To
+balance their plates, couples crouched closely together on the stairs,
+and supplies kept dangling down on them from the buffet above. Some
+venturesome spirits even climbed the trees and roosted like birds in
+the branches, while food was handed up to them on the end of forks and
+walking-sticks by charitable souls.
+
+Lilly, half-dead from laughing, was seated on one of the stairs
+surrounded by unknown men, all of whom craved to be fed by her. She had
+never been so happy in her life, and would have liked it to last for
+ever; her only care was that all the men she was feeding wouldn't get
+enough.
+
+At the conclusion of the supper came the _pièce de résistance_ in the
+shape of cream kisses. They were swung through the air hooked to the
+end of long fishing-rods, and every guest had to try and catch his or
+her share with the mouth. Hands were forbidden, and those who used them
+were rapped on the knuckles.
+
+This sport, which at first excited tornadoes of mad glee, had soon to
+be abandoned, because the whipped cream dropped from its cases on to
+the ladies' necks and dresses. Lilly's Empire gown got its baptism of
+cream, and one of the men on his knees kissed away the stains.
+
+When a trumpet sounded, to call the revellers back to the studio,
+everyone was sorry, especially Lilly.
+
+It consoled her to catch sight again of her friend, whom she had
+entirely forgotten. Leaning on his arm, she related, with a radiant
+face and half-inarticulate from laughter, her merry experiences.
+
+It was then she noticed that the eyes of all those who were near seemed
+bent on her with a strange seriousness and as if moved to sudden
+compassion. But she was too busy talking to think much about it. She
+begged him to stay at her side when the recitations began. She was
+tired of playing the fool, she said, and wanted now something homelike.
+
+He gave her arm a grateful pressure.
+
+"Why are you trembling?" she asked him in astonishment.
+
+"It's nothing," he answered lightly.
+
+The first reciter was one of the long-haired collarless brigade, who
+had been asked to open the programme with a solemn and weighty chorale.
+
+He declaimed an ode entitled "Super-smoke," which was Greek to Lilly,
+but she supposed it was very fine, because at the end there was an
+outbreak of stormy applause among the men.
+
+"Bravo, bravo! Super-smoke, more Super-smoke!" they shouted.
+
+The long-haired collarless one, who took this for an encore, bowed,
+highly flattered, and started off again: "Super-smoke, an ode." But he
+got no further. Roars of "That's enough! that's enough!" came from all
+sides, and it appeared that the men had been only expressing a desire
+for something smokable when they had called out "More Super-smoke."
+
+The next to appear on the rostrum was a slender, exceedingly elegant
+person with a short pointed brown beard and glittering monocle. He was
+a Dr. Salmoni, to whom Lilly had been introduced. With a melancholy
+smile he held his hand close to his nose and examined his finger-nails,
+as he said that it was his purpose to draw up an intellectual synopsis
+of the evening's entertainment, and to throw in a few remarks on the
+"destructive construction of social formlessness."
+
+This prefaced a volley of impertinent sarcasms and insulting
+personalities, intended to annihilate host and guests. Though she could
+not understand his hits, Lilly felt inclined to blush for those who
+came under the fire of his scathing satire. Yet, extraordinary to
+relate, no one seemed to mind; on the contrary, the very people who
+were being lashed by his tongue the most were loudest in jubilant
+applause.
+
+"Happy world!" thought Lilly, "where nothing hurts, and the most
+abominable sins are titles to honour."
+
+Her own false step, from which she had so long suffered as from a
+poisoned wound, suddenly appeared to her in the light of a mere
+childish prank. "Wasn't it very silly of me to take it so to heart?"
+she thought, and gave herself a downward stroke with her two hands, as
+if she would thereby shake off every vestige of her old manacles.
+
+The elegant little doctor knew, too, how to flatter. Each fair lady got
+from him her bonbon, spiced with pepper, and when he went on to speak
+of a lotus-flower that had drifted there this evening from fairyland,
+and still seemed shy of the full glare of publicity being thrown on
+her, Lilly again became conscious that she attracted every eye.
+
+"Let her take courage," he went on. "She may count on any of us, I'll
+assert, to welcome night dreamily in her company if she wants someone."
+
+Enthusiastic clapping from the men endorsed this speech, and Lilly did
+not feel a bit ashamed.
+
+When Dr. Salmoni had finished and was shaken hands with and
+congratulated by all, especially those who had bled most under his
+lash, he came up to Lilly and said in a low voice:
+
+"I pray for your forgiveness, gracious lady, for having named you in
+the same breath as this herd. There ought to be a tacit understanding
+between people of our position, without the necessity of making
+advances to each other. But I was sick of just cracking a whip, and you
+know I am not always a mountebank."
+
+"People in our position," he had said. That flattered Lilly, and raised
+her to the same level as this very clever and superior man, who, as he
+put his eyeglass away in his waistcoat pocket, regarded her with his
+sharp grey eyes as if he wanted to tear her heart to tatters.
+
+A swarthy youth of mercurial temperament next sang couplets to his own
+accompaniment on the mandoline. He began with the romantic air of a
+troubadour.
+
+The third verse, which ended in French, was so daringly outspoken that
+Lilly hardly ventured to understand it.
+
+The song was received with such ecstasy that it seemed as if the
+applause would never stop. Lilly wondered that she felt so little
+disgusted. Nothing seemed to disgust her any more. Her eyes half
+closed, she leaned back in her chair and let lights, sounds,
+obscenities, laughter, and cheers ripple over her as in a dream.
+
+From time to time she looked round for her escort. He was standing
+close behind her chair, smiling reassuringly. But he kept silent. A red
+patch burned on his forehead and his eyes were bloodshot. It may have
+been that he had drunk too much champagne. She herself had only sipped
+a glass, but her head felt quite dizzy.
+
+The songs and recitations came to an end at two o'clock, and now the
+fun waxed fast and furious and transgressed all limits. Everyone
+tussled, kissed, drank, picked quarrels, and fought duels. Lovers
+pretended to stab themselves and were carried out lifeless. The cannons
+fired off crackers. Outside the different arbours orations were held by
+various guests. One by a dainty youth in a Greek costume hired from a
+paid model, delivered in a high falsetto, dealt with pseudo-physiological
+problems. Into the arbour of "Monstrosities" some one had pushed the
+beery Philistine landlord and his corpulent wife, where they kissed and
+caressed each other to order, in full view of the company, who applauded
+vociferously.
+
+Lilly's head went round; it all buzzed, screeched, and hammered in her
+brain like an agonising nightmare.
+
+"We had better go now," Herr Dehnicke's voice urge behind her.
+
+She rose to her feet and stretched herself with a shudder.
+
+This had been life, life----
+
+She followed him out, and at the top of the stairs Herr Kellermann, who
+had observed their going, came running after them. His collar hung open
+and limp above his velvet lounge jacket, his cheeks were glazed and
+puffy. He looked like young Falstaff.
+
+He exchanged a glance with Dehnicke, who nodded as much as to say, "It
+went off very well," and then disappeared in search of her wraps.
+
+"And how about the chained beauty?" asked Herr Kellermann, turning to
+Lilly. "Have you quite forgotten her?
+
+"Quite," replied Lilly, with a languid smile.
+
+"And you'll never come?"
+
+"Never!"
+
+"But I tell you that you will come," he said, leading her to the side
+of the staircase. "You will come when the chains have cut into your
+flesh and you don't know----"
+
+Dehnicke returned with the wraps, and he said no more.
+
+Lilly was in far too happy and complacent a mood to attribute any
+significance to these words, which in the mouth of this bacchic faun
+sounded like a joke. She simply laughed at him and passed on.
+
+
+                           *   *   *   *   *
+
+
+Her excited brain quieted down; she leaned against her friend's
+shoulder as they descended the stairs, airily swung her hips, and
+hummed to herself. The whole world seemed melting in a soft fragrant
+harmonious twilight. Fresh snow had fallen and the moon was shining.
+
+Dehnicke's carriage was waiting for them.
+
+"Let us drive to the Tiergarten," said Lilly, drinking in her fill of
+the snow-laden air.
+
+She threw herself back on the cushions of the _coupé_ sang and beat
+time with her feet on the floor.
+
+He sat silently in his corner and looked out of the window.
+
+"Do say something," she implored.
+
+"I have nothing to say," he said, and studiously looked beyond her with
+his red, bleary eyes.
+
+The carriage rolled noiselessly along under the snow-covered trees,
+which every now and then sent down a shower of silvery stars on to
+their laps.
+
+A drowsy lethargy came over her.
+
+"I should like to drive on like this for ever," she whispered, seeking
+a support for her head.
+
+Then it seemed suddenly as if Walter's arm was round her waist and as
+if her left cheek rested against Walter's throat, as once in those
+blissful November nights.
+
+But how did Walter come here now? She started up, wide awake again.
+
+This was not Walter beside her. She was under no delusion as to who it
+was. She was ashamed to change her position, and lay with wide-open
+eyes for quite a long time, listening to the beating of his heart--how
+it beat, right up his arm!
+
+"He will not demand the price which it is customary with our
+compatriots to ask of pretty women," Walter had written.
+
+Now here he was demanding it with all his might.
+
+With what contempt Walter would look down from his picture at her when
+she stepped into the lamplight of her corner drawing-room half an hour
+later! Walter who passed with everyone as her betrothed, even with this
+man into whose arms she had slipped, Walter, to whom she must be
+faithful and true if she hoped for salvation in this life.
+
+It was really heavenly, nevertheless, to be lying thus. She felt as if
+she belonged somewhere again, and how terrible her loneliness had been!
+Still, it was no good.
+
+So she moved cautiously, as if she was afraid of hurting him, and freed
+herself from his arm, to take refuge against the side cushions.
+
+"Why don't you stay?" he asked, stammering like an inebriated man.
+"Weren't you feeling comfortable?"
+
+She shook her head.
+
+He went on asking her with passionate vehemence, but she would not
+answer, feeling that every word she spoke would commit her still
+further.
+
+Then he caught her hand, that hung down passively, and pressed it.
+
+"I mayn't," she whispered, withdrawing her hand. "Neither may you."
+
+"Why mayn't we?"
+
+"Because you would bitterly regret it afterward when you had to render
+account to him, if you had abused your trust."
+
+"_Him_! Whom do you mean?"
+
+"Whom?" she echoed. "Why, whom else could I mean?... Haven't you said a
+hundred times that you are only his deputy, that you----"
+
+A laugh interrupted her, a hoarse guilty laugh. He had clasped his
+hands round his knees, and laughed and breathed deeply and laughed
+again, like someone relieved from an intolerable burden.
+
+A horrible dread gradually became a certainty within her.
+
+"It was all untrue?" she faltered, staring at him.
+
+"All! It was all nonsense from beginning to end, a tissue of humbug," he
+cried. "He wrote to me once, only once, before he left Germany. 'Take
+up with her; it would be a pity if she went to the dogs.' Nothing more,
+not another word.... There, now you know.... I've got it off my mind.
+It's been a jolly heavy load, I can tell you.... But what was I to do?
+Having begun, I had to go on."
+
+He flung up the window and leaned out, panting hard.
+
+She wanted to ask why he had done it. But she didn't dare. She knew
+what the answer must be. One thing stood out with appalling
+distinctness, and that was her helplessness and utter inability to save
+herself. She was putting herself in his hands. She was living in his
+flat, living on his money. She looked at the situation from his point
+of view. She was what he had designed she should be--his mistress, his
+creature, and his property.
+
+Oh, why couldn't she throw herself into the river?
+
+She wrenched open the carriage door and put one foot on the step, but
+he dragged her back and slammed the door to.
+
+"Be reasonable," he remonstrated. "Don't behave like a madwoman."
+
+Then she burst out crying. Not since the time of her divorce had her
+sobs been so pitiful, so heart-broken and full of bitterness. At
+intervals his voice seemed to reach her from a long way off, but she
+could hear nothing, see nothing, understand nothing. She could only
+cry, cry; as if in crying lay salvation, as if trouble and distress
+would flee away with her tears.
+
+The carriage stopped. She felt herself lifted out. He had the latch-key
+in his pocket. Supported by him, she staggered up the stairs, and
+thought to herself over and over again, "Why didn't you throw yourself
+into the river?"
+
+He led her to the sofa, settled her in its corner, and turned on the
+lights. Then he loosened the fastenings of her cloak, and lifted the
+scarf from her hair.
+
+She lay now in a state of complete exhaustion, and stared indifferently
+at the table-cloth. The little bullfinch was awake and piped her a
+welcome.
+
+"It is getting late," she heard Herr Dehnicke say, "and the carriage is
+waiting. But I cannot go till I have justified my conduct and explained
+how it has all happened."
+
+"That really makes no difference to me," she said, shrugging her
+shoulders.
+
+"I loved you long before," he began--"long before I knew you--when you
+were still our colonel's wife."
+
+She looked up in surprise. As he stood there in his short tight evening
+coat, plucking nervously at the fringe of the table-cover with the
+joyless, beseeching expression on his round face, master though he was,
+she felt as if she saw him for the first time.
+
+"I was called out that summer for the man[oe]uvres," he continued, "and
+heard nothing else talked about at the Casino but you. Even the ladies
+of the regiment were full of you. Your photographs were passed round,
+for some of the men snapped you on the sly.... I recognised you at once
+from the photographs. Yes, I can truthfully assert that I loved you
+then. What's more, after Prell's letter told me that you were to come
+into my life, what plans for winning you didn't I work out in that year
+and a half! Then at last you turned up at my warehouse, and you
+exceeded my wildest expectations. But I lost hope when I saw what a
+great lady you had become, and how much you still thought of Walter.
+Though I know I am not a bad fellow, I haven't much self-confidence,
+and to have you for a mistress seemed too great luck to be dreamed of."
+
+Now that he came out with the word "mistress" for the first time, an
+intense bitterness welled up within her.
+
+"To have me for a wife," she thought, "that is something not to be
+dreamed of, evidently." And she laughed out loud.
+
+He took her laugh as a sign that she was too modest to accept his
+compliment, and he worked himself up into still greater enthusiasm.
+
+Did she think that any of the women in whose society they had been that
+evening were worthy to lick her shoes? Had she no conception of how
+immeasurably she outshone everything that bore the name of woman?
+
+Then from her tearful eyes came the question that pride and shame
+prevented her expressing in words. This time he must have understood,
+for he suddenly broke off in what he was saying, clasped his hands to
+his head, and ran up and down the room half sobbing. She heard him
+ejaculate: "Can't ... I can't ... it wouldn't do."
+
+"Well, if he can't, he can't," she thought, and, with her face resting
+on her palms, she stared at him wistfully.
+
+He came now and stood in front of her, struggled to speak, but choked
+over his words, and then he resumed his racing up and down the room.
+She caught phrases like, "My mother ... would never consent ...
+ruination to the business," and then again the refrain, "I can't; no, I
+can't; it wouldn't do ..."
+
+"He is quite right," she thought, "anyone like me ... how could he?"
+And with a feeling of final renunciation, she collapsed in a heap.
+
+Shocked, he hurried to her side, leaned over her, and tried to stroke
+her hands; but she thrust him from her. At a loss to find words to
+vindicate his miserable subterfuge, he took up the thread at the point
+where her laugh had interrupted it.
+
+"Do believe me, dearest friend, when I say that I had given up all
+thoughts of myself. I swear that I wanted no reward, and subsequently
+acted for your good alone. My one desire was to preserve you from
+sinking to the lowest depths. I know from experience how many have done
+so; a few years, no more, and they either go on the streets, or grow
+more and more hideous and careworn ... and then it is impossible to
+tell what they were once.... And that the same fate should not befall
+you, I hit on the idea about the cheque and wrote to my American
+agents. Your falling in with it was such a joy to me that I didn't
+sleep a wink for two nights. I knew I had saved you from ruin."
+
+"Ruin?" queried Lilly; "what do you mean? Before the cheque came I had
+earned quite a respectable sum by my art. You yourself helped; you
+yourself said if I persevered----"
+
+She paused, filled with sudden anxiety at the thought that if it came
+to a rupture between them to-night her one and only prospect of making
+a living would be gone.
+
+Not a word of reassurance came from him. In stubborn silence he plucked
+at the fringe of the table-cloth.
+
+"Please speak. Have you entirely forgotten all you've done for me?"
+
+He pulled himself erect. "If you must know all," he said with a shrug
+of the shoulders, "perhaps it's as well; from this evening we'll start
+clear."
+
+"Is there anything else, then?" Lilly cried in ever-increasing dismay.
+
+"Do you remember the day you came over the factory--I made you turn
+back in the storeroom?"
+
+"Yes, but----"
+
+"And afterwards I made the excuse that the place was not heated."
+
+"I remember perfectly. But what has it to do with my work?"
+
+"If you had gone a few steps further you would have seen all your glass
+plaques--fifty-six in all--the last not even unpacked."
+
+She looked up at him as if he were her executioner. Then she sank back
+and buried her face in the sofa. She had no more tears to shed, but the
+soft darkness of the cushions did her eyes good. She wanted not to see,
+hear, or think any more--only to die as soon as possible, before
+starvation and disgrace overtook her.
+
+There was a long silence. She thought he must have gone, when she felt
+his hand caressing her shoulder, and heard his voice in trembling,
+pleading appeal say, "Dear, dear, dearest of friends, tell me what else
+could I have done? Could I deprive you of your one interest and
+resource? Could I tell you the things were unsaleable rubbish,
+amateurishly executed? I saw how absolutely wrapped up you were in it
+for a time, and I let it go on till it died a natural death.... I said
+to myself, when her circumstances are easier she won't care about it
+any longer. And wasn't I right? You haven't done a stroke for the last
+month or so, have you? Dearest one, do consider; what have I done that
+is so bad? I rescued you from a life of degrading penury. I found you a
+little home in which you have spent a few happy months free from care,
+and I didn't ask for so much as a kiss. If you like, go back to Frau
+Laue to-morrow, just as if nothing had happened, or stay quietly here
+till you have found some employment to suit you. You shall not be
+troubled by my society. I needn't come to see you.... When I leave you
+to-night...."
+
+He could not go on. When, after a moment of silence, she glanced up,
+curious and anxious to see what he was doing, she beheld him sitting at
+the table, or rather half-lying across it, with his head buried in his
+arms, while his shoulders were convulsed by noiseless sobs.
+
+She went and stood beside him, and was moved to fresh tears. They
+coursed down her cheeks. She was so sorry; oh, how sorry she was!
+
+Then she laid her hand gently on his head. "You may comfort yourself,
+dear friend," she said, "with the thought that it is far, far worse for
+me than for you. Then, you see, I have no one else." And she shuddered,
+thinking of the loneliness that was coming.
+
+He straightened himself and silently put out his hand for his hat. His
+eyes were more bloodshot and more prominent than before, and his head
+drooped now quite to one side.
+
+Oh, how sorry she was for him!
+
+"Good-bye," said he, pressing her hand, "and thank you."
+
+"I'll write to you," she replied, "when I have thought it all over
+to-night. Probably I shall leave here to-morrow early."
+
+"Just as you wish," he said.
+
+As he took up his overcoat something long and round, wrapped in gold
+and silver tinsel, fell on the floor. She picked it up. It was a
+monster cracker. Both could not help laughing.
+
+"What a sad end to the merry carnival!" she said.
+
+He sighed. "I may hope, at least, that you enjoyed it?"
+
+"What does it matter now whether I did or not?" she said deprecatingly.
+
+"It matters a great deal, because the whole affair was got up
+especially in your honour?"
+
+"What! in my honour?"
+
+"Do you suppose that Kellermann, who earns at the most a hundred marks
+a week, could afford to give an entertainment like that? The doctor
+ordered you amusement, and as I was not able, owing to the position in
+which we were placed, to offer you any direct, I commissioned
+Kellermann to ..."
+
+She opened her eyes to their full width. He loved her like this!
+
+"You dear, kind man!" she said, and rested her head for a moment
+lightly against his shoulder.
+
+He flung his arms round her quickly and eagerly as if he were afraid
+someone might take her from him the next moment. He trembled from head
+to foot, and his tears rolled down on her forehead.
+
+As he still did not dare to kiss her, she voluntarily offered him her
+lips.
+
+"The third," she thought to herself. She glanced up and met Walter's
+eyes looking down on her from the wall, full of supercilious contempt,
+exactly as she had feared in the carriage. She pointed to the picture
+with a gesture of terror and aversion.
+
+"To-morrow we'll move it up to the attic," he said. And as they were
+now reconciled, and had a great deal to say to each other, and it was
+half-past three, the carriage was sent away.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER VIII
+
+
+Once more a new life began for Lilly. It was all over with her dreaded
+loneliness. Regularly every afternoon Herr Dehnicke arrived at
+tea-time. But he was "Herr Dehnicke" no longer. He was Richard, a dear
+sweet, beloved Richard, who was received with open arms in the hall,
+against whose knees she leant on the floor of the drawing-room, and
+from whose brow the little lines of care were smoothed away with a
+caressing, "Don't frown, dearest."
+
+How absurd it had been to hoard up her love! You could squander and
+squander, and always have heaps more to spare. The _grande dame_ and
+"gracious baroness" pose was whistled down the wind. Now it was she who
+stooped and made herself small, and asked to be scolded and punished,
+who looked out fearfully for every shadow of displeasure on his face,
+and tried to read his wishes before they were uttered. Above all, she
+wanted to show that she was grateful--oh, so grateful!--for his
+goodness, and his tenderness in saving her.
+
+No wonder, then, that his attitude of adoring reverence gradually
+altered, that he began to be exigeant, at times even a little
+irritable, assuming the airs of a married man, and reminding her of the
+benefits he had bestowed on her only very occasionally, it was true,
+but often enough to convert humility that at first was spontaneous into
+a duty.
+
+Since Lilly had become his mistress his relations to the outside world
+had undergone a complete change, so that his whole life was differently
+ordered. In place of the priggish manufacturer of bronze wares, ever
+vigilant of his middle-class reputation, he had become a recklessly
+fast man of the world.
+
+He, who once had been shy of appearing with Lilly in the streets or
+park, now gloried in exhibiting himself to the public as her cavalier.
+He bought, instead of the serviceable old brougham, the latest thing in
+luxurious victorias, in which he delighted to drive with her along
+Unter den Linden to the Tiergarten. He selected for their evening
+amusement the most fashionable places of entertainment in Berlin, and
+took seats where they were certain to attract attention from every part
+of the house. He sat in the front of the stage-box with a swelling
+shirt-front, his chin carefully shaved, his hands perfectly gloved, and
+strove to meet the opera-glasses levelled at himself and companion with
+a _blasé_ indifferent smile.
+
+He ordered his clothes of the London tailors who in spring and autumn
+visit Berlin in search of custom. He sported a monocle, and stuck his
+pocket-handkerchief inside his left cuff. The officer was now more than
+ever strongly marked in him, and he tried to emulate the effeminate
+charms of the fops in the Guards.
+
+In brief, all his endeavours were directed to proving himself worthy of
+a mistress of Lilly's calibre. He soon discovered that possession of so
+perfect a creature, instead of injuring him, cast an undreamed-of
+glamour over his career, even enhancing the prosperity of his business
+more than all his expensive redecorations had been able to do.
+
+The world said: if the senior partner in the firm of Liebert & Dehnicke
+could afford such an extravagance, it must be doing brilliantly. And
+many a dealer who formerly had favoured his rivals in the trade now
+came to him, acting on those mysterious motives of suggestion, the laws
+of which have puzzled the psychologists and historians of all times. He
+was addressed with increased respect, yet with that confidential air of
+jovial banter which the world adopts towards a man of proved steadiness
+and principle when he is caught tripping. He was much more interesting
+than in the days of his prosaic virtue. People who before had troubled
+little about him, and had scarcely even spoken to him, now asked when
+they were to meet him out of business hours, and hinted that they
+wouldn't mind making a night of it in his company. Such overtures,
+indeed, became as common as the Liebert & Dehnicke bronzes.
+
+"By rights, you and your expenses ought to be charged to the business
+accounts," he said once, smiling at Lilly, who learnt not to resent
+such tactless speeches.
+
+It had become a matter of habit to go out somewhere of an evening three
+or four times a week, and Lilly quickly got to know every pleasure in
+the Berlin vortex of dissipation. It was too late this winter for the
+public balls, at which mysterious women who have lost caste masquerade
+in silken dominoes. But to compensate for this there were the variety
+theatres of lax observance, where the latest and spiciest obscenities
+from the Parisian boulevards were diluted and dished up and offered to
+hungry pleasure-lovers as highly stimulating to the appetite. There
+were the night cafés, where pruriency was draped in literary tags, and
+flighty women escaped from the restraints of middle-class
+respectability, competed with the professional music-hall stars for the
+palm of vulgarity. They frequented bars and grill-rooms and back
+parlours of fashionable restaurants to which the police forbade lock
+and key, and where, under the scornfully smiling eyes of correct
+waiters, dull orgies were held. Lastly came those brilliantly lighted
+cafés, dense with blue cigarette-smoke, where jaded nerves seek a final
+pick-me-up in association with prostitution as it parades its wares for
+sale in the market-place and on the house-tops.
+
+For some time Lilly protested against these distractions; for her
+senses still aspired to a different and higher kind of enjoyment. She
+cherished, too, vague feelings of regret that this life of dissipation
+was drawing her further and further away from those laurel flanked
+stairs, the goal of her secret longing. But when she saw that every
+wish she expressed for quiet was met with sullen opposition, she slowly
+abandoned the idea, and relegated all her dreams of better things to a
+distant future, when she might look forward to a possibility of their
+being fulfilled. She dared not let her imagination stray further.
+Besides, how amusing and fascinating nearly always was this new life!
+She had every reason to be content with it.
+
+They were not often alone together. There were acquaintances wherever
+they went. They constantly met Kellermann's carnival guests again. They
+would fall in with one another informally or make appointments
+beforehand. They formed a little set of themselves, to which new-comers
+were always hanging on.
+
+One of the elect was that seductive little dark woman with the unsteady
+bright eyes and the silly laugh, who at the carnival had wanted to make
+a family party with her friend and Lilly at supper. She was called Frau
+Sievekingk, and prompted by a desire to "live life" she had left her
+husband, a doctor somewhere in Further Pomerania, and after various
+adventures was at present being kept by the wealthy proprietor of a
+steam-laundry, by name Wohlfahrt. He was as thin as a skeleton, had red
+hair, and suffered from dyspepsia, remedies for which she carried about
+with her in her handbag, in the shape of tabloids and quack powders.
+But this touching and considerate attention did not prevent her from
+deceiving him with every man who made advances to her. It was
+universally known, and no one blamed her, for she was a poet, and was
+obliged to seek experiences to write about. An inevitable result of
+indulging in what many a one had thought was an absolutely secret
+_liaison_ with her was to find himself a few weeks later portrayed to
+the life as the hero of a passionate short story in a modern German
+magazine, or providing a theme for a lurid love lyric.
+
+Frau Welter, the divorced wife of the famous composer, was another of
+their intimate circle. Her round, tanned face--she had lately come back
+from a secret mission to Algiers--formed a comical contrast to her mass
+of dyed golden hair, which stood out round her head and neck like a
+halo. It was rather a dangerous thing to become friendly with her. She
+asked everyone she met to lend her money, though she was well off, and
+in receipt of a handsome alimony from her husband's relatives. Her
+generosity was so boundless that she sacrificed all that she had and
+all that her friends lent her to a pair of ex-lovers, both of whom were
+scamps. No one exactly knew under whose protection she was living at
+the present moment. She was often seen with a puisne judge, who looked
+as if he had swallowed a poker and used his tongue instead of a
+toothpick.
+
+A thin shrewish little woman, pretty and malicious, with cold
+steel-blue eyes and sucked-in lips, always wore white silk, and trailed
+a fan-shaped train behind her: she called herself Frau Karla, but what
+her real name was no one knew except her lover, a very young, very pale
+and slim young man, the son of a rich manufacturer. He gratified her
+absorbing passion for pleasure, being completely in her power, and
+followed her about till dawn. In an unguarded moment he had rashly
+disclosed that she was the wife of a well-known Hebrew scholar, who
+lived a life of seclusion, and imagined that she was employed in
+visiting society in the west-end of Berlin, while he sat peacefully
+poring over his philological tables. All the time she was racing about
+from one haunt of vice to another in suspicious company.
+
+Women of every description moved in this "set," their past and their
+means of support concerning no one so long as they were pretty and
+elegant and a little above the thoroughpaced _cocotte_. Among the men
+who were not attached as licensed escort to any lady, but who came to
+fish in troubled waters, was Dr. Salmoni, who at the Kellermann
+carnival had beaten the big drum with so melancholy a smile. Lilly
+always felt constrained and tongue-tied in his presence, though there
+seemed to be some spiritual link between them. Everyone he met came
+under the lash of his caustic wit, except herself, whom he
+considerately spared. Sometimes he seemed to be dissecting her with his
+keen eyes, and would whisper softly in her ear as he passed her, "What
+are you doing here, fair lady?"
+
+Herr Kellermann appeared pretty often, got drunk, and then made remarks
+about a chained beauty crying aloud for release, remarks which Lilly
+was careful not to notice. He found, as a rule, that towards the end of
+the evening he had no change in his pocket, so that Richard had to pay
+his bill.
+
+Such was the world in which Lilly passed her days and nights. She
+received mysterious communications: invitations from men to whom she
+had never spoken, asking her to meet them; anonymous presents of
+flowers--from modest bunches of violets to baskets of showy orchids;
+calls from ladies of doubtful character who were getting up charity
+subscriptions, and with a meaning smile hoped Lilly would join
+them--indeed, it was a never-ceasing wave of vicious desire that rolled
+up to her threshold. For a time she was alarmed, then she became
+indifferent.
+
+
+                           *   *   *   *   *
+
+
+Spring days came, and with them the great race-meetings, at which
+everyone with any pretensions to smartness put in an appearance.
+
+Since Lilly in shy queenliness had begun to reign at his side, the
+sporting tastes, which had been latent in Richard hitherto, awoke, and
+were developed with such passionate eagerness that he would not have
+missed a race for the world. Though he did not bet, his pockets were
+crammed with bookmakers' "tips," and he talked of little else than
+pedigrees and winning chances, Lilly, who understood nothing at all
+about it, cheerfully listened.
+
+One morning after she had read in the paper the results of the previous
+day's racing, the following passage caught her eye:
+
+
+"Among charming representatives of the society that does not know what
+_ennui_ is, we again saw the beauty of imposing type who has of late
+graced various functions, bringing with her an aroma of the _beau
+monde_, of which it is said she was once an ornament. Her favourite
+colour seems to be violet, and in accordance with a famous precedent,
+she might appropriately be dubbed 'La dame aux violettes.' At all
+events, we congratulate our metropolis on the acquisition of this new
+luminary, who is certain to add lustre to its reputation."
+
+
+"Who could that have been?" Lilly thought, with a slight pang of
+jealousy, and she tried to recall to her mind the forms of all the
+women she had admired the day before. But among them she could not
+identify the heroine of the paragraph.
+
+Then suddenly the blood mounted hotly to her cheeks. She looked at the
+Redfern coat and skirt of violet cloth, which she had hung on a chair
+after taking it off yesterday. It was now more than two years old, but
+so perfectly cut and finished that it could rival any of the most chic
+creations of the spring. She had worn it several times following
+because she had not another tailor-made gown to equal it, and Richard's
+pocket must not suffer from her extravagance in dresses. There could be
+no further doubt. She it was who was meant, and no other.
+
+Her first thought was, "How pleased Richard will be!"
+
+But she, too, was pleased. Frau Laue's boldest prophecies seemed to be
+coming true. She had awakened to find herself famous. She was actually
+in the newspapers!
+
+If only it had not been for that strange inexplicable feeling of fear,
+which was always crouching at the bottom of her heart, and came
+creeping to the surface whenever some unexpected event advanced her a
+little further on the road to fame and happiness! All the time that she
+had been going out in the world at Richard's side, nothing had happened
+to her that was not a source of joy, pride, and hopefulness. Everyone
+seemed to respect her, everyone flattered her. Torturing uncertainty
+and contempt of herself had given place to a calm appreciation of her
+own value in the sight of strangers. Yet that dull harassing fear was
+ever present. Nothing really silenced it.
+
+Richard came earlier than usual that afternoon, waving the Monday paper
+up at her from the street. When they had embraced each other a dozen
+times at least, and read the paragraph over twenty times, he became
+taciturn and moody, and with his arms crossed in a Napoleonic pose he
+paced the room with short ringing steps. It was plain that his brain
+was bursting with ambition.
+
+Then there was a ring, and little Frau Sievekingk was announced. She
+had often looked in before to have a friendly chat with Lilly, but they
+had not become more intimate in consequence. To-day she came at the
+right moment to share in the exultation over Lilly's newly acquired
+fame.
+
+Her grey velvet bolero suit shimmered in the evening light, and her
+jaunty scarlet toque, with its drooping plumes, fitted on to her dark
+curly coiffure like a cap of flame.
+
+She held out her hand to Lilly with her most alluring smile, but, when
+she turned to Richard, there flashed in her shifty bright eyes a gleam
+of determination similar to that with which she intimidated her
+red-headed lover into taking his tabloids for dyspepsia. As since the
+carnival they had continued outwardly to maintain the sham of a
+platonic friendship, Richard meekly took up his hat, as if giving Lilly
+a cue to ask him formally if he could not stay longer. But the little
+woman forestalled them.
+
+"Don't pretend," she said, "that you are not perfectly at home here. As
+if I didn't understand! Please call each other by your Christian or pet
+names, and I'll seem as if I hadn't heard."
+
+Both smiled, and while Lilly gave her guest a cup of tea, he toyed with
+the newspaper in question, a little obviously, for he wanted to find
+out whether Frau Sievekingk had heard anything of their great triumph.
+
+"That is just what I've come to talk about," said the little lady,
+"that rubbish in the paper. I suppose you think an awful lot of it?"
+
+Richard made a gesture of protest, but smiled complacently.
+
+"To speak frankly, I should have credited you with a little more
+sense."
+
+"Would you really?" Richard exclaimed, aghast, and Lilly jumped. The
+crouching fear that had made itself felt earlier seemed to tell her
+that even this piece of undiluted good fortune might conceal a sting.
+
+"Please listen to what I am going to say," the little visitor
+continued, and her eyes flashed now not shiftily but steadily. "I have
+experience in these matters, for my red-headed boy tried the same game
+on with me at first.... I wonder if the thought has ever occurred to
+you, Herr Dehnicke, that when one of the _élite_, as is that sweet
+exquisitely unique creature sitting there, entrusts herself to your
+care, you have taken a gigantic responsibility upon your shoulders? Do
+you men think we exist merely to feed and advertise your vanity? We're
+not milliners or chorus girls who want to be dressed up in silks and
+chiffons simply that the world may see what a dog you are. We may have
+lost caste, it is true, but that doesn't mean we are by a long way come
+down to what you would like to treat us as."
+
+Richard struggled to retort, but could not find words.
+
+Then she bent tenderly towards Lilly, and continued: "A poor butterfly
+of aristocratic lineage comes flitting along unsuspectingly and says,
+'Take me--you can do what you like with me.' And what are you going to
+do with her? Are you going to make a bad woman of her, or rather what
+the world accepts as a bad woman? No! I won't be contradicted. That's a
+good beginning," and she pointed to the paper; "if once the scorpions
+of the Press busy themselves about us, then the gallants of the Guards
+are on our track. Then God help you! They are far handsomer and more
+gallant than any of you, and if we must be driven into the ranks of the
+_cocottes_, we'd rather know by whom and for whom. Afterwards you find
+yourselves chucked, a stale joke of the day before yesterday--nothing
+more."
+
+All this confused Lilly and turned her giddy. She could not have
+believed that anyone would dare to speak to Richard in such a tone, and
+she laid her hand protestingly and comfortingly on his shoulder,
+fearful that he would be angry and assert his dignity as host.
+
+But he did nothing of the sort.
+
+"I am willing to be guided by you," he said humbly, "if you'll only
+tell me what----"
+
+"If you don't know what you ought to do, I'll tell you. You ought not
+to trot her out and put her through her paces as if she were a prize
+animal, exposing her to the gaze of any gaping crew. Don't put her in
+the front of your box at the theatre for every _roué_ to look at
+through his opera-glasses."
+
+Richard manned himself to parry her attack.
+
+"If I may venture to ask the question, are you not to be seen
+everywhere?" he asked.
+
+"Yes, certainly, because I want to see as well as be seen. That is why
+I ran away from my brute of a husband and chucked respectability.
+Still, I don't sit in the front of boxes, and I don't let myself be
+trotted up and down a race-course. I am a Bohemian; Lilly, on the
+contrary, with her placid refined nature, is a home-bird, and should be
+treated as if she were your legal wife.... We neither of us want to
+descend to the demi-monde--that is to say, what we call demi-monde here
+in Germany; in the French sense we are already there. Now I have said
+my say, Herr Dehnicke."
+
+Richard stood up. He had grown very red, and was biting his moustache
+with impotent resentment.
+
+"I have always put her welfare before everything," he said. "Besides, I
+have only acted according to her wishes; have I not, Lilly?"
+
+Lilly felt she couldn't contradict him. She did not desire to see him
+further humiliated, and said nothing.
+
+"And if you acted a thousand-fold according to her wishes," answered
+the little woman for her, "you were wrong. You should have said,
+'My child, you don't understand this sort of life; as we are not
+married--which, mark my word, would be far the best for both of you--we
+must live at a moderate pace, otherwise I shall do you an irreparable
+injury and drag you into the mud.'"
+
+Tears sprang to Lilly's eyes at the mention of the word "married" in
+relation to herself and Richard. To hide her emotion she went hurriedly
+to fetch his overcoat, for it was a quarter to six.
+
+She accompanied him to the door, and kissed him affectionately; she did
+not wish him to think that she bore him any grudge.
+
+To her guest, she stood up for him zealously. He had been very kind and
+good to her, he had not meant any harm, and he had saved her from an
+evil fate.
+
+"I didn't come here to make mischief," the little woman said, laughing,
+and asked if she might sit on a little longer. She mentioned, too, that
+her name was Jula, and expressed a desire to be called by it in future.
+
+They now sat hand in hand on the sofa--above which Walter's portrait
+had been replaced by a very mediocre sheep-shearing scene--and nibbled
+cakes from the little glass plates on their laps. For the first time
+Lilly enjoyed the sensation of possessing a friend of her own sex, for
+she had always been too much in awe of Fräulein von Schwertfeger to
+regard her in that light.
+
+The bullfinch sang a piteous little song of spring, and the sparrows
+answered from the chestnut-trees outside. The May sunshine reflected
+tremulous spirals on the walls, and now and again a flash of gold
+lightning raced across the aquarium, stirring the green sedges and
+grasses.
+
+This was an hour for confidences.
+
+"Didn't I put on airs just now?" Frau Jula said. "But it was necessary,
+my sweet. You, like me, are standing on the brink of a precipice. One
+little push and over we go, and then no one can pick us up again. If we
+had any character to rely on it wouldn't be so bad ... but we don't
+know how to be faithful, and, what is more, we don't want to be."
+
+"How _can_ you say that?" cried Lilly in horror.
+
+Frau Jula showed the point of her little red tongue between her lips.
+
+"Just wait a bit, my dearest. The men we meet are scarcely calculated
+to make us think that we are ordained for the pleasure of one only. In
+fact, the only way to appreciate them is to take them in the plural.
+Oh! I could open your eyes to a thing or two; but I don't want to
+frighten you ... besides, the plural number is dangerous.... Each man
+we give ourselves to takes away a bit of what is best in us. Yes, our
+best, though I can't exactly define it. It's not self-esteem, because
+that survives sometimes; it's not purity, we don't care a pin about
+purity; and it's not happiness. I tell you, we should be bored to death
+if we stuck to one man. I have talked about it to a lot of women, and
+they all agree on _that_ point. Some of them think it's better not to
+fall in love at all, and only do it for fun; others swear by the
+_grande passion_ that will consecrate everything. No two people think
+quite alike. And now I should like to give you a few hints, because the
+day will come when you are sure to need them. Don't let them give you
+presents--that is to say, not things of value. Flowers are permissible,
+but not too many. And don't give _them_ presents, because only honest
+married women can afford to do that. Beware, as a rule, of the lover
+offering gifts, for that simply breeds _cocottes_. As I say, married
+women may do what is not fitting for us to do; they have to be revenged
+for being tied by the leg to the '_one only_.' We, on the other hand,
+are free, and can go when we like. We may do everything but that; we
+mayn't do that."
+
+"Why mayn't we?" asked Lilly, becoming suddenly conscious of her
+chains.
+
+"Married women may do anything; they may be divorced a hundred times
+and hold their heads as high as ever.... But in our case it is always a
+plunge lower; the oftener we change, the more we become common booty.
+It's all very well if we have money of our own, but you and I haven't.
+They hover about us, watching like vultures ... and they say to
+themselves, 'If so-and-so can keep her, and so-and-so, why shouldn't my
+good money buy her?' For this reason a woman should cleave closely to
+the one she has got--no matter how small and despicable he is, or how
+much she may loathe him in her secret soul."
+
+"I don't quite understand you," said Lilly. "Surely the one you have is
+the one you love."
+
+"What! Have you loved every one of them?"
+
+"Good gracious! There haven't been so many," Lilly answered. "Besides
+my husband the general"--she could not resist pronouncing the "proud"
+word--"there was only one other, and this one."
+
+"Nonsense!" exclaimed Frau Jula, genuinely indignant. "Are you setting
+up to be a model of virtue?"
+
+Lilly assured her that she had spoken the truth.
+
+Frau Jula had difficulty in grasping it. "Then you don't belong to us
+at all! You ought to be a judge's wife."
+
+Lilly laughed. After believing herself condemned for ever on account of
+her immorality, it was refreshing to find someone who ridiculed her for
+being too good.
+
+"Ah! if I were to tell you the stories of all the women who are
+around us, you would be surprised," Frau Jula went on. "Some will only
+look at girls. Some let furnished rooms to students, that are only
+taken by those they fancy; others"--here she lowered her voice to a
+whisper--"others find their lovers in the streets."
+
+Lilly shuddered. "What? Have I sat next them, perfectly unsuspecting?"
+
+Frau Jula's eyes burned into vacancy. "It's awful, isn't it?" she
+said, and laughed. "I don't care so much; you see, I have my poetry the
+sort of thing that gives me absolution. For its sake everything is
+sacrificed. One must have sensations. I must feel my blood run
+quicker ... I must study human nature; there is something new in
+everyone.... No matter how wretched a specimen a man is, with brains
+and soul that might be packed into a thimble, he can give you an hour
+of ecstasy--one hour in which bells chime, in which the spheres are
+full of organ-sounds. And the more you have, the more life you live,
+the more souls do you creep to the other side of. Doors are flung open:
+all secrets are revealed.... And if you can hear a stranger's heart
+beating, can feel his heart-beats in your fingertips--then he is
+yours, part of yourself. Then you live one life more. Yes, that is
+life--really life."
+
+She put up her arms and clasped her hands at the back of her neck.
+
+Lilly said to herself that she couldn't take this talk seriously, but
+she felt hot and cold waves pass over her.
+
+"I don't understand at all what you are talking about," she said,
+rising.
+
+Frau Jula didn't seem to hear. Her eyes were full of mystic fire. She
+looked like a priestess sacrificing to strange gods.
+
+It struck eight. The maid servant who had been laying the table in the
+next room had set a place for the lady, who didn't seem inclined to go,
+and now came in to announce that the repast was ready.
+
+"Will you stay and have supper with me?" Lilly asked against her will.
+
+Frau Jula at last collected herself; she neither accepted nor declined,
+but got up and removed her scarlet toque from her dark locks.
+
+"I am quite mad, am I not?" she asked, and the silly but alluring smile
+played about her lips again.
+
+With a sigh of relief, Lilly opened the dining-room door.
+
+The table was covered with a sheeny damask cloth, on which leaves of
+light were cast by the hanging lamp. The bright-coloured dinner
+service, copied from an old Strasburg pattern, had been bought by
+Lilly cheap at a sale, and the plate, including the castors and the
+sugar-tongs, shone as brightly as real silver, and could only be
+distinguished from it by the absence of a mark. The idea was, that
+when Richard stayed to meals he should find all as well ordered and
+spick-and-span as at his mother's table.
+
+Frau Jula gave an exclamation of delight. "Oh, how charming you have
+made it all--so dear and cosy! I do believe I am right in saying that
+you were born to be a married housewife. You should see my rubbishy
+place! But what is the good of keeping up appearances when my
+red-headed boy ruins his digestion at restaurants, dining on lamb
+kidneys _au lard_ and truffles? When he is at home I make him gruel and
+bread-crumbs, and give it to him straight out of the saucepan, without
+any ceremony or laying of table."
+
+"Thank goodness," Lilly thought, "she is her natural self again."
+
+The meal was quite unpretentious, consisting of cold meat dishes and
+baked potatoes, with the remains of a tart for sweet. But Frau Jula ate
+with a greater relish than she had known for years, and commented on
+everything.
+
+Lilly told her that for the sake of economy she ordered her meat from
+the country. She would gladly give her friend the address.
+
+"I guessed you did that," said Frau Jula, with a soft sigh, her eyes
+meditatively fixed on space.... And after a pause came the confession
+in a low voice. "It was the same there."
+
+"Where?" asked Lilly.
+
+"At home, where we lived."
+
+Then suddenly she hurled away her napkin, jumped up, and went to the
+open window. She wrung her hands, beat her forehead, and called
+hysterically into the evening air: "I am going to the bad as fast as I
+can--utterly to the bad!"
+
+"What is the matter with you?" Lilly stammered. She was so shocked that
+she too sprang up and went to the window.
+
+"I want to go back to my husband ... to my husband.... My husband is a
+monster, a beast, it's true. Life there is simply death ... that's all
+perfectly true. Yet I want to go back to my husband.... Here I shall go
+under--under."
+
+Lilly laid her hand caressingly on her neck.
+
+"Why, dear," she said consolingly, "you have just been giving me such
+useful instructions as to how to avoid going under. And, then, you have
+in your literary art a mainstay, which I lost long ago." Sighing, she
+glanced at the curtained cupboards, where the last of her pasted sunset
+forests glowed in obscurity. "No, no; you will not go under. You will
+rise higher and higher, to the very top, and from there look down on
+other poor women."
+
+Frau Jula sobbed on her shoulder. "Never now, never!" she cried. "I
+can't get out of this whirlpool. It's poisoned me; my brain is
+poisoned. I am going to the bad! I am going to the bad!"
+
+Lilly put her arm gently in hers and led her back to the sofa-corner in
+the unlighted drawing-room, where she had been sitting before.
+
+"Ah, here it is nice and dark," she said, whimpering like a child.
+"Here I can tell you everything, but shut the door; there mustn't be a
+gleam of light."
+
+Lilly closed the door of the "pattern" room. Now they were sitting in
+the dark. Only the late evening twilight, which from the canal
+penetrated the still scanty branches of the chestnuts, cast a greyish
+shadow on her tear-stained face.
+
+"Just now," began Frau Jula, "I spoke of women who sought their love
+adventures in the streets, and you started up in horror. Do you know
+who one of these women is? I am one."
+
+"Oh, my God!" exclaimed Lilly.
+
+"Yes, I am one. The evening that my red-headed boy leaves me alone, I
+put on dark things and drive into districts where nobody knows who I
+am. When I meet someone whom I like the look of, I give him a glance
+that makes him turn round and speak to me; then I go with him into a
+common inn, or to a little confectioner's, anywhere he likes, or I sit
+with him on a seat in the dark ... and if I like him still better than
+I thought ... I will just go with him anywhere--anywhere he asks me to
+go."
+
+"Oh, how dreadful that is!" said Lilly, and pressed her hands to her
+eyes. Now she knew why a few months ago something had seemed to draw
+her more and more powerfully to the streets, why a pleasant thrill had
+passed through her when someone had addressed her in the dark; only, of
+course, she had been too nervous to answer.
+
+"And now I have told you this, and you know what I am, you won't want
+me to sit on your beautiful sofa any more!" cried Frau Jula. "Say it
+plump out, and I'll go." She caught beseechingly at Lilly's hands.
+
+Lilly felt like a good Samaritan who, having come across someone
+grievously afflicted, was bound to do the best she could for her.
+
+"What makes you do it?" she asked gently. "You are not so lonely. How
+have you come to it?"
+
+"Yes, how have I come to it? Can you say how you have come to what you
+are? It's all very well for people to reproach us with weakness; but
+one necessity leads on to another, one wish gives birth to more wishes,
+and one always thinks one is doing right."
+
+"That is true enough," Lilly faltered, recalling the decisive moments
+of her own life.
+
+"I have always persuaded myself that I must do it for the sake of my
+poetry. I must have experiences, pictures, and what the French call
+_frisson_. But all that is nothing but an excuse, a mere pretext. The
+truth is that you just seek and seek. Your own husband is not what you
+want, your red-headed boy isn't either, and all the rest aren't--your
+sportsmen, merchants, and lieutenants. But you think he must be
+somewhere. Perhaps he's that stranger at the next table? You are almost
+sure he is, so you become acquainted with him, and find that he isn't.
+It's none of the worthy ones, for however much trouble they may take to
+possess us they take no trouble to find out if there is anything worthy
+in us. And so you have to go on searching. Perhaps it will be someone
+in the street? It becomes at last a positive fever ... it consumes and
+burns you up. Often I can't sleep for thinking of the next dark night
+when I shall be wandering about looking ... Don't you see? It _must_
+end in ruin to me, body and soul. And this evening, when I saw your
+daintily laid supper-table, all at once a longing came over me for my
+home and husband. Yes, I am periodically tortured with that longing. He
+has weak eyes, and smells of carbolic. Oh, that vilest of all vile
+smells! How much I should like to smell it again! I shouldn't even mind
+his throwing his stethoscope at me as often as he likes. He has written
+asking me to go back.... I can go back if I choose ... and yet I don't
+go. I stay here and perish. Oh, life is farcical!"
+
+She rose and fumbled for her hat and hatpins, which lay on the table.
+
+Lilly couldn't bear her to go in such an agitated state of mind.
+
+"If you feel that it is a poison in your blood, that it must ruin you,
+why don't you guard against it? Why don't you conquer the feeling?
+Force of will can do a lot."
+
+"I have often said so to myself," replied Frau Jula, "but I have never
+had anyone to confide in about it who could help me. Now I have found
+you it will be easier. Now I almost feel as if I could--could conquer
+it."
+
+"Will you promise me to try?" asked Lilly, holding out her hand.
+
+"Yes, I promise," she cried, and shook hands joyously. "You are going
+to be my saviour. You are already. And to thank you, I will keep a
+sharp lookout that you aren't spoilt. You shall never be what I am, and
+what the others are."
+
+"Oh, I can look after myself," murmured Lilly.
+
+"Ah, so you say! But when the dreary void comes, and _he_ grows more
+and more unsatisfying and colourless, you have nothing to say to each
+other, and you mustn't have children.... None of us have them, because
+we all know how to prevent their coming. He lets you have no part or
+lot in his affairs, and you feel behind everything how his family hates
+you. _They_ think we are a species of harpy. And then how constantly he
+proclaims his intention of marrying when he wants most to annoy us!
+And, above all, there's the longing ... it's like an everlasting dead
+gnawing toothache ... yes, it's just like toothache. Wherever you are,
+it torments you. For life cannot end like this, you say to yourself;
+something must happen at last. Oh, it's ten times worse than marriage!
+Wait and see if it isn't...."
+
+Lilly's heart became ever sorer at her words. A wild misery clutched
+her.
+
+"Pray say no more," she begged. "If it's to be, it'll come soon enough.
+I don't want to think about it."
+
+"You are right, darling," said Frau Jula; "it does no good." And she
+took her leave.
+
+"You won't forget your promise?" Lilly reminded her from the top of the
+stairs.
+
+"Never; no, never! I swear it." And she glided out.
+
+With a whirling brain, Lilly went back to the darkened drawing-room and
+leaned absently and dejectedly out of the open window to breathe in the
+freshness of the evening air.
+
+She watched the tiny woman who had just come out at the front entrance
+trip lightly and gracefully along the pavement.
+
+A man in a tall hat and patent-leather shoes passed her, then
+hesitated, stopped, and turned back again. As he came up with her he
+lifted his hat with exaggerated courtesy.
+
+By the light of the street-lamp Lilly saw her face upturned to his,
+full of curiosity, and with an ingratiating smile, and then they walked
+on--together.
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER IX
+
+
+Richard was reluctant to conform to a more temperate manner of life. He
+was still eager to be seen with Lilly and to have her admired. But
+little Frau Jula's lecture had really touched his conscience, and he
+had not the nerve to set it at defiance.
+
+Nevertheless, he sulked and brooded and yawned, and seemed so bored
+that Lilly, to cheer him up, was on the point of volunteering to
+accompany him to the next race-meeting, when news reached her that her
+mother was dead.
+
+She cried a great deal, and her grief was in proportion to the
+tenderness of her heart, which was very soft. But in reality her mother
+had been dead to her for so long that the sorrow she felt at her actual
+death could not be very deep or lasting.
+
+Before starting for the West Prussian asylum to attend the funeral, her
+chief anxiety had been to get as simple mourning as possible, for she
+was ashamed not to have done more for her mother, and did not wish to
+give cause for scandal by being too elegant as she stood at the pauper
+grave. All the same, the officials and doctors at the asylum were most
+deferential to her, and appeared to regard her as some exquisite black
+bird of Paradise.
+
+It was not till after she had spent three very hot spring evenings,
+praying and meditating, beside the small heap of gravel, that she
+returned to Berlin, full of serious thoughts and re-awakened memories.
+
+While away she had thought she hated Richard, but when she found him
+waiting for her at the station, she sank into his arms helplessly,
+craving for his sympathy. For now she had no one else but him; he
+really was her all on earth.
+
+It was an understood thing that for the next few months nocturnal
+dissipations should cease on account of her mourning, and to his credit
+Richard showed her every consideration in the matter. He sat at home
+spending many quiet evenings with her, reading books that he couldn't
+appreciate and playing backgammon; and would go to sleep on the sofa
+rather than attempt to beguile her into the gay world. But in order
+that he should not be quite lost to that world, it was agreed that he
+should have every other evening to himself.
+
+The notoriety that his beautiful mistress had acquired smoothed the way
+for him. He was elected to the Club that he had long hankered after,
+through the support of two of her aristocratic admirers, without a
+single blackball. So now it was open to him to enjoy the supreme
+felicity of losing part of his firm's hardly earned fortune to young
+scions of the nobility, foreign attachés, and other superior beings.
+
+Lilly was not pleased to hear of his losses, which he confided to her
+with much feigned growling and grumbling. She practised economy more
+assiduously than before to try and make them good. He laughed at her
+efforts, and declared that she cost him no more than an extra cigarette
+a day; but her conviction that she was a burden on the firm of Liebert
+& Dehnicke remained deeply rooted.
+
+On the quiet evenings that he recruited from his nights of dissipation
+their business conversations were resumed. Lilly liked to "talk shop,"
+and she displayed a keen commercial as well as artistic faculty.
+
+Richard frequently brought with him sketches of models, and they would
+sit with their heads bent together over unrolled charts, planning and
+consulting like a pair of partners. Those hours were almost blissful,
+and she never tired of asking questions about the factory itself. How
+many hands, male and female, were employed there at the present moment?
+Was that man or woman or this one there now? She didn't know their
+names, but could describe their faces exactly. What work had they
+chiefly on hand? Had the supply of certain models run out? Thus she
+kept herself _au courant_ with the inner life of the business.
+
+The factory was her ill-starred love, as she often said in joke to
+Richard. If she was allowed to call for him after business hours at the
+office, it was the greatest treat he could give her. If she could have
+had her way she would have found an excuse for going daily to the
+factory; but Richard didn't wish it. The employés, he said, had long
+ago got to know what their relations to each other were, and he must be
+careful not to lay himself open to disrespectful gossip.
+
+She was sure that this could not be his only motive. There was
+something else behind. She had realised for some time that his mother
+was not well disposed towards her. Once he had talked about her quite
+freely and openly, but now he avoided the subject, even when Lilly
+asked direct questions.
+
+It was likely enough that he was afraid of raising the old lady's ire
+by giving his mistress the run of his office, so she had to content
+herself by taking interest from a distance in the welfare of the little
+kingdom.
+
+On the evenings that she was left alone, she was in the habit of making
+ten-o'clock pilgrimages to the Alte Jakobstrasse on her own account.
+
+She would take up a position on the opposite side of the street and
+gaze reverentially across at the old grey house, with its wonderful
+modern embellishments. She admired the imitation marble pillars, which
+now gave an air of splendour, in the style of the Renaissance, to the
+entrance. She stared up at the floor where his mother made her home,
+and withdrew timorously into the darkness of a doorway when a woman's
+threatening shadow was cast on the drawn curtains. When it grew late
+and people ceased to come in and out of the house, she would boldly
+cross the street, slip up the steps to the front-door, and with her
+face pressed against the iron gate peep at the interior of the
+staircase landing, whence came the sheen of laurels, the milky
+radiance of the Clytie bust, and the dark, rich chequered glow of the
+stained-glass windows, an impressive combination that recalled the dim
+religious light of a chapel.
+
+Those front-door steps grew to be a sort of sacred pilgrims' way, along
+which penitents crawled on their hands and knees; the stained-glass
+became a heavenly glory; the Clytie a benedictory saint.
+
+
+                           *   *   *   *   *
+
+
+Towards autumn Richard was called out to serve at the man[oe]uvres. His
+letters were curt and few, and their tone could not disguise his bad
+temper. The last was dated from the hospital, as he was on the sick
+list, owing to a fracture of the knee-joint caused by a fall from his
+horse. It would prevent his riding again for a long time, perhaps for
+ever.
+
+When he came back in October he was still compelled to wear a knee-cap,
+and sent in his resignation. The accident really proved a piece of good
+fortune, for rumours of his relations with the divorced wife of the
+commander of the regiment had got afloat, and in consequence he was
+being cut by his fellow-officers. His superiors were only waiting for
+confirmatory evidence to call him before a court-martial, a proceeding
+which would certainly have deprived him of his commission in the
+Reserves. He thus escaped by the skin of his teeth public disgrace, and
+his surly reproachful manner to Lilly was meant to show how much he had
+sacrificed for her sake.
+
+The news of the colonel, which he had gathered indirectly, filled her
+with dismay. The old martinet had turned Fräulein von Schwertfeger out
+of the castle, having become obsessed by the suspicion that she had
+acted in collusion with the guilty lovers. He now lived the life of a
+misanthropic recluse, and it was feared he might go out of his mind. A
+message of evil indeed from that past of sunshine.
+
+
+                           *   *   *   *   *
+
+
+As winter approached, one of Frau Jula's prophecies seemed as if it
+were coming to pass. Richard began to discuss his matrimonial prospects
+with Lilly, not to annoy her, it is true, but simply because it had
+become a habit to unburden his mind to her about everything that
+troubled him.
+
+His mother had invited an orphaned heiress on a visit to their house.
+Of course, she had done it solely for _his_ benefit, and no other
+reason. He had to sit next her at meals every day. She was a rather
+pallid girl and had hair the colour of straw. She looked at him with
+big strange eyes, and seemed to ask, "When are you going to propose?"
+And his mother was for ever preaching to him.
+
+Things couldn't go on as they were. Another winter like the two last
+and every decent family among their acquaintance would be pointing the
+finger of scorn at him--so his mother said--and it was enough to drive
+a fellow distracted. Lilly felt as if icy water was streaming down her
+back. But she maintained a brave face, and showed no more inward
+emotion than if they were discussing a model for a new "bronze."
+
+"Do you think you could care for her?" she asked.
+
+"Good God! What do you call 'caring'?" he answered, staring beyond her
+vacantly. "You talk as if I were serious about it. I believe you
+wouldn't mind getting rid of me."
+
+He pretended to be angry, and Lilly reasoned with him coolly. He
+mustn't imagine for a moment that she would stand in his way. She had
+nothing but his happiness at heart. It would make her proud if he gave
+her his confidence and did not take this step--now or later--without
+talking it all over with her first.
+
+He was touched, kissed her, and replied that so far it was all in the
+air.
+
+But the conversation left Lilly beset with dread as if by a nightmare.
+Her one coherent thought was, "If he leaves me in the lurch now, what
+will become of me?"
+
+Grief for her mother's death was nothing compared with this martyrdom
+of anxiety. The vultures that Frau Jula had spoken of occurred to
+her--all those greedy vultures, in white shirt-fronts and black coats,
+hovering round to offer her their "good money" directly her friend and
+protector should have deserted her. And then she thought of those other
+vultures in Kellermann's picture, cowering on the sun-baked rocks,
+ready to pounce on the naked beauty directly she became defenceless.
+
+"Her chains are her weapon of defence," Lilly said to herself, "and so
+it is with me. As soon as I am free, I am lost."
+
+The next day neither of them alluded at first to the dangerous topic,
+but Richard was absent-minded and ill at ease. Then Lilly took heart
+and said huskily, "I see, Richard, you are still undecided in your
+mind. Won't you bring me a photograph of her to see? No one knows you
+as well as I do, and no one will be able to judge better whether or not
+she is suited to you."
+
+He vehemently denied that he was trying to make up his mind. The girl
+was nothing to him. She was an empty-headed doll. But his indignation
+was not genuine, and his eyes were fixed on space. For "the doll" had
+five millions.
+
+And the next afternoon he brought her photograph. Without taking it out
+of the soft paper in which it was wrapped, she laid it aside. Merely
+touching it made her hands tremble. She was afraid that her first
+glance at it would betray her inward agitation.
+
+"Aren't you going to look at it?" he asked, a little disappointed.
+
+"There will be time enough when you are gone," she replied, and
+congratulated herself on her smile of indifference.
+
+When he was in the hall she called after him:
+
+"To-morrow I will tell you what I think, you know."
+
+Then she rushed back to the photograph, not omitting, however, to wave
+from the window to Richard, a duty which had become a habit with her.
+
+"And now ... now the photograph!" Oh, what a good, calm, rather
+delicate-looking girlish face it was, looking at her with sorrowful
+though nice eyes. The fair plaits of hair, as thick as a man's wrist,
+were twisted round the back of the head in country fashion; a timid
+smile played on the full-lipped mouth. It was the face of a lovable
+child. Happiness would make it bloom like a spray of lilac put in
+water. It indicated a nature reposeful, not too gifted, housewifely,
+and clinging. Exactly what he wanted.
+
+She placed the picture on a chair and threw herself on her knees before
+it. She prayed and wrestled with herself, but in the end she could not
+help saying to herself again, "Exactly what he wants; what he would
+never find a second time if he hunted all the world over."
+
+And she had five millions! If she did not give him up now she would
+indeed be one of those harpies, to whom, according to Frau Jula, she
+and her kind were likened in respectable family circles.
+
+"But he is mine; I have the right of possession! What good would his
+five millions do me if through them I go to the bad altogether? Why
+should I sacrifice myself for him or anyone?"
+
+The word "harpy" continued to ring persistently in her ears.
+
+She thought of the Furies depicted in the illustrated mythology books,
+the terror of all school-children, with their beautiful hair and
+murderous claws.
+
+"What I have is mine! I have a right to keep it, a right to tear it to
+pieces too."
+
+Oh, what a night that was. She lay in bed with her knees drawn up to
+her chin and her face buried in her lap, sobbing. She stuffed her
+clothes into her mouth, tore them out again, and sobbed anew; and at
+last, towards morning, a resolve was born of her tears, her shudders,
+her prayers, and bitter strife with herself--a resolve that seemed to
+bring release and salvation: "This afternoon, when he comes, I will
+tell him." But no! Why wait till the afternoon? Why let him cross the
+threshold first? How easily might the influence of their wonted
+association bring the great work of self-sacrifice to nothing! She must
+choose another place, somewhere less familiar, from which she could
+quickly escape as soon as she felt his presence made her falter.
+
+She had been forbidden, it is true, to visit his office without special
+permission; but if she chose the luncheon hour, and found him sitting
+quietly resting in his private back room, this would be the most
+favourable and easiest opportunity for an interview. No one would
+notice her going in, and she would not be disturbing him. Besides, so
+sacred a resolve as hers justified every step she might take.
+
+She spent the morning in arranging and packing up his letters. She
+intended to restore these to him with the photograph of his future
+bride, so that his mind should be set at rest concerning them once for
+all.
+
+Then she dressed more carefully than usual, and washed away the traces
+of her tears with milk of lilies. She waved her hair so that it
+descended over her neck in full ripples, such as she had seen in Greek
+statues. She felt, indeed, like one of those marble women of ancient
+Greece, so serenely elevated was her frame of mind above earthly
+happiness and sorrow.
+
+She drove to the office. As the clocks chimed a quarter-past one she
+stood at the pillared portico. No one was about in the yard; only the
+porter took off his cap with a friendly smile. To him she was still the
+"boss's" ladylove.
+
+It was a pity that she did not take the precaution of being announced.
+
+The door of the outer office was standing open, as usual when he was
+still at work in his room. She knew the secret catch that opened the
+wooden rail of partition, and passed through. She knocked cautiously at
+the further door. To-day it was shut, which was not usual.
+
+He said, "Come in."
+
+She went in, and stood face to face--with his mother.
+
+This was the first time she had ever seen her. She was quite different
+from what she had expected. Instead of the tall, thin, silver-haired,
+stately old lady her imagination had pictured, she saw sitting at his
+writing-table a stout woman of middle height, with grizzled locks under
+her black lace cap. A pair of cold grey eyes looked up at her with a
+surprised and indignant glance.
+
+"This is his mother," she thought.
+
+Richard jumped up from his revolving-chair, and Lilly, speechless with
+terror, stared at the old lady, who in her turn sprang to her feet. An
+expression of fury and scorn blazed in the cold grey eyes.
+
+"This is really a charming state of things," she cried, turning her
+head from one to the other with sharp, angry jerks. "Charming! I am not
+even safe in my own house, it seems.... I must ask you, Richard, not to
+expose me again to a meeting with a person of this description."
+
+And while Lilly timidly and respectfully made room for her to pass, she
+swept to the door with a snort of rage.
+
+"What are you doing here? What do you mean by coming here?"
+
+Never had he shouted at her like this before.
+
+He stood in front of her with his hands thrust deeply into his
+trouser-pockets, biting the ends of his moustache, while his head was
+so much on one side it almost lay on his shoulder. He looked like a
+savage, infuriated bull.
+
+She wanted to hand him the photograph and packet of letters, and tell
+him everything, but her limbs and tongue seemed paralysed.
+
+"I ... I ... I only ..." she stammered with a sob.
+
+"I ... I ... I only ..." he scoffingly mimicked her. "I only wanted to
+wriggle myself in here. I ... I ... would like to be mistress here.
+Isn't that it, eh? ... No, no, my angel; we must put an end to this at
+once.... Your so-called ill-starred love of my factory always struck me
+as a bit suspicious. Get out of here! Get out, I say! Get out!"
+
+And the next minute she was out--out in the street.
+
+She still held the packet in its tissue-paper wrappings convulsively
+between her cramped fingers. Staggering, she walked on, past staring
+red houses that threatened to fall on her. She saw a truck loaded with
+sacks of flour scattering white clouds. A pulley screeched in a factory
+yard. Every time she saw anyone coming towards her she swerved into the
+gutter, shrinking away in fear from the jeers of the passer-by. A skein
+of wool that someone had lost lay on the pavement. She picked it up and
+thought of hanging herself, for something must be done.
+
+It was all very well to be abandoned and deserted; when your time came
+you could expect nothing else, and must resign yourself to fate--but to
+be stormed at and flung off, to be kicked out as if you were a burglar,
+to be despised and spat upon like the lowest woman in the streets--oh,
+that was too much!
+
+She must do something to be revenged on him. And even if such a revenge
+would no longer affect him, that didn't matter. He should at least be
+convinced that he was to blame for everything. When she was wallowing
+in that mire of which he had formerly expressed so much horror on her
+account--when she was there ... Yes, something must be done, now, at
+once--some suicidal act which would make her worthy of the gross
+treatment she had received at his hands--something to free her from
+these torments, these horrible torments!
+
+Her heart hung in her breast like a painful tumour. She could have
+outlined it with her finger, it felt so sharply prominent. It was as if
+some claw held it in its clutch. And then again the vultures occurred
+to her--the vultures crouching on the rocks in Kellermann's picture.
+
+They were crouching to spring on Lilly Czepanek. Whom else? Ah, now she
+had it! The thought flashed through her brain like an arrow. She called
+a cab and drove quickly to Herr Kellermann's house.
+
+She ran up the stairs, which little more than eight months ago she had
+descended, steeped in bliss, at Richard's side. She stood in the
+unaired, dark ante-room with its fusty smell, and knocked with a
+faltering hand at the studio door.
+
+Herr Kellermann sat on the floor in his tartan socks and down-at-heel
+slippers making coffee, as on her first visit. He had a rather bloated
+look, but seemed pleased with himself.
+
+"Good heavens!" he exclaimed, drawing the collar of his night-shirt
+together. "What brings you hither, lovely goddess, so suddenly? Have
+your setting suns been rising again?"
+
+She said nothing, but laid her hat and cloak on a chair and began to
+unfasten her blouse. She looked round for a screen, but there wasn't
+one, for the models who frequented this studio were not generally
+troubled with shyness.
+
+He sprang up and stared hard at her. Then, when he understood what she
+intended to do, he burst into a sudden shout of joy.
+
+"What did I say? Wasn't I right? Ha, ha! It has come to that, has it?
+We are crying aloud for release. We want to be set free, eh?"
+
+"I am not crying aloud for anything," said Lilly. "Kindly turn your
+eyes the other way till necessary," The corners of her mouth curled in
+scorn.
+
+He seized the picture, blew the dust off it adjusted his easel,
+laughing and chuckling to himself. "I knew she'd come. I said she'd
+come!"
+
+Lilly fumbled at the strings and buttons of her garments. Then she
+slowly cast them from her one by one. Thus she stood, in the garish
+light of the studio, pricked by a thousand needles of shame, and
+exposed her unclothed body to the artist's gloating gaze.
+
+
+                           *   *   *   *   *
+
+
+The next afternoon Richard came to tea as usual. His eyes were red and
+watery, and he looked depressed, but his manner did not betray the
+least consciousness of anything out of the ordinary having happened.
+
+She had hardly expected that he would come at all, and received him in
+chilly surprise.
+
+"Oh, about yesterday," he said carelessly. "Mother and I had a beastly
+row. I had to promise her that you wouldn't come to the factory again.
+So now we won't allude to it any more. The little girl with the fair
+hair leaves us this evening. Give me a kiss."
+
+So they kissed, and everything was the same as ever.
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER X
+
+
+The twigs of the chestnuts had again put on their yellow gloves, and
+many a leaf started on a whirling journey down the canal. Once more the
+vista of grey water through the opening in the branches widened, tame
+wild-ducks foraged along the banks, and the barges, sinking deep into
+the water under their cargoes of odoriferous summer fruit, drifted
+lazily to market. The world muffled itself up for coming winter days,
+and the purveyors of pleasure in the capital were astir.
+
+In seemly half-mourning the round of dissipation began again, Richard
+objecting to being kept in a glass case any longer. But this time they
+ceased to aspire to stage boxes and the gorgeous luxury of
+distinguished night restaurants. Having established a reputation
+through the ownership of a famous and withal inexpensive "_horizontale
+de grande marque_," one could afford to remain on the level of a
+middle-class "smart set," where German champagne is drunk and
+Kempinski's proves a lodestar. They passed countless hours of reckless
+debauchery in cabarets and theatres where smoking was allowed, in snug
+corners, and in eminently respectable-looking private back rooms. Women
+who had felt themselves a little _de trop_ in the other society were
+more festive hare than ever before, and the men congratulated
+themselves on not "bluing" so much money.
+
+The people you met remained pretty much the same. Only a few dandies
+fell off, not being able to conceive an existence of pleasure from
+which the joy of being patronised by cavalry officers in mufti was
+absent. Lilly followed the crowd, imagining there was no choice. She
+sat for the most part saying little, but smiling a great deal in a
+friendly way. She let the men pay her as much attention as they
+pleased, but responded without enthusiasm, and she listened
+indifferently to the women's confidences. She was popular with her
+feminine compeers, who all recognised in her the amiable quality of not
+wishing to poach on their preserves.
+
+It might have been thought that she was stupid and lacking in animation
+if occasionally she had not thawed under the influence of champagne,
+which was capable of working an amazing revolution in her. Then she
+seemed gradually to awake from her torpor, her eyes grew brilliant, her
+cheeks rosy. She would laugh shrilly and say madly improper things,
+even repeating the colonel's old Casino jokes, till as last she was
+worked up into a state of rapture, in which she sang comic songs in a
+tremulous twittering falsetto, mimicked well-known actors and
+actresses, and even broke into more daring dances than were ever seen
+on the variety stage.
+
+It was extraordinary how retentive her memory was. Without knowing it,
+she never forgot anything that she had once heard. In her normal
+condition she remembered less than other people. Wine had first to
+sweep away the barriers of reserve which, as a rule, dammed her flow of
+wit.
+
+Her associates soon discovered this phenomenal peculiarity in her, and
+tried by a hundred devices to bring her into a condition that provided
+them with such rare entertainment. But she resisted with all her
+strength, and so she waged a perpetual warfare in which she could not
+count on Richard as an ally, for he liked his fair mistress to be
+applauded for her talent as well as admired for her beauty.
+
+The next day she invariably felt limp and depressed, and sometimes when
+her mind's horizon was bounded by a red forest of high kicking legs,
+and the silly patter of suggestive songs rang in her head, a low voice
+of exhortation made itself heard within her. "_Once_ you were
+different," it said. "Once you looked up to the heights and aspired to
+better things." But she dared not listen to this voice.... She felt she
+was unworthy because she was defenceless and had no one to hold out to
+her a protecting hand.
+
+Sometimes, on the nights that she was free to do as she pleased, she
+slipped out, as if she were doing something wrong, and went to the
+gallery of a good theatre where she would not be known, or to the
+orchestra of a concert-hall where music students of both sexes
+congregated, sitting on steps and railings with the score on their
+knees, following every note.
+
+What she saw and heard made no deep impression on her. She felt
+disquieted and out of her element, and fixed her attention on some
+young man, whose bold profile or mass of artistic curls struck her
+fancy.
+
+"He is one of the gifted," she thought, with a torturing pain at her
+heart, and she gazed at him so long and earnestly with languishing eyes
+that at last he returned her glance with fiery fervour.
+
+Yet, however hotly she might burn with eagerness to be spoken to by
+him, she dared not give him further signals of encouragement, with Frau
+Jula's awful example before her mind's eye.... And so she had to rest
+content with the beating of her heart, which in itself alone caused her
+delight.
+
+So steeped was she now in the erotics of the world she moved in, that
+the slightest rise in the temperature of passion was interpreted by her
+as a complete drama of love and longing. Oh, the longing, that eternal
+gnawing toothache, to which Frau Jula had referred; how well she knew
+what it was now! It had come on her like a thief in the night, filling
+her hours of rest with a panorama of flaming visions, changing her
+waking hours into a drowsy trance.
+
+She waited, and no one came. No one took the trouble to lift her lost
+soul out of the dust. Only one person, who watched her keenly, appeared
+to have any conception of what was going on within her.
+
+This was Dr. Salmoni.
+
+A great man was Dr. Salmoni in the estimation of those intellectual
+circles in Berlin of which he was a luminary. He was the editor of an
+art magazine once notorious for its revolutionary doctrines and the
+zeal with which it attacked the great gods of the old school, and set
+up new idols for the multitude to worship. But it was not Dr. Salmoni's
+way to burn incense long at any shrine; when he saw the mob kneeling
+before the fetishes of his own creation, he tore them down, too, and
+ground them under the heel of his vituperative invective. His hate was
+a thing to be lightly borne, his witticisms fizzled out and did not
+hurt, no one believed his calumnies. More dangerous was the benevolent
+kindness which he expended on all those whose reputation he intended to
+ruin. Praise from Dr. Salmoni sounded like a death-sentence in certain
+ears.
+
+This distinguished man now, as in former winters, patronised
+occasionally the harmless amusements of the little circle whose strong
+point could hardly be called intellect. His appearance was hailed with
+respectful enthusiasm; everyone made room for him, and hung on his lips
+in anticipation of scathing personal remarks when he leaned back in his
+chair with his melancholy sympathetic smile and stroked his pointed
+reddish beard. But he did not always fill the _rôle_ of jester expected
+of him. He would sometimes engage in a _tête-à-tête_ conversation, or
+sit alone, lost in silent meditation.
+
+He could even show, when he liked, a playful _naïveté_, such as a
+leopard displays when it gambols with puppies. He seldom spoke to
+Lilly. But his penetrating eyes often wandered over her face with a
+scrutinising glance. She felt every time he did this that he amused
+himself by skimming the emotions of her soul.
+
+One evening he sat down next her, and asked if she would cut up his
+meat for him, as he had unfortunately sprained his wrist in strangling
+a certain celebrity.... Next, in growing intimacy, he desired her to
+feed him, which he might easily have done himself with his left hand,
+which was not disabled.
+
+Thus they found themselves conversing seriously for the first time.
+Lilly trembled at the honour. She was afraid of not distinguishing
+herself.
+
+"I am quite astonished," he said, "that, after knocking about with this
+ribald crew for over two years, your eyes do not betray you."
+
+"How should they?" she asked.
+
+"Kindly look one moment at the women collected here"--and he indicated
+with his finger Frau Jula, Welter, and Karla, and two or three more.
+"How they roll their eyes! how they look up under them! All that is the
+lingo of ... I was going to say vice; but I detest expressions that are
+so guiltless of nuances, so I will say instead, the lingo of a criminal
+phantasy. Do you understand?"
+
+"I think so," murmured Lilly.
+
+"Now you, my dearest lady, still retain something of the childlike
+innocence of former years in your glance. Not all, but something. A
+_soupçon_ of contempt has crept in. No, contempt is not exactly the
+right word. On the outskirts of deserts there are certain salt pools
+that are green, dark, and empty, because the ground is poisoned. Do you
+grasp what I mean?"
+
+"I'm not sure that I do," she said.
+
+"All the same, it's marvellous. Your soul seems to be a filter; it only
+assimilates what it likes. Or perhaps you have a private source of
+succour to draw on that puts you on a higher plane than us, some
+crystallised immovable ideal ... some fixed star to shoot at ... some
+sublime Song of Songs."
+
+Lilly started so violently that a low cry escaped her lips, loud
+enough, however, to attract the eyes of the company towards her.
+
+"I have only trodden on this lady's foot," explained Dr. Salmoni, "and
+she was ingenuous enough to think I did it by mistake."
+
+Everyone laughed.
+
+"A joke sufficiently clumsy to satisfy them," he said in a whisper,
+leaning close to her shoulder. "I'll make believe not to have heard
+your involuntary confession. I only value intended avowals. I am not
+going to ask you to-night, as I asked you once before, what you are
+doing here. I ask instead: What have you got to lose here? And I can
+give the answer myself directly: Your style--your style stands in
+peril. You are on the brink of losing your style, and becoming
+guiltless of style, and that is a misfortune and a crime at the same
+moment. Style is to me equivalent to virtue, greatness, sincerity,
+religion, power, and a few other things all combined--a divine quality.
+Keep to your last, spiritually and physically. There is _line_ in that;
+an excellent thing to preserve. Swing yourself up, if you like, to the
+peaks of a healthy and joyous viciousness--_tant mieux_. You can either
+dress your hair like a nun's or let it float over the pillow like a
+bacchante's--but be sure which you decide on."
+
+"I think just now that you pleaded the cause of nuances," Lilly said,
+feeling her wits sharpened by his, "and now you are talking
+platitudes."
+
+"Hear, hear," he answered approvingly. "That's capital! But no, no,
+dear gracious one; I am not talking platitudes. I preach simply,
+'_Will_,' the will to personality. In truth, there's room for plenty of
+nuances. You have the stuff in you for a _grande amoureuse_; but, alas!
+not the courage."
+
+"And that shows I haven't the stuff," she retorted, giving him a
+radiant look.
+
+He laughed like a schoolboy. "Yes, yes. We all get old sometime, and
+listen to little virtuous women lecturing us on logic."
+
+And he chivalrously allowed her the satisfaction of having got the best
+of him in repartee.
+
+During the next few days Lilly reflected a good deal on what they had
+talked about. How could he know so much about her? It was almost as if
+he were in league with supernatural agencies. "Will to personality," he
+had said. The phrase made her happy. Once more she began to ascend to
+the heights.
+
+
+                           *   *   *   *   *
+
+
+Another time, when they followed a party of their friends at midnight
+along the lively Friedrichstrasse, he adopted a different tone.
+
+"I have a queer sort of feeling, dearest lady," he said, "that you are
+afraid of me."
+
+"I?" she said, catching her breath nervously. "Why should I be afraid
+of you?"
+
+"Because you know that I have a message for you. A message of
+redemption for which in your secret heart you don't feel ready."
+
+"I don't understand you," she faltered. But she understood perfectly
+what he would say. She knew what part he might play in her life if----
+
+"I am a man tuned in a minor key," he continued. "I don't like playing
+my emotions on a trumpet, otherwise your ears might have tingled ere
+this. Anyhow, I will say this, that I think it a scandal that a woman
+like you, made to walk in high places, one capable of noble thought and
+elevated enjoyments, should be bribed by a few pickled herrings into
+living a stupid burlesque of a life.... I am not going to blame anyone,
+but, my dearest lady, I assure you it is impossible to drain life's
+ecstasy to the dregs in lukewarm dishwater ... and, after all,
+intoxication is the main thing, so long as the blood leaps in our
+veins."
+
+Lilly trembled on his arm. They overtook a throng of gay
+night-revellers young fellows who were shouldering their
+walking-sticks, and looking dreamily before them with dizzy eyes. One
+whistled Wagner, another sang a student's song. Pretty women of the
+town, coming towards them, gave them alluring glances from dark-rimmed,
+passion-lit eyes ... more followed, youths and men, girls little more
+than children, all infected by the same transports. It was like a
+figure in a sylvan dance in which everyone offered each other hand and
+mouth, body and soul.
+
+"What am I to do?" she asked in a low tone, dropping her chin on her
+heaving breast.
+
+"I'll tell you," he answered, with a smile which concealed dark hints.
+"You must learn to lead another life at the same time as this one--a
+life that belongs to you alone ... you and a few choice friends. Do you
+understand? You must do what a Frenchman once advised: lay out a secret
+garden, in which you tend in peace all your favourite thoughts and
+wishes. Above all, the things that are forbidden, and which you have
+privily gathered together.... Do you understand?"
+
+"All forbidden things have brought me unhappiness," she said
+hesitatingly.
+
+"You mean that the law that forbids them has made you unhappy," he
+replied; "it's not easy to distinguish between the two. At all events,
+believe this, my dear child: that until we make self-culture a
+religion, till we have erased the little word 'duty' from our
+vocabulary, we are not on the right road. We are simply bruising our
+feet by stumbling over the _débris_ with which others block our way
+under the pretext of making it smooth for us."
+
+"But sometimes they do make it smooth," she answered, thinking of all
+the benefits she had received at Richard's hands.
+
+He smiled at her with indulgent pity. "You seem to be suffering from a
+sickness that I call 'chain-madness,'" he said.
+
+"What is that?" Lilly asked again, seized with a dismayed suspicion
+that he possessed some occult power, and that he divined the shameful
+part certain chains had played in her life.
+
+"It is said," he continued, "that slaves who have worked in the galleys
+for years, when they are liberated, miss their chains, and complain
+loudly that their legs and arms feel as if they were chopped off....
+Your beautiful arms, dear lady, were made to stretch upwards. Why don't
+you exercise them more?"
+
+"And my long legs were made for running away," she supplemented with a
+tortured laugh, "Only, where am I to run to? that is the question."
+
+"Why be in such a hurry and talk of running away yet?" he asked,
+stroking the hand lying in his arm, as if he were talking to a child,
+"You'd only run into the arms of another so-called 'duty.' First, you
+must acquire inward freedom first you must forget how to be at the beck
+and call of those who themselves should be under command."
+
+"Teach me the way," she burst out.
+
+"I will lend you a few books," he said, as if deliberating.... "Books
+that will lead you back to yourself. Tomorrow morning I will----"
+
+At this moment they were separated.
+
+That night Lilly, when in bed, lay with folded hands smiling up at the
+ceiling. Was she not once more ascending to the heights?
+
+
+                           *   *   *   *   *
+
+
+The next day, as the time for his call drew near, she was overcome by a
+new dread. She was afraid of him, of Richard, of herself.
+
+This would be the first visit she had received in secret, the first to
+break up the tranquillity of her home. So, when she beheld him get out
+of a cab with several books under his arm, she ran to give instructions
+not to let him in.
+
+When he had gone she pounced eagerly on the books that he had left for
+her. Some were printed in Roman characters and looked at a first glance
+terribly scientific. But they proved readable. She dipped first into
+one, and then into another, and what she read made her blood flame and
+rise to her head like sweet wine.
+
+In all, there was a great deal about the "power to will," the
+"super-man," the "right to live," and the "gospel of passion." In all,
+the purely beautiful was lauded as the end and aim of human endeavour.
+In all, the word "individuality" occurred over and over again, and in
+every conceivable connection. They all taught you to look down with
+vindictive pride on your fellow-creatures, and to despise them as a
+debased, tortured, and enslaved race. You wandered in glorious
+isolation, accompanied, perhaps, now and then by one or two kindred
+souls of lofty superiority, on storm-swept mountain-tops, breathing an
+eternally rarefied ether.
+
+In these pages was an unending offering-up of incense to self, an
+insatiable self-conceit, a glorification of murder and arson, pæans
+sung on such themes as lusts of the flesh, chambering and wantonness.
+
+Thus Lilly's soul became enveloped in a veil of intoxication and
+ravishing dreams. She felt as if she were seated in a sapphire-blue
+haze, which a far-off glow shot with purple threads. She heard music,
+hot and wild, storming on in angry dissonances like armies of mænads
+tearing down all obstacles in their way. She felt herself climbing
+steep craggy rocks, getting higher and ever higher. She fought against
+dizziness, and dared not look back for fear of being dashed to pieces
+in the abyss below. But she did not lose her footing; she cut and tore
+her hands in clinging to the sharp edges and swinging herself up--up!
+Now she was at the top and laughed. Oh, how she laughed down on the
+poor scum of humanity who crept about down there in misery and
+wretchedness, letting themselves be trampled on and crushed for the
+sake of their crumbs of daily bread! ... And then, again, a great
+pity overwhelmed her. Why should she alone stand on these wild,
+gold-shrouded summits, while all those others had no prospect of a near
+salvation? She would have liked to hold out her hand to her poor
+oppressed and hungry brothers and sisters, and help them to climb up
+too. But they would not be able to understand her or her message of
+redemption. Yes, that was what _he_ had called it, a "message of
+redemption." She saw their emaciated faces wet with the cold sweat of
+death, their glazed fixed eyes, that still could not turn their gaze
+from the glittering coin of their wretched living wage. She saw women
+in the last stage of pregnancy, thin and distended at the same time.
+She thought of the poor factory girl in Richard's packing-room, whose
+feverish hands made the doll that she wrapped in paper sway and dance.
+She thought of the others who had glanced at her with shy hate and
+hopeless envy in their weary eyes.
+
+Once more her affection for the factory, which she supposed on the day
+of her shame and humiliation had received its death-blow, awoke within
+her with a tender sadness, like the trembling hope of spring in our
+souls when the February snows begin to melt.
+
+This had certainly not been the object of Dr. Salmoni's loan of books.
+Nevertheless, they discharged their mission admirably in another
+direction. The dull gnawing "toothache" became a raging torment. The
+wish for a man--any man but Richard--who would understand and sweep her
+along with him, this wish possessed her with such overmastering force
+that she had scarcely strength left to writhe under its lash.
+
+Surely somewhere the _one_, the only one, existed? Surely some kind
+wave of this human ocean would one day wash him to her feet?
+
+One evening she dressed herself in quiet dark clothes, as much like a
+dressmaker's apprentice as possible, and slipped out into the street,
+as she had been in the habit of doing when Richard's warehouse drew her
+towards it with a thousand magnetic threads.
+
+She had no talent for taking walks without knowing where she was going.
+So, obedient to the dictates of her reawakened infatuation, she found
+herself treading the familiar way to the Alte Jakobstrasse. After
+outman[oe]uvring the advances of two old dandies and an impertinent
+counter-jumper, she halted opposite the latticed gates of the pillared
+entrance.
+
+She crouched for a long time in her sheltering doorway on the other
+side of the street, and stared at the building with which her fate had
+so indissolubly associated her. To-night, too, there were lights
+burning in his mother's apartments. Two jets of the chandelier threw
+out a steady flame like her cold clear eyes; the others were not lit,
+probably from motives of economy. All that was to be seen of the
+factory itself was the top of its huge chimney towering above the roof
+of the dwelling-house. A grim greeting, yet a greeting of some sort.
+Gladly would she have renewed acquaintance with the dear, forbidden,
+laurel-flanked stairs, but she had no longer sufficient courage at her
+command to cross the street.
+
+Then, feeling as if she had performed some virtuous deed, she turned to
+go home.
+
+She repeated the pilgrimage on three lonely evenings during the course
+of the week, and began to regard these aimless rambles as a necessity
+of existence. It happened once, when she was taking up her position in
+the protecting darkness of her favourite doorway, that a gentleman of
+elegant appearance and slender figure, who had come from the same
+direction, paused and took off his hat. She recognised Dr. Salmoni. So
+horrified was she that she forgot to acknowledge his greeting. If he
+were to betray her to Richard, she was doomed. He would imagine that
+jealousy or something worse drew her to shadow his house.
+
+"Ah, my charming lady," he began, mouthing his words in a
+self-satisfied way, "there is really something refreshing in meeting
+you opposite the world-renowned art emporium of Liebert & Dehnicke. As
+you know, I am a modest not-inquiring person with a soul, as it were,
+still unbreeched, so I refrain from asking you what has attracted you
+here--what impulse of the heart. You know the old fairy-tale of the
+queen who set forth to find her king, and ended in finding a
+swineherd.... Likewise it is possible that a pearl of great price may
+have strayed into a bronze manufactory. I should never have permitted
+myself the pleasure of following you intentionally. A certain dumb
+harmony of line fascinated me and led me on--perhaps a suggestion of
+brilliancy behind. But one should never shoot a hare out of season. Let
+your fruit ripen, dearest lady, is a very sound maxim, not only in
+relation to _soi-disant_ love--but the question is, whether it is worth
+while to believe in maxims. They smack of respectability, and
+respectability smacks of Virginian tobacco, which stinks, and is
+praised far and wide by the multitude, simply for that reason.... I
+hope you appreciate the deep truths that lie hidden in what I am
+saying, gracious lady?"
+
+"I wish to move from this spot at once," she said. "Suppose that we
+were seen here together?"
+
+"As far as that goes, it's the one place where we may be seen together
+with impunity," he laughed with boyish glee, "for only the most cussed
+imagination would surmise that we had selected this house for a secret
+rendezvous. But we'll move on, if you wish."
+
+He offered her his arm, which she refused.
+
+Then they walked together through crooked dark back streets towards the
+west-end. He went on talking steadily. One thought seemed to lead to
+another. Sometimes it seemed to Lilly as if he had forgotten her
+altogether in letting off his fireworks of speech. He revelled in the
+play of his own wit. For a long time his conversation seemed to have no
+connection with her and her pitiful existence. But she was mistaken;
+his gold was coined for her, and he expended it so lavishly that her
+brain had not room enough to assimilate it all.
+
+He walked beside her with an elastic, somewhat jumpy step. His cane,
+the knob of which he held in his pocket, flicked his shoulder. His
+white silk muffler gleamed, and that was all she could see of him. He
+talked on and on. How he talked! Often she felt as if she were being
+slapped, oftener as if she were caressed. When Richard and his friends
+were the target of his jeers, she would gladly have contradicted him;
+but he mentioned no names, and, after all, she had often thought the
+same.
+
+Tentatively he played on her aristocratic antecedents. He depicted
+scenes from country life, and said there was no pleasure to equal rides
+_à deux_ in the rosy freshness of early morning. It seemed as if he had
+been present at everything she had ever done.
+
+"I have lived a great deal in castles," he said, in explanation. "I
+know the life well."
+
+Her past, too, it would seem. So he went on searching into her soul.
+When he began to speak of the books which he had lent her, without
+commenting on her refusal to see him the morning he called, she made a
+mild protest.
+
+"Pray never lend me any more of the same kind!" she implored.
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"They puzzle me and make me ill.... I don't know how to describe it.
+You said they would help me to find myself ... but, on the contrary,
+they seem to estrange me from everything that I had always thought
+before was pure and holy."
+
+"Perhaps that is so," he replied, and his walking-stick danced;
+"perhaps this is the first step that I demand of you in the ascent to a
+higher life.... By-the-by, let me tell you a little story that comes in
+_à propos_ here. There were once two old zealous missionaries who were
+conscientiously fired with the desire to spread Christianity in Central
+Africa.... Such freaks are really quite superfluous, but they exist,
+and we have to put up with them. In order to render their work of
+conversion the more solemn and convincing, they took with them a small
+portable organ. They dragged it, sweating, hundreds of miles, through
+deadly tropical heat into the heart of the interior, where the poor
+naked savages resided, on whom they had designs. There they set up the
+organ and started their services, but no sooner had the poor naked
+savages heard the first notes than they took their cudgels and brained
+the two zealous missionaries, because of the evil spirits shut up in
+the musical-box. In the same manner life deals with us, my dear lady,
+when we try to play it on the good old organ of our exploded moral
+prejudices."
+
+Lilly felt powerless to cope with such an overmastering intellect. In
+silent submission she bowed her head. And as he now, without asking her
+consent, laid her hand in his arm, she dared not withdraw it. They
+passed grimy factory walls, the dreary blackness of which was here and
+there illumined by the milky blue light of a lamp-post, scaffoldings
+stretched skeleton arms against the lurid cloudy sky, and now and then
+they heard the bells of the electric tramcars as they ran along
+parallel routes.
+
+"Where are we going?" she asked nervously.
+
+"We are avoiding human society," he answered. "And if I were to take
+advantage of the present situation, I should profit by your feeling
+lost and in need of my protection. But I am not a designing nature. In
+all that concerns the emotions I am a mere babe.... I simply take what
+heaven lets fall. Are not you constituted in the same way?"
+
+"No, I am too stolid and heavy," she said, ready to open her heart to
+him. "I think over things ever so much."
+
+"It depends what you think," he said gaily.
+
+She wanted to speak out, to tell him everything, and she felt as if she
+must lay her heart on his open palm so that nothing should be hidden
+from him. But humility and awe of his stupendous cleverness sealed her
+lips.
+
+"Why do you trouble yourself about an idiot like me?" she asked, in
+order to show at least how humble she was.
+
+"Because I may have a mission to fulfil in your life," he answered.
+"_Perhaps_, I say, for one never can tell what reflex action of the
+emotions may bring about. Certain psychological moments will show us."
+
+She did not understand the meaning behind this remark, but a timid
+feeling of happiness that so infinitely great a man should be
+generously interested in her crept over her.
+
+"You are in his power," she thought; "he can make of you anything he
+likes."
+
+As he drew her arm a little closer to his, her pressure in response
+brought his hand for a moment in contact with her bosom. She was
+overcome with terror that he might think she was throwing herself at
+his head. What if she went home with him, that he asked her ...
+
+"I will take the tram," she said hurriedly. "I am tired."
+
+He whistled for a cab, which was approaching out of the fog.
+
+"No, no!" she cried, with no other thought than that of preserving the
+gift of his friendship as it was, intact. "Not with you. I must go home
+alone. You know what people are; besides ..."
+
+She wrenched her arm out of his, and ran to the next stopping place so
+quickly that he could scarcely follow her before she had jumped on the
+first car that came up. The smile with which he looked after her was,
+however, not a disappointed one.
+
+He intended to triumph, and would triumph.
+
+Lilly Czepanek was once more travelling upwards to the heights.
+
+
+                           *   *   *   *   *
+
+
+Three days later they met again, but this time at a large social
+gathering. The party had come from a _café chantant_ in the northern
+part of the town, and were to wind up the evening in the private back
+room of a middle-class public-house.
+
+By an unlucky chance the seat she had carefully kept for him by her
+side fell to someone else's share. This put her out; but there was
+champagne to cheer up everyone.
+
+Lilly, out of defiance and boredom, drank far more than was good for
+her. Her eyes began to blaze with a challenging merriment; her cheeks
+took on the rosy-apple hue which all her friends delighted in. Her
+laughter became shriller, her movements more and more animated.
+Suddenly there was a loud call for "Lilly." Lilly was to perform.
+
+Her heart misgave her. Not once, as yet, had she dared to recite in his
+presence. Indeed, no one had thought of asking her when he was of the
+company, for he was always the centre of attraction. Then she felt,
+"To-day I can do anything--to-day I will show him what there is in me."
+
+She stood up, tossed back the hair from her forehead, and shook herself
+... shook off every vestige of the everyday Lilly; the Lilly subject to
+fits of depression and faintheartedness; the vacillating, inanimate
+Lilly.... Now she was off. She first plunged into an imitation of "La
+belle Otero," and crowed and whooped so that her audience laughed till
+it cried.... Then she mimicked a star of the cabarets, ... sucked her
+thumb in babylike simplicity and piped, "Let me in, I say, into your
+room to-day." In a comical double-bass she growled, "An ambassador
+would a-wooing go." Half-hidden behind the hatstand she cooed the song
+of the passionate love-pigeon, "Gurr ... gurr ... keak." Finally they
+begged her to dance. At first she protested, but in vain; she had to
+give in. Tables and chairs were moved out of the way, and making her
+own dance-music between her teeth, she whirled madly round the room,
+till half-fainting she collapsed into a corner.
+
+The applause seemed as if it would never stop. The women devoured her
+with kisses, the men stroked her arms and hair, and Richard stood
+silent and pale with pride, in his Napoleonic attitude, and gnawed his
+moustache ends. Dr. Salmoni, however, kept in the background, smiled a
+melancholy modest smile, and looked as if he had nothing on earth to do
+with what had passed. Only one brief glance of understanding, that he
+threw at her like a laurel-wreath, told her that he knew for whom she
+had let herself go. When the party broke up, she was still glowing with
+ecstasy from head to foot.
+
+Yes! this was the genuine intoxication, of the charms of which he had
+lately spoken to her; it was like a hissing flame darting through your
+heart and limbs.
+
+It was he who helped her on with her fur coat, for Richard was engaged
+in paying the bill; and while he carefully placed the sable boa round
+her shoulders, he whispered close to her ear, "May I call to-morrow?"
+
+"Yes," she said, terrified at herself; and then, in defiance of her own
+cowardice, she turned brusquely on her heel and shouted back in his
+face four or five times, as if in wrath, "Yes, yes, yes, yes!"
+
+"What is the matter with her?" people asked each other.
+
+But she laughed a short, hard laugh. What did she care for them? Was
+she not once more scaling the heights?
+
+
+                           *   *   *   *   *
+
+
+The next morning all seemed like a fantastic dream. Only one fact stood
+out clearly. He was coming to call!
+
+She stretched herself in shy conceit as the applause of last night
+echoed in her ears. Now he knew what she was. No dull, tame,
+half-developed creature; no servile, sheep-like nature, whose fixed
+horror of fate made her the voluntary slave of every convention. But,
+on the contrary, a free, proud, luminous super-being, one of those
+perfectly complete, mænad-like women who dance on the edge of
+precipices and mock at death, even when he holds them in his clutches.
+
+Then she became faint-hearted once more. After all, what was there to
+boast of in having sung a few songs and danced an outrageous dance
+under the influence of champagne? She had only behaved like a
+common music-hall diva, and reaped the undesirable plaudits of a
+half-inebriated audience! Was that all one had to do to belong to the
+elect, the laughter-loving, powerful souls of Dr. Salmoni's literature?
+
+No, oh no! that could not be the key! After such an exhibition he would
+feel nothing but scorn or, at best, pity for her.... And if he came
+to-day it would be only to tell her what he thought of her. He would
+show her how degraded she was, and then benevolently go his way quite
+unconcerned.
+
+She wouldn't endure that. She would cling to him, and cry, "You have
+promised to lead me to the heights out of this barren miserable
+existence. Now keep your word! Don't forsake me. I'll do everything you
+wish. I will be your slave, your dog; only don't forsake me."
+
+In feverish expectation she dressed, waved her hair, reddened the lips
+that dissipation had paled, and altogether made herself as beautiful as
+possible.
+
+Towards twelve there was a ring. Was it he?
+
+No; instead of Dr. Salmoni, Frau Jula had come to call. What did she
+want all of a sudden? They had, as if by mutual agreement, avoided each
+other since that evening of confidences. And here she was now, without
+even going through the formality of being announced! Her air was
+cordial, almost affectionate, and she craved a chat.
+
+Lilly hesitated.
+
+"I won't keep you long, my sweet one. I can see you are expecting a
+visitor."
+
+"I didn't know that I was," she said, conscious that she blushed.
+
+"Don't deny it, dear.... I know that Dr. Salmoni is coming.... I know,
+too, exactly how you feel. I, too, have gone through it, and stood,
+getting pale and pink in turns, as I watched for him.... My morning
+dress, certainly, was not such a ravishing reseda as yours; it was only
+claret colour ... but that is all the same; he doesn't mind us in
+claret colour."
+
+"What do you imply by that?" faltered Lilly.
+
+"What do I imply? ... Why, simply this. Our circle for Dr. Salmoni is a
+kind of fish-pond of pretty light women, in which he angles from time
+to time, till he hooks something that his appetite fancies. At present
+he is hooking you, my dearest."
+
+"That is slander!" cried Lilly, flaring up. "He has never made love to
+me, nor has such a thing been even mentioned between us."
+
+"Because it isn't necessary," replied Frau Jula; and she laughed
+maliciously. "The man does not trouble himself with such trifling
+preliminaries. He knows that at the right moment we shall rise to his
+bait."
+
+Lilly felt herself getting more and more angry.
+
+"Between him and me nothing has passed but discussions on purely
+intellectual subjects, such as a freer, prouder, and higher human
+ideal; and if you, and people like you, can't understand such language;
+if you are too----"
+
+"Stop, my dear, please," said Frau Jula, "Don't be insulting! There is
+no occasion. I have come to you with the best intentions. For anyone
+else I would not have taken the trouble; I should only have smacked my
+lips. But _you_--well, I am fond of you, even if you prefer to have
+nothing to do with me. And you he shall leave alone. And yesterday,
+when I saw to what a pass things had come, I could give myself no
+peace.... I felt compelled to come ... before it was too late."
+
+"But, indeed, you are mistaken," said Lilly; nevertheless, she cast an
+anxious look at the clock.
+
+Frau Jula, whom this did not escape, made a grimace,
+
+"Directly there's a ring, I'll slip out through the next room, but by
+that time I shall have achieved my object, I hope.... You see,
+child"--she sank into the sofa-corner and drew Lilly down beside
+her--"we poor women have all longed to raise ourselves again, so long
+as we were pretty faithful to one person.... And then Dr. Salmoni
+enters. He has to angle longer for some of us than others, but he
+doesn't mind how cheaply he gets us. He has, too, various baits. For a
+cold-blooded lump like Karla he doesn't go the same way to work as with
+us, naturally. With us he begins in this way: 'My gracious one, I am
+always amazed to find you in such an environment as this. Tell me, what
+are you doing here?'"
+
+Lilly looked startled.
+
+"Well, was that it? or wasn't it?"
+
+"Yes, but ..."
+
+"It was. That's enough. Next comes his depicting of the dangers we
+encounter if we continue to live in bondage.... He is especially down
+on duty. Duty he can't tolerate; it is obnoxious to him. As if we were
+so terribly particular about our little bit of duty, forsooth! Now
+then, wasn't that it? Am I not right?"
+
+"Yes, but ..." stammered Lilly.
+
+"I thought so. And next he says _he_ wants to set us free ... to lead
+us upwards on high. He is the personal conductor to the heights. Isn't
+it so?"
+
+Lilly turned her head aside to conceal the blush of shame that suffused
+her neck and face.
+
+"And then the books! Wretched trash written by little raw scribblers in
+imitation of our great Nietzsche! But we all fall into the trap; it
+works up our blood like cayenne pepper; we get quite maudlin over it.
+What enrages us afterwards is that we were actually such geese as to
+believe in his scoundrelly sentiment, although the scurviest cynicism
+exudes from all his pores. But one is so stupid, and he is so clever.
+Yes, to give the devil his due, he is clever."
+
+"But how does he manage it?" asked Lilly, who dared no longer stand up
+for him. "How does he seem to know everything about your past, as if he
+had lived it with you?"
+
+"Yes, child, it's strange. But, you know, people whose circumstances
+are the same generally have the same experiences. It is easy enough for
+him to reconstruct our past when we tell him we've lived in the
+country. I am a landed-proprietor's daughter. Didn't he, by-the-by,
+tell you he had passed much of his time in castles?"
+
+Lilly nodded.
+
+"That's because he--I found it all out later--was tutor to some Jews
+who rented a place near Breslau; but they soon gave him the sack for
+his impudence."
+
+In the midst of her agony of disillusionment Lilly could not help
+laughing shrilly.
+
+"That's capital!" her friend approved. "You can think yourself
+fortunate. If only someone had come and warned me! for afterwards, how
+it hurts!"
+
+"What happens afterwards?" Lilly asked, hesitating.
+
+"It's very simple _afterwards_. When he's got what he wants, it's over.
+He buttons up his coat, says in a voice of deep emotion, '_Au revoir_';
+but it never comes, his _au revoir_. You never see him again."
+
+"That isn't true; it can't be true!" cried Lilly in horror. "Surely no
+man can be such a cur to a woman!"
+
+"You--never--see--him--again," repeated Frau Jula. "Why should you? The
+creature has other matters of more importance to attend to. I wrote my
+fingers to the bone. Not a line in response!... There's no getting at
+him. Frau Welter lay on his doorstep, Karla got the jaundice from fury,
+and so on. But the man's an eel. Later, if you meet him at a carousal,
+there's not the faintest recollection in his eyes ... he just treats
+you as he treats the rest."
+
+Startled, Lilly recalled how she too had adopted a like course of
+action, and appeared at a carousal without betraying the slightest
+memory of what had passed before, although he had turned on her
+petitioning tragi-comical glances. Yes, everyone was as bad as everyone
+else in this world, in which one cast off one's dignity like a worn-out
+dress. She buried her face in the sofa-corner, overcome with shame and
+consciousness of guilt.
+
+"Never mind," comforted Frau Jula. "It's all right now." And then there
+was a ring.
+
+Lilly rushed to the door to give instructions as before, that she was
+"not at home," but Frau Jula restrained her.
+
+"What are you thinking about?" she whispered. "Don't let him think you
+are afraid of him. If you do, you won't be rid of him for a long time.
+You must laugh at him. Do you understand? Laugh at him pitilessly with
+all your might."
+
+Lilly would have liked her to stay and help her out, but she had
+already slipped away. Could she possibly outwit him single-handed?...
+He was now in the room. Drawn to her full height, she received him as a
+deadly enemy.
+
+"My dearest child," he said, and kissed the hand which she quickly drew
+away from him.
+
+He was very choicely dressed. He wore straw-coloured gloves, and held
+his silk hat against his breast. His eye glass danced on his white
+waistcoat.
+
+A serene self-confidence, an air of supreme mastery of the situation,
+illumined his person like an aureole. The manner in which he nestled
+comfortably against the cushions of his chair, and crossed his legs
+with easy self-assurance, showed plainly that he regarded her as his
+certain prey.
+
+Lilly was no longer nervous and in doubt. Her soreness of heart and
+disappointment had vanished. She felt nothing but a cold calculating
+curiosity. She followed his every movement with calm amazement, as he
+passed his hand over his glossy bushy hair and hitched up his trousers
+to display his silk socks with red clocks. And all the time she kept
+saying to herself, "So this is what you are! This!"
+
+And then he began to talk in his low deliberate caressing voice, while
+his piercing eyes wandered up and down her. "You are excited, my dear
+child, and I am not astonished. When two people such as we are find
+themselves for the first time absolutely alone together, they are apt
+to betray their emotions. Don't be ashamed of yours.... The tie that
+has bound us together is so subtle and delicate an understanding--the
+magnetic fluid between us is of such a rare and fleeting nature--"
+"Yes, very fleeting," thought Lilly---- "that it really would be a pity
+if we did not taste and enjoy it to the dregs. Any restraint of feeling
+might easily prove a hindrance on your side, as well as on my own, to
+the full rapture of this hour of spiritual hedonism."
+
+He almost smacked his lips as he said this, and rocked from side to
+side. Lilly thought of the refrain of a Viennese song in her
+repertoire: "I have much too much feeling."
+
+"_He_ has much too much," she said to herself, and she could not help a
+smile flitting across her face.
+
+He saw the smile, which she tried to hide by bending her head, and he
+misinterpreted it.
+
+"There is a delightful virginal coyness about you," he said, with an
+admiring oscillation of his head, "that never fails to excite my
+wonder."
+
+"Oh, you mountebank!" thought Lilly, and smiled again.
+
+Now he was slightly perplexed, for his wide and varied experience had
+taught him something. He shot at her from under his lids a glance of
+suspicion and thwarted greed.
+
+"Or have you," he continued, "kept over for to-day some of the
+charmingly graceful humour which you developed last night with such
+unexpected _élan_?"
+
+"I may have," she replied, with an upward glance which was almost arch.
+
+"Most excellent!" he cried, his face breaking into a roguish smile in
+which there was a touch of devilry. "Are you, then, one of those who
+know how to laugh in your sleeve at--how shall I express it?--the whole
+farce and hypocrisy of it all ... at yourself too, my child--at
+yourself, mind; that is the main point, ... If so, you and I are one,
+one in body and soul ... nothing divides us any more ... then ..."
+
+"God forgive me!" she thought, and held her handkerchief pressed
+against her lips to stop her giggling. Had not Frau Jula said, "Laugh
+at him; laugh at him pitilessly with all your might"?
+
+For his part he seemed to accept her suppressed laughter as an
+allurement, a gentle signal to cut short ceremonious preliminaries, for
+he chose this moment for springing at her and laying his arms about her
+waist.
+
+She repulsed his attack fiercely and struggled with him. Tears of
+humiliation and fury coursed down her cheeks.
+
+"Have I come to this?" a voice cried within her as she struck at him
+with her fists. In the midst of the tussle she succeeded in reaching
+the bell.
+
+The maid-servant came in. He picked up his hat from the floor and,
+murmuring something that sounded like "_Canaille_!" disappeared.
+
+He disappeared too for ever from the little circle, which he had at
+times honoured with his presence.
+
+
+                           *   *   *   *   *
+
+
+Lilly gave up attempting to scale the heights.
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER XI
+
+
+During the year that followed, Lilly engaged in two small love
+adventures, which had no influence on her subsequent life.
+
+While she was staying for a month's change of air in the Riesengebirge
+she came across a novelist whose name at that time was in everybody's
+mouth. He was parading his newly acquired fame at the Bohemian bathing
+resorts, and accepted cheerfully any good thing that came in his way.
+He forced his acquaintance on Lilly without much difficulty, and in a
+few days left her in search of fresh conquests.
+
+Back in Berlin, she flirted with a handsome and elegant officer of the
+Hussars whom she had first met in an aristocratic restaurant. But on
+his sending her a little leather case from a jeweller's, she speedily
+threw him over.
+
+Both these affairs gave her no pleasure to look back upon, and she
+tried to erase them from her memory.
+
+At Christmas her little household was increased by a new member. She
+had often complained to Richard that her life was empty of interest.
+She would like something alive to pet and cherish and love, and so one
+day he brought her a little naked monkey, that even when he nestled
+close to her breast could not get warm, and in his wrath spat in her
+face scorn of her yearning caresses.
+
+From time to time there was the excitement, too, of new marriage
+schemes.
+
+How well she knew the signs! When Richard, with scowlling brows,
+absent-minded, and taciturn, made the tour of the rooms, when he began
+to philosophise over the rottenness of everything, when his mother
+wanted the carriage at unwonted hours, when little packets of concert
+and opera tickets fell out of his pocket-book, then she knew that
+something was going on out of the ordinary routine. And soon he would
+break silence and tell her what it was. One of them had three millions,
+influential relatives, mines, factories, trusts, house property, making
+up a dazzling perspective. Often figures were talked in Lilly's corner
+drawing-room to such an extent that it might have been the office of an
+outside stockbroker. Another eligible young woman was actually poor,
+but she was a general's daughter, and his mother thought no end of her.
+
+"And I am a general's widow," said Lilly, in her wounded pride.
+
+This church mouse he called his "distinguished lady-love." But it went
+no further. She and all the rest were soon heard no more of, because
+none of them turned out in the end to be good enough for him.
+
+Lilly meditated and planned what she must be like.... She must have
+white, softly rounded statuesque arms like the tall Danish girl's at
+the artists' carnival, and a very delicate, scarcely perceptible
+bust--her own seemed to her now to be too prominent--and when she
+smiled she must show two dimples in her cheeks; for dimples denoted a
+peaceable disposition.
+
+Yes, that was what he wanted more than anything--peace. She knew how he
+hated wrangling, and, as a matter of fact, they hardly ever did
+wrangle; but, if such a thing as a little quarrel did occur, he would
+be miserable for three days, speak in a woebegone, injured tone, and
+had to be coaxed back to good temper like a child. And Lilly enjoyed
+doing this, though she knew he did not deserve it. For there was no
+blinking the matter any longer; he had become a regular reprobate. It
+was not so much that he had lost enormous sums at his club, but he led
+the debauched existence of the fastest married man, and his amours were
+not of the purest.
+
+One day a pretty young thing, with a baby eight weeks old in her arms,
+called on Lilly, screamed and cried and declared that she ought to be
+promoted to Lilly's place, as she had a child by him.
+
+Lilly consoled her, gave her some wine to drink, and, full of envy of
+the baby, tickled it under its damp little chin till it gurgled with
+bliss; whereupon the girl departed, deeply touched, after kissing
+Lilly's hand gratefully.
+
+Richard, however, came in for no unpleasant scene that afternoon, for
+Lilly was entirely free from jealousy. When he came to her, looking
+sheepish, and avoided meeting her eyes, while his person exhaled an
+odour of cheap perfume, she always gave him a smile of maternal
+indulgence, which he well understood and couldn't bear.
+
+However determined he might be to keep silent, he invariably broke down
+at last, and in about half an hour had poured out shuffling
+confessions, for which he expected to be praised or comforted.
+
+It was inevitable that Lilly, in an existence of this sort, in which
+were rampant all the evils of married life, without any of its rights
+and dignity, should become more and more self-centred, and look forward
+to the future with increasing sadness.
+
+She passed her days as if seated on a bough which every gust of wind
+threatened to snap, and so plunge her into the depths below. Before her
+lay a straight, dull, endless road, stretching onwards without goal,
+without horizon--nothing but the same old pleasures, the same aimless
+wandering about from one haunt to another till morning dawned. Often
+she felt as tired out as if she had been doing hard manual labour.
+Sometimes she struck, and lay the whole day in bed reading _Fliegende
+Blätter_, or dreaming of old days with closed eyes.
+
+The sunless hole of the widow Asmussen's library came back to her like
+a paradise, and the milk puddings in retrospect seemed veritable
+ambrosia. The memory of her early loves she scarcely dared conjure up,
+as if it were sacrilege to think of them in such a present. Yet she
+caught herself indulging in vague hopes that one or other of them might
+one day turn up out of the past, and, holding his hand out to her, say,
+"You have wandered long enough in the wilderness, now come home." Who
+it would be she hadn't a notion, but she felt it must happen. Things
+could not go on like this for ever.
+
+Every now and then, when secret restlessness gave her no peace, she
+resumed her nocturnal strolls, and taking the electric tram to distant
+suburbs would wander guiltily up and down unfamiliar lively streets,
+just as Frau Jula did; only, unlike Frau Jula, she never could bring
+herself to answer her pursuers.
+
+
+                           *   *   *   *   *
+
+
+It was on one of these expeditions--in a northerly direction far away
+beyond the Rosental gate--that one May evening she met a young man who
+did not take any notice of her, who also did not look like a gentleman,
+but whose appearance struck her as familiar--so familiar that it gave
+her a stab at the heart.
+
+Yet, though she racked her brains, she could not recall where she had
+seen him before.
+
+With quick decision she began to follow him. He wore a brown hat, a
+pepper-and-salt suit with a yellowish tinge, which had known better
+days. His coat-collar was shiny, and his trousers were very baggy at
+the knees. They hung over his down-at-heel boots in fringes, as if
+someone had tried to mend them, and left black uneven ends of cotton.
+
+No, this could not be one of her friends even in disguise. Her friends
+would never own to such trousers. He paused once or twice to look in at
+the shop-windows. First, he looked in at a cigar-shop, then at a
+butcher's; but he lingered longest before a hosier's, from which Lilly
+concluded that his shirts also were in need of renewal.
+
+When he thus gave her a view of his profile, she saw in the reflection
+of the rows of lights a haggard, bony face, with prominent nose, and a
+tuft of reddish-brown hair on either side of his chin. He seemed to be
+dried up and needy, rather than actually ill. The lids of his small,
+narrow eyes were swollen and inflamed, and before coming within the
+radius of shop-window lights, he clapped a pair of dark-blue goggles on
+his nose to protect them.
+
+He had a cane in his hand, which as he walked he pressed into a bow
+against the kerb, letting it rebound again. The silver knob of this
+cane, which matched ill with the shabbiness of his attire, somehow
+awoke recollections of a frosty morning, hot rolls, and church bells.
+
+She gave an exclamation, for she remembered now. Fritz Redlich it
+was--Fritz Redlich! Yes, it was; it was!
+
+There could be no further doubt. Her first love, her first lover ...
+her brave young champion in life's battle. Hers and St. Joseph's
+protégé!
+
+Oh dear, yes, St. Joseph! And then the revolver! And the potato soup
+with sliced sausage! Oh!... and "The graves at Ottensen"!
+
+"Herr Redlich! Herr Redlich!"
+
+Trembling and laughing she stood behind him, holding out her two hands
+to the young man, who shrank back nervously.
+
+He dropped his goggles and gazed blankly at the tall, elegantly dressed
+lady, from behind whose lace veil two star-like, tear-filled eyes gave
+him a blissful greeting. His red lids blinked suspiciously; then he
+raised his left hand with a clumsy gesture to his hat brim.
+
+"But, Herr Redlich ... Don't you know me? I am Lilly--Lilly Czepanek.
+Don't you remember Lilly?"
+
+Yes, now he remembered. "Of course," he said, "why shouldn't I remember
+you?"
+
+At the same moment he pulled down his waistcoat with a stealthy jerk,
+as if to rectify as best he could the shortcomings of his personal
+appearance.
+
+"Oh, Herr Redlich, what a long time it is since we've met! It must, I
+think, be six or eight years. No, it can't be as long; and yet to me it
+seems longer. Things have gone well with you, I hope? I expect you are
+terribly busy, otherwise we might spend a little time together."
+
+He certainly was busy, but, in spite of that, if she liked, he could
+spare her a quarter of an hour.
+
+"Shall we go into a restaurant," she suggested, still half-crying and
+half-laughing, "and have a glass of beer? I can hardly believe it, Herr
+Redlich, that we've really met again."
+
+He had decided objections to the glass of beer.
+
+"Restaurants are so stuffy and crowded," he said, "and the beer about
+here is so bad--not fit to drink."
+
+"Poor fellow! He's too poor to pay for it," she thought; and she
+suggested that they should sit down on a seat somewhere instead.
+
+He didn't mind doing that so long as ... He glanced shyly to the right
+and left to see if anyone had remarked what a badly matched couple they
+were.
+
+They walked side by side along the more secluded Weinsberg path. Lilly
+kept looking at him with pride and emotion, as if she had created him
+out of space.
+
+"Dear, dear Herr Redlich," she reiterated, "is it possible?--is it
+possible?"
+
+Then they found a bench outside a church, in a dusky spot, overhung
+with lilac branches. A pair of lovers had just vacated it.
+
+"Now tell me everything, Herr Redlich. Oh dear, what a lot we have to
+tell each other!"
+
+"There is a good deal," he replied, hesitating; "perhaps the gracious
+baroness will begin?"
+
+"Pooh! I am not a 'gracious baroness' now, and haven't been for a long
+time."
+
+"Ah! so I think I have heard," he replied, and his tone implied blame
+and a sense of outrage.
+
+"And I don't in the least regret it," she added quickly, "for, taking
+things altogether, I live a much freer and happier life than I did
+before. I have no cares, and my little home is delightful. I am in the
+happiest circumstances and ought to be thankful. I should be so very
+pleased if you would come and convince yourself that it is so.... You
+would always find me at home in the middle of the day.... Perhaps you
+will dine with me some time?"
+
+"Oh!" he said, apparently agreeably surprised.
+
+She gave a sigh of relief at having steered clear of the rocks of her
+autobiography. He made no further inquiries. But he seemed equally
+unwilling to give information about himself, either with regard to his
+present or his past circumstances.
+
+"Life has its shady side," he said, "and when one finds one's self
+among the shadows, it's a question whether it's advisable to speak
+about it."
+
+"But I am such an old friend!" cried Lilly. "You can confide in me.
+Fancy that we are sitting on the old terrace in the Junkerstrasse....
+Don't you remember ... that time we first spoke to each other? It was
+just such a May evening as this."
+
+"It was warmer," he replied, turning up the collar of his jacket as far
+as his ears.
+
+"You are cold?" she asked, laughing, for she was aglow from head to
+foot.
+
+"I haven't"--he paused--"my summer overcoat with me to-night."
+
+"Oh, then we had better get up," she said, becoming thoughtful; "we can
+talk just as well walking about."
+
+And so they paced up and down in the shadow of the old church; but the
+interchange of personal confidences flagged. He evaded questions and
+she evaded them, and they put each other off with generalities. She
+extolled her happy lot; he sighed over his: "It's hard--very hard!"
+just as he had done at the time of his examination; she could hear him
+as plainly as if it were yesterday.
+
+"How are your people?" she asked, to change the subject:
+
+His father had died after a short illness two years ago, his mother
+still made cravats.
+
+As he told her this, he settled the invisible tie under his upturned
+collar. No doubt he was wearing a gay token of maternal skill and
+maternal generosity.
+
+Then, when she had expressed her condolences, she inquired with a
+slightly beating heart how Frau Asmussen was, and her daughters.
+
+He made a sound with his lips as he answered: "They are very
+undesirable neighbours. The elder of the two girls has married a
+cashier, who is likely to lose his berth owing to irregularities. The
+younger has charge of the library, and the mother now drinks like a
+fish."
+
+He related this in the same outraged tone in which he had previously
+alluded to Lilly's divorce.
+
+"He is evidently still very proper," Lilly thought, with a sense of her
+own unworthiness and impropriety.
+
+He was unhappy, nevertheless. She was sure of that.
+
+And poor, very, very poor! Poorer than she had ever been in all her
+life. Who could say if he were not suffering the pangs of hunger now as
+he walked along beside her, shivering in his threadbare, shabby coat?
+
+"Well, Herr Redlich," she said, "if your engagements will allow you,
+why not come to-morrow and dine with me?"
+
+His engagements interfered most emphatically with his getting off in
+the middle of the day to change his clothes ... but if she wouldn't
+mind his coming as he was ...
+
+"You may come just as you like," she cried with a laugh. "And you shall
+have your mother's potato soup."
+
+So saying, she squeezed both his hands and jumped into a tramcar.
+
+Oh, what a joy this was! What a joy! Now she had found what she had
+been looking for so long. Someone for whom she could care, someone to
+pet and spoil. Someone to whom she would be more than a toy and a
+plaything; who would regard her as his sunshine and bread of life, and
+his gentle guide to hope and happiness.
+
+Someone who would be hers alone--hers alone!
+
+He hid risen from the grave of her youth, even as she had imagined in
+her dreams. And now life was going to be different; full of riches,
+full of secrets. Little, funny, but perfectly innocent secrets!
+
+That night she slept little. Her new-found happiness kept her awake
+like children's Christmas anticipations. Her present servant, a buxom
+country girl, who had soon got accustomed to town ways, stared in
+astonishment the next morning when Lilly, whom she had hitherto
+regarded as lazy, rose early and prepared to go out marketing.
+
+"I am expecting a friend," explained Lilly, smiling.
+
+She wanted to buy everything herself--the meat, the radishes; above
+all, the sausages that once had been the glory of his mother's potato
+soup.
+
+She also superintended the cooking. She laid the table, moved the palm
+from the aquarium so that there should be something green on the table,
+for in her excitement she had forgotten to buy flowers. This was her
+very first guest at dinner for more than two years; and such a dear
+guest, perhaps the dearest she could possibly have entertained.
+
+At half-past twelve the servant came in, turning up her nose in
+contempt, to say that a young man wanted to speak to her mistress.
+
+"That is my guest!" cried Lilly.
+
+"I shouldn't have thought it," said the girl, with a haughty inflection
+in her voice, as Lilly rushed past her to welcome him.
+
+At first he seemed too shy to enter the light. He hung about the
+doorpost and tugged at his suit, which indeed looked dreadfully shabby
+and frayed, more so than last night.
+
+His inflamed eyes, like two red slits blinking behind his round
+glasses, gave him an air of groping helplessness. The lofty
+intellectual forehead had acquired an ugly receding look, because the
+forelock of genius no longer fell over it. His once magnificent mass of
+fair hair had become a matted thatch of tow, and looked as if a comb
+hadn't touched it for many a long day.
+
+He appeared disinclined for conversation. He devoured the potato soup
+with tremulous appreciation, leaving the slices of sausage to the last.
+When his soup-plate was dry, he stuck his fork into one bit after the
+other, and conveyed it to his mouth with uneasy glances to the right
+and left, as if he suspected someone were waiting in ambush to deprive
+him of his pleasure.
+
+The roast meat filled him with less awe, and he heaped his plate high,
+regardless of the waiting-maid's sneers. Moreover, he drank Richard's
+good claret in long, unconscionable draughts, and with flushed, mottled
+cheeks began to laugh and find his tongue.
+
+Lilly, who had been rather depressed at first, watched him thaw with
+relief, and thought perhaps, after all, he might be made presentable.
+And then the idea occurred to her that here really was a case of
+working out a man's salvation, very different from her delusions about
+saving a Walter von Prell. And this reflection filled her with renewed
+blissful assurance.
+
+After the meal, they retired to the corner drawing-room. And here,
+under the influence of the unaccustomed wine, he became a prey to
+frivolity, seated himself in the rocking-chair, and tickled the
+snarling monkey.
+
+He presented a ghastly spectacle as he lounged back in the chair with
+his legs nonchalantly stretched out before him. The frayed ends of his
+trousers were tucked into the tops of his boots, exposing to view
+ragged loops; and as Lilly contemplated him, she said to herself, "This
+must be altered," and she began to cudgel her brains as to how a
+transformation was to be achieved.
+
+As for him, the barriers of reserve being once broken down he began to
+disclose his innermost soul and to air his views on life.
+
+Oh! what feelings of gall and bitterness came to light! He had been so
+soured by the long struggle with privations and hardships, and eternal
+envy of others happier and brighter and more favoured by fortune than
+himself, that he could see no merit in anything, and attacked all
+talents, attainments, and prosperity--called everyone humbugs and
+hypocrites, said that getting on was entirely a matter of birth,
+interest, and push, and anathematised success as a hollow fraud.
+
+At the same time he had very little to say about his own personal
+experiences. She could not find out whether he was still a student; he
+would only confess that his deepest feelings had been hurt irreparably
+in the grim fight for existence. And while he talked and laughed
+stridently, two semicircular dents appeared in his lean cheeks, giving
+his face a hard, sarcastic expression. Lilly had a dim remembrance that
+of old these marks had been visible on his youthful countenance, though
+less accentuated.
+
+"Oh, poor, poor fellow!" she thought compassionately, and resolved on
+the instant to make a man of him again, inwardly and outwardly. But
+when he was gone she felt very sad and depressed. "Am I much better
+off?" she asked herself. "What has become of the joyous confidence in
+life that I once had? Where is my joy of life, where my Song of Songs?"
+
+
+                           *   *   *   *   *
+
+
+That afternoon, before Richard came, she evolved a scheme by which she
+could bestow a new wardrobe on Fritz Redlich, without drawing on
+Richard's purse or offending Fritz Redlich.
+
+"What do you think?" she said to him after tea. "Since yesterday two
+rather extraordinary things have happened--one a very nice thing, and
+the other a very sad thing. First, I have met an old friend of mine,
+who before he went to the university lived on the same floor as I did.
+And then this morning a poor student called and begged for something to
+eat. He looked so miserable! Have you, in case he calls again, any
+clothes to give away? Suits and boots--he wants everything."
+
+"I'll give you some with pleasure," said Richard. "I don't know what to
+do with all my left-off stuff." But the other, the "old friend," made
+him thoughtful. "What sort of a chap is he?" he asked.
+
+In her effort to keep distinct the two mythical beings that she had
+made out of one living reality, she began to sing the old friend's
+praises with far too much exaggeration to be judicious. He was an
+extremely clever and quite distinguished young professor, who had
+completed his university course and was just entering on a brilliant
+career, a paragon of knowledge and intellect, and goodness knew what
+else.
+
+"What was his special subject?"
+
+She really didn't know, only that it was something very profound and
+erudite. Nothing but an academic career was worthy of his talents.
+
+She found herself immersed in such a whirlpool of lies that at last she
+did not know what she was saying.
+
+Richard, acutely conscious of his intellectual limitations, cherished
+an unbounded reverence for anyone with brains; he grew very red, looked
+uneasy and vexed.
+
+"I suppose he'll be coming to see you?" he asked.
+
+"Of course," she replied, highly satisfied with her finesse.
+
+"Congratulations on your soul's affinity," he said with a mocking bow,
+"so long as I am not expected to meet him."
+
+Nothing could have turned out better. The next morning a factory porter
+brought her a huge bundle from Herr Dehnicke. It contained a nearly new
+summer tweed suit in the latest fashion, several coloured cambric
+shirts, a pair of boots, and blue silky-looking undergarments.
+
+He seemed to have wanted to exhibit his charity in a very magnificent
+manner; for, as a rule, generosity to the poor was not in his line.
+
+The next thing to be thought of was how to hand the clothes over to
+Fritz Redlich without giving offence.
+
+Three days later, when he came again, she made an excuse after dinner
+for showing him over the flat. He must see how well it was arranged.
+When they came to the lumber-room she opened the door quite casually,
+and there, in the company of discarded blouses, broken vases, faded
+flowers, and other rubbish, the tweed suit hung ostentatiously.
+
+"When I left the general's house I brought it and some other men's
+clothes here by mistake," she explained. "That's why it hangs there
+getting spoilt."
+
+His small, weak eyes lighted greedily.
+
+Did he perhaps know of someone to whom such things would be useful?
+
+He answered snappily that he did not, but he could not resist casting a
+downward glance at his own trousers.
+
+Wasn't there anyone to whom he would be doing a favour by offering the
+clothes?
+
+There was no one that he knew of, he repeated.
+
+In spite of her anxiety not to hurt his feelings, she plucked up
+courage and remarked that there was, if she were not mistaken, an
+extraordinary similarity between his figure and the quondam wearer's of
+the suit. The general might have been a trifle stouter, but any little
+tailor would alter ...
+
+Then he became seriously angry. He was not the man to accept benefits
+from any charitably disposed person he met. Did she think he had sunk
+so low as that? He had principles, and to wear cast-off raiment
+belonging to people he knew nothing about was a proceeding his
+principles would never tolerate.
+
+Lilly, with a sigh, reluctantly relinquished her idea.
+
+He seemed unable to tear himself away. He sat on and on and at last she
+was obliged to give him a hint, for at any moment now Richard might be
+coming in.
+
+At the top of the stairs he turned round again, and asked, stuttering,
+would it be as convenient if next time he came in the evening?
+
+"Can you no longer manage to get off at midday?" she asked, taken
+aback. On Richard's account she never received strangers late in the
+afternoon.
+
+"It wasn't that," he began to explain, lingering and hesitating, so
+that she listened in a fever for footsteps on the stairs.
+
+"Well, what then?"
+
+"I should like to think over the matter you mentioned just now, and ...
+and ..."
+
+"Well, and what?"
+
+"And perhaps when it's dark I might ... carry the parcel away with me."
+And he rushed down the steps.
+
+"So he had to swallow his pride, poor fellow!" she thought, as she
+looked after him full of pity.
+
+The same evening she made a parcel of the things and sent them to him
+by post, with a sovereign and a thousand apologies. She wanted him to
+have a new hat, she said, and no trouble with regard to alterations.
+
+A few days later, when he put in an appearance again at dinner, one
+would hardly have known him, he looked so smart and brushed-up. The
+suit fitted as if made for him, and though the dandy boots were too
+long, he had prevented them turning up at the toe by padding them with
+cotton wool. Even the scornful servant scanned him with a more friendly
+eye.
+
+It was a pity he hadn't parted with his shock of hair and got his beard
+shaved off. You could almost have been seen in the street with him if
+he had. His cheeks had filled out wonderfully. His eyes, too, were
+better; thanks to the doctor to whom she had sent him almost by force.
+Gradually, too, his manners became less rough. He gave up bolting his
+food and putting his fingers into his mouth, and he acquired the art of
+drinking claret without flushing. And not only in externals, but
+mentally he began to reflect some of the tranquil well-being of his
+hospitable surroundings. His abuse became more discriminating, and he
+could even forgive people the unpardonable crime of being happy.
+
+He displayed charming tact in refraining from inquiries as to Lilly's
+position. And she knew how to thank him for it. Though she avoided
+cross-examining him about his own affairs, she was able to piece
+together a picture of his scholastic failure from the remarks and
+self-upbraidings that he let fall.
+
+After two years of distressing poverty he had abandoned the teaching
+profession and his cherished convictions to take up theology for the
+sake of a stipend offered to him in his native town.
+
+"Only think of that!" Lilly said to herself, deeply moved. She recalled
+the sunny early morning when the sound of the church bells had greeted
+them from the green valley.
+
+Even this supreme act of renunciation seemed to have brought him no
+lasting blessing, for he had been obliged for more than a year to earn
+his bread by addressing envelopes and doing other mysterious odd jobs,
+about which he was not communicative.
+
+"All the same," he said, "I have kept up my dignity in spite of
+everything. And however poor and despised I am, I have not lost my
+self-respect. No, I have not lost it."
+
+As he said this he paced up and down the room gloomily, with fire
+flashing from his small eyes. And when he expanded his chest and threw
+back his shoulders and ran his fingers through his tousled mane, he
+resembled once more the youthful hero who had once fired Lilly's
+enthusiasm and filled her imagination with ambitious dreams.
+
+In order to complete her good work and restore to him his lost
+happiness she insisted on knowing what ideal he had at heart, what path
+in life he would choose.
+
+What he wanted, he said, was to leave Berlin. He would like again to
+feel a free man who had his apportioned duty and knew how to do it, and
+to breathe fresher, purer air.
+
+"Ah! all of us would like something of the kind," thought Lilly, with a
+sigh.
+
+A post as private tutor would satisfy him, somewhere in the country. He
+would prefer a parsonage, for then a library would be at his disposal.
+
+"And where the lime-trees will flower," thought Lilly, "the corn wave
+in the breeze, and the cattle will be called to drink."
+
+She almost wept with envy at the thought.
+
+From this day forward she left no stone unturned to gratify the heart's
+desire of the old friend of her youth. She gave him money to advertise
+in the most likely papers, wrote with her own hand testimonials and
+letters of introduction, and asked the comrades of her "set" to
+interest themselves in him.
+
+She had to go about it all very secretly, for fear Richard should
+suspect what she was doing. For even as it was, she had to put up with
+a good deal at this time. He complained that she did not show him
+sufficient consideration, that she was cold and unloving, and that he
+could detect a hostile influence in everything she said.
+
+"I suppose your talented friend thinks so. You had better ask the
+learned genius."
+
+These little sarcastic speeches were reiterated _ad nauseam_. And one
+day the bomb burst. In defiance of his promise that when she had
+visitors he would always be announced, he suddenly burst in on Lilly
+and the friend of her youth while they were dining together. He had not
+rung, had hardly knocked, and his face was as black as thunder. Growing
+pale, she sprang to her feet, and Fritz Redlich, as if caught in a
+guilty act, followed her example. He looked sheepish, and the end of
+his napkin dropped into the soup.
+
+For a moment silence reigned, only broken by a malicious giggle from
+the servant standing in the doorway.
+
+"I ask your pardon, dear madam," said Richard, keeping up his
+threatening air and demeanour. "I was only anxious to know how you
+were."
+
+"Herr Richard Dehnicke, a kind acquaintance; Herr Redlich, my old
+friend," she introduced them.
+
+Then he looked at his much-dreaded rival more closely. In surprise and
+disapproval he regarded his unkempt hair and beard, but as his glance
+sank lower his face cleared, and a baffled though distinctly pleased
+ray of recognition illumined his features. Was not that _his_ suit and
+_his_ shirt?
+
+Still further did his glance descend, past the napkin lying in the
+soup-plate, down to the trousers. And were not those _his_ trousers and
+those _his_ cast-off boots, which the brilliant young genius was
+wearing on his feet?
+
+"Oh!" he said expressively, and nothing more. Then, with a sinister
+curl of the lip, he turned to Lilly. "Can I speak a few words to madame
+alone?" he asked.
+
+"If Herr Redlich will excuse me," she said; and in her confusion and
+from old habit, she opened the door of the bedroom, as if that were
+quite the correct place in which to speak a few words with an ordinary
+"kind" acquaintance.
+
+Richard, equally accustomed to this way, followed her, heedless of the
+intimacy he exposed by so doing.
+
+"Look here," he said, when he had shut the door, "I've been fool enough
+to be jealous of your so-called soul's affinity. But after what I've
+seen just now, I swear you may entertain your friends as much as you
+like--morning, noon, and night for all I care. And I'll keep a stock of
+old suits on hand for them. Now, go back to your dinner, you little
+donkey!"
+
+Then he went out by the other door. She heard him laughing to himself
+after he had gone.
+
+She was so deeply ashamed that she scarcely knew how to return to the
+friend of her youth, he who was so strict in his morals that at the
+bare mention of her divorce he had displayed pained disgust.
+
+Then it dawned on her that she was standing in her bedroom. Now
+everything had been shown up--everything! However little acquainted he
+might be with the ways of the world, he could not help perceiving her
+relations with the intruder who had so suddenly appeared in her flat
+and disappeared with equal suddenness.
+
+For a long time she hesitated what to do, with her hand on the handle
+of the door. She listened in fear for his departing step, the angry
+rasping of his throat--even his silence filled her with alarm. Then,
+trembling and ready to confess everything in tears of penitence, she
+ventured back to the dining-room.
+
+What did she see? Only the gentleman still seated at the table, rubbing
+out the stains made by the wet napkin on his waistcoat. The blue
+goggles lay beside his plate, and he blinked at her with friendly and
+unconcerned eyes.
+
+"Is he gone already?" he asked ingenuously. Evidently he had not even
+heard the door slam.
+
+When the hot joint came in he set to work with undiminished appetite,
+and made no further reference to the interlude. In truth, it seemed
+that his mind was so pure that he could not see impurity when it was
+almost thrust upon his vision.
+
+She was very grateful to him, and, to show her gratitude, she
+determined to let him come in the evening if he liked, as Richard had
+said he might come at any time. He should come without invitation, she
+said, and if she chanced to be out, the servant would get him supper,
+and see that he had all he wanted. Then, recollecting the grimaces she
+had made on his first appearance, she instructed her to be specially
+attentive to the guest, and to make him feel perfectly at home.
+
+The buxom country girl drew down the corners of her mouth and said
+nothing.
+
+
+                           *   *   *   *   *
+
+
+After these events, Lilly redoubled her efforts on behalf of Fritz
+Redlich. And once more Frau Jula proved a helpful friend.
+
+"Leave it to me," she said one day. "I used to know up there"--she
+hesitated a little--"someone who has great influence and is considered
+a God Almighty in more than one parsonage. I might write to him, but,
+of course, my name mustn't be mentioned. It still acts there like a red
+rag to a bull."
+
+The next day Lilly sent her an advertisement that Fritz Redlich had
+inserted in one of the papers. She was to forward it to the influential
+magnate. The answer would be direct, and the intervention of a third
+person not required. She, too, was of opinion that it would be better
+it he believed that he owed his future employment to his own unaided
+exertions.
+
+As luck would have it, Frau Jula's plan succeeded. One evening in the
+following week he called at Lilly's unexpectedly--a frequent event now,
+whether she was at home or not--and told her with evident satisfaction
+that his advertisement had brought forth immediate results. He had been
+asked to send his testimonials at once to a clergyman in Further
+Pomerania, and to hold himself in readiness to leave Berlin. The
+clergyman seemed quite eager about engaging him.
+
+Lilly's heart swelled with joyous pride. She wouldn't have betrayed on
+any account that she had had a finger in the pie. Nevertheless, she
+flattered herself that it was all her doing. She had made him, and she
+felt he belonged to her more than anyone else in the world.
+
+The meal progressed in calm and beatific silence. As he had not let her
+know that he was coming, the first course did not consist of potato
+soup.
+
+She apologised for the omission, and added, with a little pang at her
+heart, "I suppose we shall not have many more meals together?"
+
+"Probably not," he said; and cast a glance at the servant, whose
+presence obviously embarrassed him. Otherwise she felt sure that he
+would have expressed his feelings more graciously.
+
+Afterwards they withdrew to the corner drawing-room. The hot July air
+came in through the open windows, but the little naked monkey, whose
+cage was placed near the aquarium, was perished with cold, and now
+shivered so violently that he had to be wrapped up in his coat, an
+attention to which he submitted with snarls. The bullfinch piped its
+evening song and it grew dusk.
+
+Fritz Redlich sat as usual in the rocking-chair, his favourite seat
+after he had partaken of a good meal. She walked excitedly up and down
+the room.
+
+"I shall soon be lonely again," she thought, "and start knocking about
+all alone, as before."
+
+Yet what a piece of luck it was for him! What a piece of luck! She told
+him so repeatedly.
+
+"Yes," he said, "it certainly is very fortunate that I have fought my
+way as I have done"; he emphasised the last few words and went on,
+"When I think what awful years those have been, how often I have been
+compelled to belie my character, how often my principles have been
+endangered ... And not only that," he added after a depressed pause,
+"there have been the many doubtful circumstances in which I have been
+thrown, and the enforced connection with impurity, not to be wondered
+at when one takes into consideration how easily a man becomes infected
+by the society he is in, and finds himself doing things that he would
+rather leave alone. It's hard--very hard, Frau Czepanek."
+
+"Oh, please don't Frau Czepanek me!" she exclaimed. "Can't you call me
+'Frau Lilly,' or simply 'Lilly'? We are old friends, you know."
+
+"Willingly, if you wish," he replied.
+
+To-day she felt a tenderness for him such as she had not experienced
+since the days of her early youth. It was, too, a motherly, a sisterly
+tenderness, and something else besides--something like a shimmer of
+light drawing nearer and nearer from the distance.
+
+"Tell me, Herr Fritz," she demanded, pausing in front of him, "tell me
+honestly, have you ever loved in all your life?"
+
+He jumped as if he had been struck,
+
+"Loved? What do you mean?"
+
+"Well, what should I mean?" she laughed, drumming with her fingers on
+the back of the rocking-chair. "What should I mean?"
+
+He seemed to breathe more freely. "For love, properly speaking, I have
+neither the time nor the inclination," he said.
+
+"And no woman has ever loved you?"
+
+"Do I look," he asked, shrugging his shoulders, "as if anyone could
+love me?"
+
+His utter despondency irritated her. But she turned it off with a
+playful "Now, now!" and shook her finger at him.
+
+Again he looked alarmed, as if the mere suggestion of such a
+possibility filled him with anxiety.
+
+The poor fellow! Never had a girl's eyes glowingly sought his;
+never had a woman's arms encircled his neck in rapture. The highest
+pleasure--the only thing that both for man and woman makes life worth
+living--he had been denied.
+
+A confession burned on her lips, a confession dating from far-off,
+half-forgotten times, which would have told him how mistaken he was.
+But she choked it back. Not to-day; perhaps later, when it came to
+saying farewell.
+
+It grew dark, and the light reflected from the street-lamps played on
+wall and ceiling. The monkey had curled himself up in a ball under his
+coat, and the little bullfinch had gone to roost.
+
+Lilly still continued her pacing up and down, lightly brushing his
+elbow each time she passed the rocking-chair.
+
+At last she paused again in front of him. There he sat, he whom she had
+once adored so passionately, and he was quite ignorant of it. Quite
+ignorant of all the miracles woman's love can work. The poor, poor
+unfortunate creature!
+
+"You really ought to get your hair cut," she said with a nervous laugh,
+"and then perhaps you'll have a better chance with the women."
+
+Slowly she lifted her left hand, which felt as if a weight was hanging
+to it, and laid it on his rough wavy hair. It rebounded from her gentle
+touch like an air-cushion.
+
+He started, stopped rocking himself in the chair, looked round
+uneasily, and gave a cough.
+
+"Yes, yes," he said after a silence, "that's sensible advice. If I want
+to make a favourable impression when I enter on my new vocation, I
+ought----"
+
+Just then he turned his head sharply towards the window, and her hand
+glided down of its own accord on to his neck. She choked back a sigh,
+and he stood up and hurriedly took his leave. She was so embarrassed
+that she did not press him to stay longer.
+
+The servant was standing outside in the passage, with the lamp in her
+hand to light him downstairs.
+
+"The day after to-morrow I shall expect you," Lilly called after him
+from the window.
+
+He sent up a "Thank you and good-night" in reply, and disappeared in
+the darkness. The poor, poor boy! Plunged in bitterness and depression
+he went his way, little dreaming what paradises might have been his for
+the asking.
+
+For the remainder of the evening she was distraught and anxious. "It
+would have been better not to have put my hand on his head," she
+thought. Yet, all the same, she was glad that she had.
+
+
+                           *   *   *   *   *
+
+
+The next afternoon a postcard came from Frau Jula. She had good news
+from "high quarters." The negotiations were concluded. Her _protégé_
+was to start without delay, and even his travelling expenses had been
+provided. Lilly cried with joy.
+
+Thus was her good work completed. The friend of her youth was saved,
+and his zest for life restored. Now it only remained to teach him how
+to laugh and enter into his inheritance of proud courageous freedom,
+all that belonged to him by rights, which she herself could now never
+hope to attain.
+
+Fate might do with her as it pleased, so long as he made upward
+progress. He had become an essential part of her existence. She had
+made him her own by her efforts and prayers, her lies, and her toil,
+and when he came to-morrow evening, as arranged, she would tell him
+all--all about that first love ... and everything.
+
+And once more--in farewell--she would lay her hand on his shock of
+hair, and then let come what might.
+
+The next evening she dressed herself more carefully than had been her
+wont when she spent the evening with him. She made the potato soup with
+her own hands and cut the beefsteak--he ate much smaller portions than
+he used to --so that the servant had nothing to do but put it in the
+pan.
+
+The clock struck eight, but he had not come. He was busy packing, she
+thought, to console herself. It struck nine, and still he had not come;
+then it struck ten, and there was no further hope, unless the door was
+locked up and he was clapping his hands to be let in, as Richard did
+sometimes. She leaned out at the open window till it struck eleven.
+Then, tired out and very sad, she went to bed.
+
+The next morning she received the following letter:
+
+
+"Honoured and Gracious Madame,
+
+"Having succeeded by my own unaided efforts in procuring a decent
+position, I consider it my duty to break off all connection with my
+former life. As I think I have told you more than once; I was often
+forced by circumstances into situations repugnant to my high
+principles, and that, in spite of my resolute character, I was led into
+temptations which, I frankly confess, I have not invariably emerged
+from unscathed.
+
+"I am perfectly aware that I am under obligations to you, dear madame,
+and I herewith tender you my heartfelt thanks, for it shall never be
+said of me that I am wanting in gratitude. I have kept an account of
+the cash which circumstances have from time to time compelled me to
+borrow from you, and, as soon as my salary permits, I shall refund
+every farthing, and also send back the suit, which I am wearing at
+present. I may say here, that if you had really respected me you would
+never have subjected me to the humiliating encounter with the gentleman
+to whom these articles of clothing once obviously belonged.
+
+"In conclusion, I hope I may be allowed to give you the following
+exhortation. Mend your ways, dear madame, and change your mode of life,
+which is an outrage on all the laws of morality. I believe that in
+giving utterance to this sentiment I am acting the part of a friend
+more than if I were to leave you under the delusion that I am a
+simpleton.
+
+                       "Yours always gratefully,
+
+                                 "Fritz Redlich,
+                                    Cand. Phil et Theol."
+
+
+Lilly felt this experience deeply, and suffered for a long time acute
+anguish.
+
+Not till several months had elapsed was the humorous side of the
+incident brought to her notice by the servant coming to give her
+warning. The visits of the student of philosophy and of strict morals
+on the evenings when Lilly was absent had not been, it appeared,
+without their consequences.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XII
+
+
+In the early autumn of the same year, Richard took a husband's holiday,
+and went to Ostend, while Lilly lived cheaply and innocently at a
+bathing-place on the Baltic, where she passed as a widow of good birth
+and position. She accepted the admiring homage of several spinsters,
+allowed a young missionary to dedicate a volume of verse to her, and
+declined an honourable offer from a widower, town-clerk of Pirna, with
+expressions of esteem and friendship.
+
+Lilly enjoyed those six weeks immensely. The winter that followed
+differed very little from those that had preceded it. At Christmas,
+Richard's present to her was a hired carriage with the seven-pointed
+coronet emblazoned on its panels. He wanted to avoid the unpleasantness
+of his mother--whose prejudice against Lilly increased from year to
+year--ordering the family brougham for her own use when he was driving
+about in it with his mistress. Another present was a sable coat of the
+newest shape with dozens of tails, that cost a small fortune.
+
+In spite of Richard's reproaches, Lilly made very little use of either
+of her new acquisitions, for the never-silenced inner voice of fear
+said to her that this sort of pomp and luxury would make her more and
+more part of the world she longed to flee from. While Richard aimed
+with stubborn pertinacity at draining the cup of pleasure to the dregs,
+Lilly hankered more and more after respectability. It was her last
+anchor of hope in the barren life which, as the days dragged along,
+left her tortured and dissatisfied in the midst of music, laughter, and
+light.
+
+The only person in her set who stimulated her intellect in the least
+was Frau Jula. She knew how to relate entertaining stories, she showed
+that she had been at home in different worlds, and that her mind
+retained the impressions she had received there. But for some time past
+her silly little curly head had been enveloped in a web of impenetrable
+mystery. The erotic verse, which she had contributed to modern German
+periodicals, no longer appeared, and her morbid short stories were
+nowhere to be met with. When her friends teased her and asked what had
+become of her art, she would smile like a coy bride, and answer, "Wait
+and see."
+
+At this time Lilly would gladly have seen more of Frau Jula, for she
+had long since given up feeling that she was in any way superior to her
+or more moral. But she did not find it easy to approach her, so she
+carried the burden of her hopes and fears unshared, and trudged on
+alone, thirsting by the way.
+
+
+                           *   *   *   *   *
+
+
+What now came to pass happened on the nineteenth of March, a date never
+to be forgotten, because it was St. Joseph's Day. It was a day of soft
+spring-like breezes and pinkish-grey skies; a day on which Nature's
+orchestra seemed to be rehearsing for the great symphony of spring.
+
+The grassy slopes of the canal-banks were already beginning to turn
+green, the wild-ducks, in couples, swam on the smooth surface of the
+water, and big foam-edged blocks of melting ice floated downstream.
+
+Lilly, filled with vague and wistful longings, could not stand it any
+longer indoors, and prepared to go out early. She wanted to run, cry,
+shout, jump hedges, throw herself on the grass anything, she didn't
+care what, so long as she escaped for a few hours from this prison,
+which smelt of powder and perfumed paints, and was oppressed by the
+weight of indolence.
+
+She got ready for a walk and gave a few directions to Adele, the new
+servant, who was an elderly and rather patronising woman, thoroughly
+accustomed to service in the households of single ladies. Instead of
+waiting for her carriage, she took the tramway out to Grunewald. She
+alighted at the boundary where smart villadom ends, and the maltreated
+woods rise high above the yoke of the builder, and walked on straight
+ahead, not knowing where she was going.
+
+A few motor-cars rushed by, and young men in them smiled and beckoned
+to her. They might have been actual acquaintances or only making fun of
+her; but, anyhow she thought it wiser to turn off the main-road, so she
+struck into the sandy path that ran along the lake to the old
+Jagdschloss. Here far and wide she saw not a human soul.
+
+The chilly March wind swept over the milky-blue water and agitated the
+reeds and rushes. Ice was still to be seen round the edge of the lake,
+but it was so thin and pierced with holes that every small ripple that
+broke on the shore sent up jets of spray. From the pine-branches there
+sounded now and then the song of a bird, sad enough to extinguish
+awakened expectations of spring.
+
+"It looks more like spring in the town than here," thought Lilly. But
+the keenness of the wind, full of the pungent scent of moss and
+pine-needles, did her good. As she strode along, she met it full in the
+face. Her cheeks glowed; she felt her frozen blood thaw and send fresh
+life pulsating through her languid limbs.
+
+Suddenly she burst out laughing. Everything was all nonsense. Her
+pining discontent, her longing, Richard's snobbish ambition, his
+mother's everlasting marriage schemes--even respectability was humbug.
+
+What had she to do with it all? She--the free, the wild, the ruined
+Lilly? There must be something better in store for her, something
+nobler. Not in Dr. Salmoni's sense--God forbid!--but something
+hardening, pure, and life-giving, like this March wind sweeping through
+her veins.
+
+She heard a sound from the top of a pine-tree with which she had
+become familiar in the park at Lischnitz. It was a kind of whistle,
+half-defiant, half-enticing, which ended in a sharp "Tschek-tschek."
+She stopped, looked up, and whistled too. It was a couple of squirrels
+that had been chasing each other in corkscrew circles round the trunk,
+and now stood suddenly still in alarm at the sight of her.
+
+"Tschek-tschek!" she cried, to incite the little red-coats to a new
+game, but, not succeeding, she stooped and picked up a pebble.
+
+Just as she was in the act of throwing it, she caught sight of a pair
+of eyes fixed on her from behind another trunk--large, questioning,
+astonished eyes, that narrowed and darkened as they gazed, as if they
+wanted to look away, but couldn't--a pair of eyes that surely she had
+known long, long ago.
+
+But no! she had never seen them before; for the young man who had
+watched with her the squirrels' game and stood with his hat in his
+hand, still half hidden behind a tree, was quite a stranger to her. If
+she had ever met him, she would never have forgotten it. It would not
+be easy to forget that serious, self-contained, Greek young face, with
+the sensitive, slender-bridged nose and the lustrous eyes of the
+dreamer.
+
+He was not very fashionably clad, and she liked him for it. He had on a
+brown overcoat of a not very modern cut, and underneath a suit of rough
+tweed, quite un-German and still less English.
+
+He seemed gradually to come to life. He put on his hat and emerged
+from behind the tree-trunk. "Now he is going to speak to me," she
+thought, and she felt a sickening dread. But no! He lifted his hat,
+threw her one more long, questioning, earnest look--almost a look of
+recognition--walked past her, and took the path she had come by.
+
+Lilly, too, would have liked to walk on, but she could not make up her
+mind, and, not to be caught staring after him, she slipped behind the
+same trunk which had lately concealed him from view.
+
+She wondered if he would look back. No, he did not do that, and she
+felt somehow hurt and neglected.
+
+Smaller and smaller grew the tall figure. He strode over the sand with
+a somewhat heavy step. "He's never been a soldier," she thought. Then
+she fancied that he stooped and afterwards turned round. Yes, he was
+making quite a wide and careful survey of the landscape, as if bent on
+discovering her. But she was safely hidden behind her tree and did not
+stir.
+
+Then he walked on again and vanished in a bend in the path.
+
+"A pity I haven't got the carriage," she said to herself.
+
+If she had been driving she could have overtaken him without appearing
+to follow him, and the seven-pointed coronet would have duly impressed
+him. As it was, he must have formed a bad opinion of her for wandering
+about alone, whistling like a boy and throwing stones at amorous
+squirrels. Nevertheless, as she made her way homewards she felt as if
+some rare and beautiful gift had been bestowed upon her.
+
+Was it possible that she had seen him before? She recalled the young
+man she had met in the Pragerstrasse, when she was with her husband in
+Dresden; how he had given her the same sort of look with a flash in it
+of sad recognition; and how she had wanted to turn round and ask, "Who
+are you? Do you belong to me? Would you like me to belong to you?" And
+she had forborne to follow her instinct, because to turn round in the
+street would have been a crime in the colonel's eyes.
+
+To-day she was free--so free that she could choose her friends as her
+heart dictated--and yet she had not followed him, but had let him go,
+he who, whether he was that same young man or not, might perchance
+belong to her or she to him.
+
+With half-closed eyes she filled in the details of the picture that she
+had formed of him. His beard was small, dark, and double-pointed, and
+so closely shaven on the cheeks that it appeared only a blue shadow.
+Such beards were rarely seen in Berlin, though Italians and Frenchmen
+wore them. His lips were full, hard, and firmly closed, as if chiselled
+out of marble; his high, square forehead seemed to give him an aspect
+of wrath, but not the vulgar wrath of an ordinary mortal towards a poor
+creature like herself; it was like the wrath of the gods--divine.
+
+So she continued to rhapsodise, forgot where she was going and lost her
+way, to find herself finally on quite the wrong road. Anything might
+have happened to her in the woods, where unprotected ladies were not
+safe at any hour of the day from the attacks of tramps. But she
+scarcely gave a thought to the risks she had run, got into the first
+tram she came to, and reached home, exhausted but glowing all over, two
+hours later than she intended.
+
+She could not eat anything, but threw herself on the _chaise longue_
+and dreamed.
+
+The bell sounded, and a man's voice was heard at the door. It couldn't
+be Richard. He never came before half-past four.
+
+Then Adele came in, and said that there was a strange gentleman outside
+who wished to know if madame had missed her card-case; he had picked
+one up in the woods.
+
+Lilly sprang up. The little brocaded case, which she had carried in her
+hand with her silver chain-purse, was not there; she must have dropped
+it and not noticed that it was missing in her excitement.
+
+"What is the gentleman like?" she asked.
+
+He was tall, young, and handsome, indeed, remarkably handsome, was the
+information she received from Adele.
+
+"Has he a dark, close-cut beard?"
+
+Yes, he had.
+
+The delightful shock of the surprise made her stagger.
+
+"Ask him to come in," she stammered, with no thought of how she looked,
+though her hands went up to her hair.
+
+As he entered the room she could scarcely recognise him, there was such
+a thick red mist before her eyes.
+
+"I beg your pardon, gracious Frau," she heard him say in the clear calm
+tones of a man who has no ignoble dealings. "I should not have
+disturbed you if your address had been on your card as well as your
+name. I looked you up in the directory, but being uncertain that there
+were not others of your name ... I ..."
+
+"You are very kind indeed to have taken so much trouble," she replied,
+and asked him to sit down.
+
+"I am Dr. Rennschmidt," he said, waiting till she had settled herself
+in a corner of the sofa before accepting her invitation. He drew the
+card-case from his pocket and laid it on the table.
+
+She smiled her thanks for his courtesy, and then, as it seemed
+necessary to her to exaggerate the service he had done her, she told
+him that she specially valued the little card-case as it was a souvenir
+of her husband, and she would have been very grieved to lose it.
+
+His face grew a shade graver. There was a pause, in which his eyes
+rested on her features with a steadfast, questioning, almost searching
+expression. There was nothing in it of the tentative brazen advances
+that she knew so well in other masculine eyes. His glance was one of
+pure, disinterested admiration tinctured with reverence.
+
+"Did we not meet a short time ago on the outskirts of the wood?" she
+asked warily.
+
+He replied eagerly in the affirmative. "If I had not been so awkward I
+should have asked your pardon then for playing the eavesdropper. I saw
+how startled you were ... but at the moment I could think of nothing to
+do but to make myself scarce. It seemed the kindest course to take from
+your point of view."
+
+His manner of speaking was so joyously frank, it was like a tonic to
+her, yet withal made her feel slightly ashamed.
+
+"And now you have done something kinder still," she answered, with as
+much hearty appreciation as if he had saved her life.
+
+"Oh, please don't mention it," he said. "I ought to have turned back at
+once. But it seemed as if the earth had swallowed you up. I was quite
+anxious about you."
+
+She smiled to herself in happy trepidation. A little more and she would
+have confided to him where she had hidden herself.
+
+"What must you have thought of me," she said, "wandering about in the
+woods by myself?"
+
+"I thought that you did not feel lonely in the society of Nature,
+otherwise you would have brought a companion."
+
+"You were right," she responded eagerly. "I left my carriage at the
+Restaurant Hundekehl"--the carriage had to be dragged into the
+conversation after all--"but it drove back, through some
+misunderstanding, and I was venturesome. You love Nature very much
+too?"
+
+"I don't know about 'very much,'" he answered. "I may say in Cordelia's
+words: 'I love it according to my bond, not more nor less.' Don't you
+find that love of Nature is neither a merit nor an eccentricity, but
+simply a vital function?"
+
+"Yes, of course," Lilly faltered, thinking to herself, "How exceedingly
+clever he is! Will you ever be able to keep pace with him?"
+
+"But to be quite sincere," he went on, "I cannot get used to Nature in
+these climes. Her poverty oppresses me. I am in the position with
+regard to her of having outgrown the home of my fathers, for which I
+heap reproaches on myself. I try hard to get back on the old terms with
+her, and praise her whenever I honestly can. But first more recent
+pictures must fade from my mind. You see, I have only just come back
+from Italy, where I have been living for the last two years."
+
+With a deep sigh she gazed at him, considering him now positively
+unearthly.
+
+"Two whole years!" she cried.
+
+"I am engaged on a great scientific work," he continued; "for its
+sake--no, it would be more correct to say for my health's sake--I was
+sent to Italy. My uncle, who is a father to me, wished it.... And it
+was Italy that first inspired me with the idea of the work, and
+afterwards fatherland and my old life and studies, everything else,
+went to the wall."
+
+As he spoke his eyes flashed with enthusiasm. He seemed palpitating
+with his great purpose; and the old former yearning for Italian skies
+awoke and beat its wings within her heart.
+
+"Yes, isn't it true," she cried, infected by his ardour, "that there is
+the home of all great ideas? There you may feel your utmost. What you
+have sown there will repay and bear fruit. Isn't it so? I have never
+been there, but I am quite sure that is how people feel. There, where
+everything great and beautiful belongs to the soil; there, one's self
+becomes greater and nobler.... One has no more petty sordid cares.
+Isn't it true?"
+
+He had listened to her astounded, his eyes beaming and radiant. "Yes,"
+he said almost solemnly, "it is exactly as you say."
+
+She felt a sensation of joy. Wasn't this harmony of thought a
+confirmation of the affinity that she had from the first moment that
+she had set eyes on him sought and hoped for? Nothing could ever
+separate her from him after this. Perhaps he really was the physical
+embodiment of that shadow belonging to the Dresden days that had taken
+up its abode in her soul!
+
+"I can't help feeling as if we had met before," she murmured softly,
+with eyes downcast.
+
+"I feel like that too," he answered, "but it can't be so, for if we had
+met I could never have forgotten the time and place."
+
+"You were not in Dresden, by any chance, about this time six years
+ago?" she asked.
+
+He shook his head. "Six years ago I was studying in Bonn. The term was
+over, it is true, but I went for my vacation to my uncle's. He had just
+had his place restored."
+
+"Where is it?"
+
+"Near Coblentz."
+
+"Then it couldn't have been. It's strange that we should both feel as
+if ..." she said.
+
+"There are certain pictures belonging to our psychic existence," he
+replied, "which seem like memories, and are in reality presentiments."
+
+"I wonder what you mean?"
+
+"I mean that one walks between past and coming experiences as on a
+tight-rope; that one reels and falls into space so soon as----"
+
+"What?"
+
+"So soon as one----" he broke off abruptly. "Pardon my asking, but are
+you an artist?"
+
+"Why?" she asked nervously. She felt repelled. Was he making a fool of
+her?
+
+"I gathered that you were from the plate outside your door."
+
+The plate: "Pressed Flower Studio."
+
+This was being rudely awakened from a pleasant dream to the stern facts
+of reality. But she must not lose her presence of mind and forfeit his
+esteem, so she answered carelessly:
+
+"In a way. But mine is a very modest art. Once I worked hard at it, and
+it made me very happy. I learnt it soon after I became a widow." Her
+lips refused to utter the phrase, "soon after I was divorced." "I took
+it up more as a little distraction than as a serious means of earning a
+living. But then I had trouble with my eyes, and was obliged to give it
+up."
+
+Three lies in one breath! But why not? She and everything round her was
+one big lie ... all her gestures and all her thoughts. Only the cry
+that went up from her soul now, moving her to the depths of her being,
+was _not_ a lie: "You shall be mine. I will be yours." And so for his
+sake she went on lying.
+
+"It's painful to me to talk about it," she continued, with her
+handkerchief pressed against her eyes. "I still fed it so much. I hope
+you will be so kind as never again to refer to it."
+
+"Never again" had slipped from her. It sounded as if she took for
+granted that their acquaintance was to continue, and, overwhelmed with
+shame and confusion, she rose and turned her face aside.
+
+"Forgive me," he said, greatly concerned. "I had no idea ..." He stood
+up to go.
+
+A voice within her cried, "Stay, stay, stay!" But she was incapable of
+speaking, and felt as if turned to stone. Had he seen through her lies,
+divined who and what she was, and didn't wish to stay? She was
+conscious that her manner grew cold and haughty.
+
+She extended her finger-tips to him. "It was kind of you to come," she
+said.
+
+This was the moment to invite him to come again, but the words froze on
+her lips.
+
+His face had grown very pale, and he looked at her with great,
+inquiring, expectant eyes.
+
+"I hope we shall meet again," he said.
+
+"I hope so, too," she replied frigidly.
+
+He brushed her hand with his lips and was gone.
+
+The end--the end! And all her fault. Happiness had looked in upon her,
+had lightly laid its hand in blessing on her brow, and then flown away,
+leaving nothing but this pain, a pain more intolerable than any she had
+ever known. It clutched at her throat and tore her heart like a
+physical pain.
+
+During the night that followed she concocted a thousand plans by which
+she could contrive to find him out and meet him. As a scholar, he would
+probably be a constant visitor to the library. She would go there to
+read and study, in the hopes of coming across him. But, simpler still,
+why shouldn't she write to him?
+
+"I don't love you," she would write. "Why should I love you when I
+hardly know you? But I feel that I am destined to have some influence
+in your life, and so ..."
+
+Finally she rejected all her plans, disgusted with her own lack of
+dignity. No; Lilly Czepanek would not throw herself thus at any man's
+head.
+
+She became tormented once more with restlessness.
+
+In the daytime she haunted the Leipziger and Potsdamer Strassen, and
+other parts where metropolitan life is at its busiest. Of an evening,
+instead of roaming about in distant suburbs as of yore, she kept close
+to the neighbourhood of her own dwelling, walking up and down
+incessantly on the solitary banks of the canal with quick, businesslike
+strides.
+
+In spite of the economy on which she plumed herself, she left the light
+burning in the corner drawing-room, when she went out, for no apparent
+object.
+
+
+                           *   *   *   *   *
+
+
+It was on the fourth evening after their meeting that while she was
+pacing the further bank of the canal at about eight o'clock, when the
+stars hung like lamps in the sky, she happened to see among the trees
+the figure of a young man, who stood gazing up fixedly in the direction
+of her flat.
+
+She could see nothing of his face, for his back was turned towards
+her, and it was dark just at that spot. With a slightly accelerated
+heart-beat she went on her way, but in a few moments her feet declined
+to take her further, and she was obliged to retrace her steps. The dark
+figure still stood motionless among the trees, and regarded, through
+the bare branches, the light in her corner drawing-room. This time he
+heard her footstep and turned towards her.
+
+Startled, she recognised his features. He too showed signs of being
+perturbed, for at first he made a foolish little attempt to look as if
+he had not seen her, then with an embarrassed smile he took off his
+hat.
+
+She trembled so violently that she dared not give him her hand.
+"Dr.--Rennschmidt," was all she managed to ejaculate.
+
+He was the first to regain his composure.
+
+"You will wonder," he began, walking beside her, "why I was standing
+here in the dark looking over there.... If I said it was by accident,
+you would scarcely credit it; so I may as well confess at once.... I
+have been troubled, since we parted the other evening, with the thought
+that things were not quite all right between us; there was a
+misunderstanding somewhere, a hitch, a hastiness--I don't exactly know
+what--but I feel that I owe you an apology for something."
+
+"Why, if that was on your mind," she replied, "did not you come in and
+tell me?"
+
+"Would it have been permitted?" he asked.
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"Pardon, but I have always believed that what privileges and rights we
+men enjoy with regard to women are accorded to us by them. For us there
+exist no others. We may stand here, of course, in the dark and tear our
+hair ..."
+
+"Have you been doing that?"
+
+"Don't, please, ask for any explanations," he begged. Though his voice
+did not betray emotion, the arm that touched hers trembled a little.
+
+She stood still, startled, and glanced helplessly down the dark avenue
+she had come by.
+
+"Does this mean you wish me to leave you?" he asked.
+
+In the light cast by a lamp she saw his eager questioning look.
+
+"Oh no!" she answered slowly, and it seemed as if someone else was
+speaking for her. "Now we've met, we need not part at once."
+
+"That's what I think," he said, as gravely as if he were making an
+affirmation.
+
+They walked on together in silence. Then he said in a lighter tone:
+"There's one thing I ought to draw your attention to. You have left
+your light burning. If you are so good as to spare me an hour, I am
+afraid it will cause you anxiety."
+
+"Oh, never mind the light! We'll go and put it out," she exclaimed
+joyously; and turned on her heel so quickly that he was left two or
+three steps behind her.
+
+As they crossed the slender span of the Hohenzollern Bridge, he pointed
+to the sky.
+
+"Jupiter shines on our enterprise," he said. "I like him better than
+Venus, who gallivants after the sun, and will have a rosy carpet for
+her feet."
+
+"Show me Jupiter," said Lilly, standing still.
+
+Eagerly he pointed out to her the brilliant ruler of the heavens, and
+five or six constellations besides.
+
+She clapped her hands with sheer delight. "Now I shall never feel
+lonely again in my flat," she cried, "when I am alone in the evenings
+and look out of the window."
+
+While he waited for her at the foot of the staircase, she ran up,
+turned off the light, and put the latch-key in her pocket. She told
+Adele she would have supper out, and prepared to be off again.
+
+Her heart was so full of ecstasy that she held on for a moment to the
+doorpost to prevent herself reeling, and gave a sob. But by the time
+she got downstairs she was quite herself again.
+
+"If you will do me the honour to trust to my guidance," he said, "I
+know a corner where no one will disturb us, and where we shall be
+transported to Italy."
+
+She gave a deep sigh. "Oh, how fond he is of talking about Italy!" she
+thought. Yet she wouldn't have gone anywhere else for the world.
+
+They pursued their way for five or six minutes along the dark bank of
+the canal, talking nonsense. Now the medley of lights on the Potsdamer
+Bridge were quite near, and he stopped before a small dimly lit window
+in which were displayed a dozen or so of wine-bottles wreathed with
+green cotton vine-leaves, looking like heads of asparagus popping out
+of the sand.
+
+"Here Signore Battistini will serve us with a Chianti as good as any to
+be had in Florence," he declared.
+
+They went in, and threaded their way through a small front room where
+the proprietor, black as the devil himself, was pasting on labels
+behind the bar. He was greeted with "Sera, padrone" by Lilly's new
+friend. They passed into a long room full of rough tables and chairs.
+The only attempt at decoration were garlands cut out of green glazed
+paper, which were evidently ambitious of being taken for vines. They
+twined round the bare gas-brackets and cascaded over hooks on the wall,
+and in order that there should be no mistake as to what was the origin
+of all these festive tokens, a placard hung from the middle, wishing
+all who entered--at the end of March--a belated "Prosit Neujahr."
+
+"How do you like this fairy-garden?" Lilly's friend asked her, as the
+waiter, black as his master, with eyes like fiery Catherine-wheels,
+beseechingly held out his hands for her cloak.
+
+At the tables round them sat bushy-haired youths, who rolled long, thin
+cigars between their teeth, and nearly thrust their knuckles in each
+other's eyes as they gabbled Italian with fascinating rapidity.
+
+"They are marble-cutters," Dr. Rennschmidt said _sotto voce_, "employed
+by our leading sculptors. They earn a lot of money, and when they have
+saved enough go home to start housekeeping."
+
+Among them were two ladies. They wore their black lustreless hair so
+low on their foreheads that their eyes resembled torches burning out of
+a dark forest. They had gold rings in their ears, and their low-cut
+dresses were clasped by barbaric brooches. They glanced up at Lilly's
+tall figure with envious admiration, and then began an animated
+conversation in whispers.
+
+Dr. Rennschmidt bowed to them cordially, with an air that seemed to say
+he had nothing to conceal and nothing to confess. He told her that they
+were mandoline singers belonging to a troupe of Neapolitans, whose
+manager had thrown them over, and they were now in search of an
+engagement.
+
+"Where am I?" Lilly thought.
+
+It was like a dream, as if magic wings had wafted her into a strange
+country; only the genial "Prosit Neujahr," on the placard swinging
+close to her, reminded her that Germany, Berlin, and the Potsdamer
+Bridge were not far off.
+
+"I have come here every day since my return," Lilly's friend said, as
+they made themselves at home in a corner. "Nostalgia for the South
+still afflicts me. The most perfect German cooking has no charms for me
+now, and I must have my Chianti, To-day we will, however, drink
+something else, because the palate has to acquire a taste for Chianti."
+
+He beckoned to the waiter, who was called Francesco, just as if he had
+stepped out of a romance about knight-errantry and brigands--and after
+a lively discussion between the two a dusty, light-coloured bottle was
+produced and put on the table. Then came dishes of curious-looking
+macaroni and meat bathed in orange-red sauce.
+
+Lilly could not remember that she had ever tasted anything half so
+good, and she told him so; in fact, altogether she had never enjoyed
+herself so much in all her life. But this she did not tell him.
+
+They wound up with a dish of fruit--called "_giardinetto_"--mandarins,
+dates, and gorgonzola cheese. The yellow wine, which had a perfume of
+nutmegs, frothed in the glasses, radiating tiny bubbles.
+
+Leaning back against the wall, she let her eyes rest dreamily on her
+new friend. He turned his head from side to side with quick little
+movements rather like a bird. Everywhere he found something to observe,
+to remark upon, to absorb him; or perhaps he did it all to be specially
+entertaining to her. His eyes sparkled with eagerness and zest in life;
+the wrinkles on his forehead rose up and down, and what she had
+mistaken for a cloud of wrath was, after all, only the expression of
+his brain's boiling activity.
+
+He had a dear, funny habit, which heightened this effect: he would put
+his outspread fingers to his head as if he were going to run them
+through a mass of hair; but the hair was not there, and so he clapped
+his hand instead on his bare temples. He seemed compounded of force and
+resolution, which commanded her admiration and even awe. But his
+physique was not of the most robust, although a golden-brown hue of
+health, fresh from the South, tinged his cheek. His throat was
+delicate, his breath from time to time came in gasps, and when his eyes
+became veiled with fatigue, after some introspective probings, there
+was something pathetically boyish about him that awakened maternal
+tenderness.
+
+"Ah, so this is you!" she thought, and stretched herself in blissful
+languor. "This is you at last, at last."
+
+"Why do you shut your eyes?" he asked, concerned. "Aren't you feeling
+well?"
+
+"Yes, oh yes," she said, flattering him with her eyes and mouth. "But
+do, please, tell me more about the land of my desires, where I have
+always wanted to go and where I have never been."
+
+She then described to him her youthful longing, which the consumptive
+master had awakened in her, the longing which had continued to smoulder
+amidst the ashes of her life's experience.
+
+"In your place I should have tramped there as a barefooted pilgrim," he
+said.
+
+"Oh, but I've had money enough to go often. I could have afforded it
+perfectly well. Once I was as far on the road as Bozen. But I had to
+turn back as a punishment because a young man made eyes at me."
+
+"How sad!" he said, laughing. "That was hard lines on you, harder than
+you have any conception of."
+
+"I have some conception," she sighed. "I have only got to look at you
+to be convinced of how hard it was."
+
+"Why me?"
+
+"Because you shine like Moses after he had looked on the glory of the
+Lord."
+
+He became serious at once. "There are glories here, too, if we have
+eyes to see them," he said. "But, nevertheless, you are right. I am so
+chock-full of the life and reflected radiance that I have stored up
+there, so many sources have been opened out, so many seeds have
+germinated, that I scarcely know how to use all my vast wealth, I write
+till my fingers bleed, and there is always more to write.... I want to
+give, give, and go on giving; but to whom I don't know."
+
+"To me!" she implored, holding out her hands, palms upwards. "To me! I
+am so desperately poor. Such a beggar!"
+
+With the stern eyes of a visionary he gazed down on her. "You are not
+poor," he said. "You have merely been allowed to starve."
+
+"Isn't it the same thing?"
+
+He shook his head, still fixing her with his gaze.
+
+"What was your husband?" he asked next.
+
+"I ... am the divorced wife ... of an officer of high rank," she
+replied, dropping her eyes to the floor.
+
+Thank God! This time she had not lied.
+
+But hadn't she? What was she _now_? For a moment he pressed her hand,
+which lay on the table.
+
+"Don't speak of your past if you would rather not," he said; "leave it
+for the present. When we are old friends it'll be time enough. I'll
+tell you about myself and how I came to think of my great work."
+
+"The work that you mentioned just now?" she asked, curiously moved by
+the sudden solemnity of his tone.
+
+Breathing deeply, he stretched out his clenched fists, and his eyes
+burned into space.
+
+"Yes; the work for which I live ... the work that is my pillar of
+strength, my goal, my future--my everything ... that stands for father,
+mother, brother, friend, and love.... For _it_, this wine was vintaged,
+this hour created, and you yourself, dear gracious, beautiful one, with
+your delicate infinite charm, and your two begging hands, which really
+were made for giving."
+
+"I thought you were going to talk about your work," she said softly.
+
+"I am talking about it--of that and that alone. I want you to know how
+all that I live and love is part of it. For instance, think of the
+thousands of times the Annunciation has been painted, sculptured, and
+sung, and how I have toiled and moiled over the subject, and yet now at
+this moment when I see your great wistful 'Mary-eyes' fixed on me in
+half-humble, half-astonished questioning, I feel that the last word has
+not been said, the highest rung of knowledge has yet to be reached....
+So you see how everything must be made to serve my work."
+
+"Are you a poet?" she asked, quite carried away.
+
+He shook his head, smiling. "I am not a poet, I am not an artist,
+neither am I an historian nor a psychologist; but I have to be all and
+a great deal more besides, for my work demands it."
+
+Then he told her his whole story. His father, a university professor
+and distinguished jurist, had died young, not long after the death of
+his mother, at his birth. His uncle, a wealthy old bachelor who had
+travelled a great deal both on business and pleasure, had adopted him.
+He had given him a good education, and since made him an allowance
+sufficient to indulge his modest whims and requirements. Acting on his
+uncle's wishes he had gone abroad, and postponed for a time entering on
+the same academic career as his father, owing to his health having
+suffered severely from the strain of the examination, which he had
+passed with honours. His studies and researches in the history of art,
+which he had always pursued with ardour, had finally drawn him to
+Italy. More than churches and museums and picture galleries the teeming
+humanity and charm of personality in the Southern race attracted and
+enchanted him. It seemed to him as if contact with it awakened in him a
+new fresh human impulse and consciousness of his own powers. He was
+more than ever strongly impressed by the original unity of artistic
+endeavour and personal experience both in history and modern life....
+Heroes of mythology and history, characters in poetry and painting, the
+creators and painters, too, all became to him so objective, so alive,
+that they seemed a part of his being. He had felt nearer than ever
+before to penetrating into the emotional world of bygone ages when
+living in the midst of a people who were saturated with history, yet in
+their thousand-year-old practice of Art had never lost touch with their
+own epoch. He learned to discriminate and date at first sight monuments
+of various periods, and trace them back step by step down the
+centuries. Creative Art was, and always would be, his inspiration and
+guide.... Art was able, above all, to wring speech from the dumbness of
+death, and to create new forms out of the dust of ages. The only thing
+still lacking was the key to the origin of all this amazing and
+convincing force. The A B C of the language was not forthcoming.
+
+Lilly, with strained attention, strove to follow him. She had never
+heard anyone talk like this, and yet much that he said sounded
+familiar. It seemed to her as if some residue of long-past days left on
+the floor of her mind echoed to his ideas.
+
+"One day it happened," he continued, "that while I was in Venice I
+started off on an excursion to Padua. By rail it is about as far as
+from Berlin to Potsdam. I was not attracted there by its art, for I was
+still on my honeymoon with the Early Venetians. I went for the sake of
+completeness. So I found myself in the little chapel where Giotto's
+frescoes are. You know him?"
+
+"Giotto and Cimabue--of course," she answered proudly.
+
+"Then I needn't explain further. I hadn't much enthusiasm left for him
+and his school, for, as I said just now, the Quattrocentists had turned
+my head. Now, please picture a ruined Roman amphitheatre overgrown with
+ivy--nothing but the outside walls still stand, like the walls of a
+garden--and somewhere in the middle the little chapel built of slates,
+every bit as bare as a Protestant conventicle in the royal realm of
+Prussia."
+
+Lilly smiled. A fling at Protestantism always gratified her, like a
+personal favour.
+
+"Services are no longer held there. It has been preserved as a national
+monument. When I first went in I saw nothing for a minute but a blue
+glory on the walls--a sort of background of light--then picture after
+picture, in long rows. The history of the Saviour told simply, just as
+a poor friar would tell it to poor people on Good Friday, provided he
+was the right sort of preacher."
+
+"But are we not all _poor_ people in the Saviour's eyes?" she ventured
+to put in shyly.
+
+He paused, stared at her for a moment, and then assented with fervour.
+"Certainly we are, and not only in the Saviour's, but in those of every
+great personality, and every great truth.... But that feeling is not
+easy to cultivate ... the feeling that we must be poor if what is given
+us is to make us rich. Religion can inspire us with it if it finds the
+right means of expression. In this case it was found. Here was a poor
+man speaking to the poor, and therein lay the richness of his gift.
+Then what in him goes to our hearts and brings tears to our eyes is not
+his great power, but quite the opposite--his lack of power. Do you
+grasp my meaning?"
+
+"I think so," she said, her face lighting up. "When someone would beg
+anything of us and can only stammer out what he has got to say, we are
+far more touched than if he expressed himself in a stilted speech
+learnt by heart."
+
+"Yes, that is exactly what I mean," he cried, delighted. "And it is
+from this bald, hesitating speech that the whole language of Art has
+arisen. Then, all that preceded it was merely a lifeless copy of
+worn-out Byzantine models. Here, for the first time, was an artist who,
+out of the simplicity of his heart, went straight to Nature for what he
+had to say. For this reason he became the supreme master of them all.
+And to-day whoever may succeed in depicting with his brush the acme of
+joy and the acme of sorrow has to thank that little chapel."
+
+"I can well believe," cried Lilly, "that if the ocean had a source, and
+a man suddenly came upon it, he would feel as you did at Padua."
+
+He caught her arm with both hands in his excitement.
+
+"You have hit on the missing simile," he said, "and it is graphic
+enough to describe to the letter what took place within me. And yet
+another source was revealed to me all of a sudden, while I, with folded
+hands, made the tour of those walls. My work was there, leaping out of
+nothingness. I said to myself, 'You must write the History of Effects.'
+The effects, as Art, not only Creative Art, has created, seen, and
+represented them through the ages. Pictorial Art is only a part, you
+see; there are besides the elocutionary arts, poetry as well as
+painting, sculpture as well as music. It struck me that by adopting
+this method I might succeed in producing a real genuine record of the
+development of human emotions, which no historian, moralist, or
+psychologist has ever yet attempted. But why should it not be
+attempted? Material is hidden everywhere, and awaits elucidation just
+as fossils lie embedded in the rocks ready for the zoologist's hammer.
+Tell me what you think of my plan? Is it not worth a lifetime's
+labour?"
+
+"Indeed, I think it is," she said, with the same solemn air as before.
+Had she been requested at this moment to sacrifice her own life on the
+altar of his work, she would have done it without a moment's
+hesitation.
+
+"Ah! but there is a lot to think over first. One cannot start at a
+tangent," he continued. "Often Art leads us astray because she has
+deliberately tried to reflect something quite different from the spirit
+of her time. Whether she succeeded or not is another question. Often,
+too, the right channels of expression were lacking. Ah! you and I must
+have many, many more talks together. Don't look so horrified at the
+idea. Yes, my dear gracious one, I need you sorely. After this evening
+I can't do without you, for no one has ever listened to me so
+intelligently and sympathetically. And I have become such a stranger
+here, it's almost as if I were a foreigner. All the men I know are so
+wrapped up in their own interests that they hardly listen to me.
+Besides, I am conscious that my undertaking _is_ a little mad. But
+there is solace to be derived from that when one thinks how every great
+work is supposed to be a little mad till it is finished and has
+accomplished its aim. Of course, everyone thinks the same about his own
+work, and I shall get over the feeling in time. But during the period
+of wrestling, when every day I think I have found a new vein of gold,
+and perhaps have to reject it afterwards as dross, if I have nobody to
+whom I can pour out my soul, I get into such a muddle I feel fairly
+disheartened. And now fate has sent you to me, and the thought of you
+has prevented my sitting calmly at my desk; a voice has seemed to call
+me to come out and gaze across at your light. Well, now I have you, I
+won't let you go in a hurry. I shouldn't, God knows, be so bold if it
+were for myself alone, but it's for my work. It clamours for you. Good
+heavens! why are you crying?"
+
+She pressed the back of her hand against her eyes, and said, smiling at
+him, "I am not crying." But fresh tears gushed forth and dimmed the
+image of her loveliness.
+
+"I can understand what it is," he said regretfully. "I have been
+inconsiderate, and by talking so happily of my own work I have revived
+your grief about your old art. I am very sorry."
+
+She started back as if she had seen a ghost. Then, with a violent
+effort, she collected herself.
+
+"No, no; that isn't it. Really, it isn't," she assured him.
+
+But he persisted in reproaching himself, and his every word was a stab,
+when she thought of her own unworthiness.
+
+"Let us go," she begged. "So many conflicting feelings overwhelm me. I
+am both happy and unhappy.... Outside in the air I shall be calmer."
+
+It was long past midnight when they left the restaurant, A cold wind
+rippled the water and sighed among the bare branches.
+
+He offered her his arm, and she clung to it as if she had been at home
+there for countless ages. Neither spoke for some time.
+
+"In five minutes he'll be gone," she thought, and she could hardly bear
+the pain the threatened parting cost her.
+
+"I have it on my conscience," he said at last, "that I have made so
+much of my work in our conversation you will think me conceited. I know
+it's not of greater importance than hundreds of other people's. I
+believe that in nearly every vigorous-minded young manhood there is
+such a goal to strive for, and to point the way. One fellow may have a
+book to write, another a great business to work up, a third may have
+others dependent on him, and many find it as much as they can do to
+swim against the current. It's all the same thing. If we let ourselves
+drift, we're lost; and none of us want to be lost, do we?"
+
+"I think I lost myself long ago," she whispered, shuddering.
+
+He laughed out loud. "_You_, noblest, tenderest, best of women!"
+
+She knew how undeserved it all was, yet how sweet it was to hear him
+say it!
+
+They were now walking so close to each other that their cheeks nearly
+touched. She closed her eyes, drinking in the warm breath of the strong
+life beside her. She felt that without volition she was being carried
+away to unknown blissful regions. She only came to herself when they
+stood before her door.
+
+"When?" he asked.
+
+To-morrow she was not free. She had been invited out.
+
+The day after to-morrow?
+
+Yes, the day after to-morrow she would have the whole evening. He might
+call for her.
+
+Then, in fear that if she lingered she would say that she could
+see him to-morrow, she ran upstairs and hid her joy in the solitude of
+her rooms. She did not turn on the lights; the reflection of the
+street-lamps playing on the walls and the prisms of the chandelier was
+light enough.
+
+Then she began to roam through the open doors, from room to room, into
+the corner where the bed stood, round the dining-table, across the
+corner drawing-room into the cold guest-chamber where no guest had ever
+been, up and down, up and down, singing, weeping, exulting. And then
+out of her tears, her humming and rejoicing, words came suddenly:
+
+
+         "Come, my beloved, let us go forth into the field; let
+      us lodge in the villages. Let us get up early to the
+      vineyards."
+
+
+No, that was not exactly how it went. Something was not quite right;
+but she would find out what it was.
+
+She wrenched back the lid of the piano, which hadn't been opened for a
+long time, and, as if the neglected and silenced old keys had acquired
+a voice of their own, a perfect volume of sound rushed forth, which she
+could never have believed herself or the piano capable of producing.
+
+
+         "Let us see if the vine flourish, whether the tender
+      grape appear, and the pomegranates bud forth; there will
+      I give thee my loves."
+
+
+Yes, that was it! She had got it now--every bar, every note. Where had
+it hidden itself all these long years? It seemed like yesterday that
+she had sung it for the last time.
+
+And yet what worlds of suffering lay between!
+
+"No, not suffering! If it had been nothing but suffering," she thought,
+"'The Song of Songs' would never have become mute."
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XIII
+
+
+The next morning, on waking, new troubles faced her. Nobody could be so
+blind as not to detect, sooner or later, what a rotten existence hers
+was; least of all he whose refinement, at every spiritual contact,
+awoke in her an anxious echo. Even if she could keep from him every
+contamination of the world she lived in, and create in it an isolated
+platform on which to associate with him alone, would not her appearance
+at last betray her? All those nights of wild dissipation surely must
+have left some traces behind. It was two years ago that Dr. Salmoni had
+spoken of the "cold contempt" in her eyes.
+
+She jumped out of bed and ran to the looking-glass to subject every
+feature to a suspicious scrutiny. Her eyes had a tired look, it was not
+to be denied; but there was no contempt in their expression. _He_ had
+called them "Mary eyes," not Madonna eyes. Was there a difference, she
+wondered? There were a few faint lines on her forehead, but these she
+could almost rub out with her finger. A little massaging was all that
+was necessary. Worse were the lines on either side of her mouth, giving
+to her face a _blasé_, rather haughty look.
+
+"The paths that devouring passion long has trod," she quoted from
+"Tannhäuser in Rom," which she knew almost by heart.
+
+Yet, had she not preserved all that was best and deepest in her nature,
+as if she must guard it, for one who was to come into her life? And now
+that he had come, the _one_, it might perhaps be too late.
+
+The day passed in fretting and worrying, and when Richard appeared at
+tea-time he found her with red eyes. She learnt this afternoon what a
+treasure she possessed in Richard. He asked her so few questions, was
+so full of tactful solicitude, that for a few moments at least she felt
+comforted and sheltered. She was almost tempted to confide in him what
+she had gone through the last day or two. Was he not her kindest
+friend? Fortunately, however, she refrained. She would rather, on the
+whole, tell Adele, who on several occasions had let fall the
+encouraging remark that her mistress might place absolute confidence in
+her, as she knew life too well not to take the lady's part.
+
+Lilly, feeling that she could not endure any of "the crew" this
+evening, pleaded headache, and Richard did not grumble. But when night
+drew near she remembered that she had told Dr. Rennschmidt that she was
+going out, and in order not to be caught in a falsehood she hurriedly
+extinguished the light and sat brooding in the dark till bedtime.
+
+In the morning the first post brought her a letter addressed in an
+unknown hand. She broke the seal. Oh, God! What was this? Could these
+lines apply to her, to Lilly Czepanek, who was eating her heart out in
+morbid self-humiliation?
+
+If anyone on the face of the earth could think of her like this,
+especially he, the grandest and best of all--for these verses were his,
+without any manner of doubt, though there was no signature--then, after
+all, things were not going so badly with her. The life she led had not
+as yet entirely mastered her; the innermost core of her being remained
+unaffected; there must still be latent good in her, which if used might
+be a blessing to herself and to others.
+
+After she had learnt the verses by heart, she went on reading them over
+and over again, as she could not tear her eyes away from the beloved
+handwriting.
+
+Then she tried to set them to music. She opened the piano and
+improvised, and, as on the previous evening, her playing came back to
+her. Soon she could play once more all the things she had known years
+ago and long since forgotten. She just struck the notes and everything
+came back. But her fingers were stiff, and her wrists and the muscles
+of her forearm soon ached. She must exercise them and get them supple
+again. Then when he came to see her she would be able to play him
+something classical. This hope still further increased her new-born
+self-esteem, and she began to count the hours till evening.
+
+When Richard came in the afternoon he found her at the piano practising
+diligently.
+
+"What's come over you?" he asked. "I had no idea you could play so
+well."
+
+"Nor I," she replied, laughing.
+
+"You must show what you can do when we're out this evening."
+
+"This evening?" she exclaimed, horrified. "I thought that I was free
+this evening."
+
+"Free! I don't know what you mean by 'free,'" he answered irritably.
+"You talk as if our going out together were a sort of martyrdom. You
+get off whenever you can trump up an excuse. Only yesterday Karla was
+saying no one knew what you did with yourself when you were alone."
+
+"I should have thought that applied much more to Karla than to me," she
+replied. "No one even knows her real name."
+
+"That's nothing to do with it. She is not the only person who has
+remarked how reserved you are. I have been advised by a man to look
+after you a little more, and not let you go your own way so much. To
+shut them up I promised to bring you this evening instead of yesterday;
+and I must keep my word."
+
+Lilly quickly reflected that opposition to his wishes would not help
+her, and only give him further cause for suspicion, so she bravely
+choked back her tears and disappointment. But when he was gone she
+suffered all the more acutely, and her grief and despair knew no
+bounds.
+
+What would her new friend think of her if he came at the appointed time
+and found her not at home? She could not send a note to put him off,
+for he had not given her his address, and he would have twenty-four
+hours in which to think the worst of her.
+
+As a last resource she confided in Adele. Her dry, sour face brightened
+perceptibly, for deception of any kind was meat and drink to her. She
+proposed that the gracious mistress should say that she had been
+summoned to a friend's sick-bed. Such sad occurrences, she knew by
+experience, always appealed to gentlemen; and Lilly agreed to act on
+her advice.
+
+The round-table derived little amusement from her society that evening.
+She ignored the men and was rude to the ladies. Frau Jula, the only
+person she wanted to see, was absent, as she had been often of late.
+They soon left her to her own devices, and the worthy Richard, who had
+imagined he was going to show her music off, gnawed the ends of his
+moustache in helpless vexation.
+
+The next morning she again suffered torments. She had roused up Adele
+in the middle of the night, and learned that he had been and had gone
+away again, greatly perturbed.
+
+Another day passed in nervous counting of the hours. She stood before
+the glass and arrayed herself for him despondently. She would have
+liked to throw herself at his feet, but in spite of this she resolved
+to adopt a certain melancholy quiet dignity in her manner towards him,
+which would nip suspicion in the bud and make him feel that she tallied
+with the ideal depicted in his verses. Had he not in them termed her
+flighty, flirtatious head a "head divine"? The mere thought made her
+feel holy.
+
+At half-past seven the bell rang. She received him with a conventional
+"How do you do?" and smile; and the quiet melancholy hauteur, which she
+assumed, became her remarkably well, and effectually concealed her
+chagrin and anxiety.
+
+His manner, too, was not so composed and frank as usual. At a single
+glance she perceived it. His eyes wandered beyond her with a curiously
+vacant expression.
+
+"He guesses everything," a voice cried within her.
+
+But she knew how to control her feelings. "I must apologise," she said,
+"that I was unable to keep my appointment with you yesterday."
+
+"Is your friend better?" he inquired; and a smile of scornful
+incredulity played about his lips.
+
+She now said anything that came into her head, and although she did not
+look at him, she knew that he did not believe a syllable.
+
+"I also must apologise," he said, with the same covert scorn in smile
+and voice.
+
+"Why, Dr. Rennschmidt?"
+
+"I took the liberty of sending you a few verses, which I hope you
+accepted in the spirit in which they were written--merely as an
+exercise in style, without any special application or significance."
+
+"He is cooling already," her consciousness of guilt told her. And so
+all the colder and more unconcerned was her answer.
+
+"Your pretty lines did rather surprise me at first, as I couldn't
+conceive why they should be addressed to me, but afterwards it occurred
+to me that it might be what you have just said it was, and I did not
+mind. If you don't object, I would rather not talk about it any more."
+
+He gazed at her with eyes dilated from amazement, and she was glad that
+she had driven her thrust home with such bitterness.
+
+Next she asked him if he would have supper with her, as she wished to
+do the right thing, though nothing had been prepared for a guest.
+
+"I thought that I had been given permission to call for you and take
+you out," he said in a cold, disillusioned tone.
+
+She smiled graciously. "If you wish, I shall be happy to come," she
+said.
+
+In silence they descended the staircase, in silence they walked along
+the bank of the canal the same path that they had taken, in such
+rapturous proximity to each other, three evenings ago. They had been
+silent then, but what a different silence it had been from this.
+
+"What have you been doing the last few days?" she asked, for the sake
+of saying something.
+
+"Nothing special," he replied. He had been trying to write an article
+for a Munich art paper, to which he was a contributor, on the subject
+of the Siennese School outside Sienna. But he hadn't succeeded. His
+editor wouldn't be satisfied with his stuff.
+
+She read in his words a reproach to herself. Obviously he wished to
+imply that her entrance into his life was to blame. And when he asked
+to which restaurant she would like to go, she was so hurt that she
+begged to be excused.
+
+"I am neither hungry nor thirsty," she said, "and lights and people
+would jar on me."
+
+"If you would rather avoid people, we might perhaps turn into the
+Tiergarten?"
+
+She acquiesced; and if he had proposed plunging with him into the canal
+she would have consented even more readily.
+
+Before them stretched the roads of the park like long galleries with
+garish walls of electric light, between which one was obliged to run
+the gauntlet. The pedestrians who came towards them stared at this tall
+pair, as they passed, with cold impertinent curiosity.
+
+"This is worse than the crowded streets," she said. Her sore heart
+fluttered dully with excitement.
+
+He indicated a side path that was dark, and without speaking a word
+they dived into the benighted solitude. Above the dense canopy of
+branches the sky showed through rents in the clouds like tarnished
+metal, reflecting the city's glare. The glimmer of lamps from the great
+main avenues twinkled through the lattice-work of bare shrubs, and the
+bells of the electric tramways, shooting hither and thither at a short
+distance, sounded like repeated fire-alarms. Yet, here in the thickets
+of the park, stillness and darkness reigned. You felt as if you were
+being swallowed up by a sea of black oblivion. Every moment the silence
+grew more oppressive. Then, all at once, he hurried a step in front of
+her to bar her progress.
+
+"What is the matter?" she asked, frightened.
+
+"I am going to say something to you now," he began, "something which
+will either bring us together again, or estrange us more than ever--in
+fact, end everything.... I was too great a coward just now, and tried
+to prevaricate. When I said I did not mean my verses seriously I was
+not speaking the truth. I felt all that I wrote, only I felt it a
+thousand times more strongly. But I should have refrained from
+expressing my feelings.... I know now that it must have alarmed you. It
+has caused you to change your opinion of me. You may be thinking that I
+am a mere seeker of love adventures, who has tried to make capital out
+of your trust and confidence. I promise you, dear gracious one, never
+to annoy you by revealing my feelings again. But don't withdraw your
+friendship, I earnestly entreat you.... Please do not.... Think what
+will become of me if I lose you now!"
+
+Ah! so this was it! This! It was this deviation from an excess of
+reticence which had divided and stood between them. Oh, would to God
+there had been nothing else! She could not help herself; she just
+leaned against a tree and burst out crying. Her tears came with such
+force that her veil was soon drenched through and through. She had to
+throw it back and press her hands against her eyelids.
+
+"For God's sake, what is it?" she heard him ask in a voice quite husky
+from anxiety. "Have I wounded you so deeply? Is what I have said so
+bad? I will retract everything; only forgive me--you must forgive me!"
+
+When he thus asked her forgiveness for all the infinite joy he had
+given her, her passion leapt up and set her on fire. The pose of
+haughty dignity--aye, and her shame too--she cast to the winds; and
+with a groan of abandonment she flung her arms round his neck, pressed
+herself against him, and clung to his mouth with her lips and teeth.
+
+Under the onslaught of this wild and impure embrace he recoiled, and in
+thrusting her from him he dug his fingers deeply into the upper part of
+her arm. How it hurt, but how she liked it!
+
+"At last! at last!" her soul cried. Now he knew who and what she was,
+and how much she had to give him.
+
+When she gained command of herself again, she saw him leaning against
+the same tree from which she had sought support a moment before. His
+hat had fallen off, his eyes were closed. He was as pale and inanimate
+as death.
+
+For a moment all was still save for the clanging bells of the electric
+trams from the near distance.
+
+"Dearest, beloved," she whispered, stooping and leaning against his
+knees. "Wake up, darling; wake up and come."
+
+He opened his eyes and stared at her as if his wits were wandering.
+
+"Come, come!" she cried joyously. "Come away from here. Come home. I
+don't want to wander about any more here in the dark among the trees,
+or in the restaurants and streets. I want to go home. With you, with
+you!"
+
+He did not answer. He seemed quite distracted. A dull sense of guilt
+awoke in her, to be quickly drowned in exultation.
+
+"Come, come to me!"
+
+With both hands she drew him from the spot that had become the cradle
+of her happiness--and of his too. His happiness stunned him and robbed
+him of his senses; was there anything very extraordinary in that? When
+Lilly Czepanek, whom hundreds of men had wanted in vain, gave herself
+voluntarily it was enough to turn any man's brain. And as they made
+their way through avenues and streets she poured out her pent-up soul
+to him in an avalanche of chatter.
+
+Didn't he realise what unheard-of folly it was for him to cherish any
+doubts? From the very first moment she had been his. A miracle had been
+worked for both of them. Never had she known what love really was till
+the day when she had whistled to the squirrels skirmishing above their
+heads.... Life had been nothing to her since then.... There was nothing
+in the world that mattered except him--him and his eyes, his mouth, his
+great purpose, his splendid wonderful work, for which she was ready to
+work like a galley slave, and which she would enrich with her love; for
+in his researches amongst ancient pictures and books he could gather
+nothing but the grey ashes of love. She could teach him--she, Lilly
+Czepanek--what true fresh young love meant; she who had been waiting
+for him ever since she could remember. Had she not belonged to him
+before the world began? God had meant them for each other. Nothing
+could be clearer than that, because they had both felt that they had
+met each other before. And so they had, in some dream-life. Yes, they
+had met in their dreams, for she had dreamed of him always--always. It
+was all just like what one read of in fairy-tales.
+
+"Perhaps it is a fairy-tale! You--you whose Christian name I don't
+even know yet--but what does that matter? Say, say it is _not_ a
+fairy-tale."
+
+But he said nothing. He walked on like a man walking in his sleep. He
+followed her mechanically up her staircase, and stood stiffly under the
+chandelier in the middle of the corner drawing-room, into which she had
+led him, gazing round him in shy uncertainty, as if he had never been
+in the room, and was puzzled to know how he had got there.
+
+She clasped him to her playfully, saying he should rest and close his
+eyes. Then she helped him off with his overcoat, forced him into an
+arm-chair, and kissed his eyes till his lids drooped and he lay there
+as if really asleep.
+
+"Rest there, beloved, till I come back," she said.
+
+And away she ran, bursting with joyous excitement, to the kitchen to
+tell Adele to get supper as soon as possible. Next, she hurried into
+her room and changed the rustling silk she was wearing for a pale-blue
+tea-gown with turquoise embroideries, in which Richard used gallantly
+to declare she looked like Venus herself. She loosened her hair to make
+it look more curly, and took off all her rings. A single plain gold
+bracelet was her only ornament.
+
+The sulky Adele, who had transformed the table like magic into a
+flower-garden, was actually beaming, for at last it seemed as if a
+little human comedy was to come off in this dully respectable,
+disorderly household. The plate gleamed on the clean damask cloth, and
+golden-yellow bananas and pears sent forth a fragrance from the
+dessert-dishes.
+
+He ought to be as satisfied as she was. Her heart beat normally now;
+she had lost all fear. She would have felt like a conquering heroine if
+she had not been so humble in her joy. One thing she could be proud of,
+and that was, she had so much, so very much to give him.
+
+When she went into the drawing-room again, she found him no longer
+resting in the arm-chair. He was standing at the writing-table,
+absorbed in contemplating Richard's photograph, to her great
+discomposure. If only she had thought of slipping it into a drawer; but
+now it was too late. He let his eyes glide over her Venus draperies in
+perplexity; then he caught hold of both her hands.
+
+"Why have you made yourself so beautiful for me?" he asked.
+
+"I wanted you to feel just a little bit at home here," she said,
+letting her eyes fall. "Nothing more. Now come to supper. You know
+we've had nothing to eat this evening."
+
+"Eat and drink _now_ ... But I will sit with you at the table, if you
+like, while you eat."
+
+"Then I won't have anything, either," she said, putting her arm round
+his neck and drawing him so closely to her that the pressure almost
+took her breath away.
+
+Peterle, the small monkey, who had been asleep in his corner, now woke,
+and made a little jealous whimper as he stretched his grey hands
+through the bars as if to plead his right to be a third in the compact.
+
+The strange sound made the guest start.
+
+Lilly smilingly reassured him. "After supper I must introduce you to my
+little people. My friends must be your friends, you know."
+
+He drew himself up. "How can you? What would you introduce me as?" he
+asked.
+
+"Oh no!" Lilly protested; "I did not mean anything of that kind. I only
+meant ..." She couldn't say what.
+
+Then she felt her arm clasped in his trembling fingers. His eyes burned
+into hers.
+
+"Who are you?" he asked.
+
+She felt a little giddy. "Who am I? ... I am a woman who loves you as
+you have never been loved by anyone."
+
+He passed his hands over her shoulders in a grateful caress. "I must
+make you understand me clearly," he said. "I don't want to force your
+confidence. But when two beings have stood as near to each other as we
+have during the last hour, they naturally want to know everything there
+is to know. I have never met a woman in the least like you before. I am
+quite ignorant, for the one or two little experiences I have had count
+as nothing. In Rome a baker's daughter was in love with me, but she ran
+away with a marquis. In my student days I had a few other affairs of
+the kind. That is all. I have been in society very little. And now, all
+at once, here I am with you in my arms--you, the most glorious and
+perfect thing I have ever seen in my life! A woman who hardly seems to
+belong to this world at all.... I cannot take my eyes off you in your
+blue _peplus_.... You stand there the image of an antique statue, a
+masterpiece of Lysippus or Praxiteles come to life. And I am to call
+that mine? Why, the mere thought is sheer tragedy. We are both making
+for a precipice without an attempt to save ourselves."
+
+"Why should we?" she cried, throwing back her head in ecstasy, as if
+she were tossing back a bacchante's wild locks. "We love each other,
+and nothing else matters."
+
+He sank into the chair next her, and with dry tearless sobs buried his
+face in his two hands. She knelt down in front of him, and bending
+forward planted little fugitive kisses on his clenched hands.
+
+"No!" he cried, springing up again, "this must not be. I must not let
+myself be driven into a false position. You may think as you do, and be
+willing to sacrifice all that you have and are--very well. But I, who
+am to accept such infinite goodness--I must speak out, so that you will
+be quite clear for whom you are doing it. I must not leave open a
+shadow of a possibility of your being misled. I am a poor young chap
+living on his uncle's bounty. I have no prospects, for my great work is
+still in embryo, and the articles I write are nothing to speak of. I
+have still to win by unremitting toil a _pied-à-terre_ in life. It may
+take me ten years.... I could never submit to being supported by you.
+You must think what you will of me, but I say now, once for all, that a
+marriage between us is out of the question."
+
+At first she could hardly believe her ears. Here was someone
+so-unworldly, so naïve and ingenuous, as actually to mention marriage
+seriously in Lilly Czepanek's corner drawing-room! Then she laughed
+shrilly, in scorn of her shameless life.
+
+"Do you take me for an adventuress who inveigles men into her net?" she
+cried, jumping to her feet. "Do you take me for a harpy?"--Frau Jula's
+expression came back to her--"a harpy who tries to catch every person
+she chances to meet? Am I such a miserable wretch?"
+
+He stared at her face with an astonished, uncomprehending glance.
+
+"The woman who loves a man and desires to give him his crowning
+happiness is not a 'miserable wretch,'" he said.
+
+Ah, then he really meant it!
+
+She thought of the days when she had still been innocent enough to wish
+she was Richard's wife. How long ago was that? She must have sunk low
+indeed for this most natural relationship between man and woman to
+appear so strange to her!
+
+She shuddered and felt she was turning pale. What if he had noticed?
+She could bear anything but that. Shrinking from his searching eyes,
+she replied timidly:
+
+"I only wanted you to understand that you are free, and can always be
+free. You can go when you like, at any time, and have nothing to fear."
+
+"And you?" he asked.
+
+"What about me?"
+
+"In what position should I leave you if I went?"
+
+"Oh, that would be my lookout," she exclaimed, laughing.
+
+That was such a remote contingency, why should they worry about it
+to-day? But he was not satisfied.
+
+"There is something inscrutable about you. A touch of mystery.... How
+shall I put it? Some wrong seems to cast a shadow upon you.... You say
+that you go into society a great deal, yet I cannot get over the
+feeling that you are lonely and perhaps unprotected. When I try to
+penetrate farther into your soul, I feel that in some way or other you
+have been harshly dealt with.... From now onwards I shall stand by you
+as protector and adviser, but I am handicapped in being so ignorant of
+the world and its ways. It might happen that with every good intention
+I should only increase the mischief.... And I don't want to do that,
+because to me you are hallowed. So I beg of you now to tell me as much
+as you feel you can and may, of all that you have lived through and
+suffered. Will you?"
+
+She felt now that evasion was no longer possible. The hour of which she
+had been in dread and had tried to postpone indefinitely had sounded.
+Again a phrase of Frau Jula's came into her mind: "The way back to the
+community of all the virtues is only made by lying."
+
+With lying she had begun, with lying she must continue. For a moment
+the wish rose in her heart to tell him the whole truth, but that would
+be insane folly, absolutely suicidal. After all, it was not necessary
+to lie. She had only to put a different complexion on her life's story,
+to tell it as if it had been what to-day she would like it to appear.
+
+"I'll turn down the lights," she said, and extinguished the
+crystal-white flames of the chandelier, leaving only the rose-shaded
+standard lamp to cast a subdued glow on their corner.
+
+His hands in hers, leaning her head against his shoulder, she began her
+whispered and halting confession.
+
+She told him of her sheltered, merry childhood, free from care and full
+of music, which played the part of both fairy and demon in her youth;
+of her father's flight and the beginning of poverty and desperate
+struggles. So far she had withheld nothing, perverted nothing. Even the
+colonel was not altered, except that from habit she now and again
+promoted him to the rank of general. Only, when Walter von Prell came
+into the picture for the second time, it seemed inevitable that fresh
+colours should be mixed on the palette; for she would, without doubt,
+descend rapidly in her friend's esteem if she owned that she had
+abandoned herself body and soul in light-hearted frivolity to a little
+ne'er-do-well. So she made of that incorrigible rascal an ill-fated
+laughing young hero, who had only been vanquished because all the
+powers were ranged against him.
+
+Once started, the rest was smooth sailing. She invented a touching
+farewell scene, taking place amidst a thousand vows of faithfulness,
+floods of tears, and promised bridal prospects. The horrors of the
+duel, of which she had never taken the trouble to find out the
+particulars, were exaggerated to such a degree that her lover emerged
+from it an incurable cripple. He had set steam for America, firmly
+resolved not to turn up again in the old country till he was in a
+position to expiate his misdeed by marrying her; and he had in the
+meantime confided her as a sacred trust to his friend, a worthy,
+excellent young man, whose character was made up of nobility and
+unselfishness. It was the latter who, out of regard for the unhappy
+banished lover, had four years ago taken her fate into his keeping,
+kept watch over her, and introduced her into society. He had also, with
+rare tact and unselfishness, managed for her the little fortune saved
+from her days of affluence, and given her the support of his valuable
+advice and assistance in all questions concerning her everyday
+practical life. He came every day at tea-time to inquire courteously
+after her health, and he sometimes escorted her home from a theatre or
+social gathering, and had a cigarette afterwards. His circle of friends
+had become hers, and everyone they knew honoured and respected their
+relationship, as it was based on high-souled loyalty to his friend
+abroad.
+
+Thus Lilly Czepanek related her story with so much conviction that she
+almost began to believe it herself. And was it not a fair enough
+account of her life, as Richard had represented it before her descent
+to the depths on the night of the Kellermann carnival?
+
+She did not mention either Kellermann or Dr. Salmoni, or make any
+reference to "the crew," which was natural enough; but she spoke of her
+ill-fated art with tears and regret, and said it should be for the last
+time. She wished never to allude to it again.
+
+When she had finished speaking and looked up at him with a feeling of
+relief, expecting to receive his absolution, she was startled at the
+change in his face. He had turned a deathly hue, his feverish eyes were
+cast up to the ceiling, and there were deep lines of pain in his
+cheeks.
+
+"Doesn't he believe me?" flashed through her brain.
+
+He sprang up, seized Richard's photograph, which stood on the
+escritoire in a frame, and brought it close to the light of the shaded
+lamp.
+
+She knew that he was thinking of Walter, and said, "That is not his
+photograph."
+
+"Who is it, then?"
+
+"His friend ... the manufacturer."
+
+Disappointed, he threw the frame on one side. "Have you no picture of
+_him_?"
+
+Yes ... she had, but where was it? The big pastel portrait was in the
+attic; the smaller photograph she must have crammed away in some
+drawer.
+
+"I put it away," she said apologetically; "I could not bear seeing it
+before me every day."
+
+The reason was not very clear. He could, if he liked, interpret it as
+her growing love for him. Yet, how pitiable and ludicrous it all was!
+She would rather have thrown herself at his feet, and cried, "Forgive
+... forgive. Take me as I am; don't cast me off!" Instead, she was
+obliged to go on lying, disgracefully, desperately, like a common
+adventuress on the verge of being found out.
+
+"Will you mind very much if I ask you to look for the photograph?"
+
+"Oh, my beloved! Why do you torment yourself?"
+
+"Please look for it," he said.
+
+Further resistance was not to be thought of. She fetched the key of the
+escritoire, unlocked and opened the drawers at random, and searched
+wildly, hardly seeing what she was doing, among the papers. Ah, here it
+was! She hadn't looked at it for years. Imperiously and vindictively
+the light-lashed eyes glanced at her as much as to say: "Cheat, lie,
+and swindle. I have done it too."
+
+"This is it," she said.
+
+He took it to the light, stared long and earnestly at the features. His
+lips twitched, and he jerked the photograph nervously as he held it in
+his hand.
+
+"Just as I once stood before the photograph of the young orphaned
+heiress," she thought; but that was long ago.
+
+Then she heard his voice asking hoarsely, "Will you answer a single
+question, which is of vital importance to me?"
+
+"Ask anything you like, dearest."
+
+"Are you still building on the return of this young man?"
+
+Where did the question lead? She felt she only had to say "No" to break
+down all obstacles. But if she did, the tale she had been telling her
+friend about Walter would be utterly without sense or meaning, and who
+could tell then if his suspicions would not at last be aroused?
+
+So she steered a middle course, and said, "Often I am inclined to
+doubt"--she hesitated over her words. "You see, I am waiting for two
+... There's my father, who seems to have vanished for ever.... I never
+hear from him either."
+
+"And you feel yourself bound to him still?"
+
+She felt the noose tightening about her neck.
+
+"Answer me."
+
+There was something in his tone that abolished every loophole of
+escape. She felt that it was a matter of life and death. She held up
+her arms as if taking a solemn oath.
+
+"Since I have known you, I don't care one way or the other. If you wish
+me to be faithful to him, then I will wait for him ... till the crack
+of doom; if you would rather I threw him over, I will do that too."
+
+He laid his head back and closed his eyes. He stood now exactly as he
+had done in the dark bit of the park. And she felt the same anxiety on
+his behalf. "Why will he torture himself so?" she thought. And it
+occurred to her for the first time that he was taking her and
+everything she said in earnest; that he, to whom loyalty was a law,
+expected loyalty from her in the natural course of things. Ah, how
+little he knew!
+
+She was so deeply ashamed of herself that she dared not question or
+come near him.
+
+He drew himself up with a powerful effort, and she saw the cloud of
+wrath on his brow that had awed her the first day of their
+acquaintance.
+
+"Listen," he said. "After what you have been telling me, I see that I
+was on a wrong tack. You are not lonely and forsaken, the world has not
+sinned against you. On the contrary, you are protected and cared for,
+and have a future, however uncertain, to look forward to. You would
+lose all this through me. His friend would not, of course, continue his
+support if he heard anything about me. And it would be the same with
+the others, who at present constitute your world."
+
+She wanted to shriek with laughter, to whistle her contempt of all that
+had made up her life hitherto, but the sound was stifled in her throat.
+She recollected in time that to snap her fingers at her past might
+precipitate a catastrophe, which would expose the misery of her
+position. To him she might only belong in dark, secret hours.
+
+"And what have I to offer you in compensation?" he continued. "Nothing.
+My work is still in the clouds. I am not even sure of myself. And when
+I think of this last hour----" He broke off and turned his eyes away.
+
+"Then you don't love me?" she said in a depressed tone.
+
+He flung himself on her chair, so that kneeling on the cushions he
+could encircle her waist with his hands.
+
+"My God! be merciful! You see what I am enduring; don't make it harder.
+I should always be repeating to myself, every day and every hour, 'Over
+in America there's a fellow working himself to death for her.... He
+doesn't write because he is ashamed to confess how his maimed body is
+standing in his way and bringing all his enterprises to naught' ... at
+least, I can think of no other reason for his silence--for no man could
+forget a woman like you. Meanwhile, I have stolen you from him, and sit
+here with you in my arms.... I don't know ... the idea of a man leading
+a profligate life does not shock me ... but to rob a poor hard-working
+cripple of his all ... I think the meanest scoundrel in creation would
+draw the line at that.... I know I shall never get over it, but"--he
+collapsed, hitting his head against the arm of the chair, and
+sobbed--"better to part now, at once, on the spot, than wait till it is
+too late for both of us."
+
+The blow had fallen. Cleverly as she thought she had garbled her story,
+she was caught in her own net.
+
+"You mean that you will--oh God!" she cried.
+
+He got up. "Good-bye," he said, "good-bye, and thank you. Do not think
+too harshly of me."
+
+"If I tell him the truth now, it'll only make him go all the faster,"
+she thought, looking round her helplessly.
+
+His hands were held out waiting for hers; his eyes drank her in, as if
+by so doing he could imprint her image on his heart for ever.
+
+"I will put myself in front of the door," she thought. "I will throw
+myself on him and suffocate him with kisses."
+
+But the desire not to sink in his estimation made her timid and
+faint-hearted.
+
+"Don't go yet," she besought him, clinging to his hands. "Stay one more
+hour, just one--a farewell hour."
+
+He disengaged himself gently, and turned to the door.
+
+She stood in the middle of the room, drawn up to her full height, the
+wide sleeves of her blue Venus drapery fell back from her arms,
+displaying their matured beauty, as she held them out to him
+beseechingly.
+
+"If he sees me like this," she thought, "he will yet be mine."
+
+But he did not look back. He staggered, and knocked his forehead
+against the panel of the door as he opened it; and then all at once it
+seemed as if he were wiped off the face of the earth, and with him
+light and everything.... A swarm of bees rose buzzing into the air, and
+in the darkness that suddenly surrounded her the floor sank deeper and
+always deeper towards the canal waters ... a hatchet struck her on the
+head and then all was over.
+
+
+                           *   *   *   *   *
+
+
+At first it sounded like a twittering of birds, then like the murmur of
+an enormous crowd in a wide sunny square, and then there were only
+two voices left: a man's voice and a woman's whispering eagerly
+together--the old cook, Grete, and the manservant with the impudent
+twinkle in his eye. Yes, of course, it was they. The colonel would come
+in immediately and ask her to be his wife. At the same instant she felt
+something cool, damp, and soothing on her aching head. Just as she had
+felt that night.... "Am I to live through it all again?" she thought,
+startled, and she began to cry, and entreat, "Oh, please, Herr Colonel,
+let me go. I am far too bad a girl for you. Oh, dear Herr Colonel!"
+
+"Good God! she is delirious," said the masculine voice, which was
+certainly not that of the impudent manservant.
+
+Ah! how comforting it was to lie under the magic of this voice, in
+which a note of homeliness quivered.
+
+"So he hasn't gone, after all," she thought, and leaned back
+contentedly on her cushion, which had been placed on the carpet as a
+support for her neck. If she had known his Christian name, she would
+have called him by it now. But she was still ignorant of it, even after
+all that had passed between them. What a shame it was! She could only
+put out her arms a little towards him in silence. He was already
+kneeling beside her, stroking her hands.
+
+She must keep quiet, absolutely quiet.
+
+"Will everything be all right now?" she asked, smiling up at him in
+bliss.
+
+Yes, yes; everything. Ways and means must be found of seeing each other
+often as friends, as brother and sister. No; there should be no
+parting, no separation. No one was bound to inflict such hideous
+torture on himself as that.
+
+She thought with a shudder of the moment when darkness had gathered in
+around her, and she had sunk into the mire. So would her life always
+have been without him. But now, as brother and sister, they were free
+to greet in light-hearted joyousness a new dawn.
+
+Such happiness was almost inconceivable.
+
+She groped for his arm, and pillowed her cheek in the palm of his hand
+with a deep-drawn happy sigh. But Adele, who had all this time been
+discreetly looking out of the window, now interposed with the
+suggestion that a fresh compress was needed, as the wound in her
+mistress's forehead was still bleeding. And so it was adjusted.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XIV
+
+
+In human development each spring, as it comes round, has its particular
+significance and associations. Every spring finds a man different;
+every one opens old wounds anew, and sounds hidden depths. Sometimes it
+passes like a stupid unprofitable game, because he himself is feeling
+stupid and unprofitable; others torment him with a thousand futile
+admonitions, because he is utterly unable to render account to his own
+conscience. Sometimes spring finds him barren and clogged, like ground
+that cannot recover from the ravages of winter. And, again, spring
+carols deceptive songs of liberation and redemption in a man's heart,
+as if it was in its power to liberate and redeem. But the most
+beautiful manifestation of spring is when we are scarcely aware of it,
+because its budding and sprouting is but symbolic of the jubilant
+stirring of spring within us, the widening and growth of our being
+spiritually.
+
+Such a spring now dawned for Lilly. Everything seemed to wear a new
+face. The early sunshine had never before cut such grotesque little
+capers on the wall, never had there been such ravishing violet
+twilights at the end of rainy days, never had people worn such hopeful
+festive looks as they passed her, never had the din of street traffic
+sounded so full of an infectious revelling in activity.
+
+Yes, and all at once she too found no end of things to do. Every hour
+was full of delightful and urgent engagements. If anyone had told her
+during the last few years that she would ever again, with burning
+cheeks and a feverish brain, get up dates, quotations, historical
+allusions, and foreign words, she would have laughed at them.
+
+But now, whatever she did, she must not idle. As that time she had been
+ready with her answer about Giotto, so she must always have a response
+on the tip of her tongue when it was expected of her. All her eagerness
+to learn, which had been quenched in her for years by a feeling of
+isolation and uselessness, now streamed forth anew. And her mind--like
+a starved and uncultivated pasture--absorbed everything it was offered
+with an insatiable maw. It demanded hardly an effort to commit things
+to memory; she had only to imagine that she was quoting to him, and
+lines remained with her.
+
+She managed it all with the utmost secrecy, for Konrad--yes, that was
+his name, Konrad; he was called Konrad--must not suspect that her
+knowledge was brand-new and fresh from the mint. She sneaked alone to
+the museums and picture galleries because she wanted him to think she
+had been at home in them from time immemorial. Then she practised up
+several pieces of old music that might be of use to him in his work.
+And often did she bless her father's rigid discipline, which had kept
+her at the piano till late in the night.
+
+They saw a great deal of each other. He came every other evening as a
+regular thing. He avoided the afternoons, knowing that they were
+devoted to the friend of her fiancé, but often in the middle of the day
+he bounded up the stairs with a book or a flower, and begged for a
+little music. He never would stay to lunch, however warmly she pressed
+him. For the most part he was not at his ease in her flat; he would
+walk up and down restlessly, look at his watch and then hurry off. At
+first she was hurt, and asked him teasingly if he thought he was in the
+enemy's country when he came to see her. But, of course, she did not
+yet thoroughly understand him. Every day revealed some new and unusual
+trait in his character.
+
+He was still extremely young, not only in years. She had known many
+callous, _blasé_ old men of twenty-five--which was his age. His youth
+was within him. His thoughts were young and passionate, and she had
+never met anyone who expended so much care on mere thinking. His ideas
+seemed to be to him tangible beings, with whom he had to come to grips
+and either hug to his heart or spurn with his foot. Friends or enemies
+to him were all the great thinkers and creators of other times. He
+associated with them as with masters and comrades; defied them or
+despised them; submitted reverently to their teaching, or made fun of
+them.
+
+His thought and his conversation were a perpetual flow of antitheses
+and a whirl of paradoxes, a forcible pushing forward of research, a
+ruthless sport. He could not be neutral or indifferent. He saw in
+everything problems that cried out for solution, questions of urgency
+in which it was necessary to take sides. He loved or he hated; there
+was no middle course for him.
+
+She followed him and hung on his lips, with all the fervour of a
+disciple and lover. She annexed his ideas, and let them take root or
+die off in her mind as chance willed it. She had such riches to choose
+from that one more or less did not matter.
+
+Of his personal affairs he talked very little. Not because he was
+reserved or lacking in confidence, but because he deemed them of no
+importance or interest. Lilly had to drag everything out of him, bit by
+bit.
+
+The image of his parents had faded with time, though he still cherished
+an enthusiastic regard for their memory. For him his uncle had stood in
+the place of parents, the rich parvenu and man of the world, whose heir
+he would ultimately be, and to whom he now owed his freedom from sordid
+cares about money.
+
+She could not quite make up her mind what their relations were to each
+other. Often he spoke as if he loved the old man tenderly, but at other
+times a hardness, even bitterness, crept into his judgment of him,
+showing that their natures were diametrically opposed, and there was a
+lack of harmony between them.
+
+His friends were few--mostly old fellow-students, who went their own
+way--and he had no experience of family life. Thus he was able to
+bestow on Lilly all his free hours.
+
+They met frequently in restaurants, oftenest in the little Italian
+wine-shop, where they wondered when the waiter turned out the lights,
+as it seemed to them that they had only just come.
+
+Now and then they bought their supper at the butcher's and baker's for
+a few pence, and, laughing over their purchases, shook the dust of the
+town off their feet and retired to the Tiergarten. There they looked
+for an empty seat off the beaten track of the wide avenues, but not too
+lonely and remote. It was not till loving pairs began to wander by,
+like shades from the nether world, that they felt they were hidden and
+unseen. If a couple sat down beside them, they were sure to get up
+again soon, for they needed the night and darkness more urgently than
+these two.
+
+Then, when the pale-green lacework of leaves, which appeared quite
+detached from the grey branches, darkened gradually into a shadowy
+black ragged outline, when the fire of the evening sky toned down into
+the purple of night, when the nightingale--often only a few yards
+away--burst into song, then they watched shoulder to shoulder the stars
+come out one by one and illumine the twilight, which night after night
+became longer. Then their thoughts rose on wings to pictures and music,
+to sagas of the North and Italian olive-groves. Then questions of
+mystery and solemnity were mooted, hesitatingly and fearfully, and
+answered promptly with the charity and cocksureness of a joyous young
+scepticism.
+
+Lilly was left in no uncertainty as to his opinion about the
+immortality of the soul, the origin of the universe, and God Almighty.
+Often she felt as if she were left shivering alone in a vast icy-cold
+wilderness where there was no All-loving Father, no hope of an
+after-life, and much less of a St. Joseph.
+
+"Your creed, then, is simply atheism?" she asked nervously.
+
+"If you like to call it so, yes," he replied, laughing.
+
+She felt forthwith bound to become an atheist too--one of those who in
+the eyes of Holy Church must roast for all eternity in the depths of
+hell. But if he could exist under the bann of excommunication, so could
+she. Her only regret was for St. Joseph.
+
+How long it was since she had given her dear saint a thought!
+Nevertheless, it would be a pity if she could never run to him again
+with her joys and sorrows--at least, never without feeling ashamed of
+herself--especially now when her soul was burdened with so many new and
+varied experiences. There was nothing restful and soothing in the high
+art that Konrad unfolded before her; rather did she feel perpetually
+stimulated and goaded on to further delights and excitements.
+
+Together they listened to all the great orchestral works the spring
+produced. They heard the Eroica, Brahm's Second Symphony, and a gem of
+Grieg's beyond expression beautiful. At concerts they joined the crowd
+in the cheap places, which they both loved; their hands, touching as if
+by accident, telegraphed with a slight pressure the vibrations of their
+souls' sympathy with some subtle passage of hidden beauty. Oh, what
+hours those were! And then those other hours which they spent high up
+among the "gods" at theatres, where they were far out of sight of "the
+crew." With Shakespeare's deathless characters, and Wagner's legendary
+heroines passing before her, how intensely did she realise the wretched
+barrenness of her previous life!
+
+They did not neglect the modern drama either. Of all the plays he took
+her to, "Rosmersholm" moved her most deeply--she, with her load of
+concealed guilt, was the counterpart of Rebecca; he in his unsuspecting
+purity was Rosmer. His high-toned emotional life had, as it happened in
+the play, an ever-stronger and more elevating influence on hers. But
+what if the garbage in which her existence had its being should
+gradually revert from her on to him, would she not then be his evil
+genius and destroyer? The thought was intolerable. Even while the play
+was going on she cried so bitterly that she attracted the attention of
+people sitting near her, and Konrad proposed taking her out, but she
+indignantly refused to go.
+
+Still sobbing and supported by his arm, she tottered home along the
+bank of the river, a path he had chosen because it was quieter and
+darker than the main street. When they came to the bridge across the
+Spree, she stopped, and seemed fascinated by the black waters below. He
+let her be, till she began to climb up the railed parapet to see "what
+it felt like." Then he pulled her down by force from her dangerous
+position.
+
+"Why shouldn't I?" she thought. "When he knows all, I shall be bound to
+go down there and alone."
+
+After that evening, more anxiously than ever did she devote herself
+daily and hourly to keeping the slightest breath of suspicion from him.
+She was not ashamed of her great ignorance, which she combated with all
+her might, but it was the loose, cynical tone to which intercourse with
+"the crew" had habituated her that she lived in terror of disclosing in
+conversation.
+
+She braced up what had become lax in her by resuscitating the remnants
+of the good manners and breeding she had once practised, and so it came
+about that she recaptured a good deal of that inner dignity of spirit
+which she had assumed at the outset of her relations with Konrad. Only
+now it was not the mere empty acting of an affected _rôle_, but the
+outcome of all that her nature still possessed of nobility and
+refinement. Much that had recently dominated her mind became absolutely
+unintelligible to her, especially the tendency caught from her circle
+of regarding everything from an erotic point of view. Amazed, she saw,
+beyond the narrow sphere in which she had revolved, world after world
+opening, so full of glorious and beautiful things to be enjoyed that
+she had hardly time to bemoan and feel ashamed of the past.
+
+It was true that when she remembered how she had been bold enough to
+kiss him, hot shame crept over her. She could not help being afraid
+that her behaviour on that occasion must ever remain a blot on his
+image of her. Yet there was not the smallest sign either in word or
+look that he did not reciprocate the reverence and esteem which she
+cherished for him. And this mutual respect always seemed to hang
+between them like a veil, obscuring the beloved one's features in a
+vertigo of happy fears which, however, robbed of their sting her
+self-reproaches for her failings.
+
+There was to be no mention of love between them. Instead, they carried
+on a tender, almost shy, brother and sister comradeship. The word
+"friendship" was constantly occurring in their conversation; they
+extolled its sacred influence with grave faces without exactly
+understanding what they meant by it.
+
+It was hard for her to endure his actual presence. The only caress that
+Konrad permitted himself from time to time was, when they were sitting
+together, to lay his right arm lightly on her shoulder. Though she
+would then have gladly drawn closer to him, she finally moved further
+away, unable to bear the torture of restraint. She never dared
+contemplate for a moment the remotest prospect of their being actually
+lovers. At night, when she couldn't sleep, she was content with
+picturing herself dozing on his shoulder; that was in itself supreme
+bliss enough; her imagination hardly ever strayed into forbidden
+preserves. It was as if her girlhood's modesty, which the sensuality of
+her old husband had so rudely outraged, had come back to throw a
+merciful shroud over her trembling soul. And all the wealth of golden
+thoughts and virginal sensations, the fairy-tale glamour that common
+things irradiated, the amusing importance of every tiny event, the
+delightful expectancy of hoping for she knew not what--all this was
+girlish, and reminded her of long-vanished and forgotten days.
+
+If she had but known a single human being to whom she could have
+confided all this happiness and folly, how glad it would have made her!
+This desire to tell someone became at last almost uncontrollable. More
+than once she had only just checked herself in time, and nearly told
+Richard her secrets, risking thereby a disastrous ending.
+
+One day she plucked up heart and journeyed to the south of Berlin to
+tell her former landlady some of the experiences she was passing
+through. The old friendship between them had never quite ceased. Even
+if they rarely saw each other, Lilly had taken care, by sending
+frequent greetings and little presents, to keep herself alive in Frau
+Laue's affectionate remembrance.
+
+The present "young lady" tenant of the best room opened the door to
+her.
+
+Frau Laue sat as usual at the long white work-table, with her damp
+finger-tips tapping energetically among the heaps of pressed flowers
+and the paper lamp-shade lappels. She did not stop tapping when Lilly
+sat down beside her, and pushed the offering of sweets that she never
+forgot to bring in front of her.
+
+"No, thank you, child," she said. "Every sweet I bite is a flower the
+less. The likes of us can only afford to eat sweets on holidays. We
+have no one, you see, to give us everything heart can desire and keep
+us like princesses. I would like to change places with you for a day,
+before I go down to my grave, just to see what it feels like to have
+nothing to do but go for walks in the morning and feed a pair of
+goldfish."
+
+"Is that your idea of happiness?" exclaimed Lilly, with a sigh.
+
+"You are never beginning to complain of your lot!" cried Frau Laue
+indignantly. "If I were you I should thank the Lord every hour for
+having given me such a friend."
+
+"And you think there is nothing more to wish for?" asked Lilly.
+
+"What more can anyone want?" she scolded, still tapping. "You can't
+expect him to marry you now. And marriage isn't an enviable estate
+after anyone has gone through the mill you have.... He's sure to make
+you a handsome allowance if you behave yourself, and you'll never
+suffer want to the end of your days."
+
+"So all my hopes are to be centred, then, on a pension?" demanded
+Lilly.
+
+"Well, why not?"
+
+"I can think of other more desirable objects in life."
+
+"What are they then, eh? Work? Just try it! See what it is to work,
+after living by your emotions for years.... Or perhaps you're thinking
+of taking up with another lover? You'd have a fine time of it if you
+did. Take my advice, child, and never do that, or you'll deserve to
+paste flowers like me, sixteen hours a day till you die."
+
+And while she went on ceaselessly pasting one dried plant after another
+on the gummed paper, she continued to lecture and admonish Lilly
+severely.
+
+Lilly got up to go with a little shiver. Here she had nothing to hope
+for, that was evident. She looked round her, feeling suddenly as if it
+was all strange to her, and said to herself, "I don't think I shall
+ever come here again."
+
+
+                           *   *   *   *   *
+
+
+The next morning the tormenting desire to unburden her heart to some
+sympathetic ear awoke in her more strongly than ever, and she bethought
+her of Frau Jula.
+
+The clever flighty little woman had been holding aloof from the set
+for some time. No one seemed to know what she was doing; even her
+red-headed admirer had no information to give, and was shy of talking
+about her. Still, Lilly felt sure that the sympathy she needed would be
+forthcoming if she could find her out.
+
+The smart, yellow satin little nest that the red-headed one had fitted
+up for her near Unter den Linden was deserted. The porter told Lilly
+that the "gnädige Frau" had recently moved into the suburbs, as she had
+become nervous of the town. Lilly smiled and asked for her address,
+which was written down for her on a card, and then she set out to call
+on Frau Jula.
+
+In a quiet wooded neighbourhood, much patronised by poets and
+philosophers, she had taken up her abode in a simple-looking little
+villa, crammed with books and manuscripts and busts of eminent men.
+
+She herself appeared to be greatly changed. Her dark hair, which she
+had worn before in a wild frizz on her forehead, was now parted in the
+middle and smoothly brushed down over her ears in a prim fashion, which
+gave her an alarmingly virtuous air, although this particular style of
+coiffure happened just then to be the rage in circles where virtue for
+æsthetic reasons is not a valuable asset.
+
+Though she welcomed Lilly as usual with outstretched arms, there was a
+want of spontaneity in her manner, and the delight that beamed from her
+eyes seemed rather forced, as if she were thinking of something else.
+Without asking Lilly how she was, or paying any attention to her looks
+or clothes, she poured forth an account of her own affairs.
+
+"You'll be awfully surprised, of course," she said; "but I can't help
+it. I never made any secret to you of my little conscientious scruples,
+which, after all, were superfluous, as I was not so very bad."
+
+"Oh really?" thought Lilly.
+
+"And so you shall be the first of my former friends----"
+
+"Former?" thought Lilly.
+
+"To be told of my return to the bosom of respectability. To cut a long
+story short, I am about to get married."
+
+"To your red-headed boy?" asked Lilly, pleased and sympathetic.
+
+"Well, no, not exactly." She contemplated her fingernails with a
+pleased smile. "He has given his blessing, and there his _rôle_ ends."
+
+"Then who is your future husband?"
+
+Frau Jula meditated a moment. "It is rather an old story," she said,
+hesitating. "You couldn't understand it unless you knew more of my
+inner life during the last year or two. Do you happen by any chance to
+have heard of Clarissa von Winkel, the authoress?"
+
+Lilly remembered hazily having seen the name in certain old-fashioned
+and puritanical magazines for family reading, which she had glanced
+through for the sake of the pictures in cafés and confectioners' shops.
+
+"Well, then, Clarissa von Winkel, who has gained quite a reputation as
+the champion of a sound domestic morality, as opposed to the dangerous
+modern ideas about free-love--that Clarissa von Winkel is myself."
+
+Lilly was far too wrapped up in her own affairs to be able to bestow on
+the humour of these confessions the appreciation they merited, though
+she did experience a faint glimmer of amusement as she realised what
+strange pranks human puppets can be made to play in life's great farce.
+
+"Now, don't go and jump to the conclusion that I am converted, and have
+become a prude and a canting bigot, or anything of the kind," Frau Jula
+went on, with a certain dignity of tone, which became her quite as well
+as her former outspoken cynicism. "There's been no Damascus in my
+career. I have always had, as you know, two selves. One ..." She
+hesitated a moment, "I needn't tell _you_ what it was like.... The
+other craved for propriety, and white damask table-linen.... That is
+why you always attracted me so, my dearest Lilly. I couldn't help
+admiring your refined loyalty. Did I not always impress on you and urge
+you to hold fast, no matter in what circumstance you were placed, to
+this loyalty, which to us women is the crown of life? Don't you
+remember what a point I made of it?"
+
+Lilly could not remember, but she remembered a good many other
+sentiments expressed by the lady at different times scarcely in
+accordance with it. Her friend's new outlook on the world seemed ill
+adapted to give her the sympathy she had come to seek in the joyous
+tumult of her present feelings.
+
+"Well, to continue my story," Frau Jula said. "Through getting my
+articles and stories easily accepted, especially when I submitted them
+to editors in person, I found myself on the road to making a nice
+little fortune. My red-headed boy became merely a decorative appendage.
+For that is where virtue scores; it pays so much better than vice if
+you know the right way to set about it." There she slid her little
+tongue along her red lips, in her old arch manner, though her face
+remained immovably demure. "It was in the business of disposing of my
+work that I met my intended husband. I have got a divorce from the
+first brute at last.... He--this one--is the editor of a lady's paper
+just started, which caters for quiet domestic and housewifely tastes.
+It has got heaps of advertisements already. He is a man of high
+intellectual endowments and strictly moral principles, which, as you
+perceive, have not been without influence on myself."
+
+So saying, she made a little double chin and folded her hands piously
+in her lap.
+
+"And, if I may ask, how did you manage to break with your old friend?"
+questioned Lilly at length, almost forgetting her own trials in these
+extraordinary confidences.
+
+"Break with him?... What are you talking about?" Jula answered
+suddenly, radiant again with foolish frivolity. "I couldn't be guilty
+of such heartlessness, and when I said just now that his _rôle_ had
+ended, I didn't mean you to take it literally.... What on earth would
+the poor fellow do with his dyspeptic liver if I did not now and then
+invite him to a family dinner? In the first place, I have sworn
+solemnly to my future husband that my red-headed boy has never been
+anything more to me than a brother. Yes, we women can swear things like
+that, and not even blush in the process."
+
+Lilly nodded thoughtfully. She, too, on a certain evening, would have
+taken any oath that had been desired of her.
+
+"And, secondly, I tell you in confidence that he has contributed
+generously towards founding the new magazine. So the two are, as it
+were, colleagues and partners. I arranged matters thus intentionally,
+for I thought that it would be the best guarantee of the continuance of
+amicable relations all round. You needn't open your eyes so wide, my
+dear. Life is made up of compromises. Every bird feathers its own nest.
+Pray don't think I am afraid of disclosures and revelations. I shrug my
+shoulders at the notion of such a thing. You know tragedy is a matter
+of taste. I abhor it, so there's no tragedy in my philosophy. I say to
+myself, it's safe to smile perpetually so long as you are made of iron
+underneath."
+
+Lilly felt slightly disgusted.
+
+"If it is at such a price as this," she thought, "that one purges one's
+life of tragedy, I would rather stick to unhappiness and leave
+happiness alone."
+
+She rose to go.
+
+However much this small creature might surpass her in strength of mind
+and will-power, so that she now stood with both feet firmly planted on
+the rock of an honourable life, she was no longer a suitable friend for
+Lilly.
+
+"At all events," she said aloud, "I hope that your trust won't be
+misplaced."
+
+Frau Jula waved her hand in the air.
+
+"Bah!" she sneered. "Men are all alike. Those who know the world are
+devourers of women; those who don't are imbeciles. I can get on with
+both classes."
+
+"There is possibly a third," Lilly put in, annoyed. She felt as if
+Konrad had been insulted.
+
+"Possibly," responded Frau Jula, with a shrug of the shoulders. "I
+don't know it." And then, putting both hands round Lilly's waist, she
+said: "Tell me honestly, child; when you see me as I am now, and
+compare me with what I was, does it strike you that I am posing?"
+
+"To speak the truth," Lilly confessed, "it did at first."
+
+Frau Jula sighed, "It is difficult to grow accustomed to a dress which
+was not made for you.... Every one of us has a certain moral ambition;
+no one more than the so-called immoral person. But I would like to know
+one thing: whether my past sins or my present virtues are more to my
+credit."
+
+She smiled up at Lilly with a melancholy but mischievous face.
+
+Lilly answered nothing. Beyond this little self-satisfied madcap she
+saw rising her own fate, dark and threatening as a thunder-cloud.
+
+When she was once more in the street, her restlessness and sense of
+isolation took stronger possession of her than before. And yet she was
+thankful that she had kept silent. She knew full well that if she had
+submitted the portrait of her beloved to Frau Jula's acute judgment it
+would have been returned to her desecrated. And now she faced the fact
+that there was absolutely no one left in whom she could confide.
+
+
+                           *   *   *   *   *
+
+
+A few days later, however, in glancing, as she was in the habit of
+doing, through the morning paper, her eye alighted on a passage that
+awoke a ray of hope in her soul:
+
+"St. Joseph's Chapel, Müllerstrasse. Vespers and Benediction" at
+such-and-such an hour.
+
+Her old, long-forgotten friend and counsellor was, then, still living!
+He had his own church, even here in cold hardhearted heretical Berlin.
+In all these years she had never entered a church. Since, acting on the
+advice of Fräulein von Schwertfeger, she had joined the Protestants in
+worship, she had regarded herself as an apostate from the true Church,
+and had not dared to seek solace in religion, and now she had become a
+regular infidel. Yet the sight of the name of St. Joseph in the paper
+touched a soft warm place in her heart.
+
+Her feelings were as if, after long wanderings in foreign lands, she
+had suddenly caught sight in the alien crowd of a dear long-lost home
+face. Now she knew to whom she might turn, without any fear of being
+misunderstood and sent empty away. Even if the great philosophers had
+demolished him a thousand times over, he was still there, ready to
+receive the outpourings of her poor silly overflowing heart.
+
+Müllerstrasse lay somewhere in an extreme northerly direction; it was
+in "Franz-Josef Land," the owner of a fruit and vegetable stall, of
+whom she made inquiries, informed her. The way led through a network of
+narrow streets, from one electric tram to another, past the Reichstag
+buildings, the Lessing Theatre, along an interminable tree-flanked
+road; and beyond the Weddingplatz, which Berliners regard as the end of
+everywhere, the Müllerstrasse began.
+
+No one seemed to have heard of a chapel dedicated to St. Joseph, not
+even people who lived in the neighbourhood. At last someone she asked
+said he thought there was a Catholic place up there in a yard, and
+after a little further exploration she found what she sought. It was a
+low iron building shaped like a shovel, between flowering shrubs, with
+high tenements surrounding it. The side door was open, and garlands of
+pine bid her "Welcome." She entered a plain whitewashed hall, filled
+with the odour of incense, laurel, and new pinewood. In the background
+was an alcove decorated to resemble a starry canopy. Behind the wooden
+balustrade that separated the pictureless chancel from the rest of the
+building rose two magnificent feathery palms. The low rolling tones of
+an organ proceeded from the loft; the organist had probably lingered
+behind after the funeral to improvise dreamily at the instrument.
+
+Lilly's eyes wandered anxiously over the walls in quest of the shrine
+of her saint. She wondered if he held up his finger here in smiling
+warning, as did the kind old gentleman of St. Ann's in her native town.
+
+There was no room for side altars, as every inch of space was filled
+with benches. But that big picture over there in tawdry gilt frame,
+with a console-table beneath piled with dusty nosegays, was that----?
+She started back, shocked. Her saint, her own dear beloved saint was
+simply absurd, with his sharp-featured, wax-doll's face, his flaxen
+beard and seraphically pious smile. An infant Jesus in pink sat
+triumphal on one arm, while in his other hand he daintily clasped a
+spray of lilies. And pity succeeded her horror. How far behind her, how
+infinitely far away, was the time when one could worship and pray for
+miracles to a saint like this!
+
+Could her good, faithful monitor in St. Ann's have been like this? She
+hardly dared think of such a thing. He couldn't; no, he couldn't have
+been so insipid and ridiculous. One place on earth must remain to which
+one's memory in hours of smiling pensive melancholy might return on
+holy pilgrimages. The organ began the prelude to an exquisite mass of
+Scarlatti's with which Lilly had been familiar in her girlhood, and so
+gradually she became more at home in the little chapel.
+
+She knelt on a bench at the back, shut her eyes, and tried to fancy
+that instead of this flaxen-haired caricature her real old friend was
+looking down on her.
+
+A saying of St. Thomas Aquinas came into her head that she had learnt
+in class when a child: "Other saints have been given the power by God
+to help us in certain circumstances, but to St. Joseph has been granted
+the power to help us no matter what our need may be."
+
+Such a power he had once had in her life. So she spoke to him again for
+the last time across the waste of years that separated her from the
+altar in St. Ann's. She was sure it would be the last time, because for
+such childish things there could no longer be room in her soul. And as
+she felt it was a farewell talk, she related, without reserve,
+everything that had happened to her: how supremely happy she had
+become; how she felt an awakening of new life within her, and her dead
+self blossoming forth afresh, while the whole of creation seemed one
+great symphony of joy. And she told him, too, of the gross deception
+she was forced to practise, of her fear of discovery, and of the
+delicious expectant tremors for which she could find no name.
+
+Then she added that she no longer had any faith in him, and was, to all
+intents and purposes, an atheist. Feeling reconciled, she placed the
+carnations she had brought as an offering to the poor saint among the
+dusty nosegays, and with a lighter heart went out, laughing, to meet
+the spring that laughed at her.
+
+
+                           *   *   *   *   *
+
+
+There was not only this new-born Lilly who rode on the crest of the
+wave far above all earthly cares and annoyances, but another Lilly, who
+every other night enchanted her old set with her triumphant humour, her
+_élan_, and brilliant wit, which amazed and took everyone by storm.
+Richard, when he came to tea in the afternoon, never ceased to wonder
+at the change in her. Instead of the gloomy listlessness, which had
+characterised her for so long, he found her sprightly and full of gay
+pranks, a creature of surprises, never still for a moment.
+
+He accustomed himself readily to this new aspect of her being, though
+it slightly abashed him, owing to his inability to keep pace with her;
+and he praised the magical effects of the new tonic, hæmatogen, which
+the doctor, with a knowing twinkle in his eye, had prescribed this
+spring instead of iron.
+
+Every night that they went out together on pleasure bent, the same
+little comedy was enacted. At first she would say that she had caught
+cold, or had a headache, that she was not in a mood for meeting people;
+but when once he had prevailed on her to come, she would play with her
+admirers as if they were puppies, and tell her lady friends things to
+their faces that filled them with nervous gratification. Sometimes, it
+is true, she would sit apart in sulky self-absorption, lost in dreams,
+though now, if anyone teased her for doing it, she neither blushed nor
+looked uncomfortable, but made such sharp, stinging repartees that the
+men retired and hid their diminished heads. Only once during this
+period did she drink herself into a light-headed condition, and that
+happened to be on the very day that she at last decided to tell Richard
+about her new friend. She had grappled with the question for two
+months. It would have to be done in the end, but indecision as to how
+she should do it made her put it off from day to day.
+
+She was helped in her quandary by chance. One day Richard brought her
+some sketches of vases about which he wanted her opinion, and forgot to
+take them away with him when he left. Afterwards Konrad came across
+them, and with a few swift pencil-strokes inserted the outline which
+was in the original draft, but which the artist had omitted in
+developing the plan. The next day Richard was utterly astonished to
+find that the corrections had been made, and so accurately. Who was
+responsible for them? Lilly, with recollections of her bungled
+glass-plaque painting, dared not say that she was, and courageously
+took the bull by the horns.
+
+"My art history master made the corrections," she said.
+
+"How long have you had an art history master?" he asked with round
+severe eyes.
+
+To his surprise and consternation, she began to rate him soundly. She
+asked if he expected her to spend a miserable barren and frivolous
+existence till the end of her days. Did he think it was a crime for a
+woman of no occupation to try and improve her mind a little, so that
+she might be clever enough to talk to a sensible man like him and his
+associates? Surely that was better than spending all her time on gossip
+and finery, and going to the dogs dressed up like a frivolous doll.
+
+The phrase, "a sensible man like you," mollified him considerably.
+
+"It's all very well," he said in a milder tone, "but why not have told
+me before?"
+
+She now began a long story.
+
+She had seen an advertisement about six weeks ago in the _Lokal
+Anzeiger_, in which an erudite young scholar offered his services as
+coach to ladies and gentlemen with a thirst for self-improvement. She
+had answered it, and the scholar had come and arranged a course of
+lessons forthwith. It had led to a friendship between master and
+pupil--of a purely platonic nature, of course. She had made up her
+mind, she said, not to tell him, being afraid of exciting his jealousy,
+till she was able to convince him of the absolute disinterestedness of
+her intellectual endeavours by proving their success.
+
+He knit his brow, and a sardonic smile, which she could not account
+for, played about his lips.
+
+"So you have got a young scholar for a friend again?" he asked, leaning
+his head on one side and winking at her.
+
+"Yes, and I am proud of it."
+
+"I suppose he's going to be Regius professor?"
+
+"He hasn't made up his mind what he's going to be."
+
+"He is extremely brilliant, intellectual, and superior, I presume?"
+
+She cast up her eyes ecstatically. "I should think so. I have never met
+anyone like him." She stopped short, horrified at her own indiscretion.
+
+"Ha! ha! I see," he said, as if some long-cherished suspicion had been
+confirmed. "I see," and he got very red, and gnawed his moustache.
+"Didn't I say what it would be?"
+
+"You are jealous!" she cried. She felt herself writhing under a
+shameful injustice.
+
+Without another word he departed, scowling. An hour later a parcel from
+Liebert & Dehnicke's was left at the door. As she opened it, a light
+suit which she had seen Richard wear the summer before fell out. The
+note that accompanied the parcel ran as follows:
+
+
+"Darling Lilly,
+
+"You see that I am true to my promise of coming to the assistance of
+your intellectual affinities with cast-off wearing apparel. I shall be
+happy, too, to send another supply of old boots to help them on their
+road to success. This will show you how jealous I am.
+
+                                         "Yours,
+
+                                               "Richard."
+
+
+That same evening she was in such exuberant spirits that she drank wine
+immoderately; and never, not even when she had danced for Dr. Salmoni's
+delectation, had she let herself go with such unbridled abandon and
+exercised her art of mimicry with wilder _éclat_.
+
+To wind up with, she danced on the top of the tables, joined together,
+a Salome dance which was just then the rage. She accompanied herself
+through her clenched teeth with quaint Eastern snatches of melody.
+
+"What on earth is that gibberish?" the spectators asked each other.
+
+Afterwards, when they put the question to her herself, she was
+incapable of giving an answer. Insensible, she heard and saw nothing
+more.
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER XV
+
+
+The big railway station's grimy glass roof was pierced by the peaceful
+golden light of a June Sabbath morning. Beneath the three bold archways
+that led into the open air such masses of blue ether seemed to be
+concentrated that, as the trains passed under them, it was like being
+precipitated into a sun-drenched sea. Ribbons from girls' smart hats
+fluttered against the Sunday coats of their swains, each of whom
+appeared to think himself an indispensable master of the revels.
+Athletic and boating clubs were represented in the crowd, smoking clubs
+and music societies, and one warehouse's whole staff of clerks was
+there.
+
+Through the excited holiday throng a quiet, happy pair, looking round
+them cautiously and keeping at a judicious distance from each other, so
+that it might be doubted whether they were together, made their way to
+a carriage in the front part of the train. Lilly walked ahead, and
+again and again she saw the faces of people coming towards her grow
+rigid with an almost solemn awe as they regarded her--a mute homage to
+which she was used, but which had never filled her with so much
+satisfaction as to-day, when she was followed by the only man in the
+world in whose eyes she cared to be pleasing.
+
+In his honour she was dressed entirely in festive white, a linen coat
+and skirt, a soft lawn blouse, and a wide straw hat draped with a white
+lace veil which shaded her brow, and beneath which her burnished brown
+hair projected in great glossy waves. On her arm she carried a white
+woollen shawl as a protection against the chilly night air, for it had
+been agreed between them that they were not to worry about catching
+certain trains home, but were to stay in the country till they were
+tired of it.
+
+They sat opposite each other in the corner seats of a third-class
+compartment, without speaking. Together they were travelling into an
+undiscovered land. "Trust yourself to my guidance," he had said, "and I
+will give you a surprise. We are going on a voyage of discovery. I am
+not in the least certain where the place is; if I were, it wouldn't be
+a voyage of discovery."
+
+This sensation of being led like a little child was a new and exquisite
+joy. After an hour's journey, when the carriage had emptied, he signed
+to her to get out.
+
+"Where are we?" she asked.
+
+"Does that matter?" he rejoined.
+
+He was right. What did it matter?
+
+She did not even look to see what the name of the station was, and they
+walked out of it into the main street of a bare little country town. On
+the front of the yellow houses the sunlight lay like a soothing hand.
+The low doors of the shops were locked, and half of the poor goods
+displayed in the windows was covered by a sheet to show that it was
+Sunday. Organ-notes sounded round street corners like sighing winds. A
+turkey-cock came strutting consequentially from under a gateway and
+gobbled at them; and then there were no more organ-notes ...
+
+Houses were gradually left behind. A whiff of ripening grain came from
+the fields, but the pungent fragrance of the yellow lupins outscented
+it. All round them were meadows carpeted with white and pink tufts of
+clover, and, beyond, dark firs rose on the slopes of sandy hills.
+
+The road was shadeless, but they tramped along it gaily, and little
+columns of silvery dust whirled in front of them. He knew everything,
+and nothing escaped his keenly observant eye. He pointed out a wild
+rabbit flicking the white underpart of its tail impertinently as it
+scampered away with comical self-importance. Every moment there was
+something fresh to look at.
+
+Since her married days at Lischnitz Castle, Lilly had never seen the
+spring blossom forth in the pure open country.
+
+"Ah! if then I had had him for my guide," she thought, "all would have
+been different."
+
+As they entered the warm shade of the pine-woods, a squirrel ran almost
+over their feet and darted a few feet up a tree, where it paused and
+sat motionless, as if turned to stone.
+
+They looked at each other, both thinking of the moment that had first
+brought them together.
+
+Lilly went close up to the little animal, but he did not stir.
+
+"I feel as if I were on enchanted ground," she said; "if he began to
+talk to us I shouldn't be surprised."
+
+She threw herself down, with a sigh of content, on the grey cushiony
+moss.
+
+He followed her example. Shading their eyes with their hands, they lay
+on their backs and blinked at the sunshine flickering down on them
+through the branches. They had nearly forgotten the squirrel, when
+suddenly, close above them, he made a whistling sound, and then
+scuttled for his life further up the tree to the topmost branches.
+
+The scared little fellow had been staring at them all the time, not
+daring to move until now.
+
+"Do you see?" Konrad said. "As long as our human language sounds in
+their ears, they'll take care to have nothing to do with us."
+
+"All the same, we are bewitched here," she said, laughing. "I've never
+before lain so luxuriously on the moss and had the sun shine on me so;
+have you?"
+
+"Yes, once," he answered. "I remember it quite well."
+
+"When did you, and where?" she demanded instantly, jealous of any
+moment of happiness in his life that she had not created for him.
+
+"Oh, there's not much to tell about it," he said. "It was at Ravello,
+perched like a gull's nest high up on the rocks above the sea, not far
+from Amalfi--just about there is a fairy-land of magic country. Picture
+old Moorish palaces half deserted and half lived in; marble courtyards
+shut in by trellises; ruined fountains, with myrtle and laurel growing
+in profusion, and little white climbing-roses trailing over every nook
+and cranny. There was one place I would have given anything to get
+inside ... It was a small mysterious gallery standing out against the
+deep blue sky like a web of silver filigree. So once when there
+was no one about--only a handful of olive-gatherers live in the
+neighbourhood--I behaved like a schoolboy, and climbed the great iron
+gate as high as a house, bar by bar, up one side and down on the
+other."
+
+"Oh, how splendid!" cried Lilly.
+
+"Yes. I got inside. And when I had examined all the gorgeous details
+with a professional eye, I threw myself full length on the warm stone
+steps, and let the sun bake me through; just in the same position as we
+are lying in here now under these Brandenburg pines. And--would you
+believe it?--the little bluish-green lizards that you are so fond of
+came and slowly and cautiously crawled all over me."
+
+"Oh, how heavenly!" cried Lilly in rapture.
+
+"And while I lay there, with the old marble fountain making music in my
+ears, I fell fast asleep. But I had better have left going to sleep
+alone, because there's a risk of getting sunstroke even in mid-winter.
+I should in all probability have been a victim, if some tourists hadn't
+come and thrown sticks and stones at me. Everything looked red and swam
+before my eyes. To climb back over the gate was out of the question.
+The key had to be fetched from the Sindaco, and subsequently I had to
+appear before him and give an account of myself. But, thank goodness,
+they didn't lock me up for trespassing, because all the witnesses
+tapped their foreheads and said '_è matto_'--'he's mad.'"
+
+"Never mind," she laughed. "You at least got your way, and saw the
+inside of the forbidden garden. Many people have to be satisfied with
+standing outside and looking through the railings."
+
+"That's a pleasure that may be ours to-day," he remarked. And she had
+to restrain her curiosity.
+
+"It doesn't hurt, at any rate," he went on, "to practise now and then
+standing outside. For God knows that generally the happiness we happen
+to be craning our necks to reach is a forbidden garden."
+
+Lilly gazed at him in alarm. What did he mean by that? Then their eyes
+met in shy understanding. The disquieting expectancy to which she was
+afraid to give a name crept over her suddenly like an ague.
+
+"Let us go on," she said, springing to her feet, and she walked on
+rapidly without looking round to see if he followed.
+
+The woods grew clearer. They came to a little swampy coppice where
+silver birches shot up their slender trunks gaily from mossy pedestals.
+
+The hot midday air stirred in tiny wavelets. Somewhere not far off
+church-bells were ringing, but no farmstead was in sight, and suddenly
+they found themselves at diverging paths without knowing which
+direction to take.
+
+"A decision is called for," he said, and strained his ears for a moment
+in the quarter whence the sound of church-bells came.
+
+"I wish with all my heart," he added, "that there was a bell ringing
+thus to guide me on my road in life." And he turned to the right.
+
+Then he told her that he was standing figuratively at cross-roads. He
+had been offered a post which, considering how young he was, ought not
+to be scoffed at; but before accepting he was bound to consider whether
+it would interfere with the progress of his life's work.
+
+"It's a very good post, I suppose?" Lilly asked proudly. If he had been
+appointed minister of the fine arts or Emperor of China she would not
+have thought it in the least extraordinary. But he seemed disinclined
+to say more.
+
+"I would rather talk to you about it when it's settled one way or the
+other," he replied. And she was perforce satisfied.
+
+Red-tiled roofs appeared above the bushes, and the mirror-like surface
+of a lake made a shining line against the horizon.
+
+"Is that where we're going?" asked Lilly.
+
+"It may be," he answered.
+
+"Oh, don't be so mysterious," she scolded him in fun. "I've been very
+good in not asking questions. But now I really must insist on your
+telling me what your programme is."
+
+"Yes, when we've got there," he laughed. "I know you, and don't want to
+make you jealous before the right moment."
+
+Could it be that there was another woman in the case?
+
+Another woman? She did not betray her emotion, but as they walked on
+she felt quite faint--partly from hunger and partly from mental
+distress. The lake now lay before them in its early summer beauty, with
+its greenish-grey girdle of reeds and rushes, and lights and shadows
+flitting across it.
+
+A little distance from the bank, on a shrubby slope, was the inn,
+with "Logierhotel" printed on its signboard. It was one of those
+orange-brick monstrosities built in the barbarous palatial-barn style.
+But round it three or four ancient lime-trees spread their wide shady
+branches, and they seated themselves on a white bench beneath them,
+their mood harmonising with the scene.
+
+To their left the lake stretched away into the hazy distance; on their
+right, beyond the reeds and sedges of the shore, was a tiny village
+with moss-green thatched roofs, and a stumpy, storm-beaten spire half
+hidden among reeds and bushes. And close to them, not a hundred steps
+from where they sat in the shade of the limes, there rose the wooded
+slopes and mighty tree-tops of an ancestral park, from the interior of
+which they caught the gleam of pillars, bridges, and white, vine-clad
+balustrades. Very likely that was the forbidden garden, outside the
+gates of which they were to stand to-day. How charming! how mysterious!
+
+Anglers came up from the lake, scarlet of face and panting with thirst,
+and these apparently were the only guests at the inn besides
+themselves, for the Sunday stream of excursionists had not yet begun to
+flow in the direction of this quiet nook.
+
+The bill of fare which the landlady, equipped with all the wiles she
+had acquired in the capital, smilingly handed to them presented a
+dazzling abundance of good things. It was too bad that they all came
+together. Lilly was asked to choose, but declined. Thoughts of the
+strange woman who was certainly in the case depressed her. And she only
+saw the laughing world, which threw its early summer gifts at their
+feet so bountifully, through a mist of suppressed tears.
+
+"Here we are at last," she said, sighing. "So you may as well confess:
+what sort of woman is she?"
+
+He laughed heartily. "So you've guessed, have you, that it _is_ a
+woman?"
+
+"If not, why should I be jealous?"
+
+"I must admit you have every cause. I never set eyes on anything more
+beautiful; the only pity is, that she is marble."
+
+Oh! then that's all it was!
+
+"I am and always shall be a silly," she said, laughing from relief, and
+he kissed her hand in contrition.
+
+While they were waiting for the fish which they had ordered, he told
+her the story of how they came to be making their present pilgrimage.
+
+He had one day, during his sojourn in Rome, seen in the window of an
+art-dealer's shop the antique cast of a woman's head, much damaged, but
+of such inspiring and sombre beauty that he went again and again day
+after day to feast his eyes upon it. And one morning he found the owner
+of the shop and a German gentleman standing in the doorway engaged in a
+lively conversation, which, however, did not progress, as neither of
+them understood what the other was talking about. He offered his
+services as interpreter, and to his chagrin learned that the subject of
+discussion was his favourite bust, which the German, a courteous and
+cultivated country gentleman, wished to purchase. Setting aside his own
+feelings, Konrad assisted in concluding the bargain on the Baron's
+behalf, and had received an invitation from him to visit his house on
+returning to Germany, in order that he might see the marble bust
+adorning his park, and convince himself that its new surroundings were
+not unworthy of its beauty.
+
+"Oh! so the garden isn't forbidden after all?" cried Lilly, holding out
+her arms ecstatically towards the green mysterious barriers. "We may
+just walk straight in."
+
+Konrad's face became thoughtful. "It's not so simple as that," he said,
+"for how should I introduce you? You are not my wife.... Only between
+ourselves you are my sister, and we are too young to trump up any other
+plausible relationship."
+
+A sudden bitterness welled up within her. Once more she felt despised
+and rejected, ostracised from honourable society.
+
+"You should have left me at home," she broke out. "I am only an
+encumbrance to you."
+
+"Ah, Lilly," he said, "what do I really care about marble busts? I
+would rather stand behind the fence with you than have the run of the
+whole park without you."
+
+She caressed his hand, as it hung by his side, mollified and grateful.
+And then at last the carp came.
+
+
+                           *   *   *   *   *
+
+
+Two hours later they were pacing along a seemingly endless wall, half
+as high again as a man, with no break in it to peep through. "Not till
+they came to the corner of the park where the wall ended did they find
+a less impenetrable, high, moss-grown fence, which ran along to the
+right. Now through the gaps they could get a view of the interior.
+Venerable plane-branches formed arches over shady nooks, with groups of
+oaks and limes between. The open grassy lawns were banked with
+rhododendrons, the blossoms of which looked like violet eyes. On a
+knoll in the background, a little round temple with Tuscan columns and
+a shining green roof looked solemnly out of its dark surrounding
+cypresses.
+
+"She must be in there," Konrad said. But the little temple was empty,
+so they prosecuted their search further afield. Not a single opening in
+the foliage escaped their vigilance. Here and there statues gleamed, a
+Ceres, a Satyr playing on his flute, and in a cypress thicket they
+caught a glimpse of a shrine of the Virgin, but nowhere did they see a
+sign of the strange, beautiful woman's head they were looking for.
+
+They went on. A stream ran out from the park across the road, spanned
+by a rough plank such as is to be met with in any country lane. But a
+hundred paces away, inside the park, was another snow-white glistening
+bridge, throwing its graceful arch boldly over the water.
+
+"The Venetian bridges are like that," he said.
+
+"Across such a bridge the gods entered Walhalla," she sighed.
+
+They stood still and conjured up the joy of crossing that bridge. But
+still they could not get on the track of the marble bust.
+
+Beyond the plank bridge, where the village began, the park receded some
+way from the lane. A row of Weymouth pines flanked the inner side of
+the fence. The quaint village street was gay with Sunday festivities.
+Dancing was going on to the accompaniment of piano and fiddles, and
+somewhere bowls were rolling merrily; but they passed without taking
+any notice of these things, for all their interest was still centred on
+the forbidden garden. Every moment it drew them with more compelling
+charms. Crumbling gate-posts were half-hidden among the village
+lime-trees, and the palings were so rotten they hardly held together.
+At this spot the foliage on the inner side was quite impenetrable to
+the eye. Trunk was garlanded to trunk by growths of clematis and ivy,
+and lilac and spiræa bushes were massed underneath. It looked as if the
+master of the garden had, in addition to a stone wall, drawn a living
+one around his demesne to hedge in himself and his family in happy
+seclusion.
+
+For a long time they walked on without being rewarded by another
+glimpse of the inside of the park. Then unexpectedly they came to an
+old three-cornered gateway which, with its vases and pillars, its
+cracked belfry and lacework of latticed railings, was half buried in
+blossoming acacias.
+
+Here at last they got an uninterrupted view of the inside of the park.
+A straight avenue of pines led in solemn dignity up to the castle, but
+even at this favourable standpoint nothing of its architecture was
+revealed to their gaze. Trees and bushes hid it from view. The only bit
+of stone-work their eager eyes discerned was a flight of steps on the
+columns of which marble nymphs raised aloft their snow-white wings.
+
+"Isn't that lovely?" Lilly murmured with a sigh; and thrusting her face
+through the iron bars, she whimpered and begged playfully to be let in.
+
+"That is exactly how I stood, outside the gate at Ravello," he said.
+"Now you know what it is like."
+
+As he said this, it struck her that the sensation of being shut out
+somewhere was familiar to her too. She knew as well as he did what it
+was like. But where was it that cold iron had pressed her cheeks
+before?
+
+Ah! now she recollected. Had she not many a time stood without the
+latticed door which barred the staircase to the private part of
+Liebert & Dehnicke's warehouse? That pretentious, proud, forbidding
+laurel-flanked ascent, which her unholy feet might never tread?
+
+It, too, was a forbidden garden. Forbidden gardens abounded everywhere,
+it seemed!
+
+"I think we had better give it up," she said softly; "it only makes our
+hearts ache."
+
+So hand-in-hand they wandered back along the path they had come, close
+to the fence, and talked persistently of other things. And yet their
+eyes still lingered longingly in the neighbourhood of the park, and the
+aspiration they both felt, but did not express for fear of hinting
+reproaches, gilded everything with a fairy-tale glamour.
+
+
+                           *   *   *   *   *
+
+
+Evening came. Violet mists hung over the meadows, and the
+copper-coloured trunks of the pines glowed like torches. The deeper the
+setting sun sank into the reeds and rushes, the more the lake lost its
+cool, blue, silvery sheen, and took on a network of ruddy gold. It
+looked now as if it bore on its face the sparkling fulfilment of all
+earthly promises.
+
+Neither of them could tolerate being on shore any longer.
+
+A boat lay at anchor by the hotel's bathing pavilion, where in the cool
+of the evening happy bathers were splashing, and they hired it for a
+mere song. Konrad took the oars and Lilly seated herself at the stern.
+All kinds of water-flowers rose with a swish lightly to the surface as
+the boat cut through a carpet of sedges. Mingled with the young green
+of the sprouting reeds were the brown battered remnants of last year's
+growth; stately bulrushes bordered the banks, and the water flag
+planted her golden tents between them. Like huge dense walls of purple,
+the park's wealth of timber rose high against the sky.
+
+When Lilly pointed this out, Konrad shook his head and said: "It's no
+good thinking any more about it." But, nevertheless, he kept casting
+glances in that direction.
+
+Lilly had scarcely ever been in a boat, and soon gave up steering as a
+bad job. She spread her shawl at the bottom of the boat and made
+herself a comfortable soft nest, into which she retired.
+
+Crouched at Konrad's feet, she lay there with her back against the seat
+in the stern. And thus, her eyes dreamily fixed on blue space, she
+began to build castles in the air about her future, devising plans by
+which, with a bound, she was to swing herself back into the midst of
+respectability.
+
+She would give music lessons--she was good enough for beginners--and
+with the proceeds prepare herself for the stage, for which she had a
+decided talent.... Or perhaps it would be wiser to go in for science,
+to train her mind so that it might not lag behind his. She must be
+intellectual enough to deserve his friendship so long as he desired her
+to be his friend. Or--so that no harm should happen to anyone else--she
+would go abroad and teach German, and come back a new and regenerated
+woman at his summons. Or ... Ah! what? Or ... or ... lie and dream, and
+drain the happiness of the hour to the dregs. Exposure and death--one
+must entail the other--would come time enough....
+
+The sun went down, melting into a blood-red haze. Nearness and distance
+were now veiled in violet mists. The whole globe seemed to be diluted
+into light and air, the reeds alone, with their slender black stems
+latticing the evening afterglow, retained an earthly corporeal form.
+
+The foliage of the park gradually melted into a dark undefined mass.
+More than ever did it now seem to be a forbidden garden, filled with
+thrills and mysteries, sinking for ever into the unattainable.
+
+As the boat glided along the edge of the reeds, it suddenly drifted
+near a blue bay, which cut like a wedge into the land on the park side,
+so far in that it was impossible to see where it ended. For a moment
+Konrad rested on his oars motionless, then he sprang to his feet with a
+cry of delight.
+
+"What is it?" she asked.
+
+"You remember we saw a stream flowing out of the park on the village
+side?"
+
+"Of course I do."
+
+"It must have flowed in somewhere, mustn't it?"
+
+"Why, yes."
+
+He pointed with his hand to the gleaming bay's narrowing tip.
+
+"There's the place!"
+
+"And do you really think that at last we have ..." She dared not
+suggest it.
+
+"If we like, we can in this boat traverse the whole unexplored region
+by water."
+
+In her childlike jubilation she jumped up with an exclamation, and
+simply fell on his neck as if it was a natural thing to do, and they
+had never made any platonic vows.
+
+Slowly the boat drifted on with the current--between meadows lined with
+weeping willows, where the evening mist hung like white scarves.
+Peasants' cottages stood near, with fishing-nets spread out over the
+fences. Then, at a bend in the stream, a dark gateway of foliage opened
+like a huge vault in front of them.
+
+"Oh, goodness!" cried Lilly.
+
+"Hush!" he whispered, in pretended awe. "Now we must be as quiet as
+mice, or we shall get turned out for trespassing, after all."
+
+And the dip of his oars became so stealthy that it might have been
+taken for the splash of a leaping fish.
+
+Thus they rowed under the triumphal arch of leaves which thickly
+interlaced overhead. It was pitch dark close around them, though here
+and there from the right bank came an occasional gleam of summer
+twilight. Lamplights, too, twinkled in the distance, and they could
+catch the hum of voices, the clink of glasses, and now and then a stray
+chord struck on the piano. The foliage parted, and an unimpeded view of
+the castle lay before them. It was a wide, two-storeyed, box-like
+structure, its ponderous simplicity dating from a period when the
+grandees of Brandenburg still possessed little sense of the artistic.
+But on the stone steps gleamed the marble nymphs that had greeted them
+in the afternoon, and beyond their white bodies one saw on the terrace
+itself a long table, round which was gathered, in the flickering
+lamplight, a chattering, laughing party, passing gaily with song and
+wine the intoxicating summer evening.
+
+"And he might be sitting there too," thought Lilly, "if I were not
+hanging like a millstone about his neck," and she felt almost as if she
+must apologise to him.
+
+They drifted quickly by on the current, and like the vision of a moment
+the banquet vanished from their sight. They passed the brightly lighted
+windows of the castle kitchen and offices, where servants flitted to
+and fro like ministering spirits, and glided again into silence and
+darkness. To their right, at the back of the house with its countless
+windows, was a grass plot bordered with old statues and ivy-draped
+urns; on their left everything was plunged in shadow. Here was an
+avenue of century-old limes running along the bank of the stream, every
+ray of light extinguished in its dark depths.
+
+Maybe somewhere near here stood the marble head they longed to find.
+Lilly's eyes searched every corner furtively, as if she scrupled to
+deprive him of the joy of discovery.
+
+The arched bridge, which they had admired earlier in the day, now
+gleamed at them again out of the dusk. It evidently did not lead to
+Walhalla, but to an islet of spiræa and hemp bushes, under the branches
+of which a pair of swans were roosting. At the sound of the oars they
+awoke, and with flapping wings pursued the boat, opening their beaks
+for bread.
+
+"Swans! the one touch that was wanted to make everything perfect!"
+Lilly exclaimed jubilantly. "I wish I had some crumbs to give them."
+
+She turned her head to look after the swans, and her neck rested
+against his knees.
+
+"May I stay like this?" she asked a little nervously.
+
+"Yes, if it's comfortable," he answered; and there was a caressing
+yielding in his tone that sent a warm glow through her limbs.
+
+She took off her hat, not to crush it, and laid it on the seat in the
+stern. Now her head was free to lean too against him lightly, and in
+sweet anxiety she felt his hand rest for a moment tenderly on her hair.
+Yet he was silent and preoccupied, as if some burden were weighing on
+his mind, which he could not throw off. And again she felt as she had
+often felt before, as if a veil hung between him and herself--a veil
+that seldom lifted, and obscured from her the true characteristics of
+his nature, much as she clung to him in loving intimacy.
+
+Oh, if only he would be merry!
+
+The park came to an end, and the red after-glow, no longer hidden by
+walls of foliage, flamed in full glory over them. The spell threatened
+to be broken. The world of magic became almost ordinary.
+
+"Come, let us turn round," she begged softly.
+
+And they turned the boat's head and rowed again into the dreamy bliss
+of semi-darkness.
+
+But now he had to strike out with a will, because they were rowing
+against the current, and he could not prevent his oars from splashing
+audibly in the water.
+
+"We shan't get off. They will catch us now!" he said.
+
+"Oh, but they are far too happy," she replied, "to be down on other
+happy people."
+
+"Yes, it looks almost like an enchanted castle; but--who knows? it may
+be a snare and a delusion."
+
+"Why should it be?"
+
+"Ah, God knows!... Bleeding wounds can be hidden under flowers, and the
+beauty with which a man may surround himself is often deceptive."
+
+This scepticism displeased her.
+
+"They must be happy!" she cried; "they who have given us so much to-day
+must have enough for themselves too."
+
+"It, doesn't follow, darling," he answered. "It's possible to make a
+rich man of a beggar, and to be as poor as a church mouse one's self."
+
+"Are we beggars, then?" she asked, raising herself gently up to him.
+
+"No, by Jove! we are not beggars;" and he drew a deep breath.
+
+There was a silence, and then it seemed as if something warm and damp
+was falling on her forehead.
+
+He was actually crying--crying for joy!
+
+Did she deserve it? She, Lilly Czepanek, who ... And to hide her own
+tears she withdrew into herself. It was more than she could bear. She
+would have liked to sob and cry and kiss his hands, but instead she was
+obliged to clench her hands, and stuff her gloves between her teeth so
+that he should not notice her agitation. It was like an intervention of
+Providence that, as they once more drifted close by the castle, the
+sound of a woman's voice singing should fall on their ears.
+
+What was the song? Ah! out of "Tristan." She had never heard it in the
+theatre, but she was sure it could be nothing but "Tristan."
+
+She raised her head interrogatively, and Konrad, stooping, whispered in
+her ear, "Isolde's 'Liebestod.'" He quickly ran the boat ashore at the
+darkest spot on the bank, for not a note must be lost. On the terrace
+above, laughter and chatter were silenced. Only the nightingale in the
+lime-boughs was undisturbed, and mingled its sweet rhapsody with the
+exultant death-agony of the woman who, more than any other creation of
+God or man, teaches us that the will not to be is the most triumphant
+manifestation of being.
+
+Lilly trembled from head to foot. She stretched her hands behind her to
+reach his. She could not help holding on to him. If she had not held on
+to him she must have sunk into space. Not till she felt his warm
+fingers between hers did she become calmer.
+
+The last note died away; the grand arpeggios of the _Nachspiel_ melted
+into silence. There was no clapping or applause of any kind. That
+lively party up there on the terrace were evidently impressed, and
+realised what was due to the singer.
+
+Konrad, with a silent pressure, let go her hands and went back to the
+oars. She did not demur. The forbidden garden vanished, vanished
+utterly.
+
+The dusk of early night now lay on the meadows. Not a sound was to be
+heard far or near. Yet the world seemed to echo with the melody of harp
+and the sound of song.
+
+"And we've never seen your marble beauty," murmured Lilly, stroking his
+knees. "Yet I keep thinking that was _her_ voice."
+
+"And I, too," he burst out passionately. "She wasn't singing for those
+good people up there at all, but for us--for us alone."
+
+"Ah! I wish I could sing it like her!"
+
+"Try, at any rate."
+
+She sang a few passages here and there. But she could not connect them,
+and, what was more, something else rose and forced its way imperiously
+into her memory.
+
+With that grandest and most exquisite inspiration of the great master
+mingled, unbidden, her own poor "Song of Songs." And she sang out into
+the profound silence:
+
+
+           "Tell me, O thou whom my soul loveth, where thou
+            feedest, where thou makest thy flock to rest at noon: for
+            why should I be as one that turneth aside ..."
+
+
+She paused.
+
+"What is that?" he asked. "I don't know it at all."
+
+"That is my 'Song of Songs,'" she replied, drawing a deep breath.
+
+Never before had she mentioned its name to a living soul.
+
+"_Your_ 'Song of Song'?" he asked in astonishment.
+
+And what lay before her was as clear as daylight; she would perhaps
+never have such a chance again. This was the moment to lay bare the
+secret of her youth to him.
+
+"Put down the oars and listen, I am going to confide something to you.
+You may think it quite silly and ridiculous, but to me it has always
+been sacred."
+
+Speechless, he shipped his oars,
+
+"You must come and sit beside me, so that I can see your face."
+
+His eye swept the water with a searching glance. The boat was again
+drifting serenely on the mirror-like bosom of the lake, which seemed to
+have gathered on its ripples all the throbbing blue and purple shadows
+of the summer night. There was not the slightest sign of danger ahead,
+so he obediently did as she wished.
+
+They crouched close together at the bottom of the little craft, with
+their heads propped against the seat that Konrad had occupied for so
+long, and she told her story. She related how the legacy her poor
+runaway father had left behind exercised a powerful influence on her at
+all periods in her life.... If the years of her girlhood had been full
+of it, later it even attained a higher and more mysterious
+significance. It became, as it were, a symbol of all her efforts and
+actions. When her life became a whirl of useless frivolity then it was
+silent--sometimes for years together--but whenever her soul had an
+uplifting, whenever her pursuits and ideals accorded, then it came to
+life again. It outsang all that was low and unlovely in the world. From
+disgrace and wickedness outwardly it had not been able to protect her
+altogether, but it had at least kept her free within, and susceptible
+to the advent of one for whom she had unconsciously waited. And now
+that this one of all others had really come, she felt that the hour of
+fulfilment, both for herself and for her "Song of Songs," had sounded.
+Now it seemed that it must go forth into all the world to touch and
+conquer every heart and to bring its creator and herself glory and
+redemption.
+
+So she talked herself into such a state of exalted enthusiasm that she
+became unmindful of time and place, and everything but the one thought
+that she still had more of what was best and purest within her to lay
+at his feet. But she had said as much as she could say, more than she
+could ever have believed she would confide to any human being, more
+than till this hour she had known of herself. He now held her noblest,
+truest self in the hollow of his hand, to do with it what he listed.
+All that was lax and impure, all that had brought ruin into her heart
+and life, was gone. She need no longer trouble herself about it.
+
+While she had been telling him this wonderful tale, she would have
+liked to see what effect it had upon him, but had not trusted herself
+to glance at his face. Now, however, that it was finished, she ventured
+to turn in his direction, and became aware that his eye rested on her
+with a curiously confused and wild expression, such as she had never
+noticed in him before; for, as a rule, he kept his emotions at a
+distance with, as it were, fisticuffs. Her heart began to beat loudly,
+and the unrest of expectation to which she could give no name became so
+strong that she nearly ran to the other end of the boat to control it
+and prevent herself suffocating.
+
+Then she saw him shut his eyes and throw his head back against the
+sharp edge of the seat. "You will hurt yourself," she whispered; and,
+instead of fleeing from him as she wanted to do, she placed her arm to
+serve as a cushion between his neck and the seat.
+
+Now he lay on her breast and breathed heavily.
+
+"Shall I sing you some more out of it?" she asked, bending over him
+tenderly.
+
+"Yes, yes, please," he murmured.
+
+And she sang, in a half-coaxing voice, as if she were singing
+lullabies, all those arias which, since the day her poor mother's mind
+had sunk into eternal night, had never been heard by any human ear.
+"The lily of the valleys" and "The rose of Sharon" she sang, and that
+other lyric in which all the sounds and magic of spring were mingled:
+
+
+     "For, lo, the winter is past ... the flowers appear
+      on the earth ... and the voice of the turtle is heard in our
+      land."
+
+
+So she went on singing, more and more. When she sometimes paused and
+asked if he had heard enough, he only shook his head and pressed closer
+to his soft pillow.
+
+Once she glanced round and saw that they were moored in the reeds, and
+that it was now completely night. But why should she mind that? Somehow
+or other they would manage to get home.
+
+She was drawing to the end. There were only "Set me as a seal upon
+thine heart," "How beautiful are thy feet with shoes, O prince's
+daughter," to come; and, above all, the verse which began with words so
+singularly appropriate to this day's adventures: "Come, my beloved, let
+us go forth into the field." But when she came to the lines:
+
+
+     "Let us see if the vine flourish, whether the tender
+      grape appear, and the pomegranates bud forth: there will
+      I give thee ..."
+
+
+her breath failed her and she could not go on.
+
+"Why have you stopped singing?" she heard him ask.
+
+There was a buzzing of bees and a ringing of bells in her ears.
+
+"Be brave!" a voice shouted within her; "be brave, or you will lose him
+for ever."
+
+But at that moment she felt two trembling lips seeking hers, and then
+it was all over with thoughts of being brave.
+
+
+                           *   *   *   *   *
+
+
+Midnight was long past when the boat at last put in to the shore. The
+bathing pavilion was dark and deserted, but in the hotel lights still
+glimmered.
+
+In extreme trepidation they rang the bell.
+
+"There's always a room ready here for belated young married couples,"
+said the deferential, smiling landlady reassuringly.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XVI
+
+
+It would be incorrect to say that no lucky star shone on Lilly's love
+at this stage of its development. In the first place, Adele proved, in
+her born uncommunicativeness and passionate partiality for the handsome
+"friend" of her mistress, a valuable ally. Secondly, Richard, who on
+the memorable Sunday had been obliged to go off and join his mother at
+Harzburg, remained away not for a day only, but for a whole week;
+thirdly, when he visited her on his return, he was so full of his own
+affairs that he had no eyes for her guiltily embarrassed reception of
+him.
+
+He affected a lofty and superior air, the nasal drawl of his
+cavalry-officer days, and wore a monocle dangling over his navy-blue
+silk waistcoat. Judging from which, and such symptoms as his head
+inclining to an extreme angle on his left shoulder and his eyes
+blinking slyly, it might have been gathered that instead of joining his
+mother dutifully, he too had been on a spree _à deux_ in the country on
+his own account.
+
+This, however, proved an erroneous supposition. He had not only been
+actually at Harzburg till the evening before, but he had to go back
+there at once for a longer stay--for a month, at least.
+
+"What's the matter with you?" he exclaimed; for Lilly, in a seventh
+heaven of delight at the news, fell back in her chair almost swooning.
+
+It was true that she immediately scrambled up again and would not own
+to anything unusual in her behaviour; but he insisted on piling
+cushions at her back, and would not allow her to risk the exertion of
+pouring out tea for him. His every act was eloquent of a guilty
+conscience.
+
+"A summer holiday together is out of the question for us," he said,
+trying to return to his lofty manner. "And not only that, we have
+become much too dependent on each other. It will be well for both of us
+to go our own gait for a bit, and best for all parties concerned. In
+fact, it's absolutely necessary in view of coming circumstances."
+
+This speech sounded as familiar to Lilly as an old tune in music. She
+knew exactly what was coming.
+
+"Confess," she said, smiling. "What's on the cards now?"
+
+And then he came out with it, stuttering and drawling out his words. An
+American, born of German parents, with millions of dollars, of
+irreproachable style, extremely _chic_, approved by his mother, and her
+own parents not averse, and she herself to all appearances agreeable.
+If he didn't do it now, he never would.
+
+"I congratulate you," Lilly said, tapping his hand playfully. He stared
+at her with astonished and somewhat reproachful eyes.
+
+"Is that all you've got to say to it?" he asked.
+
+"What else should I say?"
+
+"You can take it so coolly? Are you so utterly without feeling that the
+thought of parting from your old friend doesn't affect you in the
+least? I thought you were a little more womanly and sympathetic; I must
+say I did."
+
+"Please recollect," she said, "that every time that you have talked of
+marrying you have made the same reproach when I have said I have no
+desire to stand in your way. You talk as if it was _I_ who was showing
+_you_ the door, instead of its being the other way about."
+
+Then he flared up. "What expressions you use! How can you possibly tell
+what I am going through--the wrestling and struggles I have with
+myself? How many nights do you think I haven't slept a wink for
+wondering what is to become of you? But you go on as if it had nothing
+on earth to do with you. You are, in fact, as frivolous and heartless
+as you can be; so now you know my opinion of you."
+
+At his words, delightful visions of her freedom danced before her eyes,
+glowing nights given up to uninterrupted love, days of sweet
+anticipatory dreams. Anything that might happen afterwards seemed as
+far off as the end of the world. She listened to the rest of his
+harangue with an absent, indulgent smile.
+
+"If _you_ don't see there's anything to worry about in your future," he
+wound up, "that's all the more reason why I should take it into
+consideration. I have to provide for you, and mamma agrees that it's my
+duty."
+
+The word "mamma" made her pull herself together.
+
+Since the terrible scene in the counting-house, her name by mutual
+consent had been left out of their conversations. They had substituted
+for it evasions which each had understood and appreciated in the other.
+
+Now, without warning, "mamma," the symbol as it were of all that was
+disgraceful and degrading in her existence, flamed before her eyes.
+
+"Any scheme that _she_ has a finger in," Lilly cried, "must humiliate
+me to the dust. I tell you both straight that you had better be
+careful. If you make any proposals to me about an allowance of money, I
+shall consider it a bitter insult and never forgive you."
+
+He paced the room, wringing his hands. "There you are, talking nonsense
+again! Don't you see that the world would cry shame on me if I turned
+you off with nothing? And, apart from that, what do you think would
+become of you?... You'd be on the streets. Woman, do you realise that?"
+
+With sublime indifference, she ignored both him and his heroic zeal on
+her behalf.
+
+"I can think of other ways," she said, half to herself.
+
+Before her rose a life full of struggle and strenuous triumphs, a
+tossing hither and thither through storms and hardships, and a jubilant
+victory as she entered at his side into the society of those who were
+as good and steadfast as _he_ was. But that final consummation could
+only come later--much, much later.
+
+Richard interpreted her differently. His eyes were fixed on her
+suspiciously. He paused in front of her and asked, with a slight
+shudder, "I say, are you going ... to act like a fool and injure
+yourself?"
+
+She burst out laughing. Already he evidently pictured her beautiful
+corpse being dragged out of the water and laid out.
+
+"No, I am not going to commit suicide ... at least, certainly not on
+your account; and, if I wanted to, I would manage it with such good
+taste that you would not be inconvenienced or have anything to reproach
+yourself with."
+
+"You can't mean that you think you'll marry!" he rejoined, still
+unconvinced. "What decent fellow would marry you after you've lived
+with me for four years?"
+
+"There are other ways," Lilly repeated obstinately.
+
+He seemed relieved, but went on: "I don't half like leaving you here to
+mope alone. You'll get depressed, and then you'll be nasty to me. What
+do you say to having a little change somewhere? You might go to Ahlbeck
+or Screiberhau, or some strait-laced place like that."
+
+Only by a slight quiver of the eyelids did she betray the scornful
+laughter that convulsed her inwardly.
+
+"You know I hate making acquaintances," she answered lightly; "and in
+the midst of people who don't want me I feel doubly alone."
+
+He relapsed into frowning meditation.
+
+"Well, then," he hesitated, and drawled out his words as people do who
+are afraid of their own boldness, "then ... perhaps the best thing
+would be for you to come ... somewhere near."
+
+"Near where?"
+
+"Don't pretend you don't know what I mean."
+
+"I do know, but I can hardly believe my ears."
+
+"What is there so wonderful in it?" he growled. "I could look after you
+sometimes, and have a chat about one thing and another."
+
+"And show me her, I suppose, to get my opinion and my blessing?"
+
+"Well, what if I did? You and I have consulted each other about
+everything we have done for years.... I cannot for the life of me see
+why it should be so monstrous in this case."
+
+She felt something of patronising pity for him. She patted his hand and
+said:
+
+"I don't think, my dear boy, that I am quite the right person to assist
+in your courtship."
+
+"Good Lord! What next? You talk quite theatrically to-day. You are
+evidently suffering from swelled head. Yes, swelled head, I say! You
+are trying to get a rise out of me, and I don't like it, just now
+especially."
+
+She laughed and stretched herself. How petty it all was, and how
+ridiculous! How little she cared! And why should she care?
+
+Alone--to be alone with him. That was the only thing that mattered in
+the whole world.
+
+"You would rather not, then?"
+
+She silently shook her head.
+
+"Very well," he said, and looked as if he were going to leave her in
+anger; but he hadn't the strength of mind, "Lilly."
+
+"Yes?"
+
+"I should like to prevent any future misunderstandings between us. You
+seem to think that, this time too, it's all a joke."
+
+"Not at all, Richard. I wish you every happiness. Only, with the best
+intentions, I cannot be of much use to you in this matter."
+
+"Of use to me! Who was saying anything about your being of use to me?
+Mamma is right! She says if I don't pull it off this time I never
+shall. So, understand once for all, in a few weeks all will be over
+between us."
+
+She nearly said, "So much the better"; but seeing that there were tears
+in the corners of his eyes she refrained, for she didn't wish to hurt
+him.
+
+Four years of life spent together lay behind them. He was so dependent
+on her for sympathy that she could not let him go without a word of
+advice and encouragement. She spoke to him as if he were a child, said
+that his mother was right, praised his scheme, and enumerated the many
+good reasons why it ought to come about; and in order to put his mind
+at ease with regard to her own complacent attitude, she reminded him
+that it had always been her highest ambition that he should feel free
+to do as he liked. She also assured him that to the end of her life she
+would retain her sentiments of friendship towards him. And in the end
+they both shed tears at parting.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XVII
+
+
+Now the way was clear, now the new life might be consecrated with
+rejoicing and thanksgiving. July came and scorched the deserted
+streets. Those who remained in the aristocratic West-end, with no
+employer to ply the lash, spent dreamy days behind closed shutters, and
+wandered between bedroom and bath.
+
+Lilly did not come to life till evening, when the town breathed out the
+heat that it had absorbed during the day in a redhot glow, when dusty
+clouds rolled over the yellow surface of the canal, and behind the
+parched and prematurely faded chestnuts the red furnace of the sky
+melted into the reflected lights of the street-lamps.
+
+Then at Konrad's side she strolled through the blue twilight of the
+streets, using her eyes so as to escape observation from acquaintances
+who might chance to be about.
+
+They met worthy, middle-class families on their way to the gardens.
+Lovers joined each other at appointed street corners. And between these
+two extremes was the floating element of those detached beings who are
+alone and solitary in crowds, and who yearn to steal from laughing
+Chance what they have prayed for in vain from sterner gods. A sultry
+vapour of secret desires hung over the exhausted city, in which
+conventional reserve and genuine sentiment flickered up and were
+extinguished as if they had never been.
+
+How long ago seemed the days when she herself had sauntered around,
+hoping for fate to come her way, yet not daring to compel it. And, with
+a shudder at the thought of the dangers she had escaped, she clung
+closer to Konrad's protecting arm.
+
+They always succeeded in finding some private nook after their own
+heart to dine in, where a gipsy band scraped their fiddles wildly, or
+Tyrolese played their zithers, or the landlord himself, a musician who
+had known better days, acted as conductor of an orchestra. In ivy-clad
+arbours, where the hot breeze stirred the dust on the evergreens in
+tubs, they could pass the evening hours together without fear of
+discovery. In the meantime a change had come over their intercourse.
+There were still instructive and erudite harangues on every conceivable
+subject, and listening attentively she hung on his lips with as much
+eagerness as ever, but her holy zeal for scientific studies had
+evaporated.
+
+That God did not exist, that Fra Filippo Lippi was a scoundrel, that a
+line gone mad should be consigned to an asylum even if it was modern of
+the modern, that baroque art had its redeeming qualities--all this and
+much else that was interesting Lilly had heard many times, but it no
+longer provoked argument.
+
+Often they looked long and silently into each other's eyes with a
+tender smile of yearning, as if that were the most eloquent language in
+which they could converse. Often too his thoughts wandered away on
+their own solitary excursions, and only came back to her under
+coercion. Then she was sad and jealous, and begged to go home.
+
+Not till he was pillowed in her arms, lying close to her heart, was she
+content. The heat of the day had baked the walls through. The curtains
+were oppressive, and through the blinds a kind of desert cyclone blew;
+but they took no notice, the sultriness suited their mood.
+
+They dreaded falling asleep as a misfortune, which shamefully
+abbreviated the hours of their being together, and so they promised
+that the one who kept awake longer was to rouse the other.
+
+It was she who always kept awake longer; for he was exhausted by the
+day's work. For him there was no prospect of another doze after
+breakfast in bed, or of a siesta on the couch as alleviation from the
+midday heat. And as he lay with tired limbs outstretched, twitching
+like a noble hound's after a day's sport, she had not the heart to keep
+her promise. Then she would sit up beside him, and in the light cast
+from the pink-shaded, dimly burning lamp gaze at him hour after hour
+without tiring.
+
+There was always something in his face to study. The frown of wrath, or
+rather of power, between his brows was more sharply defined than it
+used to be, and still frightened her a little. The muscles in his
+temples were never at rest, and the firm, curved upper lip trembled at
+the corners as if he were smiling at her in his sleep. He had become
+thin. In the haggard hollows of his cheeks were shadows spreading
+towards the jaws which they darkened, and there was a line of suffering
+about his nostrils. He was like a young Christ, made to be worshipped.
+
+Often as she gazed at him she thought, "If I killed him at this
+moment--plunged a hat-pin into his heart--then he would belong to me
+entirely, now and always."
+
+Then she would grope on his left side for his heart, lay the hollow of
+her hand against it, and fancy that she held it fast in her power, and
+with his heart, his love for her, and need never more relinquish
+either.
+
+Once while she stooped over him, contemplating him thus earnestly, she
+woke him, and he looked at her in alarm, and, still half-asleep, asked:
+
+"What is the matter? Have I hurt you?"
+
+"Why do you ask?"
+
+"Your eyes have such a curious expression, almost as if you were angry
+with me."
+
+She made a vow that she would not gaze at him any more, but she could
+not help herself, and stared at him as much as ever. She loved him so
+dearly.
+
+It was terrible when a sudden anxiety possessed her that she might lose
+him. Many a night this feeling of fear came over her with such cruel
+realism that she could hardly resist the impulse to rave and scream and
+tear her hair out by the roots. But she must not wake him, so she crept
+gently closer to his side, put one arm behind his back, and flinging
+the other across his breast, laid her head under his shoulder, and
+clung to him so tightly that she felt almost as if she were growing
+into a limb of his body.
+
+Thus she became by degrees calmer, and could have a good cry, or give
+herself up to fancying how infinitely happy she would make him.
+
+Never since time began would a son of Adam have been so happy. She
+would wrap him in a mantle of love, so soft and thick that no rude
+strokes of fate could penetrate it. She would be his Egeria and inspire
+his muse; with an invisible aureole surrounding her head she would
+stimulate and encourage him to noble undertakings and great
+achievements; she would tend him with the holy devotion of a sister of
+mercy.... She would attend cookery classes, learn laundry-work and
+dressmaking. No, it would be better for her to go to University
+lectures, study science and music, and a hundred other useful things,
+so that he should never find her a dull companion, or a useless
+helpmate.
+
+For all this, she must of course be free and get rid of Richard. She
+thought a great deal about him, too; invariably without bitterness or
+resentment. Long ago he had been forgiven for setting her feet on the
+downward path.
+
+"Everyone has his own standard of right," Konrad was wont to say. And,
+after all, to Richard she once owed her salvation.
+
+The new life was to begin publicly as well as privately, with his
+engagement, which he wrote was on the eve of taking place. But she
+still felt hardly equal to a crisis. She shuddered at the thought of
+all the lies that would have to be told to Konrad as soon as a change
+took place in her household.
+
+She preferred to avoid as long as possible the inevitable hardships
+lying before her in the future. Only at night, when she lay on the
+sleeping man's breast, did she work herself up into an ecstasy of
+sufficient rapture to look forward to poverty and privations shared
+with him as a royal inheritance of purple and gold. At three o'clock in
+the morning, when the lamps outside were extinguished one by one, and
+the reflection of the first grey shadows of cold dawn lay on the
+ceiling, she was bound in honour to wake him.
+
+He must not meet other residents in the house on account of his own
+reputation and hers.
+
+As he dressed, he fumbled, half-asleep, among the ivory coroneted
+brushes, and managed to complete a hasty toilette in time to reach the
+nearest Viennese café as soon as it opened for a pick-me-up in the
+shape of a black coffee.
+
+For from Lilly's arms he insisted on going straight to his desk. She
+could not talk him out of this insane proceeding. It was an atonement
+that the night's pleasure demanded from him, and so he would sit
+brooding among his books and papers till noon, often unable to write a
+line from fatigue.
+
+She, on the other hand, sank into a profound slumber, from which she
+was awakened about ten o'clock by the entry of Adele, smiling
+approvingly, with the breakfast-tray.
+
+Every other night she allowed him to devote to his work. She had no
+desire to sap his young life's blood. He made her anxious enough as it
+was. She did not like his hectic colour, nor the glitter in his eye. It
+disquieted her to see the abrupt changes in his mood from uproarious
+gaiety to absent-minded self-absorption.
+
+All this should be altered when--what?
+
+Oh! why bother about plans? Why not go on just as she was--loving
+him and making him happy? She passed her days in half-joyous,
+half-terrified dreams. She now had lost her zest and delight in mental
+exertion. There were other things that seemed more important than
+cultivating her intellect--the abject desire to be ever pleasing to his
+eyes, to hand him with unfailing regularity the intoxicating draught
+that held him in her toils. Hitherto she had accepted her personal
+charms as a matter of course, and valued them little more than anything
+else that was not seen and of no use. Now the cult of her body became a
+mania, for she so dreaded falling short of the ideal of her that she
+knew he had engraved on his heart. The desire to be beautiful, and the
+necessity of remaining beautiful, drove her to adopt methods which she
+had hitherto disdained. She took as much pains with herself as a woman
+in a harem. She perfumed her baths, tinted her nails, lengthened her
+eyebrows, powdered her arms and shoulders, and continually fancied she
+saw blemishes which needed new cosmetics to remove.
+
+Then she was overtaken by a dread that all this care might only convert
+her appearance into that of a beautiful professional harlot. For this
+reason she left off wearing jewellery, and dressed more quietly than a
+parson's wife. Only the eye of a connoisseur could detect the amount of
+artistic ingenuity that her plain garb concealed.
+
+Most of all when she was alone did jealousy occupy her thoughts. Not
+that she imagined he had anything to do with other women. He was far
+too noble to be suspected of that. But she was jealous of all that he
+did, and of all his concerns. It was torture to her to think of his
+writing-table. Every hour not spent in her society seemed like
+treachery to their love, and she cherished an hostility towards his
+friends such as she could never have believed herself capable of.
+Often, on the nights that he spent apart from her, she would keep watch
+on his rooms. She would stand opposite the house and look across the
+street and up at the windows, much as she had once done in the Alte
+Jakobstrasse. If the lamp was burning in his window she was content,
+but if she saw him going out or coming in she did not close her eyes
+all night.
+
+He lived not far away, on the third floor of a Karlsbad lodging-house.
+It was long before he would allow her to visit him there. Next door to
+him, he had told her, was an invalid who needed the utmost care; any
+excitement caused by the sound of strange voices might prove fatal to
+her. When he spoke of the invalid his eyes avoided meeting hers, and
+she thought there were a hundred chances to one that he was keeping
+some secret from her.
+
+When, however, after her persistent entreaties, he admitted her one
+afternoon she found nothing to confirm her suspicion. She was only
+besought to speak in a low tone, and she had known she must do this
+beforehand. His room was little more than a student's den. It was
+lofty, with two windows, but cheaply furnished--with no sofa and no
+carpet. On the walls hung rare engravings, and the usual pier-glass was
+displaced by a valuable copy of the "Madonna de Foligno," which looked
+down with sublime serenity on the barren wastes of northern
+Philistinism. Heaps of books were ranged on long low shelves, while
+others were simply piled on the floor in different corners of the room,
+covered with pieces of American cloth to keep them from the dust.
+
+The writing-table alone, as might have been expected, boasted a certain
+luxuriousness. Like the pictures and books, it was Konrad's personal
+property. It stood, with its handsome carving and wide, open leaf, like
+a dark and solemn altar in the middle of the room. Not a single
+photograph of a woman was anywhere to be seen. She had not given him
+hers, and no other woman's was worthy of a place on his desk. Behind
+maps and ink-bottles was propped the portrait of an old gentleman in a
+frame. The face was that of a weather-beaten old gourmet, with
+beautiful, well-kept white hair, and eyes, peculiar to connoisseurs of
+women, blinking shrewdly under wrinkled drooping lids.
+
+This was the famous old uncle who had paid for Konrad's education and
+now supported him.
+
+Lilly was conscious of a profound depression of spirits as she looked
+at the portrait, as if one glance of those keen old eyes could read her
+soul and bring to light the secret that she was keeping from her lover
+with a thousand artifices and subterfuges.
+
+"I'll take care that I never meet him," she thought,
+
+Konrad took from a drawer his proudest treasure, the introduction to
+his great work, and showed her the closely written sheets of the
+manuscript.
+
+She let her fingers pass caressingly over it. She regarded it with
+quite reverent awe. But then all of a sudden the jealousy that had of
+late been tormenting her soul attacked her with renewed force.
+
+This manuscript was his real love, and she was nothing but a dark,
+bloodless shadow, who preyed on his nights like a vulture.
+
+"Lock it up again," she said; and she turned despondently to go.
+
+As if the _magnum opus_ was not enough, there was a number of smaller
+things that kept him drudging. The more his name became known as that
+of a specialist in literary circles, the more frequently was he asked
+to contribute articles, and he strove to execute every order he
+received.
+
+One day it came out what the important post was that he had been
+offered and had mentioned to her three weeks ago, on their memorable
+expedition into the country.
+
+"I haven't dared to come to a decision till to-day," he said. "But now
+I have made up my mind. The editor of the periodical which I am to
+sub-edit in future has called on me, and left me no loophole for
+refusing. I was obliged to say 'Yes.' He is a charming fellow! In spite
+of his great intellectual ability, a man of almost childlike simplicity
+... and so frank, so genial.... You must get to know him--if you don't
+know him already."
+
+"What's his name?" she asked.
+
+"Dr. Salmoni."
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XVIII
+
+
+No, it was not to come out in this way! Fate was not to lay hands on
+her quite so rudely and clumsily.
+
+She was to be spared the disgrace of being caught like a criminal, and
+ultimately, by an act of self-denial, she was to prove that she had not
+been altogether unworthy of the great blessing of her life.
+
+Since the name Salmoni had been mentioned between them, she scarcely
+dared venture into the streets in Konrad's company. As she walked with
+him arm-in-arm, she imagined that every step she heard coming behind
+them was that of the dreaded man who had once followed her into the
+Alte Jakobstrasse.
+
+At last, to end the torture of this new anxiety, she made up a story to
+Konrad about a lady she was acquainted with calling on her, and asking
+who the tall, slim young man was in whose company she was now so often
+seen.
+
+The result of this necessary lie was terrifying. He would not speak or
+eat, but strode about the room in great perturbation, finally leaving
+her at an hour when generally her bliss was just beginning.
+
+The following day brought forth an explanation. He came at dusk, paler
+than usual, with unnaturally brilliant eyes.
+
+"Listen, dearest!" he said. "I thought it over all last night, and I
+now see my duty clear before me. This must not go on."
+
+She could interpret this only as a wish to leave her. Her body seemed
+to become numb; she faced him calmly, and awaited her death-blow.
+
+"Since we have belonged to each other," he continued, "we have made no
+further allusion to your fiancé. Nevertheless, I have thought all the
+more about him in private. You, too, have been very reticent with
+regard to your friend Herr Dehnicke. I only know that he is at present
+travelling, and has left you, so to speak, without a protector."
+
+She forced herself to smile. Why must he prolong the agony?
+
+"To-day I must confess to you that in the midst of all my happiness I
+have felt that my taking advantage of such a situation is altogether
+despicable. But my feelings are not in question. The main consideration
+is, what will become of you? What I feared from the first has come to
+pass: people are beginning to remark on our being together.... You
+can't bind anyone to secrecy.... It would be lowering to one's dignity.
+Thus the mutual friend of you and your betrothed is certain, sooner or
+later, to hear all about it, and to call you to account. You will be,
+of course, too proud to deny it, and the upshot of it all is that you
+will be left stranded and alone--without any sort of guardianship in
+the world. For I, as matters now stand, have not even the right to
+protect you. The thought is perfectly intolerable to me, whatever it
+may be to others."
+
+He jumped up, ran his fingers through the imaginary mane of hair, and
+tramped up and down.
+
+She came slowly back to life and consciousness, as the blood began to
+course more naturally through her veins.
+
+The dear, noble boy! How unsuspecting he was! She could have almost
+shrieked with laughter. But she controlled herself and said: "You
+needn't disturb yourself, Konni. His friend is not likely to hear
+anything, and if he does he won't believe it. And even if he does
+believe it, he will take good care that ..."
+
+She could not go on. The great guileless eyes frightened her.
+
+"You think, then, he would ..."
+
+He too hesitated, unable to find words in which to express the
+unspeakable.
+
+She examined the buttons on her bodice and didn't answer.
+
+"When is Herr Dehnicke coming home?" he asked.
+
+"It is not certain. He is gone wife-hunting," she replied, with a
+little feeling of triumph at having said something that placed her
+miles outside the radius of any suspicion now or to come.
+
+"Where is he at present?"
+
+"Why do you want to know?"
+
+"Because I must have a talk with him."
+
+She could hardly credit what she heard. He couldn't have said it.
+Surely, either he or she must be taking leave of their senses.
+
+"Don't be anxious," he said. "I am quite aware what I owe to your
+reputation. But I must find out once for all what opinion he has of
+your position.... Here is a man in America who has your promise, yet
+makes no sign.... He doesn't turn up, and he doesn't write. Why doesn't
+he write? If he hasn't got your address, why should he not write
+through Herr Dehnicke, whose business is known all over Berlin? No one
+is even sure if he is still alive. For a long time I tried to explain
+his silence in various ways; but now I can't help saying to myself, the
+only explanation there can possibly be is that he is dead, or as good
+as dead. Are you to continue bound to a dead man? Is your social
+existence to be dependent, as it were, on a guard of honour who has
+nothing to guard? This is the point I would like to discuss with the
+mutual friend. He'll have to answer me, or do you think he'll object?"
+
+Really, he has less knowledge of the world than is permissible, she
+thought compassionately; and aloud she replied, "I don't quite see,
+Konni, how you are justified in forcing an interview on a stranger."
+
+"That's my affair," he said, throwing back his head defiantly. "First,
+I must know if he will let you be free to do as you like. I don't see
+why he should hold the slave-driver's whip over you."
+
+"And I don't see why you should put yourself in a false position," she
+cried in newly awakened alarm. Already she heard fisticuffs and
+pistol-shots resounding in her ears. "I will speak to Herr Dehnicke
+myself; I will set myself free. I promise you that. But you ... if I
+let you go to him, what will he think of me? You will only succeed in
+compromising me."
+
+He drew himself up. His eyes were those of a conqueror. "If a man loves
+you and wants you for his wife, I fail to see how that can compromise
+you."
+
+
+                           *   *   *   *   *
+
+
+It was dusk and oppressively close when these words were spoken. The
+little bullfinch flapped its wings languidly in its sand, the goldfish
+remained motionless behind their wall of hot glass, and the small naked
+monkey whimpered in his sleep. Heavy masses of bluish-black clouds were
+reflected in the slimy water of the canal. There was a menace of storm
+in the air--and this was the thunderbolt.
+
+Her first feeling was one of surprise--certainly not pleasant surprise;
+then followed an unutterably plaintive cry, unheard by any human ear,
+and which hurt all the more because it was dumb.
+
+"Too late ... played out ... past caring. No more happiness on earth
+... too late ... too late!"
+
+She leaned back in the sofa-corner and examined the ceiling minutely
+and carefully.
+
+He waited for his answer.
+
+If she lowered her eyes they must meet his, full of a fire which burned
+into her soul. No salvation from these eyes, no escape from what had to
+come!
+
+And he waited.
+
+Then she heard her own voice speaking quite calmly and distinctly, as
+if instead of herself Frau Jula was speaking--life's little mountebank
+with the brow of brass.
+
+"I thought, dear Konni, we had agreed that neither of us should talk of
+marrying."
+
+"How can you remind me of that?" he cried vehemently. "When I said so,
+could I foresee how things would turn out? Had I the least inkling then
+of what you are? Did I know you were so divine an angel, who can exalt
+a poor devil like me one moment into a seventh heaven of bliss, and the
+next plunge him into hell's torments?... Yes, I mean it! Torments, for
+to-day all must come out--the unvarnished truth. There's a gap in my
+life. All is in chaos: my work, my thought, my faith in you. You would
+be my good genius, but often you are something almost the reverse.
+Don't distress yourself. I am not reproaching you ... but only myself,
+for being so weak.... I want to work; I ought to work.... I have just
+undertaken a whole pile of new duties. I thought that if my duty was
+imposed on me from outside, I should be bound to stick to it. But the
+very opposite has happened. I am running to seed through perpetual
+inner wrestling and questioning.... If I don't bring our lives into a
+peaceful and equable channel, we must both be lost. I can't do it
+unless you belong to me properly and altogether, unless your room is
+next to mine and you are always within sight of my desk--always near,
+always beside me."
+
+"I can arrange to come to you in the autumn," she interrupted
+timorously.
+
+"No, not in that way! I will have no more secretiveness, no more ground
+for self-reproaches. Am I to have it on my conscience that every day
+you sacrifice yourself for me further you come nearer to your ruin? For
+in the end it must ruin you; it will stick to you like mud. And why
+should we make a polluted thing out of what is most sacred to us? Or is
+it that I am not good enough to be your lasting companion through life?
+Do you shrink from being my wife on the score of poverty?"
+
+In repudiation of this idea she almost screamed aloud.
+
+"What you have and how much," he continued, "I do not wish to inquire.
+I am well enough off for both of us. My uncle allows me three hundred
+marks a month, and I get four hundred from Dr. Salmoni."
+
+Ah! how she shuddered at that name!
+
+"Besides, I can easily earn three hundred marks by articles alone ...
+that's altogether a thousand marks a month. As good as a general's
+pay.... Isn't that enough for you?"
+
+"Oh, for pity's sake, be quiet!" she cried, hardly able to contain
+herself. "I wasn't thinking of money."
+
+"Of what, then?"
+
+He planted himself in front of her with an air of challenge. The dent
+of wrath was between his brows, as if it had been chiselled there. She
+bowed her head. Since the days of the colonel she had never been so
+afraid of any man.
+
+"Well, why not? Out with it and say what it is! To all appearances you
+do not love me sufficiently. You still cling, perhaps, to the memory of
+the fellow who has long ago forgotten you. You may probably have said
+to yourself, 'I can make use of this foolish boy as a lover _pro tem_.
+He's all very well as an amusement to pass the time, but when it comes
+to his seriously interfering with the course of my life, I must get rid
+of him--throw him over, eh?' Isn't that it? Be brave and say it
+straight out! I am merely a stop-gap, not the sort of man you want for
+a husband. Not till I have begun to make a name could you think of
+marriage. Am I not right? Very well."
+
+He had taken up his hat, and looked as if he intended going.
+
+"Oh, Konni, have mercy on me!" she implored. She had slid down from her
+seat in order to clasp his knees. Now she cowered on the floor between
+the sofa and his chair.
+
+"There is no need for me to have mercy, or for you to have mercy!" he
+exclaimed. "Till to-day you have been the holiest thing on earth to me.
+But I cannot submit to being brushed away like a fly. Tell me why you
+won't marry me. One plausible reason will satisfy me. When you have
+given it, I promise never to return to the subject."
+
+"Give me till to-morrow," she moaned.
+
+"Why till to-morrow? To-day is the same thing. I cannot go through
+another night of torturing suspense."
+
+"I'll write."
+
+He was evidently amazed. "Write? What is there to write?"
+
+"Whether I may or not. The reasons and everything."
+
+"Some way out of it will come to me in the night," she thought.
+
+"When shall I get the letter?"
+
+"To-morrow morning by the first post."
+
+"Very well. Till then I will have patience. Good-bye, Lilly, for the
+present."
+
+He helped her back to the sofa and held out his hand in farewell, and
+as she saw his great eyes fixed on her, with that steadfast clearness
+which no lie or suspicion of a lie had ever clouded, she knew there was
+no escape for her. Evasion was no longer to be thought of; the truth,
+the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, was what Konrad must be
+told. It swept over her like a warm, soothing stream: "Whether it means
+your damnation or not, he shall know the truth." Only, to tell him face
+to face was more than any mortal could endure.
+
+When she was alone, reaction set in. The instincts of self-preservation
+asserted their rights. Surely, what Frau Jula had done she could do.
+She had had far worse things to explain away.
+
+Richard would undoubtedly keep silent, and that was the most important
+point. Now that he was bent on marrying, it would be in his own best
+interests to allow her to vanish as gracefully as possible out of his
+life. The rest of "the crew" might gossip as much as they liked. Konrad
+was invulnerable to their slander.
+
+The one danger ahead was Dr. Salmoni. But she had only to go to him, to
+entreat his silence, and he, too, would hold his tongue. He certainly
+would have good cause to prefer that his abominable attempted assault
+should not be brought to light. So she reflected. Yet in the midst of
+her planning and scheming a sudden disgust of herself and what she was
+going to do seized her, and shattered with one blow the whole fabric of
+intended deception.
+
+If the mere name of Dr. Salmoni had prevented her going out in the
+streets with Konrad, how could she expect to pass her life at his side
+without quailing in hourly fear? How numerous would be the snubs and
+humiliations she must expect directly Konrad made any attempt to
+introduce her as his wife into the society to which he belonged! She
+who had figured in the newspapers as the latest acquisition to the
+circles of the fashionable demi-monde! And what if he too began to
+suspect? How he would be consumed with shame and horror--he who was so
+proud, and the mirror of all refinement, whose pure unworldliness alone
+accounted for his not seeing what sort of life she had been leading!
+What an awakening that would be from a short tormenting dream!
+
+No, she could not emulate Frau Jula after all. And she thrust from her
+with scorn the atrocious thought which in the stress of the hour she
+had stained her soul by entertaining.
+
+An exultant longing for self-destruction came over her, and she felt a
+strong impulse to tear her heart from her breast and hurl it at his
+feet as she sat down and wrote:
+
+
+"My dear sweet Konni,
+
+"I have shamefully deceived you. I am a bad woman, and nothing else.
+The fiancé I have told you about never existed. That despicable little
+cur of a lieutenant for whom I was untrue to my husband never dreamed
+of marrying me, but handed me over to his rich friend, who made me his
+mistress. And that is what I am now. For years I have been living in a
+world of vice and vulgarity. Long ago I was ostracised from all decent
+society. Kept women and the lovers who financed them have been my sole
+associates. I have clung to you because you in your ignorance respected
+me, and I, in my slough of degradation, longed to be respected. So now
+you know why I cannot be your wife.
+
+"If you want my kisses, come. For anything more, I am no longer good
+enough.
+
+                                                     "Lilly."
+
+
+The clock struck eleven. Adele had gone to bed. She would have to go
+down herself to drop the letter in the box. But the long-threatened
+storm just then burst in fury. Hailstones rattled down, and gusts of
+wind rushed through the open windows, scattering raindrops on the
+writing-table. The paper on which her dry feverish eyes were fixed
+became wet; it looked as if she had drenched it with her tears.
+
+"That is a happy coincidence," she thought. Then she was ashamed. The
+time for acting was surely over. But as she settled herself to rewrite
+the letter she stopped, shuddering in horror. What was to be gained by
+such a monstrous indictment of self? And was it, after all, the truth?
+In the slanderous mouth, perhaps, of a back-biting woman who twists out
+of bare facts evidence of crime against a friend, or in that of one of
+those social hangmen who have a halter ready for every past. She alone
+knew how it had all come about. How from inner necessity and outer
+compulsion, from too-confiding trustfulness and unprotected innocence
+link by link the chain had been forged, which now clanked its weight of
+guilt about her limbs. She, at least, knew that there was another less
+harsh and hideous truth, which would excuse and purify her in the eyes
+of any sympathetic person.
+
+So she tore up the sheet of notepaper and began again. She made a rough
+copy, and then polished and polished till it satisfied her.
+
+Now the letter ran:
+
+
+"Dearest and beloved Friend,
+
+"She who writes you these lines is a most unfortunate woman, whom you
+really know very little about, and who had to deceive you until to-day
+because all that is most sacred to her--her love for you--was at stake.
+And now, by writing this, that also is lost! I sacrifice it on the
+altar of your happiness for the sake of the divine fire that flashes
+from your eyes, consecrating and ennobling my soul.
+
+"The world has treated me cruelly. It has wrenched from me by degrees
+my faith in human nature, my ideals, my buoyancy of spirit; it has
+brought me to sin, and so robbed me of the right to continue my journey
+through life at your side.
+
+"I set out once on that journey full of confidence and hopefulness, and
+pure to the very core of my being. But every man I was destined to meet
+plucked off a twig of my virtue. I lifted my eyes in adoring reverence
+to the aged husband who promised to be my hero and master, my pattern
+and god. He used me as a tool for his basest lusts.
+
+"Another came, who was young as I was, whom I wanted to save while I
+saved myself in his arms. He took me and enjoyed me as if I were a
+romantic adventure, then flung me off and went to the dogs. He wrote a
+Uriah sort of letter to a friend of his, who took mean advantage of my
+stranded position, both spiritual and physical, and made me by a low
+trick so dependent on him that I found I had been long completely in
+his power without knowing it. Helpless and utterly crushed as I was, I
+yielded and became his victim and slave, and I had not even the spirit
+left to be angry with him.
+
+"This was the pass to which my destiny brought me. In vain I tried to
+struggle out of the darkness of night, but nowhere did I see light
+breaking ahead. I caught with enthusiasm at any hand held out to me,
+but each seemed to pull me down lower, till my whole being seemed
+paralysed with hopeless despair.
+
+"Then you came, my beloved, my saviour, my redeemer! Once more it was
+light around me, once more the world burst into blossom, the parched
+fountains were unsealed, and 'The Song of Songs' echoed again within
+me.
+
+"And with pride and elation I recognised the fact that nothing impure
+had taken root in my character; that the days of degradation had passed
+over me without touching my integrity of soul, my desire for pure and
+beautiful things, my instincts for a lofty humanity. It had all been
+only slumbering, and you, beloved, have awakened it to new life.
+
+"And even if I may not be your wife--only one free of stain deserves
+you--I want to be worthy of you, whether near you or far away, as you
+decree.
+
+"I am quite resolved to free myself from the shackles that so long have
+encumbered me outwardly, and to ascend out of the misery of my lot to a
+higher life, more in harmony with the demands of my inner self. You
+have pointed the way, and in gratitude I kiss your dear, gentle,
+diligent hand.
+
+"Good-bye, my love! If you want to punish me, never come near me again.
+But, if you can put up with the love of a woman who loves you as you
+never can be loved again on earth, do not let me perish. I have nothing
+but what I am to give you, but that is yours till death.
+
+                                                     "Lilly."
+
+
+She read and reread what she had written, and worked herself up into a
+state of rapture over it.
+
+Now the truth appeared in quite another light. And then all at once the
+question rose within her: But is _this_ the truth? Was it not rather a
+conglomeration of turgid phrases expressive of high-flown emotions
+which were not spontaneous or sincere, belonging to the pages of
+sensational novels, but not to herself? Instead of despair she had in
+reality only suffered from boredom, and in the "darkness of night" she
+had many times enjoyed herself thoroughly and held high revel. She had
+made out that the worthy Richard was a tyrannical despot and herself a
+poor downtrodden victim, whereas she had always been at liberty to do
+what she liked.
+
+It was the truth, and yet it was--just as much and as little the truth
+as she had confessed in that first terrible letter. It was possible to
+write this letter and that letter, and many another; but the truth, the
+genuine, illuminating, naked truth, would not be in any.
+
+She herself did not know what it was, and no one else knew.
+
+The truth had dissolved into nothingness the moment after the events to
+which it related had happened, and no power on earth could conjure it
+up again. A distorted mirage, changing with her mood and as her pen
+moved over the paper, was all that was left of it.
+
+"But I don't want to tell any more lies," she cried to herself, tearing
+up the second letter. "To-day, at any rate, I want to speak the truth."
+
+Should she write a third letter?
+
+It was long past midnight. Her eyes burned. Over-excitement made her
+temples throb. And to-morrow morning he must have his answer, as she
+had sworn he should.
+
+Then suddenly she awakened to a consciousness of what had really been
+happening, how during the last four hours she had been face to face
+with the danger of losing him for ever. A frenzy of sickening anxiety
+overwhelmed her. She ran about the flat, reeled, battered herself
+against the walls, rushed to the window and cried out his name. She
+must go to him, go to him at once. It was the only thought she was able
+to grasp. She would get the front door opened somehow, wake him out of
+his sleep, force her way into his room, stay with him to-night and
+always, no matter what the consequences might be.... She did not care.
+Only to be quit of this dread, which consumed her like a furnace.
+
+The thunderstorm had raged itself out, but rain was still falling
+steadily. She scarcely gave herself time to fling on a cloak. In her
+house-shoes, without hat or umbrella, she flew along the streets,
+splashing through the mud and puddles, followed by foul epithets from
+homeless night-waifs in dark doorways. She arrived breathless and
+panting at his lodgings.
+
+Light glimmered in the two windows on the third floor. She clapped her
+hands and called out "Konni! Konni!" repeating his name several times.
+But he had closed the windows and did not hear her.
+
+As she stared up at his window, she saw the shadow of his tall figure
+on the blind glide up and down, from one end of the room to the
+other--up and down, up and down. And all the time the rain was
+descending on her in torrents, and the chill dampness of the street
+creeping up her limbs.
+
+"Konni! Konni!" she cried louder. Foot-passengers who went by offered
+her their umbrellas, others mimicked her, and called out too, "Konni!
+Konni!" Then at last the restless shadow came to a standstill. One of
+the windows was opened.
+
+"Lilly, is it you?" he asked, in a voice hoarse with alarm.
+
+"Now here you are at last, my sweetest Konni," answered, instead of
+Lilly, an exhilarated gentleman who insisted on holding his umbrella
+over her.
+
+"My God!"
+
+Upstairs it became dark, and a few moments later he was standing with
+the lamp and door-key in his hand at the glass entrance-door.
+
+The exhilarated gentleman took his leave, with repeated bows.
+
+"Lilly, what has happened? What are you doing here?"
+
+She crouched trembling against the doorway. She could not speak. She
+had only one sensation--that she was with him now, and all would be
+well.
+
+He felt her clothes.
+
+"You are wet through!... You have only house-shoes on! My God, Lilly!"
+
+She tried to say something, but she was ashamed that he should see how
+her teeth chattered.
+
+"And I can't take you in. You know why.... But I must--yes, I must take
+you in. If I let you go home like this you'll catch your death. We must
+be very quiet--as we were before. We mayn't speak above a whisper. The
+invalid is still not out of danger. Give me your hand.... Come!"
+
+With eyes half closed, she suffered him to lead her up the stairs. Her
+wet dress flapped against, the banisters. She felt as if she must cower
+down on one of the steps and lie there till the charwoman came with her
+broom and swept her away. Yet she went on climbing the stairs, drawing
+nearer every minute to the fate in store for her above. With bowed head
+she followed him down the passage into his room, where the lingering
+sultriness of the summer day half stifled her. Konrad pushed her down
+into his easy-chair. He drew off the soaked velvet rags from her feet,
+and brought her dry stockings. The wet dress too he peeled from her
+body, threw his great-coat round her shoulders, and wrapped her in warm
+blankets.
+
+She let him do it all impassively, wishing to enjoy to the full his
+tender care of her. So far she had not spoken a word. Now, when she
+wanted to thank him, he pointed to the door of the adjoining room.
+
+"Speak low," he whispered in her ear beseechingly. "The poor thing
+seems to be having a good night for the first time."
+
+Faint compassion awoke in her; yet talking was imperative.
+
+"What is the matter with her?" she asked under her breath. "Tell me."
+
+He hesitated. "The landlady has sworn me to strictest secrecy.... But
+you are part of myself; I may tell you. The girl, her only child, ran
+away three or four months ago, and was confined in secret. Her mother
+went and brought her home, and for six weeks she has been lying between
+life and death; at last she has taken a turn for the better."
+
+"Poor thing!" she said, and then the consciousness of her own
+wretchedness came over her with renewed force.
+
+"Konni, Konni," she wailed whisperingly on his breast, "it's all over
+now. I wanted to starve with you, beg, do anything; but what's the
+use?... When you know all...."
+
+"How can that make any difference, dearest?"
+
+"I mean about me--my life, my past."
+
+He disengaged himself with a slight jerk and sat down opposite her. The
+inquiring look of consternation, which stiffened his pale face like a
+mask, filled her with a fresh fear. This time it was not fear of him,
+but fear for him. She was afraid of causing him pain, making her own
+suffering his.
+
+"I was going to write to you everything exactly as it happened, but
+somehow it wouldn't come. As I wrote, it got all wrong. So instead I
+came, came to you in the middle of the night. If you like, I will tell
+you ... all ... now."
+
+She could not go on, and buried her face on the edge of the
+writing-table.
+
+"Why don't you speak, then?"
+
+He had quite forgotten his strict injunctions about keeping quiet. Both
+started at the sudden sound of his voice.
+
+"She is probably asleep," he said, again lowering his tone. "So speak
+out at last. What can it be that you have to say?"
+
+His breath came heavily, under the weight of anxiety that oppressed
+him.
+
+And she began. Bending towards him, she tried to relate in a whisper
+the history for which she had not been able to find words at home.
+
+And this time, too, it was not the truth. She felt that it was not. It
+was even less, much less, the truth than what she had written in her
+letters. No power on earth could have induced her to pain him with
+every sordid detail. So she told of a long succession of martyrdoms,
+and in a funereal train let her injuries, humiliations, and insults
+pass in review before him. All had been darkness around her, unrelieved
+by a ray of hope or light. She had struggled in vain for deliverance
+and salvation, had made a dismal sacrifice of herself for no end. So
+she talked on. And he, half turned to stone, with wide-open eyes,
+listened. Only at the name "Salmoni," which she dared not withhold, he
+started and shrank from her.
+
+They had both entirely forgotten the patient in the next room.
+Constantly she had to wipe tears out of her eyes; she grew indignant
+with herself and others by fits and starts, skated gingerly over places
+where the ice was thin, indulged in self-reproaches, and said to
+herself defiantly as she drew near the end: "This is the truth." And it
+was, in the sense that it was an inventory of the best in her; the
+truth as she hoped, with justice, it might shape itself in his
+perplexed vision.
+
+There was silence. Her glance glided guiltily beyond him and rested on
+the portrait which leered at her from the writing-table with cynical
+worldly eyes, as much as to say: "I know you, my dear child, better
+than you know yourself." Something familiar and confidential lay in
+those eyes, a sort of reflection from that mad merry world which she
+had just been representing as a purgatory of tortures.
+
+Fascinated, she dared not look away from them, and their mocking
+searching gaze stripped her soul bare, and caused every gleam of hope
+to die within her.
+
+The silence became painful. Their thoughts seemed to vibrate in zigzags
+through the breathless stillness of the room. Then suddenly it was
+broken by a low piteous moaning, muffled at first, as if a handkerchief
+were being thrust into the mouth, then breaking out again more
+violently and loudly. It came from the next room, where the sick girl
+who had sinned secretly had been struggling for so many weeks for her
+young life. Soon, crooning words of comfort mingled with the moans. The
+girl's mother had come from the room beyond where she slept to
+ascertain the cause of this fresh outburst of grief.
+
+Their eyes met. "She must have heard everything," their glance seemed
+to say.
+
+For a moment another's misfortune made them forget their own. The great
+flood of suffering common to humanity swept over them, softening the
+sting of their own personal woes. The sobbing now was smothered by the
+pillows.
+
+"My pet, my own!" entreated the mother's consoling voice, every
+intonation of it overflowing with love; "be good again, my darling ...
+it's not so very dreadful.... We will bring up the little one, and even
+if he doesn't marry you it won't matter so much. Think we shall have
+the little baby, and what a joy it will be when the baby laughs and
+says, 'mamma.' You see, it is not so very bad, after all, my pet, is
+it?"
+
+The sobbing subsided and gave place to a gurgling sigh of content.
+
+"'It's not so very bad, after all.' Ah! I wish someone would say that
+to me," thought Lilly.
+
+But no one ever would. A burning desire to be soothed and comforted,
+even as the poor little sinner in the next room was being comforted,
+rose within her. "She has her mother!" she moaned, bursting into tears,
+"but I haven't anyone."
+
+Konrad bent over her and drew her hands from her face. In his
+sorrowful eyes a radiance dawned, so dear, so full of unspeakable
+loving-kindness, that he was quite transfigured, and seemed like a
+visitant from another world.
+
+"Haven't you got me?" he asked.
+
+"Yes, but you can't help me now," she said. "How can you endure me any
+longer?"
+
+In the next room all was still again. Now the girl's mother must also
+be aware that he was entertaining a belated guest.
+
+"Listen," he whispered, with his lips close to her ear. "We mustn't
+talk much, and my head's going round; but there's one thing that seems
+quite clear to me, and that is, the absurdity of everything that we
+call guilt and sin when two people love each other ... and when one of
+them has suffered like you. To me you have always been an angel, and an
+angel you shall continue to be in the future."
+
+"In the future?" she stammered, listening eagerly. "Is there any
+future?"
+
+He wiped his forehead, which was damp from perspiration.
+
+"I don't know yet," he said. "I only know that I cannot live without
+you."
+
+She closed her eyes. She wanted the dream to last.
+
+"It may not be now as we hoped, of course." She noticed that his words
+came haltingly. "Everything will have to be different."
+
+"But nothing in your life ought to be altered," she said; "it mustn't
+be different."
+
+"You can't disregard facts, dear. Where we shall live it's impossible
+to say yet; but we shall find some corner of the earth where no one
+knows us."
+
+For the first time it dawned on her what he meant. And forgetful of
+herself, the sick girl, and everything else, she sank down on her knees
+with a cry, and sobbed:
+
+"I won't let you! You shall not do it! You know the world so little.
+You are far too young. You don't know what you are doing. You mustn't
+sacrifice yourself.... I don't want to ruin you. I love you too well
+for that."
+
+He bent back her head and stroked the hair out of her eyes. Oh! if
+there had not been that heavenly light of goodness and of suffering in
+his eyes! A whole world of grief already burned in their depths.
+
+"If we've come to the question of sacrifice," he said, "then I must ask
+you to make a sacrifice for me. Will you?"
+
+"Yes--anything. Do you want me to die? Say it."
+
+"I only want you to do one thing. Come to me as you are. Don't bring a
+single bit of your property with you. Never go back to your ... that
+flat. From this moment let it all be as if it had never been. Promise
+me that."
+
+She struggled against a feeling of shock.
+
+Not go home! Never see her dear corner drawing-room again, nor the
+little bullfinch; never give Peterle his dinner again! Never!
+
+A horrid feeling that it was insane folly to ask this came and went
+like a splash of mud. Then she answered in hasty resolution:
+
+"Yes, I promise."
+
+He breathed deeply. "Now we will keep quite still," he said. "The girl
+must get her sleep, and to-morrow I will explain everything to the
+landlady."
+
+"But your great work?" she asked, attacked by another fit of
+self-reproach. "What will become of it?"
+
+A melancholy smile stole over his face.
+
+"Who knows? It will depend on my uncle. If he consents, we can live as
+we like.... All will be well."
+
+"And if he doesn't?"
+
+His right hand, which had been caressing her hair unceasingly from her
+forehead downwards to her neck, for a moment pressed her crown almost
+painfully, as if by the closer contact gathering strength for the
+approaching life's battle.
+
+"Then all will be well too," he said, and smiled again.
+
+A few minutes later she lay beside him on the narrow camp-bedstead, the
+hard edges of which hurt her limbs. Her head was on his shoulder; her
+arms, one under his back, the other flung across his chest, clung to
+him as always, when she sought solace and protection from him in
+trouble. But this time _she_ slept, and _he_ kept watch.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XIX
+
+
+The old lampshade-maker of the Neanderstrasse was not a little
+astonished when her former lodger, whom she had always admired as a
+smartly-turned-out grand lady, came one day in a badly fitting alpaca
+coat and skirt, and a sailor hat with a grass-green ribbon round it,
+and asked to be taken in. Last year's young lady occupant of the best
+room having recently married, however, she was glad to let it again to
+Lilly.
+
+Thus it happened that Frau Laue's fiery crimson plush upholstery once
+more played a part in her life. The pictures of famous actors smiled
+down on her patronisingly from the walls, and she was reminded of the
+connection between cleanliness of person and purity of conscience as
+she made her toilette.
+
+Konrad, in touching concern for her appearance, drew all the money that
+he had saved out of the bank--about five hundred marks altogether--and
+had purchased her a wardrobe at the draper's, for she could not go out
+and shop for herself in the costume she had worn the night that she
+came to his rooms. He had been persuaded by the shopgirls to buy the
+most ridiculous things. She would have died of laughing if he hadn't
+laid out a great deal of his money on them.
+
+Dressed in the shoddy apparel, she felt she was masquerading, and not
+for the world would she now have been seen in the streets.
+
+Frau Laue shook her head doubtfully.
+
+"Four years ago you left me with court-dresses, bracelets, and
+brooches, and all sorts of lovely things, and now you are come back in
+these rags! That doesn't seem to me to be fitting to your career, Lilly
+dear."
+
+Neither did Konrad find favour in the old lady's eyes.
+
+"He's too young for you," she said, "and not enough of a swell. He may
+have high ideals, and be sentimental, otherwise he wouldn't see
+anything in you; but I tell you all that high-flown rubbish means
+sorrow."
+
+To Lilly this chatter was intensely objectionable. But as she had
+nothing to do all day, she sat down with Frau Laue, as had been her
+wont of old, and helped her tap and press her dried flowers. And often
+it seemed as if she had never been away.
+
+The first day of her absence she had written to Adele--without giving
+her address, of course--and instructed her not to be concerned about
+her, but to continue her duties at the flat till Herr Dehnicke came
+back.
+
+It was more difficult to write a letter of farewell to Richard. She
+made no allusion to her engagement, which was to be kept secret for the
+present, and gave as the sole motive of her flight an ardent desire to
+live a new life. She again expressed herself unwilling to stand in the
+way of his matrimonial prospects, and ended with heartfelt cordiality,
+which robbed the separation of every sort of bitterness. On reading the
+letter over, she experienced a genuine pang of parting emotion, of
+which she was a little ashamed.
+
+Days went by. The new life that for years had been the subject of her
+fondest dreams had begun, and under auspices happier than any her
+imagination had ever dared to depict.
+
+At the side of the man she loved, whom but a few days ago it would have
+seemed arrogance and sacrilege to have thought of possessing, she was
+to enter again the society from which she had been banned--rescued,
+purified, regenerate.
+
+Who could have believed it possible? Yet, for all that, it required an
+effort to realise and appreciate this unheard-of happiness. The more
+she said to herself that this was a period of transition that would
+soon be over, the more she felt the sordid wretchedness of the old
+quarters that had become so strange to her. The frowsy atmosphere, the
+spiritual flatness, the want of decent clothes and money, the bad food
+and service, all weighed on her spirit and left the impression that
+instead of ascending to honour and position she had on the contrary
+sunk suddenly from affluence and splendour into a degraded poverty. No
+matter how much she scolded herself for this ungracious mood, it
+remained with her and would not budge. And she could not explain why it
+should be so. Five years ago, when she had really come down from high
+places, a spoilt child of fortune, petted and used to every luxury and
+attention, she had hardly suffered at all from the dreary squalor of
+her surroundings; and, though without any prospects to speak of, she
+could still hope. But now, when the idle pleasures of a frivolous
+existence lay behind her, and she had been happily drawn out of the
+slough, when her beloved was at her side, ready to fling open the doors
+for her to enter into a kingdom of undreamed-of joy, she nearly choked
+among the red plush furniture, vexed her soul about trifles, and pined
+for a bathroom and a hairdresser's services.
+
+Some change had come over her during these years, but what it was,
+though she racked her brains in thinking about it, she could not
+discover.
+
+In the midst of these trials, her anxiety with regard to Konrad gave
+her no peace. She was subject to violent heart-beatings at the mere
+thought of him. Her conscience perpetually stabbed her. She longed for
+expiation, reproached herself, and in her secret soul reproached him
+too.
+
+She dared no longer think of him with the rapture of desire as
+formerly, yet she was always on the lookout for a message or letter
+from him. If he did write, it was never enough to please her, but if he
+was silent she grumbled and fretted, although she knew that he had
+scarcely a moment to call his own during the day, and was drudging
+harder than he had ever done for her sake.
+
+Between eight and nine in the evening he arrived, laden with books and
+papers. He had manuscripts to read, proofs to go through, and letters
+to answer. He scarcely gave himself time to eat, and while he swallowed
+a few mouthfuls, troubled thoughts of things that he had forgotten to
+do during the day constantly occurred to his over-taxed mind.
+
+Hours devoted to amorous dalliance were out of the question. Often
+indeed he fell asleep in a corner of the sofa in the middle of his
+work. Then Lilly could contemplate at her leisure the ravages his
+strenuous life had made on him. He looked haggard and worn, his clothes
+were neglected, and the velvety blue sheen of his cheeks, in which she
+had taken such delight, had given place to pimples and a stubbly growth
+of hair.
+
+She would have given anything to know what he was really thinking about
+her at the bottom of his soul, but she could extract nothing from him.
+Dumbly he gazed before him with burning eyes, his lips so tightly
+compressed that the edge of a razor could not have been inserted
+between them. She had no grounds for doubting him, for she knew that
+all his energies were concentrated on preparing for their joint future.
+
+The post of professor of German in a college in Buenos Ayres was
+vacant, also a similar post in Caracas, and on the other side of the
+herring-pond he could easily get employment on any university staff.
+All that was necessary was a few testimonials from celebrated
+professors.
+
+It was only in the contingency of his uncle disapproving of his
+marriage and cutting him off that he laid these plans. If the old man
+said "Yes," there would be ample means to set up housekeeping anywhere
+they liked, and in surroundings most congenial for the precious work.
+
+Konrad had at once announced his engagement to his uncle, and given a
+heart-moving account of Lilly's past. He did not conceal that there had
+been stains on it, but he emphasised the more her fine qualities, her
+inner purity, her grandeur of soul, her gifts of mind, the wealth of
+her intellectual interests.
+
+He read her an extract from a copy of the letter after he had
+despatched it, sounding like the manifesto of a social revolution:
+
+"I know you are, thank God, as I am, far above the narrow Philistine
+conventions of society, the uncharitable social standards, the
+Pharisaism that entitles itself to be the guardian of public morals and
+would sacrifice all aspirations, freedom of conduct, and high living to
+the fetish of family-life bondage. You have travelled in all parts of
+the world and learned how mutable are the laws of morality everywhere,
+how hollow the sham of pretending to regard each as the divinely
+ordained dogma, and how hypocritical the sly methods by which men
+wriggle out of them. You know that in the realm of ethics there is one
+thing alone that commands unconditionally a reverence and esteem, and
+that is the will to _kallokagathia_, to that mode of living in which
+the super-men of all times combined the Good and Beautiful. Yes, in her
+aspirations and her troubles, _she_ has personified the good and
+beautiful for me, and has brought into my life imperial rights and the
+dawn of morning's glory."
+
+Could anything be more splendidly and touchingly put? Who could be so
+crassly dull and stupid as to resist the power of such language? And
+with this she consoled him when he was weighed down with a feeling of
+depression about the uncertainty of their immediate future.
+
+A week passed before the answer came, the longed-for answer that meant
+joy or despair to two human beings.
+
+
+"My dear Boy,
+
+"I have no idea what _kallokagathia_ means, and other foreign words of
+the kind. It is half a century since I ran away from school, but, all
+the same, I flatter myself that I have a keen eye for faces, and can
+take a man's measure pretty accurately, whether it's striking a bargain
+on the Yoshiwara, on the Stock Exchange, or at a game of baccarat.
+Nevertheless, this insight did not stand in the way of my being fleeced
+and of making a fool of myself about women. My life represents a long
+sequence of such blunders. Once I wanted to bring home a young
+Circassian because her eyebrows grew prettily; another time I nearly
+married a little Musme, because she understood how to massage my feet.
+I won't recount how many times I wanted to act the part of saviour of
+souls, for everyone goes through that phase. Fortunately, the patron
+divinity of old rips and old bachelors--with your wide classical
+learning you may be able to tell me who he is--has hitherto had the
+grace to save me from putting any plans into execution. _Your_ case,
+however, appears on the surface to be essentially different. If,
+as you relate, your sweetheart is a pattern with every attribute of
+virtue--life is full of surprises and if she doesn't pose as a
+repentant magdalen, then I shall with the greatest enjoyment give
+respectability, which I have detested all my life, a slap in the face
+by bestowing on you my hearty blessing. But if by any chance your love
+affair bears a family likeness to my own tender recollections, you must
+excuse me if I back out of any responsibility with regard to what you
+call your future and break off any relations with you. The best plan I
+can think of is to come to Berlin to-morrow, and to ask you and your
+future bride to keep an evening free for your old uncle. As I don't
+know as yet the best place to dine at, I will fix a _rendezvous_ later.
+Till then,
+
+                             "Your affectionate
+
+                                       "Uncle Rennschmidt."
+
+
+For the first time during these sad days, Lilly saw Konrad's face relax
+into a smile.
+
+"If that is his attitude," he said, "there is nothing to fear. One
+glance at you and his doubts will be dissipated; besides, who in the
+world could possibly resist you? You have only to make yourself a
+little nice to him and he will be your slave."
+
+But Lilly cherished secret misgivings.
+
+If only she had her old extensive wardrobe to select from, she might,
+with great care, have made herself as presentable as she could wish
+in his uncle's eyes; but in either of these two ready-made little
+frocks--which only by pinning she could make fit her--without ornaments
+and the hundred and one etceteras that contribute to a perfect
+_ensemble_, how was she to achieve the conquest of the old connoisseur
+of women?
+
+"I am afraid I shall have to put you to the expense of an evening
+dress," she said timidly.
+
+He was delighted at the idea. Anything she wanted she must have, of
+course. A hat with feathers, a lace scarf ... like those he had seen
+her in. And he handed out two hundred and sixty marks, all that he had
+left, for her purchases. Poor dear boy! what did he know of the
+costliness of _chic_ in the world of fashion?
+
+When he was gone she thought it over. While she was trying to devise
+plans of getting herself up decently out of the means at her disposal,
+there were dozens of lovely dresses hanging in the cupboards of her old
+flat, dresses that he had never seen in his life, for she had never
+been escorted by him to any party. And the lace scarf, which had cost a
+fortune, was there too, and God only knew what besides. She dared
+hardly trust herself to think of all these wasted treasures.
+
+With all her might she resisted the temptation. She had given him her
+word of honour, and, whoever else she might deceive, she could not
+deceive Konrad. So she decided to go on a shopping expedition the next
+morning. There might be something she could pick up in stock at
+Wertheim's or Gerson's that would prove a bargain. She was well known
+in the shops, and though never extravagant, was noted for always
+choosing the very best materials. What astonishment would be depicted
+on the faces of the saleswomen when they beheld her in her present
+cheap, shoddy clothes!
+
+No; it would be too painful an ordeal. She couldn't go through it. Yet
+think and think it over as she did by the hour, nothing could prevent
+her thoughts travelling back to the wardrobes where her finery reposed,
+silently offering her an exquisite choice. Nowhere could she find a
+loophole by which she could evade her promise, nowhere an excuse for
+the crime of breaking it. In spite of all this wrestling with herself,
+the night passed in happy dreams, for the sun of hope had risen once
+more. And, as usual, when Lilly's sleep was refreshing and profound,
+she felt her senses lapped in familiar melodies. The "Moonlight Sonata"
+stole on her, and Grieg's "Ung Birken," and, with the Rhine maidens'
+motif out of "The Ring," "The Song of Songs."
+
+As she lay half awake the aria still rang in her ears: "Come, my
+beloved, let us go forth into the field."
+
+And then, in sudden terror, she started up in bed crying out, "The Song
+of Songs!" The score--her precious roll of music--her heritage--where
+was it?
+
+In a drawer of the escritoire in the corner drawing-room--buried,
+forgotten.
+
+She had never given it a single thought.
+
+Now there was no longer any question of keeping her promise. If in that
+supreme hour she had kept her head, she would never have given it. She
+had been casting about for an excuse, and now here was more than an
+excuse, a justification. No pangs of conscience troubled her. This was
+a sacred cause, for which she must go through fire and water.
+
+Before eight o'clock she was out of the house. The sun-drenched mist of
+the rosy August morning melted into a violet sky; from the yellowing
+poplars dropped sooty dew, and the electric trams hummed their secret
+storm-signals.
+
+She mingled with the little crowd that gathered and melted again at the
+nearest stopping-station waiting for the car which was to take her
+west. Nervously she looked about her, fearful that Konrad might chance
+to come along the street; and when seated in the tramcar she screened
+her face with the morning paper that she had brought. Along the canal
+path she glided, under cover of the trees, like a hunted animal.
+
+And so she came to the flat at last. The porter was sweeping the steps,
+as he did every morning, and greeted her with an exclamation of wonder
+and pleasure. The greengrocer whose stall was in the cellar gave her a
+roguish welcome, and his small fry, to whom she had sometimes given a
+bonbon, hung on to her skirts in jubilation. Altogether it felt like
+coming home.
+
+Adele was still in bed. Why shouldn't she be? There was nothing for her
+to do.
+
+When Lilly opened the door of her room she displayed unbounded delight.
+She even shed tears of satisfaction, and Lilly all at once realised
+what she was losing in her.
+
+Everything shone brightly in the morning sunshine. The flowers had been
+watered. The bullfinch flapped his wings in greeting, and Peterle
+nearly broke the bars of his cage to scramble up on her shoulder. She
+scarcely knew whom to attend to first--out of sheer happiness and
+affection.
+
+There were three letters and two telegrams on the salver. The letters
+were in Richard's handwriting; the telegrams were addressed to Adele,
+urgently demanding the address of her vanished mistress.
+
+In the meantime her master had given up his courtship, and returned to
+Berlin. He had advertised in the papers, and came every day to see if
+there was any answer. He sat in his old place and drank his tea as
+usual, afterwards smoking cigarettes till it was time to go back to the
+office.
+
+Had she mentioned Konrad? What did the _gnädige Frau_ take her for?
+Adele hoped she understood better than that how to look after her
+mistress's interests. And now the best thing for the _gnädige Frau_ to
+do was to come back and act just as if nothing at all had happened.
+That is what her former ladies had always done.
+
+Lilly asked her to fetch down the smaller of her two leather trunks
+from the attic, explaining that she wished to take away with her a few
+things which had belonged to her before. As Adele sullenly obeyed,
+Lilly collected Konrad's letters from their secret hiding-place, then
+ran to her big wardrobe, snatched the dresses from the pegs, and piled
+them on the bed to choose what she would take.
+
+It was now that she thought of "The Song of Songs." She went down on
+her knees before the escritoire. The roll of music, which had been
+lying for years at the back of the bottom drawer neglected and forlorn,
+had assumed a different aspect. The elastic band that held the sheets
+together had become slack and sticky, and fell to pieces when Lilly
+touched it: The crumpled sheets slipped out of her hand and fluttered
+over the carpet. There they lay--the arias, the recitations, the duets,
+and the connecting orchestral passages--all in confusion, and on the
+top the "Turtle Dove" solo for the clarionet, which she had hummed with
+her mother almost before she could lisp. Dismayed, she gazed at the
+scattered sheets. They had turned yellow and musty. Several were
+stained with her own blood, which had flown from her veins after her
+mother's assault on her with the bread-knife. The bloodstains entirely
+obliterated many of the notes. Others had been gnawed away with the
+paper by mice at Schloss Lischnitz. And this was what it had come to,
+her "Song of Songs."
+
+It held out no message of hope now; it was no refuge for the future. No
+faithful Eckart, no guide to dizzy golden heights. It was a mere
+derelict, used up though never used, a time-honoured bit of lumber
+that one drags about without knowing why--an extinguished light, a
+masterpiece of wisdom that had become meaningless.
+
+Shrugging her shoulders, she hastily gathered together the disarranged
+rolls of paper and tried to thrust one inside the other, regardless of
+how they came--she was in such a hurry!
+
+"I can arrange them some time later," she thought, dimly conscious that
+she would never take the trouble.
+
+Adele came with the box. She seemed to have been a remarkably long time
+getting it. Her eyes kept wandering guiltily to the clock, and her
+answers were absent-minded. Then she threw back the lid, and Lilly
+threw the score into the bottom of the box. Its yawning depths seemed
+to cry out for further booty. There lay the dresses spread out on the
+bed. Her row of shoes stood by the washstand. Hats, blouses, veils,
+lace wraps, silk petticoats--all were waiting as much as to say, "Take
+us too!"
+
+For a moment she closed her eyes with a moan, remembering the one and
+only sacrifice he had asked of her. But it must be done--both their
+futures depended on it.
+
+"Frau Laue will hide them for me, and afterwards Frau Laue can keep
+them," she thought.
+
+Then, with a rapid resolve, she made a dash at the clothes, and
+gathered up blindly anything and everything she could lay hands on.
+She seized even the gold-coroneted ivory brushes, the three-winged
+hand-mirror, the bromide, the recipe for the summer storage of her
+furs, and a dozen other little indispensable articles of the toilette.
+
+And jewels were not forgotten! "_He_ may want money later," she
+thought.
+
+Meanwhile Adele had been sent out for a four-wheeler, and again it was
+ages before she came back. The porter helped to carry down the trunk,
+and Adele held the hat-boxes in her free hand. One last caress of the
+bullfinch's grey-green wings, a kiss on the small monkey's velvety
+snout, and the door closed behind her for ever.
+
+"Will not the _gnädige Frau_ leave an address?" Adele inquired. How sly
+she looked!
+
+"Later on I will write to you, dear Adele, and I hope you may come and
+live with me again."
+
+"Dear Adele" did not respond, but glanced down the street expectantly.
+
+A few minutes afterwards, as Lilly drove along the canal, she saw from
+the cab window a smart yellow-striped hired motor whiz past from the
+opposite direction. Richard was inside. She recognised him as he
+flashed by. Red as a lobster, his head slanting, he stared past her,
+with wild and searching glances, at the house that she had just left.
+
+She hurriedly directed her driver to turn into a side street, for she
+had no desire to meet him till her fate with regard to the world had
+been decided. But in a few minutes she heard, with a beating heart, the
+same clatter of wheels that had died away in the distance coming behind
+her, and drawing nearer and nearer. The yellow side of the motor had
+almost shot beyond her, when the word "Stop!" brought it to a
+standstill, and at the same moment her cab drew up too.
+
+Richard confronted her with his hand on the door-handle: "Where are you
+going?"
+
+His voice rose to a feminine shrillness. Above his high starched collar
+his throat worked up and down convulsively.
+
+She felt perfectly calm and mistress of the situation.
+
+He appeared to her now a poor, helpless shadow of a creature, he who so
+long had been her lord and master.
+
+"Please let me drive on, Richard," she said. "I have said good-bye to
+you by letter. I wanted a few things, and have been to fetch them. Why
+should we annoy each other further?"
+
+"Turn round!" he said, grinding his teeth. "Turn round!"
+
+"Why should I turn round?"
+
+"I say you shall! You know where your home is. I will not allow you to
+knock about the world by yourself any longer, God knows what mayn't
+happen to you. Driver, turn round!"
+
+The driver, with his red face, looked inquiringly at his fare before
+obeying.
+
+"Really, Richard, I alone have the control of this cab, and of my
+future proceedings--as you have control of yours."
+
+"What rot! If you are thinking about the American heiress, she may go
+to the deuce for all I care. But _you_--you _must_ come back. You must!
+you shall!"
+
+He grasped with both hands the hem of her skirt as if he would drag her
+out of the cab by her clothes.
+
+"I beg you to come back.... I can't sleep, I can't work.... I have got
+so used to you.... If it had come off, I should have joined you again
+directly the wedding was over. And everything in your rooms is as you
+left it that you have seen for yourself. Peterle won't eat, Adele says,
+and Adele is moped. She says she simply can't exist without you. I'll
+give you twenty thousand--no, thirty thousand--marks a year for life.
+Mother won't mind.... She understands ... for, you know, I've given up
+the idea of marrying for good; that need never worry you again.... And
+you may come to the office when you like.... And you shall have the
+carriage instead of a hired one. I'll have the telephone put on between
+your flat and the stable. Or perhaps you'd prefer a motor-car? If so,
+you shall have one, ten thousand times better than this."
+
+He had played his trump-card. What dreams of earthly grandeur could
+exceed a motor-car? He paused and, kneeling on the step, stared hard
+into her face to see the effect of his speech.
+
+She saw clearly that she would never be free of him unless she told him
+the truth. She was sorry for him, but it was her duty.
+
+"Look here, Richard. All that you offer me is no good to me now, for I
+love another man who can give me far more than you can--far, far more!"
+
+"What! What! You've caught a young Vanderbilt?" he exclaimed in jealous
+rage. "Well, I must say I never suspected that side to your character."
+
+"No, dear Richard; it's not a young Vanderbilt. On the contrary, he is
+so poor that he lives from hand to mouth. But, all the same, he and I
+are engaged, and as his future wife I must ask you to leave me free to
+do as I like."
+
+His jaw dropped, his eyes grew round; he reeled back against the hind
+wheel of the yellow car.
+
+"Drive on!" called Lilly to the cabman.
+
+She leaned back in her corner with a sigh of relief, and yet with a
+slight sense of guilt at having got rid so lightly of the old love.
+
+The whole way she heard the puffing of a slowly progressing motor
+behind her, and when she descended from the cab, Richard got out of his
+motor at a little distance, but near enough for her to see an
+expression in his eyes like that of a whipped dog.
+
+She ran up the four flights of stairs as if pursued by furies,
+forgetting all about her box. A moment afterwards the cabman came up,
+panting under its weight, and when she offered him his fare he declined
+to take the money.
+
+"The gentleman downstairs," he said, "has already settled everything."
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER XX
+
+
+It was the evening of the next day. The carriage, which was bearing
+Lilly to the most dreaded interview of her life, drew up at the door of
+the Unter den Linden Restaurant, which had been a favourite haunt of
+the _beaumonde_ for generations. Although Lilly had not been there for
+a long time, she knew every inch of it. She knew, too, the giant
+commissionaire, Albert, who stood at the entrance and laid his hand
+respectfully on his braided cap. It was he who of old used to apprise
+her of the approach of the handsome officer of Hussars. With downcast
+eyes and her head pressed against Konrad's shoulder, she glided past
+him, trusting that he no longer remembered her.
+
+"Uncle, this is Lilly!"
+
+An old gentleman below middle height, with bow legs, and in an
+ill-fitting lounge-jacket and limp collar, came swaggering out of a
+private room and held out to her a broad fleshy hand, the skin of which
+was as loose and brown as a dog-skin glove. She cast a shy,
+scrutinising glance at this all-powerful person, whom she had pictured
+as a man of commanding presence and iron will, and who, after all, was
+only a shaky, corpulent, rather common-looking dwarf.
+
+Then, as she told herself that her own and Konrad's happiness depended
+on her conduct now and during the next hour or two, she felt the old
+paralysing nervousness which had not troubled her much of late years
+come over her. When suffering from these attacks she became as wooden
+as a doll, and could do nothing but smile inanely, and hardly knew how
+to pronounce her own name.
+
+The old uncle, too, seemed frozen into silence at the first sight of
+her. He scanned her from head to foot, and from foot to head, and
+nearly forgot to invite her into the private room.
+
+This room, with its gold Japanese wall-paper, its carnation silk
+hangings, its blue Persian rugs, and high-backed sofa, was as familiar
+to her as everything else in the place. Many a festive midnight hour
+had she caroused away here with Richard and his chance acquaintances at
+the time when it was still his ambition to hobnob with the _crême de la
+crême_ of fast society.
+
+An immaculately shaved waiter took her brocaded evening coat and lace
+scarf, and measured her as he did so with an eye that seemed to say,
+"Surely I must have seen _you_ before?"
+
+That was an agonising moment.
+
+The old uncle, who had never ceased to regard her stealthily with awed
+but grim glances, pulled himself together and said:
+
+"Well, now we are going to have a jolly time together, children ...
+cosy and friendly--eh? Jolly cosy."
+
+Lilly bowed.
+
+Her bow was a stiff enough inclination of the head, apparently, to
+increase the bandy-legged old gentleman's reverent esteem for her. He
+seemed puzzled and ill at ease, trampled restlessly about the room,
+toyed with the gold charms that dangled from his watch-chain, and
+nodded two or three times at Konrad in solemn appreciation.
+
+Then they seated themselves at the gleaming white table, which was a
+mass of glittering cut-glass and flowers. Round the bronze lamp, with
+its claws and dainty iris stem--Lilly remembered it well--hung a
+festoon of lilac orchids, which must have cost an immense sum.
+Evidently this slovenly old rascal understood the art of good living.
+
+Lilly saw herself reflected in a mirror as she sat in her place on the
+sofa, a radiant picture of composure and distinction. She had chosen a
+sunray pleated black Liberty silk dress with a bodice of Chantilly
+lace, which, despite its costliness, clung in the simplest lines
+gracefully about her neck and shoulders. An innocent masculine mind
+might easily believe that such a costume could be bought anywhere
+between San Francisco and St. Petersburg, or Cape Town and Christiania,
+for two hundred marks.
+
+She had wisely left her jewellery at home. Only the slender gold chain,
+which she generally wore with a low bodice, encircled in maidenly
+unpretentiousness her high transparent collar.
+
+She looked like a strictly reared young gentlewoman of quality making
+her first _dêbut_ in the great world, full of shyness and curiosity.
+
+Konrad occupied the chair on her right. The third place, nearest the
+door, his uncle had retained for himself.
+
+From the moment he sat down to table he seemed to be in his element. He
+growled and issued orders, and found fault with everything.
+
+"Look here, my boy," he said to the waiter as he placed the _hors
+d'[oe]uvres_ in front of him, "do you call that the correct decanter for
+port wine? Don't you know that if port wine doesn't sparkle in the
+decanter it assuages thirst?"
+
+Intimidated by his bullying tone, the waiter was going off for another
+decanter, but Konrad's uncle declared he couldn't spare the time, he
+must have a "starter" straight away.
+
+"I am still feeling a little stiff," he said apologetically, "I am
+unaccustomed to entertaining such very beautiful and at the same time
+stand-offish ladies."
+
+Lilly felt a stab at her heart.
+
+Her lover's eyes met hers with a glance full of reproach and
+encouragement which said: "You mustn't be so silent. You must try to be
+nice to him." And in the same mute language she answered humbly and
+deprecatingly: "I cannot; _you_ talk for both of us."
+
+And then he began in his anxiety to converse as if he had been
+paid to entertain the company. He described the antiques which his
+uncle had collected in his castle on the Rhine, referred to threatened
+American competition, passed on to Italy and the evils of the Lex
+Pacca--goodness only knew what topic he didn't touch on.
+
+It was quite an illuminating little discourse, which his uncle appeared
+to follow with modified interest, as he squinted across at Lilly and
+smacked his lips while he let morsels of tunny in oil slip down his
+throat.
+
+Suddenly he said, "All very well, my son. Highly instructive and
+proper. But I wonder if you could not be equally enlightening on the
+subject of what sort of whisky they provide here?"
+
+Konrad sprang up to look for the bell, but his uncle pulled him back.
+
+"Stop! stop! This is my private entertainment. The port wine is for
+you. And a beautiful woman, after all, is a beautiful woman, even when
+she is someone else's beautiful wife. So here's to the health of our
+beauty."
+
+That sounded very like sarcasm. Was it his intention to make game of
+her before finally rejecting her claims?
+
+"Permit me," he continued, "to give you my congratulations. You have
+worked wonders already with the boy.... He dances prettily to your
+piping--eh?"
+
+Now she was bound to make some answer.
+
+"I don't pipe and he doesn't dance," she said, with an effort. "We are
+neither of us light-hearted enough for that."
+
+"Ah, that's a nasty one for me," he laughed; but his laugh sounded
+cross and irritable.
+
+"Lilly meant no harm," interposed Konrad, coming to her rescue. "And
+certainly the time of stress that we are passing through at present is
+not easy. If it were not for the help she gives me daily with her
+understanding and kindness of heart, I am not sure that I could
+struggle on."
+
+"Very good, very good," he replied; "or perhaps I should say, very
+pitiable. But your old uncle hasn't had as much as one pretty look or
+speech from her yet as a seal of our future relationship."
+
+"Oh, that's what he wants, is it?" thought Lilly; and she raised her
+glass to his, and sought to mollify him with a coquettish little
+shamefaced smile.
+
+It filled him with evident satisfaction. He twirled his pointed beard,
+and ogled her familiarly with his twinkling eyes, as if he wished to
+elicit a sign of secret understanding betwixt them.
+
+"Thank God, perhaps he's not so very formidable after all!" she
+thought, and gave a sigh of deep relief that the ice was broken at
+last.
+
+When the waiter came back, a lively discussion ensued between him and
+Konrad's uncle as to the brands of whisky the hotel boasted.... The
+debate ended in the manager of the establishment appearing on the
+scene, and offering to go down into the cellar himself to search for a
+bottle, which he thought he had somewhere, bearing the label of a
+certain celebrated firm, and the date of a certain famous year.
+
+Not till this important matter was settled did the old gentleman again
+devote his attention to his fair future niece-in-law.
+
+"I am an old mud-lark," he said. "I have done business in guano, train
+oil, Australian pitch, ship grease, and other such unclean things. So
+you can't wonder at my wishing to refresh myself for once in a way with
+an appetising object like yourself, dear ungracious lady. All I require
+is a little return of my interest."
+
+"Ah well, then, I'll just be impudent," thought Lilly. And aloud she
+said: "You know, Herr Rennschmidt, I am sitting here trembling
+in my shoes like a poor, unlucky candidate for an examination! I
+implore you"--she raised her clasped hands towards him--"don't play
+cat-and-mouse with me."
+
+Now she had struck the right note and given him the opening he desired.
+
+"Her lips are unsealed at last!" he exclaimed, beaming. "And I say,
+Konrad, what pretty lips she has! I like those long teeth that make the
+upper lip say to the lower, 'If you won't kiss when I do, I'll have a
+separation.' Do you see what I mean, Konrad, you dullard?"
+
+Lilly could not help laughing heartily, and at once they were on the
+best of terms. Even Konrad's dear, haggard face lighted up for a moment
+with a reassuring smile which did her heart good. For his sake she
+could almost have thrown herself under his uncle's feet, so dearly did
+she love him. And with a feeling of rising triumph she thought, "I'll
+just show him how awfully nice I can be to the old curmudgeon."
+
+It was not so difficult, after all. When she looked at his round,
+puckered, mischievous old face, with the keen shrewd grey eyes and the
+beautifully waved snow-white wig--it was actually a wig peaked on the
+forehead and brushed into two outstanding curls over his ears like a
+judge's--she felt more and more that he was a good and tried comrade,
+with whom she had often had good times in the past. And yet she had
+certainly never met him before.
+
+He had a masterful air of breeding about him, despite his plebeian
+exterior. His choice of the menu was simply admirable. The 'sixty-eight
+Steinberger, which flowed into the crystal glasses like liquid amber,
+suited the blue trout to such perfection that it might have been their
+native element; and the sweet-bread patties _à la Montgelas_ were
+worthy accompaniments. Neither Richard nor any of his crew understood
+so well the gourmet's art.
+
+If only he had not drunk whisky so perpetually in between!
+
+"My brain has been so deadened by money-making," he said in
+justification, "I am obliged to give it a fillip now and then, or it
+would become completely dulled."
+
+With the punch _à la romaine_, a brief and vivacious debate arose as to
+the merits of certain American drinks, in which Lilly, with her
+extensive knowledge of bars and beverages, scored. She even knew the
+exact ingredients of her host's speciality, the "South Sea Bowl," in
+which sherry, cognac, angostura bitters, with the yolks of eggs and
+Château d'Yquem, or, if necessary, moselle, contributed to make a fiery
+mixture. She went so far as to offer to prepare this curious mixture
+for him after dinner with the skill of an expert, so that he would have
+to confess he had never drunk anything more delicious between Singapore
+and Melbourne.
+
+Konrad, who obviously had never suspected her genius in this direction,
+listened to her with an amazement that filled her with pride. She
+telegraphed to him one secret signal after the other, asking, "Aren't
+you pleased? Am I not being very, very nice to him?"
+
+But somehow he would not respond. He was silent and absent-minded, and
+it often seemed as if he did not belong to the party.
+
+"Well, he may dream if he likes," she thought blissfully. "I'll look
+after our interests."
+
+Thus every minute the friendship between her and the old worldling grew
+apace.
+
+By the time they had got to the wild-duck and the dark glowing
+burgundy, which slid down their throats like warm caresses, she had
+already begun to call him "dear uncle." He, on his side, declared over
+and over again that he was "totally wrapped up in his dear, dear little
+Lilly."
+
+So this was the test, the cruel probation, which she had dreaded with
+all her soul, through which she had expected to come dissected and
+unmasked, with every rag of concealment rudely torn off!
+
+When she thought of how differently things were turning out, she could
+hardly contain herself for glee. There sat the mighty, dreaded peril,
+whose money-bags meant victory or defeat, a little wild beast tamed,
+who squeezed her fingers in his repulsive shrivelled hands and fawned
+on her for a smile.
+
+He was undoubtedly quite amusing, especially when he told good stories.
+
+What a lot of scandal he had gathered in the Colonies! In one evening
+he told more anecdotes than she had heard for a year. There was, for
+example, the story of the German Governor, Herr von So-and-So--she had
+once met him herself at Uhl's--who took up his duties abroad with a
+suite consisting of secretary, valet, and cook. In six months the cook
+came and said, "Herr Governor, I am----" He gave her two thousand marks
+and said, "Here you are, but keep quiet." Then she went to the
+secretary and said, "Herr Müller, I am----" He gave her three hundred
+marks and said, "Not a word." Then she went to the valet and said,
+"Johann, I'm so far gone, we'd better marry." After three months the
+valet came to the Governor and said, "Your Excellency, the hussy took
+us all in. The child is black!" And many another yarn followed of the
+same sort. In short, she nearly died of laughing.
+
+"Konrad, why don't you laugh? Laugh, dearest."
+
+And then he really did smile, but his eyes remained grave and his brow
+tense.
+
+When the champagne came, they drank each other's health again, and
+kissed. The touch of those thick sensual old lips was horrible, but to
+ensure her future happiness it had to be endured. She was going to give
+Konrad a kiss too, but he declined it. Still worse, he tried to prevent
+her drinking so much.
+
+"She ought to be more careful," he urged. "Please, uncle, don't fill up
+her glass so often. We never drink so much as this."
+
+The other two laughed at him.
+
+"He always was a bit of a muff," jeered his old uncle, "and never knew
+what was good. He's not good enough for you, Lilly; you ought to have a
+fellow like me--not a prig. He's like a mute at a funeral."
+
+But she saw no joke in this.
+
+"You shan't abuse my darling Konni, you old wretch! Go on telling your
+old chestnuts. _Allons_! Fire away!"
+
+No, not a word should be breathed against her dear, sweet Konni!
+
+So uncle started telling good stories again. This time he related them
+in pigeon-English, that gibberish which the Chinese and other
+interesting inhabitants of the far East use as a medium of
+communication with the white sahibs. "Tom and Paddy in the Tea-house";
+"The virtuous spinster Miss Laura"; "The Guide and the Bayadere." Each
+was received with a box of the ears.
+
+"But we mustn't let Konni hear any more, uncle dear. Konni might be
+corrupted."
+
+So saying, she inclined her left ear very close to dear uncle's lips,
+and made with her hollowed hand between them a "whispering-tube," which
+was the custom of "the crew" when any of them wanted to flirt unheard,
+or do anything else particularly outrageous.
+
+It would be a sad mistake to suppose that she was in the least abashed
+or unequal to giving as good as she got. The general's "lullabies" were
+spicy enough, and she had learned from "the crew" much that was of
+unquestionable origin and questionable taste. For such an appreciative
+audience as uncle proved to be, it was worth while doing one's best.
+But the innocent Konrad had to submit to his ears being stuffed up with
+the wadding on which the Colville apples had been served.
+
+After the coffee, uncle challenged her to keep her promise about
+brewing the South Sea Bowl, her vaunted knowledge of which, of course,
+had been mere brag.
+
+She would show him! He shouldn't scoff at her a second time. A variety
+of bottles were brought; besides the sherry and the angostura, an old,
+sweet liqueur. It was a pity, uncle thought, to mix such good things,
+and he took two or three glasses of the latter neat, and she followed
+his example.
+
+The tiresome eggs broke at the wrong place, it was true, and emptied
+their contents on her dress and the carpet. But what did that matter?
+It merely increased the fun ... and dear old uncle was paying for
+everything. To make up for the eggs smashing, the blue flame of the
+alcohol-lamp leapt up merrily as high as the orchids, as high as the
+ceiling.... She would have loved to lick up the flames, as the witches
+did.
+
+"Your luck, Konni!--_our_ luck, Konni!"
+
+"Don't drink it," she heard him say, and his voice sounded harder than
+usual. Indeed, she hardly recognised it as his voice at all.
+
+"Muff!" she laughed, and thrust out her tongue at him. "Muff!"
+
+"Don't drink it!" the warning voice said again. "You are not used to
+it."
+
+_She_ not used to drinking! How dared he say so? This was an insult to
+her honour; yes, an insult to her honour.
+
+"How do you know what I am used to? I am used to plenty of things you
+don't guess.... Here, on this seat where I am sitting now, I have sat
+more than once--more than ten times--and have drunk ten times more."
+
+"Dearest heart, you don't know what you are saying. It isn't true."
+
+Once more his voice sounded gentle and soothing, as if he were
+reproving a naughty child.
+
+"How dare you say it isn't true? Do you take me for an impostor? I
+suppose you think I am not at home in swell places like this!... Pooh!
+Shall I give you a proof? I can--I can!... You'll find my name
+scratched at the foot of this lamp. Look and you'll find it.... 'Lilly
+Czepanek ... Lilly Czepanek.' Look! Look, I say!"
+
+He had started to his feet, his face rigid, and fixed his eyes in
+horror on the polished silver mirror of the lamp, on which was a jumble
+of scribbled hieroglyphics. He could not distinguish amongst them the
+L. C. for which he was looking till she came to his assistance. Here,
+no; there, no. The letters swam into one another. It was like trying to
+catch hold of the goldfish in the aquarium.
+
+Hurrah! here it was. That was it--"L. v. M." and the coronet above. For
+in those days she had often had the audacity to call herself by the
+forbidden title as a temporary adornment.
+
+"Now, do you see, Konni, that I was right? Now you won't mind how much
+I drink, will you, you dear, precious little muff?"
+
+Utterly crushed by the proof, he sank back in his chair without a
+single word.
+
+His uncle and Lilly went on drinking and laughing at him.
+
+At this moment she happened to catch sight of herself in the glass.
+Through a billowy haze she beheld a flushed, puffy face with
+dishevelled hair falling about it from under a crooked hat, and two
+deeply marked lines running from mouth to chin. It was not a pleasing
+spectacle, and she was a little disturbed at it; but before she could
+distress herself further, the old uncle claimed her attention with a
+new joke.
+
+"Do you know, Lilly dear, how the Chinese sing 'Die Lorelei'?"
+
+Before she had heard a syllable she went into a fit of giggles. He
+crossed his bandy legs and played a prelude on the side of his foot as
+if it were a banjo, "Ping, pang, ping"; and then he began in a cracked,
+nasal, gurgling voice, drawling his "l's."
+
+
+           "O, my belong too much sorry
+            And can me no savy, what kind;
+            Have got one olo piccy story,
+            No won't she go outside my mind."
+
+
+When he came to the second verse:
+
+
+           "Dat night belang dark and colo"
+
+
+he heightened the effect by tearing the wig from his head, and now he
+looked for all the world like an old nodding mandarin, with his slits
+of eyes and his polished bare ivory skull.
+
+It was fascinatingly and overwhelmingly funny. Never in her life had
+she seen such a mirth-provoking, side-splitting piece of clowning. You
+could have died of envy if you hadn't been Lilly Czepanek, the renowned
+mimic and impersonator, who, when the spirit moved her, had only to
+open her lips to rouse a tornado of applause.
+
+Her incomparable _repertoire_ had been growing rusty for too long. "La
+belle Otéro" was not yet stale, and Tortajada was dancing her ravishing
+dances, while Matchiche was just becoming the rage.
+
+All you had to do was to tilt your hat a little further back, to raise
+your black skirt--the _dessous_ was part of what had been brought away
+yesterday, and would not have disgraced a Saharet--and then you were
+off!
+
+And she was off! Off like a whirlwind over the carpet, slippery with
+the yolks of eggs that she had spilt. Hop, skip--olé! olé! Yes, you
+must shout "Olé!" and clap your hands. "Olé-é-é----"
+
+Dear uncle bawled; the floor rocked in great waves.... Lamps and
+mirrors danced with her. All hell seemed to be let loose.
+
+"Konni, why don't you shout 'Olé'? ... Don't be so down ... Olé!"
+
+"Uncle, you will have this on your conscience!"
+
+What did he mean by saying that? Why was he sobbing? Why did he stand
+there as white as the tablecloth?
+
+"Olé--ol-é-é-é!"
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER XXI
+
+
+Towards noon Lilly awoke in a rapture of joy.
+
+The formidable uncle had been won--the last obstacle cleared from her
+path--the future lay spread out at her feet like a land of milk and
+honey. The probation looked forward to with such anxiety and terror had
+turned out, after all, only a delightful spree. What a mountebank and
+buffoon that shrewd old man of the world was, who probably had ground
+women's hearts under his heel as indifferently as he crunched walnuts.
+When she tried, however, to review the events of the previous evening
+she felt a slight dismay at nothing emerging from her blurred memory
+but the sounds of song and uproarious laughter, just as it used to be
+in that other life when she had spent the night in mad revels with
+Richard and his friends.
+
+As the mist lifted a little, she saw a deadly white face petrified by
+pained surprise, heard an exclamation that was half a sob and half a
+groan, and saw herself, sobbing too, kneeling before someone who pushed
+her away with his hands.
+
+Had that happened, or had she dreamed it?
+
+And she had danced and sung so beautifully! She had exhibited her art
+at its best. Could there have been anything displeasing in it? Had she,
+perhaps, gone a little too far in her high spirits?
+
+Her anxiety grew. She sprang out of bed, and her one thought was that
+she must go to him instantly.
+
+At twelve the bell rang.
+
+That was Konrad; it must be Konrad. But, when she flew to the lobby
+door to throw herself into his arms with a cry of joy and relief, she
+found that she was standing face to face with his uncle, who stood
+twirling his hat in his horrid fingers, and looked at her with a
+significant smile that she did not like at all.
+
+"Is it to come all over again--the probation," she thought, "or is it
+now only coming off for the first time?"
+
+"How do you do?" died in her throat. She let him in without speaking. A
+sensation of faintness came over her, as if she were going to fall
+backwards through the wall into her room.
+
+It was the old man who opened the door and walked in, with the air of
+an acquaintance who knew his way about.
+
+"Where is Konrad?"
+
+"Konrad?" he repeated, and scratched the silk band of his wig with his
+little finger. "I've something to say about Konrad."
+
+He drew out his glittering watch, with its massive chain, and studied
+the hands.
+
+"I make it just ten minutes past twelve. By now he will be on his way
+to the station--most probably he has started."
+
+"Is he ... going away?" she stammered, while her breath began to fail
+her.
+
+"Yes, yes. He is going away.... We settled that last night.... He needs
+a change."
+
+"It's nonsense," she thought; "how can he go away for a change without
+me?"
+
+But she put a restraint on herself and asked casually, "Where is he
+thinking of going so suddenly?"
+
+"Oh! he's taking a little trip abroad hardly worth speaking about. It
+seemed a favourable opportunity. A double cabin was going begging on
+the steamer leaving--er--never mind where!... an outside cabin, you
+know; on the promenade deck; pleasantest position, you know; no
+splashing, and lots of air.... One wants plenty of air, especially
+during those four days in the Red Sea."
+
+Then she was right. Her suspicions that the probation of her character
+and intentions was only to begin seriously now were being verified.
+
+"What takes people to the Red Sea, uncle dear?" she asked, with her
+most ingenuous smile.
+
+"Yes, what takes them to the Red Sea? Four thousand years ago the
+ancient Jews asked the same question, and everyone asks it to-day when
+he finds himself sweltering there. But still, if you want to go to
+India, you must pass through the Red Sea.... And I want to go to India
+once more. I've been quite long enough trotting about the pavements at
+home. And as our Konrad is overworked--you'll admit he is, child--I
+have talked him into coming to travel with me a bit. For in cases like
+this I believe change of scene is the best remedy. Do you see?"
+
+Lilly felt a lump rise in her throat as if all the links of his gold
+watch-chain were choking her.
+
+"This joke isn't in the best of taste," she thought; "and God knows
+what he means by it."
+
+But whether she liked it or not, she had to play at the game. "Konrad
+might have had the grace to come and say goodbye to me prettily," she
+replied, pouting a little, as if a journey to Potsdam or Dresden was in
+question.
+
+"Well, you see, child, that's what he wanted to do, of course. But I
+said to him, 'Look here, my boy, farewells are far too exciting and
+unnerving, and may bring on apoplexy.' He agreed, and left it to me to
+put matters straight with you."
+
+"Well, by all means let us put matters straight," she answered, with
+the patronising smile that such a farce merited.
+
+"I shouldn't be surprised," she thought, "if he were not waiting
+outside in the cab for a signal to come in."
+
+"Uncle" placed his smart panama hat beside him on the floor, leaned his
+short body back in Frau Laue's red plush arm-chair, and affected an
+expression of distress and sympathy.
+
+What an old clown he was! It mystified her more than anything that he
+seemed so absolutely to have forgotten the alliance they had entered
+into on the previous evening. But perhaps this was only part of the
+probation farce.
+
+"If it were only a question of me, my dear," he went on, "it wouldn't
+matter. I honestly confess I'm mad about you--'wrapped up,' as I said
+last night. I have met womenfolk in all parts of the globe, and it's as
+clear to me as palm-oil that you are made of the choicest materials
+it's possible to find. But there are people, you know, who take life
+seriously and cherish grand illusions.... people who have no notion
+that a human being must be a human being. They think they are something
+extra, and expect life to afford them extra titbits. And then come
+disappointments, of course ... reproaches, despair ... tearing of hair,
+wringing of hands. I'm blowed if he didn't try to thrash me last
+night!"
+
+"Whom are you talking about?" asked Lilly, becoming every moment more
+uneasy.
+
+"Just as if I had led you on into the little overshooting of the mark!
+No, no ... that's not my way. I don't lay man-traps. And so I told him
+ten times over. The misfortune is, that you and I understood each other
+too well. You and I are in the same line of business.... We two are
+like two old colleagues."
+
+"We two ...? You and I?" gasped Lilly in frigid amazement.
+
+"Yes, you and I, my dear child. Don't have a fit--you and I; you and I.
+It's true that you are a splendid beauty of twenty-five, and I am a
+damned old fool of sixty.... But life has tarred us with the same
+brush. How am I to explain it to you?... Have you ever hunted for
+diamonds? I don't mean at the jeweller's. I'll lay a wager you know
+that way of hunting them. Well, a diamond lies embedded in hard rock,
+in tunnels ... so-called blue ground. If you find a blue-ground
+tunnel, you may imagine what it is; you just sit in it. Once I went
+diamond-hunting with a party of twenty, day and night, week after week.
+The blue ground was there all right, but the diamonds had been washed
+out of it. Do you follow me? The fine ground is still in both of us;
+but what made it fine the devil has in the meantime walked off with."
+
+"Why do you tell me all this?" Lilly asked. Tears of bewilderment
+sprang to her eyes, for this couldn't possibly have anything to do with
+the probation.
+
+"Now, child, I'll tell you why.... There are people who when they have
+given their word think there is no going back on it. They must swallow
+whatever they've put in their mouths, even if it's a strychnine
+pill.... My opinion, on the contrary, is that no one ought deliberately
+to plunge into misfortune--neither he nor you. And since the quickest
+method is to wash the wool while it's on the sheep, I've come to you to
+make a little proposition. See, here's a cheque-book. You know what
+cheque-books are, I expect. On the right side are printed figures from
+five hundred upwards: All the figures that make the amount bigger than
+the sum inscribed on the cheque are cut off, in case a little swindler
+should take it into his head with one little stroke of the pen to cheat
+one out of a little hundred thousand. Well now, look here. This cheque
+is signed and dated; the figures alone want to be filled in. I should
+never permit myself to offer you a certain sum, but I should like you
+to say what you think would be a decent provision for your future."
+
+He tore the cheque out and laid it on the table in front of her.
+
+"Thank Heaven," thought Lilly, "I had nothing to be afraid of! My heart
+need not have misgiven me."
+
+Who could be so blind as not to see through this clumsy trick whereby
+he intended to put to the test her unselfishness about money? So she
+did not send the old man about his business, as she might with justice
+have done, if such a proposal had been made to her seriously, but she
+took the cheque off the table, smiling, tore it carefully to atoms, and
+flipped them one after the other into his face.
+
+He fidgeted about in his arm-chair.
+
+"Allow me," he said; "please allow me ..."
+
+"No! Such scurvy little jokes I certainly will not allow, dear uncle,"
+she replied.
+
+"But you are declining a fortune, my child. Think what you are doing.
+We've upset the tenor of your life. We have, as it were, cast you on
+the gutter. That you shan't perish there is our responsibility. And if
+you think you will lower yourself in his eyes by accepting, I can swear
+to you he knows nothing about it; and never will, I'll swear too."
+
+She only smiled.
+
+His small slits of eyes grew bright and hard. Suddenly they began to
+threaten her.
+
+"Or ... is it your intention not to give up the good boy--to hang his
+promise like a halter about his neck?... Are you one of that kind, eh?"
+
+"No. I am not one of that kind."
+
+Her smile reached far beyond him. It flew to greet the beloved who
+soon, very soon now, would be ascending the stairs; for surely he
+couldn't have patience to wait there outside in the cab much longer.
+
+"His promise is his own. He's never given it. And if he had wanted to I
+would never have let him. And even if what you said just now was true,
+he might go away if he liked, and come back again, and I would not
+write to him or meet him, or remind him in any way of what he is and
+always will be to me as long as I live. But I know that it is _not_
+true. He loves me, and I love him. And take care, uncle, not to play so
+low down with his future wife as to offer her blank cheques and such
+disgraceful proposals. If I were to tell him, you would find yourself
+all at once a lonely old man whose fortune might go to endow a home for
+lost dogs."
+
+He was obliged to see at last what a blunder he had committed. He
+jumped from his seat, evidently annoyed at his mistake, and ejaculated
+an irritable "Bah!" as he began to pace the room, jingling the charms
+on his watch-chain. Once or twice he murmured something that sounded
+like "A hangman's job." But she couldn't have heard right.
+
+At last he seemed to arrive at a decision. He stopped close in front of
+her, laid his repulsive hands on her shoulders and said, suddenly
+becoming affectionate and familiar again:
+
+"Listen, sweetheart, girlie, pretty one. Something has to be done. We
+can't shirk the point. There must be a conclusion. If only I weren't
+such a damned mangy old hound and hadn't to consider the dear boy's
+feelings in the matter, things would be simple enough. I should merely
+say, 'Come along with me to the nearest registry-office. But hurry up;
+I haven't time to waste!' Don't stare! Yes--me. I'd ask you to marry
+_me_. You wouldn't have reason to regret it. But Konrad--you must see
+yourself it won't do--won't do. It would be a fatal mistake from
+beginning to end. He is a rising man. He wants to climb to the top; he
+is still blessed with faith, and you haven't any left. You fell too
+early into the great sausage-machine which minces us all sooner or
+later into average meat.... You wouldn't be happy with him long. You
+couldn't keep up to him. You'd drag on him like a dead weight, and
+would always be conscious of it. As for last night's revelation, which
+opened his eyes, I don't lay so much stress on that. It's not a
+question of what the coastline looks like--sand or palms, it's all the
+same--but it's the interior that counts. And there I see waste land,
+burnt-up scorched deserts; no birds flying across it; no ground in
+which confidence can strike root. Child, creep into any shelter life
+offers you, cling to those who have brought you to this pass; but let
+the boy go. He is not made for you. Be honest; haven't you long ago
+said so yourself?"
+
+Ah, so this was what he meant! It was not a probation, but the end--the
+end!
+
+She gazed into vacancy. She seemed to hear steps growing fainter; one
+after the other they slowly died away, like _his_ footsteps when at
+break of day he had softly stolen downstairs.
+
+But this was final. They had died away for ever.
+
+A dull sense of disappointment gnawed at her heart. That was all. The
+worst would come later, as she knew by experience.
+
+And then she saw a vision of herself dancing and yelling, laughing at
+foul jests, with her hat awry and her skirts held high--a drunken
+wanton! She, the "lofty-minded saint" with the "brow divine," a drunken
+wanton--nothing more and nothing less.
+
+Now she knew why he had stood there with his face as white as the
+tablecloth--why that sobbing groan of pain had burst from his lips. And
+it was pity for him as much as shame of herself that made of this
+moment a boiling hell.
+
+"How is he bearing it?" she asked, stammering.
+
+"You can guess how," he replied, "but I believe I shall pull him
+through."
+
+"Oh, uncle ... I ... didn't ... I didn't want to do it ..." she cried,
+sobbing.
+
+"I know, child; I know. He told me all."
+
+For an instant her wounded pride flamed up within her. She stooped, and
+gathering together a handful of the bits of torn paper, she held them
+out to him on her open palm.
+
+"And you dared to offer me _that_?"
+
+"What was I to do, my dear? And what am I to do with you now?"
+
+"Pah!" and she struck at him with both hands, but the next moment she
+threw her arms round his neck and wept on his shoulder. Perhaps her
+cheek touched the very place which Konrad last night might have wetted
+with his tears!
+
+He began to reason with her again. He made suggestions for her future.
+He would help her to begin a new life, and provide tier with the means
+to cultivate her brilliant histrionic talents; she should come out on
+the stage or the concert platform. But she shook her head.
+
+"Too late, uncle.... Waste land--didn't you say so yourself?--ground
+where no confidence can take root. I might aspire to be a music-hall
+star, but honestly I don't think it would pay."
+
+"Cursed hounds!" he growled.
+
+"Who are cursed hounds?"
+
+"You know well enough, my child."
+
+She reflected a moment as to whom he could mean. Then she said:
+
+"There was only one ... no, two, and then afterwards one more ... and
+then two more who didn't count."
+
+"Well, that seems to me to be plenty, dear."
+
+He patted her cheeks and smiled kindly, and somehow she did not find
+his fingers repulsive any more.
+
+She felt that she must smile too, though she began crying again
+directly.
+
+Konrad's uncle prepared to take his departure, and she clung on tightly
+to his shoulder. She couldn't bear to let him go. He was the last link
+with her vanished dream of happiness.
+
+"What message shall I take him?" he asked.
+
+She drew herself erect. Her eyes widened. She wanted to pour out the
+full flood of her grief. Her shattered and squandered love sought for
+winged words which should bear it to him, sanctified and hallowed anew.
+But no words came.
+
+She looked wildly round the room, as if from some quarter of it help
+must come. The portraits of defunct actors smiled down on her; once so
+eloquent, they were dumb now dumb as her own frozen soul. The specimen
+lamp-shade in its frame greeted her, presaging a future to be passed at
+Frau Laue's side.
+
+"I have nothing to say," she faltered. Then she thought of something
+after all. "Ask him ... ask him, please, why he didn't come himself to
+say good-bye. I know that he is not a coward."
+
+Uncle made one of his queerest faces.
+
+"As you have been so astoundingly sensible, little woman, I'll tell you
+the secret. He wanted to come and say good-bye--most dreadfully, of
+course. And I promised him that I'd try and bring you to the station."
+
+In an instant she was making a dash for her straw hat.
+
+"Stop!"
+
+He had laid his hand on her arm. The short, squat figure seemed to grow
+taller.
+
+"You won't go."
+
+"What? Konni is expecting me, wants to speak to me? And I am not to
+go?"
+
+"I say again, 'You won't go.' If you are the plucky girl I take you
+for, you will not spoil your work of sacrifice. For, depend upon it, if
+once he sees you again you'll hang on to each other for evermore."
+
+The straw hat slipped from her hand.
+
+"Then ... tell him ... I shall always love him, always and always, that
+he will be my last thought on earth.... And ... I don't know what else
+to say."
+
+He silently made his way out of the room.
+
+And then she broke down.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XXII
+
+
+The world wagged on, calmly, merrily, busily, as if nothing had
+happened, as if nowhere on the ocean of life a lost happiness was
+drifting every minute farther and farther away, as if no forsaken and
+abandoned human child cowered in a corner, staring with despairing eyes
+helplessly at the floor.
+
+Frau Laue tapped at her lamp-shades, the fried potatoes frizzled
+in the fat-lined pan; the stove in the lobby smoked, and the frowsy
+poor-people's odour exhaled a welcome to all who came within its
+radius. She did not cry her heart out of her body, as she had done
+after her expulsion from the castle. She neither lapsed into a dazed
+apathy nor wrestled desperately with fate. Instead, she felt that a
+grey yawning void stretched before her endlessly, the silence of which
+was broken now and then by a shrill cry of almost animal longing and
+despair, a sense of feeble submission to the inevitable, a
+consciousness of being incarcerated without hope of escape, a baffled
+slipping down into life's dark depths, a dreary death unmarked by grace
+or dignity.
+
+Between to-day and to-morrow--the to-morrow that seemed to beckon from
+every corner--Lilly's tearless eyes saw the railings of the bridge that
+her feet had tested on the way home from "Rosmersholm." And, as she
+stared into space, she beheld the dark, purple-flecked waters rolling
+languidly on far below, and heard the iron chains clank under her feet.
+
+This sound grew into a perpetual sing-song that accompanied everything
+she did, floated over and swallowed up everything that the eventless
+days brought forth. It pierced her brain, hammered in her temples, and
+throbbed painfully in every nerve and pore of her body.
+
+Only one word was set to this haunting melody, and that was "Die."
+Yes--die. What could be simpler? What more irresistible?
+
+Die! not to-day; but to-morrow perhaps, or the day after. Something
+might happen yet. A letter might come, or he himself. Or if not this,
+who could know that fate was not holding some other miracle of good
+fortune up its sleeve?
+
+So it was worth while living to-day, to drag through its countless
+hours of deadly monotony.
+
+Then one evening, a week after Konrad's sudden departure, Frau Laue
+appeared in Lilly's room at an unaccustomed hour. Her manner denoted
+determination.
+
+"Now look here, Lilly dear," she began. "Things can't go on like this.
+If you were crying your heart out I shouldn't say anything. But, as you
+are acting now, matters will never mend. There is only one sensible
+course that you can take; you must return to your Herr Dehnicke. If he
+had any inkling of how things were going with you here, trust him, he
+would have come and taken you away long ago. So I tell you plainly,
+either you sit down and write him a nice letter or I shall leave my
+work in the lurch and go straight off to his office to-morrow morning.
+He'll pay my expenses fast enough."
+
+Lilly felt a strong impulse to turn the old woman out of the room, but
+she was too depressed to do more than turn away from her with impotent
+distaste.
+
+"I haven't too much time to spare now," Frau Laue continued; "the dozen
+must be completed before bedtime.... But you can make your mind easy as
+to one thing. If he is not here by ten o'clock to-morrow, he'll be here
+by twelve, for I shall have gone to fetch him. Good-night, Lilly dear."
+
+In melancholy scorn she sent a scoffing laugh after Frau Laue. This,
+then, was the stroke of good fortune which fate had in store for the
+morrow? Once more she was to cringe to man's puerile supremacy, and
+live in enervating servitude--vegetate amidst fleeting and unprofitable
+pleasures in a perfumed lethargy, or be goaded by ennui and disgust to
+walk the streets.
+
+Yet, if he came the next day, she knew she would not have the power to
+resist. Richard would only have to look at her with that whipped-dog
+expression, which was something quite new for him, and the mere thought
+of which filled her with a shamefaced tenderness, and she would throw
+her arms round his neck and have a good cry on his shoulder.
+
+Was it worth waiting another to-morrow for that? No; better to die
+to-day.
+
+To-day! A feeling of ecstasy came over her. She ran about the room,
+with folded hands, weeping and exulting. She would be a heroine like
+Isolde, a martyr for her love.
+
+And there the railings of the bridge were waiting ready for her. How
+they would creak and groan when she set her feet on them!
+
+Now the sing-song in her head was so loud that she thought it must kill
+her. The air resounded with a whirl of tones. The walls echoed them.
+The noise of the street, the capital's roar of traffic, all sang ...
+"Die--die--die!"
+
+She pulled off her evening wrapper and dressed herself to go out. At
+first she thought of putting on one of the badly fitting dresses
+because they were connected with Konrad, but her heart failed her.
+
+"Die beautifully," Hedda Gabler had said.
+
+"If only I had his photograph that I might take a farewell look into
+his eyes," she thought. But she had nothing but his letters and a few
+verses. They should accompany her on her last walk.
+
+They lay at the bottom of the leather trunk, which was still concealed
+in Frau Laue's box-room, though there had long been no one from whom it
+was necessary to conceal it. As she rummaged in its depths to find the
+little packet, she put her hand by accident on the roll of old music
+manuscript.
+
+She looked tenderly at the yellow-stained sheet into which the rest was
+fitted. She was no longer vexed with her "Song of Songs," and did not
+despise it, as on that ill-fated morning when she had hunted it up
+again; the morning on which she had gone out to break her vow to
+Konrad.
+
+Now once more it was a dear, precious possession, not a guide,
+philosopher, and friend, not a miracle-working sacred relic, but just
+an old keepsake which we treasure and water with our tears because it
+is a bit of our own life.
+
+And a bit of our own blood!
+
+For there were still those dark stains on the paper. Her blood had
+fallen on it when she set forth on life's journey, and now that the
+journey was ending the deep waters should wash the blood-stains away.
+
+With the score lying in her lap, she looked beyond it into the
+sorrowful past. It seemed to her as if mists were lifting and curtains
+were being drawn aside, and she saw the path that she had trodden
+winding backwards at her feet, like a clearly defined boundary.
+
+She had been weak and often stupid. Her own interests and the main
+chance she had never considered. Every man who had entered her life had
+been able to do what he liked with her. Not once had she barred her
+soul, shown fight, or exercised to the full the sovereignty of her
+beauty. She had only been eager to oblige and to love and be kind to
+everyone. In reward, she had been hunted and bullied and dragged
+through the mud all her life long. Even the one man who had respected
+her had gone away without saying good-bye.
+
+"But I've never hated anybody," she thought. "And no matter what I have
+suffered, or how I have transgressed, I have always been able to feel
+there was something in me out of the common, and this at the last seems
+as if it had been a gift from Heaven."
+
+Did it not really seem as if this "Song of Songs," which now lay before
+her, defaced, stained, and rotted, like her own career, had been all
+along blessing and absolving her the presiding genius she had believed
+it to be as a child, and fancied it afterwards during the rapture of
+her abandonment to her love for Konrad?
+
+"Yes, you shall come too," she said. "You shall die when I die."
+
+And she carefully wrapped the battered papers together. Then she found
+the letters, and read them through two or three times, but without
+taking in what she read.
+
+
+                           *   *   *   *   *
+
+
+The clock struck twelve as she stepped softly out on to the landing.
+Frau Laue was asleep. She met no one on the stairs, and unseen walked
+into the street.
+
+Since her flight to Konrad that memorable night she had not been out
+alone in the streets so late. Everything looked as if she saw it for
+the first time: the long rows of houses bathed in crude light, the
+trolleys of the electric trams in between, and the gliding figures of
+night-revellers.
+
+A numbing terror seized her. Her legs felt wooden, as if stilts were
+screwed on to them, propelling her forward whether she would or not,
+without rest; and her heels tapped ceaselessly on the pavement,
+carrying her nearer and nearer her goal. Whenever she met anyone she
+felt an impulse to hide herself, fancying that it would be noticed
+where she was going. For this reason she dived into dark back-streets,
+which were unevenly paved and where fading lime-trees scattered their
+drops of rain. She passed straggling brick buildings inhospitably shut
+in behind high back-garden walls; slaughter-houses and factories; and
+all the time her heels went tap-tap-tap, as if she had a pedometer
+attached to them, registering every inch which shortened her road.
+
+She tried to remember other short-cuts to her bridge, but couldn't find
+them, and gave up the attempt.
+
+"What thou doest, let it be done quickly," she had read somewhere. So
+she pressed forward with clenched teeth.
+
+The Engelbecken was dark and deserted; yellow lights were reflected
+dimly in its unfathomable waters. "Here it would be easier," she
+thought, breathless from the oppression at her heart. But, shuddering,
+she retreated from the grass slopes. The bridge must be somewhere over
+there to the north-west. Fate had ordained that she should go to the
+bridge.
+
+It was still a long way off, quite an hour's walk. She came into more
+frequented ways. The rows of lights in front of the dancing saloons,
+where prostitutes caroused, cast their garish beams like finger-posts
+into the night. Cabs were waiting there, and sounds of revelry came
+from within. Forwards, forwards--always forwards! Hot, garlic-laden
+fumes were wafted to her nostrils from a cellar-café that kept its
+doors open. When had she smelt something like that before? Why, of
+course, when Frau Redlich was cooking the sausages for her son's
+farewell dinner.
+
+In front of her a hose as thick as her wrist sent a cleansing
+shower-bath over the street. What did that hissing, gurgling sound
+remind her of? Why, of course, of old Haberland watering the lawn with
+the old-fashioned sprinkler. And then all at once the thought shot
+through her brain: "None of this is really happening. I am lying in bed
+between the bookcases, and behind me the hanging lamp that I took down
+is smoking ... and this is all in an old novel that I am reading, while
+Frau Asmussen has luckily gone to sleep after taking her medicine."
+
+A growing tumult called her back to actual life. She had reached the
+heart of the city, the spot where the whirl of Berlin's never-flagging
+nightly dissipations reaches its height. She came to the Spittelmarkt,
+and onwards the huge Leipziger Strasse unrolled its chain of lights
+like a pearl necklace. Buried in a mist of silver, dotted with the
+glimmering red lanterns of night cafés and cabarets, it was like a
+brilliant picture toned down with sepia.
+
+The numb feeling in Lilly's legs increased. She walked, and was hardly
+conscious that she moved at all. She only felt the tremendous force of
+her heart-beats, which made her whole body vibrate like a mill.
+
+In the Friedrichstrasse there were nearly as many people about as by
+day. Young men pursued their smiling quarry, and the lamplight was
+reflected in the silk hose of the tripping _grisettes_.
+
+"Once submerged in this sort of world," Lilly thought with a gruesome
+envy, "and one is disturbed by no sense of wounded honour or suicidal
+impulses."
+
+Ah! but on the other side of this bright, laughing, jostling crowd came
+peace and darkness again, in the shelter of which you might die unseen
+and unknown.
+
+Through the noise she still heard her heels tapping. Why shouldn't she
+go into some café, she asked herself? Even if someone saw her, what did
+it matter? It would give her one miserable quarter of an hour's
+breathing space. Lights, mirrors, velvet seats, blue cigarette-smoke, a
+clink of crystal, a pricking in her parched throat. Just once--once
+more ... not a quarter ... but a whole hour, and one more poor little
+bit of life would be hers, which could do no one else any harm. But she
+could find no justification for such a cowardly action, and determined
+that her last walk should be disgraced by no such weakness. And she
+went on, on and on.
+
+The merry vortex of the Kranzlerecke was left behind; the daggers of
+light stabbed her no more. Lilly hardly knew where she was going. Most
+likely she was in one of those quiet cross-streets which led to the
+north-west end. The middle of the deserted street glistened with
+puddles. The rainy autumnal wind came sweeping along between the
+houses, and the cold lamplight was reflected in their dark windowpanes.
+Everything round her here seemed lifeless and extinct; only a human
+phantom glided forth at intervals, and cats chased each other
+noiselessly into obscurity.
+
+Lilly shivered, and clasped the score tighter in her arms. As she tried
+to catch a sight of her reflection in the glass window of a florist's,
+the blinds of which were not drawn down, she started. There she saw
+stiff branches of evergreen laurels and cypresses encircling a bust of
+the Kaiser; that recalled something strongly to her mind. What was it?
+Ah! of course. They reminded her of the Clytie which reigned on the
+pretentious private staircase of Liebert & Dehnicke's, smiling and
+dreaming. Lilly Czepanek would never now ascend that green-shaded
+stairway, either as a penitent or a triumphant sinner.
+
+She had chosen a better way, which led more directly to the great goal.
+
+She came to a bridge, and crossed it quickly. That other bridge, with
+the iron palisade, which sung her such alluring cradle-songs, was
+further away in the open, buried in darkness and silence.
+
+"You overflow with a superfluity of love ... three kinds of love: love
+emanating from the heart, the senses, and from compassion. One kind
+everybody has; two are dangerous; all three lead to ruin!"
+
+Who had said that?
+
+Why, to be sure, her first flame--that poor consumptive lecturer on the
+history of art, whom she and Rosalie Katz had clubbed together to send
+to the promised land, the land which she herself had never seen. He had
+spoken of the blue haze of the olives, of fields of shining asphodel,
+and the black sirocco sea.
+
+"Fields of shining asphodel." What sort of fields could they be, fields
+of asphodel?
+
+The foreign word sounded strange, and oh, how full of enchantment! But
+her heels still went tap-tap, and the cradle-song of the palisade
+thundered in between.
+
+A man addressed her: "Would she ...?"
+
+She shook him off as if he had been a reptile.
+
+Then she remembered another warning that had been given her, also
+divided into three heads--whose was that? Oh, now she recollected: Dr.
+Pieper's. It came back to her, every word and sentence of the pompous
+utterance sounding in her ears as clearly as if it had been spoken only
+yesterday, "There are three things to beware of: Exchange no
+superfluous glances; demand no superfluous rendering of accounts; make
+no superfluous confessions."
+
+"If I had not exchanged superfluous glances I should have seen my
+promised land. If I had not superfluously demanded a rendering of
+account, I should never have been kicked out of Lischnitz. And if I had
+not made superfluous confessions...."
+
+Well, what then?
+
+"Konni! Konni!" she wailed. A shudder of yearning overwhelmed her
+painfully, and restrained her wandering thoughts.
+
+She walked on, staggering. Fresh lines of street vanished in mist, and
+at one spot a grass lawn reared its unevenly clipped hedge.
+
+"What sort of fields could they be, fields of shining asphodel?"
+
+Ah! here was the bridge. The bridge!
+
+Like a thief in the night it loomed in the darkness, above the wide,
+deserted spaces, where the lights of thousands of street-lamps dwindled
+into infinitesimal sparks. Somewhere in the dark sky shone the mild
+face of a full-moon. It was the illuminated clock of a railway station,
+the shadowy outline of which was swallowed up by the darkness. The
+hands pointed to half-past one.
+
+Lilly saw it all dimly, as through a haze. She had sunk, paralysed with
+terror, against the corner of the wall, which she had intended to turn.
+Her heart throbbed so convulsively that she thought she must fall down
+dead.
+
+"No; I can't do it!" she said to herself. And then came her own answer:
+"But I can--I will!"
+
+She tried to stagger a few steps further, on to the bridge where the
+railings seemed to be waiting for her in malice; but her legs refused
+to carry her. The singing in her head rose to a roar of thunder. She
+stood hesitating on the dark, forsaken spot; with both hands she
+struggled to tear the score and crumple it into a ball, but it would
+not yield. Her "Song of Songs" was stronger than she was. Then, all at
+once, her feet began to move as if of their own accord, and took her
+step by step beyond the lamp-post to the railings. Yes, now the chains
+of the palisade were between her fingers. She could see nothing of the
+water below but a dark slimy shimmer. So murky was it that even the
+lamps were not reflected in it.
+
+Now all she had to do was to jump--and it would be over.
+
+"Yes, I'll do it! I'll do it!" a voice within her cried.
+
+But "The Song of Songs" must go first. It would be in the way, and
+hinder her climbing over the railings.
+
+She threw it. A white flash, a splash below, harsh and shrill, which
+made her shake in every limb, as if her face had been slapped. And when
+she heard it, she knew instantly that she would never do it. No, never!
+Lilly Czepanek was no heroine. No martyr to her love was Lilly
+Czepanek. No Isolde, who finds in the will not to exist the highest
+form of self-existence. But she was only a poor exploited and plundered
+human creature who must drag on through life as best she could. She
+would not go back to the old round of degrading dissipations, however
+much Richard might look like a whipped dog. Of that she was determined;
+and she began forthwith to review the few possibilities left of her
+earning an honest living.
+
+Perhaps all would come right in the end, though she could not disguise
+the fact that she had completely lost her zeal for work, and was never
+likely to find it again. All she asked was to be allowed to live in
+peace and the exercise of virtue. Did not millions of human beings
+think there was nothing better?
+
+She cast one more searching glance at the sullenly rolling river in
+which "The Song of Songs" had found its grave, and then turned and
+walked away.
+
+
+                           *   *   *   *   *
+
+
+In the business circles of Berlin there was a flutter of surprise the
+following spring when the papers announced that Herr Richard Dehnicke,
+senior partner of the well-known old firm of Liebert & Dehnicke, art
+bronze manufacturers, had married Lilly Czepanek, a notorious beauty of
+the _demimonde_. The announcement added that the pair had taken up
+their quarters temporarily in Southern Italy. Those who knew her were
+not surprised--they said that they had always felt Lilly Czepanek was a
+dangerous woman.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Song of Songs, by Hermann Sudermann
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SONG OF SONGS ***
+
+***** This file should be named 34361-8.txt or 34361-8.zip *****
+This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
+        https://www.gutenberg.org/3/4/3/6/34361/
+
+Produced by Charles Bowen, from page scans provided by the Web Archive
+
+Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
+will be renamed.
+
+Creating the works from public domain print editions 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 the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission.  If you
+do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the
+rules is very easy.  You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose
+such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and
+research.  They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do
+practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks.  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
+https://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 in the public domain 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 outside 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 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
+
+1.E.2.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived
+from the public domain (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 web site (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
+both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael
+Hart, the owner 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
+public domain works 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 MERCHANTIBILITY 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 web page at https://www.pglaf.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.  Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at
+https://pglaf.org/fundraising.  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 principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S.
+Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered
+throughout numerous locations.  Its business office is located at
+809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email
+business@pglaf.org.  Email contact links and up to date contact
+information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official
+page at https://pglaf.org
+
+For additional contact information:
+     Dr. Gregory B. Newby
+     Chief Executive and Director
+     gbnewby@pglaf.org
+
+
+Section 4.  Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide
+spread 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 https://pglaf.org
+
+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 including checks, online payments and credit card
+donations.  To donate, please visit: https://pglaf.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 thirty 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 Public Domain 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 Web site which has the main PG search facility:
+
+     https://www.gutenberg.org
+
+This Web site 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.
diff --git a/34361-8.zip b/34361-8.zip
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..0d012d6
--- /dev/null
+++ b/34361-8.zip
diff --git a/34361-h.zip b/34361-h.zip
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..1bb1d26
--- /dev/null
+++ b/34361-h.zip
diff --git a/34361-h/34361-h.htm b/34361-h/34361-h.htm
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..e294d4e
--- /dev/null
+++ b/34361-h/34361-h.htm
@@ -0,0 +1,22168 @@
+<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN">
+<html>
+<head>
+<title>The Song of Songs</title>
+<meta name="Author" content="Hermann Sudermann">
+<meta name="Publisher" content="John Lane">
+<meta name="Date" content="1914">
+<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1">
+<style type="text/css">
+body  {margin-left:10%;
+       margin-right:10%; background-color:#FFFFFF;}
+
+
+p.normal  {text-indent:.25in; text-align: justify;}
+p.center   {text-align:center; margin-top:9pt;}
+
+
+p.right          {text-align:right; margin-right:20%;}
+
+p.continue       {text-indent: 0in; margin-top:9pt;}
+.text10           {margin-top:0px; margin-bottom:0px; margin-left:10%; margin-right:0px; font-size:90%;}
+.text20           {margin-top:0px; margin-bottom:0px; margin-left:20%; margin-right:0px; font-size:90%;}
+
+.t0              {margin-top:0px; margin-bottom:0px; margin-left:0em; margin-right:0px;}
+.t1              {margin-top:0px; margin-bottom:0px; margin-left:1em; margin-right:0px;}
+.t2              {margin-top:0px; margin-bottom:0px; margin-left:2em; margin-right:0px;}
+.t3              {margin-top:0px; margin-bottom:0px; margin-left:3em; margin-right:0px;}
+.t4              {margin-top:0px; margin-bottom:0px; margin-left:4em; margin-right:0px;}
+.t5              {margin-top:0px; margin-bottom:0px; margin-left:5em; margin-right:0px;}
+.t6              {margin-top:0px; margin-bottom:0px; margin-left:6em; margin-right:0px;}
+.t7              {margin-top:0px; margin-bottom:0px; margin-left:7em; margin-right:0px;}
+.t8              {margin-top:0px; margin-bottom:0px; margin-left:8em; margin-right:0px;}
+
+.quote           {font-size:90%; margin-top:24pt; margin-bottom:24pt}
+.dateline        {text-align:right; font-size:90%; margin-right:10%; margin-top:24pt; margin-bottom:24pt}
+
+h1,h2,h3,h4,h5   {text-align: center;}
+
+span.sc		    {font-variant: small-caps; font-size:100%; font-weight:normal}
+span.sc2		{font-variant: small-caps; font-size:90%; font-weight:normal}
+
+hr.W10		  {width:10%; margin-top:12pt; margin-bottom:12pt;
+               color:black;}
+
+hr.W20        {width:20%; margin-top:12pt; margin-bottom:12pt;
+               color:black;}
+
+hr.W50        {width:50%; margin-top:12pt; color:black;}
+hr.W90        {width:90%; margin-top:12pt; color:black;}
+
+p.hang1        {margin-left:1em; text-indent:-1em;}
+p.hang2        {margin-left:1em; text-indent:0em;}
+
+.poem {
+  margin-top: 24pt;
+  margin-left: 10%;
+  margin-right: 10%;
+  text-align: left;
+  margin-bottom: 24pt
+  }
+  .poem .stanza {
+  margin : 1em 0;
+  margin-top:24pt;
+  }
+
+</style>
+
+</head>
+
+<body>
+
+
+<pre>
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Song of Songs, by Hermann Sudermann
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere 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
+
+
+Title: The Song of Songs
+
+Author: Hermann Sudermann
+
+Translator: Beatrice Marshall
+
+Release Date: November 18, 2010 [EBook #34361]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SONG OF SONGS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Charles Bowen, from page scans provided by the Web Archive
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+<p class="hang1">Transcriber's Note:<br>
+Page scan source: http://www.archive.org/details/3398065</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h1>THE SONG OF SONGS</h1>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<table style="width:60%; margin-left:20%; border-top:solid black 2px;
+border-bottom:solid black 2px; border-right:solid black 2px; border-left:solid black 2px">
+<tr><td>
+<h3>BY THE SAME AUTHOR</h3>
+<hr class="W90">
+<h3>REGINA; OR THE SINS OF THE FATHERS<br>
+JOHN THE BAPTIST<br>
+THE INDIAN LILY<br>
+THE UNDYING PAST</h3></td>
+</tr></table>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h1>THE SONG OF SONGS</h1>
+
+<h2>BY HERMANN SUDERMANN</h2>
+<br>
+<h3><span class="sc2">A New Translation by</span> BEATRICE MARSHALL</h3>
+
+<h3><span class="sc2">With an Introduction by</span> JOHN LANE</h3>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h3>LONDON: JOHN LANE THE BODLEY HEAD</h3>
+<h3>VIGO STREET <span style="letter-spacing:3px">&nbsp; &nbsp;</span> MCMXIV</h3>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<p class="center"><i>Third Edition</i>.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h4>THE ANCHOR PRESS, LTD. TIPTREE, ESSEX.</h4>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2>THE PUBLISHER'S NOTE</h2>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">In 1898 I published a translation of Sudermann's &quot;Der
+Katzensteg,&quot;
+under the title of &quot;Regina&quot;; in 1906 of &quot;Es War,&quot; under the title of
+&quot;The Undying Past,&quot; and in 1908 of &quot;Der Täufer,&quot; under the title of
+&quot;John the Baptist.&quot; All these books were translated by Miss Beatrice
+Marshall, and the translations were received in England, America, and
+Germany with enthusiasm alike by critics and the public. I was
+therefore naturally anxious to publish Herr Sudermann's great novel,
+&quot;Das hohe Lied,&quot; on which he had been working for a great number of
+years, but I found that Mr. B. W. Huebsch of New York, the well-known
+American publisher, had purchased the world rights in the translation.
+My only chance therefore was to purchase from him the translation he
+had had made, and this I acquired in sheet form, as he had already
+copyrighted the book in this country. My edition of the work appeared
+here in October, 1910, under the title of &quot;The Song of Songs.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Serious objections were then raised to it in certain quarters, and I
+should like to place on record here exactly what happened and in proper
+sequence, by first of all printing a letter which I wrote to Sir
+Melville Macnaghten. Chief of the Criminal Investigation Department,
+Scotland Yard; a circular letter which I sent to the book trade; and a
+circular letter which I sent to the Incorporated Society of Authors and
+the following well-known novelists, together with such replies as I
+received:</p>
+<br>
+<table style="width:80%">
+<colgroup><col style="50%"><col style="50%"></colgroup>
+<tr>
+<td>E. F. Benson</td>
+<td>Eden Phillpotts</td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td>Mrs. W. K. Clifford</td>
+<td>G. B. Shaw</td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td>Sir A. Conan Doyle</td>
+<td>Miss May Sinclair</td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td>Sir Gilbert Parker</td>
+<td>Thomas Hardy</td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td>Miss Beatrice Harraden</td>
+<td>Miss M. P. Willcocks</td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td>A. E. W. Mason</td>
+<td>Israel Zangwill</td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td>H. G. Wells</td>
+<td>&nbsp;</td>
+</tr></table>
+<br>
+<p style="text-indent:58%;margin-bottom:0px">London, W.,</p>
+<p style="text-indent:60%;margin-top:2px"><i>December 9th</i>, 1910.</p>
+<br>
+
+<p class="continue" style="margin-bottom:0px">Sir Melville Macnaghten,</p>
+<p class="normal" style="margin-top:0px; margin-bottom:0px">Criminal Investigation Department,</p>
+<p style="text-indent:5%; margin-top:0px">New Scotland Yard, S.W.</p>
+<br>
+<p class="normal">Dear Sir,</p>
+
+<p class="normal" style="text-indent:5%">I am told that Inspectors Lawrence and Duggan called at my office
+to-day to inform me that complaint had been made of &quot;The Song of
+Songs,&quot; by Hermann Sudermann, which was described as an obscene book.
+Through ill-health I have not been at my office for several weeks,
+although I happen to be in London to-day on my way to Brighton; but my
+manager immediately came to me and communicated what had passed. The
+officers informed him that you do not associate yourself at the present
+juncture with the opinion that has been expressed upon the book, but
+that their object was to draw my attention to the fact that complaint
+had been made.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I very much appreciate your kindness in causing the officers to call
+upon me, and they were quite right in their assumption that I should be
+the last person to wish to publish an obscene book. Although I am under
+doctor's orders, I have delayed my departure for Brighton to write
+letters to some of the most distinguished novelists of the day and to
+the Society of Authors, to whom I am sending copies of &quot;The Song of
+Songs,&quot; asking them to acquaint me with their opinion, at the same time
+informing them of what has occurred. As soon as I receive their views,
+I shall be guided by them in my action and will inform you of my
+decision. I presume that this action on my part meets with your
+approval.</p>
+
+<p style="text-indent:55%;margin-top:2px; margin-bottom:0px">Yours faithfully,</p>
+
+<p style="text-indent:70%;margin-top:2px; margin-bottom:0px"><span class="sc">John Lane</span>.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">PS.--I enclose a copy of my letter to the authors.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I feel I must add a personal word of thanks to you for your
+consideration in this matter. You will, I am sure, see my position. I
+am dealing with the reputation of one of the greatest literary figures
+in Europe, and it is absurd for me to assume the rôle of judge,
+especially as you do not associate yourself with the--to me--anonymous
+accusation. It is all the more difficult from the fact that this same
+translation has been sold in tens of thousands in the U.S.A., where the
+reading public is much more prudish than here.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<p style="text-indent:58%;margin-bottom:0px">London, W.,</p>
+<p style="text-indent:60%;margin-top:2px"><i>December 9th</i>, 1910.</p>
+
+
+<p class="normal"><span class="sc">Dear Sir or Madam</span>,</p>
+
+<p class="normal" style="text-indent:5%">For some weeks I have been laid up with a serious attack of bronchitis,
+but I am fortunately in London to-day, although not at my office, on my
+way to Brighton.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I have just been informed that Inspectors Lawrence and Duggan, from the
+Criminal Investigation Department, have called to-day at my office,
+saying that a complaint has been made against Hermann Sudermann's
+novel, &quot;The Song of Songs,&quot; which was published in Germany under the
+title of &quot;Das hohe Lied.&quot; It is described as obscene, but the officers
+assured my manager that the Chief Commissioner does not at the present
+juncture associate himself with this expression. They explained that
+their call is to draw my attention to the fact that a serious complaint
+has been made, so that if the Public Prosecutor takes action I shall
+not be able to say that, had I known the book to be objectionable, I
+should immediately have withdrawn it. The book has been read by the
+Officers of the C.I.D., for so they told my manager. The translation is
+by an American, and it was printed in America, where it has been in
+circulation for many months past, and has been one of the most
+successful books of the year. I am writing to the Chief Commissioner,
+informing him that it is my intention to lay the matter before the
+Society of Authors and the most distinguished novelists of the day,
+whose advice I am ready to take. I am therefore sending you a copy of
+the book in the hope that you will find time to read it in the course
+of the next few days and let me know your opinion, and I shall
+certainly be guided by the consensus of opinion.</p>
+
+<p style="text-indent:57%;margin-top:2px; margin-bottom:0px">I am,</p>
+<p style="text-indent:55%;margin-top:2px; margin-bottom:0px">Yours very truly,</p>
+<p style="text-indent:65%;margin-top:2px; margin-bottom:0px"><span class="sc">John Lane</span>.</p>
+<br>
+<p class="normal">PS.--May I suggest that this is a question for the consideration of the
+Council of the Society of Authors?</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<p style="text-indent:58%;margin-bottom:0px">London, W.,</p>
+<p style="text-indent:60%;margin-top:2px"><i>December 10th</i>, 1910.</p>
+
+
+<p class="normal"><span class="sc">Dear Sir</span>,</p>
+
+<p class="normal" style="text-indent:5%">Yesterday morning I received a call from two inspectors from the
+Criminal Investigation Department, who stated that complaint had been
+made about Hermann Sudermann's &quot;The Song of Songs,&quot; which was described
+as &quot;an obscene book.&quot; The police declined to express any opinion of
+their own, but warned me of what had occurred.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I immediately wrote and thanked the Chief Commissioner for his
+courtesy. I then wrote letters to the principal novelists of the day,
+asking their advice, for I could not myself sit in judgment upon one of
+Europe's greatest writers. In the meantime I have withdrawn the book
+from circulation.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It is only fair that I should put the trade in the possession of all
+the facts of the case. I took the book in good faith. I had seen that
+it was for months the best-selling book in America, the most
+puritanical of all countries. I should just as soon have thought of
+changing the text of Shakespeare, Ibsen, George Meredith, Mr. Hardy,
+Mr. Maurice Hewlett, and Mr. George Moore. I must give the trade the
+option of returning the book.</p>
+
+<p style="text-indent:60%;margin-top:2px"><span class="sc">John Lane</span>.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<p style="text-indent:58%;margin-bottom:0px">7, Chilworth Street,</p>
+<p style="text-indent:66%;margin-top:2px; margin-bottom:0px">Paddington, W.</p>
+<p style="text-indent:60%;margin-top:2px"><i>December 14th</i>, 1910.</p>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal"><span class="sc">Dear Mr. Lane</span>,</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The book is very outspoken and occasionally nasty, but I shouldn't call
+it obscene, and the reputation of the author is your justification for
+publishing it. Personally, I think the first half brilliant and the
+last half tedious and unpleasant. A great many authors not nearly so
+famous as Sudermann could write a somewhat bald catalogue or series of
+risqué episodes. It is a book, in my opinion, for the student of
+literature and the mature, certainly not for the young person; but the
+student, I take it, would be able to read it in the original.</p>
+
+<p style="text-indent:48%;margin-top:2px; margin-bottom:0px">I am,</p>
+<p style="text-indent:50%;margin-top:2px; margin-bottom:0px">Yours sincerely,</p>
+<p style="text-indent:55%;margin-top:2px; margin-bottom:0px"><span class="sc">Lucy Clifford</span>.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<p style="text-indent:60%;margin-top:2px; margin-bottom:0px">Windlesham,</p>
+<p style="text-indent:65%;margin-top:0px; margin-bottom:0px">Crowborough,</p>
+<p style="text-indent:70%;margin-top:0px; margin-bottom:0px">Sussex.</p>
+
+
+<p class="normal"><span class="sc">Dear Sir</span>,</p>
+
+<p class="normal" style="text-indent:5%">Many thanks. I read the book with great interest. To say it is ever
+&quot;obscene&quot; is an abuse of words. That there are passages which are
+coarse, and unnecessarily coarse, is on the other hand indisputable. I
+should not like any woman under forty to read it. And yet it is not
+written for the purpose of being coarse, and that is the essential
+point.</p>
+
+<p style="text-indent:50%;margin-top:2px; margin-bottom:0px">Yours very truly,</p>
+<p style="text-indent:60%;margin-top:2px; margin-bottom:0px"><span class="sc">A. Conan Doyle</span>.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<p style="text-indent:60%;margin-top:2px; margin-bottom:0px">Max Gate,</p>
+<p style="text-indent:65%;margin-top:2px; margin-bottom:0px">Dorchester.</p>
+<p style="text-indent:55%;margin-top:2px; margin-bottom:0px"><i>December 15th</i>, 1910.</p>
+<p class="normal"><span class="sc">Dear Mr. Lane</span>,</p>
+
+<p class="normal" style="text-indent:5%">I am sorry to hear that you have been laid up with bronchitis, and hope
+that you are on the way to health again.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I finished reading last night the translation of Sudermann's novel,
+&quot;Das hohe Lied,&quot; that you sent me a few days back. I am not in a
+position to advise positively whether or not you should withdraw it,
+but I think that, viewing it as a practical question merely, which I
+imagine to be your wish, I should myself withdraw it in the
+circumstances.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">A translation of good literary taste might possibly have made such an
+unflinching study of a woman's character acceptable in this country,
+even though the character is one of a somewhat ignoble type, but
+unfortunately, rendered into the rawest American, the claims that the
+original (which I have not seen) no doubt had to be considered as
+literature, are largely reduced, so that I question if there is value
+enough left in this particular translation to make a stand for.</p>
+
+<p style="text-indent:45%;margin-top:2px; margin-bottom:0px">Believe me,</p>
+<p style="text-indent:50%;margin-top:2px; margin-bottom:0px">Yours very truly,</p>
+<p style="text-indent:0%;margin-top:2px; margin-bottom:0px">John Lane, Esq.,<span style="letter-spacing:150px">&nbsp; &nbsp; </span><span class="sc">Thomas Hardy</span>.</p>
+<p style="text-indent:5%;margin-top:2px; margin-bottom:0px">The Bodley Head.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<p style="text-indent:40%;margin-top:2px; margin-bottom:0px">3, Fitzjohn's Mansions,</p>
+<p style="text-indent:50%;margin-top:2px; margin-bottom:0px">Netherhall Gardens,</p>
+<p style="text-indent:55%;margin-top:2px; margin-bottom:0px">Hampstead, N.W.</p>
+<p style="text-indent:60%;margin-top:2px; margin-bottom:0px"><i>December 17th</i>.</p>
+
+<p class="normal"><span class="sc">Dear Sir</span>,</p>
+
+<p class="normal" style="text-indent:5%">Many thanks for your letter and the copy of &quot;The Song of Songs.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I read the book carefully several months ago. I consider it to be a
+most wonderful book, and should deeply regret to see the work of so
+great a master as Sudermann suppressed in England. It is an absorbing
+psychological and physical study; and I see nothing obscene in its
+frank presentment of a woman's life, given over, it is true, to
+passion, and yet with a thread of finer aspiration clearly and
+continuously to be traced throughout the course of her career.</p>
+
+<p style="text-indent:50%;margin-top:2px; margin-bottom:0px">I am,</p>
+<p style="text-indent:55%;margin-top:2px; margin-bottom:0px">Yours very truly,</p>
+<p style="text-indent:60%;margin-top:2px; margin-bottom:0px"><span class="sc">Beatrice Harraden</span>.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<p style="text-indent:58%;margin-top:2px; margin-bottom:0px">17, Stratton Street, W.</p>
+
+
+<p class="normal"><span class="sc">My Dear Lane</span>,</p>
+
+<p class="normal" style="text-indent:5%">I have now read the &quot;Song of Songs.&quot; The translation is obviously an
+undistinguished piece of work; and possibly it adds here and there a
+coarseness which the original book is without. As to that I cannot
+speak. Herr Sudermann is no doubt outspoken to the point of brutality,
+but with his theme brutality is the better way. Pruriency is the bad
+way; and with that he has never had anything to do. That the &quot;Song of
+Songs&quot; might offend some people I can understand. That it would do any
+harm I cannot.</p>
+
+<p style="text-indent:50%;margin-top:2px; margin-bottom:0px">Yours very sincerely,</p>
+<p style="text-indent:60%;margin-top:2px; margin-bottom:0px"><span class="sc">A. E. W. Mason</span>.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<p style="text-indent:60%;margin-top:2px; margin-bottom:0px">Riviera Palace Hotel,</p>
+<p style="text-indent:70%;margin-top:2px; margin-bottom:0px">Monte Carlo.</p>
+<p style="text-indent:65%;margin-top:2px; margin-bottom:0px"><i>December 30th</i>, 1910.</p>
+
+
+<p class="normal"><span class="sc">Dear John Lane</span>,</p>
+
+<p class="normal" style="text-indent:5%">Please pardon the delay. I've been seedy, and have not written a single
+letter for ten days. I'm all right again, and am sending to tell you
+briefly what I think of &quot;The Song of Songs.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I can see no reason why it should be banned, tho' to my mind it is
+lacking in the essentials of that Art which makes all things possible
+if not expedient. There is no real tragedy in the life of a <i>born</i>
+prostitute such as Lilly was, and certainly there is no comedy. There
+was never for an instant a problem for her to solve, and all the effort
+to present a struggle is vain and empty. She went her accustomed course
+like the fly-away she was, and that is what the book shows with very
+remarkable photography and in a light which reaches into every corner.
+It isn't a sweet book, but <i>Salome</i> isn't a sweet drama, and to attempt
+to ban the one and let the other go is sheer stupidity and crass
+prejudice. One divorce case in the grimy Weeklies is more lurid and
+pornographic to the impressionable eye than all this book of masterly
+observation and graphic literature. The Public must set the standard,
+not the Censor, and as one of the Public I resent any attempt to
+regulate my diet.</p>
+
+<p style="text-indent:50%;margin-top:2px; margin-bottom:0px">Yours truly,</p>
+<p style="text-indent:60%;margin-top:2px; margin-bottom:0px"><span class="sc">Gilbert Parker</span>.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<p style="text-indent:65%;margin-top:2px; margin-bottom:0px">Torquay.</p>
+<p style="text-indent:55%;margin-top:2px; margin-bottom:0px"><i>December 22nd</i>, 1910.</p>
+
+
+<p class="normal"><span class="sc">Dear John Lane</span>,</p>
+
+<p class="normal" style="text-indent:5%">I have read Sudermann's &quot;Das hohe Lied&quot; very carefully, and if I were
+inclined to be flippant should say the only things obscene therein were
+the Americanisms of this translation.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But in truth there is more to be said.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I consider that in spirit the book is not obscene, but inasmuch as many
+of the characters are obscene, because the artist has been making a
+study of certain obscene-minded human beings, then it follows that, as
+a true artist, he has created an atmosphere of obscenity for those
+persons to move and breathe in. You do not ask for a criticism of the
+book, and I should not presume to offer it if you did (being happily
+without the least itch ever to criticise anything or anybody); but upon
+the one point where you invite opinion I would say the book is obscene,
+as it was artistically bound to be, because it offers a picture of an
+obscene corner of society--a society entirely preoccupied with the
+sexual man and woman hunt. It is not obscene in the sense that many
+lesser novels written in all countries are obscene.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I hope that I make the distinction clear as it exists in my mind.</p>
+
+<p style="text-indent:50%;margin-top:2px; margin-bottom:0px">Very faithfully yours,</p>
+<p style="text-indent:55%;margin-top:2px; margin-bottom:0px"><span class="sc">Eden Phillpotts</span>.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<p style="text-indent:60%;margin-top:2px; margin-bottom:0px">10, Adelphi Terrace, W.C.</p>
+<p style="text-indent:65%;margin-top:2px; margin-bottom:0px"><i>December 20th</i>, 1910.</p>
+
+<p class="normal"><span class="sc">Dear John Lane</span>,</p>
+
+<p class="normal" style="text-indent:5%">At your request I have read the American translation of Hermann
+Sudermann's &quot;Song of Songs.&quot; There is no reason why you should not
+publish it except the risk that you may be prosecuted. But as it is
+impossible for an English publisher to conduct his business without
+running that risk daily, I presume you will not allow it to deter you.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The book is a fictitious biography of a <i>femme galante</i>. It is not the
+sort of book that is given as a prize in a girl's school, though I am
+by no means sure that it would not be more useful than many of the
+books that are put to that use. It says what ought to be said about its
+heroine without any of the sentimental lasciviousness and avoidance of
+the unpleasant side of clandestine gallantry which makes most of our
+novels so dangerous to young people. Sudermann is blunt, frank, and
+contemptuous, where the English hack-writer would be furtive,
+inferential, discreet, and superficially decent. He strips the romance
+off Bohemianism ruthlessly, and takes care that if you are curious
+about the sort of life that is open to a woman who has lost her
+position in respectable society in Berlin, you shall know the truth
+about it. Not that he attaches any false consequences to it for the
+sake of an edifying moral. His heroine does not starve, does not
+jump over the bridge, and fares better than most ugly, honest, and
+hard-working women as far as her circumstances are concerned. She is
+left at the end of the book in a position which many respectable
+English families would be very glad to see their daughters in. The
+author makes no attempt to flatter society by denying or hiding the
+fact that immorality pays a penniless girl who is pretty and amiable
+better than morality, and that it even leaves her a better chance of
+being married than the drudgeries and disfigurements of singing The
+Song of the Shirt. But that it damages her soul cruelly and incurably
+he brings out mercilessly. He deliberately leads you into all sorts of
+foolish sentimental sympathies with her, only in the end to bring you
+the harder up against Dr. Johnson's opinion of her. She is left, as
+such women often are left, with an adoring husband, a luxurious income,
+and everything the most virtuous heroine could ask from British
+fiction, but hopelessly damned all the same. You need not fear that
+anyone who reads the book will envy her or be tempted to go and do
+likewise. It is worth adding that what began the mischief with her was
+having nothing readable within her reach except popular novels which
+made everything that tempted her seem poetic and delightful and
+honorable, and were therefore not suppressed by the censorship.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">You will understand from the above account why you have been threatened
+with censorial proceedings for proposing to publish this novel. Instead
+of baiting the trap, it shows it to you shut, with the victim inside.
+That, our library censors and their dupes will say, is disgusting.
+Precisely. Do they ask Sudermann to make it attractive? The attraction
+of the book lies in the interest of the picture it gives of the phase
+of contemporary society with which it deals. It is full of vivid
+character-sketches which not only amuse us as we read but give us a
+whole social atmosphere to reflect on. If the reflections are bitter
+and even terrifying, serve us right: it is not Sudermann's business to
+keep us in a fool's paradise. The suppression of this book would not
+only be a deliberate protection of vice--which is always best served by
+turning off the light--but the reduction of every English adult to the
+condition of a child under tutelage. But even if the book were as false
+and mischievous as any of the romances which make the same theme
+agreeable and seductive I should object to its suppression all the
+same. No harm that the worst book could possibly do even if people
+could be forced to read it against their wills could be as great as the
+intellectual suffocation of the whole nation which a censorship
+effects. If Germany may read Sudermann and we may not, then the free
+adult German man will presently upset the Englishman's perambulator and
+leave him to console himself as best he may with the spotlessness of
+his pinafore.</p>
+
+<p style="text-indent:40%;margin-top:2px; margin-bottom:0px">Yours faithfully,</p>
+<p style="text-indent:0%;margin-top:2px; margin-bottom:0px">John Lane, Esq. <span style="letter-spacing:150px">&nbsp; &nbsp;</span><span class="sc">G. Bernard Shaw</span>.</p>
+<p style="text-indent:10px;margin-top:2px; margin-bottom:0px">The Bodley Head,</p>
+<p style="text-indent:25px;margin-top:2px; margin-bottom:0px">Vigo Street, W.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<p style="text-indent:50%;margin-top:2px; margin-bottom:0px">4, Edwardes Square Studios, W.</p>
+<p style="text-indent:60%;margin-top:2px; margin-bottom:0px"><i>December 13th</i>, 1910.</p>
+
+<p class="normal"><span class="sc">Dear Mr. Lane</span>,</p>
+
+<p class="normal" style="text-indent:5%">I've waited before writing to you till I had finished &quot;The Song of
+Songs.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I have read every word of it carefully, and I think it would be a
+national disgrace if so fine a work of so great a master were
+suppressed.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The book is powerful and sincere and absolutely moral in tendency and
+intention. Of course it is a terrible subject and there are bound to be
+terrible things in it, things that I, personally, dislike extremely;
+but I see that none of these things are insisted on for their own sake.
+None are unnecessary, except, possibly, the violent scene in
+Kellermann's studio, and <i>that</i> would not really do anybody any harm.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Judging the book as it ought to be judged--by tendency and intention--I
+cannot find anything in it to which the adjective used by the
+complainant could apply. It is a long and elaborate work, and the
+&quot;terrible things&quot; are comparatively few and far between. They offend my
+taste, but not my moral sense--<i>that</i> remains appeased by the tragedy
+of it all, as in &quot;real life.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I would even say that from the point of view of morals and the
+portentous young girl, the book should do good, should act as a
+deterrent by its ruthless analysis of &quot;Schwärmerei,&quot; by showing where
+it leads and what it is stripped of its dangerous glamour.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Altogether I see nothing to justify complaint. As for criminal
+prosecution--we are ridiculous enough, as it is, in the eyes of our
+neighbours!</p>
+
+<p style="text-indent:50%;margin-top:2px; margin-bottom:0px">Faithfully yours,</p>
+<p style="text-indent:55%;margin-top:2px; margin-bottom:0px"><span class="sc">May Sinclair</span>.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<p style="text-indent:60%;margin-top:2px; margin-bottom:0px">17, Church Row,</p>
+<p style="text-indent:65%;margin-top:2px; margin-bottom:0px">Hampstead.</p>
+
+<p class="normal"><span class="sc">My Dear Lane</span>,</p>
+
+<p class="normal" style="text-indent:5%">I have read &quot;The Song of Songs&quot; very carefully. I find it unsympathetic
+work; there is a harshness and hardness about Sudermann's effects that
+I do not like and that reminds me of the exaggeration of wrinkles and
+blemishes one finds in over-focussed photographs. None the less it is a
+very sincere and able piece of literature, and I cannot understand
+anyone who is not suffering from some sort of inverted sexual mania
+wanting to suppress it. It deals with sexual facts very plainly but
+without a suspicion of pornographic intention, it presents vicious
+tendencies and their indulgence in an extremely deterrent way, and I
+cannot imagine anyone not already hopelessly corrupted who could gain
+any sexual excitement from reading it.</p>
+
+<p style="text-indent:45%;margin-top:2px; margin-bottom:0px">Yours very sincerely,</p>
+<p style="text-indent:55%;margin-top:2px; margin-bottom:0px"><span class="sc">H. G. Wells</span>.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<p style="text-indent:70%;margin-top:2px; margin-bottom:0px">Exeter.</p>
+
+<p class="normal"><span class="sc">Dear Mr. Lane</span>,</p>
+
+<p class="normal" style="text-indent:5%">The morality of a novel depends upon three points:--(1) Subject; (2)
+Purpose; (3) Treatment as to detail.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">(1). The subject of &quot;The Song of Songs&quot; is that of a girl ruined by an
+old roué and then bandied about from man to man till every trace of
+soul is gone. She has no existence apart from the lowest passion. The
+book is a tremendous indictment of the idea, only now beginning to
+disappear, that a woman should live for the sole purpose of gratifying
+a man sexually--whether in marriage or otherwise.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">(2). In aim it is certainly not impure in the sense that it paints a
+career of vice as alluring. The girl is living in hell and is at times
+aware of it. The sordid misery of her life is there, though--and here
+Sudermann differs from English--writers she never becomes an outcast
+physically. She has always a certain well-being and even beauty. The
+ruin and destruction wrought is of brain and soul, a much more terrible
+matter.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">(3). In treatment as to detail the book stands condemned; the pictures
+given are not only revolting, but painted with entirely unnecessary
+fulness. There is a cruel gusto, for instance, that places the book on
+a far lower level of morality than &quot;Madame Bovary.&quot; The thought of the
+novel is feeble compared with its physical atmosphere. But in the
+matter of detail, on the whole the difference between English fiction
+and all continental work is one purely of fashion. Our people in
+English novels sin vaguely: in continental novels they sin garishly. It
+is the difference between a dream and a cinematograph. But for the law
+to interfere in England with books touching on vice is supremely
+ridiculous, since our law, framed entirely for man's convenience and
+not at all for woman's protection, is one of the greatest means by
+which vice itself is kept flourishing. The farce of police supervision
+and the insults of the English law sin against morality fifty times
+more powerfully than any of Sudermann's novels.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">My opinion is that all sane, healthy-minded women ought to read novels
+like this, because they ought to know the truth, the entirely accursed
+truth about these things. For the ignorance of women is the chief
+reason why other women like the heroine of &quot;The Song of Songs&quot; are left
+to rot in body and mind. It is to men that such books are injurious,
+for they are so written that the vicious details strike their eye
+first, and the cruel pleasure taken in them would appeal to the worst
+in men. It is only women and somewhat exceptional men who would see the
+horror of degradation that Sudermann depicts the heroine as enduring.
+It is hell to a woman, but to the average stupid man it would simply
+appear amusing.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Such books should be labelled &quot;For Women Only.&quot; There are comparatively
+few naturally vicious women, and these &quot;The Song of Songs&quot; won't
+injure, for they are beyond that. The others will be benefited by its
+knowledge. As to whether this book should have been published, I think
+it is six to one and half a dozen to the other: you will enlighten
+women; you may possibly injure some young men. But at the present
+moment the essential thing is that women should have their eyes opened.
+That is, indeed, the task of this century; the next will see the
+results of it--good ones, I firmly believe.</p>
+
+<p style="text-indent:60%;margin-top:2px; margin-bottom:0px"><span class="sc">M. P. Willcocks</span>.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<p style="text-indent:60%;margin-top:2px; margin-bottom:0px">Far End,</p>
+<p style="text-indent:62%;margin-top:2px; margin-bottom:0px">East Preston,</p>
+<p style="text-indent:70%;margin-top:2px; margin-bottom:0px">Sussex.</p>
+<p style="text-indent:60%;margin-top:2px; margin-bottom:0px"><i>December 12th</i>, 1910.</p>
+
+<p class="normal"><span class="sc">Dear Lane</span>,</p>
+
+<p class="normal" style="text-indent:5%">I am very sorry to hear of your illness and of the trouble that the
+police may give you. Unfortunately, I am far too busy at present to
+spare time to read a book of 640 pages, and unless one read it all one
+might miss the impugned passages or the other passages which justify
+them. I readily, however, corroborate your view--although no
+corroboration is needed--that the high position of Sudermann in
+European literature must raise any work of his far above the plane of
+police interference. His motives are sure to be ethical, and he must
+not for a moment be confounded with those mercenary scribblers who
+spice their wares for the market. Indeed, if I were a publisher, I
+would never even read an MS. of Sudermann's beforehand. I should put it
+into the hands of the printers in blind faith, as no doubt you have
+done.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">With best wishes for your rapid recovery.</p>
+
+<p style="text-indent:50%;margin-top:2px; margin-bottom:0px">Yours sincerely,</p>
+<p style="text-indent:60%;margin-top:2px; margin-bottom:0px"><span class="sc">Israel Zangwill</span>.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<p class="normal">It will be seen that although the consensus of opinion was in favour of
+the circulation of the book, yet there was a very strong objection to
+the translation. I therefore wrote to Herr Sudermann as follows, at the
+same time sending him copies of the correspondence--</p>
+<br>
+
+<p class="continue" style="margin-top:0px; margin-bottom:0px">To Hermann Sudermann, Esq.,</p>
+<p style="text-indent:10px; margin-top:0px; margin-bottom:0px">Berlin.</p>
+
+<p style="text-indent:60%;margin-top:2px; margin-bottom:0px">The Bodley Head,</p>
+<p style="text-indent:67%;margin-top:2px; margin-bottom:0px">London, W.</p>
+<p style="text-indent:62%;margin-top:2px; margin-bottom:0px"><i>February 8th</i>, 1911.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Dear Sir,</p>
+
+<p class="normal" style="text-indent:5%">You will probably have heard that I have had difficulties over the
+publication of &quot;Das hohe Lied,&quot; which was translated by an American for
+Mr. Huebsch, the New York publisher who has the translation rights of
+your book, and from whom I bought it in sheet form for the British
+market.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">On December 9th, Sir Melville Macnaghten, Director of the Criminal
+Investigation Department, sent two of his representatives to my office,
+informing my manager, in my absence through illness, that serious
+complaints had been lodged against the book as being obscene. I
+immediately wrote letters to Sir Melville Macnaghten, to the
+Incorporated Society of British Authors, and to our leading novelists;
+and I am sending you copies of the correspondence, as I am sure that
+many of the replies will give you great pleasure. I had, however, no
+satisfactory answer from the Society of Authors, although one would
+suppose it the duty of a properly constituted society of that nature to
+defend or at any rate support your case. Had I had the least support
+from them I should have defended your position with an assurance of
+victory for the book, but as the matter stood I did not feel justified
+in allowing your artistic reputation to be at the mercy of a British
+judge and jury. The verdict might have been an insult to literature. In
+any case the position would have been most undignified for an author of
+your eminence.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The failure of the Authors' Society to take up your case must not be
+confused with the opinions of our leading novelists, for I should
+explain at once that the only qualifications for membership are the
+publication of any book or even pamphlet and, of course, the
+subscription of twenty-one shillings per annum. It is not therefore a
+society of any distinction, though it happens to include among its
+thousands of members most of the eminent writers of the day.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Our most distinguished realist novelist, Mr. George Moore, in writing
+to the president of the Society on this occasion, says--</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I once belonged to the Society of Authors, but I seceded from it
+because it seemed to me to have entirely dissociated itself from
+literary interests; but I do think that the opportunity has come at
+last for the Society of Authors to justify its existence. A better
+opportunity than Sudermann's book will not be found.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">After much consideration I have come to the conclusion that all
+interests would be best served if you could obtain permission from Mr.
+Huebsch for me to have the book retranslated by Miss Beatrice Marshall,
+whose versions of &quot;Der Katzensteg,&quot; &quot;Es War,&quot; and &quot;Der Täufer&quot; met with
+your entire approval. The present translation is fraught with
+Americanisms and has been made without due regard to the genius of the
+two languages and the prejudices inherent in the English character.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I feel bound to give you all these particulars so that you may
+appreciate my reasons for withdrawing the book in a manner least
+calculated to do harm, and for appealing to you now for help to place
+the book before the English public in a form which will be acceptable
+to your numerous friends and admirers in this country.</p>
+
+<p style="text-indent:60%;margin-top:2px; margin-bottom:0px">Yours very truly,</p>
+<p style="text-indent:65%;margin-top:2px; margin-bottom:0px"><span class="sc">John Lane</span>.</p>
+<br>
+<p class="normal">His reply was as follows--</p>
+<br>
+<p class="normal"style="margin-top:2px; margin-bottom:0px">Mr. John Lane,</p>
+<p style="text-indent:10%;margin-top:2px; margin-bottom:0px">Publisher,</p>
+<p style="text-indent:5%;margin-top:2px; margin-bottom:0px">Vigo Street, London, W.</p>
+<br>
+<p class="normal"><span class="sc">Dear Sir</span>,</p>
+
+<p class="normal" style="text-indent:5%">Please accept my sincerest thanks for your kind letter and your
+detailed account of the suppression of my novel &quot;The Song of Songs&quot;
+(Das hohe Lied). Naturally I can only look forward with pleasure to the
+possibility that this work, to which I have devoted years of unwearied
+artistic care, should not be lost to England, and so I gladly follow
+your advice to persuade Mr. Huebsch, the American publisher, by my own
+personal intervention to resign the English rights to you. I have at
+the same time written to him, and I enclose a copy of this letter for
+your kind consideration.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">That I am heartily grateful to my English colleagues for their kind
+sympathy requires no assurance on my part, but I beg you, dear sir,
+when you meet one or the other of them to convey to each my feeling of
+deep appreciation.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">In conclusion, permit me to hope, dear sir, that your health, which at
+the time you wrote was not good, has been completely restored.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">With expressions of my highest esteem for your services in this matter.</p>
+
+<p style="text-indent:50%;margin-top:2px; margin-bottom:0px">Believe me,</p>
+<p style="text-indent:55%;margin-top:2px; margin-bottom:0px">Yours sincerely,</p>
+<p style="text-indent:60%;margin-top:2px; margin-bottom:0px"><span class="sc">Hermann Sudermann</span>.</p>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">In conclusion, I had better say that on receiving Herr Sudermann's
+reply and from Mr. Huebsch his consent, I entered into negotiations
+with Miss Beatrice Marshall for a new translation of the book, which is
+now offered to the public with every confidence that it will meet with
+a wide and enthusiastic reception. I should like too to add my thanks
+to the various writers who responded to my circular letter with such
+readiness and sympathy.</p>
+
+<p style="text-indent:70%;margin-top:2px; margin-bottom:0px"><span class="sc">John Lane</span>.</p>
+
+<p style="text-indent:0%;margin-top:2px; margin-bottom:0px">The Bodley Head,</p>
+<p style="text-indent:3%;margin-top:2px; margin-bottom:0px">Vigo Street, London</p>
+<p style="text-indent:0%;margin-top:2px; margin-bottom:0px"><i>1st May</i>, 1913.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h1>PART I</h1>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2>The Song of Songs</h2>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+
+<h2>CHAPTER I</h2>
+<br>
+
+<p class="continue">When Lilly was just fourteen her father, Kilian Czepanek,
+the
+music-master, suddenly disappeared. He had been giving lessons all day
+as usual, cursing the heat--which was terrific--and drinking seltzer
+water and moselle in the intervals. Now and then he had rushed into the
+dining-room to snatch a cognac and arrange his disordered tie. He had
+playfully pulled Lilly's brown, flowing curls, as she sat pondering
+over her French verbs, and then vanished again into the drawing-room,
+where pupils came and went and only discords and curses went on for
+ever.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Contrary to his custom, he had not reappeared in a fury, with a
+tremendous appetite, after his last unfortunate victim had strapped up
+his portfolio and slammed the front door behind him. Instead, Czepanek
+had stayed where he was. He neither whistled nor wept, nor gave vent to
+his rage on the keys of the piano, as he was sometimes in the habit of
+doing when the day's work was over. No sounds of any sort, except a
+deep-drawn groan, proceeded from the other room.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly, who was greatly interested in everything this handsome papa of
+hers did or did not do, let her French grammar slide from her lap to
+the floor, and crept to the keyhole. Through it she saw him standing
+before the long mirror absorbed in self-contemplation. Now and again he
+raised his left hand and pressed it with a gesture of despair to the
+silken, dark artist locks, which mamma tended regularly every day with
+bay-rum and French brilliantine.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">There he stood glaring fiercely at his reflection, his cheeks flushed
+and damp, his eyes rolling wildly, and Lilly's heart went out in
+admiring love to her idolised papa. This was not the first time she had
+seen him pose before the glass; she knew the attitude well. It was his
+way of conjuring up once more the life he had missed and the loves he
+had lost; that grand vanished world where all the duchesses and prima
+donnas never ceased to think of their lost favourite with longing and
+regret. Like an elderly Cupid he stood there, with little bags under
+his eyes and a budding corpulency apparent in his person. Both mamma
+and Lilly coddled and spoilt him with unremitting care and never-tiring
+enthusiasm. They regarded him as some gorgeous bird of paradise, which
+happy chance had captured between four walls--a bird that it was their
+duty to exert strenuous efforts to keep in its cage.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly, by rights, should long ago have been seated at the piano; for in
+the house of Czepanek silent keys were considered a shameful waste of
+time and an unpardonable sin. She had to practise four or five hours
+daily. Often, when her father in the throes of creative inspiration
+forgot the time allotted to his daughter's practising, she did not set
+to work till nearly midnight. Then she would sit half frozen, with
+heavy eyes, swaying on the music-stool till dawn. Lilly's mother had
+found her many a time in the small hours, her head pillowed on her
+arms, which were stretched out on the keyboard, wrapt in a profound
+childish slumber. Such hardships gave Lilly a distaste for the career
+of artist, for which her father's ambition destined her. She preferred,
+to serious study, getting up on her own account forbidden polkas out of
+old albums, the brilliant but incorrect performance of which drove her
+father distracted. But this evening her lesson was to be on the Sonata
+Pathétique, and that, as everyone knew, was no joke.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">For this reason she was thinking of breaking in on her father's
+introspective meditations, when she heard the door of the other room
+open. Lilly, with a bound, deserted the keyhole and ran into her
+mother, who was carrying up the supper things on a tray. The
+prematurely sunken cheeks of the lady of the house were flushed from
+the heat of the kitchen fire. She held her lean figure proudly erect,
+and in the once beautiful eyes, which gnawing connubial disappointments
+had converted into dull, restless slits, there was something like a
+gleam of joy and expectancy; for to-day she entertained high hopes that
+the result of her culinary skill would appeal to her husband's appetite
+and put him in a good temper.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The sound of plates rattling, as the table was laid, brought papa to
+the door between the two rooms, and his head, with the sunlight playing
+round its halo of frizzy dark hair, appeared.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Heavens! Supper-time already!&quot; he exclaimed, and cast up his eyes with
+a peculiarly wild expression.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;In ten minutes,&quot; replied his wife, and a smile at the thought of the
+surprise dish that awaited him hovered about her dry chapped lips like
+a delectable secret.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He now came into the room, and breathing deep and hard he said, with an
+effort as if speaking hurt him:</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I've just been looking at my portmanteau. The strap is in two.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Do you want your portmanteau?&quot; asked mamma.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It should always be ready in case of emergency,&quot; he answered, and his
+eyes wandered round the room. &quot;A man may be summoned at any moment to
+this place or that, and then it's well to be prepared.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was true that, the winter before, a Berlin pianist who had agreed to
+appear on tour in the next town had been detained by the snowing up of
+his train, and the committee had telegraphed to Czepanek to take his
+place. But, in the height of summer, the probability of such a thing
+occurring again was more than remote.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I'll send Minna to the saddler's with it directly after supper,&quot; said
+his wife, as usual taking care not to contradict her irascible husband.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He nodded a few times, lost in thought; then he went into his bedroom,
+while mamma hurried to the kitchen to put the finishing touches to the
+dainty dish.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">A few minutes later he reappeared carrying the portmanteau, which
+seemed rather full. He paused in front of the linen-press.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I was going to try, Lilly dear,&quot; he explained, &quot;whether the score
+would fit into the bag. You see, if one had to go to rehearsals
+later----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The score of &quot;The Song of Songs&quot; was kept in the linen-press, being a
+handy place for the family to rescue this priceless treasure in case of
+a fire breaking out when papa chanced to be away.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly looked round for the bunch of keys, but mamma had taken it with
+her to the kitchen.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I'll go and ask for the key,&quot; she said.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;No, no,&quot; he exclaimed hastily, and a slight shudder passed through
+him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly had often noticed that he shuddered when the conversation had
+anything to do with mamma.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I'll run over to the saddler's myself.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly was horrified at the idea of her famous parent going on his own
+errands to a common little shop.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Let me,&quot; she cried, reaching out her hand for the bag, with the
+intention of saving him the trouble. He pushed her away.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You are getting too old for that sort of thing now, little girl,&quot; he
+said. His eyes rested with satisfaction on her tall, girlish figure,
+already developing the soft rounded curves of womanhood. &quot;You are quite
+a signora.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He patted her cheek, and fidgeted a moment with the lock of the
+linen-press, his lips compressed into a bitter line; then, with a
+half-alarmed, half-sneering glance towards the kitchen Lilly knew that
+glance too he went quickly out of the room went never to return.</p>
+
+<hr class="W20">
+
+<p class="normal">The night that followed that rosy summer evening was never to
+fade from Lilly's memory. Her mother sat by the window, in a cotton
+dressing-jacket, and looked up and down the street with anxious,
+feverish eyes. Every footfall on the pavement made her start up and
+exclaim: &quot;Here he comes!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly knew that it was all over with her Sonata Pathétique for this
+night at least. A feeling of depression prompted her to appeal to her
+dear St. Joseph, to whom she had always confided all her small troubles
+since her confirmation. Many an hour had she passed in St. Ann's before
+his altar, the second chapel in the right aisle, dreaming and musing,
+as she gazed up into the kind old bearded face, and sighing without
+reason. But now his consolation failed her utterly, and she gave up the
+quest, disappointed and baffled.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The last cab was heard in the streets at midnight. At one the footsteps
+of passers-by became rarer. Between two and three nothing was heard but
+the shuffling footsteps of the night-watchmen echoing through the
+narrow alley. At three, market waggons began to rumble, and it became
+light. Between three and four Lilly made a cup of boiling hot coffee
+for her mother, and herself ate up the cold supper, for which waiting
+and weeping had given her a ravenous appetite.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was nearly five when a string of belated young revellers went by,
+kissing their hands to the watching woman at the window, thus forcing
+her to withdraw. They then started a serenade in their pure clear
+voices, which Lilly, in the midst of her trouble and anxiety,
+appreciated. The singing was good, and devoid of the pedantic tricks
+that her father abhorred. Probably these youths were pupils of his, who
+had failed to recognise his house.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">No sooner had they gone than Lilly's mother resumed her post at the
+window. Lilly struggled hard not to allow herself to be overcome by
+sleep. She saw as through a veil her mother's scanty fair hair ruffled
+by the breeze, her sharp pointed nose--reddened by crying--turning
+first to the right and then to the left at every sound, her
+dressing-jacket flapping like a white flag, her thin legs crossing and
+uncrossing perpetually in nervous excitement. She was told to relate
+the story of the portmanteau and the linen-press for the fiftieth time,
+but her eyes would not keep open. Then suddenly she sprang up with a
+shrill cry. Her mother had slipped down in a dead faint, and lay like a
+log on the floor.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+
+<h2>CHAPTER II</h2>
+<br>
+<p class="continue">Kilian Czepanek did not come back. Of course, there were
+kindly-intentioned friends who said they had always foreseen it would
+happen; indeed it was a wonder that a man, so divinely gifted, with the
+brand of genius imprinted on his stormy brow, could have endured the
+trammels of convention as long as he had. Others called him a scamp and
+a good-for-nothing, who corrupted innocent girls and led young men
+astray. They considered Frau Czepanek lucky in being rid of him, and
+advised Lilly to pluck her father's image from her memory. Worst of all
+were the people who held their tongues, but sent in bills.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Frau Czepanek pawned or sold all the little articles of luxury
+belonging to her bourgeois youth, and every present that her husband
+in moods of sheer wanton extravagance had lavished on her. These soon
+came to an end, and furniture, dress, and linen--all save absolute
+necessities--followed. Then at last the duns were satisfied.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The choral society, which Kilian Czepanek had conducted for fifteen
+years, and which under his <i>régime</i> had won no less than half a dozen
+prizes, expressed its appreciation of the decamped conductor's services
+and talents by holding the post open for six months, and paying the
+widow a half-year's salary. But this gracious grant came to an end
+also. And then began the heart-sickening begging expeditions to the
+houses of local magnates and wealthy residents in the town; the timid
+pulling of front-door bells, and scraping of feet on strangers'
+door-mats; the long, anxious waiting in shadowy halls and ante-rooms;
+the sitting down on the extreme edges of chairs; the sighing,
+stammering petitions, accompanied by wiping of eyes, meant to be
+sincere yet sounding all the time hypocritically mercenary, and failing
+to make the intended impression.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Next came the hunt for work in shops and factories where sewing was
+given out--depôts of sweated industries where cheap <i>lingerie</i> was
+turned out by the gross, cheap lace sewn on to cheap nightgowns and
+chemises, and the whole galvanised for use by the addition of buttons
+and buttonholes, ribbons and tapes.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Now followed the period of eternal grinding at the sewing-machine,
+fingers covered with needle-pricks; inflamed eyes, swollen knees,
+vinegar and brown-paper bandages for fevered temples; the stewed tea at
+four in the morning; the sweet diluted coffee, warmed up three times,
+the so-called bread-and-butter instead of the midday roast meat, and
+the evening eggs--in fact, the period of wretchedness and approaching
+destitution.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And, strange as it may seem, the further the day on which Kilian
+Czepanek had vanished receded into the past, the more surely did the
+forsaken wife count on his return. The six months had passed, and a new
+conductor was appointed to challenge comparisons with the old. For a
+fortnight the newcomer was annoyed by flattering eulogies of his
+predecessor in the provincial press. Then these too ceased. Oblivion
+followed, and the man who had so mysteriously disappeared seemed to be
+almost entirely forgotten. Only in a restaurant-bar here and there, or
+a girl's heart, did his image linger. But the wife, who at first had
+bitten her lips in silent anguish when his name was mentioned, now
+began to talk of his return as an assured and long-planned future
+event.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">What was more, she became vain again, she who in the course of married
+life had let her youthful prettiness and sprightly gaiety--all that he
+had married her for--pass under a cloud, and had fretted and worn
+herself to a shadow by needless self-reproaches and anxieties. After
+not having decked her shrunken breast with ribbon or jewel for years,
+or curled a lock of her straight hair, she screwed and scraped out of
+her meagre earnings something to spend on powder and cosmetics. When
+she could hardly stand for tiredness, she would paint her thin lips,
+and at eight o'clock in the morning come to the sewing-machine from the
+kitchen hearth with a freshly frizzed fringe covering the forehead that
+she had before allowed to get higher and balder every day.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Thus she prepared for the moment of reunion. Rouged, and adorned like a
+bride to meet her bridegroom, she would hold out her arms to meet the
+repentant profligate. For it was certain he must come back. Where else
+would he be greeted with a smile of such perfect sympathy as hers,
+where else find the understanding soul whose silence is consolation and
+whose prayers bring peace and happiness? Would there be anywhere else
+one who without complaint or regret slaved for him body and soul, and
+submitted, as she did, to be taken or left according to his whim?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">So it was that she had given herself to him when she was a fair young
+laughing thing, careless and unsuspecting. Without conditions she had
+let him take her, simply because it pleased him. She had not regarded
+it in the light of a just recompense when her father, an honest
+attorney, had insisted on his leading her to the altar, a measure which
+had saved him from being ostracised by the whole town as a seducer. She
+had only cared to know that she was happy, and had not the slightest
+presentiment of the consequences of her gentle yielding. She accepted
+what came uncomplainingly, as the natural cost of the gift he had
+bestowed on her in himself.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He would come back; whether he liked it or not, he must come back. Did
+she not possess something that linked her to him for all times,
+something that he was bound to cross her threshold to claim? Not Lilly!
+No doubt he loved his child, loved her with tenderness, and took
+delight in her outward and inward charm. Yet she was but a toy to amuse
+him in his idle hours; in his vagabond heart there was no place for a
+steady paternal love. Even in hours when he felt most lonely and
+depressed, he would never have dreamed of seeking solace in the company
+of a child. The tie was something that bound him closer to her than
+their child. It was a roll of music in manuscript, and that was all. It
+would have been easy enough for him to stuff it into the portmanteau on
+the day that he had started on the memorable journey. He had indeed
+thought of doing it, but at the last, in his eagerness to seize the
+moment of escape without again facing his suspicious wife, he had
+forgotten everything else.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">This roll of manuscript contained all that had been his anchor during
+the fifteen years of stagnation in a narrow middle-class groove, all
+that had linked his future with the fiery aspirations of his youth and
+the glorious hopefulness of his adolescence. Slender as it was, this
+roll of manuscript embraced his whole life's work. It was his &quot;Song of
+Songs.&quot; As long as Lilly could remember, nothing in the world had ever
+been spoken of with such bated breath, such reverent awe, as this
+composition, of which no one save Lilly and her mother knew a single
+note. It was something as yet altogether unknown and undreamed of; it
+opened out new realms of sound, inaugurated the beginning of a musical
+development destined to rise to mystic heights and be lost in the
+clouds of the unattainable. It embodied the Art of the future as
+represented by oratorio, opera, after reaching its culmination in
+Wagner, having descended into abysmal depths, and the symphony no
+longer meeting the demands for regeneration in modern music. Oratorio
+was to accomplish this, not in the old exploded wooden form which
+pandered to an outworn ecclesiasticism, but in the new world of harmony
+introduced by &quot;The Song of Songs.&quot; The score had been completed years
+ago, and laid aside. It would have been sacrilege to entrust its
+rendering to the tender mercies of provincial performers, so there it
+lay and rusted, unperformed. It shed beams, unseen but felt, of hope of
+a golden future into the grey present. It filled a child's heart with
+such ecstasy, devotion, and love, that it would rather have ceased to
+beat than be deprived of this source of noble and exquisite dreams on
+which it nourished itself daily.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">For Lilly, those sheets, held together by an india rubber band, lying
+in the top drawer of the linen-press, were like sacred relics, which
+radiated and sanctified the household. She reverenced and adored the
+scrawl of curly-headed black notes, and her earliest recollections were
+bound up with the melodies they expressed. Lilly's papa, however,
+objected to his sublime motifs being dragged into the light of common
+day, and when he caught wife or daughter humming them he would tell
+them to sing things more on their level. In time there was no need for
+his remonstrances. Mamma gave up singing altogether, and Lilly withdrew
+into herself. When she was alone in the house she amused herself by
+making a kind of drama out of &quot;The Song of Songs,&quot; and acting it before
+the glass. She arrayed herself in sheets and muslin curtains, braided
+her hair low round her brow, and adorned it with tinsel pins. Then she
+declaimed, danced, laughed, and cried; went down on her knees and posed
+in passionate attitudes, acting Solomon's bridal rhapsody, which papa
+had made live again, after a lapse of twenty-five hundred years, in his
+great masterpiece.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And now that the master had left his manuscript behind him on his
+disappearance from the house, it became more than ever the keystone of
+his family's hopes and longings. It was conceivable that he, Bohemian
+to the core, might cast off his wife and child, emulating the example
+of his own parents, who had turned him out into the streets at a tender
+age. But it was not conceivable that he should do anything so
+preposterous as weakly abandon the great work of his life, the weapon
+with which he might conquer the world.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">So the manuscript of &quot;The Song of Songs&quot; reposed in the drawer of the
+linen-press, which had been saved from the wreck when Frau Czepanek and
+her daughter moved to a humble attic, where the sewing-machine
+continued to hum and whir day and night. Here, as a symbol of coming
+reunion, it spread a miraculous influence around it; while the deserted
+wife became more withered in face and gaunt in form, and paint could no
+longer conceal her projecting cheekbones or the hollows beneath her
+haggard eyes.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+
+<h2>CHAPTER III</h2>
+<br>
+
+<p class="continue">In these days Lilly bloomed into a tall, well-developed
+girl, who
+carried her satchel of books through the streets to school with the air
+of a princess. She was generally dressed in a green plaid woollen frock
+much cockled from rain, which, despite perpetual letting down, always
+remained too short. Her feet were shod in a pair of down-at-heel and
+worn boots. She wore woollen gloves, which, pull them up as she would,
+left below her sleeves a hiatus of bare slender red arm.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">No one who saw her swinging down the street, with her easy graceful
+carriage, a picture of radiant health and youth, with her vivacious
+small head--too small for her tall figure--set on a long stemlike
+throat rising from broad shoulders, her white and rather prominent
+teeth beneath her smiling short upper lip, and with those eyes,
+afterwards known as &quot;Lilly eyes&quot;--no one noticed the poverty of her
+dress, or suspected that those erect, delicately formed shoulders
+stooped for hours over a sewing-machine. Who could guess that this
+magnificent young frame, with the vigorous blood coursing visibly
+through it, prone to blushing and paling without cause, was reared on
+salt potatoes, stale bread, and bad sausage?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The college students went mad about her, and the verses written to her
+in the lower school were legion. Lilly was not indifferent to their
+boyish homage. When she saw a batch of students coming towards her in
+the street, her eyes grew dim from self-consciousness. When they
+saluted her--for she had made their acquaintance on the ice--she felt
+dizzy and ready to sink through the earth to hide her blushes. But the
+sensation felt after such meetings was quite lovely. She recalled for
+hours with delight the face of the boy who had greeted her most
+courteously, or the one who had blushed as rosy red as herself. He was
+her chosen cavalier till next time, when she fell in love with another.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">In spite of her numerous admirers, her school-fellows did not torment
+her as much as might have been expected. There was an innocent
+defencelessness about her which made it impossible to be her enemy. If
+her satchel was hidden, she only said, &quot;Please, don't,&quot; and when the
+girls perched her on top of the stove, she sat there and laughed, and
+in addition to letting them copy her English exercises she did their
+sums for them. The only trouble was jealousy among her bosom friends,
+who flew at each other's throats on her account, for she was fickle,
+and dropped old friendships to take up new with an ease which startled
+herself. She could not help responding to every fresh overture of
+friendliness made to her.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">With her masters, too, she was popular. The rebuke, &quot;Lilly, you are
+dreaming again,&quot; that came sometimes from the dais, had no sting, but a
+tone of playfulness in it. And when she was a new-comer, and had sat at
+the end of the sixth row in Class I, B, more than one hand had stroked
+her brown head with paternal fondness.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Her nickname was &quot;Lilly of the Eyes.&quot; Her school-fellows declared such
+eyes were uncommon to the point of being uncanny. They had never seen
+eyes like them. Sometimes they called them &quot;witch's eyes,&quot; sometimes
+&quot;cat's eyes.&quot; They said their colour was violet, and some were sure she
+darkened the lids with a pencil. However that might be, to look at
+Lilly meant looking at her eyes, and not caring much to look at
+anything else.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly went into the advanced class, called &quot;Selecta,&quot; when she was
+fifteen and a half, for it had been settled that she was to earn her
+living as a governess. This was a great change; everything was
+different--teachers, girls, lessons, and friendship meant a different
+thing. You were not called by your Christian name. There was no
+throwing of paper pellets and going home to find blotting-paper in your
+hair. Much was said about &quot;the sacredness of vocation,&quot; of &quot;noble
+living,&quot; and consecration of life to work, and at the same time there
+was no end of chatter about love affairs and secret engagements.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly felt for the first time in her life a little envious. She was
+neither engaged nor had she any love affair to boast of. Anonymous
+presents of flowers, with verses signed &quot;Thine for ever,&quot; of course
+didn't count. But in time it came. Love began to dawn in an imaginary
+atmosphere of marble statues and pillars, of dusky cypresses and
+eternally blue skies; it was the adoration of a schoolgirl for a
+master, and the longing to be a benefactress to the adored one. He was
+the assistant science-master, and taught in the junior school, where
+knuckles were rapped with the ruler and tongues thrust out in retort.
+He did nothing in the higher school, but he gave lectures to the young
+ladies of the Selecta on the history of Art. The very name of &quot;Art&quot;
+fills the budding soul of a young girl with ecstasy; how much more
+intense then was the sentiment when Art was associated with an
+interesting young man of delicate health, with deep-set burning eyes,
+and a snow-white brow--a young man who was called Arpad?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Here romance ended. What remained behind it was a poor consumptive
+young fellow who had painfully accomplished his university career by
+private tutoring, only to be doomed to an early grave at the moment
+that he hoped to reap the fruits of his drudgery. The authorities did
+the best they could for him. They gave him easy work, and when they saw
+the hectic flush on his cheek they supplied his place and sent him home
+for a term. But this could not last, and, feeling that he was becoming
+a burden to the staff, he strove by suicidal efforts to show himself
+still capable of working. He volunteered to undertake all sorts of
+duties outside his province, and what men in health shirked he with one
+foot in the grave cheerfully took on his shoulders.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly never forgot the day on which the principal brought him into the
+Selecta. It was between three and four, and the last lesson was in
+progress. The stout figure of the principal was closely followed by the
+slim, rather handsome young man with a slight stoop, who had stood
+during prayers in the big hall at Fräulein Hennig's side, and turned
+down the leaves of his book while the hymn was being sung. He wore a
+tight-fitting grey frock-coat, which revealed the lines of his
+emaciated figure, and a fashionable silk waistcoat that gave a false
+impression of the world to which he belonged. He made a series of
+abrupt military bows, and appeared shy and embarrassed.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;This is Dr. Mälzer,&quot; said the principal, introducing him. &quot;He will
+initiate you ladies in the art of the Renaissance. I hope you will pay
+particular attention to the subject, which, though not obligatory, and
+one you will not be examined in, is of the greatest importance to
+general culture, and by-and-by will accelerate your progress in the
+study of Lessing, Goethe, and Winckelmann.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The principal, with these words, retired, leaving the young lecturer
+nervously tugging at the blond moustache, the thin ends of which
+drooped on either side of his mouth. A half-sarcastic, half-shy smile
+hovered about his lips. He looked uncertain whether he should sit or
+stand on the dais. Meta Jachmann, who was always inclined to be silly,
+began to giggle, and set half the class giggling too. His transparent
+face flushed. In a voice which, weak as it was, shook his whole narrow
+person, he said:</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes, ladies, laugh. You can afford to laugh in your position, for life
+lies before you full of possibilities of endeavour and attainment. I
+too may laugh over the privilege of being allowed to address you soul
+to soul. That does not often fall to the lot of a man at the outset of
+his teaching career. You will soon experience for yourselves what a
+happiness it is.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The whole class became quiet as mice, and from that moment onwards he
+held it spellbound.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But my good fortune does not end there,&quot; he went on; &quot;the authorities
+of this institution have been generous enough to place such confidence
+in my poor abilities as to entrust me with a theme that is the noblest
+in existence. Till the Renaissance, every thinker in history, no matter
+how much a revolutionist and free-lance at heart, has been made by the
+interpretations of history to play to the gallery in the personal
+expression of his ideas. The sages have labelled Plato as a mere
+shield-bearer of Christianity, Horace as a pedant, and Jesus as the Son
+of God; but no one has attempted to show Michael Angelo, Alexander
+Borgia, Machiavelli in any other light than that of an ego defying the
+world and relying on its own power in its lust for creative or
+destructive activity.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The pupils pricked up their ears and listened. They had never heard
+anything like this before. They felt that he was talking out his life's
+blood, and at the same time that this established a tie of protective
+freemasonry between him and them. He continued in bold, rapid outline
+to draw vivid pictures of the men and period, making dead bones live.
+What had long been repressed and dammed up within him poured from him
+now in passionate eloquence. His hearers realised that this was
+something more than an ordinary school lesson, more even than the
+fruits of ripe scholarship. It was a confession of faith, and they hung
+on his lips with all the abandon of woman's enthusiasm for what she
+doesn't understand.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly, being a younger pupil, sat close under the dais, and she felt
+vaguely as if a vast flood of new melody was floating over her head;
+music having always played the supreme part in her life and
+imagination, pictures and thoughts came to her first through the world
+of sound. She grew pale, and gazed up at him in dawning appreciation.
+Through a mist of tears, her handkerchief crushed into a ball in her
+hand, she saw the nervous heaving of his chest, the drops on his
+forehead, the burning excitement that flamed in his cheeks, and she
+longed to laugh and cry together, to call out &quot;Stop!&quot; But, as she
+couldn't do this, she sat motionless, listening to the poor, thin voice
+as it proclaimed the gospel of that ancient yet ever-glorious time, and
+then she heard another voice deep down in her heart crying jubilantly,
+&quot;It's coming!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But what of the world,&quot; he went on, &quot;in which that exalted life
+developed? Like Moses on the mountain-top, I have only seen it from
+afar, only lingered in its outer courts; but I have seen enough to know
+that, as long as breath is left in my body, my soul's yearning for it
+will never cease. There, gleaming palaces and temples rise like part of
+the soil, white among dark cypresses and evergreen leafy oaks. All that
+is clay here is marble there; what is here cribbed and cabined by
+convention, there flourishes in free creative opulence; here we have
+barren imitativeness, there spontaneous growth; here laboured culture,
+there Nature's happy abundance; here the deadening sense of utility,
+there luxuriant revelling in the beautiful; here, plain hard,
+matter-of-fact Protestantism, there the joyous <i>naïveté</i> of Catholic
+paganism.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly's heart bounded at the compliment to her faith. In a Protestant
+country she had been brought up a Catholic, and though there was not
+much time, and never had been, for piety in her home, her soul was
+capable of a fair amount of religious fervour. It warmed her heart to
+hear her faith praised, but why it should be coupled with heathenism,
+which she had always been taught was wicked and deplorable, puzzled
+her. A whirl of chaotic, questioning thoughts distracted her attention;
+she found herself unable any longer to follow the speaker, and it was
+only after some time that she woke up to a consciousness that he was
+painting the South in low, loving tones. Now she took up the threads of
+his discourse again, and saw a gold and blue summer heaven rising above
+the Elysian isles, and the sun's blood-red globe drop into a violet
+sea, ruffled by the sirocco. She saw the shepherds feeding their goats
+in meadows of shining asphodel, playing on their flutes like Pan--saw
+the ever-verdant beech-woods stretching up to the snow-clad summits of
+the Apennines; breathed in the perfume of laurel, arbutus, and olive,
+and heard the music of the Angelus ascending heavenwards in the glow of
+eventide; and as she gazed up once more into his face, she was almost
+frightened at the martyred expression of devouring longing with which
+his eyes stared beyond the heads of the class into space.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The school-bell sounded; the lecture was over. He looked round him
+bewildered, like one who had been walking in his sleep, seized his
+hat, and rushed out of the room. The class-room was silent as the
+grave. Then the tension was broken by shy whispers and fumbling for
+school-satchels. Lilly, without speaking a word to anyone, escaped
+into the street to hide her emotion. Sobbing and singing softly to
+herself she ran home.</p>
+
+<hr class="W20">
+
+<p class="normal">The next morning excitement reigned in the Selecta. No one thought or
+talked of anything else but what had happened the day before.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Anna Marholz, the daughter of a doctor, had interesting particulars to
+impart about the young teacher, who was a patient of her father's. She
+said it was urgently necessary that he should go to the Italian Riviera
+for the winter, as it was probable he could not live through it in his
+native climate.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly's heart stood still. The others laid their heads together to
+think of how he was to be helped. It could only be accomplished in a
+private way, because he had no money and no official position, and the
+town would therefore not bear the expenses of his foreign trip.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;We will start a committee,&quot; someone proposed, and all the others
+agreed to the proposal with acclamation.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Thank God!&quot; Lilly said to herself, and felt that now his life would be
+prolonged to fifty or sixty, at least. During the ten o'clock break a
+council of war was held, and Lilly, to her great delight, was appointed
+secretary of the committee.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The first meeting was held at Klein's, the confectioner's, a few days
+later. They dared not go to Frangipani's, the resort of young officers
+and barristers. Fifteen girls consumed fifteen iced meringues and
+fifteen cups of chocolate, the cost of which they shared, and at the
+same time brought forward some practical suggestions. Emilie Faber's
+idea was to get up a Shakespeare reading in the town-hall and to assign
+the part of Romeo to the leading &quot;star&quot; of the provincial theatre.
+Everyone approved, because all the girls were crazy about the favourite
+actor. Not less well received was a scheme of Käthe Vitzing's, whose
+cousin sang tenor in the college choir, to organise an amateur concert.
+Rosalie Katz, more businesslike than the rest, thought of getting blank
+subscription-forms printed and taking them round to all the well-to-do
+people in the town. This plan was not so popular, but finally it was
+decided to accept it and to try and put all three plans into execution.
+Lilly, in her <i>rôle</i> of secretary, made a note of all the suggestions,
+and kept saying to herself, &quot;Hurrah, it's for <i>him</i>!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Meanwhile, the lectures on the history of art continued, as well as the
+sittings of the committee. The bill for refreshments mounted higher and
+higher, but enthusiasm for the object of the meetings became visibly
+damped. Not that Dr. Mälzer's lectures were in any degree less
+fascinating. They still held his listeners in thrall with their rich
+imagery and flowery language, but serious obstacles arose in the
+carrying out of the plans to aid him. To begin with: the popular Romeo
+had to appear in another town during the autumn season, and was not
+available; secondly, the college chorus could not get leave to join
+with the Selecta in giving an amateur concert; and the house-to-house
+collection could not be set on foot without the sanction of the police,
+and this no one had courage to ask for. So the great scheme of lofty
+benevolence gradually died out, and Lilly found herself three marks to
+the bad for confectionery. She knew the way to the pawnshop, alas! too
+well, and it required comparatively little pluck on her part to
+sacrifice the small gold cross she wore round her neck--a last relic of
+more prosperous days. She did it gladly, because it was done for him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Autumn came, and Dr. Mälzer grew worse. He coughed a great deal, and
+now and then covered his mouth with his pocket-handkerchief, afterwards
+examining it with an anxious, furtive eye. And then came the
+announcement that the lectures on Art would be discontinued till
+further notice. Anna Marholz brought the news to school that he had
+broken a blood-vessel. Lilly, without stopping to ask for further
+details, jumped to the conclusion that he was dying. After dark she
+found her way stealthily to his house, Anna Marholz having got his
+address from her father's books. There was a lamp with a green shade
+burning faintly in the window. Not a shadow stirred. No hand drew down
+the blind, but the lamp went on burning faintly the whole time that
+Lilly paced the damp street. Her conscience pricked her for not being
+at home helping her hard-worked mother; yet the next evening and the
+next she repeated the pilgrimage. She became more and more distressed,
+and fancied him lying there in his death-throes with no loving, gentle
+woman's hand to minister to him. On Saturday her anxiety took her from
+the work-table at home early in the afternoon. It was impossible to
+walk up and down before the house in broad daylight, but once there she
+didn't like to go back. Then suddenly she acted on an heroic impulse.
+She went to a florist's and spent the two marks fifty that was left
+over from the pawning of her little gold cross on a bunch of
+brownish-yellow autumn roses. With these she sprang up the steps of the
+house and rang at the door of the second floor, whence the light of the
+green-shaded lamp had proceeded. The door was answered by an old hag in
+a dirty blue-check apron. Lilly stammered forth his name.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;He lives at the back,&quot; said the old woman, and shut the door.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Then the green lamp wasn't his after all; it belonged instead to an old
+woman who wore dirty aprons and champed with her toothless gums. She
+had been worshipping at the wrong shrine for more than a week.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly, utterly discouraged, was about to descend the staircase when his
+name caught her eye on one of the brass plates inside the lobby. Her
+heart gave a bound, and before she realised what she was doing she had
+knocked.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">A pause ensued and then his head appeared through the half-opened door.
+The collar of his grey coat was turned up, apparently because he had no
+collar underneath. His hair was dishevelled, and the ends of his
+moustache drooped more than ever on either side of his mouth. His eyes
+seemed to ask in embarrassed surprise, &quot;What have you come here for?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Fräulein--Fräulein----&quot; He evidently recognised her, but could not
+recall her name. Lilly wanted to give him the roses and run away, but
+she was paralysed with shyness, and remained glued to the spot. &quot;I
+presume you have been sent by your class?&quot; he asked.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes,&quot; assented Lilly eagerly. This saved her.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I could not invite you to come in otherwise,&quot; he said, smiling
+nervously. &quot;The consequences might be serious for both of us. But if
+you come as an emissary, that makes all the difference. Please come
+in.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly had pictured him in a suite of lofty apartments filled with
+books, curios, instruments, and statues of great men. She was horrified
+to find that he lived in one small room. The bed was still unmade;
+besides the bed there was no furniture except a couple of chairs, a
+folding-table, a clothes-rack and a stand for books containing a few
+shabbily-bound volumes and paper-covered periodicals.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;This is a worse place than ours,&quot; she thought, and felt less shy as
+she sat down on one of the two chairs. Poverty seemed a bond between
+them.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;How very kind of the young ladies to think of me!&quot; he said.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly remembered the flowers that she held in her hand. &quot;Will you
+accept these?&quot; she asked, offering them to him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He took the bunch of roses and held them against his face without a
+word of thanks.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;They have no smell,&quot; he remarked. &quot;They are the last roses, but my
+first, so you can imagine how much I appreciate them.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly's eyes grew dim with delight. &quot;Are you still in great pain, Dr.
+Mälzer?&quot; she stammered forth.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He laughed. &quot;Pain? ... Oh dear no! I am feverish now and then, that's
+all. It's quite amusing to be feverish. One's soul floats away in an
+airship far away over cities, land, and sea, over centuries; one is
+visited by distinguished persons, if not so beautiful as----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He paused in the middle of his compliment, thinking of their relations
+as master and pupil. His confusion seemed to clear his vision. He fixed
+his eyes, which burned like two flames in blue cavities, on her and
+asked in a voice which sounded higher pitched and hoarser than usual:</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What's your name?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I am Lilly--Lilly Czepanek.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The name conveyed nothing to him, because he had not lived long in the
+town.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You think of taking up teaching?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes, doctor.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Listen to my advice. Don't! Go to Russia and hurl bombs. Go to a
+hospital and wash feet. Marry a drunken scoundrel who'll ill-treat you
+and sell the very bed you lie on. Anything rather than being a teacher.
+You mustn't be a teacher, not <i>you</i>.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But why shouldn't I?&quot; she asked.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I'll tell you.... The qualifications for a teacher are a flat chest,
+weak eyes, poor hair, and a character that can see one side of a
+question only. People whose nerves and blood are too feeble to live
+their own lives are good enough to teach others, but those whose blood
+courses through their veins like molten fire, whose eyes are filled
+with longing, to whom the problems of life are there for seeing and
+knowing, not for blind mechanical vivisection, they--but I mustn't go
+on, though I should like to.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Oh, please go on--please,&quot; Lilly besought him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;How old are you?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Sixteen.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And a woman already!&quot; He looked at her with an expression of tortured
+admiration.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Look at me!&quot; he exclaimed. &quot;I too was once a human being, though you'd
+hardly believe it. I held my arms stretched out to heaven, full of
+burning desires. I too looked into a girl's eyes with longing, though
+they were not such a pair of eyes as yours. Let me chatter. You see, I
+am a dying man, and it'll do you no harm.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You mustn't die! you shall not die, Dr. Mälzer!&quot; she cried, jumping to
+her feet.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Sit down, child,&quot; he said with a laugh; &quot;don't excite yourself about
+me. A friend of mine once broke the backbone of a wild-cat with one
+blow of a stick. The cat couldn't run away, couldn't cry or do anything
+till the next blow came. It just crouched on all-fours, coughing and
+choking. That's like me. There's nothing to be done. You had better go,
+child. I've made my peace, but when I look at you it becomes difficult
+again.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She turned her face away not to show her tears.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Must I?&quot; she asked.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Must?&quot; he laughed again. &quot;I'll devour greedily every minute of your
+presence here as the hungry beggar devours the crumbs he turns out of
+his pockets. You sat, didn't you, at the end of the first form on the
+left? ... Yes, of course I remember. I said to myself, 'What
+extraordinary eyes!' They are like the eyes of the magic dog in
+Andersen's fairy tale, which grew bigger the more they were asked not
+to.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was Lilly's turn to laugh.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;There, you see,&quot; he said, &quot;I've made you merry again. You shall
+not carry away from here nothing but the memory of a corpse and
+death's-head. We enjoyed our lectures, didn't we?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly answered with a sigh.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You gasped for sheer longing when I talked of Italy. I used to think:
+she gasps like yourself, though she has no need to gasp.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You want to go there very much, doctor?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You might as well ask a man on fire whether he'd like a cold bath.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And it's the only thing that can do you any good?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He looked at her for a moment with a dark savage expression.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What are you cross-examining me for? Have you come to find out
+something? I am very indebted to you and the young ladies of the class
+for such sympathetic interest but----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">A fit of coughing stifled his voice.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly sprang up to see if she could do anything for him. Involuntarily
+she snatched up a glass filled with a pale fluid from the table and
+held it to his lips. He took it eagerly, and after drinking fell back
+exhausted and gazed at her tenderly with grateful eyes. She returned
+his gaze with a faint smile, feeling it was infinite happiness to be
+there.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was so quiet in the half-dark stuffy little room that she could hear
+the tick of his watch, which hung on the opposite wall. He made an
+effort to sit up and go on talking, but appeared not yet quite equal to
+it. Lilly gave him a look of entreaty and warning; and, smiling, he
+leaned back again. So they continued in silence.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Oh, how happy I am!&quot; thought Lilly. &quot;How happy I am to be here!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Then he held his hands out to her with a weary gesture. She caught them
+in hers eagerly. His skin felt hot and clammy, and it seemed as if his
+pulse beat in his fingertips. Hers was beating fast too, but could not
+keep pace with it.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Listen to me, my dear child,&quot; he murmured. &quot;I want to give you some
+good advice before you go. You overflow with a superfluity of love;
+three kinds of love--love emanating from the heart, from the senses,
+and from compassion. One or other is necessary to everybody who isn't a
+dried-up fossil, but two are dangerous, and all three are likely to
+lead to ruin. Be on guard where your power of loving is concerned.
+Don't squander your love. That is the advice of one on whom you cannot
+squander it, for God knows he needs it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Have you no one to take care of you?&quot; she asked, dreading to hear that
+anyone but herself was privileged to nurse him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He shook his head.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Mayn't I come again?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He flinched. The fervour of her question was startling. &quot;It depends on
+whether the class send you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly now cast off every shred of deception. &quot;That was not true,&quot; she
+stammered. &quot;Not true! The class didn't send me. No one knows I've
+come.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He bounded to his feet--almost as if he were quite well. His face
+lengthened with dismay; his eyes filled with tears. He stretched out a
+trembling hand, as if he would ward her off.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You must go at once,&quot; he whispered; &quot;at once!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly did not stir.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;If you don't go,&quot; he went on excitedly, &quot;your prospects will be
+ruined. It is not customary for young girls to call on unmarried men in
+my position, even when the man is their master, and such a wreck as I
+am. Mention to no one that you have been here, not even to your
+greatest friend. Remember, your living depends on your reputation, and
+I should be taking the bread out of your mouth if I let you stay. Go
+instantly!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Am I never to come again?&quot; Her eyes pleaded.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;No!&quot; he thundered in a voice of iron resolve.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The next minute Lilly was pushed out of the room and the key turned in
+the lock behind her.</p>
+
+<hr class="W20">
+
+<p class="normal">She lost no time in disobeying his urgent instructions, and went
+straight to Rosalie Katz, her chosen friend for the time being, to whom
+she confided everything, and in whose company she relieved herself by
+having a good cry. The little brown Jewess was soft-hearted and
+desperately in love with him too, so they mingled their tears. They
+forgot to shut the door, however, and it happened that the portly and
+wealthy Herr Katz, whose waistcoat buttons were always bursting off,
+came in to ask his daughter to sew one on. Finding the two girls locked
+in a tearful embrace, he tactfully withdrew; but no sooner had Lilly
+left the house than he extracted the whole story from Rosalie, of the
+invalid master, the abortive committee meetings, and wasted iced
+meringues.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I dare say we can arrange the matter,&quot; he said, twisting the thin gold
+watch-chain that dangled from the third button of his waistcoat. A
+thick gold watch-chain was the insignia of being left behind in the
+social race among the gentlemen of the corn trade.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">So it happened that Dr. Mälzer received a few days later a registered
+letter from two &quot;well-wishers.&quot; In it he was told that means had been
+found to defray the expenses of his foreign tour. All he had to do was
+to draw a cheque on the firm of Goldbaum, Katz &amp; Co. He started on a
+chilly October evening, and the staff saw him off at the station. Lilly
+and Rosalie, who had found out the time his train departed, were there
+too, but they kept in the background. He passed close by them, muffled
+in a thick plaid, his eyes aflame, fixed on the distance. After the
+train had gone, the two girls threw themselves in each other's arms,
+and wept for joy and pride in what they had done for him. Rosalie stood
+her friend an <i>éclair</i> on the way home, it being too cold now for iced
+meringues. Half an hour later they were sitting in the confectioner's,
+smiling happily over pictures in the illustrated papers.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+
+<h2>CHAPTER IV</h2>
+<br>
+
+<p class="continue">Spring brought renewed hope and promise of brighter times
+for Frau
+Czepanek. So certain was she that in a very short time now her husband
+would return, that she determined to give up the needlework drudgery
+and find a pleasanter way of making a living. It would be simple enough
+to rent a floor consisting of nine rooms, to furnish them on credit,
+and put up a plate with the inscription &quot;Board and Lodging for
+Students.&quot; Once start the enterprise and the rest would follow. The
+idea took possession of Frau Czepanek's brain, half dazed as it was
+from the perpetual maddening whir of the sewing-machine. Lilly, though
+she liked the prospect of a less strenuous life, entertained doubts as
+to the scheme working. She remembered, with a shudder, the abusive
+threats of the duns who had bombarded them after papa's departure, and
+she failed to see where enough students were to come from to fill nine
+rooms when the summer term had begun and all had found other
+accommodation. But her mother would not listen to reason. The attic
+resounded with her triumphant &quot;I shall do this,&quot; and &quot;I shall do that.&quot;
+She announced her intention of calling on the mayor, and going to the
+council of the college to get them to recommend her.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">In these days she set out on mysterious expeditions alone, and when
+Lilly came in from school she was no longer greeted at the bottom of
+the stairs by the familiar din of the sewing-machine. She would find
+the front-door key under the mat. Her mother became more reserved and
+secretive as the time for the great plunge drew nearer. Her face wore
+the suppressed smile of parents before a Christmas tree, only that
+there was a certain defiant contempt in it as well. She painted herself
+more thickly than ever, and the rouge-pot, which once had been hidden
+from Lilly's eyes, stood flaunting itself openly on the chest of
+drawers. Money did not grow more plentiful. Lilly had to devote every
+minute she could spare from her lessons to make up for mamma's neglect.
+Frau Czepanek set her feet on the treadles only on rare occasions when
+Lilly urged her to resume the work, which was delivered more and more
+irregularly, so that mother and daughter stood in danger of losing the
+employment on which their existence depended. Lilly, young and vigorous
+though she was, felt her strength severely taxed, but she took it
+calmly, assuring herself optimistically that &quot;something would turn up
+before long.&quot; She would not have grudged her mother the intoxication of
+her new-born hopes so much, if she could have had her proper nights'
+rest instead of having to lie in her clothes on the outside of the bed
+from two till six in the morning. In school Lilly sat with heavy red
+eyes, unable to see or think as she was expected to do, and masters
+began to complain of her, more and more frequently.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was high time for the change to come, and fate ordained that it
+should come on a sultry grey July day, when Lilly, returning home from
+school, saw two vans standing at the door, crammed with furniture
+smelling of recently applied varnish, and heard her mother's shrill
+tones in converse with strangers. With a beating heart she ran up the
+steps. Two carmen in leather aprons, with amused red faces, one with an
+open bill in his hand, were demanding payment. Frau Czepanek, running
+her fingers through the hair which she had just frizzed with the
+curling-tongs, marched up and down the room and shouted bitter
+reproaches about broken promises and extortionate rascally conduct. The
+men simply laughed at her, and reminded her that they wanted to get
+home that night. Then Frau Czepanek, in a fury, tried to snatch the
+bill from the carman, and when he declined to give it up she started
+belabouring him with her fists. Lilly quickly sprang between them,
+seized her struggling mother's wrists and ordered the men to go,
+assuring them everything would be arranged. They obeyed, and now her
+mother's wrath descended on Lilly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;If you had not interfered,&quot; she yelled, &quot;I should have got the receipt
+out of them, and the furniture would have been unpacked to-night in the
+new flat. You've spoilt it all, and I shall now have to be at them
+again to-morrow.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The new flat!&quot; echoed Lilly. &quot;What new flat?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Frau Czepanek laughed. How stupid Lilly was! Did she think that she had
+been doing nothing all this time? And then it all came out. The flat of
+nine rooms had been taken and they were to move in at once. The plate
+even was already engraved, and when hung up would have a magical
+effect. She had made every sacrifice, strained every nerve, that the
+rooms should be furnished in a way worthy of their exterior. She had
+bought curtains for twelve windows in a Chinese pattern; six good rugs
+to bear the tread of students, who wore out cheap carpets like muslin,
+and large-sized English jugs and basins, in white and gold, to put on
+the marble washstands. The dinner service, which she had also
+purchased, was not ready, as it took some time to get a monogram burnt
+in, but they could make shift with a common set of sixteen pieces for
+the present. She had expended great care and thrift on her choice of
+things, and everything would be in perfect taste.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She wandered restlessly, as she talked, round the table in the middle
+of the room. Her small narrow eyes, that looked as if they hadn't
+closed in sleep for many a night, glittered, and under the rouge on her
+hollow cheeks burned the scarlet flush of fever.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly, who began to feel a little uncomfortable, ventured to ask what
+had been done about paying for the things.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Her question was laughed to scorn. &quot;If you are a lady, you can do
+anything with the tradespeople. They know that I, as the wife of Kilian
+Czepanek, musical conductor, am entitled to respect and to credit; or
+they ought to know it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Has all the furniture been taken to the flat?&quot; Lilly queried again.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Frau Czepanek's merriment was renewed. &quot;Before the rooms are ready, you
+goose? Not likely! Rooms have to be painted, papered, and decorated. I
+have taken no end of trouble to select artistic papers,&quot; she added,
+with the grand air of a person whose powers of paying are unlimited.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">A sickening feeling of perplexity took possession of Lilly. It was like
+not being sure whether your school-fellows were making a fool of you or
+not. There was nothing for dinner too, which made matters worse. Lilly
+set the coffee on the hob to boil and put the rolls on the table. They
+would have to skip dinner to-day. The Czepanek household had become
+quite expert in the art of skipping meals.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly's mother said no time must be lost before beginning to pack, and
+she gulped down her coffee hurriedly. Then suddenly she got into
+another towering rage.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;If only you hadn't held my hands, you idiot!&quot; she screamed, &quot;we should
+have got that lovely new furniture into its place by to-morrow. Now we
+shall have to move in with this rubbish. What will people think when
+they see it?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She ran her fingers through her singed locks and brandished the
+bread-knife with which she was cutting her roll in half. Next she
+turned up her sleeves, put on her blue working apron, and declared that
+she would start the packing that very instant. She turned out the
+wardrobe and piled clothes on the foot of the bed. Underwear and linen
+out of the linen-press she scattered over the floor in wildest
+confusion.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The veins stood out in knots on her shrivelled arms, perspiration ran
+down her face. Lilly, with a feeling of oppression at her heart, looked
+on. When she saw the score of &quot;The Song of Songs,&quot; their dearest
+treasure, carelessly thrown on the floor, she stooped to pick it up
+from amongst the litter of sheets and nightgowns.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What are you doing with 'The Song of Songs'?&quot; cried her mother, rising
+in haste from her knees.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Nothing,&quot; said Lilly in surprise. &quot;I was merely putting it on the
+table.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You're a liar,&quot; the woman screeched, &quot;and an abandoned girl! You want
+to steal the score from me as you stole the receipt. But I'll be even
+with you!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly, to her horror, saw a sudden flash of steel before her eyes, felt
+a sharp pain at her throat and something warm trickling soothingly over
+her left breast.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was not till her mother attempted a second thrust that Lilly
+realised it was the bread-knife that her mother held in her hand. With
+a piercing scream, she grasped her mother's wrist; but she had
+developed all at once the strength of a lioness, and Lilly would most
+probably have been worsted in the struggle if neighbours had not rushed
+in to see what all the noise was about.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Frau Czepanek was caught from behind and bound with towels, the
+bread-knife still clenched in her hand with a tenacity that no power on
+earth could loosen. Not till the doctor, who was called in to give her
+a soothing draught, came did she let it fall. Lilly's wound was
+dressed, and she was taken to the hospital, where she was kept because
+no one knew what to do with her. There she learnt, in due course, that
+her mother had been removed to the provincial lunatic asylum, of which
+she was likely to be an inmate for the rest of her days. Lilly was
+alone in the world.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+
+<h2>CHAPTER V</h2>
+<br>
+
+<p class="continue">&quot;Yes, my dear young lady,&quot; said the distinguished lawyer,
+Herr Doktor
+Pieper, &quot;I have been appointed your guardian, and have accepted the
+post because I considered it my duty. Ah! you want the papers <i>re</i>
+Lemke <i>versus</i> Militzky,&quot; he went on, interrupting himself to speak to
+the head clerk. &quot;What was I saying? Oh, to be sure. I considered it my
+duty, although I am a very busy man, to befriend, as far as lies in my
+power, the widow and orphan.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He passed his well-manicured left hand over his shining bald pate and
+straw-coloured beard, which half concealed the mouth of a man of the
+world and an epicure.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;My wards all do well,&quot; he continued. &quot;I am proud of their success. How
+do they manage it? Well, that's my affair--a secret of business, as it
+were. I am certain, my child, that you too will fall on your feet
+eventually. I should hardly be so interested in you if it were not
+highly probable. The first thing to be considered is a suitable
+situation. Plain young ladies are the most difficult to suit, unless
+they happen to be humble and unassuming. It pays them to boast of
+so-called Christian virtues. You, of course, do not belong to the plain
+sort. Possibly you are conscious of it, and I only tell you in order
+that you should learn to assert yourself. The main point in the art of
+living is to discriminate between self-assertion that is justified, and
+the reverse. You must, that is to say, gauge your own power according
+to circumstances. Now, young girls such as you----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">At this moment the head clerk, tall and lank, again appeared at his
+elbow, with a portfolio.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;At five o'clock the Labischin divorce suit comes on,&quot; he said to the
+man, as he took the documents from his hand, &quot;At quarter past, Reimann
+and Reimann <i>versus</i> Fassbender. Get everything in readiness and see
+that someone accompanies this young lady. You will learn where from the
+papers.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The man vanished.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Well, my dear young lady,&quot; her guardian continued, &quot;the time which I
+can spare you is at an end. You will not be able to resume your school
+studies, of course. The means are not forthcoming. Even if they were, I
+rather doubt its being advisable. Governesses do sometimes make
+brilliant marriages certainly, though oftenest in the pages of English
+novels; but they are exposed--excuse my plain speaking--to all sorts of
+temptation, and are sometimes led astray. I should like to get you a
+place in a large photographic studio, where your duties would be to
+receive customers; but you would hardly have enough self-assurance for
+such a post at present. I have therefore found a position for you in a
+lending library, more as a trial than a permanency. There your light
+will not be altogether hidden under a bushel. The salary--I need not
+emphasise the fact--will be moderate: twenty marks a month with board
+and lodging. You will have every opportunity of letting your fancy
+browse among the literature of all people and all ages. So, my dear
+young lady----Good God! why are you crying?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly wiped tears from her eyes and cheeks. &quot;I'm only just out of the
+hospital,&quot; she explained. &quot;I feel rather----I am very sorry.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The distinguished lawyer, smiling, shook his head, the baldness of
+which appeared to be as tended and cared for as the face of a beautiful
+woman.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You'll have to give up the habit of crying. Tears are quite out of
+place till you have a settled career before you.... There's something
+else I have got to say. Your poor mother's small effects must be sold.
+The proceeds of the sale will serve as a little competence for your
+rainy days. It is very important that you should make sure of this
+capital, such as it is. Now, under the escort of my man, you shall go
+back to your home--I have the key in my bureau--and select a few
+articles which you may care to have either for use or as mementoes.
+Good-bye, my dear.... In six months come to me again.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly felt in hers a cool, flabby hand that seemed incapable of giving
+or returning pressure. Then she found herself staggering down the dark
+staircase, conducted by a clerk who had the key and was to take her to
+her old home. She wanted to ask questions, to protest about what she
+didn't know. The clerk swung the key in silence, and didn't look round
+till he opened the door of the room in which she and her mother had
+lived. It was close and smelt musty; shafts of light came through the
+blinds, piercing the dusk. As she stood there, Lilly felt as if she
+were standing on the grave of her childhood and youth, that everything
+had come to an end, and there was nothing to be done but shut herself
+up here and die.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The clerk unfastened the shutters and threw open the windows. The
+clothes were still piled on the bed, the linen strewed the floor, and
+on the boards were dark brownish stains--the blood which had flown from
+her throat. The knife, too, still lay there. Lilly was ashamed to cry
+before the clerk, who stood staring vacantly and whistling to himself,
+as she threw her things into the basket-trunk which her mother had
+intended to use for the move to the nine-roomed flat. She chose a few
+books at random, and put some copybooks on top; then she looked about
+her for keepsakes. Her head swam; she saw things without recognising
+them. But there on the table, held together with india rubber bands,
+splashed with her blood, was the score of &quot;The Song of Songs.&quot; No one
+had touched it because no one knew its value. She caught it up, shut
+down the lid of the box, and with the roll of music under her arm she
+stepped out into her new life, thirsting for new experiences.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+
+<h2>CHAPTER VI</h2>
+<br>
+
+<p class="continue">Frau Asmussen had two daughters, who had run away for the
+third time.
+All the neighbours knew it, and Lilly was given full particulars almost
+directly she set foot in the badly-lighted room, smelling of leather
+and dustiness, where torn volumes, ranged on shelves of pine, mounted
+to the ceiling.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Frau Asmussen was a dignified-looking and portly person, who received
+Lilly at the entrance of the library, and amidst kisses and tears
+assured her that she had loved her as her own daughter before she saw
+her, and now that they had met she was perfectly enchanted with her.
+&quot;Who can ever say that strangers are cold and distant again?&quot; thought
+Lilly, delighted with her reception.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Did I say my own daughter? I should have said, ten times more than my
+own daughters. One's own daughters are vipers who turn and sting; one
+must pluck them from one's bosom----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She had to pause, because the lethargic clerk who had come with Lilly
+in the cab was bringing in her box. When he had gone, Frau Asmussen
+continued:</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Do you suppose I loved my daughters, or that I did not love them?
+Haven't I said to them every day: 'Your father was a blackguard, a cur,
+and may God forgive him!' And what do you think they did? Went off one
+fine morning--went off on their own hook--leaving a note on the table:
+'We're going to father. You bully us more than we can put up with, and
+we are sick of everlasting milk puddings.' You see what I am, my
+dear--I am kindness itself. Do I look as if I could hurt a fly, much
+less my own daughters? And they did it not once, but three times; this
+is the third time they have exposed me to the scoffs and jeers of the
+town--the third time they have disgraced me. Twice they came back in
+rags and misery, and I have taken them to my heart and forgiven them.
+But just let them try it on again--let them come back a third time!
+There's a broomstick behind the door ready for them. Directly they show
+their noses inside, out they shall go into the street. I'll beat them,
+and then sweep them out at the door like so much waste-paper.&quot; And with
+an air of unspeakable disgust Frau Asmussen swept an invisible
+something through the hall and gave it a kick over the step.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Poor, poor woman!&quot; thought Lilly. &quot;How much she must have suffered!&quot;
+and she vowed inwardly to do her best to make up to the mother for the
+loss of such unworthy daughters.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">At this point a young man came in to change a book. He asked for a
+volume of Zola, and looked at Lilly as much as to say, &quot;You see what a
+dog I am.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Frau Asmussen shook her head reproachfully, and fetched down the book
+required from an upper shelf. He clutched it eagerly, without heeding
+in the least the glance of warning with which the old lady handed it to
+him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You see, my dear,&quot; she said when he had gone, &quot;that's how the young go
+to perdition, and I am condemned to help them on the way.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Why?&quot; asked Lilly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Do you know how a chemist's shop is arranged?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly said she had often been in one, but couldn't remember.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;One place is marked 'Poison,'&quot; her employer went on, &quot;and in it are
+kept the most deadly poisons known to humanity. On that account the
+door is kept locked, and no one may touch the contents save the chemist
+and his assistants. Now, just look round; half these books are poison,
+too. Nearly everything that's written in these days is pernicious
+trash, and lures the reader on to destruction. Yet I am bound to keep
+these books, bound to distribute them, though my heart is wrung as I
+hand them over the counter. My undutiful daughters are an example. They
+read, read--did nothing but read the whole night through; and when they
+were stuffed full of impudence and nonsense, they turned up their noses
+at the food I gave them and the cooking, and went out for walks, till
+at last they sneaked off to their father--that miserable worm! that
+swindler and scum! with his face all out in pimples! I warn you, my
+child, against that man. Should you ever meet him, gather up your
+skirts as I am doing now, to avoid contamination.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly shuddered at the account of this vile monster in human shape, and
+was happy that she had found a protectress in his deserving wife.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">An hour or so later they sat down to supper, which consisted of milk
+pudding and slices of bread and dripping. Lilly, unused to anything but
+the simplest fare, was easily persuaded that no milk puddings in the
+world were as delicious as Frau Asmussen's, and that the Kaiser himself
+could not sit down to a more daintily prepared meal than was spread on
+her table. She missed, it is true, the slice of ham which she had been
+given every night at the hospital; if this had been added, her supper
+would have seemed the acme of gastronomic delights.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">More enjoyment awaited her when she went to bed. The library was part
+of a big room with three windows, which was divided into four
+compartments by two long bookcases running from the wall where the
+windows were, and by a counter opposite the door that communicated with
+the entrance, and thus there was only one narrow gangway to connect one
+compartment with another. At bed-time Frau Asmussen carried into the
+furthest compartment two forms, on which she laid a mattress and made
+up a bed. The space was so confined and filled up that Lilly had to
+jump over a bench at the foot of her improvised bed to get into it, and
+she thought this great fun. She fell asleep wedged in between two high
+upright bookcases, the window above her head, a chair beside her on
+which her things were piled, and &quot;The Song of Songs&quot; clasped in her
+arms.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The next morning she was initiated into her duties as librarian. She
+learnt the system by which the thousands of volumes were arranged on
+the shelves, and as she knew her alphabet she would have mastered it in
+five minutes, and been able to fetch any of the popular books from
+their places, if Frau Asmussen had followed her own system, instead of
+placing the books anyhow and so courting confusion and muddle. A worse
+task was to find the names of books and authors in the general
+catalogue, and entries of customers in the ledger, which were also
+supposed to be alphabetical; but the carelessness of Frau Asmussen and
+her daughters had reduced the whole to chaos. Lilly set to work with
+burning zeal to put things in order, and for several weeks the
+attainment of this desired goal was her sole object in life.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Frau Asmussen provided her with some surprises, even on the day after
+her arrival. Lilly saw nothing of her after the morning hours till
+supper-time; then Lilly found her nodding over a steaming teacup which
+exhaled an agreeable odour of rum and lemons.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I suffer from nasal catarrh,&quot; Frau Asmussen explained, blinking at
+Lilly with her rather watery grey eyes, &quot;And one of our most noted
+physicians has prescribed this medicine.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly ate her milk pudding while Frau Asmussen continued sipping at the
+contents of her teacup, giving now and then a melancholy groan.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Have I told you about my daughters?&quot; she asked, after a pause.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Oh yes,&quot; responded Lilly respectfully. All the morning there had been
+scarcely any other topic of conversation than these two scapegrace
+daughters and the wicked man they called father.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But I don't think I can have given you any idea how charming they
+are,&quot; Frau Asmussen went on. &quot;Though I say it that shouldn't, there
+isn't their match in the world for beauty and talent and lovable
+qualities. In such young girls, filial devotion, self-sacrificing
+industry, and touching modesty like theirs is not often found. They are
+so practical too, so thoroughly reliable in all that relates to
+business, besides being brimful of affection. You should take example
+from them, my dear, for you are very far from being anything like those
+models of perfect girlhood.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly's spoon dropped from her fingers. She could hardly believe her
+ears, and the old lady maundered on:</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It was heartrending to part with them, and they cried themselves ill
+for days and nights beforehand. They were obliged to go to their
+father. Have I mentioned my husband to you? The best and noblest of
+men, from whom fate has parted me, but who cherishes for me an undying
+tenderness, and whom I shall love till death.... What a man! Pray, my
+child, on your knees that you may one day be the wife of such a man,
+and worthy of him. Alas! I was not--not worthy, no, not at all.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Two tears of unutterable remorse ran down her cheeks. She had a deal
+further to say about the superlative virtues of her two daughters, her
+husband's lofty character, and her own abject inferiority, and after
+several more doses of the medicine prescribed by the eminent physician
+she sobbed and moaned herself to sleep.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The next morning Frau Asmussen began the day's work by scolding Lilly
+for sweeping out the library with the broom standing behind the door.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It's kept there for one purpose only,&quot; she said, &quot;and that is to
+chastise those two hussies when they appear at my door; and if you ever
+dare to touch it again you will be the first to feel what it's like.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">After this, Lilly began to regard her future through less rose-coloured
+glasses. A worse blow was to come. Frau Asmussen, who seemed deeply
+concerned about Lilly's spiritual welfare and the purity of her mind,
+strictly forbade her to read any of the books in her library.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;After what I have experienced with my daughters,&quot; she said, &quot;I know
+the evil results of novel-reading, and I'll take care that you don't go
+the same way.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">While the work of rearranging the catalogue and the ledgers lasted, the
+temptation to disobey orders did not occur frequently. But when autumn
+set in, and, in spite of the increase of subscribers, her time became
+less occupied and the hanging lamp was lighted early over the library
+table, when Frau Asmussen yielded sooner to the effects of the medicine
+prescribed by the eminent physician, and fell into a stupor, Lilly was
+driven by curiosity and boredom to do what she had been forbidden.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She was first put up to it by a girl who came to change the first
+volume of a novel for the second. The second volume was out, and the
+girl positively wept for disappointment. She declared that she
+couldn't wait to know how the story ended. It would kill her. Lilly
+good-naturedly advised her to go to one of the other circulating
+libraries, which were said to be larger and superior, and she went so
+far as to return the girl her three marks deposit. The novel devourer
+thanked Lilly and departed with renewed hopes.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly scanned the outside of the dirty, torn volume she had left on the
+counter, then cautiously peeped inside. &quot;Debit and Credit,&quot; by Gustav
+Freytag, was on the title-page. She had heard them raving about this
+book when she was in the first class at school, but there was no time
+for novel-reading in the life of a sweated machinist's daughter. She
+glanced timidly at the first page, then went to the glass door and
+listened for a few minutes to the peaceful snores that came from the
+back parlour. Soon afterwards she was launched with full-spread sails
+on the wide ocean of romance. At four in the morning, when she had
+finished the first volume, she was in desperation at the thought that
+she could not go on with the story, and wondered who had the missing
+volume, and how she was to get hold of it. Then she fell asleep.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The next day she pored over the ledger to try and trace the name and
+address of the subscriber who had not returned the second volume of
+&quot;Debit and Credit.&quot; But, as the entries were made by the numbers and
+not by the titles of the books, she missed it over and over again in
+her excitement. So at last she was compelled to seek an outlet for her
+newly awakened craving in another book.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Henceforward her life became an orgy of novel-reading. She went about
+her daily task with heavy lids and aching limbs, burnt a huge amount of
+midnight oil, and only escaped the suspicions of Frau Asmussen by lies
+and tricks. Then one dreadful winter morning it all came out. The stove
+in the library burning low towards midnight, Lilly's feet became cold,
+and she took to reading in bed with the lamp, which she removed from
+its hanging socket, on the window-sill above her pillow, where there
+was plenty of room for it. Though this involved the bitter discomfort
+of having to get out of bed again in order to put back lamp and book in
+their places--Frau Asmussen was often now in the library earlier than
+Lilly--she would have rather gone out in the cold street in her
+nightgown than have sacrificed those dearly bought extra hours.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">So it came about that one morning she awoke in a fright to behold Frau
+Asmussen, already dressed, dangling a black strap over her white
+nightgown, while the lamp, which Lilly had secretly refilled at one
+o'clock, still burned on the window-sill. She had never in her life
+before been whipped, and at first hardly grasped what was going to
+happen, when Frau Asmussen leapt as nimbly as her corpulence would
+permit on to the counterpane over the bedrail, and crouching there like
+some fat old plucked hen, began to belabour her over the ears with the
+strap.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">A bad time now began for Lilly. What was the good of being sincerely
+repentant, and swearing to herself and to Frau Asmussen that she would
+not do it again? The new craze so intoxicated her, she was so absorbed
+with the new, beautiful imaginary world in which there were no tiresome
+servants sent by subscribers to change books, no wet umbrellas, no
+missing volumes, no back numbers of magazines that refused to be found,
+no insipid milk puddings, and no thrashings, that, had she had a
+martyr's joy in renunciation, she could not have returned to her former
+unbroken routine. She was now so completely governed by her imagination
+that her actual everyday existence, with its deadly monotony and lonely
+hours, seemed to her an unreal dream, and her life had no reality till
+she opened a book and turned over its sticky pages. She was too docile
+and unresisting to attempt to justify this passion even in her own
+eyes. It was wrong, she knew, to feed her mind on this heaven-sent
+food; but she could not help it.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Frau Asmussen hit on a fiendish method of humiliating Lilly still
+further. She regarded religion, like many orthodox Protestants, solely
+in the light of a penance, and, though hitherto she had not concerned
+herself in the least about Lilly's creed, she now took to beginning
+every meal with a long-winded prayer, in which, in face of the steaming
+soup-tureen, she commended Lilly amidst tears and sighs to the Lord,
+and begged Him to forgive her sinful depravity.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Woe to Lilly if there was any backsliding! That first chastisement did
+not by any means remain the only one. She was cuffed and beaten on the
+slightest provocation, and storms of abuse descended on her unprotected
+head. In fact, she scarcely dared breathe till the soothing medicine
+prescribed by the eminent physician began to do its work. Then Lilly
+seized the first book she came across, and suffered all the agonies of
+the heroines in the stories about lost wills and broken marriages,
+about poison, arson, and murder; with them she loved, and conquered,
+and died, finding in it all a never-ending source of ecstasy.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+
+<h2>CHAPTER VII</h2>
+<br>
+
+<p class="continue">It was a spring-like evening in March, with bright sunshine.
+The last
+grimy heaps of snow lying along the gutters had melted into radiant
+paddles, and a shower of silvery drops fell from the icicles clinging
+to the roofs. The glow of sunset lay on the houses facing south like
+brilliant decorative carpets, sharply divided from the shadows on the
+opposite side of the street. The window lattices shone as if they
+themselves were suns reflecting their own light, and sparrows twittered
+on the dripping eaves. But most welcome feature of all in this early
+spring of city streets was the peculiar spicy fragrance of the melting
+snows, rising in vapour from the gutter with promise of meadows growing
+green and of boughs bursting into bud. Lilly, who had hardly been out
+more than two or three times during the winter, sat at the counter
+gazing wistfully into space.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Everywhere windows and doors were wide open. Everywhere lungs thirsty
+for fresh air inhaled the zephyrs of coming spring. At last she too
+pushed open the casements, and gave the hall door a kick, which made it
+swing back and knock down the broom that stood in the corner behind it.
+She saw through the opening of the door into the rooms of the opposite
+tenant, who had also thrown his door wide to greet the spring.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">There was a cherry-coloured sofa with embroidered chair-backs stretched
+over its old-fashioned scroll-shaped arms; there were wreaths of dried
+flowers with inscriptions framed on the walls; the helmet of a cavalry
+officer with swords crossed; china lions used as cigar-holders; ballet
+girls supporting tallow candles; photograph groups with peacock's
+feathers stuck between them; a glass bowl of goldfish; a goatskin rug.
+In the midst of all this wilderness of knick-knacks a youth paced up
+and down with a book in his hand, conning something diligently; one
+minute he vanished from view, only to reappear the next. At the first
+glance, this young man attracted Lilly's sympathetic notice. His wavy
+fair hair was brushed carelessly back from his forehead, the carriage
+of his head was erect and nonchalant, and he wore a mauve and brown
+striped necktie, which Lilly thought the height of refined taste.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She tried to think which of her favourite heroes he resembled most, and
+came to the conclusion that it was Finck in &quot;Debit and Credit.&quot; The
+young man did not observe her, so she had every opportunity of studying
+him. When he was in sight, a warm thrill ran through her, directly he
+disappeared and remained hidden from view for the fraction of a second
+she felt a sick sensation as if someone were robbing her of her dearest
+possession. So it continued till he glanced up from his book, and,
+seeing the young lady who watched him through the door, withdrew
+hastily to the invisible part of his room. When he next disclosed
+himself he had adopted a much stiffer and more self-conscious air. He
+bent over his book with a studiousness that was hardly natural, moved
+his lips too obviously, and frowned heavily. Lilly, too, thought it
+necessary to improve slightly the picture she presented. She smoothed
+the hair that was parted Madonna fashion on her forehead, and let
+her arm fall carelessly over the side of the chair. A couple of
+maid-servants who came to change books for their mistresses put an end
+to this silent duet by shutting the door as they went out. Lilly did
+not dare to open it again. But from that evening the new hero became
+part of her dreams.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was hopeless to think of asking Frau Asmussen questions so late,
+because she was now in the habit of preparing her medicine before the
+evening meal; but the next morning, as she seemed in a fairly good
+temper, Lilly ventured to make a few inquiries about the neighbour of
+whose existence till now she had been ignorant.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What do the neighbours matter to you, you inquisitive thing!&quot; retorted
+Frau Asmussen, in that tone of polished urbanity with which she had
+addressed Lilly after the raptures of the first night were over.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly plucked up courage to invent a tale of a regular subscriber who
+had asked her the day before for information about their neighbours,
+which she had been unable to give him. Frau Asmussen's esteem for this
+subscriber was so great that she instantly became communicative.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">They were respectable enough people over the way, but of low birth, and
+she, as a woman of a more highly-cultured mind, could not associate
+with them. She believed the husband was a pensioned-off sergeant-major,
+now working as a clerk, and that his wife made cravattes for a living.
+Lilly flushed, remembering the mauve and brown tie which had so dazzled
+her eyes the day before. How vulgarly these common people lived might
+be gathered from the fact that on high-days and festivals they indulged
+in potato soup with slices of sausage in it, which made anyone with a
+delicate palate like Frau Asmussen's shudder to think of.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Like the erring daughters, Lilly had long ago got tired of the eternal
+milk pudding, and found herself unable to agree that potato soup was
+vulgar. Indeed, her mouth began to water at the mere mention of it, and
+she changed the subject by asking if anyone else lived next door.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I believe there's a son,&quot; replied Frau Asmussen. &quot;He goes to the
+Gymnasium, though why people in that class of life should have their
+sons educated I don't know.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I know why,&quot; Lilly said to herself. &quot;I know why: it is because he is
+great, and genius looks forth from his eyes, because he must succeed
+and become a ruler of men.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The same afternoon she pushed open the swing-door again, but the
+weather was raw and cold, and there was no friendly face opposite to
+cheer her eyes. After she had gazed longingly for an hour or more at
+the door-plate bearing the inscription:</p>
+
+<p class="center"><span class="sc">L. Redlich</span>,<br>
+<i>Kindly ring and knock</i></p>
+
+<p class="continue">she was forced to close the door, her legs feeling like icicles, and
+with a feeling of humiliation that she had been snubbed. Henceforth she
+looked out for one o'clock, the hour when the Gymnasium students came
+home from school. With her nose pressed against the window-panes, she
+could recognise at an almost incredible distance the blue and white
+college caps. When he flew up the steps, she slipped behind the
+curtains, trembling with joy at the bashful glances he cast at her. But
+if he looked straight in front of him she was extremely unhappy, and
+hoped that she had done nothing to hurt his feelings.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">There were other wearers of blue and white caps who came up the steps
+to the house, friends who came to cram for their examination with him.
+Lilly adored them all. She felt that a bond existed between her and the
+little circle, who had the world all before them, and intended to
+conquer it. In spirit she sat in their midst.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Some of them passed so quickly that she distinguished them by their
+caps more than by their faces. There was the forlorn-looking cap, the
+faded, the smart, the limp. Each of the youths too had his
+characteristic way of walking and knocking at the door. She could tell,
+even when she was busy giving out books, and without looking, how many
+of young Redlich's chums had come or had not come to work with him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Meanwhile, the days grew longer and spring was advancing. The tenants
+of the house began to sit on the terrace in front, where there were
+chairs and tables.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The boys often lingered there chatting with their friend before going
+in to their studies, and when they were gone he leaned over the
+balustrade in the twilight alone, dreaming doubtless of his great
+future.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Then Lilly, with beating heart, stationed herself behind a book-rack,
+from which she had artfully cleared away enough volumes to form a
+peep-hole, whence she could admire to her heart's content the leonine
+brow so full of thought and profound intellect.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The seats on the terrace in front of the library windows were mostly
+unoccupied, as they belonged to Frau Asmussen, who preferred taking her
+medicine indoors, and Lilly could not screw up courage to ask
+permission to sit there.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">One May evening, however, when showery spring clouds sailed over the
+dark blue sky, more alluring than threatening, when it was all so still
+that you could hear the splashing of the market-place fountain, and the
+swallows were the only passers-by, Lilly simply could not contain
+herself any longer in the library atmosphere, smelling of old leather
+and parchment; and taking her embroidery, more for show than because
+she was industriously inclined, she went out, determined to sit on the
+terrace. She knew that he was out, and that he always came in before
+ten. He would have to pass her whatever happened. Half an hour, another
+half-hour, than a quarter went by, and she saw a blue and white cap
+coming jauntily down the street. Her first thought was to run back into
+the library, but she was ashamed to do this, and sat where she was. He
+came, saw her, raised his cap, and went in.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;He has at least bowed to me,&quot; she thought blissfully.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Scarcely ten minutes had elapsed before he appeared again. He seated
+himself on a bench belonging to his side of the house, played with
+pebbles, whistled to himself softly, and seemed altogether oblivious of
+her presence.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly sat on in her corner rolling and unrolling her embroidery, and
+now and then giving vent to her tender feelings toward him by a sigh,
+though she told herself she only sighed because it was so hot. Half an
+hour sped away thus, and Lilly began to abandon hope of anything more
+happening, when all of a sudden he addressed her, with his cap in his
+hand:</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;They will soon be closing the front door, Fräulein,&quot; he said.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Not already, surely!&quot; she exclaimed, feigning consternation. Then,
+reflecting that to act on his hint would be to put an end to their
+acquaintance making any progress, she added in a more indifferent tone:</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It doesn't matter; the window isn't shut.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The window!&quot; he repeated.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She could not make out whether in approval or blame. The conversation
+would have certainly come to a standstill here if she had not made a
+gigantic effort to keep the ball rolling.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;We are neighbours, I think,&quot; she remarked.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He sprang up from his bench, sweeping his cap down as low as his
+trouser pockets, and answered:</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Allow me to introduce myself. I am Fritz Redlich, prefect.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly felt the old thrill of reverence with which the very word
+&quot;prefect&quot; had inspired her in the Selecta when her class companions had
+uttered it. Then she burned with shame to think that she was now
+nothing better than a shopgirl. But she was determined to impress him
+by alluding to her more distinguished past.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Up till last autumn,&quot; she said, &quot;I was a Selecta pupil. I used to know
+some of you fellows.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Which of us?&quot; he asked in excitement.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She mentioned the names of two young men who had once fluttered round
+her at the skating-rink, and asked if they were friends of his.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Rather not,&quot; he answered with a contempt that didn't seem quite
+genuine. &quot;They are slackers, and loaf about too much. They intend to
+join a corps, too, I believe. That's not in our line.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">There was a pause. Lilly could only discern the outline of his figure
+as he leaned against the balustrade, it had grown so dark. Drops of
+soft rain fell on her hair. She would have liked to stay there for
+ever, watching the dark young figure before her, and with the gentle
+moisture of spring anointing her head.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You are engaged now in the Circulating Library?&quot; he asked.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly assented, and was grateful to him for the nice word &quot;engaged,&quot;
+which seemed a little to ameliorate her lowly position.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And you are going in for your examination?&quot; she inquired.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;In the autumn--if all goes well,&quot; he replied with a sigh.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And afterwards you will go out into the world,&quot; she gushed in
+copy-book language, &quot;and fight your way in life? Ah, how I wish I were
+in your shoes.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Why do you wish that, Fräulein?&quot; he asked in surprise. &quot;You are
+fighting your way in life now, are you not?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly laughed shrilly. &quot;Oh, but if only I were you!&quot; she exclaimed.
+&quot;What wouldn't I--oh!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She felt exultant; her limbs seemed to stretch, so that she scarcely
+knew how to sit still; the light of conquest flashed from her eyes, but
+there was no conquest really, for it remained unseen in the darkness.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She was so overcome, so mad with happiness, that she positively could
+not stay there, uttering stilted phrases, while within her something
+shouted: &quot;You standing there with your arms on the balustrade, I love
+you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She bade him a hurried good-night, and ran in, bolting the door
+behind her. She paced up and down the narrow gangways between the
+books, laughing and sighing. She stretched forth her arms like a
+high-priestess at prayer, knocking and bruising her elbows against the
+shelves.</p>
+
+<div style="margin-left:5%; margin-top: 12pt; margin-bottom:12pt; font-size:90%">
+<p class="normal">&quot;I sought him whom my soul loveth, but I could not find him; I called
+him, but he gave me no answer. The watchmen that went about the city
+found me, they smote me, they wounded me; the keepers of the walls took
+away my veil from me.&quot;</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="normal">She sang the familiar words in a sweet, uncertain voice, not too
+subdued to be heard through the window. But when she looked through her
+peep-hole, to assure herself that he was listening, he had gone. Now
+she sang louder and leaned out, tearing open her tight-fitting bodice,
+and letting the raindrops fall on her bare breast.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">An unspeakable wretchedness suddenly took possession of her. She could
+not account for it, but she felt as if she must die. It was she whom
+the cruel watchmen were seizing; the wounds their rough hands made on
+her soft skin smarted; she could feel how they tore off the garments
+which veiled her nakedness from the world. In shameless nakedness, yet
+weeping tears of blood from bitter shame, she tottered through the
+streets, seeking and seeking her Soul's Beloved; but he was further
+off, more unattainable than ever.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She dropped down on her knees at the window, and, burying her face in
+the sill, wept bitterly out of sweet compassion for that symbol of
+herself wandering through Jerusalem's streets at night. And, after all,
+what made her feel like this was happiness--sheer happiness.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+
+<h2>CHAPTER VIII</h2>
+<br>
+
+<p class="continue">She continued to enjoy this happiness. It nestled in the
+cobwebby
+corners, perched on the books, spun golden threads from beam to beam,
+and it rode astride on every shaft of sunlight, which, reflected from
+the opposite windows, crept along the leather backs of the books. All
+the time Lilly heard humming within her a wonderful medley of tremulous
+tones, snatches of melodies, harp-strings vibrating, chirping of
+crickets, and twittering of birds. Waking or sleeping the concert went
+on, with now and then a few majestic bars of &quot;The Song of Songs&quot; thrown
+in.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Nothing was changed meanwhile in the ordinary daily routine. Frau
+Asmussen was alternately sober and the blissful victim of comforting
+drugs. Husband and daughters one hour ascended through the scale of all
+the virtues to the dizzy pinnacle of saints, and the next were plunged
+into deepest depths of infamy. Now a volume of Tolstoi was hunted for
+in vain, and then a Spielhagen seemed to have been spirited into space.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Sometimes little gusts of wind wafted showers of powdery gold on to the
+shelves. Like ordinary dust, it was swept away, yet it was a message
+from the tossing boughs, in the country, laden with blossom. This was
+all Lilly saw of the spring, save passing market-carts on which were
+heaped bunches of lilac and may. Her young hero opposite had made no
+further advances. She still trembled at the sound of his step, and
+received with frantically beating heart the two shy daily greetings;
+but there things ended.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He came no more to the terrace. The poring over books with his chums
+now lasted far into the night. It was often nearly two o'clock before
+she heard the last depart. Not till then did she fling herself on her
+bed, and, staring into the summer twilight, let her fancy roam over
+vast territories to find a throne worthy of her hero's attainment. She
+saw him in the gorgeous uniform of a field-marshal winning victories on
+the battlefield; she saw him a poet being crowned with laurels; an
+inventor of world renown steering his own airship through the clouds; a
+founder of some new religion.... But when she came to this point her
+Pegasus halted in alarm, for she remained a good Catholic at heart,
+though under the smart of bodily and spiritual castigation she had not
+dared to take refuge in her religion. The courage to ask Frau
+Asmussen's leave to go to St. Ann's every morning had soon evaporated,
+and she had almost forgotten that confessions and masses existed.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Now, however, in an exuberance of emotions never before dreamed of, she
+longed to unburden her spirit, and resolved to confess to Frau Asmussen
+that she was a Catholic, and beg to be allowed to visit St. Joseph's
+altar--kind, smiling St. Joseph, who stood with upraised finger behind
+his golden-circled candles.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Frau Asmussen found in Lilly's avowal the secret of all her vices, her
+artfulness, her laziness, her hypocrisy, and her lack of method; and
+she included in her nightly prayer at table a petition for Lilly's
+immediate conversion. All the same, she did not refuse Lilly permission
+to go twice a week to early mass, which was as much as she had dared
+expect.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Touching was the meeting between Lilly and St. Joseph after such a long
+estrangement. It was like going home to come back to him. The angels in
+the coloured glass window over his altar seemed to flutter their wings
+and greet her like sisters and brothers, assuring her that her penance
+would not be severe. The yellow and orange carpet invited her
+hospitably to kneel down, and from the Virgin's shrine not far away
+came the perfume of flowers.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The saint himself at first seemed a little hurt because she had
+neglected him for such a long time. But when she had confided to him
+all her woes, her loneliness, her beatings, her dislike of milk
+puddings, he became softened at once and forgave her. He had been
+presented width three new silver hearts since she had last knelt at his
+shrine. They shot up flames as long as her hand, and she felt she would
+like to dedicate one to him too: but why, she didn't know, for the
+miracle in her case was yet to be performed. Maybe it was jealousy or
+vainglory that prompted her desire, for she did not like the idea of
+others standing on a nearer footing to him than herself. &quot;But what can
+I expect,&quot; she reasoned, &quot;when I've treated him so badly all this
+time?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">After confessing everything, except, of course, her love affairs--he
+had become too much of a stranger for that--she hurried out of the
+church. It was striking a quarter to eight, and her morning devotions
+would have been objectless and thrown away had she not met her hero on
+his way to school.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was at the corner of Hassertor that she came upon him and his
+companions. He lifted his cap and passed on with the others, but she
+stood still, drawing a deep breath, as if she had just escaped a great
+danger.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Meetings of this kind occurred twice a week from this time onwards. Her
+dearly cherished secret desire that she would meet him alone one
+morning, that he would stop and engage in friendly conversation, was
+never fulfilled. There was not the faintest gleam of pleasure in his
+face at her approach, the strained anxious expression of his eyes did
+not relax in the least, though he blushed slightly as he raised his cap
+and walked on.</p>
+
+<hr class="W20">
+
+<p class="normal">She had long ago given up all hopes that he would ever speak to her
+again, when one wet Sunday evening in July she heard the bell tinkle,
+the front door being closed on Sundays to subscribers. She opened it
+and there he was.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Good heavens!&quot; she exclaimed, and nearly shut the door again in her
+confusion.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He asked if she had Rückert's poems in the library. She knew quite well
+that she hadn't, but she was afraid that if she said so there would be
+no further pretext for conversation, so she replied that she would see.
+Wouldn't he come in?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">After a moment's hesitation, he sat down on the chair for subscribers
+close to the door. Lilly hunted for a long time, for she feared if she
+didn't that he would go away; rather aimlessly she looked on the
+shelves, and kept saying half to herself, &quot;I am sure I saw it not long
+ago.&quot; Then she too sat down behind the counter to try and recollect
+where she had seen the book. But he stimulated her to search further.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;If you saw it a short time ago, it must be there,&quot; he said. And when
+it became clear that it was not there he sighed deeply, and murmuring,
+&quot;I don't know what I am to do,&quot; he departed.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly could only stare aghast at the empty doorway, which a minute ago
+had encircled his tall figure. She longed to cry out, &quot;Stay, don't go!&quot;
+but the opposite door banged and it was all no good. She crouched on
+the window seat, and mapped out in her thoughts what might have
+happened if he had not gone away. Her heart beat so violently that she
+felt as if she must faint.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">A quarter of an hour later the bell rang again. She bounded up. Could
+it be he come back? It was; he had left his umbrella. &quot;You shall not
+get off so easily a second time,&quot; she said to herself.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He caught hold of his soaking umbrella, which she had not noticed,
+although it had made a puddle, which was running along the cracks of
+the floor, and prepared to go away again.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What do you want Rückert's poems for?&quot; she asked, seizing the
+opportunity of opening a conversation.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Life is so full of difficulties,&quot; he lamented. &quot;You've no idea,
+Fräulein, how full.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Then he told her how they had to deliver extempore orations on subjects
+sprung on them, with no preparation, whether they knew anything about
+them or not. This time, however, it had leaked out that to-morrow, in
+the literature lesson, a comprehensive <i>revue</i> of Rückert's works would
+be demanded. For this reason he wanted to glance through the poems,
+because he could not remember exactly who were buried in &quot;The graves at
+Ottensen.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly was beside herself with joy. She could help him. She, the little
+lowly sparrow, could be of assistance to him, the big soaring eagle.
+Timidly she sketched the story of the poor beaten Duke of Brunswick and
+the pious poet of &quot;The Messiah.&quot; The only thing she could not remember
+was who were the twelve hundred exiles who were buried in the first of
+the graves.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He appeared incredulous at his unexpected good fortune. Was she
+positive? He knew from his tables and history of literature it was all
+right about Klopstock, but he shook his majestic head over the rest in
+grave doubt. Lilly eagerly set his mind at rest. It was more than a
+year since she had left school and had learned all these beautiful
+things, but her memory was good and she wouldn't tell him wrong. At
+last he seemed convinced. He breathed more freely, and remarked again,
+turning his mind to more common things: &quot;Yes, Fräulein, life is hard,
+very hard.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Now that the ice was broken he recounted his likes and dislikes.
+Mathematics weren't bad, indeed he had got on very well with Euclid and
+geometry. But there were languages, and history, and, worse still,
+German composition. Alas! it was a troublesome world, enough to drive
+one to despair.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly quite agreed with him. She, too, had little reason to be
+satisfied with the way the world wagged, and she expressed her thoughts
+about it with passionate eloquence.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And how you must detest,&quot; she concluded, &quot;to be hampered in your high
+ambition by the narrow limits of school life.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He looked slightly astonished and then said: &quot;Yes, it's beastly.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;If I were in your place,&quot; she told him, &quot;I shouldn't bother at all
+about dry facts and dull lessons. I should just follow my own bent,
+like the great poets and philosophers.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;That's all very well, my dear Fräulein, but there's the examination,&quot;
+he cried, horrified.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Oh, never mind stupid examinations. It doesn't matter whether you get
+through them or not.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He became excited. &quot;You don't in the least understand, Fräulein.
+Examinations are the entrance to every good position in life, no matter
+whether you stay at the university, study law, architecture, or go into
+the Civil Service. Not that I should dream of doing the last.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I should think not, indeed!&quot; she broke in. &quot;A man like you!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He smiled, well pleased at the flattery.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I am not going to take the world by storm,&quot; he said, &quot;but I have my
+dreams, of course. What would a fellow be worth if he hadn't any?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Nothing!&quot; she exclaimed, looking up at him delighted, with beaming
+eyes. She was sure this was the happiest hour she had ever known in all
+her life.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">When he got up to go she felt actual physical pain, as if a limb were
+being torn from her body. He had almost closed the door when he turned
+as one feeling his way, and said:</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;If it's not giving you too much trouble, Fräulein, I should be glad if
+you'd have another hunt for the poems.&quot; And then once more coming back
+he added: &quot;You might put them under the door-mat if you find them.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly lit the hanging lamp at once, and obediently began to look for
+what she knew she could never find.</p>
+
+<hr class="W20">
+
+<p class="normal">He passed the long vacation in the country with a friend in misfortune,
+with whom he crammed. Directly after the beginning of term the written
+questions were to be set, and in the middle of September came the <i>viva
+voce</i>.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly's hero looked pale and haggard, and bristles, like red shadows,
+appeared in the hollows of his cheeks. Lilly could not bear to see his
+misery without speaking, so one morning on her way from mass, when she
+met him alone in the empty street, she stopped.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You must not overwork, Herr Redlich,&quot; she blurted out anxiously. &quot;You
+ought to consider your health for your parents' sake and the sake of
+all who care for you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He seemed more embarrassed than gratified, and before he answered cast
+nervous looks around him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It's very kind of you, Fräulein,&quot; he stammered, &quot;but we'll discuss it
+later--later, if you please,&quot; and he dashed on, scarcely raising his
+cap.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It dawned on Lilly that she had done something dreadful. The
+houses began to dance before her misty eyes; she gnawed her
+pocket-handkerchief, and thought everyone she met must be laughing and
+jeering at her. When she was once more in her corner behind the
+catalogues she felt convinced that by her folly she had lost him for
+ever. Yes! he would never speak to her again.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The next day he came in without greeting her, and went out again after
+tea, and didn't look her way as he passed. It was all over, all over!
+And then someone came and knocked in the twilight; one could hardly
+call it knocking, it was more like a dog scratching to be let in. Lo,
+and behold! it was he standing there. He had not the shy yet important
+manner he had worn on that Sunday evening when &quot;The graves at Ottensen&quot;
+had been on his mind. His air now was more that of a burglar who has
+not learnt his trade.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I say, is Frau Asmussen there?&quot; he whispered.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;No; she never comes in here at this time,&quot; she whispered back,
+trembling with joy.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Than I may come in for a minute or two, perhaps?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She drew back and let him in, wondering whether it was possible to feel
+such bliss and live. He murmured apologies for his conduct at their
+last meeting. She stammered that he mustn't reproach himself, and that
+she had not meant to be so stupid. They sat down together on either
+side of the counter as they had done that Sunday evening. He was the
+first to lead the way back to their former point of intimacy.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;A fellow would often like to chat with a girl with whom he has
+something in common,&quot; he said a little pompously, &quot;but his time is not
+his own, and there are so few opportunities.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;As for opportunities,&quot; Lilly thought to herself, &quot;they could easily be
+found.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He went on to say that, owing to her kindly interest in him, he felt an
+interchange of ideas between them would be salutary, especially as he
+believed in the emancipation of women.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Here he halted, not knowing how to proceed, but still retaining his
+dignity. He challenged Lilly with his eyes, as much as to say: &quot;You see
+how tactfully I am dealing with this delicate situation.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly hadn't a notion what he was driving at, but it did not matter.
+The one thought that obsessed her was to save him from working himself
+to death.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;We had a master when we were in the Selecta, Herr Redlich,&quot; she began,
+&quot;whose lectures were simply glorious. I shall never forget them! Like
+you, he overworked. By this time I am afraid he must have died of
+consumption, and if you don't take care you may come to the same end.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He nodded dejectedly. &quot;Everything's so deuced hard,&quot; he muttered to
+himself.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You ought to have more sleep and take walks--plenty of walks----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Do <i>you</i> go for walks, Fräulein?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly couldn't say truthfully that she ever did such a thing. Since she
+had been incarcerated in this den of books she had not seen a field of
+white snow or a green tree.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I!&quot; she exclaimed, shrugging her shoulders. &quot;Why should I go for
+walks?&quot; Then, rejoicing inwardly at her own boldness, she suggested:
+&quot;Couldn't we go together one day?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He looked amazed. &quot;There would be all sorts of objections,&quot; he
+said, shaking back his forelock. &quot;People might talk. For your
+sake--especially for your sake--one must be careful.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly had read about gallant young knights who set more store on their
+lady-love's reputation than their own passion. She glanced up at him
+full of grateful admiration.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;As far as I'm concerned,&quot; she cried, &quot;you needn't be alarmed, I should
+simply shirk mass.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Though she may have felt a slight stab of conscience as she made this
+sacrilegious announcement, she was conscious that for the sake of this
+walk she would cheerfully have sacrificed all the saints, even St.
+Joseph himself.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I must wait till after the examination,&quot; he explained.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">So the matter was allowed to rest. He took his leave, Lilly speeding
+him with warnings and good wishes, while he glanced uneasily up and
+down the street, round the terrace and the entrance.</p>
+
+<hr class="W20">
+
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly's life from this time onwards was one enraptured trance of hope
+and delightful anticipations. She lay awake half the night, and
+pictured herself wandering at rosy dawn with him through golden
+meadows, her hand pressed against her side to still her joyously
+beating heart, her arm brushing his elbow. And each time that she
+thought of this, a little thrill ran through her, to the tips of her
+toes. She read nothing but stories of glowing love and passion, pages
+full of &quot;transports,&quot; &quot;intoxicating raptures,&quot; and &quot;clinging kisses.&quot;
+But of kisses in connection with herself she did not dream. She checked
+herself when her thoughts drifted in that direction. He was too exalted
+a being, too far above mere earthly desire. Now she felt that she had
+good reason to promise St. Joseph a silver heart.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">One Sunday morning she told St. Joseph the whole story of Fritz
+Redlich's examination throes, of his high ideals, and her anxiety about
+him. But on the subject of the arranged walk she was silent, for she
+could not very well mention that she intended to shirk mass.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly had saved during this year about sixty marks, which she carried
+next her skin in a leather purse. The silver heart would cost at most
+twenty marks, and there would be more than enough left to buy her
+friend a present. She vacillated for a long time between purchasing him
+a gold-embroidered cigar-case, equally ornate slippers, and a revolver.
+Finally, she decided on a revolver in a case, for she anticipated that
+in the struggle for existence he would often find himself in perils
+that he could only be saved from by mad, daring, and swift action. The
+revolver cost twenty-five marks, the gold thread for embroidering a
+monogram on the case, five marks. So she thought she had managed very
+satisfactorily.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The morning of the examination she saw him come out on the terrace with
+a face as white as the gloves he waved in farewell to his parents. He
+appeared to have forgotten her. She felt half inclined to run after him
+and press the revolver into his hand, but she reflected in time that
+the examiners might not appreciate his being so armed, and was glad
+when at the last moment he turned round and gave her a timid glance of
+recognition.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">At one o'clock there was quite a little stir outside. They were
+carrying him home on their shoulders. He looked exhausted, but his
+friends cheered and shouted with glee. The old pensioner, in ragged
+slippers, ran to meet his son and embrace him. She saw how he scrubbed
+his greenish-grey goat's-beard against the hero's cheek. From the
+kitchen at the bottom of the house came an appetising odour of fried
+sausages. Lilly ran about between the bookshelves clapping her hands,
+and crying inwardly: &quot;St. Joseph is a brick!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The next morning Lilly went to order the silver heart, and with blushes
+requested that the initials L. C. and F. R., entwined, should be
+engraved on it. When she came back from this errand she found in the
+letter-box--among subscriber's slips--an envelope addressed to herself.
+Inside, written on the back of an old menu card, were the words: &quot;Be on
+the terrace Sunday morning at five.&quot;</p>
+
+<hr class="W20">
+
+<p class="normal">Grey dawn pierced the chinks of the library shutters. Lilly jumped out
+of bed and threw up the window. The street looked like a big bowl of
+milk, the mist of early autumn rose so densely from the ground. The
+damp soft vapour cooled her burning cheeks, and she held out her arms
+as if bathing in it. Her thin summer dress, which she had washed and
+ironed with her own hands the night before, hung on the whitewashed
+wall like a blue cloud. She had never made herself so smart as she did
+to-day; for a picnic so fraught with fate she must be worthily adorned.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The small sum left out of her savings, after the purchase of her gifts,
+had been spent on a burnt straw picture-hat with pale blue ribbon
+strings tied under the chin, and did instead of a neckscarf. A pair of
+long open-work silk gloves, which she had forgotten all about, were
+unearthed from the depths of her trunk.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She put the heavy revolver in her hand-bag, after kissing it several
+times first and murmuring over it:</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Protect him, destroy his enemies, and lead him to victory.&quot; Thus she
+consecrated the weapon dedicated to his defence.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Punctually at five she heard the opposite door open and shut. She
+slipped out at once, and they met on the terrace. He shook hands. His
+eyes were haggard, yet there was an expression of energy in them. There
+was something of the dandy almost in his air and apparel. His hat was
+tilted slightly on one side. He flourished a bamboo cane in his hand
+with a silver knob.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly murmured shy congratulations. He thanked her with lofty
+condescension. The examination was now a very small matter, hardly
+worth mentioning.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;We are playing the fool now to a frightful degree,&quot; he added. &quot;I can't
+say I find it congenial, but a man must know something of the frivolous
+side of life as well as the serious.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">As they passed St. Ann's, a happy thought occurred to Lilly. It would
+be delightful to enter the church for a few minutes, and by removing
+the burden of deception win St. Joseph's blessing on their day's
+outing. She made the suggestion timidly, and found she had put her foot
+in it.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I am a Freethinker, Fräulein,&quot; he said, &quot;and have the courage of my
+convictions. Still, all enlightened people should be tolerant, and if
+you would like to go in I will wait for you outside.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly felt she didn't care about it any more and blushed for shame and
+vexation. Of course, he didn't know how much St. Joseph had to do with
+his success, or he would not have been so ungracious.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">They walked on in silence through the still deserted streets of the
+suburbs. The mist lifted a little. Lilly, chilled to the bone, shivered
+at every step she took. She thought she shivered from excitement, and
+yet she was much calmer than she had expected to be. Everything was so
+different. What had disenchanted her? She didn't know. She gazed
+wistfully before her at the trees that appeared at the far end of the
+street. &quot;Let us only get out into the country,&quot; she thought, and
+clenched her teeth to prevent them chattering.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The silence began to oppress her. She wanted to begin a conversation,
+but could think of nothing to say. In front of them a baker's boy
+started whistling on his round.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;We used always to buy hot rolls after we had worked all night,&quot; said
+young Redlich suddenly. &quot;We might buy some now.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly felt happy again. If he had said &quot;We will steal some,&quot; she would
+have been happier still.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The boy was not allowed to sell his rolls. They were on order, but
+there was a shop open opposite. When Lilly saw her hero come out of the
+shop with a big bag of rolls under his arm, she had a nice sort of
+feeling as if they were setting up housekeeping together.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Now they were passing gardens, and showers of drops fell on their heads
+from the branches. Lilly bent her shoulders and stamped her feet. She
+was simply frozen. At last they were out in the open fields. Masses of
+silvery gossamer cobwebs, weighed down by the heavy dew, hung about the
+stubble, which had grown high; and the outline of yellowish hilltops
+bounded the circular landscape on one side, while on the other in the
+distance rose a wall of dark woods. Lilly struck out her arms like a
+swimmer and breathed deeply several times.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Aren't you well?&quot; he asked.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Oh, I don't know! I must make up for all I've missed,&quot; she answered.
+&quot;You see, I haven't really breathed for a whole year.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">As she still shivered from cold, she started running. He tried to keep
+up, but soon was left behind, panting and stumbling. When they reached
+the first hill the sun began to rise over the fields. The undergrowth
+seemed aflame and the cobwebs glistened like diamonds; the dewdrops
+glittered like sparks of fire.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Warmed and excited by her run, Lilly pressed her hands against her
+throbbing heart, and gazed with dizzy eyes into the sea of glowing
+light. &quot;Oh, look, look!&quot; she stammered, and then turned an appealing
+glance of inquiry on him. She had half expected that he would spout
+odes, sing songs, and, if it had been possible, play the harp. But he
+stood struggling for breath, and appeared entirely absorbed in himself.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Do recite something, Herr Redlich,&quot; she besought him. &quot;A poem of
+Klopstock's--anything.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She hadn't got as far as Goethe when she left the Selecta.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He laughed, a short scoffing laugh. &quot;No, thank you,&quot; he said. &quot;Now the
+examination is over, the whole of German literature may go hang for all
+I care.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly felt snubbed. She had probably done a very ignorant thing in
+asking him to recite. When she next looked at the view the glow had
+faded, though the fields still sent up a faint golden haze towards the
+sun, the face of which had grown hard and indifferent.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">They continued their way in the direction of the woods. He swung the
+paper bag, and Lilly picked blackberries, which hung on the bushes like
+strings of beads in a filigree of cobwebs. A little further on, close
+to the outskirts of the wood, they came to a seat; and without
+discussing whether they should sit down or not they took possession of
+it. It was just what they wanted. Lilly was a little awed. This was the
+spot where the soul of a young genius was to be revealed to her, by
+whose clear vision she was to be guided upwards to the sun. He opened
+the paper bag, and she laid her handkerchief full of blackberries
+beside it. The revolver in the bag was put under the seat for the time
+being. Lilly cut the rolls, scooped out the middle, and filled them
+with blackberries, and they had a delightful breakfast together.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The magic glow of early autumn cast its spell upon them. Lilly's head
+swam with delight and longing. She could have thrown herself at his
+feet and pressed her forehead against his knees to find a support in
+the approaching joy of fulfilment. He had taken off his cap, and a
+curly forelock fell over his eyebrows, which gave him a sombre,
+world-challenging air. The lock of genius had been the fashion in the
+Upper Prima, and was assiduously cultivated by all who didn't aspire to
+the smartness of a Students' Corps. His gaze rested on the church
+spires and towers of the old town, which stood up like sleepy sentinels
+watching over the clustering roofs of the houses stretching in all
+directions.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I wish you would tell me your thoughts,&quot; Lilly said in a tremor of
+admiration. The great, crucial moment--had it come?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Again he gave that short rather scoffing laugh.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I am calculating how many parsons get their living in a hole like
+that,&quot; he said, &quot;and what a comfortable thing it is to go in for
+theology.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Why don't you go in for it?&quot; she asked. &quot;All sources of knowledge have
+a common fountain.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You don't understand anything about it, my dear Fräulein,&quot; he rebuked
+her gently. &quot;What matters is not knowledge, but conviction. A man must
+suffer everything for his convictions; he must drudge and starve for
+his convictions. The town has in its gift six livings for theological
+students. But I would rather cut off my right hand than accept one. For
+your convictions' sake you must go out into the world and fight your
+way. That is what I am going to do. I begin the day after to-morrow.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">His small, short-sighted eyes flashed. He pushed back the lock of
+genius from his forehead with a trembling hand.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Now he was talking according to her expectations. She wondered if this
+would be the right moment to present him with the revolver. But she
+deferred the presentation out of respect for the grandeur and
+significance of his new mood.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Taking up the bag with the weapon in it, she clasped it tightly, and
+then aired her sentiments with the same enthusiasm as she had done that
+night on the terrace.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Oh, Herr Redlich,&quot; she cried, &quot;can there be anything more splendid
+than to fight like that--to plunge into the ocean of life, to wrest
+happiness from the grim powers of fate, to become ever stronger and
+more iron in purpose, no matter how things go against us? Oh, it must
+be sublime!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But, as before, her appeal failed to wake any response in him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Good heavens, Fräulein, when you come to consider it, of what does the
+much-vaunted battle of life consist?&quot; he said. &quot;Letting yourself be
+trampled on, sleeping in a cold bed in the winter, and getting nothing
+for dinner all the year round, I am going to try it, of course, but
+it's hard all the same. If I had an income I shouldn't feel so bad.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And is this all the spirit with which you enter the battle?&quot; asked
+Lilly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Dear Fräulein,&quot; he replied, &quot;how can a fellow who starts in life with
+a few darned shirts and socks, and borrowed money, feel any different?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;He is the very one who should conquer,&quot; Lilly urged, eager to inspire
+him with her own confidence. &quot;You, with your consciousness of being
+great and different from other people, are bound to carry all before
+you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She waved her arm with an impassioned gesture, which took in the whole
+prospect before them: the plain with its silver streams and its green
+trees, the city embosomed in its gardens, perched among its meadows
+like a lark's nest. She would show him a small symbol of the future
+kingdoms over which he was to reign.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He nodded gloomily, convinced that he knew more about it than she did.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Life is hard--hard,&quot; he repeated.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She still did not despair of infecting him with her own ambition for
+his future, and in an outburst of eloquence she went on:</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;If only I could express what I feel and know is true--if only I could
+make you courageous and hopeful.... Look what a pitiable creature I am.
+I have neither father nor mother nor friends.... I hadn't even the
+chance of staying at school and finishing my education. Here I am,
+without position, money, or even winter clothes.... Look at my feet.&quot;
+She thrust out her shabby boots, which till now she had been careful to
+hide beneath her skirt. &quot;I never have enough to eat, and if I am late
+home to-day I shall be thrashed. Yet I am certain that somewhere
+happiness is waiting for me.... It is there, in every little breeze
+that blows in my face--though invisible--in every sunbeam that greets
+me. The whole world is made up of happiness, really, and of music....
+Everything is a Song of Songs--a Song of Songs is everything.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She turned away from him sharply so that he should not see how moved
+she was.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Below in the town the bells began to chime. St. Mary's, which once had
+been the Catholic cathedral and was now the chief Protestant church,
+led off with its deep triple clang. St. George's, once the Church of
+the Order, gave out a clear E G third; on feast-days it added a C. More
+bells sounded, and among them the modest tinkle of St. Ann's,
+unmistakable and insistent, making itself clearly heard in the chorus.
+To Lilly's ears it whispered, &quot;We know and love each other, and St.
+Joseph greets us.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Her friend meanwhile had been recovering his mental equilibrium. He
+assumed his little air of pedantic dignity, feeling that he had got the
+best of the argument.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I don't think you and I altogether understand one another,&quot; he said.
+&quot;I have made a deep study of the problems of life, and so see things
+rather differently from you. I call a spade a spade, and am not taken
+in by the so-called illusions of youth. I know what men are, and should
+advise you to be a little more careful in what you do and say.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What on earth do you mean?&quot; Lilly asked in astonishment.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He smiled with a half-embarrassed and half-superior air as he glanced
+askance at her.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Well, you know, beauty has certain dangers connected with it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Beauty!&quot; Lilly cried, burning all over. &quot;What nonsense!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Those on whom nature has conferred this gift have special reasons to
+be more cautious than others less favoured. For instance, it is lucky
+for you that you have fallen in with anyone so correct, old-fashioned,
+and honourable in his ideas as I am. Another, less steady, more
+frivolously inclined, might easily, you know, have taken advantage of
+such a walk as this. You may indeed be quite sure that he would.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly stared at him in dismay. She was overwhelmed in a whirl of far
+from agreeable reflections. What did he want her to do? Was he
+reproaching her, or making fun of her most sacred sentiments?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Oh, good heavens!&quot; she exclaimed, completely losing her composure. &quot;I
+wish we were at home.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You mustn't misunderstand me, Fräulein,&quot; he began again. &quot;I am not a
+saint. I am fully acquainted with the weaknesses and failings of human
+nature. I am only offering you a word of counsel, for which you will
+one day be grateful to me. Principles count for something, and in
+after-life, if we meet again, you will, it is to be hoped, have no
+reason to be ashamed of the acquaintance made in your youth.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Ashamed,&quot; thought Lilly. &quot;I ought to feel ashamed of myself now.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She felt all at once that it had been fast, undignified, almost common
+of her to have proposed this morning walk. Before it had not seemed
+wrong, why did it now suddenly seem so awful?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The chimes still sent forth their melody; the sun still spun a network
+of gold around them. She saw nothing, heard nothing, so deeply hurt and
+ashamed was she. She would have preferred to run away there and then,
+but dared not stir a finger.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He for his part no longer seemed a person in need of sympathy and
+consolation, but very self-satisfied and proud of what he had done. He
+removed a blackberry stuck in the lattice-work of the seat, and put it
+in his mouth.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It would be a pity to get our clothes in a mess,&quot; he said, as he
+crunched the seeds slowly between his teeth.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly grew more composed and stooped to pick up the bag.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What is in that?&quot; he inquired. &quot;It looks a heavy thing to carry.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">In alarm Lilly clutched it to her heart.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It's only the door-key,&quot; she faltered.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Then they set out homewards.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;If only I could make him change his opinion,&quot; she thought, &quot;and think
+better of me again!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The only thing that occurred to her was to gather a nosegay of all the
+most beautiful wild-flowers she could reach.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">With downcast eyes, she offered him the nosgay as a parting souvenir
+instead of that other gift of which she now could not think without
+feeling a fool.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He thanked her with a courtly bow and a flourish of the bamboo cane
+with the silver knob, an heirloom, of which he had only just come into
+possession.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly was too depressed and humiliated to utter a word.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Doesn't something tell you,&quot; he asked, &quot;that we shall meet again
+sometime in the future?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She turned aside; it was all she could do to suppress the tears that
+rose to her eyes.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;If we do,&quot; he went on, &quot;I hope I shall prove to you what incessant
+work and unwavering loyalty to one's convictions can accomplish, even
+without money.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">His voice now vibrated with gleeful self-confidence and importance.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It seemed almost as if, in reducing her to a state of insignificance
+and despair, he had imbibed something of her former gay courage. When,
+however, they drew near the old market-place, he became exceedingly
+uneasy again, as he looked up and down the streets. They were very full
+now, he remarked; it would be better if they parted here, and pursued
+their way home by different roads.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He said &quot;pursued,&quot; to show that his studies in German literature had
+not entirely been wasted.</p>
+
+<hr class="W20">
+
+<p class="normal">A few days later he left on his travels. The atmosphere was long heavy
+with the odour of the garlic in the sausage with which Frau Redlich had
+flavoured her son's soup at parting.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Poor Lilly crouched behind the window curtains with a sore heart, and
+wished that she had never set eyes on him.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+
+<h2>CHAPTER IX</h2>
+<br>
+
+<p class="continue">One grey, hazy October morning, when winter's approach was
+tempered by
+a muggy warmth, a wonderful thing happened. Frau Asmussen's runaway
+daughters returned.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Without giving a hint of their coming beforehand, they suddenly
+appeared in the library, gave Lilly an astonished stare, and asked her
+to pay their cab as they had no change. Lilly's heart beat with
+excitement. Directly she saw the two imposing figures of the girls,
+who, though somewhat travel-stained and jaded, victoriously took
+possession of the field, she had no doubt who they were. She gave a
+scared glance at their pretty little snub-nosed faces, out of which
+their bright grey eyes looked inquiringly from the door of the back
+room to the door behind which the broom of welcome stood. Its hour had
+now come, and Lilly ran out in a panic to escape the painful scene that
+would inevitably follow on the opening of Frau Asmussen's door.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She gathered up from the floor of the cab two faded bouquets of
+stephanotis, a tartan shawl rolled up in a hold-all, from which two
+bizarre umbrella-handles, topped with blue glass balls, projected in
+company with two soiled embroidered cushions and a flask. Besides
+these, there were a tin box of acid drops without a cover, a cardboard
+box falling to pieces, and disclosing not only hats, but such
+miscellaneous articles as a comb and pieces of bread-and-butter.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly, with the things in her arms, paused in the entrance, listening
+in terror for the sound of cries. But all was quiet, and when she
+ventured into the room she saw mother and daughters locked in each
+other's arms, hugging and kissing.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">As there was no time before the midday meal to kill the fatted calf, in
+addition to the ordinary cabbage a huge pile of cakes from the
+confectioner's was provided as a second course. The daughters helped
+themselves to these before the meal began, laying them aside for a
+rainy day, Frau Asmussen beamed with maternal tenderness and pride.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Well, did I exaggerate?&quot; she asked Lilly. &quot;Aren't they a splendid
+pair? Isn't it a wonder that I could do without them for so long? But I
+mustn't be too greedy; I am only thankful to get as much of them as I
+do, for I know their filial hearts are torn between their father and
+me. They cannot bear to pain either of us by absenting themselves,&quot; And
+she seized and patted the hands of the girls sitting on either side of
+her, and all three exchanged looks of rapturous affection.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The absent husband and father was also touchingly alluded to. The girls
+said that the lively, talented darling was on the point of giving up
+his business to manage vast estates in south Russia, where he had been
+urgently summoned. Later, in a gloomier hour, Frau Asmussen interpreted
+this announcement as meaning that the spotted scoundrel had to hide
+himself in the fastnesses of Odessa till the air cleared, owing to some
+shady transactions of his about bonds.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">At first, to Lilly's unpractised eyes, the two home-flown birds
+appeared as like as two sparrows. Both of them were pert, quarrelsome,
+fickle, and flirtatious. After a time she learned to distinguish
+between them. Lona, the elder, she discovered to be the best-looking in
+a coarse, barmaidish sort of way. Her hard commercial character was
+also the stronger. She led Mi, who set up for being a wit, by the nose.
+For the time being their attitude towards Lilly was one of friendly
+neutrality. So far she gave them no cause to adopt a hostile line,
+though hints were dropped that if a certain young lady dared to usurp
+their position she would be taught her place and war to the knife would
+follow.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">When, however, they had satisfied themselves that Lilly was tractable
+and inoffensive, they made her the recipient of their confidences,
+which they poured forth late at night as all three girls sat together
+on the bed, undressing and brushing each others' hair. They sucked
+contraband bonbons and discussed different styles of coiffure. Now
+Lilly, whose mind had hitherto remained pure and innocent, was
+enlightened on subjects she had never dreamed of. They whispered
+mysteriously of love intrigues and man-hunting, revealed sexual secrets
+in a stream of sordid chatter.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">What they cared for more than anything, it would seem, was to have
+their figures admired.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;When I turn my shoulder like this, am I not like a Greek statue?&quot; one
+would ask.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Isn't my bust like marble?&quot; was another question.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;If I were not so modest, I should like to let down my night gown and
+show you my hips. They are divine.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Much more rarely did they challenge Lilly's criticism of their
+features.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;We know we are good-looking; we've been told so hundreds of times.
+There can be no doubt about it,&quot; they would say.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">All the same, when the draughts of a chilly autumn necessitated their
+throwing scarves over their heads in the house, they did not fail to
+draw attention to the classic way in which their hair grew on their
+foreheads, and to the fascinating curve of their profiles.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Sometimes they were even severe critics of themselves.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;We haven't fine eyes, we know--yours, for instance, are, strictly
+speaking, finer. But if <i>you</i> were to make eyes at anyone it wouldn't
+have any effect, whereas if we so much as cast a sidelong glance out of
+the corner of ours, the men are after us like lightning.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Their small cat's eyes would sparkle with satisfaction in their sense
+of limitless sway and triumph over the weaknesses of masculine
+strength.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The advice they generously gave Lilly was summed up in the phrase: &quot;Go
+as far as you like, so long as you don't make a present of yourself to
+any man.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">They told, without stint, piquant stories, describing exciting and
+thrilling situations in which they themselves had been true to this
+motto. There was patent in everything they said a strong vein of coarse
+sensuality. Once, when one of them remarked, &quot;I should like to be a
+Queen of the Bees, but have no children,&quot; the other, whose temperament
+appeared to be more given to ethical contemplation, quickly retorted,
+&quot;I would rather be a nun, only with no morals.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She pursued the topic, shocking Lilly's pious reverence with
+Boccaccio-like details. In spite of their latitude of thought, all
+their hopes and dreams were really centred on marriage. Marriage, the
+speediest and most advantageous possible, appeared to them in the light
+of a career and salvation from all earthly troubles, the consummation
+of all heavenly bliss. That was to say, the bridegroom must be old, he
+must be rich, and he must be a fool.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">They demanded this triple qualification of fate. In the same way as
+others invested their intended husband with a halo of all the virtues,
+these maidens revelled in depicting his infirmities, and showing him as
+the miserable dupe of their abounding power and superior strategy.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">They were not always at one on the point as to how this valuable
+acquisition so indispensable to their happiness was to be obtained, and
+a favourite bone of contention between them was the question of whether
+it was expedient or not to compromise oneself before marriage.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lona, whose daring in dealing with problems of conduct knew no bounds,
+was of opinion that it was expedient. Mi, who was more cautious and
+liked to feel her ground, took the opposite view.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;If you knew what men are as well as I do,&quot; Lona snapped at her sister,
+&quot;you'd know that the best way to get hold of them is to make them
+afraid.... Let them sin, and then make their sin a halter to hang them
+with. Then you've got them fast.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mi ventured to wonder that Lona had not tried to put the theory into
+practice; if she had she would certainly long ago have----</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Here she discreetly came to a pause, for her sister's fingers looked
+like scratching.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And, in fact, only eight days after their return, these two did
+come to blows, and the air was thick with flying hair-pads and
+petticoat-strings. Mi emerged from the fray with a wound, which Lilly
+spent the night in bathing with vinegar and water.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The cause of the quarrel was a &quot;swell&quot; who had followed them during
+their afternoon walk, and who, according to Mi's account, had been put
+off from making further advances by her sister's discouraging reception
+of him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lona maintained that it was a dangerous principle to take up with
+&quot;swells,&quot; while Mi asserted that he might, at any rate, have been good
+enough for a husband.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The chief and all-engrossing occupation of their daily routine was
+parading the streets and getting spoken to by men. Lilly's fears that
+they might take the reins of management into their own hands she soon
+discovered were groundless. They lay in bed till nine, took two hours
+to dress, and then started for their morning walk, to take stock of the
+garrison officers who at this time were promenading the town in groups.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The first half of the day being thus devoted to the military, the
+second half was given up to civilians. Afternoon coffee was, as a
+matter of course, ordered and partaken of at Frangipani's, where a
+handful of lieutenants joined city magnates and young barristers at
+chess or bridge, and where perhaps a solitary schoolmaster, priding
+himself on his smartness, would put in an appearance and attempt to cut
+a dash with the rest.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">After an hour spent in devouring all sorts of sweets came the twilight
+stroll, very favourable for making chance acquaintances, and serving as
+a subject of conversation afterwards in the house.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It cannot truthfully be stated that Frau Asmussen had given this mode
+of life her sympathy and blessing. It was scarcely likely, considering
+that the first spell of seraphic calm that succeeded the homecoming of
+her prodigal daughters had given place to mutterings of a storm, and
+the storm itself had soon burst. Rows took place in rapid succession
+and became such a matter of course that Lilly, who had at first wept
+and howled with the combatants, began to accept them as part of the
+normal family life. Abusive epithets of extraordinary vigour flew
+hither and thither, boxes on the ear resounded through the library, and
+even the broom, the existence of which at first had been ignored, was
+now introduced into its limited sphere of activity.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Not till the evening, when Frau Asmussen's soothing medicine claimed
+her attention, was peace restored. The sisters were now at liberty to
+take more walks, only their sense of propriety forbade them to go out
+at so late an hour.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Anyone who met us now would take us for fast girls,&quot; they said, &quot;and
+then it would be all up with marrying.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Indeed, it was hardly credible how many were the rules and restrictions
+by which these young ladies ordered their apparently unlicensed method
+of life.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">You might be kissed, but on no account must you return kisses. Men
+might address you by your Christian name and call you &quot;<i>du</i>&quot; in
+conversation, but to write in the same familiar strain would be an
+unpardonable insult. You would allow a man to pay for your coffee and
+cakes, but not for your bread-and-butter. A stranger might press your
+foot under the table, but should he squeeze your hand you must
+instantly rise, and so forth.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly had not the slightest comprehension what all these pros and cons
+meant. Man in the abstract for her, up till now, had been merely a part
+of existence that had no separate individuality--that passed her in the
+streets without attracting her notice in the least. The only men she
+had admired were those who existed in her dreams, in her novels, and
+imagination. The creature that stared at her from the pavement, that
+came to get books and found ridiculous excuses for starting
+conversations with her, that held aside the baize curtain at the church
+door for her to go out, that smiled over the counter in shops--this
+creature was something stupid, contemptible, scarcely tolerable, to
+whom she was utterly indifferent, and to give a thought to whom would
+be degrading.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She was now to learn that a girl could exist solely for the sake of
+that gross, coarse thing called &quot;man,&quot; that she could think of nothing
+but him from the moment she got up till the time she went to bed, as if
+she were created for him, and must put him before her work and faith
+and God.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Though Lilly knew that she was far above being influenced by the two
+girls' example and precepts, she could not help feeling a slight
+curiosity awake within her to learn more of what these creatures were
+like who caused such a flutter in the dovecot of feminine emotions,
+whose approval was so keenly to be sought, and whose coldness meant
+absolute annihilation.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">A nervous dread began to torment her about that unknown vortex of
+wickedness outside, from which dirt was now brought every day and laid
+at her threshold, and about the timid curiosity that it aroused within
+her. Whether she would or not, her thoughts were always recurring to
+the panorama of pictures, painted in vivid poisonous colours and
+unrolled before her nightly by the two degenerate sisters. It was quite
+a relief when the hot friendship, after a month's duration, began to
+cool.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The coolness was caused by an unaccountable deficit, which occurred not
+once, but many times, in the cash-box, and became a standing mystery.
+Lilly, in a fever, added up the figures. She counted every pfennig over
+and over again; at last she was forced to conclude that someone had
+taken advantage of her absence for a moment to open the drawer and dip
+into the cash-box.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She knew that she would be accused of the theft when it was discovered,
+so, in order to save herself, she took the key of the drawer with her
+when she left the room, as if by accident. She repeated the ruse
+several times till she was certain that she was on the right track, by
+the change of manner in the girls, who regarded her with increasing
+scorn and displeasure.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">At last they could no longer contain themselves for wrath and
+disappointment. Did she, miserable interloper, imagine that she was
+mistress of the business? they burst forth. She should have both books
+and keys taken out of her hands if they chose. In her terror, Lilly ran
+to their mother, and threatened to leave the house on the spot if she
+was not allowed to have a free hand in the control of the shop as
+hitherto.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Frau Asmussen, knowing too well her daughters' character, took Lilly's
+part and the storm blew over. The girls resumed their intimacy with
+Lilly, and again confided to her the secret depths of their soul. Did
+she think that they wanted money to spend on ices and meringues at
+Frangipani's? She was very mistaken. They were cute enough to lay up
+for the future. It was impossible to stay for ever with the old
+tippler, especially as the place had turned out a barren wilderness as
+far as the prospect of making a good match was concerned. How could
+Lilly, with her petty ambitions, have any conception of theirs, and of
+what they suffered, struggling against the temptations of meringues and
+chocolate cakes at the confectioner's? They had been saving up for a
+long time for another journey. They were literally starving themselves
+for this praiseworthy object.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly remained unmoved. She refused to be wheedled or talked over
+again, and black looks were turned on her. They began to regard her
+with an offended air of hauteur without speaking, and approaching
+events were to fan their smouldering wrath into a blaze.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+
+<h2>CHAPTER X</h2>
+<br>
+
+<p class="continue">It was in the twilight of a rainy November day. Every roof
+dripped, and
+grey drops slid down the iron railings of the terrace in endless
+succession to splash into the pools on the pavement below.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was poor sport to watch them, but there seemed nothing better to be
+done.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Then the door opened--the bell ringing loudly--and a fair, dapper
+little man came in, with his coat collar turned up and his hat pulled
+low over his eyes. He stamped and shook the raindrops off the brim of
+his hat. His glossy, fair hair shone like satin, and he brought into
+the atmosphere an aroma of Russia leather and Parma violets. He glanced
+at Lilly with narrow, arrogant eyes, feigning disillusionment, said
+good-evening brusquely, and then stared beyond her, as if he awaited a
+greeting from someone behind the book-shelves.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly asked him what he wanted.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Ah, I suppose you are the young lady in charge of the library?&quot; he
+answered, and seemed to find in her existence a subject for careless
+levity.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly assented, and he exclaimed, &quot;Capital! That's capital!&quot; and from
+under his blinking light-lashed lids scintillated a thousand little
+shafts of merriment.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly next asked what book he wanted.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Do you know, my much-respected and learned young lady, I am not
+exactly at home in German literature and the other sciences, but since
+yesterday evening I have been fired with a fabulous, positively
+student-like thirst for culture. Now, if you would give me your
+valuable assistance----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He stopped suddenly, stuck an eyeglass in his eye, looked her up and
+down, first from the left side, then from the right, as one judges the
+points of a high-stepping horse before purchase; then he murmured,
+&quot;Damn!&quot; and asked her to light up.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">There was no reason why Lilly should not obey, as it was so dark she
+couldn't read the numbers on the backs of the books.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">As she stretched up to lift the shade from the hanging lamp, disclosing
+the splendour of her outline, he said &quot;Damn&quot; a second time. When the
+light shone on her and she looked at him with a questioning shyness in
+her enigmatic eyes--those &quot;Lilly eyes,&quot; whose brilliancy had so long
+been under eclipse--he sank, quite overcome, on to the chair set for
+customers, folded his hands and asked to be forgiven.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">A hot feeling of resentment burned in Lilly: so contemptible was her
+position in the eyes of this young aristocrat--the first who had found
+his way here during a year and a half--that she was not deemed worthy
+of being treated with ordinary courtesy.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Unless you wish to borrow a book, sir,&quot; she said with a lofty air, &quot;I
+must ask you to leave this room.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;A book? What?&quot; he repeated, outraged. &quot;One solitary book, one beastly
+book? No, thank you. Every five minutes I am allowed to stay here, I
+will take out new books, a whole shelf--a whole case of books, if you
+like; but on condition that I may return them to-morrow. I will make a
+contract with a van proprietor to cart the cases of books backwards and
+forwards. But wait a moment! Haven't you to plank down a three mark
+deposit if you take out a book?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly, with a stare of astonishment, said &quot;Yes.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Well, as I don't happen to have that amount with me just now, you must
+keep me as a deposit. You see, I give myself up as a sort of prisoner.
+Awkward for both of us--eh? But what's to be done?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly could not help being amused, in spite of herself. She laughed out
+loud.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Ah! now she has forgiven me!&quot; he exclaimed in triumph. &quot;Her gracious
+young majesty smiles on me. Now let us chat together like real friends.
+Just look at me a moment, my Fräulein. Do I appear to you like
+a fellow who reads much? The only books I care about are Schlicht's,
+Roda-Roda's, and Winterfeld's authors who are supposed to know the
+humours of military life. My object in coming here is not books. May I
+take you into my confidence?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;If you must, yes,&quot; stammered Lilly, her eyes dazzled by the glint of
+gold from under the sleeve of his tan overcoat. It was a revelation to
+her that men wore gold bangles.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I like to change into mufti of an evening,&quot; he went on; &quot;by day, you
+know, I wear uniform ... but it won't be for much longer. In a week or
+two I shall be at a loose end. Debts ... I say, you don't know what
+debts are? Happy you! Debts are the bitter dregs in the lemonade of
+human existence, and this lemonade isn't oversweet at the best. But
+what was I going to say? Oh, I know! Of an evening I play the part of a
+Harum al Raschid in order to win the favour of the common herd, by
+paying a little attention to the daughters of the people. Do you
+understand me? Yesterday, sauntering in a remote wilderness of wild
+hedges and new villas, I followed up two young women, ogling over their
+shoulders, and swinging their skirts, behaving, in fact, as all nice,
+well-brought-up girls are wont to do----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I do not care to continue this conversation,&quot; said Lilly, colouring
+deeply from shame.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Why not? You, my dear Fräulein, of course, are a perfect lady, and
+would not descend to anything of the kind. I was only confessing to you
+in order to gain your absolution.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Instantly Lilly was pacified, and she let him babble on.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The two young women in question walked in front of me arm-in-arm, but
+directly I got up to them I slipped between like the sausage between
+two slices of buttered bread. They became very sociable, and told me
+that they were the owners of a large circulating library, and intended
+shortly to open a fancy art business in Berlin, etc. They did not tell
+me their address, and, as I am ashamed to say that till a few minutes
+ago I thought they were worth cultivating, I looked up all the
+circulating libraries in the directory. I find that there are only
+three besides the leading bookshops, so I have been to two, and now I
+am at the third. I swear the future proprietresses of the fancy art
+business may go to the deuce, as far as I am concerned.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly could not suppress a feeling of rising scorn and malicious joy,
+but she took care not to betray the whereabouts of the two sisters.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Then, to show how completely in the presence of her majestic beauty his
+desire for a vulgar flirtation had evaporated, he formally introduced
+himself.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I am Lieutenant von Prell,&quot; he said, &quot;soon to be <i>ex</i>-Lieutenant von
+Prell!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She gave him an inquiring glance, and he added:</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;As I hinted to you just now, Fräulein, my days in the regiment are
+numbered. This umbrella, which now serves one purpose only, will
+probably before long be held over my head as a sunshade.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Did he not care for an officer's life any longer? Lilly asked.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I don't know that there's any kind of life that I couldn't enjoy,&quot; he
+answered, with mirth dancing in his light-grey eyes; &quot;but the paternal
+exchequer is low, and my pay as a slave in the army is about sufficient
+to keep me in radishes, and even radishes are dear at Christmas. The
+best thing I can do is to charter an old herring-cask and get myself
+pickled. If you can tell me where one is to be got cheap, I'll pay the
+damage.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly laughed gaily in his face, and he laughed with her, putting his
+arms akimbo and emitting a thin, soft giggle in an almost inaudible
+treble, which nevertheless convulsed his too spare figure with
+hilarious merriment.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">They sat down opposite each other, like two good comrades, on either
+side of the counter; and Lilly devoutly wished this hour could last for
+ever.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">When a maid-servant came in to change a novel for her mistress, he
+settled himself for a stay by examining the titles of the books and
+acting as if he were perfectly at home. He held open the door for the
+little maid-servant when she went out, as if she were a duchess.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly grew more and more amused, and couldn't restrain her laughter.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Before another subscriber comes in, you must go,&quot; she said, &quot;or people
+will talk.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Why? let them talk!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But Lilly was firm, and he began to plead earnestly with her.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You know, gracious Fräulein, I enjoy the reputation of having no moral
+sense whatever. I want you to be my support and anchor through life, at
+any rate till the door opens next time. While I sit here I am safe from
+playing the fool, and this fact I am sure must be cheering to your
+benevolent heart.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">So it was agreed that he might stay till the bell went again.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He sat back comfortably in his chair, and regarded Lilly with an air of
+possession.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;All earthly troubles can be traced to talking too much,&quot; he began. &quot;If
+Columbus had kept the secret of the discovery of America to himself, no
+unpleasantness would have arisen. I intend to be cleverer, and to keep
+my discovery a sacred family secret between you and me. It would be
+nuts to other fellows. But let them stick to twilight moths, like the
+two future art-shop proprietresses to whom I am indebted for my budding
+friendship with you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The sisters had been forgotten by Lilly. It was about their time for
+coming in. What if they were to open the door at this minute!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The bell tinkled. It was not they, however, but an old maid who
+devoured every day a volume full of strong &quot;love interest,&quot; and came in
+the evening for more.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The volatile lieutenant remembered his compact. He started up from his
+seat and composed himself to speak with a business-like air:</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Will you kindly let me have the last new book of----&quot; he hesitated,
+evidently at a loss to think of the name of a popular German author;
+then, after racking his brain a moment, he added, &quot;by Gerstäcker?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly fetched him this newest of new novels, bearing the date 1849, and
+he counted out his three marks deposit, made an exaggerated bow, and
+took his leave with little devils dancing between his light lashes.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">A little later the sisters came in. They glanced suspiciously at
+Lilly's flushed cheeks, and passed on without saying anything.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Nothing happened for the greater part of the next day, but Lilly was
+full of excited premonitions, like a child before its birthday. She
+felt on the threshold of new experiences. She was scarcely surprised
+when at last the door opened and two slim and elegant youths entered.
+They lisped &quot;Good-evening,&quot; and asked her to recommend them a book to
+read, in a tone of mingled diffidence and self-assurance, while they
+measured her with the stare of expert judges.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly's limbs grew numb, as they usually did, when she was conscious of
+being observed and admired. Yet she retained her dignified manner, and
+when the visitors had selected their trash without looking at it, and
+attempted to engage her in jocular converse, she drew herself up and
+took refuge behind the bookcase L to N, which was her shelter when she
+sat in the window busy with her accounts and ledgers.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The young gentlemen, after a whispered consultation, took their
+departure in silence.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He had betrayed her then--her lively new comrade. And henceforward Frau
+Asmussen's shabby library became the crowded resort of tall, slender
+young men of fashion, all animated by a passion for reading and a
+desire to exchange one trumpery old novel after another.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Only a few dared come in uniform, but they did not shrink from signing
+their names in full in the subscribers' book, which took on the
+appearance of a veritable <i>Almanach de Gotha</i>.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Some assumed the cloak of business-like severity, others came in
+careless certainty of victory. One began love-making on the spot,
+another had the impertinence to bandy risqué jests over the counter,
+the most ingenuous of them went the length of asking on what day he was
+to be honoured by a visit.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly soon saw that there was nothing particularly injurious or
+flattering to her in these attentions. She chatted innocently with
+those who treated her politely, took no notice of the impertinent, and
+directly a conversation seemed to be drawing out to too great a length,
+she retired behind the bookcase L to N.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It did not take the Asmussen sisters many days to discover the
+aristocratic intruders. Their jealous fury exceeded all the bounds of
+decency. Every possible insult was hurled at Lilly, and she was abused
+like a pickpocket. Unheard-of expletives were poured on her head in a
+filthy stream.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The daughters demanded of their mother that Lilly should resign her
+place at the counter to them. When this concession was refused, they
+resorted to physical violence. Frau Asmussen came to Lilly's rescue in
+her extremity. The broom rained heavy blows on the white night-jackets
+of the furious mænads, and drove them into the back parlour, where the
+battle ended in torrents of tears. But hostilities continued, and, if a
+curb was put on emotions during the hours the library was open to
+subscribers, all the more unbridled was their rancour in the evening.
+Lilly's life became a hell on earth. Her soul grew encrusted with a
+hardness and bitterness that filled her with both dismay and
+satisfaction. Only at night, when she buried her face in the pillow,
+did her defiance melt and her wretchedness find relief in silent
+weeping.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The merry comrade with the light eyelashes, who had caused the whole
+uproar, kept away. Not till a fortnight after his first visit did he
+turn up again. He came in with rather a halting gait, and his eyes were
+swollen and watery.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;These are picotees or clove carnations,&quot; he said, undoing a tissue
+paper parcel in his hand, &quot;which last longer than any parting pangs.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The sight of him brought a little comfort to Lilly, and she took the
+bouquet as if it was something to which she had a right. Then she
+reproached him for not having held his tongue.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Didn't I tell you,&quot; he explained serenely, &quot;that I haven't a vestige
+of moral sense?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He went on to tell her that he had finally left the regiment and been
+fêted by his fellow officers at a farewell dinner, and now there was
+nothing to be done but to take his passage somewhere. The question was,
+where? &quot;Still, we needn't bother our heads about that yet,&quot; he went on;
+&quot;brilliant folks such as you and myself are bound to have brilliant
+careers. My path in life will lead me by cool streams of champagne
+through streets paved with <i>pâté de fois gras</i>. That is Kismet, and
+should it end in a fruit farm in Louisiana, I don't mind. Something new
+is always interesting. In the meantime the old colonel is dead nuts on
+me, and wants me on his estate as a sort of Fritz Triddelfitz.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He laughed his curious, almost inaudible laugh, which convulsed his
+slight form.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly asked who &quot;the old colonel&quot; was.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">That she shouldn't know seemed to him inconceivable.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Is it possible that you live in this world and have never heard of the
+old colonel?&quot; he asked. &quot;The old colonel is the almighty; the old
+colonel decides what is good and what is evil on this earth; he ruins
+one man and pays another's debts with equal ease. He is the great
+receptacle for all our virtues and all our sins. Above all, the old
+colonel is eternally a boy. If he were to see you he would say, 'Come
+along, little girl. I am a hoary-headed old monster, but I want you';
+and then your courage will only permit of your saying, 'When do you
+want me, your high and mightiness?' You see, my dear child, that is the
+old colonel. They have put him on your track long ago, and if he finds
+his way here, Lord have mercy on you! It will be all up then with my
+beautiful young queen.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But I still don't know who the old colonel is,&quot; interjected Lilly,
+feeling a little uncomfortable at his mysterious prognostications.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Then don't ask,&quot; he answered, and held out his freckled hand in
+farewell. &quot;It's really a pity,&quot; he added, blinking at her through his
+half-closed light eyelashes with tender compassion. &quot;We might have
+given history another famous pair of lovers.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He leant over the counter. &quot;As I am a man totally devoid of any moral
+sense, may I borrow a kiss before I go?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly laughed and held up her mouth in reply.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He kissed her, and then dragged himself stiffly to the door.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I can't run,&quot; he said. &quot;Last night's banquet has made me a bit lazy,&quot;
+and he was gone.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The same feeling of uneasiness, which Lilly had felt after her lively
+comrade's first visit, took possession of her again. She felt as if
+someone was playfully lashing her with switches. Her anxiety caused her
+torment mingled with pleasure. It was as if behind a closed golden door
+her unknown fate crouched ready to spring on her--its prey.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+
+<h2>CHAPTER XI</h2>
+<br>
+
+<p class="continue">The midday December sunlight made the hilt of a sword and
+the buttons
+of a uniform glitter in the street outside.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Some one fresh,&quot; Lilly thought, for the upright bull-necked figure of
+the man clanking up the terrace steps was unfamiliar to her.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">An imperious stamping before the door, and the bell sounded more
+sharply than usual. No, she had not seen this person before. Here was
+no frivolous young lieutenant, nor one of the maturer officers, who
+were on their dignity till the first shy smile told them how far
+they might go. Here was a piercing falcon eye, set in a circle of
+crow's-feet, an aquiline high-bred nose, prominent cheek-bones with a
+fixed red colour; a small hard firmly closed mouth, which smiled with
+cynical benevolence under a bristling moustache, a chin--highly
+polished from shaving--retreating in two baggy folds behind a high
+military collar.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She saw these details with a heart throbbing so violently that she had
+to lean against a bookcase for support.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;This must be what I have been feeling so frightened about,&quot; she said
+to herself. &quot;This is the dreadful old colonel.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He raised his hand to his cap in careless salute without taking it off.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Colonel von Mertzbach,&quot; he said in a voice the harsh sound of which
+suggested unlimited authority and power. &quot;I must speak to you for a few
+minutes, my Fräulein. There are reasons that compel me to make your
+acquaintance.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly felt that she was to be subjected to a humiliating
+cross-examination, which she was not in the least bound to tolerate.
+But never in her life had she seemed to herself so utterly defenceless
+as at this moment. She was standing before a judge who had taken on
+himself the right to pardon or condemn her according to his pleasure.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She murmured something like consent with trembling lips.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You appear to be a most dangerous young woman,&quot; he said. &quot;You have
+turned the heads of all my staff; that is to say, the juniors among
+them. They are simply crazy about you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I don't understand your meaning,&quot; answered Lilly, gathering courage as
+well as she could.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Humph!&quot; he ejaculated, and glued his eyeglass into his eye, to look
+her up and down as far as the point where her figure was cut in two by
+the counter. &quot;Humph!&quot; he repeated. Then he continued: &quot;In these cases
+it is easy enough to play the innocent. Nevertheless, I can fully
+sympathise with my young men. In their place I should probably have
+done the same. But it looks, Fräulein, as if, in spite of your youth
+and inexperience, you have a fair share of feminine wiles at your
+command, otherwise you would scarcely have drawn these somewhat
+fastidious young men here so often with that immaculately reserved
+manner of yours; but, after all, perhaps it's the manner that's done
+it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Tears rose to Lilly's eyes. She could easily have flung back his
+insults, but the man's personality mastered her. She searched in vain
+for words to oppose him; his piercing eyes seemed to go through and
+through her and deprive her of speech; his cynical smile held her in
+thrall. So she merely sat down and cried. He on his side rose and came
+nearer the counter.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;How much you have reason to feel hurt, Fräulein, in your <i>amour
+propre</i>, I cannot say. It's not my intention to make you cry. On the
+contrary, I want you as calmly as possible to give me a little
+information about yourself. It may be of importance to your future.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly felt the necessity of pulling herself together, because this man
+desired it.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She wiped her eyes and looked at him penitently, sniffling a little as
+she used to do when a child after being scolded.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He inquired her name, her antecedents, whether she had a father and a
+mother, what school she had been at, and what she was doing there. On
+her mentioning her guardian's name a mocking smile flitted over his
+face.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I am acquainted with that gentleman's philosophy of life,&quot; he said.
+&quot;You are, then, utterly alone in the world?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly said &quot;Yes.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And you would not object to have a helping-hand extended to you by
+someone to whom you could turn in time of trouble?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly did not think there was any likelihood of such a person turning
+up.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I will think it over,&quot; he said, frowning. &quot;Anyhow, you cannot stay for
+ever in this hole. Do they treat you well?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Pretty well,&quot; Lilly answered; and half laughing, half crying, she
+added, &quot;I don't get enough to eat, and sometimes I am----&quot; she was
+going to say thrashed, but stopped in shame, and said &quot;punished,&quot; which
+hardly stated the case.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The colonel burst into a laugh, which sounded like the cracking of a
+whip.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Greatly to your credit to be able to take a humorous view of the
+matter,&quot; he said, and he rose to go. &quot;I have ascertained what I wanted
+to know, Fräulein. My young men may continue to come here as much as
+they like. In the whole town they could not find more irreproachable
+society. Should any of them forget themselves, and not treat you with
+proper respect, just communicate with me. But I am sure there will be
+no necessity. I wish you good-day, my Fräulein.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly looked after him, and watched the heavy cavalry swagger with
+which he crossed the paved terrace. The winter sun seemed to be shining
+with the sole object of illuminating his figure and dancing on his
+accoutrements.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He looked back at her window when he reached the street, and saluted
+courteously, giving her as he did so a searching, almost threatening,
+glance from beneath his knitted brows. Then he vanished.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly's mind was now besieged by the following questions: &quot;What did it
+mean? What did they want her to do? Why couldn't they leave her in
+peace?&quot; She would have liked to cry and lament and be pitied. But, deep
+down, there was a festive note, almost a note of vanity in her
+feelings. She congratulated herself on her new hopes. Had he meant when
+he asked her if she would like a helping hand, a prop and stay in
+trouble, that he would be that prop and stay? It soothed and did her
+heart good to think of it. Perhaps he was to be the guide and protector
+so bitterly needed in her stumbling young life? He might perhaps
+relieve Herr Pieper, who didn't trouble himself about her, of his
+guardianship. Perhaps he wanted to adopt her himself? There was no
+knowing. If only his eyes hadn't pierced like daggers, if he hadn't
+laughed so mockingly and given her that evil look at the last! And then
+she remembered the warning of her lively comrade: &quot;If he finds his way
+here, the Lord have mercy on you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">What nonsense! As if anything could happen to her behind her counter,
+of which no one had ever dared to raise the flap and come on the other
+side; and how safe she was behind the bookcase L to N, where she
+couldn't even be seen.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The visit of their colonel to the library seemed to have damped his
+young men's ardour; in spite of the permission given them, perhaps
+because of it, none of them put in an appearance during the next few
+days. Lilly asked herself if this was a sign of the protection he had
+promised to exercise over her. But something was the matter with her;
+she scarcely knew what.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">One morning, a week later, the younger of the sisters, who, in
+expectation of some love-letter, kept watch for the postman, threw an
+envelope on the floor at Lilly's feet, with the exclamation, &quot;A
+'coronet' for you, you officers' hack!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">This, coming from the sisters, was quite a mild form of address.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly opened her letter and read the following:</p>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;<span class="sc">My Fräulein</span>,</p>
+
+<p class="normal" style="text-indent:5%">&quot;Will you allow me on the strength of our recent interview to make the
+following suggestion? I want a private secretary and reader. Are you
+open to accept the post? As I am not a married man, you could not of
+course reside in my house, but I would undertake to find a home for you
+in a respectable and suitable family. I have consulted your guardian,
+and the plan has his approval.</p>
+
+<p style="text-indent:45%; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom:2px;">&quot;Yours truly,</p>
+<p style="text-indent:60%; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom:2px;">&quot;<span class="sc">Von Mertzbach</span>.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Colonel commanding the ---- Regiment of Uhlans.&quot;</p>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">Ah, here it was at last! Happiness--happiness standing on the other
+side of the snowy street, beckoning and calling to her: &quot;Come out of
+your vault, out into the world. I will show you life, and something
+new.&quot; &quot;Something new is always interesting;&quot; had not her lively comrade
+said so?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Then she pictured herself seated at the colonel's big writing-table.
+The colonel dictated to her, and all the time his eyes pierced her
+through and through, and searched, always searched, and her pen fell
+from her hand. She wanted to jump up and run away, but she could not;
+his eyes held her in thrall.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She sat down and wrote a correct little note declining the offer.
+Though she appreciated the honour he did her, she felt she was not
+qualified for so onerous a post, and that it would be wiser to remain
+in her present position, which, though not altogether happy, was one of
+which she was capable of discharging the duties. She signed herself,
+&quot;Yours in grateful esteem, Lilly Czepanek.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">So that was over. Now things must go on in their old groove,
+peacefully, if the wicked sisters would allow peace.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Christmas was approaching, but it cannot truthfully be said that the
+preparations for the festival at Frau Asmussen's were marked by much
+rejoicing and goodwill. She grumbled at the bad times, and the
+ridiculous custom of giving all the world presents. Her daughters
+argued shrilly, and at every opportunity, the question as to whether
+refined and superior girls like themselves were called upon to gather
+round a Christmas tree in the company of common minxes! There were none
+of those treasured little mysteries on foot, which at such a time bring
+joy and gladness into even the saddest and most poverty-stricken of
+homes.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly knitted her mother a brown woollen cross-over, bought her two
+picture puzzles and a wooden flower vase--china being forbidden--and
+sent them with a box of chocolates to the lunatic asylum.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Her thoughts just now often wandered from her mother to her father, who
+had now absented himself for more than four and a half years, and had
+given no sign of his existence.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">In her loneliness Lilly clung to a hope of his reappearance. On
+Christmas Eve, between six and seven, he would be sure to come in, his
+great-coat covered with snow, and embrace her with the demonstrative
+affection peculiar to him. She could almost smell the perfume from his
+burnished locks. Or, if he didn't come himself, he would send a
+messenger-boy with a preliminary greeting and a mysterious parcel full
+of costly silks. And a winter hat, too; for that was what she wanted
+more than anything.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">When the others had gone to bed she took from the bottom of her trunk
+the score of &quot;The Song of Songs,&quot; and hummed over to herself her
+favourite airs. There were many passages in it that she could never
+sing without tears. In these days she was constantly in tears,
+notwithstanding that there was all the time a hesitating earnest of
+happiness dawning faintly on her horizon.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was an exquisite vague sense of being lifted up, a growing of wings,
+a listening in wonder to inner voices, which sounded as familiar and
+gentle as a mother's, yet strangely prophetic and solemn.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Sometimes she found herself on her knees, not praying but dreaming,
+with arms outstretched and fascinated eyes lifted to the lamp, as if
+from that region of light the foreshadowed miracle was to come.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Thus she celebrated her Christmas feast in the sanctuary of her soul,
+and the actual Christmas Eve drew nearer and nearer.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">At the last minute, with groans and moans, a few presents were
+mustered. Lona and Mi ran about wildly from shop to shop making their
+purchases. They even bestowed a few civil words on Lilly, who
+recognised their kindness by looking the other way when Lona hovered
+round the cash-box. She knew exactly how much, or rather how little,
+was inside, and that if there was anything missing it wouldn't ruin her
+to replace it out of her own purse.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Before supper she was called into the back parlour, where the Christmas
+tree stood alight on the table--apparently shy of itself.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The sisters shook hands with Lilly, and Frau Asmussen, sitting already
+over her medicinal glass, delivered a few platitudes on the
+significance of Christmas, and expressed her regret at not being able
+to spend it with her excellent husband. Then everyone apologised
+because the presents were not handsomer. At first it was the feeling
+that you were expected to give something, that it was your duty to
+give, which had disgusted these generous souls who thought giving
+should be spontaneous; then, when they had got over this feeling, it
+was too late to buy anything worth having, not that the red check
+overall apron wasn't decent enough, and the penwiper was not so bad
+either--considering business was slow.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I am ashamed to say I have nothing at all to give,&quot; Lilly answered.
+But what she was most ashamed of was that she was once more on friendly
+terms with the Asmussen sisters.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I have no strength of character, not a scrap,&quot; she told herself as she
+crunched a piece of marzipan, which the elder and worst of the sisters
+had given her.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The library bell rang loudly, and a man, loaded with parcels, was
+asking if Fräulein Czepanek lived there.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly's heart bounded. &quot;From papa--it must be from papa!&quot; she murmured
+in jubilation.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">For a few minutes she scarcely dared trust herself to touch the
+parcels. She skipped round them aimlessly tidying her hair. Only on the
+sisters' exhortation did she undo the strings. With what envious eyes
+the two girls looked on!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Such beautiful things came to light. A faced-cloth dress, lace-trimmed,
+a delicate blue foulard, a pink silk petticoat, shoes of glossy patent
+leather and tan suède, six pairs of gloves, three pair elbow-length,
+all sorts of jabots and cravats, a fichu of Brussels lace to wear with
+Empire frocks, pocket-books, stationery, bonbons--more and still more
+things; even the sorely needed winter hat was included, a soft fluffy
+grey beaver in a picture-shape, that always had suited her noble style
+of features. It was trimmed with ribbon and ostrich feathers.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Altogether it was quite a trousseau.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The faces of the two sisters grew longer and longer. Lilly herself
+ceased to be delighted. She began rummaging in wild anxiety through the
+boxes for a clue to the sender, a letter or card. She had long ago
+abandoned the idea of her father having come back to heap on her such
+generous gifts. Yet an instinct of self-preservation made her keep up
+the deception.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">At last, at the bottom of the glove-box, she found a card. She ran away
+to read it in the library. Under the hanging lamp she scanned,
+blanching with fright, the visiting-card of &quot;Baron von Mertzbach,
+Colonel in Command of the ---- Regiment of Uhlans.&quot; Beneath his name he
+had written in the thick stiff handwriting she knew already, &quot;With good
+wishes to his lonely little friend from his own lonely hearth.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She went back to the parlour where the sisters, green with envy,
+received her with a chilly smile, while Frau Asmussen muttered
+enigmatical phrases over her steaming glass.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;They really are from papa,&quot; Lilly said, and wondered why her own voice
+sounded so toneless.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The Asmussen sisters laughed jeeringly, and began putting the things
+away in the boxes.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly held in her hand a little china bonbon box, filled to the brim
+with curious, rich-looking and fragrant-smelling sweets. She glanced
+from one sister to the other, uncertain as to whether she might dare
+offer them some of the sweets. She was afraid they might refuse with an
+abusive epithet, so she let fall the lid, which represented a cupid in
+a garland of roses, and buried the <i>bonbonnière</i> in the depths of one
+of the boxes. Then she crept away to bed in her corner and cried
+bitterly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The sisters went on whispering together for a long time. They built the
+boxes up into a tower on the library counter, and then haughtily made a
+détour so as not to come in contact with them.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The next morning Lilly called a passing messenger, and sent back the
+whole pile of packages to the donor without a word. Afterwards she went
+to the sisters and said:</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It wasn't true what I told you last night. Papa didn't send the
+things, and I have returned them.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The two girls, who had intended to make themselves agreeable to her in
+a malicious sort of way, could not conceal their disappointment.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I should never have taken her for such a ninny,&quot; said the younger.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;She is not so simple as you think,&quot; scoffed the elder, true to her
+character of scenting out ulterior motives, &quot;only very designing. She
+wants to drive her admirer still more distracted, but she'd better take
+care she doesn't outwit herself. The stupidest man can soon distinguish
+between what is genuine and what is put on.&quot; As if to illustrate what
+genuine simplicity was like, Lona drew her petticoat tightly round her
+limbs with one hand, drew her night-jacket decorously together over her
+bosom with the other, and, tossing her head, cast a look of withering
+scorn over her shoulder at Lilly, displaying all the virtuous
+indignation that exalted natures sometimes betray.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">In spite of this, Lilly noticed that the sisters' manner towards her
+had changed somewhat. She was evidently of more importance to them than
+she had been before, and they refrained from offending her.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Nothing much happened during the next few days, with the exception of a
+few of the young officers resuming their visits to the library. They
+exchanged their books hurriedly, and were extremely correct in their
+behaviour. None of them seemed inclined now to sit on the counter or on
+the back of a chair in a free-and-easy attitude.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">On New Year's Eve, Lilly was the recipient of a second note. It ran
+thus:</p>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;<span class="sc">My Fräulein</span>,</p>
+
+<p class="normal" style="text-indent:5%">&quot;You have grossly misconstrued my motives in sending you a small
+remembrance at Christmas-time. Matters must be cleared up between us. I
+would rather divulge the plans I have in mind for you verbally. But,
+owing to my position, I cannot very well call on you again. If you have
+your future at heart, come and see me to-morrow sometime in the
+evening. I will expect you up till eight o'clock. I give you my word of
+honour that you shall return home in safety.</p>
+
+<p style="text-indent:50%; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom:2px;">&quot;Yours,</p>
+<p style="text-indent:60%; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom:2px;">&quot;<span class="sc">Mertzbach</span>.&quot;</p>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">Should she go or not go? The question kept Lilly awake the whole night.
+If only she could rid herself of that feeling of dread, the fear that
+robbed her almost of breath at the very thought of him. What might not
+happen if she stood face to face with him again? She decided not to go,
+knowing all the time that she would go.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She lived through the day in a kind of stupor. Towards evening she
+asked Frau Asmussen's leave to go to New Year's Eve Benediction. The
+two sisters exchanged significant glances, but to-day they were too
+occupied with their own affairs to pay much attention to Lilly's.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She put on her old felt hat, battered and discoloured by exposure to
+many a shower, and her winter coat, which was so shrunk it made her
+look narrow-chested. Pull the sleeves down as she would, nothing could
+make them reach to her wrists.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">If she had thought of the matter at all, she would have thought twice
+about going so shabbily clad to call at a grand house. But she didn't
+think. She felt as if she was doing nothing of her own accord. Strange,
+mysterious powers were pushing her hither and thither, like a pawn on a
+chessboard. Unseen hands helped her to dress. They loosened the plaits
+on her neck, unfastened the tight buttons of her coat so that her
+contracted chest should have room to show its young contour, and
+painted her cheeks, wan from want of sleep, with a rich glow of
+excitement and triumph.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Not till she stepped out into the frosty air did she feel properly
+awake.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Where do you want to go?&quot; a voice asked within her, &quot;I might go and
+see St. Joseph,&quot; she answered herself.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But she did not go to St. Joseph. She made a wide circuit round St.
+Ann's, crossed the market-place, where she saw the Asmussen sisters
+sitting in Frangipani's with two admirers, escaped a gallant follower
+with difficulty, and then suddenly found herself in front of the
+latticed shutters of the house where, up four flights of stairs, the
+whirring sewing-machine had ground the last shred of reason out of her
+poor, ruined mother's head.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">There was a light in the windows of the attic where she had once lived.
+Probably someone else sat there now, slaving day and night, night and
+day, at the drudgery of making cheap underclothes. Perhaps one day she
+too would sit there, regretting bitterly her lost youth, as if it had
+been a crime.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;If you have your future at heart,&quot; he had written.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And now she turned and ran--ran for her life, and didn't stop till she
+stood on the threshold of a brilliantly lighted house, before which a
+freezing sentinel with drawn sabre paced up and down, as he kept guard
+over the most important dignitary of the town.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Where are you going?&quot; asked the voice again. For answer she sprang up
+the wide carpeted stairway and ran into a lackey with silver braid on
+his knee-breeches. Without speaking, he quietly took her umbrella,
+while a slight malicious smile flitted over his imperturbable
+countenance.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Softly, white doors flew back before her, lights with rosy shades like
+magic flowers shed soft radiance, lovely barenecked ladies with diamond
+tiaras looked down smiling on her from gilded oval frames.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">How quiet and beautifully warm it was in these spacious rooms; on that
+thick soft carpet one might lie down and go to sleep.... If only that
+feeling of fear would not clutch at her throat, her brain, her temples,
+gripping them as in a vice.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Another door flew open. Green duskiness lay beyond, like the interior
+of a dense forest on a summer day, and out of the dusk his figure came
+towards her, broad, imposing, clanking.... Her hand was taken in his
+and she was drawn into the green twilight. Dark walls of books rose on
+all sides, and from somewhere came the flash of deadly weapons,
+helmets, and coats of mail.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She could not trust herself to look at him. Even after she had been
+seated some minutes in a high-backed carved oak chair, which projected
+over her head like a canopy, she had not given him a glance. She heard
+his voice, the reverberating harshness of which seemed mellowed now to
+the rolling notes of an organ.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Nothing that she saw, felt, and heard smacked of the earth, yet neither
+was it heaven nor hell. It was like a terrifying phantasmagoria where
+human souls floated, vacillating dully between misery and happiness.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">At last the sense of the words he was speaking penetrated to her
+understanding. There was nothing at all unearthly about them; on the
+contrary, they dealt in a practical way with the return of his
+Christmas presents, which he still considered hers, and had stored in a
+cupboard to await her gracious acceptance.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly shook her head with a mechanical smile. She could not find
+courage to utter a protest.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And now, my dear child,&quot; he began again, &quot;you may ask what induces me,
+a man getting on in years, to pursue you with all the ardour of a
+youthful lover?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">When he said &quot;getting on in years,&quot; she involuntarily looked up. There
+he sat, with the light of the green-shaded reading-lamp full upon him,
+with the orders on his breast giving forth a golden radiance. The
+silver fringes of his epaulettes quivered at every movement like small
+snakes. He radiated the same glory as those haloed figures of saints in
+churches, tricked out in their draperies of gold and brocade.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly's eyes dropped in shame and confusion before so much splendour.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;My object in looking you up that day,&quot; he continued, &quot;was to inquire
+into the cause of a dispute that had arisen among some of my younger
+officers. It promised to be rather a serious affair, and I was
+compelled to take steps. I expected to find a little flirty shopgirl,
+and I found--well, to put it shortly--I found you. You will perhaps go
+on to ask, 'What of that?' for you cannot yet be aware of what your
+power is, or rather what your potentialities are, for with you, my dear
+Fräulein, all is in process of development. I am what is called a judge
+of women, and I can see in what you are to-day what you may become
+to-morrow if--and remember a great deal depends on this 'if'--if your
+development is directed into the right channel. To stay where you are
+now would simply be your ruin. Have the courage to entrust your fate to
+me, and I can guarantee all will be well with you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">His tone was calm and paternal, at least so it sounded to Lilly.
+Feeling a little reassured, and with a hope for her future leaping up
+within her, she ventured once more to look at him. This time, through
+the shimmer of gold and silver, she beheld a pair of penetrating glassy
+eyes fixed on her full of eager inquiry.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Again she became a prey to paralysing terror. She sat speechless and
+shuddering.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Whatever I do,&quot; she thought to herself, &quot;it will be no good. He will
+get his way.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I have a fine old place,&quot; he went on: &quot;Lischnitz in West Prussia, not
+far from the Vistula, where military duties do not allow of my going
+often. A well-bred middle-aged lady, a Fräulein von Schwertfeger, keeps
+house for me there. If you paid Lischnitz a visit, I can promise you
+beforehand that she would welcome you with open arms. Under her
+chaperonage you would have excellent opportunities of developing into
+what I foresee you will be in the future. In this way you would be
+provided for, and I should have the great satisfaction, when I come
+backwards and forwards, of finding my home brightened by youth and
+beauty.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He had risen, and in the excitement of conversation walked about the
+room with short swaggering steps, and at every step his medal and his
+epaulettes tinkled and jingled like sleigh-bells. At last Lilly heard
+nothing but this metallic clinking, and ceased to grasp what he was
+saying.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">When he had finished speaking, he paused in front of her, so near that
+she could smell the scent of the hairwash he used.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She leant back in her chair feeling somehow as if she were going to be
+bound hand and foot and carried away beyond the reach of help. She knew
+that she would neither scream nor resist, so completely was she in his
+power.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Look at me,&quot; he said.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She tried to, she was so obedient, but she could not.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He put his hand under her chin and gave her head a backward tilt, but
+she kept her eyes almost shut, and saw only the scarlet border of his
+military coat.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And then she felt herself suddenly begin to sink; the red border went
+up to the skies ... all round was the buzzing of bees ... and then
+nothing more.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">When she came to herself, there was something wet and cold on her
+breast, and a woman's print skirt, with a smoky smell, brushed her
+face.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was still green twilight. A breastplate hung opposite her, reminding
+her of a scoured and brightly polished kettle. She felt so comfortable,
+she didn't want to stir.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">A rough, bony hand stroked her forehead and a kindly voice murmured
+over and over again: &quot;Poor young thing! poor child!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly, thinking it was time to give a sign of returning consciousness,
+moved, and the strong hand slid under the back of her neck and propped
+her up, and the kindly voice asked what she would like to do.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I want to go home,&quot; said Lilly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;That can't be done this minute,&quot; said the voice, &quot;because he gave
+orders that he must speak to you again before he goes. But take my
+advice: just say 'Thank you' and 'Good-bye,' and be off as fast as you
+can. This is no place for a young girl like you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly sat up and arranged her collar. It was the cook bending over her,
+with her rugged, weather-beaten, thick-lipped face full of compassion.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She asked Lilly, as she patted her shoulder, what she should bring her
+as a pick-me-up--egg and wine, or a liqueur.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Nothing, thank you,&quot; Lilly answered. &quot;Let me go home.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You shall, my dearie, but I must call him in first.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She shuffled to the door, and Lilly reached for her hat, on which she
+must have beep lying, for it was more out of shape than ever.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I shall have to get a new one now,&quot; and she tried to calculate how
+much she could afford to give out of her narrow means.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The door opened and he came in, followed by the old cook.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly was no longer frightened.... Everything seemed far, far off--he
+too. Nothing seemed to matter.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Now she's ready to be put into a cab,&quot; suggested the cook.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Your presence here is not required any more!&quot; he thundered at her.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The cook ventured to mumble an objection.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Go!&quot; he roared. And she scuffled out.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly's sensations were now only those of languid fear.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I wonder what he means to do with me?&quot; she thought. Her own fate
+scarcely interested her at all.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He paced up and down, the silver spurs on his heels clanking.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;We must have some light,&quot; he said. &quot;Clearness is essential to the
+matter in hand.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He rang for the man-servant who had smiled in that sly, mocking way.
+The man lighted the jets of the chandelier and retired, with a sidelong
+inquisitive glance at Lilly--but no smile this time.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She was still sitting on the couch where she had been when she regained
+consciousness. Her mind seemed a blank as she twirled her old felt hat
+round and round.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">In the brilliant light cast from the ceiling she saw the colonel in all
+his resplendence, still silently brooding, as he paced up and down.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She could look him quite calmly in the face now. &quot;It's useless to try
+and defend myself,&quot; she thought, &quot;so I don't care what he does.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Next he seized a chair and planted it in front of her, so close that
+when he sat down his knees nearly touched hers.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Listen to me, child,&quot; he began, his words ringing out clear and
+incisive, like words of command. &quot;While you lay here in your swoon I
+was thinking over in the next room very earnestly what's to be done. I
+came to a decision about your future; but of that later. You, of
+course, must have observed by this time that my sentiments with regard
+to you are not exactly paternal. The older I grow the less am I able to
+understand what so-called paternal feelings are. To cut the matter
+short, I have conceived a passion for you which astonishes myself....
+If I were ten years older--I am fifty-four--I should attribute it to
+senility. Do you know what that means?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly shook her head. She could see his face now so clearly that to her
+dying day she could never have forgotten what it was like.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">His eyes flamed in their red sockets and pierced her with the
+rapier-like sharpness that had at first filled her with terror. In grey
+bristling strands his hair was brushed back from the temples; but his
+moustache, on the other hand, was coal-black, and shadowed his gloomy
+mouth like a patch of ink through which his teeth made a white line of
+demarcation. From the corners of his mouth the heavy folds of flesh
+descended into the collar of his uniform.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;How funny it is,&quot; reflected Lilly, &quot;that I am doomed to be the love of
+this bad old man!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Well, if it was his will, she was powerless to resist.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The world could tell you that I am reputed to be, in spite of my
+years, a subduer of women; it may be because I have never had much
+respect for them. But now comes a case which ... how shall I express
+it? ... a case that is somewhat unique. I have decided that before the
+old year dies I must make up my mind one way or the other.&quot; He looked
+at the clock. &quot;I have still half an hour to give you, then I am due at
+a reception. Well, not to waste time, I may as well confess ... my
+intentions towards you in the first place were not honourable. To say
+that I wanted to seduce you would hardly be correct, considering how
+little there can be of a seductive nature about a man of my years. It
+wouldn't have been here, and not to-day, as I gave you my word of
+honour in my letter; but you would have been mine sooner or later, of
+that you may rest assured.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I've no doubt of it,&quot; thought Lilly, who listened as calmly as if she
+were reading an exciting novel. Still, her old horror of him did not
+return; and still she waited with dull curiosity to see what would
+happen next.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;If you had resisted and shown fight, all the more certainly would you
+have been overcome. I am an old hand, you know. Then came your fainting
+fit, which gave me some insight into your disposition. I was forced to
+admit to myself that a conquest by force in your case would give me no
+satisfaction. You are made of noble stuff, and I do not require a
+languishing companion.... Whimpering mistresses have always been my
+abhorrence. I don't care to have my comfort disturbed by scenes. I have
+had experiences of the kind, which I am unwilling to repeat. So while
+you lay here being tended by my cook, I came to the conclusion I had
+been on the wrong tack. I resolved to adopt another course.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly was overcome with a pleasing sense of gratitude, as if she had
+been the recipient of an enormous benefaction. &quot;How splendid of him,
+how kind,&quot; she thought, &quot;to let off a poor stupid thing like me!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She cast a stealthy glance at his hands, which, long and yellow, hung
+listlessly between his knees. She would have liked to imprint a kiss on
+them to show how grateful she was, but shame deterred her; she was
+almost sorry that so glorious a man didn't want to have anything more
+to do with her.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Well, I took further counsel with myself,&quot; he continued, and his voice
+sounded sterner, as if steeled by the force of his resolution. &quot;It was
+not altogether a new idea; I had often, indeed, thought of it. But it
+seemed ridiculous at first, and only to be resorted to as an extreme
+measure--a way of escape which I am now cutting off. Finally, I asked
+myself, why shouldn't I? I am not ambitious. I know too well the rotten
+machinery of diplomatic and military service; it's not worth while to
+give one's sweat and blood to oil the wheels. So the idea of
+resignation doesn't displease me. Of course, I should have to retire in
+the circumstances, perhaps anyhow, because there are mornings when I
+can hardly sit on my horse from the pain caused by that cursed
+sciatica.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I wonder why he is telling me all this?&quot; thought Lilly, and felt
+flattered that so distinguished a man should discuss such important
+matters with her.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What is more fatal still for me is that I foresee the rising of a
+whole generation, thirsting to be revenged on the robbery that has been
+perpetrated at its expense. Naturally, the unflinching eye and the firm
+hand can accomplish much.... In either case, one must dare something.
+Well, my dear child, what do you say?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly was silent, ashamed of being so stupid that she was not in the
+least able to follow him. It all sounded to her like double Dutch.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Well, will you ... or not?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Will I what?&quot; stammered Lilly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Good God! All this time I have been asking you to be my wife,&quot; the
+colonel replied.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+
+<h2>CHAPTER XII</h2>
+<br>
+<p class="continue">This was the moment in which Lilly's hopes and wondering astonishment
+reached their climax. Could it be Lilly Czepanek to whom all this was
+happening, or had she changed places with someone else--some heroine
+who only lived inside those old brown-covered books, and who would
+cease to exist directly the last page was turned? He did not urge her
+to consent at once. As she sank back in a helpless heap, incapable of
+speaking, he took her hands tenderly in his, and with the smile of a
+beneficent deity, reasoned with her more gently than she could have
+believed possible. She might think it over, he said, for three days, or
+he would even allow her ten. So long he could be patient, but she must
+promise in the meantime to say nothing about it to anyone.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She gladly acceded, still too terribly ashamed to look him in the face.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Then she ran home and cried and cried without knowing why she cried,
+whether for joy or for grief. She was still sobbing when towards four
+in the morning the sisters, who had relaxed their strict etiquette in
+honour of the New Year, crept in and passed through the room.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">When she got up in the morning she was sure that he could not have been
+in earnest, and that before the day was over he would send to say that
+he had changed his mind. She wouldn't care much if he did. Indeed, she
+would breathe more freely and thank God to be relieved from a haunting
+burden of perplexities.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">At ten o'clock there was a ring, and a basket of roses was handed in.
+The size and costliness of the blooms filled the sisters with astounded
+disapproval. They knew the price of roses in winter, and calculated
+that these had cost a sum greatly exceeding Lilly's wages for a month.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Really,&quot; remarked the elder, &quot;I cannot see why you shouldn't give in
+to such a gorgeous admirer. If it was one of us, it would be different,
+of course. We are in society, and could not afford to lose caste. But
+you, a mere shopgirl without any family to disgrace, why shouldn't you?
+Besides, such a life has its charms and advantages. If I were you, I
+should certainly try it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The younger and more sentimental of the two protested. &quot;The first
+step,&quot; she said, &quot;should only be taken for love. That is what is due to
+yourself, even if you are nothing but a shopgirl.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">They were still debating this knotty question when they went off to New
+Year's parade. They wanted to see Colonel von Mertzbach in command of
+the guard. They had heard he was &quot;awfully handsome,&quot; and that all the
+fashionable girls in the town were setting their cap at him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly caressed her roses and would have kissed them all, only there
+were too many.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Then she took courage, locked up, and went out to St. Ann's to consult
+St. Joseph. She would have met the officers riding to parade if she had
+not turned down a back street in the nick of time.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">High-mass was over, and had left an odour of incense and poor people
+lingering in the aisles. A few worshippers remained praying at the side
+altars. Lilly knelt down before her dear saint, pressed her forehead
+against the velvet padding of the altar ratings, and tried to pour out
+her torn heart to him, begging for advice and consolation.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Ought I to ... May I? Can I?&quot; Oh! She hoped she might so very much.
+Such a chance was not likely to come more than once in a lifetime. She
+would be rich, a baroness, with the world and all its splendours at her
+feet. When did such things happen outside fairy-tales?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">If only one thing about him had been different. For the first time it
+struck her clearly what that one thing was.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was not his eyes, whose glance was a dagger-thrust. It was not the
+grey bristly hair on his temples, nor the harsh commanding voice of the
+martinet. No; now she knew that it was none of these, but the folds of
+skin hanging down from his chin to his throat. It was these that must
+always form a barrier between him and her. They couldn't be got over,
+nothing could conceal them. She shuddered at the thought of them. And
+yet the Asmussen sisters had talked of him as a handsome man. The
+daughters of wealthy and distinguished people were said to run after
+him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It would have been folly on her part to refuse him. Wasn't he the best
+and noblest and most high-principled of men? Wasn't he nearly as good
+and kind as God Himself? Then she mapped out a future in which she was
+to live and breathe only for him; to sit at his feet as a disciple. She
+would flutter about him in gayer moments like a dove, though she could
+not exactly picture herself being ever lively in his presence. But she
+might be poetic; she might gaze at the stars in the distant firmament
+and the evening clouds, and look the image of a pale, noble, saintly
+creature to whom young strangers would lift their eyes in devouring
+longing without being rewarded by a single glance from her. All this
+would be possible, because her life would be consecrated to him, who
+was her friend, protector, and father, to whom she looked up on the
+heights whence no gleam had ever descended to her before.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes, I will--I will!&quot; an eager voice cried within her. &quot;Yes, dear St.
+Joseph, I will!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">For answer St. Joseph held up a warning forefinger. Of course, he would
+have done it in any case. He couldn't help himself, for his artist had
+presented him thus. And yet there was something disconcerting about
+that raised forefinger. It didn't somehow help a poor distraught human
+being on its way through this troublesome world.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The next day Lilly got a letter from Herr Doktor Pieper, making an
+appointment with her at his office.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She turned hot and cold. &quot;He knows,&quot; she said to herself.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">When she asked leave to go, Frau Asmussen remonstrated severely with
+her.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You receive costly presents and flowers, and you are always wanting to
+go out; if you continue like this, I am afraid I shall have to offer up
+daily prayers for you again.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But when Lilly showed her guardian's letter, Frau Asmussen gave her
+permission. Lilly had not seen him since that day, a year and a half
+ago, when she had come out of the hospital, so weak she could hardly
+stand. She had been too shy to accept his invitation to call on him
+again. Besides, there had been no reason why she should. From time to
+time a lanky, dried-up looking person, whom Lilly recognised as the
+head clerk, had come to Frau Asmussen's, and after a brief conversation
+conducted in an undertone, departed. This was the only sign that the
+man under whose guardianship she had been placed ever thought of her
+existence.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Herr Doktor Pieper will see you now,&quot; said the head clerk.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">As Lilly entered, the distinguished lawyer was sitting at his
+writing-table in the same position as she had last seen him. He raised
+his head and contemplated her with a long scrutinising gaze. Then he
+smiled and rubbed the mirrorlike surface of his bald patch. &quot;Ah! So
+it's you!&quot; he drawled.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly's respect for this man deprived her of breath. While he studied
+her from head to foot as if she had been a marketable object, she made
+an awkward movement, which was a cross between a nod and a bow, and
+tugged at the short sleeves of her coat.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Ah! I perceive, my child, that you have developed into something that
+makes masculine folly, not of course justifiable, because we are
+endowed with masculine intellect to restrain the tendency, but, at any
+rate, excusable.... But I haven't wished you good-morning.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He rose and offered her his cool flabby hand, which felt as if it had
+no bones in it.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Please let me look at your gloves,&quot; he said next.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly trembled, and drew back her elbows like a thief caught in the
+act. She stammered out, growing very red, &quot;I was going to buy a new
+pair to-day.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Don't, dear Fräulein,&quot; he answered, smacking his lips with
+satisfaction; &quot;those holes are touching, and awake sympathy. Your
+winter coat, too, awakes sympathy. These are mere matters of detail,
+which contrast piquantly with the main features of your appearance.
+Anyone sentimentally inclined, even if he were not born a poet, might
+easily be inspired to an outburst of lyrical verse by such a pathetic
+appeal.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">As he spoke, he put his arm familiarly through hers and led her to an
+easy-chair, upholstered with many springs and cushions.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Sit down in this victims' chair,&quot; he said, &quot;though I promise you there
+will be no drawing of teeth to-day. Altogether, you've done very well
+for yourself, my child. I am perfectly satisfied with you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He smoothed his well-kept fair beard and showed his teeth in a
+satisfied smile, like a conjurer after performing a specially clever
+trick.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;When do you intend the wedding to come off?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It's not even an engagement yet,&quot; murmured Lilly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Oh, as far as that goes, there will, of course, be no engagement,
+properly speaking--that is to say, no formal announcements to friends,
+cards, visits, and other courtesies. Have everything done as quickly as
+possible--as quietly as possible; that is my advice to you, Fräulein.
+You see, in the very delicate situation of affairs in which we find
+ourselves, adverse influences are always to be feared.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But I haven't so much as said 'Yes,' yet,&quot; Lilly ventured to put in.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">This seemed vastly to amuse him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Ho! ho! We're assuming the possibility of a refusal, are we? A
+refusal! Very clever! I shouldn't have credited you with so much
+capacity for business, dear Fräulein.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I am sure I don't know what you mean,&quot; said Lilly, a flush of
+indignation rising to her face--she knew not why.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He thrust his hands against his sides and continued to be amused.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes, yes; that's all very well and practical, but a joke can be
+carried too far, you know. I advise you to leave it in my hands for the
+time being.... I understand these matters, though I must confess I
+haven't often handled so important a case. I will do my utmost to hurry
+on the wedding.... For reasons already stated, I must demand absolute
+secrecy till his resignation is a <i>fait accompli</i>. When the banns are
+once put up, providing you with a trousseau will be a minor
+consideration. My advice to you, young lady, is to behave for the
+present in as maidenly and ingenuous a manner as you can. A rosebud
+unfolding with the freshness of the dew upon it should be your example.
+But I would suggest the use of a better soap.... I think there's no
+room for improvement in anything else. The necessity may arise for you
+to take up your abode with another family, in which case the sum
+realised from the sale of your mother's effects--one moment, please.&quot;
+He opened a big ledger which he took from a rack by the writing-table.
+&quot;A, B, C--ah, here we are--Czepanek. Sums amounting to one hundred and
+thirty-six marks will come in very usefully just now. My purse, too,
+out of a purely aesthetic enjoyment of the romance, is at your
+disposal. So much for the period before the wedding. As for the time to
+follow, which is of infinitely greater importance, I should not like
+you to go away from here without my giving you a few gentle hints,
+though, unfortunately, I am not in a position to&quot;--he paused for a
+moment, and a satyr-like grin widened his loose-skinned cheeks--&quot;take a
+mother's place and impart to you the precepts with which she would
+speed you on your way as a bride.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly understood this time well enough what he would imply, and redhot
+shame wove a fiery mist before her eyes.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;In all matters connected with arrangements for your future, such as
+insurance, settlements, alimony in case of divorce, provided you are
+the guiltless party--or even if you were guilty--you may implicitly
+trust me. I was not made your guardian for nothing. But there is one
+contingency, very common in marriages such as yours, in which my
+professional help can give you no security. You must keep your eyes
+open for yourself.... We are placed in this world, my dear child, to do
+what we like; anyone who says the contrary would rob your heaven of its
+sun. But I give you a threefold warning: first, don't exchange
+superfluous glances; second, don't demand superfluous rendering of
+accounts; thirdly and lastly, don't make superfluous confessions. You
+cannot be expected to-day, perhaps, to understand clearly what all this
+signifies&quot;--as a matter of fact, Lilly understood nothing at all--&quot;but
+think of my words when occasion arises. They may be of use to you. Let
+me see. Another thing! Are you fond of jewels?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I have hardly ever seen any,&quot; said Lilly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Not at the jewellers' in the market-place?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;At school we weren't allowed to look in at the shop-windows,&quot; Lilly
+answered.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He smiled his most unpleasant smile. &quot;Then I venture to advise that
+every time you and your husband go out together you stop and look in at
+every shop-window. Such little hints are seldom ignored. Be specially
+charmed with pearls, my dear young lady. You will in this wise lay up
+for yourself treasures which, when your time of trouble comes--and,
+remember, it will come--will be of invaluable assistance to you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly nodded, and thought to herself, &quot;I shall certainly do nothing of
+the kind.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Heir Doktor Pieper passed his soft plump well-kept hand over his glossy
+bald patch several times, and continued:</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Well, what more have I got to say to you? A good deal, but I am rather
+afraid of being misunderstood. There is one thing, however, which must
+not be omitted. The early days of married life, no matter what its
+nature may be, are apt to have a disturbing effect on the nervous
+system. When you first feel depressed, take bromide. In fact, take a
+good deal of it. Draw a protective cap of indifference over your head
+in moments of strong excitement, whether caused by love or antipathy,
+so that you will not see, hear, or feel anything. You must deaden your
+perceptions and be unconscious of your will-power. In time you will
+become used to the oppressive hot-house atmosphere, probably in a few
+months; and afterward you will again breathe the fresh air, and then,
+instead of the bed-canopy above you, there will stretch again before
+you the heaven of your girlhood. When one's nerves are over-strained it
+is dangerous to think too much of one's immediate surroundings and to
+seek compensation there. Dream rather of the distant blue mountains.
+Let your happiness linger afar off. You are young, and it will
+certainly draw nearer as years pass. Give it time to grow up.... I
+expect you do not understand the very least bit what I am saying?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes, of course I understand,&quot; Lilly stammered.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She didn't wish to be thought stupid. But he was right. His words
+rained on her like hailstones of which she could only gather a few here
+and there--except the blue mountains. She had caught that, and liked
+the expression.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Never mind,&quot; he went on. &quot;Something of what I have said will occur to
+you, I've no doubt, at times. Now I come to the last and most delicate
+point of all, because it deals, as it were, with spiritual conditions.
+Don't fret if your environment does not respond to you and echo your
+ideas. You must leave it, and not try to make things different. Bells
+that are cracked can never be made to ring in tune again. Rather
+provide music for yourself. I shouldn't be surprised if you have a
+whole orchestra at your command.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I have 'The Song of Songs,'&quot; Lilly thought with pride.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You have no conception, my child, how essential it is, when you live
+in harness with another human being, not to lose touch with yourself.
+To hold a private court of your own flattering thoughts is an excellent
+diversion. Anyone who wants to eat fresh eggs must keep poultry; never
+forget that. But don't let anyone suspect. Display no unnecessary
+opposition, no obstinacy. You must arrange to run your life from the
+start on double paths, so that you can travel in both directions as
+your needs require. I shouldn't wonder if in these circumstances your
+marriage were to turn out happily, apart from its exceptional worldly
+advantages, the duration of which depend mainly on good luck and the
+exercise of tact and powers of adaptation. I shall send you the
+marriage contract sealed. Till your coming of age in two years' time I
+shall always be at your service. If you feel in after years that your
+temper is permanently tried, break the seal by all means. A good lawyer
+can interpret a contract very differently from a layman, and read all
+sorts of things into it. As I indicated, there is one case in which he
+is impotent to do this. Be on your guard against it. Technically, it is
+called <i>in flagrante</i>.... Sometime or other you will doubtless acquire
+information as to what the word means. Now, may I give the colonel your
+final consent?&quot;</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+
+<h2>CHAPTER XIII</h2>
+<br>
+<p class="continue">The train rumbled on through the night, showers of sparks flew up from
+the engine. When it was fed by the stoker, clouds of fire illuminated
+the darkness, and you saw in a flash purple pines, snow-covered gables,
+and wide-stretching golden spaces appearing out of black nothingness.
+How beautiful, how strange it all was!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly leaned her head, drowsy from champagne, against the red velvet
+cushions. It was over, and everything had gone off well. A kaleidoscope
+of confused pictures, half real, half imaginary, whirled through her
+brain. She saw a great black inkstand with a small grey-bearded man
+behind it asking lots of useless questions; a white lace veil with
+myrtle-leaves attached thrown over her head by the adjutant's wife, who
+went from one rapture into another; a hateful Protestant minister,
+with two ridiculous white bibs under his chin. He looked like a
+grave-digger, but at the end he gave such an exquisite address that
+Lilly would have liked to cry on his bosom. Two gentlemen in black, two
+in gay uniforms. One of the gentlemen in black was Herr Pieper, one of
+those in uniform the colonel. And she was the colonel's wife the
+colonel's wife! How the wheels seemed to murmur the words: &quot;Colonel's
+wife!&quot; But if you listened more attentively they also said--what the
+gentlemen at the wedding had said--&quot;Most gracious baroness; most
+gracious baroness,&quot; always in time.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The ice-cream had been so wonderful--a positive chain of mountains with
+peaks, and pinnacles, and little lights that shone through the
+crystals. She could have sat admiring it for ever, only she had to dig
+into it with a big golden spoon, and so overturn a whole mountain. She
+had asked him if she might have ice-cream every day in the future, and
+he had laughingly answered, &quot;Yes, if you like.&quot; She must have been
+rather tipsy, or she couldn't have had the courage to ask such a
+question. She would find an opportunity of begging his pardon later.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Now he sat opposite her looking her through and through with his
+piercing eyes. That was the only thing that embarrassed her, and if she
+hadn't been such a coward, she would have asked him to look the other
+way for a change. Not that she felt her old fear of him to-day. Of late
+she had gradually become more at home with him; how could it be
+otherwise when he was so kind, and she had only to express a wish to
+have it fulfilled instantly?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Then there was something she had noticed that she would never dare
+breathe to anyone. He was bow-legged. They were the heavy cavalry legs
+all over, rather too short for the imposing figure they supported. They
+made him sway in his gait from side to side as if he were trying to
+walk on a tight-rope. You noticed it even more when he wore mufti and
+stuck his hands in his pockets as he was doing now.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Every now and then he leant forward and asked, &quot;Are you all right,
+little woman?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She should think she was &quot;all right&quot; indeed! All her life she would
+like to sit there leaning back against the red velvet cushions,
+looking at her new soft <i>suède</i> gloves, and the shiny toes of her
+patent-leather boots peeping out from the hem of her travelling dress.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">There had been quite a crowd at the station. No uniforms, because he
+had dispensed with a military escort, but plenty of ladies had been
+there, thickly veiled, trying to appear unconscious, as if their errand
+at the station was an ordinary one. As she passed them on the colonel's
+arm and got into the <i>coupé</i>, she had caught two or three admiring
+remarks--and not from too friendly lips. It came back to her now with
+heart-felt satisfaction. At the very last moment two bouquets had flown
+in through the window, and she had looked out again. There stood the
+Asmussen sisters, bowing reverentially and crying buckets full. Her
+colossal good fortune had disarmed their envy and changed ill-feeling
+into a sort of melancholy rejoicing.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And, opposite, sat the man who had worked the extraordinary revolution
+in her lot. For a moment she was so overwhelmed with a feeling of
+well-being and gratitude that she went down on her knees before him,
+and, clasping his hands in hers, gazed up at him in adoration.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But when he caught her to him with one arm, and with the other caressed
+her, she became frightened again and retreated to her place. He let her
+be with a smile, conscious that his hour was not far off.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And it came sooner than she had expected. &quot;Get ready,&quot; he said
+abruptly; &quot;we shall be getting out directly.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Where?&quot; she asked, startled.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;At the junction, from where there's a loop line to Lischnitz.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Are we going to your estate, then?&quot; she inquired anxiously. He had
+talked of going to Dresden.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;No,&quot; he replied shortly; &quot;we shall stay here.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Then they stood on a dark platform with their trunks and bags. The
+frosty haze cast rainbow halos round the few dim gas-lamps, and shadowy
+forms were enveloped in clouds of their own frozen breath as they
+emerged into the light. The train steamed out of the station.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">There they stood and no one heeded them. Then the colonel uttered one
+oath after another. He had acquired the habit of swearing violently at
+drill, when irritated. His fury fell on Lilly like a thunderclap, and
+made her tremble, as if she were the culprit. At last the colonel's
+oaths reached the ears of the station officials, who associated them
+with something familiar in the past, and they began contritely to make
+amends for their negligence by loading themselves with the luggage.
+They got into the hotel omnibus which was waiting, and Lilly squeezed
+herself into the furthest corner of it. Weird shadows flickered from
+the miserable little oil carriage-lamps, on his sharply defined
+features, giving him a new aspect, beneath which his long-slumbering
+wrath still seethed.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What has this dreadful old man to do with you, or you with him,&quot; Lilly
+asked herself, a shiver running through her, &quot;that you should be at his
+mercy so completely? Why not rush past him, tear open the door, and
+leap out into the night?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She pictured what would happen if she acted on this impulse. He would
+stop the omnibus, pursue her, calling and shouting after her, and, if
+she was so lucky as to hide herself, he would set the police on her
+track. The next morning she would be found cowering under an arch
+asleep, perhaps frozen to death.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">At that moment he stretched out his hands, groping for hers, as people
+in love are wont to do. The shadows dissolved and she responded to his
+caress, wreathed in smiles. Yet on their arrival at the hotel, where
+the proprietor, waiters, and commissionaires received them with
+deferential bows and an effusive welcome, Lilly's thoughts, in the
+midst of all the bustle, light, and warmth, reverted again to flight.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I'll say I have left something in the omnibus, run out and never come
+back.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She was already ascending the stairs on his arm.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">A spacious, awe-inspiring apartment swallowed them up. It had a
+flowered carpet and a glaring three-armed chandelier. In one corner
+stood a huge wide bedstead, covered with a smooth white damask
+counterpane. It was carved at the head and foot. She looked round in
+vain for a second bed. &quot;St. Joseph!&quot; she breathed to herself.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The colonel made himself perfectly at home. He grumbled, turned up the
+lights, and tossed his overcoat into a corner. Then he lit a cigarette
+and threw himself down on the sofa, whence he watched with the eye of a
+connoisseur her movements as she reluctantly took off her coat and drew
+the pins out of her hat.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">There was a knock, and a waiter came in with cold refreshments and a
+silver-necked bottle on a tray.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;More champagne?&quot; questioned Lilly in alarm. She had not yet recovered
+from the amount that she had imbibed at midday.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Nothing like champagne,&quot; he said, &quot;to give a little woman courage to
+consecrate the pretty blue silk <i>négligé</i> waiting in her box to be
+unpacked.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He poured out the foaming liquid into the two glasses. She clinked
+glasses with him obediently, but scarcely touched a drop of her wine.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">When he rallied her on her abstinence, she answered pleadingly, &quot;I
+don't want to be tipsy on such a sacred night as this!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Her reply seemed to entertain him immensely. He burst into hilarious
+laughter, and exclaimed: &quot;All the better! All the better!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He would have drawn her to him, but, as every touch of his caused her
+acute discomfort, she evaded him quickly and said, &quot;I must look for my
+<i>négligé</i>.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She knelt before the box, which she herself had packed the night
+before, lifting out the trays, and produced from the depth a garment of
+filmy lace and washing silk, which he, with all the other beautiful
+clothes, had bought for her before the wedding.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She looked round in search of a sheltering alcove into which she could
+retire to change, but there was none no escape from those eyes, almost
+softened by their desire for her, watching everything she did.
+Shuddering, she stood there, clinging helplessly to the collar of her
+dress, which she hadn't the courage to unhook.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He grew impatient and sprang to his feet. He nearly caught her in his
+arms, but the imploring look she gave him was so full of pathos that he
+chivalrously desisted, and stooped instead to pick up something which,
+in her search for the <i>négligé</i>, she had turned out of the box on to
+the floor. The next minute Lilly saw a white roll between his dark
+fingers.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It's 'The Song of Songs,'&quot; shot through her brain.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">With a cry she hurled herself upon him, and tried to snatch the roll of
+music from his grasp, but his fingers were like iron. He defended
+himself and repulsed her attack with ease, laughing all the time. She
+was beside herself at the thought that her life's secret should be
+tampered with by strange hands, and she cried, implored, and beat him
+with her fists.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Now the matter began to appear to him in a suspicious light. Doubts
+began to rise within him as to the unblemished purity of her soul, and
+even of her body.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Be careful, my little girl,&quot; he said. &quot;Prevarication and deceit are
+out of the question now. You will kindly let me see what this is
+without delay, or I'll pin you down so that you can't stir a limb.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Oh, please, dear colonel,&quot; she begged and prayed, &quot;give them up. They
+are only two or three sheets of paper covered with music, the music of
+songs--nothing else, I swear. Please let me have them, dear colonel.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Her innocent pleading touched him, and the comical unconscious humility
+of her &quot;dear colonel&quot; made him laugh again. Besides, as the daughter of
+a professional, she might cherish musical ambitions.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Do you compose yourself?&quot; he asked.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;No, no, no! It's not my composition, but don't look at it,&quot; she
+entreated, &quot;or I'll jump out of the window. I swear I will by all the
+saints.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He was so delighted with the picture she made, her eyes wide with
+alarm, her hair loosened and dishevelled, the tragic mute expression on
+her sweet childlike face with its clear-cut features, that he wanted to
+prolong the struggle for a few minutes. So he looked very black and
+pretended to be what he really had been a little while ago--full of
+jealous suspicion.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Then she fell on her knees, and, clasping his legs, she whispered in a
+voice half suffocated by her emotions of shame and distress:</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;If only you give it back to me, I won't mind what you do. I won't
+attempt to defend myself.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The bargain struck him as advantageous.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Your hand on it,&quot; he said.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes, here is my hand on it,&quot; she replied. &quot;And you'll never ask any
+questions? Promise.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Not if you swear by your blessed St. Joseph that it's really nothing
+but music.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes, nothing but music and the libretto, I swear.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He gave her the roll, and she yielded herself entirely to him ... sold
+herself at the price of &quot;The Song of Songs&quot; to the man to whom she
+already belonged.</p>
+
+<hr class="W20">
+
+<p class="normal">The early morning sunlight, shining straight in her eyes through the
+yellow striped curtains, awoke her. She felt herself resting on a sort
+warm pillow, and was conscious of having slept splendidly. Slowly it
+dawned on her what had happened. She leaned over to him with the
+intention of giving him a kiss. He lay with his head thrown back and
+his mouth open, and the light from the window played on his shining
+bristled chin. Over his haggard cheeks little red and blue veins ran in
+all directions like rivers on a map. His ink-black moustache glistened
+with pomade, and his eyelids were so wrinkled into folds that they
+must, it seemed, have reached down to the top of his nose if they had
+been ironed out.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;He's not so bad-looking,&quot; Lilly thought to herself; but she omitted
+the kiss.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She got up noiselessly and dressed herself without his moving. The old
+cavalry officer was a sound and heavy sleeper.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly scribbled on a sheet of notepaper which she found in the hotel
+blotter: &quot;I am gone to church,&quot; laid the note on his pillow, and
+slipped down the stairs, past the porter, who was so astonished he
+forgot to say &quot;Good-morning.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The streets of the little town still slept in the peace of the late
+winter dawn. The snow had been swept from the middle of the road into
+heaps along the gutter. A party of crows sat in a circle round the
+frozen fountain in the market-place. From the distance came the faint
+music of sleigh-bells. Down the main street boys with satchels were
+loitering to school. In some of the smaller shops lights still burned
+and apprentices were sweeping and cleaning the steps, their faces blue
+with cold. As Lilly went by they stared hard, or called to others
+inside to come out and gape after her.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The swinging tread of marching footsteps was behind her. A long train
+of infantry, wearing gloves but without cloaks, came tramping along in
+the middle of the road. They puffed, in regular time, clouds of frozen
+breath before them. Their eyes with one accord turned to the left in
+Lilly's direction as if by word of command. The officers, walking
+beside their men, exchanged significant glances and shrugged their
+shoulders.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She had not far to look for the Catholic church of the parish. The
+clumsy stone fabric, with its remnants of Gothic bricked over, stood
+high above the roofs of the town. The side aisles were crammed with
+altars in barbaric colours, much gilded and adorned with paper roses in
+cheap vases. She could not find St. Joseph anywhere, and had to be
+content instead with Our Lady of Sorrows, between whom and herself
+relations seemed strained.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">A feeling of oppression and emptiness, which she could not explain,
+took possession of her soul. It was as if she had done something wrong
+and didn't know what. She kneeled down and gabbled her prayers so
+thoughtlessly that she felt ashamed, then she caught herself absently
+eyeing with contentment her <i>suède</i> gloves, which moulded her fingers
+with such perfect ease and distinction. Every now and then a shudder
+ran through her, which made her shut her eyes and clench her teeth, and
+then she felt ashamed again.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Soon she gave up attempting to pray, and gazed up at the Mother of God,
+with her tearful face, who appeared to be saying, &quot;Please take these
+things out of me.&quot; Yet the seven swords piercing her heart were set at
+the hilt with pearls and precious stones.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;If only I was really unhappy, I should have some excuse,&quot; thought
+Lilly. &quot;Then I might talk with her as I used to with St. Joseph, and
+the swords in my heart would be costly to behold.&quot; As costly as the
+pearl necklace he had put round her neck just before the wedding.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She saw herself as she had been two months ago, when she had stolen out
+in the grey dawn to lay her poor distraught heart at the feet of her
+favourite saint; how soon, with the reaction of youth, she had walked
+on air again, intoxicated at the thought of what was coming to her in
+the fair future. And all the time she had been actually steeped in
+poverty and wretchedness, forsaken and friendless.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Happiness takes on strange aspects,&quot; she thought, and she gave her
+shoulders a petulant little shrug.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Then suddenly a great dread came over her that those times would never
+come back, that she must go on like this eternally, barren in soul,
+disturbed in spirit, persecuted by gloomy, inexpressible fears.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It must all come of not loving him enough,&quot; she confessed to herself.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Now she knew what she had to petition of the Virgin Mary. She bowed her
+face in both hands and prayed long and fervidly--prayed that she might
+learn to love him with as much passion as she had blood in her veins;
+with as much devotion as she had hopes of her soul; with as much
+joyousness as there was laughter in her heart. And, lo! her prayer was
+answered.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She rose from her knees with shining eyes, a burden lifted from her
+soul, and hurried away, back to him to whom she belonged, to serve him
+with all humbleness and confidence, either as his daughter, his
+handmaiden, his mistress--in any capacity he wished.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+
+<h2>CHAPTER XIV</h2>
+<br>
+
+<p class="continue">They passed Berlin without stopping, because the colonel had
+no desire
+to encounter his military friends so soon after his <i>mésalliance</i>.
+From here in three hours they reached Dresden, and took up their
+quarters at Sendig's, where the hotel proprietors had arranged to
+provide the newly-married pair with the comforts and privacy of a home.
+Drawing-room, bedroom, and dressing-room were all they needed, for the
+closer their outer intimacy the nearer would their inward relations
+approximate. And, indeed, the colonel had every reason to be satisfied
+with his honeymoon. He, who in the course of his not too short life had
+held hundreds of girls on his knee, who thought he knew every type
+through and through, the sweetly clinging, the coyly coquettish, the
+brazenly bold, the sham and the true, and all their different kinds of
+kisses--this old amorous hand, who ought to have been surprised at
+nothing, was simply full of incredulous amazement at his last lovely
+find. In his whole carefully cultivated career as a <i>roué</i> he had never
+come across so much yielding and so much pride, so much fire, ready
+wit, and quick understanding, so much naïve simplicity, as were
+comprised in this one dreamily smiling Madonna-faced child.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Perhaps he was most taken aback and puzzled by her utter
+unpretentiousness. When they dined <i>à la carte</i>, she invariably
+selected for herself the very cheapest items on the menu, and would ask
+if she might have lemonade to drink with as much shy modesty as if she
+were making a love confession.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Once, on their way back from the public gardens, when they wandered
+home through queer little back streets, Lilly, who resolutely declined
+as a rule to look in at shop-windows, stood transfixed before a small
+greengrocer's. The colonel, on inquiring what interested her, elicited
+gradually that she loved eating sunflower seeds, and would he mind very
+much if she bought some?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The mote he loaded her with presents, the less able did she seem to
+realise that money was being spent on her account. So long had been the
+dearth of money in her life, that now she had no discrimination as to
+the value of it. However big the sum he placed in her purse, she did
+not hesitate to hand it out to the first beggar they met. But when he
+paid a flower-girl two marks for a rose she thought it wicked
+extravagance.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Once when she had tickled his fastidious palate beyond belief by her
+<i>naïveté</i>, he asked in sudden distrust, &quot;I say, little woman, are you
+acting?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She didn't know what he meant, and with the wide melancholy eyes of
+childlike innocence, which she used to turn on him at such questions,
+she replied, &quot;Acting indeed! Since papa went away I haven't seen any
+acting, or been inside a theatre once.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The same day he took a box for the play, and she danced about the room
+with the little blue tickets in her hand, half mad with delight. But
+her joyous enthusiasm was somewhat damped by being told that the
+occasion demanded evening dress. It was incomprehensible to her that to
+appreciate Shakespeare's &quot;Winter's Tale&quot; you should be obliged to bare
+your neck and shoulders. The evening gowns, besides, seemed far too
+grand for her. In selecting one to wear, she hovered round them with
+their glittering, jewelled trimmings and exquisite lace as gingerly as
+if they were a bed of nettles. In a generous mood the colonel had
+ordered the gowns, for no particular reason, for to take Lilly into
+society as yet was not to be thought of.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">When she came to him dressed, stiff and stern-eyed from embarrassment,
+yet glowing with a feverish joy in her finery, taller and more of a
+budding Venus than ever, her delicate rounded breast half hidden in a
+mass of soft lace, the fabulously beautiful chain of pearls on her
+swan-like throat, the elderly robber went into such ecstasies over his
+booty that he was near ordering the finery back into the wardrobe, and
+throwing the theatre tickets into the waste-paper basket; but she
+implored him so fervently to keep his promise that he thought better of
+it and got into the carriage with her.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Then, he, who imagined he had long ago outlived the commonplace vanity
+of delighting to show off his possessions in public, experienced a
+triumph. The <i>blasé</i> old bachelor found himself enjoying the sensation
+of being envied, and, though he accepted it disdainfully as a matter of
+course, he was tremendously flattered.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Directly Lilly entered the box she was the cynosure of all eyes.
+Everyone speculated as to what the relationship could be between this
+extraordinarily handsome and distinguished pair, and when after the
+first act a thousand tongues of light leapt out again from the ceiling,
+opera-glasses were levelled at them, and a hubbub of questioning
+comment passed from mouth to mouth.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was the first time Lilly had ever witnessed a play from a box, and
+her first instinct was to hide herself at the back, but she had already
+learnt blind obedience to his commands, and when he pointed to the
+chair beside him she meekly subsided into it. Then, as she became aware
+of the universal notice she attracted, that strange numbness and
+feeling of detachment came over her. It seemed to her when she moved,
+smiled, or spoke, someone else was doing it all--another person with
+whom she herself had only a chance connection.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Not till the lights were lowered and the curtain went up again did she
+awake from her lethargy. Then she followed the poet into his enchanted
+realms with breathless excitement and delicate thrills of suspense.
+After this two Lillies sat in the box--one Lilly in blissful
+self-oblivion flitted through heaven and hell on the rainbow wings of
+her childhood's phantasy; the other, like a wound-up doll, made stilted
+gestures and strove unconsciously to imitate the manners of the
+well-bred, feeling all the time a hot sweet torturing sensation
+creeping over her, the intoxication of vanity.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Afterwards the colonel, not satisfied with his triumph at the theatre,
+instead of having supper as usual served upstairs, went with Lilly on
+his arm into the public dining-room where an Hungarian band was
+playing, and elegant people supped and displayed their fine feathers.
+Here the little drama of the box was enacted over again, save that
+Lilly, carried away by the wild dreamy melodies of the violins, let her
+awkward shyness drop from her, and expanding a little, with flaming
+cheeks and shining eyes, dared to play her small part.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Opposite them, two tables further on, sat a fair young man, with
+expansive white shirt-front and black tie, like all the others. He
+stared at her with unflinching persistence, as if she were some rare
+wild animal.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She writhed under the fire of this gaze, that caressed and hurt her at
+the same time and spoke a foreign language to her with the violins, the
+notes of which quivered down her spine and throbbed feverishly through
+her being.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Suddenly her husband turned round and caught the admirer in the act of
+staring. He pierced him with his dagger-like glance to such effect that
+the fair-haired man speedily rose and disappeared. But the colonel's
+pleasure seemed spoilt. &quot;Come, it's late,&quot; he said, and led her away.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">As soon as he had her to himself again his pride in his treasure broke
+out anew. It became a sort of unbridled frenzy. Lilly had to undress,
+as she had often done before, and pose in numerous attitudes, both
+classical and the reverse. Then, to wind up, she was compelled to don
+the silver-spangled gauze garment, which he had bought for her during
+their first days in Dresden, arrayed in which he liked her to dance to
+him before going to bed. The metal threads sent ice-cold shivers down
+her limbs, and pricked her skin like needles, but as it was his wish,
+and his wish was law, she made no demur.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">In bed he lit another cigarette, and while she sat on the edge of the
+bed he amused himself by telling her risqué anecdotes, which he
+described as &quot;his little girl's lullaby.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">After this, the colonel preferred to take meals regularly in the
+dining-room. He wished to enjoy to the full the piquant pleasure of
+seeing his young wife openly admired and unblushingly desired. The
+value of his property seemed to rise in proportion to the extent that
+he was envied by others for its possession.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And Lilly, for her part, could watch for the intoxicated sensations of
+that evening to awake in her ever anew. She might under drooping lids
+see and feel all those young, hot pairs of eyes around her hang
+burningly on hers, full of hopeless passion and desire; might,
+accompanied by the sad wail of the violins and the clash of the
+cymbals, take flight into those Elysian fields whither her road had
+been barred--she knew not how or why--since her great good fortune had
+come to her.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Never did she dream of permitting herself, even by the quiver of an
+eyelash, to return any of those ardent glances. The young men who gazed
+at her were only accessories to the scene, as indispensable as the
+lights, the band, the flowers, the white tablecloths, and the cigarette
+smoke which rose to the ceiling in little blue columns.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Nevertheless, one day, as she was walking arm-in-arm with her husband
+in the street, one of those glances shot her through the heart like an
+arrow. It proceeded from a pair of dark eyes, which even from a
+distance were fixed on her inquiringly, and flared up as they came
+nearer into a flash of melancholy fire and recognition.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She felt as if she must run after him as he walked on, and ask, &quot;Who
+are you? Do you belong to me? ... Do you want me to belong to you?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Then she committed the indiscretion of turning round to look at him. It
+was only for the fraction of a second, but her husband had remarked it,
+for when she again looked in front of her, she felt his vigilant eye
+was upon her, full of threatening suspicion. He nodded two or three
+times as if to say, &quot;So it's come to this already.&quot; For the rest of the
+day he was preoccupied and bad-tempered.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The incident was but the first of a series for Lilly. Not that she ever
+met that identical youth again, though she kept on the lookout for him.
+He was succeeded by innumerable others. Those she met, from this time,
+were no longer unsubstantial shadows of a vision she saw as if they
+were not there. Now, when she beheld a slight youthful figure coming
+towards them, she wondered what he would be like near, and if he would
+look at her. And should his aspect please her, and his gaze without
+being impertinent express admiring astonishment and longing, she would
+often feel a pang at her heart and say to herself, &quot;You are far more
+suited to him than to the old man on whose arm you are leaning.&quot; And
+every time it happened she felt very sad.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Still sadder did she feel when someone, whose appearance she liked,
+took no notice of her. &quot;I am not good enough for him,&quot; she would think.
+&quot;He despises me. I wonder why he despises me?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">In fashionable resorts, such as the dining-room of the Brühlische
+Terrace, where there was a perpetual crossfire of covert glances, her
+attitude towards the outside world began gradually to alter. She would
+acknowledge the incense burnt at her shrine by an ever so slight
+grateful uplifting of her eyes. She returned without shyness the
+scrutiny of ladies, and in spite of being blessed with sight as keen as
+a falcon's, she would dearly have loved to possess a lorgnette like
+theirs.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She was often tormented with a desire to look deep into eyes that
+rested on her without reserve, fear or restraint. It would have been a
+mystical union of souls, which would have done her infinite good; for
+she could not disguise the fact from herself any longer--she was
+hungering for something, hungering as she had never hungered in her
+life before.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The colonel appeared perfectly oblivious of what was passing within
+her. But he waged bitter warfare with all who laid siege to her with
+their glances. The old Uhlan was incessantly on the watch, and was
+ready to stab on the instant with his eye's deadly darts the too
+persistent and ardent adorers. But there were some who were not in the
+least discomposed by his threatening demeanour, and who even had the
+audacity to return the compliment and look daggers at him. This made
+him uneasy, and he would fidget with his card-case, look as if he were
+going to write something, then put the pencil away; and generally he
+ended by saying, &quot;We seem in undesirable company here. Come, let us
+go!&quot; Yet, despite these uncomfortable experiences out of doors, he
+found it less and less possible to live at home completely <i>a deux</i>
+with his young wife. From his youth upwards he had been accustomed to
+gay society, and he liked noise, laughter, and light around him.
+Nevertheless, his suspicions grew and centred on Lilly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">One day he put a stop to her early church-going, in which she found her
+greatest solace. The impulse she had followed on the first morning that
+she awakened by his side had become by degrees a habit. While he slept
+on in profound slumber, she softly rose and dressed herself and glided
+out in the freshness of the dawn. It is true that her church-going
+consisted often of merely dipping her fingers in the holy water and
+curtseying three times. Now and then she contented herself by passing
+the church door with an untroubled conscience and not going in at all.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">This was her hour of freedom, precious to her as gold, the only one
+that she had entirely to herself in the course of the whole day. She
+hurried first to the Augustus Bridge, offered her face to the breezes
+that blew there from every point of the compass, and watched the water
+rolling under her feet. Next she flew along the bank, like a whirlwind,
+for she wanted to take in as many fresh impressions and pictures as she
+could, before creeping back into the connubial yoke. Everything that
+happened in this blessed hour was fraught with significance.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was all experience, all happiness--the rosy early morning mist
+hanging over the hills and descending in golden shafts on to the river;
+the jangle of bells from the Altstadt; the first coy bursting of the
+buds on the russet boughs; the big waggons rumbling to market; the
+hissing of the swaying electric wires overhead when a tramcar passed.
+On these excursions she might even indulge in shop-gazing, as there was
+no fear of Nemesis in the shape of a present. How greedily she gloated
+over pictures and <i>objets d'art</i>!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And now all this was to end. It was over. The gates through which she
+escaped for one single hour from the perfumed idleness and hothouse
+closeness of her gilded prison clanged behind her. But so pliable and
+yielding was her nature that not once in the secret depths of her heart
+did she complain. He wished it, and that was enough. Such powers of
+love lay idle within her, crying out for employment, that at this
+period of inward struggle she was obliged, whether she liked it or not,
+to give him a double share of tenderness, even whether her thoughts
+were with him or cantering off on a secret path of dreams.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She was his slave, his plaything, his attentive audience. She valeted
+him, praised his personal beauty, massaged his thighs with salves,
+arranged the hare-skin on his loins to charm away his gout, gave him
+his carbonate of soda to correct indiscretions in diet, dressed his
+grizzled locks with a hairwash, the pungent odour of which turned her
+sick, and looked on, giving him the benefit of her artistic taste and
+advice, while he tinted his moustache. And she did it all with eager
+zeal and naïve self-reliance, as if in tending and coaxing him she had
+found the very aim and end of her existence.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">In the process, however, he became divested for her of every rag of his
+godlike attributes, so that nothing was left but a once soldierly,
+though now vain, and capricious man--mentally effete, for all his
+vaunted intellect; brutal, for all his refined tastes, with his
+appetites prematurely sated and enervated.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Not that she was really clear in her mind with regard to these defects
+of his qualities. If she had been, it is possible that she might have
+loathed and despised him. She was too young and ignorant of the world
+to know that life is like a witch's cauldron, which brews out of the
+souls of all men much the same mess, when ideals bleach with their hair
+and they have no altar on which to gain salvation through sacrifice.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The pictures her imagination painted of him faded and shifted from day
+to day, first in one direction, then in another, until something like
+pity mingled with her childlike respectful awe of him, and a certain
+motherliness that would have been unnatural, had it not had its
+foundations in the goodness of heart that found in the weaknesses of
+others an object for its fostering care.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Ah! if only she did not long for so much. Every day she sat at a
+sumptuously spread table and longed for more!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She read eagerly every morning the notices posted up in the vestibule
+of the hotel, giving a list of the evening's amusements. But the
+colonel would hurry her on--in the narrow groove of his small garrison
+he and the arts had become estranged. The organs necessary for the
+enjoyment of such things from long disuse had become decayed, and he
+shrank from the mental exertion required to galvanise them into
+activity once more.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The music-hall variety performances, boxing matches, ballets, and
+garish living-pictures, in which he took pleasure, were abhorrent to
+Lilly after she had once witnessed them out of curiosity. He declared
+that wild horses should not drag him again to Shakespeare or Wagner,
+nor to the concert-room, where Lilly longed to go.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">One day Beethoven's Symphony in C Minor was among the
+announcements--the great work which was associated by a thousand tender
+ties with her childhood. She said nothing at the time, but afterwards
+she threw herself on her bed and cried bitterly. When he asked the
+cause of her grief she told him, and with a laugh he consented to be
+bored for once, and took her to the concert.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She had not been into a concert-room since her father's last pianoforte
+recital. She trembled as they took their places, fought back her tears
+and drew in the atmosphere in deep-drawn draughts.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You are snorting like a horse when he smells oats,&quot; the colonel said
+jocularly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Haven't you noticed that it always smells the same in concert-rooms?&quot;
+she asked in joyous excitement. &quot;It was just like this in ours at
+home.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He couldn't remember what the concert-hall atmosphere was like, nor
+could he remember anything about the Symphony in C Minor.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It's all rot,&quot; he said.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The part of the programme that preceded the Symphony was of no interest
+to her. She only wanted to listen to the trumpet-blast of fate--the
+call that she had heard first as she stood on the threshold of
+womanhood, and had been shaken to the foundations of her soul by a
+feeling of presentiment. And it came--came and thundered at every
+heart, and set trembling the knees of all those who were bound up
+together as fellow-combatants in the struggle against the mighty
+strokes of fate, and set them writhing as impotently as worms under the
+spell of a great power and a common fear.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Her husband hummed to himself, half-amused, &quot;Ti-ti-ti-tum.&quot; That was
+all it meant to him: &quot;Ti-ti-ti-tum.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">As she turned to rebuke him softly into being quiet, she observed a
+tuft of yellowish-grey hair sprouting out of the cavity of his ear. She
+had never noticed it before, and it revolted her.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What can you expect, when he has hair growing out of his ears?&quot; she
+thought, as if this physical defect accounted for his lack of an ear
+for music. A profound feeling of dejection came over her. Never again
+would she be able to rejoice in the beautiful; never again stretch out
+her arms in worship of great heroic deeds; never again slack her thirst
+for higher and purer things at the fountains of inspiration.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The man who hummed &quot;Ti-ti-ti-tum&quot; and had hair growing out of his ears
+would be a barrier for evermore between her and all lofty living.
+The soothing sound of the violins did not console, the melancholy
+self-surrender of the Andante awoke no responsive echoes within her,
+the victorious jubilation of the Finale brought her no victory.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She left the hall with her yawning husband, humiliated, miserable, and
+disgusted with herself. But her joy in life was of too robust a growth,
+her faith in the sunny side of human nature too unwavering, for such
+moods of depression to be of long duration. Soon after the concert
+something happened, which gave her hopes new wings and raised her again
+to giddy heights.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Without having made any definite plans, it had seemed to be an
+understood thing that they were to stay in Dresden, or some other large
+town, till May, when they would proceed to Lischnitz, where, in the
+absence of the master of the castle, the often talked of Fräulein von
+Schwertfeger held the reins of management. One evening, however, the
+colonel, who was eternally vacillating between confidence in and
+distrust of his girl-wife, was seized with a panic of doubt, and in
+order to lay bare the innermost secrets of her soul he began to
+cross-examine her on her previous love affairs.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly, as usual, unsuspecting, related glibly first the story of Fritz
+Redlich, because he was the more important love, and, secondly, that of
+the poor consumptive assistant master.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Her husband, in spite of his jealous misgivings, had retained his
+clearness of judgment sufficiently to appreciate the guilelessness of
+Lilly's conscience, and he now threw his suspicions to the wind with a
+laugh that he generally reserved for his broadest jokes.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly, having begun, was anxious to play further on her husband's
+emotions, so she went on to describe the wonderful lectures on the
+history of art, and how the poor invalid lecturer had infected her with
+his own burning yearnings to see Italy.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Her cheeks flamed, her eyes swam under her heavily drooping lids, as
+she went on giving voice to her dreams and drawing word-pictures,
+almost forgetful that she had a listener.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Suddenly he asked, &quot;Shall we go there?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She couldn't answer. The very proposal seemed too much bliss. Then he
+began to think it over seriously. A man might just as well get into the
+train and be landed at Milan or Verona as mope in one place and be
+worried to death by stupid fools dogging your footsteps. Lilly flung
+her arms round his neck, then threw herself at his feet. This was
+indeed too much happiness.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Her life now became an alternate dream of ecstasy and a fever of
+anxiety, for something might always happen to prevent their going.
+First, they had to wait for the knickerbocker suit, which he ordered at
+a tailor's as the correct get-up for travelling, and then there were a
+dozen other delays. The truth may have been that he was pondering
+whether he could command enough youthful agility to keep pace with her
+excessive <i>élan</i> and capacity for enjoyment.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Then a certain incident hurried on their departure. For several days
+they had been shadowed by a fair-haired, bull-necked young man, six
+feet in height, who with stubborn pertinacity tried to attract Lilly's
+attention. Judging by his appearance he was probably an Anglo-Saxon
+tourist. There was in his manner a lofty nonchalance which rendered him
+absolutely indifferent to the threatening darts of the colonel's eyes.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">For the first time Lilly saw her husband plunged in deep thought. He
+paced the room, muttering to himself repeatedly, &quot;I shall have to box
+his ears&quot;; or, &quot;I must find a second.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The next day, when this irrepressible person followed them at a few
+yards' distance across the Schlossplatz, the colonel wheeled round and
+confronted him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The fair giant measured him from top to toe without removing his short
+pipe from between his lips.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I may look at anyone I choose to,&quot; he said in broken German, &quot;and I
+may go anywhere I choose to.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He made a gesture as if he meant to turn up his coat-sleeves and struck
+an extremely pugilistic attitude, which discouraged all idea of
+inflicting on him a chivalrous correction.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The colonel, with a final attempt to bring the matter to an honourable
+issue, handed him his visiting-card, which the stranger put in his
+pocket with a friendly &quot;Thank you, sir,&quot; without evidently the least
+notion of what this formality portended. A little crowd began to
+collect, and there was nothing left for the colonel but to turn his
+back on him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The result of this passage of arms was, that in future the Englishman
+considered it his right to bestow on Lilly and her husband a greeting
+when they met. And the colonel, who tried unsuccessfully to stifle his
+consciousness of having made himself ridiculous in a torrent of oaths,
+resolved to leave Dresden on the spot.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">In Munich, where they stopped a few days, it being the middle of April,
+to pay their respects at the Hofbräuhaus, nothing happened of a
+ruffling nature. But the colonel had become nervous. He cast furious
+and intimidating glances at the most harmless admirers, and began to
+heap reproaches on Lilly's head. It seemed as if everyone at a first
+glance, he said, could divine she was not a lady, otherwise she would
+not attract so much vulgar notice. At another time Lilly would have
+been bitterly grieved, but now she was unmoved. She only smiled
+absently, for her spirit was far away, and already she fancied that she
+breathed the air of the promised land, on whose threshold she believed
+she was standing. One night more in the train, a short day in Bozen,
+and then the magic gates would swing back. Nothing now could prevent
+the fulfilment of bliss.</p>
+
+<hr class="W20">
+
+<p class="normal">They were in a compartment of the express, which leaves Munich late in
+the evening and crosses the Brenner Pass in the gloom of early morning.
+Lilly and her husband sat in the corner seats by the windows. Not far
+from them, on the corridor side, a young man had taken his place with a
+pleasant smile, and then, without heeding his fellow-travellers, had
+soon become deep in a book that appeared to be written in Italian.
+Probably he was Italian too, an ambassador from that earthly paradise
+come to bid her welcome. Her interest in him was thus instantly
+arrested. From under her lowered lids, apparently asleep, she studied
+him. His severely cut even features were of a peculiar milky ivory
+colour. There was not a line or wrinkle in his clear skin, which looked
+as smooth as enamel. A small, dark, slightly curled moustache adorned
+his upper lip. The crisp hair on his temples was so closely cropped
+that the skin underneath gleamed through. She wanted to see what his
+eyes were like, but these were kept obstinately bent on his book,
+though he seemed to be only skimming the pages.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">What excited her admiring wonder about him most was the finished grace
+of his movements. It was almost as if a young woman were disguised in
+that black and white check suit, which charmed her eye with its
+<i>distingué</i> cut. His throat disclosed a peep of a violet and dark-red
+striped silk shirt, under the soft collar of which a green tie was
+carelessly knotted.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">All this was not in the least bizarre in effect, but harmonised
+perfectly. The costume apparently had been chosen with care and taste,
+and, together with his total disregard of herself, it exercised a
+fascination on Lilly. She could almost believe that this young
+stranger, by his dress, bearing, and especially by his disregard of her
+presence, was compelling her notice.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Absurd as it was, she felt quite nervous. When they reached the
+Austrian frontier and the custom-house officials entered the carriage,
+he said a few foreign words in a low tone, which the officials
+evidently understood, for they turned away from him with low bows.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">At the same moment he raised his eyes and let them wander round the
+carriage, and while the colonel was opening his bag, they rested for a
+second on her. What curious eyes they were! A dark, diamond-like
+radiance shot from them, yet they caressed, yes, caressed with a wicked
+confident tenderness, full of impatient questions--questions that made
+you blush.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The next minute it was as if nothing had happened. He bent over his
+book as before, and appeared not to have seen her.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Her husband gave her a look of watchful cunning as if he had discovered
+something in her face for which he had long been searching. Then, when
+the train went on again, he settled himself to sleep. For greater
+comfort he moved to the unoccupied seat next to the corridor. The
+stranger, wishing to avoid being opposite him, involuntarily shifted
+his position more towards the middle, so that the distance between
+himself and Lilly was appreciably diminished. A little more, and he
+would have been sitting directly opposite her.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Had Lilly been on her guard she would have paid more attention to her
+husband's sleep. But all her senses were centred on a desire to elude
+the stranger, whose proximity pricked her with a thousand needles.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She drew far back into her corner and looked intermittently out of the
+window, on the dark background of which the interior of the carriage
+was reflected as in a mirror. In this way she could contemplate him in
+peace, untroubled by a fear of his looking up and catching her. The
+light from the lamp in the ceiling sharply illumined his smooth, soft
+cheeks, with their polished surface merging into blue shadows on the
+temples. Such cheeks were surely made to be stroked and pressed
+against yours; to pass your hand over them would be a joy. And how
+long his eyelashes were--longer than her own--their shadow cast dark
+semi-circles as far down as his finely chiselled nostrils.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Suddenly he raised his eyes again and looked at her. There it was
+again, that dark caressing glance--cold, and yet how seductive!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She shrank back frightened, and was more frightened still at the
+thought that he might have seen her shrinking away from him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He gave a scarcely perceptible smile, and went on again with his book;
+and still she continued to weave anxious and flattering thoughts around
+him--thoughts that were criminal in themselves, which descended on her
+like an avalanche that she hadn't the power to ward off. And then, all
+at once, with an icy chill at her heart, she felt a soft, tender
+pressure on her left foot, which she must by accident have thrust
+towards the centre of the gangway, for a moment before it had been
+resting on her right foot, which was still pressed close to the door of
+the compartment.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">What was to be done? An indignant &quot;I beg your pardon,&quot; an angry rising
+from her seat, would have awakened the colonel, and given cause for
+fresh suspicion and perhaps a duel. So she slowly, with extreme
+caution, withdrew her foot from under his and pressed it against the
+cushions, to be quite sure that she had rescued it. But she felt that
+the moment of hesitation had made her a participator in the crime, and
+this conviction oppressed and weighed on her more than her train of
+sinful thoughts had a few minutes before tormented her.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">In her own eyes she appeared dishonoured, polluted, a prey to any and
+every licentious man who crossed her path. But why blame him? Was not
+his impertinently expressed desire merely the fulfilment of her own
+impure wishes? The reflection half suffocated her. She wanted to spring
+up, cry aloud, and ask to be forgiven. The stranger, however, went on
+reading calmly, as if nothing at all had occurred.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">There was a glimmer of grey dawn when Lilly started up out of a
+half-waking doze. She saw a waterfall tossing its white foam beneath
+her; beyond towered huge moss-crowned rocks against the sky. It was a
+picture she had dreamed of, but never seen, appealing and impressive in
+its rugged grandeur and massive strength. All that had passed before
+she fell asleep seemed now a grotesque phantasmagoria devoid of
+reality. She glanced round the carriage nervously, and saw the stranger
+stretched out at full length, repulsive in sleep, his cheeks inflated
+and puffy as his breath came and went in heavy gasps. He looked to her
+now pasty and effeminate, and she loathed him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She turned away in disgust and caught her husband's eyes wide open,
+fixed on her in severe reproof. She started guiltily.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Can't you sleep any longer?&quot; she asked, with a forced smile.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I have not slept at all,&quot; he answered.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">There was something in his voice that set her trembling anew. It
+accused and condemned at the same time. And how angrily he looked at
+her!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The journey was continued in silence, and she paid no further heed to
+the stranger.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">After taking rooms at Bozen, the colonel came to Lilly and said: &quot;Look
+here, my dear girl, this can't go on. I am tired of the unpleasantness
+to which I am subjected day after day. How far your appearance and
+behaviour or my age are accountable, I cannot say. We will not discuss
+the point. I have no charge of glaring misconduct and bad taste to
+bring against you. One does not expect the manners of a <i>grande dame</i>
+from anyone who a few months ago was serving behind a counter. It
+requires time to instruct you in such, and I can with confidence hand
+over your further education to our excellent Fräulein von Schwertfeger.
+So, if you please, we will change our plans and return to Germany by
+the midday train. On the evening of the day after to-morrow, perhaps
+earlier, we shall reach my estate.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lily was too crushed and miserable to make any objection. And the land
+of promise, the goal of her dreams, sank beneath the waves.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+
+<h2>CHAPTER XV</h2>
+<br>
+
+<p class="continue">They arrived at Lischnitz in the small hours of Sunday
+morning. The
+colonel had forbidden any ceremonious reception, so that there was
+nothing to be seen in the faint moonlight as they drove up but the dark
+mass of shadows cast by the castle and its outbuildings. A couple of
+maid-servants stood on the steps with lanterns in their hands, and a
+tall lady, with a too slight figure, a wasp-like waist and a flaming
+aureole of red-gold hair sprinkled with grey, threw two thin arms round
+Lilly's neck, and in a plaintive, discordant voice spoke motherly words
+of welcome, which instead of warming Lilly's heart filled it with
+shyness and dread.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Worn out, Lilly sank on to a billowy white bed, on the gilded posts of
+which pale-blue satin bows were perched like strange and wonderful
+butterflies. On the wings of these butterflies Lilly was carried out of
+a restless sleep into the new day of a new life.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">A gold lamp, with opalescent glass and pale-blue silk shade, hung from
+the ceiling. The walls were wainscoted with white enamelled woodwork,
+and between were panels of brocade in the same shade of pale blue as
+the counterpane, hangings, and lamp-shade. Through the heavy curtains a
+ray of sunlight revealed all this on its way over the old-gold Persian
+carpet, patterned with pale-blue wreaths.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly, with an ecstatic exclamation, jumped out of bed and tripped
+about on the soft carpet, the pile rising like waves of velvet over her
+feet.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Nothing was to be seen or heard of the colonel. He had told her long
+ago that they would have separate rooms, but his must be somewhere
+near, perhaps on the other side of that glossy white carved door.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She opened it cautiously and peeped in. The window curtains were
+hardly drawn back, the monster dark mahogany bed, with its tumbled
+pillows, was empty. There were prints of race-horses on the walls,
+hunting-crops, pistols, and military accoutrements. On the round table
+by the sofa was a pipe-rack and tobacco-jar, and close to the bed lay
+the familiar tube of gout ointment. Last night, then, he must have
+massaged himself, and had thus deprived her of her sacred duty. In the
+midst of her wounded feelings a shiver ran through her. Everything here
+was so strangely hard and relentless; threats seemed to be lurking in
+the corners. Hastily she shut the door again and withdrew into her pale
+blue kingdom.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The room boasted two more doors; one led into the corridor, for through
+it Fräulein von Schwertfeger had brought her the night before. And once
+more she shivered. Without any preliminaries, as a matter of course,
+the thin melancholy person with lustreless eyes and imperious manner
+had yesterday taken possession of her. She and the colonel had
+exchanged a glance--a brief glance of understanding which meant, &quot;I
+hand her over to you,&quot; on one side, &quot;And I am ready to do my best,&quot; on
+the other; she was therefore at the spinster's mercy. Certainly she had
+made an attempt to cajole Lilly by petting and addressing her by
+endearing names, and bringing tea with her own hands to her bedside;
+yet the girl, who was ordinarily so frankly responsive and trustful of
+everyone, whether man or woman, felt conscious of an inward voice where
+this woman was concerned calling aloud, &quot;Beware!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Now, as she gazed at the door which the claw-like fingers had thrown
+open for her, and recalled some of the chilling incidents of her
+arrival, a great loneliness and despondency oppressed her heart in
+spite of her newly acquired splendour.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">With impetuous hands she flung on the morning wrapper, which Fräulein
+von Schwertfeger must have unpacked, for it was hanging beside the bed.
+The third door remained to be explored, and Lilly hoped that it would
+lead her into the open air. She raised the latch softly, inquisitively,
+and with a little cry recoiled. Her eyes were dazzled at what she saw.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">A small room, flooded with sunshine and filled with flowers, laughed at
+her like a garden from paradise. Azaleas, as tall as a man, spread
+their coronets of pink blossoms over a lounge piled with cushions; a
+sweet little escritoire stood near it, inlaid with tortoise-shell and
+mother-of-pearl, and above waved the fronds of a feathery palm. But
+that was not the most beautiful thing; the most beautiful and
+surprising thing of all was the toilette-table. Veiled in white
+lace, it greeted her modestly from a corner. The top was a sheet of
+thick crystal glass polished at the edges, and on it stood a tall
+three-sided swing-mirror, in which you could see every part of yourself
+at once--your back hair, profile, dress fastening and all. Long had she
+wished for a mirror like this, but would never have dared to ask for
+it.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">This enchanting little room was, of course, the boudoir. Lilly Czepanek
+with a boudoir! Was such a miracle to be believed? An array of articles
+was laid out on the glass top of the dressing-table. You could not take
+them all in at a first glance, however wide you opened your eyes:
+ivory-backed hairbrushes, a set of four, hard and soft, a hand-glass
+with a daintily carved handle, a powder-puff in a round ivory box, a
+glove-buttoner and shoe-horn--all silver and ivory. And more, still
+more! Whoever saw such things? Only by degrees could you learn for what
+mysteries of the toilette they were designed, and on every single one
+flaunted in glistening gold the monogram &quot;L. M.&quot; under the coronet with
+seven points.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was enough to drive you crazy with delight! Having gloried in
+everything to her heart's content, she proceeded on her triumphal march
+through her new territory. The room she was in had only one window, or
+rather a glass door. This opened on to a balcony, where a rocking-chair
+was placed, and where over a high iron trellis-work young creepers
+rambled. Later in the year, when the leaves were fully out, you would
+be quite shut in by high green walls; but now, in early spring, you
+could easily be seen through the spaces in the leaves from below.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She slipped cautiously out through the glass door into the open air.
+The stables and barns were seen on her left above the kitchen-garden
+wall, forming a quadrangle round the yard; to the right were gigantic
+trees, their trunks green with moss, their tangle of boughs only thinly
+covered as yet with tender young leaves and buds. In them the birds
+were making a vociferous riot, almost deafening to hear. Straight
+opposite, at a few yards' distance, a gabled roof rose among the trees,
+belonging to an ancient one-storeyed shooting lodge that abutted on the
+park, and apparently had its entrance in the yard. Here at last some
+human creatures were visible. Two gentlemen, one with a short grey
+beard, the other middle-aged, stout, and as brown as a berry, walked up
+and down together smoking, and deep in conversation. And a third----</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Why! what did this mean? That slim, muscular youth with the high collar
+and light yellow gaiters, sitting on the outside of one of the windows
+at the gable end, while he coaxed a red puppy on a leash to climb
+his knee--who was he? No other than Walter von Prell! Yes, there could
+be no doubt about it! It was her lively comrade, the dear little
+ex-lieutenant who boasted that he was unblessed with any sort of moral
+sense, the only man in all the world who had kissed her lips ... except
+the colonel, who didn't count.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Yes, she recognised the light eyelashes, and the jingling gold bangle
+and the light almost inaudible laugh, which every time the red dog with
+pricked ears fell off his knee convulsed him like an earthquake. The
+one thing different about him was that his hair, close cropped of old,
+like yellow velvet, was now rather long and straggling.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly stretched out her arms toward him playfully, with a light-hearted
+laugh.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Herr von Prell! Herr von Prell!&quot; she would have liked to call out, but
+fortunately stopped herself in time.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Well, at any rate, she was no longer quite alone in this strange world.
+Her merry comrade was here to be her knight and playmate; she owed all
+her good fortune to him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Then it came back to her how he had said that the old colonel was &quot;dead
+nuts&quot; on him, and wanted him to come and play &quot;Fritz Triddelfitz&quot;--she
+knew her &quot;Stromtid&quot;--on his estate.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Only, it was funny that the colonel had in all these weeks never
+mentioned that he was there. He did not talk much about his home,
+however, and Fräulein von Schwertfeger was alone alluded to when his
+young wife needed a reprimand.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Did he suspect that it was no other than Prell who had discovered her
+and brought her into the light of day? Anyhow, she would certainly not
+let the morning pass without telling the colonel and Fräulein von
+Schwertfeger that they were old acquaintances. It would not be
+necessary to say anything about the kiss. After all, it had meant
+nothing more than a kiss in a game of kiss-in-the-ring.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">No sooner had she got back to her bedroom and pulled back the curtains
+than someone knocked at the door, three short, impatient taps which
+seemed to freeze the marrow in her bones. It was Fräulein von
+Schwertfeger, of course. Who else could make her tremble so with
+fright? Her forehead was kissed, her cheeks stroked with every sign of
+approval and liking. But the glance of the great colourless eyes
+measured her from head to foot; a sour suppressed smile hovered about
+the hard-cut mouth, round which the skin was red and baggy, as is often
+the case when women with once good complexions age prematurely.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Over her arm was thrown a pile of clothes, which Lilly recognised as
+her own.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I have brought you what you will require, my dear child,&quot; she said,
+&quot;so that you may dress properly for the morning. In the country it is
+not customary to fly about the house in a morning wrapper. Meanwhile,
+after breakfast, we are to make a little tour of the estate, so that
+you can become acquainted with the people and see how the household
+works.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Shall I do the housekeeping?&quot; asked Lilly, shyly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;If you understand how,&quot; said Fräulein Schwertfeger, and bit her lips
+while her half-closed eyes squinted askance.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly dimly apprehended that her harmless question had been taken as a
+suggestion of infringing rights. So to make amends for her want of tact
+the added haltingly, &quot;At least, I should like to do it if I----&quot; She
+was going to add, &quot;am allowed,&quot; but Fräulein Schwertfeger interrupted.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;My dear,&quot; she said, drawing herself up, &quot;you have come here as
+mistress, and I am perfectly aware of the fact. But, if I may venture
+to advise, I should make no demands in your place to begin with; you
+will have enough to do in attending to your own behaviour. On this will
+depend your ever becoming in reality what you are now in name only.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly felt too snubbed and depressed to answer.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The duenna was showing her hand already.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I should advise you further,&quot; she went on, &quot;to feel very carefully the
+ground on which you will afterwards have to move. For this you will
+need a guide who is more familiar with it than yourself. Otherwise you
+may be landed in difficulties from which you can never be rescued, and
+that, considering your relations to the colonel, would be a great
+pity.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Tears began to rise in Lilly's eyes. The old feeling of impotence,
+which she considered her greatest fault, overcame her.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Oh, please, don't <i>you</i> be my enemy,&quot; she implored, clasping her
+hands.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">There was a sudden ray of light in Fräulein von Schwertfeger's eyes,
+which lay usually like extinct volcanoes beneath their heavy lids, and
+whether it meant inquiry, astonishment, or compassion was not quite
+clear. For a moment she continued to stare before her into space, and
+Lilly beheld a grand noble profile that looked as if it had been
+chiselled out of marble and seemed to belong to someone quite
+different.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Then she found herself being encircled by two long thin arms, and held
+in an embrace warmer and sincerer than any of the endearments Fräulein
+von Schwertfeger had previously lavished on her.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;My dear child!&quot; she exclaimed, &quot;you really are a dear child,&quot; and she
+departed.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Half an hour later Lilly, attired in the clothes Fräulein von
+Schwertfeger had chosen for her, entered the dining-room, where old
+Ferdinand, a withered, spindle-legged specimen of the ancient retainer,
+was laying the breakfast. The impudent footman with the significant
+smile was not there, Lilly was thankful to see.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The colonel came in from his early morning ride. His eyes sparkled with
+the landlord's pride in his property. His thin cheeks glowed and
+dewdrops hung on the grey bristles on his temples. His tweed jacket
+became him, and his bowlegs were hidden beneath the table. Altogether
+he looked a fine old Nimrod, both wicked and pleasing. Lilly flew into
+his arms, and with a glance round he asked:</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Well? How do you like your home?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly kissed his hand for calling it <i>her</i> home.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The dining-room was long and lofty, vaulted at each end, and filled
+with dark carved-oak furniture. In spite of three bay windows opening
+on the terrace the room was dimly lighted. From the terrace, railed
+flights of steps led down into the park, where the sunbeams, playing on
+the young foliage, made a lacework of green.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">At breakfast they discussed the circular route which was to be taken to
+show the young mistress her new domain. The colonel had no idea of
+presenting her formally to the tenants. She was to take them as she
+found them in their Sunday best, and they might gaze their fill at her
+as she passed.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The head men on the estate, who from time immemorial had dined at the
+castle on Sundays, would pay their respects to her later at dinner.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The latest addition to them was once one of my officers, a Herr von
+Prell,&quot; the colonel remarked, giving Lilly a reflective look. &quot;He left
+the army before I did, and has come here to learn farming,&quot; he added
+quickly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Here was Lilly's golden opportunity of telling her husband that she
+knew him, but the confession died in her throat. She couldn't tell him;
+it wouldn't do. She would at once involve herself in a mesh of
+suspicions.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The great pale eyes of Fräulein von Schwertfeger were already fixed on
+her face full of searching scrutiny.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Anyhow, one thing was clear, the colonel knew nothing. He had not
+mentioned the young reprobate's presence on the estate before,
+evidently because he didn't think him worth it.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;How is he behaving?&quot; he asked, turning to Fräulein von Schwertfeger.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Good gracious, colonel, don't ask me!&quot; she exclaimed, regarding the
+nails of her long thin fingers, which shone like mother-of-pearl. &quot;You
+know I never find fault till I am obliged.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Damned young scoundrel!&quot; the colonel laughed, and Lilly, who
+involuntarily took her comrade's part, felt that was fault-finding
+enough.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">After breakfast the tour began. Lilly walked between the colonel and
+Fräulein von Schwertfeger. They were joined by a pack of dogs, with
+whom she was instantly on friendly terms. First they went to the
+kitchen. It was a simply wonderful kitchen. It had walls of Dutch
+tiles, copper taps out of which streams of hot and cold water gushed,
+and a hearth of solid porcelain. Everything was so astonishing you
+hardly knew what to look at first. And there was a face, an old rugged,
+weather-beaten, thick-lipped face that looked up with moist eyes,
+dumbly inquiring, &quot;Don't you remember me, then?&quot; And Lilly's eyes
+answered, &quot;Yes, I remember you.&quot; But she dared not speak with her lips
+as well as her eyes, in case Fräulein von Schwertfeger should be
+started on investigations of the most crucial hour of her life, and
+have a greater contempt for her than she had already. So she gave the
+old cook her hand in silence, which renewed their bond of friendship.
+Next they wait to the farm-servants' kitchen, where the Sunday soup was
+boiling and bubbling in a huge copper cauldron like a stormy sea. Then
+to the laundry, where the wringers and mangles shone like plated
+dreadnoughts and the fragrance of soap lingered pleasantly in every
+corner and cranny. The dairy and storerooms came next. Great hams hung
+from the rafters like giant bats, wrapped in grey muslin; sausages,
+too, like brown polished bolsters; and on straw there lay, even now in
+April, piles of winter apples, golden pippins, and other rare kinds.
+Rows of wide-lipped jars stood on the store-closet shelves. They
+contained the preserves and dried fruits, to which one might help
+oneself. Now the trio crossed the paved yard, where the waggons and
+threshing-machines stood in line like soldiers on parade, to the barns
+and stables. The saddle-horse stable! Heavens! what a palace! Wicker
+chairs with cushions and footstools in front of them were scattered
+about inviting you to rest. Over the stalls ran a matting frieze, with
+porcelain plates on which the names of the thoroughbreds who dwelt
+inside were engraved. Glossy slender necks and silken manes were thrust
+forth to greet the beautiful young mistress, and intelligent human eyes
+looked at her beseechingly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You must choose one of these to ride,&quot; said the colonel.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But I can't ride,&quot; replied Lilly, embarrassed.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The grooms in red coats, who stood about with their caps in their
+hands, grinned incredulously. A &quot;gracious&quot; lady who couldn't ride had
+never come their way before.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Then they visited the stalls of the cart-horses. These were less
+interesting. Some of them were dirty and not sweet-smelling. As for the
+cowsheds, they made you feel nearly ill. But she took care not to show
+what she felt, and, eager to learn, listened attentively to all the
+colonel's and Fräulein von Schwertfeger's explanations.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The severest ordeal was yet to come--the progress through the
+labourers' quarters. The people had just come home from church, and
+stood in little expectant groups before their doors. The worthiest and
+most venerable were the first to be introduced. There were many names
+difficult to master, dirty hands and faces that stared at her awed, but
+with a subdued &quot;Who are you?&quot; expression.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly, nevertheless, acquitted herself of her task as if born to it.
+She had little kind speeches ready that went straight to the hearts of
+the sick and aged, and when she fell on her knees to draw a toddling
+baby into her arms and kiss it, a murmur of approval cheered her on her
+way. At the further end of the settlement were two or three barnlike
+buildings that seemed to have been made into dwelling-houses as an
+afterthought. They had irregular windows with casements painted red and
+blue, and the single doorway had been partially bricked up. Here the
+Polish immigrants were housed. They came originally as hirelings from
+distant provinces to help with the harvest, and had never returned.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The district in which the castle was situated had always, from ancient
+times, been Teuton, and staunchly Teuton it had remained through the
+Slav invasion. It was necessary, therefore, Fräulein von Schwertfeger
+said, to uphold the banner of Teutonism. She spoke in so warning a tone
+that Lilly felt ashamed, as if she had done something to pull it down.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Scarlet head-kerchiefs prevailed here, and great blue hunted-looking
+eyes gazed at her, imploring sympathy. Here and there an obeisance was
+made to the very hem of her skirts, a shy kiss was pressed on her
+sleeve. &quot;Niech bedzie pochwalony Jezus Chrystus&quot; fell fluently on her
+ear, and she responded instinctively: &quot;Na wieki wiekow! Amen.&quot; For she,
+the Catholic, knew from childhood that this was the correct answer to
+the Polish greeting.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">There arose a joyous hum and glad whispering among the little herd as
+they huddled cringingly together. This fair young Pana had spoken to
+them in their own language and the language of their God.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I never knew that you spoke Polish,&quot; remarked the colonel, with a
+jarring note of blame in his voice; and Lilly, laughing nervously,
+explained how she came by the phrase.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">They did not linger long at the next building, where a group of youths
+in gray blouses stood awkwardly bowing and twirling their caps. She was
+scarcely given time to bestow on them a kindly smile and nod, and even
+this was evidently not approved. Though she said nothing, Fräulein von
+Schwertfeger's aristocratic nose held Teutonism aloft by sniffing in
+the air.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Now, darling,&quot; she said, when they were on the castle steps again,
+&quot;you will change into your dark-blue cloth gown. I have had it unpacked
+and pressed out, and you will find it in your dressing-room with a lace
+collar. It is the fitting costume for Sunday dinner.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly arrayed herself obediently in the dark-blue cloth, in which she
+looked extra slight, and her heart beat in trepidation at the thought
+of meeting her merry friend, who could not be supposed to know that she
+had disowned him, and who might betray both of them at the outset by
+some careless allusion to their former friendship.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The dinner-gong sounded through the house, and the next minute came
+those three quick, incisive taps on the door.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She started back from the mirror, for on no account must Fräulein von
+Schwertfeger guess she was vain. The latter regarded her silently for
+a moment from head to toe, then, seizing both her hands while her
+pale-blue eyes burned into her, she said, &quot;God grant that you don't
+work too much mischief in this world, my child.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Why should I do mischief?&quot; stammered Lilly, once more humiliated. &quot;I
+have never done anyone any harm.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Fräulein von Schwertfeger smiled. &quot;The one good thing about you is that
+you are ignorant of what you are,&quot; she said, and drew her by the arm
+out into the corridor and down the creaking old staircase to the
+dining-room.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">There, with the colonel, drawn up in line, stood four dark manly
+figures ready to greet her. He of the pointed grey beard was introduced
+as &quot;Herr Leichtweg, our head steward.&quot; He of the stout form and
+sunburnt coppery skin as &quot;Herr Messner, our book-keeper&quot;; and then
+another, and then--&quot;Lieutenant von Prell, agricultural pupil,&quot; said the
+colonel.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">A slight inclination of her head to him as to the others. She dared not
+let it be more.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But, oh!&quot; she thought, &quot;my poor merry comrade, what have you done to
+yourself?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">A long frock-coat fell to his knees, his small pointed head was lost in
+the high collar. All was correct to a fold. His expression, gestures,
+bearing, everything about him was marked by obsequious formality and
+rigid propriety.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lost in pitying amazement, she contemplated him. Had she not seen him
+that very morning so different!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You should shake hands with them,&quot; the Schwertfeger voice prompted
+behind her.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She collected herself, and returned the pressure of the two honest
+countrymen's sun-tanned palms with more warmth, perhaps, than became a
+stately young chatelaine; but from Prell's freckled but still carefully
+kept hand she withdrew hers quickly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What a blessing! I needn't be afraid of his giving me away,&quot; she
+reflected.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Then came grace.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+
+<h2>CHAPTER XVI</h2>
+<br>
+
+<p class="continue">The finches were the worst behaved, though the tomtits and
+the
+nuthatches ran them very close in the noise they made. As for the
+blackbirds and thrushes, they seemed to think the place belonged to
+them; much more so than the starlings, who kept to themselves, and
+apparently cared for nothing in earth or heaven. The wrens and
+hedge-robins contributed their fair share to the chorus, but nothing
+could beat the fanfare of the finches, which was almost more than ears
+only accustomed hitherto to the tiny song of a caged cock-canary could
+endure.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The aged Haberland in his felt slippers knew them all apart. The old
+gardener's office had become a sinecure, as he was too infirm now to do
+anything more than sprinkle the lawn with the hose. Old Haberland knew
+exactly which birds built their nests in the trees and which on the
+ground, at what hour they began to sing, and the best post of
+observation to take up if you wanted to study their habits and plumage.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was horrible that the squirrels must be shot. She could almost have
+hated the old fellow when she saw him going out with his rifle under
+his coat to wage war against those jolly little beasts. For he declared
+that the artful little robbers knew the gun when they saw it, and
+scurried off and outwitted him if they caught sight of it. He wasn't on
+friendly terms either with the jays and magpies. His favourite was the
+shy green woodpecker, which he had coaxed to nest in the park. Then
+there was that curiosity, the parti-coloured hoopoe, so tame that it
+came fearlessly at all hours of the day close up to the castle, sang
+its &quot;Hu-tu-tu,&quot; and then with his crooked sabre of a bill cut the worms
+out of the grass.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Since the world began there could not have been such radiant glorious
+mornings as these. When you put your head out of doors at five o'clock,
+the cool purple mist wrapped you about like a royal mantle. Over the
+pond, where the reeds and rushes seemed to grow up in a night, forced
+by invisible hands, lay sunlit vapours which lifted gradually and rose
+into the sky in luminous columns. Vapour arose everywhere. Often it
+looked as if white fires had been kindled on the slopes of the lawn;
+clouds of light rolled heavily from the glittering fronds as if
+satiated with the dew they had absorbed. Oh, what mornings!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Then, when things burst into flower, you never grew tired of wandering
+about, filling apron and basket with great sprays of snowy and purple
+lilac and trails of golden chain, till you were almost drowned in a sea
+of blossom. The mad joy of the dogs was indescribable, when their
+lovely young mistress appeared smiling on the garden steps in her white
+blouse and short skirt, armed with scissors and shears. Patiently they
+waited for her, whining and yelping if she came later than they
+expected; for they had given her without hesitation their canine
+allegiance, regardless of pitying, benevolent smiles from Fräulein von
+Schwertfeger, whom they abhorred.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The cleverest of them all, Bevel the terrier, was not numbered among
+her admiring bodyguard, as he never failed to attend at the colonel's
+heels when he took his early morning survey of his acres. But there was
+Pluto, the long-eared setter, who now in the spring was out of
+employment, and went on his own account hunting rabbits in the park.
+There were Schnauzl the poodle and Bobbi the dachshund, who lived in
+constant state of jealous feud with each other because of her. But most
+beautiful of all was Regina, the huge panther-like Dane, whose left
+foreleg had been injured by a stone, and who, ashamed of her lameness
+in the daytime, always slunk out of the sight of strangers, though at
+night she made up for it by keeping indefatigable guard and terrifying
+the neighbourhood by her bay.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Indescribable, too, were the gambols of the colts in the paddock beyond
+the rose garden, the craving for caresses of the two-year-olds, when
+their sugar-squandering mistress pulled back the hurdles and stretched
+out her arms, to pillow on them the slender heads of her young pets.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Nothing, too, could equal the fury of the turkey-cock when the
+pheasants stole a march on him and got the first crumbs; though he
+surpassed himself in jealous rage when those idiotic ducks dared to
+squat on Lilly's feet as if it were a perfectly natural thing to do. So
+bristling with anger was he that he would sometimes peck at Pluto's
+drooping ears, an attention which the setter declined with a
+contemptuous shake of the head.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Oh! those were mornings worth living!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">After the early stroll round the estate came breakfast, at which she
+arrived so brimming over with happiness and affection that it didn't
+matter whether she threw her arms first round the colonel's neck or
+Anna's; for now in confidential moments she was permitted to call her
+by her Christian name, and felt more drawn to her, though still full of
+fear of her displeasure and harsh judgment. For indeed she found in her
+a severe schoolmistress. No word, gesture, or movement of Lilly's
+escaped observation, or if necessary, reproof. There was a right and a
+wrong way of sitting at table, or in an arm-chair, pouring out tea, of
+asking someone to sit down, of beginning a conversation, and making
+visitors known to each other. Lilly learnt to glide over the difficulty
+of forgotten names and to show each one the proper degree of
+friendship. These and a hundred other little matters Lilly was
+enlightened upon. There seemed no end to them.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">This was only practising in the small compass of the castle and on its
+occasional guests. The real thing was to come later, in the autumn,
+when Lilly was to call on the wives of the proprietors of the
+neighbouring estates. Till then the colonel desired to live quietly at
+home with as little outward social intercourse as possible. It was easy
+for him to find an excuse, as, after his many years of bachelorhood, it
+was not unnatural that he should wish to prolong his honeymoon. By the
+autumn Lilly's education would be complete, and she would emerge into
+society a <i>grande dame</i> capable of holding her own at the functions of
+the landed nobility and in the casino with a tact that would not
+disgrace her husband's name and rank; and Fräulein von Schwertfeger
+kept this ideal, as the highest attainable, before Lilly's eyes every
+hour of the day. It was like preparing for an examination in the
+Selecta, Lilly thought, as she anxiously modelled herself after the
+prescribed pattern, and dreamed day and night of her <i>début</i>.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">In reality, she was only at ease when wandering about out of doors or
+shut up in her boudoir. &quot;Boudoir!&quot; No, she mustn't call it that.
+Fräulein von Schwertfeger said that it was a sitting-room, and only
+very rich butchers' and bankers' wives--according to Fräulein von
+Schwertfeger they were the same--owned boudoirs.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Thus Lilly stumbled at every step. Sometimes, as if to put her social
+development to the test, the colonel permitted Lilly, under Fräulein
+von Schwertfeger's wing, to do the honours of his table when he chanced
+to entertain fellow-officers who turned up from neighbouring barracks.
+On these occasions the same thing always happened. At first she would
+be as stiff as a wound-up doll, incapable of making a spontaneous
+remark to the military guests in their resplendent uniforms; but in a
+few glasses of wine she found courage and became by degrees more
+lively, not to say merry, till at last she simply bubbled over with
+innocent little jokes--how they came into her head she didn't know--and
+so charmed these men, who had mostly passed their prime, that they paid
+her court in every word they said, and kept their gaze fixed on her
+face in delight and desire. The colonel would become uneasy, and
+Fräulein von Schwertfeger, who generally stared at her plate with a
+scoffing little smile, received a sign from him; whereupon the ladies
+instantly rose and retired, deaf to all the loudly expressed regrets at
+their going on the part of the men.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The ecstasy, however, that she had awakened in her husband's guests
+recoiled on herself: made her exultant and sorry together, and
+compelled her to sit till past midnight, with wet cheeks, beating
+heart, and strained nerves staring out into the blue twilight of the
+park.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Foreshadowings of undisciplined madness and uncontrolled self-abandon
+swept like lightning flashes through her brain. A consuming fever
+within her relaxed her limbs. It made the dress she wore, the room she
+was in, the park, the world seem too small for her, and filled her soul
+with a crowd of dancing fiery shapes, a whirl of reflected masculine
+passions.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">On such nights as these the colonel would come to her, in a more or
+less intoxicated condition, when the guests were gone, and reproach her
+mildly for not being &quot;ladylike&quot; enough; then, when she tried to defend
+herself, he would kiss her tears away and throw himself beside her on
+the bed. Shivering with disgust at his drunkenness, her conscience a
+prey to groundless pangs, yet for all that happy and relieved to feel
+herself released from a torturing anxiety, she fell asleep in his arms.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">There were other nights when she felt restless and lonely and would
+have been glad of his company, when she longed in soul as well as body
+to cling humbly to him; but he did not come, and locked his door. On
+the whole, he treated her kindly. To him she was a light fragile toy,
+not to be played with too often in case of damage, but to be put away
+carefully after use till next time--and this suited her well enough. At
+least she personally was spared the terror of his outbursts of fury,
+which two or three times a day threatened to shiver the walls of the
+castle to atoms. Even Fräulein Von Schwertfeger hardly knew how to meet
+them, and bowed her head and bit her lips as to an inevitable fate when
+the storms burst.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly could never quite make up her mind as to what were the relations
+between these two. Generally, it seemed as if, during long years,
+mutual sympathy and understanding had bound them together by
+indissoluble ties, though at other times they appeared to have nothing
+in common and to avoid each other, he with frigid hauteur, she with
+scorn in her squinting sidelong glances. It had often occurred to
+Lilly, too, that when Fräulein von Schwertfeger was young and fair to
+look upon, she and the colonel might have had a love affair. But
+gradually she abandoned this idea, for if anything of the kind had ever
+existed, Fräulein von Schwertfeger would have been far too proud to
+endure their present companionship, and he was too domineering to
+tolerate the presence of any such uncomfortable reminder of a dead
+amour. All Lilly could gather of the aristocratic spinster's past was
+that as the orphan of a poor officer she had been forced to earn her
+own living almost since her confirmation. She had presided over the
+colonel's house for nearly twenty years. That she, like herself, was
+without resources and dependent on the whims of the same old man seemed
+to Lilly to form a bond of sympathy between herself and Fräulein von
+Schwertfeger, yet she never could get rid of the undefinable dread she
+had been inspired with at the outset. She really was indebted to her
+for many things. Without the spinster's untiring surveillance she must
+have fallen innumerable times from the straight road, which was to lead
+to her apotheosis as noblewoman and Lady Bountiful. When she was
+disposed to err on the side of over-humility, there would have been
+scoffers to take base advantage of it; and her easy-going manner with
+those who were not her equals might, if uncorrected, have got her into
+serious trouble. As it was, she was popular with everyone. In the
+kitchens and the stables, the villages and the agents' offices,
+everywhere she was greeted respectfully with beaming smiles. But it was
+in the Polish quarters, where the women dried their washing behind
+great fires of brushwood, that she was simply idolised. It may have
+been that they had got wind of her Slavonic name and her Catholicism.
+Anyhow, by all those poor despised foreign folk, who drifted about
+among the proud stolid Germans, with humility in their downcast
+childlike eyes and snatches of their native song on their lips, Lilly
+was regarded in the light of a saviour and patron saint. She loved to
+visit and busy herself with these gentle grateful people. She tended
+the sick and took compassion on the forsaken. The girls were to her
+like her own sisters, who needed a watchful eye over them; and as for
+the boys, they were a sacred trust whose welfare she would always have
+at heart.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Fräulein von Schwertfeger grimly disapproved of this attachment between
+Lilly and the Poles.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The people on the estate are beginning to complain,&quot; she said, &quot;that
+you prefer the aliens to themselves. If I were you I should take my
+walks in another direction.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly objected to doing this, and so Fräulein von Schwertfeger bore her
+company when she went in the direction of the barn dwellings, in case
+they should exercise too great a fascination over her. She succeeded,
+too, in converting Lilly to Protestantism--only outwardly, of course.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You may worship your Blessed Virgin and St. Joseph as much as you
+like,&quot; she said, &quot;but do remove those images and relics from your
+bedside. And then with regard to going to church, certainly if you like
+you can drive five miles in to Krammen to attend mass. The colonel will
+allow you, but, all the same, I would like you, my sweet, to come to
+church with us and sit in the ancestral pew; do, to please me. You
+won't regret it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And when Lilly unresisting had given in, Fräulein von Schwertfeger
+presented her as a reward with a tiny folding domestic altar. The
+outside looked like a dainty jewel-box, but when you opened it--oh,
+joy!--there was the Holy Child in the arms of the Virgin painted on
+glass, with St. Anne on the left panel and St. Joseph on the right.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly almost wept, she was so pleased with it. Still, she could not
+bring herself to love the giver as she ought. Often when they sat
+together chatting confidentially, Lilly felt solitary and--frightened.
+She even dared not satisfy her hunger. Since the days of Frau
+Asmussen's milk puddings, Lilly had developed an enormous, well-nigh
+indecent appetite, and Fräulein von Schwertfeger's aghast expression at
+her piled-up plate often was the cause of her rising from table still
+unsatisfied, and falling back on raids on the storeroom cupboard
+between meals. The dear old cook, her fast ally, guaranteed to guard
+Lilly from surprises on the part of Fräulein von Schwertfeger, and when
+she came into the kitchen Lilly accounted for her presence there on the
+plea that she was learning to cook, an announcement which was received
+with patronising merriment.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">If it had not been for old Grete the cook, she would have known nothing
+at all about the conduct of the household, for, either from caution or
+greed of power, Fräulein von Schwertfeger chose to conceal everything
+that might have led to a practical and intelligent comprehension of the
+<i>ménage</i>. When she offered to help she was told help was not wanted,
+and she must take care of her hands and not tire herself. So it went on
+day after day.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She would have given anything to learn riding, but there again
+Schwertfeger interference prevented her by discovering signs of
+motherhood, which invariably proved later to be a false alarm. She
+might not so much as cultivate her musical talent. The old tin-kettle
+of a piano, the rattling yellow keys of which looked like a set of
+teeth decayed from tobacco smoke--just as the colonel's were--was not
+to be replaced by a new one till they went to Danzig for the day in the
+autumn.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">So her life dragged on, half in bliss, half in regret. She felt like a
+pilgrim who against her will had strayed into paradise. She looked back
+on the time before her marriage as on a long, long vanished youth, and
+would have laughed at anyone who had pointed out to her that at barely
+nineteen most of her youth lay before her. It was well that opposite,
+in the bailiff's lodge, there was at least one person who could testify
+to her having been a girl once; otherwise she might have told herself
+that her girlhood was a dream, and she had been a full-fledged married
+woman and the colonel's wife before she was out of her cradle.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">All this time she had only met her merry comrade at dinner on Sunday,
+when, in his long frock-coat, with his reverential awed manner, he cut
+a rather comical figure. Neither of them by a single word or glance
+recalled the past. Often from her balcony, now completely secluded by
+its growth of rambling vines, she looked across to the gabled house and
+saw him gambolling with the red little fox of a puppy. Then it seemed
+to her that this blond-haired good-for-nothing, who flirted with all
+the pretty girls on the estate, so old Grete said, was the only
+creature with whom she had anything in common in this cold world. Grete
+told how he nearly rode the horses to death to get back from his secret
+outings before dawn; and then sometimes behind the closed shutters of
+his den---- Here old Grete could not proceed, and Lilly concluded that
+things too dreadful for words went on behind those closed shutters.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+
+<h2>CHAPTER XVII</h2>
+<br>
+
+<p class="continue">One hot August morning Lilly, with her arms full of dewy
+roses, herself
+besprinkled with dew from head to toe, entered the dining-room where
+Anna was making tea, looking lean and tall in her simple blue-grey
+linen gown. Her manner and greeting were the same as usual, yet Lilly
+divined instantly that something out of the ordinary had happened. She
+also noticed that Käte, the maid who helped old Ferdinand with the
+waiting, had red eyes, and was biting her lips till they bled almost as
+she laid the table. Käte was pretty and superior to the average
+servant-girl, also better educated, her father having been a
+schoolmaster. For this reason Fräulein von Schwertfeger had chosen her
+from among the other maids to help Lilly with her toilette.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">When she had gone out of the room, Lilly began to ask questions.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Anna von Schwertfeger kissed her with redoubled tenderness and
+affection.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;My darling,&quot; she said, &quot;why sully your pure mind with disagreeable
+matters? When people are bent on breaking their necks, what is the good
+of trying to prevent them?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;If it's a question of breaking necks,&quot; thought Lilly, &quot;Walter von
+Prell must have something to do with it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Then she said aloud that she thought as mistress of the house she ought
+to know what was going on, especially as in future she intended to do
+the housekeeping herself.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The modesty of her &quot;in future&quot; impressed Fräulein von Schwertfeger
+favourably, and she yielded.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I am sure it will give you pain,&quot; she said, &quot;because I know you like
+him.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Him!&quot; echoed Lilly; and she was conscious that she blushed.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Indeed, we all like him,&quot; she went on in an excusing tone; &quot;the
+colonel is extremely fond of him. So long as he carried on his little
+games at a distance I kept my eyes shut and refused to listen to
+gossip; but when it comes to his breaking into the castle, it's a
+little too much, and time to stop it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What has he done, then?&quot; Lilly asked, shocked.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;There has been a great deal to excite suspicion lately. At several
+places the creepers on your balcony appear broken off and withered.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;On my balcony?&quot; She drew a step nearer the speaker, overwhelmed by an
+unutterable fear, and taking hold of her arm said, &quot;What <i>can</i> my
+balcony have to do with Herr von Prell, Anna?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Calm yourself, dearest,&quot; said the speaker, unable to meet her eyes.
+&quot;People in my position are bound to keep their eyes open; it is part of
+their duties. And what I have done has been solely for your sake....
+Then, how easily could anyone who doesn't know you as I know you
+misinterpret this climbing on to your balcony----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly began to cry. &quot;Oh! it's too low--too low!&quot; she sobbed.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Fräulein von Schwertfeger drew her down into the corner of the sofa and
+stroked her forehead.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I have experienced worse things than that, dear,&quot; she said. &quot;Anyhow, I
+was determined to get on the right scent, and although it is needless
+to say I didn't suspect you&quot;--again she averted her eyes--&quot;I took the
+precaution of watching in the dark outside your door for several
+nights.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly bounded up. While she had been sleeping innocently unsuspicious,
+close by, someone had been lurking and keeping watch on her. So much
+was she a prisoner.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And this morning at about one o'clock I caught him red-handed. To
+think of his dare-devilry! He had the audacity to place one of
+Haberland's ladders against your balcony--that accounts for the broken
+vine-shoots--and to get in through the glass door of your sitting-room.
+By the way, dearest, glass doors should never be left open at night. He
+slunk past your bedroom door into the corridor, without seeing me, of
+course, Käte is the only one who sleeps anywhere near, and this
+morning, early, when I taxed her with it she denied nothing.... I
+acted, as I always do in these cases, with every kindness and
+consideration. I told Käte that she might be the first to give warning,
+and that nothing would be said.... But what is to be done about the
+young man? This is his only chance for the future. If the colonel sacks
+him it will be his ruin. On the other hand, I cannot very well keep
+silence to the colonel on a point that concerns, in a way, his wife's
+honour----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;How do Herr von Prell's intrigues with the housemaids concern my
+honour?&quot; Lilly ventured to interrupt, hoping, by playing the innocent a
+little, to gain time for thought as to how her friend was to be helped
+out of this scrape.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Fräulein von Schwertfeger was beginning to enlighten her on what all
+the disastrous results might be of such profligate conduct, when the
+tea-things rattled at the approaching footsteps of the colonel.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Say nothing ... yet,&quot; implored Lilly; and to hide her fears and
+confusion she rushed into his arms.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He did not notice that anything was wrong. His once ever-wakeful and
+easily irritated suspicion had slumbered since he had confided his
+young wife to the vigilant care of the duenna.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">In these days he was no longer the zealous lover, aping the gallantry
+of youth, who had wished to be master of her every look and word. The
+playful patronage with which he now regarded the antics of this lovely,
+gentle-souled child gave him quite a paternal air that became him well.
+His expeditions to the casino in the nearest garrison town, at first
+rare, had become more and more frequent. He often went by the afternoon
+train, but as a rule started after the evening meal, when he did not
+come home till two or three in the morning, as there were no trains
+back earlier.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">To-day he told them good-humouredly at breakfast that he had to go to
+town on business, to get rid of the barley crop to the Jews.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">A happy thought struck Lilly, filling her with infinite satisfaction.
+The colonel's absence must be utilised to save <i>him</i>. How it was to be
+done she didn't know. But save him she would. If she did not intervene
+on his behalf, who else was there to steer this stormy petrel into safe
+harbour?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">When the colonel had retired to his room, she took heart and made her
+cautious plea to Anna, who, however, declined to relent.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;He will only be worse next time,&quot; she said, &quot;and then the disgrace
+will be greater for all of us.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Oh no!&quot; said Lilly, &quot;he will not get worse; he will reform. Just give
+him a lecture.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I am of an age to do it, certainly,&quot; said Fräulein von Schwertfeger,
+with a sour old-maidish smile, &quot;and I have the authority; but, to speak
+frankly, the subject is too delicate. I would rather not be mixed up
+any more in such unpleasant affairs.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The pale eyes, almost hidden under their heavy lids, gazed with that
+sphinx-like fixity which Lilly had often noticed before--it seemed like
+the resurrection within her of an old and bitter hate. But she returned
+to the topic voluntarily. All she would commit herself to was that, if
+he came of his own free will and apologised, she might listen to him.
+That was the most she could do without playing a double part.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But how can he apologise when he has no idea that he has been
+discovered?&quot; put in Lilly timidly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I wouldn't mind betting,&quot; replied Fräulein von Schwertfeger, &quot;that
+Käte will run over to him the first moment she is free.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But if she doesn't, what then?&quot; asked Lilly, unable to control her
+eagerness.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Fräulein von Schwertfeger took her face between her hands.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;If I didn't know, my pet, what a dear, ingenuous young creature you
+were, I might think there was something rather suspicious in your being
+so keenly interested in this young rake. No, no; you needn't blush. Of
+course I know there is nothing behind, and, at all events, I will wait
+till to-morrow afternoon before taking steps--simply because you
+intercede for him, darling.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Thereupon the conversation ended. Nothing more was to be hoped for from
+that quarter.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;If I don't save him, he'll be dismissed; and if he is dismissed, he'll
+inevitably go to the dogs; and if he goes to the dogs, I shall be to
+blame.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly's thoughts thus revolved in a circle till she felt quite
+exhausted and giddy.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The most straightforward course would have been to interview Käte, but
+that would have been beneath her dignity. Besides, it was evident that
+the poor girl had no thought of running over to warn him. She glided
+about in a spiritless fashion, and finally had to be put to bed with an
+attack of colic.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">At four o'clock the colonel drove off to the station. He had stuffed a
+packet of blue banknotes in his pocket-book first, a sign that he would
+not be coming back till dawn.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Evening approached. The wheels of the returning manure carts rang on
+the flags of the yard. The bellow of oxen and the cracking of whips
+announced that the days' work was over.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly crouched in ambush behind her creeper-covered trellis and watched
+the bailiff's lodge. At last the ne'er-do-well appeared from his gable
+end, dragging the unfortunate red foxy dog at the end of a taut chain.
+He had on a greenish-grey tweed jacket with innumerable pockets, each
+of which seemed to have something sticking out of it. He looked quite
+bulky. But, all the same, he was a dear smart little fellow, worth
+taking some trouble for.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Should she make him a sign, and throw down a note which later he could
+pick up unobserved? She went into her rooms and scribbled in pencil the
+following lines.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Everything is discovered. Fräulein von S---- promises to say nothing
+provided you----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Here she paused. This would never do. The stupidest fool who chanced to
+get hold of the note could only interpret it in one way, <i>i.e</i>., as a
+confession of guilt.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I'll speak to him instead,&quot; she decided, as the bell sounded for
+supper.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">How curiously the Schwertfeger eyes regarded her, just as if they could
+read at the bottom of her soul what her bold intention was. But no
+reference whatever was made to the miscreant, and when they rose from
+the table she put her arm into Lilly's arm, just as she did when she
+wanted to keep Lilly from visiting her Polish friends.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;She won't let go the whole evening,&quot; thought Lilly, gnashing her teeth
+inwardly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">At that moment someone came to say Käte was much worse, and should they
+send for the doctor?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Fräulein von Schwertfeger left the room reluctantly, saying as she
+went, &quot;I shall be back before long.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">In the flash of a moment Lilly had opened the verandah door and was
+slipping down the terrace steps into the dusky park. The intense
+silence was only broken by a faint splashing from behind the cypresses,
+where old Haberland was filling his cans, as he had not finished
+watering the rose-trees. She walked straight towards the gable end of
+the lodge, wondering how she should attract his attention and bring him
+to the window. She was spared the trouble, however, for he was lying
+full length on the green bench outside the house, puffing serenely at
+the end of a cigarette. The red dog, whose chain he had twisted round
+his wrist, was asleep at his feet. None of his colleagues were to be
+seen. She could scarcely breathe, her heart beat so violently.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Herr von Prell!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He started up, the dog with him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Herr von Prell, I've something to say to you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He grabbed at his head to take off the cap which wasn't there.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;At your service, gracious baroness.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Will you come and take a little stroll with me?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;If the gracious baroness wishes, certainly.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He threw away the end of his cigarette, cast a rapid look round for his
+missing cap, and then walked beside her, bareheaded, as stiff and
+correct in his bearing as an automaton.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly led the way into the middle of the park, where groups of trees
+and grassy clearings melted into purple-fringed darkness. She had
+recovered her calmness. The desire to save him endowed her with a
+strength of will of which she had never dreamed herself capable.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You must not misunderstand what I am doing,&quot; she began.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Oh, of course not, gracious baroness,&quot; he answered with a polite bow.
+&quot;It is such a charming evening, and old acquaintances enjoy a chat.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;If that was my object in wishing to see you,&quot; Lilly said, unable to
+conceal that she was hurt, &quot;I should have asked you to the castle. You
+may conclude from my coming that the matter is something of
+importance.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What could be of more importance to me, baroness, than walking here
+with you?&quot; he replied.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She shrugged her shoulders. &quot;Oh, Herr von Prell, if only you knew the
+scrape you were in, you would hardly use such empty figures of speech!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly was amazed at her own haughty tone.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;A scrape, gracious baroness, more or less, what can it matter?&quot; he
+said, raising his eyebrows. &quot;To be doomed to live so near and yet so
+far from a certain fair lady is all that matters. The question is
+whether Tommy and I have enough moral fibre to endure such a trial with
+patience--Tommy, don't be an ass! Our gracious baroness has no
+objection to you as long as you don't chew her train.&quot; And he began
+tugging the wilful little dog off his forelegs as if he were some
+mechanical toy.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You'll throttle the poor animal if you don't take care,&quot; said Lilly,
+glad to revert momentarily to less personal topics.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Then he will suffer like his master,&quot; he retorted, catching at his
+throat to illustrate his meaning and gasping horribly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Such conduct must not be tolerated a moment longer. She owed it to
+herself and her position.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I suppose that you are quite unaware, Herr von Prell, that probably by
+this time to-morrow you will have been dismissed?&quot; she said loftily.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">At last he seemed impressed. He scowled and twirled the fine ends of
+his young moustache. Then, knitting his brows, he said:</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;However bad things may be going, there is some satisfaction to be
+derived from the fact that the gracious baroness seems to take not a
+little interest in my affairs.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Now Lilly was really angry. &quot;I wonder you are not ashamed, Herr von
+Prell!&quot; she exclaimed. &quot;Here am I running great risks to help you, and
+giving myself a lot of trouble, and yet you persist in talking
+nonsense.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;We must be careful, Tommy--careful,&quot; he said, lifting the fox-like dog
+in his arms. &quot;First, we are flayed alive, then kicked. But we ought to
+find comfort in the consciousness that we are innocent, my poor Tommy.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Please don't try to excuse yourself,&quot; she scolded. &quot;Fräulein von
+Schwertfeger has found out everything ... about your connection with
+... you know--your nocturnal excursions to my balcony and entrance
+through my sitting-room. Everything! Do you suppose that it is any
+pleasure to me to have to treat you, whom I have always liked, as a
+criminal? Do you suppose I wouldn't much rather have reason to be proud
+of you than to see you sent away in disgrace? If you can say anything
+in your own defence so much the better. I shall be pleased to hear it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She had worked herself up into such a fever of righteous indignation
+that she quite overlooked the impropriety of her present proceedings.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Now she was enacting a <i>rôle</i> that enchanted her. She was the
+benevolent chatelaine, doing her best to rescue an inferior, and her
+breast swelled with a sense of her exalted virtue. They had emerged
+from the dusky shadows of the ancient avenue of limes, a ray of light
+from the afterglow in the west pierced the boughs and suffused his thin
+freckled face with a deep flush. He appeared to be absolutely crushed
+and penitent, and Lilly was already regretting that she had been too
+hard on him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I quite see,&quot; he began after a pause, and his voice trembled with
+suppressed emotion, &quot;that I ought to clear myself from such a grave
+imputation. I am asked to set up a defence, and I can; but in so doing
+I am forced to reveal a secret ... and I am not sure whether it would
+be fair to your gracious baroness to enlighten you on the awful failing
+that has shipwrecked my whole life.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Tell me at once what it is,&quot; urged Lilly, burning with curiosity.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Well, if you must know, it is this. From childhood I have been pursued
+by a ghastly fate, which overcomes me at moments when I am most
+powerless, and fastens on me the responsibility for crimes of which I
+am utterly innocent. Be prepared, therefore, to hear something
+terrible. I am--I am a somnambulist.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">As he glanced sideways at Lilly, there was such a droll, wicked twinkle
+playing under the light lashes that she burst into a fit of light
+laughter. He joined in with his dear old noiseless giggle that shook
+him like an earthquake. So they stood still and both laughed till they
+cried; and Lilly forgot all about her exalted duties as chatelaine and
+her mission of salvation. Then, instinctively, their footsteps turned
+together into the most deserted and overgrown part of the park, where
+its bounds were lost in a dense thicket of birches. It grew darker at
+every step. The foxy little dog had abandoned himself to his fate and
+trotted obediently after his master.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The truth is, my dear friend,&quot; said he, when they had recovered
+partially from their levity--&quot;why should I make any false pretences?--I
+am a poor fish here floundering out of water. Can you imagine what it
+is to have to lead a vegetable existence in the society of plebeians,
+and from morning to night practise the arts of virtue and seriousness?
+I can assure you it's often as bitter as a dose of aloes. Tommy helps
+me over the worst hours, but even Tommy is sometimes a disappointment....
+May I take this opportunity, by-the-by, of asking you a very interesting
+question, my gracious baroness?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Delighted at his returning gravity Lilly assented.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Can you move your ears up and down?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She was again seized with laughter as with an illness. She leaned
+against the trunk of a tree, and struggled in vain with her merriment,
+while he continued in a tone of profound despondency.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I mastered this modest accomplishment, of which I am not in the least
+proud, when I was in the Quinta at school. There it was considered the
+very acme of attainments, and I thought it would be a nice trick to
+teach my Tommy, who, however, declined to be taught it, though I have
+wasted hours and expended a lot of mental effort in trying to make him.
+But one day, by accident, I found out that he could do it much better
+than I ever could. I came to the conclusion, too, that he had been able
+to do it all along when <i>he</i> liked, but not when <i>I</i> liked. Is that
+not
+very depressing, a symbol of the utter fruitlessness of all human
+endeavour? Indeed, my dearest baroness, I believe I shall be compelled
+to become philosopher, out of sheer unutterable boredom.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly could see nothing now but the outline of his figure, behind which
+the eyes of the foxy one glowed like balls of fire. Not since her
+schooldays had she enjoyed such a bout of pure fun, and she had to wait
+for a break in her laughter to remind him that it was time to be going
+home. He turned obediently, changing Tommy's chain from one hand to the
+other.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The danger that threatened him seemed to be totally forgotten. As time
+was precious, Lilly took the bull by the horns and told him what
+Fräulein von Schwertfeger's conditions were for keeping silence. But
+she could not regain the dignified pose of a Lady Bountiful holding out
+the rescuing hand with an air of sublime superiority, and every now and
+then she broke off in what she was saying to giggle.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I know that good lady's unquenchable penchant for treading on other
+people's toes,&quot; he said; &quot;but since we have got into her bad graces,
+dear little Tommy and I will have to wriggle out. I am grateful to you,
+my dear and gracious friend. I will take your hint and put myself on
+the right road to absolution. I'll polish up my vocabulary of
+repentance. I'll be more than repentant. I'll be cheeky. That works on
+these respectable spinsters like magic; and I'll kill two birds with
+one stone, and take care, while I am about it, to improve our future
+chances of intercourse--always supposing that your majesty is
+agreeable.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Oh, how very agreeable she was! &quot;But how will you manage it?&quot; she asked
+anxiously.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Leave it to me,&quot; he answered. &quot;Your duenna is a clever old girl, but I
+am even cleverer. I shan't be surprised if after to-morrow I am
+honoured with warm invitations to supper at the castle, which will be
+very convenient; and I shall, I warrant, succeed in looking into the
+eyes of my queen unobserved by the two mighty watchdogs.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">There was much in this speech that jarred on her. He might make fun of
+Fräulein von Schwertfeger if he liked--she was fair game; but of the
+colonel he ought to speak with respect. And now that she had satisfied
+herself that he was out of danger did she first fully realise how
+atrocious his conduct had been, and how weak it was of her to be
+strolling about with him in the dark, tolerating his silly jokes.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Allow me to remind you, Herr von Prell,&quot; she said, &quot;that it is only
+owing to our former friendship I have warned you. Having done it, we
+had better be strangers in future. I must go now. Good-night.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Whereupon she began to run away from him. But, as she sprang along the
+dark woodland path without looking round, suddenly something warm,
+soft, and alive slipped between her feet. She cried out shrilly, and
+turned back to seek Prell's help; at the same moment the chain got
+twisted round her ankle and held her fast.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The foxy little dog in his eager desire to get home had taken her
+flight as a signal to break loose from his master's restraining hold,
+and had run under her skirts. The more she pressed forward the more
+painfully did the chain cut into her flesh. It was all over now with
+her anger.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Herr von Prell had to kneel down and hold the little rascal in his arms
+till she had released her foot from its chain trap.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Tommy, Tommy, what mischief have we done? We have hurt our mistress's
+august foot. That comes of straining on our chains and getting under
+ladies' skirts. A grave offence. Aren't you ashamed of yourself, you
+scoundrel?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And then he imprinted a kiss on the dog's sharp-pointed little nose.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Doesn't he ever bite you?&quot; she asked, interested.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;He has had the advantage of a rigorous military training,&quot; he replied,
+&quot;and consequently he is used to kisses.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She burst out into a new fit of merriment, and he held out to her the
+struggling woolly little animal, asking her if she would like to kiss
+Tommy too.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Laughing, she declined; laughing, she walked on in his company. &quot;Weak
+as ever,&quot; she told herself.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Still in fits of silvery laughter, she came into the lighted hall,
+where Fräulein von Schwertfeger met her, with large reproachful eyes.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Where have you been, child?&quot; she asked, prepared on the spot to
+subject her to a calm and judicial cross-questioning.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Oh, he's such fun!&quot; was all Lilly could gurgle forth as she buried her
+face, flushed from laughing, on her duenna's shoulder. &quot;Such fun!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You don't mean to say----?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes, I do. Do you think I would leave him in the lurch, my charming
+little old pal?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The Schwertfeger countenance froze into rigidity.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly, with a whoop of joy, freed herself from the elder woman's arm,
+flew to her room, nestled her head in the pillows, and laughed herself
+to sleep.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+
+<h2>CHAPTER XVIII</h2>
+<br>
+
+<p class="continue">It was begun in laughter--and with laughter it continued.
+The next
+morning when Lilly awoke the objects round her--the lamp, the
+washstand, the sentimental pictures on the wall--seemed to have taken
+on a different aspect, and the sun shone in at the windows with
+redoubled brilliance.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">In her night clothes she stood before the glass and smiled again at the
+reflection she saw there; it was the face of a gamin, with eyes roguish
+and sparkling, and a tipped-up saucy nose.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">At breakfast she scintillated with small witticisms, chased the
+stiff-kneed colonel round the table, and cherished sentiments of
+glowing gratitude towards Fräulein von Schwertfeger. She on her side
+smiled eloquently to herself, and when the colonel had retired, chucked
+Lilly under the chin, and said, &quot;What a child you are!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She made no allusion to the confession that had escaped Lilly the night
+before. It almost seemed that it had not been heard.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly ran up to her balcony, pushed apart the creepers, and gave him a
+nod to come in as he walked up and down uncertainly between the castle
+and the bailiff's office. He understood her signal, bowed low, and
+disappeared in the direction of the terrace steps.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">What passed between him and Fräulein von Schwertfeger remained a
+secret. There was no finding out whether she interrogated him on his
+previous relations with the young baroness. But that the result of the
+interview as a whole was successful there could be no question. Instead
+of the colonel giving him his <i>congé</i>, the colonel himself brought him
+in to supper that evening. He wore his best coat, white waistcoat, his
+most respectful expression, and looked as if he was going to sink into
+his collar.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;A little bird tells me,&quot; said the colonel to Lilly, &quot;that Herr von
+Prell is rather dull and lonely over there sometimes. So, if you have
+no objection, we will ask him in oftener than we have done.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She hadn't the very least objection, only the thought that Käte might
+appear any moment in the doorway prevented her from speaking.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Instead of Käte another maid handed old Ferdinand the plates and
+dishes. Lilly's eyes turned inquiringly to Fräulein von Schwertfeger,
+who said, in an undertone so that the men should not hear, &quot;The poor
+girl, owing to her illness, has gone home, and probably will not come
+back.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly squeezed her hand under the table from sheer relief. She had a
+dim notion that Käte had been sent away to spare her unpleasantness.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The other two were deep in cavalry talk, much interlarded by technical
+terms and dry names.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Herr von Prell leaned towards his old superior officer, blinking his
+lids with reverential and eager attention. The colonel laid down the
+law like a wrathful deity, spoke in gruff, fierce tones, and shot about
+him dagger-like glances, as if there were enemies all round to mow
+down, which of course was mere professional vainglory.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly listened, and would have liked to join in. But apparently both
+men had forgotten her existence, and she became depressed and jealous
+without being exactly sure which of them she was most angry with.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">When Prell rose to take his leave, the colonel laid his hand on his
+shoulder, and asked:</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Why haven't we done this before, my boy?&quot; And the look he gave Lilly
+seemed to add, &quot;There has really been no necessity for so much
+caution.&quot; After this, Prell's invitations to supper became more
+frequent as the September days grew chillier, and the colonel's gout
+made his visits to the town rarer. Groaning and swearing he mounted his
+horse with difficulty, but he would not listen to Lilly's entreaties to
+him to give up the early morning ride.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I might ride round the place instead of you,&quot; she said, &quot;if you
+weren't so ridiculously nervous about my having an accident.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The colonel and Anna exchanged glances.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It certainly is a disgrace,&quot; he remarked, &quot;that the girl hasn't learnt
+yet to sit on a horse. She ought to be taught. What do you say, Anna?
+Can we trust that scamp Prell to give her riding lessons?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly's face beamed with delight.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Fräulein von Schwertfeger's lids were lowered meditatively. After a few
+moments' silence she raised them, and said very slowly and
+emphatically:</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;If the harum-scarum young man brought our pet home one day with a
+broken arm or leg, what should we do? I think the proposal, at any
+rate, needs to be further considered.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly forbore from expressing her longing, and did not contradict Anna,
+who, however, must have divined her thoughts, for when they were alone
+together she suddenly said, taking Lilly's face between her hands:</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Dismiss the idea from your mind, darling. Take my word for it, it will
+be best.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was about this time that Lilly, who loved to explore the spacious
+and only partly inhabited old castle, made a remarkable discovery that
+excited her curiosity not a little. In one of the guest chambers on the
+third floor, which was hardly ever used, she was rummaging one day in
+the drawers of a bureau when she came across a transparent garment of
+silver net, fringed with spangles and fastened at the shoulder by
+curious barbaric clasps. It resembled the one in which, in the Dresden
+days, she had danced at bedtime, and which now lay at the bottom of her
+wardrobe enjoying undisturbed repose. She had never shown it to
+Fräulein von Schwertfeger, being somewhat ashamed of it. But this
+duplicate she folded up and took downstairs to her friend, for she was
+anxious to learn its history.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Fräulein von Schwertfeger looked up from her account-books abstractedly
+till she saw the glitter of spangles in the sun, and then a shudder
+convulsed her whole frame, her eyes became distended, and she seemed as
+paralysed with horror as if she had seen a ghost.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What's the matter? What's the matter?&quot; laughed Lilly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I thought I had thrown away all the rubbish,&quot; she said, and gave
+herself a little shake.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She snatched the flimsy thing out of Lilly's hands, rolled it in a
+sheet of paper, and took it to the kitchen. Lilly, who followed, saw a
+thin cloud of smoke rise from the hearth, carrying with it a whirl of
+charred tinsel rags. Old Grete stood by, glancing first at Anna and
+then at Lilly in perturbed surprise.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She appeared to know of what transactions the discovery was evidence,
+but when asked by Lilly to explain she held her tongue.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I was not much here, but away in the town,&quot; she excused herself, &quot;when
+the colonel was there with the regiment, you know. Ask the Fräulein;
+she will tell you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The Fräulein would not tell. With grimly compressed lips and vacant
+gaze she avoided the subject, and for three days or more scarcely
+answered when Lilly spoke to her.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Then suddenly, as they sat at supper, without any apparent cause, her
+whole manner changed. She became facetious and talkative, and
+sympathetic towards her employer, suggesting remedies for his gout and
+wringing from him a promise to give up the injurious morning ride.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I have been thinking over Lilly's riding lessons,&quot; she went on. &quot;I
+really don't think there can be any danger after all in entrusting her
+to the boy, if one of us is present to see that all is right--anyhow at
+the start.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly gave a sigh of joy, but neither by her eyes nor facial expression
+did she betray the smallest sign of pleasure, so severely in the
+meantime had she learned to school herself.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The next morning the lesson began.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Walter von Prell appeared in riding get-up. His body was bent forward
+as much as to say, &quot;I await orders,&quot; and his whole bearing bespoke
+submissive respect as he stood first on one foot, then on the other.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">A quiet grey mare, with narrow flanks and somewhat overstrained
+forelegs, but a smart, well-groomed little mount, had been chosen for
+the first ride. Her instructor explained to her the principle on which
+bridle and bit were constructed, showed her how the girths were
+buckled, how the snaffle and curb-reins were to be held, and how to
+prevent the curb throttling the horse.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Then came learning to mount. When Lilly planted her foot in his joined
+hands she felt a warm thrill creep up her spine to the back of her
+neck, as if this contact were a sign of the secret understanding
+between them.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He counted &quot;One, two, three,&quot; and, presto! there she was in the saddle.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The colonel clapped and applauded, and Walter blushed to the roots of
+his fair hair with delight.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Henceforth he had the game in his hands.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Who would have thought that jackanapes had so much of the pedagogue in
+him?&quot; the colonel remarked to Fräulein von Schwertfeger, who nodded
+silently and drew a deep breath as if something weighed on her mind.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">When Lilly dismounted she had learnt how to draw in the reins and
+slacken them, and to turn to right and left. She had even got as far as
+a trot round the yard. The colonel said good-humouredly she promised to
+be the most dashing horsewoman in the army.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">One lesson followed another. Either the colonel or Anna was always
+present, so there was little opportunity for a confidential
+conversation. Walter did not drop his stiff and obsequious manner,
+though Lilly longed for a flash of the old devilry that she alone
+understood.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Then came a day when it happened that both sentinels were absent from
+duty. The colonel was busy giving directions for the making of a
+covered riding-way where his gouty limbs would not be exposed to
+chills, and Fräulein von Schwertfeger was nowhere to be found.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly's heart beat fast as she and her merry friend met, and she gave
+him her hand with a smile of suppressed triumph. He responded with a
+sly wink in the direction of the terrace, where her duenna was wont to
+stand.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;She's nowhere to be seen,&quot; whispered Lilly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What are we to do, then,&quot; he said, wringing his hands in mock
+lamentation, &quot;without the protecting eye of the illustrious Fräulein?
+How are we to mount?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The September sky was very blue; a crisp breeze, heavy with the perfume
+of damp freshly turned sods, blew across the courtyard. He pointed with
+his whip to the open gate. She laughed and nodded assent. The next
+moment she cantered beside him along the grassy road, whither no Argus
+eye could follow them, inwardly rejoicing and exultantly scenting all
+sorts of mad pranks. But he seemed unwilling to make the most of their
+unexpected freedom. He kept his eyes fixed in front of him; every now
+and then he caught at her rein, altered her stirrups or corrected her
+seat in the saddle. He was the riding-master and nothing more.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What's Tommy doing?&quot; she asked, finding things dull.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Tommy sends his love,&quot; he answered with his gaze still fastened on the
+road, &quot;and wishes to say that to-day we had better attend to the
+horses, for if anything happens we shall not be allowed out again.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;My love to Tommy,&quot; she retorted, &quot;and tell him he's a little goose.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I'll not forget,&quot; he said, and bowed over the saddle.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">They came to a coppice of larch-trees where the ground was slightly
+boggy and required careful crossing. But she saw nothing but the silver
+sheen of the trunks, and the golden mist made by the delicate leaves
+dancing in the breeze and nearly brushing her cheek.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Oh, look, how lovely!&quot; she said with a sigh of satisfaction.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Then a demon within her prompted her to an act of madness. She touched
+the mare with her whip and started off on a wild gallop, regardless of
+all the rules and regulations laid down by her riding-master.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">In a few seconds he came up with her, seized her bridle, and with a
+dexterous jerk brought both horses to a standstill.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Their eyes flashed into each other. She felt as if she must throw
+herself on to his saddle to be nearer him at any cost.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What do you mean by that, dear little comrade?&quot; he roared.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And what do you mean by calling me 'dear little comrade'?&quot; she
+retorted.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Then they turned their horses and walked them slowly and in silence
+homewards.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+
+<h2>CHAPTER XIX</h2>
+<br>
+
+<p class="continue">For a long time the threshing-machine had been in tune for
+its autumn
+song. Far beyond the courtyard, penetrating every wall and hedge, its
+melancholy hum was now heard. There was no suggestion in it of golden
+harvest blessings and consolidated sunshine. Like an Æolian harp it
+moaned and howled from morn to eve in the storm-tossed branches.
+Sometimes it seemed to shriek as if the sheaves of grain it tore and
+tortured had found a voice wherewith to express their agony.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Once more Lilly's soul was so full of dreamy bliss that she heard in
+this music nothing but a seductive yearning. It impregnated her morning
+slumber, and often she lay with closed eyes half awake so as to listen
+the better to the monotonous singsong. And all the time he was in her
+thoughts. What she had always wanted was now hers--a playmate, a
+comrade; someone to rejoice and grumble with; someone who confessed all
+his sins to her, the very blackest, and then received a laughing
+absolution. Then whatever he did, he himself was not guilty; it was the
+youth in him that sinned, the same sweet, wicked youth that charged her
+own soul with melancholy and filled her body with thrills, which
+dominated them both like a tormenting deity, smiling on one and
+frowning on the other.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Yes, he must be saved; saved from his own folly, from that fatal
+cynicism of his which threatened to enmesh him in a network of vulgar
+intrigues. There was no silencing the rumours of the sort of life he
+was leading. She had only to set foot in the servants' quarters to hear
+the stream of unsavoury gossip of which he was the subject. All that
+must be ended. Her first interference was to be but the beginning of
+the great mission she had to perform in his life. She would be his good
+genius, standing in his path with raised hands to ward off all horrid
+temptations, so that he should become as pure and devoid of evil
+desires as herself.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">So she dreamed to the accompaniment of the threshing-machine's melody.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The first ride outside the castle gates, though taken without leave,
+was praised and approved; permission was given for others to follow.
+But Lilly hesitated. She would like to be sure of her cantering powers,
+she said, before venturing on unknown ground. The truth was, she was
+dying for another such hour, and only lacked the courage to hurry it
+on.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The very next morning he had been the stern unbending riding-master
+again, treating her with extravagant courtesy. She had thought he would
+be certain to whisper tenderly, &quot;little comrade,&quot; or some other
+familiar greeting--he could have found the opportunity if he had
+liked--but nothing of the sort came to pass either this time or the
+next.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">They had no thought indeed of riding beyond the courtyard for several
+lessons after, till one day the colonel himself issued the command.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Enough of this ambling about round the yard. Go out and let the wind
+of the fields blow through you,&quot; he said.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;As the colonel wishes,&quot; replied Walter, with his hand raised to his
+cap in salute, and he turned her horse with his own towards the open
+gates.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Her heart stood still, and she forgot to send back a farewell greeting
+over her shoulder, so occupied was she with the contemplation of coming
+delights.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">In a minute they were riding in the same direction as they had followed
+ten days ago, when the great event had taken place. The weeping willows
+dripped with dew, and at the slightest movement showered down drops
+upon her. Lilly laughed and shook them off. Instead of joining in the
+sport, he tried to make her keep to the middle of the road.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But I love getting wet,&quot; she protested.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Very well, if the gracious baroness pleases,&quot; he answered with his
+stupid exaggerated formality.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">They rode on in silence. When they came to the place where ten days
+before the great event had happened to which all his conduct to-day
+gave the lie, she dared to shoot a reminiscent side glance at him. But
+he made no response, and appeared not to see. His cap pulled down over
+the back of his head as far as his neck, his thin smooth face sprinkled
+with dewdrops, his boyish figure all muscle and sinews, he sat his
+horse as if he and the animal were one.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;How fond I am of him, in spite of everything, dear little fellow!&quot; she
+thought, and pictured what her desolation would be if one day he were
+suddenly to vanish from the scene. And then she realised all at once
+that her equable gaiety of soul, the feeling of living her life to the
+full, were all due to his nearness to her day after day.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">They rode along even ground steadily. The chain of brown ridges on the
+far side of the river came nearer, and he seemed to be steering for
+these; but this did not serve her purpose, for the hour of serious
+converse had sounded. To-day or never! And with a laborious effort of
+thought she began to calculate all the things she had to say to him.
+But she could not arrange them methodically in her mind, especially as
+her attention was half taken up by her horse. In the saddle she was too
+completely at his mercy, so plucking up courage she proposed that they
+should dismount. While he paused to consider she sprang to the ground,
+and he had to be quick to catch the mare's snaffle.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He scolded her a little, but finally had to do as she wished. They
+proceeded on foot, and he led the horses.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The road lay through a marshy declivity where there was a scanty growth
+of alders and oaks. Yellow marigold buds starred the damp ground and
+burr reed spread out its prickly fruit on distorted branches. Red-dock
+leaves swayed on their withered stalks, and sedgy grass curled itself
+up in anticipation of autumn frosts. A mountain ash felled by a recent
+storm bridged the ditch at the side of the road. Its scarlet berries,
+which should have been dead, still glowed like fire, as if deriving
+life from some mysterious source of their own.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I should like to sit down here,&quot; she said.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He bowed acquiescence.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But you must sit down too.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I must hold the horses, gracious baroness.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You can tie them to a tree.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He reflected a moment. &quot;So I can,&quot; he said, and knotted the reins to
+the fallen trunk.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Then when he came to sit beside her she shifted her position more
+towards the middle to make room. Her feet hung in the air over the
+ditch-water. He pushed himself after her along the tree, hand over
+hand.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;That's far enough,&quot; she said; for she did not want him too close.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Very well, gracious baroness,&quot; he answered, and swung his legs.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The formality of his address caused her fresh annoyance.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Don't you think when we are alone together you might drop titles?&quot; she
+asked, looking him straight in the eyes.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I might ... but I mustn't.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But how about the other day?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Oh, the other day was my birthday,&quot; he answered, &quot;and as I wanted a
+pretty little present I gave myself that!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And to-day is <i>my</i> birthday,&quot; she jested. &quot;What present am I to be
+given?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Anything the gracious baroness likes.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Then I like you to call me 'Comrade.'&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Always, or just once in a way?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Always.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Shall I call you comrade, or be comrade?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Be comrade; be--be comrade. That's the chief thing!&quot; she cried.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;A bargain,&quot; he said, and cautiously crept a little nearer along the
+wobbling trunk to give her his right hand.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;A bargain,&quot; she said, and shook hands.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But there are other items to be settled in connection with this,&quot; he
+said, clearing his throat.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What are they?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Well, for one thing, does a comradeship mean Christian names?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Certainly not,&quot; Lilly replied, feeling that she was making a great
+sacrifice.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He accepted the condition as final, and said submissively, &quot;Just as you
+like, comrade.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Now was her chance to speak out. She drew a deep breath and said:</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You know I want to talk seriously to you, Herr von Prell.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Ugh!&quot; he ejaculated, prepared for a bad quarter of an hour, as he
+gnawed his gloved thumbs.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly plunged off at a tangent. She would not say anything about his
+last misdemeanour, for bad as it was, it was all over, and what was
+forgiven ought also to be forgotten. But if he imagined that the loose
+life he had been leading was a secret in the castle household, he was
+very much mistaken. It was an open scandal, and even the laundry and
+scullery-maids sniggered about it; but how could he expect anything
+else after ... Here she enumerated the sum total of his misdoings, as
+she had gleaned them from remarks the servants had let fall.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She was ashamed to retail them. This was not what she had intended to
+say at all.... She had wanted to speak grandly of the high purpose of
+human existence, the nobility of self-renunciation, the glory of pure
+and lofty ideals, of the spiritual tie uniting the elect on earth, and
+so on. But inspiration failed her when she saw him sitting there with
+bent shoulders and turning his big toes inwards so that under the soft
+leather of his riding-boots they looked like excrescences, and she
+could think of nothing better.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He did not interrupt her. Even when she had done he was silent,
+absorbed in watching an insect wriggling in circles on the surface of
+the water.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Have you no answer,&quot; she asked, &quot;after all the disgraceful things I
+have accused you of?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What should I answer, most learned judge?&quot; he retorted. &quot;My one claim
+to distinction is that I am absolutely devoid of moral sense. Do you
+want me to lose it?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;If you are so weak and have no reliance on yourself,&quot; she exclaimed in
+growing zeal, &quot;let me be your mainstay and support. Lean on me, your
+friend, adviser, your----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Foster-father,&quot; he suggested, and stirred the slime in the ditch with
+his whip.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She awakened to the fact that what she had said had not made the least
+impression; he was laughing at her all the time.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Get up and let me pass,&quot; she said. &quot;Why should I try to do my best for
+someone who is not worth it?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He made no sign of moving from his place.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Now, look here, comrade,&quot; he said, pointing down at the black mirror
+of ditch-water. &quot;There goes a water-spider with its legs in the air and
+its head downwards. If you were to ask it why it swims like that, it
+would say because it knows no other way. That's its nature. Well, do
+you see, it's my nature. What's to be done? You can't alter it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Anyone can restrain his evil passions,&quot; she exclaimed, flaring up in
+indignation. &quot;Anyone can, if he likes, keep his eyes fixed on a high
+ideal and struggle to attain it--can listen to a friend when she would
+help, and say to him----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Well, what would the friend say?&quot; he asked ingratiatingly, swinging
+himself nearer.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She did not answer. She had put her hands before her face and was
+crying--crying till her sobs convulsed her body.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;For God's sake, sit still!&quot; he exclaimed, circling his arms towards
+her, for on the wobbling trunk of the mountain ash she might at any
+moment lose her balance. &quot;Child, dear little comrade, sit still.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She quivered all over. She heard nothing but the sweet, caressing,
+criminal &quot;dear little comrade,&quot; which her soul had been yearning to
+hear.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And then he promised her to turn over a new leaf. He would not flirt
+any more. He would give up tippling with the bailiffs; he would read
+stiff agricultural literature; he would do anything--oh, what wouldn't
+he do?--if she would only stop crying.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Give me your word of honour?&quot; she asked, raising her wet, reddened
+eyes to his.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He gave it without hesitation.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Comforted and grateful, she smiled at him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You'll never repent it,&quot; she said. &quot;I'll stand by you. I'll be a true
+friend, and do all I can for you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;All that the two watch-dogs permit,&quot; he added.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">To-day she didn't mind his saying &quot;two watch-dogs.&quot; She shrugged her
+shoulders and said, &quot;Yes, of course, what <i>they</i> permit.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Then they both laughed so heartily that they narrowly escaped falling
+into the ditch, after all.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+
+<h2>CHAPTER XX</h2>
+<br>
+
+<p class="continue">Then came a delightful time in which she played
+hide-and-seek with her
+emotions: drank long draughts from the never-exhausted fount of
+pleasures anticipated and rehearsed, fulfilled and enjoyed, which left
+behind them a delightful after-taste and a glow of memories. Every day
+brought new happiness and a boundless wealth of experience.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Often when Lilly opened the shutters and the rosy September dawn
+greeted her, she felt as if the Creator had spread a mantle spun out of
+golden sunbeams across the sky on purpose to wrap them in cosy
+seclusion, so that the whole of the world beneath vanished, leaving
+them alone, clinging to one another intoxicated with laughter and
+light.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She felt that she grew lovelier from day to day, that there was a sort
+of radiance surrounding her that made everyone she met gaze at her with
+admiring wonder, and with a little sadness too, as one looks at a
+flower unfolding too proudly, too gloriously, for its miracle of
+blossom to endure.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The two watch-dogs were not blind to the change in her.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The colonel, who was full of craft and guile, failed to diagnose in
+this case the symptoms. His suspicions would have been aroused directly
+if she had been melancholy and absentminded, had hung about him
+nervously, in alternate moods of fervid affection and cold
+estrangement. Then he would have subjected her to a severe espionage.
+But her yielding tenderness and happy serenity was a riddle to which he
+could find no solution; so he gave it up, and tolerated with paternal
+equanimity his young wife's rollicking gaiety and the embraces she
+lavished on him to give vent to the ecstasy within her.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Anna von Schwertfeger was also apparently well satisfied with Lilly's
+happy state of mind and radiant spirits. She seemed as little as the
+colonel to think it suspicious, or to associate it with the influence
+of a third person, otherwise she would scarcely have countenanced so
+willingly the frequent meetings of the two young people.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly now did her best to return the worthy Anna's warm affection, the
+display of which at first had worried her and left her cold. Fräulein
+von Schwertfeger often drew her in the evening into her own private
+room, where she sat with her account-books. It was quite an old-maids'
+paradise, with its canaries in cages, plants and flower-pots, and faded
+photographs of family groups and friends. It was full of old bits of
+china and gilded knick-knacks, such as one meets in ancient and
+impoverished houses as relics of former grandeur. Or she would come at
+an incredibly late hour stealing into Lilly's bedroom, seat herself on
+the bed, and not move till the wheels of the colonel's returning
+carriage were heard on the gravel. Then there would be discussions on
+such profound topics as life and death, the loneliness of old age, and
+the exuberance of youth, which caused grief and trouble when indulged
+in to excess. She asked no questions, she gave no warnings, yet the
+astonishing irrelevance with which she jumped from one subject to
+another, often contradicting flatly her own opinions, indicated that
+her thoughts were really far, far away.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">While her voice droned on monotonously, Lilly sometimes looked up and
+caught her eyes fastened on her with a expression of melancholy
+compassion that she was at a loss to understand. Then she was kissed
+and stroked with such heartfelt, pitying tenderness that she felt
+touched, and when left alone in the dark began to be afraid of
+something, as if an avenging fate crouched at the foot of her bed ready
+to spring on her and devour her.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">What misfortune could possibly fall upon her? Was she not securer and
+more sheltered than she had ever been? Whom did she deceive? What was
+her offence? And even if her innocent relations with Walter should come
+to light, would she merit any severer punishment than a lecture such as
+children get when they have been careless?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">These reflections consoled her even before the after-taste of those
+nocturnal visitations had been lost in blissful dreams.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">September wore to a close. Nearly every day brought a ride or an
+apparently chance meeting at twilight in a deserted part of the park.
+They would discern each other from afar lingering at some appointed
+rendezvous, and if a previous arrangement for meeting were frustrated,
+they resorted to the pea-shooter.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">By means of this accommodating instrument, which he had brought back
+one day from the town--and in a corner of her balcony passed as a
+superfluous curtain-rod--she was able to blow her messages through the
+vine tendrils straight in at his open window. Sometimes it was a simple
+&quot;Good-morning, comrade,&quot; at others an appointment to meet, or a
+harmless joke born on the spur of the moment's gaiety.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">On the evenings that the colonel was at home he was usually invited to
+join them. Then, of course, he assumed his most correct and formal
+manner, though there was often opportunity for a little by-play between
+them, so skilfully managed that the watch-dogs remained quite
+unsuspicious.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Nevertheless, Lilly had a rival on these occasions, which she feared
+and hated, because it deprived her of the &quot;comrade's&quot; attention for
+hours. Its very mention was enough to reduce Lilly to a mere cipher.
+This rival was the Regiment. It was the time of the autumn
+man&#339;uvres, and both men followed with feverish interest the tactical
+movements of their old division as reported in the newspapers.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">One evening they despatched a joint picture-postcard congratulating the
+Regiment, and a day or two later the compliment was returned, a card
+arriving through the post scribbled over with numerous signatures,
+which it was the work of the world to make out. Two or three were
+abandoned as hopeless, till at last Walter hit on a solution. They
+belonged to three outside lieutenants who had joined the regiment
+for the man&#339;uvres, and had signed their names with the other
+officers--von Holten, Dehnicke, von Berg. They made no impression on
+Lilly, except that &quot;Dehnicke&quot; struck her as sounding a little bourgeois
+and discordant amongst the music of the old patrician &quot;vons.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">This greeting from his active past seemed to affect the colonel
+unpleasantly. He became moody and cantankerous, and Lilly felt his eye
+upon her now and then full of a grim savage reproach that made her jump
+with terror. Henceforth his expeditions to the neighbouring garrison
+town became more frequent than ever, and when an invitation to join a
+shooting party arrived, he didn't refuse, in spite of his gout.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The first Sunday in October came. The colonel started off early to
+visit a neighbour, and was not expected to return till late at night.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">A soft grey mist, shot with violet and gold, as a promise of sunshine
+later, enveloped the world, when Lilly, arm-in-arm with Fräulein von
+Schwertfeger, came out of church, almost groaning--she had been so
+bored.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The sunflowers in the labourers' cottage gardens were already drooping
+their scorched heads, and the asters showed signs of having suffered
+from the first severe nip of frost. Yet the air was balmy and
+sweet-scented as spring, and larks made a babel in the fields.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;To-day, to-day!&quot; thought Lilly, and stretched herself in a vague
+longing for private talk and jubilant pranks.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It seemed as if her thoughts had been heard, for Anna von Schwertfeger
+asked suddenly, &quot;What is the matter with you to-day?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I hardly know myself,&quot; Lilly answered, blushing. &quot;I just feel as if
+to-day were a festival.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Anna looked at her sideways, then, clearly emphasising every word, she
+said, &quot;I really might make a festival of it, and visit a friend in the
+town. But the colonel being away, I don't know whether ...&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly started so violently that for a moment she could not recover her
+breath. Then she pulled herself together tactfully, and urged her
+companion to go. She had not had a day off all the summer. She lived
+like a prisoner, and must sorely need a holiday.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Anna nodded meditatively, and the fixed glassy stare that Lilly did not
+like came into her eyes.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">At the midday meal, which the two ladies took alone to-day, she was
+still undecided, but directly it was over she ordered the carriage and
+drove off without a word. Lilly, who, instead of resting, had been
+watching from the upstairs landing, now flew to the pea-shooter. The
+dense foliage of the Virginian creeper still so completely shut her in
+that he could not catch a glimpse of her. But she saw him as he sat at
+the open window frowning over his book.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;My good influence!&quot; she thought triumphantly; and it seemed almost a
+pity to decoy him away from his improving occupation.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The steward and book-keeper were pacing up and down, not far from the
+house, smoking their Sunday afternoon cigar; so it was necessary to be
+more cautious than usual.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The paper pellet that conveyed her message hit him on the forehead and
+rebounded on to the grass outside. So well had he himself in hand that
+he did not so much as raise his eyes to show he understood, but a few
+minutes later he let his book fall out of the window, as if by
+accident, and rose indifferently to pick it up.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Half an hour afterwards they met behind the carp-pond. He had on a new
+black-and-white check suit similar to the fateful one worn by the
+foreigner that night in the railway carriage.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You are much too fine for me to-day,&quot; joked Lilly. &quot;I would rather not
+be seen with you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;That would be an awful shame,&quot; he remarked, &quot;for I ordered these
+things on purpose for this day's outing.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Why?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Because it's to be our festival.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What has put that into your head?&quot; stammered Lilly, shocked to think
+of the communion of ideas it testified to.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;A fellow has his presentiments,&quot; he replied, smiling significantly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Simultaneously they turned their footsteps to the secluded beech-wood,
+whither they had wandered in the deepening dusk on the evening they had
+renewed their friendship.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Where's Tommy?&quot; she asked, thinking of the third member of their
+alliance.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;He's biting a hole in the boards,&quot; was the answer, &quot;and making himself
+a kennel to his own mind. He roosts in it like a screech-owl. I
+shouldn't advise you to put the finger you wear your rings on into it;
+you'd lose the rings and possibly the finger too.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Why do you let him get so wild?&quot; she asked reproachfully.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Why do I let myself get so wild?&quot; he asked in turn.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Oh, you--you know you are becoming quite tame and gentle,&quot; she
+replied, regarding him affectionately because it was all her doing.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You really think so?&quot; he asked; and his aspect assumed the
+masterfulness of his lieutenant days.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Of course I do. Didn't you give me your word of honour?&quot; she boasted.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Rot!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Still Lilly gloried in the success of her work of salvation.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You may underrate my influence if you like,&quot; she replied, &quot;but I can
+assure you everyone else notices the change in you. Herr Leichtweg says
+you are always punctual now; and then you borrowed that great
+agricultural encyclopædia from the colonel--that greatly impressed
+him--and Fräulein von Schwertfeger declares you look quite 'delicious'
+in these days!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Come, baronissima, shall we have a game of catch?&quot; he asked. &quot;It will
+be good for the circulation of your noble blood.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">At once with a shout of joy she started off running at a mad pace up
+the slope, which was veiled in the purple autumnal haze. But she didn't
+go far. She caught her foot in the plaid that she had refused to let
+him carry for her, and fell full length on the ground. He was there in
+a moment to help her up, yet the fall had cured her of her desire to
+run.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">They walked on at a sedate pace and climbed the heights on the other
+side, whence their eyes could wander over a sea of waving foliage right
+away to the open country. The beeches glowed pure red, the maples
+danced in all the colours of the rainbow, the birches quivered like
+slender flames of fire, the elm let fall coins of gold, while the oak
+alone retained the sombre green of his late summer dress. With folded
+hands she gazed at the distance, which was lost in a veil of violet.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The sun went down behind vagrant shafts of fire from out the lap of
+gilt-edged clouds. A band of rosy mist lined the horizon, spangled with
+sparks from the sun's reflection.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Shall we sit down here?&quot; he asked.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;No, not here,&quot; she answered, seized with a vague anxiety; &quot;here I
+should soon begin to cry.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She ran on ahead of him, back into wood, and found the path again
+beside the brook. Here it was as dark as evening, but the magic of the
+sun's radiance was still felt, and filled her with worship of Nature.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Oh, how happy she was! how happy!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">No danger, nothing to be afraid of ... not even of her own secret
+heart ... for he with whom she was walking was her comrade and
+playfellow--nothing more. He must not, could not, be anything more. She
+felt conscious of no evil; he gave her no furtive glances of desire,
+and she did not try to lead him on.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The bond between them and everything connected with it was above-board
+and clear as daylight, and though it was politic to keep it from
+others, there was not the least sin to hide. Their intercourse was
+purely fun for both.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She wanted to take his hand in her warm-hearted, impulsive way, but
+refrained in case her action should be misunderstood. Thus side by side
+they went on till they reached the spot where the brook, confined in a
+basin of rotten wood, gushed with a low murmur out of the earth. The
+pale green mossy floor was covered with rugged fronds of red-lined
+ferns, and leaves from the branches of the beeches fluttered down
+lazily.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Here is the place to rest,&quot; said Lilly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But rather damp, isn't it?&quot; he objected.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;We'll spread the plaid,&quot; she exclaimed, eagerly snatching it from him,
+for he had insisted on carrying it after her fall. She unfolded and
+threw it over the carpet of ferns. She crouched on the extreme right
+side of it, leaving him the lion's share, so that he should not spoil
+his beautiful new suit.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Now we must have something to eat,&quot; he said.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But we, poor church-mice, have nothing!&quot; she laughed.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Who told you so?&quot; he asked, and produced proudly a paper bag from his
+coat pocket.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It contained a squashed crumbly piece of confectionery. He laid it
+between them and they spooned the crumbs up to their mouths with their
+hands. It had a sweet winey flavour, and Lilly identified it at once as
+punch-tart, for which she had a special weakness.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The English call it tipsy-cake,&quot; he said. &quot;You can get quite screwed
+on it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I don't mind risking it,&quot; she answered gleefully.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She threw herself on her back, folding her hands as a cushion behind
+her head. She lay thus motionless for a few minutes, gazing up at the
+round patch of sky that gleamed through a parting in the masses of
+foliage above. Luminous pink flakes of cloud floated in the ocean of
+ether; a little further away a blue shimmer broke through the lower
+sky, like the earnest of another heaven. Lilly stretched up her arms in
+longing.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Are you trying to catch larks?&quot; he asked.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;No, not larks, but the falling leaves,&quot; she said.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Like maimed birds, they kept dropping from the boughs, fluttering about
+in spirals when they reached the ground, as if uncertain where to sit.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Let us see on which of us a leaf falls first,&quot; he said, and he too
+stretched himself on his back.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The first to get one will have a great piece of good luck,&quot; she added.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">They both lay still and waited, and then came a leaf floating towards
+his nose; but he refused to let it settle there, for she deserved the
+first great piece of luck, so he blew it over to her.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She was too proud to accept such a noble gift from him, and blew it
+back.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">So the game went on. They laughed and threw themselves about after the
+whirling leaf. Then suddenly, in the heat of combat their lips met, and
+the next minute their arms were round each other.</p>
+
+<hr class="W20">
+
+<p class="normal">The brook babbled on, and the leaves rained down as if nothing had
+happened. But the earth seemed clothed in a mist of fire, and
+everywhere rainbow suns glittered.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Why had they done this thing? She sank back, dazed, and noticed that
+the sky too was on fire. Her comrade sat next her, with his back bent
+like a schoolboy awaiting a flogging.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Ah! now we may as well go home,&quot; she said despondently.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Certainly, if the gracious baroness wishes,&quot; he replied in mock
+politeness.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She laughed a tired joyless laugh. Evidently his one desire was to
+forget what had passed as speedily as possible.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It doesn't matter now,&quot; she said, &quot;whether we call each other by our
+Christian names or not.&quot;</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+
+<h2>CHAPTER XXI</h2>
+<br>
+
+<p class="continue">Fear, the same unreasoning fear that had taken possession of
+Lilly
+during her engagement, consumed her again. It paralysed her spine,
+bound her arms, and made her knees shake and the veins in her neck
+throb. It wrapped her brain in a blank impenetrable darkness. But after
+the first meetings were over and nothing occurred to excite the
+smallest gleam of suspicion, her fear died down, leaving behind it an
+ever-ready watchfulness, a tension at all times on the lookout for
+awkward questions, a warily assumed innocence by which to avoid
+pitfalls.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Extraordinary to relate, the colonel saw nothing. He who was the most
+jealous and suspicious of husbands, utterly devoid of illusions, was
+for once blind. He even swallowed the headache myth, and came to
+sit on her bed in half-playful, half-cynical sympathy to help Fräulein
+von Schwertfeger change the compresses, which she prepared with
+over-zealous attentiveness. To submit to this woman's caresses taxed
+her heavily, for behind them was a furtive pair of eyes that strove to
+look harmless, yet could not disguise their insatiable curiosity.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">As anxiety with regard to her husband gradually lulled itself to sleep,
+the more wakeful did it become in the case of the self-sacrificing
+female friend, who at any moment might assume the <i>rôle</i> of a
+full-fledged enemy and traitor.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly dared not cry till night, when she was alone, and then she would
+spring out of bed to wash away traces of her tears, only to cry herself
+to sleep after all.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was not remorse that she felt, nor shame, nor yearning love, but
+simply an unfathomable loneliness, a dismayed facing of the question
+&quot;What next?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Would it be confession and retirement into a convent, or elopement and
+suicide?--events which in Frau Asmussen's old novels had been the quite
+ordinary sequel to such a misdeed.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">A week went by. Her headache was well. She had been up again quite a
+long time, but hadn't seen him. Not a vestige of him was to be seen
+when, with the doors of her room bolted, she rushed on to the balcony
+to look across at his quarters.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The colonel kept urging her to resume her rides. The exercise would do
+her good, and Herr von Prell was ready to escort her.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">By the time Saturday came she felt she must give in, for they would be
+forced to meet the next day at dinner. The horses were stamping before
+the door. Now the moment of meeting, which she had been anticipating
+with trembling fears, had come, and confronted her like a new danger.
+But when she had beheld her friend swagger over the terrace in his
+high, polished riding-boots, pale and haggard, bowing like a doll on
+wires to show his hypocritical respect, something in her grew rigid; a
+feeling came over her that this young man was an utter stranger to whom
+she was going to speak for the first time.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The next moment they rode out of the gate together. The colonel had
+gone to the stables, but Fräulein von Schwertfeger stood with clasped
+hands looking after them.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The road across the fields was like a morass from the standing pools of
+rain, and squelched under the horses' hoofs. A chill breeze stirred the
+young autumn wheat. Beyond the ragged twigs of the birches was a faint
+yellow glow, in which a watery-looking sun was sinking. Everything
+looked fatigued and sad; even the winter crops seemed to think it had
+been hardly worth while to sow them.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">They trotted on side by side in silence; every minute seemed an hour.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Surely he must speak at last,&quot; she thought, biting her lips till they
+bled, as she rose in the saddle.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He kept his eyes fixed with an unfaltering gaze on the road, and only
+moved his right hand now and again to adjust his reins.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;He'll begin again before long with his 'gracious baronesses,'&quot; she
+thought bitterly, and felt ashamed of herself and him in anticipation.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">At length it was she who broke silence.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Do walk your horse!&quot; she implored, nearly crying.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Of course we will, comrade,&quot; he said, reining in his chestnut.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Comrade! Comrade!&quot; she echoed derisively, and sought his eyes with a
+passionate glance. &quot;We've made a nice mess of our comradeship!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He shrugged his shoulders, the gesture with which he always met a
+scolding, and did not answer.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I wish you would say something!&quot; she cried, quite beside herself.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What do you want me to say?&quot; he asked, making a movement as if he were
+going to scratch his head reflectively. &quot;It's a nasty affair--we admit
+that,&quot; and he repeated, pondering to himself, &quot;nasty affair, nasty
+affair!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And is that all you have to say?&quot; she exclaimed.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;My gracious friend,&quot; he replied, &quot;I am little, and my heart is little
+in proportion. It's hardly an adequate platform whereon to parade great
+anguish of soul!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Who is talking about anguish of soul!&quot; she cried. &quot;What is to become
+of us? That is what I want to know.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Directly I inherit an unencumbered ancestral manor,&quot; he replied, with
+a gesture that denoted invitation, &quot;containing house, stable, horses
+and carriages, and other animate and inanimate necessaries, I shall
+permit myself the honour of asking your husband for your hand.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She could no longer control her despair.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;If you continue to make your insulting jokes,&quot; she almost screamed,
+bursting into tears, &quot;I'll ride straight away from you now, and break
+my neck.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Rather a difficult thing to accomplish on that sober nag of yours,&quot;
+was his cool reply.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She was at a loss what to retort and so let her tears fall silently.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">At last he adopted a different tone.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Be sensible for a change, my child, to please me,&quot; he said. &quot;All I
+meant to do was to clear your soul of superfluous tragedy. As soon as
+you put a bright face on the matter I'll give it practical
+consideration; I promise you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She wiped the tears from her eyes with the gauntlet of her riding-glove
+and forthwith smiled obediently.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;That's all right,&quot; he said with approval. &quot;Not in vain did the poet
+sing:</p>
+<div class="poem">
+<p class="t4" style="text-indent:-8px">'O weine selten, weine schwer.<br>
+Wer Tränen hat, hat auch Malheur.'</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="continue">Well, now, I'll tell you a fairy tale. We two pretty orphan children
+were just planted down here in this enchanted castle for each other. We
+were obliged to come together here, even if long ago we had not been
+two hearts united somewhere else. The colonel, as a matter of fact,
+wedded us from the first. The only pity is that your marriage contract
+with him did not make provision for the circumstances. But there it is,
+and we have no choice but to resort to some secret arrangement between
+ourselves. Don't you see, dearest child, we are both tacking the same
+way on life's ocean. The risks you and I have to run are one and the
+same. So buck up, and let's go it! We are poor vagabonds, anyhow.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Thank you, I am not a vagabond!&quot; Lilly flared up. &quot;I have my pride and
+my honour to maintain, and even if I have sinned, I know how to die for
+my sins.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Dying is not so easy,&quot; he remarked; &quot;generally the opportunity is
+lacking, and then when it comes one funks it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She felt her old burning desire to protect him from his own low
+estimate of himself.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You don't mean what you say!&quot; she cried. &quot;You are amongst the boldest
+and bravest of men, and would face death for the sake of your honour, I
+know. And if you liked you might have the whole world at your feet. I
+shall never cease to remind you of that. I have not sacrificed myself
+for you for nothing. I will interest myself in you till you get back
+your faith in yourself, till you feel you are once more on the upward
+path. I will share all your trials and temptations, and stand between
+you and evil. What am I here for except for your sake--yours?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">At that moment her enthusiasm for him was so great that she could
+gladly have thrown herself under the hoofs of his horse, and when she
+compared this with her feelings when they had first met that day, she
+could hardly comprehend how it was that he had appeared to her in so
+alienated and repulsive a light.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You are a most emotional creature,&quot; he said; &quot;it is a good thing that
+the creepers hide your balcony so effectually.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What do you mean to imply by that?&quot; she faltered, in shocked
+foreboding.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And the ladder luckily is still in its place,&quot; he went on, &quot;ready to
+be used. The creepers might break this time and no one would notice
+anything amiss, not even the Schwertfeger, eh?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">His light eyelashes blinked at her persuasively.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She did not know which way to look, she felt so dreadfully ashamed.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Never, never will I have anything to do with you again!&quot; she cried.
+&quot;I swear by all the saints I never will! I should loathe myself if I
+did, and despise you with all my heart and soul!&quot; She finished with an
+exclamation of disgust.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He merely shrugged his shoulders. &quot;A pity,&quot; he said; &quot;it would have
+been a splendid opportunity ...&quot;</p>
+
+<hr class="W20">
+
+<p class="normal">He came to dinner the next day the picture of all the virtues in his
+frock-coat and black cravat. He bowed and scraped, pursed his lips, and
+was so absurdly deferential that he seemed afraid to take his cup of
+Mocha coffee from her hand. Fräulein von Schwertfeger's eyes wandered
+watchfully and inquiringly from one to the other.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Late that Sunday night, after the colonel had gone into town, and
+Fräulein von Schwertfeger retired early to her room, Lilly was sitting
+on her bed brushing her hair in her night attire, when she became aware
+of a soft rattling sound at the window. It sounded as if a branch were
+being blown by the autumn wind against the shutters, only that it
+occurred regularly at intervals, growing weaker and stronger, but
+always persistent. Seized with fright, she first thought of going down
+to Fräulein von Schwertfeger. But, recollecting herself in time, she
+threw on a dressing-gown, and cautiously opened the window and a bit of
+the outside shutter.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">For a moment she saw nothing. It was a starless night, and the
+bailiff's house opposite seemed plunged in darkness; then it dawned on
+her that something like a rod was oscillating close to the shutter. She
+opened it a little further--and recognised the pea-shooter!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Then she knew what it was.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Springing backwards she drew the bolt, flung herself into bed, and
+stopped up her ears with her fingers. But every time she drew them out
+to listen she heard that persistent regular rattle, which had now
+become almost an unblushing knock.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The watchman who patrolled yard and park every hour had only to see the
+ladder leaning against the balcony, and all would be lost. Anxiety
+deprived her of her senses. Trembling like an aspen-leaf in every limb,
+she ran into her dressing-room again, where there was no light, opened
+the balcony door slowly and noiselessly a finger's depth, and whispered
+through the crack into the darkness: &quot;Go away at once, and never
+attempt such a thing again.&quot; But when she tried to close the door again
+it wouldn't shut. She listened, but nothing was to be seen or heard.
+Then she groped with her hands and found the obstacle. It was the
+inevitable pea-shooter. She moaned aloud, buried her face, and the next
+moment was lying half-fainting in his arms.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">After this evening she was completely in his power, defenceless, and
+without a will of her own--a victim of his every wish and whim.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It couldn't be called happiness or even ecstasy. That followed later,
+when she had overcome her horror of their monstrous conduct and fear of
+discovery was deadened by nothing happening to disturb them, and she
+could revel in a defiant sense of security. Then it became a blissful
+skating over awful abysses--a delirium of the senses full of intangible
+joys--a beatific offering of herself to a lacerating scourge, an
+alternative ebullition of self-scorn and degradation and blasphemous
+prayer.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She began to laugh again--not that old silly childlike laughter which
+till recently had dominated her frivolous nature. No, it was a mocking
+exultant laughter, the laughter of a hunted thief when, behind the back
+of his pursuer, he drags his hard-won booty into a place of safety.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">There was a feeling of justification in it too. &quot;I am only doing what
+my destiny ordains,&quot; she would tell herself. &quot;I am coming into the
+heritage promised me by fate, that the old man has cheated me of for so
+long.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">There was something more that scored over everything, and almost gave a
+sanctity and purity to this arrant deception, and this was the
+reflection that their intercourse meant salvation to him. He would
+learn to despise vulgar and shameful intrigues under the spell of this
+elevating passion, and on the wings of a woman's redeeming love he
+would rise into the pure ether where the spirits of great men and
+heroes dwell.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She drugged her conscience ever anew with these delusions, and when he
+lay in her arms at their secret rendezvous, gave expression to them in
+a whisper, for walls were thin, and it was as well not to speak too
+loud.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He laughed and kissed the words from her lips, and when she grew uneasy
+and begged for pledges of constancy, he swore by all his stars to be
+true.</p>
+
+<hr class="W20">
+
+<p class="normal">Fräulein von Schwertfeger's visits to Lilly's room now never lasted
+later than eleven. At about this hour he was permitted to come; at
+half-past one he had to be gone. Of course, this was only on nights
+when the colonel went to town. The train service made it impossible for
+him to return before two, and, besides, the clatter of approaching
+carriage wheels could be heard as a warning on the courtyard
+paving-stones. Before his departure Walter had to smoke a cigarette to
+clear the room of the odour which he brought with him of stable and
+leather. For sometimes the colonel, if wine made him talkative, would
+look in on Lilly as he went to bed, and even come and sit by her for a
+little, regaling her with the latest &quot;good stories&quot; from Berlin, that
+he had heard in the Casino. She for her part pretended to be very
+sleepy, would yawn and purr like a kitten, and often in confidence of
+safety actually fall asleep in the middle of a laugh.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">If only there had been no Fräulein von Schwertfeger! Not that she had
+noticed anything--the terrors of such a contingency were not to be
+contemplated. But her restless comings and goings, the almost nervous
+eagerness with which she spied round her, gave quite enough food for
+anxiety. She began to look haggard and pale, only the flesh round her
+mouth, like her sharp-tipped nose, was a deep red. It looked almost as
+if she drank, but if she did it was in secret, for at table she hardly
+touched wine.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I don't mind what she does,&quot; thought Lilly, &quot;as long as she doesn't
+play the spy on me as she did on Käte.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Sometimes it struck Lilly rather forcibly that she herself was now not
+much better than the poor girl who had been sent away from the castle
+in disgrace.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+
+<h2>CHAPTER XXII</h2>
+<br>
+
+<p class="continue">Fräulein von Schwertfeger had said &quot;Good-night&quot; and gone out
+of Lilly's
+room about half an hour before midnight one November evening. The
+colonel had driven off to the town, and close to Lilly's pillow sat the
+hero, wet and frozen, for he had been waiting a long time in the
+drizzling rain below before the signal--a double click of the shutter
+bolt--had been given to summon him to her side.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Now, however, all was going smoothly. The house slept, the watchmen had
+gone by, and the ladder, which he for greater safety dragged after him
+on to the balcony, reposed peacefully in its corner. The blue-shaded
+lamp bathed the warm, perfumed atmosphere of the room with a midsummer
+brilliance. Showers of drops dripped softly from the bars of the
+shutters, and the November wind whimpered in the chimney like a beggar.
+Lilly lay comfortably stretched beneath the pale blue satin quilt. She
+held his hand and gazed dreamily up into his face, which even in
+moments of self-abandonment never quite lost its expression of
+schoolboy sheepishness. She gazed at the freckled bridge of his nose,
+the blinking pale-lashed eyes, and the sharply pointed unshaven chin,
+half hidden in the turned-up collar of his green Norfolk jacket. He
+dared not brush himself up for her any more, or it would have excited
+remark from his colleagues.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">They did not talk much. It was enough that he was there, he who
+belonged to her in life and death, with whom she had been cast adrift
+in this cold, strange world. She drew his head down to hers and stroked
+the forehead, on which his easy-going career had left no lines. A few
+raindrops still hung on his temples.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The clock ticking on the wall drew breath for a gentle chiming of the
+hour, the hanging lamp swung a little, casting long wavering shadows on
+the ceiling, like rocking cradles, or the flapping of ravens' wings.
+Then there came from the courtyard the sound of the dull rumble of
+wheels. Whether the sound was advancing or receding was not easy to
+decide.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Both started and looked at the hands of the clock. Could that possibly
+be the carriage already, which had gone to fetch the colonel from the
+station? At twelve? Surely not. The horses were never put in before a
+quarter to two, or they would have had to wait at the station for an
+hour and a half. Probably it was the milkman, who had been delayed in
+bringing back his cans. They grew calm again. A whole long precious
+hour was before them, an hour of sweet enjoyment and oblivion of
+everything except each other. To show his relief he made a popping
+sound with his mouth. She stretched out her arms and lifted herself up
+to his level with a contented smile. At that very moment there were
+three short peremptory raps on the door opening into the corridor.
+Fräulein von Schwertfeger's voice called out, &quot;Open the door, Lilly;
+open the door immediately.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Walter bounded up. Before she could look round he had glided out of the
+room. She felt as if bells were pealing in her ears, and a vague
+longing to sink through the bed before the knock was repeated and drew
+her to the door to turn the key. Overcome with shame, she had hardly
+time to bury herself under the quilt again before Fräulein von
+Schwertfeger's eyes took a hasty survey of the room and alighted on
+something grey and round in a corner. She darted at it, and only later
+did Lilly recognise that it was Walter's cap. She drew back the bolt of
+the door into the colonel's room, and then with apparent calm, as if
+nothing had happened, seated herself on the edge of Lilly's bed.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Whatever you do, don't cry,&quot; she whispered hurriedly, and then the
+colonel's footsteps were heard in the corridor.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Good gracious, is it so late? How time flies when two women get
+gossiping!&quot; was the speech Fräulein von Schwertfeger greeted him with.
+Her tone expressed the most unbounded surprise.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">There he stood, and appeared not altogether pleased at not finding his
+young wife alone.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Where do you spring from all at once, colonel? You can't have ordered
+a special train, and if you came through the air, I never knew before
+you had mastered the art of flying; and I am sure your wife didn't--did
+you, my pet? You see, she is rendered speechless with astonishment.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Thus she talked on, giving Lilly a few moments in which to collect
+herself.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Forced to render account of his movements, he said that as he drove to
+the station he had remembered that it was a neighbouring squire's
+birthday, and, changing his plans on the spot, had turned round and
+gone to help in the celebration of the happy event instead of going to
+town.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;That is always the way,&quot; said Fräulein von Schwertfeger; &quot;the most
+extraordinary events have the simplest explanations. Good-night,
+dearest. I hope you will sleep well, and wake up without headache.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The colonel was on the alert. &quot;Why, if she had a headache, didn't you
+leave her to go to sleep long ago?&quot; he asked.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Fräulein von Schwertfeger was equal to the occasion, and without
+hesitating a moment she replied:</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Lilly asked me to get her compresses again, but I thought it wiser
+just to lay a cool hand on her forehead. Now I think we ought to leave
+her alone, don't you, colonel? Goodnight!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Thereupon she extinguished the blue lamp.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly felt she must scream out: &quot;Don't go! stay here, or he'll strangle
+me!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She was already out of the room, and so effectual had her diplomacy
+been, that the colonel, with a few civilities about her headache,
+retired to his own room without further questions. Otherwise a
+breakdown of Lilly's nerves might have brought things to the inevitable
+crisis there and then.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Paralysed with a dull fear she lay listening, first in the direction of
+the colonel's room, then of that where the wind moaned, and where there
+was an almost inaudible rustling of the leaves, caused by the ladder
+which Walter was sliding over the railings of the balcony. As long as
+there was light in the room he discreetly remained where he was. She
+could hear afterwards how he removed the ladder and put it in the old
+place. Not till now, when she knew they were safe, did she realise with
+a shudder the gravity of their escape, and she felt an inclination to
+call out and cry for mercy.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Anna's conduct seemed inexplicable. Why had she made herself a party to
+their misdeeds, she whose reputation, existence, and employment were at
+stake? Did a wretched sinner like herself deserve such a sacrifice?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Her heart went out to her in gratitude. She could no longer rest
+quietly in bed. She must at once go and thank her.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Noiselessly she threw something on, and taking the precaution to bolt
+the door of communication between the two rooms, she slipped out into
+the corridor, having assured herself that the colonel was already
+asleep.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The old oak staircase creaked terribly, but it often did this when no
+one was creeping down it; its music resounded through the house at
+intervals all the night through. From under Fräulein von Schwertfeger's
+door came the glimmer of light. Heavy footsteps paced up and down
+restlessly. At last she ventured to knock, and was answered by &quot;Who's
+there?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It's Lilly.... Anna!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What do you want? Go back to bed!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;No, no, Anna! I must speak to you; I must.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The door opened. &quot;Come in, then,&quot; was the not very cordial invitation.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly was going to throw herself on her neck, but Fräulein von
+Schwertfeger shook her off.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I am in no mood for disturbing scenes,&quot; she said in her trumpet voice,
+which she tried in vain to muffle. It had lost every vestige of its
+sympathetic tone. &quot;You needn't thank me; I haven't acted as I have done
+for your sake.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly felt very small, and very like a scolded child. Since the days
+when she had accepted meekly Frau Asmussen's chastisements she had not
+been so snubbed.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;At first you help me ...&quot; she hesitated, &quot;and then ...&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;As you are here, you shall answer a few questions,&quot; said Anna. &quot;Fasten
+up your dress--it is cold here--and sit down.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly obediently did what she was told.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;To begin with, have I ever done anything to bring about a meeting
+between you and that young man?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;No; when could you?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;That's just what I am asking.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It was quite the contrary, for you wouldn't even consent at first to
+my having the riding lessons.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And when I did consent, have I allowed them to take place without
+supervision?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Without supervision?&quot; echoed Lilly. &quot;No, I should think not, indeed.
+You were nearly always there from start to finish.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Was it I who proposed your riding about the open country with him
+alone?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You? Why, of course not. The first time we went without leave, and
+afterwards it was the colonel who wished it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Lastly, have I or have I not taken care to watch that everything was
+right in your room?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I am not sure, but I think so. You used, anyhow, to come in the last
+thing to say 'Good-night.'&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Have you taken me for your enemy--your jailer?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Not exactly ... but I thought you didn't really care much about me.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Anna laughed a hard, cheerless laugh.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Your utterances are very valuable,&quot; she said. &quot;It proves to me that I
+haven't blundered in carrying through my scheme, and that I have
+nothing to reproach myself with.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What scheme?&quot; asked Lilly, quite at sea.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Fräulein von Schwertfeger measured her with a glance of pitying scorn.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I knew everything, child, from the very beginning. The first moment
+you met him here I saw what was coming. I could reckon it all up as I
+do the cost of dinner. I just let things go as they were bound to go. I
+could do it without lowering myself in my own self-esteem. Besides,
+what end would have been served by interfering? You were simply bent on
+rushing headlong to your ruin.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What have I ever done,&quot; faltered Lilly, &quot;that you should hate me so? I
+have never tried to upset your position in the house. I submitted to
+you from the first moment I arrived. I put myself entirely in your
+hands and now you treat me like this!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;My dear, if I had hated you,&quot; replied Fräulein von Schwertfeger, &quot;you
+would not be here now. You would probably at this very minute be
+wandering on the high-road. A dozen times or more I might have crushed
+you like dust in the palm of my hand, and I haven't done it. But I'll
+be honest.... Yes, I did hate you--that is to say, before I knew you. I
+pictured you a little pert, designing minx, who had drawn the colonel
+on, out of mercenary motives, to resort to that extreme measure which
+is the last resource of old libertines when they are thwarted. But when
+you came and I saw what you were, a dear, ingenuous child, without
+suspicion of evil, full of good intentions towards him and myself, I
+had to pocket my hate. Then you became to me nothing more than a
+harmless little pet dog that one uses so long as it is any pleasure to
+one and then kicks aside. I have done with you, my dear child, long
+ago. You're not in it. I and the colonel alone are playing the game. I
+have to reckon with him now, and then my work is over.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly's soul was full of a dull sickening wonder. She felt as if doors
+were being thrown open and blinds drawn up, and she was looking
+straight into human hearts as into a fiery abyss.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I thought that you and he were so much to each other,&quot; she said. &quot;I
+thought----&quot; Then suddenly it occurred to her that her first idea had
+been the right one. This imperious and hardened old maid, of whose
+beauty there were still traces, had ten or fifteen years ago been
+admired by her employer, after a time neglected, and now wished to be
+revenged.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Fräulein von Schwertfeger guessed her thoughts and speedily dispelled
+the delusion.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;If that had been it,&quot; she said, &quot;I should have known how to keep
+silent, and have regarded the castle as my sanctuary had I been allowed
+to remain in it. No, no, my child; things are not always so simple in
+this world, and there are worse hells than you dream of.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Then Lilly heard a story which filled her with horror and pity, the
+story of which she was the last chapter.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The colonel, always a man of tyrannical will, with a mad infatuation
+for young girls, had, under the pretext that when he was at home on
+leave he liked to have youth and gaiety about him, advertised for
+pupils to learn housekeeping. He selected the successful applicants
+himself, having known beforehand whom they were to be. For a long time
+Fräulein von Schwertfeger suspected nothing, till the servants began to
+talk. They came to her with stories of secret orgies at the top of the
+house, of wild races up and down stairs after frightened girls clothed
+in silver spangles--transparent garments of silver being apparently an
+old weakness of the colonel's. Her eyes were fully opened to these
+disgraceful goings-on when one of the girls attempted suicide, and she
+left the house. But she was poor and used to ruling. She could not keep
+subordinate posts, and sank into poverty and wretchedness. The colonel
+did not lose sight of her, and when he thought she had suffered
+sufficient punishment for her independent line of action, he asked her
+to return once more to the castle as his lady-housekeeper. He promised
+her that there would be nothing more to complain of, so she crept back
+to his house like a starved dog. He soon broke his word, however; the
+orgies were resumed, but she hadn't any longer the courage to protest.
+She learnt to be blind and deaf when amorous glances were exchanged at
+table, and late at night shrill cries and laughter reached her bedroom.
+She even went so far as to keep the scandal from the curious servants,
+and thus to screen the house's reputation, while she offered his girl
+friends a motherly interest and affection.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I shouldn't be surprised,&quot; she added, &quot;if he hadn't made you the same
+proposals, and suggested that I should look after you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And it came back to Lilly's remembrance how in that hour of fate, when
+she had become engaged to him, he had walked round her, eager but
+irresolute, and spoken of a worthy and distinguished lady under whose
+fostering care she was to develop on his estate into a woman of the
+world.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Fräulein von Schwertfeger had not done. She went on to say that the
+bitter consciousness of her shameful position ate into her soul like a
+canker, and finally took such possession of her that her one thought
+was to be revenged. His marriage was to be the instrument. She would
+continue to be blind and deaf as he had once demanded she should be.
+That was all. Matters should take their natural course. Such had been
+the state of affairs till to-day. To-day the catastrophe must have been
+unavoidable, and would have fallen on the colonel if at the last
+decisive moment her strength of character had not failed her. She found
+that the young, good-hearted, guilelessly guilty wife had won her
+affection too deeply to be sacrificed to her plans of vengeance.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But I thought you said just now,&quot; Lilly ventured to interpose, &quot;that
+you had not done it for my sake.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Fräulein von Schwertfeger fixed her with a stony and awful stare.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;My child,&quot; she answered, &quot;if you were not quite such a stupid young
+thing, whom sin alone can mature, you might understand the conflict
+that is perpetually going on in anyone like myself. For the present, be
+satisfied that you are out of danger.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">In a burst of gratitude Lilly flew at Fräulein von Schwertfeger and
+kissed her face and hands. Anna no longer repulsed her; she caressed
+her hair and talked to her in a tone of friendly patronage. Then Lilly,
+crouching at her feet, confessed how the affair with Walter had arisen,
+how their friendship had originated, and how he in reality had been the
+author of her happiness.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Happiness!&quot; echoed Fräulein von Schwertfeger, and she made a sound
+through her tight lips like a whistle of disdain.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly stopped short, looked at her inquiringly, and then understood.
+The question burned in her brain, &quot;Am I any better, really, than if he
+had dragged me here as his mistress?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was eleven months since that night of courtship. What had they made
+of her? She threw her arms round Fräulein von Schwertfeger's neck and
+cried, cried, cried. It did her such a lot of good to have a sisterly,
+or rather a motherly, bosom on which to pillow her head. It reminded
+her of the days which had ended with the flourish of a knife.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Of course, now it was all over; that was an understood thing. They must
+not meet again--not once. Fräulein von Schwertfeger demanded it, and
+Lilly without opposition agreed.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;If only it weren't for my mission!&quot; she sighed.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What mission?&quot; asked Anna.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Then Lilly told her that too--of her sacred responsibility with regard
+to his life, of the influence her love had upon him, awaking him to
+higher and purer things, and how she would be answerable with the last
+drop of blood in her veins for his ascent to a noble plane of
+endeavour, where his work, inspired by her, would bear fruit and not be
+wasted.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was Fräulein von Schwertfeger's turn to be astounded, and she
+listened to her with distended, incredulous eyes, paced the room
+excitedly, and murmured to herself, &quot;It's unbelievable! unbelievable!&quot;
+And when Lilly asked her what was unbelievable, she kissed her on the
+forehead and said, &quot;You poor, poor thing!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Why poor?&quot; asked Lilly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Because you are bound to suffer in this life.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Hereupon it was settled that Anna would speak to him once more herself,
+and, as the price of her silence, require from him the breaking off of
+every sort of relation between them. Not even the rides would be
+permitted. Lilly pleaded for the writing of one single letter of
+farewell. That, she thought, she owed him in order that he should not
+be cast into despair about her and his future.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Then they separated. Lilly ran upstairs; elated, redeemed, borne on the
+wings of new hopes, she cast all precautions to the winds, but, thank
+God, the colonel was still snoring.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The clocks struck four, and the clodhopping step of the stable-boy was
+already heard in the yard. Before she flung herself into bed she
+allowed herself one farewell look across at the bailiff's lodge and
+rejoiced that renunciation was so easy.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+
+<h2>CHAPTER XXIII</h2>
+<br>
+
+<p class="continue">&quot;<span class="sc">DEAREST HERR VON PRELL</span>,</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You will have concluded from what has happened that all must be over
+between us. Yes, everything has come to an end. We shall never meet
+again except at table. If you ask whether this makes me sad I will be
+brave and say 'No,' in the hope that it will cause you to feel our
+parting less. But the question is not whether we find it difficult or
+easy. We have to consider whether our feelings in the matter are
+elevating and humanly disinterested. True self-sacrifice must be the
+keystone of our lives. Yes, I expect from you the nobility of
+renunciation. The whole of our future must be dedicated to memories
+alone. Are we ever likely to enjoy again such exquisite hours as we
+have spent together? I have done with thoughts of happiness, and so
+must you too. Henceforth my one sacred duty will be my husband's
+welfare, and I must request you to devote all the energy you are
+capable of to the reordering of your life. You know life is a very
+sacred thing. I feel that it is so, since I have had a kind woman
+friend to set me on the right road, and I want you to feel it too.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;This letter is my last. You may write to me just once. Please do, and
+put your answer in the pea-shooter, which still stands as before in the
+corner of the balcony. Ah! indeed, I shall have no peace till I know
+that our souls are united by the same desires. Good-bye, and when you
+come to meals, be sure you make no secret reference to what has been.
+It would only be painful to me, and I should doubt your good faith.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Always yours in true sisterly affection,</p>
+
+<p class="right">&quot;L. v. M.&quot;</p>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;<span class="sc">Gracious Friend and Lady</span>,</p>
+
+<p class="normal" style="text-indent:5%">&quot;The profound emotions I have experienced since my last interview with
+our honoured Fräulein von Schwertfeger are only deepened by your most
+kind lines. I feel a great impulse to perform deeds of atonement never
+yet attempted. I am ready to heap scorn and contumely on the seven
+deadly sins. I will take as example all the paragons of virtue the
+world has ever known, and will try to find in the lofty renunciation
+you demand of me that undiluted happiness which is the only kind devoid
+of the sting of remorse--an advantage which cannot have much weight
+with one so fatally constituted that he has heard of such a thing but
+never felt it.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Thus, dearest and most charming of women, farewell! We certainly had a
+good time. I can swear to this without committing perjury. Should you
+require more pledges for the future, I can also swear, first, to abhor
+alcohol; second, to shun the fair sex like the plague; third, to devote
+to the Encyclopædia of Agriculture unremitting love and attention, two
+volumes of seven hundred and twenty pages each notwithstanding.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Once more, farewell! The ladder of my hopes, which I have climbed for
+the last time, shall find a wintry grave under fir cones and branches.
+When the times comes, may it rise therefrom to greet a new spring.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Till then, I kiss in all constancy your slim and refreshingly large
+hand.</p>
+
+<p style="text-indent:50%; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom:2px;">&quot;Yours,</p>
+
+<p style="text-indent:55%; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom:2px;">&quot;Already reformed,</p>
+
+<p style="text-indent:60%; margin-top:0px; margin-bottom:2px;">&quot;<span class="sc">Walter von Prell</span>.&quot;</p>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly found this letter, on the morning but one after the foregoing
+events, stuffed in the mouth of the pea-shooter, which reposed
+innocently against the balcony glass doors. It cannot be said that it
+gave her unlimited satisfaction. There were expressions in it that
+raised scepticism with regard to the sincerity of his conversion. Yet
+his assurances of amendment were so frank and concise, one could not
+doubt that the sentiment that prompted him to make them was genuine. It
+was only that he could not give up the incorrigible levity with which
+he expressed himself. Those who loved him must tolerate this
+eccentricity, whether they liked it or not.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She kissed the letter and put it inside her blouse, that it might rest
+there comfortably for a little while before being torn up.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">In the afternoon she went for a stroll round the castle, and found
+under the balcony a heap of fir-branches freshly gathered, out of which
+a rung or two of the buried ladder greeted her confidentially. Pleased
+at this tender evidence of his pain at parting from her, she ran on to
+the boggy outskirts of the park, and marvelled every now and then at
+the easiness of renunciation.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Yet it proved not so easy after all. She began to discover this during
+the next few days of reaction, when life seemed hollow and barren of
+excitement, when the sad grey autumn hours passed drearily and evening
+came, followed by morning, apparently without rhyme or reason.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She did not did in Anna von Schwertfeger's society the solace and
+support she had hoped for. Although her friend did not withdraw her
+promises, she remained behind a wall of reserve, which made any close
+and loving intimacy out of the question. It almost seemed as if she was
+afraid of being implicated in the sinner's guilt, if she encouraged
+Lilly's advances.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">At this time Lilly had to put up with a great deal from the colonel.
+His outbursts of ungovernable fury now fell on her, as on the rest of
+the household. But what she dreaded more was the gloomy, threatening
+glance he fixed on her at moments when she sat indulging in quiet
+introspection; she felt instinctively that something was in his mind
+that boded her no good. She began even to fear that he had got wind of
+her affair with Prell. But Fräulein von Schwertfeger would not hear of
+such a thing.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;If that were so,&quot; she said, &quot;he would adopt a rather different
+procedure. Broken chairs and smashed lamps would be the consequence of
+his first-awakened suspicion. I think the matter stands thus: he is
+bored to extinction at home, he is hankering for the regiment, and he
+holds you, child responsible for the change in his manner of living.
+God forbid that he gets to hate you for it, otherwise, as far as I can
+see, you will have no choice but to get a separation--or commit
+suicide.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">All this was not very consoling. No less discouraging was his
+persistent refusal to introduce her to his neighbours. Anna assured him
+Lilly's education was long ago complete, and no colonel's dame could
+find anything amiss in her manners. Yet he looked at her in distrust,
+and put off the visits week after week.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Nevertheless, Lilly cheerfully endured her troubles. Belief in herself
+and in him buoyed her up, and gave her strength and composure. She made
+herself out a time-table, so that every hour of the day should be
+occupied. She learnt Goethe's lyrics by heart, she read Shakespeare in
+English, pored over Art books and studied the labyrinthine history of
+the French Revolution. Especially attractive reading did she find in a
+big geographical tome containing illustrations of Southern harbours and
+tropical forests, rocky mountains, and the like. Italy, too, was
+represented. There were pious pilgrims praying at shrines, mystic
+churches and buildings, slender pillared porticos, and all filled her
+with the old hunger to wander under those sunny skies.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And so she lost her way travelling in spirit in foreign countries, to
+look round suddenly and find herself face to face with a fair young man
+with freckles in a black and white check suit stiffly bowing and
+saying, &quot;as gracious baroness commands.&quot; Then tears sprang to her eyes.
+Her only distraction now was to stand at the balcony door, and over the
+rampart of Virginian creeper, the last leaves of which fluttered about
+like red flags, to gaze across at the outside of the bailiff's house.
+Of course, he had no idea she was there. Oh, how proud she felt of him!
+For she saw him spending all his spare hours with the Encyclopædia of
+Agriculture on the window ledge. Quickly she caught up her geographical
+work again, fired by his example not to idle.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">In the evening he closed the shutters early, and drew the heavy
+curtains, which he had put up in his wild days, so close that not a
+crack of light glimmered through. But Lilly hadn't the smallest doubt
+that the lamp went on burning far into the night, and that he sat over
+his books copying memorable passages, and revelling in great creative
+ideas. And she revelled with him, for now she knew he could not fall.
+She had his word, and he her honour in his keeping. This must be his
+talisman leading him on to a higher life. So the weeks went on.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He excused himself from appearing on Sundays, and she was grateful to
+him. Another thing she congratulated herself on was that in that fatal
+night she had caught a cold, which the doctor said was severe enough to
+prevent her rides for the rest of the winter. Probably Fräulein von
+Schwertfeger had a hand in this too.</p>
+
+<hr class="W20">
+
+<p class="normal">One morning early in December it happened that the colonel varied his
+ordinary confirmed grumpiness and appeared at table in excellent
+spirits. He chuckled to himself, looked into vacancy with eyes that
+twinkled, and seemed to be shaking inwardly with suppressed laughter.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly ventured to inquire what was the cause. At first he declined to
+tell her. &quot;Rubbish! Mind your own business,&quot; he said, but finally he
+could not keep the news to himself.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Now, would you believe it?&quot; he began. &quot;I was warned lately at the
+Casino to keep an eye on my young Prell. It turns out from all accounts
+that he has been haunting low quarters at night, and has distinguished
+himself in a brawl about some little baggage of a barmaid.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly felt a freezing sensation rise from her feet and slowly creep up
+her spine. Her limbs became numb. She smiled, and the smile cut into
+her cheeks like the sharp corners of a stone.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;At first I laughed at them,&quot; he went on, &quot;for, in the only train that
+goes out and comes in of an evening, I have been a passenger myself, as
+you know, every day. No horse could stand twenty miles each way for
+long. And the pocket-money I give him wouldn't pay for a special train.
+So I told our major. But he stuck to his story, and said he had
+heard it from the younger men, and that it would be a pity if the boy
+was stripped of his uniform. When I got to the station at one, it
+struck me that I had time to search the train from end to end, which I
+did--fourth class and all. Not a sign of him of course. I did the same
+the next night and the next, and went on doing it till I was sick, even
+calling up the inspector to ask if he could give me a clue. He
+couldn't, he called out from inside, half asleep. So I began to think
+the whole thing a swindle. Now, just listen to this: yesterday evening
+when I got to the station here and was already in the carriage, I
+remembered that I had forgotten my umbrella, an appendage to which I
+can never get accustomed. So I went back for it. The station was quite
+empty, but the train was still standing there; and just as I passed the
+luggage van, which had its doors wide open, I saw someone jump out on
+the line on the other side. I shouted 'Stop!' but he bolted off into
+the woods. It flashed into my mind that it was Prell. I told Heinrich
+to drive like the devil, and in less than ten minutes we were here.
+Then I reflected he must have heard the sound of wheels from the
+footpath, and I went straight to my room and turned on the lights. I
+wanted him to think I was there. Did I disturb you, Lilly? By Jove,
+Lilly!&quot; and he started, &quot;I never saw such a face!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What's the matter with it?&quot; she asked, faintly smiling again.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;She hasn't been well all day,&quot; interposed Anna hurriedly. &quot;Your story
+too, colonel, is rather exciting. I am quite wound up.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Humph!&quot; he ejaculated, twisting his dyed moustache, and he seemed
+unwilling to take up the thread of his tale again. But Lilly could not
+maintain her composure.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I must know the rest, I must!&quot; she cried, clasping her hands
+imploringly, quite beside herself.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Very well,&quot; said the colonel, fixing his eyes on her. &quot;I went down
+again quickly and stood in ambush before the bailiff's house. Two
+minutes--and my gentleman comes along, slouching like a pole-cat,
+stands still, looks up and eyes my room, sees the light, and thinks,
+'Ha, ha! it's all right.' Then just as he puts his latchkey in the
+door, I collar him.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly burst into a fit of wild laughter. &quot;Oh, how funny! How very
+funny!&quot; she exclaimed, and this time the colonel believed her.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes; but something funnier is coming,&quot; he continued. &quot;I said to him,
+'If you confess the whole truth, I'll forgive you; if not, you'll go
+packing to-morrow early.' And then it came out--what do you think the
+rascal has been up to? Carrying on with the barmaid at the <i>Golden
+Apple</i>, if you please--the resort of non-commissioned officers and
+clerks. So that he might loaf there at his ease, he bribed the porters,
+and actually went and came back in the same train with me evening after
+evening concealed in the luggage van. If that isn't impudence, I don't
+know what is--eh, Lilly?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">There was a pause. She felt herself tossing on a stormy sea, a boiling
+and singing in her ears, and felt at the same moment Anna's hand
+closing on hers under the table, in warning pressure.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes, it certainly is very funny,&quot; she said.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The tone in which she spoke was not convincing, for another pause
+ensued.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Then the colonel rose, took her head between his hands, pressing it so
+hard she thought her ears would split, and said:</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You certainly appear in need of rest.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">With this he turned on his heel and went out of the dining-room.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Now pull yourself together, dear,&quot; Lilly heard her friend's voice
+urging her, &quot;because after this he'll be on the <i>qui vive</i>.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly was going to throw herself on Fräulein von Schwertfeger's bosom,
+hoping to be petted and consoled, but she held herself aloof, as if she
+feared being caught in too intimate converse with Lilly, and said in a
+tone of strained friendliness:</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Excuse me, Lilly dear. There is something I must attend to at once,&quot;
+and she too left the room.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What now?&quot; she thought.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She looked about her. The remains of their abruptly finished meal were
+still on the table. The dark oak furniture cast shining black shadows
+into the wintry half-light of the room. The old brass chandeliers
+gleamed dully. All was as it always was, and yet there was nothing
+there--only a cruel, all-devouring void, an abyss which lured her into
+its depths as if drawing her with hooks and pulleys.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She went to the window, and looked out apathetically. The bare branches
+shook in the wind, the ivy on the railing swayed; even the bent
+rose-trees, the shoots of which the old gardener had protected with
+straw, moved quiveringly backwards and forwards. All of them writhed in
+the grip of winter, and only the fallen leaves lying in heaps on the
+thin coating of snow were still, but they were dead eternally.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">What was to be done now?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">If this could happen, then all was in vain. There was no hope, no
+rising to loftier heights, no more strength of purpose, and no more
+truth. You might as well throw yourself down on the ground beside the
+dead leaves and die.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She heard the clatter of plates behind her. The maid-servant, as no one
+had rung, had come unsummoned with old Ferdinand to clear the table.
+She thought of Käte and of that other creature, in whose arms he had
+made a mock of her and of her faith in him. She dragged her lifeless
+legs upstairs to the only room in the house where she ever felt at
+home. As she passed she heard the colonel raving in his bedroom, and
+almost running as he paced up and down.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Let him rave!&quot; she thought indifferently.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Next she heard him give orders from behind the closed door for the
+carriage to come round.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;He may stay or go, for all I care,&quot; she thought.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She stepped on to the balcony. The icy-cold sensation that still
+stiffened her neck crept down her arms to her finger tips.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Over there sat Walter, employing his leisure as usual in deep study of
+the great Encyclopædia of Agriculture. He lifted his hand every now and
+then wearily to his brow and knocked the ash from his cigarette against
+a flower-pot without looking up. He hadn't time to look up. Good God!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Confronted by this abominable farce, enacted solely with the object of
+deceiving her, Lilly was seized with such mad, accusing fury that she
+was rendered almost senseless. A pricking and stinging ran through her
+benumbed arms. Then an excruciating burning fever throbbed painfully in
+her temples and hung a blood-red curtain before her eyes.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She saw nothing more, heard nothing more.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She rushed down the stairs, tore back the bolt of the garden door,
+sprang down the terrace steps, and flew like mad across the lawn to the
+bailiff's lodge.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">What did she care whether anyone saw her or not? At this moment she
+minded nothing. She didn't so much as knock at his door, but opened it
+with a vigour that sent it swinging against the wall. A hateful,
+pungent smell like the interior of a menagerie greeted her nostrils. He
+was still at the window, and bounded up when he saw her.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The grey daylight shone on the top of his head.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;He's got his hair cut like a clothes-brush again,&quot; she thought. &quot;The
+fast life he's now leading requires that it should be so. He must look
+a swell.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Lord in heaven!&quot; he said, crumbling his lighted cigarette between his
+fingers. &quot;This is a pretty rumpus.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Why--why have you----?&quot; she shrieked incoherently. &quot;Oh, you
+blackguard! you dishonourable scoundrel!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Damn it!&quot; he said, looking round him in despair, &quot;I don't see how the
+gracious baroness is to get out of this without compromising herself.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I don't care! You have broken your word; you have thrown away what was
+sacred between us--thrown it to a low barmaid ... a barmaid, a person
+who would hang round the neck of any man who gave her twopence ... You
+are a miserable wretch, not worth trying to save ... You won't be saved
+... You insist on going to the dogs as fast as you can ...&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;That's all well and good,&quot; he said, &quot;and you may be stating very
+deplorable and indisputable facts; but what I should like to know, dear
+baroness, is how you mean to save yourself?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I am absolutely indifferent with regard to myself!&quot; she exclaimed. &quot;I
+have come here to have it out with you ... I demand an explanation
+here--now--instantly--on the spot.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;With pleasure, gracious baroness,&quot; he answered, &quot;but first, for God's
+sake, move away from the window.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Whereupon he cast a swift, keen, nervous glance across at the windows
+of the castle, which so far looked unsuspecting enough.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Shocked by his rudeness, she fled into the interior of the apartment.
+It was low-ceilinged, dark, and badly furnished, like a labourer's
+dwelling. The obnoxious doggy odour was here more strongly apparent.
+Where it came from was a mystery revealed a moment later, when, as she
+approached the wall at the back of the room, something snapped
+viciously at her foot, and two little circlets of fire gleamed angrily
+in the dusk.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Behave yourself. Tommy,&quot; he commanded as she drew back with a cry.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">So it was Tommy, the third party to the Triple Alliance!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She leaned against the back of the old spindle-legged sofa. Its worn
+springs creaked and its bristly horsehair pricked her hands. The
+thought shot through her brain: &quot;What am I doing here? How does it
+concern me?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He glided meanwhile, listening hard, from door to door.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;If old Leichtweg happened to be in the next room,&quot; he said, &quot;there'd
+be the devil to pay. But if you go away at once by the front entrance
+into the yard, it might be supposed you only came to ask a question,
+and we may still save the situation.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She saw in this proposed move nothing but a crafty attempt at evasion,
+and a fresh volume of wrath overwhelmed her.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I shall not go,&quot; she said, &quot;till I hear what you've got to say for
+yourself;&quot; and to give force to her resolve, she sank on to the
+creaking sofa, which was covered by a dirty, odoriferous grey
+horsecloth, folded several times to protect whoever sat down or lay on
+it from the projecting springs.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He was forced to yield. &quot;Well, then, look here. A man is, so to speak,
+a man, isn't he? And when he is given up in a beastly mean sort of way
+he----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Mean way!&quot; Lilly faltered. &quot;What was there mean in my letter? Didn't I
+pour out my whole heart in it, and didn't dear Schwertfeger----?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She could not go on, she was so choked with scorn and anger.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">In the meantime he had arrived at the right policy to pursue, after
+being completely nonplussed at first.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;That's just it,&quot; he said, growing more offended every moment. &quot;Can it
+be supposed that a love affair like ours was to close with a lukewarm
+moral sermon? ... and from that Schwertfeger woman too? Did I deserve
+it of you, to be dismissed through a third person that shabby, hideous
+old thing too? Wasn't it enough to drive a fellow desperate ... after
+all I have done for you?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Done for me?&quot; echoed Lilly. &quot;What have you done for me, pray?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Well, wasn't I always ready to be your self-sacrificing comrade?
+Haven't I even sacrificed my loyalty to my old colonel for your
+sake--the man I honoured and reverenced, who you may say picked me out
+of the gutter? That's no trifle, I can assure you. Do you imagine it
+didn't go against the grain? Do you imagine I didn't get awfully
+depressed? And then night after night to have nothing to do but fool
+round with a dog that stinks; for that beast Tommy does, you know. Can
+a man be blamed in the circumstance for trying to deaden his feelings,
+to still the qualms of his love-anguish? How you can expect that I
+shouldn't entirely amazes me. We speak different languages, my child, a
+yawning chasm divides our two natures. You actually don't mind risking
+both our lives for the sake of a petty grievance. I don't belong, as a
+rule, to the prudes; but the devil knows what I wouldn't give to get
+you out of this room.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">During this lengthy oration he had walked round Lilly with one hand in
+the belt of his shooting-jacket, his short, jerky steps expressing his
+indignant consternation.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She for her part sat rigidly erect, turning her head, with great
+despairing eyes, towards him mechanically, first to the right, and then
+to the left.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">When he had finished he took a new cigarette from a case and
+energetically brushed off the superfluous tobacco with his forefinger.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She rose to her full height, leaving the sofa and sofa-table a long way
+below her.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Listen, Walter,&quot; she said; &quot;from this moment all is at an end between
+us.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Wasn't it so long ago?&quot; he asked.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I mean inwardly too,&quot; she explained.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Oh, indeed ... inwardly!&quot; He made a grimace. &quot;That means, I suppose,
+in your case, when you are sick and tired of one.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">When she saw her love so vulgarly derided and jeered at, her
+self-restraint completely collapsed. With a loud moan she ran behind
+the sofa and hid her face in the wall.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Don't go near the window,&quot; she heard him hiss, as he ground his teeth.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But what did she care about the window?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">In his distraught anxiety he took to pleading.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Do come away from the window,&quot; he entreated. &quot;I was only rotting. I
+wanted to make you laugh again; nothing else, I swear. Please come away
+from the window.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She did not stir. She wanted to crawl into something--crawl away with
+her shame.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Then she felt herself roughly seized by his hands.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">So it had come to that, too! She was to be beaten by him!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She struck at him, wrestled with him, dug her fingers into his throat,
+and then suddenly ... A whizzing, clashing, and clattering, and
+splinters of glass flew over their heads; and an oblong, dark, slender
+thing glanced by them, like the shaft of a lance, hit something,
+rebounded, and lay at their feet.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">At the same time she felt a gust of wind blow on her forehead and
+awaken her from the stupefaction of the moment.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">One of the upper window-panes was shivered to atoms. But no sign of a
+living person was to be seen. Only the balcony door, which a minute or
+two had been shut, stood open, showing blackness within as it swung to.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;A near shave, by Jove!&quot; said Walter, and stooped to pick up the
+mysterious weapon, the splintered panes of glass crashing beneath his
+feet.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The pea-shooter!&quot; faltered Lilly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Yes, it was the pea-shooter that a quarter of an hour ago had stood on
+her balcony.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It's a good job he hadn't his gun at hand,&quot; said Walter, &quot;or we should
+be riddled now like sieves.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He wiped the anxious sweat that beaded his brow away with the back of
+his hand.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">For all that he was a plucky little chap, and knew exactly what to do.
+He sprang to the wardrobe under which the foxy dog roosted, got out his
+military revolver, drew back the trigger, and tested the barrels.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Then he said: &quot;Now, oblige me by going into Leichtweg's room. Bolt
+yourself in. He's simply gone to load, and then he'll be here.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But Lilly wouldn't. Her anger against him had completely evaporated.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Let me stay with you. Please let me stay.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It won't do, child,&quot; he said, wrinkling his forehead into the old
+masterful folds. &quot;What is to follow now is man's business.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Then I shall stay in the passage, and receive him at your door.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He gnawed his moustache. &quot;Well, if you will take it like that, I can't
+reason with you,&quot; he said. &quot;Please be seated.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He took the key from the outside of the door, put it in the lock on the
+inside and cautiously turned it several times.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;There's a vast difference between loading and shooting,&quot; he said, &quot;the
+devil only knows.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Hereupon he drew out his watch, and listening attentively to every
+sound outside, he counted: one, one and a half--two minutes.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It looks as if he couldn't find his cartridges,&quot; he said; and then,
+with a commanding air, he added, &quot;Sit down; you will need your legs
+later.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She sank into one corner of the sofa and he took the other. He laid the
+watch between them on the bumpy seat. Both counted now with their
+eyes fixed on the minute-hand. &quot;Two and a half--three, three and a
+half--four, four and a half--five minutes.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Nothing was to be heard but the wind whistling through the branches.
+Then it seemed as if they could hear horses' hoofs in the courtyard and
+a trotting away on the other side of the gates.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Whom can he be going to fetch?&quot; asked Walter. &quot;It hasn't come to
+seconds yet.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly saw red suns dancing before her eyes. The ceiling of the room
+began to descend on her.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And Walter went on counting: &quot;Seven--eight, eight and a half.&quot; Still
+nothing. &quot;Nine, nine and a half--ten----&quot; Then he suddenly uttered a
+low whistling sound and seized his revolver.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The front door grated on its hinges, steps drew near, but not the
+threatening thunder of an outraged husband's, bent on revenge; these
+crept softly, catlike, hesitatingly onwards.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Then for a while silence again, only broken by the breathing of two
+anxious beings, and of someone else's breathing on the other side of
+the door.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Who is there?&quot; called out Walter.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Next came a tap, low, broken, unassertive, as if made by fingers that
+trembled and failed.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Who the devil is there?&quot; he shouted again.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Anna von Schwertfeger.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He jumped up and opened the door.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">There she stood, ashen-grey, and only red about the mouth and eyelids.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The colonel has just driven to Baron von Platow's, and will be back in
+three hours. He has bidden me tell you, Lilly, that when he returns he
+does not wish to find you in his house or on his estate.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And what has he bidden you tell me?&quot; sneered Walter von Prell.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Fräulein von Schwertfeger, without heeding him, took Lilly's hand.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Come,&quot; she said, &quot;there's not much time. We must begin packing at
+once.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes, but where am I to go?&quot; she asked helplessly as she slowly rose to
+her feet.</p>
+
+<hr class="W20">
+
+<p class="normal">Directly they were outside she saw the carriage that was to take her to
+the station drive up.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h1>PART II</h1>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+
+<h2>CHAPTER I</h2>
+<br>
+
+<p class="continue">She was Lilly Czepanek once more. The divorce suit had been
+quickly
+settled. There had been no attempt at defence, and after the colonel's
+evidence the judges decreed that Lilly had forfeited the right for ever
+to bear her husband's honourable name.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;There is nothing to rescue from this wreck,&quot; wrote Doktor Pieper,
+&quot;except the jewels which I hope, acting on my advice about looking in
+at shop-windows, you have industriously accumulated. The pearls which
+your ex-husband--prompted, I may confess now, by me--put round your
+neck on the wedding day I will get permission for you to retain, and
+they alone will keep your head above water for many a long day.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">In consequence of this letter, Lilly, who after her flight had found
+the pearls in one of her trunks among her gala dresses and rare lace,
+took them to a jeweller's to be carefully packed, and returned them
+then and there, addressed to Fräulein von Schwertfeger.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The less valuable ornaments she kept, feeling that they might justly be
+considered her personal property. She had disposed of a good many to
+start with, and what remained would scarcely keep her for another year.
+After that she would be destitute. But she did not think of the future.
+It was hidden from her behind the veil of tears that she had shed.
+Regret for what she had lost, acute consciousness of her grievous
+position, occupied her mind to the exclusion of almost everything else.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Oh, how she cried and cried--she understood now what crying meant. She
+learnt to gulp down her tears as one gulps down seawater; she sucked
+them back with her lower lip, she shook them off her cheeks as if they
+were raindrops; but always they gushed forth afresh. After the pain
+that caused them was deadened they still welled up, from habit. Whether
+she was asleep or awake, her tears came.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Trembling and stunned, without defending herself, without complaints or
+reproaches, she had driven away that grey, gusty December evening
+between the hour of vespers and nightfall. Away, it did not matter
+where, only away as quickly as possible.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She landed in Berlin, the harbour for all wastrels and wrecks. In that
+world where oblivion lays its hands in blessing on the heads of
+righteous and unrighteous alike; where eternal hopes illumine drab days
+of depression like firework sparks; where grief for the past is soon
+changed into an eager expectation of coming happiness; where the great
+god, Luck, holds sway as lord and master--in that world of the unknown
+and stranded, where only those who are old and poor together sink
+hopelessly, into that world crept Lilly on her hands and knees. She
+stayed in pensions for many a dreary month, frequented by guilty
+<i>divorcées</i> who congregate together in such places like apples rotting
+in heaps, by Chilian attachés and agents of mysterious businesses in
+Bucharest and Alexandria, who gave a tone to the roof they sojourned
+under. As inoffensively as she could she avoided the confidences of
+companions in tribulation, who wished to console her, and kept at bay
+the advances of olive-complexioned neighbours at table.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">After a time she began to think of finding a situation. It would have
+to be something quite special--something between a lady-in-waiting and
+chaperon, which would not be at variance with her former high station
+and ladylike dignity.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">This sort of position seemed remarkably scarce. The only result of all
+her efforts was to win the tender regard of a few old gentlemen who
+called on her at dusk and would not go till they were shown the door.
+So, utterly discouraged, she gave up calling at employment agencies and
+ringing at front doors, though she could not resign herself yet to
+joining the ranks of shopgirls and dressmakers' apprentices. The day
+was still far off when she would have to do that; indeed, she would
+never sink so low, because she was labelled all over &quot;Generalin,&quot; and
+wherever she went and whatever she did everyone recognised her supreme
+gentility.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">On this seething human ocean she tossed anchorless, without so much as
+a straw to cling to. Nothing but Walter's letter, which two months
+after her dismissal and his was forwarded to her by Fräulein von
+Schwertfeger. In it the poor fellow, whose own prospects were utterly
+blighted, made an unselfish suggestion of support for her future. It
+ran:</p>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;<span class="sc">Gracious Friend</span>,</p>
+
+<p class="normal" style="text-indent:5%">&quot;I am broke. He shot me through the arm. A trifling misfortune when it
+happens to someone else, but, when it falls on yourself, a damning
+obstacle in the way of founding a career on the other side of the
+Atlantic as head-waiter.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Nevertheless, I cannot be grateful enough to fate for having thrown in
+my path so touchingly virtuous and lamblike a guardian angel as my
+baronissima. You will readily understand, most dear and too-kind lady,
+that I now feel an obligation on my side to act as guardian angel to
+you. How is it to be done? There are difficulties in the way,
+certainly. Were I to commend you to the care of my former friends and
+equals, your future, I am afraid, would be settled too easily, 'For,
+still, leaves and virtues ever fall in hours of tenderness.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;For this reason I prefer to descend a degree lower, to where citizens
+crawl on their stomachs before our coronets, even if they be tarnished
+and dented.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;In Alte Jakobstrasse in Berlin there dwells a highly respectable
+manufacturer of bronze wares, by name Richard Dehnicke. He was a
+comrade of the Reserve, and feels himself particularly indebted to me
+because I borrowed money from him on more than one occasion. I am
+writing to him by the same mail as this. Go boldly in among his lamps
+and vases. The former I trust will illumine your nights, and the latter
+ornament your path through life. He will not, I believe, demand the
+price from you which others of our compatriots customarily consider
+their due where pretty women are concerned.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;There must be some cranks in the world, I suppose.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;My address in future will be--</p>
+
+
+<p style="text-indent:30%; margin-bottom:2px">&quot;W. v. P.</p>
+
+<p style="text-indent:25%; margin-top:0px; margin-bottom:2px;">
+&quot;Street-loafer and Fortune's aspirant,</p>
+<p style="text-indent:30%; margin-top:0px; margin-bottom:2px;">&quot;Chicago (first stockyard on the left).</p>
+<br>
+<p class="normal">&quot;PS.--Tommy would send his love, only I took care to plant a bullet in
+his forehead before leaving.&quot;</p>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly took this last and only communication from her comrade very
+calmly. She heard afterwards through Fräulein von Schwertfeger that he
+had sailed for America with a maimed arm. As he could think of her
+without bitterness or reproach, so she would try to think of him. Their
+love deserved honourable burial, even if its raptures had been a sham,
+and its elevated sentiments dragged through the dirt in shame.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He would like to be her &quot;guardian angel,&quot; the dear little man had
+written. Well, anyhow, his letter offered a certain guarantee of
+protection in time of trouble, and indicated where a helping hand would
+be held out to her. But the course he advised she had no thought of
+adopting. Never would she avail herself of that helping-hand. She was
+in deadly terror of desirous masculine eyes reading her face, of
+masculine lips pouring out persuasive and convincing arguments.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She would take her fate in her own hands and go her own way. Whither it
+would lead her of course was not clear. In truth, grief and anxiety had
+rendered her so irresolute, that it needed but a breath of wind to
+drift her in a direction that would have decided her future once for
+all. The breath of wind, however, did not blow on her.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Month after month went by. Fräulein von Schwertfeger gave up writing.
+Want of money caused her little hoard of jewels to dwindle rapidly. The
+pensions she boarded in became more and more modest. Instead of Chilian
+attaches and Greek merchants, bankrupt auctioneers and clerks out of
+employment offered to cheer her evenings by forcing their company upon
+her; and the ladies who paid her visits in soiled tea-gowns glanced
+covetously at the few bracelets, brooches, and rings which she still
+had left. Thus she decided to end this mode of living and find a new
+one.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+
+<h2>CHAPTER II</h2>
+<br>
+
+<p class="continue">Among highly recommended &quot;best rooms&quot; in Berlin belonging to
+apartments
+which had known much-boasted &quot;better days,&quot; and now were let for thirty
+marks a week, including breakfast and attendance, to respectable young
+gentlewomen, were those of the widow, Klothilde Laue.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The furniture was upholstered in crimson plush, which had been the
+latest thing in decorations at the time of the Franco-Prussian war.
+There was a long mirror, the sides of which from top to bottom were
+fantastically plastered with new years' and birthday cards, and
+advertisements of soaps and powders. On the walls hung photographs of
+once famous actors, whose fame had meanwhile faded like the ink in
+which they had inscribed their autographs. The marble-topped washstand
+had an embroidered splasher bearing the following cryptic couplet:</p>
+<div class="poem">
+<p class="t4">
+&quot;If you would wash yourself clean,<br>
+Take care that your conscience is pure.&quot;</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="normal">There were also endless photograph-albums, card-cases, a sandal-wood
+windmill meant to clip cigars, a green frosted glass punch-bowl, and a
+rickety pitch-pine bedstead, behind blue woollen curtains. Finally, to
+crown all, there hung over the sofa in a gilded glass case a mysterious
+globular-shaped creation, consisting of six plaited strands of tissue
+paper radiating from a common centre, and through its covering of gauze
+an ornamentation of pressed flowers was dimly discernible.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">In this best room of 10, Neanderstrasse, situated up four flights of
+stairs above a china shop, a piano business on the hire system, and a
+studio for repairs, Lilly landed one day, to look out from the window
+on the greenish-grey waters of the Engelbecken and a strip of Berlin's
+smoky sky.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Frau Laue, an overworked, prematurely aged woman of fifty, with a face
+like a dried apple and great eyes that always looked tearful, revolved
+round her in incredulous admiration. She seemed unable to grasp that so
+much brilliance and beauty had positively strayed into her abode.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">On the day of her arrival Lilly heard her whole history. Her husband
+had been cashier and book-keeper at one of the most popular variety
+theatres in Berlin, but twenty years ago he had died, leaving her
+pensionless in an unfeeling world where no rosy stage glamour disguises
+solitary tears, and no comic patter stills the pangs of hunger.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">At this juncture that mysterious paper-creation, which on nearer
+inspection proved to be a lamp-shade, became her salvation. She had
+once been made a present of it by an artistic friend, and in her need
+she hit on the happy idea of making others after the same pattern and
+offering them for sale.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">After years of hawking her wares about, after drudgery and
+disillusionment of all kinds, she had wrung from the public a market
+for &quot;pressed flower lamp-shades,&quot; and a reputation as a specialist in
+this line of business.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">In her back parlour, with one window, which smelt of hay and paste, and
+where on a long white deal table lay in their hundreds and thousands
+the skeletons of floral denizens of the Thuringian Forest--she could
+not, of course, afford the time to gather them herself--she had drudged
+for nearly two decades, tapping, daubing, pasting, drying, and
+threading sixteen hours a day, and had earned, thanks to her reputation
+as a specialist, enough to enable her to let her best room--her
+treasure-trove and sanctuary--to a stranger for thirty marks a month.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The two did not long remain strangers, however.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Into the back-room existence of this downtrodden being, before whose
+eyes the pictures of a few bedizened ballet-girls shone and glittered
+as paragons of unattainable magnificence, Lilly descended from the
+real aristocracy like a heaven-born divinity. Her landlady idolised
+her as an emissary from regions that she had believed hitherto were
+only possible in fiction; where such expressions as &quot;footman,&quot;
+&quot;drawing-room,&quot; &quot;pearl necklace&quot;--Lilly took care to tell all about
+hers--came quite naturally instead of being rolled on the tongue and
+allowed slowly to melt as with closed eyes one conjured up the
+surroundings to which such a vocabulary belonged.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Frau Laue became in very early days Lilly's confidante and adviser. She
+helped her to live down the shame following her divorce, she cheered
+her when a feeling of desolation overcame her, and painted for her a
+future in radiant colours.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">No one need perish in a great powerful miracle-working city like
+Berlin. Every day there were dozens of happy chances that might set you
+on your legs again. There were lonely old ladies dying to find someone
+to whom they could leave their money; there were aristocratic young
+ones who yearned to hold out a hand of sympathy and friendship to a
+poor, beautiful orphaned sister; there were famous artists who would
+gladly escape from the snares laid for them by female admirers in the
+arms of a good woman; and there were great poets with whom the post of
+muse was vacant. In fact, one of the greatest capitals in the world, it
+would appear, had only been waiting for Lilly's advent to lift her to
+its throne as conquering heroine.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Again the months passed. Regret for her wasted opportunities became
+gradually less acute. Her nights were calmer and no longer disturbed by
+this or that scene from her lost paradise rising before her vision with
+horrible clearness, when she was in a state between sleeping and
+waking, to make her start up and cry aloud.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">One lesson, however, she had not learnt, and that was to estimate
+correctly how brief had been her sojourn in high places: she could not
+accept it as a mere episode that had interrupted the ordinary course of
+her real life like a capricious dream. In her inner consciousness she
+continued to be a kind of enchanted princess who, in the disguise of a
+beggar, went about unknown and unrecognised till such time as Divine
+dispensation should reinstate her and restore her lawful rights.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">With anxious solicitude she clung to everything that reminded her of
+her vanished splendour. In Frau Lane's wardrobe she hung the festive
+raiment that the colonel had ordered for her in Dresden, Frau
+Lane's empty drawers were filled with the snowy fragrance of her
+coronet-embroidered underclothes, and in front of the big mirror in
+Frau Lane's best room were ranged the costly ivory and gold toilette
+articles, which once had proudly graced her dressing-table in the
+&quot;boudoir.&quot; These, too, still bore the seven-pointed coronet, and to
+think of parting with them would have seemed an outrage to Lilly on her
+most sacred property. She stood waiting meanwhile for what the future
+would bring forth. She still studied advertisements and wrote letters
+applying for vacant situations, but very often forgot to post the
+letters.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">For the sake of having something to do, and craving for companionship
+of some kind, she began to sit with Frau Laue in the back room and help
+her with her work. Soon she tapped, cut out, daubed, pasted, and
+plaited as diligently as her instructress, and as in her cradle she had
+been endowed with a gift and taste for all things artistic, she
+speedily excelled Frau Laue, who, when she returned from disposing of
+the lamp-shades, would relate without envy that the flower pattern
+Lilly had designed had been singled out for admiration, and that the
+shades she made were preferred to her own.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Her ambition was aroused. She strove to produce works of art, and never
+tired of toiling for this end.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;If you didn't waste so much time over every little bunch of flowers,&quot;
+said Frau Laue, who shared honestly with Lilly the proceeds of their
+joint labours, &quot;you might earn more than I do.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But Lilly was content with the forty or fifty marks a month that her
+work brought in. Her new craze for lamp-shade making led her on to
+higher aims. The dried grasses, or grass flowers, as Frau Laue called
+them, specially took her fancy. Their slender graceful stalks, the
+delicacy of their veinings, the melancholy charm with which they
+drooped, reminded her of little forest trees, weeping willows beside
+brooks, ashes bending over marble tombs, or palms waving yearning
+fronds on torrid rocks.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She dreamt of starting a new kind of art. She would paint on
+transparent plaques of glass with dried grass foregrounds. She would
+paint lamp-shades and window-blinds with woods of flowering grass and
+ferns, with little cottages in relief, with their doors and windows cut
+out as if light were shining from inside; fleecy clouds, pink sunsets,
+lines of misty hills, dark-blue rivers in which the moon was reflected,
+building across them bridges of light.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The pictures succeeded each other in her brain with inexhaustible
+fecundity; there seemed no end to them. It was difficult to know where
+to begin with such a vast wealth of ideas at one's disposal.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Frau Laue, who had been pasting her oil paper in exactly the same way
+for twenty years, had a horror of innovations, and warned Lilly to
+stick to her last. But a demon of inventiveness possessed Lilly. One
+day she made a tremendous coup. She took her arrow-shaped brooch set
+with six small emeralds to a jeweller, who gave her eighty marks for
+it--needless to say, the brooch was worth five times as much--and
+purchased on her way home after the transaction several cut-glass
+plaques, held together in pairs by screws, so that they could be easily
+attached to the window-panes. She also invested in a paint-box, and
+while Frau Laue clasped her hands in dismay to her head, Lilly set to
+work gallantly. But her practical knowledge of art had no foundation
+except in the memory of a few water-colour lessons at school, and it
+failed her utterly. The colours ran into each other, and the woods in
+the foreground would not look as if they had anything to do with the
+landscape behind, but remained simply grasses straggling about
+objectlessly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">For a long time Lilly struggled to gain her effects, then, crying
+bitterly, she threw the rubbish into a corner, and returned sorrowfully
+to lamp-shades again.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Frau Laue, who had sulked and scarcely spoken during the weeks of
+Lilly's apostacy, began once more to make plans and to build castles in
+the air for her. All the wild schemes that for the last twenty years
+had taken shape in her poor brain were now, when she had no hope of
+maturing them for herself, freely poured into Lilly's outstretched
+palm.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She listened eagerly, yet as her days passed thus a feeling of
+depression grew--almost imperceptibly. She felt herself sinking into
+this sordid groove, and a feeling of repulsion took possession of her
+for the narrow-minded creature in whose great moist red-rimmed eyes
+still lingered a hope for an unattainable happiness, though her
+lamp-shade drudgery had brought her nearly to the brink of the grave.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">This repulsion was often so powerful that she was compelled to rush
+out; she didn't care where so long as it was out into the world, into
+life.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She did not stay long; in an hour or less she was back again. The
+streets frightened her. The painted women who jostled her, the bold,
+adventurous youths who followed on her heels, the callous indifference
+with which everyone elbowed his way through the hurly-burly--all this
+scared and made a coward of her.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">A gloomy foreboding told her that she would never regain her
+self-reliant joy in combat. When she compared what she was now with the
+little shopgirl who gave out Frau Asmussen's trashy volumes in
+sheltered security, confident that she was doing her duty and always in
+the right, even when beaten for telling lies and obviously in the
+wrong, she felt she was a helpless straw drifting on the waters.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Then this waiting, waiting; this sleepless, hungry waiting! What for?
+She did not know herself. But something must happen. She could not
+exist for ever among these snippets of oiled paper, live and die making
+lamp-shades. Sometimes the thought of Walter's rich manufacturer of
+bronze wares cropped up in her mind with a longing which had to be
+suppressed. She was alarmed to find herself clinging to this shadow,
+and chased it away.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">A year had passed since that letter of introduction was written. It
+would be far too late to avail herself of it now. So she went on
+waiting.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Often as she undressed and caught the reflection of herself in the
+glass, her form consecrated by beauty, round and slender limbed, her
+long-lashed wistful eyes, her ripe mouth shaped for kisses, she would
+be seized with glad ecstasy, and say to herself, &quot;Am I like that?&quot; And
+then she would revel in a sense of her youth and readiness for love.
+Then the whole world seemed there for no other object than to press her
+to its heart. Then this dreary round of drudgery was a good thing in
+disguise, for it was bracing her up for flights of intoxicating
+enjoyment. When she stretched herself on the sofa at dusk to rest, and
+she saw the blue flash made by the electric tramcars flit across the
+ceiling, blissful dreams stole upon her and transformed that burning
+fever of expectancy into half-fulfilled delights; a feeling of having
+been saved rose like a thanksgiving in her soul, and what she had been
+bewailing as lost happiness became nothing but a nightmare from which
+she was grateful to be relieved. But these moods were rare, and they
+resembled the mirage of thirsty travellers rather than the refreshing
+waters.</p>
+
+<hr class="W20">
+
+<p class="normal">The winter passed in rain and fog; mild March evenings came when rosy
+cloudlets floated over the housetops, and then spring was really there.
+The trim little trees in the squares put forth their brown buds, which
+by degrees burst into pale green leaves. Lilly saw as little of the
+riot of blossom out of doors, the white foam of the cherry-trees, the
+red glory of the hawthorn, as she had done when she swept the golden
+dust that sprang from Frau Asmussen's bookcases. Frau Laue did not care
+to take walks and expose herself to temptation. For to see a park and
+not collect plants, a garden gate, and not thrust your hand through it
+to pick flowers, was to her an altogether inconceivable act of
+self-restraint. Lilly would not go out without her, for she dreaded
+being alone in a crowd.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Warm, oppressive Sunday afternoons followed, when endless troops of
+townsfolk make pilgrimages to the suburbs and country round, when the
+streets stretch away in empty desolation, and the sultry skies seem to
+weigh down suffocatingly on the unfortunate people left at home,
+panting within four walls. On such afternoons Frau Laue put on a pair
+of real Rhinestone earrings, a brown velveteen dress with a collar of
+black sequins on the square-cut neck, and in this festive attire paid
+Lilly a formal visit in the best room. Then the Dresden evening gowns
+came out of the wardrobe, and entered into competition with those worn
+twenty-five years ago by frail ladies in the stage box of the variety
+theatre. The faded photographs of long-extinguished stars would be
+brought down from the wall and their charms examined. Apropos of these,
+thrilling stories would be related of personal adventures, in which,
+amid much laxity of morals and gay peccadilloes, matrimonial fidelity
+had maintained its modest value.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The summer Sunday afternoon would wear away, wan and exhausted as a
+fever patient, a stifling breeze blow in at the window. The varnish on
+the cheap rosewood furniture would reek, the houses opposite shine as
+if they were perspiring, and Frau Laue, munching her bread and cheese,
+would once more repeat the oft-told tale of her virtuous married life.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">When at last she took her departure, Lilly would sink groaning on her
+bed, hide her face in the stuffy pillows, and listen to the shouts of
+the merry-makers in the street below returning from their trips. The
+next morning the pressing and pasting of flowers would begin again with
+renewed vigour.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">July came, and she could stand it no longer. One Monday morning, when
+daylight found her awake and waiting, her pillow soaked with tears, a
+sudden longing for life so warm and irresistible filled her heart that
+she bounded out of bed with an exultant cry.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Resolve cried within her, &quot;I'll do it to-day--to-day! Go on a begging
+expedition to that unknown man.&quot; No, it would not be begging. God
+forbid! Long ago she had settled in her mind what line she would take.
+She would merely ask for advice such as he, a connoisseur with a wide
+experience in arts and crafts, would be able to give the inquiring
+amateur, anxious to learn, in a few minutes.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Where and how she could get good lessons in painting transparencies on
+glass plaques, was the question she wanted to ask him. And whatever his
+answer might be, it would be the first step in a new phase of life.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+
+<h2>CHAPTER III</h2>
+<br>
+
+<p class="continue">Was it the path of fate that she pursued?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The street looked the same as usual. Vans rumbled along, housewives
+crowded in front of the butchers' doing their marketing, young men
+hurried by with rolls of music and books under their arms, but were not
+in too great a hurry to turn round and look after her, causing her, as
+of old, mingled feelings of satisfaction and annoyance.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The path of fate? Yes, said the throbbing of her heart. She felt almost
+as if she were on her way to exhibit herself for sale. Herself? How
+much was there of her left, of her little stock of pride, of her faith
+in herself as one of the elect, her belief in the great miracle that
+was to happen to her? How much?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Her walk took over an hour. She lost her way and was put right by
+policemen. She stopped to look at her reflection in the shop-windows,
+for she was afraid of not pleasing. But every time she saw the soft
+curves of her slight tall figure, with its nonchalant dignity of
+carriage, she breathed a sigh of relief.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">At last, when she read the name of the street in which he lived, she
+started. She had hoped in secret that she would not be able to find it
+after all, and have to go home. There was nothing remarkable about his
+house. It was a grey four-storied building, with a wide unadorned
+entrance, across which a board was erected.</p>
+
+
+<p class="center"><span class="sc">Liebert and Dehnicke,<br>
+Bronze Founders and Manufacturers of Metal Wares</span></p>
+
+
+<p class="continue">was inscribed in gold letters on a massive wrought-iron plate, which
+extended half the width of the house.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">From the opposite side of the street she took in every detail,
+still asking herself whether she should not turn round and go home.
+The windows on the first floor were closely hung with delicate
+primrose-coloured curtains embroidered with gold thread in a broken
+conventional pattern. Out of snow-white china flower-pots nodded
+geraniums and pinks, and on the whole everything here looked better
+kept and more prosperous than its surroundings.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;He lives on that floor, I expect,&quot; she thought, feeling slightly awed
+at the chaste severity of the exterior decorations.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Then she took heart, crossed the street, and made straight for the door
+of latticed ironwork, which was close to the carriage entrance, and
+probably led up to that impressive first floor. But this door was fast
+locked, and before ringing she glanced through the lattice and beheld a
+stately garden stairway flanked by cypresses and laurels ascending to a
+landing where a stained-glass window cast ruby and sapphire rays on a
+fair white statue. It was the bust of Clytie, which she had always
+admired in the art shops because of its gentle melancholy.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Her heart sank again at all this splendour. She seemed unworthy of
+breaking in on such decorous calm, so she sprang down the steps again
+and preferred to enter by the general entrance, where some workmen were
+busy facing the bare bricks with ornamental stucco. In the yard men
+were at work, too. The cobble-stones, with which it had evidently been
+hitherto covered, were piled in clumsy heaps, and mosaic tiles with
+white circles on a grey ground, such as one sees in churches, were
+being laid. At the back of the yard rose the red bald brick walls of
+the factory itself. But this too appeared to be included in the
+universal beautifying scheme, and was undergoing alterations. As far as
+the second story the walls were being inlaid with a dado of yellow and
+blue, which looked very gay. In fact, the old dingy aspect of the yard
+was being gradually converted into the elegance of a room.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;They are doing things artistically here,&quot; Lilly thought, and felt
+still more nervous.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">On her left she saw a corner building that so far had escaped a
+drop of renovating paint or varnish. In contrast to the rest, its bare
+plaster walls presented a dirty, chalky, and almost forlorn appearance.
+At the top of its plain iron steps was a brass tablet bearing the
+words &quot;Office&quot; on its face. Lilly ascended the steps and entered an
+ill-lighted dusty apartment divided into two parts by a wooden railing.
+In the farther division half a dozen young men sat at desks covered
+with shabby green baize. At her entrance they riveted their eyes on her
+in gaping astonishment, and it did not apparently occur to any of them
+to ask what she wanted. It was evident that such a dazzling apparition
+as herself had never been seen in the office within the memory of man.
+Not till she had taken a card from her brocaded wrist-bag and laid it
+silently on the table did the petrified company show signs of life.
+Then they all jumped up with one accord and scuffled for the card. It
+was almost a free fight.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">A lank, pasty, overgrown youth, who seemed to have authority over the
+rest, finally sent the others back to their places, and bowing and
+scraping to Lilly, murmured that he would inform &quot;the Chief&quot; of her
+presence, and he disappeared with the card in his hand into a back
+room.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">A few moments elapsed. Lilly heard through the half-open door a lowered
+voice say, &quot;Czepanek? Don't know the name. Ask her what she wants.
+What's she like?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The answer, which was inaudible, lasted several seconds and evidently
+was satisfactory, for the clerk came out, and without further inquiry
+let Lilly through, and ushered her into the private room at the back of
+the office.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Now she saw him in the flesh. He was a thick-set man, of middle
+height--shorter than she was--inclined to corpulency, with a round
+fresh-complexioned face, nice greyish-blue eyes, without any
+expression, a high forehead, and arched eyebrows. His hair was light
+brown, brushed smoothly back from his temples, and his moustache turned
+up abruptly at the ends to mark the Lieutenant. He had remarkably small
+ears and small hands. His whole person breathed scrupulous neatness and
+cleanliness, and, if anything, he was too well groomed.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He was clearly taken aback when he saw Lilly. His eyes widened with
+polite amazement.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Consciousness that she had made an impression gave her back her
+self-assurance and <i>sang-froid</i>. Not in vain had she gone through
+Fräulein von Schwertfeger's training.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The introduction of a mutual friend, who has, I think, prepared you
+for my visit, brings me to you,&quot; she began, inwardly rejoiced to have a
+chance once more of playing the great lady.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">In a mirror hanging opposite Lilly saw with satisfaction the reflection
+of her heliotrope toque, with its wreath of violets and swathing of
+tulle, her heliotrope tailor-made costume, with its correctly cut long
+coat, and felt as if she had stepped out of the picture of a society
+portrait-painter.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">In silence he offered her a chair. The surprise that his manner had at
+first shown was succeeded by an air of distrustful perplexity.
+Apparently he was puzzled as to her social rank.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">His head was inclined slightly to the left, as if it were stiff from a
+recent attack of rheumatism. This pose increased Lilly's suspicion that
+he did not altogether trust her.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She looked down at her brocaded wrist-bag and pretended to be
+suppressing a smile.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He grew more embarrassed. &quot;May I ask,&quot; he stammered, &quot;who the mutual
+friend ... er ... is? I don't seem to ... recollect.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He turned over the visiting-card, which his clerk had handed to him, in
+desperation.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She shrank from being forced into mentioning the name of her former
+lover, and so exposing her shame to this man who lived behind china
+flower-pots.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Is it possible that you don't remember,&quot; she answered hesitatingly,
+&quot;receiving a letter from a comrade in your regiment, asking you to
+interest yourself in a ... a lady----?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He jumped to his feet and flushed to the roots of his hair. His pupils
+dilated so visibly between his wide-stretched lids that she thought his
+eyes were going to start out of his head.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I beg your pardon,&quot; he stammered. &quot;You refer to a letter which I had
+nearly a year and a half ago from Lieutenant von Prell?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes,&quot; Lilly said.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But, gracious baroness,&quot; he exclaimed, completely losing his
+self-possession, &quot;if I had suspected ... could have had the least idea
+that the gracious baroness ...&quot; And his face depicted so much
+grovelling reverence that Lilly's feeling of innate aristocracy again
+came to the surface, but he had to be undeceived.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I call myself Lilly Czepanek now,&quot; she murmured, congratulating
+herself on the happy phrase, &quot;I call myself,&quot; which left it open for
+him to suppose that she had chosen voluntarily to resume her maiden
+name.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Alarm at the blunder he imaged himself to have committed was to be read
+on his features.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I am sorry,&quot; he said; &quot;I ought to have remembered that the gracious
+baroness must have gone through many trials.&quot; Then he blurted out: &quot;Why
+didn't you come sooner? I waited, waited, and waited a month, six
+months.... Then I started searching for you, with no results; but I
+half thought of employing a detective, only I feared to transgress the
+bounds of delicacy ...&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly nodded encouragingly. She appreciated his scruples.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Unfortunately, it never struck me to search for you under another
+name.... So I had to abandon the hope of ever having the great
+pleasure ...&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Here, in the intensity of his emotions of delight, he would have
+grasped her hand, but he had the tact to resist the impulse when he saw
+that she did not respond.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly was conscious of being mistress of the situation. She felt so
+saturated with the romance of martyrdom, so surrounded by the delicious
+incense of lofty aloofness, that it was as if she had stepped out of
+the pages of one of Frau Asmussen's novels into the light of day.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I am grateful to you, Herr--Lieutenant.&quot; She could not bring the
+plebeian name of Dehnicke over her lips. &quot;Now I fed that I have not
+knocked at your door in vain.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I can assure you,&quot; he replied, cocking his head still more to the left
+as a sign of his good-will, &quot;that I place myself entirely at your
+service, all I am and all I----&quot; He was going to say &quot;have,&quot; but as an
+astute man of business he hesitated to commit himself so lightly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Of course, I shall not impose on you too much,&quot; she replied airily, in
+order to damp his ardour a little. &quot;I simply wish to be put in the way
+of earning my living, and to have someone who will advise me, and, as
+Herr von Prell&quot;--now his name was spoken--&quot;said that I might have
+absolute confidence in you----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Indeed, you may rely on me as on yourself,&quot; he could not forbear from
+assuring her.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;That would not mean much,&quot; she thought, but took care not to betray
+what passed through her mind by even a smile.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Have you, by-the-by, heard anything from him lately?&quot; he asked.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She blushed. To admit that she hadn't would expose his treatment of
+her. So, not to appear in the light of being neglected and cast off,
+she said:</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;We promised each other at parting not to write. We thought it would be
+best in the struggle that lay before us not to be always looking out
+for letters, and expecting to hear from one another. But you probably
+have heard from him, have you not?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He started and reflected a moment. &quot;Yes ... that is to say ... not
+recently.... Some time back he wrote that he was getting on all right.
+He was starting a career. He made urgent inquiries after the gracious
+baroness's whereabouts, and I, of course, was not fortunate enough to
+be able to enlighten him.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">This sounded scarcely likely. A moment before he had asked her for news
+of Walter, and now when she asked him what Walter's address was, he was
+compelled to confess that his letter had given no address.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was plain that he had lied.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It may have been that he hoped to raise her opinion of him by
+representing himself to be still on terms of friendship with her lover,
+and, as she for a similar motive had not strictly adhered to the truth,
+she could not very well blame him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She now went on to explain the purpose of her visit. She told him of
+her difficulties with the delicate art which she had taken up a few
+months ago, of her desire to improve and perfect herself. Would he be
+so kind as to put her on the right road by recommending some artist who
+would give her lessons? This was really the only reason why she had
+called on him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He listened with close attention, as if he took a professional interest
+in her future. But behind his gravity there lay something that
+disquieted her. It was certainly not pity, rather was it a sort of
+restraint, a concealment of the fact that the more she revealed the
+helplessness of her position the more he felt he was gaining some
+advantage.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;A perfectly simple matter, gracious Frau,&quot; he replied, and his manner
+was more natural than heretofore. &quot;I have several good painters among
+the artists who supply models for my business. One of them,&quot; he turned
+over the pages of an address-book, &quot;Kellermann ... is the very man ...
+but of that we can talk later. What seems to me of the first importance
+in the art you have chosen are other things. So you will pardon my
+indiscretion, I hope, if I ask you a few questions?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She nodded assent.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What training have you had in Art?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;That is just it,&quot; she replied, struggling with her embarrassment; &quot;it
+is because I have had no training that I want to learn.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He did not move a muscle.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What are your means of support?&quot; he asked next.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She was silent. She began to feel as if she were being stripped of
+every rag she had on.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You understand, of course,&quot; he added, &quot;that I haven't the least
+intention of prying into your private affairs, but as you did me the
+honour of asking my advice ...&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I have a few ornaments,&quot; she said, looking him straight in the eyes
+with proud defiance. &quot;When they come to an end I shall have nothing.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He inclined his head as much as to say, &quot;I thought so.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And one more question: Where are you living at present?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I am living, as befits my means, up four flights of stairs with a poor
+woman who has taught me how to press flowers.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">As she said this she caught sight, in the glass opposite, of the
+elegant woman of the world who had condescended to pay Herr Dehnicke,
+&quot;comrade of the Reserves,&quot; a visit in his gloomy hole of an office.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He rose and paced up and down a few seconds between the writing-table
+and door. His clothes were so tight and new that he crackled and
+creaked at every movement. He looked as if he had just stepped out of a
+bandbox, he was so polished and rotund. He was a little bit bald too,
+already. His face remained very serious, almost careworn. It seemed as
+if her hard lot weighed him to the earth.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;My dear madam,&quot; he began, pausing in front of her, and his voice
+trembled a little, &quot;what I am going to say to you is only prompted by
+the memory of the many years of sincere friendship that have existed
+between Herr von Prell and me ...&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The scornful, patronising way in which Walter had referred to him in
+his letter came back to Lilly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I have had so many happy, jolly hours in his society. I am indebted to
+him for so much kindness ...&quot; He stopped. He could not, indebted as he
+was, name the kindness.... &quot;All my life long I shall be grateful to
+him.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly recalled Walter's words: &quot;He feels himself particularly indebted
+to me because I borrowed money from him on more than one occasion.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was really refreshing to meet with such touching loyalty.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But what I am most grateful to him for is that he should place such
+confidence in me as to entrust his fiancée to my care.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Fiancée!&quot; Her ears had not deceived her; he had actually pronounced
+the word. She was startled, but did not contradict him. Until that
+moment it had never entered her head to consider that there was any
+binding tie between her and Walter--the poor little irresponsible
+fellow who could not be expected to look after himself, much less a
+wife and child. But in the eyes of this man of middle-class morals, and
+perhaps not only in his but in the eyes of the world, and in her own,
+the only excuse for her irregular, bungled existence lay in this
+contingency. If she centred all her hopes and wishes on the absent one
+whom she never imagined she would see again, she would have a new
+anchor to cling to. She might even justify herself before God and hope
+for absolution.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">This all flashed through her mind while Herr Dehnicke continued to
+assure her of his friendship for Walter, and fasten on her round eyes
+of disinterested adoration.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;As his representative, and for his sake,&quot; he said, coming to the
+point, &quot;I would urge you most seriously, dear madam, to quit
+surroundings that are not congenial to you, and find others more
+fitting to your former rank. It is absolutely necessary if you wish to
+put your plans into execution.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What have my surroundings to do with my art?&quot; she asked, shrugging her
+shoulders.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Well, to begin with, you certainly must have a studio in which you can
+receive your customers, ... where you can show them who you are, and
+what you can do, and how far you are capable of carrying out your
+designs. This is the only method of ensuring those who give you orders
+treating you as a crafts-woman and not a mere ordinary work-woman.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But they won't come to me to give their orders,&quot; she interposed.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;They should do so, undoubtedly,&quot; he exclaimed, working himself up into
+a decorous enthusiasm. &quot;An artist who has any self-respect ought never
+to step outside his door to offer his wares to the public, and I advise
+you to act on this principle.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She mentally calculated the number of rings, pendants, and bracelets
+that she had left, and replied, smiling:</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It's more easily said than done.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He grew bold. &quot;My old and intimate friendship with Walter&quot;--he used
+his Christian name for the first time--&quot;entitles me to the privilege
+of--how shall I put it?--making provision ...&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She foresaw what was coming and choked him off.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I am quite content where I am,&quot; she declared. &quot;And till I am able, out
+of my own resources, to provide myself with the surroundings you are
+kind enough to wish for me, I do not feel justified in making a
+change.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He bowed, his zeal perceptibly cooled. He asked her at least to leave
+her present address, so that he might send her the desired information.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Hesitating, she gave the number and name of the street where she
+lodged, and added the request that he would not think of calling on
+her.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He bowed again stiffly. His coolness increased and he became almost
+rigid.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She felt glad that she had understood so well how to keep him at a
+distance. No one could say she was a beggar after this.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She took leave graciously, for it was not her intention to snub him too
+mercilessly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He was quick to take advantage of her warmer tone, and became ardent
+again.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Was there anything else that he could do for her?... Did she feel
+lonely? Did she wish for society?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She glanced at his right hand, on which there was no wedding-ring, and
+shook her head, smiling.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He had perfectly understood both glance and smile, and, struggling with
+a fresh attack of embarrassment, he cleared his throat and said:</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I live alone with my mother, but, unfortunately, I cannot ask you to
+come and see her, as she is in very poor health, and since my father's
+death sees nobody. But I might introduce you to a few people of
+irreproachable position, of course if you cared to know them.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Thank you very much,&quot; Lilly replied patronisingly. &quot;Naturally, I
+should take for granted that you would only introduce me to nice
+people. But, in spite of that, I think I would rather not. It will be
+best, at present, for me to do without society.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">With this she made a regal inclination of her head, held out her hand,
+and departed.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He followed her deferentially to the door, and the six young gentlemen
+stood up with one accord in a row and bowed like their master.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She passed out through the unfinished alterations in the courtyard,
+with flushed cheeks. When she was out in the street her mood was one of
+mingled triumph and disappointment. &quot;No, that was <i>not</i> my path of
+fate,&quot; she said to herself.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But she had unexpectedly acquired a fiancé, and that was something.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+
+<h2>CHAPTER IV</h2>
+<br>
+
+<p class="continue">August Kellermann passed for an artist of considerable
+reputation,
+though his pictures did not sell. He was a sharp-witted, sharp-tongued,
+good-natured person in the middle of the thirties, well-versed in all
+the vices of the capital. He had a sandy Rubens beard, prominent little
+eyes, with an eternal weariness in them as if he had never been in bed
+the night before.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He rented a studio that had once been a photographer's. It was of huge
+dimensions, like a magnified glass case. He had draped the roof, as a
+protection from glare and heat, with Turkish rugs propped by poles,
+giving his studio the air of a Bedouin's tent.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">When Lilly stepped out of the dim twilight of the anteroom into the
+garish brilliance of the studio, which was so lofty it seemed part
+of the sky, she found him in a plum-coloured overall, with green
+down-at-heel slippers over which his red plaid socks hung in rucks,
+seated on the floor, beside an Oriental coffee apparatus, stirring an
+extinguished spirit-lamp.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Good Lord!&quot; he exclaimed, without getting up to return her greeting;
+&quot;this is a visit worth having.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly turned to go away again, and he immediately sprang to his feet,
+pulled up his trousers, and with a shrug of his shoulders dusted a
+bamboo chair with his sleeve.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Sit down, my child. Though I have nearly given up painting for
+pottery, and couldn't make use of Helen of Troy herself as a model, I
+am not going to let you slip through my fingers.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly handed him her benefactor's letter of introduction, and pointed
+out his mistake. &quot;Now he'll change his behaviour,&quot; she thought. But
+nothing of the sort happened.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What a bore!&quot; he said, scratching his head. &quot;Most noble of women, why
+are you so beautiful? Ex-general's wife!&quot;--here she was, labelled
+again--&quot;I should have expected eye-glasses and pimples, and <i>you</i> come
+along!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You probably know my reasons for coming to you?&quot; asked Lilly, too
+downhearted to resent his manner.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He clapped his fleshy hand to his forehead.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Let me see! Let me see! The worthy Dehnicke, who is my dry-bread
+giver--'dry' referring to giver as well as bread--did, I think, mention
+the matter to me a day or two ago; but I suffer from a congenital
+dulness of comprehension, perhaps you will kindly ... er ...?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly explained what she wanted, and he burst into uncontrollable
+laughter.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes, my fair noblewoman, I'll give you the benefit of my
+instruction--and would do it, even if you hadn't entered the world like
+Venus! Such a chance doesn't come in my way every day. I promise to
+charm sunsets out of the sky and perpetrate them on glass for you in
+hues so vivid that you'll never care to look a raspberry in the face
+again.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly was quite aware that if she had stood on her dignity as
+&quot;noblewoman&quot; she would have at once left the studio. But her desire to
+turn his readiness to teach her to account was too strong. She could
+not sacrifice the opportunity so carefully obtained.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I wonder what Anna von Schwertfeger would say?&quot; she thought. And then,
+with a toss of her head, she said:</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;There are certain preliminaries to be arranged before we go on. First,
+I wish to know distinctly what your terms are, so that I may make up my
+mind whether I can afford your services.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He looked a little dashed, and said that he supposed Herr Dehnicke
+would arrange the matter.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Herr Dehnicke has nothing at all to do with my financial affairs,&quot; she
+replied. &quot;Should there be any misunderstanding on this point ...&quot; She
+took up her sunshade; her gloves were already on.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Now, now, don't be so hasty,&quot; he said; and after reflecting a few
+moments he, named a charge of five marks for the morning's lesson.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;My ruby ring will just do it,&quot; Lilly thought, and agreed to the sum.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Well,&quot; he said, &quot;I am curious as to the other preliminaries.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It's only this. I wish to be treated like a lady.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Ah, indeed! I'm not refined enough for you, eh? But I tell you I can
+be as much as you like. I have six degrees of refinement, so you've
+only got to choose: extra refined, super-refined, highly refined,
+medium refined, unrefined, and beastly vulgar. Now take your choice.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly was so delighted with this pleasantry and others of the same
+sort, that she yielded her claims to consideration as a <i>grande dame</i>,
+and was content to be on terms of &quot;hail fellow, well met&quot; with him so
+long as he didn't pay compliments. However, her reminder was not
+without effect, and when she came again the next day he had even put on
+a pair of boots.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">On the whole, he proved to be an intelligent and kindly master, who did
+not expect too great things of his pupil; and took an encouraging
+interest in her childish ambition. He contrived a medium out of
+gelatine especially for her work, which threw up the brilliancy of the
+transparent colouring, and he was indefatigable in suggesting new
+combinations.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I'll make you half a dozen blood-red sunsets,&quot; he said, &quot;that will
+knock all competitors out of the field, including that unconscionable
+old lady who commits the most glaring impertinences. I mean, of course.
+Dame Nature.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">While she splashed colour on a window-pane he stood smoking Turkish
+tobacco and chewing ginger before one of the modelling easels that
+filled the middle of the studio. Here he &quot;pottered&quot; away, as he
+expressed it, at his modelling in bronze. For the most part it was
+human figure that he created out of &quot;the depths of his soul,&quot; half or
+three parts life-size: armoured knights with banners, girls in old
+German dress with problematically outstretched arms, allegorical female
+forms likewise employed, heralds trumpeting, and now and again
+impressionist nudity, long, too-slim limbs, and nixie bodies wriggling
+off into mermaids' tails; ash-trays, finger-bowls, and other
+utilitarian articles. And all the time there hung or leaned against
+the walls, covered with dust, half-finished pictures and sketches of
+daring originality and riotous delight in colour, every one stamped
+with unpremeditated power and joyous ease in execution. There was a
+half-ruined chapel in a tropical forest, on the high altar of which a
+herd of monkeys were gambolling; in a monotonous desert background a
+group of stubborn-eyed camels drew round the dead body of a lion,
+sniffing it; best of all was the nude figure of a woman loaded with
+chains, her white limbs shining out in relief from a rugged barren
+rock, and round her head swooping a horde of red-eyed vultures. There
+was much else that showed restrained strength and wealth of
+imagination; but the woman in chains remained Lilly's favourite.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">One day she ventured to ask her master why he left all these things
+unfinished, instead of working them up for exhibitions.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Because I have to turn out pot-boilers, you unsuspecting angel,&quot; he
+replied, laughing, and slapped a clod of wet clay against the leg of
+the allegorical lady whom he had in hand; &quot;because the world wants
+lamp-stands and flower-vases, but no immortal beauty, with mother-wit
+inside her body to boot; ... because there are manufacturers of
+imitation bronze wares who keep you from the workhouse; and because I
+am a chap with sound teeth who wants a few crusts of life to masticate
+after twenty years of fasting, and will hunt for once with the
+worshippers of Dionysus. Can you, with your five-o'clock tea soul,
+grasp that ...?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But could you not at least finish the woman with the chains?&quot; she
+urged.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He broke into a shrill laugh of self-contempt, and threw himself full
+length on the fur-covered couch which stood in the most shadowed corner
+of the glass-walled room. Then he sprang up again and offered Lilly
+ginger out of the pot he always kept handy.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She thanked him and pressed for an answer to her question.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Dear God! Have you no conception of how heavily loaded everyone is in
+this world with his own chains? Divine fire would have to descend from
+heaven and melt my handcuffs or the goddess herself must appear in the
+flesh, throw her clothes on that chair, and say, 'Here I am, dear sir.
+This is the body born from the foam.... Now, fire away; look and paint
+your fill.'&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He had stopped in front of her, chewing ginger, and raised his clasped
+hands to her in an attitude of petition.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;How funny you are!&quot; she said in confusion. &quot;What does it concern me?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I am not going to say,&quot; he said. &quot;I am by a long way too damnably full
+of respect.... But if one day my chain-loaded beauty is sick of crying
+to be set free--she cries to be set free day and night, and often keeps
+me awake--then maybe a miracle will come to pass and someone who is now
+flushing up to her eyes will come and----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I think we had better go on with our work,&quot; Lilly cut him short.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">From that day she was careful to keep off the subject of the picture,
+and she did not dare so much as to glance across at it if Herr
+Kellermann was looking; but, all the same, he made constant allusions
+to his presumptuous idea, which seemed to obsess him, and at last Lilly
+had to forbid him to mention it.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Her enthusiasm for her work grew day by day. She was not content with
+the lessons in the studio, she practised at home, and when she tried
+her newly acquired talent on the glass plaques she had purchased, the
+results were, both in her own and Frau Laue's opinion, highly
+creditable. The sunsets ran blood-red over cornflower blue hills, and
+in the foreground stood dark silent primæval forests of grass and
+ferns, shading huts which had been built and brilliantly illuminated
+apparently by a prehistoric race of men.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She had never shown any of her performances to her master, for
+he had declared that he could not on principle tolerate such
+paste-and-scissors atrocities. But Herr Dehnicke would have been
+interested, she was sure, in her progress, and she would dearly have
+loved to show him her works of art.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Unfortunately, since his letter of introduction to Herr Kellermann she
+had heard no more from him, and she felt a little piqued at being so
+easily forgotten.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">One day Herr Kellermann said suddenly: &quot;By Jove! The bronze business
+has begun to boom all at once. Our Herr Dehnicke keeps me at it with
+orders. He's up here nearly every day to see how things are getting
+on.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Something in his manner as he said this, with his eyes blinking at her,
+made Lilly redden and feel uncomfortable, though it filled her at the
+same time with a quiet satisfaction. And when at last the seven pairs
+of glass plaques were finished, she was so brimming over with pride in
+them that she couldn't keep it all to herself, and boldly wrote him a
+note on her superb ivory paper, with the seven-pointed gold coronet, of
+which she had about twenty sheets left. Would he, she wrote, come next
+Sunday afternoon, as he had been so good as to take an interest in her
+work?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">An answer came at once. Nothing could have given him greater pleasure
+than her kind letter; he had been longing to come and see her, and he
+hoped that she wouldn't doubt that it was only out of regard for her
+wishes that he had kept away.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">On the appointed Sunday afternoon he appeared. Lilly arranged a plant
+of gladiolas in the punch-bowl, and pink carnations round the box
+containing the specimen lamp-shade. Fastened against the windows by
+ribbon bows hung the glorious sunsets like conflagrations, casting a
+magic glow over the room and the tawdry treasures which Frau Laue had
+preserved with her own character from &quot;better times.&quot; Lilly presented a
+gay and charming appearance in the white lace blouse washed and ironed
+by her own hands; and when she went to receive her guest, who stood at
+the door in patent-leather boots, with a top-hat in his hand, she was
+quite the self-possessed, condescending, unapproachable fine lady who
+had entered his office a few weeks before.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Her benefactor was all the more embarrassed. He sniffed the frowsy
+odour which reached Frau Laue's best room from the other part of the
+house, cast uneasy glances at the walls, and behaved altogether as if
+he were poaching on forbidden ground.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He could not express how happy he was that she had at last given him
+permission to call ... he had not wished to be intrusive ... he would
+have deferred coming still longer if her note had not set his mind at
+rest ... and so on. He repeated all he had said in his letter in a
+nervous, stumbling way, which was hardly in keeping with his elegant
+attire and naturally frigid manner.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She, on her side, thanked him in a friendly tone for all the favours he
+had done her, and she was sorry to have given him the trouble of coming
+to see her; and as she said all this she felt, against her will, quite
+the &quot;Frau Generalin&quot; doing the honours of her drawing-room with
+sociable courtesy.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">By degrees she brought the conversation round to her work, deplored her
+artistic incompetence, and pointed to the sunsets glowing on the
+window-panes.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Herr Dehnicke sprang up, and after a moment's silent contemplation
+burst into raptures of enthusiasm, for each of which he had to draw
+fresh breath and repeat himself rather mechanically, while he
+maintained an awkward smile. But Lilly was far too delighted to suspect
+that his favourable criticism wasn't genuine. He asked if she had shown
+the transparencies to Herr Kellermann, She confessed that she had
+lacked the courage. &quot;Besides, I wanted you to see them first,&quot; she
+said.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">His eyes did her grateful homage as he remarked, &quot;If you haven't yet
+done so, I strongly advise you to omit it altogether. The man, obliging
+as he seems, is really a mass of professional conceit, and he would
+probably ...&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He seemed afraid to say more.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly plucked up courage to ask casually, as if it didn't matter much,
+whether he thought she would find purchasers for her work.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He was silent again, and scratched meditatively the place to which the
+left end of his moustache was glued. Then, putting his round smooth
+head very much on one side, he said, carefully weighing his words:</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You had much better, dear lady, entrust the sale of your stuff to me.
+You see, I have my customers, and I know what buying is. I might set
+your glass-work in bronze frames or something similar, and they would
+pass, doubtless, as goods of my own.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Gratitude bubbled up warmly within her.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Oh, will you really do that?&quot; she cried, grasping his hand. &quot;I shall
+be very pleased to let you, till I have found customers for myself.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The pressure of her hand turned him scarlet to the roots of his hair.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;To achieve that,&quot; he said, looking the other way bashfully, &quot;it is
+above all things necessary that the gracious baroness doesn't hesitate
+any longer to establish herself in a home that is worthy of her.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I shall be only too glad,&quot; she replied merrily, &quot;when I can afford
+it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It may be years before you can,&quot; he interposed.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Well, I don't mind waiting years.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Allow me,&quot; he stammered, &quot;to remind you once more, that as an old and
+intimate friend of your fiancé, I am entitled----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She drew herself up. &quot;If my fiancé,&quot; she said, &quot;was, or is ever likely
+to be, in a position to support me, I perhaps should not refuse; but as
+matters stand I can permit no one in the world, not even his dearest
+friend, to make me offers that can only humiliate me in the end.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She turned her face aside to hide how hurt she felt.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He instantly hung his head in penitence, nevertheless there was a gleam
+of triumph in his eyes.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was then arranged that one of his vans should call the next day for
+the transparencies, and business thus being concluded, he begged
+modestly to be allowed to stay a few minutes longer. He would so enjoy
+a little chat about the absent friend; he had so few opportunities.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I shall enjoy it too,&quot; Lilly responded, inviting him to sit down.
+&quot;It's a great happiness for me to find someone who knows my fiancé.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The word &quot;fiancé&quot; now fell glibly from her lips as something quite
+natural. As the chance of his staying longer had been foreseen and
+provided for, she had only to ring, and Frau Laue appeared in the
+famous brown velvet gown with the black sequin square décolletage,
+which was now decorously filled in with one of Lilly's white silk
+fichus. She bore a tea-tray with two dainty cups of mocha coffee; and
+when presented to Herr Dehnicke she made a curtsey, which would have
+graced a ball at Prince Orloffski's. After she had added a few remarks
+about the great histrionic artists of the past and the photographs to
+which they had affixed their autographs at her special request, she
+retired, as it beseemed her to do.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Then Lilly displayed her charms as a hostess, and with the aroma of
+mocha coffee the spirit of &quot;better days&quot; pervaded everything.</p>
+
+<hr class="W20">
+
+<p class="normal">Nearly a week later the post brought Frau Lilly Czepanek a money-order
+for two hundred and ten marks, from Richard Dehnicke, of the firm of
+Liebert &amp; Dehnicke, metal-ware craftsmen, &quot;Due for seven landscapes
+painted on glass, with dried flowers, sold at thirty marks apiece.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Thus the foundation of a future career seemed to be laid.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+
+<h2>CHAPTER V</h2>
+<br>
+
+<p class="continue">Bright times followed. With part of the sum she had earned,
+Lilly
+invested in new materials, and soon more sunsets flared behind woods of
+dried grass and flowers pasted on glass.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">As she lay sleepless, through the hot summer nights, from overwork, she
+made plans of all the great things she would do when her art had
+conquered the world. She would have a workshop like Herr Dehnicke's,
+and employ a dozen women-hands with Frau Laue as forewoman. Then she
+would advertise for her lost father, and move her poor insane mother to
+an expensive private asylum.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She would, of course, provide for Walter too. Now that she had worked
+herself up into imagining herself his fiancée, it would be her duty,
+and she cheerfully took the responsibility on her shoulders. He must,
+however, first make some sign, or how was she to know where he was? She
+felt sure that one day, when he had no one to turn to, he would think
+of her, and find some way of communicating with her. Then out of her
+abundance she would send him money without stint, all that her art
+poured into her lap.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">No, not all. She must think first of that great and sacred task which
+dominated her life with such a gigantic influence. Whether she traced
+her father or not, his work, his immortal masterpiece, must never be
+allowed to sink into oblivion. Awaiting its resurrection, the score of
+&quot;The Song of Songs&quot; still lay slumbering at the bottom of Lilly's
+locked box, but it slumbered not quite so dreamlessly as in past years.
+It began to be restive and to exhort, sobbing and humming an
+accompaniment to the day's work, breaking out in the night and at other
+times, when one least expected it, into harmonies and melodies.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">From over the sunlit, cornflower blue hills it came, as if wafted by an
+evening breeze, &quot;How beautiful are thy feet with shoes, O prince's
+daughter!&quot; and from the dark interior of the mythical woods echoed
+snatches of song concerning the lily of the valleys and the rose of
+Sharon. It almost seemed as if the invisible inhabitants of those
+illuminated pasteboard cottages were singing, as evidence of the
+pleasant lives they led; and so one day would all the people of the
+earth enjoy those treasures of song, of which fate had appointed her
+guardian.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Everywhere she went, whatever she might be thinking of or doing, hope
+smiled and beckoned to her from all corners of the world. A new, more
+exalted and pure, life must be coming. That golden thread, which her
+poor mad mother had severed with the bread-knife, became again
+interwoven with an ambition to climb upwards, ever upwards, and with
+presentiments of some sacred blessing to be prayed and struggled for.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">A few months more, and all might be accomplished; and on the top of
+this recovered happiness came another. Wonder upon wonder--her
+so-called future bridegroom suddenly gave a sign of life.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was early in September, at about twelve, that Herr Dehnicke
+appeared unannounced at her door. As she had not quite finished
+dressing she was at first unwilling to admit him. But when he explained
+that his mission was urgent, she received him, in her <i>peignoir</i>, with
+a thousand apologies. He eyed her with shy admiration, and then drew a
+folio-shaped, strange-looking piece of paper out of his pocket, which
+purported to be a cheque drawn on the Lincoln and Ohio Bank for two
+thousand and odd marks.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What am I to do with it?&quot; Lilly asked.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Read the letter, which accompanied it, addressed to me,&quot; he replied,
+unfolding a large sheet.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">In the letter &quot;Dear Sir&quot; was informed that Mr. Walter von Prell had
+paid in five hundred dollars to his account, and wished the sum to be
+handed over to the &quot;Baroness&quot; Lilly von Mertzbach.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly trembled with excitement. She paced up and down the room in a
+storm of emotion, pressing her handkerchief to her eyes. She had been
+planning to help him and now he helped her.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">A sudden feeling of suspicion took possession of her. She stood still
+and looked at the cheque and then at Herr Dehnicke. Both stood silent.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I must ask you to explain,&quot; she said at length.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What is there to explain, gracious lady?&quot; he answered. &quot;I am only the
+middleman, or, if you like it better, the agent, in a little private
+business that concerns you and your betrothed alone.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But why couldn't he give his address?&quot; she exclaimed.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It looks almost as if he wanted to remove all traces of himself,&quot;
+remarked Dehnicke.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was all so romantic and adventurous and unlike Walter ... one didn't
+know what to think.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But there stood the name: &quot;Baroness Lilly von Mertzbach.&quot; Walter was
+possibly ignorant of her having been obliged to renounce her married
+name. This pointed to the genuineness of the cheque.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Herr Dehnicke had inclined his head to the left side, as usual, and
+gazed at her with placid deference. He played the part of the
+middleman, and that was all.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;After this unexpected turn of events,&quot; he said in conclusion, &quot;you
+will, I earnestly believe, no longer hesitate to return to the manner
+of life suited to your social status, and which is so requisite to the
+success of your work.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She shook her head, biting her Ups.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Thereupon he became authoritative, more so than she would have given
+such an exceedingly modest person credit for.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You really must make the change,&quot; he urged her. &quot;You must do it for
+<i>his</i> sake. I am, as it were, responsible. When he returns with the
+intention of marrying you, he must not find that you have become
+<i>déclassée</i> in his absence. As I say, I am responsible.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She begged to be allowed time to think it over.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Henceforth the thought of her distant lover ruled her destiny. What had
+before been a play of the imagination became almost stern reality. Not
+that she accepted the story unconditionally of his being at the back of
+the mysteriously sent cheque. On the contrary, she could not silence a
+voice that suggested someone might have tricked her, but she could not
+trust herself to make further inquiries, or to draw conclusions. She
+dreaded to think what would become of her if she lost the one friend on
+whom she could at present rely, and in order to dispel all doubts from
+her mind she worked more industriously than ever--nearly ever week a
+fresh batch of sunsets was ready to be taken away. In the mean time
+Herr Kellermann had given her new ideas: a Gothic cathedral perched on
+perpendicular rocks, a castle with ever so many illuminated windows,
+and, greatest achievement of all, the moon shining on a calm grey sea,
+its silver beams represented by pressed fern-fronds.</p>
+
+<hr class="W20">
+
+<p class="normal">On the first Sunday in October, Herr Dehnicke called to take Lilly for
+a walk. He had done it twice before, and Lilly had been charmed to go.
+Had he offered to take her into the country she would have liked it
+still better.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The autumn sunlight lay peacefully on the ragged foliage of the stunted
+town trees, which had been half bare of leaf for a long time. Groups of
+people sauntered about aimlessly. They looked depressed and bored, for
+winter was already laying its nipping fingers on men's spirits.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Their walk took them through various crowded streets, and Lilly
+experienced the pleasant feeling of having someone to protect and look
+after her in the throng.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Herr Dehnicke, after a long brooding silence, began at last with the
+question:</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Have you come to any decision about your future abode, dear lady?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly did not answer. She was firmly resolved to make no change, and
+yet it was heavenly to be pressed on the point. It made you feel that
+you were again of some importance in the world.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;If I had the privilege of selecting for you,&quot; he said in his
+unpretentious, formal way, &quot;I believe I could find you a nook which
+would be to your taste.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I don't suppose you could,&quot; she replied, half in joke. &quot;We are sure
+not to have exactly the same tastes.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I am not so presumptuous as to say that we should. But, nevertheless,
+I have lately seen a small flat which, unless I am very much mistaken,
+you would be delighted with. It belongs to a customer, a lady, who is
+travelling.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Oh, that's a pity! I should like to have seen it, if only to know what
+you think my tastes are.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He was lost in thought for a few minutes; then he said, &quot;It can be
+managed. The maid-servant will not be at home to-day as it is Sunday;
+but the porter's wife, who keeps the key, knows me, and if you
+like----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly demurred a little to intruding into a stranger's flat, but Herr
+Dehnicke overruled her scruples, hailed a cab, and they drove to a
+westerly quarter of the town, where the houses looked more imposing and
+the people more distinguished, and where stately chestnuts shading
+velvety green turf flanked the blue waters of a canal.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Oh, happy people to live here!&quot; she exclaimed, and then the carriage
+drew up at the corner of the Königin-Augusta-Ufer.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Dehnicke jumped out and said a few words at the window of the lodge. A
+key was handed out, and they ascended the carved oak staircase, which
+was covered with a thick cherry-coloured carpet. How different from the
+stone flights of steps which led up to Frau Laue's, and were painful to
+the feet! He paused on the second floor, pulled the bell as a matter of
+politeness--for it might happen that the maidservant was at home after
+all--and then, when no one came, put the key in the door and turned it.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly tried to read the name that was engraved on an oval porcelain
+door-plate, but in the dusk that prevailed on the landing she could not
+distinguish it.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">They entered a very dark little hall smelling of fresh paint, and
+passed into a carpeted room, on the walls of which were cupboards with
+glass doors curtained with green silk. The rest of the furniture
+consisted merely of two armchairs, a few small gilt chairs, and a
+round, brightly polished dining-table.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;This has been used as a dining-room,&quot; said Herr Dehnicke; &quot;but it
+would do very well for your private studio and showroom.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly agreed, though she would rather have contradicted him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Opening out of the dining-room on the right was a bedroom, with Rose du
+Barri chintz hangings, a pink enamelled suite, and a canopied bed with
+a billowy silk eider-down quilt, and curtains fastened with an old-gold
+seven-pointed coronet.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Is your customer nobly born?&quot; asked Lilly, feeling vaguely envious.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I wasn't aware of it,&quot; he answered; &quot;but it's possible she may be.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly sighed a little, recalling her own ivory toilette treasures and
+her coronet-embroidered underwear lying in Frau Laue's fusty drawers;
+how beautifully they would fit in here! She inhaled with rapture the
+delicate lilac fragrance that pervaded the whole room like an
+aristocratic spring, and, shuddering, she compared it with that
+plebeian smell which, no matter how indefatigably she aired the Dresden
+treasures, invaded them with deadly persistency.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Happy woman!&quot; said Lilly in a low voice.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She rather wondered that the occupant of the flat had left no trace of
+herself behind--no ribbon, peignoir, or trinket.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;She must have locked up everything, or taken it all away with her,&quot;
+suggested Dehnicke.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Next they went back to the studio, and, passing through its other door,
+came into a little corner drawing-room, which was completely flooded
+with rosy sunshine.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly clapped her hands in unbounded delight. There was a soft old-rose
+carpet with a vine pattern; a charming little crystal chandelier, the
+prisms of which set rainbow colours playing on the dark polished
+mahogany furniture; and bronze statuettes representing such subjects as
+a nymph bathing, a reaper folding his hands in prayer at the sound of
+the Angelus, and so on. Then there were a few choice paintings on the
+walls, an escritoire, a little bookcase, and there was even a piano.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Oh!&quot; sighed Lilly, &quot;a piano!&quot; And she shut her eyes in sheer
+melancholy bliss at the thought of it.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">There were live things, too. In front of one of the three windows was
+an aquarium, full of sunlight and goldfish, with a palm overhead; and
+from another window chirruped a tame bullfinch.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly thought of her pale-blue silk domain. In comparison with that,
+what a plain, confined little nest this was; yet how inexpressibly
+attractive and cosy when contrasted with the revolting place in which
+she was dwelling.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It's a positive paradise!&quot; she said ecstatically, though half crying.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Here is another room,&quot; said Herr Dehnicke, opening a door that Lilly
+had not noticed. &quot;It can be entered separately from the hall, and was
+probably intended by the lady for a guest-chamber; but if you settled
+here, it would come in handy as a workroom for your assistants.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly peeped in. The room was more simply arranged than the others, but
+with considerable care. Greenish-grey upholstered chairs were set round
+a wide table, and in one corner was a comfortable-looking brass
+bedstead.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The bed, of course, could be taken away,&quot; Herr Dehnicke explained.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It really was marvellous how exactly suited everything was to her
+requirements.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">They returned to the drawing-room, and Lilly noticed what had before
+escaped her attention, and that was an almost life-size portrait in an
+ornate frame hanging above the sofa, as if every other object in the
+room was there to pay it homage. The features and figure were, however,
+hidden by a covering of mauve stuff, which made it impossible to
+recognise them.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What does that mean?&quot; Lilly asked.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Dehnicke shrugged his shoulders and pointed to a photograph on the
+escritoire veiled in the same mysterious fashion.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly, full of curiosity, took hold of a corner of the drapery which
+screened the big picture from her view, and raised it a little.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I wonder if I dare?&quot; she asked timidly, as if she were about to commit
+a crime.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Certainly, if you care to,&quot; he replied; and it seemed as if he were
+breathing more heavily than usual.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She tugged, tugged energetically; the drapery fell upon her ... and
+there in front of her eyes stood Walter von Prell, boldly sketched in
+pastel, wearing the uniform of his old regiment. Walter--her friend and
+fiancé!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Her knees shook. Icy-cold fingers crept through her hair. She refused
+to understand--to believe. Then she felt that Dehnicke took her hand
+and led her into the outer hall. He struck a match, and Lilly could now
+read on the plate the name she had before failed to decipher,</p>
+<br>
+
+<p class="center">&quot;<span class="sc">Lilly Czepanek.<br>
+Pressed Flower Studio</span>.&quot;</p>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">She gave a shrill cry, rushed back into the little drawing-room,
+and, burying her face in a corner of the sofa, gave vent to her
+long-restrained emotions in a burst of hot, blissful tears.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">When she looked up again, she saw him standing beside her, unassuming
+and correct in his bearing, his expression sober and grave.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She was ashamed that she felt so happy, and held out her hand to him in
+shy gratitude.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;May I venture to hope that in my capacity as Walter's deputy I have
+succeeded in pleasing you?&quot; he asked.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">After that there was no further question of refusing.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+
+<h2>CHAPTER VI</h2>
+<br>
+
+<p class="continue">The gold-tinted tops of the chestnut-trees faded, and ever
+wider grew
+the gaps that autumn's march made in their foliage. At places where a
+little while ago one saw nothing but a leafy lacework, the ripples of
+the canal now gleamed through. Along it, heavy barges towed by poles
+drifted in their laborious fashion, and the shaggy watch-dogs barked up
+at the windows of distinguished residents. Rainy dull weather stole on
+the city like a thief in the night, and solitude clutched your heart
+with its clammy hand.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She had her work, it was true. Her work! Lilly clung to it day and
+night, as long as the first infatuation lasted and she could build
+hopes of realising her ambitious plans.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But the eagerly expected &quot;boom&quot; in painted glass with pressed-flower
+foregrounds never came. The prospectuses she had printed and sent out
+were ignored, and Herr Dehnicke, who remained her one patron and
+purchaser, told her in a hurried and nervous way not to lose heart so
+soon, as the market was decidedly dull at present.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Gradually her zeal began to wane. She had given up going to Herr
+Kellermann for lessons, his importunities with regard to the release of
+his &quot;chained Venus&quot; having become too insupportable. She locked her
+&quot;samples&quot; away in the glass-doored cupboards, and only finished Herr
+Dehnicke's &quot;orders.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Oh, those cruel, empty days, with no laughter to brighten them and
+nothing to wait or live for!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">In the kitchen a silent young servant held sway. Her eyes had a greedy,
+far too intelligent expression. The goldfish were fed and given fresh
+water every morning, and the bullfinch was encouraged to chirp. In the
+evening, when the chandelier was lighted and radiated its dazzling
+white light, things were better. Then she would wander from room to
+room, rearrange ornaments, and say to herself over and over again that
+no one ever had been so happy as she was, or had a prettier home.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Of what avail was it all--the soft old-rose carpet with its faint
+vine-leaf pattern, the red-brown shiny furniture and those bronze
+figures with their shimmering lustre of gold that were nothing
+underneath but zinc alloy manufactured by Liebert, Dehnicke &amp; Co.? Of
+what avail the gold-coroneted note-paper, of which Dehnicke had
+instantly ordered five hundred sheets, on the neat writing-table? There
+was no one to rejoice in it all with her, no one whom longing could
+summon to her side. Often she sat down at the piano and let her fingers
+wander over the notes. But it was not the pleasure to her she had hoped
+and expected. The rigorous technical training she had once had under
+her father's tuition had long ago been forgotten. She could not
+remember one of the things she used to play by heart, and she lacked
+the patience and nerve to learn new pieces.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was strange what a fever of unrest attacked her directly she touched
+the keys. A fierce anxiety, a sense of terror and inward unworthiness
+overwhelmed her. She could do nothing else but strike the instrument
+with a bang, and fly from room to room till her feet ached; and she was
+glad when ten o'clock called her to bed.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">In these unemployed, joyless days there awoke in her a piercing,
+tormenting desire for man's society, a sweet torture of shuddering
+thrills. For two whole years her senses had lain dormant. What the
+colonel's senile corruption had kindled, and the autumn weeks of
+passion lashed into a blaze, had been drowned by tears of remorse--for
+ever, she had vainly imagined. But here it was risen again, shaming and
+enrapturing her together, and refusing to be silenced by prayers and
+self-reproaches. Often she felt as if she must rush into the streets,
+if only to meet the eyes of a stranger, as in the Dresden days, and see
+veiled desire leap up in them. But in the streets people were vulgar
+and rude, and she shrank trembling from going anywhere alone, except to
+visit her old landlady.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The walk there took her an hour, and before she reached her former
+lodging she had been accosted by many ingenuous chance admirers; and
+many experienced <i>flâneurs</i> walked by her side and tried to begin a
+conversation. She would cross in a hurry to the other side of the
+street, and wish when she got there that she had spoken to her
+molesters.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">As she lay in bed dreaming with closed eyes, she fancied she saw
+strong, clear-cut, masculine features hovering round her, into which
+she looked up with confiding admiration.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She often dreamed too of Herr Dehnicke, the faithful, loyal little
+business man, who was ready to stand by her so staunchly through thick
+and thin. Suppose that he were to come to her one day, and in the
+deprecating, stumbling manner that she had got to like say, &quot;I love you
+to distraction, and will make you my wife!&quot; What should she say? Every
+time she contemplated his doing this it brought her a certain sense of
+comfort.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Of the man who really stood nearest to her, and on whom she had the
+most claims, she never dreamed. It was true that in her desultory
+longings those heavenly November nights came back to her vividly, but
+instead of Walter, any other man might have been their hero. Walter had
+grown to be a sort of tyrannical ruler over her conscience. Of course,
+she loved him. How could she help it when he was her destined
+&quot;bridegroom,&quot; working hard for her? Yet often when she stood by the
+sofa under his portrait, and his cold blue eyes rested upon her with
+imperious hauteur, she remembered what a scurvy part he had played, and
+how fickle he had been; and she felt as if she would like to sever
+every tie that bound her to him, and shake off every thought of him
+from her like a detestable nightmare.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She wished that Herr Dehnicke would leave off talking of him with
+devotion and respect, and looking forward to the time when he would
+have to render account of his modest guardianship of her to his dear
+friend, on his return in honour and glory to his home and hearth. He
+came with the utmost punctuality twice a week to see how she was
+getting on, and to have tea with her. He left in time to be back at his
+office before it closed. No wonder that Lilly looked on these visits as
+festivals. He was her only link with the outside world. She had no one
+but him to bring a little brightness and interest into her life.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She spent hours arranging the tea-table and the lights and flowers for
+him. For him, too, she stood before the mirror, dressing her hair.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">When at last he was sitting opposite her, they talked long and
+seriously about his business worries, his plans, and the trouble he had
+with artists who thought it a disgrace to work for the trade, and could
+only be induced to execute orders when, as it were, he held a pistol to
+their heads. He spoke of the rivals with whom he competed in business,
+who built palaces for their workshops in order to dazzle customers, so
+that he too was forced to transform his good solid old business house
+into a modern structure with the latest improvements.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">His customers too were a source of endless anxiety to him. Some,
+actuated by the newest ideals in art which were the fashion in the
+capital, demanded his pandering to the &quot;Secession&quot; movement, and
+putting on the market long-necked, narrow-whipped bodies in exaggerated
+attitudes of insane distortion. But the steady public of mediocrity,
+which was really the purchasing public, would have nothing to say to
+this trash, and insisted on having knights in armour and their dames in
+fancy-dress, damsels picking flowers and drawing water, hunted stags
+and swinging monkeys, the same, in fact, as had been in vogue thirty
+years before. So he stood, as it were, between two rocks, on one of
+which he might be wrecked as out of date and old-fashioned, on the
+other as too advanced and modern. In the latter case he would forfeit
+most of his old and well-tried patrons. It was extremely difficult to
+steer a middle course, but it had to be done.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He spoke often, too, of the factory and its hundreds of industrial
+hands who from early morning till late at night worked for the welfare
+of the business, and of the alterations which were nearing completion,
+and which, judging by the architect's designs and the sum which he had
+spent, ought to be something worth seeing.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You see what competition compels a man to do,&quot; he wound up.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly, with beaming eyes, listened attentively. She took interest in
+everything. She wanted to hear details of life in the factory with its
+whirling machinery, clatter of wheels, its hissing furnaces and
+shrieking files. She never wearied of asking questions about the
+appearance and behaviour of the workpeople, their wages, their
+condition, and what became of them afterwards. She felt as if there, in
+the great hum of the factory, was living reality, while outside her own
+existence was a shadowy illusion.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;How I envy you,&quot; she would exclaim sometimes, &quot;to have so many men's
+lives in your keeping!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;They keep you always on the go,&quot; he replied; &quot;it's an enormous
+responsibility and worry.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She was sure he was a benevolent master, even if he would not own it
+himself. He had such great influence, and his heart was so kind.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He liked to hear her talk like this, though often in the middle of what
+she was saying he would spring up and walk about the room with excited,
+short steps, and then stand still in front of her, and stare down on
+her with gloomy solicitous eyes, as if he could not control his
+contending emotions.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly appeared to notice nothing, though she knew perfectly well what
+was passing in his mind at these moments.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I shall not help him out,&quot; she said to herself. &quot;He must do what he
+likes in his own way, or in future he may cherish resentment towards
+me.&quot; And in palpitating hope she awaited events.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">If she could only do away with that ridiculous superstition about
+Walter, which he probably half believed, like herself, and half
+bolstered up for the sake of propriety. And then another thing gave her
+food for reflection. In spite of her often-expressed desire to see the
+factory, he never volunteered to take her over it. It almost seemed as
+if he objected to be seen with her on his own premises.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He often talked about his mother, however, and was not shy of
+confessing how much he was influenced by her, though he made it plain
+that he would prefer to have more freedom to carry out his schemes and
+develop his powers.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">When his father died--twelve years before--he had not been of age, and
+had been obliged to submit to his mother's rule. The old lady's régime
+continued, and every new enterprise was discussed with her, and if she
+approved it was put into execution, even if he were opposed to it.
+Lilly felt awaking within her a dull aching terror of the old lady who
+lived behind the bourgeois flower-pots and issued commands from her
+armchair, which were obeyed by so great a man as her benefactor. She
+pictured the moment of making her acquaintance with a sinking heart.</p>
+
+<hr class="W20">
+
+<p class="normal">Towards Christmas she was again busy. Two dozen new designs for windows
+had been ordered, and must be finished before the festive day. A future
+seemed once more to open before her. For the first time in four years
+she forgot to send her mother's Christmas present to the asylum.
+Instead, she made Herr Dehnicke's mother a particularly &quot;poetic&quot;
+lamp-shade, and sent it anonymously to the house on the morning of
+Christmas Eve. Why she did it, she did not know herself. Perhaps it was
+a propitiatory offering such as nervous souls were in the habit of
+making of old to unknown gods for unknown offences. She had made a
+little pile of gifts for her friend, though uncertain that he would
+turn up, and she listened for his ring with a beating heart. Her fears
+were groundless, for at half-past five he appeared, in the twilight of
+the hall, as loaded with parcels as old Father Christmas himself!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He had selected them with tact and discretion. There were little things
+that she wanted for domestic use in the flat, a set of embroidered
+collars, a Persian lamb boa--to save her sables--a few trifles from the
+factory to adorn the still bare top of her escritoire. At every
+exclamation of delight she gave he modestly disclaimed thanks.
+Everything came, as she knew, from Walter.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And is there nothing from you?&quot; she asked.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Nothing!&quot; he replied, and turned his palms outwards.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Well then,&quot; she said, &quot;if you'd like to know, there is something you
+can give me that Walter can't.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What can that be?&quot; he asked.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Take me over your factory.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">This time he did not put her off, but fixed a definite day and hour. It
+should be the first working-day after the new year, when everything
+would be in full swing again. &quot;Please wear something dark and plain,&quot;
+he added, when it was settled.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Am I generally dressed loudly?&quot; asked Lilly, horrified. She felt as if
+someone had boxed her ears.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Oh, I didn't mean that!&quot; he stammered in confusion; &quot;but you might
+hurt your good clothes.&quot;</p>
+
+<hr class="W20">
+
+<p class="normal">At noon on January 2nd she stood in front of the house in Alte
+Jakobstrasse, which she hadn't seen since her first memorable visit.
+&quot;After all,&quot; she reflected, &quot;it did prove a path of fate in one way.&quot;
+She looked up stealthily at the porcelain flower-pots on the first
+floor, and started, for she fancied she saw a white head move behind
+the lace curtains. &quot;That's what comes of having a guilty conscience,&quot;
+she thought, and with a shy sidelong glance of awe she passed the door
+that led to the laurel-flanked private staircase, which her feet were
+not worthy to tread till she was again received into the bosom of
+middle-class respectability.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The other entrance stood hospitably open. The scaffolding had been
+taken down, walls and pillars gleamed in the mirror-like glory of
+imitation marble, and the splendour of the courtyard beyond made her
+feel diffident again. By this time even the grimy old office had been
+transformed. It now boasted a projecting façade of sandstone, with the
+busts of famous artists in the niches. The ascent of worn and rickety
+wooden steps had been replaced by a gorgeous gilded gateway.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Her friend hurried down to meet her, bareheaded, in spite of the biting
+cold. As he held out his hand in welcome, he cast a furtive searching
+glance up at the windows. It looked almost as if he too were troubled
+by a guilty conscience.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He led her first into the show-room. Its brand-new smartness exceeded
+her expectations. Pillared aisles with vaulted ceilings made it look
+like a museum. There were interminable avenues of tables and cases,
+sending forth the sparkle of gold and silver and prismatic hues, the
+warm glow of deep-red copper fading into the pale green of patina, from
+hundreds of works of art--products of German industry, those so-called
+&quot;bronzes,&quot; which were to be displayed in shop-windows all over the
+country, and endow even the cottages of the poor with an air of
+prosperity.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The subjects included, among others, fat monks and lean beggars,
+dancing gipsy-girls with tambourines, elegant young men with
+eyeglasses, postillions blowing horns, chickens picking corn, and
+hounds retrieving game. There were calendars set in horse-shoes,
+cigar-clips shaped like champagne bottles, pelicans three feet tall
+holding aloft lamps in their bills; fancy figures, both male and
+female, stretching out arms as they had done in Herr Kellermann's
+studio, but not without reason here, for they all held up vases,
+candelabra, or basins. Arbours screened loving pairs, and had red
+electric bulbs hidden in the foliage, goblins sat astride on mushrooms;
+sea-shells served the purpose of ash-trays; punch-bowls, antique
+cream-jugs, night-light holders, snakes coiled round flower-stems or
+china ducks-eggs. The whole gamut of vulgarity and poverty in artistic
+invention seemed herded together here, ready to be let loose in rampant
+distribution over all the four quarters of the globe.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">When Lilly gave her friend an inquiring or mystified look now and
+again, as she examined some monstrosity, he shrugged his shoulders and
+remarked, &quot;That is what the public likes.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">In spite of a feeling of being jarred, Lilly would not have minded
+spending hours amidst this glitter. She would have been in her element
+if her judgment had been appealed to, and she would have said
+unhesitatingly, &quot;That is bad, weed it out; throw that away, and that
+... and this too.&quot; But no one asked her opinion, and everything seemed
+to get on very well without it.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Her friend next took her across to the factory. Unfortunately the
+foundry, which was the first stage and basis of all the work turned
+out, happened to be temporarily closed. But Lilly saw through an open
+window the black yawning throats of the furnaces and the dirty trucks
+standing about. Everything was covered with a mist of grey ash--the
+chimney-pieces, casks, and utensils all seemed to float in the same
+impenetrable sea of ashen greyness.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">They went down some dirty steps and passed through damp cellars
+smelling of poisonous chemicals, where huge vats containing foul fluids
+were ranged. Men prematurely aged by work and disease hovered about
+here looking like ascetic phantoms, when they were only common
+labourers. As Lilly came in they gave her a quick glance of surprise,
+and then didn't trouble to look again. They had no greeting for their
+employer.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;This is the galvanic department,&quot; explained Herr Dehnicke. &quot;Here is
+the nickel-plate bath, the steel bath, the quicksilver, and so on.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He pointed to a loft surrounded by an iron crate, where the wheels of a
+machine whirled and the light of electric lamps gleamed.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;There the current is generated which galvanises the various baths,&quot; he
+said.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly did not understand, but she took pleasure in the rapid whirl of
+the wheels and the subdued buzz which they made as they spun round.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;There will be some that whirl more madly still,&quot; she thought, and
+expected to hear, when the next door was opened, a deafening thunder.
+But nothing of the sort happened. This was the one machine in the whole
+factory to provide her with entertainment.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">In the workroom where the chiselling was done, dozens of men stood at
+long tables, levelling the uneven surface of the cast metal, and making
+the separate parts of an ornament ready for joining. This was done in
+the room adjacent, where the flames of the blowpipes leapt and hissed,
+and clouds of metallic vapour shot up sparks. Each workman had a little
+pile of burnished arms and legs beside him that looked as if they had
+been amputated and had left the body they belonged to behind.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Then they came to the &quot;filigree&quot; department, where all the flowers and
+foliage were elaborated--the ribbons, tendrils, and arabesques,
+everything of a light, curly, and daintily twining character. So
+delicate was the work that it made the men engaged on it look all the
+clumsier and coarser. They scarcely raised their eyes, and hammered on
+in a dogged mechanical way.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly, wherever she went, had a keener eye for the appearance and
+manner of the workpeople than for the work itself. She drew comparisons
+inwardly, decided who was well-to-do and who the reverse, who pursued
+his avocation because he liked it, and who only because he was goaded
+to it by necessity and sickness at home. Each department had its own
+marked physiognomy. In one the majority would be fresh and active; in
+another, weary and exhausted. Lilly felt as she had done when Herr
+Dehnicke first told her about his workpeople: an insane desire to have
+the wielding of their fate in her hands, to help them when help was
+needed, to bring sunshine into their gloomy lives, and to be a good
+angel to the suffering. But she was careful not to confide her absurd
+notions to Herr Dehnicke.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Now we come to the most critical part of the business,&quot; he said, &quot;the
+patina application, which gives the figures their style.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He opened the door of a workshop which exhaled the odour of a thousand
+more poisons. Here women were at work with the men, putting on varnish
+and acids, rubbing and brushing busily. They looked haggard and tired
+out. At the sight of Lilly they dropped their implements to stare at
+her in blank amazement.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;One would have to begin here,&quot; she thought, &quot;to win the confidence of
+all.&quot; So she nodded at them pleasantly and spoke a few friendly words.
+But her little advances were wrongly interpreted. They thought she
+mocked them, and with an almost contemptuous grimace went back to their
+work. Lilly's appearance in the packing-room, where women and children
+alone were employed, produced a happier impression. The girls giggled,
+whispered, and nudged each other. Only one woman, who was <i>enceinte</i>,
+took no notice of her. She seemed hardly able to stand on her feet and
+was near to sinking on the floor. She kept her relaxed pale lips
+tightly compressed, her cheeks wore a hectic flush, and her arms moved
+in feverish zeal as she wrapped one sheet of paper after the other
+round the limbs of the figures standing before her on the table,
+swaying first to the right and then to the left under her touch.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;May I give her something?&quot; asked Lilly, in an aside to Herr Dehnicke.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;She is being looked after,&quot; he answered uneasily, as if displeased,
+and he quickly led the way to another door.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;This is where the figures are stored,&quot; he said, &quot;until sold, with the
+exception of those, naturally, that are made to order.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly looked down a long dusky gallery and met an icy-cold draught.
+Ranged on stands and shelves she saw endless regiments of ghostly
+objects, dwarfs, gnomes, monsters, shapeless in their wrappings of
+paper, yet looking somehow human, and as if they had been petrified by
+accident.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;How strange this is!&quot; said Lilly with a slight shiver, and she
+prepared to walk down the narrow gangway, the windows of which were
+covered with ice and frost-patterns.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The same moment she observed that her guide gave a start and seemed
+suddenly to have lost his presence of mind. Then he walked before her
+and barred the way.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What has happened?&quot; Lilly asked in surprise.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He coloured, and said: &quot;We had better not go on. We'll go somewhere
+where there's more of interest to see. There's nothing at all here.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He planted himself firmly in front of her so that Lilly could not catch
+a glimpse of the shelves along the wall. Of course, this completely
+aroused her curiosity.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But I should like to go on,&quot; she said, and she assumed the defiant
+naughty manner which generally gained her the day with him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;No, no!&quot; he exclaimed hurriedly. &quot;There are secrets of business here
+that I can reveal to no one. Even the employés are not allowed to come
+in. I am very sorry, but I really cannot.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Then you should not have brought me in at all,&quot; said Lilly, and she
+turned back in high dudgeon.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He exhausted every excuse he could think of, his excitement made him
+hoarse, and he coughed perpetually. He led her up the dirty steps again
+and over the gorgeous mosaic floor of the courtyard to the shoddy
+marble entrance, where a bitter wind was blowing.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You'll catch cold,&quot; she said, wishing to hasten her departure.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">A brilliant idea occurred to him. &quot;The storeroom was not heated,&quot; he
+said, &quot;so I could not----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You should have thought of that sooner,&quot; Lilly retorted, as she gave
+him her hand with a half-conciliating smile. She could not help pitying
+his helpless confusion.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Nevertheless, she continued to feel hurt and slightly perturbed. The
+day that she had joyfully looked forward to for months had ended with a
+<i>contretemps</i>. And no matter how earnestly she pressed him afterwards,
+she never could cajole Herr Dehnicke into unveiling the mystery of that
+forbidden room in his warehouse.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+
+<h2>CHAPTER VII</h2>
+<br>
+
+<p class="continue">Lilly's health began to decline. She was troubled with
+lassitude,
+headache, palpitations, and sleepless nights. The doctor called in at
+Herr Dehnicke's instigation was a busy practitioner, who went the round
+of innumerable houses every day. His eyes first took in the
+arrangements of the flat--he seemed familiar with the setting--then
+after a brief and cursory diagnosis, he prescribed social distractions,
+exercise, and iron--any quantity of iron.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Social distractions were out of the question, and even walks were not
+so easy to manage. Lilly had a distaste for strolling about alone, and
+her only escort, Herr Dehnicke, evidently did not care to be seen too
+often with her in the streets. He said he did not wish to compromise
+her; but if the real reason was known, it was probably that he did not
+care to make himself too conspicuous by appearing in public with a
+companion whose beauty was so striking and uncommon.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">For, whatever happened to her, in spite of all her heavy sorrows and
+degrading humiliations, her boredom and unsatisfied cravings, nothing
+detracted from the charm of her person. On the contrary, the soft milky
+paleness which had succeeded the healthy golden-brown tint of her
+complexion lent her a new loveliness. The great narrow, long-lashed
+eyes with the heavy drooping lids, those enigmatic &quot;Lilly eyes,&quot; had
+now acquired a weary, languishing brilliance, as if they hid in their
+depths a solution to all the painful problems of the universe. Her
+figure, too, had returned to the regal splendour of its girlhood's
+bloom, after having become too slight and thereby losing some of its
+reposeful stateliness.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was not astonishing, then, that many heads were turned to look back
+at her and her lucky companion who, being shorter than she was,
+provoked a kind of contempt as well as envy in the breast of the casual
+passer-by. And as he was fully aware of this, Herr Dehnicke, the astute
+man of business, to whom the idea of being the subject of gossip was
+not pleasing or advantageous, preferred to hold his <i>tête-à-tête</i> with
+her indoors.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">In the middle of February she received by post an invitation from Herr
+Kellermann, whom she had not seen for months.</p>
+<br>
+
+<p class="center">&quot;<span class="sc">Grand Studio Carnival</span><br>
+&quot;Living Pictures, Opportunities for Flirtation, etc.&quot;</p>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">Here at last was something that promised to be entertaining, and Herr
+Dehnicke, who chanced to be invited too, urged her to conquer her
+shyness and accept.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">When the day came, Lilly was so full of dread that she would gladly
+have got out of the engagement. She beheld herself running the gauntlet
+of a crowd of sneering strangers, who would exchange significant
+glances with each other at her expense, and narrate the history of her
+rise and fall in whispers. She saw herself given the cold shoulder and
+made the object of derisive remark. She went through all the tortures
+of the &quot;unclassed,&quot; and felt as if she were doomed to bear the brand of
+sin on her brow till the end of her days.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She selected from her Dresden gowns the loveliest that she possessed: a
+white silk embroidered with gold vine-leaves and made in the Empire
+style, which in the meantime had become the height of fashion. She
+wound a gold chain round her head like a diadem, and threw a filmy
+Oriental richly worked veil lightly over her hair. If necessity arose,
+she could use it as a covering for her bare neck and shoulders.
+Finally, she felt sure that she looked hideous and abominably <i>outré</i>,
+and that this alone was sufficient ground for not showing herself.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Only when her escort appeared and held on to the handle of the door
+with an astounded exclamation, at the sight of her in evening dress,
+did she take heart.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Shall I do?&quot; she asked with a timid smile, which implored approval.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He could not answer, but plunged about the room breathing heavily, and
+half choking over his incoherent words. Lilly had no difficulty in
+understanding what he wanted to say.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">In the <i>coupé</i>, as she sat beside him, another attack of terror seized
+her.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You promise not to leave me?&quot; she besought him. &quot;You'll stay with me
+all the time, won't you, and not allow any stranger to speak to me?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He promised everything. They went up the four flights of stairs, an
+ascent she was familiar with. The landing had been turned into a
+ladies' cloak-room, where were hanging imposing furs and lace evening
+coats that humbled you to the dust to look at.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She clung to his arm. &quot;Now I'm in for it,&quot; she thought.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The big ante-room, which was always dark in the daytime and used as
+kitchen, bedroom, and dining-room by Herr Kellermann, had been
+transformed with fir-trees and candles into a rose-lit, fairy-tale
+forest, in which couples sat close together on bamboo seats, smiling
+and whispering. They were so absorbed in each other that they had no
+attention to spare for the new-comers.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">A tremendous reception awaited Lilly in the studio itself, which was
+filled with a brilliant, glittering throng. There was a chorus of &quot;Ah!&quot;
+then profound stillness, and a path was made, down which the pair
+seemed expected to make a triumphal progress. Lilly tried to hide
+behind her companion, but as he only came up to her nose she did not
+succeed.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Then Herr Kellermann hurried forward to welcome them. He was in a brown
+velvet get-up, consisting of knee-breeches, lounge-jacket, and Phrygian
+cap. Most of the company, indeed, seemed to be dressed in anything that
+they thought specially original and becoming to their style of beauty.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Goddess, Queen, welcome!&quot; cried the host in a voice for everyone to
+hear, and then he fell to kissing her gloved hand from wrist to elbow.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Next he asked to be allowed to take her round and show her how
+excellent were the arrangements of his new Court of Love. And she
+followed him, after warning her friend not to go far away, but to be
+within hail.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Electric lamps had been hung in the open air directly over the
+skylight, converting it into a many-coloured, star-studded sky. On
+looking up the effect was really as if a thousand tiny suns were
+shining down out of the night. On the left gable-side of the room,
+where the roof sloped, was an evergreen trellis draped with rugs and
+divided into several little arbours, before which hung curtains of
+Japanese beads. Each of these was significantly placarded.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The first was called something which made Lilly turn a shocked look of
+inquiry at her guide. Whereupon he replied, smiling:</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;That's nothing, merely a beginning for flappers and afternoon-tea
+souls like you. What do you say to this, now?&quot; he added, pointing to
+the placard over the next arbour.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Dreadfully wicked!&quot; she exclaimed, really scandalised, and Kellermann
+shook with laughter. He read aloud to her the inscriptions over four
+more arbours, and at every one Lilly's cheeks grew hotter. &quot;Worse and
+worse,&quot; she thought, but said nothing.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Now I will take you over to the 'Criminal Side,'&quot; he said, and steered
+her through the crush, which set up a hum at her reappearance. But it
+was devoid of all envy, hatred, and malice. It was rather an ovation, a
+suppressed cheering. Her breast expanded. A slight, humble sensation of
+joy crept through her body like warm wine. She threw back the ends of
+her tinsel veil, feeling she no longer need be ashamed of her naked
+throat and shoulders. In the glances that met hers she read that no one
+would despise her.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She did not reach the &quot;Criminal Side,&quot; for there were so many
+interruptions by the way. Man after man wanted to be introduced to her,
+and Herr Kellermann was fully occupied in saying their names. From this
+moment the whole carnival became perfectly unreal, a dreamland, a
+fairyland meadow, in which large-eyed flowers bloomed, where rosy mists
+and heavy perfumes saturated the senses, where laughter, whispering,
+and unheard-of compliments mingled--where all only existed for her
+amusement, to be admired, petted, and loved by her.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Yes, and she did love them all, these men and women, just as they came.
+All of them were noble and good, sparkling with merry wit, full of
+eagerness to do little friendly services; golden souls, each awaking a
+new hope and bringing a new delight.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She felt her cheeks flaming, her eyes shining, with the intoxication of
+the hour. And now and then she would see, as if reflected in a mirror,
+a response to her own happiness in the eyes she looked into. This was
+no longer a strange Lilly, an animated puppet, but it was herself, the
+real Lilly, who laughed and made bright repartees as she romped and
+passed from arm to arm, feeling regret at each transition. This was
+herself--twofold, threefold herself. And, when sometimes the man with
+whom she conversed became too bold, and the <i>double entendre</i> behind
+his jokes transgressed the bounds of decency, so that she grew alarmed,
+she had only to turn round to find her friend somewhere near, ever
+ready to rescue her from an awkward situation. That gave her a truly
+blissful sense of security, a feeling of being hidden under a wing and
+taken care of, so that she could afford to be merrier still--even
+hilarious--and take the most audacious sallies in good part.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Once she heard behind her the question: &quot;Whose mistress is she? The
+lucky dog!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The answer came contemptuously: &quot;A little polisher, or something of the
+kind. He's over there.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">For a moment this speech gave her food for reflection, though how could
+she possibly be supposed to know to whom it referred? In the
+excitement, the incident soon passed from her mind.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">What lots of people she got to know!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">There were young fops in swallow-tails and white brocaded silk
+waistcoats, who paid her wild attention, and asked incidentally though
+with patent eagerness which day in the week was her &quot;<i>jour</i>&quot; for
+receiving. She was sorry to say she hadn't a day, she lived so very
+quietly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">There were sombre pessimists with long lank hair and enormous ties, who
+loved to converse on such topics as &quot;spiritual high-pressure,&quot;
+&quot;specific gravity of individual affinities,&quot; and it did Lilly's soul
+good to hear them. One of them addressed her as &quot;Excellency,&quot; and when
+she asked why he did, he seemed amazed, and stuttered he had heard that
+she was---- Then, quickly correcting himself, he turned it off with the
+wretched joke that as she excelled all women present, he could not
+think of a more fitting form of address.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">There was among others a well-preserved old man, a fast liver, whose
+signature Lilly had read with reverence on many a beautiful picture. It
+would have given her greater pleasure to kiss his hand than to have him
+dancing round her, aping youthful gallantry.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">There were many others who aroused her curiosity, but whose rank and
+character she could not learn. There was even a real prince, a pale,
+fair, extremely young fellow, who dared not ask to be introduced to
+Lilly because his mistress kept guard on him and would not let him out
+of her sight. The women, of course, were not so gushing to her as the
+men, though the one or two whose acquaintance she made were very warm
+in their overtures of friendship.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">A brunette, with a small, voluptuously beautiful figure, bright
+restless eyes, and a seductive smile, approached her with: &quot;You and I
+ought to be friends. I'll introduce you to my particular pal, and we'll
+have supper together at a little table, and be quite a cosy family
+party.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Another, a very thin young girl, taller than most of the men present,
+with wells of blue fire for eyes, swept about in long white
+&quot;impressionist&quot; draperies like a figure in a dream, undisturbed by the
+tumult in which she moved. She spoke without moving her head, and
+smiled without curving her lips. She was a fair young Dane, who had
+come to study painting and to &quot;live life,&quot; as she expressed it.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Who are you?&quot; she asked Lilly. &quot;You are different from the rest. You
+must have strong arms, if you do not want to be washed along by the
+current.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">With a bold gesture, she flung back the wide sleeves of her gown, and
+displayed two marble-white perfect arms, with wonderfully supple
+movements. Then she glided on.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">A flaxen-haired, extremely graceful woman, no longer young, whose
+pretty, laughing face was burnt as brown as a berry from exposure to
+sub and wind, held out her hand to Lilly with a merry twinkle in her
+eye, as if they had known each other for years.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;How sweet you are, and how beautiful!&quot; she said softly. &quot;We've all
+flown into this cage and don't know why; and we don't even know whether
+we shall get out unhurt or not. But where do you hail from? I am----&quot;
+She mentioned the name--the name of a great musician who in the house
+of Kilian Czepanek had been a kind of demi-god.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes, I am Welter's former wife.... Positively I am,&quot; she added gaily,
+and again took the arm of the man she was with and turned away.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;A sort of '<i>Generalin</i>,' like me,&quot; thought Lilly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">There were thrown in a few married couples, mostly very young and
+foolish, who herded for a long time timidly together and then frisked
+wildly about like monkeys let loose.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">One pair, however, seemed to have been invited as a practical joke. The
+husband was a thorough-paced beery Philistine, his spouse a fat, stolid
+person in a high black silk. Someone told Lilly that he was the
+landlord of the house, who was bribed by an invitation to the carnival
+to countenance the use of his top floor for such a purpose. The two, to
+all appearances, were not feeling at all <i>de trop</i>, and always found a
+laughing audience for their coarsest jokes.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Towards ten o'clock, when Lilly was deep in an abstruse discussion with
+one of the long-haired and unwashed guests on the fallibility of human
+values, a sudden howl was raised, first by one throat and then by
+another, till it swelled to a chorus; the words &quot;hungry&quot; and &quot;food&quot;
+alone were to be distinguished.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Herr Kellermann's voice was raised in soothing remonstrance above the
+clamour. The slices of bread-and-dripping which the guests were to be
+given for supper--a poor devil of a painter could not rise to anything
+more <i>recherché</i>--were not quite ready. Meanwhile, would the ladies and
+gentlemen kindly be patient? Those who were absolutely starving might,
+however, still their hunger by a visit to the &quot;Poison&quot; arbour, where
+they could obtain as many arsenic sandwiches and prussic acid tartlets
+as they liked.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The whole mass of human beings now made a rush for the &quot;Criminal Side,&quot;
+where, in order to play at &quot;<i>crimes passionels</i>,&quot; a complete arsenal of
+deadly weapons had been collected. Gallows were suspended from the
+glass ceiling, ladders led down to bottomless pits, and cannons went
+off. The company greedily snatched the poisoned viands, and people who
+didn't even know each other took bites out of the same sandwich.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The supper itself soon followed. Under the fir-trees of the ante-room a
+buffet was erected, piled with mountains of York hams, cold game-pies,
+lobster salads, mayonnaise salmon, and every conceivable savoury
+waiting an assault. The assault when it came was so furious that though
+the buffet, which was planted against a wall, resisted it, the forest
+of fir-trees collapsed branches snapped off, trunks cracked, twigs flew
+about, and among the <i>débris</i> waltzed a crush of laughing, swearing
+revellers.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Then the brilliant idea occurred to someone to hurl the whole forest
+downstairs to the next floor. The Chinese lanterns were put out, and
+soon the uprooted firs were flying over the stairs tree after tree, in
+spite of the protests of the landlord, who was afraid of his other
+tenants being disturbed by the noise. The ladies' light dresses were
+covered with pine-needles, and pine-needles stuck in their hair and
+necklaces. Everything smelt of Christmas. It was difficult to eat for
+laughing, and there were not tables and chairs enough to go round. To
+balance their plates, couples crouched closely together on the stairs,
+and supplies kept dangling down on them from the buffet above. Some
+venturesome spirits even climbed the trees and roosted like birds in
+the branches, while food was handed up to them on the end of forks and
+walking-sticks by charitable souls.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly, half-dead from laughing, was seated on one of the stairs
+surrounded by unknown men, all of whom craved to be fed by her. She had
+never been so happy in her life, and would have liked it to last for
+ever; her only care was that all the men she was feeding wouldn't get
+enough.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">At the conclusion of the supper came the <i>pièce de résistance</i> in the
+shape of cream kisses. They were swung through the air hooked to the
+end of long fishing-rods, and every guest had to try and catch his or
+her share with the mouth. Hands were forbidden, and those who used them
+were rapped on the knuckles.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">This sport, which at first excited tornadoes of mad glee, had soon to
+be abandoned, because the whipped cream dropped from its cases on to
+the ladies' necks and dresses. Lilly's Empire gown got its baptism of
+cream, and one of the men on his knees kissed away the stains.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">When a trumpet sounded, to call the revellers back to the studio,
+everyone was sorry, especially Lilly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It consoled her to catch sight again of her friend, whom she had
+entirely forgotten. Leaning on his arm, she related, with a radiant
+face and half-inarticulate from laughter, her merry experiences.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was then she noticed that the eyes of all those who were near seemed
+bent on her with a strange seriousness and as if moved to sudden
+compassion. But she was too busy talking to think much about it. She
+begged him to stay at her side when the recitations began. She was
+tired of playing the fool, she said, and wanted now something homelike.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He gave her arm a grateful pressure.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Why are you trembling?&quot; she asked him in astonishment.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It's nothing,&quot; he answered lightly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The first reciter was one of the long-haired collarless brigade, who
+had been asked to open the programme with a solemn and weighty chorale.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He declaimed an ode entitled &quot;Super-smoke,&quot; which was Greek to Lilly,
+but she supposed it was very fine, because at the end there was an
+outbreak of stormy applause among the men.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Bravo, bravo! Super-smoke, more Super-smoke!&quot; they shouted.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The long-haired collarless one, who took this for an encore, bowed,
+highly flattered, and started off again: &quot;Super-smoke, an ode.&quot; But he
+got no further. Roars of &quot;That's enough! that's enough!&quot; came from all
+sides, and it appeared that the men had been only expressing a desire
+for something smokable when they had called out &quot;More Super-smoke.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The next to appear on the rostrum was a slender, exceedingly elegant
+person with a short pointed brown beard and glittering monocle. He was
+a Dr. Salmoni, to whom Lilly had been introduced. With a melancholy
+smile he held his hand close to his nose and examined his finger-nails,
+as he said that it was his purpose to draw up an intellectual synopsis
+of the evening's entertainment, and to throw in a few remarks on the
+&quot;destructive construction of social formlessness.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">This prefaced a volley of impertinent sarcasms and insulting
+personalities, intended to annihilate host and guests. Though she could
+not understand his hits, Lilly felt inclined to blush for those who
+came under the fire of his scathing satire. Yet, extraordinary to
+relate, no one seemed to mind; on the contrary, the very people who
+were being lashed by his tongue the most were loudest in jubilant
+applause.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Happy world!&quot; thought Lilly, &quot;where nothing hurts, and the most
+abominable sins are titles to honour.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Her own false step, from which she had so long suffered as from a
+poisoned wound, suddenly appeared to her in the light of a mere
+childish prank. &quot;Wasn't it very silly of me to take it so to heart?&quot;
+she thought, and gave herself a downward stroke with her two hands, as
+if she would thereby shake off every vestige of her old manacles.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The elegant little doctor knew, too, how to flatter. Each fair lady got
+from him her bonbon, spiced with pepper, and when he went on to speak
+of a lotus-flower that had drifted there this evening from fairyland,
+and still seemed shy of the full glare of publicity being thrown on
+her, Lilly again became conscious that she attracted every eye.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Let her take courage,&quot; he went on. &quot;She may count on any of us, I'll
+assert, to welcome night dreamily in her company if she wants someone.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Enthusiastic clapping from the men endorsed this speech, and Lilly did
+not feel a bit ashamed.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">When Dr. Salmoni had finished and was shaken hands with and
+congratulated by all, especially those who had bled most under his
+lash, he came up to Lilly and said in a low voice:</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I pray for your forgiveness, gracious lady, for having named you in
+the same breath as this herd. There ought to be a tacit understanding
+between people of our position, without the necessity of making
+advances to each other. But I was sick of just cracking a whip, and you
+know I am not always a mountebank.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;People in our position,&quot; he had said. That flattered Lilly, and raised
+her to the same level as this very clever and superior man, who, as he
+put his eyeglass away in his waistcoat pocket, regarded her with his
+sharp grey eyes as if he wanted to tear her heart to tatters.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">A swarthy youth of mercurial temperament next sang couplets to his own
+accompaniment on the mandoline. He began with the romantic air of a
+troubadour.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The third verse, which ended in French, was so daringly outspoken that
+Lilly hardly ventured to understand it.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The song was received with such ecstasy that it seemed as if the
+applause would never stop. Lilly wondered that she felt so little
+disgusted. Nothing seemed to disgust her any more. Her eyes half
+closed, she leaned back in her chair and let lights, sounds,
+obscenities, laughter, and cheers ripple over her as in a dream.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">From time to time she looked round for her escort. He was standing
+close behind her chair, smiling reassuringly. But he kept silent. A red
+patch burned on his forehead and his eyes were bloodshot. It may have
+been that he had drunk too much champagne. She herself had only sipped
+a glass, but her head felt quite dizzy.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The songs and recitations came to an end at two o'clock, and now the
+fun waxed fast and furious and transgressed all limits. Everyone
+tussled, kissed, drank, picked quarrels, and fought duels. Lovers
+pretended to stab themselves and were carried out lifeless. The cannons
+fired off crackers. Outside the different arbours orations were held by
+various guests. One by a dainty youth in a Greek costume hired from a
+paid model, delivered in a high falsetto, dealt with pseudo-physiological
+problems. Into the arbour of &quot;Monstrosities&quot; some one had pushed the
+beery Philistine landlord and his corpulent wife, where they kissed and
+caressed each other to order, in full view of the company, who applauded
+vociferously.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly's head went round; it all buzzed, screeched, and hammered in her
+brain like an agonising nightmare.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;We had better go now,&quot; Herr Dehnicke's voice urge behind her.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She rose to her feet and stretched herself with a shudder.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">This had been life, life----</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She followed him out, and at the top of the stairs Herr Kellermann, who
+had observed their going, came running after them. His collar hung open
+and limp above his velvet lounge jacket, his cheeks were glazed and
+puffy. He looked like young Falstaff.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He exchanged a glance with Dehnicke, who nodded as much as to say, &quot;It
+went off very well,&quot; and then disappeared in search of her wraps.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And how about the chained beauty?&quot; asked Herr Kellermann, turning to
+Lilly. &quot;Have you quite forgotten her?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Quite,&quot; replied Lilly, with a languid smile.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And you'll never come?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Never!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But I tell you that you will come,&quot; he said, leading her to the side
+of the staircase. &quot;You will come when the chains have cut into your
+flesh and you don't know----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Dehnicke returned with the wraps, and he said no more.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly was in far too happy and complacent a mood to attribute any
+significance to these words, which in the mouth of this bacchic faun
+sounded like a joke. She simply laughed at him and passed on.</p>
+
+<hr class="W20">
+
+<p class="normal">Her excited brain quieted down; she leaned against her friend's
+shoulder as they descended the stairs, airily swung her hips, and
+hummed to herself. The whole world seemed melting in a soft fragrant
+harmonious twilight. Fresh snow had fallen and the moon was shining.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Dehnicke's carriage was waiting for them.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Let us drive to the Tiergarten,&quot; said Lilly, drinking in her fill of
+the snow-laden air.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She threw herself back on the cushions of the <i>coupé</i> sang and beat
+time with her feet on the floor.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He sat silently in his corner and looked out of the window.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Do say something,&quot; she implored.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I have nothing to say,&quot; he said, and studiously looked beyond her with
+his red, bleary eyes.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The carriage rolled noiselessly along under the snow-covered trees,
+which every now and then sent down a shower of silvery stars on to
+their laps.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">A drowsy lethargy came over her.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I should like to drive on like this for ever,&quot; she whispered, seeking
+a support for her head.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Then it seemed suddenly as if Walter's arm was round her waist and as
+if her left cheek rested against Walter's throat, as once in those
+blissful November nights.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But how did Walter come here now? She started up, wide awake again.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">This was not Walter beside her. She was under no delusion as to who it
+was. She was ashamed to change her position, and lay with wide-open
+eyes for quite a long time, listening to the beating of his heart--how
+it beat, right up his arm!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;He will not demand the price which it is customary with our
+compatriots to ask of pretty women,&quot; Walter had written.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Now here he was demanding it with all his might.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">With what contempt Walter would look down from his picture at her when
+she stepped into the lamplight of her corner drawing-room half an hour
+later! Walter who passed with everyone as her betrothed, even with this
+man into whose arms she had slipped, Walter, to whom she must be
+faithful and true if she hoped for salvation in this life.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was really heavenly, nevertheless, to be lying thus. She felt as if
+she belonged somewhere again, and how terrible her loneliness had been!
+Still, it was no good.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">So she moved cautiously, as if she was afraid of hurting him, and freed
+herself from his arm, to take refuge against the side cushions.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Why don't you stay?&quot; he asked, stammering like an inebriated man.
+&quot;Weren't you feeling comfortable?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She shook her head.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He went on asking her with passionate vehemence, but she would not
+answer, feeling that every word she spoke would commit her still
+further.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Then he caught her hand, that hung down passively, and pressed it.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I mayn't,&quot; she whispered, withdrawing her hand. &quot;Neither may you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Why mayn't we?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Because you would bitterly regret it afterward when you had to render
+account to him, if you had abused your trust.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;<i>Him</i>! Whom do you mean?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Whom?&quot; she echoed. &quot;Why, whom else could I mean?... Haven't you said a
+hundred times that you are only his deputy, that you----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">A laugh interrupted her, a hoarse guilty laugh. He had clasped his
+hands round his knees, and laughed and breathed deeply and laughed
+again, like someone relieved from an intolerable burden.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">A horrible dread gradually became a certainty within her.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It was all untrue?&quot; she faltered, staring at him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;All! It was all nonsense from beginning to end, a tissue of humbug,&quot; he
+cried. &quot;He wrote to me once, only once, before he left Germany. 'Take
+up with her; it would be a pity if she went to the dogs.' Nothing more,
+not another word.... There, now you know.... I've got it off my mind.
+It's been a jolly heavy load, I can tell you.... But what was I to do?
+Having begun, I had to go on.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He flung up the window and leaned out, panting hard.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She wanted to ask why he had done it. But she didn't dare. She knew
+what the answer must be. One thing stood out with appalling
+distinctness, and that was her helplessness and utter inability to save
+herself. She was putting herself in his hands. She was living in his
+flat, living on his money. She looked at the situation from his point
+of view. She was what he had designed she should be--his mistress, his
+creature, and his property.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Oh, why couldn't she throw herself into the river?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She wrenched open the carriage door and put one foot on the step, but
+he dragged her back and slammed the door to.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Be reasonable,&quot; he remonstrated. &quot;Don't behave like a madwoman.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Then she burst out crying. Not since the time of her divorce had her
+sobs been so pitiful, so heart-broken and full of bitterness. At
+intervals his voice seemed to reach her from a long way off, but she
+could hear nothing, see nothing, understand nothing. She could only
+cry, cry; as if in crying lay salvation, as if trouble and distress
+would flee away with her tears.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The carriage stopped. She felt herself lifted out. He had the latch-key
+in his pocket. Supported by him, she staggered up the stairs, and
+thought to herself over and over again, &quot;Why didn't you throw yourself
+into the river?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He led her to the sofa, settled her in its corner, and turned on the
+lights. Then he loosened the fastenings of her cloak, and lifted the
+scarf from her hair.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She lay now in a state of complete exhaustion, and stared indifferently
+at the table-cloth. The little bullfinch was awake and piped her a
+welcome.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It is getting late,&quot; she heard Herr Dehnicke say, &quot;and the carriage is
+waiting. But I cannot go till I have justified my conduct and explained
+how it has all happened.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;That really makes no difference to me,&quot; she said, shrugging her
+shoulders.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I loved you long before,&quot; he began--&quot;long before I knew you--when you
+were still our colonel's wife.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She looked up in surprise. As he stood there in his short tight evening
+coat, plucking nervously at the fringe of the table-cover with the
+joyless, beseeching expression on his round face, master though he was,
+she felt as if she saw him for the first time.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I was called out that summer for the man&#339;uvres,&quot; he continued, &quot;and
+heard nothing else talked about at the Casino but you. Even the ladies
+of the regiment were full of you. Your photographs were passed round,
+for some of the men snapped you on the sly.... I recognised you at once
+from the photographs. Yes, I can truthfully assert that I loved you
+then. What's more, after Prell's letter told me that you were to come
+into my life, what plans for winning you didn't I work out in that year
+and a half! Then at last you turned up at my warehouse, and you
+exceeded my wildest expectations. But I lost hope when I saw what a
+great lady you had become, and how much you still thought of Walter.
+Though I know I am not a bad fellow, I haven't much self-confidence,
+and to have you for a mistress seemed too great luck to be dreamed of.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Now that he came out with the word &quot;mistress&quot; for the first time, an
+intense bitterness welled up within her.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;To have me for a wife,&quot; she thought, &quot;that is something not to be
+dreamed of, evidently.&quot; And she laughed out loud.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He took her laugh as a sign that she was too modest to accept his
+compliment, and he worked himself up into still greater enthusiasm.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Did she think that any of the women in whose society they had been that
+evening were worthy to lick her shoes? Had she no conception of how
+immeasurably she outshone everything that bore the name of woman?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Then from her tearful eyes came the question that pride and shame
+prevented her expressing in words. This time he must have understood,
+for he suddenly broke off in what he was saying, clasped his hands to
+his head, and ran up and down the room half sobbing. She heard him
+ejaculate: &quot;Can't ... I can't ... it wouldn't do.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Well, if he can't, he can't,&quot; she thought, and, with her face resting
+on her palms, she stared at him wistfully.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He came now and stood in front of her, struggled to speak, but choked
+over his words, and then he resumed his racing up and down the room.
+She caught phrases like, &quot;My mother ... would never consent ...
+ruination to the business,&quot; and then again the refrain, &quot;I can't; no, I
+can't; it wouldn't do ...&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;He is quite right,&quot; she thought, &quot;anyone like me ... how could he?&quot;
+And with a feeling of final renunciation, she collapsed in a heap.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Shocked, he hurried to her side, leaned over her, and tried to stroke
+her hands; but she thrust him from her. At a loss to find words to
+vindicate his miserable subterfuge, he took up the thread at the point
+where her laugh had interrupted it.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Do believe me, dearest friend, when I say that I had given up all
+thoughts of myself. I swear that I wanted no reward, and subsequently
+acted for your good alone. My one desire was to preserve you from
+sinking to the lowest depths. I know from experience how many have done
+so; a few years, no more, and they either go on the streets, or grow
+more and more hideous and careworn ... and then it is impossible to
+tell what they were once.... And that the same fate should not befall
+you, I hit on the idea about the cheque and wrote to my American
+agents. Your falling in with it was such a joy to me that I didn't
+sleep a wink for two nights. I knew I had saved you from ruin.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Ruin?&quot; queried Lilly; &quot;what do you mean? Before the cheque came I had
+earned quite a respectable sum by my art. You yourself helped; you
+yourself said if I persevered----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She paused, filled with sudden anxiety at the thought that if it came
+to a rupture between them to-night her one and only prospect of making
+a living would be gone.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Not a word of reassurance came from him. In stubborn silence he plucked
+at the fringe of the table-cloth.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Please speak. Have you entirely forgotten all you've done for me?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He pulled himself erect. &quot;If you must know all,&quot; he said with a shrug
+of the shoulders, &quot;perhaps it's as well; from this evening we'll start
+clear.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Is there anything else, then?&quot; Lilly cried in ever-increasing dismay.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Do you remember the day you came over the factory--I made you turn
+back in the storeroom?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes, but----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And afterwards I made the excuse that the place was not heated.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I remember perfectly. But what has it to do with my work?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;If you had gone a few steps further you would have seen all your glass
+plaques--fifty-six in all--the last not even unpacked.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She looked up at him as if he were her executioner. Then she sank back
+and buried her face in the sofa. She had no more tears to shed, but the
+soft darkness of the cushions did her eyes good. She wanted not to see,
+hear, or think any more--only to die as soon as possible, before
+starvation and disgrace overtook her.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">There was a long silence. She thought he must have gone, when she felt
+his hand caressing her shoulder, and heard his voice in trembling,
+pleading appeal say, &quot;Dear, dear, dearest of friends, tell me what else
+could I have done? Could I deprive you of your one interest and
+resource? Could I tell you the things were unsaleable rubbish,
+amateurishly executed? I saw how absolutely wrapped up you were in it
+for a time, and I let it go on till it died a natural death.... I said
+to myself, when her circumstances are easier she won't care about it
+any longer. And wasn't I right? You haven't done a stroke for the last
+month or so, have you? Dearest one, do consider; what have I done that
+is so bad? I rescued you from a life of degrading penury. I found you a
+little home in which you have spent a few happy months free from care,
+and I didn't ask for so much as a kiss. If you like, go back to Frau
+Laue to-morrow, just as if nothing had happened, or stay quietly here
+till you have found some employment to suit you. You shall not be
+troubled by my society. I needn't come to see you.... When I leave you
+to-night....&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He could not go on. When, after a moment of silence, she glanced up,
+curious and anxious to see what he was doing, she beheld him sitting at
+the table, or rather half-lying across it, with his head buried in his
+arms, while his shoulders were convulsed by noiseless sobs.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She went and stood beside him, and was moved to fresh tears. They
+coursed down her cheeks. She was so sorry; oh, how sorry she was!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Then she laid her hand gently on his head. &quot;You may comfort yourself,
+dear friend,&quot; she said, &quot;with the thought that it is far, far worse for
+me than for you. Then, you see, I have no one else.&quot; And she shuddered,
+thinking of the loneliness that was coming.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He straightened himself and silently put out his hand for his hat. His
+eyes were more bloodshot and more prominent than before, and his head
+drooped now quite to one side.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Oh, how sorry she was for him!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Good-bye,&quot; said he, pressing her hand, &quot;and thank you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I'll write to you,&quot; she replied, &quot;when I have thought it all over
+to-night. Probably I shall leave here to-morrow early.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Just as you wish,&quot; he said.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">As he took up his overcoat something long and round, wrapped in gold
+and silver tinsel, fell on the floor. She picked it up. It was a
+monster cracker. Both could not help laughing.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What a sad end to the merry carnival!&quot; she said.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He sighed. &quot;I may hope, at least, that you enjoyed it?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What does it matter now whether I did or not?&quot; she said deprecatingly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It matters a great deal, because the whole affair was got up
+especially in your honour?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What! in my honour?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Do you suppose that Kellermann, who earns at the most a hundred marks
+a week, could afford to give an entertainment like that? The doctor
+ordered you amusement, and as I was not able, owing to the position in
+which we were placed, to offer you any direct, I commissioned
+Kellermann to ...&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She opened her eyes to their full width. He loved her like this!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You dear, kind man!&quot; she said, and rested her head for a moment
+lightly against his shoulder.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He flung his arms round her quickly and eagerly as if he were afraid
+someone might take her from him the next moment. He trembled from head
+to foot, and his tears rolled down on her forehead.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">As he still did not dare to kiss her, she voluntarily offered him her
+lips.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The third,&quot; she thought to herself. She glanced up and met Walter's
+eyes looking down on her from the wall, full of supercilious contempt,
+exactly as she had feared in the carriage. She pointed to the picture
+with a gesture of terror and aversion.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;To-morrow we'll move it up to the attic,&quot; he said. And as they were
+now reconciled, and had a great deal to say to each other, and it was
+half-past three, the carriage was sent away.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+
+<h2>CHAPTER VIII</h2>
+<br>
+
+<p class="continue">Once more a new life began for Lilly. It was all over with
+her dreaded
+loneliness. Regularly every afternoon Herr Dehnicke arrived at
+tea-time. But he was &quot;Herr Dehnicke&quot; no longer. He was Richard, a dear
+sweet, beloved Richard, who was received with open arms in the hall,
+against whose knees she leant on the floor of the drawing-room, and
+from whose brow the little lines of care were smoothed away with a
+caressing, &quot;Don't frown, dearest.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">How absurd it had been to hoard up her love! You could squander and
+squander, and always have heaps more to spare. The <i>grande dame</i> and
+&quot;gracious baroness&quot; pose was whistled down the wind. Now it was she who
+stooped and made herself small, and asked to be scolded and punished,
+who looked out fearfully for every shadow of displeasure on his face,
+and tried to read his wishes before they were uttered. Above all, she
+wanted to show that she was grateful--oh, so grateful!--for his
+goodness, and his tenderness in saving her.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">No wonder, then, that his attitude of adoring reverence gradually
+altered, that he began to be exigeant, at times even a little
+irritable, assuming the airs of a married man, and reminding her of the
+benefits he had bestowed on her only very occasionally, it was true,
+but often enough to convert humility that at first was spontaneous into
+a duty.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Since Lilly had become his mistress his relations to the outside world
+had undergone a complete change, so that his whole life was differently
+ordered. In place of the priggish manufacturer of bronze wares, ever
+vigilant of his middle-class reputation, he had become a recklessly
+fast man of the world.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He, who once had been shy of appearing with Lilly in the streets or
+park, now gloried in exhibiting himself to the public as her cavalier.
+He bought, instead of the serviceable old brougham, the latest thing in
+luxurious victorias, in which he delighted to drive with her along
+Unter den Linden to the Tiergarten. He selected for their evening
+amusement the most fashionable places of entertainment in Berlin, and
+took seats where they were certain to attract attention from every part
+of the house. He sat in the front of the stage-box with a swelling
+shirt-front, his chin carefully shaved, his hands perfectly gloved, and
+strove to meet the opera-glasses levelled at himself and companion with
+a <i>blasé</i> indifferent smile.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He ordered his clothes of the London tailors who in spring and autumn
+visit Berlin in search of custom. He sported a monocle, and stuck his
+pocket-handkerchief inside his left cuff. The officer was now more than
+ever strongly marked in him, and he tried to emulate the effeminate
+charms of the fops in the Guards.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">In brief, all his endeavours were directed to proving himself worthy of
+a mistress of Lilly's calibre. He soon discovered that possession of so
+perfect a creature, instead of injuring him, cast an undreamed-of
+glamour over his career, even enhancing the prosperity of his business
+more than all his expensive redecorations had been able to do.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The world said: if the senior partner in the firm of Liebert &amp; Dehnicke
+could afford such an extravagance, it must be doing brilliantly. And
+many a dealer who formerly had favoured his rivals in the trade now
+came to him, acting on those mysterious motives of suggestion, the laws
+of which have puzzled the psychologists and historians of all times. He
+was addressed with increased respect, yet with that confidential air of
+jovial banter which the world adopts towards a man of proved steadiness
+and principle when he is caught tripping. He was much more interesting
+than in the days of his prosaic virtue. People who before had troubled
+little about him, and had scarcely even spoken to him, now asked when
+they were to meet him out of business hours, and hinted that they
+wouldn't mind making a night of it in his company. Such overtures,
+indeed, became as common as the Liebert &amp; Dehnicke bronzes.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;By rights, you and your expenses ought to be charged to the business
+accounts,&quot; he said once, smiling at Lilly, who learnt not to resent
+such tactless speeches.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It had become a matter of habit to go out somewhere of an evening three
+or four times a week, and Lilly quickly got to know every pleasure in
+the Berlin vortex of dissipation. It was too late this winter for the
+public balls, at which mysterious women who have lost caste masquerade
+in silken dominoes. But to compensate for this there were the variety
+theatres of lax observance, where the latest and spiciest obscenities
+from the Parisian boulevards were diluted and dished up and offered to
+hungry pleasure-lovers as highly stimulating to the appetite. There
+were the night cafés, where pruriency was draped in literary tags, and
+flighty women escaped from the restraints of middle-class
+respectability, competed with the professional music-hall stars for the
+palm of vulgarity. They frequented bars and grill-rooms and back
+parlours of fashionable restaurants to which the police forbade lock
+and key, and where, under the scornfully smiling eyes of correct
+waiters, dull orgies were held. Lastly came those brilliantly lighted
+cafés, dense with blue cigarette-smoke, where jaded nerves seek a final
+pick-me-up in association with prostitution as it parades its wares for
+sale in the market-place and on the house-tops.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">For some time Lilly protested against these distractions; for her
+senses still aspired to a different and higher kind of enjoyment. She
+cherished, too, vague feelings of regret that this life of dissipation
+was drawing her further and further away from those laurel flanked
+stairs, the goal of her secret longing. But when she saw that every
+wish she expressed for quiet was met with sullen opposition, she slowly
+abandoned the idea, and relegated all her dreams of better things to a
+distant future, when she might look forward to a possibility of their
+being fulfilled. She dared not let her imagination stray further.
+Besides, how amusing and fascinating nearly always was this new life!
+She had every reason to be content with it.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">They were not often alone together. There were acquaintances wherever
+they went. They constantly met Kellermann's carnival guests again. They
+would fall in with one another informally or make appointments
+beforehand. They formed a little set of themselves, to which new-comers
+were always hanging on.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">One of the elect was that seductive little dark woman with the unsteady
+bright eyes and the silly laugh, who at the carnival had wanted to make
+a family party with her friend and Lilly at supper. She was called Frau
+Sievekingk, and prompted by a desire to &quot;live life&quot; she had left her
+husband, a doctor somewhere in Further Pomerania, and after various
+adventures was at present being kept by the wealthy proprietor of a
+steam-laundry, by name Wohlfahrt. He was as thin as a skeleton, had red
+hair, and suffered from dyspepsia, remedies for which she carried about
+with her in her handbag, in the shape of tabloids and quack powders.
+But this touching and considerate attention did not prevent her from
+deceiving him with every man who made advances to her. It was
+universally known, and no one blamed her, for she was a poet, and was
+obliged to seek experiences to write about. An inevitable result of
+indulging in what many a one had thought was an absolutely secret
+<i>liaison</i> with her was to find himself a few weeks later portrayed to
+the life as the hero of a passionate short story in a modern German
+magazine, or providing a theme for a lurid love lyric.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Frau Welter, the divorced wife of the famous composer, was another of
+their intimate circle. Her round, tanned face--she had lately come back
+from a secret mission to Algiers--formed a comical contrast to her mass
+of dyed golden hair, which stood out round her head and neck like a
+halo. It was rather a dangerous thing to become friendly with her. She
+asked everyone she met to lend her money, though she was well off, and
+in receipt of a handsome alimony from her husband's relatives. Her
+generosity was so boundless that she sacrificed all that she had and
+all that her friends lent her to a pair of ex-lovers, both of whom were
+scamps. No one exactly knew under whose protection she was living at
+the present moment. She was often seen with a puisne judge, who looked
+as if he had swallowed a poker and used his tongue instead of a
+toothpick.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">A thin shrewish little woman, pretty and malicious, with cold
+steel-blue eyes and sucked-in lips, always wore white silk, and trailed
+a fan-shaped train behind her: she called herself Frau Karla, but what
+her real name was no one knew except her lover, a very young, very pale
+and slim young man, the son of a rich manufacturer. He gratified her
+absorbing passion for pleasure, being completely in her power, and
+followed her about till dawn. In an unguarded moment he had rashly
+disclosed that she was the wife of a well-known Hebrew scholar, who
+lived a life of seclusion, and imagined that she was employed in
+visiting society in the west-end of Berlin, while he sat peacefully
+poring over his philological tables. All the time she was racing about
+from one haunt of vice to another in suspicious company.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Women of every description moved in this &quot;set,&quot; their past and their
+means of support concerning no one so long as they were pretty and
+elegant and a little above the thoroughpaced <i>cocotte</i>. Among the men
+who were not attached as licensed escort to any lady, but who came to
+fish in troubled waters, was Dr. Salmoni, who at the Kellermann
+carnival had beaten the big drum with so melancholy a smile. Lilly
+always felt constrained and tongue-tied in his presence, though there
+seemed to be some spiritual link between them. Everyone he met came
+under the lash of his caustic wit, except herself, whom he
+considerately spared. Sometimes he seemed to be dissecting her with his
+keen eyes, and would whisper softly in her ear as he passed her, &quot;What
+are you doing here, fair lady?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Herr Kellermann appeared pretty often, got drunk, and then made remarks
+about a chained beauty crying aloud for release, remarks which Lilly
+was careful not to notice. He found, as a rule, that towards the end of
+the evening he had no change in his pocket, so that Richard had to pay
+his bill.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Such was the world in which Lilly passed her days and nights. She
+received mysterious communications: invitations from men to whom she
+had never spoken, asking her to meet them; anonymous presents of
+flowers--from modest bunches of violets to baskets of showy orchids;
+calls from ladies of doubtful character who were getting up charity
+subscriptions, and with a meaning smile hoped Lilly would join
+them--indeed, it was a never-ceasing wave of vicious desire that rolled
+up to her threshold. For a time she was alarmed, then she became
+indifferent.</p>
+
+<hr class="W20">
+
+<p class="normal">Spring days came, and with them the great race-meetings, at which
+everyone with any pretensions to smartness put in an appearance.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Since Lilly in shy queenliness had begun to reign at his side, the
+sporting tastes, which had been latent in Richard hitherto, awoke, and
+were developed with such passionate eagerness that he would not have
+missed a race for the world. Though he did not bet, his pockets were
+crammed with bookmakers' &quot;tips,&quot; and he talked of little else than
+pedigrees and winning chances, Lilly, who understood nothing at all
+about it, cheerfully listened.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">One morning after she had read in the paper the results of the previous
+day's racing, the following passage caught her eye:</p>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Among charming representatives of the society that does not know what
+<i>ennui</i> is, we again saw the beauty of imposing type who has of late
+graced various functions, bringing with her an aroma of the <i>beau
+monde</i>, of which it is said she was once an ornament. Her favourite
+colour seems to be violet, and in accordance with a famous precedent,
+she might appropriately be dubbed 'La dame aux violettes.' At all
+events, we congratulate our metropolis on the acquisition of this new
+luminary, who is certain to add lustre to its reputation.&quot;
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Who could that have been?&quot; Lilly thought, with a slight pang of
+jealousy, and she tried to recall to her mind the forms of all the
+women she had admired the day before. But among them she could not
+identify the heroine of the paragraph.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Then suddenly the blood mounted hotly to her cheeks. She looked at the
+Redfern coat and skirt of violet cloth, which she had hung on a chair
+after taking it off yesterday. It was now more than two years old, but
+so perfectly cut and finished that it could rival any of the most chic
+creations of the spring. She had worn it several times following
+because she had not another tailor-made gown to equal it, and Richard's
+pocket must not suffer from her extravagance in dresses. There could be
+no further doubt. She it was who was meant, and no other.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Her first thought was, &quot;How pleased Richard will be!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But she, too, was pleased. Frau Laue's boldest prophecies seemed to be
+coming true. She had awakened to find herself famous. She was actually
+in the newspapers!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">If only it had not been for that strange inexplicable feeling of fear,
+which was always crouching at the bottom of her heart, and came
+creeping to the surface whenever some unexpected event advanced her a
+little further on the road to fame and happiness! All the time that she
+had been going out in the world at Richard's side, nothing had happened
+to her that was not a source of joy, pride, and hopefulness. Everyone
+seemed to respect her, everyone flattered her. Torturing uncertainty
+and contempt of herself had given place to a calm appreciation of her
+own value in the sight of strangers. Yet that dull harassing fear was
+ever present. Nothing really silenced it.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Richard came earlier than usual that afternoon, waving the Monday paper
+up at her from the street. When they had embraced each other a dozen
+times at least, and read the paragraph over twenty times, he became
+taciturn and moody, and with his arms crossed in a Napoleonic pose he
+paced the room with short ringing steps. It was plain that his brain
+was bursting with ambition.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Then there was a ring, and little Frau Sievekingk was announced. She
+had often looked in before to have a friendly chat with Lilly, but they
+had not become more intimate in consequence. To-day she came at the
+right moment to share in the exultation over Lilly's newly acquired
+fame.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Her grey velvet bolero suit shimmered in the evening light, and her
+jaunty scarlet toque, with its drooping plumes, fitted on to her dark
+curly coiffure like a cap of flame.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She held out her hand to Lilly with her most alluring smile, but, when
+she turned to Richard, there flashed in her shifty bright eyes a gleam
+of determination similar to that with which she intimidated her
+red-headed lover into taking his tabloids for dyspepsia. As since the
+carnival they had continued outwardly to maintain the sham of a
+platonic friendship, Richard meekly took up his hat, as if giving Lilly
+a cue to ask him formally if he could not stay longer. But the little
+woman forestalled them.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Don't pretend,&quot; she said, &quot;that you are not perfectly at home here. As
+if I didn't understand! Please call each other by your Christian or pet
+names, and I'll seem as if I hadn't heard.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Both smiled, and while Lilly gave her guest a cup of tea, he toyed with
+the newspaper in question, a little obviously, for he wanted to find
+out whether Frau Sievekingk had heard anything of their great triumph.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;That is just what I've come to talk about,&quot; said the little lady,
+&quot;that rubbish in the paper. I suppose you think an awful lot of it?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Richard made a gesture of protest, but smiled complacently.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;To speak frankly, I should have credited you with a little more
+sense.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Would you really?&quot; Richard exclaimed, aghast, and Lilly jumped. The
+crouching fear that had made itself felt earlier seemed to tell her
+that even this piece of undiluted good fortune might conceal a sting.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Please listen to what I am going to say,&quot; the little visitor
+continued, and her eyes flashed now not shiftily but steadily. &quot;I have
+experience in these matters, for my red-headed boy tried the same game
+on with me at first.... I wonder if the thought has ever occurred to
+you, Herr Dehnicke, that when one of the <i>élite</i>, as is that sweet
+exquisitely unique creature sitting there, entrusts herself to your
+care, you have taken a gigantic responsibility upon your shoulders? Do
+you men think we exist merely to feed and advertise your vanity? We're
+not milliners or chorus girls who want to be dressed up in silks and
+chiffons simply that the world may see what a dog you are. We may have
+lost caste, it is true, but that doesn't mean we are by a long way come
+down to what you would like to treat us as.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Richard struggled to retort, but could not find words.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Then she bent tenderly towards Lilly, and continued: &quot;A poor butterfly
+of aristocratic lineage comes flitting along unsuspectingly and says,
+'Take me--you can do what you like with me.' And what are you going to
+do with her? Are you going to make a bad woman of her, or rather what
+the world accepts as a bad woman? No! I won't be contradicted. That's a
+good beginning,&quot; and she pointed to the paper; &quot;if once the scorpions
+of the Press busy themselves about us, then the gallants of the Guards
+are on our track. Then God help you! They are far handsomer and more
+gallant than any of you, and if we must be driven into the ranks of the
+<i>cocottes</i>, we'd rather know by whom and for whom. Afterwards you find
+yourselves chucked, a stale joke of the day before yesterday--nothing
+more.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">All this confused Lilly and turned her giddy. She could not have
+believed that anyone would dare to speak to Richard in such a tone, and
+she laid her hand protestingly and comfortingly on his shoulder,
+fearful that he would be angry and assert his dignity as host.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But he did nothing of the sort.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I am willing to be guided by you,&quot; he said humbly, &quot;if you'll only
+tell me what----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;If you don't know what you ought to do, I'll tell you. You ought not
+to trot her out and put her through her paces as if she were a prize
+animal, exposing her to the gaze of any gaping crew. Don't put her in
+the front of your box at the theatre for every <i>roué</i> to look at
+through his opera-glasses.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Richard manned himself to parry her attack.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;If I may venture to ask the question, are you not to be seen
+everywhere?&quot; he asked.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes, certainly, because I want to see as well as be seen. That is why
+I ran away from my brute of a husband and chucked respectability.
+Still, I don't sit in the front of boxes, and I don't let myself be
+trotted up and down a race-course. I am a Bohemian; Lilly, on the
+contrary, with her placid refined nature, is a home-bird, and should be
+treated as if she were your legal wife.... We neither of us want to
+descend to the demi-monde--that is to say, what we call demi-monde here
+in Germany; in the French sense we are already there. Now I have said
+my say, Herr Dehnicke.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Richard stood up. He had grown very red, and was biting his moustache
+with impotent resentment.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I have always put her welfare before everything,&quot; he said. &quot;Besides, I
+have only acted according to her wishes; have I not, Lilly?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly felt she couldn't contradict him. She did not desire to see him
+further humiliated, and said nothing.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And if you acted a thousand-fold according to her wishes,&quot; answered
+the little woman for her, &quot;you were wrong. You should have said,
+'My child, you don't understand this sort of life; as we are not
+married--which, mark my word, would be far the best for both of you--we
+must live at a moderate pace, otherwise I shall do you an irreparable
+injury and drag you into the mud.'&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Tears sprang to Lilly's eyes at the mention of the word &quot;married&quot; in
+relation to herself and Richard. To hide her emotion she went hurriedly
+to fetch his overcoat, for it was a quarter to six.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She accompanied him to the door, and kissed him affectionately; she did
+not wish him to think that she bore him any grudge.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">To her guest, she stood up for him zealously. He had been very kind and
+good to her, he had not meant any harm, and he had saved her from an
+evil fate.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I didn't come here to make mischief,&quot; the little woman said, laughing,
+and asked if she might sit on a little longer. She mentioned, too, that
+her name was Jula, and expressed a desire to be called by it in future.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">They now sat hand in hand on the sofa--above which Walter's portrait
+had been replaced by a very mediocre sheep-shearing scene--and nibbled
+cakes from the little glass plates on their laps. For the first time
+Lilly enjoyed the sensation of possessing a friend of her own sex, for
+she had always been too much in awe of Fräulein von Schwertfeger to
+regard her in that light.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The bullfinch sang a piteous little song of spring, and the sparrows
+answered from the chestnut-trees outside. The May sunshine reflected
+tremulous spirals on the walls, and now and again a flash of gold
+lightning raced across the aquarium, stirring the green sedges and
+grasses.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">This was an hour for confidences.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Didn't I put on airs just now?&quot; Frau Jula said. &quot;But it was necessary,
+my sweet. You, like me, are standing on the brink of a precipice. One
+little push and over we go, and then no one can pick us up again. If we
+had any character to rely on it wouldn't be so bad ... but we don't
+know how to be faithful, and, what is more, we don't want to be.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;How <i>can</i> you say that?&quot; cried Lilly in horror.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Frau Jula showed the point of her little red tongue between her lips.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Just wait a bit, my dearest. The men we meet are scarcely calculated
+to make us think that we are ordained for the pleasure of one only. In
+fact, the only way to appreciate them is to take them in the plural.
+Oh! I could open your eyes to a thing or two; but I don't want to
+frighten you ... besides, the plural number is dangerous.... Each man
+we give ourselves to takes away a bit of what is best in us. Yes, our
+best, though I can't exactly define it. It's not self-esteem, because
+that survives sometimes; it's not purity, we don't care a pin about
+purity; and it's not happiness. I tell you, we should be bored to death
+if we stuck to one man. I have talked about it to a lot of women, and
+they all agree on <i>that</i> point. Some of them think it's better not to
+fall in love at all, and only do it for fun; others swear by the
+<i>grande passion</i> that will consecrate everything. No two people think
+quite alike. And now I should like to give you a few hints, because the
+day will come when you are sure to need them. Don't let them give you
+presents--that is to say, not things of value. Flowers are permissible,
+but not too many. And don't give <i>them</i> presents, because only honest
+married women can afford to do that. Beware, as a rule, of the lover
+offering gifts, for that simply breeds <i>cocottes</i>. As I say, married
+women may do what is not fitting for us to do; they have to be revenged
+for being tied by the leg to the '<i>one only</i>.' We, on the other hand,
+are free, and can go when we like. We may do everything but that; we
+mayn't do that.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Why mayn't we?&quot; asked Lilly, becoming suddenly conscious of her
+chains.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Married women may do anything; they may be divorced a hundred times
+and hold their heads as high as ever.... But in our case it is always a
+plunge lower; the oftener we change, the more we become common booty.
+It's all very well if we have money of our own, but you and I haven't.
+They hover about us, watching like vultures ... and they say to
+themselves, 'If so-and-so can keep her, and so-and-so, why shouldn't my
+good money buy her?' For this reason a woman should cleave closely to
+the one she has got--no matter how small and despicable he is, or how
+much she may loathe him in her secret soul.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I don't quite understand you,&quot; said Lilly. &quot;Surely the one you have is
+the one you love.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What! Have you loved every one of them?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Good gracious! There haven't been so many,&quot; Lilly answered. &quot;Besides
+my husband the general&quot;--she could not resist pronouncing the &quot;proud&quot;
+word--&quot;there was only one other, and this one.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Nonsense!&quot; exclaimed Frau Jula, genuinely indignant. &quot;Are you setting
+up to be a model of virtue?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly assured her that she had spoken the truth.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Frau Jula had difficulty in grasping it. &quot;Then you don't belong to us
+at all! You ought to be a judge's wife.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly laughed. After believing herself condemned for ever on account of
+her immorality, it was refreshing to find someone who ridiculed her for
+being too good.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Ah! if I were to tell you the stories of all the women who are
+around us, you would be surprised,&quot; Frau Jula went on. &quot;Some will only
+look at girls. Some let furnished rooms to students, that are only
+taken by those they fancy; others&quot;--here she lowered her voice to a
+whisper--&quot;others find their lovers in the streets.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly shuddered. &quot;What? Have I sat next them, perfectly unsuspecting?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Frau Jula's eyes burned into vacancy. &quot;It's awful, isn't it?&quot; she
+said, and laughed. &quot;I don't care so much; you see, I have my poetry the
+sort of thing that gives me absolution. For its sake everything is
+sacrificed. One must have sensations. I must feel my blood run
+quicker ... I must study human nature; there is something new in
+everyone.... No matter how wretched a specimen a man is, with brains
+and soul that might be packed into a thimble, he can give you an hour
+of ecstasy--one hour in which bells chime, in which the spheres are
+full of organ-sounds. And the more you have, the more life you live,
+the more souls do you creep to the other side of. Doors are flung open:
+all secrets are revealed.... And if you can hear a stranger's heart
+beating, can feel his heart-beats in your fingertips--then he is
+yours, part of yourself. Then you live one life more. Yes, that is
+life--really life.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She put up her arms and clasped her hands at the back of her neck.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly said to herself that she couldn't take this talk seriously, but
+she felt hot and cold waves pass over her.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I don't understand at all what you are talking about,&quot; she said,
+rising.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Frau Jula didn't seem to hear. Her eyes were full of mystic fire. She
+looked like a priestess sacrificing to strange gods.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It struck eight. The maid servant who had been laying the table in the
+next room had set a place for the lady, who didn't seem inclined to go,
+and now came in to announce that the repast was ready.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Will you stay and have supper with me?&quot; Lilly asked against her will.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Frau Jula at last collected herself; she neither accepted nor declined,
+but got up and removed her scarlet toque from her dark locks.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I am quite mad, am I not?&quot; she asked, and the silly but alluring smile
+played about her lips again.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">With a sigh of relief, Lilly opened the dining-room door.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The table was covered with a sheeny damask cloth, on which leaves of
+light were cast by the hanging lamp. The bright-coloured dinner
+service, copied from an old Strasburg pattern, had been bought by
+Lilly cheap at a sale, and the plate, including the castors and the
+sugar-tongs, shone as brightly as real silver, and could only be
+distinguished from it by the absence of a mark. The idea was, that
+when Richard stayed to meals he should find all as well ordered and
+spick-and-span as at his mother's table.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Frau Jula gave an exclamation of delight. &quot;Oh, how charming you have
+made it all--so dear and cosy! I do believe I am right in saying that
+you were born to be a married housewife. You should see my rubbishy
+place! But what is the good of keeping up appearances when my
+red-headed boy ruins his digestion at restaurants, dining on lamb
+kidneys <i>au lard</i> and truffles? When he is at home I make him gruel and
+bread-crumbs, and give it to him straight out of the saucepan, without
+any ceremony or laying of table.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Thank goodness,&quot; Lilly thought, &quot;she is her natural self again.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The meal was quite unpretentious, consisting of cold meat dishes and
+baked potatoes, with the remains of a tart for sweet. But Frau Jula ate
+with a greater relish than she had known for years, and commented on
+everything.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly told her that for the sake of economy she ordered her meat from
+the country. She would gladly give her friend the address.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I guessed you did that,&quot; said Frau Jula, with a soft sigh, her eyes
+meditatively fixed on space.... And after a pause came the confession
+in a low voice. &quot;It was the same there.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Where?&quot; asked Lilly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;At home, where we lived.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Then suddenly she hurled away her napkin, jumped up, and went to the
+open window. She wrung her hands, beat her forehead, and called
+hysterically into the evening air: &quot;I am going to the bad as fast as I
+can--utterly to the bad!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What is the matter with you?&quot; Lilly stammered. She was so shocked that
+she too sprang up and went to the window.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I want to go back to my husband ... to my husband.... My husband is a
+monster, a beast, it's true. Life there is simply death ... that's all
+perfectly true. Yet I want to go back to my husband.... Here I shall go
+under--under.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly laid her hand caressingly on her neck.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Why, dear,&quot; she said consolingly, &quot;you have just been giving me such
+useful instructions as to how to avoid going under. And, then, you have
+in your literary art a mainstay, which I lost long ago.&quot; Sighing, she
+glanced at the curtained cupboards, where the last of her pasted sunset
+forests glowed in obscurity. &quot;No, no; you will not go under. You will
+rise higher and higher, to the very top, and from there look down on
+other poor women.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Frau Jula sobbed on her shoulder. &quot;Never now, never!&quot; she cried. &quot;I
+can't get out of this whirlpool. It's poisoned me; my brain is
+poisoned. I am going to the bad! I am going to the bad!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly put her arm gently in hers and led her back to the sofa-corner in
+the unlighted drawing-room, where she had been sitting before.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Ah, here it is nice and dark,&quot; she said, whimpering like a child.
+&quot;Here I can tell you everything, but shut the door; there mustn't be a
+gleam of light.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly closed the door of the &quot;pattern&quot; room. Now they were sitting in
+the dark. Only the late evening twilight, which from the canal
+penetrated the still scanty branches of the chestnuts, cast a greyish
+shadow on her tear-stained face.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Just now,&quot; began Frau Jula, &quot;I spoke of women who sought their love
+adventures in the streets, and you started up in horror. Do you know
+who one of these women is? I am one.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Oh, my God!&quot; exclaimed Lilly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes, I am one. The evening that my red-headed boy leaves me alone, I
+put on dark things and drive into districts where nobody knows who I
+am. When I meet someone whom I like the look of, I give him a glance
+that makes him turn round and speak to me; then I go with him into a
+common inn, or to a little confectioner's, anywhere he likes, or I sit
+with him on a seat in the dark ... and if I like him still better than
+I thought ... I will just go with him anywhere--anywhere he asks me to
+go.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Oh, how dreadful that is!&quot; said Lilly, and pressed her hands to her
+eyes. Now she knew why a few months ago something had seemed to draw
+her more and more powerfully to the streets, why a pleasant thrill had
+passed through her when someone had addressed her in the dark; only, of
+course, she had been too nervous to answer.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And now I have told you this, and you know what I am, you won't want
+me to sit on your beautiful sofa any more!&quot; cried Frau Jula. &quot;Say it
+plump out, and I'll go.&quot; She caught beseechingly at Lilly's hands.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly felt like a good Samaritan who, having come across someone
+grievously afflicted, was bound to do the best she could for her.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What makes you do it?&quot; she asked gently. &quot;You are not so lonely. How
+have you come to it?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes, how have I come to it? Can you say how you have come to what you
+are? It's all very well for people to reproach us with weakness; but
+one necessity leads on to another, one wish gives birth to more wishes,
+and one always thinks one is doing right.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;That is true enough,&quot; Lilly faltered, recalling the decisive moments
+of her own life.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I have always persuaded myself that I must do it for the sake of my
+poetry. I must have experiences, pictures, and what the French call
+<i>frisson</i>. But all that is nothing but an excuse, a mere pretext. The
+truth is that you just seek and seek. Your own husband is not what you
+want, your red-headed boy isn't either, and all the rest aren't--your
+sportsmen, merchants, and lieutenants. But you think he must be
+somewhere. Perhaps he's that stranger at the next table? You are almost
+sure he is, so you become acquainted with him, and find that he isn't.
+It's none of the worthy ones, for however much trouble they may take to
+possess us they take no trouble to find out if there is anything worthy
+in us. And so you have to go on searching. Perhaps it will be someone
+in the street? It becomes at last a positive fever ... it consumes and
+burns you up. Often I can't sleep for thinking of the next dark night
+when I shall be wandering about looking ... Don't you see? It <i>must</i>
+end in ruin to me, body and soul. And this evening, when I saw your
+daintily laid supper-table, all at once a longing came over me for my
+home and husband. Yes, I am periodically tortured with that longing. He
+has weak eyes, and smells of carbolic. Oh, that vilest of all vile
+smells! How much I should like to smell it again! I shouldn't even mind
+his throwing his stethoscope at me as often as he likes. He has written
+asking me to go back.... I can go back if I choose ... and yet I don't
+go. I stay here and perish. Oh, life is farcical!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She rose and fumbled for her hat and hatpins, which lay on the table.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly couldn't bear her to go in such an agitated state of mind.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;If you feel that it is a poison in your blood, that it must ruin you,
+why don't you guard against it? Why don't you conquer the feeling?
+Force of will can do a lot.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I have often said so to myself,&quot; replied Frau Jula, &quot;but I have never
+had anyone to confide in about it who could help me. Now I have found
+you it will be easier. Now I almost feel as if I could--could conquer
+it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Will you promise me to try?&quot; asked Lilly, holding out her hand.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes, I promise,&quot; she cried, and shook hands joyously. &quot;You are going
+to be my saviour. You are already. And to thank you, I will keep a
+sharp lookout that you aren't spoilt. You shall never be what I am, and
+what the others are.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Oh, I can look after myself,&quot; murmured Lilly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Ah, so you say! But when the dreary void comes, and <i>he</i> grows more
+and more unsatisfying and colourless, you have nothing to say to each
+other, and you mustn't have children.... None of us have them, because
+we all know how to prevent their coming. He lets you have no part or
+lot in his affairs, and you feel behind everything how his family hates
+you. <i>They</i> think we are a species of harpy. And then how constantly he
+proclaims his intention of marrying when he wants most to annoy us!
+And, above all, there's the longing ... it's like an everlasting dead
+gnawing toothache ... yes, it's just like toothache. Wherever you are,
+it torments you. For life cannot end like this, you say to yourself;
+something must happen at last. Oh, it's ten times worse than marriage!
+Wait and see if it isn't....&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly's heart became ever sorer at her words. A wild misery clutched
+her.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Pray say no more,&quot; she begged. &quot;If it's to be, it'll come soon enough.
+I don't want to think about it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You are right, darling,&quot; said Frau Jula; &quot;it does no good.&quot; And she
+took her leave.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You won't forget your promise?&quot; Lilly reminded her from the top of the
+stairs.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Never; no, never! I swear it.&quot; And she glided out.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">With a whirling brain, Lilly went back to the darkened drawing-room and
+leaned absently and dejectedly out of the open window to breathe in the
+freshness of the evening air.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She watched the tiny woman who had just come out at the front entrance
+trip lightly and gracefully along the pavement.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">A man in a tall hat and patent-leather shoes passed her, then
+hesitated, stopped, and turned back again. As he came up with her he
+lifted his hat with exaggerated courtesy.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">By the light of the street-lamp Lilly saw her face upturned to his,
+full of curiosity, and with an ingratiating smile, and then they walked
+on--together.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+
+<h2>CHAPTER IX</h2>
+<br>
+
+<p class="continue">Richard was reluctant to conform to a more temperate manner
+of life. He
+was still eager to be seen with Lilly and to have her admired. But
+little Frau Jula's lecture had really touched his conscience, and he
+had not the nerve to set it at defiance.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Nevertheless, he sulked and brooded and yawned, and seemed so bored
+that Lilly, to cheer him up, was on the point of volunteering to
+accompany him to the next race-meeting, when news reached her that her
+mother was dead.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She cried a great deal, and her grief was in proportion to the
+tenderness of her heart, which was very soft. But in reality her mother
+had been dead to her for so long that the sorrow she felt at her actual
+death could not be very deep or lasting.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Before starting for the West Prussian asylum to attend the funeral, her
+chief anxiety had been to get as simple mourning as possible, for she
+was ashamed not to have done more for her mother, and did not wish to
+give cause for scandal by being too elegant as she stood at the pauper
+grave. All the same, the officials and doctors at the asylum were most
+deferential to her, and appeared to regard her as some exquisite black
+bird of Paradise.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was not till after she had spent three very hot spring evenings,
+praying and meditating, beside the small heap of gravel, that she
+returned to Berlin, full of serious thoughts and re-awakened memories.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">While away she had thought she hated Richard, but when she found him
+waiting for her at the station, she sank into his arms helplessly,
+craving for his sympathy. For now she had no one else but him; he
+really was her all on earth.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was an understood thing that for the next few months nocturnal
+dissipations should cease on account of her mourning, and to his credit
+Richard showed her every consideration in the matter. He sat at home
+spending many quiet evenings with her, reading books that he couldn't
+appreciate and playing backgammon; and would go to sleep on the sofa
+rather than attempt to beguile her into the gay world. But in order
+that he should not be quite lost to that world, it was agreed that he
+should have every other evening to himself.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The notoriety that his beautiful mistress had acquired smoothed the way
+for him. He was elected to the Club that he had long hankered after,
+through the support of two of her aristocratic admirers, without a
+single blackball. So now it was open to him to enjoy the supreme
+felicity of losing part of his firm's hardly earned fortune to young
+scions of the nobility, foreign attachés, and other superior beings.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly was not pleased to hear of his losses, which he confided to her
+with much feigned growling and grumbling. She practised economy more
+assiduously than before to try and make them good. He laughed at her
+efforts, and declared that she cost him no more than an extra cigarette
+a day; but her conviction that she was a burden on the firm of Liebert
+&amp; Dehnicke remained deeply rooted.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">On the quiet evenings that he recruited from his nights of dissipation
+their business conversations were resumed. Lilly liked to &quot;talk shop,&quot;
+and she displayed a keen commercial as well as artistic faculty.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Richard frequently brought with him sketches of models, and they would
+sit with their heads bent together over unrolled charts, planning and
+consulting like a pair of partners. Those hours were almost blissful,
+and she never tired of asking questions about the factory itself. How
+many hands, male and female, were employed there at the present moment?
+Was that man or woman or this one there now? She didn't know their
+names, but could describe their faces exactly. What work had they
+chiefly on hand? Had the supply of certain models run out? Thus she
+kept herself <i>au courant</i> with the inner life of the business.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The factory was her ill-starred love, as she often said in joke to
+Richard. If she was allowed to call for him after business hours at the
+office, it was the greatest treat he could give her. If she could have
+had her way she would have found an excuse for going daily to the
+factory; but Richard didn't wish it. The employés, he said, had long
+ago got to know what their relations to each other were, and he must be
+careful not to lay himself open to disrespectful gossip.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She was sure that this could not be his only motive. There was
+something else behind. She had realised for some time that his mother
+was not well disposed towards her. Once he had talked about her quite
+freely and openly, but now he avoided the subject, even when Lilly
+asked direct questions.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was likely enough that he was afraid of raising the old lady's ire
+by giving his mistress the run of his office, so she had to content
+herself by taking interest from a distance in the welfare of the little
+kingdom.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">On the evenings that she was left alone, she was in the habit of making
+ten-o'clock pilgrimages to the Alte Jakobstrasse on her own account.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She would take up a position on the opposite side of the street and
+gaze reverentially across at the old grey house, with its wonderful
+modern embellishments. She admired the imitation marble pillars, which
+now gave an air of splendour, in the style of the Renaissance, to the
+entrance. She stared up at the floor where his mother made her home,
+and withdrew timorously into the darkness of a doorway when a woman's
+threatening shadow was cast on the drawn curtains. When it grew late
+and people ceased to come in and out of the house, she would boldly
+cross the street, slip up the steps to the front-door, and with her
+face pressed against the iron gate peep at the interior of the
+staircase landing, whence came the sheen of laurels, the milky
+radiance of the Clytie bust, and the dark, rich chequered glow of the
+stained-glass windows, an impressive combination that recalled the dim
+religious light of a chapel.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Those front-door steps grew to be a sort of sacred pilgrims' way, along
+which penitents crawled on their hands and knees; the stained-glass
+became a heavenly glory; the Clytie a benedictory saint.</p>
+
+<hr class="W20">
+
+<p class="normal">Towards autumn Richard was called out to serve at the man&#339;uvres. His
+letters were curt and few, and their tone could not disguise his bad
+temper. The last was dated from the hospital, as he was on the sick
+list, owing to a fracture of the knee-joint caused by a fall from his
+horse. It would prevent his riding again for a long time, perhaps for
+ever.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">When he came back in October he was still compelled to wear a knee-cap,
+and sent in his resignation. The accident really proved a piece of good
+fortune, for rumours of his relations with the divorced wife of the
+commander of the regiment had got afloat, and in consequence he was
+being cut by his fellow-officers. His superiors were only waiting for
+confirmatory evidence to call him before a court-martial, a proceeding
+which would certainly have deprived him of his commission in the
+Reserves. He thus escaped by the skin of his teeth public disgrace, and
+his surly reproachful manner to Lilly was meant to show how much he had
+sacrificed for her sake.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The news of the colonel, which he had gathered indirectly, filled her
+with dismay. The old martinet had turned Fräulein von Schwertfeger out
+of the castle, having become obsessed by the suspicion that she had
+acted in collusion with the guilty lovers. He now lived the life of a
+misanthropic recluse, and it was feared he might go out of his mind. A
+message of evil indeed from that past of sunshine.</p>
+
+<hr class="W20">
+
+<p class="normal">As winter approached, one of Frau Jula's prophecies seemed as if it
+were coming to pass. Richard began to discuss his matrimonial prospects
+with Lilly, not to annoy her, it is true, but simply because it had
+become a habit to unburden his mind to her about everything that
+troubled him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">His mother had invited an orphaned heiress on a visit to their house.
+Of course, she had done it solely for <i>his</i> benefit, and no other
+reason. He had to sit next her at meals every day. She was a rather
+pallid girl and had hair the colour of straw. She looked at him with
+big strange eyes, and seemed to ask, &quot;When are you going to propose?&quot;
+And his mother was for ever preaching to him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Things couldn't go on as they were. Another winter like the two last
+and every decent family among their acquaintance would be pointing the
+finger of scorn at him--so his mother said--and it was enough to drive
+a fellow distracted. Lilly felt as if icy water was streaming down her
+back. But she maintained a brave face, and showed no more inward
+emotion than if they were discussing a model for a new &quot;bronze.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Do you think you could care for her?&quot; she asked.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Good God! What do you call 'caring'?&quot; he answered, staring beyond her
+vacantly. &quot;You talk as if I were serious about it. I believe you
+wouldn't mind getting rid of me.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He pretended to be angry, and Lilly reasoned with him coolly. He
+mustn't imagine for a moment that she would stand in his way. She had
+nothing but his happiness at heart. It would make her proud if he gave
+her his confidence and did not take this step--now or later--without
+talking it all over with her first.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He was touched, kissed her, and replied that so far it was all in the
+air.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But the conversation left Lilly beset with dread as if by a nightmare.
+Her one coherent thought was, &quot;If he leaves me in the lurch now, what
+will become of me?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Grief for her mother's death was nothing compared with this martyrdom
+of anxiety. The vultures that Frau Jula had spoken of occurred to
+her--all those greedy vultures, in white shirt-fronts and black coats,
+hovering round to offer her their &quot;good money&quot; directly her friend and
+protector should have deserted her. And then she thought of those other
+vultures in Kellermann's picture, cowering on the sun-baked rocks,
+ready to pounce on the naked beauty directly she became defenceless.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Her chains are her weapon of defence,&quot; Lilly said to herself, &quot;and so
+it is with me. As soon as I am free, I am lost.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The next day neither of them alluded at first to the dangerous topic,
+but Richard was absent-minded and ill at ease. Then Lilly took heart
+and said huskily, &quot;I see, Richard, you are still undecided in your
+mind. Won't you bring me a photograph of her to see? No one knows you
+as well as I do, and no one will be able to judge better whether or not
+she is suited to you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He vehemently denied that he was trying to make up his mind. The girl
+was nothing to him. She was an empty-headed doll. But his indignation
+was not genuine, and his eyes were fixed on space. For &quot;the doll&quot; had
+five millions.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And the next afternoon he brought her photograph. Without taking it out
+of the soft paper in which it was wrapped, she laid it aside. Merely
+touching it made her hands tremble. She was afraid that her first
+glance at it would betray her inward agitation.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Aren't you going to look at it?&quot; he asked, a little disappointed.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;There will be time enough when you are gone,&quot; she replied, and
+congratulated herself on her smile of indifference.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">When he was in the hall she called after him:</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;To-morrow I will tell you what I think, you know.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Then she rushed back to the photograph, not omitting, however, to wave
+from the window to Richard, a duty which had become a habit with her.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And now ... now the photograph!&quot; Oh, what a good, calm, rather
+delicate-looking girlish face it was, looking at her with sorrowful
+though nice eyes. The fair plaits of hair, as thick as a man's wrist,
+were twisted round the back of the head in country fashion; a timid
+smile played on the full-lipped mouth. It was the face of a lovable
+child. Happiness would make it bloom like a spray of lilac put in
+water. It indicated a nature reposeful, not too gifted, housewifely,
+and clinging. Exactly what he wanted.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She placed the picture on a chair and threw herself on her knees before
+it. She prayed and wrestled with herself, but in the end she could not
+help saying to herself again, &quot;Exactly what he wants; what he would
+never find a second time if he hunted all the world over.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And she had five millions! If she did not give him up now she would
+indeed be one of those harpies, to whom, according to Frau Jula, she
+and her kind were likened in respectable family circles.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But he is mine; I have the right of possession! What good would his
+five millions do me if through them I go to the bad altogether? Why
+should I sacrifice myself for him or anyone?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The word &quot;harpy&quot; continued to ring persistently in her ears.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She thought of the Furies depicted in the illustrated mythology books,
+the terror of all school-children, with their beautiful hair and
+murderous claws.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What I have is mine! I have a right to keep it, a right to tear it to
+pieces too.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Oh, what a night that was. She lay in bed with her knees drawn up to
+her chin and her face buried in her lap, sobbing. She stuffed her
+clothes into her mouth, tore them out again, and sobbed anew; and at
+last, towards morning, a resolve was born of her tears, her shudders,
+her prayers, and bitter strife with herself--a resolve that seemed to
+bring release and salvation: &quot;This afternoon, when he comes, I will
+tell him.&quot; But no! Why wait till the afternoon? Why let him cross the
+threshold first? How easily might the influence of their wonted
+association bring the great work of self-sacrifice to nothing! She must
+choose another place, somewhere less familiar, from which she could
+quickly escape as soon as she felt his presence made her falter.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She had been forbidden, it is true, to visit his office without special
+permission; but if she chose the luncheon hour, and found him sitting
+quietly resting in his private back room, this would be the most
+favourable and easiest opportunity for an interview. No one would
+notice her going in, and she would not be disturbing him. Besides, so
+sacred a resolve as hers justified every step she might take.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She spent the morning in arranging and packing up his letters. She
+intended to restore these to him with the photograph of his future
+bride, so that his mind should be set at rest concerning them once for
+all.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Then she dressed more carefully than usual, and washed away the traces
+of her tears with milk of lilies. She waved her hair so that it
+descended over her neck in full ripples, such as she had seen in Greek
+statues. She felt, indeed, like one of those marble women of ancient
+Greece, so serenely elevated was her frame of mind above earthly
+happiness and sorrow.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She drove to the office. As the clocks chimed a quarter-past one she
+stood at the pillared portico. No one was about in the yard; only the
+porter took off his cap with a friendly smile. To him she was still the
+&quot;boss's&quot; ladylove.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was a pity that she did not take the precaution of being announced.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The door of the outer office was standing open, as usual when he was
+still at work in his room. She knew the secret catch that opened the
+wooden rail of partition, and passed through. She knocked cautiously at
+the further door. To-day it was shut, which was not usual.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He said, &quot;Come in.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She went in, and stood face to face--with his mother.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">This was the first time she had ever seen her. She was quite different
+from what she had expected. Instead of the tall, thin, silver-haired,
+stately old lady her imagination had pictured, she saw sitting at his
+writing-table a stout woman of middle height, with grizzled locks under
+her black lace cap. A pair of cold grey eyes looked up at her with a
+surprised and indignant glance.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;This is his mother,&quot; she thought.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Richard jumped up from his revolving-chair, and Lilly, speechless with
+terror, stared at the old lady, who in her turn sprang to her feet. An
+expression of fury and scorn blazed in the cold grey eyes.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;This is really a charming state of things,&quot; she cried, turning her
+head from one to the other with sharp, angry jerks. &quot;Charming! I am not
+even safe in my own house, it seems.... I must ask you, Richard, not to
+expose me again to a meeting with a person of this description.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And while Lilly timidly and respectfully made room for her to pass, she
+swept to the door with a snort of rage.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What are you doing here? What do you mean by coming here?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Never had he shouted at her like this before.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He stood in front of her with his hands thrust deeply into his
+trouser-pockets, biting the ends of his moustache, while his head was
+so much on one side it almost lay on his shoulder. He looked like a
+savage, infuriated bull.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She wanted to hand him the photograph and packet of letters, and tell
+him everything, but her limbs and tongue seemed paralysed.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I ... I ... I only ...&quot; she stammered with a sob.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I ... I ... I only ...&quot; he scoffingly mimicked her. &quot;I only wanted to
+wriggle myself in here. I ... I ... would like to be mistress here.
+Isn't that it, eh? ... No, no, my angel; we must put an end to this at
+once.... Your so-called ill-starred love of my factory always struck me
+as a bit suspicious. Get out of here! Get out, I say! Get out!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And the next minute she was out--out in the street.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She still held the packet in its tissue-paper wrappings convulsively
+between her cramped fingers. Staggering, she walked on, past staring
+red houses that threatened to fall on her. She saw a truck loaded with
+sacks of flour scattering white clouds. A pulley screeched in a factory
+yard. Every time she saw anyone coming towards her she swerved into the
+gutter, shrinking away in fear from the jeers of the passer-by. A skein
+of wool that someone had lost lay on the pavement. She picked it up and
+thought of hanging herself, for something must be done.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was all very well to be abandoned and deserted; when your time came
+you could expect nothing else, and must resign yourself to fate--but to
+be stormed at and flung off, to be kicked out as if you were a burglar,
+to be despised and spat upon like the lowest woman in the streets--oh,
+that was too much!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She must do something to be revenged on him. And even if such a revenge
+would no longer affect him, that didn't matter. He should at least be
+convinced that he was to blame for everything. When she was wallowing
+in that mire of which he had formerly expressed so much horror on her
+account--when she was there ... Yes, something must be done, now, at
+once--some suicidal act which would make her worthy of the gross
+treatment she had received at his hands--something to free her from
+these torments, these horrible torments!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Her heart hung in her breast like a painful tumour. She could have
+outlined it with her finger, it felt so sharply prominent. It was as if
+some claw held it in its clutch. And then again the vultures occurred
+to her--the vultures crouching on the rocks in Kellermann's picture.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">They were crouching to spring on Lilly Czepanek. Whom else? Ah, now she
+had it! The thought flashed through her brain like an arrow. She called
+a cab and drove quickly to Herr Kellermann's house.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She ran up the stairs, which little more than eight months ago she had
+descended, steeped in bliss, at Richard's side. She stood in the
+unaired, dark ante-room with its fusty smell, and knocked with a
+faltering hand at the studio door.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Herr Kellermann sat on the floor in his tartan socks and down-at-heel
+slippers making coffee, as on her first visit. He had a rather bloated
+look, but seemed pleased with himself.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Good heavens!&quot; he exclaimed, drawing the collar of his night-shirt
+together. &quot;What brings you hither, lovely goddess, so suddenly? Have
+your setting suns been rising again?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She said nothing, but laid her hat and cloak on a chair and began to
+unfasten her blouse. She looked round for a screen, but there wasn't
+one, for the models who frequented this studio were not generally
+troubled with shyness.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He sprang up and stared hard at her. Then, when he understood what she
+intended to do, he burst into a sudden shout of joy.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What did I say? Wasn't I right? Ha, ha! It has come to that, has it?
+We are crying aloud for release. We want to be set free, eh?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I am not crying aloud for anything,&quot; said Lilly. &quot;Kindly turn your
+eyes the other way till necessary,&quot; The corners of her mouth curled in
+scorn.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He seized the picture, blew the dust off it adjusted his easel,
+laughing and chuckling to himself. &quot;I knew she'd come. I said she'd
+come!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly fumbled at the strings and buttons of her garments. Then she
+slowly cast them from her one by one. Thus she stood, in the garish
+light of the studio, pricked by a thousand needles of shame, and
+exposed her unclothed body to the artist's gloating gaze.</p>
+
+<hr class="W20">
+
+<p class="normal">The next afternoon Richard came to tea as usual. His eyes were red and
+watery, and he looked depressed, but his manner did not betray the
+least consciousness of anything out of the ordinary having happened.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She had hardly expected that he would come at all, and received him in
+chilly surprise.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Oh, about yesterday,&quot; he said carelessly. &quot;Mother and I had a beastly
+row. I had to promise her that you wouldn't come to the factory again.
+So now we won't allude to it any more. The little girl with the fair
+hair leaves us this evening. Give me a kiss.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">So they kissed, and everything was the same as ever.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+
+<h2>CHAPTER X</h2>
+<br>
+
+<p class="continue">The twigs of the chestnuts had again put on their yellow
+gloves, and
+many a leaf started on a whirling journey down the canal. Once more the
+vista of grey water through the opening in the branches widened, tame
+wild-ducks foraged along the banks, and the barges, sinking deep into
+the water under their cargoes of odoriferous summer fruit, drifted
+lazily to market. The world muffled itself up for coming winter days,
+and the purveyors of pleasure in the capital were astir.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">In seemly half-mourning the round of dissipation began again, Richard
+objecting to being kept in a glass case any longer. But this time they
+ceased to aspire to stage boxes and the gorgeous luxury of
+distinguished night restaurants. Having established a reputation
+through the ownership of a famous and withal inexpensive &quot;<i>horizontale
+de grande marque</i>,&quot; one could afford to remain on the level of a
+middle-class &quot;smart set,&quot; where German champagne is drunk and
+Kempinski's proves a lodestar. They passed countless hours of reckless
+debauchery in cabarets and theatres where smoking was allowed, in snug
+corners, and in eminently respectable-looking private back rooms. Women
+who had felt themselves a little <i>de trop</i> in the other society were
+more festive hare than ever before, and the men congratulated
+themselves on not &quot;bluing&quot; so much money.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The people you met remained pretty much the same. Only a few dandies
+fell off, not being able to conceive an existence of pleasure from
+which the joy of being patronised by cavalry officers in mufti was
+absent. Lilly followed the crowd, imagining there was no choice. She
+sat for the most part saying little, but smiling a great deal in a
+friendly way. She let the men pay her as much attention as they
+pleased, but responded without enthusiasm, and she listened
+indifferently to the women's confidences. She was popular with her
+feminine compeers, who all recognised in her the amiable quality of not
+wishing to poach on their preserves.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It might have been thought that she was stupid and lacking in animation
+if occasionally she had not thawed under the influence of champagne,
+which was capable of working an amazing revolution in her. Then she
+seemed gradually to awake from her torpor, her eyes grew brilliant, her
+cheeks rosy. She would laugh shrilly and say madly improper things,
+even repeating the colonel's old Casino jokes, till as last she was
+worked up into a state of rapture, in which she sang comic songs in a
+tremulous twittering falsetto, mimicked well-known actors and
+actresses, and even broke into more daring dances than were ever seen
+on the variety stage.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was extraordinary how retentive her memory was. Without knowing it,
+she never forgot anything that she had once heard. In her normal
+condition she remembered less than other people. Wine had first to
+sweep away the barriers of reserve which, as a rule, dammed her flow of
+wit.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Her associates soon discovered this phenomenal peculiarity in her, and
+tried by a hundred devices to bring her into a condition that provided
+them with such rare entertainment. But she resisted with all her
+strength, and so she waged a perpetual warfare in which she could not
+count on Richard as an ally, for he liked his fair mistress to be
+applauded for her talent as well as admired for her beauty.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The next day she invariably felt limp and depressed, and sometimes when
+her mind's horizon was bounded by a red forest of high kicking legs,
+and the silly patter of suggestive songs rang in her head, a low voice
+of exhortation made itself heard within her. &quot;<i>Once</i> you were
+different,&quot; it said. &quot;Once you looked up to the heights and aspired to
+better things.&quot; But she dared not listen to this voice.... She felt she
+was unworthy because she was defenceless and had no one to hold out to
+her a protecting hand.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Sometimes, on the nights that she was free to do as she pleased, she
+slipped out, as if she were doing something wrong, and went to the
+gallery of a good theatre where she would not be known, or to the
+orchestra of a concert-hall where music students of both sexes
+congregated, sitting on steps and railings with the score on their
+knees, following every note.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">What she saw and heard made no deep impression on her. She felt
+disquieted and out of her element, and fixed her attention on some
+young man, whose bold profile or mass of artistic curls struck her
+fancy.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;He is one of the gifted,&quot; she thought, with a torturing pain at her
+heart, and she gazed at him so long and earnestly with languishing eyes
+that at last he returned her glance with fiery fervour.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Yet, however hotly she might burn with eagerness to be spoken to by
+him, she dared not give him further signals of encouragement, with Frau
+Jula's awful example before her mind's eye.... And so she had to rest
+content with the beating of her heart, which in itself alone caused her
+delight.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">So steeped was she now in the erotics of the world she moved in, that
+the slightest rise in the temperature of passion was interpreted by her
+as a complete drama of love and longing. Oh, the longing, that eternal
+gnawing toothache, to which Frau Jula had referred; how well she knew
+what it was now! It had come on her like a thief in the night, filling
+her hours of rest with a panorama of flaming visions, changing her
+waking hours into a drowsy trance.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She waited, and no one came. No one took the trouble to lift her lost
+soul out of the dust. Only one person, who watched her keenly, appeared
+to have any conception of what was going on within her.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">This was Dr. Salmoni.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">A great man was Dr. Salmoni in the estimation of those intellectual
+circles in Berlin of which he was a luminary. He was the editor of an
+art magazine once notorious for its revolutionary doctrines and the
+zeal with which it attacked the great gods of the old school, and set
+up new idols for the multitude to worship. But it was not Dr. Salmoni's
+way to burn incense long at any shrine; when he saw the mob kneeling
+before the fetishes of his own creation, he tore them down, too, and
+ground them under the heel of his vituperative invective. His hate was
+a thing to be lightly borne, his witticisms fizzled out and did not
+hurt, no one believed his calumnies. More dangerous was the benevolent
+kindness which he expended on all those whose reputation he intended to
+ruin. Praise from Dr. Salmoni sounded like a death-sentence in certain
+ears.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">This distinguished man now, as in former winters, patronised
+occasionally the harmless amusements of the little circle whose strong
+point could hardly be called intellect. His appearance was hailed with
+respectful enthusiasm; everyone made room for him, and hung on his lips
+in anticipation of scathing personal remarks when he leaned back in his
+chair with his melancholy sympathetic smile and stroked his pointed
+reddish beard. But he did not always fill the <i>rôle</i> of jester expected
+of him. He would sometimes engage in a <i>tête-à-tête</i> conversation, or
+sit alone, lost in silent meditation.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He could even show, when he liked, a playful <i>naïveté</i>, such as a
+leopard displays when it gambols with puppies. He seldom spoke to
+Lilly. But his penetrating eyes often wandered over her face with a
+scrutinising glance. She felt every time he did this that he amused
+himself by skimming the emotions of her soul.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">One evening he sat down next her, and asked if she would cut up his
+meat for him, as he had unfortunately sprained his wrist in strangling
+a certain celebrity.... Next, in growing intimacy, he desired her to
+feed him, which he might easily have done himself with his left hand,
+which was not disabled.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Thus they found themselves conversing seriously for the first time.
+Lilly trembled at the honour. She was afraid of not distinguishing
+herself.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I am quite astonished,&quot; he said, &quot;that, after knocking about with this
+ribald crew for over two years, your eyes do not betray you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;How should they?&quot; she asked.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Kindly look one moment at the women collected here&quot;--and he indicated
+with his finger Frau Jula, Welter, and Karla, and two or three more.
+&quot;How they roll their eyes! how they look up under them! All that is the
+lingo of ... I was going to say vice; but I detest expressions that are
+so guiltless of nuances, so I will say instead, the lingo of a criminal
+phantasy. Do you understand?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I think so,&quot; murmured Lilly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Now you, my dearest lady, still retain something of the childlike
+innocence of former years in your glance. Not all, but something. A
+<i>soupçon</i> of contempt has crept in. No, contempt is not exactly the
+right word. On the outskirts of deserts there are certain salt pools
+that are green, dark, and empty, because the ground is poisoned. Do you
+grasp what I mean?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I'm not sure that I do,&quot; she said.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;All the same, it's marvellous. Your soul seems to be a filter; it only
+assimilates what it likes. Or perhaps you have a private source of
+succour to draw on that puts you on a higher plane than us, some
+crystallised immovable ideal ... some fixed star to shoot at ... some
+sublime Song of Songs.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly started so violently that a low cry escaped her lips, loud
+enough, however, to attract the eyes of the company towards her.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I have only trodden on this lady's foot,&quot; explained Dr. Salmoni, &quot;and
+she was ingenuous enough to think I did it by mistake.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Everyone laughed.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;A joke sufficiently clumsy to satisfy them,&quot; he said in a whisper,
+leaning close to her shoulder. &quot;I'll make believe not to have heard
+your involuntary confession. I only value intended avowals. I am not
+going to ask you to-night, as I asked you once before, what you are
+doing here. I ask instead: What have you got to lose here? And I can
+give the answer myself directly: Your style--your style stands in
+peril. You are on the brink of losing your style, and becoming
+guiltless of style, and that is a misfortune and a crime at the same
+moment. Style is to me equivalent to virtue, greatness, sincerity,
+religion, power, and a few other things all combined--a divine quality.
+Keep to your last, spiritually and physically. There is <i>line</i> in that;
+an excellent thing to preserve. Swing yourself up, if you like, to the
+peaks of a healthy and joyous viciousness--<i>tant mieux</i>. You can either
+dress your hair like a nun's or let it float over the pillow like a
+bacchante's--but be sure which you decide on.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I think just now that you pleaded the cause of nuances,&quot; Lilly said,
+feeling her wits sharpened by his, &quot;and now you are talking
+platitudes.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Hear, hear,&quot; he answered approvingly. &quot;That's capital! But no, no,
+dear gracious one; I am not talking platitudes. I preach simply,
+'<i>Will</i>,' the will to personality. In truth, there's room for plenty of
+nuances. You have the stuff in you for a <i>grande amoureuse</i>; but, alas!
+not the courage.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And that shows I haven't the stuff,&quot; she retorted, giving him a
+radiant look.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He laughed like a schoolboy. &quot;Yes, yes. We all get old sometime, and
+listen to little virtuous women lecturing us on logic.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And he chivalrously allowed her the satisfaction of having got the best
+of him in repartee.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">During the next few days Lilly reflected a good deal on what they had
+talked about. How could he know so much about her? It was almost as if
+he were in league with supernatural agencies. &quot;Will to personality,&quot; he
+had said. The phrase made her happy. Once more she began to ascend to
+the heights.</p>
+
+<hr class="W20">
+
+<p class="normal">Another time, when they followed a party of their friends at midnight
+along the lively Friedrichstrasse, he adopted a different tone.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I have a queer sort of feeling, dearest lady,&quot; he said, &quot;that you are
+afraid of me.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I?&quot; she said, catching her breath nervously. &quot;Why should I be afraid
+of you?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Because you know that I have a message for you. A message of
+redemption for which in your secret heart you don't feel ready.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I don't understand you,&quot; she faltered. But she understood perfectly
+what he would say. She knew what part he might play in her life if----</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I am a man tuned in a minor key,&quot; he continued. &quot;I don't like playing
+my emotions on a trumpet, otherwise your ears might have tingled ere
+this. Anyhow, I will say this, that I think it a scandal that a woman
+like you, made to walk in high places, one capable of noble thought and
+elevated enjoyments, should be bribed by a few pickled herrings into
+living a stupid burlesque of a life.... I am not going to blame anyone,
+but, my dearest lady, I assure you it is impossible to drain life's
+ecstasy to the dregs in lukewarm dishwater ... and, after all,
+intoxication is the main thing, so long as the blood leaps in our
+veins.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly trembled on his arm. They overtook a throng of gay
+night-revellers young fellows who were shouldering their
+walking-sticks, and looking dreamily before them with dizzy eyes. One
+whistled Wagner, another sang a student's song. Pretty women of the
+town, coming towards them, gave them alluring glances from dark-rimmed,
+passion-lit eyes ... more followed, youths and men, girls little more
+than children, all infected by the same transports. It was like a
+figure in a sylvan dance in which everyone offered each other hand and
+mouth, body and soul.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What am I to do?&quot; she asked in a low tone, dropping her chin on her
+heaving breast.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I'll tell you,&quot; he answered, with a smile which concealed dark hints.
+&quot;You must learn to lead another life at the same time as this one--a
+life that belongs to you alone ... you and a few choice friends. Do you
+understand? You must do what a Frenchman once advised: lay out a secret
+garden, in which you tend in peace all your favourite thoughts and
+wishes. Above all, the things that are forbidden, and which you have
+privily gathered together.... Do you understand?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;All forbidden things have brought me unhappiness,&quot; she said
+hesitatingly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You mean that the law that forbids them has made you unhappy,&quot; he
+replied; &quot;it's not easy to distinguish between the two. At all events,
+believe this, my dear child: that until we make self-culture a
+religion, till we have erased the little word 'duty' from our
+vocabulary, we are not on the right road. We are simply bruising our
+feet by stumbling over the <i>débris</i> with which others block our way
+under the pretext of making it smooth for us.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But sometimes they do make it smooth,&quot; she answered, thinking of all
+the benefits she had received at Richard's hands.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He smiled at her with indulgent pity. &quot;You seem to be suffering from a
+sickness that I call 'chain-madness,'&quot; he said.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What is that?&quot; Lilly asked again, seized with a dismayed suspicion
+that he possessed some occult power, and that he divined the shameful
+part certain chains had played in her life.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It is said,&quot; he continued, &quot;that slaves who have worked in the galleys
+for years, when they are liberated, miss their chains, and complain
+loudly that their legs and arms feel as if they were chopped off....
+Your beautiful arms, dear lady, were made to stretch upwards. Why don't
+you exercise them more?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And my long legs were made for running away,&quot; she supplemented with a
+tortured laugh, &quot;Only, where am I to run to? that is the question.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Why be in such a hurry and talk of running away yet?&quot; he asked,
+stroking the hand lying in his arm, as if he were talking to a child,
+&quot;You'd only run into the arms of another so-called 'duty.' First, you
+must acquire inward freedom first you must forget how to be at the beck
+and call of those who themselves should be under command.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Teach me the way,&quot; she burst out.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I will lend you a few books,&quot; he said, as if deliberating.... &quot;Books
+that will lead you back to yourself. Tomorrow morning I will----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">At this moment they were separated.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">That night Lilly, when in bed, lay with folded hands smiling up at the
+ceiling. Was she not once more ascending to the heights?</p>
+
+<hr class="W20">
+
+<p class="normal">The next day, as the time for his call drew near, she was overcome by a
+new dread. She was afraid of him, of Richard, of herself.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">This would be the first visit she had received in secret, the first to
+break up the tranquillity of her home. So, when she beheld him get out
+of a cab with several books under his arm, she ran to give instructions
+not to let him in.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">When he had gone she pounced eagerly on the books that he had left for
+her. Some were printed in Roman characters and looked at a first glance
+terribly scientific. But they proved readable. She dipped first into
+one, and then into another, and what she read made her blood flame and
+rise to her head like sweet wine.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">In all, there was a great deal about the &quot;power to will,&quot; the
+&quot;super-man,&quot; the &quot;right to live,&quot; and the &quot;gospel of passion.&quot; In all,
+the purely beautiful was lauded as the end and aim of human endeavour.
+In all, the word &quot;individuality&quot; occurred over and over again, and in
+every conceivable connection. They all taught you to look down with
+vindictive pride on your fellow-creatures, and to despise them as a
+debased, tortured, and enslaved race. You wandered in glorious
+isolation, accompanied, perhaps, now and then by one or two kindred
+souls of lofty superiority, on storm-swept mountain-tops, breathing an
+eternally rarefied ether.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">In these pages was an unending offering-up of incense to self, an
+insatiable self-conceit, a glorification of murder and arson, pæans
+sung on such themes as lusts of the flesh, chambering and wantonness.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Thus Lilly's soul became enveloped in a veil of intoxication and
+ravishing dreams. She felt as if she were seated in a sapphire-blue
+haze, which a far-off glow shot with purple threads. She heard music,
+hot and wild, storming on in angry dissonances like armies of mænads
+tearing down all obstacles in their way. She felt herself climbing
+steep craggy rocks, getting higher and ever higher. She fought against
+dizziness, and dared not look back for fear of being dashed to pieces
+in the abyss below. But she did not lose her footing; she cut and tore
+her hands in clinging to the sharp edges and swinging herself up--up!
+Now she was at the top and laughed. Oh, how she laughed down on the
+poor scum of humanity who crept about down there in misery and
+wretchedness, letting themselves be trampled on and crushed for the
+sake of their crumbs of daily bread! ... And then, again, a great
+pity overwhelmed her. Why should she alone stand on these wild,
+gold-shrouded summits, while all those others had no prospect of a near
+salvation? She would have liked to hold out her hand to her poor
+oppressed and hungry brothers and sisters, and help them to climb up
+too. But they would not be able to understand her or her message of
+redemption. Yes, that was what <i>he</i> had called it, a &quot;message of
+redemption.&quot; She saw their emaciated faces wet with the cold sweat of
+death, their glazed fixed eyes, that still could not turn their gaze
+from the glittering coin of their wretched living wage. She saw women
+in the last stage of pregnancy, thin and distended at the same time.
+She thought of the poor factory girl in Richard's packing-room, whose
+feverish hands made the doll that she wrapped in paper sway and dance.
+She thought of the others who had glanced at her with shy hate and
+hopeless envy in their weary eyes.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Once more her affection for the factory, which she supposed on the day
+of her shame and humiliation had received its death-blow, awoke within
+her with a tender sadness, like the trembling hope of spring in our
+souls when the February snows begin to melt.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">This had certainly not been the object of Dr. Salmoni's loan of books.
+Nevertheless, they discharged their mission admirably in another
+direction. The dull gnawing &quot;toothache&quot; became a raging torment. The
+wish for a man--any man but Richard--who would understand and sweep her
+along with him, this wish possessed her with such overmastering force
+that she had scarcely strength left to writhe under its lash.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Surely somewhere the <i>one</i>, the only one, existed? Surely some kind
+wave of this human ocean would one day wash him to her feet?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">One evening she dressed herself in quiet dark clothes, as much like a
+dressmaker's apprentice as possible, and slipped out into the street,
+as she had been in the habit of doing when Richard's warehouse drew her
+towards it with a thousand magnetic threads.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She had no talent for taking walks without knowing where she was going.
+So, obedient to the dictates of her reawakened infatuation, she found
+herself treading the familiar way to the Alte Jakobstrasse. After
+outman&#339;uvring the advances of two old dandies and an impertinent
+counter-jumper, she halted opposite the latticed gates of the pillared
+entrance.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She crouched for a long time in her sheltering doorway on the other
+side of the street, and stared at the building with which her fate had
+so indissolubly associated her. To-night, too, there were lights
+burning in his mother's apartments. Two jets of the chandelier threw
+out a steady flame like her cold clear eyes; the others were not lit,
+probably from motives of economy. All that was to be seen of the
+factory itself was the top of its huge chimney towering above the roof
+of the dwelling-house. A grim greeting, yet a greeting of some sort.
+Gladly would she have renewed acquaintance with the dear, forbidden,
+laurel-flanked stairs, but she had no longer sufficient courage at her
+command to cross the street.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Then, feeling as if she had performed some virtuous deed, she turned to
+go home.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She repeated the pilgrimage on three lonely evenings during the course
+of the week, and began to regard these aimless rambles as a necessity
+of existence. It happened once, when she was taking up her position in
+the protecting darkness of her favourite doorway, that a gentleman of
+elegant appearance and slender figure, who had come from the same
+direction, paused and took off his hat. She recognised Dr. Salmoni. So
+horrified was she that she forgot to acknowledge his greeting. If he
+were to betray her to Richard, she was doomed. He would imagine that
+jealousy or something worse drew her to shadow his house.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Ah, my charming lady,&quot; he began, mouthing his words in a
+self-satisfied way, &quot;there is really something refreshing in meeting
+you opposite the world-renowned art emporium of Liebert &amp; Dehnicke. As
+you know, I am a modest not-inquiring person with a soul, as it were,
+still unbreeched, so I refrain from asking you what has attracted you
+here--what impulse of the heart. You know the old fairy-tale of the
+queen who set forth to find her king, and ended in finding a
+swineherd.... Likewise it is possible that a pearl of great price may
+have strayed into a bronze manufactory. I should never have permitted
+myself the pleasure of following you intentionally. A certain dumb
+harmony of line fascinated me and led me on--perhaps a suggestion of
+brilliancy behind. But one should never shoot a hare out of season. Let
+your fruit ripen, dearest lady, is a very sound maxim, not only in
+relation to <i>soi-disant</i> love--but the question is, whether it is worth
+while to believe in maxims. They smack of respectability, and
+respectability smacks of Virginian tobacco, which stinks, and is
+praised far and wide by the multitude, simply for that reason.... I
+hope you appreciate the deep truths that lie hidden in what I am
+saying, gracious lady?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I wish to move from this spot at once,&quot; she said. &quot;Suppose that we
+were seen here together?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;As far as that goes, it's the one place where we may be seen together
+with impunity,&quot; he laughed with boyish glee, &quot;for only the most cussed
+imagination would surmise that we had selected this house for a secret
+rendezvous. But we'll move on, if you wish.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He offered her his arm, which she refused.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Then they walked together through crooked dark back streets towards the
+west-end. He went on talking steadily. One thought seemed to lead to
+another. Sometimes it seemed to Lilly as if he had forgotten her
+altogether in letting off his fireworks of speech. He revelled in the
+play of his own wit. For a long time his conversation seemed to have no
+connection with her and her pitiful existence. But she was mistaken;
+his gold was coined for her, and he expended it so lavishly that her
+brain had not room enough to assimilate it all.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He walked beside her with an elastic, somewhat jumpy step. His cane,
+the knob of which he held in his pocket, flicked his shoulder. His
+white silk muffler gleamed, and that was all she could see of him. He
+talked on and on. How he talked! Often she felt as if she were being
+slapped, oftener as if she were caressed. When Richard and his friends
+were the target of his jeers, she would gladly have contradicted him;
+but he mentioned no names, and, after all, she had often thought the
+same.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Tentatively he played on her aristocratic antecedents. He depicted
+scenes from country life, and said there was no pleasure to equal rides
+<i>à deux</i> in the rosy freshness of early morning. It seemed as if he had
+been present at everything she had ever done.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I have lived a great deal in castles,&quot; he said, in explanation. &quot;I
+know the life well.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Her past, too, it would seem. So he went on searching into her soul.
+When he began to speak of the books which he had lent her, without
+commenting on her refusal to see him the morning he called, she made a
+mild protest.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Pray never lend me any more of the same kind!&quot; she implored.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Why not?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;They puzzle me and make me ill.... I don't know how to describe it.
+You said they would help me to find myself ... but, on the contrary,
+they seem to estrange me from everything that I had always thought
+before was pure and holy.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Perhaps that is so,&quot; he replied, and his walking-stick danced;
+&quot;perhaps this is the first step that I demand of you in the ascent to a
+higher life.... By-the-by, let me tell you a little story that comes in
+<i>à propos</i> here. There were once two old zealous missionaries who were
+conscientiously fired with the desire to spread Christianity in Central
+Africa.... Such freaks are really quite superfluous, but they exist,
+and we have to put up with them. In order to render their work of
+conversion the more solemn and convincing, they took with them a small
+portable organ. They dragged it, sweating, hundreds of miles, through
+deadly tropical heat into the heart of the interior, where the poor
+naked savages resided, on whom they had designs. There they set up the
+organ and started their services, but no sooner had the poor naked
+savages heard the first notes than they took their cudgels and brained
+the two zealous missionaries, because of the evil spirits shut up in
+the musical-box. In the same manner life deals with us, my dear lady,
+when we try to play it on the good old organ of our exploded moral
+prejudices.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly felt powerless to cope with such an overmastering intellect. In
+silent submission she bowed her head. And as he now, without asking her
+consent, laid her hand in his arm, she dared not withdraw it. They
+passed grimy factory walls, the dreary blackness of which was here and
+there illumined by the milky blue light of a lamp-post, scaffoldings
+stretched skeleton arms against the lurid cloudy sky, and now and then
+they heard the bells of the electric tramcars as they ran along
+parallel routes.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Where are we going?&quot; she asked nervously.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;We are avoiding human society,&quot; he answered. &quot;And if I were to take
+advantage of the present situation, I should profit by your feeling
+lost and in need of my protection. But I am not a designing nature. In
+all that concerns the emotions I am a mere babe.... I simply take what
+heaven lets fall. Are not you constituted in the same way?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;No, I am too stolid and heavy,&quot; she said, ready to open her heart to
+him. &quot;I think over things ever so much.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It depends what you think,&quot; he said gaily.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She wanted to speak out, to tell him everything, and she felt as if she
+must lay her heart on his open palm so that nothing should be hidden
+from him. But humility and awe of his stupendous cleverness sealed her
+lips.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Why do you trouble yourself about an idiot like me?&quot; she asked, in
+order to show at least how humble she was.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Because I may have a mission to fulfil in your life,&quot; he answered.
+&quot;<i>Perhaps</i>, I say, for one never can tell what reflex action of the
+emotions may bring about. Certain psychological moments will show us.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She did not understand the meaning behind this remark, but a timid
+feeling of happiness that so infinitely great a man should be
+generously interested in her crept over her.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You are in his power,&quot; she thought; &quot;he can make of you anything he
+likes.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">As he drew her arm a little closer to his, her pressure in response
+brought his hand for a moment in contact with her bosom. She was
+overcome with terror that he might think she was throwing herself at
+his head. What if she went home with him, that he asked her ...</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I will take the tram,&quot; she said hurriedly. &quot;I am tired.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He whistled for a cab, which was approaching out of the fog.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;No, no!&quot; she cried, with no other thought than that of preserving the
+gift of his friendship as it was, intact. &quot;Not with you. I must go home
+alone. You know what people are; besides ...&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She wrenched her arm out of his, and ran to the next stopping place so
+quickly that he could scarcely follow her before she had jumped on the
+first car that came up. The smile with which he looked after her was,
+however, not a disappointed one.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He intended to triumph, and would triumph.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly Czepanek was once more travelling upwards to the heights.</p>
+
+<hr class="W20">
+
+<p class="normal">Three days later they met again, but this time at a large social
+gathering. The party had come from a <i>café chantant</i> in the northern
+part of the town, and were to wind up the evening in the private back
+room of a middle-class public-house.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">By an unlucky chance the seat she had carefully kept for him by her
+side fell to someone else's share. This put her out; but there was
+champagne to cheer up everyone.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly, out of defiance and boredom, drank far more than was good for
+her. Her eyes began to blaze with a challenging merriment; her cheeks
+took on the rosy-apple hue which all her friends delighted in. Her
+laughter became shriller, her movements more and more animated.
+Suddenly there was a loud call for &quot;Lilly.&quot; Lilly was to perform.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Her heart misgave her. Not once, as yet, had she dared to recite in his
+presence. Indeed, no one had thought of asking her when he was of the
+company, for he was always the centre of attraction. Then she felt,
+&quot;To-day I can do anything--to-day I will show him what there is in me.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She stood up, tossed back the hair from her forehead, and shook herself
+... shook off every vestige of the everyday Lilly; the Lilly subject to
+fits of depression and faintheartedness; the vacillating, inanimate
+Lilly.... Now she was off. She first plunged into an imitation of &quot;La
+belle Otero,&quot; and crowed and whooped so that her audience laughed till
+it cried.... Then she mimicked a star of the cabarets, ... sucked her
+thumb in babylike simplicity and piped, &quot;Let me in, I say, into your
+room to-day.&quot; In a comical double-bass she growled, &quot;An ambassador
+would a-wooing go.&quot; Half-hidden behind the hatstand she cooed the song
+of the passionate love-pigeon, &quot;Gurr ... gurr ... keak.&quot; Finally they
+begged her to dance. At first she protested, but in vain; she had to
+give in. Tables and chairs were moved out of the way, and making her
+own dance-music between her teeth, she whirled madly round the room,
+till half-fainting she collapsed into a corner.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The applause seemed as if it would never stop. The women devoured her
+with kisses, the men stroked her arms and hair, and Richard stood
+silent and pale with pride, in his Napoleonic attitude, and gnawed his
+moustache ends. Dr. Salmoni, however, kept in the background, smiled a
+melancholy modest smile, and looked as if he had nothing on earth to do
+with what had passed. Only one brief glance of understanding, that he
+threw at her like a laurel-wreath, told her that he knew for whom she
+had let herself go. When the party broke up, she was still glowing with
+ecstasy from head to foot.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Yes! this was the genuine intoxication, of the charms of which he had
+lately spoken to her; it was like a hissing flame darting through your
+heart and limbs.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was he who helped her on with her fur coat, for Richard was engaged
+in paying the bill; and while he carefully placed the sable boa round
+her shoulders, he whispered close to her ear, &quot;May I call to-morrow?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes,&quot; she said, terrified at herself; and then, in defiance of her own
+cowardice, she turned brusquely on her heel and shouted back in his
+face four or five times, as if in wrath, &quot;Yes, yes, yes, yes!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What is the matter with her?&quot; people asked each other.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But she laughed a short, hard laugh. What did she care for them? Was
+she not once more scaling the heights?</p>
+
+<hr class="W20">
+
+<p class="normal">The next morning all seemed like a fantastic dream. Only one fact stood
+out clearly. He was coming to call!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She stretched herself in shy conceit as the applause of last night
+echoed in her ears. Now he knew what she was. No dull, tame,
+half-developed creature; no servile, sheep-like nature, whose fixed
+horror of fate made her the voluntary slave of every convention. But,
+on the contrary, a free, proud, luminous super-being, one of those
+perfectly complete, mænad-like women who dance on the edge of
+precipices and mock at death, even when he holds them in his clutches.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Then she became faint-hearted once more. After all, what was there to
+boast of in having sung a few songs and danced an outrageous dance
+under the influence of champagne? She had only behaved like a
+common music-hall diva, and reaped the undesirable plaudits of a
+half-inebriated audience! Was that all one had to do to belong to the
+elect, the laughter-loving, powerful souls of Dr. Salmoni's literature?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">No, oh no! that could not be the key! After such an exhibition he would
+feel nothing but scorn or, at best, pity for her.... And if he came
+to-day it would be only to tell her what he thought of her. He would
+show her how degraded she was, and then benevolently go his way quite
+unconcerned.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She wouldn't endure that. She would cling to him, and cry, &quot;You have
+promised to lead me to the heights out of this barren miserable
+existence. Now keep your word! Don't forsake me. I'll do everything you
+wish. I will be your slave, your dog; only don't forsake me.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">In feverish expectation she dressed, waved her hair, reddened the lips
+that dissipation had paled, and altogether made herself as beautiful as
+possible.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Towards twelve there was a ring. Was it he?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">No; instead of Dr. Salmoni, Frau Jula had come to call. What did she
+want all of a sudden? They had, as if by mutual agreement, avoided each
+other since that evening of confidences. And here she was now, without
+even going through the formality of being announced! Her air was
+cordial, almost affectionate, and she craved a chat.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly hesitated.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I won't keep you long, my sweet one. I can see you are expecting a
+visitor.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I didn't know that I was,&quot; she said, conscious that she blushed.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Don't deny it, dear.... I know that Dr. Salmoni is coming.... I know,
+too, exactly how you feel. I, too, have gone through it, and stood,
+getting pale and pink in turns, as I watched for him.... My morning
+dress, certainly, was not such a ravishing reseda as yours; it was only
+claret colour ... but that is all the same; he doesn't mind us in
+claret colour.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What do you imply by that?&quot; faltered Lilly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What do I imply? ... Why, simply this. Our circle for Dr. Salmoni is a
+kind of fish-pond of pretty light women, in which he angles from time
+to time, till he hooks something that his appetite fancies. At present
+he is hooking you, my dearest.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;That is slander!&quot; cried Lilly, flaring up. &quot;He has never made love to
+me, nor has such a thing been even mentioned between us.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Because it isn't necessary,&quot; replied Frau Jula; and she laughed
+maliciously. &quot;The man does not trouble himself with such trifling
+preliminaries. He knows that at the right moment we shall rise to his
+bait.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly felt herself getting more and more angry.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Between him and me nothing has passed but discussions on purely
+intellectual subjects, such as a freer, prouder, and higher human
+ideal; and if you, and people like you, can't understand such language;
+if you are too----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Stop, my dear, please,&quot; said Frau Jula, &quot;Don't be insulting! There is
+no occasion. I have come to you with the best intentions. For anyone
+else I would not have taken the trouble; I should only have smacked my
+lips. But <i>you</i>--well, I am fond of you, even if you prefer to have
+nothing to do with me. And you he shall leave alone. And yesterday,
+when I saw to what a pass things had come, I could give myself no
+peace.... I felt compelled to come ... before it was too late.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But, indeed, you are mistaken,&quot; said Lilly; nevertheless, she cast an
+anxious look at the clock.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Frau Jula, whom this did not escape, made a grimace,</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Directly there's a ring, I'll slip out through the next room, but by
+that time I shall have achieved my object, I hope.... You see,
+child&quot;--she sank into the sofa-corner and drew Lilly down beside
+her--&quot;we poor women have all longed to raise ourselves again, so long
+as we were pretty faithful to one person.... And then Dr. Salmoni
+enters. He has to angle longer for some of us than others, but he
+doesn't mind how cheaply he gets us. He has, too, various baits. For a
+cold-blooded lump like Karla he doesn't go the same way to work as with
+us, naturally. With us he begins in this way: 'My gracious one, I am
+always amazed to find you in such an environment as this. Tell me, what
+are you doing here?'&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly looked startled.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Well, was that it? or wasn't it?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes, but ...&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It was. That's enough. Next comes his depicting of the dangers we
+encounter if we continue to live in bondage.... He is especially down
+on duty. Duty he can't tolerate; it is obnoxious to him. As if we were
+so terribly particular about our little bit of duty, forsooth! Now
+then, wasn't that it? Am I not right?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes, but ...&quot; stammered Lilly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I thought so. And next he says <i>he</i> wants to set us free ... to lead
+us upwards on high. He is the personal conductor to the heights. Isn't
+it so?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly turned her head aside to conceal the blush of shame that suffused
+her neck and face.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And then the books! Wretched trash written by little raw scribblers in
+imitation of our great Nietzsche! But we all fall into the trap; it
+works up our blood like cayenne pepper; we get quite maudlin over it.
+What enrages us afterwards is that we were actually such geese as to
+believe in his scoundrelly sentiment, although the scurviest cynicism
+exudes from all his pores. But one is so stupid, and he is so clever.
+Yes, to give the devil his due, he is clever.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But how does he manage it?&quot; asked Lilly, who dared no longer stand up
+for him. &quot;How does he seem to know everything about your past, as if he
+had lived it with you?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes, child, it's strange. But, you know, people whose circumstances
+are the same generally have the same experiences. It is easy enough for
+him to reconstruct our past when we tell him we've lived in the
+country. I am a landed-proprietor's daughter. Didn't he, by-the-by,
+tell you he had passed much of his time in castles?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly nodded.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;That's because he--I found it all out later--was tutor to some Jews
+who rented a place near Breslau; but they soon gave him the sack for
+his impudence.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">In the midst of her agony of disillusionment Lilly could not help
+laughing shrilly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;That's capital!&quot; her friend approved. &quot;You can think yourself
+fortunate. If only someone had come and warned me! for afterwards, how
+it hurts!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What happens afterwards?&quot; Lilly asked, hesitating.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It's very simple <i>afterwards</i>. When he's got what he wants, it's over.
+He buttons up his coat, says in a voice of deep emotion, '<i>Au revoir</i>';
+but it never comes, his <i>au revoir</i>. You never see him again.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;That isn't true; it can't be true!&quot; cried Lilly in horror. &quot;Surely no
+man can be such a cur to a woman!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You--never--see--him--again,&quot; repeated Frau Jula. &quot;Why should you? The
+creature has other matters of more importance to attend to. I wrote my
+fingers to the bone. Not a line in response!... There's no getting at
+him. Frau Welter lay on his doorstep, Karla got the jaundice from fury,
+and so on. But the man's an eel. Later, if you meet him at a carousal,
+there's not the faintest recollection in his eyes ... he just treats
+you as he treats the rest.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Startled, Lilly recalled how she too had adopted a like course of
+action, and appeared at a carousal without betraying the slightest
+memory of what had passed before, although he had turned on her
+petitioning tragi-comical glances. Yes, everyone was as bad as everyone
+else in this world, in which one cast off one's dignity like a worn-out
+dress. She buried her face in the sofa-corner, overcome with shame and
+consciousness of guilt.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Never mind,&quot; comforted Frau Jula. &quot;It's all right now.&quot; And then there
+was a ring.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly rushed to the door to give instructions as before, that she was
+&quot;not at home,&quot; but Frau Jula restrained her.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What are you thinking about?&quot; she whispered. &quot;Don't let him think you
+are afraid of him. If you do, you won't be rid of him for a long time.
+You must laugh at him. Do you understand? Laugh at him pitilessly with
+all your might.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly would have liked her to stay and help her out, but she had
+already slipped away. Could she possibly outwit him single-handed?...
+He was now in the room. Drawn to her full height, she received him as a
+deadly enemy.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;My dearest child,&quot; he said, and kissed the hand which she quickly drew
+away from him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He was very choicely dressed. He wore straw-coloured gloves, and held
+his silk hat against his breast. His eye glass danced on his white
+waistcoat.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">A serene self-confidence, an air of supreme mastery of the situation,
+illumined his person like an aureole. The manner in which he nestled
+comfortably against the cushions of his chair, and crossed his legs
+with easy self-assurance, showed plainly that he regarded her as his
+certain prey.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly was no longer nervous and in doubt. Her soreness of heart and
+disappointment had vanished. She felt nothing but a cold calculating
+curiosity. She followed his every movement with calm amazement, as he
+passed his hand over his glossy bushy hair and hitched up his trousers
+to display his silk socks with red clocks. And all the time she kept
+saying to herself, &quot;So this is what you are! This!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And then he began to talk in his low deliberate caressing voice, while
+his piercing eyes wandered up and down her. &quot;You are excited, my dear
+child, and I am not astonished. When two people such as we are find
+themselves for the first time absolutely alone together, they are apt
+to betray their emotions. Don't be ashamed of yours.... The tie that
+has bound us together is so subtle and delicate an understanding--the
+magnetic fluid between us is of such a rare and fleeting nature--&quot;
+&quot;Yes, very fleeting,&quot; thought Lilly---- &quot;that it really would be a pity
+if we did not taste and enjoy it to the dregs. Any restraint of feeling
+might easily prove a hindrance on your side, as well as on my own, to
+the full rapture of this hour of spiritual hedonism.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He almost smacked his lips as he said this, and rocked from side to
+side. Lilly thought of the refrain of a Viennese song in her
+repertoire: &quot;I have much too much feeling.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;<i>He</i> has much too much,&quot; she said to herself, and she could not help a
+smile flitting across her face.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He saw the smile, which she tried to hide by bending her head, and he
+misinterpreted it.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;There is a delightful virginal coyness about you,&quot; he said, with an
+admiring oscillation of his head, &quot;that never fails to excite my
+wonder.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Oh, you mountebank!&quot; thought Lilly, and smiled again.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Now he was slightly perplexed, for his wide and varied experience had
+taught him something. He shot at her from under his lids a glance of
+suspicion and thwarted greed.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Or have you,&quot; he continued, &quot;kept over for to-day some of the
+charmingly graceful humour which you developed last night with such
+unexpected <i>élan</i>?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I may have,&quot; she replied, with an upward glance which was almost arch.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Most excellent!&quot; he cried, his face breaking into a roguish smile in
+which there was a touch of devilry. &quot;Are you, then, one of those who
+know how to laugh in your sleeve at--how shall I express it?--the whole
+farce and hypocrisy of it all ... at yourself too, my child--at
+yourself, mind; that is the main point, ... If so, you and I are one,
+one in body and soul ... nothing divides us any more ... then ...&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;God forgive me!&quot; she thought, and held her handkerchief pressed
+against her lips to stop her giggling. Had not Frau Jula said, &quot;Laugh
+at him; laugh at him pitilessly with all your might&quot;?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">For his part he seemed to accept her suppressed laughter as an
+allurement, a gentle signal to cut short ceremonious preliminaries, for
+he chose this moment for springing at her and laying his arms about her
+waist.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She repulsed his attack fiercely and struggled with him. Tears of
+humiliation and fury coursed down her cheeks.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Have I come to this?&quot; a voice cried within her as she struck at him
+with her fists. In the midst of the tussle she succeeded in reaching
+the bell.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The maid-servant came in. He picked up his hat from the floor and,
+murmuring something that sounded like &quot;<i>Canaille</i>!&quot; disappeared.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He disappeared too for ever from the little circle, which he had at
+times honoured with his presence.</p>
+
+<hr class="W20">
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly gave up attempting to scale the heights.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+
+<h2>CHAPTER XI</h2>
+<br>
+
+<p class="continue">During the year that followed, Lilly engaged in two small
+love
+adventures, which had no influence on her subsequent life.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">While she was staying for a month's change of air in the Riesengebirge
+she came across a novelist whose name at that time was in everybody's
+mouth. He was parading his newly acquired fame at the Bohemian bathing
+resorts, and accepted cheerfully any good thing that came in his way.
+He forced his acquaintance on Lilly without much difficulty, and in a
+few days left her in search of fresh conquests.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Back in Berlin, she flirted with a handsome and elegant officer of the
+Hussars whom she had first met in an aristocratic restaurant. But on
+his sending her a little leather case from a jeweller's, she speedily
+threw him over.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Both these affairs gave her no pleasure to look back upon, and she
+tried to erase them from her memory.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">At Christmas her little household was increased by a new member. She
+had often complained to Richard that her life was empty of interest.
+She would like something alive to pet and cherish and love, and so one
+day he brought her a little naked monkey, that even when he nestled
+close to her breast could not get warm, and in his wrath spat in her
+face scorn of her yearning caresses.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">From time to time there was the excitement, too, of new marriage
+schemes.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">How well she knew the signs! When Richard, with scowlling brows,
+absent-minded, and taciturn, made the tour of the rooms, when he began
+to philosophise over the rottenness of everything, when his mother
+wanted the carriage at unwonted hours, when little packets of concert
+and opera tickets fell out of his pocket-book, then she knew that
+something was going on out of the ordinary routine. And soon he would
+break silence and tell her what it was. One of them had three millions,
+influential relatives, mines, factories, trusts, house property, making
+up a dazzling perspective. Often figures were talked in Lilly's corner
+drawing-room to such an extent that it might have been the office of an
+outside stockbroker. Another eligible young woman was actually poor,
+but she was a general's daughter, and his mother thought no end of her.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And I am a general's widow,&quot; said Lilly, in her wounded pride.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">This church mouse he called his &quot;distinguished lady-love.&quot; But it went
+no further. She and all the rest were soon heard no more of, because
+none of them turned out in the end to be good enough for him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly meditated and planned what she must be like.... She must have
+white, softly rounded statuesque arms like the tall Danish girl's at
+the artists' carnival, and a very delicate, scarcely perceptible
+bust--her own seemed to her now to be too prominent--and when she
+smiled she must show two dimples in her cheeks; for dimples denoted a
+peaceable disposition.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Yes, that was what he wanted more than anything--peace. She knew how he
+hated wrangling, and, as a matter of fact, they hardly ever did
+wrangle; but, if such a thing as a little quarrel did occur, he would
+be miserable for three days, speak in a woebegone, injured tone, and
+had to be coaxed back to good temper like a child. And Lilly enjoyed
+doing this, though she knew he did not deserve it. For there was no
+blinking the matter any longer; he had become a regular reprobate. It
+was not so much that he had lost enormous sums at his club, but he led
+the debauched existence of the fastest married man, and his amours were
+not of the purest.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">One day a pretty young thing, with a baby eight weeks old in her arms,
+called on Lilly, screamed and cried and declared that she ought to be
+promoted to Lilly's place, as she had a child by him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly consoled her, gave her some wine to drink, and, full of envy of
+the baby, tickled it under its damp little chin till it gurgled with
+bliss; whereupon the girl departed, deeply touched, after kissing
+Lilly's hand gratefully.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Richard, however, came in for no unpleasant scene that afternoon, for
+Lilly was entirely free from jealousy. When he came to her, looking
+sheepish, and avoided meeting her eyes, while his person exhaled an
+odour of cheap perfume, she always gave him a smile of maternal
+indulgence, which he well understood and couldn't bear.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">However determined he might be to keep silent, he invariably broke down
+at last, and in about half an hour had poured out shuffling
+confessions, for which he expected to be praised or comforted.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was inevitable that Lilly, in an existence of this sort, in which
+were rampant all the evils of married life, without any of its rights
+and dignity, should become more and more self-centred, and look forward
+to the future with increasing sadness.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She passed her days as if seated on a bough which every gust of wind
+threatened to snap, and so plunge her into the depths below. Before her
+lay a straight, dull, endless road, stretching onwards without goal,
+without horizon--nothing but the same old pleasures, the same aimless
+wandering about from one haunt to another till morning dawned. Often
+she felt as tired out as if she had been doing hard manual labour.
+Sometimes she struck, and lay the whole day in bed reading <i>Fliegende
+Blätter</i>, or dreaming of old days with closed eyes.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The sunless hole of the widow Asmussen's library came back to her like
+a paradise, and the milk puddings in retrospect seemed veritable
+ambrosia. The memory of her early loves she scarcely dared conjure up,
+as if it were sacrilege to think of them in such a present. Yet she
+caught herself indulging in vague hopes that one or other of them might
+one day turn up out of the past, and, holding his hand out to her, say,
+&quot;You have wandered long enough in the wilderness, now come home.&quot; Who
+it would be she hadn't a notion, but she felt it must happen. Things
+could not go on like this for ever.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Every now and then, when secret restlessness gave her no peace, she
+resumed her nocturnal strolls, and taking the electric tram to distant
+suburbs would wander guiltily up and down unfamiliar lively streets,
+just as Frau Jula did; only, unlike Frau Jula, she never could bring
+herself to answer her pursuers.</p>
+
+<hr class="W20">
+
+<p class="normal">It was on one of these expeditions--in a northerly direction far away
+beyond the Rosental gate--that one May evening she met a young man who
+did not take any notice of her, who also did not look like a gentleman,
+but whose appearance struck her as familiar--so familiar that it gave
+her a stab at the heart.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Yet, though she racked her brains, she could not recall where she had
+seen him before.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">With quick decision she began to follow him. He wore a brown hat, a
+pepper-and-salt suit with a yellowish tinge, which had known better
+days. His coat-collar was shiny, and his trousers were very baggy at
+the knees. They hung over his down-at-heel boots in fringes, as if
+someone had tried to mend them, and left black uneven ends of cotton.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">No, this could not be one of her friends even in disguise. Her friends
+would never own to such trousers. He paused once or twice to look in at
+the shop-windows. First, he looked in at a cigar-shop, then at a
+butcher's; but he lingered longest before a hosier's, from which Lilly
+concluded that his shirts also were in need of renewal.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">When he thus gave her a view of his profile, she saw in the reflection
+of the rows of lights a haggard, bony face, with prominent nose, and a
+tuft of reddish-brown hair on either side of his chin. He seemed to be
+dried up and needy, rather than actually ill. The lids of his small,
+narrow eyes were swollen and inflamed, and before coming within the
+radius of shop-window lights, he clapped a pair of dark-blue goggles on
+his nose to protect them.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He had a cane in his hand, which as he walked he pressed into a bow
+against the kerb, letting it rebound again. The silver knob of this
+cane, which matched ill with the shabbiness of his attire, somehow
+awoke recollections of a frosty morning, hot rolls, and church bells.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She gave an exclamation, for she remembered now. Fritz Redlich it
+was--Fritz Redlich! Yes, it was; it was!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">There could be no further doubt. Her first love, her first lover ...
+her brave young champion in life's battle. Hers and St. Joseph's
+protégé!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Oh dear, yes, St. Joseph! And then the revolver! And the potato soup
+with sliced sausage! Oh!... and &quot;The graves at Ottensen&quot;!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Herr Redlich! Herr Redlich!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Trembling and laughing she stood behind him, holding out her two hands
+to the young man, who shrank back nervously.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He dropped his goggles and gazed blankly at the tall, elegantly dressed
+lady, from behind whose lace veil two star-like, tear-filled eyes gave
+him a blissful greeting. His red lids blinked suspiciously; then he
+raised his left hand with a clumsy gesture to his hat brim.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But, Herr Redlich ... Don't you know me? I am Lilly--Lilly Czepanek.
+Don't you remember Lilly?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Yes, now he remembered. &quot;Of course,&quot; he said, &quot;why shouldn't I remember
+you?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">At the same moment he pulled down his waistcoat with a stealthy jerk,
+as if to rectify as best he could the shortcomings of his personal
+appearance.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Oh, Herr Redlich, what a long time it is since we've met! It must, I
+think, be six or eight years. No, it can't be as long; and yet to me it
+seems longer. Things have gone well with you, I hope? I expect you are
+terribly busy, otherwise we might spend a little time together.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He certainly was busy, but, in spite of that, if she liked, he could
+spare her a quarter of an hour.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Shall we go into a restaurant,&quot; she suggested, still half-crying and
+half-laughing, &quot;and have a glass of beer? I can hardly believe it, Herr
+Redlich, that we've really met again.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He had decided objections to the glass of beer.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Restaurants are so stuffy and crowded,&quot; he said, &quot;and the beer about
+here is so bad--not fit to drink.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Poor fellow! He's too poor to pay for it,&quot; she thought; and she
+suggested that they should sit down on a seat somewhere instead.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He didn't mind doing that so long as ... He glanced shyly to the right
+and left to see if anyone had remarked what a badly matched couple they
+were.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">They walked side by side along the more secluded Weinsberg path. Lilly
+kept looking at him with pride and emotion, as if she had created him
+out of space.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Dear, dear Herr Redlich,&quot; she reiterated, &quot;is it possible?--is it
+possible?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Then they found a bench outside a church, in a dusky spot, overhung
+with lilac branches. A pair of lovers had just vacated it.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Now tell me everything, Herr Redlich. Oh dear, what a lot we have to
+tell each other!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;There is a good deal,&quot; he replied, hesitating; &quot;perhaps the gracious
+baroness will begin?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Pooh! I am not a 'gracious baroness' now, and haven't been for a long
+time.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Ah! so I think I have heard,&quot; he replied, and his tone implied blame
+and a sense of outrage.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And I don't in the least regret it,&quot; she added quickly, &quot;for, taking
+things altogether, I live a much freer and happier life than I did
+before. I have no cares, and my little home is delightful. I am in the
+happiest circumstances and ought to be thankful. I should be so very
+pleased if you would come and convince yourself that it is so.... You
+would always find me at home in the middle of the day.... Perhaps you
+will dine with me some time?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Oh!&quot; he said, apparently agreeably surprised.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She gave a sigh of relief at having steered clear of the rocks of her
+autobiography. He made no further inquiries. But he seemed equally
+unwilling to give information about himself, either with regard to his
+present or his past circumstances.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Life has its shady side,&quot; he said, &quot;and when one finds one's self
+among the shadows, it's a question whether it's advisable to speak
+about it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But I am such an old friend!&quot; cried Lilly. &quot;You can confide in me.
+Fancy that we are sitting on the old terrace in the Junkerstrasse....
+Don't you remember ... that time we first spoke to each other? It was
+just such a May evening as this.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It was warmer,&quot; he replied, turning up the collar of his jacket as far
+as his ears.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You are cold?&quot; she asked, laughing, for she was aglow from head to
+foot.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I haven't&quot;--he paused--&quot;my summer overcoat with me to-night.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Oh, then we had better get up,&quot; she said, becoming thoughtful; &quot;we can
+talk just as well walking about.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And so they paced up and down in the shadow of the old church; but the
+interchange of personal confidences flagged. He evaded questions and
+she evaded them, and they put each other off with generalities. She
+extolled her happy lot; he sighed over his: &quot;It's hard--very hard!&quot;
+just as he had done at the time of his examination; she could hear him
+as plainly as if it were yesterday.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;How are your people?&quot; she asked, to change the subject:</p>
+
+<p class="normal">His father had died after a short illness two years ago, his mother
+still made cravats.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">As he told her this, he settled the invisible tie under his upturned
+collar. No doubt he was wearing a gay token of maternal skill and
+maternal generosity.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Then, when she had expressed her condolences, she inquired with a
+slightly beating heart how Frau Asmussen was, and her daughters.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He made a sound with his lips as he answered: &quot;They are very
+undesirable neighbours. The elder of the two girls has married a
+cashier, who is likely to lose his berth owing to irregularities. The
+younger has charge of the library, and the mother now drinks like a
+fish.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He related this in the same outraged tone in which he had previously
+alluded to Lilly's divorce.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;He is evidently still very proper,&quot; Lilly thought, with a sense of her
+own unworthiness and impropriety.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He was unhappy, nevertheless. She was sure of that.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And poor, very, very poor! Poorer than she had ever been in all her
+life. Who could say if he were not suffering the pangs of hunger now as
+he walked along beside her, shivering in his threadbare, shabby coat?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Well, Herr Redlich,&quot; she said, &quot;if your engagements will allow you,
+why not come to-morrow and dine with me?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">His engagements interfered most emphatically with his getting off in
+the middle of the day to change his clothes ... but if she wouldn't
+mind his coming as he was ...</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You may come just as you like,&quot; she cried with a laugh. &quot;And you shall
+have your mother's potato soup.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">So saying, she squeezed both his hands and jumped into a tramcar.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Oh, what a joy this was! What a joy! Now she had found what she had
+been looking for so long. Someone for whom she could care, someone to
+pet and spoil. Someone to whom she would be more than a toy and a
+plaything; who would regard her as his sunshine and bread of life, and
+his gentle guide to hope and happiness.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Someone who would be hers alone--hers alone!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He hid risen from the grave of her youth, even as she had imagined in
+her dreams. And now life was going to be different; full of riches,
+full of secrets. Little, funny, but perfectly innocent secrets!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">That night she slept little. Her new-found happiness kept her awake
+like children's Christmas anticipations. Her present servant, a buxom
+country girl, who had soon got accustomed to town ways, stared in
+astonishment the next morning when Lilly, whom she had hitherto
+regarded as lazy, rose early and prepared to go out marketing.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I am expecting a friend,&quot; explained Lilly, smiling.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She wanted to buy everything herself--the meat, the radishes; above
+all, the sausages that once had been the glory of his mother's potato
+soup.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She also superintended the cooking. She laid the table, moved the palm
+from the aquarium so that there should be something green on the table,
+for in her excitement she had forgotten to buy flowers. This was her
+very first guest at dinner for more than two years; and such a dear
+guest, perhaps the dearest she could possibly have entertained.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">At half-past twelve the servant came in, turning up her nose in
+contempt, to say that a young man wanted to speak to her mistress.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;That is my guest!&quot; cried Lilly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I shouldn't have thought it,&quot; said the girl, with a haughty inflection
+in her voice, as Lilly rushed past her to welcome him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">At first he seemed too shy to enter the light. He hung about the
+doorpost and tugged at his suit, which indeed looked dreadfully shabby
+and frayed, more so than last night.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">His inflamed eyes, like two red slits blinking behind his round
+glasses, gave him an air of groping helplessness. The lofty
+intellectual forehead had acquired an ugly receding look, because the
+forelock of genius no longer fell over it. His once magnificent mass of
+fair hair had become a matted thatch of tow, and looked as if a comb
+hadn't touched it for many a long day.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He appeared disinclined for conversation. He devoured the potato soup
+with tremulous appreciation, leaving the slices of sausage to the last.
+When his soup-plate was dry, he stuck his fork into one bit after the
+other, and conveyed it to his mouth with uneasy glances to the right
+and left, as if he suspected someone were waiting in ambush to deprive
+him of his pleasure.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The roast meat filled him with less awe, and he heaped his plate high,
+regardless of the waiting-maid's sneers. Moreover, he drank Richard's
+good claret in long, unconscionable draughts, and with flushed, mottled
+cheeks began to laugh and find his tongue.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly, who had been rather depressed at first, watched him thaw with
+relief, and thought perhaps, after all, he might be made presentable.
+And then the idea occurred to her that here really was a case of
+working out a man's salvation, very different from her delusions about
+saving a Walter von Prell. And this reflection filled her with renewed
+blissful assurance.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">After the meal, they retired to the corner drawing-room. And here,
+under the influence of the unaccustomed wine, he became a prey to
+frivolity, seated himself in the rocking-chair, and tickled the
+snarling monkey.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He presented a ghastly spectacle as he lounged back in the chair with
+his legs nonchalantly stretched out before him. The frayed ends of his
+trousers were tucked into the tops of his boots, exposing to view
+ragged loops; and as Lilly contemplated him, she said to herself, &quot;This
+must be altered,&quot; and she began to cudgel her brains as to how a
+transformation was to be achieved.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">As for him, the barriers of reserve being once broken down he began to
+disclose his innermost soul and to air his views on life.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Oh! what feelings of gall and bitterness came to light! He had been so
+soured by the long struggle with privations and hardships, and eternal
+envy of others happier and brighter and more favoured by fortune than
+himself, that he could see no merit in anything, and attacked all
+talents, attainments, and prosperity--called everyone humbugs and
+hypocrites, said that getting on was entirely a matter of birth,
+interest, and push, and anathematised success as a hollow fraud.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">At the same time he had very little to say about his own personal
+experiences. She could not find out whether he was still a student; he
+would only confess that his deepest feelings had been hurt irreparably
+in the grim fight for existence. And while he talked and laughed
+stridently, two semicircular dents appeared in his lean cheeks, giving
+his face a hard, sarcastic expression. Lilly had a dim remembrance that
+of old these marks had been visible on his youthful countenance, though
+less accentuated.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Oh, poor, poor fellow!&quot; she thought compassionately, and resolved on
+the instant to make a man of him again, inwardly and outwardly. But
+when he was gone she felt very sad and depressed. &quot;Am I much better
+off?&quot; she asked herself. &quot;What has become of the joyous confidence in
+life that I once had? Where is my joy of life, where my Song of Songs?&quot;</p>
+
+<hr class="W20">
+
+<p class="normal">That afternoon, before Richard came, she evolved a scheme by which she
+could bestow a new wardrobe on Fritz Redlich, without drawing on
+Richard's purse or offending Fritz Redlich.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What do you think?&quot; she said to him after tea. &quot;Since yesterday two
+rather extraordinary things have happened--one a very nice thing, and
+the other a very sad thing. First, I have met an old friend of mine,
+who before he went to the university lived on the same floor as I did.
+And then this morning a poor student called and begged for something to
+eat. He looked so miserable! Have you, in case he calls again, any
+clothes to give away? Suits and boots--he wants everything.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I'll give you some with pleasure,&quot; said Richard. &quot;I don't know what to
+do with all my left-off stuff.&quot; But the other, the &quot;old friend,&quot; made
+him thoughtful. &quot;What sort of a chap is he?&quot; he asked.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">In her effort to keep distinct the two mythical beings that she had
+made out of one living reality, she began to sing the old friend's
+praises with far too much exaggeration to be judicious. He was an
+extremely clever and quite distinguished young professor, who had
+completed his university course and was just entering on a brilliant
+career, a paragon of knowledge and intellect, and goodness knew what
+else.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What was his special subject?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She really didn't know, only that it was something very profound and
+erudite. Nothing but an academic career was worthy of his talents.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She found herself immersed in such a whirlpool of lies that at last she
+did not know what she was saying.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Richard, acutely conscious of his intellectual limitations, cherished
+an unbounded reverence for anyone with brains; he grew very red, looked
+uneasy and vexed.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I suppose he'll be coming to see you?&quot; he asked.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Of course,&quot; she replied, highly satisfied with her finesse.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Congratulations on your soul's affinity,&quot; he said with a mocking bow,
+&quot;so long as I am not expected to meet him.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Nothing could have turned out better. The next morning a factory porter
+brought her a huge bundle from Herr Dehnicke. It contained a nearly new
+summer tweed suit in the latest fashion, several coloured cambric
+shirts, a pair of boots, and blue silky-looking undergarments.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He seemed to have wanted to exhibit his charity in a very magnificent
+manner; for, as a rule, generosity to the poor was not in his line.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The next thing to be thought of was how to hand the clothes over to
+Fritz Redlich without giving offence.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Three days later, when he came again, she made an excuse after dinner
+for showing him over the flat. He must see how well it was arranged.
+When they came to the lumber-room she opened the door quite casually,
+and there, in the company of discarded blouses, broken vases, faded
+flowers, and other rubbish, the tweed suit hung ostentatiously.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;When I left the general's house I brought it and some other men's
+clothes here by mistake,&quot; she explained. &quot;That's why it hangs there
+getting spoilt.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">His small, weak eyes lighted greedily.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Did he perhaps know of someone to whom such things would be useful?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He answered snappily that he did not, but he could not resist casting a
+downward glance at his own trousers.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Wasn't there anyone to whom he would be doing a favour by offering the
+clothes?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">There was no one that he knew of, he repeated.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">In spite of her anxiety not to hurt his feelings, she plucked up
+courage and remarked that there was, if she were not mistaken, an
+extraordinary similarity between his figure and the quondam wearer's of
+the suit. The general might have been a trifle stouter, but any little
+tailor would alter ...</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Then he became seriously angry. He was not the man to accept benefits
+from any charitably disposed person he met. Did she think he had sunk
+so low as that? He had principles, and to wear cast-off raiment
+belonging to people he knew nothing about was a proceeding his
+principles would never tolerate.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly, with a sigh, reluctantly relinquished her idea.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He seemed unable to tear himself away. He sat on and on and at last she
+was obliged to give him a hint, for at any moment now Richard might be
+coming in.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">At the top of the stairs he turned round again, and asked, stuttering,
+would it be as convenient if next time he came in the evening?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Can you no longer manage to get off at midday?&quot; she asked, taken
+aback. On Richard's account she never received strangers late in the
+afternoon.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It wasn't that,&quot; he began to explain, lingering and hesitating, so
+that she listened in a fever for footsteps on the stairs.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Well, what then?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I should like to think over the matter you mentioned just now, and ...
+and ...&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Well, and what?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And perhaps when it's dark I might ... carry the parcel away with me.&quot;
+And he rushed down the steps.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;So he had to swallow his pride, poor fellow!&quot; she thought, as she
+looked after him full of pity.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The same evening she made a parcel of the things and sent them to him
+by post, with a sovereign and a thousand apologies. She wanted him to
+have a new hat, she said, and no trouble with regard to alterations.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">A few days later, when he put in an appearance again at dinner, one
+would hardly have known him, he looked so smart and brushed-up. The
+suit fitted as if made for him, and though the dandy boots were too
+long, he had prevented them turning up at the toe by padding them with
+cotton wool. Even the scornful servant scanned him with a more friendly
+eye.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was a pity he hadn't parted with his shock of hair and got his beard
+shaved off. You could almost have been seen in the street with him if
+he had. His cheeks had filled out wonderfully. His eyes, too, were
+better; thanks to the doctor to whom she had sent him almost by force.
+Gradually, too, his manners became less rough. He gave up bolting his
+food and putting his fingers into his mouth, and he acquired the art of
+drinking claret without flushing. And not only in externals, but
+mentally he began to reflect some of the tranquil well-being of his
+hospitable surroundings. His abuse became more discriminating, and he
+could even forgive people the unpardonable crime of being happy.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He displayed charming tact in refraining from inquiries as to Lilly's
+position. And she knew how to thank him for it. Though she avoided
+cross-examining him about his own affairs, she was able to piece
+together a picture of his scholastic failure from the remarks and
+self-upbraidings that he let fall.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">After two years of distressing poverty he had abandoned the teaching
+profession and his cherished convictions to take up theology for the
+sake of a stipend offered to him in his native town.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Only think of that!&quot; Lilly said to herself, deeply moved. She recalled
+the sunny early morning when the sound of the church bells had greeted
+them from the green valley.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Even this supreme act of renunciation seemed to have brought him no
+lasting blessing, for he had been obliged for more than a year to earn
+his bread by addressing envelopes and doing other mysterious odd jobs,
+about which he was not communicative.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;All the same,&quot; he said, &quot;I have kept up my dignity in spite of
+everything. And however poor and despised I am, I have not lost my
+self-respect. No, I have not lost it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">As he said this he paced up and down the room gloomily, with fire
+flashing from his small eyes. And when he expanded his chest and threw
+back his shoulders and ran his fingers through his tousled mane, he
+resembled once more the youthful hero who had once fired Lilly's
+enthusiasm and filled her imagination with ambitious dreams.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">In order to complete her good work and restore to him his lost
+happiness she insisted on knowing what ideal he had at heart, what path
+in life he would choose.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">What he wanted, he said, was to leave Berlin. He would like again to
+feel a free man who had his apportioned duty and knew how to do it, and
+to breathe fresher, purer air.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Ah! all of us would like something of the kind,&quot; thought Lilly, with a
+sigh.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">A post as private tutor would satisfy him, somewhere in the country. He
+would prefer a parsonage, for then a library would be at his disposal.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And where the lime-trees will flower,&quot; thought Lilly, &quot;the corn wave
+in the breeze, and the cattle will be called to drink.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She almost wept with envy at the thought.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">From this day forward she left no stone unturned to gratify the heart's
+desire of the old friend of her youth. She gave him money to advertise
+in the most likely papers, wrote with her own hand testimonials and
+letters of introduction, and asked the comrades of her &quot;set&quot; to
+interest themselves in him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She had to go about it all very secretly, for fear Richard should
+suspect what she was doing. For even as it was, she had to put up with
+a good deal at this time. He complained that she did not show him
+sufficient consideration, that she was cold and unloving, and that he
+could detect a hostile influence in everything she said.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I suppose your talented friend thinks so. You had better ask the
+learned genius.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">These little sarcastic speeches were reiterated <i>ad nauseam</i>. And one
+day the bomb burst. In defiance of his promise that when she had
+visitors he would always be announced, he suddenly burst in on Lilly
+and the friend of her youth while they were dining together. He had not
+rung, had hardly knocked, and his face was as black as thunder. Growing
+pale, she sprang to her feet, and Fritz Redlich, as if caught in a
+guilty act, followed her example. He looked sheepish, and the end of
+his napkin dropped into the soup.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">For a moment silence reigned, only broken by a malicious giggle from
+the servant standing in the doorway.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I ask your pardon, dear madam,&quot; said Richard, keeping up his
+threatening air and demeanour. &quot;I was only anxious to know how you
+were.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Herr Richard Dehnicke, a kind acquaintance; Herr Redlich, my old
+friend,&quot; she introduced them.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Then he looked at his much-dreaded rival more closely. In surprise and
+disapproval he regarded his unkempt hair and beard, but as his glance
+sank lower his face cleared, and a baffled though distinctly pleased
+ray of recognition illumined his features. Was not that <i>his</i> suit and
+<i>his</i> shirt?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Still further did his glance descend, past the napkin lying in the
+soup-plate, down to the trousers. And were not those <i>his</i> trousers and
+those <i>his</i> cast-off boots, which the brilliant young genius was
+wearing on his feet?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Oh!&quot; he said expressively, and nothing more. Then, with a sinister
+curl of the lip, he turned to Lilly. &quot;Can I speak a few words to madame
+alone?&quot; he asked.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;If Herr Redlich will excuse me,&quot; she said; and in her confusion and
+from old habit, she opened the door of the bedroom, as if that were
+quite the correct place in which to speak a few words with an ordinary
+&quot;kind&quot; acquaintance.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Richard, equally accustomed to this way, followed her, heedless of the
+intimacy he exposed by so doing.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Look here,&quot; he said, when he had shut the door, &quot;I've been fool enough
+to be jealous of your so-called soul's affinity. But after what I've
+seen just now, I swear you may entertain your friends as much as you
+like--morning, noon, and night for all I care. And I'll keep a stock of
+old suits on hand for them. Now, go back to your dinner, you little
+donkey!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Then he went out by the other door. She heard him laughing to himself
+after he had gone.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She was so deeply ashamed that she scarcely knew how to return to the
+friend of her youth, he who was so strict in his morals that at the
+bare mention of her divorce he had displayed pained disgust.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Then it dawned on her that she was standing in her bedroom. Now
+everything had been shown up--everything! However little acquainted he
+might be with the ways of the world, he could not help perceiving her
+relations with the intruder who had so suddenly appeared in her flat
+and disappeared with equal suddenness.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">For a long time she hesitated what to do, with her hand on the handle
+of the door. She listened in fear for his departing step, the angry
+rasping of his throat--even his silence filled her with alarm. Then,
+trembling and ready to confess everything in tears of penitence, she
+ventured back to the dining-room.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">What did she see? Only the gentleman still seated at the table, rubbing
+out the stains made by the wet napkin on his waistcoat. The blue
+goggles lay beside his plate, and he blinked at her with friendly and
+unconcerned eyes.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Is he gone already?&quot; he asked ingenuously. Evidently he had not even
+heard the door slam.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">When the hot joint came in he set to work with undiminished appetite,
+and made no further reference to the interlude. In truth, it seemed
+that his mind was so pure that he could not see impurity when it was
+almost thrust upon his vision.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She was very grateful to him, and, to show her gratitude, she
+determined to let him come in the evening if he liked, as Richard had
+said he might come at any time. He should come without invitation, she
+said, and if she chanced to be out, the servant would get him supper,
+and see that he had all he wanted. Then, recollecting the grimaces she
+had made on his first appearance, she instructed her to be specially
+attentive to the guest, and to make him feel perfectly at home.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The buxom country girl drew down the corners of her mouth and said
+nothing.</p>
+
+<hr class="W20">
+
+<p class="normal">After these events, Lilly redoubled her efforts on behalf of Fritz
+Redlich. And once more Frau Jula proved a helpful friend.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Leave it to me,&quot; she said one day. &quot;I used to know up there&quot;--she
+hesitated a little--&quot;someone who has great influence and is considered
+a God Almighty in more than one parsonage. I might write to him, but,
+of course, my name mustn't be mentioned. It still acts there like a red
+rag to a bull.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The next day Lilly sent her an advertisement that Fritz Redlich had
+inserted in one of the papers. She was to forward it to the influential
+magnate. The answer would be direct, and the intervention of a third
+person not required. She, too, was of opinion that it would be better
+it he believed that he owed his future employment to his own unaided
+exertions.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">As luck would have it, Frau Jula's plan succeeded. One evening in the
+following week he called at Lilly's unexpectedly--a frequent event now,
+whether she was at home or not--and told her with evident satisfaction
+that his advertisement had brought forth immediate results. He had been
+asked to send his testimonials at once to a clergyman in Further
+Pomerania, and to hold himself in readiness to leave Berlin. The
+clergyman seemed quite eager about engaging him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly's heart swelled with joyous pride. She wouldn't have betrayed on
+any account that she had had a finger in the pie. Nevertheless, she
+flattered herself that it was all her doing. She had made him, and she
+felt he belonged to her more than anyone else in the world.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The meal progressed in calm and beatific silence. As he had not let her
+know that he was coming, the first course did not consist of potato
+soup.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She apologised for the omission, and added, with a little pang at her
+heart, &quot;I suppose we shall not have many more meals together?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Probably not,&quot; he said; and cast a glance at the servant, whose
+presence obviously embarrassed him. Otherwise she felt sure that he
+would have expressed his feelings more graciously.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Afterwards they withdrew to the corner drawing-room. The hot July air
+came in through the open windows, but the little naked monkey, whose
+cage was placed near the aquarium, was perished with cold, and now
+shivered so violently that he had to be wrapped up in his coat, an
+attention to which he submitted with snarls. The bullfinch piped its
+evening song and it grew dusk.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Fritz Redlich sat as usual in the rocking-chair, his favourite seat
+after he had partaken of a good meal. She walked excitedly up and down
+the room.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I shall soon be lonely again,&quot; she thought, &quot;and start knocking about
+all alone, as before.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Yet what a piece of luck it was for him! What a piece of luck! She told
+him so repeatedly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes,&quot; he said, &quot;it certainly is very fortunate that I have fought my
+way as I have done&quot;; he emphasised the last few words and went on,
+&quot;When I think what awful years those have been, how often I have been
+compelled to belie my character, how often my principles have been
+endangered ... And not only that,&quot; he added after a depressed pause,
+&quot;there have been the many doubtful circumstances in which I have been
+thrown, and the enforced connection with impurity, not to be wondered
+at when one takes into consideration how easily a man becomes infected
+by the society he is in, and finds himself doing things that he would
+rather leave alone. It's hard--very hard, Frau Czepanek.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Oh, please don't Frau Czepanek me!&quot; she exclaimed. &quot;Can't you call me
+'Frau Lilly,' or simply 'Lilly'? We are old friends, you know.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Willingly, if you wish,&quot; he replied.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">To-day she felt a tenderness for him such as she had not experienced
+since the days of her early youth. It was, too, a motherly, a sisterly
+tenderness, and something else besides--something like a shimmer of
+light drawing nearer and nearer from the distance.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Tell me, Herr Fritz,&quot; she demanded, pausing in front of him, &quot;tell me
+honestly, have you ever loved in all your life?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He jumped as if he had been struck,</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Loved? What do you mean?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Well, what should I mean?&quot; she laughed, drumming with her fingers on
+the back of the rocking-chair. &quot;What should I mean?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He seemed to breathe more freely. &quot;For love, properly speaking, I have
+neither the time nor the inclination,&quot; he said.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And no woman has ever loved you?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Do I look,&quot; he asked, shrugging his shoulders, &quot;as if anyone could
+love me?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">His utter despondency irritated her. But she turned it off with a
+playful &quot;Now, now!&quot; and shook her finger at him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Again he looked alarmed, as if the mere suggestion of such a
+possibility filled him with anxiety.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The poor fellow! Never had a girl's eyes glowingly sought his;
+never had a woman's arms encircled his neck in rapture. The highest
+pleasure--the only thing that both for man and woman makes life worth
+living--he had been denied.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">A confession burned on her lips, a confession dating from far-off,
+half-forgotten times, which would have told him how mistaken he was.
+But she choked it back. Not to-day; perhaps later, when it came to
+saying farewell.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It grew dark, and the light reflected from the street-lamps played on
+wall and ceiling. The monkey had curled himself up in a ball under his
+coat, and the little bullfinch had gone to roost.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly still continued her pacing up and down, lightly brushing his
+elbow each time she passed the rocking-chair.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">At last she paused again in front of him. There he sat, he whom she had
+once adored so passionately, and he was quite ignorant of it. Quite
+ignorant of all the miracles woman's love can work. The poor, poor
+unfortunate creature!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You really ought to get your hair cut,&quot; she said with a nervous laugh,
+&quot;and then perhaps you'll have a better chance with the women.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Slowly she lifted her left hand, which felt as if a weight was hanging
+to it, and laid it on his rough wavy hair. It rebounded from her gentle
+touch like an air-cushion.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He started, stopped rocking himself in the chair, looked round
+uneasily, and gave a cough.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes, yes,&quot; he said after a silence, &quot;that's sensible advice. If I want
+to make a favourable impression when I enter on my new vocation, I
+ought----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Just then he turned his head sharply towards the window, and her hand
+glided down of its own accord on to his neck. She choked back a sigh,
+and he stood up and hurriedly took his leave. She was so embarrassed
+that she did not press him to stay longer.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The servant was standing outside in the passage, with the lamp in her
+hand to light him downstairs.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The day after to-morrow I shall expect you,&quot; Lilly called after him
+from the window.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He sent up a &quot;Thank you and good-night&quot; in reply, and disappeared in
+the darkness. The poor, poor boy! Plunged in bitterness and depression
+he went his way, little dreaming what paradises might have been his for
+the asking.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">For the remainder of the evening she was distraught and anxious. &quot;It
+would have been better not to have put my hand on his head,&quot; she
+thought. Yet, all the same, she was glad that she had.</p>
+
+<hr class="W20">
+
+<p class="normal">The next afternoon a postcard came from Frau Jula. She had good news
+from &quot;high quarters.&quot; The negotiations were concluded. Her <i>protégé</i>
+was to start without delay, and even his travelling expenses had been
+provided. Lilly cried with joy.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Thus was her good work completed. The friend of her youth was saved,
+and his zest for life restored. Now it only remained to teach him how
+to laugh and enter into his inheritance of proud courageous freedom,
+all that belonged to him by rights, which she herself could now never
+hope to attain.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Fate might do with her as it pleased, so long as he made upward
+progress. He had become an essential part of her existence. She had
+made him her own by her efforts and prayers, her lies, and her toil,
+and when he came to-morrow evening, as arranged, she would tell him
+all--all about that first love ... and everything.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And once more--in farewell--she would lay her hand on his shock of
+hair, and then let come what might.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The next evening she dressed herself more carefully than had been her
+wont when she spent the evening with him. She made the potato soup with
+her own hands and cut the beefsteak--he ate much smaller portions than
+he used to --so that the servant had nothing to do but put it in the
+pan.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The clock struck eight, but he had not come. He was busy packing, she
+thought, to console herself. It struck nine, and still he had not come;
+then it struck ten, and there was no further hope, unless the door was
+locked up and he was clapping his hands to be let in, as Richard did
+sometimes. She leaned out at the open window till it struck eleven.
+Then, tired out and very sad, she went to bed.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The next morning she received the following letter:</p>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;<span class="sc">Honoured and Gracious Madame</span>,</p>
+
+
+<p class="normal" style="text-indent:5%">&quot;Having succeeded by my own unaided efforts in procuring a decent
+position, I consider it my duty to break off all connection with my
+former life. As I think I have told you more than once; I was often
+forced by circumstances into situations repugnant to my high
+principles, and that, in spite of my resolute character, I was led into
+temptations which, I frankly confess, I have not invariably emerged
+from unscathed.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I am perfectly aware that I am under obligations to you, dear madame,
+and I herewith tender you my heartfelt thanks, for it shall never be
+said of me that I am wanting in gratitude. I have kept an account of
+the cash which circumstances have from time to time compelled me to
+borrow from you, and, as soon as my salary permits, I shall refund
+every farthing, and also send back the suit, which I am wearing at
+present. I may say here, that if you had really respected me you would
+never have subjected me to the humiliating encounter with the gentleman
+to whom these articles of clothing once obviously belonged.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;In conclusion, I hope I may be allowed to give you the following
+exhortation. Mend your ways, dear madame, and change your mode of life,
+which is an outrage on all the laws of morality. I believe that in
+giving utterance to this sentiment I am acting the part of a friend
+more than if I were to leave you under the delusion that I am a
+simpleton.</p>
+
+
+<p style="text-indent:50%; margin-bottom:0px">&quot;Yours always gratefully,</p>
+<p style="text-indent:55%; margin-top:2px; margin-bottom:0px">&quot;<span class="sc">Fritz Redlich</span>,</p>
+<p style="text-indent:58%; margin-top:2px; margin-bottom:0px;">
+Cand. Phil et Theol.&quot;</p>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly felt this experience deeply, and suffered for a long time acute
+anguish.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Not till several months had elapsed was the humorous side of the
+incident brought to her notice by the servant coming to give her
+warning. The visits of the student of philosophy and of strict morals
+on the evenings when Lilly was absent had not been, it appeared,
+without their consequences.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+
+<h2>CHAPTER XII</h2>
+<br>
+
+<p class="continue">In the early autumn of the same year, Richard took a
+husband's holiday,
+and went to Ostend, while Lilly lived cheaply and innocently at a
+bathing-place on the Baltic, where she passed as a widow of good birth
+and position. She accepted the admiring homage of several spinsters,
+allowed a young missionary to dedicate a volume of verse to her, and
+declined an honourable offer from a widower, town-clerk of Pirna, with
+expressions of esteem and friendship.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly enjoyed those six weeks immensely. The winter that followed
+differed very little from those that had preceded it. At Christmas,
+Richard's present to her was a hired carriage with the seven-pointed
+coronet emblazoned on its panels. He wanted to avoid the unpleasantness
+of his mother--whose prejudice against Lilly increased from year to
+year--ordering the family brougham for her own use when he was driving
+about in it with his mistress. Another present was a sable coat of the
+newest shape with dozens of tails, that cost a small fortune.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">In spite of Richard's reproaches, Lilly made very little use of either
+of her new acquisitions, for the never-silenced inner voice of fear
+said to her that this sort of pomp and luxury would make her more and
+more part of the world she longed to flee from. While Richard aimed
+with stubborn pertinacity at draining the cup of pleasure to the dregs,
+Lilly hankered more and more after respectability. It was her last
+anchor of hope in the barren life which, as the days dragged along,
+left her tortured and dissatisfied in the midst of music, laughter, and
+light.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The only person in her set who stimulated her intellect in the least
+was Frau Jula. She knew how to relate entertaining stories, she showed
+that she had been at home in different worlds, and that her mind
+retained the impressions she had received there. But for some time past
+her silly little curly head had been enveloped in a web of impenetrable
+mystery. The erotic verse, which she had contributed to modern German
+periodicals, no longer appeared, and her morbid short stories were
+nowhere to be met with. When her friends teased her and asked what had
+become of her art, she would smile like a coy bride, and answer, &quot;Wait
+and see.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">At this time Lilly would gladly have seen more of Frau Jula, for she
+had long since given up feeling that she was in any way superior to her
+or more moral. But she did not find it easy to approach her, so she
+carried the burden of her hopes and fears unshared, and trudged on
+alone, thirsting by the way.</p>
+
+<hr class="W20">
+
+<p class="normal">What now came to pass happened on the nineteenth of March, a date never
+to be forgotten, because it was St. Joseph's Day. It was a day of soft
+spring-like breezes and pinkish-grey skies; a day on which Nature's
+orchestra seemed to be rehearsing for the great symphony of spring.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The grassy slopes of the canal-banks were already beginning to turn
+green, the wild-ducks, in couples, swam on the smooth surface of the
+water, and big foam-edged blocks of melting ice floated downstream.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly, filled with vague and wistful longings, could not stand it any
+longer indoors, and prepared to go out early. She wanted to run, cry,
+shout, jump hedges, throw herself on the grass anything, she didn't
+care what, so long as she escaped for a few hours from this prison,
+which smelt of powder and perfumed paints, and was oppressed by the
+weight of indolence.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She got ready for a walk and gave a few directions to Adele, the new
+servant, who was an elderly and rather patronising woman, thoroughly
+accustomed to service in the households of single ladies. Instead of
+waiting for her carriage, she took the tramway out to Grunewald. She
+alighted at the boundary where smart villadom ends, and the maltreated
+woods rise high above the yoke of the builder, and walked on straight
+ahead, not knowing where she was going.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">A few motor-cars rushed by, and young men in them smiled and beckoned
+to her. They might have been actual acquaintances or only making fun of
+her; but, anyhow she thought it wiser to turn off the main-road, so she
+struck into the sandy path that ran along the lake to the old
+Jagdschloss. Here far and wide she saw not a human soul.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The chilly March wind swept over the milky-blue water and agitated the
+reeds and rushes. Ice was still to be seen round the edge of the lake,
+but it was so thin and pierced with holes that every small ripple that
+broke on the shore sent up jets of spray. From the pine-branches there
+sounded now and then the song of a bird, sad enough to extinguish
+awakened expectations of spring.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It looks more like spring in the town than here,&quot; thought Lilly. But
+the keenness of the wind, full of the pungent scent of moss and
+pine-needles, did her good. As she strode along, she met it full in the
+face. Her cheeks glowed; she felt her frozen blood thaw and send fresh
+life pulsating through her languid limbs.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Suddenly she burst out laughing. Everything was all nonsense. Her
+pining discontent, her longing, Richard's snobbish ambition, his
+mother's everlasting marriage schemes--even respectability was humbug.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">What had she to do with it all? She--the free, the wild, the ruined
+Lilly? There must be something better in store for her, something
+nobler. Not in Dr. Salmoni's sense--God forbid!--but something
+hardening, pure, and life-giving, like this March wind sweeping through
+her veins.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She heard a sound from the top of a pine-tree with which she had
+become familiar in the park at Lischnitz. It was a kind of whistle,
+half-defiant, half-enticing, which ended in a sharp &quot;Tschek-tschek.&quot;
+She stopped, looked up, and whistled too. It was a couple of squirrels
+that had been chasing each other in corkscrew circles round the trunk,
+and now stood suddenly still in alarm at the sight of her.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Tschek-tschek!&quot; she cried, to incite the little red-coats to a new
+game, but, not succeeding, she stooped and picked up a pebble.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Just as she was in the act of throwing it, she caught sight of a pair
+of eyes fixed on her from behind another trunk--large, questioning,
+astonished eyes, that narrowed and darkened as they gazed, as if they
+wanted to look away, but couldn't--a pair of eyes that surely she had
+known long, long ago.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But no! she had never seen them before; for the young man who had
+watched with her the squirrels' game and stood with his hat in his
+hand, still half hidden behind a tree, was quite a stranger to her. If
+she had ever met him, she would never have forgotten it. It would not
+be easy to forget that serious, self-contained, Greek young face, with
+the sensitive, slender-bridged nose and the lustrous eyes of the
+dreamer.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He was not very fashionably clad, and she liked him for it. He had on a
+brown overcoat of a not very modern cut, and underneath a suit of rough
+tweed, quite un-German and still less English.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He seemed gradually to come to life. He put on his hat and emerged
+from behind the tree-trunk. &quot;Now he is going to speak to me,&quot; she
+thought, and she felt a sickening dread. But no! He lifted his hat,
+threw her one more long, questioning, earnest look--almost a look of
+recognition--walked past her, and took the path she had come by.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly, too, would have liked to walk on, but she could not make up her
+mind, and, not to be caught staring after him, she slipped behind the
+same trunk which had lately concealed him from view.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She wondered if he would look back. No, he did not do that, and she
+felt somehow hurt and neglected.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Smaller and smaller grew the tall figure. He strode over the sand with
+a somewhat heavy step. &quot;He's never been a soldier,&quot; she thought. Then
+she fancied that he stooped and afterwards turned round. Yes, he was
+making quite a wide and careful survey of the landscape, as if bent on
+discovering her. But she was safely hidden behind her tree and did not
+stir.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Then he walked on again and vanished in a bend in the path.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;A pity I haven't got the carriage,&quot; she said to herself.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">If she had been driving she could have overtaken him without appearing
+to follow him, and the seven-pointed coronet would have duly impressed
+him. As it was, he must have formed a bad opinion of her for wandering
+about alone, whistling like a boy and throwing stones at amorous
+squirrels. Nevertheless, as she made her way homewards she felt as if
+some rare and beautiful gift had been bestowed upon her.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Was it possible that she had seen him before? She recalled the young
+man she had met in the Pragerstrasse, when she was with her husband in
+Dresden; how he had given her the same sort of look with a flash in it
+of sad recognition; and how she had wanted to turn round and ask, &quot;Who
+are you? Do you belong to me? Would you like me to belong to you?&quot; And
+she had forborne to follow her instinct, because to turn round in the
+street would have been a crime in the colonel's eyes.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">To-day she was free--so free that she could choose her friends as her
+heart dictated--and yet she had not followed him, but had let him go,
+he who, whether he was that same young man or not, might perchance
+belong to her or she to him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">With half-closed eyes she filled in the details of the picture that she
+had formed of him. His beard was small, dark, and double-pointed, and
+so closely shaven on the cheeks that it appeared only a blue shadow.
+Such beards were rarely seen in Berlin, though Italians and Frenchmen
+wore them. His lips were full, hard, and firmly closed, as if chiselled
+out of marble; his high, square forehead seemed to give him an aspect
+of wrath, but not the vulgar wrath of an ordinary mortal towards a poor
+creature like herself; it was like the wrath of the gods--divine.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">So she continued to rhapsodise, forgot where she was going and lost her
+way, to find herself finally on quite the wrong road. Anything might
+have happened to her in the woods, where unprotected ladies were not
+safe at any hour of the day from the attacks of tramps. But she
+scarcely gave a thought to the risks she had run, got into the first
+tram she came to, and reached home, exhausted but glowing all over, two
+hours later than she intended.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She could not eat anything, but threw herself on the <i>chaise longue</i>
+and dreamed.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The bell sounded, and a man's voice was heard at the door. It couldn't
+be Richard. He never came before half-past four.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Then Adele came in, and said that there was a strange gentleman outside
+who wished to know if madame had missed her card-case; he had picked
+one up in the woods.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly sprang up. The little brocaded case, which she had carried in her
+hand with her silver chain-purse, was not there; she must have dropped
+it and not noticed that it was missing in her excitement.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What is the gentleman like?&quot; she asked.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He was tall, young, and handsome, indeed, remarkably handsome, was the
+information she received from Adele.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Has he a dark, close-cut beard?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Yes, he had.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The delightful shock of the surprise made her stagger.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Ask him to come in,&quot; she stammered, with no thought of how she looked,
+though her hands went up to her hair.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">As he entered the room she could scarcely recognise him, there was such
+a thick red mist before her eyes.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I beg your pardon, gracious Frau,&quot; she heard him say in the clear calm
+tones of a man who has no ignoble dealings. &quot;I should not have
+disturbed you if your address had been on your card as well as your
+name. I looked you up in the directory, but being uncertain that there
+were not others of your name ... I ...&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You are very kind indeed to have taken so much trouble,&quot; she replied,
+and asked him to sit down.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I am Dr. Rennschmidt,&quot; he said, waiting till she had settled herself
+in a corner of the sofa before accepting her invitation. He drew the
+card-case from his pocket and laid it on the table.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She smiled her thanks for his courtesy, and then, as it seemed
+necessary to her to exaggerate the service he had done her, she told
+him that she specially valued the little card-case as it was a souvenir
+of her husband, and she would have been very grieved to lose it.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">His face grew a shade graver. There was a pause, in which his eyes
+rested on her features with a steadfast, questioning, almost searching
+expression. There was nothing in it of the tentative brazen advances
+that she knew so well in other masculine eyes. His glance was one of
+pure, disinterested admiration tinctured with reverence.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Did we not meet a short time ago on the outskirts of the wood?&quot; she
+asked warily.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He replied eagerly in the affirmative. &quot;If I had not been so awkward I
+should have asked your pardon then for playing the eavesdropper. I saw
+how startled you were ... but at the moment I could think of nothing to
+do but to make myself scarce. It seemed the kindest course to take from
+your point of view.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">His manner of speaking was so joyously frank, it was like a tonic to
+her, yet withal made her feel slightly ashamed.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And now you have done something kinder still,&quot; she answered, with as
+much hearty appreciation as if he had saved her life.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Oh, please don't mention it,&quot; he said. &quot;I ought to have turned back at
+once. But it seemed as if the earth had swallowed you up. I was quite
+anxious about you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She smiled to herself in happy trepidation. A little more and she would
+have confided to him where she had hidden herself.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What must you have thought of me,&quot; she said, &quot;wandering about in the
+woods by myself?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I thought that you did not feel lonely in the society of Nature,
+otherwise you would have brought a companion.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You were right,&quot; she responded eagerly. &quot;I left my carriage at the
+Restaurant Hundekehl&quot;--the carriage had to be dragged into the
+conversation after all--&quot;but it drove back, through some
+misunderstanding, and I was venturesome. You love Nature very much
+too?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I don't know about 'very much,'&quot; he answered. &quot;I may say in Cordelia's
+words: 'I love it according to my bond, not more nor less.' Don't you
+find that love of Nature is neither a merit nor an eccentricity, but
+simply a vital function?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes, of course,&quot; Lilly faltered, thinking to herself, &quot;How exceedingly
+clever he is! Will you ever be able to keep pace with him?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But to be quite sincere,&quot; he went on, &quot;I cannot get used to Nature in
+these climes. Her poverty oppresses me. I am in the position with
+regard to her of having outgrown the home of my fathers, for which I
+heap reproaches on myself. I try hard to get back on the old terms with
+her, and praise her whenever I honestly can. But first more recent
+pictures must fade from my mind. You see, I have only just come back
+from Italy, where I have been living for the last two years.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">With a deep sigh she gazed at him, considering him now positively
+unearthly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Two whole years!&quot; she cried.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I am engaged on a great scientific work,&quot; he continued; &quot;for its
+sake--no, it would be more correct to say for my health's sake--I was
+sent to Italy. My uncle, who is a father to me, wished it.... And it
+was Italy that first inspired me with the idea of the work, and
+afterwards fatherland and my old life and studies, everything else,
+went to the wall.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">As he spoke his eyes flashed with enthusiasm. He seemed palpitating
+with his great purpose; and the old former yearning for Italian skies
+awoke and beat its wings within her heart.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes, isn't it true,&quot; she cried, infected by his ardour, &quot;that there is
+the home of all great ideas? There you may feel your utmost. What you
+have sown there will repay and bear fruit. Isn't it so? I have never
+been there, but I am quite sure that is how people feel. There, where
+everything great and beautiful belongs to the soil; there, one's self
+becomes greater and nobler.... One has no more petty sordid cares.
+Isn't it true?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He had listened to her astounded, his eyes beaming and radiant. &quot;Yes,&quot;
+he said almost solemnly, &quot;it is exactly as you say.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She felt a sensation of joy. Wasn't this harmony of thought a
+confirmation of the affinity that she had from the first moment that
+she had set eyes on him sought and hoped for? Nothing could ever
+separate her from him after this. Perhaps he really was the physical
+embodiment of that shadow belonging to the Dresden days that had taken
+up its abode in her soul!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I can't help feeling as if we had met before,&quot; she murmured softly,
+with eyes downcast.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I feel like that too,&quot; he answered, &quot;but it can't be so, for if we had
+met I could never have forgotten the time and place.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You were not in Dresden, by any chance, about this time six years
+ago?&quot; she asked.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He shook his head. &quot;Six years ago I was studying in Bonn. The term was
+over, it is true, but I went for my vacation to my uncle's. He had just
+had his place restored.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Where is it?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Near Coblentz.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Then it couldn't have been. It's strange that we should both feel as
+if ...&quot; she said.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;There are certain pictures belonging to our psychic existence,&quot; he
+replied, &quot;which seem like memories, and are in reality presentiments.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I wonder what you mean?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I mean that one walks between past and coming experiences as on a
+tight-rope; that one reels and falls into space so soon as----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;So soon as one----&quot; he broke off abruptly. &quot;Pardon my asking, but are
+you an artist?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Why?&quot; she asked nervously. She felt repelled. Was he making a fool of
+her?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I gathered that you were from the plate outside your door.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The plate: &quot;Pressed Flower Studio.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">This was being rudely awakened from a pleasant dream to the stern facts
+of reality. But she must not lose her presence of mind and forfeit his
+esteem, so she answered carelessly:</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;In a way. But mine is a very modest art. Once I worked hard at it, and
+it made me very happy. I learnt it soon after I became a widow.&quot; Her
+lips refused to utter the phrase, &quot;soon after I was divorced.&quot; &quot;I took
+it up more as a little distraction than as a serious means of earning a
+living. But then I had trouble with my eyes, and was obliged to give it
+up.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Three lies in one breath! But why not? She and everything round her was
+one big lie ... all her gestures and all her thoughts. Only the cry
+that went up from her soul now, moving her to the depths of her being,
+was <i>not</i> a lie: &quot;You shall be mine. I will be yours.&quot; And so for his
+sake she went on lying.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It's painful to me to talk about it,&quot; she continued, with her
+handkerchief pressed against her eyes. &quot;I still fed it so much. I hope
+you will be so kind as never again to refer to it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Never again&quot; had slipped from her. It sounded as if she took for
+granted that their acquaintance was to continue, and, overwhelmed with
+shame and confusion, she rose and turned her face aside.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Forgive me,&quot; he said, greatly concerned. &quot;I had no idea ...&quot; He stood
+up to go.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">A voice within her cried, &quot;Stay, stay, stay!&quot; But she was incapable of
+speaking, and felt as if turned to stone. Had he seen through her lies,
+divined who and what she was, and didn't wish to stay? She was
+conscious that her manner grew cold and haughty.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She extended her finger-tips to him. &quot;It was kind of you to come,&quot; she
+said.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">This was the moment to invite him to come again, but the words froze on
+her lips.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">His face had grown very pale, and he looked at her with great,
+inquiring, expectant eyes.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I hope we shall meet again,&quot; he said.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I hope so, too,&quot; she replied frigidly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He brushed her hand with his lips and was gone.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The end--the end! And all her fault. Happiness had looked in upon her,
+had lightly laid its hand in blessing on her brow, and then flown away,
+leaving nothing but this pain, a pain more intolerable than any she had
+ever known. It clutched at her throat and tore her heart like a
+physical pain.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">During the night that followed she concocted a thousand plans by which
+she could contrive to find him out and meet him. As a scholar, he would
+probably be a constant visitor to the library. She would go there to
+read and study, in the hopes of coming across him. But, simpler still,
+why shouldn't she write to him?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I don't love you,&quot; she would write. &quot;Why should I love you when I
+hardly know you? But I feel that I am destined to have some influence
+in your life, and so ...&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Finally she rejected all her plans, disgusted with her own lack of
+dignity. No; Lilly Czepanek would not throw herself thus at any man's
+head.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She became tormented once more with restlessness.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">In the daytime she haunted the Leipziger and Potsdamer Strassen, and
+other parts where metropolitan life is at its busiest. Of an evening,
+instead of roaming about in distant suburbs as of yore, she kept close
+to the neighbourhood of her own dwelling, walking up and down
+incessantly on the solitary banks of the canal with quick, businesslike
+strides.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">In spite of the economy on which she plumed herself, she left the light
+burning in the corner drawing-room, when she went out, for no apparent
+object.</p>
+
+<hr class="W20">
+
+<p class="normal">It was on the fourth evening after their meeting that while she was
+pacing the further bank of the canal at about eight o'clock, when the
+stars hung like lamps in the sky, she happened to see among the trees
+the figure of a young man, who stood gazing up fixedly in the direction
+of her flat.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She could see nothing of his face, for his back was turned towards
+her, and it was dark just at that spot. With a slightly accelerated
+heart-beat she went on her way, but in a few moments her feet declined
+to take her further, and she was obliged to retrace her steps. The dark
+figure still stood motionless among the trees, and regarded, through
+the bare branches, the light in her corner drawing-room. This time he
+heard her footstep and turned towards her.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Startled, she recognised his features. He too showed signs of being
+perturbed, for at first he made a foolish little attempt to look as if
+he had not seen her, then with an embarrassed smile he took off his
+hat.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She trembled so violently that she dared not give him her hand.
+&quot;Dr.--Rennschmidt,&quot; was all she managed to ejaculate.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He was the first to regain his composure.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You will wonder,&quot; he began, walking beside her, &quot;why I was standing
+here in the dark looking over there.... If I said it was by accident,
+you would scarcely credit it; so I may as well confess at once.... I
+have been troubled, since we parted the other evening, with the thought
+that things were not quite all right between us; there was a
+misunderstanding somewhere, a hitch, a hastiness--I don't exactly know
+what--but I feel that I owe you an apology for something.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Why, if that was on your mind,&quot; she replied, &quot;did not you come in and
+tell me?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Would it have been permitted?&quot; he asked.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Why not?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Pardon, but I have always believed that what privileges and rights we
+men enjoy with regard to women are accorded to us by them. For us there
+exist no others. We may stand here, of course, in the dark and tear our
+hair ...&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Have you been doing that?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Don't, please, ask for any explanations,&quot; he begged. Though his voice
+did not betray emotion, the arm that touched hers trembled a little.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She stood still, startled, and glanced helplessly down the dark avenue
+she had come by.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Does this mean you wish me to leave you?&quot; he asked.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">In the light cast by a lamp she saw his eager questioning look.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Oh no!&quot; she answered slowly, and it seemed as if someone else was
+speaking for her. &quot;Now we've met, we need not part at once.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;That's what I think,&quot; he said, as gravely as if he were making an
+affirmation.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">They walked on together in silence. Then he said in a lighter tone:
+&quot;There's one thing I ought to draw your attention to. You have left
+your light burning. If you are so good as to spare me an hour, I am
+afraid it will cause you anxiety.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Oh, never mind the light! We'll go and put it out,&quot; she exclaimed
+joyously; and turned on her heel so quickly that he was left two or
+three steps behind her.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">As they crossed the slender span of the Hohenzollern Bridge, he pointed
+to the sky.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Jupiter shines on our enterprise,&quot; he said. &quot;I like him better than
+Venus, who gallivants after the sun, and will have a rosy carpet for
+her feet.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Show me Jupiter,&quot; said Lilly, standing still.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Eagerly he pointed out to her the brilliant ruler of the heavens, and
+five or six constellations besides.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She clapped her hands with sheer delight. &quot;Now I shall never feel
+lonely again in my flat,&quot; she cried, &quot;when I am alone in the evenings
+and look out of the window.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">While he waited for her at the foot of the staircase, she ran up,
+turned off the light, and put the latch-key in her pocket. She told
+Adele she would have supper out, and prepared to be off again.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Her heart was so full of ecstasy that she held on for a moment to the
+doorpost to prevent herself reeling, and gave a sob. But by the time
+she got downstairs she was quite herself again.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;If you will do me the honour to trust to my guidance,&quot; he said, &quot;I
+know a corner where no one will disturb us, and where we shall be
+transported to Italy.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She gave a deep sigh. &quot;Oh, how fond he is of talking about Italy!&quot; she
+thought. Yet she wouldn't have gone anywhere else for the world.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">They pursued their way for five or six minutes along the dark bank of
+the canal, talking nonsense. Now the medley of lights on the Potsdamer
+Bridge were quite near, and he stopped before a small dimly lit window
+in which were displayed a dozen or so of wine-bottles wreathed with
+green cotton vine-leaves, looking like heads of asparagus popping out
+of the sand.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Here Signore Battistini will serve us with a Chianti as good as any to
+be had in Florence,&quot; he declared.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">They went in, and threaded their way through a small front room where
+the proprietor, black as the devil himself, was pasting on labels
+behind the bar. He was greeted with &quot;Sera, padrone&quot; by Lilly's new
+friend. They passed into a long room full of rough tables and chairs.
+The only attempt at decoration were garlands cut out of green glazed
+paper, which were evidently ambitious of being taken for vines. They
+twined round the bare gas-brackets and cascaded over hooks on the wall,
+and in order that there should be no mistake as to what was the origin
+of all these festive tokens, a placard hung from the middle, wishing
+all who entered--at the end of March--a belated &quot;Prosit Neujahr.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;How do you like this fairy-garden?&quot; Lilly's friend asked her, as the
+waiter, black as his master, with eyes like fiery Catherine-wheels,
+beseechingly held out his hands for her cloak.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">At the tables round them sat bushy-haired youths, who rolled long, thin
+cigars between their teeth, and nearly thrust their knuckles in each
+other's eyes as they gabbled Italian with fascinating rapidity.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;They are marble-cutters,&quot; Dr. Rennschmidt said <i>sotto voce</i>, &quot;employed
+by our leading sculptors. They earn a lot of money, and when they have
+saved enough go home to start housekeeping.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Among them were two ladies. They wore their black lustreless hair so
+low on their foreheads that their eyes resembled torches burning out of
+a dark forest. They had gold rings in their ears, and their low-cut
+dresses were clasped by barbaric brooches. They glanced up at Lilly's
+tall figure with envious admiration, and then began an animated
+conversation in whispers.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Dr. Rennschmidt bowed to them cordially, with an air that seemed to say
+he had nothing to conceal and nothing to confess. He told her that they
+were mandoline singers belonging to a troupe of Neapolitans, whose
+manager had thrown them over, and they were now in search of an
+engagement.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Where am I?&quot; Lilly thought.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was like a dream, as if magic wings had wafted her into a strange
+country; only the genial &quot;Prosit Neujahr,&quot; on the placard swinging
+close to her, reminded her that Germany, Berlin, and the Potsdamer
+Bridge were not far off.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I have come here every day since my return,&quot; Lilly's friend said, as
+they made themselves at home in a corner. &quot;Nostalgia for the South
+still afflicts me. The most perfect German cooking has no charms for me
+now, and I must have my Chianti, To-day we will, however, drink
+something else, because the palate has to acquire a taste for Chianti.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He beckoned to the waiter, who was called Francesco, just as if he had
+stepped out of a romance about knight-errantry and brigands--and after
+a lively discussion between the two a dusty, light-coloured bottle was
+produced and put on the table. Then came dishes of curious-looking
+macaroni and meat bathed in orange-red sauce.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly could not remember that she had ever tasted anything half so
+good, and she told him so; in fact, altogether she had never enjoyed
+herself so much in all her life. But this she did not tell him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">They wound up with a dish of fruit--called &quot;<i>giardinetto</i>&quot;--mandarins,
+dates, and gorgonzola cheese. The yellow wine, which had a perfume of
+nutmegs, frothed in the glasses, radiating tiny bubbles.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Leaning back against the wall, she let her eyes rest dreamily on her
+new friend. He turned his head from side to side with quick little
+movements rather like a bird. Everywhere he found something to observe,
+to remark upon, to absorb him; or perhaps he did it all to be specially
+entertaining to her. His eyes sparkled with eagerness and zest in life;
+the wrinkles on his forehead rose up and down, and what she had
+mistaken for a cloud of wrath was, after all, only the expression of
+his brain's boiling activity.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He had a dear, funny habit, which heightened this effect: he would put
+his outspread fingers to his head as if he were going to run them
+through a mass of hair; but the hair was not there, and so he clapped
+his hand instead on his bare temples. He seemed compounded of force and
+resolution, which commanded her admiration and even awe. But his
+physique was not of the most robust, although a golden-brown hue of
+health, fresh from the South, tinged his cheek. His throat was
+delicate, his breath from time to time came in gasps, and when his eyes
+became veiled with fatigue, after some introspective probings, there
+was something pathetically boyish about him that awakened maternal
+tenderness.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Ah, so this is you!&quot; she thought, and stretched herself in blissful
+languor. &quot;This is you at last, at last.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Why do you shut your eyes?&quot; he asked, concerned. &quot;Aren't you feeling
+well?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes, oh yes,&quot; she said, flattering him with her eyes and mouth. &quot;But
+do, please, tell me more about the land of my desires, where I have
+always wanted to go and where I have never been.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She then described to him her youthful longing, which the consumptive
+master had awakened in her, the longing which had continued to smoulder
+amidst the ashes of her life's experience.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;In your place I should have tramped there as a barefooted pilgrim,&quot; he
+said.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Oh, but I've had money enough to go often. I could have afforded it
+perfectly well. Once I was as far on the road as Bozen. But I had to
+turn back as a punishment because a young man made eyes at me.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;How sad!&quot; he said, laughing. &quot;That was hard lines on you, harder than
+you have any conception of.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I have some conception,&quot; she sighed. &quot;I have only got to look at you
+to be convinced of how hard it was.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Why me?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Because you shine like Moses after he had looked on the glory of the
+Lord.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He became serious at once. &quot;There are glories here, too, if we have
+eyes to see them,&quot; he said. &quot;But, nevertheless, you are right. I am so
+chock-full of the life and reflected radiance that I have stored up
+there, so many sources have been opened out, so many seeds have
+germinated, that I scarcely know how to use all my vast wealth, I write
+till my fingers bleed, and there is always more to write.... I want to
+give, give, and go on giving; but to whom I don't know.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;To me!&quot; she implored, holding out her hands, palms upwards. &quot;To me! I
+am so desperately poor. Such a beggar!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">With the stern eyes of a visionary he gazed down on her. &quot;You are not
+poor,&quot; he said. &quot;You have merely been allowed to starve.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Isn't it the same thing?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He shook his head, still fixing her with his gaze.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What was your husband?&quot; he asked next.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I ... am the divorced wife ... of an officer of high rank,&quot; she
+replied, dropping her eyes to the floor.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Thank God! This time she had not lied.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But hadn't she? What was she <i>now</i>? For a moment he pressed her hand,
+which lay on the table.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Don't speak of your past if you would rather not,&quot; he said; &quot;leave it
+for the present. When we are old friends it'll be time enough. I'll
+tell you about myself and how I came to think of my great work.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The work that you mentioned just now?&quot; she asked, curiously moved by
+the sudden solemnity of his tone.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Breathing deeply, he stretched out his clenched fists, and his eyes
+burned into space.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes; the work for which I live ... the work that is my pillar of
+strength, my goal, my future--my everything ... that stands for father,
+mother, brother, friend, and love.... For <i>it</i>, this wine was vintaged,
+this hour created, and you yourself, dear gracious, beautiful one, with
+your delicate infinite charm, and your two begging hands, which really
+were made for giving.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I thought you were going to talk about your work,&quot; she said softly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I am talking about it--of that and that alone. I want you to know how
+all that I live and love is part of it. For instance, think of the
+thousands of times the Annunciation has been painted, sculptured, and
+sung, and how I have toiled and moiled over the subject, and yet now at
+this moment when I see your great wistful 'Mary-eyes' fixed on me in
+half-humble, half-astonished questioning, I feel that the last word has
+not been said, the highest rung of knowledge has yet to be reached....
+So you see how everything must be made to serve my work.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Are you a poet?&quot; she asked, quite carried away.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He shook his head, smiling. &quot;I am not a poet, I am not an artist,
+neither am I an historian nor a psychologist; but I have to be all and
+a great deal more besides, for my work demands it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Then he told her his whole story. His father, a university professor
+and distinguished jurist, had died young, not long after the death of
+his mother, at his birth. His uncle, a wealthy old bachelor who had
+travelled a great deal both on business and pleasure, had adopted him.
+He had given him a good education, and since made him an allowance
+sufficient to indulge his modest whims and requirements. Acting on his
+uncle's wishes he had gone abroad, and postponed for a time entering on
+the same academic career as his father, owing to his health having
+suffered severely from the strain of the examination, which he had
+passed with honours. His studies and researches in the history of art,
+which he had always pursued with ardour, had finally drawn him to
+Italy. More than churches and museums and picture galleries the teeming
+humanity and charm of personality in the Southern race attracted and
+enchanted him. It seemed to him as if contact with it awakened in him a
+new fresh human impulse and consciousness of his own powers. He was
+more than ever strongly impressed by the original unity of artistic
+endeavour and personal experience both in history and modern life....
+Heroes of mythology and history, characters in poetry and painting, the
+creators and painters, too, all became to him so objective, so alive,
+that they seemed a part of his being. He had felt nearer than ever
+before to penetrating into the emotional world of bygone ages when
+living in the midst of a people who were saturated with history, yet in
+their thousand-year-old practice of Art had never lost touch with their
+own epoch. He learned to discriminate and date at first sight monuments
+of various periods, and trace them back step by step down the
+centuries. Creative Art was, and always would be, his inspiration and
+guide.... Art was able, above all, to wring speech from the dumbness of
+death, and to create new forms out of the dust of ages. The only thing
+still lacking was the key to the origin of all this amazing and
+convincing force. The A B C of the language was not forthcoming.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly, with strained attention, strove to follow him. She had never
+heard anyone talk like this, and yet much that he said sounded
+familiar. It seemed to her as if some residue of long-past days left on
+the floor of her mind echoed to his ideas.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;One day it happened,&quot; he continued, &quot;that while I was in Venice I
+started off on an excursion to Padua. By rail it is about as far as
+from Berlin to Potsdam. I was not attracted there by its art, for I was
+still on my honeymoon with the Early Venetians. I went for the sake of
+completeness. So I found myself in the little chapel where Giotto's
+frescoes are. You know him?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Giotto and Cimabue--of course,&quot; she answered proudly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Then I needn't explain further. I hadn't much enthusiasm left for him
+and his school, for, as I said just now, the Quattrocentists had turned
+my head. Now, please picture a ruined Roman amphitheatre overgrown with
+ivy--nothing but the outside walls still stand, like the walls of a
+garden--and somewhere in the middle the little chapel built of slates,
+every bit as bare as a Protestant conventicle in the royal realm of
+Prussia.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly smiled. A fling at Protestantism always gratified her, like a
+personal favour.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Services are no longer held there. It has been preserved as a national
+monument. When I first went in I saw nothing for a minute but a blue
+glory on the walls--a sort of background of light--then picture after
+picture, in long rows. The history of the Saviour told simply, just as
+a poor friar would tell it to poor people on Good Friday, provided he
+was the right sort of preacher.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But are we not all <i>poor</i> people in the Saviour's eyes?&quot; she ventured
+to put in shyly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He paused, stared at her for a moment, and then assented with fervour.
+&quot;Certainly we are, and not only in the Saviour's, but in those of every
+great personality, and every great truth.... But that feeling is not
+easy to cultivate ... the feeling that we must be poor if what is given
+us is to make us rich. Religion can inspire us with it if it finds the
+right means of expression. In this case it was found. Here was a poor
+man speaking to the poor, and therein lay the richness of his gift.
+Then what in him goes to our hearts and brings tears to our eyes is not
+his great power, but quite the opposite--his lack of power. Do you
+grasp my meaning?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I think so,&quot; she said, her face lighting up. &quot;When someone would beg
+anything of us and can only stammer out what he has got to say, we are
+far more touched than if he expressed himself in a stilted speech
+learnt by heart.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes, that is exactly what I mean,&quot; he cried, delighted. &quot;And it is
+from this bald, hesitating speech that the whole language of Art has
+arisen. Then, all that preceded it was merely a lifeless copy of
+worn-out Byzantine models. Here, for the first time, was an artist who,
+out of the simplicity of his heart, went straight to Nature for what he
+had to say. For this reason he became the supreme master of them all.
+And to-day whoever may succeed in depicting with his brush the acme of
+joy and the acme of sorrow has to thank that little chapel.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I can well believe,&quot; cried Lilly, &quot;that if the ocean had a source, and
+a man suddenly came upon it, he would feel as you did at Padua.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He caught her arm with both hands in his excitement.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You have hit on the missing simile,&quot; he said, &quot;and it is graphic
+enough to describe to the letter what took place within me. And yet
+another source was revealed to me all of a sudden, while I, with folded
+hands, made the tour of those walls. My work was there, leaping out of
+nothingness. I said to myself, 'You must write the History of Effects.'
+The effects, as Art, not only Creative Art, has created, seen, and
+represented them through the ages. Pictorial Art is only a part, you
+see; there are besides the elocutionary arts, poetry as well as
+painting, sculpture as well as music. It struck me that by adopting
+this method I might succeed in producing a real genuine record of the
+development of human emotions, which no historian, moralist, or
+psychologist has ever yet attempted. But why should it not be
+attempted? Material is hidden everywhere, and awaits elucidation just
+as fossils lie embedded in the rocks ready for the zoologist's hammer.
+Tell me what you think of my plan? Is it not worth a lifetime's
+labour?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Indeed, I think it is,&quot; she said, with the same solemn air as before.
+Had she been requested at this moment to sacrifice her own life on the
+altar of his work, she would have done it without a moment's
+hesitation.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Ah! but there is a lot to think over first. One cannot start at a
+tangent,&quot; he continued. &quot;Often Art leads us astray because she has
+deliberately tried to reflect something quite different from the spirit
+of her time. Whether she succeeded or not is another question. Often,
+too, the right channels of expression were lacking. Ah! you and I must
+have many, many more talks together. Don't look so horrified at the
+idea. Yes, my dear gracious one, I need you sorely. After this evening
+I can't do without you, for no one has ever listened to me so
+intelligently and sympathetically. And I have become such a stranger
+here, it's almost as if I were a foreigner. All the men I know are so
+wrapped up in their own interests that they hardly listen to me.
+Besides, I am conscious that my undertaking <i>is</i> a little mad. But
+there is solace to be derived from that when one thinks how every great
+work is supposed to be a little mad till it is finished and has
+accomplished its aim. Of course, everyone thinks the same about his own
+work, and I shall get over the feeling in time. But during the period
+of wrestling, when every day I think I have found a new vein of gold,
+and perhaps have to reject it afterwards as dross, if I have nobody to
+whom I can pour out my soul, I get into such a muddle I feel fairly
+disheartened. And now fate has sent you to me, and the thought of you
+has prevented my sitting calmly at my desk; a voice has seemed to call
+me to come out and gaze across at your light. Well, now I have you, I
+won't let you go in a hurry. I shouldn't, God knows, be so bold if it
+were for myself alone, but it's for my work. It clamours for you. Good
+heavens! why are you crying?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She pressed the back of her hand against her eyes, and said, smiling at
+him, &quot;I am not crying.&quot; But fresh tears gushed forth and dimmed the
+image of her loveliness.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I can understand what it is,&quot; he said regretfully. &quot;I have been
+inconsiderate, and by talking so happily of my own work I have revived
+your grief about your old art. I am very sorry.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She started back as if she had seen a ghost. Then, with a violent
+effort, she collected herself.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;No, no; that isn't it. Really, it isn't,&quot; she assured him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But he persisted in reproaching himself, and his every word was a stab,
+when she thought of her own unworthiness.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Let us go,&quot; she begged. &quot;So many conflicting feelings overwhelm me. I
+am both happy and unhappy.... Outside in the air I shall be calmer.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was long past midnight when they left the restaurant, A cold wind
+rippled the water and sighed among the bare branches.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He offered her his arm, and she clung to it as if she had been at home
+there for countless ages. Neither spoke for some time.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;In five minutes he'll be gone,&quot; she thought, and she could hardly bear
+the pain the threatened parting cost her.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I have it on my conscience,&quot; he said at last, &quot;that I have made so
+much of my work in our conversation you will think me conceited. I know
+it's not of greater importance than hundreds of other people's. I
+believe that in nearly every vigorous-minded young manhood there is
+such a goal to strive for, and to point the way. One fellow may have a
+book to write, another a great business to work up, a third may have
+others dependent on him, and many find it as much as they can do to
+swim against the current. It's all the same thing. If we let ourselves
+drift, we're lost; and none of us want to be lost, do we?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I think I lost myself long ago,&quot; she whispered, shuddering.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He laughed out loud. &quot;<i>You</i>, noblest, tenderest, best of women!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She knew how undeserved it all was, yet how sweet it was to hear him
+say it!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">They were now walking so close to each other that their cheeks nearly
+touched. She closed her eyes, drinking in the warm breath of the strong
+life beside her. She felt that without volition she was being carried
+away to unknown blissful regions. She only came to herself when they
+stood before her door.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;When?&quot; he asked.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">To-morrow she was not free. She had been invited out.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The day after to-morrow?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Yes, the day after to-morrow she would have the whole evening. He might
+call for her.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Then, in fear that if she lingered she would say that she could
+see him to-morrow, she ran upstairs and hid her joy in the solitude of
+her rooms. She did not turn on the lights; the reflection of the
+street-lamps playing on the walls and the prisms of the chandelier was
+light enough.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Then she began to roam through the open doors, from room to room, into
+the corner where the bed stood, round the dining-table, across the
+corner drawing-room into the cold guest-chamber where no guest had ever
+been, up and down, up and down, singing, weeping, exulting. And then
+out of her tears, her humming and rejoicing, words came suddenly:</p>
+
+<div style="margin-top:12pt; margin-bottom:12pt; margin-left:5%; font-size:90%">
+<p class="normal">&quot;Come, my beloved, let us go forth into the field; let
+us lodge in the villages. Let us get up early to the
+vineyards.&quot;</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="normal">No, that was not exactly how it went. Something was not quite right;
+but she would find out what it was.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She wrenched back the lid of the piano, which hadn't been opened for a
+long time, and, as if the neglected and silenced old keys had acquired
+a voice of their own, a perfect volume of sound rushed forth, which she
+could never have believed herself or the piano capable of producing.</p>
+
+<div style="margin-top:12pt; margin-bottom:12pt; margin-left:5%; font-size:90%">
+<p class="normal">&quot;Let us see if the vine flourish, whether the tender
+grape appear, and the pomegranates bud forth; there will
+I give thee my loves.&quot;</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="normal">Yes, that was it! She had got it now--every bar, every note. Where had
+it hidden itself all these long years? It seemed like yesterday that
+she had sung it for the last time.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And yet what worlds of suffering lay between!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;No, not suffering! If it had been nothing but suffering,&quot; she thought,
+&quot;'The Song of Songs' would never have become mute.&quot;</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+
+<h2>CHAPTER XIII</h2>
+<br>
+
+<p class="continue">The next morning, on waking, new troubles faced her. Nobody
+could be so
+blind as not to detect, sooner or later, what a rotten existence hers
+was; least of all he whose refinement, at every spiritual contact,
+awoke in her an anxious echo. Even if she could keep from him every
+contamination of the world she lived in, and create in it an isolated
+platform on which to associate with him alone, would not her appearance
+at last betray her? All those nights of wild dissipation surely must
+have left some traces behind. It was two years ago that Dr. Salmoni had
+spoken of the &quot;cold contempt&quot; in her eyes.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She jumped out of bed and ran to the looking-glass to subject every
+feature to a suspicious scrutiny. Her eyes had a tired look, it was not
+to be denied; but there was no contempt in their expression. <i>He</i> had
+called them &quot;Mary eyes,&quot; not Madonna eyes. Was there a difference, she
+wondered? There were a few faint lines on her forehead, but these she
+could almost rub out with her finger. A little massaging was all that
+was necessary. Worse were the lines on either side of her mouth, giving
+to her face a <i>blasé</i>, rather haughty look.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The paths that devouring passion long has trod,&quot; she quoted from
+&quot;Tannhäuser in Rom,&quot; which she knew almost by heart.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Yet, had she not preserved all that was best and deepest in her nature,
+as if she must guard it, for one who was to come into her life? And now
+that he had come, the <i>one</i>, it might perhaps be too late.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The day passed in fretting and worrying, and when Richard appeared at
+tea-time he found her with red eyes. She learnt this afternoon what a
+treasure she possessed in Richard. He asked her so few questions, was
+so full of tactful solicitude, that for a few moments at least she felt
+comforted and sheltered. She was almost tempted to confide in him what
+she had gone through the last day or two. Was he not her kindest
+friend? Fortunately, however, she refrained. She would rather, on the
+whole, tell Adele, who on several occasions had let fall the
+encouraging remark that her mistress might place absolute confidence in
+her, as she knew life too well not to take the lady's part.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly, feeling that she could not endure any of &quot;the crew&quot; this
+evening, pleaded headache, and Richard did not grumble. But when night
+drew near she remembered that she had told Dr. Rennschmidt that she was
+going out, and in order not to be caught in a falsehood she hurriedly
+extinguished the light and sat brooding in the dark till bedtime.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">In the morning the first post brought her a letter addressed in an
+unknown hand. She broke the seal. Oh, God! What was this? Could these
+lines apply to her, to Lilly Czepanek, who was eating her heart out in
+morbid self-humiliation?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">If anyone on the face of the earth could think of her like this,
+especially he, the grandest and best of all--for these verses were his,
+without any manner of doubt, though there was no signature--then, after
+all, things were not going so badly with her. The life she led had not
+as yet entirely mastered her; the innermost core of her being remained
+unaffected; there must still be latent good in her, which if used might
+be a blessing to herself and to others.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">After she had learnt the verses by heart, she went on reading them over
+and over again, as she could not tear her eyes away from the beloved
+handwriting.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Then she tried to set them to music. She opened the piano and
+improvised, and, as on the previous evening, her playing came back to
+her. Soon she could play once more all the things she had known years
+ago and long since forgotten. She just struck the notes and everything
+came back. But her fingers were stiff, and her wrists and the muscles
+of her forearm soon ached. She must exercise them and get them supple
+again. Then when he came to see her she would be able to play him
+something classical. This hope still further increased her new-born
+self-esteem, and she began to count the hours till evening.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">When Richard came in the afternoon he found her at the piano practising
+diligently.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What's come over you?&quot; he asked. &quot;I had no idea you could play so
+well.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Nor I,&quot; she replied, laughing.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You must show what you can do when we're out this evening.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;This evening?&quot; she exclaimed, horrified. &quot;I thought that I was free
+this evening.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Free! I don't know what you mean by 'free,'&quot; he answered irritably.
+&quot;You talk as if our going out together were a sort of martyrdom. You
+get off whenever you can trump up an excuse. Only yesterday Karla was
+saying no one knew what you did with yourself when you were alone.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I should have thought that applied much more to Karla than to me,&quot; she
+replied. &quot;No one even knows her real name.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;That's nothing to do with it. She is not the only person who has
+remarked how reserved you are. I have been advised by a man to look
+after you a little more, and not let you go your own way so much. To
+shut them up I promised to bring you this evening instead of yesterday;
+and I must keep my word.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly quickly reflected that opposition to his wishes would not help
+her, and only give him further cause for suspicion, so she bravely
+choked back her tears and disappointment. But when he was gone she
+suffered all the more acutely, and her grief and despair knew no
+bounds.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">What would her new friend think of her if he came at the appointed time
+and found her not at home? She could not send a note to put him off,
+for he had not given her his address, and he would have twenty-four
+hours in which to think the worst of her.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">As a last resource she confided in Adele. Her dry, sour face brightened
+perceptibly, for deception of any kind was meat and drink to her. She
+proposed that the gracious mistress should say that she had been
+summoned to a friend's sick-bed. Such sad occurrences, she knew by
+experience, always appealed to gentlemen; and Lilly agreed to act on
+her advice.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The round-table derived little amusement from her society that evening.
+She ignored the men and was rude to the ladies. Frau Jula, the only
+person she wanted to see, was absent, as she had been often of late.
+They soon left her to her own devices, and the worthy Richard, who had
+imagined he was going to show her music off, gnawed the ends of his
+moustache in helpless vexation.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The next morning she again suffered torments. She had roused up Adele
+in the middle of the night, and learned that he had been and had gone
+away again, greatly perturbed.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Another day passed in nervous counting of the hours. She stood before
+the glass and arrayed herself for him despondently. She would have
+liked to throw herself at his feet, but in spite of this she resolved
+to adopt a certain melancholy quiet dignity in her manner towards him,
+which would nip suspicion in the bud and make him feel that she tallied
+with the ideal depicted in his verses. Had he not in them termed her
+flighty, flirtatious head a &quot;head divine&quot;? The mere thought made her
+feel holy.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">At half-past seven the bell rang. She received him with a conventional
+&quot;How do you do?&quot; and smile; and the quiet melancholy hauteur, which she
+assumed, became her remarkably well, and effectually concealed her
+chagrin and anxiety.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">His manner, too, was not so composed and frank as usual. At a single
+glance she perceived it. His eyes wandered beyond her with a curiously
+vacant expression.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;He guesses everything,&quot; a voice cried within her.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But she knew how to control her feelings. &quot;I must apologise,&quot; she said,
+&quot;that I was unable to keep my appointment with you yesterday.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Is your friend better?&quot; he inquired; and a smile of scornful
+incredulity played about his lips.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She now said anything that came into her head, and although she did not
+look at him, she knew that he did not believe a syllable.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I also must apologise,&quot; he said, with the same covert scorn in smile
+and voice.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Why, Dr. Rennschmidt?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I took the liberty of sending you a few verses, which I hope you
+accepted in the spirit in which they were written--merely as an
+exercise in style, without any special application or significance.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;He is cooling already,&quot; her consciousness of guilt told her. And so
+all the colder and more unconcerned was her answer.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Your pretty lines did rather surprise me at first, as I couldn't
+conceive why they should be addressed to me, but afterwards it occurred
+to me that it might be what you have just said it was, and I did not
+mind. If you don't object, I would rather not talk about it any more.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He gazed at her with eyes dilated from amazement, and she was glad that
+she had driven her thrust home with such bitterness.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Next she asked him if he would have supper with her, as she wished to
+do the right thing, though nothing had been prepared for a guest.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I thought that I had been given permission to call for you and take
+you out,&quot; he said in a cold, disillusioned tone.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She smiled graciously. &quot;If you wish, I shall be happy to come,&quot; she
+said.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">In silence they descended the staircase, in silence they walked along
+the bank of the canal the same path that they had taken, in such
+rapturous proximity to each other, three evenings ago. They had been
+silent then, but what a different silence it had been from this.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What have you been doing the last few days?&quot; she asked, for the sake
+of saying something.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Nothing special,&quot; he replied. He had been trying to write an article
+for a Munich art paper, to which he was a contributor, on the subject
+of the Siennese School outside Sienna. But he hadn't succeeded. His
+editor wouldn't be satisfied with his stuff.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She read in his words a reproach to herself. Obviously he wished to
+imply that her entrance into his life was to blame. And when he asked
+to which restaurant she would like to go, she was so hurt that she
+begged to be excused.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I am neither hungry nor thirsty,&quot; she said, &quot;and lights and people
+would jar on me.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;If you would rather avoid people, we might perhaps turn into the
+Tiergarten?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She acquiesced; and if he had proposed plunging with him into the canal
+she would have consented even more readily.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Before them stretched the roads of the park like long galleries with
+garish walls of electric light, between which one was obliged to run
+the gauntlet. The pedestrians who came towards them stared at this tall
+pair, as they passed, with cold impertinent curiosity.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;This is worse than the crowded streets,&quot; she said. Her sore heart
+fluttered dully with excitement.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He indicated a side path that was dark, and without speaking a word
+they dived into the benighted solitude. Above the dense canopy of
+branches the sky showed through rents in the clouds like tarnished
+metal, reflecting the city's glare. The glimmer of lamps from the great
+main avenues twinkled through the lattice-work of bare shrubs, and the
+bells of the electric tramways, shooting hither and thither at a short
+distance, sounded like repeated fire-alarms. Yet, here in the thickets
+of the park, stillness and darkness reigned. You felt as if you were
+being swallowed up by a sea of black oblivion. Every moment the silence
+grew more oppressive. Then, all at once, he hurried a step in front of
+her to bar her progress.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What is the matter?&quot; she asked, frightened.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I am going to say something to you now,&quot; he began, &quot;something which
+will either bring us together again, or estrange us more than ever--in
+fact, end everything.... I was too great a coward just now, and tried
+to prevaricate. When I said I did not mean my verses seriously I was
+not speaking the truth. I felt all that I wrote, only I felt it a
+thousand times more strongly. But I should have refrained from
+expressing my feelings.... I know now that it must have alarmed you. It
+has caused you to change your opinion of me. You may be thinking that I
+am a mere seeker of love adventures, who has tried to make capital out
+of your trust and confidence. I promise you, dear gracious one, never
+to annoy you by revealing my feelings again. But don't withdraw your
+friendship, I earnestly entreat you.... Please do not.... Think what
+will become of me if I lose you now!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Ah! so this was it! This! It was this deviation from an excess of
+reticence which had divided and stood between them. Oh, would to God
+there had been nothing else! She could not help herself; she just
+leaned against a tree and burst out crying. Her tears came with such
+force that her veil was soon drenched through and through. She had to
+throw it back and press her hands against her eyelids.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;For God's sake, what is it?&quot; she heard him ask in a voice quite husky
+from anxiety. &quot;Have I wounded you so deeply? Is what I have said so
+bad? I will retract everything; only forgive me--you must forgive me!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">When he thus asked her forgiveness for all the infinite joy he had
+given her, her passion leapt up and set her on fire. The pose of
+haughty dignity--aye, and her shame too--she cast to the winds; and
+with a groan of abandonment she flung her arms round his neck, pressed
+herself against him, and clung to his mouth with her lips and teeth.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Under the onslaught of this wild and impure embrace he recoiled, and in
+thrusting her from him he dug his fingers deeply into the upper part of
+her arm. How it hurt, but how she liked it!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;At last! at last!&quot; her soul cried. Now he knew who and what she was,
+and how much she had to give him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">When she gained command of herself again, she saw him leaning against
+the same tree from which she had sought support a moment before. His
+hat had fallen off, his eyes were closed. He was as pale and inanimate
+as death.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">For a moment all was still save for the clanging bells of the electric
+trams from the near distance.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Dearest, beloved,&quot; she whispered, stooping and leaning against his
+knees. &quot;Wake up, darling; wake up and come.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He opened his eyes and stared at her as if his wits were wandering.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Come, come!&quot; she cried joyously. &quot;Come away from here. Come home. I
+don't want to wander about any more here in the dark among the trees,
+or in the restaurants and streets. I want to go home. With you, with
+you!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He did not answer. He seemed quite distracted. A dull sense of guilt
+awoke in her, to be quickly drowned in exultation.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Come, come to me!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">With both hands she drew him from the spot that had become the cradle
+of her happiness--and of his too. His happiness stunned him and robbed
+him of his senses; was there anything very extraordinary in that? When
+Lilly Czepanek, whom hundreds of men had wanted in vain, gave herself
+voluntarily it was enough to turn any man's brain. And as they made
+their way through avenues and streets she poured out her pent-up soul
+to him in an avalanche of chatter.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Didn't he realise what unheard-of folly it was for him to cherish any
+doubts? From the very first moment she had been his. A miracle had been
+worked for both of them. Never had she known what love really was till
+the day when she had whistled to the squirrels skirmishing above their
+heads.... Life had been nothing to her since then.... There was nothing
+in the world that mattered except him--him and his eyes, his mouth, his
+great purpose, his splendid wonderful work, for which she was ready to
+work like a galley slave, and which she would enrich with her love; for
+in his researches amongst ancient pictures and books he could gather
+nothing but the grey ashes of love. She could teach him--she, Lilly
+Czepanek--what true fresh young love meant; she who had been waiting
+for him ever since she could remember. Had she not belonged to him
+before the world began? God had meant them for each other. Nothing
+could be clearer than that, because they had both felt that they had
+met each other before. And so they had, in some dream-life. Yes, they
+had met in their dreams, for she had dreamed of him always--always. It
+was all just like what one read of in fairy-tales.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Perhaps it is a fairy-tale! You--you whose Christian name I don't
+even know yet--but what does that matter? Say, say it is <i>not</i> a
+fairy-tale.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But he said nothing. He walked on like a man walking in his sleep. He
+followed her mechanically up her staircase, and stood stiffly under the
+chandelier in the middle of the corner drawing-room, into which she had
+led him, gazing round him in shy uncertainty, as if he had never been
+in the room, and was puzzled to know how he had got there.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She clasped him to her playfully, saying he should rest and close his
+eyes. Then she helped him off with his overcoat, forced him into an
+arm-chair, and kissed his eyes till his lids drooped and he lay there
+as if really asleep.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Rest there, beloved, till I come back,&quot; she said.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And away she ran, bursting with joyous excitement, to the kitchen to
+tell Adele to get supper as soon as possible. Next, she hurried into
+her room and changed the rustling silk she was wearing for a pale-blue
+tea-gown with turquoise embroideries, in which Richard used gallantly
+to declare she looked like Venus herself. She loosened her hair to make
+it look more curly, and took off all her rings. A single plain gold
+bracelet was her only ornament.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The sulky Adele, who had transformed the table like magic into a
+flower-garden, was actually beaming, for at last it seemed as if a
+little human comedy was to come off in this dully respectable,
+disorderly household. The plate gleamed on the clean damask cloth, and
+golden-yellow bananas and pears sent forth a fragrance from the
+dessert-dishes.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He ought to be as satisfied as she was. Her heart beat normally now;
+she had lost all fear. She would have felt like a conquering heroine if
+she had not been so humble in her joy. One thing she could be proud of,
+and that was, she had so much, so very much to give him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">When she went into the drawing-room again, she found him no longer
+resting in the arm-chair. He was standing at the writing-table,
+absorbed in contemplating Richard's photograph, to her great
+discomposure. If only she had thought of slipping it into a drawer; but
+now it was too late. He let his eyes glide over her Venus draperies in
+perplexity; then he caught hold of both her hands.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Why have you made yourself so beautiful for me?&quot; he asked.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I wanted you to feel just a little bit at home here,&quot; she said,
+letting her eyes fall. &quot;Nothing more. Now come to supper. You know
+we've had nothing to eat this evening.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Eat and drink <i>now</i> ... But I will sit with you at the table, if you
+like, while you eat.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Then I won't have anything, either,&quot; she said, putting her arm round
+his neck and drawing him so closely to her that the pressure almost
+took her breath away.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Peterle, the small monkey, who had been asleep in his corner, now woke,
+and made a little jealous whimper as he stretched his grey hands
+through the bars as if to plead his right to be a third in the compact.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The strange sound made the guest start.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly smilingly reassured him. &quot;After supper I must introduce you to my
+little people. My friends must be your friends, you know.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He drew himself up. &quot;How can you? What would you introduce me as?&quot; he
+asked.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Oh no!&quot; Lilly protested; &quot;I did not mean anything of that kind. I only
+meant ...&quot; She couldn't say what.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Then she felt her arm clasped in his trembling fingers. His eyes burned
+into hers.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Who are you?&quot; he asked.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She felt a little giddy. &quot;Who am I? ... I am a woman who loves you as
+you have never been loved by anyone.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He passed his hands over her shoulders in a grateful caress. &quot;I must
+make you understand me clearly,&quot; he said. &quot;I don't want to force your
+confidence. But when two beings have stood as near to each other as we
+have during the last hour, they naturally want to know everything there
+is to know. I have never met a woman in the least like you before. I am
+quite ignorant, for the one or two little experiences I have had count
+as nothing. In Rome a baker's daughter was in love with me, but she ran
+away with a marquis. In my student days I had a few other affairs of
+the kind. That is all. I have been in society very little. And now, all
+at once, here I am with you in my arms--you, the most glorious and
+perfect thing I have ever seen in my life! A woman who hardly seems to
+belong to this world at all.... I cannot take my eyes off you in your
+blue <i>peplus</i>.... You stand there the image of an antique statue, a
+masterpiece of Lysippus or Praxiteles come to life. And I am to call
+that mine? Why, the mere thought is sheer tragedy. We are both making
+for a precipice without an attempt to save ourselves.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Why should we?&quot; she cried, throwing back her head in ecstasy, as if
+she were tossing back a bacchante's wild locks. &quot;We love each other,
+and nothing else matters.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He sank into the chair next her, and with dry tearless sobs buried his
+face in his two hands. She knelt down in front of him, and bending
+forward planted little fugitive kisses on his clenched hands.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;No!&quot; he cried, springing up again, &quot;this must not be. I must not let
+myself be driven into a false position. You may think as you do, and be
+willing to sacrifice all that you have and are--very well. But I, who
+am to accept such infinite goodness--I must speak out, so that you will
+be quite clear for whom you are doing it. I must not leave open a
+shadow of a possibility of your being misled. I am a poor young chap
+living on his uncle's bounty. I have no prospects, for my great work is
+still in embryo, and the articles I write are nothing to speak of. I
+have still to win by unremitting toil a <i>pied-à-terre</i> in life. It may
+take me ten years.... I could never submit to being supported by you.
+You must think what you will of me, but I say now, once for all, that a
+marriage between us is out of the question.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">At first she could hardly believe her ears. Here was someone
+so-unworldly, so naïve and ingenuous, as actually to mention marriage
+seriously in Lilly Czepanek's corner drawing-room! Then she laughed
+shrilly, in scorn of her shameless life.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Do you take me for an adventuress who inveigles men into her net?&quot; she
+cried, jumping to her feet. &quot;Do you take me for a harpy?&quot;--Frau Jula's
+expression came back to her--&quot;a harpy who tries to catch every person
+she chances to meet? Am I such a miserable wretch?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He stared at her face with an astonished, uncomprehending glance.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The woman who loves a man and desires to give him his crowning
+happiness is not a 'miserable wretch,'&quot; he said.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Ah, then he really meant it!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She thought of the days when she had still been innocent enough to wish
+she was Richard's wife. How long ago was that? She must have sunk low
+indeed for this most natural relationship between man and woman to
+appear so strange to her!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She shuddered and felt she was turning pale. What if he had noticed?
+She could bear anything but that. Shrinking from his searching eyes,
+she replied timidly:</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I only wanted you to understand that you are free, and can always be
+free. You can go when you like, at any time, and have nothing to fear.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And you?&quot; he asked.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What about me?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;In what position should I leave you if I went?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Oh, that would be my lookout,&quot; she exclaimed, laughing.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">That was such a remote contingency, why should they worry about it
+to-day? But he was not satisfied.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;There is something inscrutable about you. A touch of mystery.... How
+shall I put it? Some wrong seems to cast a shadow upon you.... You say
+that you go into society a great deal, yet I cannot get over the
+feeling that you are lonely and perhaps unprotected. When I try to
+penetrate farther into your soul, I feel that in some way or other you
+have been harshly dealt with.... From now onwards I shall stand by you
+as protector and adviser, but I am handicapped in being so ignorant of
+the world and its ways. It might happen that with every good intention
+I should only increase the mischief.... And I don't want to do that,
+because to me you are hallowed. So I beg of you now to tell me as much
+as you feel you can and may, of all that you have lived through and
+suffered. Will you?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She felt now that evasion was no longer possible. The hour of which she
+had been in dread and had tried to postpone indefinitely had sounded.
+Again a phrase of Frau Jula's came into her mind: &quot;The way back to the
+community of all the virtues is only made by lying.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">With lying she had begun, with lying she must continue. For a moment
+the wish rose in her heart to tell him the whole truth, but that would
+be insane folly, absolutely suicidal. After all, it was not necessary
+to lie. She had only to put a different complexion on her life's story,
+to tell it as if it had been what to-day she would like it to appear.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I'll turn down the lights,&quot; she said, and extinguished the
+crystal-white flames of the chandelier, leaving only the rose-shaded
+standard lamp to cast a subdued glow on their corner.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">His hands in hers, leaning her head against his shoulder, she began her
+whispered and halting confession.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She told him of her sheltered, merry childhood, free from care and full
+of music, which played the part of both fairy and demon in her youth;
+of her father's flight and the beginning of poverty and desperate
+struggles. So far she had withheld nothing, perverted nothing. Even the
+colonel was not altered, except that from habit she now and again
+promoted him to the rank of general. Only, when Walter von Prell came
+into the picture for the second time, it seemed inevitable that fresh
+colours should be mixed on the palette; for she would, without doubt,
+descend rapidly in her friend's esteem if she owned that she had
+abandoned herself body and soul in light-hearted frivolity to a little
+ne'er-do-well. So she made of that incorrigible rascal an ill-fated
+laughing young hero, who had only been vanquished because all the
+powers were ranged against him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Once started, the rest was smooth sailing. She invented a touching
+farewell scene, taking place amidst a thousand vows of faithfulness,
+floods of tears, and promised bridal prospects. The horrors of the
+duel, of which she had never taken the trouble to find out the
+particulars, were exaggerated to such a degree that her lover emerged
+from it an incurable cripple. He had set steam for America, firmly
+resolved not to turn up again in the old country till he was in a
+position to expiate his misdeed by marrying her; and he had in the
+meantime confided her as a sacred trust to his friend, a worthy,
+excellent young man, whose character was made up of nobility and
+unselfishness. It was the latter who, out of regard for the unhappy
+banished lover, had four years ago taken her fate into his keeping,
+kept watch over her, and introduced her into society. He had also, with
+rare tact and unselfishness, managed for her the little fortune saved
+from her days of affluence, and given her the support of his valuable
+advice and assistance in all questions concerning her everyday
+practical life. He came every day at tea-time to inquire courteously
+after her health, and he sometimes escorted her home from a theatre or
+social gathering, and had a cigarette afterwards. His circle of friends
+had become hers, and everyone they knew honoured and respected their
+relationship, as it was based on high-souled loyalty to his friend
+abroad.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Thus Lilly Czepanek related her story with so much conviction that she
+almost began to believe it herself. And was it not a fair enough
+account of her life, as Richard had represented it before her descent
+to the depths on the night of the Kellermann carnival?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She did not mention either Kellermann or Dr. Salmoni, or make any
+reference to &quot;the crew,&quot; which was natural enough; but she spoke of her
+ill-fated art with tears and regret, and said it should be for the last
+time. She wished never to allude to it again.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">When she had finished speaking and looked up at him with a feeling of
+relief, expecting to receive his absolution, she was startled at the
+change in his face. He had turned a deathly hue, his feverish eyes were
+cast up to the ceiling, and there were deep lines of pain in his
+cheeks.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Doesn't he believe me?&quot; flashed through her brain.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He sprang up, seized Richard's photograph, which stood on the
+escritoire in a frame, and brought it close to the light of the shaded
+lamp.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She knew that he was thinking of Walter, and said, &quot;That is not his
+photograph.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Who is it, then?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;His friend ... the manufacturer.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Disappointed, he threw the frame on one side. &quot;Have you no picture of
+<i>him</i>?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Yes ... she had, but where was it? The big pastel portrait was in the
+attic; the smaller photograph she must have crammed away in some
+drawer.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I put it away,&quot; she said apologetically; &quot;I could not bear seeing it
+before me every day.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The reason was not very clear. He could, if he liked, interpret it as
+her growing love for him. Yet, how pitiable and ludicrous it all was!
+She would rather have thrown herself at his feet, and cried, &quot;Forgive
+... forgive. Take me as I am; don't cast me off!&quot; Instead, she was
+obliged to go on lying, disgracefully, desperately, like a common
+adventuress on the verge of being found out.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Will you mind very much if I ask you to look for the photograph?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Oh, my beloved! Why do you torment yourself?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Please look for it,&quot; he said.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Further resistance was not to be thought of. She fetched the key of the
+escritoire, unlocked and opened the drawers at random, and searched
+wildly, hardly seeing what she was doing, among the papers. Ah, here it
+was! She hadn't looked at it for years. Imperiously and vindictively
+the light-lashed eyes glanced at her as much as to say: &quot;Cheat, lie,
+and swindle. I have done it too.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;This is it,&quot; she said.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He took it to the light, stared long and earnestly at the features. His
+lips twitched, and he jerked the photograph nervously as he held it in
+his hand.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Just as I once stood before the photograph of the young orphaned
+heiress,&quot; she thought; but that was long ago.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Then she heard his voice asking hoarsely, &quot;Will you answer a single
+question, which is of vital importance to me?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Ask anything you like, dearest.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Are you still building on the return of this young man?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Where did the question lead? She felt she only had to say &quot;No&quot; to break
+down all obstacles. But if she did, the tale she had been telling her
+friend about Walter would be utterly without sense or meaning, and who
+could tell then if his suspicions would not at last be aroused?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">So she steered a middle course, and said, &quot;Often I am inclined to
+doubt&quot;--she hesitated over her words. &quot;You see, I am waiting for two
+... There's my father, who seems to have vanished for ever.... I never
+hear from him either.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And you feel yourself bound to him still?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She felt the noose tightening about her neck.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Answer me.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">There was something in his tone that abolished every loophole of
+escape. She felt that it was a matter of life and death. She held up
+her arms as if taking a solemn oath.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Since I have known you, I don't care one way or the other. If you wish
+me to be faithful to him, then I will wait for him ... till the crack
+of doom; if you would rather I threw him over, I will do that too.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He laid his head back and closed his eyes. He stood now exactly as he
+had done in the dark bit of the park. And she felt the same anxiety on
+his behalf. &quot;Why will he torture himself so?&quot; she thought. And it
+occurred to her for the first time that he was taking her and
+everything she said in earnest; that he, to whom loyalty was a law,
+expected loyalty from her in the natural course of things. Ah, how
+little he knew!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She was so deeply ashamed of herself that she dared not question or
+come near him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He drew himself up with a powerful effort, and she saw the cloud of
+wrath on his brow that had awed her the first day of their
+acquaintance.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Listen,&quot; he said. &quot;After what you have been telling me, I see that I
+was on a wrong tack. You are not lonely and forsaken, the world has not
+sinned against you. On the contrary, you are protected and cared for,
+and have a future, however uncertain, to look forward to. You would
+lose all this through me. His friend would not, of course, continue his
+support if he heard anything about me. And it would be the same with
+the others, who at present constitute your world.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She wanted to shriek with laughter, to whistle her contempt of all that
+had made up her life hitherto, but the sound was stifled in her throat.
+She recollected in time that to snap her fingers at her past might
+precipitate a catastrophe, which would expose the misery of her
+position. To him she might only belong in dark, secret hours.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And what have I to offer you in compensation?&quot; he continued. &quot;Nothing.
+My work is still in the clouds. I am not even sure of myself. And when
+I think of this last hour----&quot; He broke off and turned his eyes away.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Then you don't love me?&quot; she said in a depressed tone.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He flung himself on her chair, so that kneeling on the cushions he
+could encircle her waist with his hands.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;My God! be merciful! You see what I am enduring; don't make it harder.
+I should always be repeating to myself, every day and every hour, 'Over
+in America there's a fellow working himself to death for her.... He
+doesn't write because he is ashamed to confess how his maimed body is
+standing in his way and bringing all his enterprises to naught' ... at
+least, I can think of no other reason for his silence--for no man could
+forget a woman like you. Meanwhile, I have stolen you from him, and sit
+here with you in my arms.... I don't know ... the idea of a man leading
+a profligate life does not shock me ... but to rob a poor hard-working
+cripple of his all ... I think the meanest scoundrel in creation would
+draw the line at that.... I know I shall never get over it, but&quot;--he
+collapsed, hitting his head against the arm of the chair, and
+sobbed--&quot;better to part now, at once, on the spot, than wait till it is
+too late for both of us.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The blow had fallen. Cleverly as she thought she had garbled her story,
+she was caught in her own net.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You mean that you will--oh God!&quot; she cried.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He got up. &quot;Good-bye,&quot; he said, &quot;good-bye, and thank you. Do not think
+too harshly of me.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;If I tell him the truth now, it'll only make him go all the faster,&quot;
+she thought, looking round her helplessly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">His hands were held out waiting for hers; his eyes drank her in, as if
+by so doing he could imprint her image on his heart for ever.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I will put myself in front of the door,&quot; she thought. &quot;I will throw
+myself on him and suffocate him with kisses.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But the desire not to sink in his estimation made her timid and
+faint-hearted.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Don't go yet,&quot; she besought him, clinging to his hands. &quot;Stay one more
+hour, just one--a farewell hour.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He disengaged himself gently, and turned to the door.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She stood in the middle of the room, drawn up to her full height, the
+wide sleeves of her blue Venus drapery fell back from her arms,
+displaying their matured beauty, as she held them out to him
+beseechingly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;If he sees me like this,&quot; she thought, &quot;he will yet be mine.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But he did not look back. He staggered, and knocked his forehead
+against the panel of the door as he opened it; and then all at once it
+seemed as if he were wiped off the face of the earth, and with him
+light and everything.... A swarm of bees rose buzzing into the air, and
+in the darkness that suddenly surrounded her the floor sank deeper and
+always deeper towards the canal waters ... a hatchet struck her on the
+head and then all was over.</p>
+
+<hr class="W20">
+
+<p class="normal">At first it sounded like a twittering of birds, then like the murmur of
+an enormous crowd in a wide sunny square, and then there were only
+two voices left: a man's voice and a woman's whispering eagerly
+together--the old cook, Grete, and the manservant with the impudent
+twinkle in his eye. Yes, of course, it was they. The colonel would come
+in immediately and ask her to be his wife. At the same instant she felt
+something cool, damp, and soothing on her aching head. Just as she had
+felt that night.... &quot;Am I to live through it all again?&quot; she thought,
+startled, and she began to cry, and entreat, &quot;Oh, please, Herr Colonel,
+let me go. I am far too bad a girl for you. Oh, dear Herr Colonel!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Good God! she is delirious,&quot; said the masculine voice, which was
+certainly not that of the impudent manservant.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Ah! how comforting it was to lie under the magic of this voice, in
+which a note of homeliness quivered.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;So he hasn't gone, after all,&quot; she thought, and leaned back
+contentedly on her cushion, which had been placed on the carpet as a
+support for her neck. If she had known his Christian name, she would
+have called him by it now. But she was still ignorant of it, even after
+all that had passed between them. What a shame it was! She could only
+put out her arms a little towards him in silence. He was already
+kneeling beside her, stroking her hands.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She must keep quiet, absolutely quiet.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Will everything be all right now?&quot; she asked, smiling up at him in
+bliss.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Yes, yes; everything. Ways and means must be found of seeing each other
+often as friends, as brother and sister. No; there should be no
+parting, no separation. No one was bound to inflict such hideous
+torture on himself as that.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She thought with a shudder of the moment when darkness had gathered in
+around her, and she had sunk into the mire. So would her life always
+have been without him. But now, as brother and sister, they were free
+to greet in light-hearted joyousness a new dawn.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Such happiness was almost inconceivable.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She groped for his arm, and pillowed her cheek in the palm of his hand
+with a deep-drawn happy sigh. But Adele, who had all this time been
+discreetly looking out of the window, now interposed with the
+suggestion that a fresh compress was needed, as the wound in her
+mistress's forehead was still bleeding. And so it was adjusted.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+
+<h2>CHAPTER XIV</h2>
+<br>
+
+<p class="continue">In human development each spring, as it comes round, has its
+particular
+significance and associations. Every spring finds a man different;
+every one opens old wounds anew, and sounds hidden depths. Sometimes it
+passes like a stupid unprofitable game, because he himself is feeling
+stupid and unprofitable; others torment him with a thousand futile
+admonitions, because he is utterly unable to render account to his own
+conscience. Sometimes spring finds him barren and clogged, like ground
+that cannot recover from the ravages of winter. And, again, spring
+carols deceptive songs of liberation and redemption in a man's heart,
+as if it was in its power to liberate and redeem. But the most
+beautiful manifestation of spring is when we are scarcely aware of it,
+because its budding and sprouting is but symbolic of the jubilant
+stirring of spring within us, the widening and growth of our being
+spiritually.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Such a spring now dawned for Lilly. Everything seemed to wear a new
+face. The early sunshine had never before cut such grotesque little
+capers on the wall, never had there been such ravishing violet
+twilights at the end of rainy days, never had people worn such hopeful
+festive looks as they passed her, never had the din of street traffic
+sounded so full of an infectious revelling in activity.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Yes, and all at once she too found no end of things to do. Every hour
+was full of delightful and urgent engagements. If anyone had told her
+during the last few years that she would ever again, with burning
+cheeks and a feverish brain, get up dates, quotations, historical
+allusions, and foreign words, she would have laughed at them.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But now, whatever she did, she must not idle. As that time she had been
+ready with her answer about Giotto, so she must always have a response
+on the tip of her tongue when it was expected of her. All her eagerness
+to learn, which had been quenched in her for years by a feeling of
+isolation and uselessness, now streamed forth anew. And her mind--like
+a starved and uncultivated pasture--absorbed everything it was offered
+with an insatiable maw. It demanded hardly an effort to commit things
+to memory; she had only to imagine that she was quoting to him, and
+lines remained with her.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She managed it all with the utmost secrecy, for Konrad--yes, that was
+his name, Konrad; he was called Konrad--must not suspect that her
+knowledge was brand-new and fresh from the mint. She sneaked alone to
+the museums and picture galleries because she wanted him to think she
+had been at home in them from time immemorial. Then she practised up
+several pieces of old music that might be of use to him in his work.
+And often did she bless her father's rigid discipline, which had kept
+her at the piano till late in the night.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">They saw a great deal of each other. He came every other evening as a
+regular thing. He avoided the afternoons, knowing that they were
+devoted to the friend of her fiancé, but often in the middle of the day
+he bounded up the stairs with a book or a flower, and begged for a
+little music. He never would stay to lunch, however warmly she pressed
+him. For the most part he was not at his ease in her flat; he would
+walk up and down restlessly, look at his watch and then hurry off. At
+first she was hurt, and asked him teasingly if he thought he was in the
+enemy's country when he came to see her. But, of course, she did not
+yet thoroughly understand him. Every day revealed some new and unusual
+trait in his character.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He was still extremely young, not only in years. She had known many
+callous, <i>blasé</i> old men of twenty-five--which was his age. His youth
+was within him. His thoughts were young and passionate, and she had
+never met anyone who expended so much care on mere thinking. His ideas
+seemed to be to him tangible beings, with whom he had to come to grips
+and either hug to his heart or spurn with his foot. Friends or enemies
+to him were all the great thinkers and creators of other times. He
+associated with them as with masters and comrades; defied them or
+despised them; submitted reverently to their teaching, or made fun of
+them.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">His thought and his conversation were a perpetual flow of antitheses
+and a whirl of paradoxes, a forcible pushing forward of research, a
+ruthless sport. He could not be neutral or indifferent. He saw in
+everything problems that cried out for solution, questions of urgency
+in which it was necessary to take sides. He loved or he hated; there
+was no middle course for him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She followed him and hung on his lips, with all the fervour of a
+disciple and lover. She annexed his ideas, and let them take root or
+die off in her mind as chance willed it. She had such riches to choose
+from that one more or less did not matter.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Of his personal affairs he talked very little. Not because he was
+reserved or lacking in confidence, but because he deemed them of no
+importance or interest. Lilly had to drag everything out of him, bit by
+bit.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The image of his parents had faded with time, though he still cherished
+an enthusiastic regard for their memory. For him his uncle had stood in
+the place of parents, the rich parvenu and man of the world, whose heir
+he would ultimately be, and to whom he now owed his freedom from sordid
+cares about money.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She could not quite make up her mind what their relations were to each
+other. Often he spoke as if he loved the old man tenderly, but at other
+times a hardness, even bitterness, crept into his judgment of him,
+showing that their natures were diametrically opposed, and there was a
+lack of harmony between them.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">His friends were few--mostly old fellow-students, who went their own
+way--and he had no experience of family life. Thus he was able to
+bestow on Lilly all his free hours.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">They met frequently in restaurants, oftenest in the little Italian
+wine-shop, where they wondered when the waiter turned out the lights,
+as it seemed to them that they had only just come.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Now and then they bought their supper at the butcher's and baker's for
+a few pence, and, laughing over their purchases, shook the dust of the
+town off their feet and retired to the Tiergarten. There they looked
+for an empty seat off the beaten track of the wide avenues, but not too
+lonely and remote. It was not till loving pairs began to wander by,
+like shades from the nether world, that they felt they were hidden and
+unseen. If a couple sat down beside them, they were sure to get up
+again soon, for they needed the night and darkness more urgently than
+these two.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Then, when the pale-green lacework of leaves, which appeared quite
+detached from the grey branches, darkened gradually into a shadowy
+black ragged outline, when the fire of the evening sky toned down into
+the purple of night, when the nightingale--often only a few yards
+away--burst into song, then they watched shoulder to shoulder the stars
+come out one by one and illumine the twilight, which night after night
+became longer. Then their thoughts rose on wings to pictures and music,
+to sagas of the North and Italian olive-groves. Then questions of
+mystery and solemnity were mooted, hesitatingly and fearfully, and
+answered promptly with the charity and cocksureness of a joyous young
+scepticism.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly was left in no uncertainty as to his opinion about the
+immortality of the soul, the origin of the universe, and God Almighty.
+Often she felt as if she were left shivering alone in a vast icy-cold
+wilderness where there was no All-loving Father, no hope of an
+after-life, and much less of a St. Joseph.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Your creed, then, is simply atheism?&quot; she asked nervously.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;If you like to call it so, yes,&quot; he replied, laughing.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She felt forthwith bound to become an atheist too--one of those who in
+the eyes of Holy Church must roast for all eternity in the depths of
+hell. But if he could exist under the bann of excommunication, so could
+she. Her only regret was for St. Joseph.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">How long it was since she had given her dear saint a thought!
+Nevertheless, it would be a pity if she could never run to him again
+with her joys and sorrows--at least, never without feeling ashamed of
+herself--especially now when her soul was burdened with so many new and
+varied experiences. There was nothing restful and soothing in the high
+art that Konrad unfolded before her; rather did she feel perpetually
+stimulated and goaded on to further delights and excitements.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Together they listened to all the great orchestral works the spring
+produced. They heard the Eroica, Brahm's Second Symphony, and a gem of
+Grieg's beyond expression beautiful. At concerts they joined the crowd
+in the cheap places, which they both loved; their hands, touching as if
+by accident, telegraphed with a slight pressure the vibrations of their
+souls' sympathy with some subtle passage of hidden beauty. Oh, what
+hours those were! And then those other hours which they spent high up
+among the &quot;gods&quot; at theatres, where they were far out of sight of &quot;the
+crew.&quot; With Shakespeare's deathless characters, and Wagner's legendary
+heroines passing before her, how intensely did she realise the wretched
+barrenness of her previous life!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">They did not neglect the modern drama either. Of all the plays he took
+her to, &quot;Rosmersholm&quot; moved her most deeply--she, with her load of
+concealed guilt, was the counterpart of Rebecca; he in his unsuspecting
+purity was Rosmer. His high-toned emotional life had, as it happened in
+the play, an ever-stronger and more elevating influence on hers. But
+what if the garbage in which her existence had its being should
+gradually revert from her on to him, would she not then be his evil
+genius and destroyer? The thought was intolerable. Even while the play
+was going on she cried so bitterly that she attracted the attention of
+people sitting near her, and Konrad proposed taking her out, but she
+indignantly refused to go.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Still sobbing and supported by his arm, she tottered home along the
+bank of the river, a path he had chosen because it was quieter and
+darker than the main street. When they came to the bridge across the
+Spree, she stopped, and seemed fascinated by the black waters below. He
+let her be, till she began to climb up the railed parapet to see &quot;what
+it felt like.&quot; Then he pulled her down by force from her dangerous
+position.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Why shouldn't I?&quot; she thought. &quot;When he knows all, I shall be bound to
+go down there and alone.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">After that evening, more anxiously than ever did she devote herself
+daily and hourly to keeping the slightest breath of suspicion from him.
+She was not ashamed of her great ignorance, which she combated with all
+her might, but it was the loose, cynical tone to which intercourse with
+&quot;the crew&quot; had habituated her that she lived in terror of disclosing in
+conversation.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She braced up what had become lax in her by resuscitating the remnants
+of the good manners and breeding she had once practised, and so it came
+about that she recaptured a good deal of that inner dignity of spirit
+which she had assumed at the outset of her relations with Konrad. Only
+now it was not the mere empty acting of an affected <i>rôle</i>, but the
+outcome of all that her nature still possessed of nobility and
+refinement. Much that had recently dominated her mind became absolutely
+unintelligible to her, especially the tendency caught from her circle
+of regarding everything from an erotic point of view. Amazed, she saw,
+beyond the narrow sphere in which she had revolved, world after world
+opening, so full of glorious and beautiful things to be enjoyed that
+she had hardly time to bemoan and feel ashamed of the past.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was true that when she remembered how she had been bold enough to
+kiss him, hot shame crept over her. She could not help being afraid
+that her behaviour on that occasion must ever remain a blot on his
+image of her. Yet there was not the smallest sign either in word or
+look that he did not reciprocate the reverence and esteem which she
+cherished for him. And this mutual respect always seemed to hang
+between them like a veil, obscuring the beloved one's features in a
+vertigo of happy fears which, however, robbed of their sting her
+self-reproaches for her failings.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">There was to be no mention of love between them. Instead, they carried
+on a tender, almost shy, brother and sister comradeship. The word
+&quot;friendship&quot; was constantly occurring in their conversation; they
+extolled its sacred influence with grave faces without exactly
+understanding what they meant by it.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was hard for her to endure his actual presence. The only caress that
+Konrad permitted himself from time to time was, when they were sitting
+together, to lay his right arm lightly on her shoulder. Though she
+would then have gladly drawn closer to him, she finally moved further
+away, unable to bear the torture of restraint. She never dared
+contemplate for a moment the remotest prospect of their being actually
+lovers. At night, when she couldn't sleep, she was content with
+picturing herself dozing on his shoulder; that was in itself supreme
+bliss enough; her imagination hardly ever strayed into forbidden
+preserves. It was as if her girlhood's modesty, which the sensuality of
+her old husband had so rudely outraged, had come back to throw a
+merciful shroud over her trembling soul. And all the wealth of golden
+thoughts and virginal sensations, the fairy-tale glamour that common
+things irradiated, the amusing importance of every tiny event, the
+delightful expectancy of hoping for she knew not what--all this was
+girlish, and reminded her of long-vanished and forgotten days.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">If she had but known a single human being to whom she could have
+confided all this happiness and folly, how glad it would have made her!
+This desire to tell someone became at last almost uncontrollable. More
+than once she had only just checked herself in time, and nearly told
+Richard her secrets, risking thereby a disastrous ending.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">One day she plucked up heart and journeyed to the south of Berlin to
+tell her former landlady some of the experiences she was passing
+through. The old friendship between them had never quite ceased. Even
+if they rarely saw each other, Lilly had taken care, by sending
+frequent greetings and little presents, to keep herself alive in Frau
+Laue's affectionate remembrance.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The present &quot;young lady&quot; tenant of the best room opened the door to
+her.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Frau Laue sat as usual at the long white work-table, with her damp
+finger-tips tapping energetically among the heaps of pressed flowers
+and the paper lamp-shade lappels. She did not stop tapping when Lilly
+sat down beside her, and pushed the offering of sweets that she never
+forgot to bring in front of her.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;No, thank you, child,&quot; she said. &quot;Every sweet I bite is a flower the
+less. The likes of us can only afford to eat sweets on holidays. We
+have no one, you see, to give us everything heart can desire and keep
+us like princesses. I would like to change places with you for a day,
+before I go down to my grave, just to see what it feels like to have
+nothing to do but go for walks in the morning and feed a pair of
+goldfish.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Is that your idea of happiness?&quot; exclaimed Lilly, with a sigh.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You are never beginning to complain of your lot!&quot; cried Frau Laue
+indignantly. &quot;If I were you I should thank the Lord every hour for
+having given me such a friend.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And you think there is nothing more to wish for?&quot; asked Lilly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What more can anyone want?&quot; she scolded, still tapping. &quot;You can't
+expect him to marry you now. And marriage isn't an enviable estate
+after anyone has gone through the mill you have.... He's sure to make
+you a handsome allowance if you behave yourself, and you'll never
+suffer want to the end of your days.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;So all my hopes are to be centred, then, on a pension?&quot; demanded
+Lilly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Well, why not?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I can think of other more desirable objects in life.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What are they then, eh? Work? Just try it! See what it is to work,
+after living by your emotions for years.... Or perhaps you're thinking
+of taking up with another lover? You'd have a fine time of it if you
+did. Take my advice, child, and never do that, or you'll deserve to
+paste flowers like me, sixteen hours a day till you die.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And while she went on ceaselessly pasting one dried plant after another
+on the gummed paper, she continued to lecture and admonish Lilly
+severely.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly got up to go with a little shiver. Here she had nothing to hope
+for, that was evident. She looked round her, feeling suddenly as if it
+was all strange to her, and said to herself, &quot;I don't think I shall
+ever come here again.&quot;</p>
+
+<hr class="W20">
+
+<p class="normal">The next morning the tormenting desire to unburden her heart to some
+sympathetic ear awoke in her more strongly than ever, and she bethought
+her of Frau Jula.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The clever flighty little woman had been holding aloof from the set
+for some time. No one seemed to know what she was doing; even her
+red-headed admirer had no information to give, and was shy of talking
+about her. Still, Lilly felt sure that the sympathy she needed would be
+forthcoming if she could find her out.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The smart, yellow satin little nest that the red-headed one had fitted
+up for her near Unter den Linden was deserted. The porter told Lilly
+that the &quot;gnädige Frau&quot; had recently moved into the suburbs, as she had
+become nervous of the town. Lilly smiled and asked for her address,
+which was written down for her on a card, and then she set out to call
+on Frau Jula.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">In a quiet wooded neighbourhood, much patronised by poets and
+philosophers, she had taken up her abode in a simple-looking little
+villa, crammed with books and manuscripts and busts of eminent men.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She herself appeared to be greatly changed. Her dark hair, which she
+had worn before in a wild frizz on her forehead, was now parted in the
+middle and smoothly brushed down over her ears in a prim fashion, which
+gave her an alarmingly virtuous air, although this particular style of
+coiffure happened just then to be the rage in circles where virtue for
+æsthetic reasons is not a valuable asset.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Though she welcomed Lilly as usual with outstretched arms, there was a
+want of spontaneity in her manner, and the delight that beamed from her
+eyes seemed rather forced, as if she were thinking of something else.
+Without asking Lilly how she was, or paying any attention to her looks
+or clothes, she poured forth an account of her own affairs.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You'll be awfully surprised, of course,&quot; she said; &quot;but I can't help
+it. I never made any secret to you of my little conscientious scruples,
+which, after all, were superfluous, as I was not so very bad.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Oh really?&quot; thought Lilly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And so you shall be the first of my former friends----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Former?&quot; thought Lilly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;To be told of my return to the bosom of respectability. To cut a long
+story short, I am about to get married.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;To your red-headed boy?&quot; asked Lilly, pleased and sympathetic.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Well, no, not exactly.&quot; She contemplated her fingernails with a
+pleased smile. &quot;He has given his blessing, and there his <i>rôle</i> ends.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Then who is your future husband?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Frau Jula meditated a moment. &quot;It is rather an old story,&quot; she said,
+hesitating. &quot;You couldn't understand it unless you knew more of my
+inner life during the last year or two. Do you happen by any chance to
+have heard of Clarissa von Winkel, the authoress?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly remembered hazily having seen the name in certain old-fashioned
+and puritanical magazines for family reading, which she had glanced
+through for the sake of the pictures in cafés and confectioners' shops.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Well, then, Clarissa von Winkel, who has gained quite a reputation as
+the champion of a sound domestic morality, as opposed to the dangerous
+modern ideas about free-love--that Clarissa von Winkel is myself.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly was far too wrapped up in her own affairs to be able to bestow on
+the humour of these confessions the appreciation they merited, though
+she did experience a faint glimmer of amusement as she realised what
+strange pranks human puppets can be made to play in life's great farce.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Now, don't go and jump to the conclusion that I am converted, and have
+become a prude and a canting bigot, or anything of the kind,&quot; Frau Jula
+went on, with a certain dignity of tone, which became her quite as well
+as her former outspoken cynicism. &quot;There's been no Damascus in my
+career. I have always had, as you know, two selves. One ...&quot; She
+hesitated a moment, &quot;I needn't tell <i>you</i> what it was like.... The
+other craved for propriety, and white damask table-linen.... That is
+why you always attracted me so, my dearest Lilly. I couldn't help
+admiring your refined loyalty. Did I not always impress on you and urge
+you to hold fast, no matter in what circumstance you were placed, to
+this loyalty, which to us women is the crown of life? Don't you
+remember what a point I made of it?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly could not remember, but she remembered a good many other
+sentiments expressed by the lady at different times scarcely in
+accordance with it. Her friend's new outlook on the world seemed ill
+adapted to give her the sympathy she had come to seek in the joyous
+tumult of her present feelings.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Well, to continue my story,&quot; Frau Jula said. &quot;Through getting my
+articles and stories easily accepted, especially when I submitted them
+to editors in person, I found myself on the road to making a nice
+little fortune. My red-headed boy became merely a decorative appendage.
+For that is where virtue scores; it pays so much better than vice if
+you know the right way to set about it.&quot; There she slid her little
+tongue along her red lips, in her old arch manner, though her face
+remained immovably demure. &quot;It was in the business of disposing of my
+work that I met my intended husband. I have got a divorce from the
+first brute at last.... He--this one--is the editor of a lady's paper
+just started, which caters for quiet domestic and housewifely tastes.
+It has got heaps of advertisements already. He is a man of high
+intellectual endowments and strictly moral principles, which, as you
+perceive, have not been without influence on myself.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">So saying, she made a little double chin and folded her hands piously
+in her lap.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And, if I may ask, how did you manage to break with your old friend?&quot;
+questioned Lilly at length, almost forgetting her own trials in these
+extraordinary confidences.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Break with him?... What are you talking about?&quot; Jula answered
+suddenly, radiant again with foolish frivolity. &quot;I couldn't be guilty
+of such heartlessness, and when I said just now that his <i>rôle</i> had
+ended, I didn't mean you to take it literally.... What on earth would
+the poor fellow do with his dyspeptic liver if I did not now and then
+invite him to a family dinner? In the first place, I have sworn
+solemnly to my future husband that my red-headed boy has never been
+anything more to me than a brother. Yes, we women can swear things like
+that, and not even blush in the process.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly nodded thoughtfully. She, too, on a certain evening, would have
+taken any oath that had been desired of her.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And, secondly, I tell you in confidence that he has contributed
+generously towards founding the new magazine. So the two are, as it
+were, colleagues and partners. I arranged matters thus intentionally,
+for I thought that it would be the best guarantee of the continuance of
+amicable relations all round. You needn't open your eyes so wide, my
+dear. Life is made up of compromises. Every bird feathers its own nest.
+Pray don't think I am afraid of disclosures and revelations. I shrug my
+shoulders at the notion of such a thing. You know tragedy is a matter
+of taste. I abhor it, so there's no tragedy in my philosophy. I say to
+myself, it's safe to smile perpetually so long as you are made of iron
+underneath.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly felt slightly disgusted.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;If it is at such a price as this,&quot; she thought, &quot;that one purges one's
+life of tragedy, I would rather stick to unhappiness and leave
+happiness alone.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She rose to go.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">However much this small creature might surpass her in strength of mind
+and will-power, so that she now stood with both feet firmly planted on
+the rock of an honourable life, she was no longer a suitable friend for
+Lilly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;At all events,&quot; she said aloud, &quot;I hope that your trust won't be
+misplaced.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Frau Jula waved her hand in the air.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Bah!&quot; she sneered. &quot;Men are all alike. Those who know the world are
+devourers of women; those who don't are imbeciles. I can get on with
+both classes.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;There is possibly a third,&quot; Lilly put in, annoyed. She felt as if
+Konrad had been insulted.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Possibly,&quot; responded Frau Jula, with a shrug of the shoulders. &quot;I
+don't know it.&quot; And then, putting both hands round Lilly's waist, she
+said: &quot;Tell me honestly, child; when you see me as I am now, and
+compare me with what I was, does it strike you that I am posing?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;To speak the truth,&quot; Lilly confessed, &quot;it did at first.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Frau Jula sighed, &quot;It is difficult to grow accustomed to a dress which
+was not made for you.... Every one of us has a certain moral ambition;
+no one more than the so-called immoral person. But I would like to know
+one thing: whether my past sins or my present virtues are more to my
+credit.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She smiled up at Lilly with a melancholy but mischievous face.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly answered nothing. Beyond this little self-satisfied madcap she
+saw rising her own fate, dark and threatening as a thunder-cloud.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">When she was once more in the street, her restlessness and sense of
+isolation took stronger possession of her than before. And yet she was
+thankful that she had kept silent. She knew full well that if she had
+submitted the portrait of her beloved to Frau Jula's acute judgment it
+would have been returned to her desecrated. And now she faced the fact
+that there was absolutely no one left in whom she could confide.</p>
+
+<hr class="W20">
+
+<p class="normal">A few days later, however, in glancing, as she was in the habit of
+doing, through the morning paper, her eye alighted on a passage that
+awoke a ray of hope in her soul:</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;St. Joseph's Chapel, Müllerstrasse. Vespers and Benediction&quot; at
+such-and-such an hour.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Her old, long-forgotten friend and counsellor was, then, still living!
+He had his own church, even here in cold hardhearted heretical Berlin.
+In all these years she had never entered a church. Since, acting on the
+advice of Fräulein von Schwertfeger, she had joined the Protestants in
+worship, she had regarded herself as an apostate from the true Church,
+and had not dared to seek solace in religion, and now she had become a
+regular infidel. Yet the sight of the name of St. Joseph in the paper
+touched a soft warm place in her heart.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Her feelings were as if, after long wanderings in foreign lands, she
+had suddenly caught sight in the alien crowd of a dear long-lost home
+face. Now she knew to whom she might turn, without any fear of being
+misunderstood and sent empty away. Even if the great philosophers had
+demolished him a thousand times over, he was still there, ready to
+receive the outpourings of her poor silly overflowing heart.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Müllerstrasse lay somewhere in an extreme northerly direction; it was
+in &quot;Franz-Josef Land,&quot; the owner of a fruit and vegetable stall, of
+whom she made inquiries, informed her. The way led through a network of
+narrow streets, from one electric tram to another, past the Reichstag
+buildings, the Lessing Theatre, along an interminable tree-flanked
+road; and beyond the Weddingplatz, which Berliners regard as the end of
+everywhere, the Müllerstrasse began.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">No one seemed to have heard of a chapel dedicated to St. Joseph, not
+even people who lived in the neighbourhood. At last someone she asked
+said he thought there was a Catholic place up there in a yard, and
+after a little further exploration she found what she sought. It was a
+low iron building shaped like a shovel, between flowering shrubs, with
+high tenements surrounding it. The side door was open, and garlands of
+pine bid her &quot;Welcome.&quot; She entered a plain whitewashed hall, filled
+with the odour of incense, laurel, and new pinewood. In the background
+was an alcove decorated to resemble a starry canopy. Behind the wooden
+balustrade that separated the pictureless chancel from the rest of the
+building rose two magnificent feathery palms. The low rolling tones of
+an organ proceeded from the loft; the organist had probably lingered
+behind after the funeral to improvise dreamily at the instrument.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly's eyes wandered anxiously over the walls in quest of the shrine
+of her saint. She wondered if he held up his finger here in smiling
+warning, as did the kind old gentleman of St. Ann's in her native town.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">There was no room for side altars, as every inch of space was filled
+with benches. But that big picture over there in tawdry gilt frame,
+with a console-table beneath piled with dusty nosegays, was that----?
+She started back, shocked. Her saint, her own dear beloved saint was
+simply absurd, with his sharp-featured, wax-doll's face, his flaxen
+beard and seraphically pious smile. An infant Jesus in pink sat
+triumphal on one arm, while in his other hand he daintily clasped a
+spray of lilies. And pity succeeded her horror. How far behind her, how
+infinitely far away, was the time when one could worship and pray for
+miracles to a saint like this!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Could her good, faithful monitor in St. Ann's have been like this? She
+hardly dared think of such a thing. He couldn't; no, he couldn't have
+been so insipid and ridiculous. One place on earth must remain to which
+one's memory in hours of smiling pensive melancholy might return on
+holy pilgrimages. The organ began the prelude to an exquisite mass of
+Scarlatti's with which Lilly had been familiar in her girlhood, and so
+gradually she became more at home in the little chapel.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She knelt on a bench at the back, shut her eyes, and tried to fancy
+that instead of this flaxen-haired caricature her real old friend was
+looking down on her.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">A saying of St. Thomas Aquinas came into her head that she had learnt
+in class when a child: &quot;Other saints have been given the power by God
+to help us in certain circumstances, but to St. Joseph has been granted
+the power to help us no matter what our need may be.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Such a power he had once had in her life. So she spoke to him again for
+the last time across the waste of years that separated her from the
+altar in St. Ann's. She was sure it would be the last time, because for
+such childish things there could no longer be room in her soul. And as
+she felt it was a farewell talk, she related, without reserve,
+everything that had happened to her: how supremely happy she had
+become; how she felt an awakening of new life within her, and her dead
+self blossoming forth afresh, while the whole of creation seemed one
+great symphony of joy. And she told him, too, of the gross deception
+she was forced to practise, of her fear of discovery, and of the
+delicious expectant tremors for which she could find no name.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Then she added that she no longer had any faith in him, and was, to all
+intents and purposes, an atheist. Feeling reconciled, she placed the
+carnations she had brought as an offering to the poor saint among the
+dusty nosegays, and with a lighter heart went out, laughing, to meet
+the spring that laughed at her.</p>
+
+<hr class="W20">
+
+<p class="normal">There was not only this new-born Lilly who rode on the crest of the
+wave far above all earthly cares and annoyances, but another Lilly, who
+every other night enchanted her old set with her triumphant humour, her
+<i>élan</i>, and brilliant wit, which amazed and took everyone by storm.
+Richard, when he came to tea in the afternoon, never ceased to wonder
+at the change in her. Instead of the gloomy listlessness, which had
+characterised her for so long, he found her sprightly and full of gay
+pranks, a creature of surprises, never still for a moment.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He accustomed himself readily to this new aspect of her being, though
+it slightly abashed him, owing to his inability to keep pace with her;
+and he praised the magical effects of the new tonic, hæmatogen, which
+the doctor, with a knowing twinkle in his eye, had prescribed this
+spring instead of iron.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Every night that they went out together on pleasure bent, the same
+little comedy was enacted. At first she would say that she had caught
+cold, or had a headache, that she was not in a mood for meeting people;
+but when once he had prevailed on her to come, she would play with her
+admirers as if they were puppies, and tell her lady friends things to
+their faces that filled them with nervous gratification. Sometimes, it
+is true, she would sit apart in sulky self-absorption, lost in dreams,
+though now, if anyone teased her for doing it, she neither blushed nor
+looked uncomfortable, but made such sharp, stinging repartees that the
+men retired and hid their diminished heads. Only once during this
+period did she drink herself into a light-headed condition, and that
+happened to be on the very day that she at last decided to tell Richard
+about her new friend. She had grappled with the question for two
+months. It would have to be done in the end, but indecision as to how
+she should do it made her put it off from day to day.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She was helped in her quandary by chance. One day Richard brought her
+some sketches of vases about which he wanted her opinion, and forgot to
+take them away with him when he left. Afterwards Konrad came across
+them, and with a few swift pencil-strokes inserted the outline which
+was in the original draft, but which the artist had omitted in
+developing the plan. The next day Richard was utterly astonished to
+find that the corrections had been made, and so accurately. Who was
+responsible for them? Lilly, with recollections of her bungled
+glass-plaque painting, dared not say that she was, and courageously
+took the bull by the horns.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;My art history master made the corrections,&quot; she said.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;How long have you had an art history master?&quot; he asked with round
+severe eyes.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">To his surprise and consternation, she began to rate him soundly. She
+asked if he expected her to spend a miserable barren and frivolous
+existence till the end of her days. Did he think it was a crime for a
+woman of no occupation to try and improve her mind a little, so that
+she might be clever enough to talk to a sensible man like him and his
+associates? Surely that was better than spending all her time on gossip
+and finery, and going to the dogs dressed up like a frivolous doll.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The phrase, &quot;a sensible man like you,&quot; mollified him considerably.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It's all very well,&quot; he said in a milder tone, &quot;but why not have told
+me before?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She now began a long story.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She had seen an advertisement about six weeks ago in the <i>Lokal
+Anzeiger</i>, in which an erudite young scholar offered his services as
+coach to ladies and gentlemen with a thirst for self-improvement. She
+had answered it, and the scholar had come and arranged a course of
+lessons forthwith. It had led to a friendship between master and
+pupil--of a purely platonic nature, of course. She had made up her
+mind, she said, not to tell him, being afraid of exciting his jealousy,
+till she was able to convince him of the absolute disinterestedness of
+her intellectual endeavours by proving their success.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He knit his brow, and a sardonic smile, which she could not account
+for, played about his lips.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;So you have got a young scholar for a friend again?&quot; he asked, leaning
+his head on one side and winking at her.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes, and I am proud of it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I suppose he's going to be Regius professor?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;He hasn't made up his mind what he's going to be.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;He is extremely brilliant, intellectual, and superior, I presume?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She cast up her eyes ecstatically. &quot;I should think so. I have never met
+anyone like him.&quot; She stopped short, horrified at her own indiscretion.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Ha! ha! I see,&quot; he said, as if some long-cherished suspicion had been
+confirmed. &quot;I see,&quot; and he got very red, and gnawed his moustache.
+&quot;Didn't I say what it would be?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You are jealous!&quot; she cried. She felt herself writhing under a
+shameful injustice.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Without another word he departed, scowling. An hour later a parcel from
+Liebert &amp; Dehnicke's was left at the door. As she opened it, a light
+suit which she had seen Richard wear the summer before fell out. The
+note that accompanied the parcel ran as follows:</p>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;<span class="sc">Darling Lilly</span>,</p>
+
+<p class="normal" style="text-indent:5%">&quot;You see that I am true to my promise of coming to the assistance of
+your intellectual affinities with cast-off wearing apparel. I shall be
+happy, too, to send another supply of old boots to help them on their
+road to success. This will show you how jealous I am.</p>
+
+
+<p style="text-indent:60%; margin-bottom:0px">&quot;Yours,</p>
+
+<p style="text-indent:65%; margin-top:2px">&quot;<span class="sc">Richard</span>.&quot;</p>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">That same evening she was in such exuberant spirits that she drank wine
+immoderately; and never, not even when she had danced for Dr. Salmoni's
+delectation, had she let herself go with such unbridled abandon and
+exercised her art of mimicry with wilder <i>éclat</i>.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">To wind up with, she danced on the top of the tables, joined together,
+a Salome dance which was just then the rage. She accompanied herself
+through her clenched teeth with quaint Eastern snatches of melody.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What on earth is that gibberish?&quot; the spectators asked each other.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Afterwards, when they put the question to her herself, she was
+incapable of giving an answer. Insensible, she heard and saw nothing
+more.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+
+<h2>CHAPTER XV</h2>
+<br>
+
+<p class="continue">The big railway station's grimy glass roof was pierced by
+the peaceful
+golden light of a June Sabbath morning. Beneath the three bold archways
+that led into the open air such masses of blue ether seemed to be
+concentrated that, as the trains passed under them, it was like being
+precipitated into a sun-drenched sea. Ribbons from girls' smart hats
+fluttered against the Sunday coats of their swains, each of whom
+appeared to think himself an indispensable master of the revels.
+Athletic and boating clubs were represented in the crowd, smoking clubs
+and music societies, and one warehouse's whole staff of clerks was
+there.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Through the excited holiday throng a quiet, happy pair, looking round
+them cautiously and keeping at a judicious distance from each other, so
+that it might be doubted whether they were together, made their way to
+a carriage in the front part of the train. Lilly walked ahead, and
+again and again she saw the faces of people coming towards her grow
+rigid with an almost solemn awe as they regarded her--a mute homage to
+which she was used, but which had never filled her with so much
+satisfaction as to-day, when she was followed by the only man in the
+world in whose eyes she cared to be pleasing.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">In his honour she was dressed entirely in festive white, a linen coat
+and skirt, a soft lawn blouse, and a wide straw hat draped with a white
+lace veil which shaded her brow, and beneath which her burnished brown
+hair projected in great glossy waves. On her arm she carried a white
+woollen shawl as a protection against the chilly night air, for it had
+been agreed between them that they were not to worry about catching
+certain trains home, but were to stay in the country till they were
+tired of it.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">They sat opposite each other in the corner seats of a third-class
+compartment, without speaking. Together they were travelling into an
+undiscovered land. &quot;Trust yourself to my guidance,&quot; he had said, &quot;and I
+will give you a surprise. We are going on a voyage of discovery. I am
+not in the least certain where the place is; if I were, it wouldn't be
+a voyage of discovery.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">This sensation of being led like a little child was a new and exquisite
+joy. After an hour's journey, when the carriage had emptied, he signed
+to her to get out.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Where are we?&quot; she asked.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Does that matter?&quot; he rejoined.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He was right. What did it matter?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She did not even look to see what the name of the station was, and they
+walked out of it into the main street of a bare little country town. On
+the front of the yellow houses the sunlight lay like a soothing hand.
+The low doors of the shops were locked, and half of the poor goods
+displayed in the windows was covered by a sheet to show that it was
+Sunday. Organ-notes sounded round street corners like sighing winds. A
+turkey-cock came strutting consequentially from under a gateway and
+gobbled at them; and then there were no more organ-notes ...</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Houses were gradually left behind. A whiff of ripening grain came from
+the fields, but the pungent fragrance of the yellow lupins outscented
+it. All round them were meadows carpeted with white and pink tufts of
+clover, and, beyond, dark firs rose on the slopes of sandy hills.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The road was shadeless, but they tramped along it gaily, and little
+columns of silvery dust whirled in front of them. He knew everything,
+and nothing escaped his keenly observant eye. He pointed out a wild
+rabbit flicking the white underpart of its tail impertinently as it
+scampered away with comical self-importance. Every moment there was
+something fresh to look at.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Since her married days at Lischnitz Castle, Lilly had never seen the
+spring blossom forth in the pure open country.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Ah! if then I had had him for my guide,&quot; she thought, &quot;all would have
+been different.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">As they entered the warm shade of the pine-woods, a squirrel ran almost
+over their feet and darted a few feet up a tree, where it paused and
+sat motionless, as if turned to stone.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">They looked at each other, both thinking of the moment that had first
+brought them together.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly went close up to the little animal, but he did not stir.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I feel as if I were on enchanted ground,&quot; she said; &quot;if he began to
+talk to us I shouldn't be surprised.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She threw herself down, with a sigh of content, on the grey cushiony
+moss.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He followed her example. Shading their eyes with their hands, they lay
+on their backs and blinked at the sunshine flickering down on them
+through the branches. They had nearly forgotten the squirrel, when
+suddenly, close above them, he made a whistling sound, and then
+scuttled for his life further up the tree to the topmost branches.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The scared little fellow had been staring at them all the time, not
+daring to move until now.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Do you see?&quot; Konrad said. &quot;As long as our human language sounds in
+their ears, they'll take care to have nothing to do with us.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;All the same, we are bewitched here,&quot; she said, laughing. &quot;I've never
+before lain so luxuriously on the moss and had the sun shine on me so;
+have you?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes, once,&quot; he answered. &quot;I remember it quite well.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;When did you, and where?&quot; she demanded instantly, jealous of any
+moment of happiness in his life that she had not created for him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Oh, there's not much to tell about it,&quot; he said. &quot;It was at Ravello,
+perched like a gull's nest high up on the rocks above the sea, not far
+from Amalfi--just about there is a fairy-land of magic country. Picture
+old Moorish palaces half deserted and half lived in; marble courtyards
+shut in by trellises; ruined fountains, with myrtle and laurel growing
+in profusion, and little white climbing-roses trailing over every nook
+and cranny. There was one place I would have given anything to get
+inside ... It was a small mysterious gallery standing out against the
+deep blue sky like a web of silver filigree. So once when there
+was no one about--only a handful of olive-gatherers live in the
+neighbourhood--I behaved like a schoolboy, and climbed the great iron
+gate as high as a house, bar by bar, up one side and down on the
+other.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Oh, how splendid!&quot; cried Lilly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes. I got inside. And when I had examined all the gorgeous details
+with a professional eye, I threw myself full length on the warm stone
+steps, and let the sun bake me through; just in the same position as we
+are lying in here now under these Brandenburg pines. And--would you
+believe it?--the little bluish-green lizards that you are so fond of
+came and slowly and cautiously crawled all over me.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Oh, how heavenly!&quot; cried Lilly in rapture.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And while I lay there, with the old marble fountain making music in my
+ears, I fell fast asleep. But I had better have left going to sleep
+alone, because there's a risk of getting sunstroke even in mid-winter.
+I should in all probability have been a victim, if some tourists hadn't
+come and thrown sticks and stones at me. Everything looked red and swam
+before my eyes. To climb back over the gate was out of the question.
+The key had to be fetched from the Sindaco, and subsequently I had to
+appear before him and give an account of myself. But, thank goodness,
+they didn't lock me up for trespassing, because all the witnesses
+tapped their foreheads and said '<i>è matto</i>'--'he's mad.'&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Never mind,&quot; she laughed. &quot;You at least got your way, and saw the
+inside of the forbidden garden. Many people have to be satisfied with
+standing outside and looking through the railings.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;That's a pleasure that may be ours to-day,&quot; he remarked. And she had
+to restrain her curiosity.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It doesn't hurt, at any rate,&quot; he went on, &quot;to practise now and then
+standing outside. For God knows that generally the happiness we happen
+to be craning our necks to reach is a forbidden garden.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly gazed at him in alarm. What did he mean by that? Then their eyes
+met in shy understanding. The disquieting expectancy to which she was
+afraid to give a name crept over her suddenly like an ague.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Let us go on,&quot; she said, springing to her feet, and she walked on
+rapidly without looking round to see if he followed.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The woods grew clearer. They came to a little swampy coppice where
+silver birches shot up their slender trunks gaily from mossy pedestals.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The hot midday air stirred in tiny wavelets. Somewhere not far off
+church-bells were ringing, but no farmstead was in sight, and suddenly
+they found themselves at diverging paths without knowing which
+direction to take.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;A decision is called for,&quot; he said, and strained his ears for a moment
+in the quarter whence the sound of church-bells came.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I wish with all my heart,&quot; he added, &quot;that there was a bell ringing
+thus to guide me on my road in life.&quot; And he turned to the right.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Then he told her that he was standing figuratively at cross-roads. He
+had been offered a post which, considering how young he was, ought not
+to be scoffed at; but before accepting he was bound to consider whether
+it would interfere with the progress of his life's work.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It's a very good post, I suppose?&quot; Lilly asked proudly. If he had been
+appointed minister of the fine arts or Emperor of China she would not
+have thought it in the least extraordinary. But he seemed disinclined
+to say more.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I would rather talk to you about it when it's settled one way or the
+other,&quot; he replied. And she was perforce satisfied.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Red-tiled roofs appeared above the bushes, and the mirror-like surface
+of a lake made a shining line against the horizon.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Is that where we're going?&quot; asked Lilly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It may be,&quot; he answered.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Oh, don't be so mysterious,&quot; she scolded him in fun. &quot;I've been very
+good in not asking questions. But now I really must insist on your
+telling me what your programme is.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes, when we've got there,&quot; he laughed. &quot;I know you, and don't want to
+make you jealous before the right moment.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Could it be that there was another woman in the case?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Another woman? She did not betray her emotion, but as they walked on
+she felt quite faint--partly from hunger and partly from mental
+distress. The lake now lay before them in its early summer beauty, with
+its greenish-grey girdle of reeds and rushes, and lights and shadows
+flitting across it.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">A little distance from the bank, on a shrubby slope, was the inn,
+with &quot;Logierhotel&quot; printed on its signboard. It was one of those
+orange-brick monstrosities built in the barbarous palatial-barn style.
+But round it three or four ancient lime-trees spread their wide shady
+branches, and they seated themselves on a white bench beneath them,
+their mood harmonising with the scene.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">To their left the lake stretched away into the hazy distance; on their
+right, beyond the reeds and sedges of the shore, was a tiny village
+with moss-green thatched roofs, and a stumpy, storm-beaten spire half
+hidden among reeds and bushes. And close to them, not a hundred steps
+from where they sat in the shade of the limes, there rose the wooded
+slopes and mighty tree-tops of an ancestral park, from the interior of
+which they caught the gleam of pillars, bridges, and white, vine-clad
+balustrades. Very likely that was the forbidden garden, outside the
+gates of which they were to stand to-day. How charming! how mysterious!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Anglers came up from the lake, scarlet of face and panting with thirst,
+and these apparently were the only guests at the inn besides
+themselves, for the Sunday stream of excursionists had not yet begun to
+flow in the direction of this quiet nook.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The bill of fare which the landlady, equipped with all the wiles she
+had acquired in the capital, smilingly handed to them presented a
+dazzling abundance of good things. It was too bad that they all came
+together. Lilly was asked to choose, but declined. Thoughts of the
+strange woman who was certainly in the case depressed her. And she only
+saw the laughing world, which threw its early summer gifts at their
+feet so bountifully, through a mist of suppressed tears.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Here we are at last,&quot; she said, sighing. &quot;So you may as well confess:
+what sort of woman is she?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He laughed heartily. &quot;So you've guessed, have you, that it <i>is</i> a
+woman?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;If not, why should I be jealous?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I must admit you have every cause. I never set eyes on anything more
+beautiful; the only pity is, that she is marble.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Oh! then that's all it was!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I am and always shall be a silly,&quot; she said, laughing from relief, and
+he kissed her hand in contrition.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">While they were waiting for the fish which they had ordered, he told
+her the story of how they came to be making their present pilgrimage.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He had one day, during his sojourn in Rome, seen in the window of an
+art-dealer's shop the antique cast of a woman's head, much damaged, but
+of such inspiring and sombre beauty that he went again and again day
+after day to feast his eyes upon it. And one morning he found the owner
+of the shop and a German gentleman standing in the doorway engaged in a
+lively conversation, which, however, did not progress, as neither of
+them understood what the other was talking about. He offered his
+services as interpreter, and to his chagrin learned that the subject of
+discussion was his favourite bust, which the German, a courteous and
+cultivated country gentleman, wished to purchase. Setting aside his own
+feelings, Konrad assisted in concluding the bargain on the Baron's
+behalf, and had received an invitation from him to visit his house on
+returning to Germany, in order that he might see the marble bust
+adorning his park, and convince himself that its new surroundings were
+not unworthy of its beauty.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Oh! so the garden isn't forbidden after all?&quot; cried Lilly, holding out
+her arms ecstatically towards the green mysterious barriers. &quot;We may
+just walk straight in.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Konrad's face became thoughtful. &quot;It's not so simple as that,&quot; he said,
+&quot;for how should I introduce you? You are not my wife.... Only between
+ourselves you are my sister, and we are too young to trump up any other
+plausible relationship.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">A sudden bitterness welled up within her. Once more she felt despised
+and rejected, ostracised from honourable society.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You should have left me at home,&quot; she broke out. &quot;I am only an
+encumbrance to you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Ah, Lilly,&quot; he said, &quot;what do I really care about marble busts? I
+would rather stand behind the fence with you than have the run of the
+whole park without you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She caressed his hand, as it hung by his side, mollified and grateful.
+And then at last the carp came.</p>
+
+<hr class="W20">
+
+<p class="normal">Two hours later they were pacing along a seemingly endless wall, half
+as high again as a man, with no break in it to peep through. &quot;Not till
+they came to the corner of the park where the wall ended did they find
+a less impenetrable, high, moss-grown fence, which ran along to the
+right. Now through the gaps they could get a view of the interior.
+Venerable plane-branches formed arches over shady nooks, with groups of
+oaks and limes between. The open grassy lawns were banked with
+rhododendrons, the blossoms of which looked like violet eyes. On a
+knoll in the background, a little round temple with Tuscan columns and
+a shining green roof looked solemnly out of its dark surrounding
+cypresses.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;She must be in there,&quot; Konrad said. But the little temple was empty,
+so they prosecuted their search further afield. Not a single opening in
+the foliage escaped their vigilance. Here and there statues gleamed, a
+Ceres, a Satyr playing on his flute, and in a cypress thicket they
+caught a glimpse of a shrine of the Virgin, but nowhere did they see a
+sign of the strange, beautiful woman's head they were looking for.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">They went on. A stream ran out from the park across the road, spanned
+by a rough plank such as is to be met with in any country lane. But a
+hundred paces away, inside the park, was another snow-white glistening
+bridge, throwing its graceful arch boldly over the water.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The Venetian bridges are like that,&quot; he said.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Across such a bridge the gods entered Walhalla,&quot; she sighed.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">They stood still and conjured up the joy of crossing that bridge. But
+still they could not get on the track of the marble bust.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Beyond the plank bridge, where the village began, the park receded some
+way from the lane. A row of Weymouth pines flanked the inner side of
+the fence. The quaint village street was gay with Sunday festivities.
+Dancing was going on to the accompaniment of piano and fiddles, and
+somewhere bowls were rolling merrily; but they passed without taking
+any notice of these things, for all their interest was still centred on
+the forbidden garden. Every moment it drew them with more compelling
+charms. Crumbling gate-posts were half-hidden among the village
+lime-trees, and the palings were so rotten they hardly held together.
+At this spot the foliage on the inner side was quite impenetrable to
+the eye. Trunk was garlanded to trunk by growths of clematis and ivy,
+and lilac and spiræa bushes were massed underneath. It looked as if the
+master of the garden had, in addition to a stone wall, drawn a living
+one around his demesne to hedge in himself and his family in happy
+seclusion.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">For a long time they walked on without being rewarded by another
+glimpse of the inside of the park. Then unexpectedly they came to an
+old three-cornered gateway which, with its vases and pillars, its
+cracked belfry and lacework of latticed railings, was half buried in
+blossoming acacias.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Here at last they got an uninterrupted view of the inside of the park.
+A straight avenue of pines led in solemn dignity up to the castle, but
+even at this favourable standpoint nothing of its architecture was
+revealed to their gaze. Trees and bushes hid it from view. The only bit
+of stone-work their eager eyes discerned was a flight of steps on the
+columns of which marble nymphs raised aloft their snow-white wings.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Isn't that lovely?&quot; Lilly murmured with a sigh; and thrusting her face
+through the iron bars, she whimpered and begged playfully to be let in.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;That is exactly how I stood, outside the gate at Ravello,&quot; he said.
+&quot;Now you know what it is like.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">As he said this, it struck her that the sensation of being shut out
+somewhere was familiar to her too. She knew as well as he did what it
+was like. But where was it that cold iron had pressed her cheeks
+before?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Ah! now she recollected. Had she not many a time stood without the
+latticed door which barred the staircase to the private part of
+Liebert &amp; Dehnicke's warehouse? That pretentious, proud, forbidding
+laurel-flanked ascent, which her unholy feet might never tread?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It, too, was a forbidden garden. Forbidden gardens abounded everywhere,
+it seemed!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I think we had better give it up,&quot; she said softly; &quot;it only makes our
+hearts ache.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">So hand-in-hand they wandered back along the path they had come, close
+to the fence, and talked persistently of other things. And yet their
+eyes still lingered longingly in the neighbourhood of the park, and the
+aspiration they both felt, but did not express for fear of hinting
+reproaches, gilded everything with a fairy-tale glamour.</p>
+
+<hr class="W20">
+
+<p class="normal">Evening came. Violet mists hung over the meadows, and the
+copper-coloured trunks of the pines glowed like torches. The deeper the
+setting sun sank into the reeds and rushes, the more the lake lost its
+cool, blue, silvery sheen, and took on a network of ruddy gold. It
+looked now as if it bore on its face the sparkling fulfilment of all
+earthly promises.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Neither of them could tolerate being on shore any longer.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">A boat lay at anchor by the hotel's bathing pavilion, where in the cool
+of the evening happy bathers were splashing, and they hired it for a
+mere song. Konrad took the oars and Lilly seated herself at the stern.
+All kinds of water-flowers rose with a swish lightly to the surface as
+the boat cut through a carpet of sedges. Mingled with the young green
+of the sprouting reeds were the brown battered remnants of last year's
+growth; stately bulrushes bordered the banks, and the water flag
+planted her golden tents between them. Like huge dense walls of purple,
+the park's wealth of timber rose high against the sky.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">When Lilly pointed this out, Konrad shook his head and said: &quot;It's no
+good thinking any more about it.&quot; But, nevertheless, he kept casting
+glances in that direction.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly had scarcely ever been in a boat, and soon gave up steering as a
+bad job. She spread her shawl at the bottom of the boat and made
+herself a comfortable soft nest, into which she retired.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Crouched at Konrad's feet, she lay there with her back against the seat
+in the stern. And thus, her eyes dreamily fixed on blue space, she
+began to build castles in the air about her future, devising plans by
+which, with a bound, she was to swing herself back into the midst of
+respectability.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She would give music lessons--she was good enough for beginners--and
+with the proceeds prepare herself for the stage, for which she had a
+decided talent.... Or perhaps it would be wiser to go in for science,
+to train her mind so that it might not lag behind his. She must be
+intellectual enough to deserve his friendship so long as he desired her
+to be his friend. Or--so that no harm should happen to anyone else--she
+would go abroad and teach German, and come back a new and regenerated
+woman at his summons. Or ... Ah! what? Or ... or ... lie and dream, and
+drain the happiness of the hour to the dregs. Exposure and death--one
+must entail the other--would come time enough....</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The sun went down, melting into a blood-red haze. Nearness and distance
+were now veiled in violet mists. The whole globe seemed to be diluted
+into light and air, the reeds alone, with their slender black stems
+latticing the evening afterglow, retained an earthly corporeal form.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The foliage of the park gradually melted into a dark undefined mass.
+More than ever did it now seem to be a forbidden garden, filled with
+thrills and mysteries, sinking for ever into the unattainable.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">As the boat glided along the edge of the reeds, it suddenly drifted
+near a blue bay, which cut like a wedge into the land on the park side,
+so far in that it was impossible to see where it ended. For a moment
+Konrad rested on his oars motionless, then he sprang to his feet with a
+cry of delight.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What is it?&quot; she asked.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You remember we saw a stream flowing out of the park on the village
+side?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Of course I do.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It must have flowed in somewhere, mustn't it?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Why, yes.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He pointed with his hand to the gleaming bay's narrowing tip.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;There's the place!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And do you really think that at last we have ...&quot; She dared not
+suggest it.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;If we like, we can in this boat traverse the whole unexplored region
+by water.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">In her childlike jubilation she jumped up with an exclamation, and
+simply fell on his neck as if it was a natural thing to do, and they
+had never made any platonic vows.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Slowly the boat drifted on with the current--between meadows lined with
+weeping willows, where the evening mist hung like white scarves.
+Peasants' cottages stood near, with fishing-nets spread out over the
+fences. Then, at a bend in the stream, a dark gateway of foliage opened
+like a huge vault in front of them.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Oh, goodness!&quot; cried Lilly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Hush!&quot; he whispered, in pretended awe. &quot;Now we must be as quiet as
+mice, or we shall get turned out for trespassing, after all.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And the dip of his oars became so stealthy that it might have been
+taken for the splash of a leaping fish.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Thus they rowed under the triumphal arch of leaves which thickly
+interlaced overhead. It was pitch dark close around them, though here
+and there from the right bank came an occasional gleam of summer
+twilight. Lamplights, too, twinkled in the distance, and they could
+catch the hum of voices, the clink of glasses, and now and then a stray
+chord struck on the piano. The foliage parted, and an unimpeded view of
+the castle lay before them. It was a wide, two-storeyed, box-like
+structure, its ponderous simplicity dating from a period when the
+grandees of Brandenburg still possessed little sense of the artistic.
+But on the stone steps gleamed the marble nymphs that had greeted them
+in the afternoon, and beyond their white bodies one saw on the terrace
+itself a long table, round which was gathered, in the flickering
+lamplight, a chattering, laughing party, passing gaily with song and
+wine the intoxicating summer evening.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And he might be sitting there too,&quot; thought Lilly, &quot;if I were not
+hanging like a millstone about his neck,&quot; and she felt almost as if she
+must apologise to him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">They drifted quickly by on the current, and like the vision of a moment
+the banquet vanished from their sight. They passed the brightly lighted
+windows of the castle kitchen and offices, where servants flitted to
+and fro like ministering spirits, and glided again into silence and
+darkness. To their right, at the back of the house with its countless
+windows, was a grass plot bordered with old statues and ivy-draped
+urns; on their left everything was plunged in shadow. Here was an
+avenue of century-old limes running along the bank of the stream, every
+ray of light extinguished in its dark depths.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Maybe somewhere near here stood the marble head they longed to find.
+Lilly's eyes searched every corner furtively, as if she scrupled to
+deprive him of the joy of discovery.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The arched bridge, which they had admired earlier in the day, now
+gleamed at them again out of the dusk. It evidently did not lead to
+Walhalla, but to an islet of spiræa and hemp bushes, under the branches
+of which a pair of swans were roosting. At the sound of the oars they
+awoke, and with flapping wings pursued the boat, opening their beaks
+for bread.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Swans! the one touch that was wanted to make everything perfect!&quot;
+Lilly exclaimed jubilantly. &quot;I wish I had some crumbs to give them.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She turned her head to look after the swans, and her neck rested
+against his knees.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;May I stay like this?&quot; she asked a little nervously.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes, if it's comfortable,&quot; he answered; and there was a caressing
+yielding in his tone that sent a warm glow through her limbs.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She took off her hat, not to crush it, and laid it on the seat in the
+stern. Now her head was free to lean too against him lightly, and in
+sweet anxiety she felt his hand rest for a moment tenderly on her hair.
+Yet he was silent and preoccupied, as if some burden were weighing on
+his mind, which he could not throw off. And again she felt as she had
+often felt before, as if a veil hung between him and herself--a veil
+that seldom lifted, and obscured from her the true characteristics of
+his nature, much as she clung to him in loving intimacy.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Oh, if only he would be merry!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The park came to an end, and the red after-glow, no longer hidden by
+walls of foliage, flamed in full glory over them. The spell threatened
+to be broken. The world of magic became almost ordinary.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Come, let us turn round,&quot; she begged softly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And they turned the boat's head and rowed again into the dreamy bliss
+of semi-darkness.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But now he had to strike out with a will, because they were rowing
+against the current, and he could not prevent his oars from splashing
+audibly in the water.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;We shan't get off. They will catch us now!&quot; he said.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Oh, but they are far too happy,&quot; she replied, &quot;to be down on other
+happy people.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes, it looks almost like an enchanted castle; but--who knows? it may
+be a snare and a delusion.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Why should it be?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Ah, God knows!... Bleeding wounds can be hidden under flowers, and the
+beauty with which a man may surround himself is often deceptive.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">This scepticism displeased her.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;They must be happy!&quot; she cried; &quot;they who have given us so much to-day
+must have enough for themselves too.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It, doesn't follow, darling,&quot; he answered. &quot;It's possible to make a
+rich man of a beggar, and to be as poor as a church mouse one's self.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Are we beggars, then?&quot; she asked, raising herself gently up to him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;No, by Jove! we are not beggars;&quot; and he drew a deep breath.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">There was a silence, and then it seemed as if something warm and damp
+was falling on her forehead.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He was actually crying--crying for joy!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Did she deserve it? She, Lilly Czepanek, who ... And to hide her own
+tears she withdrew into herself. It was more than she could bear. She
+would have liked to sob and cry and kiss his hands, but instead she was
+obliged to clench her hands, and stuff her gloves between her teeth so
+that he should not notice her agitation. It was like an intervention of
+Providence that, as they once more drifted close by the castle, the
+sound of a woman's voice singing should fall on their ears.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">What was the song? Ah! out of &quot;Tristan.&quot; She had never heard it in the
+theatre, but she was sure it could be nothing but &quot;Tristan.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She raised her head interrogatively, and Konrad, stooping, whispered in
+her ear, &quot;Isolde's 'Liebestod.'&quot; He quickly ran the boat ashore at the
+darkest spot on the bank, for not a note must be lost. On the terrace
+above, laughter and chatter were silenced. Only the nightingale in the
+lime-boughs was undisturbed, and mingled its sweet rhapsody with the
+exultant death-agony of the woman who, more than any other creation of
+God or man, teaches us that the will not to be is the most triumphant
+manifestation of being.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly trembled from head to foot. She stretched her hands behind her to
+reach his. She could not help holding on to him. If she had not held on
+to him she must have sunk into space. Not till she felt his warm
+fingers between hers did she become calmer.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The last note died away; the grand arpeggios of the <i>Nachspiel</i> melted
+into silence. There was no clapping or applause of any kind. That
+lively party up there on the terrace were evidently impressed, and
+realised what was due to the singer.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Konrad, with a silent pressure, let go her hands and went back to the
+oars. She did not demur. The forbidden garden vanished, vanished
+utterly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The dusk of early night now lay on the meadows. Not a sound was to be
+heard far or near. Yet the world seemed to echo with the melody of harp
+and the sound of song.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And we've never seen your marble beauty,&quot; murmured Lilly, stroking his
+knees. &quot;Yet I keep thinking that was <i>her</i> voice.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And I, too,&quot; he burst out passionately. &quot;She wasn't singing for those
+good people up there at all, but for us--for us alone.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Ah! I wish I could sing it like her!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Try, at any rate.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She sang a few passages here and there. But she could not connect them,
+and, what was more, something else rose and forced its way imperiously
+into her memory.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">With that grandest and most exquisite inspiration of the great master
+mingled, unbidden, her own poor &quot;Song of Songs.&quot; And she sang out into
+the profound silence:</p>
+
+<div style="margin-top:12pt; margin-bottom:12pt; margin-left:5%; font-size:90%">
+<p class="normal">&quot;Tell me, O thou whom my soul loveth, where thou
+feedest, where thou makest thy flock to rest at noon: for
+why should I be as one that turneth aside ...&quot;</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="normal">She paused.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What is that?&quot; he asked. &quot;I don't know it at all.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;That is my 'Song of Songs,'&quot; she replied, drawing a deep breath.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Never before had she mentioned its name to a living soul.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;<i>Your</i> 'Song of Song'?&quot; he asked in astonishment.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And what lay before her was as clear as daylight; she would perhaps
+never have such a chance again. This was the moment to lay bare the
+secret of her youth to him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Put down the oars and listen, I am going to confide something to you.
+You may think it quite silly and ridiculous, but to me it has always
+been sacred.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Speechless, he shipped his oars,</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You must come and sit beside me, so that I can see your face.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">His eye swept the water with a searching glance. The boat was again
+drifting serenely on the mirror-like bosom of the lake, which seemed to
+have gathered on its ripples all the throbbing blue and purple shadows
+of the summer night. There was not the slightest sign of danger ahead,
+so he obediently did as she wished.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">They crouched close together at the bottom of the little craft, with
+their heads propped against the seat that Konrad had occupied for so
+long, and she told her story. She related how the legacy her poor
+runaway father had left behind exercised a powerful influence on her at
+all periods in her life.... If the years of her girlhood had been full
+of it, later it even attained a higher and more mysterious
+significance. It became, as it were, a symbol of all her efforts and
+actions. When her life became a whirl of useless frivolity then it was
+silent--sometimes for years together--but whenever her soul had an
+uplifting, whenever her pursuits and ideals accorded, then it came to
+life again. It outsang all that was low and unlovely in the world. From
+disgrace and wickedness outwardly it had not been able to protect her
+altogether, but it had at least kept her free within, and susceptible
+to the advent of one for whom she had unconsciously waited. And now
+that this one of all others had really come, she felt that the hour of
+fulfilment, both for herself and for her &quot;Song of Songs,&quot; had sounded.
+Now it seemed that it must go forth into all the world to touch and
+conquer every heart and to bring its creator and herself glory and
+redemption.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">So she talked herself into such a state of exalted enthusiasm that she
+became unmindful of time and place, and everything but the one thought
+that she still had more of what was best and purest within her to lay
+at his feet. But she had said as much as she could say, more than she
+could ever have believed she would confide to any human being, more
+than till this hour she had known of herself. He now held her noblest,
+truest self in the hollow of his hand, to do with it what he listed.
+All that was lax and impure, all that had brought ruin into her heart
+and life, was gone. She need no longer trouble herself about it.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">While she had been telling him this wonderful tale, she would have
+liked to see what effect it had upon him, but had not trusted herself
+to glance at his face. Now, however, that it was finished, she ventured
+to turn in his direction, and became aware that his eye rested on her
+with a curiously confused and wild expression, such as she had never
+noticed in him before; for, as a rule, he kept his emotions at a
+distance with, as it were, fisticuffs. Her heart began to beat loudly,
+and the unrest of expectation to which she could give no name became so
+strong that she nearly ran to the other end of the boat to control it
+and prevent herself suffocating.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Then she saw him shut his eyes and throw his head back against the
+sharp edge of the seat. &quot;You will hurt yourself,&quot; she whispered; and,
+instead of fleeing from him as she wanted to do, she placed her arm to
+serve as a cushion between his neck and the seat.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Now he lay on her breast and breathed heavily.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Shall I sing you some more out of it?&quot; she asked, bending over him
+tenderly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes, yes, please,&quot; he murmured.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And she sang, in a half-coaxing voice, as if she were singing
+lullabies, all those arias which, since the day her poor mother's mind
+had sunk into eternal night, had never been heard by any human ear.
+&quot;The lily of the valleys&quot; and &quot;The rose of Sharon&quot; she sang, and that
+other lyric in which all the sounds and magic of spring were mingled:</p>
+
+<div style="margin-top:12pt; margin-bottom:12pt; margin-left:5%; font-size:90%">
+<p class="normal">&quot;For, lo, the winter is past ... the flowers appear
+on the earth ... and the voice of the turtle is heard in our
+land.&quot;</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="continue">So she went on singing, more and more. When she sometimes paused and
+asked if he had heard enough, he only shook his head and pressed closer
+to his soft pillow.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Once she glanced round and saw that they were moored in the reeds, and
+that it was now completely night. But why should she mind that? Somehow
+or other they would manage to get home.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She was drawing to the end. There were only &quot;Set me as a seal upon
+thine heart,&quot; &quot;How beautiful are thy feet with shoes, O prince's
+daughter,&quot; to come; and, above all, the verse which began with words so
+singularly appropriate to this day's adventures: &quot;Come, my beloved, let
+us go forth into the field.&quot; But when she came to the lines:</p>
+
+<div style="margin-top:12pt; margin-bottom:12pt; margin-left:5%; font-size:90%">
+<p class="normal">&quot;Let us see if the vine flourish, whether the tender
+grape appear, and the pomegranates bud forth: there will
+I give thee ...&quot;</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="continue">her breath failed her and she could not go on.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Why have you stopped singing?&quot; she heard him ask.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">There was a buzzing of bees and a ringing of bells in her ears.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Be brave!&quot; a voice shouted within her; &quot;be brave, or you will lose him
+for ever.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But at that moment she felt two trembling lips seeking hers, and then
+it was all over with thoughts of being brave.</p>
+
+<hr class="W20">
+
+<p class="normal">Midnight was long past when the boat at last put in to the shore. The
+bathing pavilion was dark and deserted, but in the hotel lights still
+glimmered.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">In extreme trepidation they rang the bell.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;There's always a room ready here for belated young married couples,&quot;
+said the deferential, smiling landlady reassuringly.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+
+<h2>CHAPTER XVI</h2>
+<br>
+
+<p class="continue">It would be incorrect to say that no lucky star shone on
+Lilly's love
+at this stage of its development. In the first place, Adele proved, in
+her born uncommunicativeness and passionate partiality for the handsome
+&quot;friend&quot; of her mistress, a valuable ally. Secondly, Richard, who on
+the memorable Sunday had been obliged to go off and join his mother at
+Harzburg, remained away not for a day only, but for a whole week;
+thirdly, when he visited her on his return, he was so full of his own
+affairs that he had no eyes for her guiltily embarrassed reception of
+him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He affected a lofty and superior air, the nasal drawl of his
+cavalry-officer days, and wore a monocle dangling over his navy-blue
+silk waistcoat. Judging from which, and such symptoms as his head
+inclining to an extreme angle on his left shoulder and his eyes
+blinking slyly, it might have been gathered that instead of joining his
+mother dutifully, he too had been on a spree <i>à deux</i> in the country on
+his own account.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">This, however, proved an erroneous supposition. He had not only been
+actually at Harzburg till the evening before, but he had to go back
+there at once for a longer stay--for a month, at least.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What's the matter with you?&quot; he exclaimed; for Lilly, in a seventh
+heaven of delight at the news, fell back in her chair almost swooning.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was true that she immediately scrambled up again and would not own
+to anything unusual in her behaviour; but he insisted on piling
+cushions at her back, and would not allow her to risk the exertion of
+pouring out tea for him. His every act was eloquent of a guilty
+conscience.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;A summer holiday together is out of the question for us,&quot; he said,
+trying to return to his lofty manner. &quot;And not only that, we have
+become much too dependent on each other. It will be well for both of us
+to go our own gait for a bit, and best for all parties concerned. In
+fact, it's absolutely necessary in view of coming circumstances.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">This speech sounded as familiar to Lilly as an old tune in music. She
+knew exactly what was coming.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Confess,&quot; she said, smiling. &quot;What's on the cards now?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And then he came out with it, stuttering and drawling out his words. An
+American, born of German parents, with millions of dollars, of
+irreproachable style, extremely <i>chic</i>, approved by his mother, and her
+own parents not averse, and she herself to all appearances agreeable.
+If he didn't do it now, he never would.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I congratulate you,&quot; Lilly said, tapping his hand playfully. He stared
+at her with astonished and somewhat reproachful eyes.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Is that all you've got to say to it?&quot; he asked.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What else should I say?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You can take it so coolly? Are you so utterly without feeling that the
+thought of parting from your old friend doesn't affect you in the
+least? I thought you were a little more womanly and sympathetic; I must
+say I did.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Please recollect,&quot; she said, &quot;that every time that you have talked of
+marrying you have made the same reproach when I have said I have no
+desire to stand in your way. You talk as if it was <i>I</i> who was showing
+<i>you</i> the door, instead of its being the other way about.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Then he flared up. &quot;What expressions you use! How can you possibly tell
+what I am going through--the wrestling and struggles I have with
+myself? How many nights do you think I haven't slept a wink for
+wondering what is to become of you? But you go on as if it had nothing
+on earth to do with you. You are, in fact, as frivolous and heartless
+as you can be; so now you know my opinion of you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">At his words, delightful visions of her freedom danced before her eyes,
+glowing nights given up to uninterrupted love, days of sweet
+anticipatory dreams. Anything that might happen afterwards seemed as
+far off as the end of the world. She listened to the rest of his
+harangue with an absent, indulgent smile.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;If <i>you</i> don't see there's anything to worry about in your future,&quot; he
+wound up, &quot;that's all the more reason why I should take it into
+consideration. I have to provide for you, and mamma agrees that it's my
+duty.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The word &quot;mamma&quot; made her pull herself together.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Since the terrible scene in the counting-house, her name by mutual
+consent had been left out of their conversations. They had substituted
+for it evasions which each had understood and appreciated in the other.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Now, without warning, &quot;mamma,&quot; the symbol as it were of all that was
+disgraceful and degrading in her existence, flamed before her eyes.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Any scheme that <i>she</i> has a finger in,&quot; Lilly cried, &quot;must humiliate
+me to the dust. I tell you both straight that you had better be
+careful. If you make any proposals to me about an allowance of money, I
+shall consider it a bitter insult and never forgive you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He paced the room, wringing his hands. &quot;There you are, talking nonsense
+again! Don't you see that the world would cry shame on me if I turned
+you off with nothing? And, apart from that, what do you think would
+become of you?... You'd be on the streets. Woman, do you realise that?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">With sublime indifference, she ignored both him and his heroic zeal on
+her behalf.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I can think of other ways,&quot; she said, half to herself.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Before her rose a life full of struggle and strenuous triumphs, a
+tossing hither and thither through storms and hardships, and a jubilant
+victory as she entered at his side into the society of those who were
+as good and steadfast as <i>he</i> was. But that final consummation could
+only come later--much, much later.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Richard interpreted her differently. His eyes were fixed on her
+suspiciously. He paused in front of her and asked, with a slight
+shudder, &quot;I say, are you going ... to act like a fool and injure
+yourself?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She burst out laughing. Already he evidently pictured her beautiful
+corpse being dragged out of the water and laid out.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;No, I am not going to commit suicide ... at least, certainly not on
+your account; and, if I wanted to, I would manage it with such good
+taste that you would not be inconvenienced or have anything to reproach
+yourself with.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You can't mean that you think you'll marry!&quot; he rejoined, still
+unconvinced. &quot;What decent fellow would marry you after you've lived
+with me for four years?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;There are other ways,&quot; Lilly repeated obstinately.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He seemed relieved, but went on: &quot;I don't half like leaving you here to
+mope alone. You'll get depressed, and then you'll be nasty to me. What
+do you say to having a little change somewhere? You might go to Ahlbeck
+or Screiberhau, or some strait-laced place like that.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Only by a slight quiver of the eyelids did she betray the scornful
+laughter that convulsed her inwardly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You know I hate making acquaintances,&quot; she answered lightly; &quot;and in
+the midst of people who don't want me I feel doubly alone.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He relapsed into frowning meditation.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Well, then,&quot; he hesitated, and drawled out his words as people do who
+are afraid of their own boldness, &quot;then ... perhaps the best thing
+would be for you to come ... somewhere near.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Near where?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Don't pretend you don't know what I mean.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I do know, but I can hardly believe my ears.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What is there so wonderful in it?&quot; he growled. &quot;I could look after you
+sometimes, and have a chat about one thing and another.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And show me her, I suppose, to get my opinion and my blessing?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Well, what if I did? You and I have consulted each other about
+everything we have done for years.... I cannot for the life of me see
+why it should be so monstrous in this case.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She felt something of patronising pity for him. She patted his hand and
+said:</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I don't think, my dear boy, that I am quite the right person to assist
+in your courtship.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Good Lord! What next? You talk quite theatrically to-day. You are
+evidently suffering from swelled head. Yes, swelled head, I say! You
+are trying to get a rise out of me, and I don't like it, just now
+especially.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She laughed and stretched herself. How petty it all was, and how
+ridiculous! How little she cared! And why should she care?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Alone--to be alone with him. That was the only thing that mattered in
+the whole world.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You would rather not, then?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She silently shook her head.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Very well,&quot; he said, and looked as if he were going to leave her in
+anger; but he hadn't the strength of mind, &quot;Lilly.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I should like to prevent any future misunderstandings between us. You
+seem to think that, this time too, it's all a joke.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Not at all, Richard. I wish you every happiness. Only, with the best
+intentions, I cannot be of much use to you in this matter.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Of use to me! Who was saying anything about your being of use to me?
+Mamma is right! She says if I don't pull it off this time I never
+shall. So, understand once for all, in a few weeks all will be over
+between us.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She nearly said, &quot;So much the better&quot;; but seeing that there were tears
+in the corners of his eyes she refrained, for she didn't wish to hurt
+him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Four years of life spent together lay behind them. He was so dependent
+on her for sympathy that she could not let him go without a word of
+advice and encouragement. She spoke to him as if he were a child, said
+that his mother was right, praised his scheme, and enumerated the many
+good reasons why it ought to come about; and in order to put his mind
+at ease with regard to her own complacent attitude, she reminded him
+that it had always been her highest ambition that he should feel free
+to do as he liked. She also assured him that to the end of her life she
+would retain her sentiments of friendship towards him. And in the end
+they both shed tears at parting.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+
+<h2>CHAPTER XVII</h2>
+<br>
+
+<p class="continue">Now the way was clear, now the new life might be consecrated
+with
+rejoicing and thanksgiving. July came and scorched the deserted
+streets. Those who remained in the aristocratic West-end, with no
+employer to ply the lash, spent dreamy days behind closed shutters, and
+wandered between bedroom and bath.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly did not come to life till evening, when the town breathed out the
+heat that it had absorbed during the day in a redhot glow, when dusty
+clouds rolled over the yellow surface of the canal, and behind the
+parched and prematurely faded chestnuts the red furnace of the sky
+melted into the reflected lights of the street-lamps.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Then at Konrad's side she strolled through the blue twilight of the
+streets, using her eyes so as to escape observation from acquaintances
+who might chance to be about.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">They met worthy, middle-class families on their way to the gardens.
+Lovers joined each other at appointed street corners. And between these
+two extremes was the floating element of those detached beings who are
+alone and solitary in crowds, and who yearn to steal from laughing
+Chance what they have prayed for in vain from sterner gods. A sultry
+vapour of secret desires hung over the exhausted city, in which
+conventional reserve and genuine sentiment flickered up and were
+extinguished as if they had never been.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">How long ago seemed the days when she herself had sauntered around,
+hoping for fate to come her way, yet not daring to compel it. And, with
+a shudder at the thought of the dangers she had escaped, she clung
+closer to Konrad's protecting arm.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">They always succeeded in finding some private nook after their own
+heart to dine in, where a gipsy band scraped their fiddles wildly, or
+Tyrolese played their zithers, or the landlord himself, a musician who
+had known better days, acted as conductor of an orchestra. In ivy-clad
+arbours, where the hot breeze stirred the dust on the evergreens in
+tubs, they could pass the evening hours together without fear of
+discovery. In the meantime a change had come over their intercourse.
+There were still instructive and erudite harangues on every conceivable
+subject, and listening attentively she hung on his lips with as much
+eagerness as ever, but her holy zeal for scientific studies had
+evaporated.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">That God did not exist, that Fra Filippo Lippi was a scoundrel, that a
+line gone mad should be consigned to an asylum even if it was modern of
+the modern, that baroque art had its redeeming qualities--all this and
+much else that was interesting Lilly had heard many times, but it no
+longer provoked argument.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Often they looked long and silently into each other's eyes with a
+tender smile of yearning, as if that were the most eloquent language in
+which they could converse. Often too his thoughts wandered away on
+their own solitary excursions, and only came back to her under
+coercion. Then she was sad and jealous, and begged to go home.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Not till he was pillowed in her arms, lying close to her heart, was she
+content. The heat of the day had baked the walls through. The curtains
+were oppressive, and through the blinds a kind of desert cyclone blew;
+but they took no notice, the sultriness suited their mood.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">They dreaded falling asleep as a misfortune, which shamefully
+abbreviated the hours of their being together, and so they promised
+that the one who kept awake longer was to rouse the other.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was she who always kept awake longer; for he was exhausted by the
+day's work. For him there was no prospect of another doze after
+breakfast in bed, or of a siesta on the couch as alleviation from the
+midday heat. And as he lay with tired limbs outstretched, twitching
+like a noble hound's after a day's sport, she had not the heart to keep
+her promise. Then she would sit up beside him, and in the light cast
+from the pink-shaded, dimly burning lamp gaze at him hour after hour
+without tiring.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">There was always something in his face to study. The frown of wrath, or
+rather of power, between his brows was more sharply defined than it
+used to be, and still frightened her a little. The muscles in his
+temples were never at rest, and the firm, curved upper lip trembled at
+the corners as if he were smiling at her in his sleep. He had become
+thin. In the haggard hollows of his cheeks were shadows spreading
+towards the jaws which they darkened, and there was a line of suffering
+about his nostrils. He was like a young Christ, made to be worshipped.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Often as she gazed at him she thought, &quot;If I killed him at this
+moment--plunged a hat-pin into his heart--then he would belong to me
+entirely, now and always.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Then she would grope on his left side for his heart, lay the hollow of
+her hand against it, and fancy that she held it fast in her power, and
+with his heart, his love for her, and need never more relinquish
+either.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Once while she stooped over him, contemplating him thus earnestly, she
+woke him, and he looked at her in alarm, and, still half-asleep, asked:</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What is the matter? Have I hurt you?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Why do you ask?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Your eyes have such a curious expression, almost as if you were angry
+with me.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She made a vow that she would not gaze at him any more, but she could
+not help herself, and stared at him as much as ever. She loved him so
+dearly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was terrible when a sudden anxiety possessed her that she might lose
+him. Many a night this feeling of fear came over her with such cruel
+realism that she could hardly resist the impulse to rave and scream and
+tear her hair out by the roots. But she must not wake him, so she crept
+gently closer to his side, put one arm behind his back, and flinging
+the other across his breast, laid her head under his shoulder, and
+clung to him so tightly that she felt almost as if she were growing
+into a limb of his body.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Thus she became by degrees calmer, and could have a good cry, or give
+herself up to fancying how infinitely happy she would make him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Never since time began would a son of Adam have been so happy. She
+would wrap him in a mantle of love, so soft and thick that no rude
+strokes of fate could penetrate it. She would be his Egeria and inspire
+his muse; with an invisible aureole surrounding her head she would
+stimulate and encourage him to noble undertakings and great
+achievements; she would tend him with the holy devotion of a sister of
+mercy.... She would attend cookery classes, learn laundry-work and
+dressmaking. No, it would be better for her to go to University
+lectures, study science and music, and a hundred other useful things,
+so that he should never find her a dull companion, or a useless
+helpmate.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">For all this, she must of course be free and get rid of Richard. She
+thought a great deal about him, too; invariably without bitterness or
+resentment. Long ago he had been forgiven for setting her feet on the
+downward path.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Everyone has his own standard of right,&quot; Konrad was wont to say. And,
+after all, to Richard she once owed her salvation.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The new life was to begin publicly as well as privately, with his
+engagement, which he wrote was on the eve of taking place. But she
+still felt hardly equal to a crisis. She shuddered at the thought of
+all the lies that would have to be told to Konrad as soon as a change
+took place in her household.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She preferred to avoid as long as possible the inevitable hardships
+lying before her in the future. Only at night, when she lay on the
+sleeping man's breast, did she work herself up into an ecstasy of
+sufficient rapture to look forward to poverty and privations shared
+with him as a royal inheritance of purple and gold. At three o'clock in
+the morning, when the lamps outside were extinguished one by one, and
+the reflection of the first grey shadows of cold dawn lay on the
+ceiling, she was bound in honour to wake him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He must not meet other residents in the house on account of his own
+reputation and hers.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">As he dressed, he fumbled, half-asleep, among the ivory coroneted
+brushes, and managed to complete a hasty toilette in time to reach the
+nearest Viennese café as soon as it opened for a pick-me-up in the
+shape of a black coffee.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">For from Lilly's arms he insisted on going straight to his desk. She
+could not talk him out of this insane proceeding. It was an atonement
+that the night's pleasure demanded from him, and so he would sit
+brooding among his books and papers till noon, often unable to write a
+line from fatigue.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She, on the other hand, sank into a profound slumber, from which she
+was awakened about ten o'clock by the entry of Adele, smiling
+approvingly, with the breakfast-tray.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Every other night she allowed him to devote to his work. She had no
+desire to sap his young life's blood. He made her anxious enough as it
+was. She did not like his hectic colour, nor the glitter in his eye. It
+disquieted her to see the abrupt changes in his mood from uproarious
+gaiety to absent-minded self-absorption.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">All this should be altered when--what?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Oh! why bother about plans? Why not go on just as she was--loving
+him and making him happy? She passed her days in half-joyous,
+half-terrified dreams. She now had lost her zest and delight in mental
+exertion. There were other things that seemed more important than
+cultivating her intellect--the abject desire to be ever pleasing to his
+eyes, to hand him with unfailing regularity the intoxicating draught
+that held him in her toils. Hitherto she had accepted her personal
+charms as a matter of course, and valued them little more than anything
+else that was not seen and of no use. Now the cult of her body became a
+mania, for she so dreaded falling short of the ideal of her that she
+knew he had engraved on his heart. The desire to be beautiful, and the
+necessity of remaining beautiful, drove her to adopt methods which she
+had hitherto disdained. She took as much pains with herself as a woman
+in a harem. She perfumed her baths, tinted her nails, lengthened her
+eyebrows, powdered her arms and shoulders, and continually fancied she
+saw blemishes which needed new cosmetics to remove.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Then she was overtaken by a dread that all this care might only convert
+her appearance into that of a beautiful professional harlot. For this
+reason she left off wearing jewellery, and dressed more quietly than a
+parson's wife. Only the eye of a connoisseur could detect the amount of
+artistic ingenuity that her plain garb concealed.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Most of all when she was alone did jealousy occupy her thoughts. Not
+that she imagined he had anything to do with other women. He was far
+too noble to be suspected of that. But she was jealous of all that he
+did, and of all his concerns. It was torture to her to think of his
+writing-table. Every hour not spent in her society seemed like
+treachery to their love, and she cherished an hostility towards his
+friends such as she could never have believed herself capable of.
+Often, on the nights that he spent apart from her, she would keep watch
+on his rooms. She would stand opposite the house and look across the
+street and up at the windows, much as she had once done in the Alte
+Jakobstrasse. If the lamp was burning in his window she was content,
+but if she saw him going out or coming in she did not close her eyes
+all night.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He lived not far away, on the third floor of a Karlsbad lodging-house.
+It was long before he would allow her to visit him there. Next door to
+him, he had told her, was an invalid who needed the utmost care; any
+excitement caused by the sound of strange voices might prove fatal to
+her. When he spoke of the invalid his eyes avoided meeting hers, and
+she thought there were a hundred chances to one that he was keeping
+some secret from her.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">When, however, after her persistent entreaties, he admitted her one
+afternoon she found nothing to confirm her suspicion. She was only
+besought to speak in a low tone, and she had known she must do this
+beforehand. His room was little more than a student's den. It was
+lofty, with two windows, but cheaply furnished--with no sofa and no
+carpet. On the walls hung rare engravings, and the usual pier-glass was
+displaced by a valuable copy of the &quot;Madonna de Foligno,&quot; which looked
+down with sublime serenity on the barren wastes of northern
+Philistinism. Heaps of books were ranged on long low shelves, while
+others were simply piled on the floor in different corners of the room,
+covered with pieces of American cloth to keep them from the dust.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The writing-table alone, as might have been expected, boasted a certain
+luxuriousness. Like the pictures and books, it was Konrad's personal
+property. It stood, with its handsome carving and wide, open leaf, like
+a dark and solemn altar in the middle of the room. Not a single
+photograph of a woman was anywhere to be seen. She had not given him
+hers, and no other woman's was worthy of a place on his desk. Behind
+maps and ink-bottles was propped the portrait of an old gentleman in a
+frame. The face was that of a weather-beaten old gourmet, with
+beautiful, well-kept white hair, and eyes, peculiar to connoisseurs of
+women, blinking shrewdly under wrinkled drooping lids.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">This was the famous old uncle who had paid for Konrad's education and
+now supported him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly was conscious of a profound depression of spirits as she looked
+at the portrait, as if one glance of those keen old eyes could read her
+soul and bring to light the secret that she was keeping from her lover
+with a thousand artifices and subterfuges.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I'll take care that I never meet him,&quot; she thought,</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Konrad took from a drawer his proudest treasure, the introduction to
+his great work, and showed her the closely written sheets of the
+manuscript.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She let her fingers pass caressingly over it. She regarded it with
+quite reverent awe. But then all of a sudden the jealousy that had of
+late been tormenting her soul attacked her with renewed force.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">This manuscript was his real love, and she was nothing but a dark,
+bloodless shadow, who preyed on his nights like a vulture.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Lock it up again,&quot; she said; and she turned despondently to go.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">As if the <i>magnum opus</i> was not enough, there was a number of smaller
+things that kept him drudging. The more his name became known as that
+of a specialist in literary circles, the more frequently was he asked
+to contribute articles, and he strove to execute every order he
+received.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">One day it came out what the important post was that he had been
+offered and had mentioned to her three weeks ago, on their memorable
+expedition into the country.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I haven't dared to come to a decision till to-day,&quot; he said. &quot;But now
+I have made up my mind. The editor of the periodical which I am to
+sub-edit in future has called on me, and left me no loophole for
+refusing. I was obliged to say 'Yes.' He is a charming fellow! In spite
+of his great intellectual ability, a man of almost childlike simplicity
+... and so frank, so genial.... You must get to know him--if you don't
+know him already.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What's his name?&quot; she asked.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Dr. Salmoni.&quot;</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+
+<h2>CHAPTER XVIII</h2>
+<br>
+
+<p class="continue">No, it was not to come out in this way! Fate was not to lay
+hands on
+her quite so rudely and clumsily.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She was to be spared the disgrace of being caught like a criminal, and
+ultimately, by an act of self-denial, she was to prove that she had not
+been altogether unworthy of the great blessing of her life.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Since the name Salmoni had been mentioned between them, she scarcely
+dared venture into the streets in Konrad's company. As she walked with
+him arm-in-arm, she imagined that every step she heard coming behind
+them was that of the dreaded man who had once followed her into the
+Alte Jakobstrasse.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">At last, to end the torture of this new anxiety, she made up a story to
+Konrad about a lady she was acquainted with calling on her, and asking
+who the tall, slim young man was in whose company she was now so often
+seen.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The result of this necessary lie was terrifying. He would not speak or
+eat, but strode about the room in great perturbation, finally leaving
+her at an hour when generally her bliss was just beginning.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The following day brought forth an explanation. He came at dusk, paler
+than usual, with unnaturally brilliant eyes.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Listen, dearest!&quot; he said. &quot;I thought it over all last night, and I
+now see my duty clear before me. This must not go on.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She could interpret this only as a wish to leave her. Her body seemed
+to become numb; she faced him calmly, and awaited her death-blow.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Since we have belonged to each other,&quot; he continued, &quot;we have made no
+further allusion to your fiancé. Nevertheless, I have thought all the
+more about him in private. You, too, have been very reticent with
+regard to your friend Herr Dehnicke. I only know that he is at present
+travelling, and has left you, so to speak, without a protector.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She forced herself to smile. Why must he prolong the agony?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;To-day I must confess to you that in the midst of all my happiness I
+have felt that my taking advantage of such a situation is altogether
+despicable. But my feelings are not in question. The main consideration
+is, what will become of you? What I feared from the first has come to
+pass: people are beginning to remark on our being together.... You
+can't bind anyone to secrecy.... It would be lowering to one's dignity.
+Thus the mutual friend of you and your betrothed is certain, sooner or
+later, to hear all about it, and to call you to account. You will be,
+of course, too proud to deny it, and the upshot of it all is that you
+will be left stranded and alone--without any sort of guardianship in
+the world. For I, as matters now stand, have not even the right to
+protect you. The thought is perfectly intolerable to me, whatever it
+may be to others.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He jumped up, ran his fingers through the imaginary mane of hair, and
+tramped up and down.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She came slowly back to life and consciousness, as the blood began to
+course more naturally through her veins.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The dear, noble boy! How unsuspecting he was! She could have almost
+shrieked with laughter. But she controlled herself and said: &quot;You
+needn't disturb yourself, Konni. His friend is not likely to hear
+anything, and if he does he won't believe it. And even if he does
+believe it, he will take good care that ...&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She could not go on. The great guileless eyes frightened her.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You think, then, he would ...&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He too hesitated, unable to find words in which to express the
+unspeakable.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She examined the buttons on her bodice and didn't answer.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;When is Herr Dehnicke coming home?&quot; he asked.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It is not certain. He is gone wife-hunting,&quot; she replied, with a
+little feeling of triumph at having said something that placed her
+miles outside the radius of any suspicion now or to come.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Where is he at present?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Why do you want to know?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Because I must have a talk with him.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She could hardly credit what she heard. He couldn't have said it.
+Surely, either he or she must be taking leave of their senses.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Don't be anxious,&quot; he said. &quot;I am quite aware what I owe to your
+reputation. But I must find out once for all what opinion he has of
+your position.... Here is a man in America who has your promise, yet
+makes no sign.... He doesn't turn up, and he doesn't write. Why doesn't
+he write? If he hasn't got your address, why should he not write
+through Herr Dehnicke, whose business is known all over Berlin? No one
+is even sure if he is still alive. For a long time I tried to explain
+his silence in various ways; but now I can't help saying to myself, the
+only explanation there can possibly be is that he is dead, or as good
+as dead. Are you to continue bound to a dead man? Is your social
+existence to be dependent, as it were, on a guard of honour who has
+nothing to guard? This is the point I would like to discuss with the
+mutual friend. He'll have to answer me, or do you think he'll object?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Really, he has less knowledge of the world than is permissible, she
+thought compassionately; and aloud she replied, &quot;I don't quite see,
+Konni, how you are justified in forcing an interview on a stranger.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;That's my affair,&quot; he said, throwing back his head defiantly. &quot;First,
+I must know if he will let you be free to do as you like. I don't see
+why he should hold the slave-driver's whip over you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And I don't see why you should put yourself in a false position,&quot; she
+cried in newly awakened alarm. Already she heard fisticuffs and
+pistol-shots resounding in her ears. &quot;I will speak to Herr Dehnicke
+myself; I will set myself free. I promise you that. But you ... if I
+let you go to him, what will he think of me? You will only succeed in
+compromising me.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He drew himself up. His eyes were those of a conqueror. &quot;If a man loves
+you and wants you for his wife, I fail to see how that can compromise
+you.&quot;</p>
+
+<hr class="W20">
+
+<p class="normal">It was dusk and oppressively close when these words were spoken. The
+little bullfinch flapped its wings languidly in its sand, the goldfish
+remained motionless behind their wall of hot glass, and the small naked
+monkey whimpered in his sleep. Heavy masses of bluish-black clouds were
+reflected in the slimy water of the canal. There was a menace of storm
+in the air--and this was the thunderbolt.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Her first feeling was one of surprise--certainly not pleasant surprise;
+then followed an unutterably plaintive cry, unheard by any human ear,
+and which hurt all the more because it was dumb.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Too late ... played out ... past caring. No more happiness on earth
+... too late ... too late!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She leaned back in the sofa-corner and examined the ceiling minutely
+and carefully.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He waited for his answer.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">If she lowered her eyes they must meet his, full of a fire which burned
+into her soul. No salvation from these eyes, no escape from what had to
+come!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And he waited.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Then she heard her own voice speaking quite calmly and distinctly, as
+if instead of herself Frau Jula was speaking--life's little mountebank
+with the brow of brass.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I thought, dear Konni, we had agreed that neither of us should talk of
+marrying.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;How can you remind me of that?&quot; he cried vehemently. &quot;When I said so,
+could I foresee how things would turn out? Had I the least inkling then
+of what you are? Did I know you were so divine an angel, who can exalt
+a poor devil like me one moment into a seventh heaven of bliss, and the
+next plunge him into hell's torments?... Yes, I mean it! Torments, for
+to-day all must come out--the unvarnished truth. There's a gap in my
+life. All is in chaos: my work, my thought, my faith in you. You would
+be my good genius, but often you are something almost the reverse.
+Don't distress yourself. I am not reproaching you ... but only myself,
+for being so weak.... I want to work; I ought to work.... I have just
+undertaken a whole pile of new duties. I thought that if my duty was
+imposed on me from outside, I should be bound to stick to it. But the
+very opposite has happened. I am running to seed through perpetual
+inner wrestling and questioning.... If I don't bring our lives into a
+peaceful and equable channel, we must both be lost. I can't do it
+unless you belong to me properly and altogether, unless your room is
+next to mine and you are always within sight of my desk--always near,
+always beside me.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I can arrange to come to you in the autumn,&quot; she interrupted
+timorously.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;No, not in that way! I will have no more secretiveness, no more ground
+for self-reproaches. Am I to have it on my conscience that every day
+you sacrifice yourself for me further you come nearer to your ruin? For
+in the end it must ruin you; it will stick to you like mud. And why
+should we make a polluted thing out of what is most sacred to us? Or is
+it that I am not good enough to be your lasting companion through life?
+Do you shrink from being my wife on the score of poverty?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">In repudiation of this idea she almost screamed aloud.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What you have and how much,&quot; he continued, &quot;I do not wish to inquire.
+I am well enough off for both of us. My uncle allows me three hundred
+marks a month, and I get four hundred from Dr. Salmoni.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Ah! how she shuddered at that name!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Besides, I can easily earn three hundred marks by articles alone ...
+that's altogether a thousand marks a month. As good as a general's
+pay.... Isn't that enough for you?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Oh, for pity's sake, be quiet!&quot; she cried, hardly able to contain
+herself. &quot;I wasn't thinking of money.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Of what, then?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He planted himself in front of her with an air of challenge. The dent
+of wrath was between his brows, as if it had been chiselled there. She
+bowed her head. Since the days of the colonel she had never been so
+afraid of any man.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Well, why not? Out with it and say what it is! To all appearances you
+do not love me sufficiently. You still cling, perhaps, to the memory of
+the fellow who has long ago forgotten you. You may probably have said
+to yourself, 'I can make use of this foolish boy as a lover <i>pro tem</i>.
+He's all very well as an amusement to pass the time, but when it comes
+to his seriously interfering with the course of my life, I must get rid
+of him--throw him over, eh?' Isn't that it? Be brave and say it
+straight out! I am merely a stop-gap, not the sort of man you want for
+a husband. Not till I have begun to make a name could you think of
+marriage. Am I not right? Very well.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He had taken up his hat, and looked as if he intended going.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Oh, Konni, have mercy on me!&quot; she implored. She had slid down from her
+seat in order to clasp his knees. Now she cowered on the floor between
+the sofa and his chair.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;There is no need for me to have mercy, or for you to have mercy!&quot; he
+exclaimed. &quot;Till to-day you have been the holiest thing on earth to me.
+But I cannot submit to being brushed away like a fly. Tell me why you
+won't marry me. One plausible reason will satisfy me. When you have
+given it, I promise never to return to the subject.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Give me till to-morrow,&quot; she moaned.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Why till to-morrow? To-day is the same thing. I cannot go through
+another night of torturing suspense.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I'll write.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He was evidently amazed. &quot;Write? What is there to write?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Whether I may or not. The reasons and everything.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Some way out of it will come to me in the night,&quot; she thought.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;When shall I get the letter?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;To-morrow morning by the first post.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Very well. Till then I will have patience. Good-bye, Lilly, for the
+present.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He helped her back to the sofa and held out his hand in farewell, and
+as she saw his great eyes fixed on her, with that steadfast clearness
+which no lie or suspicion of a lie had ever clouded, she knew there was
+no escape for her. Evasion was no longer to be thought of; the truth,
+the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, was what Konrad must be
+told. It swept over her like a warm, soothing stream: &quot;Whether it means
+your damnation or not, he shall know the truth.&quot; Only, to tell him face
+to face was more than any mortal could endure.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">When she was alone, reaction set in. The instincts of self-preservation
+asserted their rights. Surely, what Frau Jula had done she could do.
+She had had far worse things to explain away.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Richard would undoubtedly keep silent, and that was the most important
+point. Now that he was bent on marrying, it would be in his own best
+interests to allow her to vanish as gracefully as possible out of his
+life. The rest of &quot;the crew&quot; might gossip as much as they liked. Konrad
+was invulnerable to their slander.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The one danger ahead was Dr. Salmoni. But she had only to go to him, to
+entreat his silence, and he, too, would hold his tongue. He certainly
+would have good cause to prefer that his abominable attempted assault
+should not be brought to light. So she reflected. Yet in the midst of
+her planning and scheming a sudden disgust of herself and what she was
+going to do seized her, and shattered with one blow the whole fabric of
+intended deception.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">If the mere name of Dr. Salmoni had prevented her going out in the
+streets with Konrad, how could she expect to pass her life at his side
+without quailing in hourly fear? How numerous would be the snubs and
+humiliations she must expect directly Konrad made any attempt to
+introduce her as his wife into the society to which he belonged! She
+who had figured in the newspapers as the latest acquisition to the
+circles of the fashionable demi-monde! And what if he too began to
+suspect? How he would be consumed with shame and horror--he who was so
+proud, and the mirror of all refinement, whose pure unworldliness alone
+accounted for his not seeing what sort of life she had been leading!
+What an awakening that would be from a short tormenting dream!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">No, she could not emulate Frau Jula after all. And she thrust from her
+with scorn the atrocious thought which in the stress of the hour she
+had stained her soul by entertaining.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">An exultant longing for self-destruction came over her, and she felt a
+strong impulse to tear her heart from her breast and hurl it at his
+feet as she sat down and wrote:</p>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;<span class="sc">My dear sweet Konni</span>,</p>
+
+<p class="normal" style="text-indent:5%">&quot;I have shamefully deceived you. I am a bad woman, and nothing else.
+The fiancé I have told you about never existed. That despicable little
+cur of a lieutenant for whom I was untrue to my husband never dreamed
+of marrying me, but handed me over to his rich friend, who made me his
+mistress. And that is what I am now. For years I have been living in a
+world of vice and vulgarity. Long ago I was ostracised from all decent
+society. Kept women and the lovers who financed them have been my sole
+associates. I have clung to you because you in your ignorance respected
+me, and I, in my slough of degradation, longed to be respected. So now
+you know why I cannot be your wife.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;If you want my kisses, come. For anything more, I am no longer good
+enough.</p>
+
+<p class="right">&quot;<span class="sc">Lilly</span>.&quot;</p>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">The clock struck eleven. Adele had gone to bed. She would have to go
+down herself to drop the letter in the box. But the long-threatened
+storm just then burst in fury. Hailstones rattled down, and gusts of
+wind rushed through the open windows, scattering raindrops on the
+writing-table. The paper on which her dry feverish eyes were fixed
+became wet; it looked as if she had drenched it with her tears.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;That is a happy coincidence,&quot; she thought. Then she was ashamed. The
+time for acting was surely over. But as she settled herself to rewrite
+the letter she stopped, shuddering in horror. What was to be gained by
+such a monstrous indictment of self? And was it, after all, the truth?
+In the slanderous mouth, perhaps, of a back-biting woman who twists out
+of bare facts evidence of crime against a friend, or in that of one of
+those social hangmen who have a halter ready for every past. She alone
+knew how it had all come about. How from inner necessity and outer
+compulsion, from too-confiding trustfulness and unprotected innocence
+link by link the chain had been forged, which now clanked its weight of
+guilt about her limbs. She, at least, knew that there was another less
+harsh and hideous truth, which would excuse and purify her in the eyes
+of any sympathetic person.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">So she tore up the sheet of notepaper and began again. She made a rough
+copy, and then polished and polished till it satisfied her.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Now the letter ran:</p>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;<span class="sc">Dearest and beloved Friend</span>,</p>
+
+<p class="normal" style="text-indent:5%">&quot;She who writes you these lines is a most unfortunate woman, whom you
+really know very little about, and who had to deceive you until to-day
+because all that is most sacred to her--her love for you--was at stake.
+And now, by writing this, that also is lost! I sacrifice it on the
+altar of your happiness for the sake of the divine fire that flashes
+from your eyes, consecrating and ennobling my soul.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The world has treated me cruelly. It has wrenched from me by degrees
+my faith in human nature, my ideals, my buoyancy of spirit; it has
+brought me to sin, and so robbed me of the right to continue my journey
+through life at your side.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I set out once on that journey full of confidence and hopefulness, and
+pure to the very core of my being. But every man I was destined to meet
+plucked off a twig of my virtue. I lifted my eyes in adoring reverence
+to the aged husband who promised to be my hero and master, my pattern
+and god. He used me as a tool for his basest lusts.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Another came, who was young as I was, whom I wanted to save while I
+saved myself in his arms. He took me and enjoyed me as if I were a
+romantic adventure, then flung me off and went to the dogs. He wrote a
+Uriah sort of letter to a friend of his, who took mean advantage of my
+stranded position, both spiritual and physical, and made me by a low
+trick so dependent on him that I found I had been long completely in
+his power without knowing it. Helpless and utterly crushed as I was, I
+yielded and became his victim and slave, and I had not even the spirit
+left to be angry with him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;This was the pass to which my destiny brought me. In vain I tried to
+struggle out of the darkness of night, but nowhere did I see light
+breaking ahead. I caught with enthusiasm at any hand held out to me,
+but each seemed to pull me down lower, till my whole being seemed
+paralysed with hopeless despair.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Then you came, my beloved, my saviour, my redeemer! Once more it was
+light around me, once more the world burst into blossom, the parched
+fountains were unsealed, and 'The Song of Songs' echoed again within
+me.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And with pride and elation I recognised the fact that nothing impure
+had taken root in my character; that the days of degradation had passed
+over me without touching my integrity of soul, my desire for pure and
+beautiful things, my instincts for a lofty humanity. It had all been
+only slumbering, and you, beloved, have awakened it to new life.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And even if I may not be your wife--only one free of stain deserves
+you--I want to be worthy of you, whether near you or far away, as you
+decree.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I am quite resolved to free myself from the shackles that so long have
+encumbered me outwardly, and to ascend out of the misery of my lot to a
+higher life, more in harmony with the demands of my inner self. You
+have pointed the way, and in gratitude I kiss your dear, gentle,
+diligent hand.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Good-bye, my love! If you want to punish me, never come near me again.
+But, if you can put up with the love of a woman who loves you as you
+never can be loved again on earth, do not let me perish. I have nothing
+but what I am to give you, but that is yours till death.</p>
+
+<p class="right">&quot;<span class="sc">Lilly</span>.&quot;</p>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">She read and reread what she had written, and worked herself up into a
+state of rapture over it.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Now the truth appeared in quite another light. And then all at once the
+question rose within her: But is <i>this</i> the truth? Was it not rather a
+conglomeration of turgid phrases expressive of high-flown emotions
+which were not spontaneous or sincere, belonging to the pages of
+sensational novels, but not to herself? Instead of despair she had in
+reality only suffered from boredom, and in the &quot;darkness of night&quot; she
+had many times enjoyed herself thoroughly and held high revel. She had
+made out that the worthy Richard was a tyrannical despot and herself a
+poor downtrodden victim, whereas she had always been at liberty to do
+what she liked.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was the truth, and yet it was--just as much and as little the truth
+as she had confessed in that first terrible letter. It was possible to
+write this letter and that letter, and many another; but the truth, the
+genuine, illuminating, naked truth, would not be in any.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She herself did not know what it was, and no one else knew.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The truth had dissolved into nothingness the moment after the events to
+which it related had happened, and no power on earth could conjure it
+up again. A distorted mirage, changing with her mood and as her pen
+moved over the paper, was all that was left of it.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But I don't want to tell any more lies,&quot; she cried to herself, tearing
+up the second letter. &quot;To-day, at any rate, I want to speak the truth.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Should she write a third letter?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was long past midnight. Her eyes burned. Over-excitement made her
+temples throb. And to-morrow morning he must have his answer, as she
+had sworn he should.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Then suddenly she awakened to a consciousness of what had really been
+happening, how during the last four hours she had been face to face
+with the danger of losing him for ever. A frenzy of sickening anxiety
+overwhelmed her. She ran about the flat, reeled, battered herself
+against the walls, rushed to the window and cried out his name. She
+must go to him, go to him at once. It was the only thought she was able
+to grasp. She would get the front door opened somehow, wake him out of
+his sleep, force her way into his room, stay with him to-night and
+always, no matter what the consequences might be.... She did not care.
+Only to be quit of this dread, which consumed her like a furnace.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The thunderstorm had raged itself out, but rain was still falling
+steadily. She scarcely gave herself time to fling on a cloak. In her
+house-shoes, without hat or umbrella, she flew along the streets,
+splashing through the mud and puddles, followed by foul epithets from
+homeless night-waifs in dark doorways. She arrived breathless and
+panting at his lodgings.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Light glimmered in the two windows on the third floor. She clapped her
+hands and called out &quot;Konni! Konni!&quot; repeating his name several times.
+But he had closed the windows and did not hear her.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">As she stared up at his window, she saw the shadow of his tall figure
+on the blind glide up and down, from one end of the room to the
+other--up and down, up and down. And all the time the rain was
+descending on her in torrents, and the chill dampness of the street
+creeping up her limbs.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Konni! Konni!&quot; she cried louder. Foot-passengers who went by offered
+her their umbrellas, others mimicked her, and called out too, &quot;Konni!
+Konni!&quot; Then at last the restless shadow came to a standstill. One of
+the windows was opened.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Lilly, is it you?&quot; he asked, in a voice hoarse with alarm.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Now here you are at last, my sweetest Konni,&quot; answered, instead of
+Lilly, an exhilarated gentleman who insisted on holding his umbrella
+over her.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;My God!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Upstairs it became dark, and a few moments later he was standing with
+the lamp and door-key in his hand at the glass entrance-door.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The exhilarated gentleman took his leave, with repeated bows.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Lilly, what has happened? What are you doing here?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She crouched trembling against the doorway. She could not speak. She
+had only one sensation--that she was with him now, and all would be
+well.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He felt her clothes.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You are wet through!... You have only house-shoes on! My God, Lilly!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She tried to say something, but she was ashamed that he should see how
+her teeth chattered.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And I can't take you in. You know why.... But I must--yes, I must take
+you in. If I let you go home like this you'll catch your death. We must
+be very quiet--as we were before. We mayn't speak above a whisper. The
+invalid is still not out of danger. Give me your hand.... Come!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">With eyes half closed, she suffered him to lead her up the stairs. Her
+wet dress flapped against, the banisters. She felt as if she must cower
+down on one of the steps and lie there till the charwoman came with her
+broom and swept her away. Yet she went on climbing the stairs, drawing
+nearer every minute to the fate in store for her above. With bowed head
+she followed him down the passage into his room, where the lingering
+sultriness of the summer day half stifled her. Konrad pushed her down
+into his easy-chair. He drew off the soaked velvet rags from her feet,
+and brought her dry stockings. The wet dress too he peeled from her
+body, threw his great-coat round her shoulders, and wrapped her in warm
+blankets.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She let him do it all impassively, wishing to enjoy to the full his
+tender care of her. So far she had not spoken a word. Now, when she
+wanted to thank him, he pointed to the door of the adjoining room.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Speak low,&quot; he whispered in her ear beseechingly. &quot;The poor thing
+seems to be having a good night for the first time.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Faint compassion awoke in her; yet talking was imperative.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What is the matter with her?&quot; she asked under her breath. &quot;Tell me.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He hesitated. &quot;The landlady has sworn me to strictest secrecy.... But
+you are part of myself; I may tell you. The girl, her only child, ran
+away three or four months ago, and was confined in secret. Her mother
+went and brought her home, and for six weeks she has been lying between
+life and death; at last she has taken a turn for the better.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Poor thing!&quot; she said, and then the consciousness of her own
+wretchedness came over her with renewed force.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Konni, Konni,&quot; she wailed whisperingly on his breast, &quot;it's all over
+now. I wanted to starve with you, beg, do anything; but what's the
+use?... When you know all....&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;How can that make any difference, dearest?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I mean about me--my life, my past.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He disengaged himself with a slight jerk and sat down opposite her. The
+inquiring look of consternation, which stiffened his pale face like a
+mask, filled her with a fresh fear. This time it was not fear of him,
+but fear for him. She was afraid of causing him pain, making her own
+suffering his.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I was going to write to you everything exactly as it happened, but
+somehow it wouldn't come. As I wrote, it got all wrong. So instead I
+came, came to you in the middle of the night. If you like, I will tell
+you ... all ... now.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She could not go on, and buried her face on the edge of the
+writing-table.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Why don't you speak, then?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He had quite forgotten his strict injunctions about keeping quiet. Both
+started at the sudden sound of his voice.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;She is probably asleep,&quot; he said, again lowering his tone. &quot;So speak
+out at last. What can it be that you have to say?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">His breath came heavily, under the weight of anxiety that oppressed
+him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And she began. Bending towards him, she tried to relate in a whisper
+the history for which she had not been able to find words at home.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And this time, too, it was not the truth. She felt that it was not. It
+was even less, much less, the truth than what she had written in her
+letters. No power on earth could have induced her to pain him with
+every sordid detail. So she told of a long succession of martyrdoms,
+and in a funereal train let her injuries, humiliations, and insults
+pass in review before him. All had been darkness around her, unrelieved
+by a ray of hope or light. She had struggled in vain for deliverance
+and salvation, had made a dismal sacrifice of herself for no end. So
+she talked on. And he, half turned to stone, with wide-open eyes,
+listened. Only at the name &quot;Salmoni,&quot; which she dared not withhold, he
+started and shrank from her.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">They had both entirely forgotten the patient in the next room.
+Constantly she had to wipe tears out of her eyes; she grew indignant
+with herself and others by fits and starts, skated gingerly over places
+where the ice was thin, indulged in self-reproaches, and said to
+herself defiantly as she drew near the end: &quot;This is the truth.&quot; And it
+was, in the sense that it was an inventory of the best in her; the
+truth as she hoped, with justice, it might shape itself in his
+perplexed vision.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">There was silence. Her glance glided guiltily beyond him and rested on
+the portrait which leered at her from the writing-table with cynical
+worldly eyes, as much as to say: &quot;I know you, my dear child, better
+than you know yourself.&quot; Something familiar and confidential lay in
+those eyes, a sort of reflection from that mad merry world which she
+had just been representing as a purgatory of tortures.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Fascinated, she dared not look away from them, and their mocking
+searching gaze stripped her soul bare, and caused every gleam of hope
+to die within her.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The silence became painful. Their thoughts seemed to vibrate in zigzags
+through the breathless stillness of the room. Then suddenly it was
+broken by a low piteous moaning, muffled at first, as if a handkerchief
+were being thrust into the mouth, then breaking out again more
+violently and loudly. It came from the next room, where the sick girl
+who had sinned secretly had been struggling for so many weeks for her
+young life. Soon, crooning words of comfort mingled with the moans. The
+girl's mother had come from the room beyond where she slept to
+ascertain the cause of this fresh outburst of grief.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Their eyes met. &quot;She must have heard everything,&quot; their glance seemed
+to say.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">For a moment another's misfortune made them forget their own. The great
+flood of suffering common to humanity swept over them, softening the
+sting of their own personal woes. The sobbing now was smothered by the
+pillows.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;My pet, my own!&quot; entreated the mother's consoling voice, every
+intonation of it overflowing with love; &quot;be good again, my darling ...
+it's not so very dreadful.... We will bring up the little one, and even
+if he doesn't marry you it won't matter so much. Think we shall have
+the little baby, and what a joy it will be when the baby laughs and
+says, 'mamma.' You see, it is not so very bad, after all, my pet, is
+it?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The sobbing subsided and gave place to a gurgling sigh of content.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;'It's not so very bad, after all.' Ah! I wish someone would say that
+to me,&quot; thought Lilly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But no one ever would. A burning desire to be soothed and comforted,
+even as the poor little sinner in the next room was being comforted,
+rose within her. &quot;She has her mother!&quot; she moaned, bursting into tears,
+&quot;but I haven't anyone.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Konrad bent over her and drew her hands from her face. In his
+sorrowful eyes a radiance dawned, so dear, so full of unspeakable
+loving-kindness, that he was quite transfigured, and seemed like a
+visitant from another world.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Haven't you got me?&quot; he asked.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes, but you can't help me now,&quot; she said. &quot;How can you endure me any
+longer?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">In the next room all was still again. Now the girl's mother must also
+be aware that he was entertaining a belated guest.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Listen,&quot; he whispered, with his lips close to her ear. &quot;We mustn't
+talk much, and my head's going round; but there's one thing that seems
+quite clear to me, and that is, the absurdity of everything that we
+call guilt and sin when two people love each other ... and when one of
+them has suffered like you. To me you have always been an angel, and an
+angel you shall continue to be in the future.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;In the future?&quot; she stammered, listening eagerly. &quot;Is there any
+future?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He wiped his forehead, which was damp from perspiration.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I don't know yet,&quot; he said. &quot;I only know that I cannot live without
+you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She closed her eyes. She wanted the dream to last.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It may not be now as we hoped, of course.&quot; She noticed that his words
+came haltingly. &quot;Everything will have to be different.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But nothing in your life ought to be altered,&quot; she said; &quot;it mustn't
+be different.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You can't disregard facts, dear. Where we shall live it's impossible
+to say yet; but we shall find some corner of the earth where no one
+knows us.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">For the first time it dawned on her what he meant. And forgetful of
+herself, the sick girl, and everything else, she sank down on her knees
+with a cry, and sobbed:</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I won't let you! You shall not do it! You know the world so little.
+You are far too young. You don't know what you are doing. You mustn't
+sacrifice yourself.... I don't want to ruin you. I love you too well
+for that.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He bent back her head and stroked the hair out of her eyes. Oh! if
+there had not been that heavenly light of goodness and of suffering in
+his eyes! A whole world of grief already burned in their depths.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;If we've come to the question of sacrifice,&quot; he said, &quot;then I must ask
+you to make a sacrifice for me. Will you?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes--anything. Do you want me to die? Say it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I only want you to do one thing. Come to me as you are. Don't bring a
+single bit of your property with you. Never go back to your ... that
+flat. From this moment let it all be as if it had never been. Promise
+me that.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She struggled against a feeling of shock.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Not go home! Never see her dear corner drawing-room again, nor the
+little bullfinch; never give Peterle his dinner again! Never!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">A horrid feeling that it was insane folly to ask this came and went
+like a splash of mud. Then she answered in hasty resolution:</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes, I promise.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He breathed deeply. &quot;Now we will keep quite still,&quot; he said. &quot;The girl
+must get her sleep, and to-morrow I will explain everything to the
+landlady.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But your great work?&quot; she asked, attacked by another fit of
+self-reproach. &quot;What will become of it?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">A melancholy smile stole over his face.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Who knows? It will depend on my uncle. If he consents, we can live as
+we like.... All will be well.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And if he doesn't?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">His right hand, which had been caressing her hair unceasingly from her
+forehead downwards to her neck, for a moment pressed her crown almost
+painfully, as if by the closer contact gathering strength for the
+approaching life's battle.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Then all will be well too,&quot; he said, and smiled again.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">A few minutes later she lay beside him on the narrow camp-bedstead, the
+hard edges of which hurt her limbs. Her head was on his shoulder; her
+arms, one under his back, the other flung across his chest, clung to
+him as always, when she sought solace and protection from him in
+trouble. But this time <i>she</i> slept, and <i>he</i> kept watch.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+
+<h2>CHAPTER XIX</h2>
+<br>
+
+<p class="continue">The old lampshade-maker of the Neanderstrasse was not a
+little
+astonished when her former lodger, whom she had always admired as a
+smartly-turned-out grand lady, came one day in a badly fitting alpaca
+coat and skirt, and a sailor hat with a grass-green ribbon round it,
+and asked to be taken in. Last year's young lady occupant of the best
+room having recently married, however, she was glad to let it again to
+Lilly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Thus it happened that Frau Laue's fiery crimson plush upholstery once
+more played a part in her life. The pictures of famous actors smiled
+down on her patronisingly from the walls, and she was reminded of the
+connection between cleanliness of person and purity of conscience as
+she made her toilette.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Konrad, in touching concern for her appearance, drew all the money that
+he had saved out of the bank--about five hundred marks altogether--and
+had purchased her a wardrobe at the draper's, for she could not go out
+and shop for herself in the costume she had worn the night that she
+came to his rooms. He had been persuaded by the shopgirls to buy the
+most ridiculous things. She would have died of laughing if he hadn't
+laid out a great deal of his money on them.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Dressed in the shoddy apparel, she felt she was masquerading, and not
+for the world would she now have been seen in the streets.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Frau Laue shook her head doubtfully.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Four years ago you left me with court-dresses, bracelets, and
+brooches, and all sorts of lovely things, and now you are come back in
+these rags! That doesn't seem to me to be fitting to your career, Lilly
+dear.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Neither did Konrad find favour in the old lady's eyes.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;He's too young for you,&quot; she said, &quot;and not enough of a swell. He may
+have high ideals, and be sentimental, otherwise he wouldn't see
+anything in you; but I tell you all that high-flown rubbish means
+sorrow.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">To Lilly this chatter was intensely objectionable. But as she had
+nothing to do all day, she sat down with Frau Laue, as had been her
+wont of old, and helped her tap and press her dried flowers. And often
+it seemed as if she had never been away.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The first day of her absence she had written to Adele--without giving
+her address, of course--and instructed her not to be concerned about
+her, but to continue her duties at the flat till Herr Dehnicke came
+back.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was more difficult to write a letter of farewell to Richard. She
+made no allusion to her engagement, which was to be kept secret for the
+present, and gave as the sole motive of her flight an ardent desire to
+live a new life. She again expressed herself unwilling to stand in the
+way of his matrimonial prospects, and ended with heartfelt cordiality,
+which robbed the separation of every sort of bitterness. On reading the
+letter over, she experienced a genuine pang of parting emotion, of
+which she was a little ashamed.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Days went by. The new life that for years had been the subject of her
+fondest dreams had begun, and under auspices happier than any her
+imagination had ever dared to depict.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">At the side of the man she loved, whom but a few days ago it would have
+seemed arrogance and sacrilege to have thought of possessing, she was
+to enter again the society from which she had been banned--rescued,
+purified, regenerate.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Who could have believed it possible? Yet, for all that, it required an
+effort to realise and appreciate this unheard-of happiness. The more
+she said to herself that this was a period of transition that would
+soon be over, the more she felt the sordid wretchedness of the old
+quarters that had become so strange to her. The frowsy atmosphere, the
+spiritual flatness, the want of decent clothes and money, the bad food
+and service, all weighed on her spirit and left the impression that
+instead of ascending to honour and position she had on the contrary
+sunk suddenly from affluence and splendour into a degraded poverty. No
+matter how much she scolded herself for this ungracious mood, it
+remained with her and would not budge. And she could not explain why it
+should be so. Five years ago, when she had really come down from high
+places, a spoilt child of fortune, petted and used to every luxury and
+attention, she had hardly suffered at all from the dreary squalor of
+her surroundings; and, though without any prospects to speak of, she
+could still hope. But now, when the idle pleasures of a frivolous
+existence lay behind her, and she had been happily drawn out of the
+slough, when her beloved was at her side, ready to fling open the doors
+for her to enter into a kingdom of undreamed-of joy, she nearly choked
+among the red plush furniture, vexed her soul about trifles, and pined
+for a bathroom and a hairdresser's services.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Some change had come over her during these years, but what it was,
+though she racked her brains in thinking about it, she could not
+discover.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">In the midst of these trials, her anxiety with regard to Konrad gave
+her no peace. She was subject to violent heart-beatings at the mere
+thought of him. Her conscience perpetually stabbed her. She longed for
+expiation, reproached herself, and in her secret soul reproached him
+too.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She dared no longer think of him with the rapture of desire as
+formerly, yet she was always on the lookout for a message or letter
+from him. If he did write, it was never enough to please her, but if he
+was silent she grumbled and fretted, although she knew that he had
+scarcely a moment to call his own during the day, and was drudging
+harder than he had ever done for her sake.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Between eight and nine in the evening he arrived, laden with books and
+papers. He had manuscripts to read, proofs to go through, and letters
+to answer. He scarcely gave himself time to eat, and while he swallowed
+a few mouthfuls, troubled thoughts of things that he had forgotten to
+do during the day constantly occurred to his over-taxed mind.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Hours devoted to amorous dalliance were out of the question. Often
+indeed he fell asleep in a corner of the sofa in the middle of his
+work. Then Lilly could contemplate at her leisure the ravages his
+strenuous life had made on him. He looked haggard and worn, his clothes
+were neglected, and the velvety blue sheen of his cheeks, in which she
+had taken such delight, had given place to pimples and a stubbly growth
+of hair.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She would have given anything to know what he was really thinking about
+her at the bottom of his soul, but she could extract nothing from him.
+Dumbly he gazed before him with burning eyes, his lips so tightly
+compressed that the edge of a razor could not have been inserted
+between them. She had no grounds for doubting him, for she knew that
+all his energies were concentrated on preparing for their joint future.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The post of professor of German in a college in Buenos Ayres was
+vacant, also a similar post in Caracas, and on the other side of the
+herring-pond he could easily get employment on any university staff.
+All that was necessary was a few testimonials from celebrated
+professors.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was only in the contingency of his uncle disapproving of his
+marriage and cutting him off that he laid these plans. If the old man
+said &quot;Yes,&quot; there would be ample means to set up housekeeping anywhere
+they liked, and in surroundings most congenial for the precious work.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Konrad had at once announced his engagement to his uncle, and given a
+heart-moving account of Lilly's past. He did not conceal that there had
+been stains on it, but he emphasised the more her fine qualities, her
+inner purity, her grandeur of soul, her gifts of mind, the wealth of
+her intellectual interests.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He read her an extract from a copy of the letter after he had
+despatched it, sounding like the manifesto of a social revolution:</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I know you are, thank God, as I am, far above the narrow Philistine
+conventions of society, the uncharitable social standards, the
+Pharisaism that entitles itself to be the guardian of public morals and
+would sacrifice all aspirations, freedom of conduct, and high living to
+the fetish of family-life bondage. You have travelled in all parts of
+the world and learned how mutable are the laws of morality everywhere,
+how hollow the sham of pretending to regard each as the divinely
+ordained dogma, and how hypocritical the sly methods by which men
+wriggle out of them. You know that in the realm of ethics there is one
+thing alone that commands unconditionally a reverence and esteem, and
+that is the will to <i>kallokagathia</i>, to that mode of living in which
+the super-men of all times combined the Good and Beautiful. Yes, in her
+aspirations and her troubles, <i>she</i> has personified the good and
+beautiful for me, and has brought into my life imperial rights and the
+dawn of morning's glory.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Could anything be more splendidly and touchingly put? Who could be so
+crassly dull and stupid as to resist the power of such language? And
+with this she consoled him when he was weighed down with a feeling of
+depression about the uncertainty of their immediate future.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">A week passed before the answer came, the longed-for answer that meant
+joy or despair to two human beings.</p>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;<span class="sc">My dear Boy</span>,</p>
+
+<p class="normal" style="text-indent:5%">&quot;I have no idea what <i>kallokagathia</i>
+means, and other foreign words of
+the kind. It is half a century since I ran away from school, but, all
+the same, I flatter myself that I have a keen eye for faces, and can
+take a man's measure pretty accurately, whether it's striking a bargain
+on the Yoshiwara, on the Stock Exchange, or at a game of baccarat.
+Nevertheless, this insight did not stand in the way of my being fleeced
+and of making a fool of myself about women. My life represents a long
+sequence of such blunders. Once I wanted to bring home a young
+Circassian because her eyebrows grew prettily; another time I nearly
+married a little Musme, because she understood how to massage my feet.
+I won't recount how many times I wanted to act the part of saviour of
+souls, for everyone goes through that phase. Fortunately, the patron
+divinity of old rips and old bachelors--with your wide classical
+learning you may be able to tell me who he is--has hitherto had the
+grace to save me from putting any plans into execution. <i>Your</i> case,
+however, appears on the surface to be essentially different. If,
+as you relate, your sweetheart is a pattern with every attribute of
+virtue--life is full of surprises and if she doesn't pose as a
+repentant magdalen, then I shall with the greatest enjoyment give
+respectability, which I have detested all my life, a slap in the face
+by bestowing on you my hearty blessing. But if by any chance your love
+affair bears a family likeness to my own tender recollections, you must
+excuse me if I back out of any responsibility with regard to what you
+call your future and break off any relations with you. The best plan I
+can think of is to come to Berlin to-morrow, and to ask you and your
+future bride to keep an evening free for your old uncle. As I don't
+know as yet the best place to dine at, I will fix a <i>rendezvous</i> later.
+Till then,</p>
+
+<p style="text-indent:50%">&quot;Your affectionate</p>
+
+<p style="text-indent:60%">&quot;<span class="sc">Uncle Rennschmidt</span>.&quot;</p>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">For the first time during these sad days, Lilly saw Konrad's
+face relax
+into a smile.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;If that is his attitude,&quot; he said, &quot;there is nothing to fear. One
+glance at you and his doubts will be dissipated; besides, who in the
+world could possibly resist you? You have only to make yourself a
+little nice to him and he will be your slave.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But Lilly cherished secret misgivings.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">If only she had her old extensive wardrobe to select from, she might,
+with great care, have made herself as presentable as she could wish
+in his uncle's eyes; but in either of these two ready-made little
+frocks--which only by pinning she could make fit her--without ornaments
+and the hundred and one etceteras that contribute to a perfect
+<i>ensemble</i>, how was she to achieve the conquest of the old connoisseur
+of women?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I am afraid I shall have to put you to the expense of an evening
+dress,&quot; she said timidly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He was delighted at the idea. Anything she wanted she must have, of
+course. A hat with feathers, a lace scarf ... like those he had seen
+her in. And he handed out two hundred and sixty marks, all that he had
+left, for her purchases. Poor dear boy! what did he know of the
+costliness of <i>chic</i> in the world of fashion?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">When he was gone she thought it over. While she was trying to devise
+plans of getting herself up decently out of the means at her disposal,
+there were dozens of lovely dresses hanging in the cupboards of her old
+flat, dresses that he had never seen in his life, for she had never
+been escorted by him to any party. And the lace scarf, which had cost a
+fortune, was there too, and God only knew what besides. She dared
+hardly trust herself to think of all these wasted treasures.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">With all her might she resisted the temptation. She had given him her
+word of honour, and, whoever else she might deceive, she could not
+deceive Konrad. So she decided to go on a shopping expedition the next
+morning. There might be something she could pick up in stock at
+Wertheim's or Gerson's that would prove a bargain. She was well known
+in the shops, and though never extravagant, was noted for always
+choosing the very best materials. What astonishment would be depicted
+on the faces of the saleswomen when they beheld her in her present
+cheap, shoddy clothes!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">No; it would be too painful an ordeal. She couldn't go through it. Yet
+think and think it over as she did by the hour, nothing could prevent
+her thoughts travelling back to the wardrobes where her finery reposed,
+silently offering her an exquisite choice. Nowhere could she find a
+loophole by which she could evade her promise, nowhere an excuse for
+the crime of breaking it. In spite of all this wrestling with herself,
+the night passed in happy dreams, for the sun of hope had risen once
+more. And, as usual, when Lilly's sleep was refreshing and profound,
+she felt her senses lapped in familiar melodies. The &quot;Moonlight Sonata&quot;
+stole on her, and Grieg's &quot;Ung Birken,&quot; and, with the Rhine maidens'
+motif out of &quot;The Ring,&quot; &quot;The Song of Songs.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">As she lay half awake the aria still rang in her ears: &quot;Come, my
+beloved, let us go forth into the field.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And then, in sudden terror, she started up in bed crying out, &quot;The Song
+of Songs!&quot; The score--her precious roll of music--her heritage--where
+was it?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">In a drawer of the escritoire in the corner drawing-room--buried,
+forgotten.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She had never given it a single thought.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Now there was no longer any question of keeping her promise. If in that
+supreme hour she had kept her head, she would never have given it. She
+had been casting about for an excuse, and now here was more than an
+excuse, a justification. No pangs of conscience troubled her. This was
+a sacred cause, for which she must go through fire and water.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Before eight o'clock she was out of the house. The sun-drenched mist of
+the rosy August morning melted into a violet sky; from the yellowing
+poplars dropped sooty dew, and the electric trams hummed their secret
+storm-signals.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She mingled with the little crowd that gathered and melted again at the
+nearest stopping-station waiting for the car which was to take her
+west. Nervously she looked about her, fearful that Konrad might chance
+to come along the street; and when seated in the tramcar she screened
+her face with the morning paper that she had brought. Along the canal
+path she glided, under cover of the trees, like a hunted animal.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And so she came to the flat at last. The porter was sweeping the steps,
+as he did every morning, and greeted her with an exclamation of wonder
+and pleasure. The greengrocer whose stall was in the cellar gave her a
+roguish welcome, and his small fry, to whom she had sometimes given a
+bonbon, hung on to her skirts in jubilation. Altogether it felt like
+coming home.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Adele was still in bed. Why shouldn't she be? There was nothing for her
+to do.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">When Lilly opened the door of her room she displayed unbounded delight.
+She even shed tears of satisfaction, and Lilly all at once realised
+what she was losing in her.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Everything shone brightly in the morning sunshine. The flowers had been
+watered. The bullfinch flapped his wings in greeting, and Peterle
+nearly broke the bars of his cage to scramble up on her shoulder. She
+scarcely knew whom to attend to first--out of sheer happiness and
+affection.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">There were three letters and two telegrams on the salver. The letters
+were in Richard's handwriting; the telegrams were addressed to Adele,
+urgently demanding the address of her vanished mistress.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">In the meantime her master had given up his courtship, and returned to
+Berlin. He had advertised in the papers, and came every day to see if
+there was any answer. He sat in his old place and drank his tea as
+usual, afterwards smoking cigarettes till it was time to go back to the
+office.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Had she mentioned Konrad? What did the <i>gnädige Frau</i> take her for?
+Adele hoped she understood better than that how to look after her
+mistress's interests. And now the best thing for the <i>gnädige Frau</i> to
+do was to come back and act just as if nothing at all had happened.
+That is what her former ladies had always done.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly asked her to fetch down the smaller of her two leather trunks
+from the attic, explaining that she wished to take away with her a few
+things which had belonged to her before. As Adele sullenly obeyed,
+Lilly collected Konrad's letters from their secret hiding-place, then
+ran to her big wardrobe, snatched the dresses from the pegs, and piled
+them on the bed to choose what she would take.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was now that she thought of &quot;The Song of Songs.&quot; She went down on
+her knees before the escritoire. The roll of music, which had been
+lying for years at the back of the bottom drawer neglected and forlorn,
+had assumed a different aspect. The elastic band that held the sheets
+together had become slack and sticky, and fell to pieces when Lilly
+touched it: The crumpled sheets slipped out of her hand and fluttered
+over the carpet. There they lay--the arias, the recitations, the duets,
+and the connecting orchestral passages--all in confusion, and on the
+top the &quot;Turtle Dove&quot; solo for the clarionet, which she had hummed with
+her mother almost before she could lisp. Dismayed, she gazed at the
+scattered sheets. They had turned yellow and musty. Several were
+stained with her own blood, which had flown from her veins after her
+mother's assault on her with the bread-knife. The bloodstains entirely
+obliterated many of the notes. Others had been gnawed away with the
+paper by mice at Schloss Lischnitz. And this was what it had come to,
+her &quot;Song of Songs.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It held out no message of hope now; it was no refuge for the future. No
+faithful Eckart, no guide to dizzy golden heights. It was a mere
+derelict, used up though never used, a time-honoured bit of lumber
+that one drags about without knowing why--an extinguished light, a
+masterpiece of wisdom that had become meaningless.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Shrugging her shoulders, she hastily gathered together the disarranged
+rolls of paper and tried to thrust one inside the other, regardless of
+how they came--she was in such a hurry!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I can arrange them some time later,&quot; she thought, dimly conscious that
+she would never take the trouble.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Adele came with the box. She seemed to have been a remarkably long time
+getting it. Her eyes kept wandering guiltily to the clock, and her
+answers were absent-minded. Then she threw back the lid, and Lilly
+threw the score into the bottom of the box. Its yawning depths seemed
+to cry out for further booty. There lay the dresses spread out on the
+bed. Her row of shoes stood by the washstand. Hats, blouses, veils,
+lace wraps, silk petticoats--all were waiting as much as to say, &quot;Take
+us too!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">For a moment she closed her eyes with a moan, remembering the one and
+only sacrifice he had asked of her. But it must be done--both their
+futures depended on it.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Frau Laue will hide them for me, and afterwards Frau Laue can keep
+them,&quot; she thought.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Then, with a rapid resolve, she made a dash at the clothes, and
+gathered up blindly anything and everything she could lay hands on.
+She seized even the gold-coroneted ivory brushes, the three-winged
+hand-mirror, the bromide, the recipe for the summer storage of her
+furs, and a dozen other little indispensable articles of the toilette.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And jewels were not forgotten! &quot;<i>He</i> may want money later,&quot; she
+thought.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Meanwhile Adele had been sent out for a four-wheeler, and again it was
+ages before she came back. The porter helped to carry down the trunk,
+and Adele held the hat-boxes in her free hand. One last caress of the
+bullfinch's grey-green wings, a kiss on the small monkey's velvety
+snout, and the door closed behind her for ever.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Will not the <i>gnädige Frau</i> leave an address?&quot; Adele inquired. How sly
+she looked!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Later on I will write to you, dear Adele, and I hope you may come and
+live with me again.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Dear Adele&quot; did not respond, but glanced down the street expectantly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">A few minutes afterwards, as Lilly drove along the canal, she saw from
+the cab window a smart yellow-striped hired motor whiz past from the
+opposite direction. Richard was inside. She recognised him as he
+flashed by. Red as a lobster, his head slanting, he stared past her,
+with wild and searching glances, at the house that she had just left.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She hurriedly directed her driver to turn into a side street, for she
+had no desire to meet him till her fate with regard to the world had
+been decided. But in a few minutes she heard, with a beating heart, the
+same clatter of wheels that had died away in the distance coming behind
+her, and drawing nearer and nearer. The yellow side of the motor had
+almost shot beyond her, when the word &quot;Stop!&quot; brought it to a
+standstill, and at the same moment her cab drew up too.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Richard confronted her with his hand on the door-handle: &quot;Where are you
+going?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">His voice rose to a feminine shrillness. Above his high starched collar
+his throat worked up and down convulsively.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She felt perfectly calm and mistress of the situation.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He appeared to her now a poor, helpless shadow of a creature, he who so
+long had been her lord and master.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Please let me drive on, Richard,&quot; she said. &quot;I have said good-bye to
+you by letter. I wanted a few things, and have been to fetch them. Why
+should we annoy each other further?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Turn round!&quot; he said, grinding his teeth. &quot;Turn round!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Why should I turn round?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I say you shall! You know where your home is. I will not allow you to
+knock about the world by yourself any longer, God knows what mayn't
+happen to you. Driver, turn round!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The driver, with his red face, looked inquiringly at his fare before
+obeying.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Really, Richard, I alone have the control of this cab, and of my
+future proceedings--as you have control of yours.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What rot! If you are thinking about the American heiress, she may go
+to the deuce for all I care. But <i>you</i>--you <i>must</i> come back. You
+must!
+you shall!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He grasped with both hands the hem of her skirt as if he would drag her
+out of the cab by her clothes.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I beg you to come back.... I can't sleep, I can't work.... I have got
+so used to you.... If it had come off, I should have joined you again
+directly the wedding was over. And everything in your rooms is as you
+left it that you have seen for yourself. Peterle won't eat, Adele says,
+and Adele is moped. She says she simply can't exist without you. I'll
+give you twenty thousand--no, thirty thousand--marks a year for life.
+Mother won't mind.... She understands ... for, you know, I've given up
+the idea of marrying for good; that need never worry you again.... And
+you may come to the office when you like.... And you shall have the
+carriage instead of a hired one. I'll have the telephone put on between
+your flat and the stable. Or perhaps you'd prefer a motor-car? If so,
+you shall have one, ten thousand times better than this.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He had played his trump-card. What dreams of earthly grandeur could
+exceed a motor-car? He paused and, kneeling on the step, stared hard
+into her face to see the effect of his speech.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She saw clearly that she would never be free of him unless she told him
+the truth. She was sorry for him, but it was her duty.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Look here, Richard. All that you offer me is no good to me now, for I
+love another man who can give me far more than you can--far, far more!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What! What! You've caught a young Vanderbilt?&quot; he exclaimed in jealous
+rage. &quot;Well, I must say I never suspected that side to your character.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;No, dear Richard; it's not a young Vanderbilt. On the contrary, he is
+so poor that he lives from hand to mouth. But, all the same, he and I
+are engaged, and as his future wife I must ask you to leave me free to
+do as I like.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">His jaw dropped, his eyes grew round; he reeled back against the hind
+wheel of the yellow car.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Drive on!&quot; called Lilly to the cabman.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She leaned back in her corner with a sigh of relief, and yet with a
+slight sense of guilt at having got rid so lightly of the old love.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The whole way she heard the puffing of a slowly progressing motor
+behind her, and when she descended from the cab, Richard got out of his
+motor at a little distance, but near enough for her to see an
+expression in his eyes like that of a whipped dog.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She ran up the four flights of stairs as if pursued by furies,
+forgetting all about her box. A moment afterwards the cabman came up,
+panting under its weight, and when she offered him his fare he declined
+to take the money.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The gentleman downstairs,&quot; he said, &quot;has already settled everything.&quot;</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+
+<h2>CHAPTER XX</h2>
+<br>
+
+<p class="continue">It was the evening of the next day. The carriage, which was
+bearing
+Lilly to the most dreaded interview of her life, drew up at the door of
+the Unter den Linden Restaurant, which had been a favourite haunt of
+the <i>beaumonde</i> for generations. Although Lilly had not been there for
+a long time, she knew every inch of it. She knew, too, the giant
+commissionaire, Albert, who stood at the entrance and laid his hand
+respectfully on his braided cap. It was he who of old used to apprise
+her of the approach of the handsome officer of Hussars. With downcast
+eyes and her head pressed against Konrad's shoulder, she glided past
+him, trusting that he no longer remembered her.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Uncle, this is Lilly!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">An old gentleman below middle height, with bow legs, and in an
+ill-fitting lounge-jacket and limp collar, came swaggering out of a
+private room and held out to her a broad fleshy hand, the skin of which
+was as loose and brown as a dog-skin glove. She cast a shy,
+scrutinising glance at this all-powerful person, whom she had pictured
+as a man of commanding presence and iron will, and who, after all, was
+only a shaky, corpulent, rather common-looking dwarf.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Then, as she told herself that her own and Konrad's happiness depended
+on her conduct now and during the next hour or two, she felt the old
+paralysing nervousness which had not troubled her much of late years
+come over her. When suffering from these attacks she became as wooden
+as a doll, and could do nothing but smile inanely, and hardly knew how
+to pronounce her own name.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The old uncle, too, seemed frozen into silence at the first sight of
+her. He scanned her from head to foot, and from foot to head, and
+nearly forgot to invite her into the private room.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">This room, with its gold Japanese wall-paper, its carnation silk
+hangings, its blue Persian rugs, and high-backed sofa, was as familiar
+to her as everything else in the place. Many a festive midnight hour
+had she caroused away here with Richard and his chance acquaintances at
+the time when it was still his ambition to hobnob with the <i>crême de la
+crême</i> of fast society.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">An immaculately shaved waiter took her brocaded evening coat and lace
+scarf, and measured her as he did so with an eye that seemed to say,
+&quot;Surely I must have seen <i>you</i> before?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">That was an agonising moment.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The old uncle, who had never ceased to regard her stealthily with awed
+but grim glances, pulled himself together and said:</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Well, now we are going to have a jolly time together, children ...
+cosy and friendly--eh? Jolly cosy.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly bowed.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Her bow was a stiff enough inclination of the head, apparently, to
+increase the bandy-legged old gentleman's reverent esteem for her. He
+seemed puzzled and ill at ease, trampled restlessly about the room,
+toyed with the gold charms that dangled from his watch-chain, and
+nodded two or three times at Konrad in solemn appreciation.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Then they seated themselves at the gleaming white table, which was a
+mass of glittering cut-glass and flowers. Round the bronze lamp, with
+its claws and dainty iris stem--Lilly remembered it well--hung a
+festoon of lilac orchids, which must have cost an immense sum.
+Evidently this slovenly old rascal understood the art of good living.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly saw herself reflected in a mirror as she sat in her place on the
+sofa, a radiant picture of composure and distinction. She had chosen a
+sunray pleated black Liberty silk dress with a bodice of Chantilly
+lace, which, despite its costliness, clung in the simplest lines
+gracefully about her neck and shoulders. An innocent masculine mind
+might easily believe that such a costume could be bought anywhere
+between San Francisco and St. Petersburg, or Cape Town and Christiania,
+for two hundred marks.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She had wisely left her jewellery at home. Only the slender gold chain,
+which she generally wore with a low bodice, encircled in maidenly
+unpretentiousness her high transparent collar.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She looked like a strictly reared young gentlewoman of quality making
+her first <i>dêbut</i> in the great world, full of shyness and curiosity.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Konrad occupied the chair on her right. The third place, nearest the
+door, his uncle had retained for himself.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">From the moment he sat down to table he seemed to be in his element. He
+growled and issued orders, and found fault with everything.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Look here, my boy,&quot; he said to the waiter as he placed the <i>hors
+d'&#339;uvres</i> in front of him, &quot;do you call that the correct decanter for
+port wine? Don't you know that if port wine doesn't sparkle in the
+decanter it assuages thirst?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Intimidated by his bullying tone, the waiter was going off for another
+decanter, but Konrad's uncle declared he couldn't spare the time, he
+must have a &quot;starter&quot; straight away.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I am still feeling a little stiff,&quot; he said apologetically, &quot;I am
+unaccustomed to entertaining such very beautiful and at the same time
+stand-offish ladies.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly felt a stab at her heart.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Her lover's eyes met hers with a glance full of reproach and
+encouragement which said: &quot;You mustn't be so silent. You must try to be
+nice to him.&quot; And in the same mute language she answered humbly and
+deprecatingly: &quot;I cannot; <i>you</i> talk for both of us.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And then he began in his anxiety to converse as if he had been
+paid to entertain the company. He described the antiques which his
+uncle had collected in his castle on the Rhine, referred to threatened
+American competition, passed on to Italy and the evils of the Lex
+Pacca--goodness only knew what topic he didn't touch on.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was quite an illuminating little discourse, which his uncle appeared
+to follow with modified interest, as he squinted across at Lilly and
+smacked his lips while he let morsels of tunny in oil slip down his
+throat.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Suddenly he said, &quot;All very well, my son. Highly instructive and
+proper. But I wonder if you could not be equally enlightening on the
+subject of what sort of whisky they provide here?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Konrad sprang up to look for the bell, but his uncle pulled him back.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Stop! stop! This is my private entertainment. The port wine is for
+you. And a beautiful woman, after all, is a beautiful woman, even when
+she is someone else's beautiful wife. So here's to the health of our
+beauty.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">That sounded very like sarcasm. Was it his intention to make game of
+her before finally rejecting her claims?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Permit me,&quot; he continued, &quot;to give you my congratulations. You have
+worked wonders already with the boy.... He dances prettily to your
+piping--eh?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Now she was bound to make some answer.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I don't pipe and he doesn't dance,&quot; she said, with an effort. &quot;We are
+neither of us light-hearted enough for that.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Ah, that's a nasty one for me,&quot; he laughed; but his laugh sounded
+cross and irritable.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Lilly meant no harm,&quot; interposed Konrad, coming to her rescue. &quot;And
+certainly the time of stress that we are passing through at present is
+not easy. If it were not for the help she gives me daily with her
+understanding and kindness of heart, I am not sure that I could
+struggle on.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Very good, very good,&quot; he replied; &quot;or perhaps I should say, very
+pitiable. But your old uncle hasn't had as much as one pretty look or
+speech from her yet as a seal of our future relationship.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Oh, that's what he wants, is it?&quot; thought Lilly; and she raised her
+glass to his, and sought to mollify him with a coquettish little
+shamefaced smile.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It filled him with evident satisfaction. He twirled his pointed beard,
+and ogled her familiarly with his twinkling eyes, as if he wished to
+elicit a sign of secret understanding betwixt them.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Thank God, perhaps he's not so very formidable after all!&quot; she
+thought, and gave a sigh of deep relief that the ice was broken at
+last.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">When the waiter came back, a lively discussion ensued between him and
+Konrad's uncle as to the brands of whisky the hotel boasted.... The
+debate ended in the manager of the establishment appearing on the
+scene, and offering to go down into the cellar himself to search for a
+bottle, which he thought he had somewhere, bearing the label of a
+certain celebrated firm, and the date of a certain famous year.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Not till this important matter was settled did the old gentleman again
+devote his attention to his fair future niece-in-law.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I am an old mud-lark,&quot; he said. &quot;I have done business in guano, train
+oil, Australian pitch, ship grease, and other such unclean things. So
+you can't wonder at my wishing to refresh myself for once in a way with
+an appetising object like yourself, dear ungracious lady. All I require
+is a little return of my interest.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Ah well, then, I'll just be impudent,&quot; thought Lilly. And aloud she
+said: &quot;You know, Herr Rennschmidt, I am sitting here trembling
+in my shoes like a poor, unlucky candidate for an examination! I
+implore you&quot;--she raised her clasped hands towards him--&quot;don't play
+cat-and-mouse with me.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Now she had struck the right note and given him the opening he desired.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Her lips are unsealed at last!&quot; he exclaimed, beaming. &quot;And I say,
+Konrad, what pretty lips she has! I like those long teeth that make the
+upper lip say to the lower, 'If you won't kiss when I do, I'll have a
+separation.' Do you see what I mean, Konrad, you dullard?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly could not help laughing heartily, and at once they were on the
+best of terms. Even Konrad's dear, haggard face lighted up for a moment
+with a reassuring smile which did her heart good. For his sake she
+could almost have thrown herself under his uncle's feet, so dearly did
+she love him. And with a feeling of rising triumph she thought, &quot;I'll
+just show him how awfully nice I can be to the old curmudgeon.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was not so difficult, after all. When she looked at his round,
+puckered, mischievous old face, with the keen shrewd grey eyes and the
+beautifully waved snow-white wig--it was actually a wig peaked on the
+forehead and brushed into two outstanding curls over his ears like a
+judge's--she felt more and more that he was a good and tried comrade,
+with whom she had often had good times in the past. And yet she had
+certainly never met him before.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He had a masterful air of breeding about him, despite his plebeian
+exterior. His choice of the menu was simply admirable. The 'sixty-eight
+Steinberger, which flowed into the crystal glasses like liquid amber,
+suited the blue trout to such perfection that it might have been their
+native element; and the sweet-bread patties <i>à la Montgelas</i> were
+worthy accompaniments. Neither Richard nor any of his crew understood
+so well the gourmet's art.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">If only he had not drunk whisky so perpetually in between!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;My brain has been so deadened by money-making,&quot; he said in
+justification, &quot;I am obliged to give it a fillip now and then, or it
+would become completely dulled.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">With the punch <i>à la romaine</i>, a brief and vivacious debate arose as to
+the merits of certain American drinks, in which Lilly, with her
+extensive knowledge of bars and beverages, scored. She even knew the
+exact ingredients of her host's speciality, the &quot;South Sea Bowl,&quot; in
+which sherry, cognac, angostura bitters, with the yolks of eggs and
+Château d'Yquem, or, if necessary, moselle, contributed to make a fiery
+mixture. She went so far as to offer to prepare this curious mixture
+for him after dinner with the skill of an expert, so that he would have
+to confess he had never drunk anything more delicious between Singapore
+and Melbourne.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Konrad, who obviously had never suspected her genius in this direction,
+listened to her with an amazement that filled her with pride. She
+telegraphed to him one secret signal after the other, asking, &quot;Aren't
+you pleased? Am I not being very, very nice to him?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But somehow he would not respond. He was silent and absent-minded, and
+it often seemed as if he did not belong to the party.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Well, he may dream if he likes,&quot; she thought blissfully. &quot;I'll look
+after our interests.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Thus every minute the friendship between her and the old worldling grew
+apace.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">By the time they had got to the wild-duck and the dark glowing
+burgundy, which slid down their throats like warm caresses, she had
+already begun to call him &quot;dear uncle.&quot; He, on his side, declared over
+and over again that he was &quot;totally wrapped up in his dear, dear little
+Lilly.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">So this was the test, the cruel probation, which she had dreaded with
+all her soul, through which she had expected to come dissected and
+unmasked, with every rag of concealment rudely torn off!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">When she thought of how differently things were turning out, she could
+hardly contain herself for glee. There sat the mighty, dreaded peril,
+whose money-bags meant victory or defeat, a little wild beast tamed,
+who squeezed her fingers in his repulsive shrivelled hands and fawned
+on her for a smile.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He was undoubtedly quite amusing, especially when he told good stories.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">What a lot of scandal he had gathered in the Colonies! In one evening
+he told more anecdotes than she had heard for a year. There was, for
+example, the story of the German Governor, Herr von So-and-So--she had
+once met him herself at Uhl's--who took up his duties abroad with a
+suite consisting of secretary, valet, and cook. In six months the cook
+came and said, &quot;Herr Governor, I am----&quot; He gave her two thousand marks
+and said, &quot;Here you are, but keep quiet.&quot; Then she went to the
+secretary and said, &quot;Herr Müller, I am----&quot; He gave her three hundred
+marks and said, &quot;Not a word.&quot; Then she went to the valet and said,
+&quot;Johann, I'm so far gone, we'd better marry.&quot; After three months the
+valet came to the Governor and said, &quot;Your Excellency, the hussy took
+us all in. The child is black!&quot; And many another yarn followed of the
+same sort. In short, she nearly died of laughing.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Konrad, why don't you laugh? Laugh, dearest.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And then he really did smile, but his eyes remained grave and his brow
+tense.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">When the champagne came, they drank each other's health again, and
+kissed. The touch of those thick sensual old lips was horrible, but to
+ensure her future happiness it had to be endured. She was going to give
+Konrad a kiss too, but he declined it. Still worse, he tried to prevent
+her drinking so much.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;She ought to be more careful,&quot; he urged. &quot;Please, uncle, don't fill up
+her glass so often. We never drink so much as this.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The other two laughed at him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;He always was a bit of a muff,&quot; jeered his old uncle, &quot;and never knew
+what was good. He's not good enough for you, Lilly; you ought to have a
+fellow like me--not a prig. He's like a mute at a funeral.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But she saw no joke in this.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You shan't abuse my darling Konni, you old wretch! Go on telling your
+old chestnuts. <i>Allons</i>! Fire away!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">No, not a word should be breathed against her dear, sweet Konni!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">So uncle started telling good stories again. This time he related them
+in pigeon-English, that gibberish which the Chinese and other
+interesting inhabitants of the far East use as a medium of
+communication with the white sahibs. &quot;Tom and Paddy in the Tea-house&quot;;
+&quot;The virtuous spinster Miss Laura&quot;; &quot;The Guide and the Bayadere.&quot; Each
+was received with a box of the ears.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But we mustn't let Konni hear any more, uncle dear. Konni might be
+corrupted.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">So saying, she inclined her left ear very close to dear uncle's lips,
+and made with her hollowed hand between them a &quot;whispering-tube,&quot; which
+was the custom of &quot;the crew&quot; when any of them wanted to flirt unheard,
+or do anything else particularly outrageous.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It would be a sad mistake to suppose that she was in the least abashed
+or unequal to giving as good as she got. The general's &quot;lullabies&quot; were
+spicy enough, and she had learned from &quot;the crew&quot; much that was of
+unquestionable origin and questionable taste. For such an appreciative
+audience as uncle proved to be, it was worth while doing one's best.
+But the innocent Konrad had to submit to his ears being stuffed up with
+the wadding on which the Colville apples had been served.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">After the coffee, uncle challenged her to keep her promise about
+brewing the South Sea Bowl, her vaunted knowledge of which, of course,
+had been mere brag.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She would show him! He shouldn't scoff at her a second time. A variety
+of bottles were brought; besides the sherry and the angostura, an old,
+sweet liqueur. It was a pity, uncle thought, to mix such good things,
+and he took two or three glasses of the latter neat, and she followed
+his example.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The tiresome eggs broke at the wrong place, it was true, and emptied
+their contents on her dress and the carpet. But what did that matter?
+It merely increased the fun ... and dear old uncle was paying for
+everything. To make up for the eggs smashing, the blue flame of the
+alcohol-lamp leapt up merrily as high as the orchids, as high as the
+ceiling.... She would have loved to lick up the flames, as the witches
+did.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Your luck, Konni!--<i>our</i> luck, Konni!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Don't drink it,&quot; she heard him say, and his voice sounded harder than
+usual. Indeed, she hardly recognised it as his voice at all.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Muff!&quot; she laughed, and thrust out her tongue at him. &quot;Muff!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Don't drink it!&quot; the warning voice said again. &quot;You are not used to
+it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal"><i>She</i> not used to drinking! How dared he say so? This was an insult to
+her honour; yes, an insult to her honour.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;How do you know what I am used to? I am used to plenty of things you
+don't guess.... Here, on this seat where I am sitting now, I have sat
+more than once--more than ten times--and have drunk ten times more.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Dearest heart, you don't know what you are saying. It isn't true.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Once more his voice sounded gentle and soothing, as if he were
+reproving a naughty child.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;How dare you say it isn't true? Do you take me for an impostor? I
+suppose you think I am not at home in swell places like this!... Pooh!
+Shall I give you a proof? I can--I can!... You'll find my name
+scratched at the foot of this lamp. Look and you'll find it.... 'Lilly
+Czepanek ... Lilly Czepanek.' Look! Look, I say!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He had started to his feet, his face rigid, and fixed his eyes in
+horror on the polished silver mirror of the lamp, on which was a jumble
+of scribbled hieroglyphics. He could not distinguish amongst them the
+L. C. for which he was looking till she came to his assistance. Here,
+no; there, no. The letters swam into one another. It was like trying to
+catch hold of the goldfish in the aquarium.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Hurrah! here it was. That was it--&quot;L. v. M.&quot; and the coronet above. For
+in those days she had often had the audacity to call herself by the
+forbidden title as a temporary adornment.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Now, do you see, Konni, that I was right? Now you won't mind how much
+I drink, will you, you dear, precious little muff?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Utterly crushed by the proof, he sank back in his chair without a
+single word.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">His uncle and Lilly went on drinking and laughing at him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">At this moment she happened to catch sight of herself in the glass.
+Through a billowy haze she beheld a flushed, puffy face with
+dishevelled hair falling about it from under a crooked hat, and two
+deeply marked lines running from mouth to chin. It was not a pleasing
+spectacle, and she was a little disturbed at it; but before she could
+distress herself further, the old uncle claimed her attention with a
+new joke.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Do you know, Lilly dear, how the Chinese sing 'Die Lorelei'?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Before she had heard a syllable she went into a fit of giggles. He
+crossed his bandy legs and played a prelude on the side of his foot as
+if it were a banjo, &quot;Ping, pang, ping&quot;; and then he began in a cracked,
+nasal, gurgling voice, drawling his &quot;l's.&quot;</p>
+<div class="poem">
+<p class="t6" style="text-indent:-6px">&quot;O, my belong too much sorry<br>
+And can me no savy, what kind;<br>
+Have got one olo piccy story,<br>
+No won't she go outside my mind.&quot;</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="normal">When he came to the second verse:</p>
+<div class="poem">
+
+<p class="t6">&quot;Dat night belang dark and colo&quot;</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="continue">he heightened the effect by tearing the wig from his head, and now he
+looked for all the world like an old nodding mandarin, with his slits
+of eyes and his polished bare ivory skull.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was fascinatingly and overwhelmingly funny. Never in her life had
+she seen such a mirth-provoking, side-splitting piece of clowning. You
+could have died of envy if you hadn't been Lilly Czepanek, the renowned
+mimic and impersonator, who, when the spirit moved her, had only to
+open her lips to rouse a tornado of applause.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Her incomparable <i>repertoire</i> had been growing rusty for too long. &quot;La
+belle Otéro&quot; was not yet stale, and Tortajada was dancing her ravishing
+dances, while Matchiche was just becoming the rage.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">All you had to do was to tilt your hat a little further back, to raise
+your black skirt--the <i>dessous</i> was part of what had been brought away
+yesterday, and would not have disgraced a Saharet--and then you were
+off!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And she was off! Off like a whirlwind over the carpet, slippery with
+the yolks of eggs that she had spilt. Hop, skip--olé! olé! Yes, you
+must shout &quot;Olé!&quot; and clap your hands. &quot;Olé-é-é----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Dear uncle bawled; the floor rocked in great waves.... Lamps and
+mirrors danced with her. All hell seemed to be let loose.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Konni, why don't you shout 'Olé'? ... Don't be so down ... Olé!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Uncle, you will have this on your conscience!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">What did he mean by saying that? Why was he sobbing? Why did he stand
+there as white as the tablecloth?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Olé--ol-é-é-é!&quot;</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+
+<h2>CHAPTER XXI</h2>
+<br>
+
+<p class="continue">Towards noon Lilly awoke in a rapture of joy.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The formidable uncle had been won--the last obstacle cleared from her
+path--the future lay spread out at her feet like a land of milk and
+honey. The probation looked forward to with such anxiety and terror had
+turned out, after all, only a delightful spree. What a mountebank and
+buffoon that shrewd old man of the world was, who probably had ground
+women's hearts under his heel as indifferently as he crunched walnuts.
+When she tried, however, to review the events of the previous evening
+she felt a slight dismay at nothing emerging from her blurred memory
+but the sounds of song and uproarious laughter, just as it used to be
+in that other life when she had spent the night in mad revels with
+Richard and his friends.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">As the mist lifted a little, she saw a deadly white face petrified by
+pained surprise, heard an exclamation that was half a sob and half a
+groan, and saw herself, sobbing too, kneeling before someone who pushed
+her away with his hands.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Had that happened, or had she dreamed it?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And she had danced and sung so beautifully! She had exhibited her art
+at its best. Could there have been anything displeasing in it? Had she,
+perhaps, gone a little too far in her high spirits?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Her anxiety grew. She sprang out of bed, and her one thought was that
+she must go to him instantly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">At twelve the bell rang.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">That was Konrad; it must be Konrad. But, when she flew to the lobby
+door to throw herself into his arms with a cry of joy and relief, she
+found that she was standing face to face with his uncle, who stood
+twirling his hat in his horrid fingers, and looked at her with a
+significant smile that she did not like at all.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Is it to come all over again--the probation,&quot; she thought, &quot;or is it
+now only coming off for the first time?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;How do you do?&quot; died in her throat. She let him in without speaking. A
+sensation of faintness came over her, as if she were going to fall
+backwards through the wall into her room.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was the old man who opened the door and walked in, with the air of
+an acquaintance who knew his way about.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Where is Konrad?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Konrad?&quot; he repeated, and scratched the silk band of his wig with his
+little finger. &quot;I've something to say about Konrad.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He drew out his glittering watch, with its massive chain, and studied
+the hands.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I make it just ten minutes past twelve. By now he will be on his way
+to the station--most probably he has started.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Is he ... going away?&quot; she stammered, while her breath began to fail
+her.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes, yes. He is going away.... We settled that last night.... He needs
+a change.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It's nonsense,&quot; she thought; &quot;how can he go away for a change without
+me?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But she put a restraint on herself and asked casually, &quot;Where is he
+thinking of going so suddenly?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Oh! he's taking a little trip abroad hardly worth speaking about. It
+seemed a favourable opportunity. A double cabin was going begging on
+the steamer leaving--er--never mind where!... an outside cabin, you
+know; on the promenade deck; pleasantest position, you know; no
+splashing, and lots of air.... One wants plenty of air, especially
+during those four days in the Red Sea.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Then she was right. Her suspicions that the probation of her character
+and intentions was only to begin seriously now were being verified.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What takes people to the Red Sea, uncle dear?&quot; she asked, with her
+most ingenuous smile.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes, what takes them to the Red Sea? Four thousand years ago the
+ancient Jews asked the same question, and everyone asks it to-day when
+he finds himself sweltering there. But still, if you want to go to
+India, you must pass through the Red Sea.... And I want to go to India
+once more. I've been quite long enough trotting about the pavements at
+home. And as our Konrad is overworked--you'll admit he is, child--I
+have talked him into coming to travel with me a bit. For in cases like
+this I believe change of scene is the best remedy. Do you see?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly felt a lump rise in her throat as if all the links of his gold
+watch-chain were choking her.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;This joke isn't in the best of taste,&quot; she thought; &quot;and God knows
+what he means by it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But whether she liked it or not, she had to play at the game. &quot;Konrad
+might have had the grace to come and say goodbye to me prettily,&quot; she
+replied, pouting a little, as if a journey to Potsdam or Dresden was in
+question.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Well, you see, child, that's what he wanted to do, of course. But I
+said to him, 'Look here, my boy, farewells are far too exciting and
+unnerving, and may bring on apoplexy.' He agreed, and left it to me to
+put matters straight with you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Well, by all means let us put matters straight,&quot; she answered, with
+the patronising smile that such a farce merited.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I shouldn't be surprised,&quot; she thought, &quot;if he were not waiting
+outside in the cab for a signal to come in.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Uncle&quot; placed his smart panama hat beside him on the floor, leaned his
+short body back in Frau Laue's red plush arm-chair, and affected an
+expression of distress and sympathy.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">What an old clown he was! It mystified her more than anything that he
+seemed so absolutely to have forgotten the alliance they had entered
+into on the previous evening. But perhaps this was only part of the
+probation farce.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;If it were only a question of me, my dear,&quot; he went on, &quot;it wouldn't
+matter. I honestly confess I'm mad about you--'wrapped up,' as I said
+last night. I have met womenfolk in all parts of the globe, and it's as
+clear to me as palm-oil that you are made of the choicest materials
+it's possible to find. But there are people, you know, who take life
+seriously and cherish grand illusions.... people who have no notion
+that a human being must be a human being. They think they are something
+extra, and expect life to afford them extra titbits. And then come
+disappointments, of course ... reproaches, despair ... tearing of hair,
+wringing of hands. I'm blowed if he didn't try to thrash me last
+night!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Whom are you talking about?&quot; asked Lilly, becoming every moment more
+uneasy.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Just as if I had led you on into the little overshooting of the mark!
+No, no ... that's not my way. I don't lay man-traps. And so I told him
+ten times over. The misfortune is, that you and I understood each other
+too well. You and I are in the same line of business.... We two are
+like two old colleagues.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;We two ...? You and I?&quot; gasped Lilly in frigid amazement.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes, you and I, my dear child. Don't have a fit--you and I; you and I.
+It's true that you are a splendid beauty of twenty-five, and I am a
+damned old fool of sixty.... But life has tarred us with the same
+brush. How am I to explain it to you?... Have you ever hunted for
+diamonds? I don't mean at the jeweller's. I'll lay a wager you know
+that way of hunting them. Well, a diamond lies embedded in hard rock,
+in tunnels ... so-called blue ground. If you find a blue-ground
+tunnel, you may imagine what it is; you just sit in it. Once I went
+diamond-hunting with a party of twenty, day and night, week after week.
+The blue ground was there all right, but the diamonds had been washed
+out of it. Do you follow me? The fine ground is still in both of us;
+but what made it fine the devil has in the meantime walked off with.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Why do you tell me all this?&quot; Lilly asked. Tears of bewilderment
+sprang to her eyes, for this couldn't possibly have anything to do with
+the probation.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Now, child, I'll tell you why.... There are people who when they have
+given their word think there is no going back on it. They must swallow
+whatever they've put in their mouths, even if it's a strychnine
+pill.... My opinion, on the contrary, is that no one ought deliberately
+to plunge into misfortune--neither he nor you. And since the quickest
+method is to wash the wool while it's on the sheep, I've come to you to
+make a little proposition. See, here's a cheque-book. You know what
+cheque-books are, I expect. On the right side are printed figures from
+five hundred upwards: All the figures that make the amount bigger than
+the sum inscribed on the cheque are cut off, in case a little swindler
+should take it into his head with one little stroke of the pen to cheat
+one out of a little hundred thousand. Well now, look here. This cheque
+is signed and dated; the figures alone want to be filled in. I should
+never permit myself to offer you a certain sum, but I should like you
+to say what you think would be a decent provision for your future.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He tore the cheque out and laid it on the table in front of her.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Thank Heaven,&quot; thought Lilly, &quot;I had nothing to be afraid of! My heart
+need not have misgiven me.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Who could be so blind as not to see through this clumsy trick whereby
+he intended to put to the test her unselfishness about money? So she
+did not send the old man about his business, as she might with justice
+have done, if such a proposal had been made to her seriously, but she
+took the cheque off the table, smiling, tore it carefully to atoms, and
+flipped them one after the other into his face.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He fidgeted about in his arm-chair.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Allow me,&quot; he said; &quot;please allow me ...&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;No! Such scurvy little jokes I certainly will not allow, dear uncle,&quot;
+she replied.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But you are declining a fortune, my child. Think what you are doing.
+We've upset the tenor of your life. We have, as it were, cast you on
+the gutter. That you shan't perish there is our responsibility. And if
+you think you will lower yourself in his eyes by accepting, I can swear
+to you he knows nothing about it; and never will, I'll swear too.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She only smiled.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">His small slits of eyes grew bright and hard. Suddenly they began to
+threaten her.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Or ... is it your intention not to give up the good boy--to hang his
+promise like a halter about his neck?... Are you one of that kind, eh?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;No. I am not one of that kind.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Her smile reached far beyond him. It flew to greet the beloved who
+soon, very soon now, would be ascending the stairs; for surely he
+couldn't have patience to wait there outside in the cab much longer.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;His promise is his own. He's never given it. And if he had wanted to I
+would never have let him. And even if what you said just now was true,
+he might go away if he liked, and come back again, and I would not
+write to him or meet him, or remind him in any way of what he is and
+always will be to me as long as I live. But I know that it is <i>not</i>
+true. He loves me, and I love him. And take care, uncle, not to play so
+low down with his future wife as to offer her blank cheques and such
+disgraceful proposals. If I were to tell him, you would find yourself
+all at once a lonely old man whose fortune might go to endow a home for
+lost dogs.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He was obliged to see at last what a blunder he had committed. He
+jumped from his seat, evidently annoyed at his mistake, and ejaculated
+an irritable &quot;Bah!&quot; as he began to pace the room, jingling the charms
+on his watch-chain. Once or twice he murmured something that sounded
+like &quot;A hangman's job.&quot; But she couldn't have heard right.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">At last he seemed to arrive at a decision. He stopped close in front of
+her, laid his repulsive hands on her shoulders and said, suddenly
+becoming affectionate and familiar again:</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Listen, sweetheart, girlie, pretty one. Something has to be done. We
+can't shirk the point. There must be a conclusion. If only I weren't
+such a damned mangy old hound and hadn't to consider the dear boy's
+feelings in the matter, things would be simple enough. I should merely
+say, 'Come along with me to the nearest registry-office. But hurry up;
+I haven't time to waste!' Don't stare! Yes--me. I'd ask you to marry
+<i>me</i>. You wouldn't have reason to regret it. But Konrad--you must see
+yourself it won't do--won't do. It would be a fatal mistake from
+beginning to end. He is a rising man. He wants to climb to the top; he
+is still blessed with faith, and you haven't any left. You fell too
+early into the great sausage-machine which minces us all sooner or
+later into average meat.... You wouldn't be happy with him long. You
+couldn't keep up to him. You'd drag on him like a dead weight, and
+would always be conscious of it. As for last night's revelation, which
+opened his eyes, I don't lay so much stress on that. It's not a
+question of what the coastline looks like--sand or palms, it's all the
+same--but it's the interior that counts. And there I see waste land,
+burnt-up scorched deserts; no birds flying across it; no ground in
+which confidence can strike root. Child, creep into any shelter life
+offers you, cling to those who have brought you to this pass; but let
+the boy go. He is not made for you. Be honest; haven't you long ago
+said so yourself?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Ah, so this was what he meant! It was not a probation, but the end--the
+end!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She gazed into vacancy. She seemed to hear steps growing fainter; one
+after the other they slowly died away, like <i>his</i> footsteps when at
+break of day he had softly stolen downstairs.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But this was final. They had died away for ever.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">A dull sense of disappointment gnawed at her heart. That was all. The
+worst would come later, as she knew by experience.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And then she saw a vision of herself dancing and yelling, laughing at
+foul jests, with her hat awry and her skirts held high--a drunken
+wanton! She, the &quot;lofty-minded saint&quot; with the &quot;brow divine,&quot; a drunken
+wanton--nothing more and nothing less.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Now she knew why he had stood there with his face as white as the
+tablecloth--why that sobbing groan of pain had burst from his lips. And
+it was pity for him as much as shame of herself that made of this
+moment a boiling hell.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;How is he bearing it?&quot; she asked, stammering.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You can guess how,&quot; he replied, &quot;but I believe I shall pull him
+through.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Oh, uncle ... I ... didn't ... I didn't want to do it ...&quot; she cried,
+sobbing.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I know, child; I know. He told me all.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">For an instant her wounded pride flamed up within her. She stooped, and
+gathering together a handful of the bits of torn paper, she held them
+out to him on her open palm.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And you dared to offer me <i>that</i>?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What was I to do, my dear? And what am I to do with you now?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Pah!&quot; and she struck at him with both hands, but the next moment she
+threw her arms round his neck and wept on his shoulder. Perhaps her
+cheek touched the very place which Konrad last night might have wetted
+with his tears!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He began to reason with her again. He made suggestions for her future.
+He would help her to begin a new life, and provide tier with the means
+to cultivate her brilliant histrionic talents; she should come out on
+the stage or the concert platform. But she shook her head.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Too late, uncle.... Waste land--didn't you say so yourself?--ground
+where no confidence can take root. I might aspire to be a music-hall
+star, but honestly I don't think it would pay.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Cursed hounds!&quot; he growled.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Who are cursed hounds?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You know well enough, my child.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She reflected a moment as to whom he could mean. Then she said:</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;There was only one ... no, two, and then afterwards one more ... and
+then two more who didn't count.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Well, that seems to me to be plenty, dear.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He patted her cheeks and smiled kindly, and somehow she did not find
+his fingers repulsive any more.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She felt that she must smile too, though she began crying again
+directly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Konrad's uncle prepared to take his departure, and she clung on tightly
+to his shoulder. She couldn't bear to let him go. He was the last link
+with her vanished dream of happiness.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What message shall I take him?&quot; he asked.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She drew herself erect. Her eyes widened. She wanted to pour out the
+full flood of her grief. Her shattered and squandered love sought for
+winged words which should bear it to him, sanctified and hallowed anew.
+But no words came.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She looked wildly round the room, as if from some quarter of it help
+must come. The portraits of defunct actors smiled down on her; once so
+eloquent, they were dumb now dumb as her own frozen soul. The specimen
+lamp-shade in its frame greeted her, presaging a future to be passed at
+Frau Laue's side.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I have nothing to say,&quot; she faltered. Then she thought of something
+after all. &quot;Ask him ... ask him, please, why he didn't come himself to
+say good-bye. I know that he is not a coward.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Uncle made one of his queerest faces.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;As you have been so astoundingly sensible, little woman, I'll tell you
+the secret. He wanted to come and say good-bye--most dreadfully, of
+course. And I promised him that I'd try and bring you to the station.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">In an instant she was making a dash for her straw hat.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Stop!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He had laid his hand on her arm. The short, squat figure seemed to grow
+taller.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You won't go.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What? Konni is expecting me, wants to speak to me? And I am not to
+go?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I say again, 'You won't go.' If you are the plucky girl I take you
+for, you will not spoil your work of sacrifice. For, depend upon it, if
+once he sees you again you'll hang on to each other for evermore.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The straw hat slipped from her hand.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Then ... tell him ... I shall always love him, always and always, that
+he will be my last thought on earth.... And ... I don't know what else
+to say.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He silently made his way out of the room.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And then she broke down.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+
+<h2>CHAPTER XXII</h2>
+<br>
+
+<p class="continue">The world wagged on, calmly, merrily, busily, as if nothing
+had
+happened, as if nowhere on the ocean of life a lost happiness was
+drifting every minute farther and farther away, as if no forsaken and
+abandoned human child cowered in a corner, staring with despairing eyes
+helplessly at the floor.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Frau Laue tapped at her lamp-shades, the fried potatoes frizzled
+in the fat-lined pan; the stove in the lobby smoked, and the frowsy
+poor-people's odour exhaled a welcome to all who came within its
+radius. She did not cry her heart out of her body, as she had done
+after her expulsion from the castle. She neither lapsed into a dazed
+apathy nor wrestled desperately with fate. Instead, she felt that a
+grey yawning void stretched before her endlessly, the silence of which
+was broken now and then by a shrill cry of almost animal longing and
+despair, a sense of feeble submission to the inevitable, a
+consciousness of being incarcerated without hope of escape, a baffled
+slipping down into life's dark depths, a dreary death unmarked by grace
+or dignity.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Between to-day and to-morrow--the to-morrow that seemed to beckon from
+every corner--Lilly's tearless eyes saw the railings of the bridge that
+her feet had tested on the way home from &quot;Rosmersholm.&quot; And, as she
+stared into space, she beheld the dark, purple-flecked waters rolling
+languidly on far below, and heard the iron chains clank under her feet.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">This sound grew into a perpetual sing-song that accompanied everything
+she did, floated over and swallowed up everything that the eventless
+days brought forth. It pierced her brain, hammered in her temples, and
+throbbed painfully in every nerve and pore of her body.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Only one word was set to this haunting melody, and that was &quot;Die.&quot;
+Yes--die. What could be simpler? What more irresistible?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Die! not to-day; but to-morrow perhaps, or the day after. Something
+might happen yet. A letter might come, or he himself. Or if not this,
+who could know that fate was not holding some other miracle of good
+fortune up its sleeve?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">So it was worth while living to-day, to drag through its countless
+hours of deadly monotony.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Then one evening, a week after Konrad's sudden departure, Frau Laue
+appeared in Lilly's room at an unaccustomed hour. Her manner denoted
+determination.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Now look here, Lilly dear,&quot; she began. &quot;Things can't go on like this.
+If you were crying your heart out I shouldn't say anything. But, as you
+are acting now, matters will never mend. There is only one sensible
+course that you can take; you must return to your Herr Dehnicke. If he
+had any inkling of how things were going with you here, trust him, he
+would have come and taken you away long ago. So I tell you plainly,
+either you sit down and write him a nice letter or I shall leave my
+work in the lurch and go straight off to his office to-morrow morning.
+He'll pay my expenses fast enough.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly felt a strong impulse to turn the old woman out of the room, but
+she was too depressed to do more than turn away from her with impotent
+distaste.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I haven't too much time to spare now,&quot; Frau Laue continued; &quot;the dozen
+must be completed before bedtime.... But you can make your mind easy as
+to one thing. If he is not here by ten o'clock to-morrow, he'll be here
+by twelve, for I shall have gone to fetch him. Good-night, Lilly dear.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">In melancholy scorn she sent a scoffing laugh after Frau Laue. This,
+then, was the stroke of good fortune which fate had in store for the
+morrow? Once more she was to cringe to man's puerile supremacy, and
+live in enervating servitude--vegetate amidst fleeting and unprofitable
+pleasures in a perfumed lethargy, or be goaded by ennui and disgust to
+walk the streets.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Yet, if he came the next day, she knew she would not have the power to
+resist. Richard would only have to look at her with that whipped-dog
+expression, which was something quite new for him, and the mere thought
+of which filled her with a shamefaced tenderness, and she would throw
+her arms round his neck and have a good cry on his shoulder.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Was it worth waiting another to-morrow for that? No; better to die
+to-day.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">To-day! A feeling of ecstasy came over her. She ran about the room,
+with folded hands, weeping and exulting. She would be a heroine like
+Isolde, a martyr for her love.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And there the railings of the bridge were waiting ready for her. How
+they would creak and groan when she set her feet on them!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Now the sing-song in her head was so loud that she thought it must kill
+her. The air resounded with a whirl of tones. The walls echoed them.
+The noise of the street, the capital's roar of traffic, all sang ...
+&quot;Die--die--die!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She pulled off her evening wrapper and dressed herself to go out. At
+first she thought of putting on one of the badly fitting dresses
+because they were connected with Konrad, but her heart failed her.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Die beautifully,&quot; Hedda Gabler had said.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;If only I had his photograph that I might take a farewell look into
+his eyes,&quot; she thought. But she had nothing but his letters and a few
+verses. They should accompany her on her last walk.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">They lay at the bottom of the leather trunk, which was still concealed
+in Frau Laue's box-room, though there had long been no one from whom it
+was necessary to conceal it. As she rummaged in its depths to find the
+little packet, she put her hand by accident on the roll of old music
+manuscript.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She looked tenderly at the yellow-stained sheet into which the rest was
+fitted. She was no longer vexed with her &quot;Song of Songs,&quot; and did not
+despise it, as on that ill-fated morning when she had hunted it up
+again; the morning on which she had gone out to break her vow to
+Konrad.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Now once more it was a dear, precious possession, not a guide,
+philosopher, and friend, not a miracle-working sacred relic, but just
+an old keepsake which we treasure and water with our tears because it
+is a bit of our own life.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And a bit of our own blood!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">For there were still those dark stains on the paper. Her blood had
+fallen on it when she set forth on life's journey, and now that the
+journey was ending the deep waters should wash the blood-stains away.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">With the score lying in her lap, she looked beyond it into the
+sorrowful past. It seemed to her as if mists were lifting and curtains
+were being drawn aside, and she saw the path that she had trodden
+winding backwards at her feet, like a clearly defined boundary.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She had been weak and often stupid. Her own interests and the main
+chance she had never considered. Every man who had entered her life had
+been able to do what he liked with her. Not once had she barred her
+soul, shown fight, or exercised to the full the sovereignty of her
+beauty. She had only been eager to oblige and to love and be kind to
+everyone. In reward, she had been hunted and bullied and dragged
+through the mud all her life long. Even the one man who had respected
+her had gone away without saying good-bye.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But I've never hated anybody,&quot; she thought. &quot;And no matter what I have
+suffered, or how I have transgressed, I have always been able to feel
+there was something in me out of the common, and this at the last seems
+as if it had been a gift from Heaven.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Did it not really seem as if this &quot;Song of Songs,&quot; which now lay before
+her, defaced, stained, and rotted, like her own career, had been all
+along blessing and absolving her the presiding genius she had believed
+it to be as a child, and fancied it afterwards during the rapture of
+her abandonment to her love for Konrad?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes, you shall come too,&quot; she said. &quot;You shall die when I die.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And she carefully wrapped the battered papers together. Then she found
+the letters, and read them through two or three times, but without
+taking in what she read.</p>
+
+<hr class="W20">
+
+<p class="normal">The clock struck twelve as she stepped softly out on to the landing.
+Frau Laue was asleep. She met no one on the stairs, and unseen walked
+into the street.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Since her flight to Konrad that memorable night she had not been out
+alone in the streets so late. Everything looked as if she saw it for
+the first time: the long rows of houses bathed in crude light, the
+trolleys of the electric trams in between, and the gliding figures of
+night-revellers.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">A numbing terror seized her. Her legs felt wooden, as if stilts were
+screwed on to them, propelling her forward whether she would or not,
+without rest; and her heels tapped ceaselessly on the pavement,
+carrying her nearer and nearer her goal. Whenever she met anyone she
+felt an impulse to hide herself, fancying that it would be noticed
+where she was going. For this reason she dived into dark back-streets,
+which were unevenly paved and where fading lime-trees scattered their
+drops of rain. She passed straggling brick buildings inhospitably shut
+in behind high back-garden walls; slaughter-houses and factories; and
+all the time her heels went tap-tap-tap, as if she had a pedometer
+attached to them, registering every inch which shortened her road.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She tried to remember other short-cuts to her bridge, but couldn't find
+them, and gave up the attempt.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What thou doest, let it be done quickly,&quot; she had read somewhere. So
+she pressed forward with clenched teeth.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The Engelbecken was dark and deserted; yellow lights were reflected
+dimly in its unfathomable waters. &quot;Here it would be easier,&quot; she
+thought, breathless from the oppression at her heart. But, shuddering,
+she retreated from the grass slopes. The bridge must be somewhere over
+there to the north-west. Fate had ordained that she should go to the
+bridge.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was still a long way off, quite an hour's walk. She came into more
+frequented ways. The rows of lights in front of the dancing saloons,
+where prostitutes caroused, cast their garish beams like finger-posts
+into the night. Cabs were waiting there, and sounds of revelry came
+from within. Forwards, forwards--always forwards! Hot, garlic-laden
+fumes were wafted to her nostrils from a cellar-café that kept its
+doors open. When had she smelt something like that before? Why, of
+course, when Frau Redlich was cooking the sausages for her son's
+farewell dinner.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">In front of her a hose as thick as her wrist sent a cleansing
+shower-bath over the street. What did that hissing, gurgling sound
+remind her of? Why, of course, of old Haberland watering the lawn with
+the old-fashioned sprinkler. And then all at once the thought shot
+through her brain: &quot;None of this is really happening. I am lying in bed
+between the bookcases, and behind me the hanging lamp that I took down
+is smoking ... and this is all in an old novel that I am reading, while
+Frau Asmussen has luckily gone to sleep after taking her medicine.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">A growing tumult called her back to actual life. She had reached the
+heart of the city, the spot where the whirl of Berlin's never-flagging
+nightly dissipations reaches its height. She came to the Spittelmarkt,
+and onwards the huge Leipziger Strasse unrolled its chain of lights
+like a pearl necklace. Buried in a mist of silver, dotted with the
+glimmering red lanterns of night cafés and cabarets, it was like a
+brilliant picture toned down with sepia.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The numb feeling in Lilly's legs increased. She walked, and was hardly
+conscious that she moved at all. She only felt the tremendous force of
+her heart-beats, which made her whole body vibrate like a mill.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">In the Friedrichstrasse there were nearly as many people about as by
+day. Young men pursued their smiling quarry, and the lamplight was
+reflected in the silk hose of the tripping <i>grisettes</i>.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Once submerged in this sort of world,&quot; Lilly thought with a gruesome
+envy, &quot;and one is disturbed by no sense of wounded honour or suicidal
+impulses.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Ah! but on the other side of this bright, laughing, jostling crowd came
+peace and darkness again, in the shelter of which you might die unseen
+and unknown.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Through the noise she still heard her heels tapping. Why shouldn't she
+go into some café, she asked herself? Even if someone saw her, what did
+it matter? It would give her one miserable quarter of an hour's
+breathing space. Lights, mirrors, velvet seats, blue cigarette-smoke, a
+clink of crystal, a pricking in her parched throat. Just once--once
+more ... not a quarter ... but a whole hour, and one more poor little
+bit of life would be hers, which could do no one else any harm. But she
+could find no justification for such a cowardly action, and determined
+that her last walk should be disgraced by no such weakness. And she
+went on, on and on.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The merry vortex of the Kranzlerecke was left behind; the daggers of
+light stabbed her no more. Lilly hardly knew where she was going. Most
+likely she was in one of those quiet cross-streets which led to the
+north-west end. The middle of the deserted street glistened with
+puddles. The rainy autumnal wind came sweeping along between the
+houses, and the cold lamplight was reflected in their dark windowpanes.
+Everything round her here seemed lifeless and extinct; only a human
+phantom glided forth at intervals, and cats chased each other
+noiselessly into obscurity.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly shivered, and clasped the score tighter in her arms. As she tried
+to catch a sight of her reflection in the glass window of a florist's,
+the blinds of which were not drawn down, she started. There she saw
+stiff branches of evergreen laurels and cypresses encircling a bust of
+the Kaiser; that recalled something strongly to her mind. What was it?
+Ah! of course. They reminded her of the Clytie which reigned on the
+pretentious private staircase of Liebert &amp; Dehnicke's, smiling and
+dreaming. Lilly Czepanek would never now ascend that green-shaded
+stairway, either as a penitent or a triumphant sinner.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She had chosen a better way, which led more directly to the great goal.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She came to a bridge, and crossed it quickly. That other bridge, with
+the iron palisade, which sung her such alluring cradle-songs, was
+further away in the open, buried in darkness and silence.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You overflow with a superfluity of love ... three kinds of love: love
+emanating from the heart, the senses, and from compassion. One kind
+everybody has; two are dangerous; all three lead to ruin!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Who had said that?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Why, to be sure, her first flame--that poor consumptive lecturer on the
+history of art, whom she and Rosalie Katz had clubbed together to send
+to the promised land, the land which she herself had never seen. He had
+spoken of the blue haze of the olives, of fields of shining asphodel,
+and the black sirocco sea.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Fields of shining asphodel.&quot; What sort of fields could they be, fields
+of asphodel?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The foreign word sounded strange, and oh, how full of enchantment! But
+her heels still went tap-tap, and the cradle-song of the palisade
+thundered in between.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">A man addressed her: &quot;Would she ...?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She shook him off as if he had been a reptile.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Then she remembered another warning that had been given her, also
+divided into three heads--whose was that? Oh, now she recollected: Dr.
+Pieper's. It came back to her, every word and sentence of the pompous
+utterance sounding in her ears as clearly as if it had been spoken only
+yesterday, &quot;There are three things to beware of: Exchange no
+superfluous glances; demand no superfluous rendering of accounts; make
+no superfluous confessions.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;If I had not exchanged superfluous glances I should have seen my
+promised land. If I had not superfluously demanded a rendering of
+account, I should never have been kicked out of Lischnitz. And if I had
+not made superfluous confessions....&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Well, what then?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Konni! Konni!&quot; she wailed. A shudder of yearning overwhelmed her
+painfully, and restrained her wandering thoughts.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She walked on, staggering. Fresh lines of street vanished in mist, and
+at one spot a grass lawn reared its unevenly clipped hedge.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What sort of fields could they be, fields of shining asphodel?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Ah! here was the bridge. The bridge!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Like a thief in the night it loomed in the darkness, above the wide,
+deserted spaces, where the lights of thousands of street-lamps dwindled
+into infinitesimal sparks. Somewhere in the dark sky shone the mild
+face of a full-moon. It was the illuminated clock of a railway station,
+the shadowy outline of which was swallowed up by the darkness. The
+hands pointed to half-past one.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Lilly saw it all dimly, as through a haze. She had sunk, paralysed with
+terror, against the corner of the wall, which she had intended to turn.
+Her heart throbbed so convulsively that she thought she must fall down
+dead.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;No; I can't do it!&quot; she said to herself. And then came her own answer:
+&quot;But I can--I will!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She tried to stagger a few steps further, on to the bridge where the
+railings seemed to be waiting for her in malice; but her legs refused
+to carry her. The singing in her head rose to a roar of thunder. She
+stood hesitating on the dark, forsaken spot; with both hands she
+struggled to tear the score and crumple it into a ball, but it would
+not yield. Her &quot;Song of Songs&quot; was stronger than she was. Then, all at
+once, her feet began to move as if of their own accord, and took her
+step by step beyond the lamp-post to the railings. Yes, now the chains
+of the palisade were between her fingers. She could see nothing of the
+water below but a dark slimy shimmer. So murky was it that even the
+lamps were not reflected in it.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Now all she had to do was to jump--and it would be over.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes, I'll do it! I'll do it!&quot; a voice within her cried.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But &quot;The Song of Songs&quot; must go first. It would be in the way, and
+hinder her climbing over the railings.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She threw it. A white flash, a splash below, harsh and shrill, which
+made her shake in every limb, as if her face had been slapped. And when
+she heard it, she knew instantly that she would never do it. No, never!
+Lilly Czepanek was no heroine. No martyr to her love was Lilly
+Czepanek. No Isolde, who finds in the will not to exist the highest
+form of self-existence. But she was only a poor exploited and plundered
+human creature who must drag on through life as best she could. She
+would not go back to the old round of degrading dissipations, however
+much Richard might look like a whipped dog. Of that she was determined;
+and she began forthwith to review the few possibilities left of her
+earning an honest living.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Perhaps all would come right in the end, though she could not disguise
+the fact that she had completely lost her zeal for work, and was never
+likely to find it again. All she asked was to be allowed to live in
+peace and the exercise of virtue. Did not millions of human beings
+think there was nothing better?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She cast one more searching glance at the sullenly rolling river in
+which &quot;The Song of Songs&quot; had found its grave, and then turned and
+walked away.</p>
+
+<hr class="W20">
+
+<p class="normal">In the business circles of Berlin there was a flutter of surprise the
+following spring when the papers announced that Herr Richard Dehnicke,
+senior partner of the well-known old firm of Liebert &amp; Dehnicke, art
+bronze manufacturers, had married Lilly Czepanek, a notorious beauty of
+the <i>demimonde</i>. The announcement added that the pair had taken up
+their quarters temporarily in Southern Italy. Those who knew her were
+not surprised--they said that they had always felt Lilly Czepanek was a
+dangerous woman.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Song of Songs, by Hermann Sudermann
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SONG OF SONGS ***
+
+***** This file should be named 34361-h.htm or 34361-h.zip *****
+This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
+        https://www.gutenberg.org/3/4/3/6/34361/
+
+Produced by Charles Bowen, from page scans provided by the Web Archive
+
+Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
+will be renamed.
+
+Creating the works from public domain print editions 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 the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission.  If you
+do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the
+rules is very easy.  You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose
+such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and
+research.  They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do
+practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks.  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
+https://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 in the public domain 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 outside 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 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
+
+1.E.2.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived
+from the public domain (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 web site (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
+both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael
+Hart, the owner 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
+public domain works 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 MERCHANTIBILITY 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 web page at https://www.pglaf.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.  Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at
+https://pglaf.org/fundraising.  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 principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S.
+Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered
+throughout numerous locations.  Its business office is located at
+809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email
+business@pglaf.org.  Email contact links and up to date contact
+information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official
+page at https://pglaf.org
+
+For additional contact information:
+     Dr. Gregory B. Newby
+     Chief Executive and Director
+     gbnewby@pglaf.org
+
+
+Section 4.  Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide
+spread 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 https://pglaf.org
+
+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 including checks, online payments and credit card
+donations.  To donate, please visit: https://pglaf.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 thirty 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 Public Domain 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 Web site which has the main PG search facility:
+
+     https://www.gutenberg.org
+
+This Web site 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.
+
+
+</pre>
+
+</body>
+</html>
+
diff --git a/34361.txt b/34361.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..9c4087a
--- /dev/null
+++ b/34361.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,22097 @@
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Song of Songs, by Hermann Sudermann
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere 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
+
+
+Title: The Song of Songs
+
+Author: Hermann Sudermann
+
+Translator: Beatrice Marshall
+
+Release Date: November 18, 2010 [EBook #34361]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SONG OF SONGS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Charles Bowen, from page scans provided by the Web Archive
+
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber's Notes:
+
+   1. Page scan source: http://www.archive.org/details/3398065
+
+   2. The diphthong oe is represented by [oe].
+
+
+
+
+
+                           THE SONG OF SONGS
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                           BY THE SAME AUTHOR
+
+                  REGINA; OR THE SINS OF THE FATHERS
+                  JOHN THE BAPTIST
+                  THE INDIAN LILY
+                  THE UNDYING PAST
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                           THE SONG OF SONGS
+
+                          BY HERMANN SUDERMANN
+
+                 A New Translation by BEATRICE MARSHALL
+
+                   With an Introduction by JOHN LANE
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                   LONDON: JOHN LANE THE BODLEY HEAD
+                   VIGO STREET                MCMXIV
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                            _Third Edition_.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                 THE ANCHOR PRESS, LTD. TIPTREE, ESSEX.
+
+
+
+
+                          THE PUBLISHER'S NOTE
+
+
+In 1898 I published a translation of Sudermann's "Der Katzensteg,"
+under the title of "Regina"; in 1906 of "Es War," under the title of
+"The Undying Past," and in 1908 of "Der Taeufer," under the title of
+"John the Baptist." All these books were translated by Miss Beatrice
+Marshall, and the translations were received in England, America, and
+Germany with enthusiasm alike by critics and the public. I was
+therefore naturally anxious to publish Herr Sudermann's great novel,
+"Das hohe Lied," on which he had been working for a great number of
+years, but I found that Mr. B. W. Huebsch of New York, the well-known
+American publisher, had purchased the world rights in the translation.
+My only chance therefore was to purchase from him the translation he
+had had made, and this I acquired in sheet form, as he had already
+copyrighted the book in this country. My edition of the work appeared
+here in October, 1910, under the title of "The Song of Songs."
+
+Serious objections were then raised to it in certain quarters, and I
+should like to place on record here exactly what happened and in proper
+sequence, by first of all printing a letter which I wrote to Sir
+Melville Macnaghten. Chief of the Criminal Investigation Department,
+Scotland Yard; a circular letter which I sent to the book trade; and a
+circular letter which I sent to the Incorporated Society of Authors and
+the following well-known novelists, together with such replies as I
+received:
+
+         E. F. Benson               Eden Phillpotts
+         Mrs. W. K. Clifford        G. B. Shaw
+         Sir A. Conan Doyle         Miss May Sinclair
+         Sir Gilbert Parker         Thomas Hardy
+         Miss Beatrice Harraden     Miss M. P. Willcocks
+         A. E. W. Mason             Israel Zangwill
+         H. G. Wells
+
+                                         London, W.,
+                                         _December 9th_, 1910.
+
+
+Sir Melville Macnaghten,
+      Criminal Investigation Department,
+            New Scotland Yard, S.W.
+
+Dear Sir,
+
+I am told that Inspectors Lawrence and Duggan called at my office
+to-day to inform me that complaint had been made of "The Song of
+Songs," by Hermann Sudermann, which was described as an obscene book.
+Through ill-health I have not been at my office for several weeks,
+although I happen to be in London to-day on my way to Brighton; but my
+manager immediately came to me and communicated what had passed. The
+officers informed him that you do not associate yourself at the present
+juncture with the opinion that has been expressed upon the book, but
+that their object was to draw my attention to the fact that complaint
+had been made.
+
+I very much appreciate your kindness in causing the officers to call
+upon me, and they were quite right in their assumption that I should be
+the last person to wish to publish an obscene book. Although I am under
+doctor's orders, I have delayed my departure for Brighton to write
+letters to some of the most distinguished novelists of the day and to
+the Society of Authors, to whom I am sending copies of "The Song of
+Songs," asking them to acquaint me with their opinion, at the same time
+informing them of what has occurred. As soon as I receive their views,
+I shall be guided by them in my action and will inform you of my
+decision. I presume that this action on my part meets with your
+approval.
+
+                                    Yours faithfully,
+
+                                                   John Lane.
+
+PS.--I enclose a copy of my letter to the authors.
+
+I feel I must add a personal word of thanks to you for your
+consideration in this matter. You will, I am sure, see my position. I
+am dealing with the reputation of one of the greatest literary figures
+in Europe, and it is absurd for me to assume the role of judge,
+especially as you do not associate yourself with the--to me--anonymous
+accusation. It is all the more difficult from the fact that this same
+translation has been sold in tens of thousands in the U.S.A., where the
+reading public is much more prudish than here.
+
+                                          London, W.,
+                                           _December 9th_, 1910.
+
+
+Dear Sir or Madam,
+
+For some weeks I have been laid up with a serious attack of bronchitis,
+but I am fortunately in London to-day, although not at my office, on my
+way to Brighton.
+
+I have just been informed that Inspectors Lawrence and Duggan, from the
+Criminal Investigation Department, have called to-day at my office,
+saying that a complaint has been made against Hermann Sudermann's
+novel, "The Song of Songs," which was published in Germany under the
+title of "Das hohe Lied." It is described as obscene, but the officers
+assured my manager that the Chief Commissioner does not at the present
+juncture associate himself with this expression. They explained that
+their call is to draw my attention to the fact that a serious complaint
+has been made, so that if the Public Prosecutor takes action I shall
+not be able to say that, had I known the book to be objectionable, I
+should immediately have withdrawn it. The book has been read by the
+Officers of the C.I.D., for so they told my manager. The translation is
+by an American, and it was printed in America, where it has been in
+circulation for many months past, and has been one of the most
+successful books of the year. I am writing to the Chief Commissioner,
+informing him that it is my intention to lay the matter before the
+Society of Authors and the most distinguished novelists of the day,
+whose advice I am ready to take. I am therefore sending you a copy of
+the book in the hope that you will find time to read it in the course
+of the next few days and let me know your opinion, and I shall
+certainly be guided by the consensus of opinion.
+
+                              I am,
+                             Yours very truly,
+                                        John Lane.
+
+PS.--May I suggest that this is a question for the consideration of the
+Council of the Society of Authors?
+
+                                          London, W.,
+                                           _December 10th_, 1910.
+
+
+Dear Sir,
+
+Yesterday morning I received a call from two inspectors from the
+Criminal Investigation Department, who stated that complaint had been
+made about Hermann Sudermann's "The Song of Songs," which was described
+as "an obscene book." The police declined to express any opinion of
+their own, but warned me of what had occurred.
+
+I immediately wrote and thanked the Chief Commissioner for his
+courtesy. I then wrote letters to the principal novelists of the day,
+asking their advice, for I could not myself sit in judgment upon one of
+Europe's greatest writers. In the meantime I have withdrawn the book
+from circulation.
+
+It is only fair that I should put the trade in the possession of all
+the facts of the case. I took the book in good faith. I had seen that
+it was for months the best-selling book in America, the most
+puritanical of all countries. I should just as soon have thought of
+changing the text of Shakespeare, Ibsen, George Meredith, Mr. Hardy,
+Mr. Maurice Hewlett, and Mr. George Moore. I must give the trade the
+option of returning the book.
+
+                                                        John Lane.
+
+                                            7, Chilworth Street,
+                                                    Paddington, W.
+                                            _December 14th_, 1910.
+
+
+Dear Mr. Lane,
+
+The book is very outspoken and occasionally nasty, but I shouldn't call
+it obscene, and the reputation of the author is your justification for
+publishing it. Personally, I think the first half brilliant and the
+last half tedious and unpleasant. A great many authors not nearly so
+famous as Sudermann could write a somewhat bald catalogue or series of
+risque episodes. It is a book, in my opinion, for the student of
+literature and the mature, certainly not for the young person; but the
+student, I take it, would be able to read it in the original.
+
+                                    I am,
+                                      Yours sincerely,
+                                         Lucy Clifford.
+
+                                                Windlesham,
+                                                   Crowborough,
+                                                           Sussex.
+
+
+Dear Sir,
+
+Many thanks. I read the book with great interest. To say it is ever
+"obscene" is an abuse of words. That there are passages which are
+coarse, and unnecessarily coarse, is on the other hand indisputable. I
+should not like any woman under forty to read it. And yet it is not
+written for the purpose of being coarse, and that is the essential
+point.
+
+                                         Yours very truly,
+                                                  A. Conan Doyle.
+
+                                                 Max Gate,
+                                                    Dorchester.
+                                         _December 15th_, 1910.
+
+
+Dear Mr. Lane,
+
+I am sorry to hear that you have been laid up with bronchitis, and hope
+that you are on the way to health again.
+
+I finished reading last night the translation of Sudermann's novel,
+"Das hohe Lied," that you sent me a few days back. I am not in a
+position to advise positively whether or not you should withdraw it,
+but I think that, viewing it as a practical question merely, which I
+imagine to be your wish, I should myself withdraw it in the
+circumstances.
+
+A translation of good literary taste might possibly have made such an
+unflinching study of a woman's character acceptable in this country,
+even though the character is one of a somewhat ignoble type, but
+unfortunately, rendered into the rawest American, the claims that the
+original (which I have not seen) no doubt had to be considered as
+literature, are largely reduced, so that I question if there is value
+enough left in this particular translation to make a stand for.
+
+                                    Believe me,
+                                            Yours very truly,
+John Lane, Esq.,                                  Thomas Hardy.
+   The Bodley Head.
+
+
+                                    3, Fitzjohn's Mansions,
+                                            Netherhall Gardens,
+                                               Hampstead, N.W.
+                                                _December 17th_.
+
+Dear Sir,
+
+Many thanks for your letter and the copy of "The Song of Songs."
+
+I read the book carefully several months ago. I consider it to be a
+most wonderful book, and should deeply regret to see the work of so
+great a master as Sudermann suppressed in England. It is an absorbing
+psychological and physical study; and I see nothing obscene in its
+frank presentment of a woman's life, given over, it is true, to
+passion, and yet with a thread of finer aspiration clearly and
+continuously to be traced throughout the course of her career.
+
+                                    I am,
+                                         Yours very truly,
+                                                Beatrice Harraden.
+
+                                           17, Stratton Street, W.
+
+
+My Dear Lane,
+
+I have now read the "Song of Songs." The translation is obviously an
+undistinguished piece of work; and possibly it adds here and there a
+coarseness which the original book is without. As to that I cannot
+speak. Herr Sudermann is no doubt outspoken to the point of brutality,
+but with his theme brutality is the better way. Pruriency is the bad
+way; and with that he has never had anything to do. That the "Song of
+Songs" might offend some people I can understand. That it would do any
+harm I cannot.
+
+                                    Yours very sincerely,
+                                             A. E. W. Mason.
+
+                                     Riviera Palace Hotel,
+                                                Monte Carlo.
+                                      _December 30th_, 1910.
+
+
+Dear John Lane,
+
+Please pardon the delay. I've been seedy, and have not written a single
+letter for ten days. I'm all right again, and am sending to tell you
+briefly what I think of "The Song of Songs."
+
+I can see no reason why it should be banned, tho' to my mind it is
+lacking in the essentials of that Art which makes all things possible
+if not expedient. There is no real tragedy in the life of a _born_
+prostitute such as Lilly was, and certainly there is no comedy. There
+was never for an instant a problem for her to solve, and all the effort
+to present a struggle is vain and empty. She went her accustomed course
+like the fly-away she was, and that is what the book shows with very
+remarkable photography and in a light which reaches into every corner.
+It isn't a sweet book, but _Salome_ isn't a sweet drama, and to attempt
+to ban the one and let the other go is sheer stupidity and crass
+prejudice. One divorce case in the grimy Weeklies is more lurid and
+pornographic to the impressionable eye than all this book of masterly
+observation and graphic literature. The Public must set the standard,
+not the Censor, and as one of the Public I resent any attempt to
+regulate my diet.
+
+                                           Yours truly,
+                                                   Gilbert Parker.
+
+                                                          Torquay.
+                                            _December 22nd_, 1910.
+
+
+Dear John Lane,
+
+I have read Sudermann's "Das hohe Lied" very carefully, and if I were
+inclined to be flippant should say the only things obscene therein were
+the Americanisms of this translation.
+
+But in truth there is more to be said.
+
+I consider that in spirit the book is not obscene, but inasmuch as many
+of the characters are obscene, because the artist has been making a
+study of certain obscene-minded human beings, then it follows that, as
+a true artist, he has created an atmosphere of obscenity for those
+persons to move and breathe in. You do not ask for a criticism of the
+book, and I should not presume to offer it if you did (being happily
+without the least itch ever to criticise anything or anybody); but upon
+the one point where you invite opinion I would say the book is obscene,
+as it was artistically bound to be, because it offers a picture of an
+obscene corner of society--a society entirely preoccupied with the
+sexual man and woman hunt. It is not obscene in the sense that many
+lesser novels written in all countries are obscene.
+
+I hope that I make the distinction clear as it exists in my mind.
+
+                                   Very faithfully yours,
+                                             Eden Phillpotts.
+
+
+                                         10, Adelphi Terrace, W.C.
+                                            _December 20th_, 1910.
+
+Dear John Lane,
+
+At your request I have read the American translation of Hermann
+Sudermann's "Song of Songs." There is no reason why you should not
+publish it except the risk that you may be prosecuted. But as it is
+impossible for an English publisher to conduct his business without
+running that risk daily, I presume you will not allow it to deter you.
+
+The book is a fictitious biography of a _femme galante_. It is not the
+sort of book that is given as a prize in a girl's school, though I am
+by no means sure that it would not be more useful than many of the
+books that are put to that use. It says what ought to be said about its
+heroine without any of the sentimental lasciviousness and avoidance of
+the unpleasant side of clandestine gallantry which makes most of our
+novels so dangerous to young people. Sudermann is blunt, frank, and
+contemptuous, where the English hack-writer would be furtive,
+inferential, discreet, and superficially decent. He strips the romance
+off Bohemianism ruthlessly, and takes care that if you are curious
+about the sort of life that is open to a woman who has lost her
+position in respectable society in Berlin, you shall know the truth
+about it. Not that he attaches any false consequences to it for the
+sake of an edifying moral. His heroine does not starve, does not
+jump over the bridge, and fares better than most ugly, honest, and
+hard-working women as far as her circumstances are concerned. She is
+left at the end of the book in a position which many respectable
+English families would be very glad to see their daughters in. The
+author makes no attempt to flatter society by denying or hiding the
+fact that immorality pays a penniless girl who is pretty and amiable
+better than morality, and that it even leaves her a better chance of
+being married than the drudgeries and disfigurements of singing The
+Song of the Shirt. But that it damages her soul cruelly and incurably
+he brings out mercilessly. He deliberately leads you into all sorts of
+foolish sentimental sympathies with her, only in the end to bring you
+the harder up against Dr. Johnson's opinion of her. She is left, as
+such women often are left, with an adoring husband, a luxurious income,
+and everything the most virtuous heroine could ask from British
+fiction, but hopelessly damned all the same. You need not fear that
+anyone who reads the book will envy her or be tempted to go and do
+likewise. It is worth adding that what began the mischief with her was
+having nothing readable within her reach except popular novels which
+made everything that tempted her seem poetic and delightful and
+honorable, and were therefore not suppressed by the censorship.
+
+You will understand from the above account why you have been threatened
+with censorial proceedings for proposing to publish this novel. Instead
+of baiting the trap, it shows it to you shut, with the victim inside.
+That, our library censors and their dupes will say, is disgusting.
+Precisely. Do they ask Sudermann to make it attractive? The attraction
+of the book lies in the interest of the picture it gives of the phase
+of contemporary society with which it deals. It is full of vivid
+character-sketches which not only amuse us as we read but give us a
+whole social atmosphere to reflect on. If the reflections are bitter
+and even terrifying, serve us right: it is not Sudermann's business to
+keep us in a fool's paradise. The suppression of this book would not
+only be a deliberate protection of vice--which is always best served by
+turning off the light--but the reduction of every English adult to the
+condition of a child under tutelage. But even if the book were as false
+and mischievous as any of the romances which make the same theme
+agreeable and seductive I should object to its suppression all the
+same. No harm that the worst book could possibly do even if people
+could be forced to read it against their wills could be as great as the
+intellectual suffocation of the whole nation which a censorship
+effects. If Germany may read Sudermann and we may not, then the free
+adult German man will presently upset the Englishman's perambulator and
+leave him to console himself as best he may with the spotlessness of
+his pinafore.
+
+                                    Yours faithfully,
+John Lane, Esq.                         G. Bernard Shaw.
+  The Bodley Head,
+    Vigo Street, W.
+
+
+                                    4, Edwardes Square Studios, W.
+                                            _December 13th_, 1910.
+
+Dear Mr. Lane,
+
+I've waited before writing to you till I had finished "The Song of
+Songs."
+
+I have read every word of it carefully, and I think it would be a
+national disgrace if so fine a work of so great a master were
+suppressed.
+
+The book is powerful and sincere and absolutely moral in tendency and
+intention. Of course it is a terrible subject and there are bound to be
+terrible things in it, things that I, personally, dislike extremely;
+but I see that none of these things are insisted on for their own sake.
+None are unnecessary, except, possibly, the violent scene in
+Kellermann's studio, and _that_ would not really do anybody any harm.
+
+Judging the book as it ought to be judged--by tendency and intention--I
+cannot find anything in it to which the adjective used by the
+complainant could apply. It is a long and elaborate work, and the
+"terrible things" are comparatively few and far between. They offend my
+taste, but not my moral sense--_that_ remains appeased by the tragedy
+of it all, as in "real life."
+
+I would even say that from the point of view of morals and the
+portentous young girl, the book should do good, should act as a
+deterrent by its ruthless analysis of "Schwaermerei," by showing where
+it leads and what it is stripped of its dangerous glamour.
+
+Altogether I see nothing to justify complaint. As for criminal
+prosecution--we are ridiculous enough, as it is, in the eyes of our
+neighbours!
+
+                                                Faithfully yours,
+                                                     May Sinclair.
+
+
+                                                 17, Church Row,
+                                                        Hampstead.
+
+My Dear Lane,
+
+I have read "The Song of Songs" very carefully. I find it unsympathetic
+work; there is a harshness and hardness about Sudermann's effects that
+I do not like and that reminds me of the exaggeration of wrinkles and
+blemishes one finds in over-focussed photographs. None the less it is a
+very sincere and able piece of literature, and I cannot understand
+anyone who is not suffering from some sort of inverted sexual mania
+wanting to suppress it. It deals with sexual facts very plainly but
+without a suspicion of pornographic intention, it presents vicious
+tendencies and their indulgence in an extremely deterrent way, and I
+cannot imagine anyone not already hopelessly corrupted who could gain
+any sexual excitement from reading it.
+
+                                       Yours very sincerely,
+                                                H. G. Wells.
+
+
+                                                     Exeter.
+
+Dear Mr. Lane,
+
+The morality of a novel depends upon three points:--(1) Subject; (2)
+Purpose; (3) Treatment as to detail.
+
+(1). The subject of "The Song of Songs" is that of a girl ruined by an
+old roue and then bandied about from man to man till every trace of
+soul is gone. She has no existence apart from the lowest passion. The
+book is a tremendous indictment of the idea, only now beginning to
+disappear, that a woman should live for the sole purpose of gratifying
+a man sexually--whether in marriage or otherwise.
+
+(2). In aim it is certainly not impure in the sense that it paints a
+career of vice as alluring. The girl is living in hell and is at times
+aware of it. The sordid misery of her life is there, though--and here
+Sudermann differs from English--writers she never becomes an outcast
+physically. She has always a certain well-being and even beauty. The
+ruin and destruction wrought is of brain and soul, a much more terrible
+matter.
+
+(3). In treatment as to detail the book stands condemned; the pictures
+given are not only revolting, but painted with entirely unnecessary
+fulness. There is a cruel gusto, for instance, that places the book on
+a far lower level of morality than "Madame Bovary." The thought of the
+novel is feeble compared with its physical atmosphere. But in the
+matter of detail, on the whole the difference between English fiction
+and all continental work is one purely of fashion. Our people in
+English novels sin vaguely: in continental novels they sin garishly. It
+is the difference between a dream and a cinematograph. But for the law
+to interfere in England with books touching on vice is supremely
+ridiculous, since our law, framed entirely for man's convenience and
+not at all for woman's protection, is one of the greatest means by
+which vice itself is kept flourishing. The farce of police supervision
+and the insults of the English law sin against morality fifty times
+more powerfully than any of Sudermann's novels.
+
+My opinion is that all sane, healthy-minded women ought to read novels
+like this, because they ought to know the truth, the entirely accursed
+truth about these things. For the ignorance of women is the chief
+reason why other women like the heroine of "The Song of Songs" are left
+to rot in body and mind. It is to men that such books are injurious,
+for they are so written that the vicious details strike their eye
+first, and the cruel pleasure taken in them would appeal to the worst
+in men. It is only women and somewhat exceptional men who would see the
+horror of degradation that Sudermann depicts the heroine as enduring.
+It is hell to a woman, but to the average stupid man it would simply
+appear amusing.
+
+Such books should be labelled "For Women Only." There are comparatively
+few naturally vicious women, and these "The Song of Songs" won't
+injure, for they are beyond that. The others will be benefited by its
+knowledge. As to whether this book should have been published, I think
+it is six to one and half a dozen to the other: you will enlighten
+women; you may possibly injure some young men. But at the present
+moment the essential thing is that women should have their eyes opened.
+That is, indeed, the task of this century; the next will see the
+results of it--good ones, I firmly believe.
+
+                                                  M. P. Willcocks.
+
+
+                                               Far End,
+                                                 East Preston,
+                                                           Sussex.
+                                            _December 12th_, 1910.
+
+Dear Lane,
+
+I am very sorry to hear of your illness and of the trouble that the
+police may give you. Unfortunately, I am far too busy at present to
+spare time to read a book of 640 pages, and unless one read it all one
+might miss the impugned passages or the other passages which justify
+them. I readily, however, corroborate your view--although no
+corroboration is needed--that the high position of Sudermann in
+European literature must raise any work of his far above the plane of
+police interference. His motives are sure to be ethical, and he must
+not for a moment be confounded with those mercenary scribblers who
+spice their wares for the market. Indeed, if I were a publisher, I
+would never even read an MS. of Sudermann's beforehand. I should put it
+into the hands of the printers in blind faith, as no doubt you have
+done.
+
+With best wishes for your rapid recovery.
+
+                                       Yours sincerely,
+                                                  Israel Zangwill.
+
+
+It will be seen that although the consensus of opinion was in favour of
+the circulation of the book, yet there was a very strong objection to
+the translation. I therefore wrote to Herr Sudermann as follows, at the
+same time sending him copies of the correspondence--
+
+
+To Hermann Sudermann, Esq.,
+  Berlin.
+
+                                              The Bodley Head,
+                                                     London, W.
+                                             _February 8th_, 1911.
+
+Dear Sir,
+
+You will probably have heard that I have had difficulties over the
+publication of "Das hohe Lied," which was translated by an American for
+Mr. Huebsch, the New York publisher who has the translation rights of
+your book, and from whom I bought it in sheet form for the British
+market.
+
+On December 9th, Sir Melville Macnaghten, Director of the Criminal
+Investigation Department, sent two of his representatives to my office,
+informing my manager, in my absence through illness, that serious
+complaints had been lodged against the book as being obscene. I
+immediately wrote letters to Sir Melville Macnaghten, to the
+Incorporated Society of British Authors, and to our leading novelists;
+and I am sending you copies of the correspondence, as I am sure that
+many of the replies will give you great pleasure. I had, however, no
+satisfactory answer from the Society of Authors, although one would
+suppose it the duty of a properly constituted society of that nature to
+defend or at any rate support your case. Had I had the least support
+from them I should have defended your position with an assurance of
+victory for the book, but as the matter stood I did not feel justified
+in allowing your artistic reputation to be at the mercy of a British
+judge and jury. The verdict might have been an insult to literature. In
+any case the position would have been most undignified for an author of
+your eminence.
+
+The failure of the Authors' Society to take up your case must not be
+confused with the opinions of our leading novelists, for I should
+explain at once that the only qualifications for membership are the
+publication of any book or even pamphlet and, of course, the
+subscription of twenty-one shillings per annum. It is not therefore a
+society of any distinction, though it happens to include among its
+thousands of members most of the eminent writers of the day.
+
+Our most distinguished realist novelist, Mr. George Moore, in writing
+to the president of the Society on this occasion, says--
+
+"I once belonged to the Society of Authors, but I seceded from it
+because it seemed to me to have entirely dissociated itself from
+literary interests; but I do think that the opportunity has come at
+last for the Society of Authors to justify its existence. A better
+opportunity than Sudermann's book will not be found."
+
+After much consideration I have come to the conclusion that all
+interests would be best served if you could obtain permission from Mr.
+Huebsch for me to have the book retranslated by Miss Beatrice Marshall,
+whose versions of "Der Katzensteg," "Es War," and "Der Taeufer" met with
+your entire approval. The present translation is fraught with
+Americanisms and has been made without due regard to the genius of the
+two languages and the prejudices inherent in the English character.
+
+I feel bound to give you all these particulars so that you may
+appreciate my reasons for withdrawing the book in a manner least
+calculated to do harm, and for appealing to you now for help to place
+the book before the English public in a form which will be acceptable
+to your numerous friends and admirers in this country.
+
+                                         Yours very truly,
+                                                  John Lane.
+
+His reply was as follows--
+
+Mr. John Lane,
+       Publisher,
+  Vigo Street, London, W.
+
+Dear Sir,
+
+Please accept my sincerest thanks for your kind letter and your
+detailed account of the suppression of my novel "The Song of Songs"
+(Das hohe Lied). Naturally I can only look forward with pleasure to the
+possibility that this work, to which I have devoted years of unwearied
+artistic care, should not be lost to England, and so I gladly follow
+your advice to persuade Mr. Huebsch, the American publisher, by my own
+personal intervention to resign the English rights to you. I have at
+the same time written to him, and I enclose a copy of this letter for
+your kind consideration.
+
+That I am heartily grateful to my English colleagues for their kind
+sympathy requires no assurance on my part, but I beg you, dear sir,
+when you meet one or the other of them to convey to each my feeling of
+deep appreciation.
+
+In conclusion, permit me to hope, dear sir, that your health, which at
+the time you wrote was not good, has been completely restored.
+
+With expressions of my highest esteem for your services in this matter.
+
+                                      Believe me,
+                                             Yours sincerely,
+                                                Hermann Sudermann.
+
+
+In conclusion, I had better say that on receiving Herr Sudermann's
+reply and from Mr. Huebsch his consent, I entered into negotiations
+with Miss Beatrice Marshall for a new translation of the book, which is
+now offered to the public with every confidence that it will meet with
+a wide and enthusiastic reception. I should like too to add my thanks
+to the various writers who responded to my circular letter with such
+readiness and sympathy.
+
+                                                        John Lane.
+
+The Bodley Head,
+  Vigo Street, London
+_1st May_, 1913.
+
+
+
+
+
+                                 PART I
+
+
+
+
+
+                           The Song of Songs
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER I
+
+
+When Lilly was just fourteen her father, Kilian Czepanek, the
+music-master, suddenly disappeared. He had been giving lessons all day
+as usual, cursing the heat--which was terrific--and drinking seltzer
+water and moselle in the intervals. Now and then he had rushed into the
+dining-room to snatch a cognac and arrange his disordered tie. He had
+playfully pulled Lilly's brown, flowing curls, as she sat pondering
+over her French verbs, and then vanished again into the drawing-room,
+where pupils came and went and only discords and curses went on for
+ever.
+
+Contrary to his custom, he had not reappeared in a fury, with a
+tremendous appetite, after his last unfortunate victim had strapped up
+his portfolio and slammed the front door behind him. Instead, Czepanek
+had stayed where he was. He neither whistled nor wept, nor gave vent to
+his rage on the keys of the piano, as he was sometimes in the habit of
+doing when the day's work was over. No sounds of any sort, except a
+deep-drawn groan, proceeded from the other room.
+
+Lilly, who was greatly interested in everything this handsome papa of
+hers did or did not do, let her French grammar slide from her lap to
+the floor, and crept to the keyhole. Through it she saw him standing
+before the long mirror absorbed in self-contemplation. Now and again he
+raised his left hand and pressed it with a gesture of despair to the
+silken, dark artist locks, which mamma tended regularly every day with
+bay-rum and French brilliantine.
+
+There he stood glaring fiercely at his reflection, his cheeks flushed
+and damp, his eyes rolling wildly, and Lilly's heart went out in
+admiring love to her idolised papa. This was not the first time she had
+seen him pose before the glass; she knew the attitude well. It was his
+way of conjuring up once more the life he had missed and the loves he
+had lost; that grand vanished world where all the duchesses and prima
+donnas never ceased to think of their lost favourite with longing and
+regret. Like an elderly Cupid he stood there, with little bags under
+his eyes and a budding corpulency apparent in his person. Both mamma
+and Lilly coddled and spoilt him with unremitting care and never-tiring
+enthusiasm. They regarded him as some gorgeous bird of paradise, which
+happy chance had captured between four walls--a bird that it was their
+duty to exert strenuous efforts to keep in its cage.
+
+Lilly, by rights, should long ago have been seated at the piano; for in
+the house of Czepanek silent keys were considered a shameful waste of
+time and an unpardonable sin. She had to practise four or five hours
+daily. Often, when her father in the throes of creative inspiration
+forgot the time allotted to his daughter's practising, she did not set
+to work till nearly midnight. Then she would sit half frozen, with
+heavy eyes, swaying on the music-stool till dawn. Lilly's mother had
+found her many a time in the small hours, her head pillowed on her
+arms, which were stretched out on the keyboard, wrapt in a profound
+childish slumber. Such hardships gave Lilly a distaste for the career
+of artist, for which her father's ambition destined her. She preferred,
+to serious study, getting up on her own account forbidden polkas out of
+old albums, the brilliant but incorrect performance of which drove her
+father distracted. But this evening her lesson was to be on the Sonata
+Pathetique, and that, as everyone knew, was no joke.
+
+For this reason she was thinking of breaking in on her father's
+introspective meditations, when she heard the door of the other room
+open. Lilly, with a bound, deserted the keyhole and ran into her
+mother, who was carrying up the supper things on a tray. The
+prematurely sunken cheeks of the lady of the house were flushed from
+the heat of the kitchen fire. She held her lean figure proudly erect,
+and in the once beautiful eyes, which gnawing connubial disappointments
+had converted into dull, restless slits, there was something like a
+gleam of joy and expectancy; for to-day she entertained high hopes that
+the result of her culinary skill would appeal to her husband's appetite
+and put him in a good temper.
+
+The sound of plates rattling, as the table was laid, brought papa to
+the door between the two rooms, and his head, with the sunlight playing
+round its halo of frizzy dark hair, appeared.
+
+"Heavens! Supper-time already!" he exclaimed, and cast up his eyes with
+a peculiarly wild expression.
+
+"In ten minutes," replied his wife, and a smile at the thought of the
+surprise dish that awaited him hovered about her dry chapped lips like
+a delectable secret.
+
+He now came into the room, and breathing deep and hard he said, with an
+effort as if speaking hurt him:
+
+"I've just been looking at my portmanteau. The strap is in two."
+
+"Do you want your portmanteau?" asked mamma.
+
+"It should always be ready in case of emergency," he answered, and his
+eyes wandered round the room. "A man may be summoned at any moment to
+this place or that, and then it's well to be prepared."
+
+It was true that, the winter before, a Berlin pianist who had agreed to
+appear on tour in the next town had been detained by the snowing up of
+his train, and the committee had telegraphed to Czepanek to take his
+place. But, in the height of summer, the probability of such a thing
+occurring again was more than remote.
+
+"I'll send Minna to the saddler's with it directly after supper," said
+his wife, as usual taking care not to contradict her irascible husband.
+
+He nodded a few times, lost in thought; then he went into his bedroom,
+while mamma hurried to the kitchen to put the finishing touches to the
+dainty dish.
+
+A few minutes later he reappeared carrying the portmanteau, which
+seemed rather full. He paused in front of the linen-press.
+
+"I was going to try, Lilly dear," he explained, "whether the score
+would fit into the bag. You see, if one had to go to rehearsals
+later----"
+
+The score of "The Song of Songs" was kept in the linen-press, being a
+handy place for the family to rescue this priceless treasure in case of
+a fire breaking out when papa chanced to be away.
+
+Lilly looked round for the bunch of keys, but mamma had taken it with
+her to the kitchen.
+
+"I'll go and ask for the key," she said.
+
+"No, no," he exclaimed hastily, and a slight shudder passed through
+him.
+
+Lilly had often noticed that he shuddered when the conversation had
+anything to do with mamma.
+
+"I'll run over to the saddler's myself."
+
+Lilly was horrified at the idea of her famous parent going on his own
+errands to a common little shop.
+
+"Let me," she cried, reaching out her hand for the bag, with the
+intention of saving him the trouble. He pushed her away.
+
+"You are getting too old for that sort of thing now, little girl," he
+said. His eyes rested with satisfaction on her tall, girlish figure,
+already developing the soft rounded curves of womanhood. "You are quite
+a signora."
+
+He patted her cheek, and fidgeted a moment with the lock of the
+linen-press, his lips compressed into a bitter line; then, with a
+half-alarmed, half-sneering glance towards the kitchen Lilly knew that
+glance too he went quickly out of the room went never to return.
+
+
+                           *   *   *   *   *
+
+
+The night that followed that rosy summer evening was never to
+fade from Lilly's memory. Her mother sat by the window, in a cotton
+dressing-jacket, and looked up and down the street with anxious,
+feverish eyes. Every footfall on the pavement made her start up and
+exclaim: "Here he comes!"
+
+Lilly knew that it was all over with her Sonata Pathetique for this
+night at least. A feeling of depression prompted her to appeal to her
+dear St. Joseph, to whom she had always confided all her small troubles
+since her confirmation. Many an hour had she passed in St. Ann's before
+his altar, the second chapel in the right aisle, dreaming and musing,
+as she gazed up into the kind old bearded face, and sighing without
+reason. But now his consolation failed her utterly, and she gave up the
+quest, disappointed and baffled.
+
+The last cab was heard in the streets at midnight. At one the footsteps
+of passers-by became rarer. Between two and three nothing was heard but
+the shuffling footsteps of the night-watchmen echoing through the
+narrow alley. At three, market waggons began to rumble, and it became
+light. Between three and four Lilly made a cup of boiling hot coffee
+for her mother, and herself ate up the cold supper, for which waiting
+and weeping had given her a ravenous appetite.
+
+It was nearly five when a string of belated young revellers went by,
+kissing their hands to the watching woman at the window, thus forcing
+her to withdraw. They then started a serenade in their pure clear
+voices, which Lilly, in the midst of her trouble and anxiety,
+appreciated. The singing was good, and devoid of the pedantic tricks
+that her father abhorred. Probably these youths were pupils of his, who
+had failed to recognise his house.
+
+No sooner had they gone than Lilly's mother resumed her post at the
+window. Lilly struggled hard not to allow herself to be overcome by
+sleep. She saw as through a veil her mother's scanty fair hair ruffled
+by the breeze, her sharp pointed nose--reddened by crying--turning
+first to the right and then to the left at every sound, her
+dressing-jacket flapping like a white flag, her thin legs crossing and
+uncrossing perpetually in nervous excitement. She was told to relate
+the story of the portmanteau and the linen-press for the fiftieth time,
+but her eyes would not keep open. Then suddenly she sprang up with a
+shrill cry. Her mother had slipped down in a dead faint, and lay like a
+log on the floor.
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER II
+
+
+Kilian Czepanek did not come back. Of course, there were
+kindly-intentioned friends who said they had always foreseen it would
+happen; indeed it was a wonder that a man, so divinely gifted, with the
+brand of genius imprinted on his stormy brow, could have endured the
+trammels of convention as long as he had. Others called him a scamp and
+a good-for-nothing, who corrupted innocent girls and led young men
+astray. They considered Frau Czepanek lucky in being rid of him, and
+advised Lilly to pluck her father's image from her memory. Worst of all
+were the people who held their tongues, but sent in bills.
+
+Frau Czepanek pawned or sold all the little articles of luxury
+belonging to her bourgeois youth, and every present that her husband
+in moods of sheer wanton extravagance had lavished on her. These soon
+came to an end, and furniture, dress, and linen--all save absolute
+necessities--followed. Then at last the duns were satisfied.
+
+The choral society, which Kilian Czepanek had conducted for fifteen
+years, and which under his _regime_ had won no less than half a dozen
+prizes, expressed its appreciation of the decamped conductor's services
+and talents by holding the post open for six months, and paying the
+widow a half-year's salary. But this gracious grant came to an end
+also. And then began the heart-sickening begging expeditions to the
+houses of local magnates and wealthy residents in the town; the timid
+pulling of front-door bells, and scraping of feet on strangers'
+door-mats; the long, anxious waiting in shadowy halls and ante-rooms;
+the sitting down on the extreme edges of chairs; the sighing,
+stammering petitions, accompanied by wiping of eyes, meant to be
+sincere yet sounding all the time hypocritically mercenary, and failing
+to make the intended impression.
+
+Next came the hunt for work in shops and factories where sewing was
+given out--depots of sweated industries where cheap _lingerie_ was
+turned out by the gross, cheap lace sewn on to cheap nightgowns and
+chemises, and the whole galvanised for use by the addition of buttons
+and buttonholes, ribbons and tapes.
+
+Now followed the period of eternal grinding at the sewing-machine,
+fingers covered with needle-pricks; inflamed eyes, swollen knees,
+vinegar and brown-paper bandages for fevered temples; the stewed tea at
+four in the morning; the sweet diluted coffee, warmed up three times,
+the so-called bread-and-butter instead of the midday roast meat, and
+the evening eggs--in fact, the period of wretchedness and approaching
+destitution.
+
+And, strange as it may seem, the further the day on which Kilian
+Czepanek had vanished receded into the past, the more surely did the
+forsaken wife count on his return. The six months had passed, and a new
+conductor was appointed to challenge comparisons with the old. For a
+fortnight the newcomer was annoyed by flattering eulogies of his
+predecessor in the provincial press. Then these too ceased. Oblivion
+followed, and the man who had so mysteriously disappeared seemed to be
+almost entirely forgotten. Only in a restaurant-bar here and there, or
+a girl's heart, did his image linger. But the wife, who at first had
+bitten her lips in silent anguish when his name was mentioned, now
+began to talk of his return as an assured and long-planned future
+event.
+
+What was more, she became vain again, she who in the course of married
+life had let her youthful prettiness and sprightly gaiety--all that he
+had married her for--pass under a cloud, and had fretted and worn
+herself to a shadow by needless self-reproaches and anxieties. After
+not having decked her shrunken breast with ribbon or jewel for years,
+or curled a lock of her straight hair, she screwed and scraped out of
+her meagre earnings something to spend on powder and cosmetics. When
+she could hardly stand for tiredness, she would paint her thin lips,
+and at eight o'clock in the morning come to the sewing-machine from the
+kitchen hearth with a freshly frizzed fringe covering the forehead that
+she had before allowed to get higher and balder every day.
+
+Thus she prepared for the moment of reunion. Rouged, and adorned like a
+bride to meet her bridegroom, she would hold out her arms to meet the
+repentant profligate. For it was certain he must come back. Where else
+would he be greeted with a smile of such perfect sympathy as hers,
+where else find the understanding soul whose silence is consolation and
+whose prayers bring peace and happiness? Would there be anywhere else
+one who without complaint or regret slaved for him body and soul, and
+submitted, as she did, to be taken or left according to his whim?
+
+So it was that she had given herself to him when she was a fair young
+laughing thing, careless and unsuspecting. Without conditions she had
+let him take her, simply because it pleased him. She had not regarded
+it in the light of a just recompense when her father, an honest
+attorney, had insisted on his leading her to the altar, a measure which
+had saved him from being ostracised by the whole town as a seducer. She
+had only cared to know that she was happy, and had not the slightest
+presentiment of the consequences of her gentle yielding. She accepted
+what came uncomplainingly, as the natural cost of the gift he had
+bestowed on her in himself.
+
+He would come back; whether he liked it or not, he must come back. Did
+she not possess something that linked her to him for all times,
+something that he was bound to cross her threshold to claim? Not Lilly!
+No doubt he loved his child, loved her with tenderness, and took
+delight in her outward and inward charm. Yet she was but a toy to amuse
+him in his idle hours; in his vagabond heart there was no place for a
+steady paternal love. Even in hours when he felt most lonely and
+depressed, he would never have dreamed of seeking solace in the company
+of a child. The tie was something that bound him closer to her than
+their child. It was a roll of music in manuscript, and that was all. It
+would have been easy enough for him to stuff it into the portmanteau on
+the day that he had started on the memorable journey. He had indeed
+thought of doing it, but at the last, in his eagerness to seize the
+moment of escape without again facing his suspicious wife, he had
+forgotten everything else.
+
+This roll of manuscript contained all that had been his anchor during
+the fifteen years of stagnation in a narrow middle-class groove, all
+that had linked his future with the fiery aspirations of his youth and
+the glorious hopefulness of his adolescence. Slender as it was, this
+roll of manuscript embraced his whole life's work. It was his "Song of
+Songs." As long as Lilly could remember, nothing in the world had ever
+been spoken of with such bated breath, such reverent awe, as this
+composition, of which no one save Lilly and her mother knew a single
+note. It was something as yet altogether unknown and undreamed of; it
+opened out new realms of sound, inaugurated the beginning of a musical
+development destined to rise to mystic heights and be lost in the
+clouds of the unattainable. It embodied the Art of the future as
+represented by oratorio, opera, after reaching its culmination in
+Wagner, having descended into abysmal depths, and the symphony no
+longer meeting the demands for regeneration in modern music. Oratorio
+was to accomplish this, not in the old exploded wooden form which
+pandered to an outworn ecclesiasticism, but in the new world of harmony
+introduced by "The Song of Songs." The score had been completed years
+ago, and laid aside. It would have been sacrilege to entrust its
+rendering to the tender mercies of provincial performers, so there it
+lay and rusted, unperformed. It shed beams, unseen but felt, of hope of
+a golden future into the grey present. It filled a child's heart with
+such ecstasy, devotion, and love, that it would rather have ceased to
+beat than be deprived of this source of noble and exquisite dreams on
+which it nourished itself daily.
+
+For Lilly, those sheets, held together by an india rubber band, lying
+in the top drawer of the linen-press, were like sacred relics, which
+radiated and sanctified the household. She reverenced and adored the
+scrawl of curly-headed black notes, and her earliest recollections were
+bound up with the melodies they expressed. Lilly's papa, however,
+objected to his sublime motifs being dragged into the light of common
+day, and when he caught wife or daughter humming them he would tell
+them to sing things more on their level. In time there was no need for
+his remonstrances. Mamma gave up singing altogether, and Lilly withdrew
+into herself. When she was alone in the house she amused herself by
+making a kind of drama out of "The Song of Songs," and acting it before
+the glass. She arrayed herself in sheets and muslin curtains, braided
+her hair low round her brow, and adorned it with tinsel pins. Then she
+declaimed, danced, laughed, and cried; went down on her knees and posed
+in passionate attitudes, acting Solomon's bridal rhapsody, which papa
+had made live again, after a lapse of twenty-five hundred years, in his
+great masterpiece.
+
+And now that the master had left his manuscript behind him on his
+disappearance from the house, it became more than ever the keystone of
+his family's hopes and longings. It was conceivable that he, Bohemian
+to the core, might cast off his wife and child, emulating the example
+of his own parents, who had turned him out into the streets at a tender
+age. But it was not conceivable that he should do anything so
+preposterous as weakly abandon the great work of his life, the weapon
+with which he might conquer the world.
+
+So the manuscript of "The Song of Songs" reposed in the drawer of the
+linen-press, which had been saved from the wreck when Frau Czepanek and
+her daughter moved to a humble attic, where the sewing-machine
+continued to hum and whir day and night. Here, as a symbol of coming
+reunion, it spread a miraculous influence around it; while the deserted
+wife became more withered in face and gaunt in form, and paint could no
+longer conceal her projecting cheekbones or the hollows beneath her
+haggard eyes.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER III
+
+
+In these days Lilly bloomed into a tall, well-developed girl, who
+carried her satchel of books through the streets to school with the air
+of a princess. She was generally dressed in a green plaid woollen frock
+much cockled from rain, which, despite perpetual letting down, always
+remained too short. Her feet were shod in a pair of down-at-heel and
+worn boots. She wore woollen gloves, which, pull them up as she would,
+left below her sleeves a hiatus of bare slender red arm.
+
+No one who saw her swinging down the street, with her easy graceful
+carriage, a picture of radiant health and youth, with her vivacious
+small head--too small for her tall figure--set on a long stemlike
+throat rising from broad shoulders, her white and rather prominent
+teeth beneath her smiling short upper lip, and with those eyes,
+afterwards known as "Lilly eyes"--no one noticed the poverty of her
+dress, or suspected that those erect, delicately formed shoulders
+stooped for hours over a sewing-machine. Who could guess that this
+magnificent young frame, with the vigorous blood coursing visibly
+through it, prone to blushing and paling without cause, was reared on
+salt potatoes, stale bread, and bad sausage?
+
+The college students went mad about her, and the verses written to her
+in the lower school were legion. Lilly was not indifferent to their
+boyish homage. When she saw a batch of students coming towards her in
+the street, her eyes grew dim from self-consciousness. When they
+saluted her--for she had made their acquaintance on the ice--she felt
+dizzy and ready to sink through the earth to hide her blushes. But the
+sensation felt after such meetings was quite lovely. She recalled for
+hours with delight the face of the boy who had greeted her most
+courteously, or the one who had blushed as rosy red as herself. He was
+her chosen cavalier till next time, when she fell in love with another.
+
+In spite of her numerous admirers, her school-fellows did not torment
+her as much as might have been expected. There was an innocent
+defencelessness about her which made it impossible to be her enemy. If
+her satchel was hidden, she only said, "Please, don't," and when the
+girls perched her on top of the stove, she sat there and laughed, and
+in addition to letting them copy her English exercises she did their
+sums for them. The only trouble was jealousy among her bosom friends,
+who flew at each other's throats on her account, for she was fickle,
+and dropped old friendships to take up new with an ease which startled
+herself. She could not help responding to every fresh overture of
+friendliness made to her.
+
+With her masters, too, she was popular. The rebuke, "Lilly, you are
+dreaming again," that came sometimes from the dais, had no sting, but a
+tone of playfulness in it. And when she was a new-comer, and had sat at
+the end of the sixth row in Class I, B, more than one hand had stroked
+her brown head with paternal fondness.
+
+Her nickname was "Lilly of the Eyes." Her school-fellows declared such
+eyes were uncommon to the point of being uncanny. They had never seen
+eyes like them. Sometimes they called them "witch's eyes," sometimes
+"cat's eyes." They said their colour was violet, and some were sure she
+darkened the lids with a pencil. However that might be, to look at
+Lilly meant looking at her eyes, and not caring much to look at
+anything else.
+
+Lilly went into the advanced class, called "Selecta," when she was
+fifteen and a half, for it had been settled that she was to earn her
+living as a governess. This was a great change; everything was
+different--teachers, girls, lessons, and friendship meant a different
+thing. You were not called by your Christian name. There was no
+throwing of paper pellets and going home to find blotting-paper in your
+hair. Much was said about "the sacredness of vocation," of "noble
+living," and consecration of life to work, and at the same time there
+was no end of chatter about love affairs and secret engagements.
+
+Lilly felt for the first time in her life a little envious. She was
+neither engaged nor had she any love affair to boast of. Anonymous
+presents of flowers, with verses signed "Thine for ever," of course
+didn't count. But in time it came. Love began to dawn in an imaginary
+atmosphere of marble statues and pillars, of dusky cypresses and
+eternally blue skies; it was the adoration of a schoolgirl for a
+master, and the longing to be a benefactress to the adored one. He was
+the assistant science-master, and taught in the junior school, where
+knuckles were rapped with the ruler and tongues thrust out in retort.
+He did nothing in the higher school, but he gave lectures to the young
+ladies of the Selecta on the history of Art. The very name of "Art"
+fills the budding soul of a young girl with ecstasy; how much more
+intense then was the sentiment when Art was associated with an
+interesting young man of delicate health, with deep-set burning eyes,
+and a snow-white brow--a young man who was called Arpad?
+
+Here romance ended. What remained behind it was a poor consumptive
+young fellow who had painfully accomplished his university career by
+private tutoring, only to be doomed to an early grave at the moment
+that he hoped to reap the fruits of his drudgery. The authorities did
+the best they could for him. They gave him easy work, and when they saw
+the hectic flush on his cheek they supplied his place and sent him home
+for a term. But this could not last, and, feeling that he was becoming
+a burden to the staff, he strove by suicidal efforts to show himself
+still capable of working. He volunteered to undertake all sorts of
+duties outside his province, and what men in health shirked he with one
+foot in the grave cheerfully took on his shoulders.
+
+Lilly never forgot the day on which the principal brought him into the
+Selecta. It was between three and four, and the last lesson was in
+progress. The stout figure of the principal was closely followed by the
+slim, rather handsome young man with a slight stoop, who had stood
+during prayers in the big hall at Fraeulein Hennig's side, and turned
+down the leaves of his book while the hymn was being sung. He wore a
+tight-fitting grey frock-coat, which revealed the lines of his
+emaciated figure, and a fashionable silk waistcoat that gave a false
+impression of the world to which he belonged. He made a series of
+abrupt military bows, and appeared shy and embarrassed.
+
+"This is Dr. Maelzer," said the principal, introducing him. "He will
+initiate you ladies in the art of the Renaissance. I hope you will pay
+particular attention to the subject, which, though not obligatory, and
+one you will not be examined in, is of the greatest importance to
+general culture, and by-and-by will accelerate your progress in the
+study of Lessing, Goethe, and Winckelmann."
+
+The principal, with these words, retired, leaving the young lecturer
+nervously tugging at the blond moustache, the thin ends of which
+drooped on either side of his mouth. A half-sarcastic, half-shy smile
+hovered about his lips. He looked uncertain whether he should sit or
+stand on the dais. Meta Jachmann, who was always inclined to be silly,
+began to giggle, and set half the class giggling too. His transparent
+face flushed. In a voice which, weak as it was, shook his whole narrow
+person, he said:
+
+"Yes, ladies, laugh. You can afford to laugh in your position, for life
+lies before you full of possibilities of endeavour and attainment. I
+too may laugh over the privilege of being allowed to address you soul
+to soul. That does not often fall to the lot of a man at the outset of
+his teaching career. You will soon experience for yourselves what a
+happiness it is."
+
+The whole class became quiet as mice, and from that moment onwards he
+held it spellbound.
+
+"But my good fortune does not end there," he went on; "the authorities
+of this institution have been generous enough to place such confidence
+in my poor abilities as to entrust me with a theme that is the noblest
+in existence. Till the Renaissance, every thinker in history, no matter
+how much a revolutionist and free-lance at heart, has been made by the
+interpretations of history to play to the gallery in the personal
+expression of his ideas. The sages have labelled Plato as a mere
+shield-bearer of Christianity, Horace as a pedant, and Jesus as the Son
+of God; but no one has attempted to show Michael Angelo, Alexander
+Borgia, Machiavelli in any other light than that of an ego defying the
+world and relying on its own power in its lust for creative or
+destructive activity."
+
+The pupils pricked up their ears and listened. They had never heard
+anything like this before. They felt that he was talking out his life's
+blood, and at the same time that this established a tie of protective
+freemasonry between him and them. He continued in bold, rapid outline
+to draw vivid pictures of the men and period, making dead bones live.
+What had long been repressed and dammed up within him poured from him
+now in passionate eloquence. His hearers realised that this was
+something more than an ordinary school lesson, more even than the
+fruits of ripe scholarship. It was a confession of faith, and they hung
+on his lips with all the abandon of woman's enthusiasm for what she
+doesn't understand.
+
+Lilly, being a younger pupil, sat close under the dais, and she felt
+vaguely as if a vast flood of new melody was floating over her head;
+music having always played the supreme part in her life and
+imagination, pictures and thoughts came to her first through the world
+of sound. She grew pale, and gazed up at him in dawning appreciation.
+Through a mist of tears, her handkerchief crushed into a ball in her
+hand, she saw the nervous heaving of his chest, the drops on his
+forehead, the burning excitement that flamed in his cheeks, and she
+longed to laugh and cry together, to call out "Stop!" But, as she
+couldn't do this, she sat motionless, listening to the poor, thin voice
+as it proclaimed the gospel of that ancient yet ever-glorious time, and
+then she heard another voice deep down in her heart crying jubilantly,
+"It's coming!"
+
+"But what of the world," he went on, "in which that exalted life
+developed? Like Moses on the mountain-top, I have only seen it from
+afar, only lingered in its outer courts; but I have seen enough to know
+that, as long as breath is left in my body, my soul's yearning for it
+will never cease. There, gleaming palaces and temples rise like part of
+the soil, white among dark cypresses and evergreen leafy oaks. All that
+is clay here is marble there; what is here cribbed and cabined by
+convention, there flourishes in free creative opulence; here we have
+barren imitativeness, there spontaneous growth; here laboured culture,
+there Nature's happy abundance; here the deadening sense of utility,
+there luxuriant revelling in the beautiful; here, plain hard,
+matter-of-fact Protestantism, there the joyous _naivete_ of Catholic
+paganism."
+
+Lilly's heart bounded at the compliment to her faith. In a Protestant
+country she had been brought up a Catholic, and though there was not
+much time, and never had been, for piety in her home, her soul was
+capable of a fair amount of religious fervour. It warmed her heart to
+hear her faith praised, but why it should be coupled with heathenism,
+which she had always been taught was wicked and deplorable, puzzled
+her. A whirl of chaotic, questioning thoughts distracted her attention;
+she found herself unable any longer to follow the speaker, and it was
+only after some time that she woke up to a consciousness that he was
+painting the South in low, loving tones. Now she took up the threads of
+his discourse again, and saw a gold and blue summer heaven rising above
+the Elysian isles, and the sun's blood-red globe drop into a violet
+sea, ruffled by the sirocco. She saw the shepherds feeding their goats
+in meadows of shining asphodel, playing on their flutes like Pan--saw
+the ever-verdant beech-woods stretching up to the snow-clad summits of
+the Apennines; breathed in the perfume of laurel, arbutus, and olive,
+and heard the music of the Angelus ascending heavenwards in the glow of
+eventide; and as she gazed up once more into his face, she was almost
+frightened at the martyred expression of devouring longing with which
+his eyes stared beyond the heads of the class into space.
+
+The school-bell sounded; the lecture was over. He looked round him
+bewildered, like one who had been walking in his sleep, seized his
+hat, and rushed out of the room. The class-room was silent as the
+grave. Then the tension was broken by shy whispers and fumbling for
+school-satchels. Lilly, without speaking a word to anyone, escaped
+into the street to hide her emotion. Sobbing and singing softly to
+herself she ran home.
+
+
+                           *   *   *   *   *
+
+
+The next morning excitement reigned in the Selecta. No one thought or
+talked of anything else but what had happened the day before.
+
+Anna Marholz, the daughter of a doctor, had interesting particulars to
+impart about the young teacher, who was a patient of her father's. She
+said it was urgently necessary that he should go to the Italian Riviera
+for the winter, as it was probable he could not live through it in his
+native climate.
+
+Lilly's heart stood still. The others laid their heads together to
+think of how he was to be helped. It could only be accomplished in a
+private way, because he had no money and no official position, and the
+town would therefore not bear the expenses of his foreign trip.
+
+"We will start a committee," someone proposed, and all the others
+agreed to the proposal with acclamation.
+
+"Thank God!" Lilly said to herself, and felt that now his life would be
+prolonged to fifty or sixty, at least. During the ten o'clock break a
+council of war was held, and Lilly, to her great delight, was appointed
+secretary of the committee.
+
+The first meeting was held at Klein's, the confectioner's, a few days
+later. They dared not go to Frangipani's, the resort of young officers
+and barristers. Fifteen girls consumed fifteen iced meringues and
+fifteen cups of chocolate, the cost of which they shared, and at the
+same time brought forward some practical suggestions. Emilie Faber's
+idea was to get up a Shakespeare reading in the town-hall and to assign
+the part of Romeo to the leading "star" of the provincial theatre.
+Everyone approved, because all the girls were crazy about the favourite
+actor. Not less well received was a scheme of Kaethe Vitzing's, whose
+cousin sang tenor in the college choir, to organise an amateur concert.
+Rosalie Katz, more businesslike than the rest, thought of getting blank
+subscription-forms printed and taking them round to all the well-to-do
+people in the town. This plan was not so popular, but finally it was
+decided to accept it and to try and put all three plans into execution.
+Lilly, in her _role_ of secretary, made a note of all the suggestions,
+and kept saying to herself, "Hurrah, it's for _him_!"
+
+Meanwhile, the lectures on the history of art continued, as well as the
+sittings of the committee. The bill for refreshments mounted higher and
+higher, but enthusiasm for the object of the meetings became visibly
+damped. Not that Dr. Maelzer's lectures were in any degree less
+fascinating. They still held his listeners in thrall with their rich
+imagery and flowery language, but serious obstacles arose in the
+carrying out of the plans to aid him. To begin with: the popular Romeo
+had to appear in another town during the autumn season, and was not
+available; secondly, the college chorus could not get leave to join
+with the Selecta in giving an amateur concert; and the house-to-house
+collection could not be set on foot without the sanction of the police,
+and this no one had courage to ask for. So the great scheme of lofty
+benevolence gradually died out, and Lilly found herself three marks to
+the bad for confectionery. She knew the way to the pawnshop, alas! too
+well, and it required comparatively little pluck on her part to
+sacrifice the small gold cross she wore round her neck--a last relic of
+more prosperous days. She did it gladly, because it was done for him.
+
+Autumn came, and Dr. Maelzer grew worse. He coughed a great deal, and
+now and then covered his mouth with his pocket-handkerchief, afterwards
+examining it with an anxious, furtive eye. And then came the
+announcement that the lectures on Art would be discontinued till
+further notice. Anna Marholz brought the news to school that he had
+broken a blood-vessel. Lilly, without stopping to ask for further
+details, jumped to the conclusion that he was dying. After dark she
+found her way stealthily to his house, Anna Marholz having got his
+address from her father's books. There was a lamp with a green shade
+burning faintly in the window. Not a shadow stirred. No hand drew down
+the blind, but the lamp went on burning faintly the whole time that
+Lilly paced the damp street. Her conscience pricked her for not being
+at home helping her hard-worked mother; yet the next evening and the
+next she repeated the pilgrimage. She became more and more distressed,
+and fancied him lying there in his death-throes with no loving, gentle
+woman's hand to minister to him. On Saturday her anxiety took her from
+the work-table at home early in the afternoon. It was impossible to
+walk up and down before the house in broad daylight, but once there she
+didn't like to go back. Then suddenly she acted on an heroic impulse.
+She went to a florist's and spent the two marks fifty that was left
+over from the pawning of her little gold cross on a bunch of
+brownish-yellow autumn roses. With these she sprang up the steps of the
+house and rang at the door of the second floor, whence the light of the
+green-shaded lamp had proceeded. The door was answered by an old hag in
+a dirty blue-check apron. Lilly stammered forth his name.
+
+"He lives at the back," said the old woman, and shut the door.
+
+Then the green lamp wasn't his after all; it belonged instead to an old
+woman who wore dirty aprons and champed with her toothless gums. She
+had been worshipping at the wrong shrine for more than a week.
+
+Lilly, utterly discouraged, was about to descend the staircase when his
+name caught her eye on one of the brass plates inside the lobby. Her
+heart gave a bound, and before she realised what she was doing she had
+knocked.
+
+A pause ensued and then his head appeared through the half-opened door.
+The collar of his grey coat was turned up, apparently because he had no
+collar underneath. His hair was dishevelled, and the ends of his
+moustache drooped more than ever on either side of his mouth. His eyes
+seemed to ask in embarrassed surprise, "What have you come here for?"
+
+"Fraeulein--Fraeulein----" He evidently recognised her, but could not
+recall her name. Lilly wanted to give him the roses and run away, but
+she was paralysed with shyness, and remained glued to the spot. "I
+presume you have been sent by your class?" he asked.
+
+"Yes," assented Lilly eagerly. This saved her.
+
+"I could not invite you to come in otherwise," he said, smiling
+nervously. "The consequences might be serious for both of us. But if
+you come as an emissary, that makes all the difference. Please come
+in."
+
+Lilly had pictured him in a suite of lofty apartments filled with
+books, curios, instruments, and statues of great men. She was horrified
+to find that he lived in one small room. The bed was still unmade;
+besides the bed there was no furniture except a couple of chairs, a
+folding-table, a clothes-rack and a stand for books containing a few
+shabbily-bound volumes and paper-covered periodicals.
+
+"This is a worse place than ours," she thought, and felt less shy as
+she sat down on one of the two chairs. Poverty seemed a bond between
+them.
+
+"How very kind of the young ladies to think of me!" he said.
+
+Lilly remembered the flowers that she held in her hand. "Will you
+accept these?" she asked, offering them to him.
+
+He took the bunch of roses and held them against his face without a
+word of thanks.
+
+"They have no smell," he remarked. "They are the last roses, but my
+first, so you can imagine how much I appreciate them."
+
+Lilly's eyes grew dim with delight. "Are you still in great pain, Dr.
+Maelzer?" she stammered forth.
+
+He laughed. "Pain? ... Oh dear no! I am feverish now and then, that's
+all. It's quite amusing to be feverish. One's soul floats away in an
+airship far away over cities, land, and sea, over centuries; one is
+visited by distinguished persons, if not so beautiful as----"
+
+He paused in the middle of his compliment, thinking of their relations
+as master and pupil. His confusion seemed to clear his vision. He fixed
+his eyes, which burned like two flames in blue cavities, on her and
+asked in a voice which sounded higher pitched and hoarser than usual:
+
+"What's your name?"
+
+"I am Lilly--Lilly Czepanek."
+
+The name conveyed nothing to him, because he had not lived long in the
+town.
+
+"You think of taking up teaching?"
+
+"Yes, doctor."
+
+"Listen to my advice. Don't! Go to Russia and hurl bombs. Go to a
+hospital and wash feet. Marry a drunken scoundrel who'll ill-treat you
+and sell the very bed you lie on. Anything rather than being a teacher.
+You mustn't be a teacher, not _you_."
+
+"But why shouldn't I?" she asked.
+
+"I'll tell you.... The qualifications for a teacher are a flat chest,
+weak eyes, poor hair, and a character that can see one side of a
+question only. People whose nerves and blood are too feeble to live
+their own lives are good enough to teach others, but those whose blood
+courses through their veins like molten fire, whose eyes are filled
+with longing, to whom the problems of life are there for seeing and
+knowing, not for blind mechanical vivisection, they--but I mustn't go
+on, though I should like to."
+
+"Oh, please go on--please," Lilly besought him.
+
+"How old are you?"
+
+"Sixteen."
+
+"And a woman already!" He looked at her with an expression of tortured
+admiration.
+
+"Look at me!" he exclaimed. "I too was once a human being, though you'd
+hardly believe it. I held my arms stretched out to heaven, full of
+burning desires. I too looked into a girl's eyes with longing, though
+they were not such a pair of eyes as yours. Let me chatter. You see, I
+am a dying man, and it'll do you no harm."
+
+"You mustn't die! you shall not die, Dr. Maelzer!" she cried, jumping to
+her feet.
+
+"Sit down, child," he said with a laugh; "don't excite yourself about
+me. A friend of mine once broke the backbone of a wild-cat with one
+blow of a stick. The cat couldn't run away, couldn't cry or do anything
+till the next blow came. It just crouched on all-fours, coughing and
+choking. That's like me. There's nothing to be done. You had better go,
+child. I've made my peace, but when I look at you it becomes difficult
+again."
+
+She turned her face away not to show her tears.
+
+"Must I?" she asked.
+
+"Must?" he laughed again. "I'll devour greedily every minute of your
+presence here as the hungry beggar devours the crumbs he turns out of
+his pockets. You sat, didn't you, at the end of the first form on the
+left? ... Yes, of course I remember. I said to myself, 'What
+extraordinary eyes!' They are like the eyes of the magic dog in
+Andersen's fairy tale, which grew bigger the more they were asked not
+to."
+
+It was Lilly's turn to laugh.
+
+"There, you see," he said, "I've made you merry again. You shall
+not carry away from here nothing but the memory of a corpse and
+death's-head. We enjoyed our lectures, didn't we?"
+
+Lilly answered with a sigh.
+
+"You gasped for sheer longing when I talked of Italy. I used to think:
+she gasps like yourself, though she has no need to gasp."
+
+"You want to go there very much, doctor?"
+
+"You might as well ask a man on fire whether he'd like a cold bath."
+
+"And it's the only thing that can do you any good?"
+
+He looked at her for a moment with a dark savage expression.
+
+"What are you cross-examining me for? Have you come to find out
+something? I am very indebted to you and the young ladies of the class
+for such sympathetic interest but----"
+
+A fit of coughing stifled his voice.
+
+Lilly sprang up to see if she could do anything for him. Involuntarily
+she snatched up a glass filled with a pale fluid from the table and
+held it to his lips. He took it eagerly, and after drinking fell back
+exhausted and gazed at her tenderly with grateful eyes. She returned
+his gaze with a faint smile, feeling it was infinite happiness to be
+there.
+
+It was so quiet in the half-dark stuffy little room that she could hear
+the tick of his watch, which hung on the opposite wall. He made an
+effort to sit up and go on talking, but appeared not yet quite equal to
+it. Lilly gave him a look of entreaty and warning; and, smiling, he
+leaned back again. So they continued in silence.
+
+"Oh, how happy I am!" thought Lilly. "How happy I am to be here!"
+
+Then he held his hands out to her with a weary gesture. She caught them
+in hers eagerly. His skin felt hot and clammy, and it seemed as if his
+pulse beat in his fingertips. Hers was beating fast too, but could not
+keep pace with it.
+
+"Listen to me, my dear child," he murmured. "I want to give you some
+good advice before you go. You overflow with a superfluity of love;
+three kinds of love--love emanating from the heart, from the senses,
+and from compassion. One or other is necessary to everybody who isn't a
+dried-up fossil, but two are dangerous, and all three are likely to
+lead to ruin. Be on guard where your power of loving is concerned.
+Don't squander your love. That is the advice of one on whom you cannot
+squander it, for God knows he needs it."
+
+"Have you no one to take care of you?" she asked, dreading to hear that
+anyone but herself was privileged to nurse him.
+
+He shook his head.
+
+"Mayn't I come again?"
+
+He flinched. The fervour of her question was startling. "It depends on
+whether the class send you."
+
+Lilly now cast off every shred of deception. "That was not true," she
+stammered. "Not true! The class didn't send me. No one knows I've
+come."
+
+He bounded to his feet--almost as if he were quite well. His face
+lengthened with dismay; his eyes filled with tears. He stretched out a
+trembling hand, as if he would ward her off.
+
+"You must go at once," he whispered; "at once!"
+
+Lilly did not stir.
+
+"If you don't go," he went on excitedly, "your prospects will be
+ruined. It is not customary for young girls to call on unmarried men in
+my position, even when the man is their master, and such a wreck as I
+am. Mention to no one that you have been here, not even to your
+greatest friend. Remember, your living depends on your reputation, and
+I should be taking the bread out of your mouth if I let you stay. Go
+instantly!"
+
+"Am I never to come again?" Her eyes pleaded.
+
+"No!" he thundered in a voice of iron resolve.
+
+The next minute Lilly was pushed out of the room and the key turned in
+the lock behind her.
+
+
+                           *   *   *   *   *
+
+
+She lost no time in disobeying his urgent instructions, and went
+straight to Rosalie Katz, her chosen friend for the time being, to whom
+she confided everything, and in whose company she relieved herself by
+having a good cry. The little brown Jewess was soft-hearted and
+desperately in love with him too, so they mingled their tears. They
+forgot to shut the door, however, and it happened that the portly and
+wealthy Herr Katz, whose waistcoat buttons were always bursting off,
+came in to ask his daughter to sew one on. Finding the two girls locked
+in a tearful embrace, he tactfully withdrew; but no sooner had Lilly
+left the house than he extracted the whole story from Rosalie, of the
+invalid master, the abortive committee meetings, and wasted iced
+meringues.
+
+"I dare say we can arrange the matter," he said, twisting the thin gold
+watch-chain that dangled from the third button of his waistcoat. A
+thick gold watch-chain was the insignia of being left behind in the
+social race among the gentlemen of the corn trade.
+
+So it happened that Dr. Maelzer received a few days later a registered
+letter from two "well-wishers." In it he was told that means had been
+found to defray the expenses of his foreign tour. All he had to do was
+to draw a cheque on the firm of Goldbaum, Katz & Co. He started on a
+chilly October evening, and the staff saw him off at the station. Lilly
+and Rosalie, who had found out the time his train departed, were there
+too, but they kept in the background. He passed close by them, muffled
+in a thick plaid, his eyes aflame, fixed on the distance. After the
+train had gone, the two girls threw themselves in each other's arms,
+and wept for joy and pride in what they had done for him. Rosalie stood
+her friend an _eclair_ on the way home, it being too cold now for iced
+meringues. Half an hour later they were sitting in the confectioner's,
+smiling happily over pictures in the illustrated papers.
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER IV
+
+
+Spring brought renewed hope and promise of brighter times for Frau
+Czepanek. So certain was she that in a very short time now her husband
+would return, that she determined to give up the needlework drudgery
+and find a pleasanter way of making a living. It would be simple enough
+to rent a floor consisting of nine rooms, to furnish them on credit,
+and put up a plate with the inscription "Board and Lodging for
+Students." Once start the enterprise and the rest would follow. The
+idea took possession of Frau Czepanek's brain, half dazed as it was
+from the perpetual maddening whir of the sewing-machine. Lilly, though
+she liked the prospect of a less strenuous life, entertained doubts as
+to the scheme working. She remembered, with a shudder, the abusive
+threats of the duns who had bombarded them after papa's departure, and
+she failed to see where enough students were to come from to fill nine
+rooms when the summer term had begun and all had found other
+accommodation. But her mother would not listen to reason. The attic
+resounded with her triumphant "I shall do this," and "I shall do that."
+She announced her intention of calling on the mayor, and going to the
+council of the college to get them to recommend her.
+
+In these days she set out on mysterious expeditions alone, and when
+Lilly came in from school she was no longer greeted at the bottom of
+the stairs by the familiar din of the sewing-machine. She would find
+the front-door key under the mat. Her mother became more reserved and
+secretive as the time for the great plunge drew nearer. Her face wore
+the suppressed smile of parents before a Christmas tree, only that
+there was a certain defiant contempt in it as well. She painted herself
+more thickly than ever, and the rouge-pot, which once had been hidden
+from Lilly's eyes, stood flaunting itself openly on the chest of
+drawers. Money did not grow more plentiful. Lilly had to devote every
+minute she could spare from her lessons to make up for mamma's neglect.
+Frau Czepanek set her feet on the treadles only on rare occasions when
+Lilly urged her to resume the work, which was delivered more and more
+irregularly, so that mother and daughter stood in danger of losing the
+employment on which their existence depended. Lilly, young and vigorous
+though she was, felt her strength severely taxed, but she took it
+calmly, assuring herself optimistically that "something would turn up
+before long." She would not have grudged her mother the intoxication of
+her new-born hopes so much, if she could have had her proper nights'
+rest instead of having to lie in her clothes on the outside of the bed
+from two till six in the morning. In school Lilly sat with heavy red
+eyes, unable to see or think as she was expected to do, and masters
+began to complain of her, more and more frequently.
+
+It was high time for the change to come, and fate ordained that it
+should come on a sultry grey July day, when Lilly, returning home from
+school, saw two vans standing at the door, crammed with furniture
+smelling of recently applied varnish, and heard her mother's shrill
+tones in converse with strangers. With a beating heart she ran up the
+steps. Two carmen in leather aprons, with amused red faces, one with an
+open bill in his hand, were demanding payment. Frau Czepanek, running
+her fingers through the hair which she had just frizzed with the
+curling-tongs, marched up and down the room and shouted bitter
+reproaches about broken promises and extortionate rascally conduct. The
+men simply laughed at her, and reminded her that they wanted to get
+home that night. Then Frau Czepanek, in a fury, tried to snatch the
+bill from the carman, and when he declined to give it up she started
+belabouring him with her fists. Lilly quickly sprang between them,
+seized her struggling mother's wrists and ordered the men to go,
+assuring them everything would be arranged. They obeyed, and now her
+mother's wrath descended on Lilly.
+
+"If you had not interfered," she yelled, "I should have got the receipt
+out of them, and the furniture would have been unpacked to-night in the
+new flat. You've spoilt it all, and I shall now have to be at them
+again to-morrow."
+
+"The new flat!" echoed Lilly. "What new flat?"
+
+Frau Czepanek laughed. How stupid Lilly was! Did she think that she had
+been doing nothing all this time? And then it all came out. The flat of
+nine rooms had been taken and they were to move in at once. The plate
+even was already engraved, and when hung up would have a magical
+effect. She had made every sacrifice, strained every nerve, that the
+rooms should be furnished in a way worthy of their exterior. She had
+bought curtains for twelve windows in a Chinese pattern; six good rugs
+to bear the tread of students, who wore out cheap carpets like muslin,
+and large-sized English jugs and basins, in white and gold, to put on
+the marble washstands. The dinner service, which she had also
+purchased, was not ready, as it took some time to get a monogram burnt
+in, but they could make shift with a common set of sixteen pieces for
+the present. She had expended great care and thrift on her choice of
+things, and everything would be in perfect taste.
+
+She wandered restlessly, as she talked, round the table in the middle
+of the room. Her small narrow eyes, that looked as if they hadn't
+closed in sleep for many a night, glittered, and under the rouge on her
+hollow cheeks burned the scarlet flush of fever.
+
+Lilly, who began to feel a little uncomfortable, ventured to ask what
+had been done about paying for the things.
+
+Her question was laughed to scorn. "If you are a lady, you can do
+anything with the tradespeople. They know that I, as the wife of Kilian
+Czepanek, musical conductor, am entitled to respect and to credit; or
+they ought to know it."
+
+"Has all the furniture been taken to the flat?" Lilly queried again.
+
+Frau Czepanek's merriment was renewed. "Before the rooms are ready, you
+goose? Not likely! Rooms have to be painted, papered, and decorated. I
+have taken no end of trouble to select artistic papers," she added,
+with the grand air of a person whose powers of paying are unlimited.
+
+A sickening feeling of perplexity took possession of Lilly. It was like
+not being sure whether your school-fellows were making a fool of you or
+not. There was nothing for dinner too, which made matters worse. Lilly
+set the coffee on the hob to boil and put the rolls on the table. They
+would have to skip dinner to-day. The Czepanek household had become
+quite expert in the art of skipping meals.
+
+Lilly's mother said no time must be lost before beginning to pack, and
+she gulped down her coffee hurriedly. Then suddenly she got into
+another towering rage.
+
+"If only you hadn't held my hands, you idiot!" she screamed, "we should
+have got that lovely new furniture into its place by to-morrow. Now we
+shall have to move in with this rubbish. What will people think when
+they see it?"
+
+She ran her fingers through her singed locks and brandished the
+bread-knife with which she was cutting her roll in half. Next she
+turned up her sleeves, put on her blue working apron, and declared that
+she would start the packing that very instant. She turned out the
+wardrobe and piled clothes on the foot of the bed. Underwear and linen
+out of the linen-press she scattered over the floor in wildest
+confusion.
+
+The veins stood out in knots on her shrivelled arms, perspiration ran
+down her face. Lilly, with a feeling of oppression at her heart, looked
+on. When she saw the score of "The Song of Songs," their dearest
+treasure, carelessly thrown on the floor, she stooped to pick it up
+from amongst the litter of sheets and nightgowns.
+
+"What are you doing with 'The Song of Songs'?" cried her mother, rising
+in haste from her knees.
+
+"Nothing," said Lilly in surprise. "I was merely putting it on the
+table."
+
+"You're a liar," the woman screeched, "and an abandoned girl! You want
+to steal the score from me as you stole the receipt. But I'll be even
+with you!"
+
+Lilly, to her horror, saw a sudden flash of steel before her eyes, felt
+a sharp pain at her throat and something warm trickling soothingly over
+her left breast.
+
+It was not till her mother attempted a second thrust that Lilly
+realised it was the bread-knife that her mother held in her hand. With
+a piercing scream, she grasped her mother's wrist; but she had
+developed all at once the strength of a lioness, and Lilly would most
+probably have been worsted in the struggle if neighbours had not rushed
+in to see what all the noise was about.
+
+Frau Czepanek was caught from behind and bound with towels, the
+bread-knife still clenched in her hand with a tenacity that no power on
+earth could loosen. Not till the doctor, who was called in to give her
+a soothing draught, came did she let it fall. Lilly's wound was
+dressed, and she was taken to the hospital, where she was kept because
+no one knew what to do with her. There she learnt, in due course, that
+her mother had been removed to the provincial lunatic asylum, of which
+she was likely to be an inmate for the rest of her days. Lilly was
+alone in the world.
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER V
+
+
+"Yes, my dear young lady," said the distinguished lawyer, Herr Doktor
+Pieper, "I have been appointed your guardian, and have accepted the
+post because I considered it my duty. Ah! you want the papers _re_
+Lemke _versus_ Militzky," he went on, interrupting himself to speak to
+the head clerk. "What was I saying? Oh, to be sure. I considered it my
+duty, although I am a very busy man, to befriend, as far as lies in my
+power, the widow and orphan."
+
+He passed his well-manicured left hand over his shining bald pate and
+straw-coloured beard, which half concealed the mouth of a man of the
+world and an epicure.
+
+"My wards all do well," he continued. "I am proud of their success. How
+do they manage it? Well, that's my affair--a secret of business, as it
+were. I am certain, my child, that you too will fall on your feet
+eventually. I should hardly be so interested in you if it were not
+highly probable. The first thing to be considered is a suitable
+situation. Plain young ladies are the most difficult to suit, unless
+they happen to be humble and unassuming. It pays them to boast of
+so-called Christian virtues. You, of course, do not belong to the plain
+sort. Possibly you are conscious of it, and I only tell you in order
+that you should learn to assert yourself. The main point in the art of
+living is to discriminate between self-assertion that is justified, and
+the reverse. You must, that is to say, gauge your own power according
+to circumstances. Now, young girls such as you----"
+
+At this moment the head clerk, tall and lank, again appeared at his
+elbow, with a portfolio.
+
+"At five o'clock the Labischin divorce suit comes on," he said to the
+man, as he took the documents from his hand, "At quarter past, Reimann
+and Reimann _versus_ Fassbender. Get everything in readiness and see
+that someone accompanies this young lady. You will learn where from the
+papers."
+
+The man vanished.
+
+"Well, my dear young lady," her guardian continued, "the time which I
+can spare you is at an end. You will not be able to resume your school
+studies, of course. The means are not forthcoming. Even if they were, I
+rather doubt its being advisable. Governesses do sometimes make
+brilliant marriages certainly, though oftenest in the pages of English
+novels; but they are exposed--excuse my plain speaking--to all sorts of
+temptation, and are sometimes led astray. I should like to get you a
+place in a large photographic studio, where your duties would be to
+receive customers; but you would hardly have enough self-assurance for
+such a post at present. I have therefore found a position for you in a
+lending library, more as a trial than a permanency. There your light
+will not be altogether hidden under a bushel. The salary--I need not
+emphasise the fact--will be moderate: twenty marks a month with board
+and lodging. You will have every opportunity of letting your fancy
+browse among the literature of all people and all ages. So, my dear
+young lady----Good God! why are you crying?"
+
+Lilly wiped tears from her eyes and cheeks. "I'm only just out of the
+hospital," she explained. "I feel rather----I am very sorry."
+
+The distinguished lawyer, smiling, shook his head, the baldness of
+which appeared to be as tended and cared for as the face of a beautiful
+woman.
+
+"You'll have to give up the habit of crying. Tears are quite out of
+place till you have a settled career before you.... There's something
+else I have got to say. Your poor mother's small effects must be sold.
+The proceeds of the sale will serve as a little competence for your
+rainy days. It is very important that you should make sure of this
+capital, such as it is. Now, under the escort of my man, you shall go
+back to your home--I have the key in my bureau--and select a few
+articles which you may care to have either for use or as mementoes.
+Good-bye, my dear.... In six months come to me again."
+
+Lilly felt in hers a cool, flabby hand that seemed incapable of giving
+or returning pressure. Then she found herself staggering down the dark
+staircase, conducted by a clerk who had the key and was to take her to
+her old home. She wanted to ask questions, to protest about what she
+didn't know. The clerk swung the key in silence, and didn't look round
+till he opened the door of the room in which she and her mother had
+lived. It was close and smelt musty; shafts of light came through the
+blinds, piercing the dusk. As she stood there, Lilly felt as if she
+were standing on the grave of her childhood and youth, that everything
+had come to an end, and there was nothing to be done but shut herself
+up here and die.
+
+The clerk unfastened the shutters and threw open the windows. The
+clothes were still piled on the bed, the linen strewed the floor, and
+on the boards were dark brownish stains--the blood which had flown from
+her throat. The knife, too, still lay there. Lilly was ashamed to cry
+before the clerk, who stood staring vacantly and whistling to himself,
+as she threw her things into the basket-trunk which her mother had
+intended to use for the move to the nine-roomed flat. She chose a few
+books at random, and put some copybooks on top; then she looked about
+her for keepsakes. Her head swam; she saw things without recognising
+them. But there on the table, held together with india rubber bands,
+splashed with her blood, was the score of "The Song of Songs." No one
+had touched it because no one knew its value. She caught it up, shut
+down the lid of the box, and with the roll of music under her arm she
+stepped out into her new life, thirsting for new experiences.
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER VI
+
+
+Frau Asmussen had two daughters, who had run away for the third time.
+All the neighbours knew it, and Lilly was given full particulars almost
+directly she set foot in the badly-lighted room, smelling of leather
+and dustiness, where torn volumes, ranged on shelves of pine, mounted
+to the ceiling.
+
+Frau Asmussen was a dignified-looking and portly person, who received
+Lilly at the entrance of the library, and amidst kisses and tears
+assured her that she had loved her as her own daughter before she saw
+her, and now that they had met she was perfectly enchanted with her.
+"Who can ever say that strangers are cold and distant again?" thought
+Lilly, delighted with her reception.
+
+"Did I say my own daughter? I should have said, ten times more than my
+own daughters. One's own daughters are vipers who turn and sting; one
+must pluck them from one's bosom----"
+
+She had to pause, because the lethargic clerk who had come with Lilly
+in the cab was bringing in her box. When he had gone, Frau Asmussen
+continued:
+
+"Do you suppose I loved my daughters, or that I did not love them?
+Haven't I said to them every day: 'Your father was a blackguard, a cur,
+and may God forgive him!' And what do you think they did? Went off one
+fine morning--went off on their own hook--leaving a note on the table:
+'We're going to father. You bully us more than we can put up with, and
+we are sick of everlasting milk puddings.' You see what I am, my
+dear--I am kindness itself. Do I look as if I could hurt a fly, much
+less my own daughters? And they did it not once, but three times; this
+is the third time they have exposed me to the scoffs and jeers of the
+town--the third time they have disgraced me. Twice they came back in
+rags and misery, and I have taken them to my heart and forgiven them.
+But just let them try it on again--let them come back a third time!
+There's a broomstick behind the door ready for them. Directly they show
+their noses inside, out they shall go into the street. I'll beat them,
+and then sweep them out at the door like so much waste-paper." And with
+an air of unspeakable disgust Frau Asmussen swept an invisible
+something through the hall and gave it a kick over the step.
+
+"Poor, poor woman!" thought Lilly. "How much she must have suffered!"
+and she vowed inwardly to do her best to make up to the mother for the
+loss of such unworthy daughters.
+
+At this point a young man came in to change a book. He asked for a
+volume of Zola, and looked at Lilly as much as to say, "You see what a
+dog I am."
+
+Frau Asmussen shook her head reproachfully, and fetched down the book
+required from an upper shelf. He clutched it eagerly, without heeding
+in the least the glance of warning with which the old lady handed it to
+him.
+
+"You see, my dear," she said when he had gone, "that's how the young go
+to perdition, and I am condemned to help them on the way."
+
+"Why?" asked Lilly.
+
+"Do you know how a chemist's shop is arranged?"
+
+Lilly said she had often been in one, but couldn't remember.
+
+"One place is marked 'Poison,'" her employer went on, "and in it are
+kept the most deadly poisons known to humanity. On that account the
+door is kept locked, and no one may touch the contents save the chemist
+and his assistants. Now, just look round; half these books are poison,
+too. Nearly everything that's written in these days is pernicious
+trash, and lures the reader on to destruction. Yet I am bound to keep
+these books, bound to distribute them, though my heart is wrung as I
+hand them over the counter. My undutiful daughters are an example. They
+read, read--did nothing but read the whole night through; and when they
+were stuffed full of impudence and nonsense, they turned up their noses
+at the food I gave them and the cooking, and went out for walks, till
+at last they sneaked off to their father--that miserable worm! that
+swindler and scum! with his face all out in pimples! I warn you, my
+child, against that man. Should you ever meet him, gather up your
+skirts as I am doing now, to avoid contamination."
+
+Lilly shuddered at the account of this vile monster in human shape, and
+was happy that she had found a protectress in his deserving wife.
+
+An hour or so later they sat down to supper, which consisted of milk
+pudding and slices of bread and dripping. Lilly, unused to anything but
+the simplest fare, was easily persuaded that no milk puddings in the
+world were as delicious as Frau Asmussen's, and that the Kaiser himself
+could not sit down to a more daintily prepared meal than was spread on
+her table. She missed, it is true, the slice of ham which she had been
+given every night at the hospital; if this had been added, her supper
+would have seemed the acme of gastronomic delights.
+
+More enjoyment awaited her when she went to bed. The library was part
+of a big room with three windows, which was divided into four
+compartments by two long bookcases running from the wall where the
+windows were, and by a counter opposite the door that communicated with
+the entrance, and thus there was only one narrow gangway to connect one
+compartment with another. At bed-time Frau Asmussen carried into the
+furthest compartment two forms, on which she laid a mattress and made
+up a bed. The space was so confined and filled up that Lilly had to
+jump over a bench at the foot of her improvised bed to get into it, and
+she thought this great fun. She fell asleep wedged in between two high
+upright bookcases, the window above her head, a chair beside her on
+which her things were piled, and "The Song of Songs" clasped in her
+arms.
+
+The next morning she was initiated into her duties as librarian. She
+learnt the system by which the thousands of volumes were arranged on
+the shelves, and as she knew her alphabet she would have mastered it in
+five minutes, and been able to fetch any of the popular books from
+their places, if Frau Asmussen had followed her own system, instead of
+placing the books anyhow and so courting confusion and muddle. A worse
+task was to find the names of books and authors in the general
+catalogue, and entries of customers in the ledger, which were also
+supposed to be alphabetical; but the carelessness of Frau Asmussen and
+her daughters had reduced the whole to chaos. Lilly set to work with
+burning zeal to put things in order, and for several weeks the
+attainment of this desired goal was her sole object in life.
+
+Frau Asmussen provided her with some surprises, even on the day after
+her arrival. Lilly saw nothing of her after the morning hours till
+supper-time; then Lilly found her nodding over a steaming teacup which
+exhaled an agreeable odour of rum and lemons.
+
+"I suffer from nasal catarrh," Frau Asmussen explained, blinking at
+Lilly with her rather watery grey eyes, "And one of our most noted
+physicians has prescribed this medicine."
+
+Lilly ate her milk pudding while Frau Asmussen continued sipping at the
+contents of her teacup, giving now and then a melancholy groan.
+
+"Have I told you about my daughters?" she asked, after a pause.
+
+"Oh yes," responded Lilly respectfully. All the morning there had been
+scarcely any other topic of conversation than these two scapegrace
+daughters and the wicked man they called father.
+
+"But I don't think I can have given you any idea how charming they
+are," Frau Asmussen went on. "Though I say it that shouldn't, there
+isn't their match in the world for beauty and talent and lovable
+qualities. In such young girls, filial devotion, self-sacrificing
+industry, and touching modesty like theirs is not often found. They are
+so practical too, so thoroughly reliable in all that relates to
+business, besides being brimful of affection. You should take example
+from them, my dear, for you are very far from being anything like those
+models of perfect girlhood."
+
+Lilly's spoon dropped from her fingers. She could hardly believe her
+ears, and the old lady maundered on:
+
+"It was heartrending to part with them, and they cried themselves ill
+for days and nights beforehand. They were obliged to go to their
+father. Have I mentioned my husband to you? The best and noblest of
+men, from whom fate has parted me, but who cherishes for me an undying
+tenderness, and whom I shall love till death.... What a man! Pray, my
+child, on your knees that you may one day be the wife of such a man,
+and worthy of him. Alas! I was not--not worthy, no, not at all."
+
+Two tears of unutterable remorse ran down her cheeks. She had a deal
+further to say about the superlative virtues of her two daughters, her
+husband's lofty character, and her own abject inferiority, and after
+several more doses of the medicine prescribed by the eminent physician
+she sobbed and moaned herself to sleep.
+
+The next morning Frau Asmussen began the day's work by scolding Lilly
+for sweeping out the library with the broom standing behind the door.
+
+"It's kept there for one purpose only," she said, "and that is to
+chastise those two hussies when they appear at my door; and if you ever
+dare to touch it again you will be the first to feel what it's like."
+
+After this, Lilly began to regard her future through less rose-coloured
+glasses. A worse blow was to come. Frau Asmussen, who seemed deeply
+concerned about Lilly's spiritual welfare and the purity of her mind,
+strictly forbade her to read any of the books in her library.
+
+"After what I have experienced with my daughters," she said, "I know
+the evil results of novel-reading, and I'll take care that you don't go
+the same way."
+
+While the work of rearranging the catalogue and the ledgers lasted, the
+temptation to disobey orders did not occur frequently. But when autumn
+set in, and, in spite of the increase of subscribers, her time became
+less occupied and the hanging lamp was lighted early over the library
+table, when Frau Asmussen yielded sooner to the effects of the medicine
+prescribed by the eminent physician, and fell into a stupor, Lilly was
+driven by curiosity and boredom to do what she had been forbidden.
+
+She was first put up to it by a girl who came to change the first
+volume of a novel for the second. The second volume was out, and the
+girl positively wept for disappointment. She declared that she
+couldn't wait to know how the story ended. It would kill her. Lilly
+good-naturedly advised her to go to one of the other circulating
+libraries, which were said to be larger and superior, and she went so
+far as to return the girl her three marks deposit. The novel devourer
+thanked Lilly and departed with renewed hopes.
+
+Lilly scanned the outside of the dirty, torn volume she had left on the
+counter, then cautiously peeped inside. "Debit and Credit," by Gustav
+Freytag, was on the title-page. She had heard them raving about this
+book when she was in the first class at school, but there was no time
+for novel-reading in the life of a sweated machinist's daughter. She
+glanced timidly at the first page, then went to the glass door and
+listened for a few minutes to the peaceful snores that came from the
+back parlour. Soon afterwards she was launched with full-spread sails
+on the wide ocean of romance. At four in the morning, when she had
+finished the first volume, she was in desperation at the thought that
+she could not go on with the story, and wondered who had the missing
+volume, and how she was to get hold of it. Then she fell asleep.
+
+The next day she pored over the ledger to try and trace the name and
+address of the subscriber who had not returned the second volume of
+"Debit and Credit." But, as the entries were made by the numbers and
+not by the titles of the books, she missed it over and over again in
+her excitement. So at last she was compelled to seek an outlet for her
+newly awakened craving in another book.
+
+Henceforward her life became an orgy of novel-reading. She went about
+her daily task with heavy lids and aching limbs, burnt a huge amount of
+midnight oil, and only escaped the suspicions of Frau Asmussen by lies
+and tricks. Then one dreadful winter morning it all came out. The stove
+in the library burning low towards midnight, Lilly's feet became cold,
+and she took to reading in bed with the lamp, which she removed from
+its hanging socket, on the window-sill above her pillow, where there
+was plenty of room for it. Though this involved the bitter discomfort
+of having to get out of bed again in order to put back lamp and book in
+their places--Frau Asmussen was often now in the library earlier than
+Lilly--she would have rather gone out in the cold street in her
+nightgown than have sacrificed those dearly bought extra hours.
+
+So it came about that one morning she awoke in a fright to behold Frau
+Asmussen, already dressed, dangling a black strap over her white
+nightgown, while the lamp, which Lilly had secretly refilled at one
+o'clock, still burned on the window-sill. She had never in her life
+before been whipped, and at first hardly grasped what was going to
+happen, when Frau Asmussen leapt as nimbly as her corpulence would
+permit on to the counterpane over the bedrail, and crouching there like
+some fat old plucked hen, began to belabour her over the ears with the
+strap.
+
+A bad time now began for Lilly. What was the good of being sincerely
+repentant, and swearing to herself and to Frau Asmussen that she would
+not do it again? The new craze so intoxicated her, she was so absorbed
+with the new, beautiful imaginary world in which there were no tiresome
+servants sent by subscribers to change books, no wet umbrellas, no
+missing volumes, no back numbers of magazines that refused to be found,
+no insipid milk puddings, and no thrashings, that, had she had a
+martyr's joy in renunciation, she could not have returned to her former
+unbroken routine. She was now so completely governed by her imagination
+that her actual everyday existence, with its deadly monotony and lonely
+hours, seemed to her an unreal dream, and her life had no reality till
+she opened a book and turned over its sticky pages. She was too docile
+and unresisting to attempt to justify this passion even in her own
+eyes. It was wrong, she knew, to feed her mind on this heaven-sent
+food; but she could not help it.
+
+Frau Asmussen hit on a fiendish method of humiliating Lilly still
+further. She regarded religion, like many orthodox Protestants, solely
+in the light of a penance, and, though hitherto she had not concerned
+herself in the least about Lilly's creed, she now took to beginning
+every meal with a long-winded prayer, in which, in face of the steaming
+soup-tureen, she commended Lilly amidst tears and sighs to the Lord,
+and begged Him to forgive her sinful depravity.
+
+Woe to Lilly if there was any backsliding! That first chastisement did
+not by any means remain the only one. She was cuffed and beaten on the
+slightest provocation, and storms of abuse descended on her unprotected
+head. In fact, she scarcely dared breathe till the soothing medicine
+prescribed by the eminent physician began to do its work. Then Lilly
+seized the first book she came across, and suffered all the agonies of
+the heroines in the stories about lost wills and broken marriages,
+about poison, arson, and murder; with them she loved, and conquered,
+and died, finding in it all a never-ending source of ecstasy.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER VII
+
+
+It was a spring-like evening in March, with bright sunshine. The last
+grimy heaps of snow lying along the gutters had melted into radiant
+paddles, and a shower of silvery drops fell from the icicles clinging
+to the roofs. The glow of sunset lay on the houses facing south like
+brilliant decorative carpets, sharply divided from the shadows on the
+opposite side of the street. The window lattices shone as if they
+themselves were suns reflecting their own light, and sparrows twittered
+on the dripping eaves. But most welcome feature of all in this early
+spring of city streets was the peculiar spicy fragrance of the melting
+snows, rising in vapour from the gutter with promise of meadows growing
+green and of boughs bursting into bud. Lilly, who had hardly been out
+more than two or three times during the winter, sat at the counter
+gazing wistfully into space.
+
+Everywhere windows and doors were wide open. Everywhere lungs thirsty
+for fresh air inhaled the zephyrs of coming spring. At last she too
+pushed open the casements, and gave the hall door a kick, which made it
+swing back and knock down the broom that stood in the corner behind it.
+She saw through the opening of the door into the rooms of the opposite
+tenant, who had also thrown his door wide to greet the spring.
+
+There was a cherry-coloured sofa with embroidered chair-backs stretched
+over its old-fashioned scroll-shaped arms; there were wreaths of dried
+flowers with inscriptions framed on the walls; the helmet of a cavalry
+officer with swords crossed; china lions used as cigar-holders; ballet
+girls supporting tallow candles; photograph groups with peacock's
+feathers stuck between them; a glass bowl of goldfish; a goatskin rug.
+In the midst of all this wilderness of knick-knacks a youth paced up
+and down with a book in his hand, conning something diligently; one
+minute he vanished from view, only to reappear the next. At the first
+glance, this young man attracted Lilly's sympathetic notice. His wavy
+fair hair was brushed carelessly back from his forehead, the carriage
+of his head was erect and nonchalant, and he wore a mauve and brown
+striped necktie, which Lilly thought the height of refined taste.
+
+She tried to think which of her favourite heroes he resembled most, and
+came to the conclusion that it was Finck in "Debit and Credit." The
+young man did not observe her, so she had every opportunity of studying
+him. When he was in sight, a warm thrill ran through her, directly he
+disappeared and remained hidden from view for the fraction of a second
+she felt a sick sensation as if someone were robbing her of her dearest
+possession. So it continued till he glanced up from his book, and,
+seeing the young lady who watched him through the door, withdrew
+hastily to the invisible part of his room. When he next disclosed
+himself he had adopted a much stiffer and more self-conscious air. He
+bent over his book with a studiousness that was hardly natural, moved
+his lips too obviously, and frowned heavily. Lilly, too, thought it
+necessary to improve slightly the picture she presented. She smoothed
+the hair that was parted Madonna fashion on her forehead, and let
+her arm fall carelessly over the side of the chair. A couple of
+maid-servants who came to change books for their mistresses put an end
+to this silent duet by shutting the door as they went out. Lilly did
+not dare to open it again. But from that evening the new hero became
+part of her dreams.
+
+It was hopeless to think of asking Frau Asmussen questions so late,
+because she was now in the habit of preparing her medicine before the
+evening meal; but the next morning, as she seemed in a fairly good
+temper, Lilly ventured to make a few inquiries about the neighbour of
+whose existence till now she had been ignorant.
+
+"What do the neighbours matter to you, you inquisitive thing!" retorted
+Frau Asmussen, in that tone of polished urbanity with which she had
+addressed Lilly after the raptures of the first night were over.
+
+Lilly plucked up courage to invent a tale of a regular subscriber who
+had asked her the day before for information about their neighbours,
+which she had been unable to give him. Frau Asmussen's esteem for this
+subscriber was so great that she instantly became communicative.
+
+They were respectable enough people over the way, but of low birth, and
+she, as a woman of a more highly-cultured mind, could not associate
+with them. She believed the husband was a pensioned-off sergeant-major,
+now working as a clerk, and that his wife made cravattes for a living.
+Lilly flushed, remembering the mauve and brown tie which had so dazzled
+her eyes the day before. How vulgarly these common people lived might
+be gathered from the fact that on high-days and festivals they indulged
+in potato soup with slices of sausage in it, which made anyone with a
+delicate palate like Frau Asmussen's shudder to think of.
+
+Like the erring daughters, Lilly had long ago got tired of the eternal
+milk pudding, and found herself unable to agree that potato soup was
+vulgar. Indeed, her mouth began to water at the mere mention of it, and
+she changed the subject by asking if anyone else lived next door.
+
+"I believe there's a son," replied Frau Asmussen. "He goes to the
+Gymnasium, though why people in that class of life should have their
+sons educated I don't know."
+
+"I know why," Lilly said to herself. "I know why: it is because he is
+great, and genius looks forth from his eyes, because he must succeed
+and become a ruler of men."
+
+The same afternoon she pushed open the swing-door again, but the
+weather was raw and cold, and there was no friendly face opposite to
+cheer her eyes. After she had gazed longingly for an hour or more at
+the door-plate bearing the inscription:
+
+                              L. Redlich,
+                        _Kindly ring and knock_
+
+she was forced to close the door, her legs feeling like icicles, and
+with a feeling of humiliation that she had been snubbed. Henceforth she
+looked out for one o'clock, the hour when the Gymnasium students came
+home from school. With her nose pressed against the window-panes, she
+could recognise at an almost incredible distance the blue and white
+college caps. When he flew up the steps, she slipped behind the
+curtains, trembling with joy at the bashful glances he cast at her. But
+if he looked straight in front of him she was extremely unhappy, and
+hoped that she had done nothing to hurt his feelings.
+
+There were other wearers of blue and white caps who came up the steps
+to the house, friends who came to cram for their examination with him.
+Lilly adored them all. She felt that a bond existed between her and the
+little circle, who had the world all before them, and intended to
+conquer it. In spirit she sat in their midst.
+
+Some of them passed so quickly that she distinguished them by their
+caps more than by their faces. There was the forlorn-looking cap, the
+faded, the smart, the limp. Each of the youths too had his
+characteristic way of walking and knocking at the door. She could tell,
+even when she was busy giving out books, and without looking, how many
+of young Redlich's chums had come or had not come to work with him.
+
+Meanwhile, the days grew longer and spring was advancing. The tenants
+of the house began to sit on the terrace in front, where there were
+chairs and tables.
+
+The boys often lingered there chatting with their friend before going
+in to their studies, and when they were gone he leaned over the
+balustrade in the twilight alone, dreaming doubtless of his great
+future.
+
+Then Lilly, with beating heart, stationed herself behind a book-rack,
+from which she had artfully cleared away enough volumes to form a
+peep-hole, whence she could admire to her heart's content the leonine
+brow so full of thought and profound intellect.
+
+The seats on the terrace in front of the library windows were mostly
+unoccupied, as they belonged to Frau Asmussen, who preferred taking her
+medicine indoors, and Lilly could not screw up courage to ask
+permission to sit there.
+
+One May evening, however, when showery spring clouds sailed over the
+dark blue sky, more alluring than threatening, when it was all so still
+that you could hear the splashing of the market-place fountain, and the
+swallows were the only passers-by, Lilly simply could not contain
+herself any longer in the library atmosphere, smelling of old leather
+and parchment; and taking her embroidery, more for show than because
+she was industriously inclined, she went out, determined to sit on the
+terrace. She knew that he was out, and that he always came in before
+ten. He would have to pass her whatever happened. Half an hour, another
+half-hour, than a quarter went by, and she saw a blue and white cap
+coming jauntily down the street. Her first thought was to run back into
+the library, but she was ashamed to do this, and sat where she was. He
+came, saw her, raised his cap, and went in.
+
+"He has at least bowed to me," she thought blissfully.
+
+Scarcely ten minutes had elapsed before he appeared again. He seated
+himself on a bench belonging to his side of the house, played with
+pebbles, whistled to himself softly, and seemed altogether oblivious of
+her presence.
+
+Lilly sat on in her corner rolling and unrolling her embroidery, and
+now and then giving vent to her tender feelings toward him by a sigh,
+though she told herself she only sighed because it was so hot. Half an
+hour sped away thus, and Lilly began to abandon hope of anything more
+happening, when all of a sudden he addressed her, with his cap in his
+hand:
+
+"They will soon be closing the front door, Fraeulein," he said.
+
+"Not already, surely!" she exclaimed, feigning consternation. Then,
+reflecting that to act on his hint would be to put an end to their
+acquaintance making any progress, she added in a more indifferent tone:
+
+"It doesn't matter; the window isn't shut."
+
+"The window!" he repeated.
+
+She could not make out whether in approval or blame. The conversation
+would have certainly come to a standstill here if she had not made a
+gigantic effort to keep the ball rolling.
+
+"We are neighbours, I think," she remarked.
+
+He sprang up from his bench, sweeping his cap down as low as his
+trouser pockets, and answered:
+
+"Allow me to introduce myself. I am Fritz Redlich, prefect."
+
+Lilly felt the old thrill of reverence with which the very word
+"prefect" had inspired her in the Selecta when her class companions had
+uttered it. Then she burned with shame to think that she was now
+nothing better than a shopgirl. But she was determined to impress him
+by alluding to her more distinguished past.
+
+"Up till last autumn," she said, "I was a Selecta pupil. I used to know
+some of you fellows."
+
+"Which of us?" he asked in excitement.
+
+She mentioned the names of two young men who had once fluttered round
+her at the skating-rink, and asked if they were friends of his.
+
+"Rather not," he answered with a contempt that didn't seem quite
+genuine. "They are slackers, and loaf about too much. They intend to
+join a corps, too, I believe. That's not in our line."
+
+There was a pause. Lilly could only discern the outline of his figure
+as he leaned against the balustrade, it had grown so dark. Drops of
+soft rain fell on her hair. She would have liked to stay there for
+ever, watching the dark young figure before her, and with the gentle
+moisture of spring anointing her head.
+
+"You are engaged now in the Circulating Library?" he asked.
+
+Lilly assented, and was grateful to him for the nice word "engaged,"
+which seemed a little to ameliorate her lowly position.
+
+"And you are going in for your examination?" she inquired.
+
+"In the autumn--if all goes well," he replied with a sigh.
+
+"And afterwards you will go out into the world," she gushed in
+copy-book language, "and fight your way in life? Ah, how I wish I were
+in your shoes."
+
+"Why do you wish that, Fraeulein?" he asked in surprise. "You are
+fighting your way in life now, are you not?"
+
+Lilly laughed shrilly. "Oh, but if only I were you!" she exclaimed.
+"What wouldn't I--oh!"
+
+She felt exultant; her limbs seemed to stretch, so that she scarcely
+knew how to sit still; the light of conquest flashed from her eyes, but
+there was no conquest really, for it remained unseen in the darkness.
+
+She was so overcome, so mad with happiness, that she positively could
+not stay there, uttering stilted phrases, while within her something
+shouted: "You standing there with your arms on the balustrade, I love
+you."
+
+She bade him a hurried good-night, and ran in, bolting the door
+behind her. She paced up and down the narrow gangways between the
+books, laughing and sighing. She stretched forth her arms like a
+high-priestess at prayer, knocking and bruising her elbows against the
+shelves.
+
+
+"I sought him whom my soul loveth, but I could not find him; I called
+him, but he gave me no answer. The watchmen that went about the city
+found me, they smote me, they wounded me; the keepers of the walls took
+away my veil from me."
+
+
+She sang the familiar words in a sweet, uncertain voice, not too
+subdued to be heard through the window. But when she looked through her
+peep-hole, to assure herself that he was listening, he had gone. Now
+she sang louder and leaned out, tearing open her tight-fitting bodice,
+and letting the raindrops fall on her bare breast.
+
+An unspeakable wretchedness suddenly took possession of her. She could
+not account for it, but she felt as if she must die. It was she whom
+the cruel watchmen were seizing; the wounds their rough hands made on
+her soft skin smarted; she could feel how they tore off the garments
+which veiled her nakedness from the world. In shameless nakedness, yet
+weeping tears of blood from bitter shame, she tottered through the
+streets, seeking and seeking her Soul's Beloved; but he was further
+off, more unattainable than ever.
+
+She dropped down on her knees at the window, and, burying her face in
+the sill, wept bitterly out of sweet compassion for that symbol of
+herself wandering through Jerusalem's streets at night. And, after all,
+what made her feel like this was happiness--sheer happiness.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER VIII
+
+
+She continued to enjoy this happiness. It nestled in the cobwebby
+corners, perched on the books, spun golden threads from beam to beam,
+and it rode astride on every shaft of sunlight, which, reflected from
+the opposite windows, crept along the leather backs of the books. All
+the time Lilly heard humming within her a wonderful medley of tremulous
+tones, snatches of melodies, harp-strings vibrating, chirping of
+crickets, and twittering of birds. Waking or sleeping the concert went
+on, with now and then a few majestic bars of "The Song of Songs" thrown
+in.
+
+Nothing was changed meanwhile in the ordinary daily routine. Frau
+Asmussen was alternately sober and the blissful victim of comforting
+drugs. Husband and daughters one hour ascended through the scale of all
+the virtues to the dizzy pinnacle of saints, and the next were plunged
+into deepest depths of infamy. Now a volume of Tolstoi was hunted for
+in vain, and then a Spielhagen seemed to have been spirited into space.
+
+Sometimes little gusts of wind wafted showers of powdery gold on to the
+shelves. Like ordinary dust, it was swept away, yet it was a message
+from the tossing boughs, in the country, laden with blossom. This was
+all Lilly saw of the spring, save passing market-carts on which were
+heaped bunches of lilac and may. Her young hero opposite had made no
+further advances. She still trembled at the sound of his step, and
+received with frantically beating heart the two shy daily greetings;
+but there things ended.
+
+He came no more to the terrace. The poring over books with his chums
+now lasted far into the night. It was often nearly two o'clock before
+she heard the last depart. Not till then did she fling herself on her
+bed, and, staring into the summer twilight, let her fancy roam over
+vast territories to find a throne worthy of her hero's attainment. She
+saw him in the gorgeous uniform of a field-marshal winning victories on
+the battlefield; she saw him a poet being crowned with laurels; an
+inventor of world renown steering his own airship through the clouds; a
+founder of some new religion.... But when she came to this point her
+Pegasus halted in alarm, for she remained a good Catholic at heart,
+though under the smart of bodily and spiritual castigation she had not
+dared to take refuge in her religion. The courage to ask Frau
+Asmussen's leave to go to St. Ann's every morning had soon evaporated,
+and she had almost forgotten that confessions and masses existed.
+
+Now, however, in an exuberance of emotions never before dreamed of, she
+longed to unburden her spirit, and resolved to confess to Frau Asmussen
+that she was a Catholic, and beg to be allowed to visit St. Joseph's
+altar--kind, smiling St. Joseph, who stood with upraised finger behind
+his golden-circled candles.
+
+Frau Asmussen found in Lilly's avowal the secret of all her vices, her
+artfulness, her laziness, her hypocrisy, and her lack of method; and
+she included in her nightly prayer at table a petition for Lilly's
+immediate conversion. All the same, she did not refuse Lilly permission
+to go twice a week to early mass, which was as much as she had dared
+expect.
+
+Touching was the meeting between Lilly and St. Joseph after such a long
+estrangement. It was like going home to come back to him. The angels in
+the coloured glass window over his altar seemed to flutter their wings
+and greet her like sisters and brothers, assuring her that her penance
+would not be severe. The yellow and orange carpet invited her
+hospitably to kneel down, and from the Virgin's shrine not far away
+came the perfume of flowers.
+
+The saint himself at first seemed a little hurt because she had
+neglected him for such a long time. But when she had confided to him
+all her woes, her loneliness, her beatings, her dislike of milk
+puddings, he became softened at once and forgave her. He had been
+presented width three new silver hearts since she had last knelt at his
+shrine. They shot up flames as long as her hand, and she felt she would
+like to dedicate one to him too: but why, she didn't know, for the
+miracle in her case was yet to be performed. Maybe it was jealousy or
+vainglory that prompted her desire, for she did not like the idea of
+others standing on a nearer footing to him than herself. "But what can
+I expect," she reasoned, "when I've treated him so badly all this
+time?"
+
+After confessing everything, except, of course, her love affairs--he
+had become too much of a stranger for that--she hurried out of the
+church. It was striking a quarter to eight, and her morning devotions
+would have been objectless and thrown away had she not met her hero on
+his way to school.
+
+It was at the corner of Hassertor that she came upon him and his
+companions. He lifted his cap and passed on with the others, but she
+stood still, drawing a deep breath, as if she had just escaped a great
+danger.
+
+Meetings of this kind occurred twice a week from this time onwards. Her
+dearly cherished secret desire that she would meet him alone one
+morning, that he would stop and engage in friendly conversation, was
+never fulfilled. There was not the faintest gleam of pleasure in his
+face at her approach, the strained anxious expression of his eyes did
+not relax in the least, though he blushed slightly as he raised his cap
+and walked on.
+
+
+                           *   *   *   *   *
+
+
+She had long ago given up all hopes that he would ever speak to her
+again, when one wet Sunday evening in July she heard the bell tinkle,
+the front door being closed on Sundays to subscribers. She opened it
+and there he was.
+
+"Good heavens!" she exclaimed, and nearly shut the door again in her
+confusion.
+
+He asked if she had Rueckert's poems in the library. She knew quite well
+that she hadn't, but she was afraid that if she said so there would be
+no further pretext for conversation, so she replied that she would see.
+Wouldn't he come in?
+
+After a moment's hesitation, he sat down on the chair for subscribers
+close to the door. Lilly hunted for a long time, for she feared if she
+didn't that he would go away; rather aimlessly she looked on the
+shelves, and kept saying half to herself, "I am sure I saw it not long
+ago." Then she too sat down behind the counter to try and recollect
+where she had seen the book. But he stimulated her to search further.
+
+"If you saw it a short time ago, it must be there," he said. And when
+it became clear that it was not there he sighed deeply, and murmuring,
+"I don't know what I am to do," he departed.
+
+Lilly could only stare aghast at the empty doorway, which a minute ago
+had encircled his tall figure. She longed to cry out, "Stay, don't go!"
+but the opposite door banged and it was all no good. She crouched on
+the window seat, and mapped out in her thoughts what might have
+happened if he had not gone away. Her heart beat so violently that she
+felt as if she must faint.
+
+A quarter of an hour later the bell rang again. She bounded up. Could
+it be he come back? It was; he had left his umbrella. "You shall not
+get off so easily a second time," she said to herself.
+
+He caught hold of his soaking umbrella, which she had not noticed,
+although it had made a puddle, which was running along the cracks of
+the floor, and prepared to go away again.
+
+"What do you want Rueckert's poems for?" she asked, seizing the
+opportunity of opening a conversation.
+
+"Life is so full of difficulties," he lamented. "You've no idea,
+Fraeulein, how full."
+
+Then he told her how they had to deliver extempore orations on subjects
+sprung on them, with no preparation, whether they knew anything about
+them or not. This time, however, it had leaked out that to-morrow, in
+the literature lesson, a comprehensive _revue_ of Rueckert's works would
+be demanded. For this reason he wanted to glance through the poems,
+because he could not remember exactly who were buried in "The graves at
+Ottensen."
+
+Lilly was beside herself with joy. She could help him. She, the little
+lowly sparrow, could be of assistance to him, the big soaring eagle.
+Timidly she sketched the story of the poor beaten Duke of Brunswick and
+the pious poet of "The Messiah." The only thing she could not remember
+was who were the twelve hundred exiles who were buried in the first of
+the graves.
+
+He appeared incredulous at his unexpected good fortune. Was she
+positive? He knew from his tables and history of literature it was all
+right about Klopstock, but he shook his majestic head over the rest in
+grave doubt. Lilly eagerly set his mind at rest. It was more than a
+year since she had left school and had learned all these beautiful
+things, but her memory was good and she wouldn't tell him wrong. At
+last he seemed convinced. He breathed more freely, and remarked again,
+turning his mind to more common things: "Yes, Fraeulein, life is hard,
+very hard."
+
+Now that the ice was broken he recounted his likes and dislikes.
+Mathematics weren't bad, indeed he had got on very well with Euclid and
+geometry. But there were languages, and history, and, worse still,
+German composition. Alas! it was a troublesome world, enough to drive
+one to despair.
+
+Lilly quite agreed with him. She, too, had little reason to be
+satisfied with the way the world wagged, and she expressed her thoughts
+about it with passionate eloquence.
+
+"And how you must detest," she concluded, "to be hampered in your high
+ambition by the narrow limits of school life."
+
+He looked slightly astonished and then said: "Yes, it's beastly."
+
+"If I were in your place," she told him, "I shouldn't bother at all
+about dry facts and dull lessons. I should just follow my own bent,
+like the great poets and philosophers."
+
+"That's all very well, my dear Fraeulein, but there's the examination,"
+he cried, horrified.
+
+"Oh, never mind stupid examinations. It doesn't matter whether you get
+through them or not."
+
+He became excited. "You don't in the least understand, Fraeulein.
+Examinations are the entrance to every good position in life, no matter
+whether you stay at the university, study law, architecture, or go into
+the Civil Service. Not that I should dream of doing the last."
+
+"I should think not, indeed!" she broke in. "A man like you!"
+
+He smiled, well pleased at the flattery.
+
+"I am not going to take the world by storm," he said, "but I have my
+dreams, of course. What would a fellow be worth if he hadn't any?"
+
+"Nothing!" she exclaimed, looking up at him delighted, with beaming
+eyes. She was sure this was the happiest hour she had ever known in all
+her life.
+
+When he got up to go she felt actual physical pain, as if a limb were
+being torn from her body. He had almost closed the door when he turned
+as one feeling his way, and said:
+
+"If it's not giving you too much trouble, Fraeulein, I should be glad if
+you'd have another hunt for the poems." And then once more coming back
+he added: "You might put them under the door-mat if you find them."
+
+Lilly lit the hanging lamp at once, and obediently began to look for
+what she knew she could never find.
+
+
+                           *   *   *   *   *
+
+
+He passed the long vacation in the country with a friend in misfortune,
+with whom he crammed. Directly after the beginning of term the written
+questions were to be set, and in the middle of September came the _viva
+voce_.
+
+Lilly's hero looked pale and haggard, and bristles, like red shadows,
+appeared in the hollows of his cheeks. Lilly could not bear to see his
+misery without speaking, so one morning on her way from mass, when she
+met him alone in the empty street, she stopped.
+
+"You must not overwork, Herr Redlich," she blurted out anxiously. "You
+ought to consider your health for your parents' sake and the sake of
+all who care for you."
+
+He seemed more embarrassed than gratified, and before he answered cast
+nervous looks around him.
+
+"It's very kind of you, Fraeulein," he stammered, "but we'll discuss it
+later--later, if you please," and he dashed on, scarcely raising his
+cap.
+
+It dawned on Lilly that she had done something dreadful. The
+houses began to dance before her misty eyes; she gnawed her
+pocket-handkerchief, and thought everyone she met must be laughing and
+jeering at her. When she was once more in her corner behind the
+catalogues she felt convinced that by her folly she had lost him for
+ever. Yes! he would never speak to her again.
+
+The next day he came in without greeting her, and went out again after
+tea, and didn't look her way as he passed. It was all over, all over!
+And then someone came and knocked in the twilight; one could hardly
+call it knocking, it was more like a dog scratching to be let in. Lo,
+and behold! it was he standing there. He had not the shy yet important
+manner he had worn on that Sunday evening when "The graves at Ottensen"
+had been on his mind. His air now was more that of a burglar who has
+not learnt his trade.
+
+"I say, is Frau Asmussen there?" he whispered.
+
+"No; she never comes in here at this time," she whispered back,
+trembling with joy.
+
+"Than I may come in for a minute or two, perhaps?"
+
+She drew back and let him in, wondering whether it was possible to feel
+such bliss and live. He murmured apologies for his conduct at their
+last meeting. She stammered that he mustn't reproach himself, and that
+she had not meant to be so stupid. They sat down together on either
+side of the counter as they had done that Sunday evening. He was the
+first to lead the way back to their former point of intimacy.
+
+"A fellow would often like to chat with a girl with whom he has
+something in common," he said a little pompously, "but his time is not
+his own, and there are so few opportunities."
+
+"As for opportunities," Lilly thought to herself, "they could easily be
+found."
+
+He went on to say that, owing to her kindly interest in him, he felt an
+interchange of ideas between them would be salutary, especially as he
+believed in the emancipation of women.
+
+Here he halted, not knowing how to proceed, but still retaining his
+dignity. He challenged Lilly with his eyes, as much as to say: "You see
+how tactfully I am dealing with this delicate situation."
+
+Lilly hadn't a notion what he was driving at, but it did not matter.
+The one thought that obsessed her was to save him from working himself
+to death.
+
+"We had a master when we were in the Selecta, Herr Redlich," she began,
+"whose lectures were simply glorious. I shall never forget them! Like
+you, he overworked. By this time I am afraid he must have died of
+consumption, and if you don't take care you may come to the same end."
+
+He nodded dejectedly. "Everything's so deuced hard," he muttered to
+himself.
+
+"You ought to have more sleep and take walks--plenty of walks----"
+
+"Do _you_ go for walks, Fraeulein?"
+
+Lilly couldn't say truthfully that she ever did such a thing. Since she
+had been incarcerated in this den of books she had not seen a field of
+white snow or a green tree.
+
+"I!" she exclaimed, shrugging her shoulders. "Why should I go for
+walks?" Then, rejoicing inwardly at her own boldness, she suggested:
+"Couldn't we go together one day?"
+
+He looked amazed. "There would be all sorts of objections," he
+said, shaking back his forelock. "People might talk. For your
+sake--especially for your sake--one must be careful."
+
+Lilly had read about gallant young knights who set more store on their
+lady-love's reputation than their own passion. She glanced up at him
+full of grateful admiration.
+
+"As far as I'm concerned," she cried, "you needn't be alarmed, I should
+simply shirk mass."
+
+Though she may have felt a slight stab of conscience as she made this
+sacrilegious announcement, she was conscious that for the sake of this
+walk she would cheerfully have sacrificed all the saints, even St.
+Joseph himself.
+
+"I must wait till after the examination," he explained.
+
+So the matter was allowed to rest. He took his leave, Lilly speeding
+him with warnings and good wishes, while he glanced uneasily up and
+down the street, round the terrace and the entrance.
+
+
+                           *   *   *   *   *
+
+
+Lilly's life from this time onwards was one enraptured trance of hope
+and delightful anticipations. She lay awake half the night, and
+pictured herself wandering at rosy dawn with him through golden
+meadows, her hand pressed against her side to still her joyously
+beating heart, her arm brushing his elbow. And each time that she
+thought of this, a little thrill ran through her, to the tips of her
+toes. She read nothing but stories of glowing love and passion, pages
+full of "transports," "intoxicating raptures," and "clinging kisses."
+But of kisses in connection with herself she did not dream. She checked
+herself when her thoughts drifted in that direction. He was too exalted
+a being, too far above mere earthly desire. Now she felt that she had
+good reason to promise St. Joseph a silver heart.
+
+One Sunday morning she told St. Joseph the whole story of Fritz
+Redlich's examination throes, of his high ideals, and her anxiety about
+him. But on the subject of the arranged walk she was silent, for she
+could not very well mention that she intended to shirk mass.
+
+Lilly had saved during this year about sixty marks, which she carried
+next her skin in a leather purse. The silver heart would cost at most
+twenty marks, and there would be more than enough left to buy her
+friend a present. She vacillated for a long time between purchasing him
+a gold-embroidered cigar-case, equally ornate slippers, and a revolver.
+Finally, she decided on a revolver in a case, for she anticipated that
+in the struggle for existence he would often find himself in perils
+that he could only be saved from by mad, daring, and swift action. The
+revolver cost twenty-five marks, the gold thread for embroidering a
+monogram on the case, five marks. So she thought she had managed very
+satisfactorily.
+
+The morning of the examination she saw him come out on the terrace with
+a face as white as the gloves he waved in farewell to his parents. He
+appeared to have forgotten her. She felt half inclined to run after him
+and press the revolver into his hand, but she reflected in time that
+the examiners might not appreciate his being so armed, and was glad
+when at the last moment he turned round and gave her a timid glance of
+recognition.
+
+At one o'clock there was quite a little stir outside. They were
+carrying him home on their shoulders. He looked exhausted, but his
+friends cheered and shouted with glee. The old pensioner, in ragged
+slippers, ran to meet his son and embrace him. She saw how he scrubbed
+his greenish-grey goat's-beard against the hero's cheek. From the
+kitchen at the bottom of the house came an appetising odour of fried
+sausages. Lilly ran about between the bookshelves clapping her hands,
+and crying inwardly: "St. Joseph is a brick!"
+
+The next morning Lilly went to order the silver heart, and with blushes
+requested that the initials L. C. and F. R., entwined, should be
+engraved on it. When she came back from this errand she found in the
+letter-box--among subscriber's slips--an envelope addressed to herself.
+Inside, written on the back of an old menu card, were the words: "Be on
+the terrace Sunday morning at five."
+
+
+                           *   *   *   *   *
+
+
+Grey dawn pierced the chinks of the library shutters. Lilly jumped out
+of bed and threw up the window. The street looked like a big bowl of
+milk, the mist of early autumn rose so densely from the ground. The
+damp soft vapour cooled her burning cheeks, and she held out her arms
+as if bathing in it. Her thin summer dress, which she had washed and
+ironed with her own hands the night before, hung on the whitewashed
+wall like a blue cloud. She had never made herself so smart as she did
+to-day; for a picnic so fraught with fate she must be worthily adorned.
+
+The small sum left out of her savings, after the purchase of her gifts,
+had been spent on a burnt straw picture-hat with pale blue ribbon
+strings tied under the chin, and did instead of a neckscarf. A pair of
+long open-work silk gloves, which she had forgotten all about, were
+unearthed from the depths of her trunk.
+
+She put the heavy revolver in her hand-bag, after kissing it several
+times first and murmuring over it:
+
+"Protect him, destroy his enemies, and lead him to victory." Thus she
+consecrated the weapon dedicated to his defence.
+
+Punctually at five she heard the opposite door open and shut. She
+slipped out at once, and they met on the terrace. He shook hands. His
+eyes were haggard, yet there was an expression of energy in them. There
+was something of the dandy almost in his air and apparel. His hat was
+tilted slightly on one side. He flourished a bamboo cane in his hand
+with a silver knob.
+
+Lilly murmured shy congratulations. He thanked her with lofty
+condescension. The examination was now a very small matter, hardly
+worth mentioning.
+
+"We are playing the fool now to a frightful degree," he added. "I can't
+say I find it congenial, but a man must know something of the frivolous
+side of life as well as the serious."
+
+As they passed St. Ann's, a happy thought occurred to Lilly. It would
+be delightful to enter the church for a few minutes, and by removing
+the burden of deception win St. Joseph's blessing on their day's
+outing. She made the suggestion timidly, and found she had put her foot
+in it.
+
+"I am a Freethinker, Fraeulein," he said, "and have the courage of my
+convictions. Still, all enlightened people should be tolerant, and if
+you would like to go in I will wait for you outside."
+
+Lilly felt she didn't care about it any more and blushed for shame and
+vexation. Of course, he didn't know how much St. Joseph had to do with
+his success, or he would not have been so ungracious.
+
+They walked on in silence through the still deserted streets of the
+suburbs. The mist lifted a little. Lilly, chilled to the bone, shivered
+at every step she took. She thought she shivered from excitement, and
+yet she was much calmer than she had expected to be. Everything was so
+different. What had disenchanted her? She didn't know. She gazed
+wistfully before her at the trees that appeared at the far end of the
+street. "Let us only get out into the country," she thought, and
+clenched her teeth to prevent them chattering.
+
+The silence began to oppress her. She wanted to begin a conversation,
+but could think of nothing to say. In front of them a baker's boy
+started whistling on his round.
+
+"We used always to buy hot rolls after we had worked all night," said
+young Redlich suddenly. "We might buy some now."
+
+Lilly felt happy again. If he had said "We will steal some," she would
+have been happier still.
+
+The boy was not allowed to sell his rolls. They were on order, but
+there was a shop open opposite. When Lilly saw her hero come out of the
+shop with a big bag of rolls under his arm, she had a nice sort of
+feeling as if they were setting up housekeeping together.
+
+Now they were passing gardens, and showers of drops fell on their heads
+from the branches. Lilly bent her shoulders and stamped her feet. She
+was simply frozen. At last they were out in the open fields. Masses of
+silvery gossamer cobwebs, weighed down by the heavy dew, hung about the
+stubble, which had grown high; and the outline of yellowish hilltops
+bounded the circular landscape on one side, while on the other in the
+distance rose a wall of dark woods. Lilly struck out her arms like a
+swimmer and breathed deeply several times.
+
+"Aren't you well?" he asked.
+
+"Oh, I don't know! I must make up for all I've missed," she answered.
+"You see, I haven't really breathed for a whole year."
+
+As she still shivered from cold, she started running. He tried to keep
+up, but soon was left behind, panting and stumbling. When they reached
+the first hill the sun began to rise over the fields. The undergrowth
+seemed aflame and the cobwebs glistened like diamonds; the dewdrops
+glittered like sparks of fire.
+
+Warmed and excited by her run, Lilly pressed her hands against her
+throbbing heart, and gazed with dizzy eyes into the sea of glowing
+light. "Oh, look, look!" she stammered, and then turned an appealing
+glance of inquiry on him. She had half expected that he would spout
+odes, sing songs, and, if it had been possible, play the harp. But he
+stood struggling for breath, and appeared entirely absorbed in himself.
+
+"Do recite something, Herr Redlich," she besought him. "A poem of
+Klopstock's--anything."
+
+She hadn't got as far as Goethe when she left the Selecta.
+
+He laughed, a short scoffing laugh. "No, thank you," he said. "Now the
+examination is over, the whole of German literature may go hang for all
+I care."
+
+Lilly felt snubbed. She had probably done a very ignorant thing in
+asking him to recite. When she next looked at the view the glow had
+faded, though the fields still sent up a faint golden haze towards the
+sun, the face of which had grown hard and indifferent.
+
+They continued their way in the direction of the woods. He swung the
+paper bag, and Lilly picked blackberries, which hung on the bushes like
+strings of beads in a filigree of cobwebs. A little further on, close
+to the outskirts of the wood, they came to a seat; and without
+discussing whether they should sit down or not they took possession of
+it. It was just what they wanted. Lilly was a little awed. This was the
+spot where the soul of a young genius was to be revealed to her, by
+whose clear vision she was to be guided upwards to the sun. He opened
+the paper bag, and she laid her handkerchief full of blackberries
+beside it. The revolver in the bag was put under the seat for the time
+being. Lilly cut the rolls, scooped out the middle, and filled them
+with blackberries, and they had a delightful breakfast together.
+
+The magic glow of early autumn cast its spell upon them. Lilly's head
+swam with delight and longing. She could have thrown herself at his
+feet and pressed her forehead against his knees to find a support in
+the approaching joy of fulfilment. He had taken off his cap, and a
+curly forelock fell over his eyebrows, which gave him a sombre,
+world-challenging air. The lock of genius had been the fashion in the
+Upper Prima, and was assiduously cultivated by all who didn't aspire to
+the smartness of a Students' Corps. His gaze rested on the church
+spires and towers of the old town, which stood up like sleepy sentinels
+watching over the clustering roofs of the houses stretching in all
+directions.
+
+"I wish you would tell me your thoughts," Lilly said in a tremor of
+admiration. The great, crucial moment--had it come?
+
+Again he gave that short rather scoffing laugh.
+
+"I am calculating how many parsons get their living in a hole like
+that," he said, "and what a comfortable thing it is to go in for
+theology."
+
+"Why don't you go in for it?" she asked. "All sources of knowledge have
+a common fountain."
+
+"You don't understand anything about it, my dear Fraeulein," he rebuked
+her gently. "What matters is not knowledge, but conviction. A man must
+suffer everything for his convictions; he must drudge and starve for
+his convictions. The town has in its gift six livings for theological
+students. But I would rather cut off my right hand than accept one. For
+your convictions' sake you must go out into the world and fight your
+way. That is what I am going to do. I begin the day after to-morrow."
+
+His small, short-sighted eyes flashed. He pushed back the lock of
+genius from his forehead with a trembling hand.
+
+Now he was talking according to her expectations. She wondered if this
+would be the right moment to present him with the revolver. But she
+deferred the presentation out of respect for the grandeur and
+significance of his new mood.
+
+Taking up the bag with the weapon in it, she clasped it tightly, and
+then aired her sentiments with the same enthusiasm as she had done that
+night on the terrace.
+
+"Oh, Herr Redlich," she cried, "can there be anything more splendid
+than to fight like that--to plunge into the ocean of life, to wrest
+happiness from the grim powers of fate, to become ever stronger and
+more iron in purpose, no matter how things go against us? Oh, it must
+be sublime!"
+
+But, as before, her appeal failed to wake any response in him.
+
+"Good heavens, Fraeulein, when you come to consider it, of what does the
+much-vaunted battle of life consist?" he said. "Letting yourself be
+trampled on, sleeping in a cold bed in the winter, and getting nothing
+for dinner all the year round, I am going to try it, of course, but
+it's hard all the same. If I had an income I shouldn't feel so bad."
+
+"And is this all the spirit with which you enter the battle?" asked
+Lilly.
+
+"Dear Fraeulein," he replied, "how can a fellow who starts in life with
+a few darned shirts and socks, and borrowed money, feel any different?"
+
+"He is the very one who should conquer," Lilly urged, eager to inspire
+him with her own confidence. "You, with your consciousness of being
+great and different from other people, are bound to carry all before
+you."
+
+She waved her arm with an impassioned gesture, which took in the whole
+prospect before them: the plain with its silver streams and its green
+trees, the city embosomed in its gardens, perched among its meadows
+like a lark's nest. She would show him a small symbol of the future
+kingdoms over which he was to reign.
+
+He nodded gloomily, convinced that he knew more about it than she did.
+
+"Life is hard--hard," he repeated.
+
+She still did not despair of infecting him with her own ambition for
+his future, and in an outburst of eloquence she went on:
+
+"If only I could express what I feel and know is true--if only I could
+make you courageous and hopeful.... Look what a pitiable creature I am.
+I have neither father nor mother nor friends.... I hadn't even the
+chance of staying at school and finishing my education. Here I am,
+without position, money, or even winter clothes.... Look at my feet."
+She thrust out her shabby boots, which till now she had been careful to
+hide beneath her skirt. "I never have enough to eat, and if I am late
+home to-day I shall be thrashed. Yet I am certain that somewhere
+happiness is waiting for me.... It is there, in every little breeze
+that blows in my face--though invisible--in every sunbeam that greets
+me. The whole world is made up of happiness, really, and of music....
+Everything is a Song of Songs--a Song of Songs is everything."
+
+She turned away from him sharply so that he should not see how moved
+she was.
+
+Below in the town the bells began to chime. St. Mary's, which once had
+been the Catholic cathedral and was now the chief Protestant church,
+led off with its deep triple clang. St. George's, once the Church of
+the Order, gave out a clear E G third; on feast-days it added a C. More
+bells sounded, and among them the modest tinkle of St. Ann's,
+unmistakable and insistent, making itself clearly heard in the chorus.
+To Lilly's ears it whispered, "We know and love each other, and St.
+Joseph greets us."
+
+Her friend meanwhile had been recovering his mental equilibrium. He
+assumed his little air of pedantic dignity, feeling that he had got the
+best of the argument.
+
+"I don't think you and I altogether understand one another," he said.
+"I have made a deep study of the problems of life, and so see things
+rather differently from you. I call a spade a spade, and am not taken
+in by the so-called illusions of youth. I know what men are, and should
+advise you to be a little more careful in what you do and say."
+
+"What on earth do you mean?" Lilly asked in astonishment.
+
+He smiled with a half-embarrassed and half-superior air as he glanced
+askance at her.
+
+"Well, you know, beauty has certain dangers connected with it."
+
+"Beauty!" Lilly cried, burning all over. "What nonsense!"
+
+"Those on whom nature has conferred this gift have special reasons to
+be more cautious than others less favoured. For instance, it is lucky
+for you that you have fallen in with anyone so correct, old-fashioned,
+and honourable in his ideas as I am. Another, less steady, more
+frivolously inclined, might easily, you know, have taken advantage of
+such a walk as this. You may indeed be quite sure that he would."
+
+Lilly stared at him in dismay. She was overwhelmed in a whirl of far
+from agreeable reflections. What did he want her to do? Was he
+reproaching her, or making fun of her most sacred sentiments?
+
+"Oh, good heavens!" she exclaimed, completely losing her composure. "I
+wish we were at home."
+
+"You mustn't misunderstand me, Fraeulein," he began again. "I am not a
+saint. I am fully acquainted with the weaknesses and failings of human
+nature. I am only offering you a word of counsel, for which you will
+one day be grateful to me. Principles count for something, and in
+after-life, if we meet again, you will, it is to be hoped, have no
+reason to be ashamed of the acquaintance made in your youth."
+
+"Ashamed," thought Lilly. "I ought to feel ashamed of myself now."
+
+She felt all at once that it had been fast, undignified, almost common
+of her to have proposed this morning walk. Before it had not seemed
+wrong, why did it now suddenly seem so awful?
+
+The chimes still sent forth their melody; the sun still spun a network
+of gold around them. She saw nothing, heard nothing, so deeply hurt and
+ashamed was she. She would have preferred to run away there and then,
+but dared not stir a finger.
+
+He for his part no longer seemed a person in need of sympathy and
+consolation, but very self-satisfied and proud of what he had done. He
+removed a blackberry stuck in the lattice-work of the seat, and put it
+in his mouth.
+
+"It would be a pity to get our clothes in a mess," he said, as he
+crunched the seeds slowly between his teeth.
+
+Lilly grew more composed and stooped to pick up the bag.
+
+"What is in that?" he inquired. "It looks a heavy thing to carry."
+
+In alarm Lilly clutched it to her heart.
+
+"It's only the door-key," she faltered.
+
+Then they set out homewards.
+
+"If only I could make him change his opinion," she thought, "and think
+better of me again!"
+
+The only thing that occurred to her was to gather a nosegay of all the
+most beautiful wild-flowers she could reach.
+
+With downcast eyes, she offered him the nosgay as a parting souvenir
+instead of that other gift of which she now could not think without
+feeling a fool.
+
+He thanked her with a courtly bow and a flourish of the bamboo cane
+with the silver knob, an heirloom, of which he had only just come into
+possession.
+
+Lilly was too depressed and humiliated to utter a word.
+
+"Doesn't something tell you," he asked, "that we shall meet again
+sometime in the future?"
+
+She turned aside; it was all she could do to suppress the tears that
+rose to her eyes.
+
+"If we do," he went on, "I hope I shall prove to you what incessant
+work and unwavering loyalty to one's convictions can accomplish, even
+without money."
+
+His voice now vibrated with gleeful self-confidence and importance.
+
+It seemed almost as if, in reducing her to a state of insignificance
+and despair, he had imbibed something of her former gay courage. When,
+however, they drew near the old market-place, he became exceedingly
+uneasy again, as he looked up and down the streets. They were very full
+now, he remarked; it would be better if they parted here, and pursued
+their way home by different roads.
+
+He said "pursued," to show that his studies in German literature had
+not entirely been wasted.
+
+
+                           *   *   *   *   *
+
+
+A few days later he left on his travels. The atmosphere was long heavy
+with the odour of the garlic in the sausage with which Frau Redlich had
+flavoured her son's soup at parting.
+
+Poor Lilly crouched behind the window curtains with a sore heart, and
+wished that she had never set eyes on him.
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER IX
+
+
+One grey, hazy October morning, when winter's approach was tempered by
+a muggy warmth, a wonderful thing happened. Frau Asmussen's runaway
+daughters returned.
+
+Without giving a hint of their coming beforehand, they suddenly
+appeared in the library, gave Lilly an astonished stare, and asked her
+to pay their cab as they had no change. Lilly's heart beat with
+excitement. Directly she saw the two imposing figures of the girls,
+who, though somewhat travel-stained and jaded, victoriously took
+possession of the field, she had no doubt who they were. She gave a
+scared glance at their pretty little snub-nosed faces, out of which
+their bright grey eyes looked inquiringly from the door of the back
+room to the door behind which the broom of welcome stood. Its hour had
+now come, and Lilly ran out in a panic to escape the painful scene that
+would inevitably follow on the opening of Frau Asmussen's door.
+
+She gathered up from the floor of the cab two faded bouquets of
+stephanotis, a tartan shawl rolled up in a hold-all, from which two
+bizarre umbrella-handles, topped with blue glass balls, projected in
+company with two soiled embroidered cushions and a flask. Besides
+these, there were a tin box of acid drops without a cover, a cardboard
+box falling to pieces, and disclosing not only hats, but such
+miscellaneous articles as a comb and pieces of bread-and-butter.
+
+Lilly, with the things in her arms, paused in the entrance, listening
+in terror for the sound of cries. But all was quiet, and when she
+ventured into the room she saw mother and daughters locked in each
+other's arms, hugging and kissing.
+
+As there was no time before the midday meal to kill the fatted calf, in
+addition to the ordinary cabbage a huge pile of cakes from the
+confectioner's was provided as a second course. The daughters helped
+themselves to these before the meal began, laying them aside for a
+rainy day, Frau Asmussen beamed with maternal tenderness and pride.
+
+"Well, did I exaggerate?" she asked Lilly. "Aren't they a splendid
+pair? Isn't it a wonder that I could do without them for so long? But I
+mustn't be too greedy; I am only thankful to get as much of them as I
+do, for I know their filial hearts are torn between their father and
+me. They cannot bear to pain either of us by absenting themselves," And
+she seized and patted the hands of the girls sitting on either side of
+her, and all three exchanged looks of rapturous affection.
+
+The absent husband and father was also touchingly alluded to. The girls
+said that the lively, talented darling was on the point of giving up
+his business to manage vast estates in south Russia, where he had been
+urgently summoned. Later, in a gloomier hour, Frau Asmussen interpreted
+this announcement as meaning that the spotted scoundrel had to hide
+himself in the fastnesses of Odessa till the air cleared, owing to some
+shady transactions of his about bonds.
+
+At first, to Lilly's unpractised eyes, the two home-flown birds
+appeared as like as two sparrows. Both of them were pert, quarrelsome,
+fickle, and flirtatious. After a time she learned to distinguish
+between them. Lona, the elder, she discovered to be the best-looking in
+a coarse, barmaidish sort of way. Her hard commercial character was
+also the stronger. She led Mi, who set up for being a wit, by the nose.
+For the time being their attitude towards Lilly was one of friendly
+neutrality. So far she gave them no cause to adopt a hostile line,
+though hints were dropped that if a certain young lady dared to usurp
+their position she would be taught her place and war to the knife would
+follow.
+
+When, however, they had satisfied themselves that Lilly was tractable
+and inoffensive, they made her the recipient of their confidences,
+which they poured forth late at night as all three girls sat together
+on the bed, undressing and brushing each others' hair. They sucked
+contraband bonbons and discussed different styles of coiffure. Now
+Lilly, whose mind had hitherto remained pure and innocent, was
+enlightened on subjects she had never dreamed of. They whispered
+mysteriously of love intrigues and man-hunting, revealed sexual secrets
+in a stream of sordid chatter.
+
+What they cared for more than anything, it would seem, was to have
+their figures admired.
+
+"When I turn my shoulder like this, am I not like a Greek statue?" one
+would ask.
+
+"Isn't my bust like marble?" was another question.
+
+"If I were not so modest, I should like to let down my night gown and
+show you my hips. They are divine."
+
+Much more rarely did they challenge Lilly's criticism of their
+features.
+
+"We know we are good-looking; we've been told so hundreds of times.
+There can be no doubt about it," they would say.
+
+All the same, when the draughts of a chilly autumn necessitated their
+throwing scarves over their heads in the house, they did not fail to
+draw attention to the classic way in which their hair grew on their
+foreheads, and to the fascinating curve of their profiles.
+
+Sometimes they were even severe critics of themselves.
+
+"We haven't fine eyes, we know--yours, for instance, are, strictly
+speaking, finer. But if _you_ were to make eyes at anyone it wouldn't
+have any effect, whereas if we so much as cast a sidelong glance out of
+the corner of ours, the men are after us like lightning."
+
+Their small cat's eyes would sparkle with satisfaction in their sense
+of limitless sway and triumph over the weaknesses of masculine
+strength.
+
+The advice they generously gave Lilly was summed up in the phrase: "Go
+as far as you like, so long as you don't make a present of yourself to
+any man."
+
+They told, without stint, piquant stories, describing exciting and
+thrilling situations in which they themselves had been true to this
+motto. There was patent in everything they said a strong vein of coarse
+sensuality. Once, when one of them remarked, "I should like to be a
+Queen of the Bees, but have no children," the other, whose temperament
+appeared to be more given to ethical contemplation, quickly retorted,
+"I would rather be a nun, only with no morals."
+
+She pursued the topic, shocking Lilly's pious reverence with
+Boccaccio-like details. In spite of their latitude of thought, all
+their hopes and dreams were really centred on marriage. Marriage, the
+speediest and most advantageous possible, appeared to them in the light
+of a career and salvation from all earthly troubles, the consummation
+of all heavenly bliss. That was to say, the bridegroom must be old, he
+must be rich, and he must be a fool.
+
+They demanded this triple qualification of fate. In the same way as
+others invested their intended husband with a halo of all the virtues,
+these maidens revelled in depicting his infirmities, and showing him as
+the miserable dupe of their abounding power and superior strategy.
+
+They were not always at one on the point as to how this valuable
+acquisition so indispensable to their happiness was to be obtained, and
+a favourite bone of contention between them was the question of whether
+it was expedient or not to compromise oneself before marriage.
+
+Lona, whose daring in dealing with problems of conduct knew no bounds,
+was of opinion that it was expedient. Mi, who was more cautious and
+liked to feel her ground, took the opposite view.
+
+"If you knew what men are as well as I do," Lona snapped at her sister,
+"you'd know that the best way to get hold of them is to make them
+afraid.... Let them sin, and then make their sin a halter to hang them
+with. Then you've got them fast."
+
+Mi ventured to wonder that Lona had not tried to put the theory into
+practice; if she had she would certainly long ago have----
+
+Here she discreetly came to a pause, for her sister's fingers looked
+like scratching.
+
+And, in fact, only eight days after their return, these two did
+come to blows, and the air was thick with flying hair-pads and
+petticoat-strings. Mi emerged from the fray with a wound, which Lilly
+spent the night in bathing with vinegar and water.
+
+The cause of the quarrel was a "swell" who had followed them during
+their afternoon walk, and who, according to Mi's account, had been put
+off from making further advances by her sister's discouraging reception
+of him.
+
+Lona maintained that it was a dangerous principle to take up with
+"swells," while Mi asserted that he might, at any rate, have been good
+enough for a husband.
+
+The chief and all-engrossing occupation of their daily routine was
+parading the streets and getting spoken to by men. Lilly's fears that
+they might take the reins of management into their own hands she soon
+discovered were groundless. They lay in bed till nine, took two hours
+to dress, and then started for their morning walk, to take stock of the
+garrison officers who at this time were promenading the town in groups.
+
+The first half of the day being thus devoted to the military, the
+second half was given up to civilians. Afternoon coffee was, as a
+matter of course, ordered and partaken of at Frangipani's, where a
+handful of lieutenants joined city magnates and young barristers at
+chess or bridge, and where perhaps a solitary schoolmaster, priding
+himself on his smartness, would put in an appearance and attempt to cut
+a dash with the rest.
+
+After an hour spent in devouring all sorts of sweets came the twilight
+stroll, very favourable for making chance acquaintances, and serving as
+a subject of conversation afterwards in the house.
+
+It cannot truthfully be stated that Frau Asmussen had given this mode
+of life her sympathy and blessing. It was scarcely likely, considering
+that the first spell of seraphic calm that succeeded the homecoming of
+her prodigal daughters had given place to mutterings of a storm, and
+the storm itself had soon burst. Rows took place in rapid succession
+and became such a matter of course that Lilly, who had at first wept
+and howled with the combatants, began to accept them as part of the
+normal family life. Abusive epithets of extraordinary vigour flew
+hither and thither, boxes on the ear resounded through the library, and
+even the broom, the existence of which at first had been ignored, was
+now introduced into its limited sphere of activity.
+
+Not till the evening, when Frau Asmussen's soothing medicine claimed
+her attention, was peace restored. The sisters were now at liberty to
+take more walks, only their sense of propriety forbade them to go out
+at so late an hour.
+
+"Anyone who met us now would take us for fast girls," they said, "and
+then it would be all up with marrying."
+
+Indeed, it was hardly credible how many were the rules and restrictions
+by which these young ladies ordered their apparently unlicensed method
+of life.
+
+You might be kissed, but on no account must you return kisses. Men
+might address you by your Christian name and call you "_du_" in
+conversation, but to write in the same familiar strain would be an
+unpardonable insult. You would allow a man to pay for your coffee and
+cakes, but not for your bread-and-butter. A stranger might press your
+foot under the table, but should he squeeze your hand you must
+instantly rise, and so forth.
+
+Lilly had not the slightest comprehension what all these pros and cons
+meant. Man in the abstract for her, up till now, had been merely a part
+of existence that had no separate individuality--that passed her in the
+streets without attracting her notice in the least. The only men she
+had admired were those who existed in her dreams, in her novels, and
+imagination. The creature that stared at her from the pavement, that
+came to get books and found ridiculous excuses for starting
+conversations with her, that held aside the baize curtain at the church
+door for her to go out, that smiled over the counter in shops--this
+creature was something stupid, contemptible, scarcely tolerable, to
+whom she was utterly indifferent, and to give a thought to whom would
+be degrading.
+
+She was now to learn that a girl could exist solely for the sake of
+that gross, coarse thing called "man," that she could think of nothing
+but him from the moment she got up till the time she went to bed, as if
+she were created for him, and must put him before her work and faith
+and God.
+
+Though Lilly knew that she was far above being influenced by the two
+girls' example and precepts, she could not help feeling a slight
+curiosity awake within her to learn more of what these creatures were
+like who caused such a flutter in the dovecot of feminine emotions,
+whose approval was so keenly to be sought, and whose coldness meant
+absolute annihilation.
+
+A nervous dread began to torment her about that unknown vortex of
+wickedness outside, from which dirt was now brought every day and laid
+at her threshold, and about the timid curiosity that it aroused within
+her. Whether she would or not, her thoughts were always recurring to
+the panorama of pictures, painted in vivid poisonous colours and
+unrolled before her nightly by the two degenerate sisters. It was quite
+a relief when the hot friendship, after a month's duration, began to
+cool.
+
+The coolness was caused by an unaccountable deficit, which occurred not
+once, but many times, in the cash-box, and became a standing mystery.
+Lilly, in a fever, added up the figures. She counted every pfennig over
+and over again; at last she was forced to conclude that someone had
+taken advantage of her absence for a moment to open the drawer and dip
+into the cash-box.
+
+She knew that she would be accused of the theft when it was discovered,
+so, in order to save herself, she took the key of the drawer with her
+when she left the room, as if by accident. She repeated the ruse
+several times till she was certain that she was on the right track, by
+the change of manner in the girls, who regarded her with increasing
+scorn and displeasure.
+
+At last they could no longer contain themselves for wrath and
+disappointment. Did she, miserable interloper, imagine that she was
+mistress of the business? they burst forth. She should have both books
+and keys taken out of her hands if they chose. In her terror, Lilly ran
+to their mother, and threatened to leave the house on the spot if she
+was not allowed to have a free hand in the control of the shop as
+hitherto.
+
+Frau Asmussen, knowing too well her daughters' character, took Lilly's
+part and the storm blew over. The girls resumed their intimacy with
+Lilly, and again confided to her the secret depths of their soul. Did
+she think that they wanted money to spend on ices and meringues at
+Frangipani's? She was very mistaken. They were cute enough to lay up
+for the future. It was impossible to stay for ever with the old
+tippler, especially as the place had turned out a barren wilderness as
+far as the prospect of making a good match was concerned. How could
+Lilly, with her petty ambitions, have any conception of theirs, and of
+what they suffered, struggling against the temptations of meringues and
+chocolate cakes at the confectioner's? They had been saving up for a
+long time for another journey. They were literally starving themselves
+for this praiseworthy object.
+
+Lilly remained unmoved. She refused to be wheedled or talked over
+again, and black looks were turned on her. They began to regard her
+with an offended air of hauteur without speaking, and approaching
+events were to fan their smouldering wrath into a blaze.
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER X
+
+
+It was in the twilight of a rainy November day. Every roof dripped, and
+grey drops slid down the iron railings of the terrace in endless
+succession to splash into the pools on the pavement below.
+
+It was poor sport to watch them, but there seemed nothing better to be
+done.
+
+Then the door opened--the bell ringing loudly--and a fair, dapper
+little man came in, with his coat collar turned up and his hat pulled
+low over his eyes. He stamped and shook the raindrops off the brim of
+his hat. His glossy, fair hair shone like satin, and he brought into
+the atmosphere an aroma of Russia leather and Parma violets. He glanced
+at Lilly with narrow, arrogant eyes, feigning disillusionment, said
+good-evening brusquely, and then stared beyond her, as if he awaited a
+greeting from someone behind the book-shelves.
+
+Lilly asked him what he wanted.
+
+"Ah, I suppose you are the young lady in charge of the library?" he
+answered, and seemed to find in her existence a subject for careless
+levity.
+
+Lilly assented, and he exclaimed, "Capital! That's capital!" and from
+under his blinking light-lashed lids scintillated a thousand little
+shafts of merriment.
+
+Lilly next asked what book he wanted.
+
+"Do you know, my much-respected and learned young lady, I am not
+exactly at home in German literature and the other sciences, but since
+yesterday evening I have been fired with a fabulous, positively
+student-like thirst for culture. Now, if you would give me your
+valuable assistance----"
+
+He stopped suddenly, stuck an eyeglass in his eye, looked her up and
+down, first from the left side, then from the right, as one judges the
+points of a high-stepping horse before purchase; then he murmured,
+"Damn!" and asked her to light up.
+
+There was no reason why Lilly should not obey, as it was so dark she
+couldn't read the numbers on the backs of the books.
+
+As she stretched up to lift the shade from the hanging lamp, disclosing
+the splendour of her outline, he said "Damn" a second time. When the
+light shone on her and she looked at him with a questioning shyness in
+her enigmatic eyes--those "Lilly eyes," whose brilliancy had so long
+been under eclipse--he sank, quite overcome, on to the chair set for
+customers, folded his hands and asked to be forgiven.
+
+A hot feeling of resentment burned in Lilly: so contemptible was her
+position in the eyes of this young aristocrat--the first who had found
+his way here during a year and a half--that she was not deemed worthy
+of being treated with ordinary courtesy.
+
+"Unless you wish to borrow a book, sir," she said with a lofty air, "I
+must ask you to leave this room."
+
+"A book? What?" he repeated, outraged. "One solitary book, one beastly
+book? No, thank you. Every five minutes I am allowed to stay here, I
+will take out new books, a whole shelf--a whole case of books, if you
+like; but on condition that I may return them to-morrow. I will make a
+contract with a van proprietor to cart the cases of books backwards and
+forwards. But wait a moment! Haven't you to plank down a three mark
+deposit if you take out a book?"
+
+Lilly, with a stare of astonishment, said "Yes."
+
+"Well, as I don't happen to have that amount with me just now, you must
+keep me as a deposit. You see, I give myself up as a sort of prisoner.
+Awkward for both of us--eh? But what's to be done?"
+
+Lilly could not help being amused, in spite of herself. She laughed out
+loud.
+
+"Ah! now she has forgiven me!" he exclaimed in triumph. "Her gracious
+young majesty smiles on me. Now let us chat together like real friends.
+Just look at me a moment, my Fraeulein. Do I appear to you like
+a fellow who reads much? The only books I care about are Schlicht's,
+Roda-Roda's, and Winterfeld's authors who are supposed to know the
+humours of military life. My object in coming here is not books. May I
+take you into my confidence?"
+
+"If you must, yes," stammered Lilly, her eyes dazzled by the glint of
+gold from under the sleeve of his tan overcoat. It was a revelation to
+her that men wore gold bangles.
+
+"I like to change into mufti of an evening," he went on; "by day, you
+know, I wear uniform ... but it won't be for much longer. In a week or
+two I shall be at a loose end. Debts ... I say, you don't know what
+debts are? Happy you! Debts are the bitter dregs in the lemonade of
+human existence, and this lemonade isn't oversweet at the best. But
+what was I going to say? Oh, I know! Of an evening I play the part of a
+Harum al Raschid in order to win the favour of the common herd, by
+paying a little attention to the daughters of the people. Do you
+understand me? Yesterday, sauntering in a remote wilderness of wild
+hedges and new villas, I followed up two young women, ogling over their
+shoulders, and swinging their skirts, behaving, in fact, as all nice,
+well-brought-up girls are wont to do----"
+
+"I do not care to continue this conversation," said Lilly, colouring
+deeply from shame.
+
+"Why not? You, my dear Fraeulein, of course, are a perfect lady, and
+would not descend to anything of the kind. I was only confessing to you
+in order to gain your absolution."
+
+Instantly Lilly was pacified, and she let him babble on.
+
+"The two young women in question walked in front of me arm-in-arm, but
+directly I got up to them I slipped between like the sausage between
+two slices of buttered bread. They became very sociable, and told me
+that they were the owners of a large circulating library, and intended
+shortly to open a fancy art business in Berlin, etc. They did not tell
+me their address, and, as I am ashamed to say that till a few minutes
+ago I thought they were worth cultivating, I looked up all the
+circulating libraries in the directory. I find that there are only
+three besides the leading bookshops, so I have been to two, and now I
+am at the third. I swear the future proprietresses of the fancy art
+business may go to the deuce, as far as I am concerned."
+
+Lilly could not suppress a feeling of rising scorn and malicious joy,
+but she took care not to betray the whereabouts of the two sisters.
+
+Then, to show how completely in the presence of her majestic beauty his
+desire for a vulgar flirtation had evaporated, he formally introduced
+himself.
+
+"I am Lieutenant von Prell," he said, "soon to be _ex_-Lieutenant von
+Prell!"
+
+She gave him an inquiring glance, and he added:
+
+"As I hinted to you just now, Fraeulein, my days in the regiment are
+numbered. This umbrella, which now serves one purpose only, will
+probably before long be held over my head as a sunshade."
+
+Did he not care for an officer's life any longer? Lilly asked.
+
+"I don't know that there's any kind of life that I couldn't enjoy," he
+answered, with mirth dancing in his light-grey eyes; "but the paternal
+exchequer is low, and my pay as a slave in the army is about sufficient
+to keep me in radishes, and even radishes are dear at Christmas. The
+best thing I can do is to charter an old herring-cask and get myself
+pickled. If you can tell me where one is to be got cheap, I'll pay the
+damage."
+
+Lilly laughed gaily in his face, and he laughed with her, putting his
+arms akimbo and emitting a thin, soft giggle in an almost inaudible
+treble, which nevertheless convulsed his too spare figure with
+hilarious merriment.
+
+They sat down opposite each other, like two good comrades, on either
+side of the counter; and Lilly devoutly wished this hour could last for
+ever.
+
+When a maid-servant came in to change a novel for her mistress, he
+settled himself for a stay by examining the titles of the books and
+acting as if he were perfectly at home. He held open the door for the
+little maid-servant when she went out, as if she were a duchess.
+
+Lilly grew more and more amused, and couldn't restrain her laughter.
+
+"Before another subscriber comes in, you must go," she said, "or people
+will talk."
+
+"Why? let them talk!"
+
+But Lilly was firm, and he began to plead earnestly with her.
+
+"You know, gracious Fraeulein, I enjoy the reputation of having no moral
+sense whatever. I want you to be my support and anchor through life, at
+any rate till the door opens next time. While I sit here I am safe from
+playing the fool, and this fact I am sure must be cheering to your
+benevolent heart."
+
+So it was agreed that he might stay till the bell went again.
+
+He sat back comfortably in his chair, and regarded Lilly with an air of
+possession.
+
+"All earthly troubles can be traced to talking too much," he began. "If
+Columbus had kept the secret of the discovery of America to himself, no
+unpleasantness would have arisen. I intend to be cleverer, and to keep
+my discovery a sacred family secret between you and me. It would be
+nuts to other fellows. But let them stick to twilight moths, like the
+two future art-shop proprietresses to whom I am indebted for my budding
+friendship with you."
+
+The sisters had been forgotten by Lilly. It was about their time for
+coming in. What if they were to open the door at this minute!
+
+The bell tinkled. It was not they, however, but an old maid who
+devoured every day a volume full of strong "love interest," and came in
+the evening for more.
+
+The volatile lieutenant remembered his compact. He started up from his
+seat and composed himself to speak with a business-like air:
+
+"Will you kindly let me have the last new book of----" he hesitated,
+evidently at a loss to think of the name of a popular German author;
+then, after racking his brain a moment, he added, "by Gerstaecker?"
+
+Lilly fetched him this newest of new novels, bearing the date 1849, and
+he counted out his three marks deposit, made an exaggerated bow, and
+took his leave with little devils dancing between his light lashes.
+
+A little later the sisters came in. They glanced suspiciously at
+Lilly's flushed cheeks, and passed on without saying anything.
+
+Nothing happened for the greater part of the next day, but Lilly was
+full of excited premonitions, like a child before its birthday. She
+felt on the threshold of new experiences. She was scarcely surprised
+when at last the door opened and two slim and elegant youths entered.
+They lisped "Good-evening," and asked her to recommend them a book to
+read, in a tone of mingled diffidence and self-assurance, while they
+measured her with the stare of expert judges.
+
+Lilly's limbs grew numb, as they usually did, when she was conscious of
+being observed and admired. Yet she retained her dignified manner, and
+when the visitors had selected their trash without looking at it, and
+attempted to engage her in jocular converse, she drew herself up and
+took refuge behind the bookcase L to N, which was her shelter when she
+sat in the window busy with her accounts and ledgers.
+
+The young gentlemen, after a whispered consultation, took their
+departure in silence.
+
+He had betrayed her then--her lively new comrade. And henceforward Frau
+Asmussen's shabby library became the crowded resort of tall, slender
+young men of fashion, all animated by a passion for reading and a
+desire to exchange one trumpery old novel after another.
+
+Only a few dared come in uniform, but they did not shrink from signing
+their names in full in the subscribers' book, which took on the
+appearance of a veritable _Almanach de Gotha_.
+
+Some assumed the cloak of business-like severity, others came in
+careless certainty of victory. One began love-making on the spot,
+another had the impertinence to bandy risque jests over the counter,
+the most ingenuous of them went the length of asking on what day he was
+to be honoured by a visit.
+
+Lilly soon saw that there was nothing particularly injurious or
+flattering to her in these attentions. She chatted innocently with
+those who treated her politely, took no notice of the impertinent, and
+directly a conversation seemed to be drawing out to too great a length,
+she retired behind the bookcase L to N.
+
+It did not take the Asmussen sisters many days to discover the
+aristocratic intruders. Their jealous fury exceeded all the bounds of
+decency. Every possible insult was hurled at Lilly, and she was abused
+like a pickpocket. Unheard-of expletives were poured on her head in a
+filthy stream.
+
+The daughters demanded of their mother that Lilly should resign her
+place at the counter to them. When this concession was refused, they
+resorted to physical violence. Frau Asmussen came to Lilly's rescue in
+her extremity. The broom rained heavy blows on the white night-jackets
+of the furious maenads, and drove them into the back parlour, where the
+battle ended in torrents of tears. But hostilities continued, and, if a
+curb was put on emotions during the hours the library was open to
+subscribers, all the more unbridled was their rancour in the evening.
+Lilly's life became a hell on earth. Her soul grew encrusted with a
+hardness and bitterness that filled her with both dismay and
+satisfaction. Only at night, when she buried her face in the pillow,
+did her defiance melt and her wretchedness find relief in silent
+weeping.
+
+The merry comrade with the light eyelashes, who had caused the whole
+uproar, kept away. Not till a fortnight after his first visit did he
+turn up again. He came in with rather a halting gait, and his eyes were
+swollen and watery.
+
+"These are picotees or clove carnations," he said, undoing a tissue
+paper parcel in his hand, "which last longer than any parting pangs."
+
+The sight of him brought a little comfort to Lilly, and she took the
+bouquet as if it was something to which she had a right. Then she
+reproached him for not having held his tongue.
+
+"Didn't I tell you," he explained serenely, "that I haven't a vestige
+of moral sense?"
+
+He went on to tell her that he had finally left the regiment and been
+feted by his fellow officers at a farewell dinner, and now there was
+nothing to be done but to take his passage somewhere. The question was,
+where? "Still, we needn't bother our heads about that yet," he went on;
+"brilliant folks such as you and myself are bound to have brilliant
+careers. My path in life will lead me by cool streams of champagne
+through streets paved with _pate de fois gras_. That is Kismet, and
+should it end in a fruit farm in Louisiana, I don't mind. Something new
+is always interesting. In the meantime the old colonel is dead nuts on
+me, and wants me on his estate as a sort of Fritz Triddelfitz."
+
+He laughed his curious, almost inaudible laugh, which convulsed his
+slight form.
+
+Lilly asked who "the old colonel" was.
+
+That she shouldn't know seemed to him inconceivable.
+
+"Is it possible that you live in this world and have never heard of the
+old colonel?" he asked. "The old colonel is the almighty; the old
+colonel decides what is good and what is evil on this earth; he ruins
+one man and pays another's debts with equal ease. He is the great
+receptacle for all our virtues and all our sins. Above all, the old
+colonel is eternally a boy. If he were to see you he would say, 'Come
+along, little girl. I am a hoary-headed old monster, but I want you';
+and then your courage will only permit of your saying, 'When do you
+want me, your high and mightiness?' You see, my dear child, that is the
+old colonel. They have put him on your track long ago, and if he finds
+his way here, Lord have mercy on you! It will be all up then with my
+beautiful young queen."
+
+"But I still don't know who the old colonel is," interjected Lilly,
+feeling a little uncomfortable at his mysterious prognostications.
+
+"Then don't ask," he answered, and held out his freckled hand in
+farewell. "It's really a pity," he added, blinking at her through his
+half-closed light eyelashes with tender compassion. "We might have
+given history another famous pair of lovers."
+
+He leant over the counter. "As I am a man totally devoid of any moral
+sense, may I borrow a kiss before I go?"
+
+Lilly laughed and held up her mouth in reply.
+
+He kissed her, and then dragged himself stiffly to the door.
+
+"I can't run," he said. "Last night's banquet has made me a bit lazy,"
+and he was gone.
+
+The same feeling of uneasiness, which Lilly had felt after her lively
+comrade's first visit, took possession of her again. She felt as if
+someone was playfully lashing her with switches. Her anxiety caused her
+torment mingled with pleasure. It was as if behind a closed golden door
+her unknown fate crouched ready to spring on her--its prey.
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER XI
+
+
+The midday December sunlight made the hilt of a sword and the buttons
+of a uniform glitter in the street outside.
+
+"Some one fresh," Lilly thought, for the upright bull-necked figure of
+the man clanking up the terrace steps was unfamiliar to her.
+
+An imperious stamping before the door, and the bell sounded more
+sharply than usual. No, she had not seen this person before. Here was
+no frivolous young lieutenant, nor one of the maturer officers, who
+were on their dignity till the first shy smile told them how far
+they might go. Here was a piercing falcon eye, set in a circle of
+crow's-feet, an aquiline high-bred nose, prominent cheek-bones with a
+fixed red colour; a small hard firmly closed mouth, which smiled with
+cynical benevolence under a bristling moustache, a chin--highly
+polished from shaving--retreating in two baggy folds behind a high
+military collar.
+
+She saw these details with a heart throbbing so violently that she had
+to lean against a bookcase for support.
+
+"This must be what I have been feeling so frightened about," she said
+to herself. "This is the dreadful old colonel."
+
+He raised his hand to his cap in careless salute without taking it off.
+
+"Colonel von Mertzbach," he said in a voice the harsh sound of which
+suggested unlimited authority and power. "I must speak to you for a few
+minutes, my Fraeulein. There are reasons that compel me to make your
+acquaintance."
+
+Lilly felt that she was to be subjected to a humiliating
+cross-examination, which she was not in the least bound to tolerate.
+But never in her life had she seemed to herself so utterly defenceless
+as at this moment. She was standing before a judge who had taken on
+himself the right to pardon or condemn her according to his pleasure.
+
+She murmured something like consent with trembling lips.
+
+"You appear to be a most dangerous young woman," he said. "You have
+turned the heads of all my staff; that is to say, the juniors among
+them. They are simply crazy about you."
+
+"I don't understand your meaning," answered Lilly, gathering courage as
+well as she could.
+
+"Humph!" he ejaculated, and glued his eyeglass into his eye, to look
+her up and down as far as the point where her figure was cut in two by
+the counter. "Humph!" he repeated. Then he continued: "In these cases
+it is easy enough to play the innocent. Nevertheless, I can fully
+sympathise with my young men. In their place I should probably have
+done the same. But it looks, Fraeulein, as if, in spite of your youth
+and inexperience, you have a fair share of feminine wiles at your
+command, otherwise you would scarcely have drawn these somewhat
+fastidious young men here so often with that immaculately reserved
+manner of yours; but, after all, perhaps it's the manner that's done
+it."
+
+Tears rose to Lilly's eyes. She could easily have flung back his
+insults, but the man's personality mastered her. She searched in vain
+for words to oppose him; his piercing eyes seemed to go through and
+through her and deprive her of speech; his cynical smile held her in
+thrall. So she merely sat down and cried. He on his side rose and came
+nearer the counter.
+
+"How much you have reason to feel hurt, Fraeulein, in your _amour
+propre_, I cannot say. It's not my intention to make you cry. On the
+contrary, I want you as calmly as possible to give me a little
+information about yourself. It may be of importance to your future."
+
+Lilly felt the necessity of pulling herself together, because this man
+desired it.
+
+She wiped her eyes and looked at him penitently, sniffling a little as
+she used to do when a child after being scolded.
+
+He inquired her name, her antecedents, whether she had a father and a
+mother, what school she had been at, and what she was doing there. On
+her mentioning her guardian's name a mocking smile flitted over his
+face.
+
+"I am acquainted with that gentleman's philosophy of life," he said.
+"You are, then, utterly alone in the world?"
+
+Lilly said "Yes."
+
+"And you would not object to have a helping-hand extended to you by
+someone to whom you could turn in time of trouble?"
+
+Lilly did not think there was any likelihood of such a person turning
+up.
+
+"I will think it over," he said, frowning. "Anyhow, you cannot stay for
+ever in this hole. Do they treat you well?"
+
+"Pretty well," Lilly answered; and half laughing, half crying, she
+added, "I don't get enough to eat, and sometimes I am----" she was
+going to say thrashed, but stopped in shame, and said "punished," which
+hardly stated the case.
+
+The colonel burst into a laugh, which sounded like the cracking of a
+whip.
+
+"Greatly to your credit to be able to take a humorous view of the
+matter," he said, and he rose to go. "I have ascertained what I wanted
+to know, Fraeulein. My young men may continue to come here as much as
+they like. In the whole town they could not find more irreproachable
+society. Should any of them forget themselves, and not treat you with
+proper respect, just communicate with me. But I am sure there will be
+no necessity. I wish you good-day, my Fraeulein."
+
+Lilly looked after him, and watched the heavy cavalry swagger with
+which he crossed the paved terrace. The winter sun seemed to be shining
+with the sole object of illuminating his figure and dancing on his
+accoutrements.
+
+He looked back at her window when he reached the street, and saluted
+courteously, giving her as he did so a searching, almost threatening,
+glance from beneath his knitted brows. Then he vanished.
+
+Lilly's mind was now besieged by the following questions: "What did it
+mean? What did they want her to do? Why couldn't they leave her in
+peace?" She would have liked to cry and lament and be pitied. But, deep
+down, there was a festive note, almost a note of vanity in her
+feelings. She congratulated herself on her new hopes. Had he meant when
+he asked her if she would like a helping hand, a prop and stay in
+trouble, that he would be that prop and stay? It soothed and did her
+heart good to think of it. Perhaps he was to be the guide and protector
+so bitterly needed in her stumbling young life? He might perhaps
+relieve Herr Pieper, who didn't trouble himself about her, of his
+guardianship. Perhaps he wanted to adopt her himself? There was no
+knowing. If only his eyes hadn't pierced like daggers, if he hadn't
+laughed so mockingly and given her that evil look at the last! And then
+she remembered the warning of her lively comrade: "If he finds his way
+here, the Lord have mercy on you."
+
+What nonsense! As if anything could happen to her behind her counter,
+of which no one had ever dared to raise the flap and come on the other
+side; and how safe she was behind the bookcase L to N, where she
+couldn't even be seen.
+
+The visit of their colonel to the library seemed to have damped his
+young men's ardour; in spite of the permission given them, perhaps
+because of it, none of them put in an appearance during the next few
+days. Lilly asked herself if this was a sign of the protection he had
+promised to exercise over her. But something was the matter with her;
+she scarcely knew what.
+
+One morning, a week later, the younger of the sisters, who, in
+expectation of some love-letter, kept watch for the postman, threw an
+envelope on the floor at Lilly's feet, with the exclamation, "A
+'coronet' for you, you officers' hack!"
+
+This, coming from the sisters, was quite a mild form of address.
+
+Lilly opened her letter and read the following:
+
+
+"My Fraeulein,
+
+"Will you allow me on the strength of our recent interview to make the
+following suggestion? I want a private secretary and reader. Are you
+open to accept the post? As I am not a married man, you could not of
+course reside in my house, but I would undertake to find a home for you
+in a respectable and suitable family. I have consulted your guardian,
+and the plan has his approval.
+
+                             "Yours truly,
+
+                                                   "Von Mertzbach.
+
+"Colonel commanding the ---- Regiment of Uhlans."
+
+
+Ah, here it was at last! Happiness--happiness standing on the other
+side of the snowy street, beckoning and calling to her: "Come out of
+your vault, out into the world. I will show you life, and something
+new." "Something new is always interesting;" had not her lively comrade
+said so?
+
+Then she pictured herself seated at the colonel's big writing-table.
+The colonel dictated to her, and all the time his eyes pierced her
+through and through, and searched, always searched, and her pen fell
+from her hand. She wanted to jump up and run away, but she could not;
+his eyes held her in thrall.
+
+She sat down and wrote a correct little note declining the offer.
+Though she appreciated the honour he did her, she felt she was not
+qualified for so onerous a post, and that it would be wiser to remain
+in her present position, which, though not altogether happy, was one of
+which she was capable of discharging the duties. She signed herself,
+"Yours in grateful esteem, Lilly Czepanek."
+
+So that was over. Now things must go on in their old groove,
+peacefully, if the wicked sisters would allow peace.
+
+Christmas was approaching, but it cannot truthfully be said that the
+preparations for the festival at Frau Asmussen's were marked by much
+rejoicing and goodwill. She grumbled at the bad times, and the
+ridiculous custom of giving all the world presents. Her daughters
+argued shrilly, and at every opportunity, the question as to whether
+refined and superior girls like themselves were called upon to gather
+round a Christmas tree in the company of common minxes! There were none
+of those treasured little mysteries on foot, which at such a time bring
+joy and gladness into even the saddest and most poverty-stricken of
+homes.
+
+Lilly knitted her mother a brown woollen cross-over, bought her two
+picture puzzles and a wooden flower vase--china being forbidden--and
+sent them with a box of chocolates to the lunatic asylum.
+
+Her thoughts just now often wandered from her mother to her father, who
+had now absented himself for more than four and a half years, and had
+given no sign of his existence.
+
+In her loneliness Lilly clung to a hope of his reappearance. On
+Christmas Eve, between six and seven, he would be sure to come in, his
+great-coat covered with snow, and embrace her with the demonstrative
+affection peculiar to him. She could almost smell the perfume from his
+burnished locks. Or, if he didn't come himself, he would send a
+messenger-boy with a preliminary greeting and a mysterious parcel full
+of costly silks. And a winter hat, too; for that was what she wanted
+more than anything.
+
+When the others had gone to bed she took from the bottom of her trunk
+the score of "The Song of Songs," and hummed over to herself her
+favourite airs. There were many passages in it that she could never
+sing without tears. In these days she was constantly in tears,
+notwithstanding that there was all the time a hesitating earnest of
+happiness dawning faintly on her horizon.
+
+It was an exquisite vague sense of being lifted up, a growing of wings,
+a listening in wonder to inner voices, which sounded as familiar and
+gentle as a mother's, yet strangely prophetic and solemn.
+
+Sometimes she found herself on her knees, not praying but dreaming,
+with arms outstretched and fascinated eyes lifted to the lamp, as if
+from that region of light the foreshadowed miracle was to come.
+
+Thus she celebrated her Christmas feast in the sanctuary of her soul,
+and the actual Christmas Eve drew nearer and nearer.
+
+At the last minute, with groans and moans, a few presents were
+mustered. Lona and Mi ran about wildly from shop to shop making their
+purchases. They even bestowed a few civil words on Lilly, who
+recognised their kindness by looking the other way when Lona hovered
+round the cash-box. She knew exactly how much, or rather how little,
+was inside, and that if there was anything missing it wouldn't ruin her
+to replace it out of her own purse.
+
+Before supper she was called into the back parlour, where the Christmas
+tree stood alight on the table--apparently shy of itself.
+
+The sisters shook hands with Lilly, and Frau Asmussen, sitting already
+over her medicinal glass, delivered a few platitudes on the
+significance of Christmas, and expressed her regret at not being able
+to spend it with her excellent husband. Then everyone apologised
+because the presents were not handsomer. At first it was the feeling
+that you were expected to give something, that it was your duty to
+give, which had disgusted these generous souls who thought giving
+should be spontaneous; then, when they had got over this feeling, it
+was too late to buy anything worth having, not that the red check
+overall apron wasn't decent enough, and the penwiper was not so bad
+either--considering business was slow.
+
+"I am ashamed to say I have nothing at all to give," Lilly answered.
+But what she was most ashamed of was that she was once more on friendly
+terms with the Asmussen sisters.
+
+"I have no strength of character, not a scrap," she told herself as she
+crunched a piece of marzipan, which the elder and worst of the sisters
+had given her.
+
+The library bell rang loudly, and a man, loaded with parcels, was
+asking if Fraeulein Czepanek lived there.
+
+Lilly's heart bounded. "From papa--it must be from papa!" she murmured
+in jubilation.
+
+For a few minutes she scarcely dared trust herself to touch the
+parcels. She skipped round them aimlessly tidying her hair. Only on the
+sisters' exhortation did she undo the strings. With what envious eyes
+the two girls looked on!
+
+Such beautiful things came to light. A faced-cloth dress, lace-trimmed,
+a delicate blue foulard, a pink silk petticoat, shoes of glossy patent
+leather and tan suede, six pairs of gloves, three pair elbow-length,
+all sorts of jabots and cravats, a fichu of Brussels lace to wear with
+Empire frocks, pocket-books, stationery, bonbons--more and still more
+things; even the sorely needed winter hat was included, a soft fluffy
+grey beaver in a picture-shape, that always had suited her noble style
+of features. It was trimmed with ribbon and ostrich feathers.
+
+Altogether it was quite a trousseau.
+
+The faces of the two sisters grew longer and longer. Lilly herself
+ceased to be delighted. She began rummaging in wild anxiety through the
+boxes for a clue to the sender, a letter or card. She had long ago
+abandoned the idea of her father having come back to heap on her such
+generous gifts. Yet an instinct of self-preservation made her keep up
+the deception.
+
+At last, at the bottom of the glove-box, she found a card. She ran away
+to read it in the library. Under the hanging lamp she scanned,
+blanching with fright, the visiting-card of "Baron von Mertzbach,
+Colonel in Command of the ---- Regiment of Uhlans." Beneath his name he
+had written in the thick stiff handwriting she knew already, "With good
+wishes to his lonely little friend from his own lonely hearth."
+
+She went back to the parlour where the sisters, green with envy,
+received her with a chilly smile, while Frau Asmussen muttered
+enigmatical phrases over her steaming glass.
+
+"They really are from papa," Lilly said, and wondered why her own voice
+sounded so toneless.
+
+The Asmussen sisters laughed jeeringly, and began putting the things
+away in the boxes.
+
+Lilly held in her hand a little china bonbon box, filled to the brim
+with curious, rich-looking and fragrant-smelling sweets. She glanced
+from one sister to the other, uncertain as to whether she might dare
+offer them some of the sweets. She was afraid they might refuse with an
+abusive epithet, so she let fall the lid, which represented a cupid in
+a garland of roses, and buried the _bonbonniere_ in the depths of one
+of the boxes. Then she crept away to bed in her corner and cried
+bitterly.
+
+The sisters went on whispering together for a long time. They built the
+boxes up into a tower on the library counter, and then haughtily made a
+detour so as not to come in contact with them.
+
+The next morning Lilly called a passing messenger, and sent back the
+whole pile of packages to the donor without a word. Afterwards she went
+to the sisters and said:
+
+"It wasn't true what I told you last night. Papa didn't send the
+things, and I have returned them."
+
+The two girls, who had intended to make themselves agreeable to her in
+a malicious sort of way, could not conceal their disappointment.
+
+"I should never have taken her for such a ninny," said the younger.
+
+"She is not so simple as you think," scoffed the elder, true to her
+character of scenting out ulterior motives, "only very designing. She
+wants to drive her admirer still more distracted, but she'd better take
+care she doesn't outwit herself. The stupidest man can soon distinguish
+between what is genuine and what is put on." As if to illustrate what
+genuine simplicity was like, Lona drew her petticoat tightly round her
+limbs with one hand, drew her night-jacket decorously together over her
+bosom with the other, and, tossing her head, cast a look of withering
+scorn over her shoulder at Lilly, displaying all the virtuous
+indignation that exalted natures sometimes betray.
+
+In spite of this, Lilly noticed that the sisters' manner towards her
+had changed somewhat. She was evidently of more importance to them than
+she had been before, and they refrained from offending her.
+
+Nothing much happened during the next few days, with the exception of a
+few of the young officers resuming their visits to the library. They
+exchanged their books hurriedly, and were extremely correct in their
+behaviour. None of them seemed inclined now to sit on the counter or on
+the back of a chair in a free-and-easy attitude.
+
+On New Year's Eve, Lilly was the recipient of a second note. It ran
+thus:
+
+
+"My Fraeulein,
+
+"You have grossly misconstrued my motives in sending you a small
+remembrance at Christmas-time. Matters must be cleared up between us. I
+would rather divulge the plans I have in mind for you verbally. But,
+owing to my position, I cannot very well call on you again. If you have
+your future at heart, come and see me to-morrow sometime in the
+evening. I will expect you up till eight o'clock. I give you my word of
+honour that you shall return home in safety.
+
+                                   "Yours,
+
+                                                 "Mertzbach."
+
+
+Should she go or not go? The question kept Lilly awake the whole night.
+If only she could rid herself of that feeling of dread, the fear that
+robbed her almost of breath at the very thought of him. What might not
+happen if she stood face to face with him again? She decided not to go,
+knowing all the time that she would go.
+
+She lived through the day in a kind of stupor. Towards evening she
+asked Frau Asmussen's leave to go to New Year's Eve Benediction. The
+two sisters exchanged significant glances, but to-day they were too
+occupied with their own affairs to pay much attention to Lilly's.
+
+She put on her old felt hat, battered and discoloured by exposure to
+many a shower, and her winter coat, which was so shrunk it made her
+look narrow-chested. Pull the sleeves down as she would, nothing could
+make them reach to her wrists.
+
+If she had thought of the matter at all, she would have thought twice
+about going so shabbily clad to call at a grand house. But she didn't
+think. She felt as if she was doing nothing of her own accord. Strange,
+mysterious powers were pushing her hither and thither, like a pawn on a
+chessboard. Unseen hands helped her to dress. They loosened the plaits
+on her neck, unfastened the tight buttons of her coat so that her
+contracted chest should have room to show its young contour, and
+painted her cheeks, wan from want of sleep, with a rich glow of
+excitement and triumph.
+
+Not till she stepped out into the frosty air did she feel properly
+awake.
+
+"Where do you want to go?" a voice asked within her, "I might go and
+see St. Joseph," she answered herself.
+
+But she did not go to St. Joseph. She made a wide circuit round St.
+Ann's, crossed the market-place, where she saw the Asmussen sisters
+sitting in Frangipani's with two admirers, escaped a gallant follower
+with difficulty, and then suddenly found herself in front of the
+latticed shutters of the house where, up four flights of stairs, the
+whirring sewing-machine had ground the last shred of reason out of her
+poor, ruined mother's head.
+
+There was a light in the windows of the attic where she had once lived.
+Probably someone else sat there now, slaving day and night, night and
+day, at the drudgery of making cheap underclothes. Perhaps one day she
+too would sit there, regretting bitterly her lost youth, as if it had
+been a crime.
+
+"If you have your future at heart," he had written.
+
+And now she turned and ran--ran for her life, and didn't stop till she
+stood on the threshold of a brilliantly lighted house, before which a
+freezing sentinel with drawn sabre paced up and down, as he kept guard
+over the most important dignitary of the town.
+
+"Where are you going?" asked the voice again. For answer she sprang up
+the wide carpeted stairway and ran into a lackey with silver braid on
+his knee-breeches. Without speaking, he quietly took her umbrella,
+while a slight malicious smile flitted over his imperturbable
+countenance.
+
+Softly, white doors flew back before her, lights with rosy shades like
+magic flowers shed soft radiance, lovely barenecked ladies with diamond
+tiaras looked down smiling on her from gilded oval frames.
+
+How quiet and beautifully warm it was in these spacious rooms; on that
+thick soft carpet one might lie down and go to sleep.... If only that
+feeling of fear would not clutch at her throat, her brain, her temples,
+gripping them as in a vice.
+
+Another door flew open. Green duskiness lay beyond, like the interior
+of a dense forest on a summer day, and out of the dusk his figure came
+towards her, broad, imposing, clanking.... Her hand was taken in his
+and she was drawn into the green twilight. Dark walls of books rose on
+all sides, and from somewhere came the flash of deadly weapons,
+helmets, and coats of mail.
+
+She could not trust herself to look at him. Even after she had been
+seated some minutes in a high-backed carved oak chair, which projected
+over her head like a canopy, she had not given him a glance. She heard
+his voice, the reverberating harshness of which seemed mellowed now to
+the rolling notes of an organ.
+
+Nothing that she saw, felt, and heard smacked of the earth, yet neither
+was it heaven nor hell. It was like a terrifying phantasmagoria where
+human souls floated, vacillating dully between misery and happiness.
+
+At last the sense of the words he was speaking penetrated to her
+understanding. There was nothing at all unearthly about them; on the
+contrary, they dealt in a practical way with the return of his
+Christmas presents, which he still considered hers, and had stored in a
+cupboard to await her gracious acceptance.
+
+Lilly shook her head with a mechanical smile. She could not find
+courage to utter a protest.
+
+"And now, my dear child," he began again, "you may ask what induces me,
+a man getting on in years, to pursue you with all the ardour of a
+youthful lover?"
+
+When he said "getting on in years," she involuntarily looked up. There
+he sat, with the light of the green-shaded reading-lamp full upon him,
+with the orders on his breast giving forth a golden radiance. The
+silver fringes of his epaulettes quivered at every movement like small
+snakes. He radiated the same glory as those haloed figures of saints in
+churches, tricked out in their draperies of gold and brocade.
+
+Lilly's eyes dropped in shame and confusion before so much splendour.
+
+"My object in looking you up that day," he continued, "was to inquire
+into the cause of a dispute that had arisen among some of my younger
+officers. It promised to be rather a serious affair, and I was
+compelled to take steps. I expected to find a little flirty shopgirl,
+and I found--well, to put it shortly--I found you. You will perhaps go
+on to ask, 'What of that?' for you cannot yet be aware of what your
+power is, or rather what your potentialities are, for with you, my dear
+Fraeulein, all is in process of development. I am what is called a judge
+of women, and I can see in what you are to-day what you may become
+to-morrow if--and remember a great deal depends on this 'if'--if your
+development is directed into the right channel. To stay where you are
+now would simply be your ruin. Have the courage to entrust your fate to
+me, and I can guarantee all will be well with you."
+
+His tone was calm and paternal, at least so it sounded to Lilly.
+Feeling a little reassured, and with a hope for her future leaping up
+within her, she ventured once more to look at him. This time, through
+the shimmer of gold and silver, she beheld a pair of penetrating glassy
+eyes fixed on her full of eager inquiry.
+
+Again she became a prey to paralysing terror. She sat speechless and
+shuddering.
+
+"Whatever I do," she thought to herself, "it will be no good. He will
+get his way."
+
+"I have a fine old place," he went on: "Lischnitz in West Prussia, not
+far from the Vistula, where military duties do not allow of my going
+often. A well-bred middle-aged lady, a Fraeulein von Schwertfeger, keeps
+house for me there. If you paid Lischnitz a visit, I can promise you
+beforehand that she would welcome you with open arms. Under her
+chaperonage you would have excellent opportunities of developing into
+what I foresee you will be in the future. In this way you would be
+provided for, and I should have the great satisfaction, when I come
+backwards and forwards, of finding my home brightened by youth and
+beauty."
+
+He had risen, and in the excitement of conversation walked about the
+room with short swaggering steps, and at every step his medal and his
+epaulettes tinkled and jingled like sleigh-bells. At last Lilly heard
+nothing but this metallic clinking, and ceased to grasp what he was
+saying.
+
+When he had finished speaking, he paused in front of her, so near that
+she could smell the scent of the hairwash he used.
+
+She leant back in her chair feeling somehow as if she were going to be
+bound hand and foot and carried away beyond the reach of help. She knew
+that she would neither scream nor resist, so completely was she in his
+power.
+
+"Look at me," he said.
+
+She tried to, she was so obedient, but she could not.
+
+He put his hand under her chin and gave her head a backward tilt, but
+she kept her eyes almost shut, and saw only the scarlet border of his
+military coat.
+
+And then she felt herself suddenly begin to sink; the red border went
+up to the skies ... all round was the buzzing of bees ... and then
+nothing more.
+
+When she came to herself, there was something wet and cold on her
+breast, and a woman's print skirt, with a smoky smell, brushed her
+face.
+
+It was still green twilight. A breastplate hung opposite her, reminding
+her of a scoured and brightly polished kettle. She felt so comfortable,
+she didn't want to stir.
+
+A rough, bony hand stroked her forehead and a kindly voice murmured
+over and over again: "Poor young thing! poor child!"
+
+Lilly, thinking it was time to give a sign of returning consciousness,
+moved, and the strong hand slid under the back of her neck and propped
+her up, and the kindly voice asked what she would like to do.
+
+"I want to go home," said Lilly.
+
+"That can't be done this minute," said the voice, "because he gave
+orders that he must speak to you again before he goes. But take my
+advice: just say 'Thank you' and 'Good-bye,' and be off as fast as you
+can. This is no place for a young girl like you."
+
+Lilly sat up and arranged her collar. It was the cook bending over her,
+with her rugged, weather-beaten, thick-lipped face full of compassion.
+
+She asked Lilly, as she patted her shoulder, what she should bring her
+as a pick-me-up--egg and wine, or a liqueur.
+
+"Nothing, thank you," Lilly answered. "Let me go home."
+
+"You shall, my dearie, but I must call him in first."
+
+She shuffled to the door, and Lilly reached for her hat, on which she
+must have beep lying, for it was more out of shape than ever.
+
+"I shall have to get a new one now," and she tried to calculate how
+much she could afford to give out of her narrow means.
+
+The door opened and he came in, followed by the old cook.
+
+Lilly was no longer frightened.... Everything seemed far, far off--he
+too. Nothing seemed to matter.
+
+"Now she's ready to be put into a cab," suggested the cook.
+
+"Your presence here is not required any more!" he thundered at her.
+
+The cook ventured to mumble an objection.
+
+"Go!" he roared. And she scuffled out.
+
+Lilly's sensations were now only those of languid fear.
+
+"I wonder what he means to do with me?" she thought. Her own fate
+scarcely interested her at all.
+
+He paced up and down, the silver spurs on his heels clanking.
+
+"We must have some light," he said. "Clearness is essential to the
+matter in hand."
+
+He rang for the man-servant who had smiled in that sly, mocking way.
+The man lighted the jets of the chandelier and retired, with a sidelong
+inquisitive glance at Lilly--but no smile this time.
+
+She was still sitting on the couch where she had been when she regained
+consciousness. Her mind seemed a blank as she twirled her old felt hat
+round and round.
+
+In the brilliant light cast from the ceiling she saw the colonel in all
+his resplendence, still silently brooding, as he paced up and down.
+
+She could look him quite calmly in the face now. "It's useless to try
+and defend myself," she thought, "so I don't care what he does."
+
+Next he seized a chair and planted it in front of her, so close that
+when he sat down his knees nearly touched hers.
+
+"Listen to me, child," he began, his words ringing out clear and
+incisive, like words of command. "While you lay here in your swoon I
+was thinking over in the next room very earnestly what's to be done. I
+came to a decision about your future; but of that later. You, of
+course, must have observed by this time that my sentiments with regard
+to you are not exactly paternal. The older I grow the less am I able to
+understand what so-called paternal feelings are. To cut the matter
+short, I have conceived a passion for you which astonishes myself....
+If I were ten years older--I am fifty-four--I should attribute it to
+senility. Do you know what that means?"
+
+Lilly shook her head. She could see his face now so clearly that to her
+dying day she could never have forgotten what it was like.
+
+His eyes flamed in their red sockets and pierced her with the
+rapier-like sharpness that had at first filled her with terror. In grey
+bristling strands his hair was brushed back from the temples; but his
+moustache, on the other hand, was coal-black, and shadowed his gloomy
+mouth like a patch of ink through which his teeth made a white line of
+demarcation. From the corners of his mouth the heavy folds of flesh
+descended into the collar of his uniform.
+
+"How funny it is," reflected Lilly, "that I am doomed to be the love of
+this bad old man!"
+
+Well, if it was his will, she was powerless to resist.
+
+"The world could tell you that I am reputed to be, in spite of my
+years, a subduer of women; it may be because I have never had much
+respect for them. But now comes a case which ... how shall I express
+it? ... a case that is somewhat unique. I have decided that before the
+old year dies I must make up my mind one way or the other." He looked
+at the clock. "I have still half an hour to give you, then I am due at
+a reception. Well, not to waste time, I may as well confess ... my
+intentions towards you in the first place were not honourable. To say
+that I wanted to seduce you would hardly be correct, considering how
+little there can be of a seductive nature about a man of my years. It
+wouldn't have been here, and not to-day, as I gave you my word of
+honour in my letter; but you would have been mine sooner or later, of
+that you may rest assured."
+
+"I've no doubt of it," thought Lilly, who listened as calmly as if she
+were reading an exciting novel. Still, her old horror of him did not
+return; and still she waited with dull curiosity to see what would
+happen next.
+
+"If you had resisted and shown fight, all the more certainly would you
+have been overcome. I am an old hand, you know. Then came your fainting
+fit, which gave me some insight into your disposition. I was forced to
+admit to myself that a conquest by force in your case would give me no
+satisfaction. You are made of noble stuff, and I do not require a
+languishing companion.... Whimpering mistresses have always been my
+abhorrence. I don't care to have my comfort disturbed by scenes. I have
+had experiences of the kind, which I am unwilling to repeat. So while
+you lay here being tended by my cook, I came to the conclusion I had
+been on the wrong tack. I resolved to adopt another course."
+
+Lilly was overcome with a pleasing sense of gratitude, as if she had
+been the recipient of an enormous benefaction. "How splendid of him,
+how kind," she thought, "to let off a poor stupid thing like me!"
+
+She cast a stealthy glance at his hands, which, long and yellow, hung
+listlessly between his knees. She would have liked to imprint a kiss on
+them to show how grateful she was, but shame deterred her; she was
+almost sorry that so glorious a man didn't want to have anything more
+to do with her.
+
+"Well, I took further counsel with myself," he continued, and his voice
+sounded sterner, as if steeled by the force of his resolution. "It was
+not altogether a new idea; I had often, indeed, thought of it. But it
+seemed ridiculous at first, and only to be resorted to as an extreme
+measure--a way of escape which I am now cutting off. Finally, I asked
+myself, why shouldn't I? I am not ambitious. I know too well the rotten
+machinery of diplomatic and military service; it's not worth while to
+give one's sweat and blood to oil the wheels. So the idea of
+resignation doesn't displease me. Of course, I should have to retire in
+the circumstances, perhaps anyhow, because there are mornings when I
+can hardly sit on my horse from the pain caused by that cursed
+sciatica."
+
+"I wonder why he is telling me all this?" thought Lilly, and felt
+flattered that so distinguished a man should discuss such important
+matters with her.
+
+"What is more fatal still for me is that I foresee the rising of a
+whole generation, thirsting to be revenged on the robbery that has been
+perpetrated at its expense. Naturally, the unflinching eye and the firm
+hand can accomplish much.... In either case, one must dare something.
+Well, my dear child, what do you say?"
+
+Lilly was silent, ashamed of being so stupid that she was not in the
+least able to follow him. It all sounded to her like double Dutch.
+
+"Well, will you ... or not?"
+
+"Will I what?" stammered Lilly.
+
+"Good God! All this time I have been asking you to be my wife," the
+colonel replied.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XII
+
+This was the moment in which Lilly's hopes and wondering astonishment
+reached their climax. Could it be Lilly Czepanek to whom all this was
+happening, or had she changed places with someone else--some heroine
+who only lived inside those old brown-covered books, and who would
+cease to exist directly the last page was turned? He did not urge her
+to consent at once. As she sank back in a helpless heap, incapable of
+speaking, he took her hands tenderly in his, and with the smile of a
+beneficent deity, reasoned with her more gently than she could have
+believed possible. She might think it over, he said, for three days, or
+he would even allow her ten. So long he could be patient, but she must
+promise in the meantime to say nothing about it to anyone.
+
+She gladly acceded, still too terribly ashamed to look him in the face.
+
+Then she ran home and cried and cried without knowing why she cried,
+whether for joy or for grief. She was still sobbing when towards four
+in the morning the sisters, who had relaxed their strict etiquette in
+honour of the New Year, crept in and passed through the room.
+
+When she got up in the morning she was sure that he could not have been
+in earnest, and that before the day was over he would send to say that
+he had changed his mind. She wouldn't care much if he did. Indeed, she
+would breathe more freely and thank God to be relieved from a haunting
+burden of perplexities.
+
+At ten o'clock there was a ring, and a basket of roses was handed in.
+The size and costliness of the blooms filled the sisters with astounded
+disapproval. They knew the price of roses in winter, and calculated
+that these had cost a sum greatly exceeding Lilly's wages for a month.
+
+"Really," remarked the elder, "I cannot see why you shouldn't give in
+to such a gorgeous admirer. If it was one of us, it would be different,
+of course. We are in society, and could not afford to lose caste. But
+you, a mere shopgirl without any family to disgrace, why shouldn't you?
+Besides, such a life has its charms and advantages. If I were you, I
+should certainly try it."
+
+The younger and more sentimental of the two protested. "The first
+step," she said, "should only be taken for love. That is what is due to
+yourself, even if you are nothing but a shopgirl."
+
+They were still debating this knotty question when they went off to New
+Year's parade. They wanted to see Colonel von Mertzbach in command of
+the guard. They had heard he was "awfully handsome," and that all the
+fashionable girls in the town were setting their cap at him.
+
+Lilly caressed her roses and would have kissed them all, only there
+were too many.
+
+Then she took courage, locked up, and went out to St. Ann's to consult
+St. Joseph. She would have met the officers riding to parade if she had
+not turned down a back street in the nick of time.
+
+High-mass was over, and had left an odour of incense and poor people
+lingering in the aisles. A few worshippers remained praying at the side
+altars. Lilly knelt down before her dear saint, pressed her forehead
+against the velvet padding of the altar ratings, and tried to pour out
+her torn heart to him, begging for advice and consolation.
+
+"Ought I to ... May I? Can I?" Oh! She hoped she might so very much.
+Such a chance was not likely to come more than once in a lifetime. She
+would be rich, a baroness, with the world and all its splendours at her
+feet. When did such things happen outside fairy-tales?
+
+If only one thing about him had been different. For the first time it
+struck her clearly what that one thing was.
+
+It was not his eyes, whose glance was a dagger-thrust. It was not the
+grey bristly hair on his temples, nor the harsh commanding voice of the
+martinet. No; now she knew that it was none of these, but the folds of
+skin hanging down from his chin to his throat. It was these that must
+always form a barrier between him and her. They couldn't be got over,
+nothing could conceal them. She shuddered at the thought of them. And
+yet the Asmussen sisters had talked of him as a handsome man. The
+daughters of wealthy and distinguished people were said to run after
+him.
+
+It would have been folly on her part to refuse him. Wasn't he the best
+and noblest and most high-principled of men? Wasn't he nearly as good
+and kind as God Himself? Then she mapped out a future in which she was
+to live and breathe only for him; to sit at his feet as a disciple. She
+would flutter about him in gayer moments like a dove, though she could
+not exactly picture herself being ever lively in his presence. But she
+might be poetic; she might gaze at the stars in the distant firmament
+and the evening clouds, and look the image of a pale, noble, saintly
+creature to whom young strangers would lift their eyes in devouring
+longing without being rewarded by a single glance from her. All this
+would be possible, because her life would be consecrated to him, who
+was her friend, protector, and father, to whom she looked up on the
+heights whence no gleam had ever descended to her before.
+
+"Yes, I will--I will!" an eager voice cried within her. "Yes, dear St.
+Joseph, I will!"
+
+For answer St. Joseph held up a warning forefinger. Of course, he would
+have done it in any case. He couldn't help himself, for his artist had
+presented him thus. And yet there was something disconcerting about
+that raised forefinger. It didn't somehow help a poor distraught human
+being on its way through this troublesome world.
+
+The next day Lilly got a letter from Herr Doktor Pieper, making an
+appointment with her at his office.
+
+She turned hot and cold. "He knows," she said to herself.
+
+When she asked leave to go, Frau Asmussen remonstrated severely with
+her.
+
+"You receive costly presents and flowers, and you are always wanting to
+go out; if you continue like this, I am afraid I shall have to offer up
+daily prayers for you again."
+
+But when Lilly showed her guardian's letter, Frau Asmussen gave her
+permission. Lilly had not seen him since that day, a year and a half
+ago, when she had come out of the hospital, so weak she could hardly
+stand. She had been too shy to accept his invitation to call on him
+again. Besides, there had been no reason why she should. From time to
+time a lanky, dried-up looking person, whom Lilly recognised as the
+head clerk, had come to Frau Asmussen's, and after a brief conversation
+conducted in an undertone, departed. This was the only sign that the
+man under whose guardianship she had been placed ever thought of her
+existence.
+
+"Herr Doktor Pieper will see you now," said the head clerk.
+
+As Lilly entered, the distinguished lawyer was sitting at his
+writing-table in the same position as she had last seen him. He raised
+his head and contemplated her with a long scrutinising gaze. Then he
+smiled and rubbed the mirrorlike surface of his bald patch. "Ah! So
+it's you!" he drawled.
+
+Lilly's respect for this man deprived her of breath. While he studied
+her from head to foot as if she had been a marketable object, she made
+an awkward movement, which was a cross between a nod and a bow, and
+tugged at the short sleeves of her coat.
+
+"Ah! I perceive, my child, that you have developed into something that
+makes masculine folly, not of course justifiable, because we are
+endowed with masculine intellect to restrain the tendency, but, at any
+rate, excusable.... But I haven't wished you good-morning."
+
+He rose and offered her his cool flabby hand, which felt as if it had
+no bones in it.
+
+"Please let me look at your gloves," he said next.
+
+Lilly trembled, and drew back her elbows like a thief caught in the
+act. She stammered out, growing very red, "I was going to buy a new
+pair to-day."
+
+"Don't, dear Fraeulein," he answered, smacking his lips with
+satisfaction; "those holes are touching, and awake sympathy. Your
+winter coat, too, awakes sympathy. These are mere matters of detail,
+which contrast piquantly with the main features of your appearance.
+Anyone sentimentally inclined, even if he were not born a poet, might
+easily be inspired to an outburst of lyrical verse by such a pathetic
+appeal."
+
+As he spoke, he put his arm familiarly through hers and led her to an
+easy-chair, upholstered with many springs and cushions.
+
+"Sit down in this victims' chair," he said, "though I promise you there
+will be no drawing of teeth to-day. Altogether, you've done very well
+for yourself, my child. I am perfectly satisfied with you."
+
+He smoothed his well-kept fair beard and showed his teeth in a
+satisfied smile, like a conjurer after performing a specially clever
+trick.
+
+"When do you intend the wedding to come off?"
+
+"It's not even an engagement yet," murmured Lilly.
+
+"Oh, as far as that goes, there will, of course, be no engagement,
+properly speaking--that is to say, no formal announcements to friends,
+cards, visits, and other courtesies. Have everything done as quickly as
+possible--as quietly as possible; that is my advice to you, Fraeulein.
+You see, in the very delicate situation of affairs in which we find
+ourselves, adverse influences are always to be feared."
+
+"But I haven't so much as said 'Yes,' yet," Lilly ventured to put in.
+
+This seemed vastly to amuse him.
+
+"Ho! ho! We're assuming the possibility of a refusal, are we? A
+refusal! Very clever! I shouldn't have credited you with so much
+capacity for business, dear Fraeulein."
+
+"I am sure I don't know what you mean," said Lilly, a flush of
+indignation rising to her face--she knew not why.
+
+He thrust his hands against his sides and continued to be amused.
+
+"Yes, yes; that's all very well and practical, but a joke can be
+carried too far, you know. I advise you to leave it in my hands for the
+time being.... I understand these matters, though I must confess I
+haven't often handled so important a case. I will do my utmost to hurry
+on the wedding.... For reasons already stated, I must demand absolute
+secrecy till his resignation is a _fait accompli_. When the banns are
+once put up, providing you with a trousseau will be a minor
+consideration. My advice to you, young lady, is to behave for the
+present in as maidenly and ingenuous a manner as you can. A rosebud
+unfolding with the freshness of the dew upon it should be your example.
+But I would suggest the use of a better soap.... I think there's no
+room for improvement in anything else. The necessity may arise for you
+to take up your abode with another family, in which case the sum
+realised from the sale of your mother's effects--one moment, please."
+He opened a big ledger which he took from a rack by the writing-table.
+"A, B, C--ah, here we are--Czepanek. Sums amounting to one hundred and
+thirty-six marks will come in very usefully just now. My purse, too,
+out of a purely aesthetic enjoyment of the romance, is at your
+disposal. So much for the period before the wedding. As for the time to
+follow, which is of infinitely greater importance, I should not like
+you to go away from here without my giving you a few gentle hints,
+though, unfortunately, I am not in a position to"--he paused for a
+moment, and a satyr-like grin widened his loose-skinned cheeks--"take a
+mother's place and impart to you the precepts with which she would
+speed you on your way as a bride."
+
+Lilly understood this time well enough what he would imply, and redhot
+shame wove a fiery mist before her eyes.
+
+"In all matters connected with arrangements for your future, such as
+insurance, settlements, alimony in case of divorce, provided you are
+the guiltless party--or even if you were guilty--you may implicitly
+trust me. I was not made your guardian for nothing. But there is one
+contingency, very common in marriages such as yours, in which my
+professional help can give you no security. You must keep your eyes
+open for yourself.... We are placed in this world, my dear child, to do
+what we like; anyone who says the contrary would rob your heaven of its
+sun. But I give you a threefold warning: first, don't exchange
+superfluous glances; second, don't demand superfluous rendering of
+accounts; thirdly and lastly, don't make superfluous confessions. You
+cannot be expected to-day, perhaps, to understand clearly what all this
+signifies"--as a matter of fact, Lilly understood nothing at all--"but
+think of my words when occasion arises. They may be of use to you. Let
+me see. Another thing! Are you fond of jewels?"
+
+"I have hardly ever seen any," said Lilly.
+
+"Not at the jewellers' in the market-place?"
+
+"At school we weren't allowed to look in at the shop-windows," Lilly
+answered.
+
+He smiled his most unpleasant smile. "Then I venture to advise that
+every time you and your husband go out together you stop and look in at
+every shop-window. Such little hints are seldom ignored. Be specially
+charmed with pearls, my dear young lady. You will in this wise lay up
+for yourself treasures which, when your time of trouble comes--and,
+remember, it will come--will be of invaluable assistance to you."
+
+Lilly nodded, and thought to herself, "I shall certainly do nothing of
+the kind."
+
+Heir Doktor Pieper passed his soft plump well-kept hand over his glossy
+bald patch several times, and continued:
+
+"Well, what more have I got to say to you? A good deal, but I am rather
+afraid of being misunderstood. There is one thing, however, which must
+not be omitted. The early days of married life, no matter what its
+nature may be, are apt to have a disturbing effect on the nervous
+system. When you first feel depressed, take bromide. In fact, take a
+good deal of it. Draw a protective cap of indifference over your head
+in moments of strong excitement, whether caused by love or antipathy,
+so that you will not see, hear, or feel anything. You must deaden your
+perceptions and be unconscious of your will-power. In time you will
+become used to the oppressive hot-house atmosphere, probably in a few
+months; and afterward you will again breathe the fresh air, and then,
+instead of the bed-canopy above you, there will stretch again before
+you the heaven of your girlhood. When one's nerves are over-strained it
+is dangerous to think too much of one's immediate surroundings and to
+seek compensation there. Dream rather of the distant blue mountains.
+Let your happiness linger afar off. You are young, and it will
+certainly draw nearer as years pass. Give it time to grow up.... I
+expect you do not understand the very least bit what I am saying?"
+
+"Yes, of course I understand," Lilly stammered.
+
+She didn't wish to be thought stupid. But he was right. His words
+rained on her like hailstones of which she could only gather a few here
+and there--except the blue mountains. She had caught that, and liked
+the expression.
+
+"Never mind," he went on. "Something of what I have said will occur to
+you, I've no doubt, at times. Now I come to the last and most delicate
+point of all, because it deals, as it were, with spiritual conditions.
+Don't fret if your environment does not respond to you and echo your
+ideas. You must leave it, and not try to make things different. Bells
+that are cracked can never be made to ring in tune again. Rather
+provide music for yourself. I shouldn't be surprised if you have a
+whole orchestra at your command."
+
+"I have 'The Song of Songs,'" Lilly thought with pride.
+
+"You have no conception, my child, how essential it is, when you live
+in harness with another human being, not to lose touch with yourself.
+To hold a private court of your own flattering thoughts is an excellent
+diversion. Anyone who wants to eat fresh eggs must keep poultry; never
+forget that. But don't let anyone suspect. Display no unnecessary
+opposition, no obstinacy. You must arrange to run your life from the
+start on double paths, so that you can travel in both directions as
+your needs require. I shouldn't wonder if in these circumstances your
+marriage were to turn out happily, apart from its exceptional worldly
+advantages, the duration of which depend mainly on good luck and the
+exercise of tact and powers of adaptation. I shall send you the
+marriage contract sealed. Till your coming of age in two years' time I
+shall always be at your service. If you feel in after years that your
+temper is permanently tried, break the seal by all means. A good lawyer
+can interpret a contract very differently from a layman, and read all
+sorts of things into it. As I indicated, there is one case in which he
+is impotent to do this. Be on your guard against it. Technically, it is
+called _in flagrante_.... Sometime or other you will doubtless acquire
+information as to what the word means. Now, may I give the colonel your
+final consent?"
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XIII
+
+The train rumbled on through the night, showers of sparks flew up from
+the engine. When it was fed by the stoker, clouds of fire illuminated
+the darkness, and you saw in a flash purple pines, snow-covered gables,
+and wide-stretching golden spaces appearing out of black nothingness.
+How beautiful, how strange it all was!
+
+Lilly leaned her head, drowsy from champagne, against the red velvet
+cushions. It was over, and everything had gone off well. A kaleidoscope
+of confused pictures, half real, half imaginary, whirled through her
+brain. She saw a great black inkstand with a small grey-bearded man
+behind it asking lots of useless questions; a white lace veil with
+myrtle-leaves attached thrown over her head by the adjutant's wife, who
+went from one rapture into another; a hateful Protestant minister,
+with two ridiculous white bibs under his chin. He looked like a
+grave-digger, but at the end he gave such an exquisite address that
+Lilly would have liked to cry on his bosom. Two gentlemen in black, two
+in gay uniforms. One of the gentlemen in black was Herr Pieper, one of
+those in uniform the colonel. And she was the colonel's wife the
+colonel's wife! How the wheels seemed to murmur the words: "Colonel's
+wife!" But if you listened more attentively they also said--what the
+gentlemen at the wedding had said--"Most gracious baroness; most
+gracious baroness," always in time.
+
+The ice-cream had been so wonderful--a positive chain of mountains with
+peaks, and pinnacles, and little lights that shone through the
+crystals. She could have sat admiring it for ever, only she had to dig
+into it with a big golden spoon, and so overturn a whole mountain. She
+had asked him if she might have ice-cream every day in the future, and
+he had laughingly answered, "Yes, if you like." She must have been
+rather tipsy, or she couldn't have had the courage to ask such a
+question. She would find an opportunity of begging his pardon later.
+
+Now he sat opposite her looking her through and through with his
+piercing eyes. That was the only thing that embarrassed her, and if she
+hadn't been such a coward, she would have asked him to look the other
+way for a change. Not that she felt her old fear of him to-day. Of late
+she had gradually become more at home with him; how could it be
+otherwise when he was so kind, and she had only to express a wish to
+have it fulfilled instantly?
+
+Then there was something she had noticed that she would never dare
+breathe to anyone. He was bow-legged. They were the heavy cavalry legs
+all over, rather too short for the imposing figure they supported. They
+made him sway in his gait from side to side as if he were trying to
+walk on a tight-rope. You noticed it even more when he wore mufti and
+stuck his hands in his pockets as he was doing now.
+
+Every now and then he leant forward and asked, "Are you all right,
+little woman?"
+
+She should think she was "all right" indeed! All her life she would
+like to sit there leaning back against the red velvet cushions,
+looking at her new soft _suede_ gloves, and the shiny toes of her
+patent-leather boots peeping out from the hem of her travelling dress.
+
+There had been quite a crowd at the station. No uniforms, because he
+had dispensed with a military escort, but plenty of ladies had been
+there, thickly veiled, trying to appear unconscious, as if their errand
+at the station was an ordinary one. As she passed them on the colonel's
+arm and got into the _coupe_, she had caught two or three admiring
+remarks--and not from too friendly lips. It came back to her now with
+heart-felt satisfaction. At the very last moment two bouquets had flown
+in through the window, and she had looked out again. There stood the
+Asmussen sisters, bowing reverentially and crying buckets full. Her
+colossal good fortune had disarmed their envy and changed ill-feeling
+into a sort of melancholy rejoicing.
+
+And, opposite, sat the man who had worked the extraordinary revolution
+in her lot. For a moment she was so overwhelmed with a feeling of
+well-being and gratitude that she went down on her knees before him,
+and, clasping his hands in hers, gazed up at him in adoration.
+
+But when he caught her to him with one arm, and with the other caressed
+her, she became frightened again and retreated to her place. He let her
+be with a smile, conscious that his hour was not far off.
+
+And it came sooner than she had expected. "Get ready," he said
+abruptly; "we shall be getting out directly."
+
+"Where?" she asked, startled.
+
+"At the junction, from where there's a loop line to Lischnitz."
+
+"Are we going to your estate, then?" she inquired anxiously. He had
+talked of going to Dresden.
+
+"No," he replied shortly; "we shall stay here."
+
+Then they stood on a dark platform with their trunks and bags. The
+frosty haze cast rainbow halos round the few dim gas-lamps, and shadowy
+forms were enveloped in clouds of their own frozen breath as they
+emerged into the light. The train steamed out of the station.
+
+There they stood and no one heeded them. Then the colonel uttered one
+oath after another. He had acquired the habit of swearing violently at
+drill, when irritated. His fury fell on Lilly like a thunderclap, and
+made her tremble, as if she were the culprit. At last the colonel's
+oaths reached the ears of the station officials, who associated them
+with something familiar in the past, and they began contritely to make
+amends for their negligence by loading themselves with the luggage.
+They got into the hotel omnibus which was waiting, and Lilly squeezed
+herself into the furthest corner of it. Weird shadows flickered from
+the miserable little oil carriage-lamps, on his sharply defined
+features, giving him a new aspect, beneath which his long-slumbering
+wrath still seethed.
+
+"What has this dreadful old man to do with you, or you with him," Lilly
+asked herself, a shiver running through her, "that you should be at his
+mercy so completely? Why not rush past him, tear open the door, and
+leap out into the night?"
+
+She pictured what would happen if she acted on this impulse. He would
+stop the omnibus, pursue her, calling and shouting after her, and, if
+she was so lucky as to hide herself, he would set the police on her
+track. The next morning she would be found cowering under an arch
+asleep, perhaps frozen to death.
+
+At that moment he stretched out his hands, groping for hers, as people
+in love are wont to do. The shadows dissolved and she responded to his
+caress, wreathed in smiles. Yet on their arrival at the hotel, where
+the proprietor, waiters, and commissionaires received them with
+deferential bows and an effusive welcome, Lilly's thoughts, in the
+midst of all the bustle, light, and warmth, reverted again to flight.
+
+"I'll say I have left something in the omnibus, run out and never come
+back."
+
+She was already ascending the stairs on his arm.
+
+A spacious, awe-inspiring apartment swallowed them up. It had a
+flowered carpet and a glaring three-armed chandelier. In one corner
+stood a huge wide bedstead, covered with a smooth white damask
+counterpane. It was carved at the head and foot. She looked round in
+vain for a second bed. "St. Joseph!" she breathed to herself.
+
+The colonel made himself perfectly at home. He grumbled, turned up the
+lights, and tossed his overcoat into a corner. Then he lit a cigarette
+and threw himself down on the sofa, whence he watched with the eye of a
+connoisseur her movements as she reluctantly took off her coat and drew
+the pins out of her hat.
+
+There was a knock, and a waiter came in with cold refreshments and a
+silver-necked bottle on a tray.
+
+"More champagne?" questioned Lilly in alarm. She had not yet recovered
+from the amount that she had imbibed at midday.
+
+"Nothing like champagne," he said, "to give a little woman courage to
+consecrate the pretty blue silk _neglige_ waiting in her box to be
+unpacked."
+
+He poured out the foaming liquid into the two glasses. She clinked
+glasses with him obediently, but scarcely touched a drop of her wine.
+
+When he rallied her on her abstinence, she answered pleadingly, "I
+don't want to be tipsy on such a sacred night as this!"
+
+Her reply seemed to entertain him immensely. He burst into hilarious
+laughter, and exclaimed: "All the better! All the better!"
+
+He would have drawn her to him, but, as every touch of his caused her
+acute discomfort, she evaded him quickly and said, "I must look for my
+_neglige_."
+
+She knelt before the box, which she herself had packed the night
+before, lifting out the trays, and produced from the depth a garment of
+filmy lace and washing silk, which he, with all the other beautiful
+clothes, had bought for her before the wedding.
+
+She looked round in search of a sheltering alcove into which she could
+retire to change, but there was none no escape from those eyes, almost
+softened by their desire for her, watching everything she did.
+Shuddering, she stood there, clinging helplessly to the collar of her
+dress, which she hadn't the courage to unhook.
+
+He grew impatient and sprang to his feet. He nearly caught her in his
+arms, but the imploring look she gave him was so full of pathos that he
+chivalrously desisted, and stooped instead to pick up something which,
+in her search for the _neglige_, she had turned out of the box on to
+the floor. The next minute Lilly saw a white roll between his dark
+fingers.
+
+"It's 'The Song of Songs,'" shot through her brain.
+
+With a cry she hurled herself upon him, and tried to snatch the roll of
+music from his grasp, but his fingers were like iron. He defended
+himself and repulsed her attack with ease, laughing all the time. She
+was beside herself at the thought that her life's secret should be
+tampered with by strange hands, and she cried, implored, and beat him
+with her fists.
+
+Now the matter began to appear to him in a suspicious light. Doubts
+began to rise within him as to the unblemished purity of her soul, and
+even of her body.
+
+"Be careful, my little girl," he said. "Prevarication and deceit are
+out of the question now. You will kindly let me see what this is
+without delay, or I'll pin you down so that you can't stir a limb."
+
+"Oh, please, dear colonel," she begged and prayed, "give them up. They
+are only two or three sheets of paper covered with music, the music of
+songs--nothing else, I swear. Please let me have them, dear colonel."
+
+Her innocent pleading touched him, and the comical unconscious humility
+of her "dear colonel" made him laugh again. Besides, as the daughter of
+a professional, she might cherish musical ambitions.
+
+"Do you compose yourself?" he asked.
+
+"No, no, no! It's not my composition, but don't look at it," she
+entreated, "or I'll jump out of the window. I swear I will by all the
+saints."
+
+He was so delighted with the picture she made, her eyes wide with
+alarm, her hair loosened and dishevelled, the tragic mute expression on
+her sweet childlike face with its clear-cut features, that he wanted to
+prolong the struggle for a few minutes. So he looked very black and
+pretended to be what he really had been a little while ago--full of
+jealous suspicion.
+
+Then she fell on her knees, and, clasping his legs, she whispered in a
+voice half suffocated by her emotions of shame and distress:
+
+"If only you give it back to me, I won't mind what you do. I won't
+attempt to defend myself."
+
+The bargain struck him as advantageous.
+
+"Your hand on it," he said.
+
+"Yes, here is my hand on it," she replied. "And you'll never ask any
+questions? Promise."
+
+"Not if you swear by your blessed St. Joseph that it's really nothing
+but music."
+
+"Yes, nothing but music and the libretto, I swear."
+
+He gave her the roll, and she yielded herself entirely to him ... sold
+herself at the price of "The Song of Songs" to the man to whom she
+already belonged.
+
+
+                           *   *   *   *   *
+
+
+The early morning sunlight, shining straight in her eyes through the
+yellow striped curtains, awoke her. She felt herself resting on a sort
+warm pillow, and was conscious of having slept splendidly. Slowly it
+dawned on her what had happened. She leaned over to him with the
+intention of giving him a kiss. He lay with his head thrown back and
+his mouth open, and the light from the window played on his shining
+bristled chin. Over his haggard cheeks little red and blue veins ran in
+all directions like rivers on a map. His ink-black moustache glistened
+with pomade, and his eyelids were so wrinkled into folds that they
+must, it seemed, have reached down to the top of his nose if they had
+been ironed out.
+
+"He's not so bad-looking," Lilly thought to herself; but she omitted
+the kiss.
+
+She got up noiselessly and dressed herself without his moving. The old
+cavalry officer was a sound and heavy sleeper.
+
+Lilly scribbled on a sheet of notepaper which she found in the hotel
+blotter: "I am gone to church," laid the note on his pillow, and
+slipped down the stairs, past the porter, who was so astonished he
+forgot to say "Good-morning."
+
+The streets of the little town still slept in the peace of the late
+winter dawn. The snow had been swept from the middle of the road into
+heaps along the gutter. A party of crows sat in a circle round the
+frozen fountain in the market-place. From the distance came the faint
+music of sleigh-bells. Down the main street boys with satchels were
+loitering to school. In some of the smaller shops lights still burned
+and apprentices were sweeping and cleaning the steps, their faces blue
+with cold. As Lilly went by they stared hard, or called to others
+inside to come out and gape after her.
+
+The swinging tread of marching footsteps was behind her. A long train
+of infantry, wearing gloves but without cloaks, came tramping along in
+the middle of the road. They puffed, in regular time, clouds of frozen
+breath before them. Their eyes with one accord turned to the left in
+Lilly's direction as if by word of command. The officers, walking
+beside their men, exchanged significant glances and shrugged their
+shoulders.
+
+She had not far to look for the Catholic church of the parish. The
+clumsy stone fabric, with its remnants of Gothic bricked over, stood
+high above the roofs of the town. The side aisles were crammed with
+altars in barbaric colours, much gilded and adorned with paper roses in
+cheap vases. She could not find St. Joseph anywhere, and had to be
+content instead with Our Lady of Sorrows, between whom and herself
+relations seemed strained.
+
+A feeling of oppression and emptiness, which she could not explain,
+took possession of her soul. It was as if she had done something wrong
+and didn't know what. She kneeled down and gabbled her prayers so
+thoughtlessly that she felt ashamed, then she caught herself absently
+eyeing with contentment her _suede_ gloves, which moulded her fingers
+with such perfect ease and distinction. Every now and then a shudder
+ran through her, which made her shut her eyes and clench her teeth, and
+then she felt ashamed again.
+
+Soon she gave up attempting to pray, and gazed up at the Mother of God,
+with her tearful face, who appeared to be saying, "Please take these
+things out of me." Yet the seven swords piercing her heart were set at
+the hilt with pearls and precious stones.
+
+"If only I was really unhappy, I should have some excuse," thought
+Lilly. "Then I might talk with her as I used to with St. Joseph, and
+the swords in my heart would be costly to behold." As costly as the
+pearl necklace he had put round her neck just before the wedding.
+
+She saw herself as she had been two months ago, when she had stolen out
+in the grey dawn to lay her poor distraught heart at the feet of her
+favourite saint; how soon, with the reaction of youth, she had walked
+on air again, intoxicated at the thought of what was coming to her in
+the fair future. And all the time she had been actually steeped in
+poverty and wretchedness, forsaken and friendless.
+
+"Happiness takes on strange aspects," she thought, and she gave her
+shoulders a petulant little shrug.
+
+Then suddenly a great dread came over her that those times would never
+come back, that she must go on like this eternally, barren in soul,
+disturbed in spirit, persecuted by gloomy, inexpressible fears.
+
+"It must all come of not loving him enough," she confessed to herself.
+
+Now she knew what she had to petition of the Virgin Mary. She bowed her
+face in both hands and prayed long and fervidly--prayed that she might
+learn to love him with as much passion as she had blood in her veins;
+with as much devotion as she had hopes of her soul; with as much
+joyousness as there was laughter in her heart. And, lo! her prayer was
+answered.
+
+She rose from her knees with shining eyes, a burden lifted from her
+soul, and hurried away, back to him to whom she belonged, to serve him
+with all humbleness and confidence, either as his daughter, his
+handmaiden, his mistress--in any capacity he wished.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XIV
+
+
+They passed Berlin without stopping, because the colonel had no desire
+to encounter his military friends so soon after his _mesalliance_.
+From here in three hours they reached Dresden, and took up their
+quarters at Sendig's, where the hotel proprietors had arranged to
+provide the newly-married pair with the comforts and privacy of a home.
+Drawing-room, bedroom, and dressing-room were all they needed, for the
+closer their outer intimacy the nearer would their inward relations
+approximate. And, indeed, the colonel had every reason to be satisfied
+with his honeymoon. He, who in the course of his not too short life had
+held hundreds of girls on his knee, who thought he knew every type
+through and through, the sweetly clinging, the coyly coquettish, the
+brazenly bold, the sham and the true, and all their different kinds of
+kisses--this old amorous hand, who ought to have been surprised at
+nothing, was simply full of incredulous amazement at his last lovely
+find. In his whole carefully cultivated career as a _roue_ he had never
+come across so much yielding and so much pride, so much fire, ready
+wit, and quick understanding, so much naive simplicity, as were
+comprised in this one dreamily smiling Madonna-faced child.
+
+Perhaps he was most taken aback and puzzled by her utter
+unpretentiousness. When they dined _a la carte_, she invariably
+selected for herself the very cheapest items on the menu, and would ask
+if she might have lemonade to drink with as much shy modesty as if she
+were making a love confession.
+
+Once, on their way back from the public gardens, when they wandered
+home through queer little back streets, Lilly, who resolutely declined
+as a rule to look in at shop-windows, stood transfixed before a small
+greengrocer's. The colonel, on inquiring what interested her, elicited
+gradually that she loved eating sunflower seeds, and would he mind very
+much if she bought some?
+
+The mote he loaded her with presents, the less able did she seem to
+realise that money was being spent on her account. So long had been the
+dearth of money in her life, that now she had no discrimination as to
+the value of it. However big the sum he placed in her purse, she did
+not hesitate to hand it out to the first beggar they met. But when he
+paid a flower-girl two marks for a rose she thought it wicked
+extravagance.
+
+Once when she had tickled his fastidious palate beyond belief by her
+_naivete_, he asked in sudden distrust, "I say, little woman, are you
+acting?"
+
+She didn't know what he meant, and with the wide melancholy eyes of
+childlike innocence, which she used to turn on him at such questions,
+she replied, "Acting indeed! Since papa went away I haven't seen any
+acting, or been inside a theatre once."
+
+The same day he took a box for the play, and she danced about the room
+with the little blue tickets in her hand, half mad with delight. But
+her joyous enthusiasm was somewhat damped by being told that the
+occasion demanded evening dress. It was incomprehensible to her that to
+appreciate Shakespeare's "Winter's Tale" you should be obliged to bare
+your neck and shoulders. The evening gowns, besides, seemed far too
+grand for her. In selecting one to wear, she hovered round them with
+their glittering, jewelled trimmings and exquisite lace as gingerly as
+if they were a bed of nettles. In a generous mood the colonel had
+ordered the gowns, for no particular reason, for to take Lilly into
+society as yet was not to be thought of.
+
+When she came to him dressed, stiff and stern-eyed from embarrassment,
+yet glowing with a feverish joy in her finery, taller and more of a
+budding Venus than ever, her delicate rounded breast half hidden in a
+mass of soft lace, the fabulously beautiful chain of pearls on her
+swan-like throat, the elderly robber went into such ecstasies over his
+booty that he was near ordering the finery back into the wardrobe, and
+throwing the theatre tickets into the waste-paper basket; but she
+implored him so fervently to keep his promise that he thought better of
+it and got into the carriage with her.
+
+Then, he, who imagined he had long ago outlived the commonplace vanity
+of delighting to show off his possessions in public, experienced a
+triumph. The _blase_ old bachelor found himself enjoying the sensation
+of being envied, and, though he accepted it disdainfully as a matter of
+course, he was tremendously flattered.
+
+Directly Lilly entered the box she was the cynosure of all eyes.
+Everyone speculated as to what the relationship could be between this
+extraordinarily handsome and distinguished pair, and when after the
+first act a thousand tongues of light leapt out again from the ceiling,
+opera-glasses were levelled at them, and a hubbub of questioning
+comment passed from mouth to mouth.
+
+It was the first time Lilly had ever witnessed a play from a box, and
+her first instinct was to hide herself at the back, but she had already
+learnt blind obedience to his commands, and when he pointed to the
+chair beside him she meekly subsided into it. Then, as she became aware
+of the universal notice she attracted, that strange numbness and
+feeling of detachment came over her. It seemed to her when she moved,
+smiled, or spoke, someone else was doing it all--another person with
+whom she herself had only a chance connection.
+
+Not till the lights were lowered and the curtain went up again did she
+awake from her lethargy. Then she followed the poet into his enchanted
+realms with breathless excitement and delicate thrills of suspense.
+After this two Lillies sat in the box--one Lilly in blissful
+self-oblivion flitted through heaven and hell on the rainbow wings of
+her childhood's phantasy; the other, like a wound-up doll, made stilted
+gestures and strove unconsciously to imitate the manners of the
+well-bred, feeling all the time a hot sweet torturing sensation
+creeping over her, the intoxication of vanity.
+
+Afterwards the colonel, not satisfied with his triumph at the theatre,
+instead of having supper as usual served upstairs, went with Lilly on
+his arm into the public dining-room where an Hungarian band was
+playing, and elegant people supped and displayed their fine feathers.
+Here the little drama of the box was enacted over again, save that
+Lilly, carried away by the wild dreamy melodies of the violins, let her
+awkward shyness drop from her, and expanding a little, with flaming
+cheeks and shining eyes, dared to play her small part.
+
+Opposite them, two tables further on, sat a fair young man, with
+expansive white shirt-front and black tie, like all the others. He
+stared at her with unflinching persistence, as if she were some rare
+wild animal.
+
+She writhed under the fire of this gaze, that caressed and hurt her at
+the same time and spoke a foreign language to her with the violins, the
+notes of which quivered down her spine and throbbed feverishly through
+her being.
+
+Suddenly her husband turned round and caught the admirer in the act of
+staring. He pierced him with his dagger-like glance to such effect that
+the fair-haired man speedily rose and disappeared. But the colonel's
+pleasure seemed spoilt. "Come, it's late," he said, and led her away.
+
+As soon as he had her to himself again his pride in his treasure broke
+out anew. It became a sort of unbridled frenzy. Lilly had to undress,
+as she had often done before, and pose in numerous attitudes, both
+classical and the reverse. Then, to wind up, she was compelled to don
+the silver-spangled gauze garment, which he had bought for her during
+their first days in Dresden, arrayed in which he liked her to dance to
+him before going to bed. The metal threads sent ice-cold shivers down
+her limbs, and pricked her skin like needles, but as it was his wish,
+and his wish was law, she made no demur.
+
+In bed he lit another cigarette, and while she sat on the edge of the
+bed he amused himself by telling her risque anecdotes, which he
+described as "his little girl's lullaby."
+
+After this, the colonel preferred to take meals regularly in the
+dining-room. He wished to enjoy to the full the piquant pleasure of
+seeing his young wife openly admired and unblushingly desired. The
+value of his property seemed to rise in proportion to the extent that
+he was envied by others for its possession.
+
+And Lilly, for her part, could watch for the intoxicated sensations of
+that evening to awake in her ever anew. She might under drooping lids
+see and feel all those young, hot pairs of eyes around her hang
+burningly on hers, full of hopeless passion and desire; might,
+accompanied by the sad wail of the violins and the clash of the
+cymbals, take flight into those Elysian fields whither her road had
+been barred--she knew not how or why--since her great good fortune had
+come to her.
+
+Never did she dream of permitting herself, even by the quiver of an
+eyelash, to return any of those ardent glances. The young men who gazed
+at her were only accessories to the scene, as indispensable as the
+lights, the band, the flowers, the white tablecloths, and the cigarette
+smoke which rose to the ceiling in little blue columns.
+
+Nevertheless, one day, as she was walking arm-in-arm with her husband
+in the street, one of those glances shot her through the heart like an
+arrow. It proceeded from a pair of dark eyes, which even from a
+distance were fixed on her inquiringly, and flared up as they came
+nearer into a flash of melancholy fire and recognition.
+
+She felt as if she must run after him as he walked on, and ask, "Who
+are you? Do you belong to me? ... Do you want me to belong to you?"
+
+Then she committed the indiscretion of turning round to look at him. It
+was only for the fraction of a second, but her husband had remarked it,
+for when she again looked in front of her, she felt his vigilant eye
+was upon her, full of threatening suspicion. He nodded two or three
+times as if to say, "So it's come to this already." For the rest of the
+day he was preoccupied and bad-tempered.
+
+The incident was but the first of a series for Lilly. Not that she ever
+met that identical youth again, though she kept on the lookout for him.
+He was succeeded by innumerable others. Those she met, from this time,
+were no longer unsubstantial shadows of a vision she saw as if they
+were not there. Now, when she beheld a slight youthful figure coming
+towards them, she wondered what he would be like near, and if he would
+look at her. And should his aspect please her, and his gaze without
+being impertinent express admiring astonishment and longing, she would
+often feel a pang at her heart and say to herself, "You are far more
+suited to him than to the old man on whose arm you are leaning." And
+every time it happened she felt very sad.
+
+Still sadder did she feel when someone, whose appearance she liked,
+took no notice of her. "I am not good enough for him," she would think.
+"He despises me. I wonder why he despises me?"
+
+In fashionable resorts, such as the dining-room of the Bruehlische
+Terrace, where there was a perpetual crossfire of covert glances, her
+attitude towards the outside world began gradually to alter. She would
+acknowledge the incense burnt at her shrine by an ever so slight
+grateful uplifting of her eyes. She returned without shyness the
+scrutiny of ladies, and in spite of being blessed with sight as keen as
+a falcon's, she would dearly have loved to possess a lorgnette like
+theirs.
+
+She was often tormented with a desire to look deep into eyes that
+rested on her without reserve, fear or restraint. It would have been a
+mystical union of souls, which would have done her infinite good; for
+she could not disguise the fact from herself any longer--she was
+hungering for something, hungering as she had never hungered in her
+life before.
+
+The colonel appeared perfectly oblivious of what was passing within
+her. But he waged bitter warfare with all who laid siege to her with
+their glances. The old Uhlan was incessantly on the watch, and was
+ready to stab on the instant with his eye's deadly darts the too
+persistent and ardent adorers. But there were some who were not in the
+least discomposed by his threatening demeanour, and who even had the
+audacity to return the compliment and look daggers at him. This made
+him uneasy, and he would fidget with his card-case, look as if he were
+going to write something, then put the pencil away; and generally he
+ended by saying, "We seem in undesirable company here. Come, let us
+go!" Yet, despite these uncomfortable experiences out of doors, he
+found it less and less possible to live at home completely _a deux_
+with his young wife. From his youth upwards he had been accustomed to
+gay society, and he liked noise, laughter, and light around him.
+Nevertheless, his suspicions grew and centred on Lilly.
+
+One day he put a stop to her early church-going, in which she found her
+greatest solace. The impulse she had followed on the first morning that
+she awakened by his side had become by degrees a habit. While he slept
+on in profound slumber, she softly rose and dressed herself and glided
+out in the freshness of the dawn. It is true that her church-going
+consisted often of merely dipping her fingers in the holy water and
+curtseying three times. Now and then she contented herself by passing
+the church door with an untroubled conscience and not going in at all.
+
+This was her hour of freedom, precious to her as gold, the only one
+that she had entirely to herself in the course of the whole day. She
+hurried first to the Augustus Bridge, offered her face to the breezes
+that blew there from every point of the compass, and watched the water
+rolling under her feet. Next she flew along the bank, like a whirlwind,
+for she wanted to take in as many fresh impressions and pictures as she
+could, before creeping back into the connubial yoke. Everything that
+happened in this blessed hour was fraught with significance.
+
+It was all experience, all happiness--the rosy early morning mist
+hanging over the hills and descending in golden shafts on to the river;
+the jangle of bells from the Altstadt; the first coy bursting of the
+buds on the russet boughs; the big waggons rumbling to market; the
+hissing of the swaying electric wires overhead when a tramcar passed.
+On these excursions she might even indulge in shop-gazing, as there was
+no fear of Nemesis in the shape of a present. How greedily she gloated
+over pictures and _objets d'art_!
+
+And now all this was to end. It was over. The gates through which she
+escaped for one single hour from the perfumed idleness and hothouse
+closeness of her gilded prison clanged behind her. But so pliable and
+yielding was her nature that not once in the secret depths of her heart
+did she complain. He wished it, and that was enough. Such powers of
+love lay idle within her, crying out for employment, that at this
+period of inward struggle she was obliged, whether she liked it or not,
+to give him a double share of tenderness, even whether her thoughts
+were with him or cantering off on a secret path of dreams.
+
+She was his slave, his plaything, his attentive audience. She valeted
+him, praised his personal beauty, massaged his thighs with salves,
+arranged the hare-skin on his loins to charm away his gout, gave him
+his carbonate of soda to correct indiscretions in diet, dressed his
+grizzled locks with a hairwash, the pungent odour of which turned her
+sick, and looked on, giving him the benefit of her artistic taste and
+advice, while he tinted his moustache. And she did it all with eager
+zeal and naive self-reliance, as if in tending and coaxing him she had
+found the very aim and end of her existence.
+
+In the process, however, he became divested for her of every rag of his
+godlike attributes, so that nothing was left but a once soldierly,
+though now vain, and capricious man--mentally effete, for all his
+vaunted intellect; brutal, for all his refined tastes, with his
+appetites prematurely sated and enervated.
+
+Not that she was really clear in her mind with regard to these defects
+of his qualities. If she had been, it is possible that she might have
+loathed and despised him. She was too young and ignorant of the world
+to know that life is like a witch's cauldron, which brews out of the
+souls of all men much the same mess, when ideals bleach with their hair
+and they have no altar on which to gain salvation through sacrifice.
+
+The pictures her imagination painted of him faded and shifted from day
+to day, first in one direction, then in another, until something like
+pity mingled with her childlike respectful awe of him, and a certain
+motherliness that would have been unnatural, had it not had its
+foundations in the goodness of heart that found in the weaknesses of
+others an object for its fostering care.
+
+Ah! if only she did not long for so much. Every day she sat at a
+sumptuously spread table and longed for more!
+
+She read eagerly every morning the notices posted up in the vestibule
+of the hotel, giving a list of the evening's amusements. But the
+colonel would hurry her on--in the narrow groove of his small garrison
+he and the arts had become estranged. The organs necessary for the
+enjoyment of such things from long disuse had become decayed, and he
+shrank from the mental exertion required to galvanise them into
+activity once more.
+
+The music-hall variety performances, boxing matches, ballets, and
+garish living-pictures, in which he took pleasure, were abhorrent to
+Lilly after she had once witnessed them out of curiosity. He declared
+that wild horses should not drag him again to Shakespeare or Wagner,
+nor to the concert-room, where Lilly longed to go.
+
+One day Beethoven's Symphony in C Minor was among the
+announcements--the great work which was associated by a thousand tender
+ties with her childhood. She said nothing at the time, but afterwards
+she threw herself on her bed and cried bitterly. When he asked the
+cause of her grief she told him, and with a laugh he consented to be
+bored for once, and took her to the concert.
+
+She had not been into a concert-room since her father's last pianoforte
+recital. She trembled as they took their places, fought back her tears
+and drew in the atmosphere in deep-drawn draughts.
+
+"You are snorting like a horse when he smells oats," the colonel said
+jocularly.
+
+"Haven't you noticed that it always smells the same in concert-rooms?"
+she asked in joyous excitement. "It was just like this in ours at
+home."
+
+He couldn't remember what the concert-hall atmosphere was like, nor
+could he remember anything about the Symphony in C Minor.
+
+"It's all rot," he said.
+
+The part of the programme that preceded the Symphony was of no interest
+to her. She only wanted to listen to the trumpet-blast of fate--the
+call that she had heard first as she stood on the threshold of
+womanhood, and had been shaken to the foundations of her soul by a
+feeling of presentiment. And it came--came and thundered at every
+heart, and set trembling the knees of all those who were bound up
+together as fellow-combatants in the struggle against the mighty
+strokes of fate, and set them writhing as impotently as worms under the
+spell of a great power and a common fear.
+
+Her husband hummed to himself, half-amused, "Ti-ti-ti-tum." That was
+all it meant to him: "Ti-ti-ti-tum."
+
+As she turned to rebuke him softly into being quiet, she observed a
+tuft of yellowish-grey hair sprouting out of the cavity of his ear. She
+had never noticed it before, and it revolted her.
+
+"What can you expect, when he has hair growing out of his ears?" she
+thought, as if this physical defect accounted for his lack of an ear
+for music. A profound feeling of dejection came over her. Never again
+would she be able to rejoice in the beautiful; never again stretch out
+her arms in worship of great heroic deeds; never again slack her thirst
+for higher and purer things at the fountains of inspiration.
+
+The man who hummed "Ti-ti-ti-tum" and had hair growing out of his ears
+would be a barrier for evermore between her and all lofty living.
+The soothing sound of the violins did not console, the melancholy
+self-surrender of the Andante awoke no responsive echoes within her,
+the victorious jubilation of the Finale brought her no victory.
+
+She left the hall with her yawning husband, humiliated, miserable, and
+disgusted with herself. But her joy in life was of too robust a growth,
+her faith in the sunny side of human nature too unwavering, for such
+moods of depression to be of long duration. Soon after the concert
+something happened, which gave her hopes new wings and raised her again
+to giddy heights.
+
+Without having made any definite plans, it had seemed to be an
+understood thing that they were to stay in Dresden, or some other large
+town, till May, when they would proceed to Lischnitz, where, in the
+absence of the master of the castle, the often talked of Fraeulein von
+Schwertfeger held the reins of management. One evening, however, the
+colonel, who was eternally vacillating between confidence in and
+distrust of his girl-wife, was seized with a panic of doubt, and in
+order to lay bare the innermost secrets of her soul he began to
+cross-examine her on her previous love affairs.
+
+Lilly, as usual, unsuspecting, related glibly first the story of Fritz
+Redlich, because he was the more important love, and, secondly, that of
+the poor consumptive assistant master.
+
+Her husband, in spite of his jealous misgivings, had retained his
+clearness of judgment sufficiently to appreciate the guilelessness of
+Lilly's conscience, and he now threw his suspicions to the wind with a
+laugh that he generally reserved for his broadest jokes.
+
+Lilly, having begun, was anxious to play further on her husband's
+emotions, so she went on to describe the wonderful lectures on the
+history of art, and how the poor invalid lecturer had infected her with
+his own burning yearnings to see Italy.
+
+Her cheeks flamed, her eyes swam under her heavily drooping lids, as
+she went on giving voice to her dreams and drawing word-pictures,
+almost forgetful that she had a listener.
+
+Suddenly he asked, "Shall we go there?"
+
+She couldn't answer. The very proposal seemed too much bliss. Then he
+began to think it over seriously. A man might just as well get into the
+train and be landed at Milan or Verona as mope in one place and be
+worried to death by stupid fools dogging your footsteps. Lilly flung
+her arms round his neck, then threw herself at his feet. This was
+indeed too much happiness.
+
+Her life now became an alternate dream of ecstasy and a fever of
+anxiety, for something might always happen to prevent their going.
+First, they had to wait for the knickerbocker suit, which he ordered at
+a tailor's as the correct get-up for travelling, and then there were a
+dozen other delays. The truth may have been that he was pondering
+whether he could command enough youthful agility to keep pace with her
+excessive _elan_ and capacity for enjoyment.
+
+Then a certain incident hurried on their departure. For several days
+they had been shadowed by a fair-haired, bull-necked young man, six
+feet in height, who with stubborn pertinacity tried to attract Lilly's
+attention. Judging by his appearance he was probably an Anglo-Saxon
+tourist. There was in his manner a lofty nonchalance which rendered him
+absolutely indifferent to the threatening darts of the colonel's eyes.
+
+For the first time Lilly saw her husband plunged in deep thought. He
+paced the room, muttering to himself repeatedly, "I shall have to box
+his ears"; or, "I must find a second."
+
+The next day, when this irrepressible person followed them at a few
+yards' distance across the Schlossplatz, the colonel wheeled round and
+confronted him.
+
+The fair giant measured him from top to toe without removing his short
+pipe from between his lips.
+
+"I may look at anyone I choose to," he said in broken German, "and I
+may go anywhere I choose to."
+
+He made a gesture as if he meant to turn up his coat-sleeves and struck
+an extremely pugilistic attitude, which discouraged all idea of
+inflicting on him a chivalrous correction.
+
+The colonel, with a final attempt to bring the matter to an honourable
+issue, handed him his visiting-card, which the stranger put in his
+pocket with a friendly "Thank you, sir," without evidently the least
+notion of what this formality portended. A little crowd began to
+collect, and there was nothing left for the colonel but to turn his
+back on him.
+
+The result of this passage of arms was, that in future the Englishman
+considered it his right to bestow on Lilly and her husband a greeting
+when they met. And the colonel, who tried unsuccessfully to stifle his
+consciousness of having made himself ridiculous in a torrent of oaths,
+resolved to leave Dresden on the spot.
+
+In Munich, where they stopped a few days, it being the middle of April,
+to pay their respects at the Hofbraeuhaus, nothing happened of a
+ruffling nature. But the colonel had become nervous. He cast furious
+and intimidating glances at the most harmless admirers, and began to
+heap reproaches on Lilly's head. It seemed as if everyone at a first
+glance, he said, could divine she was not a lady, otherwise she would
+not attract so much vulgar notice. At another time Lilly would have
+been bitterly grieved, but now she was unmoved. She only smiled
+absently, for her spirit was far away, and already she fancied that she
+breathed the air of the promised land, on whose threshold she believed
+she was standing. One night more in the train, a short day in Bozen,
+and then the magic gates would swing back. Nothing now could prevent
+the fulfilment of bliss.
+
+
+                           *   *   *   *   *
+
+
+They were in a compartment of the express, which leaves Munich late in
+the evening and crosses the Brenner Pass in the gloom of early morning.
+Lilly and her husband sat in the corner seats by the windows. Not far
+from them, on the corridor side, a young man had taken his place with a
+pleasant smile, and then, without heeding his fellow-travellers, had
+soon become deep in a book that appeared to be written in Italian.
+Probably he was Italian too, an ambassador from that earthly paradise
+come to bid her welcome. Her interest in him was thus instantly
+arrested. From under her lowered lids, apparently asleep, she studied
+him. His severely cut even features were of a peculiar milky ivory
+colour. There was not a line or wrinkle in his clear skin, which looked
+as smooth as enamel. A small, dark, slightly curled moustache adorned
+his upper lip. The crisp hair on his temples was so closely cropped
+that the skin underneath gleamed through. She wanted to see what his
+eyes were like, but these were kept obstinately bent on his book,
+though he seemed to be only skimming the pages.
+
+What excited her admiring wonder about him most was the finished grace
+of his movements. It was almost as if a young woman were disguised in
+that black and white check suit, which charmed her eye with its
+_distingue_ cut. His throat disclosed a peep of a violet and dark-red
+striped silk shirt, under the soft collar of which a green tie was
+carelessly knotted.
+
+All this was not in the least bizarre in effect, but harmonised
+perfectly. The costume apparently had been chosen with care and taste,
+and, together with his total disregard of herself, it exercised a
+fascination on Lilly. She could almost believe that this young
+stranger, by his dress, bearing, and especially by his disregard of her
+presence, was compelling her notice.
+
+Absurd as it was, she felt quite nervous. When they reached the
+Austrian frontier and the custom-house officials entered the carriage,
+he said a few foreign words in a low tone, which the officials
+evidently understood, for they turned away from him with low bows.
+
+At the same moment he raised his eyes and let them wander round the
+carriage, and while the colonel was opening his bag, they rested for a
+second on her. What curious eyes they were! A dark, diamond-like
+radiance shot from them, yet they caressed, yes, caressed with a wicked
+confident tenderness, full of impatient questions--questions that made
+you blush.
+
+The next minute it was as if nothing had happened. He bent over his
+book as before, and appeared not to have seen her.
+
+Her husband gave her a look of watchful cunning as if he had discovered
+something in her face for which he had long been searching. Then, when
+the train went on again, he settled himself to sleep. For greater
+comfort he moved to the unoccupied seat next to the corridor. The
+stranger, wishing to avoid being opposite him, involuntarily shifted
+his position more towards the middle, so that the distance between
+himself and Lilly was appreciably diminished. A little more, and he
+would have been sitting directly opposite her.
+
+Had Lilly been on her guard she would have paid more attention to her
+husband's sleep. But all her senses were centred on a desire to elude
+the stranger, whose proximity pricked her with a thousand needles.
+
+She drew far back into her corner and looked intermittently out of the
+window, on the dark background of which the interior of the carriage
+was reflected as in a mirror. In this way she could contemplate him in
+peace, untroubled by a fear of his looking up and catching her. The
+light from the lamp in the ceiling sharply illumined his smooth, soft
+cheeks, with their polished surface merging into blue shadows on the
+temples. Such cheeks were surely made to be stroked and pressed
+against yours; to pass your hand over them would be a joy. And how
+long his eyelashes were--longer than her own--their shadow cast dark
+semi-circles as far down as his finely chiselled nostrils.
+
+Suddenly he raised his eyes again and looked at her. There it was
+again, that dark caressing glance--cold, and yet how seductive!
+
+She shrank back frightened, and was more frightened still at the
+thought that he might have seen her shrinking away from him.
+
+He gave a scarcely perceptible smile, and went on again with his book;
+and still she continued to weave anxious and flattering thoughts around
+him--thoughts that were criminal in themselves, which descended on her
+like an avalanche that she hadn't the power to ward off. And then, all
+at once, with an icy chill at her heart, she felt a soft, tender
+pressure on her left foot, which she must by accident have thrust
+towards the centre of the gangway, for a moment before it had been
+resting on her right foot, which was still pressed close to the door of
+the compartment.
+
+What was to be done? An indignant "I beg your pardon," an angry rising
+from her seat, would have awakened the colonel, and given cause for
+fresh suspicion and perhaps a duel. So she slowly, with extreme
+caution, withdrew her foot from under his and pressed it against the
+cushions, to be quite sure that she had rescued it. But she felt that
+the moment of hesitation had made her a participator in the crime, and
+this conviction oppressed and weighed on her more than her train of
+sinful thoughts had a few minutes before tormented her.
+
+In her own eyes she appeared dishonoured, polluted, a prey to any and
+every licentious man who crossed her path. But why blame him? Was not
+his impertinently expressed desire merely the fulfilment of her own
+impure wishes? The reflection half suffocated her. She wanted to spring
+up, cry aloud, and ask to be forgiven. The stranger, however, went on
+reading calmly, as if nothing at all had occurred.
+
+There was a glimmer of grey dawn when Lilly started up out of a
+half-waking doze. She saw a waterfall tossing its white foam beneath
+her; beyond towered huge moss-crowned rocks against the sky. It was a
+picture she had dreamed of, but never seen, appealing and impressive in
+its rugged grandeur and massive strength. All that had passed before
+she fell asleep seemed now a grotesque phantasmagoria devoid of
+reality. She glanced round the carriage nervously, and saw the stranger
+stretched out at full length, repulsive in sleep, his cheeks inflated
+and puffy as his breath came and went in heavy gasps. He looked to her
+now pasty and effeminate, and she loathed him.
+
+She turned away in disgust and caught her husband's eyes wide open,
+fixed on her in severe reproof. She started guiltily.
+
+"Can't you sleep any longer?" she asked, with a forced smile.
+
+"I have not slept at all," he answered.
+
+There was something in his voice that set her trembling anew. It
+accused and condemned at the same time. And how angrily he looked at
+her!
+
+The journey was continued in silence, and she paid no further heed to
+the stranger.
+
+After taking rooms at Bozen, the colonel came to Lilly and said: "Look
+here, my dear girl, this can't go on. I am tired of the unpleasantness
+to which I am subjected day after day. How far your appearance and
+behaviour or my age are accountable, I cannot say. We will not discuss
+the point. I have no charge of glaring misconduct and bad taste to
+bring against you. One does not expect the manners of a _grande dame_
+from anyone who a few months ago was serving behind a counter. It
+requires time to instruct you in such, and I can with confidence hand
+over your further education to our excellent Fraeulein von Schwertfeger.
+So, if you please, we will change our plans and return to Germany by
+the midday train. On the evening of the day after to-morrow, perhaps
+earlier, we shall reach my estate."
+
+Lily was too crushed and miserable to make any objection. And the land
+of promise, the goal of her dreams, sank beneath the waves.
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER XV
+
+
+They arrived at Lischnitz in the small hours of Sunday morning. The
+colonel had forbidden any ceremonious reception, so that there was
+nothing to be seen in the faint moonlight as they drove up but the dark
+mass of shadows cast by the castle and its outbuildings. A couple of
+maid-servants stood on the steps with lanterns in their hands, and a
+tall lady, with a too slight figure, a wasp-like waist and a flaming
+aureole of red-gold hair sprinkled with grey, threw two thin arms round
+Lilly's neck, and in a plaintive, discordant voice spoke motherly words
+of welcome, which instead of warming Lilly's heart filled it with
+shyness and dread.
+
+Worn out, Lilly sank on to a billowy white bed, on the gilded posts of
+which pale-blue satin bows were perched like strange and wonderful
+butterflies. On the wings of these butterflies Lilly was carried out of
+a restless sleep into the new day of a new life.
+
+A gold lamp, with opalescent glass and pale-blue silk shade, hung from
+the ceiling. The walls were wainscoted with white enamelled woodwork,
+and between were panels of brocade in the same shade of pale blue as
+the counterpane, hangings, and lamp-shade. Through the heavy curtains a
+ray of sunlight revealed all this on its way over the old-gold Persian
+carpet, patterned with pale-blue wreaths.
+
+Lilly, with an ecstatic exclamation, jumped out of bed and tripped
+about on the soft carpet, the pile rising like waves of velvet over her
+feet.
+
+Nothing was to be seen or heard of the colonel. He had told her long
+ago that they would have separate rooms, but his must be somewhere
+near, perhaps on the other side of that glossy white carved door.
+
+She opened it cautiously and peeped in. The window curtains were
+hardly drawn back, the monster dark mahogany bed, with its tumbled
+pillows, was empty. There were prints of race-horses on the walls,
+hunting-crops, pistols, and military accoutrements. On the round table
+by the sofa was a pipe-rack and tobacco-jar, and close to the bed lay
+the familiar tube of gout ointment. Last night, then, he must have
+massaged himself, and had thus deprived her of her sacred duty. In the
+midst of her wounded feelings a shiver ran through her. Everything here
+was so strangely hard and relentless; threats seemed to be lurking in
+the corners. Hastily she shut the door again and withdrew into her pale
+blue kingdom.
+
+The room boasted two more doors; one led into the corridor, for through
+it Fraeulein von Schwertfeger had brought her the night before. And once
+more she shivered. Without any preliminaries, as a matter of course,
+the thin melancholy person with lustreless eyes and imperious manner
+had yesterday taken possession of her. She and the colonel had
+exchanged a glance--a brief glance of understanding which meant, "I
+hand her over to you," on one side, "And I am ready to do my best," on
+the other; she was therefore at the spinster's mercy. Certainly she had
+made an attempt to cajole Lilly by petting and addressing her by
+endearing names, and bringing tea with her own hands to her bedside;
+yet the girl, who was ordinarily so frankly responsive and trustful of
+everyone, whether man or woman, felt conscious of an inward voice where
+this woman was concerned calling aloud, "Beware!"
+
+Now, as she gazed at the door which the claw-like fingers had thrown
+open for her, and recalled some of the chilling incidents of her
+arrival, a great loneliness and despondency oppressed her heart in
+spite of her newly acquired splendour.
+
+With impetuous hands she flung on the morning wrapper, which Fraeulein
+von Schwertfeger must have unpacked, for it was hanging beside the bed.
+The third door remained to be explored, and Lilly hoped that it would
+lead her into the open air. She raised the latch softly, inquisitively,
+and with a little cry recoiled. Her eyes were dazzled at what she saw.
+
+A small room, flooded with sunshine and filled with flowers, laughed at
+her like a garden from paradise. Azaleas, as tall as a man, spread
+their coronets of pink blossoms over a lounge piled with cushions; a
+sweet little escritoire stood near it, inlaid with tortoise-shell and
+mother-of-pearl, and above waved the fronds of a feathery palm. But
+that was not the most beautiful thing; the most beautiful and
+surprising thing of all was the toilette-table. Veiled in white
+lace, it greeted her modestly from a corner. The top was a sheet of
+thick crystal glass polished at the edges, and on it stood a tall
+three-sided swing-mirror, in which you could see every part of yourself
+at once--your back hair, profile, dress fastening and all. Long had she
+wished for a mirror like this, but would never have dared to ask for
+it.
+
+This enchanting little room was, of course, the boudoir. Lilly Czepanek
+with a boudoir! Was such a miracle to be believed? An array of articles
+was laid out on the glass top of the dressing-table. You could not take
+them all in at a first glance, however wide you opened your eyes:
+ivory-backed hairbrushes, a set of four, hard and soft, a hand-glass
+with a daintily carved handle, a powder-puff in a round ivory box, a
+glove-buttoner and shoe-horn--all silver and ivory. And more, still
+more! Whoever saw such things? Only by degrees could you learn for what
+mysteries of the toilette they were designed, and on every single one
+flaunted in glistening gold the monogram "L. M." under the coronet with
+seven points.
+
+It was enough to drive you crazy with delight! Having gloried in
+everything to her heart's content, she proceeded on her triumphal march
+through her new territory. The room she was in had only one window, or
+rather a glass door. This opened on to a balcony, where a rocking-chair
+was placed, and where over a high iron trellis-work young creepers
+rambled. Later in the year, when the leaves were fully out, you would
+be quite shut in by high green walls; but now, in early spring, you
+could easily be seen through the spaces in the leaves from below.
+
+She slipped cautiously out through the glass door into the open air.
+The stables and barns were seen on her left above the kitchen-garden
+wall, forming a quadrangle round the yard; to the right were gigantic
+trees, their trunks green with moss, their tangle of boughs only thinly
+covered as yet with tender young leaves and buds. In them the birds
+were making a vociferous riot, almost deafening to hear. Straight
+opposite, at a few yards' distance, a gabled roof rose among the trees,
+belonging to an ancient one-storeyed shooting lodge that abutted on the
+park, and apparently had its entrance in the yard. Here at last some
+human creatures were visible. Two gentlemen, one with a short grey
+beard, the other middle-aged, stout, and as brown as a berry, walked up
+and down together smoking, and deep in conversation. And a third----
+
+Why! what did this mean? That slim, muscular youth with the high collar
+and light yellow gaiters, sitting on the outside of one of the windows
+at the gable end, while he coaxed a red puppy on a leash to climb
+his knee--who was he? No other than Walter von Prell! Yes, there could
+be no doubt about it! It was her lively comrade, the dear little
+ex-lieutenant who boasted that he was unblessed with any sort of moral
+sense, the only man in all the world who had kissed her lips ... except
+the colonel, who didn't count.
+
+Yes, she recognised the light eyelashes, and the jingling gold bangle
+and the light almost inaudible laugh, which every time the red dog with
+pricked ears fell off his knee convulsed him like an earthquake. The
+one thing different about him was that his hair, close cropped of old,
+like yellow velvet, was now rather long and straggling.
+
+Lilly stretched out her arms toward him playfully, with a light-hearted
+laugh.
+
+"Herr von Prell! Herr von Prell!" she would have liked to call out, but
+fortunately stopped herself in time.
+
+Well, at any rate, she was no longer quite alone in this strange world.
+Her merry comrade was here to be her knight and playmate; she owed all
+her good fortune to him.
+
+Then it came back to her how he had said that the old colonel was "dead
+nuts" on him, and wanted him to come and play "Fritz Triddelfitz"--she
+knew her "Stromtid"--on his estate.
+
+Only, it was funny that the colonel had in all these weeks never
+mentioned that he was there. He did not talk much about his home,
+however, and Fraeulein von Schwertfeger was alone alluded to when his
+young wife needed a reprimand.
+
+Did he suspect that it was no other than Prell who had discovered her
+and brought her into the light of day? Anyhow, she would certainly not
+let the morning pass without telling the colonel and Fraeulein von
+Schwertfeger that they were old acquaintances. It would not be
+necessary to say anything about the kiss. After all, it had meant
+nothing more than a kiss in a game of kiss-in-the-ring.
+
+No sooner had she got back to her bedroom and pulled back the curtains
+than someone knocked at the door, three short, impatient taps which
+seemed to freeze the marrow in her bones. It was Fraeulein von
+Schwertfeger, of course. Who else could make her tremble so with
+fright? Her forehead was kissed, her cheeks stroked with every sign of
+approval and liking. But the glance of the great colourless eyes
+measured her from head to foot; a sour suppressed smile hovered about
+the hard-cut mouth, round which the skin was red and baggy, as is often
+the case when women with once good complexions age prematurely.
+
+Over her arm was thrown a pile of clothes, which Lilly recognised as
+her own.
+
+"I have brought you what you will require, my dear child," she said,
+"so that you may dress properly for the morning. In the country it is
+not customary to fly about the house in a morning wrapper. Meanwhile,
+after breakfast, we are to make a little tour of the estate, so that
+you can become acquainted with the people and see how the household
+works."
+
+"Shall I do the housekeeping?" asked Lilly, shyly.
+
+"If you understand how," said Fraeulein Schwertfeger, and bit her lips
+while her half-closed eyes squinted askance.
+
+Lilly dimly apprehended that her harmless question had been taken as a
+suggestion of infringing rights. So to make amends for her want of tact
+the added haltingly, "At least, I should like to do it if I----" She
+was going to add, "am allowed," but Fraeulein Schwertfeger interrupted.
+
+"My dear," she said, drawing herself up, "you have come here as
+mistress, and I am perfectly aware of the fact. But, if I may venture
+to advise, I should make no demands in your place to begin with; you
+will have enough to do in attending to your own behaviour. On this will
+depend your ever becoming in reality what you are now in name only."
+
+Lilly felt too snubbed and depressed to answer.
+
+The duenna was showing her hand already.
+
+"I should advise you further," she went on, "to feel very carefully the
+ground on which you will afterwards have to move. For this you will
+need a guide who is more familiar with it than yourself. Otherwise you
+may be landed in difficulties from which you can never be rescued, and
+that, considering your relations to the colonel, would be a great
+pity."
+
+Tears began to rise in Lilly's eyes. The old feeling of impotence,
+which she considered her greatest fault, overcame her.
+
+"Oh, please, don't _you_ be my enemy," she implored, clasping her
+hands.
+
+There was a sudden ray of light in Fraeulein von Schwertfeger's eyes,
+which lay usually like extinct volcanoes beneath their heavy lids, and
+whether it meant inquiry, astonishment, or compassion was not quite
+clear. For a moment she continued to stare before her into space, and
+Lilly beheld a grand noble profile that looked as if it had been
+chiselled out of marble and seemed to belong to someone quite
+different.
+
+Then she found herself being encircled by two long thin arms, and held
+in an embrace warmer and sincerer than any of the endearments Fraeulein
+von Schwertfeger had previously lavished on her.
+
+"My dear child!" she exclaimed, "you really are a dear child," and she
+departed.
+
+Half an hour later Lilly, attired in the clothes Fraeulein von
+Schwertfeger had chosen for her, entered the dining-room, where old
+Ferdinand, a withered, spindle-legged specimen of the ancient retainer,
+was laying the breakfast. The impudent footman with the significant
+smile was not there, Lilly was thankful to see.
+
+The colonel came in from his early morning ride. His eyes sparkled with
+the landlord's pride in his property. His thin cheeks glowed and
+dewdrops hung on the grey bristles on his temples. His tweed jacket
+became him, and his bowlegs were hidden beneath the table. Altogether
+he looked a fine old Nimrod, both wicked and pleasing. Lilly flew into
+his arms, and with a glance round he asked:
+
+"Well? How do you like your home?"
+
+Lilly kissed his hand for calling it _her_ home.
+
+The dining-room was long and lofty, vaulted at each end, and filled
+with dark carved-oak furniture. In spite of three bay windows opening
+on the terrace the room was dimly lighted. From the terrace, railed
+flights of steps led down into the park, where the sunbeams, playing on
+the young foliage, made a lacework of green.
+
+At breakfast they discussed the circular route which was to be taken to
+show the young mistress her new domain. The colonel had no idea of
+presenting her formally to the tenants. She was to take them as she
+found them in their Sunday best, and they might gaze their fill at her
+as she passed.
+
+The head men on the estate, who from time immemorial had dined at the
+castle on Sundays, would pay their respects to her later at dinner.
+
+"The latest addition to them was once one of my officers, a Herr von
+Prell," the colonel remarked, giving Lilly a reflective look. "He left
+the army before I did, and has come here to learn farming," he added
+quickly.
+
+Here was Lilly's golden opportunity of telling her husband that she
+knew him, but the confession died in her throat. She couldn't tell him;
+it wouldn't do. She would at once involve herself in a mesh of
+suspicions.
+
+The great pale eyes of Fraeulein von Schwertfeger were already fixed on
+her face full of searching scrutiny.
+
+Anyhow, one thing was clear, the colonel knew nothing. He had not
+mentioned the young reprobate's presence on the estate before,
+evidently because he didn't think him worth it.
+
+"How is he behaving?" he asked, turning to Fraeulein von Schwertfeger.
+
+"Good gracious, colonel, don't ask me!" she exclaimed, regarding the
+nails of her long thin fingers, which shone like mother-of-pearl. "You
+know I never find fault till I am obliged."
+
+"Damned young scoundrel!" the colonel laughed, and Lilly, who
+involuntarily took her comrade's part, felt that was fault-finding
+enough.
+
+After breakfast the tour began. Lilly walked between the colonel and
+Fraeulein von Schwertfeger. They were joined by a pack of dogs, with
+whom she was instantly on friendly terms. First they went to the
+kitchen. It was a simply wonderful kitchen. It had walls of Dutch
+tiles, copper taps out of which streams of hot and cold water gushed,
+and a hearth of solid porcelain. Everything was so astonishing you
+hardly knew what to look at first. And there was a face, an old rugged,
+weather-beaten, thick-lipped face that looked up with moist eyes,
+dumbly inquiring, "Don't you remember me, then?" And Lilly's eyes
+answered, "Yes, I remember you." But she dared not speak with her lips
+as well as her eyes, in case Fraeulein von Schwertfeger should be
+started on investigations of the most crucial hour of her life, and
+have a greater contempt for her than she had already. So she gave the
+old cook her hand in silence, which renewed their bond of friendship.
+Next they wait to the farm-servants' kitchen, where the Sunday soup was
+boiling and bubbling in a huge copper cauldron like a stormy sea. Then
+to the laundry, where the wringers and mangles shone like plated
+dreadnoughts and the fragrance of soap lingered pleasantly in every
+corner and cranny. The dairy and storerooms came next. Great hams hung
+from the rafters like giant bats, wrapped in grey muslin; sausages,
+too, like brown polished bolsters; and on straw there lay, even now in
+April, piles of winter apples, golden pippins, and other rare kinds.
+Rows of wide-lipped jars stood on the store-closet shelves. They
+contained the preserves and dried fruits, to which one might help
+oneself. Now the trio crossed the paved yard, where the waggons and
+threshing-machines stood in line like soldiers on parade, to the barns
+and stables. The saddle-horse stable! Heavens! what a palace! Wicker
+chairs with cushions and footstools in front of them were scattered
+about inviting you to rest. Over the stalls ran a matting frieze, with
+porcelain plates on which the names of the thoroughbreds who dwelt
+inside were engraved. Glossy slender necks and silken manes were thrust
+forth to greet the beautiful young mistress, and intelligent human eyes
+looked at her beseechingly.
+
+"You must choose one of these to ride," said the colonel.
+
+"But I can't ride," replied Lilly, embarrassed.
+
+The grooms in red coats, who stood about with their caps in their
+hands, grinned incredulously. A "gracious" lady who couldn't ride had
+never come their way before.
+
+Then they visited the stalls of the cart-horses. These were less
+interesting. Some of them were dirty and not sweet-smelling. As for the
+cowsheds, they made you feel nearly ill. But she took care not to show
+what she felt, and, eager to learn, listened attentively to all the
+colonel's and Fraeulein von Schwertfeger's explanations.
+
+The severest ordeal was yet to come--the progress through the
+labourers' quarters. The people had just come home from church, and
+stood in little expectant groups before their doors. The worthiest and
+most venerable were the first to be introduced. There were many names
+difficult to master, dirty hands and faces that stared at her awed, but
+with a subdued "Who are you?" expression.
+
+Lilly, nevertheless, acquitted herself of her task as if born to it.
+She had little kind speeches ready that went straight to the hearts of
+the sick and aged, and when she fell on her knees to draw a toddling
+baby into her arms and kiss it, a murmur of approval cheered her on her
+way. At the further end of the settlement were two or three barnlike
+buildings that seemed to have been made into dwelling-houses as an
+afterthought. They had irregular windows with casements painted red and
+blue, and the single doorway had been partially bricked up. Here the
+Polish immigrants were housed. They came originally as hirelings from
+distant provinces to help with the harvest, and had never returned.
+
+The district in which the castle was situated had always, from ancient
+times, been Teuton, and staunchly Teuton it had remained through the
+Slav invasion. It was necessary, therefore, Fraeulein von Schwertfeger
+said, to uphold the banner of Teutonism. She spoke in so warning a tone
+that Lilly felt ashamed, as if she had done something to pull it down.
+
+Scarlet head-kerchiefs prevailed here, and great blue hunted-looking
+eyes gazed at her, imploring sympathy. Here and there an obeisance was
+made to the very hem of her skirts, a shy kiss was pressed on her
+sleeve. "Niech bedzie pochwalony Jezus Chrystus" fell fluently on her
+ear, and she responded instinctively: "Na wieki wiekow! Amen." For she,
+the Catholic, knew from childhood that this was the correct answer to
+the Polish greeting.
+
+There arose a joyous hum and glad whispering among the little herd as
+they huddled cringingly together. This fair young Pana had spoken to
+them in their own language and the language of their God.
+
+"I never knew that you spoke Polish," remarked the colonel, with a
+jarring note of blame in his voice; and Lilly, laughing nervously,
+explained how she came by the phrase.
+
+They did not linger long at the next building, where a group of youths
+in gray blouses stood awkwardly bowing and twirling their caps. She was
+scarcely given time to bestow on them a kindly smile and nod, and even
+this was evidently not approved. Though she said nothing, Fraeulein von
+Schwertfeger's aristocratic nose held Teutonism aloft by sniffing in
+the air.
+
+"Now, darling," she said, when they were on the castle steps again,
+"you will change into your dark-blue cloth gown. I have had it unpacked
+and pressed out, and you will find it in your dressing-room with a lace
+collar. It is the fitting costume for Sunday dinner."
+
+Lilly arrayed herself obediently in the dark-blue cloth, in which she
+looked extra slight, and her heart beat in trepidation at the thought
+of meeting her merry friend, who could not be supposed to know that she
+had disowned him, and who might betray both of them at the outset by
+some careless allusion to their former friendship.
+
+The dinner-gong sounded through the house, and the next minute came
+those three quick, incisive taps on the door.
+
+She started back from the mirror, for on no account must Fraeulein von
+Schwertfeger guess she was vain. The latter regarded her silently for
+a moment from head to toe, then, seizing both her hands while her
+pale-blue eyes burned into her, she said, "God grant that you don't
+work too much mischief in this world, my child."
+
+"Why should I do mischief?" stammered Lilly, once more humiliated. "I
+have never done anyone any harm."
+
+Fraeulein von Schwertfeger smiled. "The one good thing about you is that
+you are ignorant of what you are," she said, and drew her by the arm
+out into the corridor and down the creaking old staircase to the
+dining-room.
+
+There, with the colonel, drawn up in line, stood four dark manly
+figures ready to greet her. He of the pointed grey beard was introduced
+as "Herr Leichtweg, our head steward." He of the stout form and
+sunburnt coppery skin as "Herr Messner, our book-keeper"; and then
+another, and then--"Lieutenant von Prell, agricultural pupil," said the
+colonel.
+
+A slight inclination of her head to him as to the others. She dared not
+let it be more.
+
+"But, oh!" she thought, "my poor merry comrade, what have you done to
+yourself?"
+
+A long frock-coat fell to his knees, his small pointed head was lost in
+the high collar. All was correct to a fold. His expression, gestures,
+bearing, everything about him was marked by obsequious formality and
+rigid propriety.
+
+Lost in pitying amazement, she contemplated him. Had she not seen him
+that very morning so different!
+
+"You should shake hands with them," the Schwertfeger voice prompted
+behind her.
+
+She collected herself, and returned the pressure of the two honest
+countrymen's sun-tanned palms with more warmth, perhaps, than became a
+stately young chatelaine; but from Prell's freckled but still carefully
+kept hand she withdrew hers quickly.
+
+"What a blessing! I needn't be afraid of his giving me away," she
+reflected.
+
+Then came grace.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XVI
+
+
+The finches were the worst behaved, though the tomtits and the
+nuthatches ran them very close in the noise they made. As for the
+blackbirds and thrushes, they seemed to think the place belonged to
+them; much more so than the starlings, who kept to themselves, and
+apparently cared for nothing in earth or heaven. The wrens and
+hedge-robins contributed their fair share to the chorus, but nothing
+could beat the fanfare of the finches, which was almost more than ears
+only accustomed hitherto to the tiny song of a caged cock-canary could
+endure.
+
+The aged Haberland in his felt slippers knew them all apart. The old
+gardener's office had become a sinecure, as he was too infirm now to do
+anything more than sprinkle the lawn with the hose. Old Haberland knew
+exactly which birds built their nests in the trees and which on the
+ground, at what hour they began to sing, and the best post of
+observation to take up if you wanted to study their habits and plumage.
+
+It was horrible that the squirrels must be shot. She could almost have
+hated the old fellow when she saw him going out with his rifle under
+his coat to wage war against those jolly little beasts. For he declared
+that the artful little robbers knew the gun when they saw it, and
+scurried off and outwitted him if they caught sight of it. He wasn't on
+friendly terms either with the jays and magpies. His favourite was the
+shy green woodpecker, which he had coaxed to nest in the park. Then
+there was that curiosity, the parti-coloured hoopoe, so tame that it
+came fearlessly at all hours of the day close up to the castle, sang
+its "Hu-tu-tu," and then with his crooked sabre of a bill cut the worms
+out of the grass.
+
+Since the world began there could not have been such radiant glorious
+mornings as these. When you put your head out of doors at five o'clock,
+the cool purple mist wrapped you about like a royal mantle. Over the
+pond, where the reeds and rushes seemed to grow up in a night, forced
+by invisible hands, lay sunlit vapours which lifted gradually and rose
+into the sky in luminous columns. Vapour arose everywhere. Often it
+looked as if white fires had been kindled on the slopes of the lawn;
+clouds of light rolled heavily from the glittering fronds as if
+satiated with the dew they had absorbed. Oh, what mornings!
+
+Then, when things burst into flower, you never grew tired of wandering
+about, filling apron and basket with great sprays of snowy and purple
+lilac and trails of golden chain, till you were almost drowned in a sea
+of blossom. The mad joy of the dogs was indescribable, when their
+lovely young mistress appeared smiling on the garden steps in her white
+blouse and short skirt, armed with scissors and shears. Patiently they
+waited for her, whining and yelping if she came later than they
+expected; for they had given her without hesitation their canine
+allegiance, regardless of pitying, benevolent smiles from Fraeulein von
+Schwertfeger, whom they abhorred.
+
+The cleverest of them all, Bevel the terrier, was not numbered among
+her admiring bodyguard, as he never failed to attend at the colonel's
+heels when he took his early morning survey of his acres. But there was
+Pluto, the long-eared setter, who now in the spring was out of
+employment, and went on his own account hunting rabbits in the park.
+There were Schnauzl the poodle and Bobbi the dachshund, who lived in
+constant state of jealous feud with each other because of her. But most
+beautiful of all was Regina, the huge panther-like Dane, whose left
+foreleg had been injured by a stone, and who, ashamed of her lameness
+in the daytime, always slunk out of the sight of strangers, though at
+night she made up for it by keeping indefatigable guard and terrifying
+the neighbourhood by her bay.
+
+Indescribable, too, were the gambols of the colts in the paddock beyond
+the rose garden, the craving for caresses of the two-year-olds, when
+their sugar-squandering mistress pulled back the hurdles and stretched
+out her arms, to pillow on them the slender heads of her young pets.
+
+Nothing, too, could equal the fury of the turkey-cock when the
+pheasants stole a march on him and got the first crumbs; though he
+surpassed himself in jealous rage when those idiotic ducks dared to
+squat on Lilly's feet as if it were a perfectly natural thing to do. So
+bristling with anger was he that he would sometimes peck at Pluto's
+drooping ears, an attention which the setter declined with a
+contemptuous shake of the head.
+
+Oh! those were mornings worth living!
+
+After the early stroll round the estate came breakfast, at which she
+arrived so brimming over with happiness and affection that it didn't
+matter whether she threw her arms first round the colonel's neck or
+Anna's; for now in confidential moments she was permitted to call her
+by her Christian name, and felt more drawn to her, though still full of
+fear of her displeasure and harsh judgment. For indeed she found in her
+a severe schoolmistress. No word, gesture, or movement of Lilly's
+escaped observation, or if necessary, reproof. There was a right and a
+wrong way of sitting at table, or in an arm-chair, pouring out tea, of
+asking someone to sit down, of beginning a conversation, and making
+visitors known to each other. Lilly learnt to glide over the difficulty
+of forgotten names and to show each one the proper degree of
+friendship. These and a hundred other little matters Lilly was
+enlightened upon. There seemed no end to them.
+
+This was only practising in the small compass of the castle and on its
+occasional guests. The real thing was to come later, in the autumn,
+when Lilly was to call on the wives of the proprietors of the
+neighbouring estates. Till then the colonel desired to live quietly at
+home with as little outward social intercourse as possible. It was easy
+for him to find an excuse, as, after his many years of bachelorhood, it
+was not unnatural that he should wish to prolong his honeymoon. By the
+autumn Lilly's education would be complete, and she would emerge into
+society a _grande dame_ capable of holding her own at the functions of
+the landed nobility and in the casino with a tact that would not
+disgrace her husband's name and rank; and Fraeulein von Schwertfeger
+kept this ideal, as the highest attainable, before Lilly's eyes every
+hour of the day. It was like preparing for an examination in the
+Selecta, Lilly thought, as she anxiously modelled herself after the
+prescribed pattern, and dreamed day and night of her _debut_.
+
+In reality, she was only at ease when wandering about out of doors or
+shut up in her boudoir. "Boudoir!" No, she mustn't call it that.
+Fraeulein von Schwertfeger said that it was a sitting-room, and only
+very rich butchers' and bankers' wives--according to Fraeulein von
+Schwertfeger they were the same--owned boudoirs.
+
+Thus Lilly stumbled at every step. Sometimes, as if to put her social
+development to the test, the colonel permitted Lilly, under Fraeulein
+von Schwertfeger's wing, to do the honours of his table when he chanced
+to entertain fellow-officers who turned up from neighbouring barracks.
+On these occasions the same thing always happened. At first she would
+be as stiff as a wound-up doll, incapable of making a spontaneous
+remark to the military guests in their resplendent uniforms; but in a
+few glasses of wine she found courage and became by degrees more
+lively, not to say merry, till at last she simply bubbled over with
+innocent little jokes--how they came into her head she didn't know--and
+so charmed these men, who had mostly passed their prime, that they paid
+her court in every word they said, and kept their gaze fixed on her
+face in delight and desire. The colonel would become uneasy, and
+Fraeulein von Schwertfeger, who generally stared at her plate with a
+scoffing little smile, received a sign from him; whereupon the ladies
+instantly rose and retired, deaf to all the loudly expressed regrets at
+their going on the part of the men.
+
+The ecstasy, however, that she had awakened in her husband's guests
+recoiled on herself: made her exultant and sorry together, and
+compelled her to sit till past midnight, with wet cheeks, beating
+heart, and strained nerves staring out into the blue twilight of the
+park.
+
+Foreshadowings of undisciplined madness and uncontrolled self-abandon
+swept like lightning flashes through her brain. A consuming fever
+within her relaxed her limbs. It made the dress she wore, the room she
+was in, the park, the world seem too small for her, and filled her soul
+with a crowd of dancing fiery shapes, a whirl of reflected masculine
+passions.
+
+On such nights as these the colonel would come to her, in a more or
+less intoxicated condition, when the guests were gone, and reproach her
+mildly for not being "ladylike" enough; then, when she tried to defend
+herself, he would kiss her tears away and throw himself beside her on
+the bed. Shivering with disgust at his drunkenness, her conscience a
+prey to groundless pangs, yet for all that happy and relieved to feel
+herself released from a torturing anxiety, she fell asleep in his arms.
+
+There were other nights when she felt restless and lonely and would
+have been glad of his company, when she longed in soul as well as body
+to cling humbly to him; but he did not come, and locked his door. On
+the whole, he treated her kindly. To him she was a light fragile toy,
+not to be played with too often in case of damage, but to be put away
+carefully after use till next time--and this suited her well enough. At
+least she personally was spared the terror of his outbursts of fury,
+which two or three times a day threatened to shiver the walls of the
+castle to atoms. Even Fraeulein Von Schwertfeger hardly knew how to meet
+them, and bowed her head and bit her lips as to an inevitable fate when
+the storms burst.
+
+Lilly could never quite make up her mind as to what were the relations
+between these two. Generally, it seemed as if, during long years,
+mutual sympathy and understanding had bound them together by
+indissoluble ties, though at other times they appeared to have nothing
+in common and to avoid each other, he with frigid hauteur, she with
+scorn in her squinting sidelong glances. It had often occurred to
+Lilly, too, that when Fraeulein von Schwertfeger was young and fair to
+look upon, she and the colonel might have had a love affair. But
+gradually she abandoned this idea, for if anything of the kind had ever
+existed, Fraeulein von Schwertfeger would have been far too proud to
+endure their present companionship, and he was too domineering to
+tolerate the presence of any such uncomfortable reminder of a dead
+amour. All Lilly could gather of the aristocratic spinster's past was
+that as the orphan of a poor officer she had been forced to earn her
+own living almost since her confirmation. She had presided over the
+colonel's house for nearly twenty years. That she, like herself, was
+without resources and dependent on the whims of the same old man seemed
+to Lilly to form a bond of sympathy between herself and Fraeulein von
+Schwertfeger, yet she never could get rid of the undefinable dread she
+had been inspired with at the outset. She really was indebted to her
+for many things. Without the spinster's untiring surveillance she must
+have fallen innumerable times from the straight road, which was to lead
+to her apotheosis as noblewoman and Lady Bountiful. When she was
+disposed to err on the side of over-humility, there would have been
+scoffers to take base advantage of it; and her easy-going manner with
+those who were not her equals might, if uncorrected, have got her into
+serious trouble. As it was, she was popular with everyone. In the
+kitchens and the stables, the villages and the agents' offices,
+everywhere she was greeted respectfully with beaming smiles. But it was
+in the Polish quarters, where the women dried their washing behind
+great fires of brushwood, that she was simply idolised. It may have
+been that they had got wind of her Slavonic name and her Catholicism.
+Anyhow, by all those poor despised foreign folk, who drifted about
+among the proud stolid Germans, with humility in their downcast
+childlike eyes and snatches of their native song on their lips, Lilly
+was regarded in the light of a saviour and patron saint. She loved to
+visit and busy herself with these gentle grateful people. She tended
+the sick and took compassion on the forsaken. The girls were to her
+like her own sisters, who needed a watchful eye over them; and as for
+the boys, they were a sacred trust whose welfare she would always have
+at heart.
+
+Fraeulein von Schwertfeger grimly disapproved of this attachment between
+Lilly and the Poles.
+
+"The people on the estate are beginning to complain," she said, "that
+you prefer the aliens to themselves. If I were you I should take my
+walks in another direction."
+
+Lilly objected to doing this, and so Fraeulein von Schwertfeger bore her
+company when she went in the direction of the barn dwellings, in case
+they should exercise too great a fascination over her. She succeeded,
+too, in converting Lilly to Protestantism--only outwardly, of course.
+
+"You may worship your Blessed Virgin and St. Joseph as much as you
+like," she said, "but do remove those images and relics from your
+bedside. And then with regard to going to church, certainly if you like
+you can drive five miles in to Krammen to attend mass. The colonel will
+allow you, but, all the same, I would like you, my sweet, to come to
+church with us and sit in the ancestral pew; do, to please me. You
+won't regret it."
+
+And when Lilly unresisting had given in, Fraeulein von Schwertfeger
+presented her as a reward with a tiny folding domestic altar. The
+outside looked like a dainty jewel-box, but when you opened it--oh,
+joy!--there was the Holy Child in the arms of the Virgin painted on
+glass, with St. Anne on the left panel and St. Joseph on the right.
+
+Lilly almost wept, she was so pleased with it. Still, she could not
+bring herself to love the giver as she ought. Often when they sat
+together chatting confidentially, Lilly felt solitary and--frightened.
+She even dared not satisfy her hunger. Since the days of Frau
+Asmussen's milk puddings, Lilly had developed an enormous, well-nigh
+indecent appetite, and Fraeulein von Schwertfeger's aghast expression at
+her piled-up plate often was the cause of her rising from table still
+unsatisfied, and falling back on raids on the storeroom cupboard
+between meals. The dear old cook, her fast ally, guaranteed to guard
+Lilly from surprises on the part of Fraeulein von Schwertfeger, and when
+she came into the kitchen Lilly accounted for her presence there on the
+plea that she was learning to cook, an announcement which was received
+with patronising merriment.
+
+If it had not been for old Grete the cook, she would have known nothing
+at all about the conduct of the household, for, either from caution or
+greed of power, Fraeulein von Schwertfeger chose to conceal everything
+that might have led to a practical and intelligent comprehension of the
+_menage_. When she offered to help she was told help was not wanted,
+and she must take care of her hands and not tire herself. So it went on
+day after day.
+
+She would have given anything to learn riding, but there again
+Schwertfeger interference prevented her by discovering signs of
+motherhood, which invariably proved later to be a false alarm. She
+might not so much as cultivate her musical talent. The old tin-kettle
+of a piano, the rattling yellow keys of which looked like a set of
+teeth decayed from tobacco smoke--just as the colonel's were--was not
+to be replaced by a new one till they went to Danzig for the day in the
+autumn.
+
+So her life dragged on, half in bliss, half in regret. She felt like a
+pilgrim who against her will had strayed into paradise. She looked back
+on the time before her marriage as on a long, long vanished youth, and
+would have laughed at anyone who had pointed out to her that at barely
+nineteen most of her youth lay before her. It was well that opposite,
+in the bailiff's lodge, there was at least one person who could testify
+to her having been a girl once; otherwise she might have told herself
+that her girlhood was a dream, and she had been a full-fledged married
+woman and the colonel's wife before she was out of her cradle.
+
+All this time she had only met her merry comrade at dinner on Sunday,
+when, in his long frock-coat, with his reverential awed manner, he cut
+a rather comical figure. Neither of them by a single word or glance
+recalled the past. Often from her balcony, now completely secluded by
+its growth of rambling vines, she looked across to the gabled house and
+saw him gambolling with the red little fox of a puppy. Then it seemed
+to her that this blond-haired good-for-nothing, who flirted with all
+the pretty girls on the estate, so old Grete said, was the only
+creature with whom she had anything in common in this cold world. Grete
+told how he nearly rode the horses to death to get back from his secret
+outings before dawn; and then sometimes behind the closed shutters of
+his den---- Here old Grete could not proceed, and Lilly concluded that
+things too dreadful for words went on behind those closed shutters.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XVII
+
+
+One hot August morning Lilly, with her arms full of dewy roses, herself
+besprinkled with dew from head to toe, entered the dining-room where
+Anna was making tea, looking lean and tall in her simple blue-grey
+linen gown. Her manner and greeting were the same as usual, yet Lilly
+divined instantly that something out of the ordinary had happened. She
+also noticed that Kaete, the maid who helped old Ferdinand with the
+waiting, had red eyes, and was biting her lips till they bled almost as
+she laid the table. Kaete was pretty and superior to the average
+servant-girl, also better educated, her father having been a
+schoolmaster. For this reason Fraeulein von Schwertfeger had chosen her
+from among the other maids to help Lilly with her toilette.
+
+When she had gone out of the room, Lilly began to ask questions.
+
+Anna von Schwertfeger kissed her with redoubled tenderness and
+affection.
+
+"My darling," she said, "why sully your pure mind with disagreeable
+matters? When people are bent on breaking their necks, what is the good
+of trying to prevent them?"
+
+"If it's a question of breaking necks," thought Lilly, "Walter von
+Prell must have something to do with it."
+
+Then she said aloud that she thought as mistress of the house she ought
+to know what was going on, especially as in future she intended to do
+the housekeeping herself.
+
+The modesty of her "in future" impressed Fraeulein von Schwertfeger
+favourably, and she yielded.
+
+"I am sure it will give you pain," she said, "because I know you like
+him."
+
+"Him!" echoed Lilly; and she was conscious that she blushed.
+
+"Indeed, we all like him," she went on in an excusing tone; "the
+colonel is extremely fond of him. So long as he carried on his little
+games at a distance I kept my eyes shut and refused to listen to
+gossip; but when it comes to his breaking into the castle, it's a
+little too much, and time to stop it."
+
+"What has he done, then?" Lilly asked, shocked.
+
+"There has been a great deal to excite suspicion lately. At several
+places the creepers on your balcony appear broken off and withered."
+
+"On my balcony?" She drew a step nearer the speaker, overwhelmed by an
+unutterable fear, and taking hold of her arm said, "What _can_ my
+balcony have to do with Herr von Prell, Anna?"
+
+"Calm yourself, dearest," said the speaker, unable to meet her eyes.
+"People in my position are bound to keep their eyes open; it is part of
+their duties. And what I have done has been solely for your sake....
+Then, how easily could anyone who doesn't know you as I know you
+misinterpret this climbing on to your balcony----"
+
+Lilly began to cry. "Oh! it's too low--too low!" she sobbed.
+
+Fraeulein von Schwertfeger drew her down into the corner of the sofa and
+stroked her forehead.
+
+"I have experienced worse things than that, dear," she said. "Anyhow, I
+was determined to get on the right scent, and although it is needless
+to say I didn't suspect you"--again she averted her eyes--"I took the
+precaution of watching in the dark outside your door for several
+nights."
+
+Lilly bounded up. While she had been sleeping innocently unsuspicious,
+close by, someone had been lurking and keeping watch on her. So much
+was she a prisoner.
+
+"And this morning at about one o'clock I caught him red-handed. To
+think of his dare-devilry! He had the audacity to place one of
+Haberland's ladders against your balcony--that accounts for the broken
+vine-shoots--and to get in through the glass door of your sitting-room.
+By the way, dearest, glass doors should never be left open at night. He
+slunk past your bedroom door into the corridor, without seeing me, of
+course, Kaete is the only one who sleeps anywhere near, and this
+morning, early, when I taxed her with it she denied nothing.... I
+acted, as I always do in these cases, with every kindness and
+consideration. I told Kaete that she might be the first to give warning,
+and that nothing would be said.... But what is to be done about the
+young man? This is his only chance for the future. If the colonel sacks
+him it will be his ruin. On the other hand, I cannot very well keep
+silence to the colonel on a point that concerns, in a way, his wife's
+honour----"
+
+"How do Herr von Prell's intrigues with the housemaids concern my
+honour?" Lilly ventured to interrupt, hoping, by playing the innocent a
+little, to gain time for thought as to how her friend was to be helped
+out of this scrape.
+
+Fraeulein von Schwertfeger was beginning to enlighten her on what all
+the disastrous results might be of such profligate conduct, when the
+tea-things rattled at the approaching footsteps of the colonel.
+
+"Say nothing ... yet," implored Lilly; and to hide her fears and
+confusion she rushed into his arms.
+
+He did not notice that anything was wrong. His once ever-wakeful and
+easily irritated suspicion had slumbered since he had confided his
+young wife to the vigilant care of the duenna.
+
+In these days he was no longer the zealous lover, aping the gallantry
+of youth, who had wished to be master of her every look and word. The
+playful patronage with which he now regarded the antics of this lovely,
+gentle-souled child gave him quite a paternal air that became him well.
+His expeditions to the casino in the nearest garrison town, at first
+rare, had become more and more frequent. He often went by the afternoon
+train, but as a rule started after the evening meal, when he did not
+come home till two or three in the morning, as there were no trains
+back earlier.
+
+To-day he told them good-humouredly at breakfast that he had to go to
+town on business, to get rid of the barley crop to the Jews.
+
+A happy thought struck Lilly, filling her with infinite satisfaction.
+The colonel's absence must be utilised to save _him_. How it was to be
+done she didn't know. But save him she would. If she did not intervene
+on his behalf, who else was there to steer this stormy petrel into safe
+harbour?
+
+When the colonel had retired to his room, she took heart and made her
+cautious plea to Anna, who, however, declined to relent.
+
+"He will only be worse next time," she said, "and then the disgrace
+will be greater for all of us."
+
+"Oh no!" said Lilly, "he will not get worse; he will reform. Just give
+him a lecture."
+
+"I am of an age to do it, certainly," said Fraeulein von Schwertfeger,
+with a sour old-maidish smile, "and I have the authority; but, to speak
+frankly, the subject is too delicate. I would rather not be mixed up
+any more in such unpleasant affairs."
+
+The pale eyes, almost hidden under their heavy lids, gazed with that
+sphinx-like fixity which Lilly had often noticed before--it seemed like
+the resurrection within her of an old and bitter hate. But she returned
+to the topic voluntarily. All she would commit herself to was that, if
+he came of his own free will and apologised, she might listen to him.
+That was the most she could do without playing a double part.
+
+"But how can he apologise when he has no idea that he has been
+discovered?" put in Lilly timidly.
+
+"I wouldn't mind betting," replied Fraeulein von Schwertfeger, "that
+Kaete will run over to him the first moment she is free."
+
+"But if she doesn't, what then?" asked Lilly, unable to control her
+eagerness.
+
+Fraeulein von Schwertfeger took her face between her hands.
+
+"If I didn't know, my pet, what a dear, ingenuous young creature you
+were, I might think there was something rather suspicious in your being
+so keenly interested in this young rake. No, no; you needn't blush. Of
+course I know there is nothing behind, and, at all events, I will wait
+till to-morrow afternoon before taking steps--simply because you
+intercede for him, darling."
+
+Thereupon the conversation ended. Nothing more was to be hoped for from
+that quarter.
+
+"If I don't save him, he'll be dismissed; and if he is dismissed, he'll
+inevitably go to the dogs; and if he goes to the dogs, I shall be to
+blame."
+
+Lilly's thoughts thus revolved in a circle till she felt quite
+exhausted and giddy.
+
+The most straightforward course would have been to interview Kaete, but
+that would have been beneath her dignity. Besides, it was evident that
+the poor girl had no thought of running over to warn him. She glided
+about in a spiritless fashion, and finally had to be put to bed with an
+attack of colic.
+
+At four o'clock the colonel drove off to the station. He had stuffed a
+packet of blue banknotes in his pocket-book first, a sign that he would
+not be coming back till dawn.
+
+Evening approached. The wheels of the returning manure carts rang on
+the flags of the yard. The bellow of oxen and the cracking of whips
+announced that the days' work was over.
+
+Lilly crouched in ambush behind her creeper-covered trellis and watched
+the bailiff's lodge. At last the ne'er-do-well appeared from his gable
+end, dragging the unfortunate red foxy dog at the end of a taut chain.
+He had on a greenish-grey tweed jacket with innumerable pockets, each
+of which seemed to have something sticking out of it. He looked quite
+bulky. But, all the same, he was a dear smart little fellow, worth
+taking some trouble for.
+
+Should she make him a sign, and throw down a note which later he could
+pick up unobserved? She went into her rooms and scribbled in pencil the
+following lines.
+
+"Everything is discovered. Fraeulein von S---- promises to say nothing
+provided you----"
+
+Here she paused. This would never do. The stupidest fool who chanced to
+get hold of the note could only interpret it in one way, _i.e_., as a
+confession of guilt.
+
+"I'll speak to him instead," she decided, as the bell sounded for
+supper.
+
+How curiously the Schwertfeger eyes regarded her, just as if they could
+read at the bottom of her soul what her bold intention was. But no
+reference whatever was made to the miscreant, and when they rose from
+the table she put her arm into Lilly's arm, just as she did when she
+wanted to keep Lilly from visiting her Polish friends.
+
+"She won't let go the whole evening," thought Lilly, gnashing her teeth
+inwardly.
+
+At that moment someone came to say Kaete was much worse, and should they
+send for the doctor?
+
+Fraeulein von Schwertfeger left the room reluctantly, saying as she
+went, "I shall be back before long."
+
+In the flash of a moment Lilly had opened the verandah door and was
+slipping down the terrace steps into the dusky park. The intense
+silence was only broken by a faint splashing from behind the cypresses,
+where old Haberland was filling his cans, as he had not finished
+watering the rose-trees. She walked straight towards the gable end of
+the lodge, wondering how she should attract his attention and bring him
+to the window. She was spared the trouble, however, for he was lying
+full length on the green bench outside the house, puffing serenely at
+the end of a cigarette. The red dog, whose chain he had twisted round
+his wrist, was asleep at his feet. None of his colleagues were to be
+seen. She could scarcely breathe, her heart beat so violently.
+
+"Herr von Prell!"
+
+He started up, the dog with him.
+
+"Herr von Prell, I've something to say to you."
+
+He grabbed at his head to take off the cap which wasn't there.
+
+"At your service, gracious baroness."
+
+"Will you come and take a little stroll with me?"
+
+"If the gracious baroness wishes, certainly."
+
+He threw away the end of his cigarette, cast a rapid look round for his
+missing cap, and then walked beside her, bareheaded, as stiff and
+correct in his bearing as an automaton.
+
+Lilly led the way into the middle of the park, where groups of trees
+and grassy clearings melted into purple-fringed darkness. She had
+recovered her calmness. The desire to save him endowed her with a
+strength of will of which she had never dreamed herself capable.
+
+"You must not misunderstand what I am doing," she began.
+
+"Oh, of course not, gracious baroness," he answered with a polite bow.
+"It is such a charming evening, and old acquaintances enjoy a chat."
+
+"If that was my object in wishing to see you," Lilly said, unable to
+conceal that she was hurt, "I should have asked you to the castle. You
+may conclude from my coming that the matter is something of
+importance."
+
+"What could be of more importance to me, baroness, than walking here
+with you?" he replied.
+
+She shrugged her shoulders. "Oh, Herr von Prell, if only you knew the
+scrape you were in, you would hardly use such empty figures of speech!"
+
+Lilly was amazed at her own haughty tone.
+
+"A scrape, gracious baroness, more or less, what can it matter?" he
+said, raising his eyebrows. "To be doomed to live so near and yet so
+far from a certain fair lady is all that matters. The question is
+whether Tommy and I have enough moral fibre to endure such a trial with
+patience--Tommy, don't be an ass! Our gracious baroness has no
+objection to you as long as you don't chew her train." And he began
+tugging the wilful little dog off his forelegs as if he were some
+mechanical toy.
+
+"You'll throttle the poor animal if you don't take care," said Lilly,
+glad to revert momentarily to less personal topics.
+
+"Then he will suffer like his master," he retorted, catching at his
+throat to illustrate his meaning and gasping horribly.
+
+Such conduct must not be tolerated a moment longer. She owed it to
+herself and her position.
+
+"I suppose that you are quite unaware, Herr von Prell, that probably by
+this time to-morrow you will have been dismissed?" she said loftily.
+
+At last he seemed impressed. He scowled and twirled the fine ends of
+his young moustache. Then, knitting his brows, he said:
+
+"However bad things may be going, there is some satisfaction to be
+derived from the fact that the gracious baroness seems to take not a
+little interest in my affairs."
+
+Now Lilly was really angry. "I wonder you are not ashamed, Herr von
+Prell!" she exclaimed. "Here am I running great risks to help you, and
+giving myself a lot of trouble, and yet you persist in talking
+nonsense."
+
+"We must be careful, Tommy--careful," he said, lifting the fox-like dog
+in his arms. "First, we are flayed alive, then kicked. But we ought to
+find comfort in the consciousness that we are innocent, my poor Tommy."
+
+"Please don't try to excuse yourself," she scolded. "Fraeulein von
+Schwertfeger has found out everything ... about your connection with
+... you know--your nocturnal excursions to my balcony and entrance
+through my sitting-room. Everything! Do you suppose that it is any
+pleasure to me to have to treat you, whom I have always liked, as a
+criminal? Do you suppose I wouldn't much rather have reason to be proud
+of you than to see you sent away in disgrace? If you can say anything
+in your own defence so much the better. I shall be pleased to hear it."
+
+She had worked herself up into such a fever of righteous indignation
+that she quite overlooked the impropriety of her present proceedings.
+
+Now she was enacting a _role_ that enchanted her. She was the
+benevolent chatelaine, doing her best to rescue an inferior, and her
+breast swelled with a sense of her exalted virtue. They had emerged
+from the dusky shadows of the ancient avenue of limes, a ray of light
+from the afterglow in the west pierced the boughs and suffused his thin
+freckled face with a deep flush. He appeared to be absolutely crushed
+and penitent, and Lilly was already regretting that she had been too
+hard on him.
+
+"I quite see," he began after a pause, and his voice trembled with
+suppressed emotion, "that I ought to clear myself from such a grave
+imputation. I am asked to set up a defence, and I can; but in so doing
+I am forced to reveal a secret ... and I am not sure whether it would
+be fair to your gracious baroness to enlighten you on the awful failing
+that has shipwrecked my whole life."
+
+"Tell me at once what it is," urged Lilly, burning with curiosity.
+
+"Well, if you must know, it is this. From childhood I have been pursued
+by a ghastly fate, which overcomes me at moments when I am most
+powerless, and fastens on me the responsibility for crimes of which I
+am utterly innocent. Be prepared, therefore, to hear something
+terrible. I am--I am a somnambulist."
+
+As he glanced sideways at Lilly, there was such a droll, wicked twinkle
+playing under the light lashes that she burst into a fit of light
+laughter. He joined in with his dear old noiseless giggle that shook
+him like an earthquake. So they stood still and both laughed till they
+cried; and Lilly forgot all about her exalted duties as chatelaine and
+her mission of salvation. Then, instinctively, their footsteps turned
+together into the most deserted and overgrown part of the park, where
+its bounds were lost in a dense thicket of birches. It grew darker at
+every step. The foxy little dog had abandoned himself to his fate and
+trotted obediently after his master.
+
+"The truth is, my dear friend," said he, when they had recovered
+partially from their levity--"why should I make any false pretences?--I
+am a poor fish here floundering out of water. Can you imagine what it
+is to have to lead a vegetable existence in the society of plebeians,
+and from morning to night practise the arts of virtue and seriousness?
+I can assure you it's often as bitter as a dose of aloes. Tommy helps
+me over the worst hours, but even Tommy is sometimes a disappointment....
+May I take this opportunity, by-the-by, of asking you a very interesting
+question, my gracious baroness?"
+
+Delighted at his returning gravity Lilly assented.
+
+"Can you move your ears up and down?"
+
+She was again seized with laughter as with an illness. She leaned
+against the trunk of a tree, and struggled in vain with her merriment,
+while he continued in a tone of profound despondency.
+
+"I mastered this modest accomplishment, of which I am not in the least
+proud, when I was in the Quinta at school. There it was considered the
+very acme of attainments, and I thought it would be a nice trick to
+teach my Tommy, who, however, declined to be taught it, though I have
+wasted hours and expended a lot of mental effort in trying to make him.
+But one day, by accident, I found out that he could do it much better
+than I ever could. I came to the conclusion, too, that he had been able
+to do it all along when _he_ liked, but not when _I_ liked. Is that not
+very depressing, a symbol of the utter fruitlessness of all human
+endeavour? Indeed, my dearest baroness, I believe I shall be compelled
+to become philosopher, out of sheer unutterable boredom."
+
+Lilly could see nothing now but the outline of his figure, behind which
+the eyes of the foxy one glowed like balls of fire. Not since her
+schooldays had she enjoyed such a bout of pure fun, and she had to wait
+for a break in her laughter to remind him that it was time to be going
+home. He turned obediently, changing Tommy's chain from one hand to the
+other.
+
+The danger that threatened him seemed to be totally forgotten. As time
+was precious, Lilly took the bull by the horns and told him what
+Fraeulein von Schwertfeger's conditions were for keeping silence. But
+she could not regain the dignified pose of a Lady Bountiful holding out
+the rescuing hand with an air of sublime superiority, and every now and
+then she broke off in what she was saying to giggle.
+
+"I know that good lady's unquenchable penchant for treading on other
+people's toes," he said; "but since we have got into her bad graces,
+dear little Tommy and I will have to wriggle out. I am grateful to you,
+my dear and gracious friend. I will take your hint and put myself on
+the right road to absolution. I'll polish up my vocabulary of
+repentance. I'll be more than repentant. I'll be cheeky. That works on
+these respectable spinsters like magic; and I'll kill two birds with
+one stone, and take care, while I am about it, to improve our future
+chances of intercourse--always supposing that your majesty is
+agreeable."
+
+Oh, how very agreeable she was! "But how will you manage it?" she asked
+anxiously.
+
+"Leave it to me," he answered. "Your duenna is a clever old girl, but I
+am even cleverer. I shan't be surprised if after to-morrow I am
+honoured with warm invitations to supper at the castle, which will be
+very convenient; and I shall, I warrant, succeed in looking into the
+eyes of my queen unobserved by the two mighty watchdogs."
+
+There was much in this speech that jarred on her. He might make fun of
+Fraeulein von Schwertfeger if he liked--she was fair game; but of the
+colonel he ought to speak with respect. And now that she had satisfied
+herself that he was out of danger did she first fully realise how
+atrocious his conduct had been, and how weak it was of her to be
+strolling about with him in the dark, tolerating his silly jokes.
+
+"Allow me to remind you, Herr von Prell," she said, "that it is only
+owing to our former friendship I have warned you. Having done it, we
+had better be strangers in future. I must go now. Good-night."
+
+Whereupon she began to run away from him. But, as she sprang along the
+dark woodland path without looking round, suddenly something warm,
+soft, and alive slipped between her feet. She cried out shrilly, and
+turned back to seek Prell's help; at the same moment the chain got
+twisted round her ankle and held her fast.
+
+The foxy little dog in his eager desire to get home had taken her
+flight as a signal to break loose from his master's restraining hold,
+and had run under her skirts. The more she pressed forward the more
+painfully did the chain cut into her flesh. It was all over now with
+her anger.
+
+Herr von Prell had to kneel down and hold the little rascal in his arms
+till she had released her foot from its chain trap.
+
+"Tommy, Tommy, what mischief have we done? We have hurt our mistress's
+august foot. That comes of straining on our chains and getting under
+ladies' skirts. A grave offence. Aren't you ashamed of yourself, you
+scoundrel?"
+
+And then he imprinted a kiss on the dog's sharp-pointed little nose.
+
+"Doesn't he ever bite you?" she asked, interested.
+
+"He has had the advantage of a rigorous military training," he replied,
+"and consequently he is used to kisses."
+
+She burst out into a new fit of merriment, and he held out to her the
+struggling woolly little animal, asking her if she would like to kiss
+Tommy too.
+
+Laughing, she declined; laughing, she walked on in his company. "Weak
+as ever," she told herself.
+
+Still in fits of silvery laughter, she came into the lighted hall,
+where Fraeulein von Schwertfeger met her, with large reproachful eyes.
+
+"Where have you been, child?" she asked, prepared on the spot to
+subject her to a calm and judicial cross-questioning.
+
+"Oh, he's such fun!" was all Lilly could gurgle forth as she buried her
+face, flushed from laughing, on her duenna's shoulder. "Such fun!"
+
+"You don't mean to say----?"
+
+"Yes, I do. Do you think I would leave him in the lurch, my charming
+little old pal?"
+
+The Schwertfeger countenance froze into rigidity.
+
+Lilly, with a whoop of joy, freed herself from the elder woman's arm,
+flew to her room, nestled her head in the pillows, and laughed herself
+to sleep.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XVIII
+
+
+It was begun in laughter--and with laughter it continued. The next
+morning when Lilly awoke the objects round her--the lamp, the
+washstand, the sentimental pictures on the wall--seemed to have taken
+on a different aspect, and the sun shone in at the windows with
+redoubled brilliance.
+
+In her night clothes she stood before the glass and smiled again at the
+reflection she saw there; it was the face of a gamin, with eyes roguish
+and sparkling, and a tipped-up saucy nose.
+
+At breakfast she scintillated with small witticisms, chased the
+stiff-kneed colonel round the table, and cherished sentiments of
+glowing gratitude towards Fraeulein von Schwertfeger. She on her side
+smiled eloquently to herself, and when the colonel had retired, chucked
+Lilly under the chin, and said, "What a child you are!"
+
+She made no allusion to the confession that had escaped Lilly the night
+before. It almost seemed that it had not been heard.
+
+Lilly ran up to her balcony, pushed apart the creepers, and gave him a
+nod to come in as he walked up and down uncertainly between the castle
+and the bailiff's office. He understood her signal, bowed low, and
+disappeared in the direction of the terrace steps.
+
+What passed between him and Fraeulein von Schwertfeger remained a
+secret. There was no finding out whether she interrogated him on his
+previous relations with the young baroness. But that the result of the
+interview as a whole was successful there could be no question. Instead
+of the colonel giving him his _conge_, the colonel himself brought him
+in to supper that evening. He wore his best coat, white waistcoat, his
+most respectful expression, and looked as if he was going to sink into
+his collar.
+
+"A little bird tells me," said the colonel to Lilly, "that Herr von
+Prell is rather dull and lonely over there sometimes. So, if you have
+no objection, we will ask him in oftener than we have done."
+
+She hadn't the very least objection, only the thought that Kaete might
+appear any moment in the doorway prevented her from speaking.
+
+Instead of Kaete another maid handed old Ferdinand the plates and
+dishes. Lilly's eyes turned inquiringly to Fraeulein von Schwertfeger,
+who said, in an undertone so that the men should not hear, "The poor
+girl, owing to her illness, has gone home, and probably will not come
+back."
+
+Lilly squeezed her hand under the table from sheer relief. She had a
+dim notion that Kaete had been sent away to spare her unpleasantness.
+
+The other two were deep in cavalry talk, much interlarded by technical
+terms and dry names.
+
+Herr von Prell leaned towards his old superior officer, blinking his
+lids with reverential and eager attention. The colonel laid down the
+law like a wrathful deity, spoke in gruff, fierce tones, and shot about
+him dagger-like glances, as if there were enemies all round to mow
+down, which of course was mere professional vainglory.
+
+Lilly listened, and would have liked to join in. But apparently both
+men had forgotten her existence, and she became depressed and jealous
+without being exactly sure which of them she was most angry with.
+
+When Prell rose to take his leave, the colonel laid his hand on his
+shoulder, and asked:
+
+"Why haven't we done this before, my boy?" And the look he gave Lilly
+seemed to add, "There has really been no necessity for so much
+caution." After this, Prell's invitations to supper became more
+frequent as the September days grew chillier, and the colonel's gout
+made his visits to the town rarer. Groaning and swearing he mounted his
+horse with difficulty, but he would not listen to Lilly's entreaties to
+him to give up the early morning ride.
+
+"I might ride round the place instead of you," she said, "if you
+weren't so ridiculously nervous about my having an accident."
+
+The colonel and Anna exchanged glances.
+
+"It certainly is a disgrace," he remarked, "that the girl hasn't learnt
+yet to sit on a horse. She ought to be taught. What do you say, Anna?
+Can we trust that scamp Prell to give her riding lessons?"
+
+Lilly's face beamed with delight.
+
+Fraeulein von Schwertfeger's lids were lowered meditatively. After a few
+moments' silence she raised them, and said very slowly and
+emphatically:
+
+"If the harum-scarum young man brought our pet home one day with a
+broken arm or leg, what should we do? I think the proposal, at any
+rate, needs to be further considered."
+
+Lilly forbore from expressing her longing, and did not contradict Anna,
+who, however, must have divined her thoughts, for when they were alone
+together she suddenly said, taking Lilly's face between her hands:
+
+"Dismiss the idea from your mind, darling. Take my word for it, it will
+be best."
+
+It was about this time that Lilly, who loved to explore the spacious
+and only partly inhabited old castle, made a remarkable discovery that
+excited her curiosity not a little. In one of the guest chambers on the
+third floor, which was hardly ever used, she was rummaging one day in
+the drawers of a bureau when she came across a transparent garment of
+silver net, fringed with spangles and fastened at the shoulder by
+curious barbaric clasps. It resembled the one in which, in the Dresden
+days, she had danced at bedtime, and which now lay at the bottom of her
+wardrobe enjoying undisturbed repose. She had never shown it to
+Fraeulein von Schwertfeger, being somewhat ashamed of it. But this
+duplicate she folded up and took downstairs to her friend, for she was
+anxious to learn its history.
+
+Fraeulein von Schwertfeger looked up from her account-books abstractedly
+till she saw the glitter of spangles in the sun, and then a shudder
+convulsed her whole frame, her eyes became distended, and she seemed as
+paralysed with horror as if she had seen a ghost.
+
+"What's the matter? What's the matter?" laughed Lilly.
+
+"I thought I had thrown away all the rubbish," she said, and gave
+herself a little shake.
+
+She snatched the flimsy thing out of Lilly's hands, rolled it in a
+sheet of paper, and took it to the kitchen. Lilly, who followed, saw a
+thin cloud of smoke rise from the hearth, carrying with it a whirl of
+charred tinsel rags. Old Grete stood by, glancing first at Anna and
+then at Lilly in perturbed surprise.
+
+She appeared to know of what transactions the discovery was evidence,
+but when asked by Lilly to explain she held her tongue.
+
+"I was not much here, but away in the town," she excused herself, "when
+the colonel was there with the regiment, you know. Ask the Fraeulein;
+she will tell you."
+
+The Fraeulein would not tell. With grimly compressed lips and vacant
+gaze she avoided the subject, and for three days or more scarcely
+answered when Lilly spoke to her.
+
+Then suddenly, as they sat at supper, without any apparent cause, her
+whole manner changed. She became facetious and talkative, and
+sympathetic towards her employer, suggesting remedies for his gout and
+wringing from him a promise to give up the injurious morning ride.
+
+"I have been thinking over Lilly's riding lessons," she went on. "I
+really don't think there can be any danger after all in entrusting her
+to the boy, if one of us is present to see that all is right--anyhow at
+the start."
+
+Lilly gave a sigh of joy, but neither by her eyes nor facial expression
+did she betray the smallest sign of pleasure, so severely in the
+meantime had she learned to school herself.
+
+The next morning the lesson began.
+
+Walter von Prell appeared in riding get-up. His body was bent forward
+as much as to say, "I await orders," and his whole bearing bespoke
+submissive respect as he stood first on one foot, then on the other.
+
+A quiet grey mare, with narrow flanks and somewhat overstrained
+forelegs, but a smart, well-groomed little mount, had been chosen for
+the first ride. Her instructor explained to her the principle on which
+bridle and bit were constructed, showed her how the girths were
+buckled, how the snaffle and curb-reins were to be held, and how to
+prevent the curb throttling the horse.
+
+Then came learning to mount. When Lilly planted her foot in his joined
+hands she felt a warm thrill creep up her spine to the back of her
+neck, as if this contact were a sign of the secret understanding
+between them.
+
+He counted "One, two, three," and, presto! there she was in the saddle.
+
+The colonel clapped and applauded, and Walter blushed to the roots of
+his fair hair with delight.
+
+Henceforth he had the game in his hands.
+
+"Who would have thought that jackanapes had so much of the pedagogue in
+him?" the colonel remarked to Fraeulein von Schwertfeger, who nodded
+silently and drew a deep breath as if something weighed on her mind.
+
+When Lilly dismounted she had learnt how to draw in the reins and
+slacken them, and to turn to right and left. She had even got as far as
+a trot round the yard. The colonel said good-humouredly she promised to
+be the most dashing horsewoman in the army.
+
+One lesson followed another. Either the colonel or Anna was always
+present, so there was little opportunity for a confidential
+conversation. Walter did not drop his stiff and obsequious manner,
+though Lilly longed for a flash of the old devilry that she alone
+understood.
+
+Then came a day when it happened that both sentinels were absent from
+duty. The colonel was busy giving directions for the making of a
+covered riding-way where his gouty limbs would not be exposed to
+chills, and Fraeulein von Schwertfeger was nowhere to be found.
+
+Lilly's heart beat fast as she and her merry friend met, and she gave
+him her hand with a smile of suppressed triumph. He responded with a
+sly wink in the direction of the terrace, where her duenna was wont to
+stand.
+
+"She's nowhere to be seen," whispered Lilly.
+
+"What are we to do, then," he said, wringing his hands in mock
+lamentation, "without the protecting eye of the illustrious Fraeulein?
+How are we to mount?"
+
+The September sky was very blue; a crisp breeze, heavy with the perfume
+of damp freshly turned sods, blew across the courtyard. He pointed with
+his whip to the open gate. She laughed and nodded assent. The next
+moment she cantered beside him along the grassy road, whither no Argus
+eye could follow them, inwardly rejoicing and exultantly scenting all
+sorts of mad pranks. But he seemed unwilling to make the most of their
+unexpected freedom. He kept his eyes fixed in front of him; every now
+and then he caught at her rein, altered her stirrups or corrected her
+seat in the saddle. He was the riding-master and nothing more.
+
+"What's Tommy doing?" she asked, finding things dull.
+
+"Tommy sends his love," he answered with his gaze still fastened on the
+road, "and wishes to say that to-day we had better attend to the
+horses, for if anything happens we shall not be allowed out again."
+
+"My love to Tommy," she retorted, "and tell him he's a little goose."
+
+"I'll not forget," he said, and bowed over the saddle.
+
+They came to a coppice of larch-trees where the ground was slightly
+boggy and required careful crossing. But she saw nothing but the silver
+sheen of the trunks, and the golden mist made by the delicate leaves
+dancing in the breeze and nearly brushing her cheek.
+
+"Oh, look, how lovely!" she said with a sigh of satisfaction.
+
+Then a demon within her prompted her to an act of madness. She touched
+the mare with her whip and started off on a wild gallop, regardless of
+all the rules and regulations laid down by her riding-master.
+
+In a few seconds he came up with her, seized her bridle, and with a
+dexterous jerk brought both horses to a standstill.
+
+Their eyes flashed into each other. She felt as if she must throw
+herself on to his saddle to be nearer him at any cost.
+
+"What do you mean by that, dear little comrade?" he roared.
+
+"And what do you mean by calling me 'dear little comrade'?" she
+retorted.
+
+Then they turned their horses and walked them slowly and in silence
+homewards.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XIX
+
+
+For a long time the threshing-machine had been in tune for its autumn
+song. Far beyond the courtyard, penetrating every wall and hedge, its
+melancholy hum was now heard. There was no suggestion in it of golden
+harvest blessings and consolidated sunshine. Like an AEolian harp it
+moaned and howled from morn to eve in the storm-tossed branches.
+Sometimes it seemed to shriek as if the sheaves of grain it tore and
+tortured had found a voice wherewith to express their agony.
+
+Once more Lilly's soul was so full of dreamy bliss that she heard in
+this music nothing but a seductive yearning. It impregnated her morning
+slumber, and often she lay with closed eyes half awake so as to listen
+the better to the monotonous singsong. And all the time he was in her
+thoughts. What she had always wanted was now hers--a playmate, a
+comrade; someone to rejoice and grumble with; someone who confessed all
+his sins to her, the very blackest, and then received a laughing
+absolution. Then whatever he did, he himself was not guilty; it was the
+youth in him that sinned, the same sweet, wicked youth that charged her
+own soul with melancholy and filled her body with thrills, which
+dominated them both like a tormenting deity, smiling on one and
+frowning on the other.
+
+Yes, he must be saved; saved from his own folly, from that fatal
+cynicism of his which threatened to enmesh him in a network of vulgar
+intrigues. There was no silencing the rumours of the sort of life he
+was leading. She had only to set foot in the servants' quarters to hear
+the stream of unsavoury gossip of which he was the subject. All that
+must be ended. Her first interference was to be but the beginning of
+the great mission she had to perform in his life. She would be his good
+genius, standing in his path with raised hands to ward off all horrid
+temptations, so that he should become as pure and devoid of evil
+desires as herself.
+
+So she dreamed to the accompaniment of the threshing-machine's melody.
+
+The first ride outside the castle gates, though taken without leave,
+was praised and approved; permission was given for others to follow.
+But Lilly hesitated. She would like to be sure of her cantering powers,
+she said, before venturing on unknown ground. The truth was, she was
+dying for another such hour, and only lacked the courage to hurry it
+on.
+
+The very next morning he had been the stern unbending riding-master
+again, treating her with extravagant courtesy. She had thought he would
+be certain to whisper tenderly, "little comrade," or some other
+familiar greeting--he could have found the opportunity if he had
+liked--but nothing of the sort came to pass either this time or the
+next.
+
+They had no thought indeed of riding beyond the courtyard for several
+lessons after, till one day the colonel himself issued the command.
+
+"Enough of this ambling about round the yard. Go out and let the wind
+of the fields blow through you," he said.
+
+"As the colonel wishes," replied Walter, with his hand raised to his
+cap in salute, and he turned her horse with his own towards the open
+gates.
+
+Her heart stood still, and she forgot to send back a farewell greeting
+over her shoulder, so occupied was she with the contemplation of coming
+delights.
+
+In a minute they were riding in the same direction as they had followed
+ten days ago, when the great event had taken place. The weeping willows
+dripped with dew, and at the slightest movement showered down drops
+upon her. Lilly laughed and shook them off. Instead of joining in the
+sport, he tried to make her keep to the middle of the road.
+
+"But I love getting wet," she protested.
+
+"Very well, if the gracious baroness pleases," he answered with his
+stupid exaggerated formality.
+
+They rode on in silence. When they came to the place where ten days
+before the great event had happened to which all his conduct to-day
+gave the lie, she dared to shoot a reminiscent side glance at him. But
+he made no response, and appeared not to see. His cap pulled down over
+the back of his head as far as his neck, his thin smooth face sprinkled
+with dewdrops, his boyish figure all muscle and sinews, he sat his
+horse as if he and the animal were one.
+
+"How fond I am of him, in spite of everything, dear little fellow!" she
+thought, and pictured what her desolation would be if one day he were
+suddenly to vanish from the scene. And then she realised all at once
+that her equable gaiety of soul, the feeling of living her life to the
+full, were all due to his nearness to her day after day.
+
+They rode along even ground steadily. The chain of brown ridges on the
+far side of the river came nearer, and he seemed to be steering for
+these; but this did not serve her purpose, for the hour of serious
+converse had sounded. To-day or never! And with a laborious effort of
+thought she began to calculate all the things she had to say to him.
+But she could not arrange them methodically in her mind, especially as
+her attention was half taken up by her horse. In the saddle she was too
+completely at his mercy, so plucking up courage she proposed that they
+should dismount. While he paused to consider she sprang to the ground,
+and he had to be quick to catch the mare's snaffle.
+
+He scolded her a little, but finally had to do as she wished. They
+proceeded on foot, and he led the horses.
+
+The road lay through a marshy declivity where there was a scanty growth
+of alders and oaks. Yellow marigold buds starred the damp ground and
+burr reed spread out its prickly fruit on distorted branches. Red-dock
+leaves swayed on their withered stalks, and sedgy grass curled itself
+up in anticipation of autumn frosts. A mountain ash felled by a recent
+storm bridged the ditch at the side of the road. Its scarlet berries,
+which should have been dead, still glowed like fire, as if deriving
+life from some mysterious source of their own.
+
+"I should like to sit down here," she said.
+
+He bowed acquiescence.
+
+"But you must sit down too."
+
+"I must hold the horses, gracious baroness."
+
+"You can tie them to a tree."
+
+He reflected a moment. "So I can," he said, and knotted the reins to
+the fallen trunk.
+
+Then when he came to sit beside her she shifted her position more
+towards the middle to make room. Her feet hung in the air over the
+ditch-water. He pushed himself after her along the tree, hand over
+hand.
+
+"That's far enough," she said; for she did not want him too close.
+
+"Very well, gracious baroness," he answered, and swung his legs.
+
+The formality of his address caused her fresh annoyance.
+
+"Don't you think when we are alone together you might drop titles?" she
+asked, looking him straight in the eyes.
+
+"I might ... but I mustn't."
+
+"But how about the other day?"
+
+"Oh, the other day was my birthday," he answered, "and as I wanted a
+pretty little present I gave myself that!"
+
+"And to-day is _my_ birthday," she jested. "What present am I to be
+given?"
+
+"Anything the gracious baroness likes."
+
+"Then I like you to call me 'Comrade.'"
+
+"Always, or just once in a way?"
+
+"Always."
+
+"Shall I call you comrade, or be comrade?"
+
+"Be comrade; be--be comrade. That's the chief thing!" she cried.
+
+"A bargain," he said, and cautiously crept a little nearer along the
+wobbling trunk to give her his right hand.
+
+"A bargain," she said, and shook hands.
+
+"But there are other items to be settled in connection with this," he
+said, clearing his throat.
+
+"What are they?"
+
+"Well, for one thing, does a comradeship mean Christian names?"
+
+"Certainly not," Lilly replied, feeling that she was making a great
+sacrifice.
+
+He accepted the condition as final, and said submissively, "Just as you
+like, comrade."
+
+Now was her chance to speak out. She drew a deep breath and said:
+
+"You know I want to talk seriously to you, Herr von Prell."
+
+"Ugh!" he ejaculated, prepared for a bad quarter of an hour, as he
+gnawed his gloved thumbs.
+
+Lilly plunged off at a tangent. She would not say anything about his
+last misdemeanour, for bad as it was, it was all over, and what was
+forgiven ought also to be forgotten. But if he imagined that the loose
+life he had been leading was a secret in the castle household, he was
+very much mistaken. It was an open scandal, and even the laundry and
+scullery-maids sniggered about it; but how could he expect anything
+else after ... Here she enumerated the sum total of his misdoings, as
+she had gleaned them from remarks the servants had let fall.
+
+She was ashamed to retail them. This was not what she had intended to
+say at all.... She had wanted to speak grandly of the high purpose of
+human existence, the nobility of self-renunciation, the glory of pure
+and lofty ideals, of the spiritual tie uniting the elect on earth, and
+so on. But inspiration failed her when she saw him sitting there with
+bent shoulders and turning his big toes inwards so that under the soft
+leather of his riding-boots they looked like excrescences, and she
+could think of nothing better.
+
+He did not interrupt her. Even when she had done he was silent,
+absorbed in watching an insect wriggling in circles on the surface of
+the water.
+
+"Have you no answer," she asked, "after all the disgraceful things I
+have accused you of?"
+
+"What should I answer, most learned judge?" he retorted. "My one claim
+to distinction is that I am absolutely devoid of moral sense. Do you
+want me to lose it?"
+
+"If you are so weak and have no reliance on yourself," she exclaimed in
+growing zeal, "let me be your mainstay and support. Lean on me, your
+friend, adviser, your----"
+
+"Foster-father," he suggested, and stirred the slime in the ditch with
+his whip.
+
+She awakened to the fact that what she had said had not made the least
+impression; he was laughing at her all the time.
+
+"Get up and let me pass," she said. "Why should I try to do my best for
+someone who is not worth it?"
+
+He made no sign of moving from his place.
+
+"Now, look here, comrade," he said, pointing down at the black mirror
+of ditch-water. "There goes a water-spider with its legs in the air and
+its head downwards. If you were to ask it why it swims like that, it
+would say because it knows no other way. That's its nature. Well, do
+you see, it's my nature. What's to be done? You can't alter it."
+
+"Anyone can restrain his evil passions," she exclaimed, flaring up in
+indignation. "Anyone can, if he likes, keep his eyes fixed on a high
+ideal and struggle to attain it--can listen to a friend when she would
+help, and say to him----"
+
+"Well, what would the friend say?" he asked ingratiatingly, swinging
+himself nearer.
+
+She did not answer. She had put her hands before her face and was
+crying--crying till her sobs convulsed her body.
+
+"For God's sake, sit still!" he exclaimed, circling his arms towards
+her, for on the wobbling trunk of the mountain ash she might at any
+moment lose her balance. "Child, dear little comrade, sit still."
+
+She quivered all over. She heard nothing but the sweet, caressing,
+criminal "dear little comrade," which her soul had been yearning to
+hear.
+
+And then he promised her to turn over a new leaf. He would not flirt
+any more. He would give up tippling with the bailiffs; he would read
+stiff agricultural literature; he would do anything--oh, what wouldn't
+he do?--if she would only stop crying.
+
+"Give me your word of honour?" she asked, raising her wet, reddened
+eyes to his.
+
+He gave it without hesitation.
+
+Comforted and grateful, she smiled at him.
+
+"You'll never repent it," she said. "I'll stand by you. I'll be a true
+friend, and do all I can for you."
+
+"All that the two watch-dogs permit," he added.
+
+To-day she didn't mind his saying "two watch-dogs." She shrugged her
+shoulders and said, "Yes, of course, what _they_ permit."
+
+Then they both laughed so heartily that they narrowly escaped falling
+into the ditch, after all.
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER XX
+
+
+Then came a delightful time in which she played hide-and-seek with her
+emotions: drank long draughts from the never-exhausted fount of
+pleasures anticipated and rehearsed, fulfilled and enjoyed, which left
+behind them a delightful after-taste and a glow of memories. Every day
+brought new happiness and a boundless wealth of experience.
+
+Often when Lilly opened the shutters and the rosy September dawn
+greeted her, she felt as if the Creator had spread a mantle spun out of
+golden sunbeams across the sky on purpose to wrap them in cosy
+seclusion, so that the whole of the world beneath vanished, leaving
+them alone, clinging to one another intoxicated with laughter and
+light.
+
+She felt that she grew lovelier from day to day, that there was a sort
+of radiance surrounding her that made everyone she met gaze at her with
+admiring wonder, and with a little sadness too, as one looks at a
+flower unfolding too proudly, too gloriously, for its miracle of
+blossom to endure.
+
+The two watch-dogs were not blind to the change in her.
+
+The colonel, who was full of craft and guile, failed to diagnose in
+this case the symptoms. His suspicions would have been aroused directly
+if she had been melancholy and absentminded, had hung about him
+nervously, in alternate moods of fervid affection and cold
+estrangement. Then he would have subjected her to a severe espionage.
+But her yielding tenderness and happy serenity was a riddle to which he
+could find no solution; so he gave it up, and tolerated with paternal
+equanimity his young wife's rollicking gaiety and the embraces she
+lavished on him to give vent to the ecstasy within her.
+
+Anna von Schwertfeger was also apparently well satisfied with Lilly's
+happy state of mind and radiant spirits. She seemed as little as the
+colonel to think it suspicious, or to associate it with the influence
+of a third person, otherwise she would scarcely have countenanced so
+willingly the frequent meetings of the two young people.
+
+Lilly now did her best to return the worthy Anna's warm affection, the
+display of which at first had worried her and left her cold. Fraeulein
+von Schwertfeger often drew her in the evening into her own private
+room, where she sat with her account-books. It was quite an old-maids'
+paradise, with its canaries in cages, plants and flower-pots, and faded
+photographs of family groups and friends. It was full of old bits of
+china and gilded knick-knacks, such as one meets in ancient and
+impoverished houses as relics of former grandeur. Or she would come at
+an incredibly late hour stealing into Lilly's bedroom, seat herself on
+the bed, and not move till the wheels of the colonel's returning
+carriage were heard on the gravel. Then there would be discussions on
+such profound topics as life and death, the loneliness of old age, and
+the exuberance of youth, which caused grief and trouble when indulged
+in to excess. She asked no questions, she gave no warnings, yet the
+astonishing irrelevance with which she jumped from one subject to
+another, often contradicting flatly her own opinions, indicated that
+her thoughts were really far, far away.
+
+While her voice droned on monotonously, Lilly sometimes looked up and
+caught her eyes fastened on her with a expression of melancholy
+compassion that she was at a loss to understand. Then she was kissed
+and stroked with such heartfelt, pitying tenderness that she felt
+touched, and when left alone in the dark began to be afraid of
+something, as if an avenging fate crouched at the foot of her bed ready
+to spring on her and devour her.
+
+What misfortune could possibly fall upon her? Was she not securer and
+more sheltered than she had ever been? Whom did she deceive? What was
+her offence? And even if her innocent relations with Walter should come
+to light, would she merit any severer punishment than a lecture such as
+children get when they have been careless?
+
+These reflections consoled her even before the after-taste of those
+nocturnal visitations had been lost in blissful dreams.
+
+September wore to a close. Nearly every day brought a ride or an
+apparently chance meeting at twilight in a deserted part of the park.
+They would discern each other from afar lingering at some appointed
+rendezvous, and if a previous arrangement for meeting were frustrated,
+they resorted to the pea-shooter.
+
+By means of this accommodating instrument, which he had brought back
+one day from the town--and in a corner of her balcony passed as a
+superfluous curtain-rod--she was able to blow her messages through the
+vine tendrils straight in at his open window. Sometimes it was a simple
+"Good-morning, comrade," at others an appointment to meet, or a
+harmless joke born on the spur of the moment's gaiety.
+
+On the evenings that the colonel was at home he was usually invited to
+join them. Then, of course, he assumed his most correct and formal
+manner, though there was often opportunity for a little by-play between
+them, so skilfully managed that the watch-dogs remained quite
+unsuspicious.
+
+Nevertheless, Lilly had a rival on these occasions, which she feared
+and hated, because it deprived her of the "comrade's" attention for
+hours. Its very mention was enough to reduce Lilly to a mere cipher.
+This rival was the Regiment. It was the time of the autumn
+man[oe]uvres, and both men followed with feverish interest the tactical
+movements of their old division as reported in the newspapers.
+
+One evening they despatched a joint picture-postcard congratulating the
+Regiment, and a day or two later the compliment was returned, a card
+arriving through the post scribbled over with numerous signatures,
+which it was the work of the world to make out. Two or three were
+abandoned as hopeless, till at last Walter hit on a solution. They
+belonged to three outside lieutenants who had joined the regiment
+for the man[oe]uvres, and had signed their names with the other
+officers--von Holten, Dehnicke, von Berg. They made no impression on
+Lilly, except that "Dehnicke" struck her as sounding a little bourgeois
+and discordant amongst the music of the old patrician "vons."
+
+This greeting from his active past seemed to affect the colonel
+unpleasantly. He became moody and cantankerous, and Lilly felt his eye
+upon her now and then full of a grim savage reproach that made her jump
+with terror. Henceforth his expeditions to the neighbouring garrison
+town became more frequent than ever, and when an invitation to join a
+shooting party arrived, he didn't refuse, in spite of his gout.
+
+The first Sunday in October came. The colonel started off early to
+visit a neighbour, and was not expected to return till late at night.
+
+A soft grey mist, shot with violet and gold, as a promise of sunshine
+later, enveloped the world, when Lilly, arm-in-arm with Fraeulein von
+Schwertfeger, came out of church, almost groaning--she had been so
+bored.
+
+The sunflowers in the labourers' cottage gardens were already drooping
+their scorched heads, and the asters showed signs of having suffered
+from the first severe nip of frost. Yet the air was balmy and
+sweet-scented as spring, and larks made a babel in the fields.
+
+"To-day, to-day!" thought Lilly, and stretched herself in a vague
+longing for private talk and jubilant pranks.
+
+It seemed as if her thoughts had been heard, for Anna von Schwertfeger
+asked suddenly, "What is the matter with you to-day?"
+
+"I hardly know myself," Lilly answered, blushing. "I just feel as if
+to-day were a festival."
+
+Anna looked at her sideways, then, clearly emphasising every word, she
+said, "I really might make a festival of it, and visit a friend in the
+town. But the colonel being away, I don't know whether ..."
+
+Lilly started so violently that for a moment she could not recover her
+breath. Then she pulled herself together tactfully, and urged her
+companion to go. She had not had a day off all the summer. She lived
+like a prisoner, and must sorely need a holiday.
+
+Anna nodded meditatively, and the fixed glassy stare that Lilly did not
+like came into her eyes.
+
+At the midday meal, which the two ladies took alone to-day, she was
+still undecided, but directly it was over she ordered the carriage and
+drove off without a word. Lilly, who, instead of resting, had been
+watching from the upstairs landing, now flew to the pea-shooter. The
+dense foliage of the Virginian creeper still so completely shut her in
+that he could not catch a glimpse of her. But she saw him as he sat at
+the open window frowning over his book.
+
+"My good influence!" she thought triumphantly; and it seemed almost a
+pity to decoy him away from his improving occupation.
+
+The steward and book-keeper were pacing up and down, not far from the
+house, smoking their Sunday afternoon cigar; so it was necessary to be
+more cautious than usual.
+
+The paper pellet that conveyed her message hit him on the forehead and
+rebounded on to the grass outside. So well had he himself in hand that
+he did not so much as raise his eyes to show he understood, but a few
+minutes later he let his book fall out of the window, as if by
+accident, and rose indifferently to pick it up.
+
+Half an hour afterwards they met behind the carp-pond. He had on a new
+black-and-white check suit similar to the fateful one worn by the
+foreigner that night in the railway carriage.
+
+"You are much too fine for me to-day," joked Lilly. "I would rather not
+be seen with you."
+
+"That would be an awful shame," he remarked, "for I ordered these
+things on purpose for this day's outing."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Because it's to be our festival."
+
+"What has put that into your head?" stammered Lilly, shocked to think
+of the communion of ideas it testified to.
+
+"A fellow has his presentiments," he replied, smiling significantly.
+
+Simultaneously they turned their footsteps to the secluded beech-wood,
+whither they had wandered in the deepening dusk on the evening they had
+renewed their friendship.
+
+"Where's Tommy?" she asked, thinking of the third member of their
+alliance.
+
+"He's biting a hole in the boards," was the answer, "and making himself
+a kennel to his own mind. He roosts in it like a screech-owl. I
+shouldn't advise you to put the finger you wear your rings on into it;
+you'd lose the rings and possibly the finger too."
+
+"Why do you let him get so wild?" she asked reproachfully.
+
+"Why do I let myself get so wild?" he asked in turn.
+
+"Oh, you--you know you are becoming quite tame and gentle," she
+replied, regarding him affectionately because it was all her doing.
+
+"You really think so?" he asked; and his aspect assumed the
+masterfulness of his lieutenant days.
+
+"Of course I do. Didn't you give me your word of honour?" she boasted.
+
+"Rot!"
+
+Still Lilly gloried in the success of her work of salvation.
+
+"You may underrate my influence if you like," she replied, "but I can
+assure you everyone else notices the change in you. Herr Leichtweg says
+you are always punctual now; and then you borrowed that great
+agricultural encyclopaedia from the colonel--that greatly impressed
+him--and Fraeulein von Schwertfeger declares you look quite 'delicious'
+in these days!"
+
+"Come, baronissima, shall we have a game of catch?" he asked. "It will
+be good for the circulation of your noble blood."
+
+At once with a shout of joy she started off running at a mad pace up
+the slope, which was veiled in the purple autumnal haze. But she didn't
+go far. She caught her foot in the plaid that she had refused to let
+him carry for her, and fell full length on the ground. He was there in
+a moment to help her up, yet the fall had cured her of her desire to
+run.
+
+They walked on at a sedate pace and climbed the heights on the other
+side, whence their eyes could wander over a sea of waving foliage right
+away to the open country. The beeches glowed pure red, the maples
+danced in all the colours of the rainbow, the birches quivered like
+slender flames of fire, the elm let fall coins of gold, while the oak
+alone retained the sombre green of his late summer dress. With folded
+hands she gazed at the distance, which was lost in a veil of violet.
+
+The sun went down behind vagrant shafts of fire from out the lap of
+gilt-edged clouds. A band of rosy mist lined the horizon, spangled with
+sparks from the sun's reflection.
+
+"Shall we sit down here?" he asked.
+
+"No, not here," she answered, seized with a vague anxiety; "here I
+should soon begin to cry."
+
+She ran on ahead of him, back into wood, and found the path again
+beside the brook. Here it was as dark as evening, but the magic of the
+sun's radiance was still felt, and filled her with worship of Nature.
+
+Oh, how happy she was! how happy!
+
+No danger, nothing to be afraid of ... not even of her own secret
+heart ... for he with whom she was walking was her comrade and
+playfellow--nothing more. He must not, could not, be anything more. She
+felt conscious of no evil; he gave her no furtive glances of desire,
+and she did not try to lead him on.
+
+The bond between them and everything connected with it was above-board
+and clear as daylight, and though it was politic to keep it from
+others, there was not the least sin to hide. Their intercourse was
+purely fun for both.
+
+She wanted to take his hand in her warm-hearted, impulsive way, but
+refrained in case her action should be misunderstood. Thus side by side
+they went on till they reached the spot where the brook, confined in a
+basin of rotten wood, gushed with a low murmur out of the earth. The
+pale green mossy floor was covered with rugged fronds of red-lined
+ferns, and leaves from the branches of the beeches fluttered down
+lazily.
+
+"Here is the place to rest," said Lilly.
+
+"But rather damp, isn't it?" he objected.
+
+"We'll spread the plaid," she exclaimed, eagerly snatching it from him,
+for he had insisted on carrying it after her fall. She unfolded and
+threw it over the carpet of ferns. She crouched on the extreme right
+side of it, leaving him the lion's share, so that he should not spoil
+his beautiful new suit.
+
+"Now we must have something to eat," he said.
+
+"But we, poor church-mice, have nothing!" she laughed.
+
+"Who told you so?" he asked, and produced proudly a paper bag from his
+coat pocket.
+
+It contained a squashed crumbly piece of confectionery. He laid it
+between them and they spooned the crumbs up to their mouths with their
+hands. It had a sweet winey flavour, and Lilly identified it at once as
+punch-tart, for which she had a special weakness.
+
+"The English call it tipsy-cake," he said. "You can get quite screwed
+on it."
+
+"I don't mind risking it," she answered gleefully.
+
+She threw herself on her back, folding her hands as a cushion behind
+her head. She lay thus motionless for a few minutes, gazing up at the
+round patch of sky that gleamed through a parting in the masses of
+foliage above. Luminous pink flakes of cloud floated in the ocean of
+ether; a little further away a blue shimmer broke through the lower
+sky, like the earnest of another heaven. Lilly stretched up her arms in
+longing.
+
+"Are you trying to catch larks?" he asked.
+
+"No, not larks, but the falling leaves," she said.
+
+Like maimed birds, they kept dropping from the boughs, fluttering about
+in spirals when they reached the ground, as if uncertain where to sit.
+
+"Let us see on which of us a leaf falls first," he said, and he too
+stretched himself on his back.
+
+"The first to get one will have a great piece of good luck," she added.
+
+They both lay still and waited, and then came a leaf floating towards
+his nose; but he refused to let it settle there, for she deserved the
+first great piece of luck, so he blew it over to her.
+
+She was too proud to accept such a noble gift from him, and blew it
+back.
+
+So the game went on. They laughed and threw themselves about after the
+whirling leaf. Then suddenly, in the heat of combat their lips met, and
+the next minute their arms were round each other.
+
+
+                           *   *   *   *   *
+
+
+The brook babbled on, and the leaves rained down as if nothing had
+happened. But the earth seemed clothed in a mist of fire, and
+everywhere rainbow suns glittered.
+
+Why had they done this thing? She sank back, dazed, and noticed that
+the sky too was on fire. Her comrade sat next her, with his back bent
+like a schoolboy awaiting a flogging.
+
+"Ah! now we may as well go home," she said despondently.
+
+"Certainly, if the gracious baroness wishes," he replied in mock
+politeness.
+
+She laughed a tired joyless laugh. Evidently his one desire was to
+forget what had passed as speedily as possible.
+
+"It doesn't matter now," she said, "whether we call each other by our
+Christian names or not."
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XXI
+
+
+Fear, the same unreasoning fear that had taken possession of Lilly
+during her engagement, consumed her again. It paralysed her spine,
+bound her arms, and made her knees shake and the veins in her neck
+throb. It wrapped her brain in a blank impenetrable darkness. But after
+the first meetings were over and nothing occurred to excite the
+smallest gleam of suspicion, her fear died down, leaving behind it an
+ever-ready watchfulness, a tension at all times on the lookout for
+awkward questions, a warily assumed innocence by which to avoid
+pitfalls.
+
+Extraordinary to relate, the colonel saw nothing. He who was the most
+jealous and suspicious of husbands, utterly devoid of illusions, was
+for once blind. He even swallowed the headache myth, and came to
+sit on her bed in half-playful, half-cynical sympathy to help Fraeulein
+von Schwertfeger change the compresses, which she prepared with
+over-zealous attentiveness. To submit to this woman's caresses taxed
+her heavily, for behind them was a furtive pair of eyes that strove to
+look harmless, yet could not disguise their insatiable curiosity.
+
+As anxiety with regard to her husband gradually lulled itself to sleep,
+the more wakeful did it become in the case of the self-sacrificing
+female friend, who at any moment might assume the _role_ of a
+full-fledged enemy and traitor.
+
+Lilly dared not cry till night, when she was alone, and then she would
+spring out of bed to wash away traces of her tears, only to cry herself
+to sleep after all.
+
+It was not remorse that she felt, nor shame, nor yearning love, but
+simply an unfathomable loneliness, a dismayed facing of the question
+"What next?"
+
+Would it be confession and retirement into a convent, or elopement and
+suicide?--events which in Frau Asmussen's old novels had been the quite
+ordinary sequel to such a misdeed.
+
+A week went by. Her headache was well. She had been up again quite a
+long time, but hadn't seen him. Not a vestige of him was to be seen
+when, with the doors of her room bolted, she rushed on to the balcony
+to look across at his quarters.
+
+The colonel kept urging her to resume her rides. The exercise would do
+her good, and Herr von Prell was ready to escort her.
+
+By the time Saturday came she felt she must give in, for they would be
+forced to meet the next day at dinner. The horses were stamping before
+the door. Now the moment of meeting, which she had been anticipating
+with trembling fears, had come, and confronted her like a new danger.
+But when she had beheld her friend swagger over the terrace in his
+high, polished riding-boots, pale and haggard, bowing like a doll on
+wires to show his hypocritical respect, something in her grew rigid; a
+feeling came over her that this young man was an utter stranger to whom
+she was going to speak for the first time.
+
+The next moment they rode out of the gate together. The colonel had
+gone to the stables, but Fraeulein von Schwertfeger stood with clasped
+hands looking after them.
+
+The road across the fields was like a morass from the standing pools of
+rain, and squelched under the horses' hoofs. A chill breeze stirred the
+young autumn wheat. Beyond the ragged twigs of the birches was a faint
+yellow glow, in which a watery-looking sun was sinking. Everything
+looked fatigued and sad; even the winter crops seemed to think it had
+been hardly worth while to sow them.
+
+They trotted on side by side in silence; every minute seemed an hour.
+
+"Surely he must speak at last," she thought, biting her lips till they
+bled, as she rose in the saddle.
+
+He kept his eyes fixed with an unfaltering gaze on the road, and only
+moved his right hand now and again to adjust his reins.
+
+"He'll begin again before long with his 'gracious baronesses,'" she
+thought bitterly, and felt ashamed of herself and him in anticipation.
+
+At length it was she who broke silence.
+
+"Do walk your horse!" she implored, nearly crying.
+
+"Of course we will, comrade," he said, reining in his chestnut.
+
+"Comrade! Comrade!" she echoed derisively, and sought his eyes with a
+passionate glance. "We've made a nice mess of our comradeship!"
+
+He shrugged his shoulders, the gesture with which he always met a
+scolding, and did not answer.
+
+"I wish you would say something!" she cried, quite beside herself.
+
+"What do you want me to say?" he asked, making a movement as if he were
+going to scratch his head reflectively. "It's a nasty affair--we admit
+that," and he repeated, pondering to himself, "nasty affair, nasty
+affair!"
+
+"And is that all you have to say?" she exclaimed.
+
+"My gracious friend," he replied, "I am little, and my heart is little
+in proportion. It's hardly an adequate platform whereon to parade great
+anguish of soul!"
+
+"Who is talking about anguish of soul!" she cried. "What is to become
+of us? That is what I want to know."
+
+"Directly I inherit an unencumbered ancestral manor," he replied, with
+a gesture that denoted invitation, "containing house, stable, horses
+and carriages, and other animate and inanimate necessaries, I shall
+permit myself the honour of asking your husband for your hand."
+
+She could no longer control her despair.
+
+"If you continue to make your insulting jokes," she almost screamed,
+bursting into tears, "I'll ride straight away from you now, and break
+my neck."
+
+"Rather a difficult thing to accomplish on that sober nag of yours,"
+was his cool reply.
+
+She was at a loss what to retort and so let her tears fall silently.
+
+At last he adopted a different tone.
+
+"Be sensible for a change, my child, to please me," he said. "All I
+meant to do was to clear your soul of superfluous tragedy. As soon as
+you put a bright face on the matter I'll give it practical
+consideration; I promise you."
+
+She wiped the tears from her eyes with the gauntlet of her riding-glove
+and forthwith smiled obediently.
+
+"That's all right," he said with approval. "Not in vain did the poet
+sing:
+
+           'O weine selten, weine schwer.
+            Wer Traenen hat, hat auch Malheur.'
+
+Well, now, I'll tell you a fairy tale. We two pretty orphan children
+were just planted down here in this enchanted castle for each other. We
+were obliged to come together here, even if long ago we had not been
+two hearts united somewhere else. The colonel, as a matter of fact,
+wedded us from the first. The only pity is that your marriage contract
+with him did not make provision for the circumstances. But there it is,
+and we have no choice but to resort to some secret arrangement between
+ourselves. Don't you see, dearest child, we are both tacking the same
+way on life's ocean. The risks you and I have to run are one and the
+same. So buck up, and let's go it! We are poor vagabonds, anyhow."
+
+"Thank you, I am not a vagabond!" Lilly flared up. "I have my pride and
+my honour to maintain, and even if I have sinned, I know how to die for
+my sins."
+
+"Dying is not so easy," he remarked; "generally the opportunity is
+lacking, and then when it comes one funks it."
+
+She felt her old burning desire to protect him from his own low
+estimate of himself.
+
+"You don't mean what you say!" she cried. "You are amongst the boldest
+and bravest of men, and would face death for the sake of your honour, I
+know. And if you liked you might have the whole world at your feet. I
+shall never cease to remind you of that. I have not sacrificed myself
+for you for nothing. I will interest myself in you till you get back
+your faith in yourself, till you feel you are once more on the upward
+path. I will share all your trials and temptations, and stand between
+you and evil. What am I here for except for your sake--yours?"
+
+At that moment her enthusiasm for him was so great that she could
+gladly have thrown herself under the hoofs of his horse, and when she
+compared this with her feelings when they had first met that day, she
+could hardly comprehend how it was that he had appeared to her in so
+alienated and repulsive a light.
+
+"You are a most emotional creature," he said; "it is a good thing that
+the creepers hide your balcony so effectually."
+
+"What do you mean to imply by that?" she faltered, in shocked
+foreboding.
+
+"And the ladder luckily is still in its place," he went on, "ready to
+be used. The creepers might break this time and no one would notice
+anything amiss, not even the Schwertfeger, eh?"
+
+His light eyelashes blinked at her persuasively.
+
+She did not know which way to look, she felt so dreadfully ashamed.
+
+"Never, never will I have anything to do with you again!" she cried.
+"I swear by all the saints I never will! I should loathe myself if I
+did, and despise you with all my heart and soul!" She finished with an
+exclamation of disgust.
+
+He merely shrugged his shoulders. "A pity," he said; "it would have
+been a splendid opportunity ..."
+
+
+                           *   *   *   *   *
+
+
+He came to dinner the next day the picture of all the virtues in his
+frock-coat and black cravat. He bowed and scraped, pursed his lips, and
+was so absurdly deferential that he seemed afraid to take his cup of
+Mocha coffee from her hand. Fraeulein von Schwertfeger's eyes wandered
+watchfully and inquiringly from one to the other.
+
+Late that Sunday night, after the colonel had gone into town, and
+Fraeulein von Schwertfeger retired early to her room, Lilly was sitting
+on her bed brushing her hair in her night attire, when she became aware
+of a soft rattling sound at the window. It sounded as if a branch were
+being blown by the autumn wind against the shutters, only that it
+occurred regularly at intervals, growing weaker and stronger, but
+always persistent. Seized with fright, she first thought of going down
+to Fraeulein von Schwertfeger. But, recollecting herself in time, she
+threw on a dressing-gown, and cautiously opened the window and a bit of
+the outside shutter.
+
+For a moment she saw nothing. It was a starless night, and the
+bailiff's house opposite seemed plunged in darkness; then it dawned on
+her that something like a rod was oscillating close to the shutter. She
+opened it a little further--and recognised the pea-shooter!
+
+Then she knew what it was.
+
+Springing backwards she drew the bolt, flung herself into bed, and
+stopped up her ears with her fingers. But every time she drew them out
+to listen she heard that persistent regular rattle, which had now
+become almost an unblushing knock.
+
+The watchman who patrolled yard and park every hour had only to see the
+ladder leaning against the balcony, and all would be lost. Anxiety
+deprived her of her senses. Trembling like an aspen-leaf in every limb,
+she ran into her dressing-room again, where there was no light, opened
+the balcony door slowly and noiselessly a finger's depth, and whispered
+through the crack into the darkness: "Go away at once, and never
+attempt such a thing again." But when she tried to close the door again
+it wouldn't shut. She listened, but nothing was to be seen or heard.
+Then she groped with her hands and found the obstacle. It was the
+inevitable pea-shooter. She moaned aloud, buried her face, and the next
+moment was lying half-fainting in his arms.
+
+After this evening she was completely in his power, defenceless, and
+without a will of her own--a victim of his every wish and whim.
+
+It couldn't be called happiness or even ecstasy. That followed later,
+when she had overcome her horror of their monstrous conduct and fear of
+discovery was deadened by nothing happening to disturb them, and she
+could revel in a defiant sense of security. Then it became a blissful
+skating over awful abysses--a delirium of the senses full of intangible
+joys--a beatific offering of herself to a lacerating scourge, an
+alternative ebullition of self-scorn and degradation and blasphemous
+prayer.
+
+She began to laugh again--not that old silly childlike laughter which
+till recently had dominated her frivolous nature. No, it was a mocking
+exultant laughter, the laughter of a hunted thief when, behind the back
+of his pursuer, he drags his hard-won booty into a place of safety.
+
+There was a feeling of justification in it too. "I am only doing what
+my destiny ordains," she would tell herself. "I am coming into the
+heritage promised me by fate, that the old man has cheated me of for so
+long."
+
+There was something more that scored over everything, and almost gave a
+sanctity and purity to this arrant deception, and this was the
+reflection that their intercourse meant salvation to him. He would
+learn to despise vulgar and shameful intrigues under the spell of this
+elevating passion, and on the wings of a woman's redeeming love he
+would rise into the pure ether where the spirits of great men and
+heroes dwell.
+
+She drugged her conscience ever anew with these delusions, and when he
+lay in her arms at their secret rendezvous, gave expression to them in
+a whisper, for walls were thin, and it was as well not to speak too
+loud.
+
+He laughed and kissed the words from her lips, and when she grew uneasy
+and begged for pledges of constancy, he swore by all his stars to be
+true.
+
+
+                           *   *   *   *   *
+
+
+Fraeulein von Schwertfeger's visits to Lilly's room now never lasted
+later than eleven. At about this hour he was permitted to come; at
+half-past one he had to be gone. Of course, this was only on nights
+when the colonel went to town. The train service made it impossible for
+him to return before two, and, besides, the clatter of approaching
+carriage wheels could be heard as a warning on the courtyard
+paving-stones. Before his departure Walter had to smoke a cigarette to
+clear the room of the odour which he brought with him of stable and
+leather. For sometimes the colonel, if wine made him talkative, would
+look in on Lilly as he went to bed, and even come and sit by her for a
+little, regaling her with the latest "good stories" from Berlin, that
+he had heard in the Casino. She for her part pretended to be very
+sleepy, would yawn and purr like a kitten, and often in confidence of
+safety actually fall asleep in the middle of a laugh.
+
+If only there had been no Fraeulein von Schwertfeger! Not that she had
+noticed anything--the terrors of such a contingency were not to be
+contemplated. But her restless comings and goings, the almost nervous
+eagerness with which she spied round her, gave quite enough food for
+anxiety. She began to look haggard and pale, only the flesh round her
+mouth, like her sharp-tipped nose, was a deep red. It looked almost as
+if she drank, but if she did it was in secret, for at table she hardly
+touched wine.
+
+"I don't mind what she does," thought Lilly, "as long as she doesn't
+play the spy on me as she did on Kaete."
+
+Sometimes it struck Lilly rather forcibly that she herself was now not
+much better than the poor girl who had been sent away from the castle
+in disgrace.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XXII
+
+
+Fraeulein von Schwertfeger had said "Good-night" and gone out of Lilly's
+room about half an hour before midnight one November evening. The
+colonel had driven off to the town, and close to Lilly's pillow sat the
+hero, wet and frozen, for he had been waiting a long time in the
+drizzling rain below before the signal--a double click of the shutter
+bolt--had been given to summon him to her side.
+
+Now, however, all was going smoothly. The house slept, the watchmen had
+gone by, and the ladder, which he for greater safety dragged after him
+on to the balcony, reposed peacefully in its corner. The blue-shaded
+lamp bathed the warm, perfumed atmosphere of the room with a midsummer
+brilliance. Showers of drops dripped softly from the bars of the
+shutters, and the November wind whimpered in the chimney like a beggar.
+Lilly lay comfortably stretched beneath the pale blue satin quilt. She
+held his hand and gazed dreamily up into his face, which even in
+moments of self-abandonment never quite lost its expression of
+schoolboy sheepishness. She gazed at the freckled bridge of his nose,
+the blinking pale-lashed eyes, and the sharply pointed unshaven chin,
+half hidden in the turned-up collar of his green Norfolk jacket. He
+dared not brush himself up for her any more, or it would have excited
+remark from his colleagues.
+
+They did not talk much. It was enough that he was there, he who
+belonged to her in life and death, with whom she had been cast adrift
+in this cold, strange world. She drew his head down to hers and stroked
+the forehead, on which his easy-going career had left no lines. A few
+raindrops still hung on his temples.
+
+The clock ticking on the wall drew breath for a gentle chiming of the
+hour, the hanging lamp swung a little, casting long wavering shadows on
+the ceiling, like rocking cradles, or the flapping of ravens' wings.
+Then there came from the courtyard the sound of the dull rumble of
+wheels. Whether the sound was advancing or receding was not easy to
+decide.
+
+Both started and looked at the hands of the clock. Could that possibly
+be the carriage already, which had gone to fetch the colonel from the
+station? At twelve? Surely not. The horses were never put in before a
+quarter to two, or they would have had to wait at the station for an
+hour and a half. Probably it was the milkman, who had been delayed in
+bringing back his cans. They grew calm again. A whole long precious
+hour was before them, an hour of sweet enjoyment and oblivion of
+everything except each other. To show his relief he made a popping
+sound with his mouth. She stretched out her arms and lifted herself up
+to his level with a contented smile. At that very moment there were
+three short peremptory raps on the door opening into the corridor.
+Fraeulein von Schwertfeger's voice called out, "Open the door, Lilly;
+open the door immediately."
+
+Walter bounded up. Before she could look round he had glided out of the
+room. She felt as if bells were pealing in her ears, and a vague
+longing to sink through the bed before the knock was repeated and drew
+her to the door to turn the key. Overcome with shame, she had hardly
+time to bury herself under the quilt again before Fraeulein von
+Schwertfeger's eyes took a hasty survey of the room and alighted on
+something grey and round in a corner. She darted at it, and only later
+did Lilly recognise that it was Walter's cap. She drew back the bolt of
+the door into the colonel's room, and then with apparent calm, as if
+nothing had happened, seated herself on the edge of Lilly's bed.
+
+"Whatever you do, don't cry," she whispered hurriedly, and then the
+colonel's footsteps were heard in the corridor.
+
+"Good gracious, is it so late? How time flies when two women get
+gossiping!" was the speech Fraeulein von Schwertfeger greeted him with.
+Her tone expressed the most unbounded surprise.
+
+There he stood, and appeared not altogether pleased at not finding his
+young wife alone.
+
+"Where do you spring from all at once, colonel? You can't have ordered
+a special train, and if you came through the air, I never knew before
+you had mastered the art of flying; and I am sure your wife didn't--did
+you, my pet? You see, she is rendered speechless with astonishment."
+
+Thus she talked on, giving Lilly a few moments in which to collect
+herself.
+
+Forced to render account of his movements, he said that as he drove to
+the station he had remembered that it was a neighbouring squire's
+birthday, and, changing his plans on the spot, had turned round and
+gone to help in the celebration of the happy event instead of going to
+town.
+
+"That is always the way," said Fraeulein von Schwertfeger; "the most
+extraordinary events have the simplest explanations. Good-night,
+dearest. I hope you will sleep well, and wake up without headache."
+
+The colonel was on the alert. "Why, if she had a headache, didn't you
+leave her to go to sleep long ago?" he asked.
+
+Fraeulein von Schwertfeger was equal to the occasion, and without
+hesitating a moment she replied:
+
+"Lilly asked me to get her compresses again, but I thought it wiser
+just to lay a cool hand on her forehead. Now I think we ought to leave
+her alone, don't you, colonel? Goodnight!"
+
+Thereupon she extinguished the blue lamp.
+
+Lilly felt she must scream out: "Don't go! stay here, or he'll strangle
+me!"
+
+She was already out of the room, and so effectual had her diplomacy
+been, that the colonel, with a few civilities about her headache,
+retired to his own room without further questions. Otherwise a
+breakdown of Lilly's nerves might have brought things to the inevitable
+crisis there and then.
+
+Paralysed with a dull fear she lay listening, first in the direction of
+the colonel's room, then of that where the wind moaned, and where there
+was an almost inaudible rustling of the leaves, caused by the ladder
+which Walter was sliding over the railings of the balcony. As long as
+there was light in the room he discreetly remained where he was. She
+could hear afterwards how he removed the ladder and put it in the old
+place. Not till now, when she knew they were safe, did she realise with
+a shudder the gravity of their escape, and she felt an inclination to
+call out and cry for mercy.
+
+Anna's conduct seemed inexplicable. Why had she made herself a party to
+their misdeeds, she whose reputation, existence, and employment were at
+stake? Did a wretched sinner like herself deserve such a sacrifice?
+
+Her heart went out to her in gratitude. She could no longer rest
+quietly in bed. She must at once go and thank her.
+
+Noiselessly she threw something on, and taking the precaution to bolt
+the door of communication between the two rooms, she slipped out into
+the corridor, having assured herself that the colonel was already
+asleep.
+
+The old oak staircase creaked terribly, but it often did this when no
+one was creeping down it; its music resounded through the house at
+intervals all the night through. From under Fraeulein von Schwertfeger's
+door came the glimmer of light. Heavy footsteps paced up and down
+restlessly. At last she ventured to knock, and was answered by "Who's
+there?"
+
+"It's Lilly.... Anna!"
+
+"What do you want? Go back to bed!"
+
+"No, no, Anna! I must speak to you; I must."
+
+The door opened. "Come in, then," was the not very cordial invitation.
+
+Lilly was going to throw herself on her neck, but Fraeulein von
+Schwertfeger shook her off.
+
+"I am in no mood for disturbing scenes," she said in her trumpet voice,
+which she tried in vain to muffle. It had lost every vestige of its
+sympathetic tone. "You needn't thank me; I haven't acted as I have done
+for your sake."
+
+Lilly felt very small, and very like a scolded child. Since the days
+when she had accepted meekly Frau Asmussen's chastisements she had not
+been so snubbed.
+
+"At first you help me ..." she hesitated, "and then ..."
+
+"As you are here, you shall answer a few questions," said Anna. "Fasten
+up your dress--it is cold here--and sit down."
+
+Lilly obediently did what she was told.
+
+"To begin with, have I ever done anything to bring about a meeting
+between you and that young man?"
+
+"No; when could you?"
+
+"That's just what I am asking."
+
+"It was quite the contrary, for you wouldn't even consent at first to
+my having the riding lessons."
+
+"And when I did consent, have I allowed them to take place without
+supervision?"
+
+"Without supervision?" echoed Lilly. "No, I should think not, indeed.
+You were nearly always there from start to finish."
+
+"Was it I who proposed your riding about the open country with him
+alone?"
+
+"You? Why, of course not. The first time we went without leave, and
+afterwards it was the colonel who wished it."
+
+"Lastly, have I or have I not taken care to watch that everything was
+right in your room?"
+
+"I am not sure, but I think so. You used, anyhow, to come in the last
+thing to say 'Good-night.'"
+
+"Have you taken me for your enemy--your jailer?"
+
+"Not exactly ... but I thought you didn't really care much about me."
+
+Anna laughed a hard, cheerless laugh.
+
+"Your utterances are very valuable," she said. "It proves to me that I
+haven't blundered in carrying through my scheme, and that I have
+nothing to reproach myself with."
+
+"What scheme?" asked Lilly, quite at sea.
+
+Fraeulein von Schwertfeger measured her with a glance of pitying scorn.
+
+"I knew everything, child, from the very beginning. The first moment
+you met him here I saw what was coming. I could reckon it all up as I
+do the cost of dinner. I just let things go as they were bound to go. I
+could do it without lowering myself in my own self-esteem. Besides,
+what end would have been served by interfering? You were simply bent on
+rushing headlong to your ruin."
+
+"What have I ever done," faltered Lilly, "that you should hate me so? I
+have never tried to upset your position in the house. I submitted to
+you from the first moment I arrived. I put myself entirely in your
+hands and now you treat me like this!"
+
+"My dear, if I had hated you," replied Fraeulein von Schwertfeger, "you
+would not be here now. You would probably at this very minute be
+wandering on the high-road. A dozen times or more I might have crushed
+you like dust in the palm of my hand, and I haven't done it. But I'll
+be honest.... Yes, I did hate you--that is to say, before I knew you. I
+pictured you a little pert, designing minx, who had drawn the colonel
+on, out of mercenary motives, to resort to that extreme measure which
+is the last resource of old libertines when they are thwarted. But when
+you came and I saw what you were, a dear, ingenuous child, without
+suspicion of evil, full of good intentions towards him and myself, I
+had to pocket my hate. Then you became to me nothing more than a
+harmless little pet dog that one uses so long as it is any pleasure to
+one and then kicks aside. I have done with you, my dear child, long
+ago. You're not in it. I and the colonel alone are playing the game. I
+have to reckon with him now, and then my work is over."
+
+Lilly's soul was full of a dull sickening wonder. She felt as if doors
+were being thrown open and blinds drawn up, and she was looking
+straight into human hearts as into a fiery abyss.
+
+"I thought that you and he were so much to each other," she said. "I
+thought----" Then suddenly it occurred to her that her first idea had
+been the right one. This imperious and hardened old maid, of whose
+beauty there were still traces, had ten or fifteen years ago been
+admired by her employer, after a time neglected, and now wished to be
+revenged.
+
+Fraeulein von Schwertfeger guessed her thoughts and speedily dispelled
+the delusion.
+
+"If that had been it," she said, "I should have known how to keep
+silent, and have regarded the castle as my sanctuary had I been allowed
+to remain in it. No, no, my child; things are not always so simple in
+this world, and there are worse hells than you dream of."
+
+Then Lilly heard a story which filled her with horror and pity, the
+story of which she was the last chapter.
+
+The colonel, always a man of tyrannical will, with a mad infatuation
+for young girls, had, under the pretext that when he was at home on
+leave he liked to have youth and gaiety about him, advertised for
+pupils to learn housekeeping. He selected the successful applicants
+himself, having known beforehand whom they were to be. For a long time
+Fraeulein von Schwertfeger suspected nothing, till the servants began to
+talk. They came to her with stories of secret orgies at the top of the
+house, of wild races up and down stairs after frightened girls clothed
+in silver spangles--transparent garments of silver being apparently an
+old weakness of the colonel's. Her eyes were fully opened to these
+disgraceful goings-on when one of the girls attempted suicide, and she
+left the house. But she was poor and used to ruling. She could not keep
+subordinate posts, and sank into poverty and wretchedness. The colonel
+did not lose sight of her, and when he thought she had suffered
+sufficient punishment for her independent line of action, he asked her
+to return once more to the castle as his lady-housekeeper. He promised
+her that there would be nothing more to complain of, so she crept back
+to his house like a starved dog. He soon broke his word, however; the
+orgies were resumed, but she hadn't any longer the courage to protest.
+She learnt to be blind and deaf when amorous glances were exchanged at
+table, and late at night shrill cries and laughter reached her bedroom.
+She even went so far as to keep the scandal from the curious servants,
+and thus to screen the house's reputation, while she offered his girl
+friends a motherly interest and affection.
+
+"I shouldn't be surprised," she added, "if he hadn't made you the same
+proposals, and suggested that I should look after you."
+
+And it came back to Lilly's remembrance how in that hour of fate, when
+she had become engaged to him, he had walked round her, eager but
+irresolute, and spoken of a worthy and distinguished lady under whose
+fostering care she was to develop on his estate into a woman of the
+world.
+
+Fraeulein von Schwertfeger had not done. She went on to say that the
+bitter consciousness of her shameful position ate into her soul like a
+canker, and finally took such possession of her that her one thought
+was to be revenged. His marriage was to be the instrument. She would
+continue to be blind and deaf as he had once demanded she should be.
+That was all. Matters should take their natural course. Such had been
+the state of affairs till to-day. To-day the catastrophe must have been
+unavoidable, and would have fallen on the colonel if at the last
+decisive moment her strength of character had not failed her. She found
+that the young, good-hearted, guilelessly guilty wife had won her
+affection too deeply to be sacrificed to her plans of vengeance.
+
+"But I thought you said just now," Lilly ventured to interpose, "that
+you had not done it for my sake."
+
+Fraeulein von Schwertfeger fixed her with a stony and awful stare.
+
+"My child," she answered, "if you were not quite such a stupid young
+thing, whom sin alone can mature, you might understand the conflict
+that is perpetually going on in anyone like myself. For the present, be
+satisfied that you are out of danger."
+
+In a burst of gratitude Lilly flew at Fraeulein von Schwertfeger and
+kissed her face and hands. Anna no longer repulsed her; she caressed
+her hair and talked to her in a tone of friendly patronage. Then Lilly,
+crouching at her feet, confessed how the affair with Walter had arisen,
+how their friendship had originated, and how he in reality had been the
+author of her happiness.
+
+"Happiness!" echoed Fraeulein von Schwertfeger, and she made a sound
+through her tight lips like a whistle of disdain.
+
+Lilly stopped short, looked at her inquiringly, and then understood.
+The question burned in her brain, "Am I any better, really, than if he
+had dragged me here as his mistress?"
+
+It was eleven months since that night of courtship. What had they made
+of her? She threw her arms round Fraeulein von Schwertfeger's neck and
+cried, cried, cried. It did her such a lot of good to have a sisterly,
+or rather a motherly, bosom on which to pillow her head. It reminded
+her of the days which had ended with the flourish of a knife.
+
+Of course, now it was all over; that was an understood thing. They must
+not meet again--not once. Fraeulein von Schwertfeger demanded it, and
+Lilly without opposition agreed.
+
+"If only it weren't for my mission!" she sighed.
+
+"What mission?" asked Anna.
+
+Then Lilly told her that too--of her sacred responsibility with regard
+to his life, of the influence her love had upon him, awaking him to
+higher and purer things, and how she would be answerable with the last
+drop of blood in her veins for his ascent to a noble plane of
+endeavour, where his work, inspired by her, would bear fruit and not be
+wasted.
+
+It was Fraeulein von Schwertfeger's turn to be astounded, and she
+listened to her with distended, incredulous eyes, paced the room
+excitedly, and murmured to herself, "It's unbelievable! unbelievable!"
+And when Lilly asked her what was unbelievable, she kissed her on the
+forehead and said, "You poor, poor thing!"
+
+"Why poor?" asked Lilly.
+
+"Because you are bound to suffer in this life."
+
+Hereupon it was settled that Anna would speak to him once more herself,
+and, as the price of her silence, require from him the breaking off of
+every sort of relation between them. Not even the rides would be
+permitted. Lilly pleaded for the writing of one single letter of
+farewell. That, she thought, she owed him in order that he should not
+be cast into despair about her and his future.
+
+Then they separated. Lilly ran upstairs; elated, redeemed, borne on the
+wings of new hopes, she cast all precautions to the winds, but, thank
+God, the colonel was still snoring.
+
+The clocks struck four, and the clodhopping step of the stable-boy was
+already heard in the yard. Before she flung herself into bed she
+allowed herself one farewell look across at the bailiff's lodge and
+rejoiced that renunciation was so easy.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XXIII
+
+
+"DEAREST HERR VON PRELL,
+
+"You will have concluded from what has happened that all must be over
+between us. Yes, everything has come to an end. We shall never meet
+again except at table. If you ask whether this makes me sad I will be
+brave and say 'No,' in the hope that it will cause you to feel our
+parting less. But the question is not whether we find it difficult or
+easy. We have to consider whether our feelings in the matter are
+elevating and humanly disinterested. True self-sacrifice must be the
+keystone of our lives. Yes, I expect from you the nobility of
+renunciation. The whole of our future must be dedicated to memories
+alone. Are we ever likely to enjoy again such exquisite hours as we
+have spent together? I have done with thoughts of happiness, and so
+must you too. Henceforth my one sacred duty will be my husband's
+welfare, and I must request you to devote all the energy you are
+capable of to the reordering of your life. You know life is a very
+sacred thing. I feel that it is so, since I have had a kind woman
+friend to set me on the right road, and I want you to feel it too.
+
+"This letter is my last. You may write to me just once. Please do, and
+put your answer in the pea-shooter, which still stands as before in the
+corner of the balcony. Ah! indeed, I shall have no peace till I know
+that our souls are united by the same desires. Good-bye, and when you
+come to meals, be sure you make no secret reference to what has been.
+It would only be painful to me, and I should doubt your good faith.
+
+"Always yours in true sisterly affection,
+
+                                               "L. v. M."
+
+
+"Gracious Friend and Lady,
+
+"The profound emotions I have experienced since my last interview with
+our honoured Fraeulein von Schwertfeger are only deepened by your most
+kind lines. I feel a great impulse to perform deeds of atonement never
+yet attempted. I am ready to heap scorn and contumely on the seven
+deadly sins. I will take as example all the paragons of virtue the
+world has ever known, and will try to find in the lofty renunciation
+you demand of me that undiluted happiness which is the only kind devoid
+of the sting of remorse--an advantage which cannot have much weight
+with one so fatally constituted that he has heard of such a thing but
+never felt it.
+
+"Thus, dearest and most charming of women, farewell! We certainly had a
+good time. I can swear to this without committing perjury. Should you
+require more pledges for the future, I can also swear, first, to abhor
+alcohol; second, to shun the fair sex like the plague; third, to devote
+to the Encyclopaedia of Agriculture unremitting love and attention, two
+volumes of seven hundred and twenty pages each notwithstanding.
+
+"Once more, farewell! The ladder of my hopes, which I have climbed for
+the last time, shall find a wintry grave under fir cones and branches.
+When the times comes, may it rise therefrom to greet a new spring.
+
+"Till then, I kiss in all constancy your slim and refreshingly large
+hand.
+
+                                   "Yours,
+
+                                       "Already reformed,
+
+                                            "Walter von Prell."
+
+
+Lilly found this letter, on the morning but one after the foregoing
+events, stuffed in the mouth of the pea-shooter, which reposed
+innocently against the balcony glass doors. It cannot be said that it
+gave her unlimited satisfaction. There were expressions in it that
+raised scepticism with regard to the sincerity of his conversion. Yet
+his assurances of amendment were so frank and concise, one could not
+doubt that the sentiment that prompted him to make them was genuine. It
+was only that he could not give up the incorrigible levity with which
+he expressed himself. Those who loved him must tolerate this
+eccentricity, whether they liked it or not.
+
+She kissed the letter and put it inside her blouse, that it might rest
+there comfortably for a little while before being torn up.
+
+In the afternoon she went for a stroll round the castle, and found
+under the balcony a heap of fir-branches freshly gathered, out of which
+a rung or two of the buried ladder greeted her confidentially. Pleased
+at this tender evidence of his pain at parting from her, she ran on to
+the boggy outskirts of the park, and marvelled every now and then at
+the easiness of renunciation.
+
+Yet it proved not so easy after all. She began to discover this during
+the next few days of reaction, when life seemed hollow and barren of
+excitement, when the sad grey autumn hours passed drearily and evening
+came, followed by morning, apparently without rhyme or reason.
+
+She did not did in Anna von Schwertfeger's society the solace and
+support she had hoped for. Although her friend did not withdraw her
+promises, she remained behind a wall of reserve, which made any close
+and loving intimacy out of the question. It almost seemed as if she was
+afraid of being implicated in the sinner's guilt, if she encouraged
+Lilly's advances.
+
+At this time Lilly had to put up with a great deal from the colonel.
+His outbursts of ungovernable fury now fell on her, as on the rest of
+the household. But what she dreaded more was the gloomy, threatening
+glance he fixed on her at moments when she sat indulging in quiet
+introspection; she felt instinctively that something was in his mind
+that boded her no good. She began even to fear that he had got wind of
+her affair with Prell. But Fraeulein von Schwertfeger would not hear of
+such a thing.
+
+"If that were so," she said, "he would adopt a rather different
+procedure. Broken chairs and smashed lamps would be the consequence of
+his first-awakened suspicion. I think the matter stands thus: he is
+bored to extinction at home, he is hankering for the regiment, and he
+holds you, child responsible for the change in his manner of living.
+God forbid that he gets to hate you for it, otherwise, as far as I can
+see, you will have no choice but to get a separation--or commit
+suicide."
+
+All this was not very consoling. No less discouraging was his
+persistent refusal to introduce her to his neighbours. Anna assured him
+Lilly's education was long ago complete, and no colonel's dame could
+find anything amiss in her manners. Yet he looked at her in distrust,
+and put off the visits week after week.
+
+Nevertheless, Lilly cheerfully endured her troubles. Belief in herself
+and in him buoyed her up, and gave her strength and composure. She made
+herself out a time-table, so that every hour of the day should be
+occupied. She learnt Goethe's lyrics by heart, she read Shakespeare in
+English, pored over Art books and studied the labyrinthine history of
+the French Revolution. Especially attractive reading did she find in a
+big geographical tome containing illustrations of Southern harbours and
+tropical forests, rocky mountains, and the like. Italy, too, was
+represented. There were pious pilgrims praying at shrines, mystic
+churches and buildings, slender pillared porticos, and all filled her
+with the old hunger to wander under those sunny skies.
+
+And so she lost her way travelling in spirit in foreign countries, to
+look round suddenly and find herself face to face with a fair young man
+with freckles in a black and white check suit stiffly bowing and
+saying, "as gracious baroness commands." Then tears sprang to her eyes.
+Her only distraction now was to stand at the balcony door, and over the
+rampart of Virginian creeper, the last leaves of which fluttered about
+like red flags, to gaze across at the outside of the bailiff's house.
+Of course, he had no idea she was there. Oh, how proud she felt of him!
+For she saw him spending all his spare hours with the Encyclopaedia of
+Agriculture on the window ledge. Quickly she caught up her geographical
+work again, fired by his example not to idle.
+
+In the evening he closed the shutters early, and drew the heavy
+curtains, which he had put up in his wild days, so close that not a
+crack of light glimmered through. But Lilly hadn't the smallest doubt
+that the lamp went on burning far into the night, and that he sat over
+his books copying memorable passages, and revelling in great creative
+ideas. And she revelled with him, for now she knew he could not fall.
+She had his word, and he her honour in his keeping. This must be his
+talisman leading him on to a higher life. So the weeks went on.
+
+He excused himself from appearing on Sundays, and she was grateful to
+him. Another thing she congratulated herself on was that in that fatal
+night she had caught a cold, which the doctor said was severe enough to
+prevent her rides for the rest of the winter. Probably Fraeulein von
+Schwertfeger had a hand in this too.
+
+
+                           *   *   *   *   *
+
+
+One morning early in December it happened that the colonel varied his
+ordinary confirmed grumpiness and appeared at table in excellent
+spirits. He chuckled to himself, looked into vacancy with eyes that
+twinkled, and seemed to be shaking inwardly with suppressed laughter.
+
+Lilly ventured to inquire what was the cause. At first he declined to
+tell her. "Rubbish! Mind your own business," he said, but finally he
+could not keep the news to himself.
+
+"Now, would you believe it?" he began. "I was warned lately at the
+Casino to keep an eye on my young Prell. It turns out from all accounts
+that he has been haunting low quarters at night, and has distinguished
+himself in a brawl about some little baggage of a barmaid."
+
+Lilly felt a freezing sensation rise from her feet and slowly creep up
+her spine. Her limbs became numb. She smiled, and the smile cut into
+her cheeks like the sharp corners of a stone.
+
+"At first I laughed at them," he went on, "for, in the only train that
+goes out and comes in of an evening, I have been a passenger myself, as
+you know, every day. No horse could stand twenty miles each way for
+long. And the pocket-money I give him wouldn't pay for a special train.
+So I told our major. But he stuck to his story, and said he had
+heard it from the younger men, and that it would be a pity if the boy
+was stripped of his uniform. When I got to the station at one, it
+struck me that I had time to search the train from end to end, which I
+did--fourth class and all. Not a sign of him of course. I did the same
+the next night and the next, and went on doing it till I was sick, even
+calling up the inspector to ask if he could give me a clue. He
+couldn't, he called out from inside, half asleep. So I began to think
+the whole thing a swindle. Now, just listen to this: yesterday evening
+when I got to the station here and was already in the carriage, I
+remembered that I had forgotten my umbrella, an appendage to which I
+can never get accustomed. So I went back for it. The station was quite
+empty, but the train was still standing there; and just as I passed the
+luggage van, which had its doors wide open, I saw someone jump out on
+the line on the other side. I shouted 'Stop!' but he bolted off into
+the woods. It flashed into my mind that it was Prell. I told Heinrich
+to drive like the devil, and in less than ten minutes we were here.
+Then I reflected he must have heard the sound of wheels from the
+footpath, and I went straight to my room and turned on the lights. I
+wanted him to think I was there. Did I disturb you, Lilly? By Jove,
+Lilly!" and he started, "I never saw such a face!"
+
+"What's the matter with it?" she asked, faintly smiling again.
+
+"She hasn't been well all day," interposed Anna hurriedly. "Your story
+too, colonel, is rather exciting. I am quite wound up."
+
+"Humph!" he ejaculated, twisting his dyed moustache, and he seemed
+unwilling to take up the thread of his tale again. But Lilly could not
+maintain her composure.
+
+"I must know the rest, I must!" she cried, clasping her hands
+imploringly, quite beside herself.
+
+"Very well," said the colonel, fixing his eyes on her. "I went down
+again quickly and stood in ambush before the bailiff's house. Two
+minutes--and my gentleman comes along, slouching like a pole-cat,
+stands still, looks up and eyes my room, sees the light, and thinks,
+'Ha, ha! it's all right.' Then just as he puts his latchkey in the
+door, I collar him."
+
+Lilly burst into a fit of wild laughter. "Oh, how funny! How very
+funny!" she exclaimed, and this time the colonel believed her.
+
+"Yes; but something funnier is coming," he continued. "I said to him,
+'If you confess the whole truth, I'll forgive you; if not, you'll go
+packing to-morrow early.' And then it came out--what do you think the
+rascal has been up to? Carrying on with the barmaid at the _Golden
+Apple_, if you please--the resort of non-commissioned officers and
+clerks. So that he might loaf there at his ease, he bribed the porters,
+and actually went and came back in the same train with me evening after
+evening concealed in the luggage van. If that isn't impudence, I don't
+know what is--eh, Lilly?"
+
+There was a pause. She felt herself tossing on a stormy sea, a boiling
+and singing in her ears, and felt at the same moment Anna's hand
+closing on hers under the table, in warning pressure.
+
+"Yes, it certainly is very funny," she said.
+
+The tone in which she spoke was not convincing, for another pause
+ensued.
+
+Then the colonel rose, took her head between his hands, pressing it so
+hard she thought her ears would split, and said:
+
+"You certainly appear in need of rest."
+
+With this he turned on his heel and went out of the dining-room.
+
+"Now pull yourself together, dear," Lilly heard her friend's voice
+urging her, "because after this he'll be on the _qui vive_."
+
+Lilly was going to throw herself on Fraeulein von Schwertfeger's bosom,
+hoping to be petted and consoled, but she held herself aloof, as if she
+feared being caught in too intimate converse with Lilly, and said in a
+tone of strained friendliness:
+
+"Excuse me, Lilly dear. There is something I must attend to at once,"
+and she too left the room.
+
+"What now?" she thought.
+
+She looked about her. The remains of their abruptly finished meal were
+still on the table. The dark oak furniture cast shining black shadows
+into the wintry half-light of the room. The old brass chandeliers
+gleamed dully. All was as it always was, and yet there was nothing
+there--only a cruel, all-devouring void, an abyss which lured her into
+its depths as if drawing her with hooks and pulleys.
+
+She went to the window, and looked out apathetically. The bare branches
+shook in the wind, the ivy on the railing swayed; even the bent
+rose-trees, the shoots of which the old gardener had protected with
+straw, moved quiveringly backwards and forwards. All of them writhed in
+the grip of winter, and only the fallen leaves lying in heaps on the
+thin coating of snow were still, but they were dead eternally.
+
+What was to be done now?
+
+If this could happen, then all was in vain. There was no hope, no
+rising to loftier heights, no more strength of purpose, and no more
+truth. You might as well throw yourself down on the ground beside the
+dead leaves and die.
+
+She heard the clatter of plates behind her. The maid-servant, as no one
+had rung, had come unsummoned with old Ferdinand to clear the table.
+She thought of Kaete and of that other creature, in whose arms he had
+made a mock of her and of her faith in him. She dragged her lifeless
+legs upstairs to the only room in the house where she ever felt at
+home. As she passed she heard the colonel raving in his bedroom, and
+almost running as he paced up and down.
+
+"Let him rave!" she thought indifferently.
+
+Next she heard him give orders from behind the closed door for the
+carriage to come round.
+
+"He may stay or go, for all I care," she thought.
+
+She stepped on to the balcony. The icy-cold sensation that still
+stiffened her neck crept down her arms to her finger tips.
+
+Over there sat Walter, employing his leisure as usual in deep study of
+the great Encyclopaedia of Agriculture. He lifted his hand every now and
+then wearily to his brow and knocked the ash from his cigarette against
+a flower-pot without looking up. He hadn't time to look up. Good God!
+
+Confronted by this abominable farce, enacted solely with the object of
+deceiving her, Lilly was seized with such mad, accusing fury that she
+was rendered almost senseless. A pricking and stinging ran through her
+benumbed arms. Then an excruciating burning fever throbbed painfully in
+her temples and hung a blood-red curtain before her eyes.
+
+She saw nothing more, heard nothing more.
+
+She rushed down the stairs, tore back the bolt of the garden door,
+sprang down the terrace steps, and flew like mad across the lawn to the
+bailiff's lodge.
+
+What did she care whether anyone saw her or not? At this moment she
+minded nothing. She didn't so much as knock at his door, but opened it
+with a vigour that sent it swinging against the wall. A hateful,
+pungent smell like the interior of a menagerie greeted her nostrils. He
+was still at the window, and bounded up when he saw her.
+
+The grey daylight shone on the top of his head.
+
+"He's got his hair cut like a clothes-brush again," she thought. "The
+fast life he's now leading requires that it should be so. He must look
+a swell."
+
+"Lord in heaven!" he said, crumbling his lighted cigarette between his
+fingers. "This is a pretty rumpus."
+
+"Why--why have you----?" she shrieked incoherently. "Oh, you
+blackguard! you dishonourable scoundrel!"
+
+"Damn it!" he said, looking round him in despair, "I don't see how the
+gracious baroness is to get out of this without compromising herself."
+
+"I don't care! You have broken your word; you have thrown away what was
+sacred between us--thrown it to a low barmaid ... a barmaid, a person
+who would hang round the neck of any man who gave her twopence ... You
+are a miserable wretch, not worth trying to save ... You won't be saved
+... You insist on going to the dogs as fast as you can ..."
+
+"That's all well and good," he said, "and you may be stating very
+deplorable and indisputable facts; but what I should like to know, dear
+baroness, is how you mean to save yourself?"
+
+"I am absolutely indifferent with regard to myself!" she exclaimed. "I
+have come here to have it out with you ... I demand an explanation
+here--now--instantly--on the spot."
+
+"With pleasure, gracious baroness," he answered, "but first, for God's
+sake, move away from the window."
+
+Whereupon he cast a swift, keen, nervous glance across at the windows
+of the castle, which so far looked unsuspecting enough.
+
+Shocked by his rudeness, she fled into the interior of the apartment.
+It was low-ceilinged, dark, and badly furnished, like a labourer's
+dwelling. The obnoxious doggy odour was here more strongly apparent.
+Where it came from was a mystery revealed a moment later, when, as she
+approached the wall at the back of the room, something snapped
+viciously at her foot, and two little circlets of fire gleamed angrily
+in the dusk.
+
+"Behave yourself. Tommy," he commanded as she drew back with a cry.
+
+So it was Tommy, the third party to the Triple Alliance!
+
+She leaned against the back of the old spindle-legged sofa. Its worn
+springs creaked and its bristly horsehair pricked her hands. The
+thought shot through her brain: "What am I doing here? How does it
+concern me?"
+
+He glided meanwhile, listening hard, from door to door.
+
+"If old Leichtweg happened to be in the next room," he said, "there'd
+be the devil to pay. But if you go away at once by the front entrance
+into the yard, it might be supposed you only came to ask a question,
+and we may still save the situation."
+
+She saw in this proposed move nothing but a crafty attempt at evasion,
+and a fresh volume of wrath overwhelmed her.
+
+"I shall not go," she said, "till I hear what you've got to say for
+yourself;" and to give force to her resolve, she sank on to the
+creaking sofa, which was covered by a dirty, odoriferous grey
+horsecloth, folded several times to protect whoever sat down or lay on
+it from the projecting springs.
+
+He was forced to yield. "Well, then, look here. A man is, so to speak,
+a man, isn't he? And when he is given up in a beastly mean sort of way
+he----"
+
+"Mean way!" Lilly faltered. "What was there mean in my letter? Didn't I
+pour out my whole heart in it, and didn't dear Schwertfeger----?"
+
+She could not go on, she was so choked with scorn and anger.
+
+In the meantime he had arrived at the right policy to pursue, after
+being completely nonplussed at first.
+
+"That's just it," he said, growing more offended every moment. "Can it
+be supposed that a love affair like ours was to close with a lukewarm
+moral sermon? ... and from that Schwertfeger woman too? Did I deserve
+it of you, to be dismissed through a third person that shabby, hideous
+old thing too? Wasn't it enough to drive a fellow desperate ... after
+all I have done for you?"
+
+"Done for me?" echoed Lilly. "What have you done for me, pray?"
+
+"Well, wasn't I always ready to be your self-sacrificing comrade?
+Haven't I even sacrificed my loyalty to my old colonel for your
+sake--the man I honoured and reverenced, who you may say picked me out
+of the gutter? That's no trifle, I can assure you. Do you imagine it
+didn't go against the grain? Do you imagine I didn't get awfully
+depressed? And then night after night to have nothing to do but fool
+round with a dog that stinks; for that beast Tommy does, you know. Can
+a man be blamed in the circumstance for trying to deaden his feelings,
+to still the qualms of his love-anguish? How you can expect that I
+shouldn't entirely amazes me. We speak different languages, my child, a
+yawning chasm divides our two natures. You actually don't mind risking
+both our lives for the sake of a petty grievance. I don't belong, as a
+rule, to the prudes; but the devil knows what I wouldn't give to get
+you out of this room."
+
+During this lengthy oration he had walked round Lilly with one hand in
+the belt of his shooting-jacket, his short, jerky steps expressing his
+indignant consternation.
+
+She for her part sat rigidly erect, turning her head, with great
+despairing eyes, towards him mechanically, first to the right, and then
+to the left.
+
+When he had finished he took a new cigarette from a case and
+energetically brushed off the superfluous tobacco with his forefinger.
+
+She rose to her full height, leaving the sofa and sofa-table a long way
+below her.
+
+"Listen, Walter," she said; "from this moment all is at an end between
+us."
+
+"Wasn't it so long ago?" he asked.
+
+"I mean inwardly too," she explained.
+
+"Oh, indeed ... inwardly!" He made a grimace. "That means, I suppose,
+in your case, when you are sick and tired of one."
+
+When she saw her love so vulgarly derided and jeered at, her
+self-restraint completely collapsed. With a loud moan she ran behind
+the sofa and hid her face in the wall.
+
+"Don't go near the window," she heard him hiss, as he ground his teeth.
+
+But what did she care about the window?
+
+In his distraught anxiety he took to pleading.
+
+"Do come away from the window," he entreated. "I was only rotting. I
+wanted to make you laugh again; nothing else, I swear. Please come away
+from the window."
+
+She did not stir. She wanted to crawl into something--crawl away with
+her shame.
+
+Then she felt herself roughly seized by his hands.
+
+So it had come to that, too! She was to be beaten by him!
+
+She struck at him, wrestled with him, dug her fingers into his throat,
+and then suddenly ... A whizzing, clashing, and clattering, and
+splinters of glass flew over their heads; and an oblong, dark, slender
+thing glanced by them, like the shaft of a lance, hit something,
+rebounded, and lay at their feet.
+
+At the same time she felt a gust of wind blow on her forehead and
+awaken her from the stupefaction of the moment.
+
+One of the upper window-panes was shivered to atoms. But no sign of a
+living person was to be seen. Only the balcony door, which a minute or
+two had been shut, stood open, showing blackness within as it swung to.
+
+"A near shave, by Jove!" said Walter, and stooped to pick up the
+mysterious weapon, the splintered panes of glass crashing beneath his
+feet.
+
+"The pea-shooter!" faltered Lilly.
+
+Yes, it was the pea-shooter that a quarter of an hour ago had stood on
+her balcony.
+
+"It's a good job he hadn't his gun at hand," said Walter, "or we should
+be riddled now like sieves."
+
+He wiped the anxious sweat that beaded his brow away with the back of
+his hand.
+
+For all that he was a plucky little chap, and knew exactly what to do.
+He sprang to the wardrobe under which the foxy dog roosted, got out his
+military revolver, drew back the trigger, and tested the barrels.
+
+Then he said: "Now, oblige me by going into Leichtweg's room. Bolt
+yourself in. He's simply gone to load, and then he'll be here."
+
+But Lilly wouldn't. Her anger against him had completely evaporated.
+
+"Let me stay with you. Please let me stay."
+
+"It won't do, child," he said, wrinkling his forehead into the old
+masterful folds. "What is to follow now is man's business."
+
+"Then I shall stay in the passage, and receive him at your door."
+
+He gnawed his moustache. "Well, if you will take it like that, I can't
+reason with you," he said. "Please be seated."
+
+He took the key from the outside of the door, put it in the lock on the
+inside and cautiously turned it several times.
+
+"There's a vast difference between loading and shooting," he said, "the
+devil only knows."
+
+Hereupon he drew out his watch, and listening attentively to every
+sound outside, he counted: one, one and a half--two minutes.
+
+"It looks as if he couldn't find his cartridges," he said; and then,
+with a commanding air, he added, "Sit down; you will need your legs
+later."
+
+She sank into one corner of the sofa and he took the other. He laid the
+watch between them on the bumpy seat. Both counted now with their
+eyes fixed on the minute-hand. "Two and a half--three, three and a
+half--four, four and a half--five minutes."
+
+Nothing was to be heard but the wind whistling through the branches.
+Then it seemed as if they could hear horses' hoofs in the courtyard and
+a trotting away on the other side of the gates.
+
+"Whom can he be going to fetch?" asked Walter. "It hasn't come to
+seconds yet."
+
+Lilly saw red suns dancing before her eyes. The ceiling of the room
+began to descend on her.
+
+And Walter went on counting: "Seven--eight, eight and a half." Still
+nothing. "Nine, nine and a half--ten----" Then he suddenly uttered a
+low whistling sound and seized his revolver.
+
+The front door grated on its hinges, steps drew near, but not the
+threatening thunder of an outraged husband's, bent on revenge; these
+crept softly, catlike, hesitatingly onwards.
+
+Then for a while silence again, only broken by the breathing of two
+anxious beings, and of someone else's breathing on the other side of
+the door.
+
+"Who is there?" called out Walter.
+
+Next came a tap, low, broken, unassertive, as if made by fingers that
+trembled and failed.
+
+"Who the devil is there?" he shouted again.
+
+"Anna von Schwertfeger."
+
+He jumped up and opened the door.
+
+There she stood, ashen-grey, and only red about the mouth and eyelids.
+
+"The colonel has just driven to Baron von Platow's, and will be back in
+three hours. He has bidden me tell you, Lilly, that when he returns he
+does not wish to find you in his house or on his estate."
+
+"And what has he bidden you tell me?" sneered Walter von Prell.
+
+Fraeulein von Schwertfeger, without heeding him, took Lilly's hand.
+
+"Come," she said, "there's not much time. We must begin packing at
+once."
+
+"Yes, but where am I to go?" she asked helplessly as she slowly rose to
+her feet.
+
+
+                           *   *   *   *   *
+
+
+Directly they were outside she saw the carriage that was to take her to
+the station drive up.
+
+
+
+
+
+                                PART II
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER I
+
+
+She was Lilly Czepanek once more. The divorce suit had been quickly
+settled. There had been no attempt at defence, and after the colonel's
+evidence the judges decreed that Lilly had forfeited the right for ever
+to bear her husband's honourable name.
+
+"There is nothing to rescue from this wreck," wrote Doktor Pieper,
+"except the jewels which I hope, acting on my advice about looking in
+at shop-windows, you have industriously accumulated. The pearls which
+your ex-husband--prompted, I may confess now, by me--put round your
+neck on the wedding day I will get permission for you to retain, and
+they alone will keep your head above water for many a long day."
+
+In consequence of this letter, Lilly, who after her flight had found
+the pearls in one of her trunks among her gala dresses and rare lace,
+took them to a jeweller's to be carefully packed, and returned them
+then and there, addressed to Fraeulein von Schwertfeger.
+
+The less valuable ornaments she kept, feeling that they might justly be
+considered her personal property. She had disposed of a good many to
+start with, and what remained would scarcely keep her for another year.
+After that she would be destitute. But she did not think of the future.
+It was hidden from her behind the veil of tears that she had shed.
+Regret for what she had lost, acute consciousness of her grievous
+position, occupied her mind to the exclusion of almost everything else.
+
+Oh, how she cried and cried--she understood now what crying meant. She
+learnt to gulp down her tears as one gulps down seawater; she sucked
+them back with her lower lip, she shook them off her cheeks as if they
+were raindrops; but always they gushed forth afresh. After the pain
+that caused them was deadened they still welled up, from habit. Whether
+she was asleep or awake, her tears came.
+
+Trembling and stunned, without defending herself, without complaints or
+reproaches, she had driven away that grey, gusty December evening
+between the hour of vespers and nightfall. Away, it did not matter
+where, only away as quickly as possible.
+
+She landed in Berlin, the harbour for all wastrels and wrecks. In that
+world where oblivion lays its hands in blessing on the heads of
+righteous and unrighteous alike; where eternal hopes illumine drab days
+of depression like firework sparks; where grief for the past is soon
+changed into an eager expectation of coming happiness; where the great
+god, Luck, holds sway as lord and master--in that world of the unknown
+and stranded, where only those who are old and poor together sink
+hopelessly, into that world crept Lilly on her hands and knees. She
+stayed in pensions for many a dreary month, frequented by guilty
+_divorcees_ who congregate together in such places like apples rotting
+in heaps, by Chilian attaches and agents of mysterious businesses in
+Bucharest and Alexandria, who gave a tone to the roof they sojourned
+under. As inoffensively as she could she avoided the confidences of
+companions in tribulation, who wished to console her, and kept at bay
+the advances of olive-complexioned neighbours at table.
+
+After a time she began to think of finding a situation. It would have
+to be something quite special--something between a lady-in-waiting and
+chaperon, which would not be at variance with her former high station
+and ladylike dignity.
+
+This sort of position seemed remarkably scarce. The only result of all
+her efforts was to win the tender regard of a few old gentlemen who
+called on her at dusk and would not go till they were shown the door.
+So, utterly discouraged, she gave up calling at employment agencies and
+ringing at front doors, though she could not resign herself yet to
+joining the ranks of shopgirls and dressmakers' apprentices. The day
+was still far off when she would have to do that; indeed, she would
+never sink so low, because she was labelled all over "Generalin," and
+wherever she went and whatever she did everyone recognised her supreme
+gentility.
+
+On this seething human ocean she tossed anchorless, without so much as
+a straw to cling to. Nothing but Walter's letter, which two months
+after her dismissal and his was forwarded to her by Fraeulein von
+Schwertfeger. In it the poor fellow, whose own prospects were utterly
+blighted, made an unselfish suggestion of support for her future. It
+ran:
+
+
+"Gracious Friend,
+
+"I am broke. He shot me through the arm. A trifling misfortune when it
+happens to someone else, but, when it falls on yourself, a damning
+obstacle in the way of founding a career on the other side of the
+Atlantic as head-waiter.
+
+"Nevertheless, I cannot be grateful enough to fate for having thrown in
+my path so touchingly virtuous and lamblike a guardian angel as my
+baronissima. You will readily understand, most dear and too-kind lady,
+that I now feel an obligation on my side to act as guardian angel to
+you. How is it to be done? There are difficulties in the way,
+certainly. Were I to commend you to the care of my former friends and
+equals, your future, I am afraid, would be settled too easily, 'For,
+still, leaves and virtues ever fall in hours of tenderness.'
+
+"For this reason I prefer to descend a degree lower, to where citizens
+crawl on their stomachs before our coronets, even if they be tarnished
+and dented.
+
+"In Alte Jakobstrasse in Berlin there dwells a highly respectable
+manufacturer of bronze wares, by name Richard Dehnicke. He was a
+comrade of the Reserve, and feels himself particularly indebted to me
+because I borrowed money from him on more than one occasion. I am
+writing to him by the same mail as this. Go boldly in among his lamps
+and vases. The former I trust will illumine your nights, and the latter
+ornament your path through life. He will not, I believe, demand the
+price from you which others of our compatriots customarily consider
+their due where pretty women are concerned.
+
+"There must be some cranks in the world, I suppose.
+
+"My address in future will be--
+
+                       "W. v. P.
+
+                      "Street-loafer and Fortune's aspirant,
+
+                          "Chicago (first stockyard on the left).
+
+"PS.--Tommy would send his love, only I took care to plant a bullet in
+his forehead before leaving."
+
+
+Lilly took this last and only communication from her comrade very
+calmly. She heard afterwards through Fraeulein von Schwertfeger that he
+had sailed for America with a maimed arm. As he could think of her
+without bitterness or reproach, so she would try to think of him. Their
+love deserved honourable burial, even if its raptures had been a sham,
+and its elevated sentiments dragged through the dirt in shame.
+
+He would like to be her "guardian angel," the dear little man had
+written. Well, anyhow, his letter offered a certain guarantee of
+protection in time of trouble, and indicated where a helping hand would
+be held out to her. But the course he advised she had no thought of
+adopting. Never would she avail herself of that helping-hand. She was
+in deadly terror of desirous masculine eyes reading her face, of
+masculine lips pouring out persuasive and convincing arguments.
+
+She would take her fate in her own hands and go her own way. Whither it
+would lead her of course was not clear. In truth, grief and anxiety had
+rendered her so irresolute, that it needed but a breath of wind to
+drift her in a direction that would have decided her future once for
+all. The breath of wind, however, did not blow on her.
+
+Month after month went by. Fraeulein von Schwertfeger gave up writing.
+Want of money caused her little hoard of jewels to dwindle rapidly. The
+pensions she boarded in became more and more modest. Instead of Chilian
+attaches and Greek merchants, bankrupt auctioneers and clerks out of
+employment offered to cheer her evenings by forcing their company upon
+her; and the ladies who paid her visits in soiled tea-gowns glanced
+covetously at the few bracelets, brooches, and rings which she still
+had left. Thus she decided to end this mode of living and find a new
+one.
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER II
+
+
+Among highly recommended "best rooms" in Berlin belonging to apartments
+which had known much-boasted "better days," and now were let for thirty
+marks a week, including breakfast and attendance, to respectable young
+gentlewomen, were those of the widow, Klothilde Laue.
+
+The furniture was upholstered in crimson plush, which had been the
+latest thing in decorations at the time of the Franco-Prussian war.
+There was a long mirror, the sides of which from top to bottom were
+fantastically plastered with new years' and birthday cards, and
+advertisements of soaps and powders. On the walls hung photographs of
+once famous actors, whose fame had meanwhile faded like the ink in
+which they had inscribed their autographs. The marble-topped washstand
+had an embroidered splasher bearing the following cryptic couplet:
+
+                 "If you would wash yourself clean,
+                  Take care that your conscience is pure."
+
+There were also endless photograph-albums, card-cases, a sandal-wood
+windmill meant to clip cigars, a green frosted glass punch-bowl, and a
+rickety pitch-pine bedstead, behind blue woollen curtains. Finally, to
+crown all, there hung over the sofa in a gilded glass case a mysterious
+globular-shaped creation, consisting of six plaited strands of tissue
+paper radiating from a common centre, and through its covering of gauze
+an ornamentation of pressed flowers was dimly discernible.
+
+In this best room of 10, Neanderstrasse, situated up four flights of
+stairs above a china shop, a piano business on the hire system, and a
+studio for repairs, Lilly landed one day, to look out from the window
+on the greenish-grey waters of the Engelbecken and a strip of Berlin's
+smoky sky.
+
+Frau Laue, an overworked, prematurely aged woman of fifty, with a face
+like a dried apple and great eyes that always looked tearful, revolved
+round her in incredulous admiration. She seemed unable to grasp that so
+much brilliance and beauty had positively strayed into her abode.
+
+On the day of her arrival Lilly heard her whole history. Her husband
+had been cashier and book-keeper at one of the most popular variety
+theatres in Berlin, but twenty years ago he had died, leaving her
+pensionless in an unfeeling world where no rosy stage glamour disguises
+solitary tears, and no comic patter stills the pangs of hunger.
+
+At this juncture that mysterious paper-creation, which on nearer
+inspection proved to be a lamp-shade, became her salvation. She had
+once been made a present of it by an artistic friend, and in her need
+she hit on the happy idea of making others after the same pattern and
+offering them for sale.
+
+After years of hawking her wares about, after drudgery and
+disillusionment of all kinds, she had wrung from the public a market
+for "pressed flower lamp-shades," and a reputation as a specialist in
+this line of business.
+
+In her back parlour, with one window, which smelt of hay and paste, and
+where on a long white deal table lay in their hundreds and thousands
+the skeletons of floral denizens of the Thuringian Forest--she could
+not, of course, afford the time to gather them herself--she had drudged
+for nearly two decades, tapping, daubing, pasting, drying, and
+threading sixteen hours a day, and had earned, thanks to her reputation
+as a specialist, enough to enable her to let her best room--her
+treasure-trove and sanctuary--to a stranger for thirty marks a month.
+
+The two did not long remain strangers, however.
+
+Into the back-room existence of this downtrodden being, before whose
+eyes the pictures of a few bedizened ballet-girls shone and glittered
+as paragons of unattainable magnificence, Lilly descended from the
+real aristocracy like a heaven-born divinity. Her landlady idolised
+her as an emissary from regions that she had believed hitherto were
+only possible in fiction; where such expressions as "footman,"
+"drawing-room," "pearl necklace"--Lilly took care to tell all about
+hers--came quite naturally instead of being rolled on the tongue and
+allowed slowly to melt as with closed eyes one conjured up the
+surroundings to which such a vocabulary belonged.
+
+Frau Laue became in very early days Lilly's confidante and adviser. She
+helped her to live down the shame following her divorce, she cheered
+her when a feeling of desolation overcame her, and painted for her a
+future in radiant colours.
+
+No one need perish in a great powerful miracle-working city like
+Berlin. Every day there were dozens of happy chances that might set you
+on your legs again. There were lonely old ladies dying to find someone
+to whom they could leave their money; there were aristocratic young
+ones who yearned to hold out a hand of sympathy and friendship to a
+poor, beautiful orphaned sister; there were famous artists who would
+gladly escape from the snares laid for them by female admirers in the
+arms of a good woman; and there were great poets with whom the post of
+muse was vacant. In fact, one of the greatest capitals in the world, it
+would appear, had only been waiting for Lilly's advent to lift her to
+its throne as conquering heroine.
+
+Again the months passed. Regret for her wasted opportunities became
+gradually less acute. Her nights were calmer and no longer disturbed by
+this or that scene from her lost paradise rising before her vision with
+horrible clearness, when she was in a state between sleeping and
+waking, to make her start up and cry aloud.
+
+One lesson, however, she had not learnt, and that was to estimate
+correctly how brief had been her sojourn in high places: she could not
+accept it as a mere episode that had interrupted the ordinary course of
+her real life like a capricious dream. In her inner consciousness she
+continued to be a kind of enchanted princess who, in the disguise of a
+beggar, went about unknown and unrecognised till such time as Divine
+dispensation should reinstate her and restore her lawful rights.
+
+With anxious solicitude she clung to everything that reminded her of
+her vanished splendour. In Frau Lane's wardrobe she hung the festive
+raiment that the colonel had ordered for her in Dresden, Frau
+Lane's empty drawers were filled with the snowy fragrance of her
+coronet-embroidered underclothes, and in front of the big mirror in
+Frau Lane's best room were ranged the costly ivory and gold toilette
+articles, which once had proudly graced her dressing-table in the
+"boudoir." These, too, still bore the seven-pointed coronet, and to
+think of parting with them would have seemed an outrage to Lilly on her
+most sacred property. She stood waiting meanwhile for what the future
+would bring forth. She still studied advertisements and wrote letters
+applying for vacant situations, but very often forgot to post the
+letters.
+
+For the sake of having something to do, and craving for companionship
+of some kind, she began to sit with Frau Laue in the back room and help
+her with her work. Soon she tapped, cut out, daubed, pasted, and
+plaited as diligently as her instructress, and as in her cradle she had
+been endowed with a gift and taste for all things artistic, she
+speedily excelled Frau Laue, who, when she returned from disposing of
+the lamp-shades, would relate without envy that the flower pattern
+Lilly had designed had been singled out for admiration, and that the
+shades she made were preferred to her own.
+
+Her ambition was aroused. She strove to produce works of art, and never
+tired of toiling for this end.
+
+"If you didn't waste so much time over every little bunch of flowers,"
+said Frau Laue, who shared honestly with Lilly the proceeds of their
+joint labours, "you might earn more than I do."
+
+But Lilly was content with the forty or fifty marks a month that her
+work brought in. Her new craze for lamp-shade making led her on to
+higher aims. The dried grasses, or grass flowers, as Frau Laue called
+them, specially took her fancy. Their slender graceful stalks, the
+delicacy of their veinings, the melancholy charm with which they
+drooped, reminded her of little forest trees, weeping willows beside
+brooks, ashes bending over marble tombs, or palms waving yearning
+fronds on torrid rocks.
+
+She dreamt of starting a new kind of art. She would paint on
+transparent plaques of glass with dried grass foregrounds. She would
+paint lamp-shades and window-blinds with woods of flowering grass and
+ferns, with little cottages in relief, with their doors and windows cut
+out as if light were shining from inside; fleecy clouds, pink sunsets,
+lines of misty hills, dark-blue rivers in which the moon was reflected,
+building across them bridges of light.
+
+The pictures succeeded each other in her brain with inexhaustible
+fecundity; there seemed no end to them. It was difficult to know where
+to begin with such a vast wealth of ideas at one's disposal.
+
+Frau Laue, who had been pasting her oil paper in exactly the same way
+for twenty years, had a horror of innovations, and warned Lilly to
+stick to her last. But a demon of inventiveness possessed Lilly. One
+day she made a tremendous coup. She took her arrow-shaped brooch set
+with six small emeralds to a jeweller, who gave her eighty marks for
+it--needless to say, the brooch was worth five times as much--and
+purchased on her way home after the transaction several cut-glass
+plaques, held together in pairs by screws, so that they could be easily
+attached to the window-panes. She also invested in a paint-box, and
+while Frau Laue clasped her hands in dismay to her head, Lilly set to
+work gallantly. But her practical knowledge of art had no foundation
+except in the memory of a few water-colour lessons at school, and it
+failed her utterly. The colours ran into each other, and the woods in
+the foreground would not look as if they had anything to do with the
+landscape behind, but remained simply grasses straggling about
+objectlessly.
+
+For a long time Lilly struggled to gain her effects, then, crying
+bitterly, she threw the rubbish into a corner, and returned sorrowfully
+to lamp-shades again.
+
+Frau Laue, who had sulked and scarcely spoken during the weeks of
+Lilly's apostacy, began once more to make plans and to build castles in
+the air for her. All the wild schemes that for the last twenty years
+had taken shape in her poor brain were now, when she had no hope of
+maturing them for herself, freely poured into Lilly's outstretched
+palm.
+
+She listened eagerly, yet as her days passed thus a feeling of
+depression grew--almost imperceptibly. She felt herself sinking into
+this sordid groove, and a feeling of repulsion took possession of her
+for the narrow-minded creature in whose great moist red-rimmed eyes
+still lingered a hope for an unattainable happiness, though her
+lamp-shade drudgery had brought her nearly to the brink of the grave.
+
+This repulsion was often so powerful that she was compelled to rush
+out; she didn't care where so long as it was out into the world, into
+life.
+
+She did not stay long; in an hour or less she was back again. The
+streets frightened her. The painted women who jostled her, the bold,
+adventurous youths who followed on her heels, the callous indifference
+with which everyone elbowed his way through the hurly-burly--all this
+scared and made a coward of her.
+
+A gloomy foreboding told her that she would never regain her
+self-reliant joy in combat. When she compared what she was now with the
+little shopgirl who gave out Frau Asmussen's trashy volumes in
+sheltered security, confident that she was doing her duty and always in
+the right, even when beaten for telling lies and obviously in the
+wrong, she felt she was a helpless straw drifting on the waters.
+
+Then this waiting, waiting; this sleepless, hungry waiting! What for?
+She did not know herself. But something must happen. She could not
+exist for ever among these snippets of oiled paper, live and die making
+lamp-shades. Sometimes the thought of Walter's rich manufacturer of
+bronze wares cropped up in her mind with a longing which had to be
+suppressed. She was alarmed to find herself clinging to this shadow,
+and chased it away.
+
+A year had passed since that letter of introduction was written. It
+would be far too late to avail herself of it now. So she went on
+waiting.
+
+Often as she undressed and caught the reflection of herself in the
+glass, her form consecrated by beauty, round and slender limbed, her
+long-lashed wistful eyes, her ripe mouth shaped for kisses, she would
+be seized with glad ecstasy, and say to herself, "Am I like that?" And
+then she would revel in a sense of her youth and readiness for love.
+Then the whole world seemed there for no other object than to press her
+to its heart. Then this dreary round of drudgery was a good thing in
+disguise, for it was bracing her up for flights of intoxicating
+enjoyment. When she stretched herself on the sofa at dusk to rest, and
+she saw the blue flash made by the electric tramcars flit across the
+ceiling, blissful dreams stole upon her and transformed that burning
+fever of expectancy into half-fulfilled delights; a feeling of having
+been saved rose like a thanksgiving in her soul, and what she had been
+bewailing as lost happiness became nothing but a nightmare from which
+she was grateful to be relieved. But these moods were rare, and they
+resembled the mirage of thirsty travellers rather than the refreshing
+waters.
+
+
+                           *   *   *   *   *
+
+
+The winter passed in rain and fog; mild March evenings came when rosy
+cloudlets floated over the housetops, and then spring was really there.
+The trim little trees in the squares put forth their brown buds, which
+by degrees burst into pale green leaves. Lilly saw as little of the
+riot of blossom out of doors, the white foam of the cherry-trees, the
+red glory of the hawthorn, as she had done when she swept the golden
+dust that sprang from Frau Asmussen's bookcases. Frau Laue did not care
+to take walks and expose herself to temptation. For to see a park and
+not collect plants, a garden gate, and not thrust your hand through it
+to pick flowers, was to her an altogether inconceivable act of
+self-restraint. Lilly would not go out without her, for she dreaded
+being alone in a crowd.
+
+Warm, oppressive Sunday afternoons followed, when endless troops of
+townsfolk make pilgrimages to the suburbs and country round, when the
+streets stretch away in empty desolation, and the sultry skies seem to
+weigh down suffocatingly on the unfortunate people left at home,
+panting within four walls. On such afternoons Frau Laue put on a pair
+of real Rhinestone earrings, a brown velveteen dress with a collar of
+black sequins on the square-cut neck, and in this festive attire paid
+Lilly a formal visit in the best room. Then the Dresden evening gowns
+came out of the wardrobe, and entered into competition with those worn
+twenty-five years ago by frail ladies in the stage box of the variety
+theatre. The faded photographs of long-extinguished stars would be
+brought down from the wall and their charms examined. Apropos of these,
+thrilling stories would be related of personal adventures, in which,
+amid much laxity of morals and gay peccadilloes, matrimonial fidelity
+had maintained its modest value.
+
+The summer Sunday afternoon would wear away, wan and exhausted as a
+fever patient, a stifling breeze blow in at the window. The varnish on
+the cheap rosewood furniture would reek, the houses opposite shine as
+if they were perspiring, and Frau Laue, munching her bread and cheese,
+would once more repeat the oft-told tale of her virtuous married life.
+
+When at last she took her departure, Lilly would sink groaning on her
+bed, hide her face in the stuffy pillows, and listen to the shouts of
+the merry-makers in the street below returning from their trips. The
+next morning the pressing and pasting of flowers would begin again with
+renewed vigour.
+
+July came, and she could stand it no longer. One Monday morning, when
+daylight found her awake and waiting, her pillow soaked with tears, a
+sudden longing for life so warm and irresistible filled her heart that
+she bounded out of bed with an exultant cry.
+
+Resolve cried within her, "I'll do it to-day--to-day! Go on a begging
+expedition to that unknown man." No, it would not be begging. God
+forbid! Long ago she had settled in her mind what line she would take.
+She would merely ask for advice such as he, a connoisseur with a wide
+experience in arts and crafts, would be able to give the inquiring
+amateur, anxious to learn, in a few minutes.
+
+Where and how she could get good lessons in painting transparencies on
+glass plaques, was the question she wanted to ask him. And whatever his
+answer might be, it would be the first step in a new phase of life.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER III
+
+
+Was it the path of fate that she pursued?
+
+The street looked the same as usual. Vans rumbled along, housewives
+crowded in front of the butchers' doing their marketing, young men
+hurried by with rolls of music and books under their arms, but were not
+in too great a hurry to turn round and look after her, causing her, as
+of old, mingled feelings of satisfaction and annoyance.
+
+The path of fate? Yes, said the throbbing of her heart. She felt almost
+as if she were on her way to exhibit herself for sale. Herself? How
+much was there of her left, of her little stock of pride, of her faith
+in herself as one of the elect, her belief in the great miracle that
+was to happen to her? How much?
+
+Her walk took over an hour. She lost her way and was put right by
+policemen. She stopped to look at her reflection in the shop-windows,
+for she was afraid of not pleasing. But every time she saw the soft
+curves of her slight tall figure, with its nonchalant dignity of
+carriage, she breathed a sigh of relief.
+
+At last, when she read the name of the street in which he lived, she
+started. She had hoped in secret that she would not be able to find it
+after all, and have to go home. There was nothing remarkable about his
+house. It was a grey four-storied building, with a wide unadorned
+entrance, across which a board was erected.
+
+
+                         Liebert and Dehnicke,
+            Bronze Founders and Manufacturers of Metal Wares
+
+
+was inscribed in gold letters on a massive wrought-iron plate, which
+extended half the width of the house.
+
+From the opposite side of the street she took in every detail,
+still asking herself whether she should not turn round and go home.
+The windows on the first floor were closely hung with delicate
+primrose-coloured curtains embroidered with gold thread in a broken
+conventional pattern. Out of snow-white china flower-pots nodded
+geraniums and pinks, and on the whole everything here looked better
+kept and more prosperous than its surroundings.
+
+"He lives on that floor, I expect," she thought, feeling slightly awed
+at the chaste severity of the exterior decorations.
+
+Then she took heart, crossed the street, and made straight for the door
+of latticed ironwork, which was close to the carriage entrance, and
+probably led up to that impressive first floor. But this door was fast
+locked, and before ringing she glanced through the lattice and beheld a
+stately garden stairway flanked by cypresses and laurels ascending to a
+landing where a stained-glass window cast ruby and sapphire rays on a
+fair white statue. It was the bust of Clytie, which she had always
+admired in the art shops because of its gentle melancholy.
+
+Her heart sank again at all this splendour. She seemed unworthy of
+breaking in on such decorous calm, so she sprang down the steps again
+and preferred to enter by the general entrance, where some workmen were
+busy facing the bare bricks with ornamental stucco. In the yard men
+were at work, too. The cobble-stones, with which it had evidently been
+hitherto covered, were piled in clumsy heaps, and mosaic tiles with
+white circles on a grey ground, such as one sees in churches, were
+being laid. At the back of the yard rose the red bald brick walls of
+the factory itself. But this too appeared to be included in the
+universal beautifying scheme, and was undergoing alterations. As far as
+the second story the walls were being inlaid with a dado of yellow and
+blue, which looked very gay. In fact, the old dingy aspect of the yard
+was being gradually converted into the elegance of a room.
+
+"They are doing things artistically here," Lilly thought, and felt
+still more nervous.
+
+On her left she saw a corner building that so far had escaped a
+drop of renovating paint or varnish. In contrast to the rest, its bare
+plaster walls presented a dirty, chalky, and almost forlorn appearance.
+At the top of its plain iron steps was a brass tablet bearing the
+words "Office" on its face. Lilly ascended the steps and entered an
+ill-lighted dusty apartment divided into two parts by a wooden railing.
+In the farther division half a dozen young men sat at desks covered
+with shabby green baize. At her entrance they riveted their eyes on her
+in gaping astonishment, and it did not apparently occur to any of them
+to ask what she wanted. It was evident that such a dazzling apparition
+as herself had never been seen in the office within the memory of man.
+Not till she had taken a card from her brocaded wrist-bag and laid it
+silently on the table did the petrified company show signs of life.
+Then they all jumped up with one accord and scuffled for the card. It
+was almost a free fight.
+
+A lank, pasty, overgrown youth, who seemed to have authority over the
+rest, finally sent the others back to their places, and bowing and
+scraping to Lilly, murmured that he would inform "the Chief" of her
+presence, and he disappeared with the card in his hand into a back
+room.
+
+A few moments elapsed. Lilly heard through the half-open door a lowered
+voice say, "Czepanek? Don't know the name. Ask her what she wants.
+What's she like?"
+
+The answer, which was inaudible, lasted several seconds and evidently
+was satisfactory, for the clerk came out, and without further inquiry
+let Lilly through, and ushered her into the private room at the back of
+the office.
+
+Now she saw him in the flesh. He was a thick-set man, of middle
+height--shorter than she was--inclined to corpulency, with a round
+fresh-complexioned face, nice greyish-blue eyes, without any
+expression, a high forehead, and arched eyebrows. His hair was light
+brown, brushed smoothly back from his temples, and his moustache turned
+up abruptly at the ends to mark the Lieutenant. He had remarkably small
+ears and small hands. His whole person breathed scrupulous neatness and
+cleanliness, and, if anything, he was too well groomed.
+
+He was clearly taken aback when he saw Lilly. His eyes widened with
+polite amazement.
+
+Consciousness that she had made an impression gave her back her
+self-assurance and _sang-froid_. Not in vain had she gone through
+Fraeulein von Schwertfeger's training.
+
+"The introduction of a mutual friend, who has, I think, prepared you
+for my visit, brings me to you," she began, inwardly rejoiced to have a
+chance once more of playing the great lady.
+
+In a mirror hanging opposite Lilly saw with satisfaction the reflection
+of her heliotrope toque, with its wreath of violets and swathing of
+tulle, her heliotrope tailor-made costume, with its correctly cut long
+coat, and felt as if she had stepped out of the picture of a society
+portrait-painter.
+
+In silence he offered her a chair. The surprise that his manner had at
+first shown was succeeded by an air of distrustful perplexity.
+Apparently he was puzzled as to her social rank.
+
+His head was inclined slightly to the left, as if it were stiff from a
+recent attack of rheumatism. This pose increased Lilly's suspicion that
+he did not altogether trust her.
+
+She looked down at her brocaded wrist-bag and pretended to be
+suppressing a smile.
+
+He grew more embarrassed. "May I ask," he stammered, "who the mutual
+friend ... er ... is? I don't seem to ... recollect."
+
+He turned over the visiting-card, which his clerk had handed to him, in
+desperation.
+
+She shrank from being forced into mentioning the name of her former
+lover, and so exposing her shame to this man who lived behind china
+flower-pots.
+
+"Is it possible that you don't remember," she answered hesitatingly,
+"receiving a letter from a comrade in your regiment, asking you to
+interest yourself in a ... a lady----?"
+
+He jumped to his feet and flushed to the roots of his hair. His pupils
+dilated so visibly between his wide-stretched lids that she thought his
+eyes were going to start out of his head.
+
+"I beg your pardon," he stammered. "You refer to a letter which I had
+nearly a year and a half ago from Lieutenant von Prell?"
+
+"Yes," Lilly said.
+
+"But, gracious baroness," he exclaimed, completely losing his
+self-possession, "if I had suspected ... could have had the least idea
+that the gracious baroness ..." And his face depicted so much
+grovelling reverence that Lilly's feeling of innate aristocracy again
+came to the surface, but he had to be undeceived.
+
+"I call myself Lilly Czepanek now," she murmured, congratulating
+herself on the happy phrase, "I call myself," which left it open for
+him to suppose that she had chosen voluntarily to resume her maiden
+name.
+
+Alarm at the blunder he imaged himself to have committed was to be read
+on his features.
+
+"I am sorry," he said; "I ought to have remembered that the gracious
+baroness must have gone through many trials." Then he blurted out: "Why
+didn't you come sooner? I waited, waited, and waited a month, six
+months.... Then I started searching for you, with no results; but I
+half thought of employing a detective, only I feared to transgress the
+bounds of delicacy ..."
+
+Lilly nodded encouragingly. She appreciated his scruples.
+
+"Unfortunately, it never struck me to search for you under another
+name.... So I had to abandon the hope of ever having the great
+pleasure ..."
+
+Here, in the intensity of his emotions of delight, he would have
+grasped her hand, but he had the tact to resist the impulse when he saw
+that she did not respond.
+
+Lilly was conscious of being mistress of the situation. She felt so
+saturated with the romance of martyrdom, so surrounded by the delicious
+incense of lofty aloofness, that it was as if she had stepped out of
+the pages of one of Frau Asmussen's novels into the light of day.
+
+"I am grateful to you, Herr--Lieutenant." She could not bring the
+plebeian name of Dehnicke over her lips. "Now I fed that I have not
+knocked at your door in vain."
+
+"I can assure you," he replied, cocking his head still more to the left
+as a sign of his good-will, "that I place myself entirely at your
+service, all I am and all I----" He was going to say "have," but as an
+astute man of business he hesitated to commit himself so lightly.
+
+"Of course, I shall not impose on you too much," she replied airily, in
+order to damp his ardour a little. "I simply wish to be put in the way
+of earning my living, and to have someone who will advise me, and, as
+Herr von Prell"--now his name was spoken--"said that I might have
+absolute confidence in you----"
+
+"Indeed, you may rely on me as on yourself," he could not forbear from
+assuring her.
+
+"That would not mean much," she thought, but took care not to betray
+what passed through her mind by even a smile.
+
+"Have you, by-the-by, heard anything from him lately?" he asked.
+
+She blushed. To admit that she hadn't would expose his treatment of
+her. So, not to appear in the light of being neglected and cast off,
+she said:
+
+"We promised each other at parting not to write. We thought it would be
+best in the struggle that lay before us not to be always looking out
+for letters, and expecting to hear from one another. But you probably
+have heard from him, have you not?"
+
+He started and reflected a moment. "Yes ... that is to say ... not
+recently.... Some time back he wrote that he was getting on all right.
+He was starting a career. He made urgent inquiries after the gracious
+baroness's whereabouts, and I, of course, was not fortunate enough to
+be able to enlighten him."
+
+This sounded scarcely likely. A moment before he had asked her for news
+of Walter, and now when she asked him what Walter's address was, he was
+compelled to confess that his letter had given no address.
+
+It was plain that he had lied.
+
+It may have been that he hoped to raise her opinion of him by
+representing himself to be still on terms of friendship with her lover,
+and, as she for a similar motive had not strictly adhered to the truth,
+she could not very well blame him.
+
+She now went on to explain the purpose of her visit. She told him of
+her difficulties with the delicate art which she had taken up a few
+months ago, of her desire to improve and perfect herself. Would he be
+so kind as to put her on the right road by recommending some artist who
+would give her lessons? This was really the only reason why she had
+called on him.
+
+He listened with close attention, as if he took a professional interest
+in her future. But behind his gravity there lay something that
+disquieted her. It was certainly not pity, rather was it a sort of
+restraint, a concealment of the fact that the more she revealed the
+helplessness of her position the more he felt he was gaining some
+advantage.
+
+"A perfectly simple matter, gracious Frau," he replied, and his manner
+was more natural than heretofore. "I have several good painters among
+the artists who supply models for my business. One of them," he turned
+over the pages of an address-book, "Kellermann ... is the very man ...
+but of that we can talk later. What seems to me of the first importance
+in the art you have chosen are other things. So you will pardon my
+indiscretion, I hope, if I ask you a few questions?"
+
+She nodded assent.
+
+"What training have you had in Art?"
+
+"That is just it," she replied, struggling with her embarrassment; "it
+is because I have had no training that I want to learn."
+
+He did not move a muscle.
+
+"What are your means of support?" he asked next.
+
+She was silent. She began to feel as if she were being stripped of
+every rag she had on.
+
+"You understand, of course," he added, "that I haven't the least
+intention of prying into your private affairs, but as you did me the
+honour of asking my advice ..."
+
+"I have a few ornaments," she said, looking him straight in the eyes
+with proud defiance. "When they come to an end I shall have nothing."
+
+He inclined his head as much as to say, "I thought so."
+
+"And one more question: Where are you living at present?"
+
+"I am living, as befits my means, up four flights of stairs with a poor
+woman who has taught me how to press flowers."
+
+As she said this she caught sight, in the glass opposite, of the
+elegant woman of the world who had condescended to pay Herr Dehnicke,
+"comrade of the Reserves," a visit in his gloomy hole of an office.
+
+He rose and paced up and down a few seconds between the writing-table
+and door. His clothes were so tight and new that he crackled and
+creaked at every movement. He looked as if he had just stepped out of a
+bandbox, he was so polished and rotund. He was a little bit bald too,
+already. His face remained very serious, almost careworn. It seemed as
+if her hard lot weighed him to the earth.
+
+"My dear madam," he began, pausing in front of her, and his voice
+trembled a little, "what I am going to say to you is only prompted by
+the memory of the many years of sincere friendship that have existed
+between Herr von Prell and me ..."
+
+The scornful, patronising way in which Walter had referred to him in
+his letter came back to Lilly.
+
+"I have had so many happy, jolly hours in his society. I am indebted to
+him for so much kindness ..." He stopped. He could not, indebted as he
+was, name the kindness.... "All my life long I shall be grateful to
+him."
+
+Lilly recalled Walter's words: "He feels himself particularly indebted
+to me because I borrowed money from him on more than one occasion."
+
+It was really refreshing to meet with such touching loyalty.
+
+"But what I am most grateful to him for is that he should place such
+confidence in me as to entrust his fiancee to my care."
+
+"Fiancee!" Her ears had not deceived her; he had actually pronounced
+the word. She was startled, but did not contradict him. Until that
+moment it had never entered her head to consider that there was any
+binding tie between her and Walter--the poor little irresponsible
+fellow who could not be expected to look after himself, much less a
+wife and child. But in the eyes of this man of middle-class morals, and
+perhaps not only in his but in the eyes of the world, and in her own,
+the only excuse for her irregular, bungled existence lay in this
+contingency. If she centred all her hopes and wishes on the absent one
+whom she never imagined she would see again, she would have a new
+anchor to cling to. She might even justify herself before God and hope
+for absolution.
+
+This all flashed through her mind while Herr Dehnicke continued to
+assure her of his friendship for Walter, and fasten on her round eyes
+of disinterested adoration.
+
+"As his representative, and for his sake," he said, coming to the
+point, "I would urge you most seriously, dear madam, to quit
+surroundings that are not congenial to you, and find others more
+fitting to your former rank. It is absolutely necessary if you wish to
+put your plans into execution."
+
+"What have my surroundings to do with my art?" she asked, shrugging her
+shoulders.
+
+"Well, to begin with, you certainly must have a studio in which you can
+receive your customers, ... where you can show them who you are, and
+what you can do, and how far you are capable of carrying out your
+designs. This is the only method of ensuring those who give you orders
+treating you as a crafts-woman and not a mere ordinary work-woman."
+
+"But they won't come to me to give their orders," she interposed.
+
+"They should do so, undoubtedly," he exclaimed, working himself up into
+a decorous enthusiasm. "An artist who has any self-respect ought never
+to step outside his door to offer his wares to the public, and I advise
+you to act on this principle."
+
+She mentally calculated the number of rings, pendants, and bracelets
+that she had left, and replied, smiling:
+
+"It's more easily said than done."
+
+He grew bold. "My old and intimate friendship with Walter"--he used
+his Christian name for the first time--"entitles me to the privilege
+of--how shall I put it?--making provision ..."
+
+She foresaw what was coming and choked him off.
+
+"I am quite content where I am," she declared. "And till I am able, out
+of my own resources, to provide myself with the surroundings you are
+kind enough to wish for me, I do not feel justified in making a
+change."
+
+He bowed, his zeal perceptibly cooled. He asked her at least to leave
+her present address, so that he might send her the desired information.
+
+Hesitating, she gave the number and name of the street where she
+lodged, and added the request that he would not think of calling on
+her.
+
+He bowed again stiffly. His coolness increased and he became almost
+rigid.
+
+She felt glad that she had understood so well how to keep him at a
+distance. No one could say she was a beggar after this.
+
+She took leave graciously, for it was not her intention to snub him too
+mercilessly.
+
+He was quick to take advantage of her warmer tone, and became ardent
+again.
+
+"Was there anything else that he could do for her?... Did she feel
+lonely? Did she wish for society?"
+
+She glanced at his right hand, on which there was no wedding-ring, and
+shook her head, smiling.
+
+He had perfectly understood both glance and smile, and, struggling with
+a fresh attack of embarrassment, he cleared his throat and said:
+
+"I live alone with my mother, but, unfortunately, I cannot ask you to
+come and see her, as she is in very poor health, and since my father's
+death sees nobody. But I might introduce you to a few people of
+irreproachable position, of course if you cared to know them."
+
+"Thank you very much," Lilly replied patronisingly. "Naturally, I
+should take for granted that you would only introduce me to nice
+people. But, in spite of that, I think I would rather not. It will be
+best, at present, for me to do without society."
+
+With this she made a regal inclination of her head, held out her hand,
+and departed.
+
+He followed her deferentially to the door, and the six young gentlemen
+stood up with one accord in a row and bowed like their master.
+
+She passed out through the unfinished alterations in the courtyard,
+with flushed cheeks. When she was out in the street her mood was one of
+mingled triumph and disappointment. "No, that was _not_ my path of
+fate," she said to herself.
+
+But she had unexpectedly acquired a fiance, and that was something.
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER IV
+
+
+August Kellermann passed for an artist of considerable reputation,
+though his pictures did not sell. He was a sharp-witted, sharp-tongued,
+good-natured person in the middle of the thirties, well-versed in all
+the vices of the capital. He had a sandy Rubens beard, prominent little
+eyes, with an eternal weariness in them as if he had never been in bed
+the night before.
+
+He rented a studio that had once been a photographer's. It was of huge
+dimensions, like a magnified glass case. He had draped the roof, as a
+protection from glare and heat, with Turkish rugs propped by poles,
+giving his studio the air of a Bedouin's tent.
+
+When Lilly stepped out of the dim twilight of the anteroom into the
+garish brilliance of the studio, which was so lofty it seemed part
+of the sky, she found him in a plum-coloured overall, with green
+down-at-heel slippers over which his red plaid socks hung in rucks,
+seated on the floor, beside an Oriental coffee apparatus, stirring an
+extinguished spirit-lamp.
+
+"Good Lord!" he exclaimed, without getting up to return her greeting;
+"this is a visit worth having."
+
+Lilly turned to go away again, and he immediately sprang to his feet,
+pulled up his trousers, and with a shrug of his shoulders dusted a
+bamboo chair with his sleeve.
+
+"Sit down, my child. Though I have nearly given up painting for
+pottery, and couldn't make use of Helen of Troy herself as a model, I
+am not going to let you slip through my fingers."
+
+Lilly handed him her benefactor's letter of introduction, and pointed
+out his mistake. "Now he'll change his behaviour," she thought. But
+nothing of the sort happened.
+
+"What a bore!" he said, scratching his head. "Most noble of women, why
+are you so beautiful? Ex-general's wife!"--here she was, labelled
+again--"I should have expected eye-glasses and pimples, and _you_ come
+along!"
+
+"You probably know my reasons for coming to you?" asked Lilly, too
+downhearted to resent his manner.
+
+He clapped his fleshy hand to his forehead.
+
+"Let me see! Let me see! The worthy Dehnicke, who is my dry-bread
+giver--'dry' referring to giver as well as bread--did, I think, mention
+the matter to me a day or two ago; but I suffer from a congenital
+dulness of comprehension, perhaps you will kindly ... er ...?"
+
+Lilly explained what she wanted, and he burst into uncontrollable
+laughter.
+
+"Yes, my fair noblewoman, I'll give you the benefit of my
+instruction--and would do it, even if you hadn't entered the world like
+Venus! Such a chance doesn't come in my way every day. I promise to
+charm sunsets out of the sky and perpetrate them on glass for you in
+hues so vivid that you'll never care to look a raspberry in the face
+again."
+
+Lilly was quite aware that if she had stood on her dignity as
+"noblewoman" she would have at once left the studio. But her desire to
+turn his readiness to teach her to account was too strong. She could
+not sacrifice the opportunity so carefully obtained.
+
+"I wonder what Anna von Schwertfeger would say?" she thought. And then,
+with a toss of her head, she said:
+
+"There are certain preliminaries to be arranged before we go on. First,
+I wish to know distinctly what your terms are, so that I may make up my
+mind whether I can afford your services."
+
+He looked a little dashed, and said that he supposed Herr Dehnicke
+would arrange the matter.
+
+"Herr Dehnicke has nothing at all to do with my financial affairs," she
+replied. "Should there be any misunderstanding on this point ..." She
+took up her sunshade; her gloves were already on.
+
+"Now, now, don't be so hasty," he said; and after reflecting a few
+moments he, named a charge of five marks for the morning's lesson.
+
+"My ruby ring will just do it," Lilly thought, and agreed to the sum.
+
+"Well," he said, "I am curious as to the other preliminaries."
+
+"It's only this. I wish to be treated like a lady."
+
+"Ah, indeed! I'm not refined enough for you, eh? But I tell you I can
+be as much as you like. I have six degrees of refinement, so you've
+only got to choose: extra refined, super-refined, highly refined,
+medium refined, unrefined, and beastly vulgar. Now take your choice."
+
+Lilly was so delighted with this pleasantry and others of the same
+sort, that she yielded her claims to consideration as a _grande dame_,
+and was content to be on terms of "hail fellow, well met" with him so
+long as he didn't pay compliments. However, her reminder was not
+without effect, and when she came again the next day he had even put on
+a pair of boots.
+
+On the whole, he proved to be an intelligent and kindly master, who did
+not expect too great things of his pupil; and took an encouraging
+interest in her childish ambition. He contrived a medium out of
+gelatine especially for her work, which threw up the brilliancy of the
+transparent colouring, and he was indefatigable in suggesting new
+combinations.
+
+"I'll make you half a dozen blood-red sunsets," he said, "that will
+knock all competitors out of the field, including that unconscionable
+old lady who commits the most glaring impertinences. I mean, of course.
+Dame Nature."
+
+While she splashed colour on a window-pane he stood smoking Turkish
+tobacco and chewing ginger before one of the modelling easels that
+filled the middle of the studio. Here he "pottered" away, as he
+expressed it, at his modelling in bronze. For the most part it was
+human figure that he created out of "the depths of his soul," half or
+three parts life-size: armoured knights with banners, girls in old
+German dress with problematically outstretched arms, allegorical female
+forms likewise employed, heralds trumpeting, and now and again
+impressionist nudity, long, too-slim limbs, and nixie bodies wriggling
+off into mermaids' tails; ash-trays, finger-bowls, and other
+utilitarian articles. And all the time there hung or leaned against
+the walls, covered with dust, half-finished pictures and sketches of
+daring originality and riotous delight in colour, every one stamped
+with unpremeditated power and joyous ease in execution. There was a
+half-ruined chapel in a tropical forest, on the high altar of which a
+herd of monkeys were gambolling; in a monotonous desert background a
+group of stubborn-eyed camels drew round the dead body of a lion,
+sniffing it; best of all was the nude figure of a woman loaded with
+chains, her white limbs shining out in relief from a rugged barren
+rock, and round her head swooping a horde of red-eyed vultures. There
+was much else that showed restrained strength and wealth of
+imagination; but the woman in chains remained Lilly's favourite.
+
+One day she ventured to ask her master why he left all these things
+unfinished, instead of working them up for exhibitions.
+
+"Because I have to turn out pot-boilers, you unsuspecting angel," he
+replied, laughing, and slapped a clod of wet clay against the leg of
+the allegorical lady whom he had in hand; "because the world wants
+lamp-stands and flower-vases, but no immortal beauty, with mother-wit
+inside her body to boot; ... because there are manufacturers of
+imitation bronze wares who keep you from the workhouse; and because I
+am a chap with sound teeth who wants a few crusts of life to masticate
+after twenty years of fasting, and will hunt for once with the
+worshippers of Dionysus. Can you, with your five-o'clock tea soul,
+grasp that ...?"
+
+"But could you not at least finish the woman with the chains?" she
+urged.
+
+He broke into a shrill laugh of self-contempt, and threw himself full
+length on the fur-covered couch which stood in the most shadowed corner
+of the glass-walled room. Then he sprang up again and offered Lilly
+ginger out of the pot he always kept handy.
+
+She thanked him and pressed for an answer to her question.
+
+"Dear God! Have you no conception of how heavily loaded everyone is in
+this world with his own chains? Divine fire would have to descend from
+heaven and melt my handcuffs or the goddess herself must appear in the
+flesh, throw her clothes on that chair, and say, 'Here I am, dear sir.
+This is the body born from the foam.... Now, fire away; look and paint
+your fill.'"
+
+He had stopped in front of her, chewing ginger, and raised his clasped
+hands to her in an attitude of petition.
+
+"How funny you are!" she said in confusion. "What does it concern me?"
+
+"I am not going to say," he said. "I am by a long way too damnably full
+of respect.... But if one day my chain-loaded beauty is sick of crying
+to be set free--she cries to be set free day and night, and often keeps
+me awake--then maybe a miracle will come to pass and someone who is now
+flushing up to her eyes will come and----"
+
+"I think we had better go on with our work," Lilly cut him short.
+
+From that day she was careful to keep off the subject of the picture,
+and she did not dare so much as to glance across at it if Herr
+Kellermann was looking; but, all the same, he made constant allusions
+to his presumptuous idea, which seemed to obsess him, and at last Lilly
+had to forbid him to mention it.
+
+Her enthusiasm for her work grew day by day. She was not content with
+the lessons in the studio, she practised at home, and when she tried
+her newly acquired talent on the glass plaques she had purchased, the
+results were, both in her own and Frau Laue's opinion, highly
+creditable. The sunsets ran blood-red over cornflower blue hills, and
+in the foreground stood dark silent primaeval forests of grass and
+ferns, shading huts which had been built and brilliantly illuminated
+apparently by a prehistoric race of men.
+
+She had never shown any of her performances to her master, for
+he had declared that he could not on principle tolerate such
+paste-and-scissors atrocities. But Herr Dehnicke would have been
+interested, she was sure, in her progress, and she would dearly have
+loved to show him her works of art.
+
+Unfortunately, since his letter of introduction to Herr Kellermann she
+had heard no more from him, and she felt a little piqued at being so
+easily forgotten.
+
+One day Herr Kellermann said suddenly: "By Jove! The bronze business
+has begun to boom all at once. Our Herr Dehnicke keeps me at it with
+orders. He's up here nearly every day to see how things are getting
+on."
+
+Something in his manner as he said this, with his eyes blinking at her,
+made Lilly redden and feel uncomfortable, though it filled her at the
+same time with a quiet satisfaction. And when at last the seven pairs
+of glass plaques were finished, she was so brimming over with pride in
+them that she couldn't keep it all to herself, and boldly wrote him a
+note on her superb ivory paper, with the seven-pointed gold coronet, of
+which she had about twenty sheets left. Would he, she wrote, come next
+Sunday afternoon, as he had been so good as to take an interest in her
+work?
+
+An answer came at once. Nothing could have given him greater pleasure
+than her kind letter; he had been longing to come and see her, and he
+hoped that she wouldn't doubt that it was only out of regard for her
+wishes that he had kept away.
+
+On the appointed Sunday afternoon he appeared. Lilly arranged a plant
+of gladiolas in the punch-bowl, and pink carnations round the box
+containing the specimen lamp-shade. Fastened against the windows by
+ribbon bows hung the glorious sunsets like conflagrations, casting a
+magic glow over the room and the tawdry treasures which Frau Laue had
+preserved with her own character from "better times." Lilly presented a
+gay and charming appearance in the white lace blouse washed and ironed
+by her own hands; and when she went to receive her guest, who stood at
+the door in patent-leather boots, with a top-hat in his hand, she was
+quite the self-possessed, condescending, unapproachable fine lady who
+had entered his office a few weeks before.
+
+Her benefactor was all the more embarrassed. He sniffed the frowsy
+odour which reached Frau Laue's best room from the other part of the
+house, cast uneasy glances at the walls, and behaved altogether as if
+he were poaching on forbidden ground.
+
+He could not express how happy he was that she had at last given him
+permission to call ... he had not wished to be intrusive ... he would
+have deferred coming still longer if her note had not set his mind at
+rest ... and so on. He repeated all he had said in his letter in a
+nervous, stumbling way, which was hardly in keeping with his elegant
+attire and naturally frigid manner.
+
+She, on her side, thanked him in a friendly tone for all the favours he
+had done her, and she was sorry to have given him the trouble of coming
+to see her; and as she said all this she felt, against her will, quite
+the "Frau Generalin" doing the honours of her drawing-room with
+sociable courtesy.
+
+By degrees she brought the conversation round to her work, deplored her
+artistic incompetence, and pointed to the sunsets glowing on the
+window-panes.
+
+Herr Dehnicke sprang up, and after a moment's silent contemplation
+burst into raptures of enthusiasm, for each of which he had to draw
+fresh breath and repeat himself rather mechanically, while he
+maintained an awkward smile. But Lilly was far too delighted to suspect
+that his favourable criticism wasn't genuine. He asked if she had shown
+the transparencies to Herr Kellermann, She confessed that she had
+lacked the courage. "Besides, I wanted you to see them first," she
+said.
+
+His eyes did her grateful homage as he remarked, "If you haven't yet
+done so, I strongly advise you to omit it altogether. The man, obliging
+as he seems, is really a mass of professional conceit, and he would
+probably ..."
+
+He seemed afraid to say more.
+
+Lilly plucked up courage to ask casually, as if it didn't matter much,
+whether he thought she would find purchasers for her work.
+
+He was silent again, and scratched meditatively the place to which the
+left end of his moustache was glued. Then, putting his round smooth
+head very much on one side, he said, carefully weighing his words:
+
+"You had much better, dear lady, entrust the sale of your stuff to me.
+You see, I have my customers, and I know what buying is. I might set
+your glass-work in bronze frames or something similar, and they would
+pass, doubtless, as goods of my own."
+
+Gratitude bubbled up warmly within her.
+
+"Oh, will you really do that?" she cried, grasping his hand. "I shall
+be very pleased to let you, till I have found customers for myself."
+
+The pressure of her hand turned him scarlet to the roots of his hair.
+
+"To achieve that," he said, looking the other way bashfully, "it is
+above all things necessary that the gracious baroness doesn't hesitate
+any longer to establish herself in a home that is worthy of her."
+
+"I shall be only too glad," she replied merrily, "when I can afford
+it."
+
+"It may be years before you can," he interposed.
+
+"Well, I don't mind waiting years."
+
+"Allow me," he stammered, "to remind you once more, that as an old and
+intimate friend of your fiance, I am entitled----"
+
+She drew herself up. "If my fiance," she said, "was, or is ever likely
+to be, in a position to support me, I perhaps should not refuse; but as
+matters stand I can permit no one in the world, not even his dearest
+friend, to make me offers that can only humiliate me in the end."
+
+She turned her face aside to hide how hurt she felt.
+
+He instantly hung his head in penitence, nevertheless there was a gleam
+of triumph in his eyes.
+
+It was then arranged that one of his vans should call the next day for
+the transparencies, and business thus being concluded, he begged
+modestly to be allowed to stay a few minutes longer. He would so enjoy
+a little chat about the absent friend; he had so few opportunities.
+
+"I shall enjoy it too," Lilly responded, inviting him to sit down.
+"It's a great happiness for me to find someone who knows my fiance."
+
+The word "fiance" now fell glibly from her lips as something quite
+natural. As the chance of his staying longer had been foreseen and
+provided for, she had only to ring, and Frau Laue appeared in the
+famous brown velvet gown with the black sequin square decolletage,
+which was now decorously filled in with one of Lilly's white silk
+fichus. She bore a tea-tray with two dainty cups of mocha coffee; and
+when presented to Herr Dehnicke she made a curtsey, which would have
+graced a ball at Prince Orloffski's. After she had added a few remarks
+about the great histrionic artists of the past and the photographs to
+which they had affixed their autographs at her special request, she
+retired, as it beseemed her to do.
+
+Then Lilly displayed her charms as a hostess, and with the aroma of
+mocha coffee the spirit of "better days" pervaded everything.
+
+
+                           *   *   *   *   *
+
+
+Nearly a week later the post brought Frau Lilly Czepanek a money-order
+for two hundred and ten marks, from Richard Dehnicke, of the firm of
+Liebert & Dehnicke, metal-ware craftsmen, "Due for seven landscapes
+painted on glass, with dried flowers, sold at thirty marks apiece."
+
+Thus the foundation of a future career seemed to be laid.
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER V
+
+
+Bright times followed. With part of the sum she had earned, Lilly
+invested in new materials, and soon more sunsets flared behind woods of
+dried grass and flowers pasted on glass.
+
+As she lay sleepless, through the hot summer nights, from overwork, she
+made plans of all the great things she would do when her art had
+conquered the world. She would have a workshop like Herr Dehnicke's,
+and employ a dozen women-hands with Frau Laue as forewoman. Then she
+would advertise for her lost father, and move her poor insane mother to
+an expensive private asylum.
+
+She would, of course, provide for Walter too. Now that she had worked
+herself up into imagining herself his fiancee, it would be her duty,
+and she cheerfully took the responsibility on her shoulders. He must,
+however, first make some sign, or how was she to know where he was? She
+felt sure that one day, when he had no one to turn to, he would think
+of her, and find some way of communicating with her. Then out of her
+abundance she would send him money without stint, all that her art
+poured into her lap.
+
+No, not all. She must think first of that great and sacred task which
+dominated her life with such a gigantic influence. Whether she traced
+her father or not, his work, his immortal masterpiece, must never be
+allowed to sink into oblivion. Awaiting its resurrection, the score of
+"The Song of Songs" still lay slumbering at the bottom of Lilly's
+locked box, but it slumbered not quite so dreamlessly as in past years.
+It began to be restive and to exhort, sobbing and humming an
+accompaniment to the day's work, breaking out in the night and at other
+times, when one least expected it, into harmonies and melodies.
+
+From over the sunlit, cornflower blue hills it came, as if wafted by an
+evening breeze, "How beautiful are thy feet with shoes, O prince's
+daughter!" and from the dark interior of the mythical woods echoed
+snatches of song concerning the lily of the valleys and the rose of
+Sharon. It almost seemed as if the invisible inhabitants of those
+illuminated pasteboard cottages were singing, as evidence of the
+pleasant lives they led; and so one day would all the people of the
+earth enjoy those treasures of song, of which fate had appointed her
+guardian.
+
+Everywhere she went, whatever she might be thinking of or doing, hope
+smiled and beckoned to her from all corners of the world. A new, more
+exalted and pure, life must be coming. That golden thread, which her
+poor mad mother had severed with the bread-knife, became again
+interwoven with an ambition to climb upwards, ever upwards, and with
+presentiments of some sacred blessing to be prayed and struggled for.
+
+A few months more, and all might be accomplished; and on the top of
+this recovered happiness came another. Wonder upon wonder--her
+so-called future bridegroom suddenly gave a sign of life.
+
+It was early in September, at about twelve, that Herr Dehnicke
+appeared unannounced at her door. As she had not quite finished
+dressing she was at first unwilling to admit him. But when he explained
+that his mission was urgent, she received him, in her _peignoir_, with
+a thousand apologies. He eyed her with shy admiration, and then drew a
+folio-shaped, strange-looking piece of paper out of his pocket, which
+purported to be a cheque drawn on the Lincoln and Ohio Bank for two
+thousand and odd marks.
+
+"What am I to do with it?" Lilly asked.
+
+"Read the letter, which accompanied it, addressed to me," he replied,
+unfolding a large sheet.
+
+In the letter "Dear Sir" was informed that Mr. Walter von Prell had
+paid in five hundred dollars to his account, and wished the sum to be
+handed over to the "Baroness" Lilly von Mertzbach.
+
+Lilly trembled with excitement. She paced up and down the room in a
+storm of emotion, pressing her handkerchief to her eyes. She had been
+planning to help him and now he helped her.
+
+A sudden feeling of suspicion took possession of her. She stood still
+and looked at the cheque and then at Herr Dehnicke. Both stood silent.
+
+"I must ask you to explain," she said at length.
+
+"What is there to explain, gracious lady?" he answered. "I am only the
+middleman, or, if you like it better, the agent, in a little private
+business that concerns you and your betrothed alone."
+
+"But why couldn't he give his address?" she exclaimed.
+
+"It looks almost as if he wanted to remove all traces of himself,"
+remarked Dehnicke.
+
+It was all so romantic and adventurous and unlike Walter ... one didn't
+know what to think.
+
+But there stood the name: "Baroness Lilly von Mertzbach." Walter was
+possibly ignorant of her having been obliged to renounce her married
+name. This pointed to the genuineness of the cheque.
+
+Herr Dehnicke had inclined his head to the left side, as usual, and
+gazed at her with placid deference. He played the part of the
+middleman, and that was all.
+
+"After this unexpected turn of events," he said in conclusion, "you
+will, I earnestly believe, no longer hesitate to return to the manner
+of life suited to your social status, and which is so requisite to the
+success of your work."
+
+She shook her head, biting her Ups.
+
+Thereupon he became authoritative, more so than she would have given
+such an exceedingly modest person credit for.
+
+"You really must make the change," he urged her. "You must do it for
+_his_ sake. I am, as it were, responsible. When he returns with the
+intention of marrying you, he must not find that you have become
+_declassee_ in his absence. As I say, I am responsible."
+
+She begged to be allowed time to think it over.
+
+Henceforth the thought of her distant lover ruled her destiny. What had
+before been a play of the imagination became almost stern reality. Not
+that she accepted the story unconditionally of his being at the back of
+the mysteriously sent cheque. On the contrary, she could not silence a
+voice that suggested someone might have tricked her, but she could not
+trust herself to make further inquiries, or to draw conclusions. She
+dreaded to think what would become of her if she lost the one friend on
+whom she could at present rely, and in order to dispel all doubts from
+her mind she worked more industriously than ever--nearly ever week a
+fresh batch of sunsets was ready to be taken away. In the mean time
+Herr Kellermann had given her new ideas: a Gothic cathedral perched on
+perpendicular rocks, a castle with ever so many illuminated windows,
+and, greatest achievement of all, the moon shining on a calm grey sea,
+its silver beams represented by pressed fern-fronds.
+
+
+                           *   *   *   *   *
+
+
+On the first Sunday in October, Herr Dehnicke called to take Lilly for
+a walk. He had done it twice before, and Lilly had been charmed to go.
+Had he offered to take her into the country she would have liked it
+still better.
+
+The autumn sunlight lay peacefully on the ragged foliage of the stunted
+town trees, which had been half bare of leaf for a long time. Groups of
+people sauntered about aimlessly. They looked depressed and bored, for
+winter was already laying its nipping fingers on men's spirits.
+
+Their walk took them through various crowded streets, and Lilly
+experienced the pleasant feeling of having someone to protect and look
+after her in the throng.
+
+Herr Dehnicke, after a long brooding silence, began at last with the
+question:
+
+"Have you come to any decision about your future abode, dear lady?"
+
+Lilly did not answer. She was firmly resolved to make no change, and
+yet it was heavenly to be pressed on the point. It made you feel that
+you were again of some importance in the world.
+
+"If I had the privilege of selecting for you," he said in his
+unpretentious, formal way, "I believe I could find you a nook which
+would be to your taste."
+
+"I don't suppose you could," she replied, half in joke. "We are sure
+not to have exactly the same tastes."
+
+"I am not so presumptuous as to say that we should. But, nevertheless,
+I have lately seen a small flat which, unless I am very much mistaken,
+you would be delighted with. It belongs to a customer, a lady, who is
+travelling."
+
+"Oh, that's a pity! I should like to have seen it, if only to know what
+you think my tastes are."
+
+He was lost in thought for a few minutes; then he said, "It can be
+managed. The maid-servant will not be at home to-day as it is Sunday;
+but the porter's wife, who keeps the key, knows me, and if you
+like----"
+
+Lilly demurred a little to intruding into a stranger's flat, but Herr
+Dehnicke overruled her scruples, hailed a cab, and they drove to a
+westerly quarter of the town, where the houses looked more imposing and
+the people more distinguished, and where stately chestnuts shading
+velvety green turf flanked the blue waters of a canal.
+
+"Oh, happy people to live here!" she exclaimed, and then the carriage
+drew up at the corner of the Koenigin-Augusta-Ufer.
+
+Dehnicke jumped out and said a few words at the window of the lodge. A
+key was handed out, and they ascended the carved oak staircase, which
+was covered with a thick cherry-coloured carpet. How different from the
+stone flights of steps which led up to Frau Laue's, and were painful to
+the feet! He paused on the second floor, pulled the bell as a matter of
+politeness--for it might happen that the maidservant was at home after
+all--and then, when no one came, put the key in the door and turned it.
+
+Lilly tried to read the name that was engraved on an oval porcelain
+door-plate, but in the dusk that prevailed on the landing she could not
+distinguish it.
+
+They entered a very dark little hall smelling of fresh paint, and
+passed into a carpeted room, on the walls of which were cupboards with
+glass doors curtained with green silk. The rest of the furniture
+consisted merely of two armchairs, a few small gilt chairs, and a
+round, brightly polished dining-table.
+
+"This has been used as a dining-room," said Herr Dehnicke; "but it
+would do very well for your private studio and showroom."
+
+Lilly agreed, though she would rather have contradicted him.
+
+Opening out of the dining-room on the right was a bedroom, with Rose du
+Barri chintz hangings, a pink enamelled suite, and a canopied bed with
+a billowy silk eider-down quilt, and curtains fastened with an old-gold
+seven-pointed coronet.
+
+"Is your customer nobly born?" asked Lilly, feeling vaguely envious.
+
+"I wasn't aware of it," he answered; "but it's possible she may be."
+
+Lilly sighed a little, recalling her own ivory toilette treasures and
+her coronet-embroidered underwear lying in Frau Laue's fusty drawers;
+how beautifully they would fit in here! She inhaled with rapture the
+delicate lilac fragrance that pervaded the whole room like an
+aristocratic spring, and, shuddering, she compared it with that
+plebeian smell which, no matter how indefatigably she aired the Dresden
+treasures, invaded them with deadly persistency.
+
+"Happy woman!" said Lilly in a low voice.
+
+She rather wondered that the occupant of the flat had left no trace of
+herself behind--no ribbon, peignoir, or trinket.
+
+"She must have locked up everything, or taken it all away with her,"
+suggested Dehnicke.
+
+Next they went back to the studio, and, passing through its other door,
+came into a little corner drawing-room, which was completely flooded
+with rosy sunshine.
+
+Lilly clapped her hands in unbounded delight. There was a soft old-rose
+carpet with a vine pattern; a charming little crystal chandelier, the
+prisms of which set rainbow colours playing on the dark polished
+mahogany furniture; and bronze statuettes representing such subjects as
+a nymph bathing, a reaper folding his hands in prayer at the sound of
+the Angelus, and so on. Then there were a few choice paintings on the
+walls, an escritoire, a little bookcase, and there was even a piano.
+
+"Oh!" sighed Lilly, "a piano!" And she shut her eyes in sheer
+melancholy bliss at the thought of it.
+
+There were live things, too. In front of one of the three windows was
+an aquarium, full of sunlight and goldfish, with a palm overhead; and
+from another window chirruped a tame bullfinch.
+
+Lilly thought of her pale-blue silk domain. In comparison with that,
+what a plain, confined little nest this was; yet how inexpressibly
+attractive and cosy when contrasted with the revolting place in which
+she was dwelling.
+
+"It's a positive paradise!" she said ecstatically, though half crying.
+
+"Here is another room," said Herr Dehnicke, opening a door that Lilly
+had not noticed. "It can be entered separately from the hall, and was
+probably intended by the lady for a guest-chamber; but if you settled
+here, it would come in handy as a workroom for your assistants."
+
+Lilly peeped in. The room was more simply arranged than the others, but
+with considerable care. Greenish-grey upholstered chairs were set round
+a wide table, and in one corner was a comfortable-looking brass
+bedstead.
+
+"The bed, of course, could be taken away," Herr Dehnicke explained.
+
+It really was marvellous how exactly suited everything was to her
+requirements.
+
+They returned to the drawing-room, and Lilly noticed what had before
+escaped her attention, and that was an almost life-size portrait in an
+ornate frame hanging above the sofa, as if every other object in the
+room was there to pay it homage. The features and figure were, however,
+hidden by a covering of mauve stuff, which made it impossible to
+recognise them.
+
+"What does that mean?" Lilly asked.
+
+Dehnicke shrugged his shoulders and pointed to a photograph on the
+escritoire veiled in the same mysterious fashion.
+
+Lilly, full of curiosity, took hold of a corner of the drapery which
+screened the big picture from her view, and raised it a little.
+
+"I wonder if I dare?" she asked timidly, as if she were about to commit
+a crime.
+
+"Certainly, if you care to," he replied; and it seemed as if he were
+breathing more heavily than usual.
+
+She tugged, tugged energetically; the drapery fell upon her ... and
+there in front of her eyes stood Walter von Prell, boldly sketched in
+pastel, wearing the uniform of his old regiment. Walter--her friend and
+fiance!
+
+Her knees shook. Icy-cold fingers crept through her hair. She refused
+to understand--to believe. Then she felt that Dehnicke took her hand
+and led her into the outer hall. He struck a match, and Lilly could now
+read on the plate the name she had before failed to decipher,
+
+
+                            "Lilly Czepanek.
+                        Pressed Flower Studio."
+
+
+She gave a shrill cry, rushed back into the little drawing-room,
+and, burying her face in a corner of the sofa, gave vent to her
+long-restrained emotions in a burst of hot, blissful tears.
+
+When she looked up again, she saw him standing beside her, unassuming
+and correct in his bearing, his expression sober and grave.
+
+She was ashamed that she felt so happy, and held out her hand to him in
+shy gratitude.
+
+"May I venture to hope that in my capacity as Walter's deputy I have
+succeeded in pleasing you?" he asked.
+
+After that there was no further question of refusing.
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER VI
+
+
+The gold-tinted tops of the chestnut-trees faded, and ever wider grew
+the gaps that autumn's march made in their foliage. At places where a
+little while ago one saw nothing but a leafy lacework, the ripples of
+the canal now gleamed through. Along it, heavy barges towed by poles
+drifted in their laborious fashion, and the shaggy watch-dogs barked up
+at the windows of distinguished residents. Rainy dull weather stole on
+the city like a thief in the night, and solitude clutched your heart
+with its clammy hand.
+
+She had her work, it was true. Her work! Lilly clung to it day and
+night, as long as the first infatuation lasted and she could build
+hopes of realising her ambitious plans.
+
+But the eagerly expected "boom" in painted glass with pressed-flower
+foregrounds never came. The prospectuses she had printed and sent out
+were ignored, and Herr Dehnicke, who remained her one patron and
+purchaser, told her in a hurried and nervous way not to lose heart so
+soon, as the market was decidedly dull at present.
+
+Gradually her zeal began to wane. She had given up going to Herr
+Kellermann for lessons, his importunities with regard to the release of
+his "chained Venus" having become too insupportable. She locked her
+"samples" away in the glass-doored cupboards, and only finished Herr
+Dehnicke's "orders."
+
+Oh, those cruel, empty days, with no laughter to brighten them and
+nothing to wait or live for!
+
+In the kitchen a silent young servant held sway. Her eyes had a greedy,
+far too intelligent expression. The goldfish were fed and given fresh
+water every morning, and the bullfinch was encouraged to chirp. In the
+evening, when the chandelier was lighted and radiated its dazzling
+white light, things were better. Then she would wander from room to
+room, rearrange ornaments, and say to herself over and over again that
+no one ever had been so happy as she was, or had a prettier home.
+
+Of what avail was it all--the soft old-rose carpet with its faint
+vine-leaf pattern, the red-brown shiny furniture and those bronze
+figures with their shimmering lustre of gold that were nothing
+underneath but zinc alloy manufactured by Liebert, Dehnicke & Co.? Of
+what avail the gold-coroneted note-paper, of which Dehnicke had
+instantly ordered five hundred sheets, on the neat writing-table? There
+was no one to rejoice in it all with her, no one whom longing could
+summon to her side. Often she sat down at the piano and let her fingers
+wander over the notes. But it was not the pleasure to her she had hoped
+and expected. The rigorous technical training she had once had under
+her father's tuition had long ago been forgotten. She could not
+remember one of the things she used to play by heart, and she lacked
+the patience and nerve to learn new pieces.
+
+It was strange what a fever of unrest attacked her directly she touched
+the keys. A fierce anxiety, a sense of terror and inward unworthiness
+overwhelmed her. She could do nothing else but strike the instrument
+with a bang, and fly from room to room till her feet ached; and she was
+glad when ten o'clock called her to bed.
+
+In these unemployed, joyless days there awoke in her a piercing,
+tormenting desire for man's society, a sweet torture of shuddering
+thrills. For two whole years her senses had lain dormant. What the
+colonel's senile corruption had kindled, and the autumn weeks of
+passion lashed into a blaze, had been drowned by tears of remorse--for
+ever, she had vainly imagined. But here it was risen again, shaming and
+enrapturing her together, and refusing to be silenced by prayers and
+self-reproaches. Often she felt as if she must rush into the streets,
+if only to meet the eyes of a stranger, as in the Dresden days, and see
+veiled desire leap up in them. But in the streets people were vulgar
+and rude, and she shrank trembling from going anywhere alone, except to
+visit her old landlady.
+
+The walk there took her an hour, and before she reached her former
+lodging she had been accosted by many ingenuous chance admirers; and
+many experienced _flaneurs_ walked by her side and tried to begin a
+conversation. She would cross in a hurry to the other side of the
+street, and wish when she got there that she had spoken to her
+molesters.
+
+As she lay in bed dreaming with closed eyes, she fancied she saw
+strong, clear-cut, masculine features hovering round her, into which
+she looked up with confiding admiration.
+
+She often dreamed too of Herr Dehnicke, the faithful, loyal little
+business man, who was ready to stand by her so staunchly through thick
+and thin. Suppose that he were to come to her one day, and in the
+deprecating, stumbling manner that she had got to like say, "I love you
+to distraction, and will make you my wife!" What should she say? Every
+time she contemplated his doing this it brought her a certain sense of
+comfort.
+
+Of the man who really stood nearest to her, and on whom she had the
+most claims, she never dreamed. It was true that in her desultory
+longings those heavenly November nights came back to her vividly, but
+instead of Walter, any other man might have been their hero. Walter had
+grown to be a sort of tyrannical ruler over her conscience. Of course,
+she loved him. How could she help it when he was her destined
+"bridegroom," working hard for her? Yet often when she stood by the
+sofa under his portrait, and his cold blue eyes rested upon her with
+imperious hauteur, she remembered what a scurvy part he had played, and
+how fickle he had been; and she felt as if she would like to sever
+every tie that bound her to him, and shake off every thought of him
+from her like a detestable nightmare.
+
+She wished that Herr Dehnicke would leave off talking of him with
+devotion and respect, and looking forward to the time when he would
+have to render account of his modest guardianship of her to his dear
+friend, on his return in honour and glory to his home and hearth. He
+came with the utmost punctuality twice a week to see how she was
+getting on, and to have tea with her. He left in time to be back at his
+office before it closed. No wonder that Lilly looked on these visits as
+festivals. He was her only link with the outside world. She had no one
+but him to bring a little brightness and interest into her life.
+
+She spent hours arranging the tea-table and the lights and flowers for
+him. For him, too, she stood before the mirror, dressing her hair.
+
+When at last he was sitting opposite her, they talked long and
+seriously about his business worries, his plans, and the trouble he had
+with artists who thought it a disgrace to work for the trade, and could
+only be induced to execute orders when, as it were, he held a pistol to
+their heads. He spoke of the rivals with whom he competed in business,
+who built palaces for their workshops in order to dazzle customers, so
+that he too was forced to transform his good solid old business house
+into a modern structure with the latest improvements.
+
+His customers too were a source of endless anxiety to him. Some,
+actuated by the newest ideals in art which were the fashion in the
+capital, demanded his pandering to the "Secession" movement, and
+putting on the market long-necked, narrow-whipped bodies in exaggerated
+attitudes of insane distortion. But the steady public of mediocrity,
+which was really the purchasing public, would have nothing to say to
+this trash, and insisted on having knights in armour and their dames in
+fancy-dress, damsels picking flowers and drawing water, hunted stags
+and swinging monkeys, the same, in fact, as had been in vogue thirty
+years before. So he stood, as it were, between two rocks, on one of
+which he might be wrecked as out of date and old-fashioned, on the
+other as too advanced and modern. In the latter case he would forfeit
+most of his old and well-tried patrons. It was extremely difficult to
+steer a middle course, but it had to be done.
+
+He spoke often, too, of the factory and its hundreds of industrial
+hands who from early morning till late at night worked for the welfare
+of the business, and of the alterations which were nearing completion,
+and which, judging by the architect's designs and the sum which he had
+spent, ought to be something worth seeing.
+
+"You see what competition compels a man to do," he wound up.
+
+Lilly, with beaming eyes, listened attentively. She took interest in
+everything. She wanted to hear details of life in the factory with its
+whirling machinery, clatter of wheels, its hissing furnaces and
+shrieking files. She never wearied of asking questions about the
+appearance and behaviour of the workpeople, their wages, their
+condition, and what became of them afterwards. She felt as if there, in
+the great hum of the factory, was living reality, while outside her own
+existence was a shadowy illusion.
+
+"How I envy you," she would exclaim sometimes, "to have so many men's
+lives in your keeping!"
+
+"They keep you always on the go," he replied; "it's an enormous
+responsibility and worry."
+
+She was sure he was a benevolent master, even if he would not own it
+himself. He had such great influence, and his heart was so kind.
+
+He liked to hear her talk like this, though often in the middle of what
+she was saying he would spring up and walk about the room with excited,
+short steps, and then stand still in front of her, and stare down on
+her with gloomy solicitous eyes, as if he could not control his
+contending emotions.
+
+Lilly appeared to notice nothing, though she knew perfectly well what
+was passing in his mind at these moments.
+
+"I shall not help him out," she said to herself. "He must do what he
+likes in his own way, or in future he may cherish resentment towards
+me." And in palpitating hope she awaited events.
+
+If she could only do away with that ridiculous superstition about
+Walter, which he probably half believed, like herself, and half
+bolstered up for the sake of propriety. And then another thing gave her
+food for reflection. In spite of her often-expressed desire to see the
+factory, he never volunteered to take her over it. It almost seemed as
+if he objected to be seen with her on his own premises.
+
+He often talked about his mother, however, and was not shy of
+confessing how much he was influenced by her, though he made it plain
+that he would prefer to have more freedom to carry out his schemes and
+develop his powers.
+
+When his father died--twelve years before--he had not been of age, and
+had been obliged to submit to his mother's rule. The old lady's regime
+continued, and every new enterprise was discussed with her, and if she
+approved it was put into execution, even if he were opposed to it.
+Lilly felt awaking within her a dull aching terror of the old lady who
+lived behind the bourgeois flower-pots and issued commands from her
+armchair, which were obeyed by so great a man as her benefactor. She
+pictured the moment of making her acquaintance with a sinking heart.
+
+
+                           *   *   *   *   *
+
+
+Towards Christmas she was again busy. Two dozen new designs for windows
+had been ordered, and must be finished before the festive day. A future
+seemed once more to open before her. For the first time in four years
+she forgot to send her mother's Christmas present to the asylum.
+Instead, she made Herr Dehnicke's mother a particularly "poetic"
+lamp-shade, and sent it anonymously to the house on the morning of
+Christmas Eve. Why she did it, she did not know herself. Perhaps it was
+a propitiatory offering such as nervous souls were in the habit of
+making of old to unknown gods for unknown offences. She had made a
+little pile of gifts for her friend, though uncertain that he would
+turn up, and she listened for his ring with a beating heart. Her fears
+were groundless, for at half-past five he appeared, in the twilight of
+the hall, as loaded with parcels as old Father Christmas himself!
+
+He had selected them with tact and discretion. There were little things
+that she wanted for domestic use in the flat, a set of embroidered
+collars, a Persian lamb boa--to save her sables--a few trifles from the
+factory to adorn the still bare top of her escritoire. At every
+exclamation of delight she gave he modestly disclaimed thanks.
+Everything came, as she knew, from Walter.
+
+"And is there nothing from you?" she asked.
+
+"Nothing!" he replied, and turned his palms outwards.
+
+"Well then," she said, "if you'd like to know, there is something you
+can give me that Walter can't."
+
+"What can that be?" he asked.
+
+"Take me over your factory."
+
+This time he did not put her off, but fixed a definite day and hour. It
+should be the first working-day after the new year, when everything
+would be in full swing again. "Please wear something dark and plain,"
+he added, when it was settled.
+
+"Am I generally dressed loudly?" asked Lilly, horrified. She felt as if
+someone had boxed her ears.
+
+"Oh, I didn't mean that!" he stammered in confusion; "but you might
+hurt your good clothes."
+
+
+                           *   *   *   *   *
+
+
+At noon on January 2nd she stood in front of the house in Alte
+Jakobstrasse, which she hadn't seen since her first memorable visit.
+"After all," she reflected, "it did prove a path of fate in one way."
+She looked up stealthily at the porcelain flower-pots on the first
+floor, and started, for she fancied she saw a white head move behind
+the lace curtains. "That's what comes of having a guilty conscience,"
+she thought, and with a shy sidelong glance of awe she passed the door
+that led to the laurel-flanked private staircase, which her feet were
+not worthy to tread till she was again received into the bosom of
+middle-class respectability.
+
+The other entrance stood hospitably open. The scaffolding had been
+taken down, walls and pillars gleamed in the mirror-like glory of
+imitation marble, and the splendour of the courtyard beyond made her
+feel diffident again. By this time even the grimy old office had been
+transformed. It now boasted a projecting facade of sandstone, with the
+busts of famous artists in the niches. The ascent of worn and rickety
+wooden steps had been replaced by a gorgeous gilded gateway.
+
+Her friend hurried down to meet her, bareheaded, in spite of the biting
+cold. As he held out his hand in welcome, he cast a furtive searching
+glance up at the windows. It looked almost as if he too were troubled
+by a guilty conscience.
+
+He led her first into the show-room. Its brand-new smartness exceeded
+her expectations. Pillared aisles with vaulted ceilings made it look
+like a museum. There were interminable avenues of tables and cases,
+sending forth the sparkle of gold and silver and prismatic hues, the
+warm glow of deep-red copper fading into the pale green of patina, from
+hundreds of works of art--products of German industry, those so-called
+"bronzes," which were to be displayed in shop-windows all over the
+country, and endow even the cottages of the poor with an air of
+prosperity.
+
+The subjects included, among others, fat monks and lean beggars,
+dancing gipsy-girls with tambourines, elegant young men with
+eyeglasses, postillions blowing horns, chickens picking corn, and
+hounds retrieving game. There were calendars set in horse-shoes,
+cigar-clips shaped like champagne bottles, pelicans three feet tall
+holding aloft lamps in their bills; fancy figures, both male and
+female, stretching out arms as they had done in Herr Kellermann's
+studio, but not without reason here, for they all held up vases,
+candelabra, or basins. Arbours screened loving pairs, and had red
+electric bulbs hidden in the foliage, goblins sat astride on mushrooms;
+sea-shells served the purpose of ash-trays; punch-bowls, antique
+cream-jugs, night-light holders, snakes coiled round flower-stems or
+china ducks-eggs. The whole gamut of vulgarity and poverty in artistic
+invention seemed herded together here, ready to be let loose in rampant
+distribution over all the four quarters of the globe.
+
+When Lilly gave her friend an inquiring or mystified look now and
+again, as she examined some monstrosity, he shrugged his shoulders and
+remarked, "That is what the public likes."
+
+In spite of a feeling of being jarred, Lilly would not have minded
+spending hours amidst this glitter. She would have been in her element
+if her judgment had been appealed to, and she would have said
+unhesitatingly, "That is bad, weed it out; throw that away, and that
+... and this too." But no one asked her opinion, and everything seemed
+to get on very well without it.
+
+Her friend next took her across to the factory. Unfortunately the
+foundry, which was the first stage and basis of all the work turned
+out, happened to be temporarily closed. But Lilly saw through an open
+window the black yawning throats of the furnaces and the dirty trucks
+standing about. Everything was covered with a mist of grey ash--the
+chimney-pieces, casks, and utensils all seemed to float in the same
+impenetrable sea of ashen greyness.
+
+They went down some dirty steps and passed through damp cellars
+smelling of poisonous chemicals, where huge vats containing foul fluids
+were ranged. Men prematurely aged by work and disease hovered about
+here looking like ascetic phantoms, when they were only common
+labourers. As Lilly came in they gave her a quick glance of surprise,
+and then didn't trouble to look again. They had no greeting for their
+employer.
+
+"This is the galvanic department," explained Herr Dehnicke. "Here is
+the nickel-plate bath, the steel bath, the quicksilver, and so on."
+
+He pointed to a loft surrounded by an iron crate, where the wheels of a
+machine whirled and the light of electric lamps gleamed.
+
+"There the current is generated which galvanises the various baths," he
+said.
+
+Lilly did not understand, but she took pleasure in the rapid whirl of
+the wheels and the subdued buzz which they made as they spun round.
+
+"There will be some that whirl more madly still," she thought, and
+expected to hear, when the next door was opened, a deafening thunder.
+But nothing of the sort happened. This was the one machine in the whole
+factory to provide her with entertainment.
+
+In the workroom where the chiselling was done, dozens of men stood at
+long tables, levelling the uneven surface of the cast metal, and making
+the separate parts of an ornament ready for joining. This was done in
+the room adjacent, where the flames of the blowpipes leapt and hissed,
+and clouds of metallic vapour shot up sparks. Each workman had a little
+pile of burnished arms and legs beside him that looked as if they had
+been amputated and had left the body they belonged to behind.
+
+Then they came to the "filigree" department, where all the flowers and
+foliage were elaborated--the ribbons, tendrils, and arabesques,
+everything of a light, curly, and daintily twining character. So
+delicate was the work that it made the men engaged on it look all the
+clumsier and coarser. They scarcely raised their eyes, and hammered on
+in a dogged mechanical way.
+
+Lilly, wherever she went, had a keener eye for the appearance and
+manner of the workpeople than for the work itself. She drew comparisons
+inwardly, decided who was well-to-do and who the reverse, who pursued
+his avocation because he liked it, and who only because he was goaded
+to it by necessity and sickness at home. Each department had its own
+marked physiognomy. In one the majority would be fresh and active; in
+another, weary and exhausted. Lilly felt as she had done when Herr
+Dehnicke first told her about his workpeople: an insane desire to have
+the wielding of their fate in her hands, to help them when help was
+needed, to bring sunshine into their gloomy lives, and to be a good
+angel to the suffering. But she was careful not to confide her absurd
+notions to Herr Dehnicke.
+
+"Now we come to the most critical part of the business," he said, "the
+patina application, which gives the figures their style."
+
+He opened the door of a workshop which exhaled the odour of a thousand
+more poisons. Here women were at work with the men, putting on varnish
+and acids, rubbing and brushing busily. They looked haggard and tired
+out. At the sight of Lilly they dropped their implements to stare at
+her in blank amazement.
+
+"One would have to begin here," she thought, "to win the confidence of
+all." So she nodded at them pleasantly and spoke a few friendly words.
+But her little advances were wrongly interpreted. They thought she
+mocked them, and with an almost contemptuous grimace went back to their
+work. Lilly's appearance in the packing-room, where women and children
+alone were employed, produced a happier impression. The girls giggled,
+whispered, and nudged each other. Only one woman, who was _enceinte_,
+took no notice of her. She seemed hardly able to stand on her feet and
+was near to sinking on the floor. She kept her relaxed pale lips
+tightly compressed, her cheeks wore a hectic flush, and her arms moved
+in feverish zeal as she wrapped one sheet of paper after the other
+round the limbs of the figures standing before her on the table,
+swaying first to the right and then to the left under her touch.
+
+"May I give her something?" asked Lilly, in an aside to Herr Dehnicke.
+
+"She is being looked after," he answered uneasily, as if displeased,
+and he quickly led the way to another door.
+
+"This is where the figures are stored," he said, "until sold, with the
+exception of those, naturally, that are made to order."
+
+Lilly looked down a long dusky gallery and met an icy-cold draught.
+Ranged on stands and shelves she saw endless regiments of ghostly
+objects, dwarfs, gnomes, monsters, shapeless in their wrappings of
+paper, yet looking somehow human, and as if they had been petrified by
+accident.
+
+"How strange this is!" said Lilly with a slight shiver, and she
+prepared to walk down the narrow gangway, the windows of which were
+covered with ice and frost-patterns.
+
+The same moment she observed that her guide gave a start and seemed
+suddenly to have lost his presence of mind. Then he walked before her
+and barred the way.
+
+"What has happened?" Lilly asked in surprise.
+
+He coloured, and said: "We had better not go on. We'll go somewhere
+where there's more of interest to see. There's nothing at all here."
+
+He planted himself firmly in front of her so that Lilly could not catch
+a glimpse of the shelves along the wall. Of course, this completely
+aroused her curiosity.
+
+"But I should like to go on," she said, and she assumed the defiant
+naughty manner which generally gained her the day with him.
+
+"No, no!" he exclaimed hurriedly. "There are secrets of business here
+that I can reveal to no one. Even the employes are not allowed to come
+in. I am very sorry, but I really cannot."
+
+"Then you should not have brought me in at all," said Lilly, and she
+turned back in high dudgeon.
+
+He exhausted every excuse he could think of, his excitement made him
+hoarse, and he coughed perpetually. He led her up the dirty steps again
+and over the gorgeous mosaic floor of the courtyard to the shoddy
+marble entrance, where a bitter wind was blowing.
+
+"You'll catch cold," she said, wishing to hasten her departure.
+
+A brilliant idea occurred to him. "The storeroom was not heated," he
+said, "so I could not----"
+
+"You should have thought of that sooner," Lilly retorted, as she gave
+him her hand with a half-conciliating smile. She could not help pitying
+his helpless confusion.
+
+Nevertheless, she continued to feel hurt and slightly perturbed. The
+day that she had joyfully looked forward to for months had ended with a
+_contretemps_. And no matter how earnestly she pressed him afterwards,
+she never could cajole Herr Dehnicke into unveiling the mystery of that
+forbidden room in his warehouse.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER VII
+
+
+Lilly's health began to decline. She was troubled with lassitude,
+headache, palpitations, and sleepless nights. The doctor called in at
+Herr Dehnicke's instigation was a busy practitioner, who went the round
+of innumerable houses every day. His eyes first took in the
+arrangements of the flat--he seemed familiar with the setting--then
+after a brief and cursory diagnosis, he prescribed social distractions,
+exercise, and iron--any quantity of iron.
+
+Social distractions were out of the question, and even walks were not
+so easy to manage. Lilly had a distaste for strolling about alone, and
+her only escort, Herr Dehnicke, evidently did not care to be seen too
+often with her in the streets. He said he did not wish to compromise
+her; but if the real reason was known, it was probably that he did not
+care to make himself too conspicuous by appearing in public with a
+companion whose beauty was so striking and uncommon.
+
+For, whatever happened to her, in spite of all her heavy sorrows and
+degrading humiliations, her boredom and unsatisfied cravings, nothing
+detracted from the charm of her person. On the contrary, the soft milky
+paleness which had succeeded the healthy golden-brown tint of her
+complexion lent her a new loveliness. The great narrow, long-lashed
+eyes with the heavy drooping lids, those enigmatic "Lilly eyes," had
+now acquired a weary, languishing brilliance, as if they hid in their
+depths a solution to all the painful problems of the universe. Her
+figure, too, had returned to the regal splendour of its girlhood's
+bloom, after having become too slight and thereby losing some of its
+reposeful stateliness.
+
+It was not astonishing, then, that many heads were turned to look back
+at her and her lucky companion who, being shorter than she was,
+provoked a kind of contempt as well as envy in the breast of the casual
+passer-by. And as he was fully aware of this, Herr Dehnicke, the astute
+man of business, to whom the idea of being the subject of gossip was
+not pleasing or advantageous, preferred to hold his _tete-a-tete_ with
+her indoors.
+
+In the middle of February she received by post an invitation from Herr
+Kellermann, whom she had not seen for months.
+
+
+                         "Grand Studio Carnival
+
+         "Living Pictures, Opportunities for Flirtation, etc."
+
+
+Here at last was something that promised to be entertaining, and Herr
+Dehnicke, who chanced to be invited too, urged her to conquer her
+shyness and accept.
+
+When the day came, Lilly was so full of dread that she would gladly
+have got out of the engagement. She beheld herself running the gauntlet
+of a crowd of sneering strangers, who would exchange significant
+glances with each other at her expense, and narrate the history of her
+rise and fall in whispers. She saw herself given the cold shoulder and
+made the object of derisive remark. She went through all the tortures
+of the "unclassed," and felt as if she were doomed to bear the brand of
+sin on her brow till the end of her days.
+
+She selected from her Dresden gowns the loveliest that she possessed: a
+white silk embroidered with gold vine-leaves and made in the Empire
+style, which in the meantime had become the height of fashion. She
+wound a gold chain round her head like a diadem, and threw a filmy
+Oriental richly worked veil lightly over her hair. If necessity arose,
+she could use it as a covering for her bare neck and shoulders.
+Finally, she felt sure that she looked hideous and abominably _outre_,
+and that this alone was sufficient ground for not showing herself.
+
+Only when her escort appeared and held on to the handle of the door
+with an astounded exclamation, at the sight of her in evening dress,
+did she take heart.
+
+"Shall I do?" she asked with a timid smile, which implored approval.
+
+He could not answer, but plunged about the room breathing heavily, and
+half choking over his incoherent words. Lilly had no difficulty in
+understanding what he wanted to say.
+
+In the _coupe_, as she sat beside him, another attack of terror seized
+her.
+
+"You promise not to leave me?" she besought him. "You'll stay with me
+all the time, won't you, and not allow any stranger to speak to me?"
+
+He promised everything. They went up the four flights of stairs, an
+ascent she was familiar with. The landing had been turned into a
+ladies' cloak-room, where were hanging imposing furs and lace evening
+coats that humbled you to the dust to look at.
+
+She clung to his arm. "Now I'm in for it," she thought.
+
+The big ante-room, which was always dark in the daytime and used as
+kitchen, bedroom, and dining-room by Herr Kellermann, had been
+transformed with fir-trees and candles into a rose-lit, fairy-tale
+forest, in which couples sat close together on bamboo seats, smiling
+and whispering. They were so absorbed in each other that they had no
+attention to spare for the new-comers.
+
+A tremendous reception awaited Lilly in the studio itself, which was
+filled with a brilliant, glittering throng. There was a chorus of "Ah!"
+then profound stillness, and a path was made, down which the pair
+seemed expected to make a triumphal progress. Lilly tried to hide
+behind her companion, but as he only came up to her nose she did not
+succeed.
+
+Then Herr Kellermann hurried forward to welcome them. He was in a brown
+velvet get-up, consisting of knee-breeches, lounge-jacket, and Phrygian
+cap. Most of the company, indeed, seemed to be dressed in anything that
+they thought specially original and becoming to their style of beauty.
+
+"Goddess, Queen, welcome!" cried the host in a voice for everyone to
+hear, and then he fell to kissing her gloved hand from wrist to elbow.
+
+Next he asked to be allowed to take her round and show her how
+excellent were the arrangements of his new Court of Love. And she
+followed him, after warning her friend not to go far away, but to be
+within hail.
+
+Electric lamps had been hung in the open air directly over the
+skylight, converting it into a many-coloured, star-studded sky. On
+looking up the effect was really as if a thousand tiny suns were
+shining down out of the night. On the left gable-side of the room,
+where the roof sloped, was an evergreen trellis draped with rugs and
+divided into several little arbours, before which hung curtains of
+Japanese beads. Each of these was significantly placarded.
+
+The first was called something which made Lilly turn a shocked look of
+inquiry at her guide. Whereupon he replied, smiling:
+
+"That's nothing, merely a beginning for flappers and afternoon-tea
+souls like you. What do you say to this, now?" he added, pointing to
+the placard over the next arbour.
+
+"Dreadfully wicked!" she exclaimed, really scandalised, and Kellermann
+shook with laughter. He read aloud to her the inscriptions over four
+more arbours, and at every one Lilly's cheeks grew hotter. "Worse and
+worse," she thought, but said nothing.
+
+"Now I will take you over to the 'Criminal Side,'" he said, and steered
+her through the crush, which set up a hum at her reappearance. But it
+was devoid of all envy, hatred, and malice. It was rather an ovation, a
+suppressed cheering. Her breast expanded. A slight, humble sensation of
+joy crept through her body like warm wine. She threw back the ends of
+her tinsel veil, feeling she no longer need be ashamed of her naked
+throat and shoulders. In the glances that met hers she read that no one
+would despise her.
+
+She did not reach the "Criminal Side," for there were so many
+interruptions by the way. Man after man wanted to be introduced to her,
+and Herr Kellermann was fully occupied in saying their names. From this
+moment the whole carnival became perfectly unreal, a dreamland, a
+fairyland meadow, in which large-eyed flowers bloomed, where rosy mists
+and heavy perfumes saturated the senses, where laughter, whispering,
+and unheard-of compliments mingled--where all only existed for her
+amusement, to be admired, petted, and loved by her.
+
+Yes, and she did love them all, these men and women, just as they came.
+All of them were noble and good, sparkling with merry wit, full of
+eagerness to do little friendly services; golden souls, each awaking a
+new hope and bringing a new delight.
+
+She felt her cheeks flaming, her eyes shining, with the intoxication of
+the hour. And now and then she would see, as if reflected in a mirror,
+a response to her own happiness in the eyes she looked into. This was
+no longer a strange Lilly, an animated puppet, but it was herself, the
+real Lilly, who laughed and made bright repartees as she romped and
+passed from arm to arm, feeling regret at each transition. This was
+herself--twofold, threefold herself. And, when sometimes the man with
+whom she conversed became too bold, and the _double entendre_ behind
+his jokes transgressed the bounds of decency, so that she grew alarmed,
+she had only to turn round to find her friend somewhere near, ever
+ready to rescue her from an awkward situation. That gave her a truly
+blissful sense of security, a feeling of being hidden under a wing and
+taken care of, so that she could afford to be merrier still--even
+hilarious--and take the most audacious sallies in good part.
+
+Once she heard behind her the question: "Whose mistress is she? The
+lucky dog!"
+
+The answer came contemptuously: "A little polisher, or something of the
+kind. He's over there."
+
+For a moment this speech gave her food for reflection, though how could
+she possibly be supposed to know to whom it referred? In the
+excitement, the incident soon passed from her mind.
+
+What lots of people she got to know!
+
+There were young fops in swallow-tails and white brocaded silk
+waistcoats, who paid her wild attention, and asked incidentally though
+with patent eagerness which day in the week was her "_jour_" for
+receiving. She was sorry to say she hadn't a day, she lived so very
+quietly.
+
+There were sombre pessimists with long lank hair and enormous ties, who
+loved to converse on such topics as "spiritual high-pressure,"
+"specific gravity of individual affinities," and it did Lilly's soul
+good to hear them. One of them addressed her as "Excellency," and when
+she asked why he did, he seemed amazed, and stuttered he had heard that
+she was---- Then, quickly correcting himself, he turned it off with the
+wretched joke that as she excelled all women present, he could not
+think of a more fitting form of address.
+
+There was among others a well-preserved old man, a fast liver, whose
+signature Lilly had read with reverence on many a beautiful picture. It
+would have given her greater pleasure to kiss his hand than to have him
+dancing round her, aping youthful gallantry.
+
+There were many others who aroused her curiosity, but whose rank and
+character she could not learn. There was even a real prince, a pale,
+fair, extremely young fellow, who dared not ask to be introduced to
+Lilly because his mistress kept guard on him and would not let him out
+of her sight. The women, of course, were not so gushing to her as the
+men, though the one or two whose acquaintance she made were very warm
+in their overtures of friendship.
+
+A brunette, with a small, voluptuously beautiful figure, bright
+restless eyes, and a seductive smile, approached her with: "You and I
+ought to be friends. I'll introduce you to my particular pal, and we'll
+have supper together at a little table, and be quite a cosy family
+party."
+
+Another, a very thin young girl, taller than most of the men present,
+with wells of blue fire for eyes, swept about in long white
+"impressionist" draperies like a figure in a dream, undisturbed by the
+tumult in which she moved. She spoke without moving her head, and
+smiled without curving her lips. She was a fair young Dane, who had
+come to study painting and to "live life," as she expressed it.
+
+"Who are you?" she asked Lilly. "You are different from the rest. You
+must have strong arms, if you do not want to be washed along by the
+current."
+
+With a bold gesture, she flung back the wide sleeves of her gown, and
+displayed two marble-white perfect arms, with wonderfully supple
+movements. Then she glided on.
+
+A flaxen-haired, extremely graceful woman, no longer young, whose
+pretty, laughing face was burnt as brown as a berry from exposure to
+sub and wind, held out her hand to Lilly with a merry twinkle in her
+eye, as if they had known each other for years.
+
+"How sweet you are, and how beautiful!" she said softly. "We've all
+flown into this cage and don't know why; and we don't even know whether
+we shall get out unhurt or not. But where do you hail from? I am----"
+She mentioned the name--the name of a great musician who in the house
+of Kilian Czepanek had been a kind of demi-god.
+
+"Yes, I am Welter's former wife.... Positively I am," she added gaily,
+and again took the arm of the man she was with and turned away.
+
+"A sort of '_Generalin_,' like me," thought Lilly.
+
+There were thrown in a few married couples, mostly very young and
+foolish, who herded for a long time timidly together and then frisked
+wildly about like monkeys let loose.
+
+One pair, however, seemed to have been invited as a practical joke. The
+husband was a thorough-paced beery Philistine, his spouse a fat, stolid
+person in a high black silk. Someone told Lilly that he was the
+landlord of the house, who was bribed by an invitation to the carnival
+to countenance the use of his top floor for such a purpose. The two, to
+all appearances, were not feeling at all _de trop_, and always found a
+laughing audience for their coarsest jokes.
+
+Towards ten o'clock, when Lilly was deep in an abstruse discussion with
+one of the long-haired and unwashed guests on the fallibility of human
+values, a sudden howl was raised, first by one throat and then by
+another, till it swelled to a chorus; the words "hungry" and "food"
+alone were to be distinguished.
+
+Herr Kellermann's voice was raised in soothing remonstrance above the
+clamour. The slices of bread-and-dripping which the guests were to be
+given for supper--a poor devil of a painter could not rise to anything
+more _recherche_--were not quite ready. Meanwhile, would the ladies and
+gentlemen kindly be patient? Those who were absolutely starving might,
+however, still their hunger by a visit to the "Poison" arbour, where
+they could obtain as many arsenic sandwiches and prussic acid tartlets
+as they liked.
+
+The whole mass of human beings now made a rush for the "Criminal Side,"
+where, in order to play at "_crimes passionels_," a complete arsenal of
+deadly weapons had been collected. Gallows were suspended from the
+glass ceiling, ladders led down to bottomless pits, and cannons went
+off. The company greedily snatched the poisoned viands, and people who
+didn't even know each other took bites out of the same sandwich.
+
+The supper itself soon followed. Under the fir-trees of the ante-room a
+buffet was erected, piled with mountains of York hams, cold game-pies,
+lobster salads, mayonnaise salmon, and every conceivable savoury
+waiting an assault. The assault when it came was so furious that though
+the buffet, which was planted against a wall, resisted it, the forest
+of fir-trees collapsed branches snapped off, trunks cracked, twigs flew
+about, and among the _debris_ waltzed a crush of laughing, swearing
+revellers.
+
+Then the brilliant idea occurred to someone to hurl the whole forest
+downstairs to the next floor. The Chinese lanterns were put out, and
+soon the uprooted firs were flying over the stairs tree after tree, in
+spite of the protests of the landlord, who was afraid of his other
+tenants being disturbed by the noise. The ladies' light dresses were
+covered with pine-needles, and pine-needles stuck in their hair and
+necklaces. Everything smelt of Christmas. It was difficult to eat for
+laughing, and there were not tables and chairs enough to go round. To
+balance their plates, couples crouched closely together on the stairs,
+and supplies kept dangling down on them from the buffet above. Some
+venturesome spirits even climbed the trees and roosted like birds in
+the branches, while food was handed up to them on the end of forks and
+walking-sticks by charitable souls.
+
+Lilly, half-dead from laughing, was seated on one of the stairs
+surrounded by unknown men, all of whom craved to be fed by her. She had
+never been so happy in her life, and would have liked it to last for
+ever; her only care was that all the men she was feeding wouldn't get
+enough.
+
+At the conclusion of the supper came the _piece de resistance_ in the
+shape of cream kisses. They were swung through the air hooked to the
+end of long fishing-rods, and every guest had to try and catch his or
+her share with the mouth. Hands were forbidden, and those who used them
+were rapped on the knuckles.
+
+This sport, which at first excited tornadoes of mad glee, had soon to
+be abandoned, because the whipped cream dropped from its cases on to
+the ladies' necks and dresses. Lilly's Empire gown got its baptism of
+cream, and one of the men on his knees kissed away the stains.
+
+When a trumpet sounded, to call the revellers back to the studio,
+everyone was sorry, especially Lilly.
+
+It consoled her to catch sight again of her friend, whom she had
+entirely forgotten. Leaning on his arm, she related, with a radiant
+face and half-inarticulate from laughter, her merry experiences.
+
+It was then she noticed that the eyes of all those who were near seemed
+bent on her with a strange seriousness and as if moved to sudden
+compassion. But she was too busy talking to think much about it. She
+begged him to stay at her side when the recitations began. She was
+tired of playing the fool, she said, and wanted now something homelike.
+
+He gave her arm a grateful pressure.
+
+"Why are you trembling?" she asked him in astonishment.
+
+"It's nothing," he answered lightly.
+
+The first reciter was one of the long-haired collarless brigade, who
+had been asked to open the programme with a solemn and weighty chorale.
+
+He declaimed an ode entitled "Super-smoke," which was Greek to Lilly,
+but she supposed it was very fine, because at the end there was an
+outbreak of stormy applause among the men.
+
+"Bravo, bravo! Super-smoke, more Super-smoke!" they shouted.
+
+The long-haired collarless one, who took this for an encore, bowed,
+highly flattered, and started off again: "Super-smoke, an ode." But he
+got no further. Roars of "That's enough! that's enough!" came from all
+sides, and it appeared that the men had been only expressing a desire
+for something smokable when they had called out "More Super-smoke."
+
+The next to appear on the rostrum was a slender, exceedingly elegant
+person with a short pointed brown beard and glittering monocle. He was
+a Dr. Salmoni, to whom Lilly had been introduced. With a melancholy
+smile he held his hand close to his nose and examined his finger-nails,
+as he said that it was his purpose to draw up an intellectual synopsis
+of the evening's entertainment, and to throw in a few remarks on the
+"destructive construction of social formlessness."
+
+This prefaced a volley of impertinent sarcasms and insulting
+personalities, intended to annihilate host and guests. Though she could
+not understand his hits, Lilly felt inclined to blush for those who
+came under the fire of his scathing satire. Yet, extraordinary to
+relate, no one seemed to mind; on the contrary, the very people who
+were being lashed by his tongue the most were loudest in jubilant
+applause.
+
+"Happy world!" thought Lilly, "where nothing hurts, and the most
+abominable sins are titles to honour."
+
+Her own false step, from which she had so long suffered as from a
+poisoned wound, suddenly appeared to her in the light of a mere
+childish prank. "Wasn't it very silly of me to take it so to heart?"
+she thought, and gave herself a downward stroke with her two hands, as
+if she would thereby shake off every vestige of her old manacles.
+
+The elegant little doctor knew, too, how to flatter. Each fair lady got
+from him her bonbon, spiced with pepper, and when he went on to speak
+of a lotus-flower that had drifted there this evening from fairyland,
+and still seemed shy of the full glare of publicity being thrown on
+her, Lilly again became conscious that she attracted every eye.
+
+"Let her take courage," he went on. "She may count on any of us, I'll
+assert, to welcome night dreamily in her company if she wants someone."
+
+Enthusiastic clapping from the men endorsed this speech, and Lilly did
+not feel a bit ashamed.
+
+When Dr. Salmoni had finished and was shaken hands with and
+congratulated by all, especially those who had bled most under his
+lash, he came up to Lilly and said in a low voice:
+
+"I pray for your forgiveness, gracious lady, for having named you in
+the same breath as this herd. There ought to be a tacit understanding
+between people of our position, without the necessity of making
+advances to each other. But I was sick of just cracking a whip, and you
+know I am not always a mountebank."
+
+"People in our position," he had said. That flattered Lilly, and raised
+her to the same level as this very clever and superior man, who, as he
+put his eyeglass away in his waistcoat pocket, regarded her with his
+sharp grey eyes as if he wanted to tear her heart to tatters.
+
+A swarthy youth of mercurial temperament next sang couplets to his own
+accompaniment on the mandoline. He began with the romantic air of a
+troubadour.
+
+The third verse, which ended in French, was so daringly outspoken that
+Lilly hardly ventured to understand it.
+
+The song was received with such ecstasy that it seemed as if the
+applause would never stop. Lilly wondered that she felt so little
+disgusted. Nothing seemed to disgust her any more. Her eyes half
+closed, she leaned back in her chair and let lights, sounds,
+obscenities, laughter, and cheers ripple over her as in a dream.
+
+From time to time she looked round for her escort. He was standing
+close behind her chair, smiling reassuringly. But he kept silent. A red
+patch burned on his forehead and his eyes were bloodshot. It may have
+been that he had drunk too much champagne. She herself had only sipped
+a glass, but her head felt quite dizzy.
+
+The songs and recitations came to an end at two o'clock, and now the
+fun waxed fast and furious and transgressed all limits. Everyone
+tussled, kissed, drank, picked quarrels, and fought duels. Lovers
+pretended to stab themselves and were carried out lifeless. The cannons
+fired off crackers. Outside the different arbours orations were held by
+various guests. One by a dainty youth in a Greek costume hired from a
+paid model, delivered in a high falsetto, dealt with pseudo-physiological
+problems. Into the arbour of "Monstrosities" some one had pushed the
+beery Philistine landlord and his corpulent wife, where they kissed and
+caressed each other to order, in full view of the company, who applauded
+vociferously.
+
+Lilly's head went round; it all buzzed, screeched, and hammered in her
+brain like an agonising nightmare.
+
+"We had better go now," Herr Dehnicke's voice urge behind her.
+
+She rose to her feet and stretched herself with a shudder.
+
+This had been life, life----
+
+She followed him out, and at the top of the stairs Herr Kellermann, who
+had observed their going, came running after them. His collar hung open
+and limp above his velvet lounge jacket, his cheeks were glazed and
+puffy. He looked like young Falstaff.
+
+He exchanged a glance with Dehnicke, who nodded as much as to say, "It
+went off very well," and then disappeared in search of her wraps.
+
+"And how about the chained beauty?" asked Herr Kellermann, turning to
+Lilly. "Have you quite forgotten her?
+
+"Quite," replied Lilly, with a languid smile.
+
+"And you'll never come?"
+
+"Never!"
+
+"But I tell you that you will come," he said, leading her to the side
+of the staircase. "You will come when the chains have cut into your
+flesh and you don't know----"
+
+Dehnicke returned with the wraps, and he said no more.
+
+Lilly was in far too happy and complacent a mood to attribute any
+significance to these words, which in the mouth of this bacchic faun
+sounded like a joke. She simply laughed at him and passed on.
+
+
+                           *   *   *   *   *
+
+
+Her excited brain quieted down; she leaned against her friend's
+shoulder as they descended the stairs, airily swung her hips, and
+hummed to herself. The whole world seemed melting in a soft fragrant
+harmonious twilight. Fresh snow had fallen and the moon was shining.
+
+Dehnicke's carriage was waiting for them.
+
+"Let us drive to the Tiergarten," said Lilly, drinking in her fill of
+the snow-laden air.
+
+She threw herself back on the cushions of the _coupe_ sang and beat
+time with her feet on the floor.
+
+He sat silently in his corner and looked out of the window.
+
+"Do say something," she implored.
+
+"I have nothing to say," he said, and studiously looked beyond her with
+his red, bleary eyes.
+
+The carriage rolled noiselessly along under the snow-covered trees,
+which every now and then sent down a shower of silvery stars on to
+their laps.
+
+A drowsy lethargy came over her.
+
+"I should like to drive on like this for ever," she whispered, seeking
+a support for her head.
+
+Then it seemed suddenly as if Walter's arm was round her waist and as
+if her left cheek rested against Walter's throat, as once in those
+blissful November nights.
+
+But how did Walter come here now? She started up, wide awake again.
+
+This was not Walter beside her. She was under no delusion as to who it
+was. She was ashamed to change her position, and lay with wide-open
+eyes for quite a long time, listening to the beating of his heart--how
+it beat, right up his arm!
+
+"He will not demand the price which it is customary with our
+compatriots to ask of pretty women," Walter had written.
+
+Now here he was demanding it with all his might.
+
+With what contempt Walter would look down from his picture at her when
+she stepped into the lamplight of her corner drawing-room half an hour
+later! Walter who passed with everyone as her betrothed, even with this
+man into whose arms she had slipped, Walter, to whom she must be
+faithful and true if she hoped for salvation in this life.
+
+It was really heavenly, nevertheless, to be lying thus. She felt as if
+she belonged somewhere again, and how terrible her loneliness had been!
+Still, it was no good.
+
+So she moved cautiously, as if she was afraid of hurting him, and freed
+herself from his arm, to take refuge against the side cushions.
+
+"Why don't you stay?" he asked, stammering like an inebriated man.
+"Weren't you feeling comfortable?"
+
+She shook her head.
+
+He went on asking her with passionate vehemence, but she would not
+answer, feeling that every word she spoke would commit her still
+further.
+
+Then he caught her hand, that hung down passively, and pressed it.
+
+"I mayn't," she whispered, withdrawing her hand. "Neither may you."
+
+"Why mayn't we?"
+
+"Because you would bitterly regret it afterward when you had to render
+account to him, if you had abused your trust."
+
+"_Him_! Whom do you mean?"
+
+"Whom?" she echoed. "Why, whom else could I mean?... Haven't you said a
+hundred times that you are only his deputy, that you----"
+
+A laugh interrupted her, a hoarse guilty laugh. He had clasped his
+hands round his knees, and laughed and breathed deeply and laughed
+again, like someone relieved from an intolerable burden.
+
+A horrible dread gradually became a certainty within her.
+
+"It was all untrue?" she faltered, staring at him.
+
+"All! It was all nonsense from beginning to end, a tissue of humbug," he
+cried. "He wrote to me once, only once, before he left Germany. 'Take
+up with her; it would be a pity if she went to the dogs.' Nothing more,
+not another word.... There, now you know.... I've got it off my mind.
+It's been a jolly heavy load, I can tell you.... But what was I to do?
+Having begun, I had to go on."
+
+He flung up the window and leaned out, panting hard.
+
+She wanted to ask why he had done it. But she didn't dare. She knew
+what the answer must be. One thing stood out with appalling
+distinctness, and that was her helplessness and utter inability to save
+herself. She was putting herself in his hands. She was living in his
+flat, living on his money. She looked at the situation from his point
+of view. She was what he had designed she should be--his mistress, his
+creature, and his property.
+
+Oh, why couldn't she throw herself into the river?
+
+She wrenched open the carriage door and put one foot on the step, but
+he dragged her back and slammed the door to.
+
+"Be reasonable," he remonstrated. "Don't behave like a madwoman."
+
+Then she burst out crying. Not since the time of her divorce had her
+sobs been so pitiful, so heart-broken and full of bitterness. At
+intervals his voice seemed to reach her from a long way off, but she
+could hear nothing, see nothing, understand nothing. She could only
+cry, cry; as if in crying lay salvation, as if trouble and distress
+would flee away with her tears.
+
+The carriage stopped. She felt herself lifted out. He had the latch-key
+in his pocket. Supported by him, she staggered up the stairs, and
+thought to herself over and over again, "Why didn't you throw yourself
+into the river?"
+
+He led her to the sofa, settled her in its corner, and turned on the
+lights. Then he loosened the fastenings of her cloak, and lifted the
+scarf from her hair.
+
+She lay now in a state of complete exhaustion, and stared indifferently
+at the table-cloth. The little bullfinch was awake and piped her a
+welcome.
+
+"It is getting late," she heard Herr Dehnicke say, "and the carriage is
+waiting. But I cannot go till I have justified my conduct and explained
+how it has all happened."
+
+"That really makes no difference to me," she said, shrugging her
+shoulders.
+
+"I loved you long before," he began--"long before I knew you--when you
+were still our colonel's wife."
+
+She looked up in surprise. As he stood there in his short tight evening
+coat, plucking nervously at the fringe of the table-cover with the
+joyless, beseeching expression on his round face, master though he was,
+she felt as if she saw him for the first time.
+
+"I was called out that summer for the man[oe]uvres," he continued, "and
+heard nothing else talked about at the Casino but you. Even the ladies
+of the regiment were full of you. Your photographs were passed round,
+for some of the men snapped you on the sly.... I recognised you at once
+from the photographs. Yes, I can truthfully assert that I loved you
+then. What's more, after Prell's letter told me that you were to come
+into my life, what plans for winning you didn't I work out in that year
+and a half! Then at last you turned up at my warehouse, and you
+exceeded my wildest expectations. But I lost hope when I saw what a
+great lady you had become, and how much you still thought of Walter.
+Though I know I am not a bad fellow, I haven't much self-confidence,
+and to have you for a mistress seemed too great luck to be dreamed of."
+
+Now that he came out with the word "mistress" for the first time, an
+intense bitterness welled up within her.
+
+"To have me for a wife," she thought, "that is something not to be
+dreamed of, evidently." And she laughed out loud.
+
+He took her laugh as a sign that she was too modest to accept his
+compliment, and he worked himself up into still greater enthusiasm.
+
+Did she think that any of the women in whose society they had been that
+evening were worthy to lick her shoes? Had she no conception of how
+immeasurably she outshone everything that bore the name of woman?
+
+Then from her tearful eyes came the question that pride and shame
+prevented her expressing in words. This time he must have understood,
+for he suddenly broke off in what he was saying, clasped his hands to
+his head, and ran up and down the room half sobbing. She heard him
+ejaculate: "Can't ... I can't ... it wouldn't do."
+
+"Well, if he can't, he can't," she thought, and, with her face resting
+on her palms, she stared at him wistfully.
+
+He came now and stood in front of her, struggled to speak, but choked
+over his words, and then he resumed his racing up and down the room.
+She caught phrases like, "My mother ... would never consent ...
+ruination to the business," and then again the refrain, "I can't; no, I
+can't; it wouldn't do ..."
+
+"He is quite right," she thought, "anyone like me ... how could he?"
+And with a feeling of final renunciation, she collapsed in a heap.
+
+Shocked, he hurried to her side, leaned over her, and tried to stroke
+her hands; but she thrust him from her. At a loss to find words to
+vindicate his miserable subterfuge, he took up the thread at the point
+where her laugh had interrupted it.
+
+"Do believe me, dearest friend, when I say that I had given up all
+thoughts of myself. I swear that I wanted no reward, and subsequently
+acted for your good alone. My one desire was to preserve you from
+sinking to the lowest depths. I know from experience how many have done
+so; a few years, no more, and they either go on the streets, or grow
+more and more hideous and careworn ... and then it is impossible to
+tell what they were once.... And that the same fate should not befall
+you, I hit on the idea about the cheque and wrote to my American
+agents. Your falling in with it was such a joy to me that I didn't
+sleep a wink for two nights. I knew I had saved you from ruin."
+
+"Ruin?" queried Lilly; "what do you mean? Before the cheque came I had
+earned quite a respectable sum by my art. You yourself helped; you
+yourself said if I persevered----"
+
+She paused, filled with sudden anxiety at the thought that if it came
+to a rupture between them to-night her one and only prospect of making
+a living would be gone.
+
+Not a word of reassurance came from him. In stubborn silence he plucked
+at the fringe of the table-cloth.
+
+"Please speak. Have you entirely forgotten all you've done for me?"
+
+He pulled himself erect. "If you must know all," he said with a shrug
+of the shoulders, "perhaps it's as well; from this evening we'll start
+clear."
+
+"Is there anything else, then?" Lilly cried in ever-increasing dismay.
+
+"Do you remember the day you came over the factory--I made you turn
+back in the storeroom?"
+
+"Yes, but----"
+
+"And afterwards I made the excuse that the place was not heated."
+
+"I remember perfectly. But what has it to do with my work?"
+
+"If you had gone a few steps further you would have seen all your glass
+plaques--fifty-six in all--the last not even unpacked."
+
+She looked up at him as if he were her executioner. Then she sank back
+and buried her face in the sofa. She had no more tears to shed, but the
+soft darkness of the cushions did her eyes good. She wanted not to see,
+hear, or think any more--only to die as soon as possible, before
+starvation and disgrace overtook her.
+
+There was a long silence. She thought he must have gone, when she felt
+his hand caressing her shoulder, and heard his voice in trembling,
+pleading appeal say, "Dear, dear, dearest of friends, tell me what else
+could I have done? Could I deprive you of your one interest and
+resource? Could I tell you the things were unsaleable rubbish,
+amateurishly executed? I saw how absolutely wrapped up you were in it
+for a time, and I let it go on till it died a natural death.... I said
+to myself, when her circumstances are easier she won't care about it
+any longer. And wasn't I right? You haven't done a stroke for the last
+month or so, have you? Dearest one, do consider; what have I done that
+is so bad? I rescued you from a life of degrading penury. I found you a
+little home in which you have spent a few happy months free from care,
+and I didn't ask for so much as a kiss. If you like, go back to Frau
+Laue to-morrow, just as if nothing had happened, or stay quietly here
+till you have found some employment to suit you. You shall not be
+troubled by my society. I needn't come to see you.... When I leave you
+to-night...."
+
+He could not go on. When, after a moment of silence, she glanced up,
+curious and anxious to see what he was doing, she beheld him sitting at
+the table, or rather half-lying across it, with his head buried in his
+arms, while his shoulders were convulsed by noiseless sobs.
+
+She went and stood beside him, and was moved to fresh tears. They
+coursed down her cheeks. She was so sorry; oh, how sorry she was!
+
+Then she laid her hand gently on his head. "You may comfort yourself,
+dear friend," she said, "with the thought that it is far, far worse for
+me than for you. Then, you see, I have no one else." And she shuddered,
+thinking of the loneliness that was coming.
+
+He straightened himself and silently put out his hand for his hat. His
+eyes were more bloodshot and more prominent than before, and his head
+drooped now quite to one side.
+
+Oh, how sorry she was for him!
+
+"Good-bye," said he, pressing her hand, "and thank you."
+
+"I'll write to you," she replied, "when I have thought it all over
+to-night. Probably I shall leave here to-morrow early."
+
+"Just as you wish," he said.
+
+As he took up his overcoat something long and round, wrapped in gold
+and silver tinsel, fell on the floor. She picked it up. It was a
+monster cracker. Both could not help laughing.
+
+"What a sad end to the merry carnival!" she said.
+
+He sighed. "I may hope, at least, that you enjoyed it?"
+
+"What does it matter now whether I did or not?" she said deprecatingly.
+
+"It matters a great deal, because the whole affair was got up
+especially in your honour?"
+
+"What! in my honour?"
+
+"Do you suppose that Kellermann, who earns at the most a hundred marks
+a week, could afford to give an entertainment like that? The doctor
+ordered you amusement, and as I was not able, owing to the position in
+which we were placed, to offer you any direct, I commissioned
+Kellermann to ..."
+
+She opened her eyes to their full width. He loved her like this!
+
+"You dear, kind man!" she said, and rested her head for a moment
+lightly against his shoulder.
+
+He flung his arms round her quickly and eagerly as if he were afraid
+someone might take her from him the next moment. He trembled from head
+to foot, and his tears rolled down on her forehead.
+
+As he still did not dare to kiss her, she voluntarily offered him her
+lips.
+
+"The third," she thought to herself. She glanced up and met Walter's
+eyes looking down on her from the wall, full of supercilious contempt,
+exactly as she had feared in the carriage. She pointed to the picture
+with a gesture of terror and aversion.
+
+"To-morrow we'll move it up to the attic," he said. And as they were
+now reconciled, and had a great deal to say to each other, and it was
+half-past three, the carriage was sent away.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER VIII
+
+
+Once more a new life began for Lilly. It was all over with her dreaded
+loneliness. Regularly every afternoon Herr Dehnicke arrived at
+tea-time. But he was "Herr Dehnicke" no longer. He was Richard, a dear
+sweet, beloved Richard, who was received with open arms in the hall,
+against whose knees she leant on the floor of the drawing-room, and
+from whose brow the little lines of care were smoothed away with a
+caressing, "Don't frown, dearest."
+
+How absurd it had been to hoard up her love! You could squander and
+squander, and always have heaps more to spare. The _grande dame_ and
+"gracious baroness" pose was whistled down the wind. Now it was she who
+stooped and made herself small, and asked to be scolded and punished,
+who looked out fearfully for every shadow of displeasure on his face,
+and tried to read his wishes before they were uttered. Above all, she
+wanted to show that she was grateful--oh, so grateful!--for his
+goodness, and his tenderness in saving her.
+
+No wonder, then, that his attitude of adoring reverence gradually
+altered, that he began to be exigeant, at times even a little
+irritable, assuming the airs of a married man, and reminding her of the
+benefits he had bestowed on her only very occasionally, it was true,
+but often enough to convert humility that at first was spontaneous into
+a duty.
+
+Since Lilly had become his mistress his relations to the outside world
+had undergone a complete change, so that his whole life was differently
+ordered. In place of the priggish manufacturer of bronze wares, ever
+vigilant of his middle-class reputation, he had become a recklessly
+fast man of the world.
+
+He, who once had been shy of appearing with Lilly in the streets or
+park, now gloried in exhibiting himself to the public as her cavalier.
+He bought, instead of the serviceable old brougham, the latest thing in
+luxurious victorias, in which he delighted to drive with her along
+Unter den Linden to the Tiergarten. He selected for their evening
+amusement the most fashionable places of entertainment in Berlin, and
+took seats where they were certain to attract attention from every part
+of the house. He sat in the front of the stage-box with a swelling
+shirt-front, his chin carefully shaved, his hands perfectly gloved, and
+strove to meet the opera-glasses levelled at himself and companion with
+a _blase_ indifferent smile.
+
+He ordered his clothes of the London tailors who in spring and autumn
+visit Berlin in search of custom. He sported a monocle, and stuck his
+pocket-handkerchief inside his left cuff. The officer was now more than
+ever strongly marked in him, and he tried to emulate the effeminate
+charms of the fops in the Guards.
+
+In brief, all his endeavours were directed to proving himself worthy of
+a mistress of Lilly's calibre. He soon discovered that possession of so
+perfect a creature, instead of injuring him, cast an undreamed-of
+glamour over his career, even enhancing the prosperity of his business
+more than all his expensive redecorations had been able to do.
+
+The world said: if the senior partner in the firm of Liebert & Dehnicke
+could afford such an extravagance, it must be doing brilliantly. And
+many a dealer who formerly had favoured his rivals in the trade now
+came to him, acting on those mysterious motives of suggestion, the laws
+of which have puzzled the psychologists and historians of all times. He
+was addressed with increased respect, yet with that confidential air of
+jovial banter which the world adopts towards a man of proved steadiness
+and principle when he is caught tripping. He was much more interesting
+than in the days of his prosaic virtue. People who before had troubled
+little about him, and had scarcely even spoken to him, now asked when
+they were to meet him out of business hours, and hinted that they
+wouldn't mind making a night of it in his company. Such overtures,
+indeed, became as common as the Liebert & Dehnicke bronzes.
+
+"By rights, you and your expenses ought to be charged to the business
+accounts," he said once, smiling at Lilly, who learnt not to resent
+such tactless speeches.
+
+It had become a matter of habit to go out somewhere of an evening three
+or four times a week, and Lilly quickly got to know every pleasure in
+the Berlin vortex of dissipation. It was too late this winter for the
+public balls, at which mysterious women who have lost caste masquerade
+in silken dominoes. But to compensate for this there were the variety
+theatres of lax observance, where the latest and spiciest obscenities
+from the Parisian boulevards were diluted and dished up and offered to
+hungry pleasure-lovers as highly stimulating to the appetite. There
+were the night cafes, where pruriency was draped in literary tags, and
+flighty women escaped from the restraints of middle-class
+respectability, competed with the professional music-hall stars for the
+palm of vulgarity. They frequented bars and grill-rooms and back
+parlours of fashionable restaurants to which the police forbade lock
+and key, and where, under the scornfully smiling eyes of correct
+waiters, dull orgies were held. Lastly came those brilliantly lighted
+cafes, dense with blue cigarette-smoke, where jaded nerves seek a final
+pick-me-up in association with prostitution as it parades its wares for
+sale in the market-place and on the house-tops.
+
+For some time Lilly protested against these distractions; for her
+senses still aspired to a different and higher kind of enjoyment. She
+cherished, too, vague feelings of regret that this life of dissipation
+was drawing her further and further away from those laurel flanked
+stairs, the goal of her secret longing. But when she saw that every
+wish she expressed for quiet was met with sullen opposition, she slowly
+abandoned the idea, and relegated all her dreams of better things to a
+distant future, when she might look forward to a possibility of their
+being fulfilled. She dared not let her imagination stray further.
+Besides, how amusing and fascinating nearly always was this new life!
+She had every reason to be content with it.
+
+They were not often alone together. There were acquaintances wherever
+they went. They constantly met Kellermann's carnival guests again. They
+would fall in with one another informally or make appointments
+beforehand. They formed a little set of themselves, to which new-comers
+were always hanging on.
+
+One of the elect was that seductive little dark woman with the unsteady
+bright eyes and the silly laugh, who at the carnival had wanted to make
+a family party with her friend and Lilly at supper. She was called Frau
+Sievekingk, and prompted by a desire to "live life" she had left her
+husband, a doctor somewhere in Further Pomerania, and after various
+adventures was at present being kept by the wealthy proprietor of a
+steam-laundry, by name Wohlfahrt. He was as thin as a skeleton, had red
+hair, and suffered from dyspepsia, remedies for which she carried about
+with her in her handbag, in the shape of tabloids and quack powders.
+But this touching and considerate attention did not prevent her from
+deceiving him with every man who made advances to her. It was
+universally known, and no one blamed her, for she was a poet, and was
+obliged to seek experiences to write about. An inevitable result of
+indulging in what many a one had thought was an absolutely secret
+_liaison_ with her was to find himself a few weeks later portrayed to
+the life as the hero of a passionate short story in a modern German
+magazine, or providing a theme for a lurid love lyric.
+
+Frau Welter, the divorced wife of the famous composer, was another of
+their intimate circle. Her round, tanned face--she had lately come back
+from a secret mission to Algiers--formed a comical contrast to her mass
+of dyed golden hair, which stood out round her head and neck like a
+halo. It was rather a dangerous thing to become friendly with her. She
+asked everyone she met to lend her money, though she was well off, and
+in receipt of a handsome alimony from her husband's relatives. Her
+generosity was so boundless that she sacrificed all that she had and
+all that her friends lent her to a pair of ex-lovers, both of whom were
+scamps. No one exactly knew under whose protection she was living at
+the present moment. She was often seen with a puisne judge, who looked
+as if he had swallowed a poker and used his tongue instead of a
+toothpick.
+
+A thin shrewish little woman, pretty and malicious, with cold
+steel-blue eyes and sucked-in lips, always wore white silk, and trailed
+a fan-shaped train behind her: she called herself Frau Karla, but what
+her real name was no one knew except her lover, a very young, very pale
+and slim young man, the son of a rich manufacturer. He gratified her
+absorbing passion for pleasure, being completely in her power, and
+followed her about till dawn. In an unguarded moment he had rashly
+disclosed that she was the wife of a well-known Hebrew scholar, who
+lived a life of seclusion, and imagined that she was employed in
+visiting society in the west-end of Berlin, while he sat peacefully
+poring over his philological tables. All the time she was racing about
+from one haunt of vice to another in suspicious company.
+
+Women of every description moved in this "set," their past and their
+means of support concerning no one so long as they were pretty and
+elegant and a little above the thoroughpaced _cocotte_. Among the men
+who were not attached as licensed escort to any lady, but who came to
+fish in troubled waters, was Dr. Salmoni, who at the Kellermann
+carnival had beaten the big drum with so melancholy a smile. Lilly
+always felt constrained and tongue-tied in his presence, though there
+seemed to be some spiritual link between them. Everyone he met came
+under the lash of his caustic wit, except herself, whom he
+considerately spared. Sometimes he seemed to be dissecting her with his
+keen eyes, and would whisper softly in her ear as he passed her, "What
+are you doing here, fair lady?"
+
+Herr Kellermann appeared pretty often, got drunk, and then made remarks
+about a chained beauty crying aloud for release, remarks which Lilly
+was careful not to notice. He found, as a rule, that towards the end of
+the evening he had no change in his pocket, so that Richard had to pay
+his bill.
+
+Such was the world in which Lilly passed her days and nights. She
+received mysterious communications: invitations from men to whom she
+had never spoken, asking her to meet them; anonymous presents of
+flowers--from modest bunches of violets to baskets of showy orchids;
+calls from ladies of doubtful character who were getting up charity
+subscriptions, and with a meaning smile hoped Lilly would join
+them--indeed, it was a never-ceasing wave of vicious desire that rolled
+up to her threshold. For a time she was alarmed, then she became
+indifferent.
+
+
+                           *   *   *   *   *
+
+
+Spring days came, and with them the great race-meetings, at which
+everyone with any pretensions to smartness put in an appearance.
+
+Since Lilly in shy queenliness had begun to reign at his side, the
+sporting tastes, which had been latent in Richard hitherto, awoke, and
+were developed with such passionate eagerness that he would not have
+missed a race for the world. Though he did not bet, his pockets were
+crammed with bookmakers' "tips," and he talked of little else than
+pedigrees and winning chances, Lilly, who understood nothing at all
+about it, cheerfully listened.
+
+One morning after she had read in the paper the results of the previous
+day's racing, the following passage caught her eye:
+
+
+"Among charming representatives of the society that does not know what
+_ennui_ is, we again saw the beauty of imposing type who has of late
+graced various functions, bringing with her an aroma of the _beau
+monde_, of which it is said she was once an ornament. Her favourite
+colour seems to be violet, and in accordance with a famous precedent,
+she might appropriately be dubbed 'La dame aux violettes.' At all
+events, we congratulate our metropolis on the acquisition of this new
+luminary, who is certain to add lustre to its reputation."
+
+
+"Who could that have been?" Lilly thought, with a slight pang of
+jealousy, and she tried to recall to her mind the forms of all the
+women she had admired the day before. But among them she could not
+identify the heroine of the paragraph.
+
+Then suddenly the blood mounted hotly to her cheeks. She looked at the
+Redfern coat and skirt of violet cloth, which she had hung on a chair
+after taking it off yesterday. It was now more than two years old, but
+so perfectly cut and finished that it could rival any of the most chic
+creations of the spring. She had worn it several times following
+because she had not another tailor-made gown to equal it, and Richard's
+pocket must not suffer from her extravagance in dresses. There could be
+no further doubt. She it was who was meant, and no other.
+
+Her first thought was, "How pleased Richard will be!"
+
+But she, too, was pleased. Frau Laue's boldest prophecies seemed to be
+coming true. She had awakened to find herself famous. She was actually
+in the newspapers!
+
+If only it had not been for that strange inexplicable feeling of fear,
+which was always crouching at the bottom of her heart, and came
+creeping to the surface whenever some unexpected event advanced her a
+little further on the road to fame and happiness! All the time that she
+had been going out in the world at Richard's side, nothing had happened
+to her that was not a source of joy, pride, and hopefulness. Everyone
+seemed to respect her, everyone flattered her. Torturing uncertainty
+and contempt of herself had given place to a calm appreciation of her
+own value in the sight of strangers. Yet that dull harassing fear was
+ever present. Nothing really silenced it.
+
+Richard came earlier than usual that afternoon, waving the Monday paper
+up at her from the street. When they had embraced each other a dozen
+times at least, and read the paragraph over twenty times, he became
+taciturn and moody, and with his arms crossed in a Napoleonic pose he
+paced the room with short ringing steps. It was plain that his brain
+was bursting with ambition.
+
+Then there was a ring, and little Frau Sievekingk was announced. She
+had often looked in before to have a friendly chat with Lilly, but they
+had not become more intimate in consequence. To-day she came at the
+right moment to share in the exultation over Lilly's newly acquired
+fame.
+
+Her grey velvet bolero suit shimmered in the evening light, and her
+jaunty scarlet toque, with its drooping plumes, fitted on to her dark
+curly coiffure like a cap of flame.
+
+She held out her hand to Lilly with her most alluring smile, but, when
+she turned to Richard, there flashed in her shifty bright eyes a gleam
+of determination similar to that with which she intimidated her
+red-headed lover into taking his tabloids for dyspepsia. As since the
+carnival they had continued outwardly to maintain the sham of a
+platonic friendship, Richard meekly took up his hat, as if giving Lilly
+a cue to ask him formally if he could not stay longer. But the little
+woman forestalled them.
+
+"Don't pretend," she said, "that you are not perfectly at home here. As
+if I didn't understand! Please call each other by your Christian or pet
+names, and I'll seem as if I hadn't heard."
+
+Both smiled, and while Lilly gave her guest a cup of tea, he toyed with
+the newspaper in question, a little obviously, for he wanted to find
+out whether Frau Sievekingk had heard anything of their great triumph.
+
+"That is just what I've come to talk about," said the little lady,
+"that rubbish in the paper. I suppose you think an awful lot of it?"
+
+Richard made a gesture of protest, but smiled complacently.
+
+"To speak frankly, I should have credited you with a little more
+sense."
+
+"Would you really?" Richard exclaimed, aghast, and Lilly jumped. The
+crouching fear that had made itself felt earlier seemed to tell her
+that even this piece of undiluted good fortune might conceal a sting.
+
+"Please listen to what I am going to say," the little visitor
+continued, and her eyes flashed now not shiftily but steadily. "I have
+experience in these matters, for my red-headed boy tried the same game
+on with me at first.... I wonder if the thought has ever occurred to
+you, Herr Dehnicke, that when one of the _elite_, as is that sweet
+exquisitely unique creature sitting there, entrusts herself to your
+care, you have taken a gigantic responsibility upon your shoulders? Do
+you men think we exist merely to feed and advertise your vanity? We're
+not milliners or chorus girls who want to be dressed up in silks and
+chiffons simply that the world may see what a dog you are. We may have
+lost caste, it is true, but that doesn't mean we are by a long way come
+down to what you would like to treat us as."
+
+Richard struggled to retort, but could not find words.
+
+Then she bent tenderly towards Lilly, and continued: "A poor butterfly
+of aristocratic lineage comes flitting along unsuspectingly and says,
+'Take me--you can do what you like with me.' And what are you going to
+do with her? Are you going to make a bad woman of her, or rather what
+the world accepts as a bad woman? No! I won't be contradicted. That's a
+good beginning," and she pointed to the paper; "if once the scorpions
+of the Press busy themselves about us, then the gallants of the Guards
+are on our track. Then God help you! They are far handsomer and more
+gallant than any of you, and if we must be driven into the ranks of the
+_cocottes_, we'd rather know by whom and for whom. Afterwards you find
+yourselves chucked, a stale joke of the day before yesterday--nothing
+more."
+
+All this confused Lilly and turned her giddy. She could not have
+believed that anyone would dare to speak to Richard in such a tone, and
+she laid her hand protestingly and comfortingly on his shoulder,
+fearful that he would be angry and assert his dignity as host.
+
+But he did nothing of the sort.
+
+"I am willing to be guided by you," he said humbly, "if you'll only
+tell me what----"
+
+"If you don't know what you ought to do, I'll tell you. You ought not
+to trot her out and put her through her paces as if she were a prize
+animal, exposing her to the gaze of any gaping crew. Don't put her in
+the front of your box at the theatre for every _roue_ to look at
+through his opera-glasses."
+
+Richard manned himself to parry her attack.
+
+"If I may venture to ask the question, are you not to be seen
+everywhere?" he asked.
+
+"Yes, certainly, because I want to see as well as be seen. That is why
+I ran away from my brute of a husband and chucked respectability.
+Still, I don't sit in the front of boxes, and I don't let myself be
+trotted up and down a race-course. I am a Bohemian; Lilly, on the
+contrary, with her placid refined nature, is a home-bird, and should be
+treated as if she were your legal wife.... We neither of us want to
+descend to the demi-monde--that is to say, what we call demi-monde here
+in Germany; in the French sense we are already there. Now I have said
+my say, Herr Dehnicke."
+
+Richard stood up. He had grown very red, and was biting his moustache
+with impotent resentment.
+
+"I have always put her welfare before everything," he said. "Besides, I
+have only acted according to her wishes; have I not, Lilly?"
+
+Lilly felt she couldn't contradict him. She did not desire to see him
+further humiliated, and said nothing.
+
+"And if you acted a thousand-fold according to her wishes," answered
+the little woman for her, "you were wrong. You should have said,
+'My child, you don't understand this sort of life; as we are not
+married--which, mark my word, would be far the best for both of you--we
+must live at a moderate pace, otherwise I shall do you an irreparable
+injury and drag you into the mud.'"
+
+Tears sprang to Lilly's eyes at the mention of the word "married" in
+relation to herself and Richard. To hide her emotion she went hurriedly
+to fetch his overcoat, for it was a quarter to six.
+
+She accompanied him to the door, and kissed him affectionately; she did
+not wish him to think that she bore him any grudge.
+
+To her guest, she stood up for him zealously. He had been very kind and
+good to her, he had not meant any harm, and he had saved her from an
+evil fate.
+
+"I didn't come here to make mischief," the little woman said, laughing,
+and asked if she might sit on a little longer. She mentioned, too, that
+her name was Jula, and expressed a desire to be called by it in future.
+
+They now sat hand in hand on the sofa--above which Walter's portrait
+had been replaced by a very mediocre sheep-shearing scene--and nibbled
+cakes from the little glass plates on their laps. For the first time
+Lilly enjoyed the sensation of possessing a friend of her own sex, for
+she had always been too much in awe of Fraeulein von Schwertfeger to
+regard her in that light.
+
+The bullfinch sang a piteous little song of spring, and the sparrows
+answered from the chestnut-trees outside. The May sunshine reflected
+tremulous spirals on the walls, and now and again a flash of gold
+lightning raced across the aquarium, stirring the green sedges and
+grasses.
+
+This was an hour for confidences.
+
+"Didn't I put on airs just now?" Frau Jula said. "But it was necessary,
+my sweet. You, like me, are standing on the brink of a precipice. One
+little push and over we go, and then no one can pick us up again. If we
+had any character to rely on it wouldn't be so bad ... but we don't
+know how to be faithful, and, what is more, we don't want to be."
+
+"How _can_ you say that?" cried Lilly in horror.
+
+Frau Jula showed the point of her little red tongue between her lips.
+
+"Just wait a bit, my dearest. The men we meet are scarcely calculated
+to make us think that we are ordained for the pleasure of one only. In
+fact, the only way to appreciate them is to take them in the plural.
+Oh! I could open your eyes to a thing or two; but I don't want to
+frighten you ... besides, the plural number is dangerous.... Each man
+we give ourselves to takes away a bit of what is best in us. Yes, our
+best, though I can't exactly define it. It's not self-esteem, because
+that survives sometimes; it's not purity, we don't care a pin about
+purity; and it's not happiness. I tell you, we should be bored to death
+if we stuck to one man. I have talked about it to a lot of women, and
+they all agree on _that_ point. Some of them think it's better not to
+fall in love at all, and only do it for fun; others swear by the
+_grande passion_ that will consecrate everything. No two people think
+quite alike. And now I should like to give you a few hints, because the
+day will come when you are sure to need them. Don't let them give you
+presents--that is to say, not things of value. Flowers are permissible,
+but not too many. And don't give _them_ presents, because only honest
+married women can afford to do that. Beware, as a rule, of the lover
+offering gifts, for that simply breeds _cocottes_. As I say, married
+women may do what is not fitting for us to do; they have to be revenged
+for being tied by the leg to the '_one only_.' We, on the other hand,
+are free, and can go when we like. We may do everything but that; we
+mayn't do that."
+
+"Why mayn't we?" asked Lilly, becoming suddenly conscious of her
+chains.
+
+"Married women may do anything; they may be divorced a hundred times
+and hold their heads as high as ever.... But in our case it is always a
+plunge lower; the oftener we change, the more we become common booty.
+It's all very well if we have money of our own, but you and I haven't.
+They hover about us, watching like vultures ... and they say to
+themselves, 'If so-and-so can keep her, and so-and-so, why shouldn't my
+good money buy her?' For this reason a woman should cleave closely to
+the one she has got--no matter how small and despicable he is, or how
+much she may loathe him in her secret soul."
+
+"I don't quite understand you," said Lilly. "Surely the one you have is
+the one you love."
+
+"What! Have you loved every one of them?"
+
+"Good gracious! There haven't been so many," Lilly answered. "Besides
+my husband the general"--she could not resist pronouncing the "proud"
+word--"there was only one other, and this one."
+
+"Nonsense!" exclaimed Frau Jula, genuinely indignant. "Are you setting
+up to be a model of virtue?"
+
+Lilly assured her that she had spoken the truth.
+
+Frau Jula had difficulty in grasping it. "Then you don't belong to us
+at all! You ought to be a judge's wife."
+
+Lilly laughed. After believing herself condemned for ever on account of
+her immorality, it was refreshing to find someone who ridiculed her for
+being too good.
+
+"Ah! if I were to tell you the stories of all the women who are
+around us, you would be surprised," Frau Jula went on. "Some will only
+look at girls. Some let furnished rooms to students, that are only
+taken by those they fancy; others"--here she lowered her voice to a
+whisper--"others find their lovers in the streets."
+
+Lilly shuddered. "What? Have I sat next them, perfectly unsuspecting?"
+
+Frau Jula's eyes burned into vacancy. "It's awful, isn't it?" she
+said, and laughed. "I don't care so much; you see, I have my poetry the
+sort of thing that gives me absolution. For its sake everything is
+sacrificed. One must have sensations. I must feel my blood run
+quicker ... I must study human nature; there is something new in
+everyone.... No matter how wretched a specimen a man is, with brains
+and soul that might be packed into a thimble, he can give you an hour
+of ecstasy--one hour in which bells chime, in which the spheres are
+full of organ-sounds. And the more you have, the more life you live,
+the more souls do you creep to the other side of. Doors are flung open:
+all secrets are revealed.... And if you can hear a stranger's heart
+beating, can feel his heart-beats in your fingertips--then he is
+yours, part of yourself. Then you live one life more. Yes, that is
+life--really life."
+
+She put up her arms and clasped her hands at the back of her neck.
+
+Lilly said to herself that she couldn't take this talk seriously, but
+she felt hot and cold waves pass over her.
+
+"I don't understand at all what you are talking about," she said,
+rising.
+
+Frau Jula didn't seem to hear. Her eyes were full of mystic fire. She
+looked like a priestess sacrificing to strange gods.
+
+It struck eight. The maid servant who had been laying the table in the
+next room had set a place for the lady, who didn't seem inclined to go,
+and now came in to announce that the repast was ready.
+
+"Will you stay and have supper with me?" Lilly asked against her will.
+
+Frau Jula at last collected herself; she neither accepted nor declined,
+but got up and removed her scarlet toque from her dark locks.
+
+"I am quite mad, am I not?" she asked, and the silly but alluring smile
+played about her lips again.
+
+With a sigh of relief, Lilly opened the dining-room door.
+
+The table was covered with a sheeny damask cloth, on which leaves of
+light were cast by the hanging lamp. The bright-coloured dinner
+service, copied from an old Strasburg pattern, had been bought by
+Lilly cheap at a sale, and the plate, including the castors and the
+sugar-tongs, shone as brightly as real silver, and could only be
+distinguished from it by the absence of a mark. The idea was, that
+when Richard stayed to meals he should find all as well ordered and
+spick-and-span as at his mother's table.
+
+Frau Jula gave an exclamation of delight. "Oh, how charming you have
+made it all--so dear and cosy! I do believe I am right in saying that
+you were born to be a married housewife. You should see my rubbishy
+place! But what is the good of keeping up appearances when my
+red-headed boy ruins his digestion at restaurants, dining on lamb
+kidneys _au lard_ and truffles? When he is at home I make him gruel and
+bread-crumbs, and give it to him straight out of the saucepan, without
+any ceremony or laying of table."
+
+"Thank goodness," Lilly thought, "she is her natural self again."
+
+The meal was quite unpretentious, consisting of cold meat dishes and
+baked potatoes, with the remains of a tart for sweet. But Frau Jula ate
+with a greater relish than she had known for years, and commented on
+everything.
+
+Lilly told her that for the sake of economy she ordered her meat from
+the country. She would gladly give her friend the address.
+
+"I guessed you did that," said Frau Jula, with a soft sigh, her eyes
+meditatively fixed on space.... And after a pause came the confession
+in a low voice. "It was the same there."
+
+"Where?" asked Lilly.
+
+"At home, where we lived."
+
+Then suddenly she hurled away her napkin, jumped up, and went to the
+open window. She wrung her hands, beat her forehead, and called
+hysterically into the evening air: "I am going to the bad as fast as I
+can--utterly to the bad!"
+
+"What is the matter with you?" Lilly stammered. She was so shocked that
+she too sprang up and went to the window.
+
+"I want to go back to my husband ... to my husband.... My husband is a
+monster, a beast, it's true. Life there is simply death ... that's all
+perfectly true. Yet I want to go back to my husband.... Here I shall go
+under--under."
+
+Lilly laid her hand caressingly on her neck.
+
+"Why, dear," she said consolingly, "you have just been giving me such
+useful instructions as to how to avoid going under. And, then, you have
+in your literary art a mainstay, which I lost long ago." Sighing, she
+glanced at the curtained cupboards, where the last of her pasted sunset
+forests glowed in obscurity. "No, no; you will not go under. You will
+rise higher and higher, to the very top, and from there look down on
+other poor women."
+
+Frau Jula sobbed on her shoulder. "Never now, never!" she cried. "I
+can't get out of this whirlpool. It's poisoned me; my brain is
+poisoned. I am going to the bad! I am going to the bad!"
+
+Lilly put her arm gently in hers and led her back to the sofa-corner in
+the unlighted drawing-room, where she had been sitting before.
+
+"Ah, here it is nice and dark," she said, whimpering like a child.
+"Here I can tell you everything, but shut the door; there mustn't be a
+gleam of light."
+
+Lilly closed the door of the "pattern" room. Now they were sitting in
+the dark. Only the late evening twilight, which from the canal
+penetrated the still scanty branches of the chestnuts, cast a greyish
+shadow on her tear-stained face.
+
+"Just now," began Frau Jula, "I spoke of women who sought their love
+adventures in the streets, and you started up in horror. Do you know
+who one of these women is? I am one."
+
+"Oh, my God!" exclaimed Lilly.
+
+"Yes, I am one. The evening that my red-headed boy leaves me alone, I
+put on dark things and drive into districts where nobody knows who I
+am. When I meet someone whom I like the look of, I give him a glance
+that makes him turn round and speak to me; then I go with him into a
+common inn, or to a little confectioner's, anywhere he likes, or I sit
+with him on a seat in the dark ... and if I like him still better than
+I thought ... I will just go with him anywhere--anywhere he asks me to
+go."
+
+"Oh, how dreadful that is!" said Lilly, and pressed her hands to her
+eyes. Now she knew why a few months ago something had seemed to draw
+her more and more powerfully to the streets, why a pleasant thrill had
+passed through her when someone had addressed her in the dark; only, of
+course, she had been too nervous to answer.
+
+"And now I have told you this, and you know what I am, you won't want
+me to sit on your beautiful sofa any more!" cried Frau Jula. "Say it
+plump out, and I'll go." She caught beseechingly at Lilly's hands.
+
+Lilly felt like a good Samaritan who, having come across someone
+grievously afflicted, was bound to do the best she could for her.
+
+"What makes you do it?" she asked gently. "You are not so lonely. How
+have you come to it?"
+
+"Yes, how have I come to it? Can you say how you have come to what you
+are? It's all very well for people to reproach us with weakness; but
+one necessity leads on to another, one wish gives birth to more wishes,
+and one always thinks one is doing right."
+
+"That is true enough," Lilly faltered, recalling the decisive moments
+of her own life.
+
+"I have always persuaded myself that I must do it for the sake of my
+poetry. I must have experiences, pictures, and what the French call
+_frisson_. But all that is nothing but an excuse, a mere pretext. The
+truth is that you just seek and seek. Your own husband is not what you
+want, your red-headed boy isn't either, and all the rest aren't--your
+sportsmen, merchants, and lieutenants. But you think he must be
+somewhere. Perhaps he's that stranger at the next table? You are almost
+sure he is, so you become acquainted with him, and find that he isn't.
+It's none of the worthy ones, for however much trouble they may take to
+possess us they take no trouble to find out if there is anything worthy
+in us. And so you have to go on searching. Perhaps it will be someone
+in the street? It becomes at last a positive fever ... it consumes and
+burns you up. Often I can't sleep for thinking of the next dark night
+when I shall be wandering about looking ... Don't you see? It _must_
+end in ruin to me, body and soul. And this evening, when I saw your
+daintily laid supper-table, all at once a longing came over me for my
+home and husband. Yes, I am periodically tortured with that longing. He
+has weak eyes, and smells of carbolic. Oh, that vilest of all vile
+smells! How much I should like to smell it again! I shouldn't even mind
+his throwing his stethoscope at me as often as he likes. He has written
+asking me to go back.... I can go back if I choose ... and yet I don't
+go. I stay here and perish. Oh, life is farcical!"
+
+She rose and fumbled for her hat and hatpins, which lay on the table.
+
+Lilly couldn't bear her to go in such an agitated state of mind.
+
+"If you feel that it is a poison in your blood, that it must ruin you,
+why don't you guard against it? Why don't you conquer the feeling?
+Force of will can do a lot."
+
+"I have often said so to myself," replied Frau Jula, "but I have never
+had anyone to confide in about it who could help me. Now I have found
+you it will be easier. Now I almost feel as if I could--could conquer
+it."
+
+"Will you promise me to try?" asked Lilly, holding out her hand.
+
+"Yes, I promise," she cried, and shook hands joyously. "You are going
+to be my saviour. You are already. And to thank you, I will keep a
+sharp lookout that you aren't spoilt. You shall never be what I am, and
+what the others are."
+
+"Oh, I can look after myself," murmured Lilly.
+
+"Ah, so you say! But when the dreary void comes, and _he_ grows more
+and more unsatisfying and colourless, you have nothing to say to each
+other, and you mustn't have children.... None of us have them, because
+we all know how to prevent their coming. He lets you have no part or
+lot in his affairs, and you feel behind everything how his family hates
+you. _They_ think we are a species of harpy. And then how constantly he
+proclaims his intention of marrying when he wants most to annoy us!
+And, above all, there's the longing ... it's like an everlasting dead
+gnawing toothache ... yes, it's just like toothache. Wherever you are,
+it torments you. For life cannot end like this, you say to yourself;
+something must happen at last. Oh, it's ten times worse than marriage!
+Wait and see if it isn't...."
+
+Lilly's heart became ever sorer at her words. A wild misery clutched
+her.
+
+"Pray say no more," she begged. "If it's to be, it'll come soon enough.
+I don't want to think about it."
+
+"You are right, darling," said Frau Jula; "it does no good." And she
+took her leave.
+
+"You won't forget your promise?" Lilly reminded her from the top of the
+stairs.
+
+"Never; no, never! I swear it." And she glided out.
+
+With a whirling brain, Lilly went back to the darkened drawing-room and
+leaned absently and dejectedly out of the open window to breathe in the
+freshness of the evening air.
+
+She watched the tiny woman who had just come out at the front entrance
+trip lightly and gracefully along the pavement.
+
+A man in a tall hat and patent-leather shoes passed her, then
+hesitated, stopped, and turned back again. As he came up with her he
+lifted his hat with exaggerated courtesy.
+
+By the light of the street-lamp Lilly saw her face upturned to his,
+full of curiosity, and with an ingratiating smile, and then they walked
+on--together.
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER IX
+
+
+Richard was reluctant to conform to a more temperate manner of life. He
+was still eager to be seen with Lilly and to have her admired. But
+little Frau Jula's lecture had really touched his conscience, and he
+had not the nerve to set it at defiance.
+
+Nevertheless, he sulked and brooded and yawned, and seemed so bored
+that Lilly, to cheer him up, was on the point of volunteering to
+accompany him to the next race-meeting, when news reached her that her
+mother was dead.
+
+She cried a great deal, and her grief was in proportion to the
+tenderness of her heart, which was very soft. But in reality her mother
+had been dead to her for so long that the sorrow she felt at her actual
+death could not be very deep or lasting.
+
+Before starting for the West Prussian asylum to attend the funeral, her
+chief anxiety had been to get as simple mourning as possible, for she
+was ashamed not to have done more for her mother, and did not wish to
+give cause for scandal by being too elegant as she stood at the pauper
+grave. All the same, the officials and doctors at the asylum were most
+deferential to her, and appeared to regard her as some exquisite black
+bird of Paradise.
+
+It was not till after she had spent three very hot spring evenings,
+praying and meditating, beside the small heap of gravel, that she
+returned to Berlin, full of serious thoughts and re-awakened memories.
+
+While away she had thought she hated Richard, but when she found him
+waiting for her at the station, she sank into his arms helplessly,
+craving for his sympathy. For now she had no one else but him; he
+really was her all on earth.
+
+It was an understood thing that for the next few months nocturnal
+dissipations should cease on account of her mourning, and to his credit
+Richard showed her every consideration in the matter. He sat at home
+spending many quiet evenings with her, reading books that he couldn't
+appreciate and playing backgammon; and would go to sleep on the sofa
+rather than attempt to beguile her into the gay world. But in order
+that he should not be quite lost to that world, it was agreed that he
+should have every other evening to himself.
+
+The notoriety that his beautiful mistress had acquired smoothed the way
+for him. He was elected to the Club that he had long hankered after,
+through the support of two of her aristocratic admirers, without a
+single blackball. So now it was open to him to enjoy the supreme
+felicity of losing part of his firm's hardly earned fortune to young
+scions of the nobility, foreign attaches, and other superior beings.
+
+Lilly was not pleased to hear of his losses, which he confided to her
+with much feigned growling and grumbling. She practised economy more
+assiduously than before to try and make them good. He laughed at her
+efforts, and declared that she cost him no more than an extra cigarette
+a day; but her conviction that she was a burden on the firm of Liebert
+& Dehnicke remained deeply rooted.
+
+On the quiet evenings that he recruited from his nights of dissipation
+their business conversations were resumed. Lilly liked to "talk shop,"
+and she displayed a keen commercial as well as artistic faculty.
+
+Richard frequently brought with him sketches of models, and they would
+sit with their heads bent together over unrolled charts, planning and
+consulting like a pair of partners. Those hours were almost blissful,
+and she never tired of asking questions about the factory itself. How
+many hands, male and female, were employed there at the present moment?
+Was that man or woman or this one there now? She didn't know their
+names, but could describe their faces exactly. What work had they
+chiefly on hand? Had the supply of certain models run out? Thus she
+kept herself _au courant_ with the inner life of the business.
+
+The factory was her ill-starred love, as she often said in joke to
+Richard. If she was allowed to call for him after business hours at the
+office, it was the greatest treat he could give her. If she could have
+had her way she would have found an excuse for going daily to the
+factory; but Richard didn't wish it. The employes, he said, had long
+ago got to know what their relations to each other were, and he must be
+careful not to lay himself open to disrespectful gossip.
+
+She was sure that this could not be his only motive. There was
+something else behind. She had realised for some time that his mother
+was not well disposed towards her. Once he had talked about her quite
+freely and openly, but now he avoided the subject, even when Lilly
+asked direct questions.
+
+It was likely enough that he was afraid of raising the old lady's ire
+by giving his mistress the run of his office, so she had to content
+herself by taking interest from a distance in the welfare of the little
+kingdom.
+
+On the evenings that she was left alone, she was in the habit of making
+ten-o'clock pilgrimages to the Alte Jakobstrasse on her own account.
+
+She would take up a position on the opposite side of the street and
+gaze reverentially across at the old grey house, with its wonderful
+modern embellishments. She admired the imitation marble pillars, which
+now gave an air of splendour, in the style of the Renaissance, to the
+entrance. She stared up at the floor where his mother made her home,
+and withdrew timorously into the darkness of a doorway when a woman's
+threatening shadow was cast on the drawn curtains. When it grew late
+and people ceased to come in and out of the house, she would boldly
+cross the street, slip up the steps to the front-door, and with her
+face pressed against the iron gate peep at the interior of the
+staircase landing, whence came the sheen of laurels, the milky
+radiance of the Clytie bust, and the dark, rich chequered glow of the
+stained-glass windows, an impressive combination that recalled the dim
+religious light of a chapel.
+
+Those front-door steps grew to be a sort of sacred pilgrims' way, along
+which penitents crawled on their hands and knees; the stained-glass
+became a heavenly glory; the Clytie a benedictory saint.
+
+
+                           *   *   *   *   *
+
+
+Towards autumn Richard was called out to serve at the man[oe]uvres. His
+letters were curt and few, and their tone could not disguise his bad
+temper. The last was dated from the hospital, as he was on the sick
+list, owing to a fracture of the knee-joint caused by a fall from his
+horse. It would prevent his riding again for a long time, perhaps for
+ever.
+
+When he came back in October he was still compelled to wear a knee-cap,
+and sent in his resignation. The accident really proved a piece of good
+fortune, for rumours of his relations with the divorced wife of the
+commander of the regiment had got afloat, and in consequence he was
+being cut by his fellow-officers. His superiors were only waiting for
+confirmatory evidence to call him before a court-martial, a proceeding
+which would certainly have deprived him of his commission in the
+Reserves. He thus escaped by the skin of his teeth public disgrace, and
+his surly reproachful manner to Lilly was meant to show how much he had
+sacrificed for her sake.
+
+The news of the colonel, which he had gathered indirectly, filled her
+with dismay. The old martinet had turned Fraeulein von Schwertfeger out
+of the castle, having become obsessed by the suspicion that she had
+acted in collusion with the guilty lovers. He now lived the life of a
+misanthropic recluse, and it was feared he might go out of his mind. A
+message of evil indeed from that past of sunshine.
+
+
+                           *   *   *   *   *
+
+
+As winter approached, one of Frau Jula's prophecies seemed as if it
+were coming to pass. Richard began to discuss his matrimonial prospects
+with Lilly, not to annoy her, it is true, but simply because it had
+become a habit to unburden his mind to her about everything that
+troubled him.
+
+His mother had invited an orphaned heiress on a visit to their house.
+Of course, she had done it solely for _his_ benefit, and no other
+reason. He had to sit next her at meals every day. She was a rather
+pallid girl and had hair the colour of straw. She looked at him with
+big strange eyes, and seemed to ask, "When are you going to propose?"
+And his mother was for ever preaching to him.
+
+Things couldn't go on as they were. Another winter like the two last
+and every decent family among their acquaintance would be pointing the
+finger of scorn at him--so his mother said--and it was enough to drive
+a fellow distracted. Lilly felt as if icy water was streaming down her
+back. But she maintained a brave face, and showed no more inward
+emotion than if they were discussing a model for a new "bronze."
+
+"Do you think you could care for her?" she asked.
+
+"Good God! What do you call 'caring'?" he answered, staring beyond her
+vacantly. "You talk as if I were serious about it. I believe you
+wouldn't mind getting rid of me."
+
+He pretended to be angry, and Lilly reasoned with him coolly. He
+mustn't imagine for a moment that she would stand in his way. She had
+nothing but his happiness at heart. It would make her proud if he gave
+her his confidence and did not take this step--now or later--without
+talking it all over with her first.
+
+He was touched, kissed her, and replied that so far it was all in the
+air.
+
+But the conversation left Lilly beset with dread as if by a nightmare.
+Her one coherent thought was, "If he leaves me in the lurch now, what
+will become of me?"
+
+Grief for her mother's death was nothing compared with this martyrdom
+of anxiety. The vultures that Frau Jula had spoken of occurred to
+her--all those greedy vultures, in white shirt-fronts and black coats,
+hovering round to offer her their "good money" directly her friend and
+protector should have deserted her. And then she thought of those other
+vultures in Kellermann's picture, cowering on the sun-baked rocks,
+ready to pounce on the naked beauty directly she became defenceless.
+
+"Her chains are her weapon of defence," Lilly said to herself, "and so
+it is with me. As soon as I am free, I am lost."
+
+The next day neither of them alluded at first to the dangerous topic,
+but Richard was absent-minded and ill at ease. Then Lilly took heart
+and said huskily, "I see, Richard, you are still undecided in your
+mind. Won't you bring me a photograph of her to see? No one knows you
+as well as I do, and no one will be able to judge better whether or not
+she is suited to you."
+
+He vehemently denied that he was trying to make up his mind. The girl
+was nothing to him. She was an empty-headed doll. But his indignation
+was not genuine, and his eyes were fixed on space. For "the doll" had
+five millions.
+
+And the next afternoon he brought her photograph. Without taking it out
+of the soft paper in which it was wrapped, she laid it aside. Merely
+touching it made her hands tremble. She was afraid that her first
+glance at it would betray her inward agitation.
+
+"Aren't you going to look at it?" he asked, a little disappointed.
+
+"There will be time enough when you are gone," she replied, and
+congratulated herself on her smile of indifference.
+
+When he was in the hall she called after him:
+
+"To-morrow I will tell you what I think, you know."
+
+Then she rushed back to the photograph, not omitting, however, to wave
+from the window to Richard, a duty which had become a habit with her.
+
+"And now ... now the photograph!" Oh, what a good, calm, rather
+delicate-looking girlish face it was, looking at her with sorrowful
+though nice eyes. The fair plaits of hair, as thick as a man's wrist,
+were twisted round the back of the head in country fashion; a timid
+smile played on the full-lipped mouth. It was the face of a lovable
+child. Happiness would make it bloom like a spray of lilac put in
+water. It indicated a nature reposeful, not too gifted, housewifely,
+and clinging. Exactly what he wanted.
+
+She placed the picture on a chair and threw herself on her knees before
+it. She prayed and wrestled with herself, but in the end she could not
+help saying to herself again, "Exactly what he wants; what he would
+never find a second time if he hunted all the world over."
+
+And she had five millions! If she did not give him up now she would
+indeed be one of those harpies, to whom, according to Frau Jula, she
+and her kind were likened in respectable family circles.
+
+"But he is mine; I have the right of possession! What good would his
+five millions do me if through them I go to the bad altogether? Why
+should I sacrifice myself for him or anyone?"
+
+The word "harpy" continued to ring persistently in her ears.
+
+She thought of the Furies depicted in the illustrated mythology books,
+the terror of all school-children, with their beautiful hair and
+murderous claws.
+
+"What I have is mine! I have a right to keep it, a right to tear it to
+pieces too."
+
+Oh, what a night that was. She lay in bed with her knees drawn up to
+her chin and her face buried in her lap, sobbing. She stuffed her
+clothes into her mouth, tore them out again, and sobbed anew; and at
+last, towards morning, a resolve was born of her tears, her shudders,
+her prayers, and bitter strife with herself--a resolve that seemed to
+bring release and salvation: "This afternoon, when he comes, I will
+tell him." But no! Why wait till the afternoon? Why let him cross the
+threshold first? How easily might the influence of their wonted
+association bring the great work of self-sacrifice to nothing! She must
+choose another place, somewhere less familiar, from which she could
+quickly escape as soon as she felt his presence made her falter.
+
+She had been forbidden, it is true, to visit his office without special
+permission; but if she chose the luncheon hour, and found him sitting
+quietly resting in his private back room, this would be the most
+favourable and easiest opportunity for an interview. No one would
+notice her going in, and she would not be disturbing him. Besides, so
+sacred a resolve as hers justified every step she might take.
+
+She spent the morning in arranging and packing up his letters. She
+intended to restore these to him with the photograph of his future
+bride, so that his mind should be set at rest concerning them once for
+all.
+
+Then she dressed more carefully than usual, and washed away the traces
+of her tears with milk of lilies. She waved her hair so that it
+descended over her neck in full ripples, such as she had seen in Greek
+statues. She felt, indeed, like one of those marble women of ancient
+Greece, so serenely elevated was her frame of mind above earthly
+happiness and sorrow.
+
+She drove to the office. As the clocks chimed a quarter-past one she
+stood at the pillared portico. No one was about in the yard; only the
+porter took off his cap with a friendly smile. To him she was still the
+"boss's" ladylove.
+
+It was a pity that she did not take the precaution of being announced.
+
+The door of the outer office was standing open, as usual when he was
+still at work in his room. She knew the secret catch that opened the
+wooden rail of partition, and passed through. She knocked cautiously at
+the further door. To-day it was shut, which was not usual.
+
+He said, "Come in."
+
+She went in, and stood face to face--with his mother.
+
+This was the first time she had ever seen her. She was quite different
+from what she had expected. Instead of the tall, thin, silver-haired,
+stately old lady her imagination had pictured, she saw sitting at his
+writing-table a stout woman of middle height, with grizzled locks under
+her black lace cap. A pair of cold grey eyes looked up at her with a
+surprised and indignant glance.
+
+"This is his mother," she thought.
+
+Richard jumped up from his revolving-chair, and Lilly, speechless with
+terror, stared at the old lady, who in her turn sprang to her feet. An
+expression of fury and scorn blazed in the cold grey eyes.
+
+"This is really a charming state of things," she cried, turning her
+head from one to the other with sharp, angry jerks. "Charming! I am not
+even safe in my own house, it seems.... I must ask you, Richard, not to
+expose me again to a meeting with a person of this description."
+
+And while Lilly timidly and respectfully made room for her to pass, she
+swept to the door with a snort of rage.
+
+"What are you doing here? What do you mean by coming here?"
+
+Never had he shouted at her like this before.
+
+He stood in front of her with his hands thrust deeply into his
+trouser-pockets, biting the ends of his moustache, while his head was
+so much on one side it almost lay on his shoulder. He looked like a
+savage, infuriated bull.
+
+She wanted to hand him the photograph and packet of letters, and tell
+him everything, but her limbs and tongue seemed paralysed.
+
+"I ... I ... I only ..." she stammered with a sob.
+
+"I ... I ... I only ..." he scoffingly mimicked her. "I only wanted to
+wriggle myself in here. I ... I ... would like to be mistress here.
+Isn't that it, eh? ... No, no, my angel; we must put an end to this at
+once.... Your so-called ill-starred love of my factory always struck me
+as a bit suspicious. Get out of here! Get out, I say! Get out!"
+
+And the next minute she was out--out in the street.
+
+She still held the packet in its tissue-paper wrappings convulsively
+between her cramped fingers. Staggering, she walked on, past staring
+red houses that threatened to fall on her. She saw a truck loaded with
+sacks of flour scattering white clouds. A pulley screeched in a factory
+yard. Every time she saw anyone coming towards her she swerved into the
+gutter, shrinking away in fear from the jeers of the passer-by. A skein
+of wool that someone had lost lay on the pavement. She picked it up and
+thought of hanging herself, for something must be done.
+
+It was all very well to be abandoned and deserted; when your time came
+you could expect nothing else, and must resign yourself to fate--but to
+be stormed at and flung off, to be kicked out as if you were a burglar,
+to be despised and spat upon like the lowest woman in the streets--oh,
+that was too much!
+
+She must do something to be revenged on him. And even if such a revenge
+would no longer affect him, that didn't matter. He should at least be
+convinced that he was to blame for everything. When she was wallowing
+in that mire of which he had formerly expressed so much horror on her
+account--when she was there ... Yes, something must be done, now, at
+once--some suicidal act which would make her worthy of the gross
+treatment she had received at his hands--something to free her from
+these torments, these horrible torments!
+
+Her heart hung in her breast like a painful tumour. She could have
+outlined it with her finger, it felt so sharply prominent. It was as if
+some claw held it in its clutch. And then again the vultures occurred
+to her--the vultures crouching on the rocks in Kellermann's picture.
+
+They were crouching to spring on Lilly Czepanek. Whom else? Ah, now she
+had it! The thought flashed through her brain like an arrow. She called
+a cab and drove quickly to Herr Kellermann's house.
+
+She ran up the stairs, which little more than eight months ago she had
+descended, steeped in bliss, at Richard's side. She stood in the
+unaired, dark ante-room with its fusty smell, and knocked with a
+faltering hand at the studio door.
+
+Herr Kellermann sat on the floor in his tartan socks and down-at-heel
+slippers making coffee, as on her first visit. He had a rather bloated
+look, but seemed pleased with himself.
+
+"Good heavens!" he exclaimed, drawing the collar of his night-shirt
+together. "What brings you hither, lovely goddess, so suddenly? Have
+your setting suns been rising again?"
+
+She said nothing, but laid her hat and cloak on a chair and began to
+unfasten her blouse. She looked round for a screen, but there wasn't
+one, for the models who frequented this studio were not generally
+troubled with shyness.
+
+He sprang up and stared hard at her. Then, when he understood what she
+intended to do, he burst into a sudden shout of joy.
+
+"What did I say? Wasn't I right? Ha, ha! It has come to that, has it?
+We are crying aloud for release. We want to be set free, eh?"
+
+"I am not crying aloud for anything," said Lilly. "Kindly turn your
+eyes the other way till necessary," The corners of her mouth curled in
+scorn.
+
+He seized the picture, blew the dust off it adjusted his easel,
+laughing and chuckling to himself. "I knew she'd come. I said she'd
+come!"
+
+Lilly fumbled at the strings and buttons of her garments. Then she
+slowly cast them from her one by one. Thus she stood, in the garish
+light of the studio, pricked by a thousand needles of shame, and
+exposed her unclothed body to the artist's gloating gaze.
+
+
+                           *   *   *   *   *
+
+
+The next afternoon Richard came to tea as usual. His eyes were red and
+watery, and he looked depressed, but his manner did not betray the
+least consciousness of anything out of the ordinary having happened.
+
+She had hardly expected that he would come at all, and received him in
+chilly surprise.
+
+"Oh, about yesterday," he said carelessly. "Mother and I had a beastly
+row. I had to promise her that you wouldn't come to the factory again.
+So now we won't allude to it any more. The little girl with the fair
+hair leaves us this evening. Give me a kiss."
+
+So they kissed, and everything was the same as ever.
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER X
+
+
+The twigs of the chestnuts had again put on their yellow gloves, and
+many a leaf started on a whirling journey down the canal. Once more the
+vista of grey water through the opening in the branches widened, tame
+wild-ducks foraged along the banks, and the barges, sinking deep into
+the water under their cargoes of odoriferous summer fruit, drifted
+lazily to market. The world muffled itself up for coming winter days,
+and the purveyors of pleasure in the capital were astir.
+
+In seemly half-mourning the round of dissipation began again, Richard
+objecting to being kept in a glass case any longer. But this time they
+ceased to aspire to stage boxes and the gorgeous luxury of
+distinguished night restaurants. Having established a reputation
+through the ownership of a famous and withal inexpensive "_horizontale
+de grande marque_," one could afford to remain on the level of a
+middle-class "smart set," where German champagne is drunk and
+Kempinski's proves a lodestar. They passed countless hours of reckless
+debauchery in cabarets and theatres where smoking was allowed, in snug
+corners, and in eminently respectable-looking private back rooms. Women
+who had felt themselves a little _de trop_ in the other society were
+more festive hare than ever before, and the men congratulated
+themselves on not "bluing" so much money.
+
+The people you met remained pretty much the same. Only a few dandies
+fell off, not being able to conceive an existence of pleasure from
+which the joy of being patronised by cavalry officers in mufti was
+absent. Lilly followed the crowd, imagining there was no choice. She
+sat for the most part saying little, but smiling a great deal in a
+friendly way. She let the men pay her as much attention as they
+pleased, but responded without enthusiasm, and she listened
+indifferently to the women's confidences. She was popular with her
+feminine compeers, who all recognised in her the amiable quality of not
+wishing to poach on their preserves.
+
+It might have been thought that she was stupid and lacking in animation
+if occasionally she had not thawed under the influence of champagne,
+which was capable of working an amazing revolution in her. Then she
+seemed gradually to awake from her torpor, her eyes grew brilliant, her
+cheeks rosy. She would laugh shrilly and say madly improper things,
+even repeating the colonel's old Casino jokes, till as last she was
+worked up into a state of rapture, in which she sang comic songs in a
+tremulous twittering falsetto, mimicked well-known actors and
+actresses, and even broke into more daring dances than were ever seen
+on the variety stage.
+
+It was extraordinary how retentive her memory was. Without knowing it,
+she never forgot anything that she had once heard. In her normal
+condition she remembered less than other people. Wine had first to
+sweep away the barriers of reserve which, as a rule, dammed her flow of
+wit.
+
+Her associates soon discovered this phenomenal peculiarity in her, and
+tried by a hundred devices to bring her into a condition that provided
+them with such rare entertainment. But she resisted with all her
+strength, and so she waged a perpetual warfare in which she could not
+count on Richard as an ally, for he liked his fair mistress to be
+applauded for her talent as well as admired for her beauty.
+
+The next day she invariably felt limp and depressed, and sometimes when
+her mind's horizon was bounded by a red forest of high kicking legs,
+and the silly patter of suggestive songs rang in her head, a low voice
+of exhortation made itself heard within her. "_Once_ you were
+different," it said. "Once you looked up to the heights and aspired to
+better things." But she dared not listen to this voice.... She felt she
+was unworthy because she was defenceless and had no one to hold out to
+her a protecting hand.
+
+Sometimes, on the nights that she was free to do as she pleased, she
+slipped out, as if she were doing something wrong, and went to the
+gallery of a good theatre where she would not be known, or to the
+orchestra of a concert-hall where music students of both sexes
+congregated, sitting on steps and railings with the score on their
+knees, following every note.
+
+What she saw and heard made no deep impression on her. She felt
+disquieted and out of her element, and fixed her attention on some
+young man, whose bold profile or mass of artistic curls struck her
+fancy.
+
+"He is one of the gifted," she thought, with a torturing pain at her
+heart, and she gazed at him so long and earnestly with languishing eyes
+that at last he returned her glance with fiery fervour.
+
+Yet, however hotly she might burn with eagerness to be spoken to by
+him, she dared not give him further signals of encouragement, with Frau
+Jula's awful example before her mind's eye.... And so she had to rest
+content with the beating of her heart, which in itself alone caused her
+delight.
+
+So steeped was she now in the erotics of the world she moved in, that
+the slightest rise in the temperature of passion was interpreted by her
+as a complete drama of love and longing. Oh, the longing, that eternal
+gnawing toothache, to which Frau Jula had referred; how well she knew
+what it was now! It had come on her like a thief in the night, filling
+her hours of rest with a panorama of flaming visions, changing her
+waking hours into a drowsy trance.
+
+She waited, and no one came. No one took the trouble to lift her lost
+soul out of the dust. Only one person, who watched her keenly, appeared
+to have any conception of what was going on within her.
+
+This was Dr. Salmoni.
+
+A great man was Dr. Salmoni in the estimation of those intellectual
+circles in Berlin of which he was a luminary. He was the editor of an
+art magazine once notorious for its revolutionary doctrines and the
+zeal with which it attacked the great gods of the old school, and set
+up new idols for the multitude to worship. But it was not Dr. Salmoni's
+way to burn incense long at any shrine; when he saw the mob kneeling
+before the fetishes of his own creation, he tore them down, too, and
+ground them under the heel of his vituperative invective. His hate was
+a thing to be lightly borne, his witticisms fizzled out and did not
+hurt, no one believed his calumnies. More dangerous was the benevolent
+kindness which he expended on all those whose reputation he intended to
+ruin. Praise from Dr. Salmoni sounded like a death-sentence in certain
+ears.
+
+This distinguished man now, as in former winters, patronised
+occasionally the harmless amusements of the little circle whose strong
+point could hardly be called intellect. His appearance was hailed with
+respectful enthusiasm; everyone made room for him, and hung on his lips
+in anticipation of scathing personal remarks when he leaned back in his
+chair with his melancholy sympathetic smile and stroked his pointed
+reddish beard. But he did not always fill the _role_ of jester expected
+of him. He would sometimes engage in a _tete-a-tete_ conversation, or
+sit alone, lost in silent meditation.
+
+He could even show, when he liked, a playful _naivete_, such as a
+leopard displays when it gambols with puppies. He seldom spoke to
+Lilly. But his penetrating eyes often wandered over her face with a
+scrutinising glance. She felt every time he did this that he amused
+himself by skimming the emotions of her soul.
+
+One evening he sat down next her, and asked if she would cut up his
+meat for him, as he had unfortunately sprained his wrist in strangling
+a certain celebrity.... Next, in growing intimacy, he desired her to
+feed him, which he might easily have done himself with his left hand,
+which was not disabled.
+
+Thus they found themselves conversing seriously for the first time.
+Lilly trembled at the honour. She was afraid of not distinguishing
+herself.
+
+"I am quite astonished," he said, "that, after knocking about with this
+ribald crew for over two years, your eyes do not betray you."
+
+"How should they?" she asked.
+
+"Kindly look one moment at the women collected here"--and he indicated
+with his finger Frau Jula, Welter, and Karla, and two or three more.
+"How they roll their eyes! how they look up under them! All that is the
+lingo of ... I was going to say vice; but I detest expressions that are
+so guiltless of nuances, so I will say instead, the lingo of a criminal
+phantasy. Do you understand?"
+
+"I think so," murmured Lilly.
+
+"Now you, my dearest lady, still retain something of the childlike
+innocence of former years in your glance. Not all, but something. A
+_soupcon_ of contempt has crept in. No, contempt is not exactly the
+right word. On the outskirts of deserts there are certain salt pools
+that are green, dark, and empty, because the ground is poisoned. Do you
+grasp what I mean?"
+
+"I'm not sure that I do," she said.
+
+"All the same, it's marvellous. Your soul seems to be a filter; it only
+assimilates what it likes. Or perhaps you have a private source of
+succour to draw on that puts you on a higher plane than us, some
+crystallised immovable ideal ... some fixed star to shoot at ... some
+sublime Song of Songs."
+
+Lilly started so violently that a low cry escaped her lips, loud
+enough, however, to attract the eyes of the company towards her.
+
+"I have only trodden on this lady's foot," explained Dr. Salmoni, "and
+she was ingenuous enough to think I did it by mistake."
+
+Everyone laughed.
+
+"A joke sufficiently clumsy to satisfy them," he said in a whisper,
+leaning close to her shoulder. "I'll make believe not to have heard
+your involuntary confession. I only value intended avowals. I am not
+going to ask you to-night, as I asked you once before, what you are
+doing here. I ask instead: What have you got to lose here? And I can
+give the answer myself directly: Your style--your style stands in
+peril. You are on the brink of losing your style, and becoming
+guiltless of style, and that is a misfortune and a crime at the same
+moment. Style is to me equivalent to virtue, greatness, sincerity,
+religion, power, and a few other things all combined--a divine quality.
+Keep to your last, spiritually and physically. There is _line_ in that;
+an excellent thing to preserve. Swing yourself up, if you like, to the
+peaks of a healthy and joyous viciousness--_tant mieux_. You can either
+dress your hair like a nun's or let it float over the pillow like a
+bacchante's--but be sure which you decide on."
+
+"I think just now that you pleaded the cause of nuances," Lilly said,
+feeling her wits sharpened by his, "and now you are talking
+platitudes."
+
+"Hear, hear," he answered approvingly. "That's capital! But no, no,
+dear gracious one; I am not talking platitudes. I preach simply,
+'_Will_,' the will to personality. In truth, there's room for plenty of
+nuances. You have the stuff in you for a _grande amoureuse_; but, alas!
+not the courage."
+
+"And that shows I haven't the stuff," she retorted, giving him a
+radiant look.
+
+He laughed like a schoolboy. "Yes, yes. We all get old sometime, and
+listen to little virtuous women lecturing us on logic."
+
+And he chivalrously allowed her the satisfaction of having got the best
+of him in repartee.
+
+During the next few days Lilly reflected a good deal on what they had
+talked about. How could he know so much about her? It was almost as if
+he were in league with supernatural agencies. "Will to personality," he
+had said. The phrase made her happy. Once more she began to ascend to
+the heights.
+
+
+                           *   *   *   *   *
+
+
+Another time, when they followed a party of their friends at midnight
+along the lively Friedrichstrasse, he adopted a different tone.
+
+"I have a queer sort of feeling, dearest lady," he said, "that you are
+afraid of me."
+
+"I?" she said, catching her breath nervously. "Why should I be afraid
+of you?"
+
+"Because you know that I have a message for you. A message of
+redemption for which in your secret heart you don't feel ready."
+
+"I don't understand you," she faltered. But she understood perfectly
+what he would say. She knew what part he might play in her life if----
+
+"I am a man tuned in a minor key," he continued. "I don't like playing
+my emotions on a trumpet, otherwise your ears might have tingled ere
+this. Anyhow, I will say this, that I think it a scandal that a woman
+like you, made to walk in high places, one capable of noble thought and
+elevated enjoyments, should be bribed by a few pickled herrings into
+living a stupid burlesque of a life.... I am not going to blame anyone,
+but, my dearest lady, I assure you it is impossible to drain life's
+ecstasy to the dregs in lukewarm dishwater ... and, after all,
+intoxication is the main thing, so long as the blood leaps in our
+veins."
+
+Lilly trembled on his arm. They overtook a throng of gay
+night-revellers young fellows who were shouldering their
+walking-sticks, and looking dreamily before them with dizzy eyes. One
+whistled Wagner, another sang a student's song. Pretty women of the
+town, coming towards them, gave them alluring glances from dark-rimmed,
+passion-lit eyes ... more followed, youths and men, girls little more
+than children, all infected by the same transports. It was like a
+figure in a sylvan dance in which everyone offered each other hand and
+mouth, body and soul.
+
+"What am I to do?" she asked in a low tone, dropping her chin on her
+heaving breast.
+
+"I'll tell you," he answered, with a smile which concealed dark hints.
+"You must learn to lead another life at the same time as this one--a
+life that belongs to you alone ... you and a few choice friends. Do you
+understand? You must do what a Frenchman once advised: lay out a secret
+garden, in which you tend in peace all your favourite thoughts and
+wishes. Above all, the things that are forbidden, and which you have
+privily gathered together.... Do you understand?"
+
+"All forbidden things have brought me unhappiness," she said
+hesitatingly.
+
+"You mean that the law that forbids them has made you unhappy," he
+replied; "it's not easy to distinguish between the two. At all events,
+believe this, my dear child: that until we make self-culture a
+religion, till we have erased the little word 'duty' from our
+vocabulary, we are not on the right road. We are simply bruising our
+feet by stumbling over the _debris_ with which others block our way
+under the pretext of making it smooth for us."
+
+"But sometimes they do make it smooth," she answered, thinking of all
+the benefits she had received at Richard's hands.
+
+He smiled at her with indulgent pity. "You seem to be suffering from a
+sickness that I call 'chain-madness,'" he said.
+
+"What is that?" Lilly asked again, seized with a dismayed suspicion
+that he possessed some occult power, and that he divined the shameful
+part certain chains had played in her life.
+
+"It is said," he continued, "that slaves who have worked in the galleys
+for years, when they are liberated, miss their chains, and complain
+loudly that their legs and arms feel as if they were chopped off....
+Your beautiful arms, dear lady, were made to stretch upwards. Why don't
+you exercise them more?"
+
+"And my long legs were made for running away," she supplemented with a
+tortured laugh, "Only, where am I to run to? that is the question."
+
+"Why be in such a hurry and talk of running away yet?" he asked,
+stroking the hand lying in his arm, as if he were talking to a child,
+"You'd only run into the arms of another so-called 'duty.' First, you
+must acquire inward freedom first you must forget how to be at the beck
+and call of those who themselves should be under command."
+
+"Teach me the way," she burst out.
+
+"I will lend you a few books," he said, as if deliberating.... "Books
+that will lead you back to yourself. Tomorrow morning I will----"
+
+At this moment they were separated.
+
+That night Lilly, when in bed, lay with folded hands smiling up at the
+ceiling. Was she not once more ascending to the heights?
+
+
+                           *   *   *   *   *
+
+
+The next day, as the time for his call drew near, she was overcome by a
+new dread. She was afraid of him, of Richard, of herself.
+
+This would be the first visit she had received in secret, the first to
+break up the tranquillity of her home. So, when she beheld him get out
+of a cab with several books under his arm, she ran to give instructions
+not to let him in.
+
+When he had gone she pounced eagerly on the books that he had left for
+her. Some were printed in Roman characters and looked at a first glance
+terribly scientific. But they proved readable. She dipped first into
+one, and then into another, and what she read made her blood flame and
+rise to her head like sweet wine.
+
+In all, there was a great deal about the "power to will," the
+"super-man," the "right to live," and the "gospel of passion." In all,
+the purely beautiful was lauded as the end and aim of human endeavour.
+In all, the word "individuality" occurred over and over again, and in
+every conceivable connection. They all taught you to look down with
+vindictive pride on your fellow-creatures, and to despise them as a
+debased, tortured, and enslaved race. You wandered in glorious
+isolation, accompanied, perhaps, now and then by one or two kindred
+souls of lofty superiority, on storm-swept mountain-tops, breathing an
+eternally rarefied ether.
+
+In these pages was an unending offering-up of incense to self, an
+insatiable self-conceit, a glorification of murder and arson, paeans
+sung on such themes as lusts of the flesh, chambering and wantonness.
+
+Thus Lilly's soul became enveloped in a veil of intoxication and
+ravishing dreams. She felt as if she were seated in a sapphire-blue
+haze, which a far-off glow shot with purple threads. She heard music,
+hot and wild, storming on in angry dissonances like armies of maenads
+tearing down all obstacles in their way. She felt herself climbing
+steep craggy rocks, getting higher and ever higher. She fought against
+dizziness, and dared not look back for fear of being dashed to pieces
+in the abyss below. But she did not lose her footing; she cut and tore
+her hands in clinging to the sharp edges and swinging herself up--up!
+Now she was at the top and laughed. Oh, how she laughed down on the
+poor scum of humanity who crept about down there in misery and
+wretchedness, letting themselves be trampled on and crushed for the
+sake of their crumbs of daily bread! ... And then, again, a great
+pity overwhelmed her. Why should she alone stand on these wild,
+gold-shrouded summits, while all those others had no prospect of a near
+salvation? She would have liked to hold out her hand to her poor
+oppressed and hungry brothers and sisters, and help them to climb up
+too. But they would not be able to understand her or her message of
+redemption. Yes, that was what _he_ had called it, a "message of
+redemption." She saw their emaciated faces wet with the cold sweat of
+death, their glazed fixed eyes, that still could not turn their gaze
+from the glittering coin of their wretched living wage. She saw women
+in the last stage of pregnancy, thin and distended at the same time.
+She thought of the poor factory girl in Richard's packing-room, whose
+feverish hands made the doll that she wrapped in paper sway and dance.
+She thought of the others who had glanced at her with shy hate and
+hopeless envy in their weary eyes.
+
+Once more her affection for the factory, which she supposed on the day
+of her shame and humiliation had received its death-blow, awoke within
+her with a tender sadness, like the trembling hope of spring in our
+souls when the February snows begin to melt.
+
+This had certainly not been the object of Dr. Salmoni's loan of books.
+Nevertheless, they discharged their mission admirably in another
+direction. The dull gnawing "toothache" became a raging torment. The
+wish for a man--any man but Richard--who would understand and sweep her
+along with him, this wish possessed her with such overmastering force
+that she had scarcely strength left to writhe under its lash.
+
+Surely somewhere the _one_, the only one, existed? Surely some kind
+wave of this human ocean would one day wash him to her feet?
+
+One evening she dressed herself in quiet dark clothes, as much like a
+dressmaker's apprentice as possible, and slipped out into the street,
+as she had been in the habit of doing when Richard's warehouse drew her
+towards it with a thousand magnetic threads.
+
+She had no talent for taking walks without knowing where she was going.
+So, obedient to the dictates of her reawakened infatuation, she found
+herself treading the familiar way to the Alte Jakobstrasse. After
+outman[oe]uvring the advances of two old dandies and an impertinent
+counter-jumper, she halted opposite the latticed gates of the pillared
+entrance.
+
+She crouched for a long time in her sheltering doorway on the other
+side of the street, and stared at the building with which her fate had
+so indissolubly associated her. To-night, too, there were lights
+burning in his mother's apartments. Two jets of the chandelier threw
+out a steady flame like her cold clear eyes; the others were not lit,
+probably from motives of economy. All that was to be seen of the
+factory itself was the top of its huge chimney towering above the roof
+of the dwelling-house. A grim greeting, yet a greeting of some sort.
+Gladly would she have renewed acquaintance with the dear, forbidden,
+laurel-flanked stairs, but she had no longer sufficient courage at her
+command to cross the street.
+
+Then, feeling as if she had performed some virtuous deed, she turned to
+go home.
+
+She repeated the pilgrimage on three lonely evenings during the course
+of the week, and began to regard these aimless rambles as a necessity
+of existence. It happened once, when she was taking up her position in
+the protecting darkness of her favourite doorway, that a gentleman of
+elegant appearance and slender figure, who had come from the same
+direction, paused and took off his hat. She recognised Dr. Salmoni. So
+horrified was she that she forgot to acknowledge his greeting. If he
+were to betray her to Richard, she was doomed. He would imagine that
+jealousy or something worse drew her to shadow his house.
+
+"Ah, my charming lady," he began, mouthing his words in a
+self-satisfied way, "there is really something refreshing in meeting
+you opposite the world-renowned art emporium of Liebert & Dehnicke. As
+you know, I am a modest not-inquiring person with a soul, as it were,
+still unbreeched, so I refrain from asking you what has attracted you
+here--what impulse of the heart. You know the old fairy-tale of the
+queen who set forth to find her king, and ended in finding a
+swineherd.... Likewise it is possible that a pearl of great price may
+have strayed into a bronze manufactory. I should never have permitted
+myself the pleasure of following you intentionally. A certain dumb
+harmony of line fascinated me and led me on--perhaps a suggestion of
+brilliancy behind. But one should never shoot a hare out of season. Let
+your fruit ripen, dearest lady, is a very sound maxim, not only in
+relation to _soi-disant_ love--but the question is, whether it is worth
+while to believe in maxims. They smack of respectability, and
+respectability smacks of Virginian tobacco, which stinks, and is
+praised far and wide by the multitude, simply for that reason.... I
+hope you appreciate the deep truths that lie hidden in what I am
+saying, gracious lady?"
+
+"I wish to move from this spot at once," she said. "Suppose that we
+were seen here together?"
+
+"As far as that goes, it's the one place where we may be seen together
+with impunity," he laughed with boyish glee, "for only the most cussed
+imagination would surmise that we had selected this house for a secret
+rendezvous. But we'll move on, if you wish."
+
+He offered her his arm, which she refused.
+
+Then they walked together through crooked dark back streets towards the
+west-end. He went on talking steadily. One thought seemed to lead to
+another. Sometimes it seemed to Lilly as if he had forgotten her
+altogether in letting off his fireworks of speech. He revelled in the
+play of his own wit. For a long time his conversation seemed to have no
+connection with her and her pitiful existence. But she was mistaken;
+his gold was coined for her, and he expended it so lavishly that her
+brain had not room enough to assimilate it all.
+
+He walked beside her with an elastic, somewhat jumpy step. His cane,
+the knob of which he held in his pocket, flicked his shoulder. His
+white silk muffler gleamed, and that was all she could see of him. He
+talked on and on. How he talked! Often she felt as if she were being
+slapped, oftener as if she were caressed. When Richard and his friends
+were the target of his jeers, she would gladly have contradicted him;
+but he mentioned no names, and, after all, she had often thought the
+same.
+
+Tentatively he played on her aristocratic antecedents. He depicted
+scenes from country life, and said there was no pleasure to equal rides
+_a deux_ in the rosy freshness of early morning. It seemed as if he had
+been present at everything she had ever done.
+
+"I have lived a great deal in castles," he said, in explanation. "I
+know the life well."
+
+Her past, too, it would seem. So he went on searching into her soul.
+When he began to speak of the books which he had lent her, without
+commenting on her refusal to see him the morning he called, she made a
+mild protest.
+
+"Pray never lend me any more of the same kind!" she implored.
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"They puzzle me and make me ill.... I don't know how to describe it.
+You said they would help me to find myself ... but, on the contrary,
+they seem to estrange me from everything that I had always thought
+before was pure and holy."
+
+"Perhaps that is so," he replied, and his walking-stick danced;
+"perhaps this is the first step that I demand of you in the ascent to a
+higher life.... By-the-by, let me tell you a little story that comes in
+_a propos_ here. There were once two old zealous missionaries who were
+conscientiously fired with the desire to spread Christianity in Central
+Africa.... Such freaks are really quite superfluous, but they exist,
+and we have to put up with them. In order to render their work of
+conversion the more solemn and convincing, they took with them a small
+portable organ. They dragged it, sweating, hundreds of miles, through
+deadly tropical heat into the heart of the interior, where the poor
+naked savages resided, on whom they had designs. There they set up the
+organ and started their services, but no sooner had the poor naked
+savages heard the first notes than they took their cudgels and brained
+the two zealous missionaries, because of the evil spirits shut up in
+the musical-box. In the same manner life deals with us, my dear lady,
+when we try to play it on the good old organ of our exploded moral
+prejudices."
+
+Lilly felt powerless to cope with such an overmastering intellect. In
+silent submission she bowed her head. And as he now, without asking her
+consent, laid her hand in his arm, she dared not withdraw it. They
+passed grimy factory walls, the dreary blackness of which was here and
+there illumined by the milky blue light of a lamp-post, scaffoldings
+stretched skeleton arms against the lurid cloudy sky, and now and then
+they heard the bells of the electric tramcars as they ran along
+parallel routes.
+
+"Where are we going?" she asked nervously.
+
+"We are avoiding human society," he answered. "And if I were to take
+advantage of the present situation, I should profit by your feeling
+lost and in need of my protection. But I am not a designing nature. In
+all that concerns the emotions I am a mere babe.... I simply take what
+heaven lets fall. Are not you constituted in the same way?"
+
+"No, I am too stolid and heavy," she said, ready to open her heart to
+him. "I think over things ever so much."
+
+"It depends what you think," he said gaily.
+
+She wanted to speak out, to tell him everything, and she felt as if she
+must lay her heart on his open palm so that nothing should be hidden
+from him. But humility and awe of his stupendous cleverness sealed her
+lips.
+
+"Why do you trouble yourself about an idiot like me?" she asked, in
+order to show at least how humble she was.
+
+"Because I may have a mission to fulfil in your life," he answered.
+"_Perhaps_, I say, for one never can tell what reflex action of the
+emotions may bring about. Certain psychological moments will show us."
+
+She did not understand the meaning behind this remark, but a timid
+feeling of happiness that so infinitely great a man should be
+generously interested in her crept over her.
+
+"You are in his power," she thought; "he can make of you anything he
+likes."
+
+As he drew her arm a little closer to his, her pressure in response
+brought his hand for a moment in contact with her bosom. She was
+overcome with terror that he might think she was throwing herself at
+his head. What if she went home with him, that he asked her ...
+
+"I will take the tram," she said hurriedly. "I am tired."
+
+He whistled for a cab, which was approaching out of the fog.
+
+"No, no!" she cried, with no other thought than that of preserving the
+gift of his friendship as it was, intact. "Not with you. I must go home
+alone. You know what people are; besides ..."
+
+She wrenched her arm out of his, and ran to the next stopping place so
+quickly that he could scarcely follow her before she had jumped on the
+first car that came up. The smile with which he looked after her was,
+however, not a disappointed one.
+
+He intended to triumph, and would triumph.
+
+Lilly Czepanek was once more travelling upwards to the heights.
+
+
+                           *   *   *   *   *
+
+
+Three days later they met again, but this time at a large social
+gathering. The party had come from a _cafe chantant_ in the northern
+part of the town, and were to wind up the evening in the private back
+room of a middle-class public-house.
+
+By an unlucky chance the seat she had carefully kept for him by her
+side fell to someone else's share. This put her out; but there was
+champagne to cheer up everyone.
+
+Lilly, out of defiance and boredom, drank far more than was good for
+her. Her eyes began to blaze with a challenging merriment; her cheeks
+took on the rosy-apple hue which all her friends delighted in. Her
+laughter became shriller, her movements more and more animated.
+Suddenly there was a loud call for "Lilly." Lilly was to perform.
+
+Her heart misgave her. Not once, as yet, had she dared to recite in his
+presence. Indeed, no one had thought of asking her when he was of the
+company, for he was always the centre of attraction. Then she felt,
+"To-day I can do anything--to-day I will show him what there is in me."
+
+She stood up, tossed back the hair from her forehead, and shook herself
+... shook off every vestige of the everyday Lilly; the Lilly subject to
+fits of depression and faintheartedness; the vacillating, inanimate
+Lilly.... Now she was off. She first plunged into an imitation of "La
+belle Otero," and crowed and whooped so that her audience laughed till
+it cried.... Then she mimicked a star of the cabarets, ... sucked her
+thumb in babylike simplicity and piped, "Let me in, I say, into your
+room to-day." In a comical double-bass she growled, "An ambassador
+would a-wooing go." Half-hidden behind the hatstand she cooed the song
+of the passionate love-pigeon, "Gurr ... gurr ... keak." Finally they
+begged her to dance. At first she protested, but in vain; she had to
+give in. Tables and chairs were moved out of the way, and making her
+own dance-music between her teeth, she whirled madly round the room,
+till half-fainting she collapsed into a corner.
+
+The applause seemed as if it would never stop. The women devoured her
+with kisses, the men stroked her arms and hair, and Richard stood
+silent and pale with pride, in his Napoleonic attitude, and gnawed his
+moustache ends. Dr. Salmoni, however, kept in the background, smiled a
+melancholy modest smile, and looked as if he had nothing on earth to do
+with what had passed. Only one brief glance of understanding, that he
+threw at her like a laurel-wreath, told her that he knew for whom she
+had let herself go. When the party broke up, she was still glowing with
+ecstasy from head to foot.
+
+Yes! this was the genuine intoxication, of the charms of which he had
+lately spoken to her; it was like a hissing flame darting through your
+heart and limbs.
+
+It was he who helped her on with her fur coat, for Richard was engaged
+in paying the bill; and while he carefully placed the sable boa round
+her shoulders, he whispered close to her ear, "May I call to-morrow?"
+
+"Yes," she said, terrified at herself; and then, in defiance of her own
+cowardice, she turned brusquely on her heel and shouted back in his
+face four or five times, as if in wrath, "Yes, yes, yes, yes!"
+
+"What is the matter with her?" people asked each other.
+
+But she laughed a short, hard laugh. What did she care for them? Was
+she not once more scaling the heights?
+
+
+                           *   *   *   *   *
+
+
+The next morning all seemed like a fantastic dream. Only one fact stood
+out clearly. He was coming to call!
+
+She stretched herself in shy conceit as the applause of last night
+echoed in her ears. Now he knew what she was. No dull, tame,
+half-developed creature; no servile, sheep-like nature, whose fixed
+horror of fate made her the voluntary slave of every convention. But,
+on the contrary, a free, proud, luminous super-being, one of those
+perfectly complete, maenad-like women who dance on the edge of
+precipices and mock at death, even when he holds them in his clutches.
+
+Then she became faint-hearted once more. After all, what was there to
+boast of in having sung a few songs and danced an outrageous dance
+under the influence of champagne? She had only behaved like a
+common music-hall diva, and reaped the undesirable plaudits of a
+half-inebriated audience! Was that all one had to do to belong to the
+elect, the laughter-loving, powerful souls of Dr. Salmoni's literature?
+
+No, oh no! that could not be the key! After such an exhibition he would
+feel nothing but scorn or, at best, pity for her.... And if he came
+to-day it would be only to tell her what he thought of her. He would
+show her how degraded she was, and then benevolently go his way quite
+unconcerned.
+
+She wouldn't endure that. She would cling to him, and cry, "You have
+promised to lead me to the heights out of this barren miserable
+existence. Now keep your word! Don't forsake me. I'll do everything you
+wish. I will be your slave, your dog; only don't forsake me."
+
+In feverish expectation she dressed, waved her hair, reddened the lips
+that dissipation had paled, and altogether made herself as beautiful as
+possible.
+
+Towards twelve there was a ring. Was it he?
+
+No; instead of Dr. Salmoni, Frau Jula had come to call. What did she
+want all of a sudden? They had, as if by mutual agreement, avoided each
+other since that evening of confidences. And here she was now, without
+even going through the formality of being announced! Her air was
+cordial, almost affectionate, and she craved a chat.
+
+Lilly hesitated.
+
+"I won't keep you long, my sweet one. I can see you are expecting a
+visitor."
+
+"I didn't know that I was," she said, conscious that she blushed.
+
+"Don't deny it, dear.... I know that Dr. Salmoni is coming.... I know,
+too, exactly how you feel. I, too, have gone through it, and stood,
+getting pale and pink in turns, as I watched for him.... My morning
+dress, certainly, was not such a ravishing reseda as yours; it was only
+claret colour ... but that is all the same; he doesn't mind us in
+claret colour."
+
+"What do you imply by that?" faltered Lilly.
+
+"What do I imply? ... Why, simply this. Our circle for Dr. Salmoni is a
+kind of fish-pond of pretty light women, in which he angles from time
+to time, till he hooks something that his appetite fancies. At present
+he is hooking you, my dearest."
+
+"That is slander!" cried Lilly, flaring up. "He has never made love to
+me, nor has such a thing been even mentioned between us."
+
+"Because it isn't necessary," replied Frau Jula; and she laughed
+maliciously. "The man does not trouble himself with such trifling
+preliminaries. He knows that at the right moment we shall rise to his
+bait."
+
+Lilly felt herself getting more and more angry.
+
+"Between him and me nothing has passed but discussions on purely
+intellectual subjects, such as a freer, prouder, and higher human
+ideal; and if you, and people like you, can't understand such language;
+if you are too----"
+
+"Stop, my dear, please," said Frau Jula, "Don't be insulting! There is
+no occasion. I have come to you with the best intentions. For anyone
+else I would not have taken the trouble; I should only have smacked my
+lips. But _you_--well, I am fond of you, even if you prefer to have
+nothing to do with me. And you he shall leave alone. And yesterday,
+when I saw to what a pass things had come, I could give myself no
+peace.... I felt compelled to come ... before it was too late."
+
+"But, indeed, you are mistaken," said Lilly; nevertheless, she cast an
+anxious look at the clock.
+
+Frau Jula, whom this did not escape, made a grimace,
+
+"Directly there's a ring, I'll slip out through the next room, but by
+that time I shall have achieved my object, I hope.... You see,
+child"--she sank into the sofa-corner and drew Lilly down beside
+her--"we poor women have all longed to raise ourselves again, so long
+as we were pretty faithful to one person.... And then Dr. Salmoni
+enters. He has to angle longer for some of us than others, but he
+doesn't mind how cheaply he gets us. He has, too, various baits. For a
+cold-blooded lump like Karla he doesn't go the same way to work as with
+us, naturally. With us he begins in this way: 'My gracious one, I am
+always amazed to find you in such an environment as this. Tell me, what
+are you doing here?'"
+
+Lilly looked startled.
+
+"Well, was that it? or wasn't it?"
+
+"Yes, but ..."
+
+"It was. That's enough. Next comes his depicting of the dangers we
+encounter if we continue to live in bondage.... He is especially down
+on duty. Duty he can't tolerate; it is obnoxious to him. As if we were
+so terribly particular about our little bit of duty, forsooth! Now
+then, wasn't that it? Am I not right?"
+
+"Yes, but ..." stammered Lilly.
+
+"I thought so. And next he says _he_ wants to set us free ... to lead
+us upwards on high. He is the personal conductor to the heights. Isn't
+it so?"
+
+Lilly turned her head aside to conceal the blush of shame that suffused
+her neck and face.
+
+"And then the books! Wretched trash written by little raw scribblers in
+imitation of our great Nietzsche! But we all fall into the trap; it
+works up our blood like cayenne pepper; we get quite maudlin over it.
+What enrages us afterwards is that we were actually such geese as to
+believe in his scoundrelly sentiment, although the scurviest cynicism
+exudes from all his pores. But one is so stupid, and he is so clever.
+Yes, to give the devil his due, he is clever."
+
+"But how does he manage it?" asked Lilly, who dared no longer stand up
+for him. "How does he seem to know everything about your past, as if he
+had lived it with you?"
+
+"Yes, child, it's strange. But, you know, people whose circumstances
+are the same generally have the same experiences. It is easy enough for
+him to reconstruct our past when we tell him we've lived in the
+country. I am a landed-proprietor's daughter. Didn't he, by-the-by,
+tell you he had passed much of his time in castles?"
+
+Lilly nodded.
+
+"That's because he--I found it all out later--was tutor to some Jews
+who rented a place near Breslau; but they soon gave him the sack for
+his impudence."
+
+In the midst of her agony of disillusionment Lilly could not help
+laughing shrilly.
+
+"That's capital!" her friend approved. "You can think yourself
+fortunate. If only someone had come and warned me! for afterwards, how
+it hurts!"
+
+"What happens afterwards?" Lilly asked, hesitating.
+
+"It's very simple _afterwards_. When he's got what he wants, it's over.
+He buttons up his coat, says in a voice of deep emotion, '_Au revoir_';
+but it never comes, his _au revoir_. You never see him again."
+
+"That isn't true; it can't be true!" cried Lilly in horror. "Surely no
+man can be such a cur to a woman!"
+
+"You--never--see--him--again," repeated Frau Jula. "Why should you? The
+creature has other matters of more importance to attend to. I wrote my
+fingers to the bone. Not a line in response!... There's no getting at
+him. Frau Welter lay on his doorstep, Karla got the jaundice from fury,
+and so on. But the man's an eel. Later, if you meet him at a carousal,
+there's not the faintest recollection in his eyes ... he just treats
+you as he treats the rest."
+
+Startled, Lilly recalled how she too had adopted a like course of
+action, and appeared at a carousal without betraying the slightest
+memory of what had passed before, although he had turned on her
+petitioning tragi-comical glances. Yes, everyone was as bad as everyone
+else in this world, in which one cast off one's dignity like a worn-out
+dress. She buried her face in the sofa-corner, overcome with shame and
+consciousness of guilt.
+
+"Never mind," comforted Frau Jula. "It's all right now." And then there
+was a ring.
+
+Lilly rushed to the door to give instructions as before, that she was
+"not at home," but Frau Jula restrained her.
+
+"What are you thinking about?" she whispered. "Don't let him think you
+are afraid of him. If you do, you won't be rid of him for a long time.
+You must laugh at him. Do you understand? Laugh at him pitilessly with
+all your might."
+
+Lilly would have liked her to stay and help her out, but she had
+already slipped away. Could she possibly outwit him single-handed?...
+He was now in the room. Drawn to her full height, she received him as a
+deadly enemy.
+
+"My dearest child," he said, and kissed the hand which she quickly drew
+away from him.
+
+He was very choicely dressed. He wore straw-coloured gloves, and held
+his silk hat against his breast. His eye glass danced on his white
+waistcoat.
+
+A serene self-confidence, an air of supreme mastery of the situation,
+illumined his person like an aureole. The manner in which he nestled
+comfortably against the cushions of his chair, and crossed his legs
+with easy self-assurance, showed plainly that he regarded her as his
+certain prey.
+
+Lilly was no longer nervous and in doubt. Her soreness of heart and
+disappointment had vanished. She felt nothing but a cold calculating
+curiosity. She followed his every movement with calm amazement, as he
+passed his hand over his glossy bushy hair and hitched up his trousers
+to display his silk socks with red clocks. And all the time she kept
+saying to herself, "So this is what you are! This!"
+
+And then he began to talk in his low deliberate caressing voice, while
+his piercing eyes wandered up and down her. "You are excited, my dear
+child, and I am not astonished. When two people such as we are find
+themselves for the first time absolutely alone together, they are apt
+to betray their emotions. Don't be ashamed of yours.... The tie that
+has bound us together is so subtle and delicate an understanding--the
+magnetic fluid between us is of such a rare and fleeting nature--"
+"Yes, very fleeting," thought Lilly---- "that it really would be a pity
+if we did not taste and enjoy it to the dregs. Any restraint of feeling
+might easily prove a hindrance on your side, as well as on my own, to
+the full rapture of this hour of spiritual hedonism."
+
+He almost smacked his lips as he said this, and rocked from side to
+side. Lilly thought of the refrain of a Viennese song in her
+repertoire: "I have much too much feeling."
+
+"_He_ has much too much," she said to herself, and she could not help a
+smile flitting across her face.
+
+He saw the smile, which she tried to hide by bending her head, and he
+misinterpreted it.
+
+"There is a delightful virginal coyness about you," he said, with an
+admiring oscillation of his head, "that never fails to excite my
+wonder."
+
+"Oh, you mountebank!" thought Lilly, and smiled again.
+
+Now he was slightly perplexed, for his wide and varied experience had
+taught him something. He shot at her from under his lids a glance of
+suspicion and thwarted greed.
+
+"Or have you," he continued, "kept over for to-day some of the
+charmingly graceful humour which you developed last night with such
+unexpected _elan_?"
+
+"I may have," she replied, with an upward glance which was almost arch.
+
+"Most excellent!" he cried, his face breaking into a roguish smile in
+which there was a touch of devilry. "Are you, then, one of those who
+know how to laugh in your sleeve at--how shall I express it?--the whole
+farce and hypocrisy of it all ... at yourself too, my child--at
+yourself, mind; that is the main point, ... If so, you and I are one,
+one in body and soul ... nothing divides us any more ... then ..."
+
+"God forgive me!" she thought, and held her handkerchief pressed
+against her lips to stop her giggling. Had not Frau Jula said, "Laugh
+at him; laugh at him pitilessly with all your might"?
+
+For his part he seemed to accept her suppressed laughter as an
+allurement, a gentle signal to cut short ceremonious preliminaries, for
+he chose this moment for springing at her and laying his arms about her
+waist.
+
+She repulsed his attack fiercely and struggled with him. Tears of
+humiliation and fury coursed down her cheeks.
+
+"Have I come to this?" a voice cried within her as she struck at him
+with her fists. In the midst of the tussle she succeeded in reaching
+the bell.
+
+The maid-servant came in. He picked up his hat from the floor and,
+murmuring something that sounded like "_Canaille_!" disappeared.
+
+He disappeared too for ever from the little circle, which he had at
+times honoured with his presence.
+
+
+                           *   *   *   *   *
+
+
+Lilly gave up attempting to scale the heights.
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER XI
+
+
+During the year that followed, Lilly engaged in two small love
+adventures, which had no influence on her subsequent life.
+
+While she was staying for a month's change of air in the Riesengebirge
+she came across a novelist whose name at that time was in everybody's
+mouth. He was parading his newly acquired fame at the Bohemian bathing
+resorts, and accepted cheerfully any good thing that came in his way.
+He forced his acquaintance on Lilly without much difficulty, and in a
+few days left her in search of fresh conquests.
+
+Back in Berlin, she flirted with a handsome and elegant officer of the
+Hussars whom she had first met in an aristocratic restaurant. But on
+his sending her a little leather case from a jeweller's, she speedily
+threw him over.
+
+Both these affairs gave her no pleasure to look back upon, and she
+tried to erase them from her memory.
+
+At Christmas her little household was increased by a new member. She
+had often complained to Richard that her life was empty of interest.
+She would like something alive to pet and cherish and love, and so one
+day he brought her a little naked monkey, that even when he nestled
+close to her breast could not get warm, and in his wrath spat in her
+face scorn of her yearning caresses.
+
+From time to time there was the excitement, too, of new marriage
+schemes.
+
+How well she knew the signs! When Richard, with scowlling brows,
+absent-minded, and taciturn, made the tour of the rooms, when he began
+to philosophise over the rottenness of everything, when his mother
+wanted the carriage at unwonted hours, when little packets of concert
+and opera tickets fell out of his pocket-book, then she knew that
+something was going on out of the ordinary routine. And soon he would
+break silence and tell her what it was. One of them had three millions,
+influential relatives, mines, factories, trusts, house property, making
+up a dazzling perspective. Often figures were talked in Lilly's corner
+drawing-room to such an extent that it might have been the office of an
+outside stockbroker. Another eligible young woman was actually poor,
+but she was a general's daughter, and his mother thought no end of her.
+
+"And I am a general's widow," said Lilly, in her wounded pride.
+
+This church mouse he called his "distinguished lady-love." But it went
+no further. She and all the rest were soon heard no more of, because
+none of them turned out in the end to be good enough for him.
+
+Lilly meditated and planned what she must be like.... She must have
+white, softly rounded statuesque arms like the tall Danish girl's at
+the artists' carnival, and a very delicate, scarcely perceptible
+bust--her own seemed to her now to be too prominent--and when she
+smiled she must show two dimples in her cheeks; for dimples denoted a
+peaceable disposition.
+
+Yes, that was what he wanted more than anything--peace. She knew how he
+hated wrangling, and, as a matter of fact, they hardly ever did
+wrangle; but, if such a thing as a little quarrel did occur, he would
+be miserable for three days, speak in a woebegone, injured tone, and
+had to be coaxed back to good temper like a child. And Lilly enjoyed
+doing this, though she knew he did not deserve it. For there was no
+blinking the matter any longer; he had become a regular reprobate. It
+was not so much that he had lost enormous sums at his club, but he led
+the debauched existence of the fastest married man, and his amours were
+not of the purest.
+
+One day a pretty young thing, with a baby eight weeks old in her arms,
+called on Lilly, screamed and cried and declared that she ought to be
+promoted to Lilly's place, as she had a child by him.
+
+Lilly consoled her, gave her some wine to drink, and, full of envy of
+the baby, tickled it under its damp little chin till it gurgled with
+bliss; whereupon the girl departed, deeply touched, after kissing
+Lilly's hand gratefully.
+
+Richard, however, came in for no unpleasant scene that afternoon, for
+Lilly was entirely free from jealousy. When he came to her, looking
+sheepish, and avoided meeting her eyes, while his person exhaled an
+odour of cheap perfume, she always gave him a smile of maternal
+indulgence, which he well understood and couldn't bear.
+
+However determined he might be to keep silent, he invariably broke down
+at last, and in about half an hour had poured out shuffling
+confessions, for which he expected to be praised or comforted.
+
+It was inevitable that Lilly, in an existence of this sort, in which
+were rampant all the evils of married life, without any of its rights
+and dignity, should become more and more self-centred, and look forward
+to the future with increasing sadness.
+
+She passed her days as if seated on a bough which every gust of wind
+threatened to snap, and so plunge her into the depths below. Before her
+lay a straight, dull, endless road, stretching onwards without goal,
+without horizon--nothing but the same old pleasures, the same aimless
+wandering about from one haunt to another till morning dawned. Often
+she felt as tired out as if she had been doing hard manual labour.
+Sometimes she struck, and lay the whole day in bed reading _Fliegende
+Blaetter_, or dreaming of old days with closed eyes.
+
+The sunless hole of the widow Asmussen's library came back to her like
+a paradise, and the milk puddings in retrospect seemed veritable
+ambrosia. The memory of her early loves she scarcely dared conjure up,
+as if it were sacrilege to think of them in such a present. Yet she
+caught herself indulging in vague hopes that one or other of them might
+one day turn up out of the past, and, holding his hand out to her, say,
+"You have wandered long enough in the wilderness, now come home." Who
+it would be she hadn't a notion, but she felt it must happen. Things
+could not go on like this for ever.
+
+Every now and then, when secret restlessness gave her no peace, she
+resumed her nocturnal strolls, and taking the electric tram to distant
+suburbs would wander guiltily up and down unfamiliar lively streets,
+just as Frau Jula did; only, unlike Frau Jula, she never could bring
+herself to answer her pursuers.
+
+
+                           *   *   *   *   *
+
+
+It was on one of these expeditions--in a northerly direction far away
+beyond the Rosental gate--that one May evening she met a young man who
+did not take any notice of her, who also did not look like a gentleman,
+but whose appearance struck her as familiar--so familiar that it gave
+her a stab at the heart.
+
+Yet, though she racked her brains, she could not recall where she had
+seen him before.
+
+With quick decision she began to follow him. He wore a brown hat, a
+pepper-and-salt suit with a yellowish tinge, which had known better
+days. His coat-collar was shiny, and his trousers were very baggy at
+the knees. They hung over his down-at-heel boots in fringes, as if
+someone had tried to mend them, and left black uneven ends of cotton.
+
+No, this could not be one of her friends even in disguise. Her friends
+would never own to such trousers. He paused once or twice to look in at
+the shop-windows. First, he looked in at a cigar-shop, then at a
+butcher's; but he lingered longest before a hosier's, from which Lilly
+concluded that his shirts also were in need of renewal.
+
+When he thus gave her a view of his profile, she saw in the reflection
+of the rows of lights a haggard, bony face, with prominent nose, and a
+tuft of reddish-brown hair on either side of his chin. He seemed to be
+dried up and needy, rather than actually ill. The lids of his small,
+narrow eyes were swollen and inflamed, and before coming within the
+radius of shop-window lights, he clapped a pair of dark-blue goggles on
+his nose to protect them.
+
+He had a cane in his hand, which as he walked he pressed into a bow
+against the kerb, letting it rebound again. The silver knob of this
+cane, which matched ill with the shabbiness of his attire, somehow
+awoke recollections of a frosty morning, hot rolls, and church bells.
+
+She gave an exclamation, for she remembered now. Fritz Redlich it
+was--Fritz Redlich! Yes, it was; it was!
+
+There could be no further doubt. Her first love, her first lover ...
+her brave young champion in life's battle. Hers and St. Joseph's
+protege!
+
+Oh dear, yes, St. Joseph! And then the revolver! And the potato soup
+with sliced sausage! Oh!... and "The graves at Ottensen"!
+
+"Herr Redlich! Herr Redlich!"
+
+Trembling and laughing she stood behind him, holding out her two hands
+to the young man, who shrank back nervously.
+
+He dropped his goggles and gazed blankly at the tall, elegantly dressed
+lady, from behind whose lace veil two star-like, tear-filled eyes gave
+him a blissful greeting. His red lids blinked suspiciously; then he
+raised his left hand with a clumsy gesture to his hat brim.
+
+"But, Herr Redlich ... Don't you know me? I am Lilly--Lilly Czepanek.
+Don't you remember Lilly?"
+
+Yes, now he remembered. "Of course," he said, "why shouldn't I remember
+you?"
+
+At the same moment he pulled down his waistcoat with a stealthy jerk,
+as if to rectify as best he could the shortcomings of his personal
+appearance.
+
+"Oh, Herr Redlich, what a long time it is since we've met! It must, I
+think, be six or eight years. No, it can't be as long; and yet to me it
+seems longer. Things have gone well with you, I hope? I expect you are
+terribly busy, otherwise we might spend a little time together."
+
+He certainly was busy, but, in spite of that, if she liked, he could
+spare her a quarter of an hour.
+
+"Shall we go into a restaurant," she suggested, still half-crying and
+half-laughing, "and have a glass of beer? I can hardly believe it, Herr
+Redlich, that we've really met again."
+
+He had decided objections to the glass of beer.
+
+"Restaurants are so stuffy and crowded," he said, "and the beer about
+here is so bad--not fit to drink."
+
+"Poor fellow! He's too poor to pay for it," she thought; and she
+suggested that they should sit down on a seat somewhere instead.
+
+He didn't mind doing that so long as ... He glanced shyly to the right
+and left to see if anyone had remarked what a badly matched couple they
+were.
+
+They walked side by side along the more secluded Weinsberg path. Lilly
+kept looking at him with pride and emotion, as if she had created him
+out of space.
+
+"Dear, dear Herr Redlich," she reiterated, "is it possible?--is it
+possible?"
+
+Then they found a bench outside a church, in a dusky spot, overhung
+with lilac branches. A pair of lovers had just vacated it.
+
+"Now tell me everything, Herr Redlich. Oh dear, what a lot we have to
+tell each other!"
+
+"There is a good deal," he replied, hesitating; "perhaps the gracious
+baroness will begin?"
+
+"Pooh! I am not a 'gracious baroness' now, and haven't been for a long
+time."
+
+"Ah! so I think I have heard," he replied, and his tone implied blame
+and a sense of outrage.
+
+"And I don't in the least regret it," she added quickly, "for, taking
+things altogether, I live a much freer and happier life than I did
+before. I have no cares, and my little home is delightful. I am in the
+happiest circumstances and ought to be thankful. I should be so very
+pleased if you would come and convince yourself that it is so.... You
+would always find me at home in the middle of the day.... Perhaps you
+will dine with me some time?"
+
+"Oh!" he said, apparently agreeably surprised.
+
+She gave a sigh of relief at having steered clear of the rocks of her
+autobiography. He made no further inquiries. But he seemed equally
+unwilling to give information about himself, either with regard to his
+present or his past circumstances.
+
+"Life has its shady side," he said, "and when one finds one's self
+among the shadows, it's a question whether it's advisable to speak
+about it."
+
+"But I am such an old friend!" cried Lilly. "You can confide in me.
+Fancy that we are sitting on the old terrace in the Junkerstrasse....
+Don't you remember ... that time we first spoke to each other? It was
+just such a May evening as this."
+
+"It was warmer," he replied, turning up the collar of his jacket as far
+as his ears.
+
+"You are cold?" she asked, laughing, for she was aglow from head to
+foot.
+
+"I haven't"--he paused--"my summer overcoat with me to-night."
+
+"Oh, then we had better get up," she said, becoming thoughtful; "we can
+talk just as well walking about."
+
+And so they paced up and down in the shadow of the old church; but the
+interchange of personal confidences flagged. He evaded questions and
+she evaded them, and they put each other off with generalities. She
+extolled her happy lot; he sighed over his: "It's hard--very hard!"
+just as he had done at the time of his examination; she could hear him
+as plainly as if it were yesterday.
+
+"How are your people?" she asked, to change the subject:
+
+His father had died after a short illness two years ago, his mother
+still made cravats.
+
+As he told her this, he settled the invisible tie under his upturned
+collar. No doubt he was wearing a gay token of maternal skill and
+maternal generosity.
+
+Then, when she had expressed her condolences, she inquired with a
+slightly beating heart how Frau Asmussen was, and her daughters.
+
+He made a sound with his lips as he answered: "They are very
+undesirable neighbours. The elder of the two girls has married a
+cashier, who is likely to lose his berth owing to irregularities. The
+younger has charge of the library, and the mother now drinks like a
+fish."
+
+He related this in the same outraged tone in which he had previously
+alluded to Lilly's divorce.
+
+"He is evidently still very proper," Lilly thought, with a sense of her
+own unworthiness and impropriety.
+
+He was unhappy, nevertheless. She was sure of that.
+
+And poor, very, very poor! Poorer than she had ever been in all her
+life. Who could say if he were not suffering the pangs of hunger now as
+he walked along beside her, shivering in his threadbare, shabby coat?
+
+"Well, Herr Redlich," she said, "if your engagements will allow you,
+why not come to-morrow and dine with me?"
+
+His engagements interfered most emphatically with his getting off in
+the middle of the day to change his clothes ... but if she wouldn't
+mind his coming as he was ...
+
+"You may come just as you like," she cried with a laugh. "And you shall
+have your mother's potato soup."
+
+So saying, she squeezed both his hands and jumped into a tramcar.
+
+Oh, what a joy this was! What a joy! Now she had found what she had
+been looking for so long. Someone for whom she could care, someone to
+pet and spoil. Someone to whom she would be more than a toy and a
+plaything; who would regard her as his sunshine and bread of life, and
+his gentle guide to hope and happiness.
+
+Someone who would be hers alone--hers alone!
+
+He hid risen from the grave of her youth, even as she had imagined in
+her dreams. And now life was going to be different; full of riches,
+full of secrets. Little, funny, but perfectly innocent secrets!
+
+That night she slept little. Her new-found happiness kept her awake
+like children's Christmas anticipations. Her present servant, a buxom
+country girl, who had soon got accustomed to town ways, stared in
+astonishment the next morning when Lilly, whom she had hitherto
+regarded as lazy, rose early and prepared to go out marketing.
+
+"I am expecting a friend," explained Lilly, smiling.
+
+She wanted to buy everything herself--the meat, the radishes; above
+all, the sausages that once had been the glory of his mother's potato
+soup.
+
+She also superintended the cooking. She laid the table, moved the palm
+from the aquarium so that there should be something green on the table,
+for in her excitement she had forgotten to buy flowers. This was her
+very first guest at dinner for more than two years; and such a dear
+guest, perhaps the dearest she could possibly have entertained.
+
+At half-past twelve the servant came in, turning up her nose in
+contempt, to say that a young man wanted to speak to her mistress.
+
+"That is my guest!" cried Lilly.
+
+"I shouldn't have thought it," said the girl, with a haughty inflection
+in her voice, as Lilly rushed past her to welcome him.
+
+At first he seemed too shy to enter the light. He hung about the
+doorpost and tugged at his suit, which indeed looked dreadfully shabby
+and frayed, more so than last night.
+
+His inflamed eyes, like two red slits blinking behind his round
+glasses, gave him an air of groping helplessness. The lofty
+intellectual forehead had acquired an ugly receding look, because the
+forelock of genius no longer fell over it. His once magnificent mass of
+fair hair had become a matted thatch of tow, and looked as if a comb
+hadn't touched it for many a long day.
+
+He appeared disinclined for conversation. He devoured the potato soup
+with tremulous appreciation, leaving the slices of sausage to the last.
+When his soup-plate was dry, he stuck his fork into one bit after the
+other, and conveyed it to his mouth with uneasy glances to the right
+and left, as if he suspected someone were waiting in ambush to deprive
+him of his pleasure.
+
+The roast meat filled him with less awe, and he heaped his plate high,
+regardless of the waiting-maid's sneers. Moreover, he drank Richard's
+good claret in long, unconscionable draughts, and with flushed, mottled
+cheeks began to laugh and find his tongue.
+
+Lilly, who had been rather depressed at first, watched him thaw with
+relief, and thought perhaps, after all, he might be made presentable.
+And then the idea occurred to her that here really was a case of
+working out a man's salvation, very different from her delusions about
+saving a Walter von Prell. And this reflection filled her with renewed
+blissful assurance.
+
+After the meal, they retired to the corner drawing-room. And here,
+under the influence of the unaccustomed wine, he became a prey to
+frivolity, seated himself in the rocking-chair, and tickled the
+snarling monkey.
+
+He presented a ghastly spectacle as he lounged back in the chair with
+his legs nonchalantly stretched out before him. The frayed ends of his
+trousers were tucked into the tops of his boots, exposing to view
+ragged loops; and as Lilly contemplated him, she said to herself, "This
+must be altered," and she began to cudgel her brains as to how a
+transformation was to be achieved.
+
+As for him, the barriers of reserve being once broken down he began to
+disclose his innermost soul and to air his views on life.
+
+Oh! what feelings of gall and bitterness came to light! He had been so
+soured by the long struggle with privations and hardships, and eternal
+envy of others happier and brighter and more favoured by fortune than
+himself, that he could see no merit in anything, and attacked all
+talents, attainments, and prosperity--called everyone humbugs and
+hypocrites, said that getting on was entirely a matter of birth,
+interest, and push, and anathematised success as a hollow fraud.
+
+At the same time he had very little to say about his own personal
+experiences. She could not find out whether he was still a student; he
+would only confess that his deepest feelings had been hurt irreparably
+in the grim fight for existence. And while he talked and laughed
+stridently, two semicircular dents appeared in his lean cheeks, giving
+his face a hard, sarcastic expression. Lilly had a dim remembrance that
+of old these marks had been visible on his youthful countenance, though
+less accentuated.
+
+"Oh, poor, poor fellow!" she thought compassionately, and resolved on
+the instant to make a man of him again, inwardly and outwardly. But
+when he was gone she felt very sad and depressed. "Am I much better
+off?" she asked herself. "What has become of the joyous confidence in
+life that I once had? Where is my joy of life, where my Song of Songs?"
+
+
+                           *   *   *   *   *
+
+
+That afternoon, before Richard came, she evolved a scheme by which she
+could bestow a new wardrobe on Fritz Redlich, without drawing on
+Richard's purse or offending Fritz Redlich.
+
+"What do you think?" she said to him after tea. "Since yesterday two
+rather extraordinary things have happened--one a very nice thing, and
+the other a very sad thing. First, I have met an old friend of mine,
+who before he went to the university lived on the same floor as I did.
+And then this morning a poor student called and begged for something to
+eat. He looked so miserable! Have you, in case he calls again, any
+clothes to give away? Suits and boots--he wants everything."
+
+"I'll give you some with pleasure," said Richard. "I don't know what to
+do with all my left-off stuff." But the other, the "old friend," made
+him thoughtful. "What sort of a chap is he?" he asked.
+
+In her effort to keep distinct the two mythical beings that she had
+made out of one living reality, she began to sing the old friend's
+praises with far too much exaggeration to be judicious. He was an
+extremely clever and quite distinguished young professor, who had
+completed his university course and was just entering on a brilliant
+career, a paragon of knowledge and intellect, and goodness knew what
+else.
+
+"What was his special subject?"
+
+She really didn't know, only that it was something very profound and
+erudite. Nothing but an academic career was worthy of his talents.
+
+She found herself immersed in such a whirlpool of lies that at last she
+did not know what she was saying.
+
+Richard, acutely conscious of his intellectual limitations, cherished
+an unbounded reverence for anyone with brains; he grew very red, looked
+uneasy and vexed.
+
+"I suppose he'll be coming to see you?" he asked.
+
+"Of course," she replied, highly satisfied with her finesse.
+
+"Congratulations on your soul's affinity," he said with a mocking bow,
+"so long as I am not expected to meet him."
+
+Nothing could have turned out better. The next morning a factory porter
+brought her a huge bundle from Herr Dehnicke. It contained a nearly new
+summer tweed suit in the latest fashion, several coloured cambric
+shirts, a pair of boots, and blue silky-looking undergarments.
+
+He seemed to have wanted to exhibit his charity in a very magnificent
+manner; for, as a rule, generosity to the poor was not in his line.
+
+The next thing to be thought of was how to hand the clothes over to
+Fritz Redlich without giving offence.
+
+Three days later, when he came again, she made an excuse after dinner
+for showing him over the flat. He must see how well it was arranged.
+When they came to the lumber-room she opened the door quite casually,
+and there, in the company of discarded blouses, broken vases, faded
+flowers, and other rubbish, the tweed suit hung ostentatiously.
+
+"When I left the general's house I brought it and some other men's
+clothes here by mistake," she explained. "That's why it hangs there
+getting spoilt."
+
+His small, weak eyes lighted greedily.
+
+Did he perhaps know of someone to whom such things would be useful?
+
+He answered snappily that he did not, but he could not resist casting a
+downward glance at his own trousers.
+
+Wasn't there anyone to whom he would be doing a favour by offering the
+clothes?
+
+There was no one that he knew of, he repeated.
+
+In spite of her anxiety not to hurt his feelings, she plucked up
+courage and remarked that there was, if she were not mistaken, an
+extraordinary similarity between his figure and the quondam wearer's of
+the suit. The general might have been a trifle stouter, but any little
+tailor would alter ...
+
+Then he became seriously angry. He was not the man to accept benefits
+from any charitably disposed person he met. Did she think he had sunk
+so low as that? He had principles, and to wear cast-off raiment
+belonging to people he knew nothing about was a proceeding his
+principles would never tolerate.
+
+Lilly, with a sigh, reluctantly relinquished her idea.
+
+He seemed unable to tear himself away. He sat on and on and at last she
+was obliged to give him a hint, for at any moment now Richard might be
+coming in.
+
+At the top of the stairs he turned round again, and asked, stuttering,
+would it be as convenient if next time he came in the evening?
+
+"Can you no longer manage to get off at midday?" she asked, taken
+aback. On Richard's account she never received strangers late in the
+afternoon.
+
+"It wasn't that," he began to explain, lingering and hesitating, so
+that she listened in a fever for footsteps on the stairs.
+
+"Well, what then?"
+
+"I should like to think over the matter you mentioned just now, and ...
+and ..."
+
+"Well, and what?"
+
+"And perhaps when it's dark I might ... carry the parcel away with me."
+And he rushed down the steps.
+
+"So he had to swallow his pride, poor fellow!" she thought, as she
+looked after him full of pity.
+
+The same evening she made a parcel of the things and sent them to him
+by post, with a sovereign and a thousand apologies. She wanted him to
+have a new hat, she said, and no trouble with regard to alterations.
+
+A few days later, when he put in an appearance again at dinner, one
+would hardly have known him, he looked so smart and brushed-up. The
+suit fitted as if made for him, and though the dandy boots were too
+long, he had prevented them turning up at the toe by padding them with
+cotton wool. Even the scornful servant scanned him with a more friendly
+eye.
+
+It was a pity he hadn't parted with his shock of hair and got his beard
+shaved off. You could almost have been seen in the street with him if
+he had. His cheeks had filled out wonderfully. His eyes, too, were
+better; thanks to the doctor to whom she had sent him almost by force.
+Gradually, too, his manners became less rough. He gave up bolting his
+food and putting his fingers into his mouth, and he acquired the art of
+drinking claret without flushing. And not only in externals, but
+mentally he began to reflect some of the tranquil well-being of his
+hospitable surroundings. His abuse became more discriminating, and he
+could even forgive people the unpardonable crime of being happy.
+
+He displayed charming tact in refraining from inquiries as to Lilly's
+position. And she knew how to thank him for it. Though she avoided
+cross-examining him about his own affairs, she was able to piece
+together a picture of his scholastic failure from the remarks and
+self-upbraidings that he let fall.
+
+After two years of distressing poverty he had abandoned the teaching
+profession and his cherished convictions to take up theology for the
+sake of a stipend offered to him in his native town.
+
+"Only think of that!" Lilly said to herself, deeply moved. She recalled
+the sunny early morning when the sound of the church bells had greeted
+them from the green valley.
+
+Even this supreme act of renunciation seemed to have brought him no
+lasting blessing, for he had been obliged for more than a year to earn
+his bread by addressing envelopes and doing other mysterious odd jobs,
+about which he was not communicative.
+
+"All the same," he said, "I have kept up my dignity in spite of
+everything. And however poor and despised I am, I have not lost my
+self-respect. No, I have not lost it."
+
+As he said this he paced up and down the room gloomily, with fire
+flashing from his small eyes. And when he expanded his chest and threw
+back his shoulders and ran his fingers through his tousled mane, he
+resembled once more the youthful hero who had once fired Lilly's
+enthusiasm and filled her imagination with ambitious dreams.
+
+In order to complete her good work and restore to him his lost
+happiness she insisted on knowing what ideal he had at heart, what path
+in life he would choose.
+
+What he wanted, he said, was to leave Berlin. He would like again to
+feel a free man who had his apportioned duty and knew how to do it, and
+to breathe fresher, purer air.
+
+"Ah! all of us would like something of the kind," thought Lilly, with a
+sigh.
+
+A post as private tutor would satisfy him, somewhere in the country. He
+would prefer a parsonage, for then a library would be at his disposal.
+
+"And where the lime-trees will flower," thought Lilly, "the corn wave
+in the breeze, and the cattle will be called to drink."
+
+She almost wept with envy at the thought.
+
+From this day forward she left no stone unturned to gratify the heart's
+desire of the old friend of her youth. She gave him money to advertise
+in the most likely papers, wrote with her own hand testimonials and
+letters of introduction, and asked the comrades of her "set" to
+interest themselves in him.
+
+She had to go about it all very secretly, for fear Richard should
+suspect what she was doing. For even as it was, she had to put up with
+a good deal at this time. He complained that she did not show him
+sufficient consideration, that she was cold and unloving, and that he
+could detect a hostile influence in everything she said.
+
+"I suppose your talented friend thinks so. You had better ask the
+learned genius."
+
+These little sarcastic speeches were reiterated _ad nauseam_. And one
+day the bomb burst. In defiance of his promise that when she had
+visitors he would always be announced, he suddenly burst in on Lilly
+and the friend of her youth while they were dining together. He had not
+rung, had hardly knocked, and his face was as black as thunder. Growing
+pale, she sprang to her feet, and Fritz Redlich, as if caught in a
+guilty act, followed her example. He looked sheepish, and the end of
+his napkin dropped into the soup.
+
+For a moment silence reigned, only broken by a malicious giggle from
+the servant standing in the doorway.
+
+"I ask your pardon, dear madam," said Richard, keeping up his
+threatening air and demeanour. "I was only anxious to know how you
+were."
+
+"Herr Richard Dehnicke, a kind acquaintance; Herr Redlich, my old
+friend," she introduced them.
+
+Then he looked at his much-dreaded rival more closely. In surprise and
+disapproval he regarded his unkempt hair and beard, but as his glance
+sank lower his face cleared, and a baffled though distinctly pleased
+ray of recognition illumined his features. Was not that _his_ suit and
+_his_ shirt?
+
+Still further did his glance descend, past the napkin lying in the
+soup-plate, down to the trousers. And were not those _his_ trousers and
+those _his_ cast-off boots, which the brilliant young genius was
+wearing on his feet?
+
+"Oh!" he said expressively, and nothing more. Then, with a sinister
+curl of the lip, he turned to Lilly. "Can I speak a few words to madame
+alone?" he asked.
+
+"If Herr Redlich will excuse me," she said; and in her confusion and
+from old habit, she opened the door of the bedroom, as if that were
+quite the correct place in which to speak a few words with an ordinary
+"kind" acquaintance.
+
+Richard, equally accustomed to this way, followed her, heedless of the
+intimacy he exposed by so doing.
+
+"Look here," he said, when he had shut the door, "I've been fool enough
+to be jealous of your so-called soul's affinity. But after what I've
+seen just now, I swear you may entertain your friends as much as you
+like--morning, noon, and night for all I care. And I'll keep a stock of
+old suits on hand for them. Now, go back to your dinner, you little
+donkey!"
+
+Then he went out by the other door. She heard him laughing to himself
+after he had gone.
+
+She was so deeply ashamed that she scarcely knew how to return to the
+friend of her youth, he who was so strict in his morals that at the
+bare mention of her divorce he had displayed pained disgust.
+
+Then it dawned on her that she was standing in her bedroom. Now
+everything had been shown up--everything! However little acquainted he
+might be with the ways of the world, he could not help perceiving her
+relations with the intruder who had so suddenly appeared in her flat
+and disappeared with equal suddenness.
+
+For a long time she hesitated what to do, with her hand on the handle
+of the door. She listened in fear for his departing step, the angry
+rasping of his throat--even his silence filled her with alarm. Then,
+trembling and ready to confess everything in tears of penitence, she
+ventured back to the dining-room.
+
+What did she see? Only the gentleman still seated at the table, rubbing
+out the stains made by the wet napkin on his waistcoat. The blue
+goggles lay beside his plate, and he blinked at her with friendly and
+unconcerned eyes.
+
+"Is he gone already?" he asked ingenuously. Evidently he had not even
+heard the door slam.
+
+When the hot joint came in he set to work with undiminished appetite,
+and made no further reference to the interlude. In truth, it seemed
+that his mind was so pure that he could not see impurity when it was
+almost thrust upon his vision.
+
+She was very grateful to him, and, to show her gratitude, she
+determined to let him come in the evening if he liked, as Richard had
+said he might come at any time. He should come without invitation, she
+said, and if she chanced to be out, the servant would get him supper,
+and see that he had all he wanted. Then, recollecting the grimaces she
+had made on his first appearance, she instructed her to be specially
+attentive to the guest, and to make him feel perfectly at home.
+
+The buxom country girl drew down the corners of her mouth and said
+nothing.
+
+
+                           *   *   *   *   *
+
+
+After these events, Lilly redoubled her efforts on behalf of Fritz
+Redlich. And once more Frau Jula proved a helpful friend.
+
+"Leave it to me," she said one day. "I used to know up there"--she
+hesitated a little--"someone who has great influence and is considered
+a God Almighty in more than one parsonage. I might write to him, but,
+of course, my name mustn't be mentioned. It still acts there like a red
+rag to a bull."
+
+The next day Lilly sent her an advertisement that Fritz Redlich had
+inserted in one of the papers. She was to forward it to the influential
+magnate. The answer would be direct, and the intervention of a third
+person not required. She, too, was of opinion that it would be better
+it he believed that he owed his future employment to his own unaided
+exertions.
+
+As luck would have it, Frau Jula's plan succeeded. One evening in the
+following week he called at Lilly's unexpectedly--a frequent event now,
+whether she was at home or not--and told her with evident satisfaction
+that his advertisement had brought forth immediate results. He had been
+asked to send his testimonials at once to a clergyman in Further
+Pomerania, and to hold himself in readiness to leave Berlin. The
+clergyman seemed quite eager about engaging him.
+
+Lilly's heart swelled with joyous pride. She wouldn't have betrayed on
+any account that she had had a finger in the pie. Nevertheless, she
+flattered herself that it was all her doing. She had made him, and she
+felt he belonged to her more than anyone else in the world.
+
+The meal progressed in calm and beatific silence. As he had not let her
+know that he was coming, the first course did not consist of potato
+soup.
+
+She apologised for the omission, and added, with a little pang at her
+heart, "I suppose we shall not have many more meals together?"
+
+"Probably not," he said; and cast a glance at the servant, whose
+presence obviously embarrassed him. Otherwise she felt sure that he
+would have expressed his feelings more graciously.
+
+Afterwards they withdrew to the corner drawing-room. The hot July air
+came in through the open windows, but the little naked monkey, whose
+cage was placed near the aquarium, was perished with cold, and now
+shivered so violently that he had to be wrapped up in his coat, an
+attention to which he submitted with snarls. The bullfinch piped its
+evening song and it grew dusk.
+
+Fritz Redlich sat as usual in the rocking-chair, his favourite seat
+after he had partaken of a good meal. She walked excitedly up and down
+the room.
+
+"I shall soon be lonely again," she thought, "and start knocking about
+all alone, as before."
+
+Yet what a piece of luck it was for him! What a piece of luck! She told
+him so repeatedly.
+
+"Yes," he said, "it certainly is very fortunate that I have fought my
+way as I have done"; he emphasised the last few words and went on,
+"When I think what awful years those have been, how often I have been
+compelled to belie my character, how often my principles have been
+endangered ... And not only that," he added after a depressed pause,
+"there have been the many doubtful circumstances in which I have been
+thrown, and the enforced connection with impurity, not to be wondered
+at when one takes into consideration how easily a man becomes infected
+by the society he is in, and finds himself doing things that he would
+rather leave alone. It's hard--very hard, Frau Czepanek."
+
+"Oh, please don't Frau Czepanek me!" she exclaimed. "Can't you call me
+'Frau Lilly,' or simply 'Lilly'? We are old friends, you know."
+
+"Willingly, if you wish," he replied.
+
+To-day she felt a tenderness for him such as she had not experienced
+since the days of her early youth. It was, too, a motherly, a sisterly
+tenderness, and something else besides--something like a shimmer of
+light drawing nearer and nearer from the distance.
+
+"Tell me, Herr Fritz," she demanded, pausing in front of him, "tell me
+honestly, have you ever loved in all your life?"
+
+He jumped as if he had been struck,
+
+"Loved? What do you mean?"
+
+"Well, what should I mean?" she laughed, drumming with her fingers on
+the back of the rocking-chair. "What should I mean?"
+
+He seemed to breathe more freely. "For love, properly speaking, I have
+neither the time nor the inclination," he said.
+
+"And no woman has ever loved you?"
+
+"Do I look," he asked, shrugging his shoulders, "as if anyone could
+love me?"
+
+His utter despondency irritated her. But she turned it off with a
+playful "Now, now!" and shook her finger at him.
+
+Again he looked alarmed, as if the mere suggestion of such a
+possibility filled him with anxiety.
+
+The poor fellow! Never had a girl's eyes glowingly sought his;
+never had a woman's arms encircled his neck in rapture. The highest
+pleasure--the only thing that both for man and woman makes life worth
+living--he had been denied.
+
+A confession burned on her lips, a confession dating from far-off,
+half-forgotten times, which would have told him how mistaken he was.
+But she choked it back. Not to-day; perhaps later, when it came to
+saying farewell.
+
+It grew dark, and the light reflected from the street-lamps played on
+wall and ceiling. The monkey had curled himself up in a ball under his
+coat, and the little bullfinch had gone to roost.
+
+Lilly still continued her pacing up and down, lightly brushing his
+elbow each time she passed the rocking-chair.
+
+At last she paused again in front of him. There he sat, he whom she had
+once adored so passionately, and he was quite ignorant of it. Quite
+ignorant of all the miracles woman's love can work. The poor, poor
+unfortunate creature!
+
+"You really ought to get your hair cut," she said with a nervous laugh,
+"and then perhaps you'll have a better chance with the women."
+
+Slowly she lifted her left hand, which felt as if a weight was hanging
+to it, and laid it on his rough wavy hair. It rebounded from her gentle
+touch like an air-cushion.
+
+He started, stopped rocking himself in the chair, looked round
+uneasily, and gave a cough.
+
+"Yes, yes," he said after a silence, "that's sensible advice. If I want
+to make a favourable impression when I enter on my new vocation, I
+ought----"
+
+Just then he turned his head sharply towards the window, and her hand
+glided down of its own accord on to his neck. She choked back a sigh,
+and he stood up and hurriedly took his leave. She was so embarrassed
+that she did not press him to stay longer.
+
+The servant was standing outside in the passage, with the lamp in her
+hand to light him downstairs.
+
+"The day after to-morrow I shall expect you," Lilly called after him
+from the window.
+
+He sent up a "Thank you and good-night" in reply, and disappeared in
+the darkness. The poor, poor boy! Plunged in bitterness and depression
+he went his way, little dreaming what paradises might have been his for
+the asking.
+
+For the remainder of the evening she was distraught and anxious. "It
+would have been better not to have put my hand on his head," she
+thought. Yet, all the same, she was glad that she had.
+
+
+                           *   *   *   *   *
+
+
+The next afternoon a postcard came from Frau Jula. She had good news
+from "high quarters." The negotiations were concluded. Her _protege_
+was to start without delay, and even his travelling expenses had been
+provided. Lilly cried with joy.
+
+Thus was her good work completed. The friend of her youth was saved,
+and his zest for life restored. Now it only remained to teach him how
+to laugh and enter into his inheritance of proud courageous freedom,
+all that belonged to him by rights, which she herself could now never
+hope to attain.
+
+Fate might do with her as it pleased, so long as he made upward
+progress. He had become an essential part of her existence. She had
+made him her own by her efforts and prayers, her lies, and her toil,
+and when he came to-morrow evening, as arranged, she would tell him
+all--all about that first love ... and everything.
+
+And once more--in farewell--she would lay her hand on his shock of
+hair, and then let come what might.
+
+The next evening she dressed herself more carefully than had been her
+wont when she spent the evening with him. She made the potato soup with
+her own hands and cut the beefsteak--he ate much smaller portions than
+he used to --so that the servant had nothing to do but put it in the
+pan.
+
+The clock struck eight, but he had not come. He was busy packing, she
+thought, to console herself. It struck nine, and still he had not come;
+then it struck ten, and there was no further hope, unless the door was
+locked up and he was clapping his hands to be let in, as Richard did
+sometimes. She leaned out at the open window till it struck eleven.
+Then, tired out and very sad, she went to bed.
+
+The next morning she received the following letter:
+
+
+"Honoured and Gracious Madame,
+
+"Having succeeded by my own unaided efforts in procuring a decent
+position, I consider it my duty to break off all connection with my
+former life. As I think I have told you more than once; I was often
+forced by circumstances into situations repugnant to my high
+principles, and that, in spite of my resolute character, I was led into
+temptations which, I frankly confess, I have not invariably emerged
+from unscathed.
+
+"I am perfectly aware that I am under obligations to you, dear madame,
+and I herewith tender you my heartfelt thanks, for it shall never be
+said of me that I am wanting in gratitude. I have kept an account of
+the cash which circumstances have from time to time compelled me to
+borrow from you, and, as soon as my salary permits, I shall refund
+every farthing, and also send back the suit, which I am wearing at
+present. I may say here, that if you had really respected me you would
+never have subjected me to the humiliating encounter with the gentleman
+to whom these articles of clothing once obviously belonged.
+
+"In conclusion, I hope I may be allowed to give you the following
+exhortation. Mend your ways, dear madame, and change your mode of life,
+which is an outrage on all the laws of morality. I believe that in
+giving utterance to this sentiment I am acting the part of a friend
+more than if I were to leave you under the delusion that I am a
+simpleton.
+
+                       "Yours always gratefully,
+
+                                 "Fritz Redlich,
+                                    Cand. Phil et Theol."
+
+
+Lilly felt this experience deeply, and suffered for a long time acute
+anguish.
+
+Not till several months had elapsed was the humorous side of the
+incident brought to her notice by the servant coming to give her
+warning. The visits of the student of philosophy and of strict morals
+on the evenings when Lilly was absent had not been, it appeared,
+without their consequences.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XII
+
+
+In the early autumn of the same year, Richard took a husband's holiday,
+and went to Ostend, while Lilly lived cheaply and innocently at a
+bathing-place on the Baltic, where she passed as a widow of good birth
+and position. She accepted the admiring homage of several spinsters,
+allowed a young missionary to dedicate a volume of verse to her, and
+declined an honourable offer from a widower, town-clerk of Pirna, with
+expressions of esteem and friendship.
+
+Lilly enjoyed those six weeks immensely. The winter that followed
+differed very little from those that had preceded it. At Christmas,
+Richard's present to her was a hired carriage with the seven-pointed
+coronet emblazoned on its panels. He wanted to avoid the unpleasantness
+of his mother--whose prejudice against Lilly increased from year to
+year--ordering the family brougham for her own use when he was driving
+about in it with his mistress. Another present was a sable coat of the
+newest shape with dozens of tails, that cost a small fortune.
+
+In spite of Richard's reproaches, Lilly made very little use of either
+of her new acquisitions, for the never-silenced inner voice of fear
+said to her that this sort of pomp and luxury would make her more and
+more part of the world she longed to flee from. While Richard aimed
+with stubborn pertinacity at draining the cup of pleasure to the dregs,
+Lilly hankered more and more after respectability. It was her last
+anchor of hope in the barren life which, as the days dragged along,
+left her tortured and dissatisfied in the midst of music, laughter, and
+light.
+
+The only person in her set who stimulated her intellect in the least
+was Frau Jula. She knew how to relate entertaining stories, she showed
+that she had been at home in different worlds, and that her mind
+retained the impressions she had received there. But for some time past
+her silly little curly head had been enveloped in a web of impenetrable
+mystery. The erotic verse, which she had contributed to modern German
+periodicals, no longer appeared, and her morbid short stories were
+nowhere to be met with. When her friends teased her and asked what had
+become of her art, she would smile like a coy bride, and answer, "Wait
+and see."
+
+At this time Lilly would gladly have seen more of Frau Jula, for she
+had long since given up feeling that she was in any way superior to her
+or more moral. But she did not find it easy to approach her, so she
+carried the burden of her hopes and fears unshared, and trudged on
+alone, thirsting by the way.
+
+
+                           *   *   *   *   *
+
+
+What now came to pass happened on the nineteenth of March, a date never
+to be forgotten, because it was St. Joseph's Day. It was a day of soft
+spring-like breezes and pinkish-grey skies; a day on which Nature's
+orchestra seemed to be rehearsing for the great symphony of spring.
+
+The grassy slopes of the canal-banks were already beginning to turn
+green, the wild-ducks, in couples, swam on the smooth surface of the
+water, and big foam-edged blocks of melting ice floated downstream.
+
+Lilly, filled with vague and wistful longings, could not stand it any
+longer indoors, and prepared to go out early. She wanted to run, cry,
+shout, jump hedges, throw herself on the grass anything, she didn't
+care what, so long as she escaped for a few hours from this prison,
+which smelt of powder and perfumed paints, and was oppressed by the
+weight of indolence.
+
+She got ready for a walk and gave a few directions to Adele, the new
+servant, who was an elderly and rather patronising woman, thoroughly
+accustomed to service in the households of single ladies. Instead of
+waiting for her carriage, she took the tramway out to Grunewald. She
+alighted at the boundary where smart villadom ends, and the maltreated
+woods rise high above the yoke of the builder, and walked on straight
+ahead, not knowing where she was going.
+
+A few motor-cars rushed by, and young men in them smiled and beckoned
+to her. They might have been actual acquaintances or only making fun of
+her; but, anyhow she thought it wiser to turn off the main-road, so she
+struck into the sandy path that ran along the lake to the old
+Jagdschloss. Here far and wide she saw not a human soul.
+
+The chilly March wind swept over the milky-blue water and agitated the
+reeds and rushes. Ice was still to be seen round the edge of the lake,
+but it was so thin and pierced with holes that every small ripple that
+broke on the shore sent up jets of spray. From the pine-branches there
+sounded now and then the song of a bird, sad enough to extinguish
+awakened expectations of spring.
+
+"It looks more like spring in the town than here," thought Lilly. But
+the keenness of the wind, full of the pungent scent of moss and
+pine-needles, did her good. As she strode along, she met it full in the
+face. Her cheeks glowed; she felt her frozen blood thaw and send fresh
+life pulsating through her languid limbs.
+
+Suddenly she burst out laughing. Everything was all nonsense. Her
+pining discontent, her longing, Richard's snobbish ambition, his
+mother's everlasting marriage schemes--even respectability was humbug.
+
+What had she to do with it all? She--the free, the wild, the ruined
+Lilly? There must be something better in store for her, something
+nobler. Not in Dr. Salmoni's sense--God forbid!--but something
+hardening, pure, and life-giving, like this March wind sweeping through
+her veins.
+
+She heard a sound from the top of a pine-tree with which she had
+become familiar in the park at Lischnitz. It was a kind of whistle,
+half-defiant, half-enticing, which ended in a sharp "Tschek-tschek."
+She stopped, looked up, and whistled too. It was a couple of squirrels
+that had been chasing each other in corkscrew circles round the trunk,
+and now stood suddenly still in alarm at the sight of her.
+
+"Tschek-tschek!" she cried, to incite the little red-coats to a new
+game, but, not succeeding, she stooped and picked up a pebble.
+
+Just as she was in the act of throwing it, she caught sight of a pair
+of eyes fixed on her from behind another trunk--large, questioning,
+astonished eyes, that narrowed and darkened as they gazed, as if they
+wanted to look away, but couldn't--a pair of eyes that surely she had
+known long, long ago.
+
+But no! she had never seen them before; for the young man who had
+watched with her the squirrels' game and stood with his hat in his
+hand, still half hidden behind a tree, was quite a stranger to her. If
+she had ever met him, she would never have forgotten it. It would not
+be easy to forget that serious, self-contained, Greek young face, with
+the sensitive, slender-bridged nose and the lustrous eyes of the
+dreamer.
+
+He was not very fashionably clad, and she liked him for it. He had on a
+brown overcoat of a not very modern cut, and underneath a suit of rough
+tweed, quite un-German and still less English.
+
+He seemed gradually to come to life. He put on his hat and emerged
+from behind the tree-trunk. "Now he is going to speak to me," she
+thought, and she felt a sickening dread. But no! He lifted his hat,
+threw her one more long, questioning, earnest look--almost a look of
+recognition--walked past her, and took the path she had come by.
+
+Lilly, too, would have liked to walk on, but she could not make up her
+mind, and, not to be caught staring after him, she slipped behind the
+same trunk which had lately concealed him from view.
+
+She wondered if he would look back. No, he did not do that, and she
+felt somehow hurt and neglected.
+
+Smaller and smaller grew the tall figure. He strode over the sand with
+a somewhat heavy step. "He's never been a soldier," she thought. Then
+she fancied that he stooped and afterwards turned round. Yes, he was
+making quite a wide and careful survey of the landscape, as if bent on
+discovering her. But she was safely hidden behind her tree and did not
+stir.
+
+Then he walked on again and vanished in a bend in the path.
+
+"A pity I haven't got the carriage," she said to herself.
+
+If she had been driving she could have overtaken him without appearing
+to follow him, and the seven-pointed coronet would have duly impressed
+him. As it was, he must have formed a bad opinion of her for wandering
+about alone, whistling like a boy and throwing stones at amorous
+squirrels. Nevertheless, as she made her way homewards she felt as if
+some rare and beautiful gift had been bestowed upon her.
+
+Was it possible that she had seen him before? She recalled the young
+man she had met in the Pragerstrasse, when she was with her husband in
+Dresden; how he had given her the same sort of look with a flash in it
+of sad recognition; and how she had wanted to turn round and ask, "Who
+are you? Do you belong to me? Would you like me to belong to you?" And
+she had forborne to follow her instinct, because to turn round in the
+street would have been a crime in the colonel's eyes.
+
+To-day she was free--so free that she could choose her friends as her
+heart dictated--and yet she had not followed him, but had let him go,
+he who, whether he was that same young man or not, might perchance
+belong to her or she to him.
+
+With half-closed eyes she filled in the details of the picture that she
+had formed of him. His beard was small, dark, and double-pointed, and
+so closely shaven on the cheeks that it appeared only a blue shadow.
+Such beards were rarely seen in Berlin, though Italians and Frenchmen
+wore them. His lips were full, hard, and firmly closed, as if chiselled
+out of marble; his high, square forehead seemed to give him an aspect
+of wrath, but not the vulgar wrath of an ordinary mortal towards a poor
+creature like herself; it was like the wrath of the gods--divine.
+
+So she continued to rhapsodise, forgot where she was going and lost her
+way, to find herself finally on quite the wrong road. Anything might
+have happened to her in the woods, where unprotected ladies were not
+safe at any hour of the day from the attacks of tramps. But she
+scarcely gave a thought to the risks she had run, got into the first
+tram she came to, and reached home, exhausted but glowing all over, two
+hours later than she intended.
+
+She could not eat anything, but threw herself on the _chaise longue_
+and dreamed.
+
+The bell sounded, and a man's voice was heard at the door. It couldn't
+be Richard. He never came before half-past four.
+
+Then Adele came in, and said that there was a strange gentleman outside
+who wished to know if madame had missed her card-case; he had picked
+one up in the woods.
+
+Lilly sprang up. The little brocaded case, which she had carried in her
+hand with her silver chain-purse, was not there; she must have dropped
+it and not noticed that it was missing in her excitement.
+
+"What is the gentleman like?" she asked.
+
+He was tall, young, and handsome, indeed, remarkably handsome, was the
+information she received from Adele.
+
+"Has he a dark, close-cut beard?"
+
+Yes, he had.
+
+The delightful shock of the surprise made her stagger.
+
+"Ask him to come in," she stammered, with no thought of how she looked,
+though her hands went up to her hair.
+
+As he entered the room she could scarcely recognise him, there was such
+a thick red mist before her eyes.
+
+"I beg your pardon, gracious Frau," she heard him say in the clear calm
+tones of a man who has no ignoble dealings. "I should not have
+disturbed you if your address had been on your card as well as your
+name. I looked you up in the directory, but being uncertain that there
+were not others of your name ... I ..."
+
+"You are very kind indeed to have taken so much trouble," she replied,
+and asked him to sit down.
+
+"I am Dr. Rennschmidt," he said, waiting till she had settled herself
+in a corner of the sofa before accepting her invitation. He drew the
+card-case from his pocket and laid it on the table.
+
+She smiled her thanks for his courtesy, and then, as it seemed
+necessary to her to exaggerate the service he had done her, she told
+him that she specially valued the little card-case as it was a souvenir
+of her husband, and she would have been very grieved to lose it.
+
+His face grew a shade graver. There was a pause, in which his eyes
+rested on her features with a steadfast, questioning, almost searching
+expression. There was nothing in it of the tentative brazen advances
+that she knew so well in other masculine eyes. His glance was one of
+pure, disinterested admiration tinctured with reverence.
+
+"Did we not meet a short time ago on the outskirts of the wood?" she
+asked warily.
+
+He replied eagerly in the affirmative. "If I had not been so awkward I
+should have asked your pardon then for playing the eavesdropper. I saw
+how startled you were ... but at the moment I could think of nothing to
+do but to make myself scarce. It seemed the kindest course to take from
+your point of view."
+
+His manner of speaking was so joyously frank, it was like a tonic to
+her, yet withal made her feel slightly ashamed.
+
+"And now you have done something kinder still," she answered, with as
+much hearty appreciation as if he had saved her life.
+
+"Oh, please don't mention it," he said. "I ought to have turned back at
+once. But it seemed as if the earth had swallowed you up. I was quite
+anxious about you."
+
+She smiled to herself in happy trepidation. A little more and she would
+have confided to him where she had hidden herself.
+
+"What must you have thought of me," she said, "wandering about in the
+woods by myself?"
+
+"I thought that you did not feel lonely in the society of Nature,
+otherwise you would have brought a companion."
+
+"You were right," she responded eagerly. "I left my carriage at the
+Restaurant Hundekehl"--the carriage had to be dragged into the
+conversation after all--"but it drove back, through some
+misunderstanding, and I was venturesome. You love Nature very much
+too?"
+
+"I don't know about 'very much,'" he answered. "I may say in Cordelia's
+words: 'I love it according to my bond, not more nor less.' Don't you
+find that love of Nature is neither a merit nor an eccentricity, but
+simply a vital function?"
+
+"Yes, of course," Lilly faltered, thinking to herself, "How exceedingly
+clever he is! Will you ever be able to keep pace with him?"
+
+"But to be quite sincere," he went on, "I cannot get used to Nature in
+these climes. Her poverty oppresses me. I am in the position with
+regard to her of having outgrown the home of my fathers, for which I
+heap reproaches on myself. I try hard to get back on the old terms with
+her, and praise her whenever I honestly can. But first more recent
+pictures must fade from my mind. You see, I have only just come back
+from Italy, where I have been living for the last two years."
+
+With a deep sigh she gazed at him, considering him now positively
+unearthly.
+
+"Two whole years!" she cried.
+
+"I am engaged on a great scientific work," he continued; "for its
+sake--no, it would be more correct to say for my health's sake--I was
+sent to Italy. My uncle, who is a father to me, wished it.... And it
+was Italy that first inspired me with the idea of the work, and
+afterwards fatherland and my old life and studies, everything else,
+went to the wall."
+
+As he spoke his eyes flashed with enthusiasm. He seemed palpitating
+with his great purpose; and the old former yearning for Italian skies
+awoke and beat its wings within her heart.
+
+"Yes, isn't it true," she cried, infected by his ardour, "that there is
+the home of all great ideas? There you may feel your utmost. What you
+have sown there will repay and bear fruit. Isn't it so? I have never
+been there, but I am quite sure that is how people feel. There, where
+everything great and beautiful belongs to the soil; there, one's self
+becomes greater and nobler.... One has no more petty sordid cares.
+Isn't it true?"
+
+He had listened to her astounded, his eyes beaming and radiant. "Yes,"
+he said almost solemnly, "it is exactly as you say."
+
+She felt a sensation of joy. Wasn't this harmony of thought a
+confirmation of the affinity that she had from the first moment that
+she had set eyes on him sought and hoped for? Nothing could ever
+separate her from him after this. Perhaps he really was the physical
+embodiment of that shadow belonging to the Dresden days that had taken
+up its abode in her soul!
+
+"I can't help feeling as if we had met before," she murmured softly,
+with eyes downcast.
+
+"I feel like that too," he answered, "but it can't be so, for if we had
+met I could never have forgotten the time and place."
+
+"You were not in Dresden, by any chance, about this time six years
+ago?" she asked.
+
+He shook his head. "Six years ago I was studying in Bonn. The term was
+over, it is true, but I went for my vacation to my uncle's. He had just
+had his place restored."
+
+"Where is it?"
+
+"Near Coblentz."
+
+"Then it couldn't have been. It's strange that we should both feel as
+if ..." she said.
+
+"There are certain pictures belonging to our psychic existence," he
+replied, "which seem like memories, and are in reality presentiments."
+
+"I wonder what you mean?"
+
+"I mean that one walks between past and coming experiences as on a
+tight-rope; that one reels and falls into space so soon as----"
+
+"What?"
+
+"So soon as one----" he broke off abruptly. "Pardon my asking, but are
+you an artist?"
+
+"Why?" she asked nervously. She felt repelled. Was he making a fool of
+her?
+
+"I gathered that you were from the plate outside your door."
+
+The plate: "Pressed Flower Studio."
+
+This was being rudely awakened from a pleasant dream to the stern facts
+of reality. But she must not lose her presence of mind and forfeit his
+esteem, so she answered carelessly:
+
+"In a way. But mine is a very modest art. Once I worked hard at it, and
+it made me very happy. I learnt it soon after I became a widow." Her
+lips refused to utter the phrase, "soon after I was divorced." "I took
+it up more as a little distraction than as a serious means of earning a
+living. But then I had trouble with my eyes, and was obliged to give it
+up."
+
+Three lies in one breath! But why not? She and everything round her was
+one big lie ... all her gestures and all her thoughts. Only the cry
+that went up from her soul now, moving her to the depths of her being,
+was _not_ a lie: "You shall be mine. I will be yours." And so for his
+sake she went on lying.
+
+"It's painful to me to talk about it," she continued, with her
+handkerchief pressed against her eyes. "I still fed it so much. I hope
+you will be so kind as never again to refer to it."
+
+"Never again" had slipped from her. It sounded as if she took for
+granted that their acquaintance was to continue, and, overwhelmed with
+shame and confusion, she rose and turned her face aside.
+
+"Forgive me," he said, greatly concerned. "I had no idea ..." He stood
+up to go.
+
+A voice within her cried, "Stay, stay, stay!" But she was incapable of
+speaking, and felt as if turned to stone. Had he seen through her lies,
+divined who and what she was, and didn't wish to stay? She was
+conscious that her manner grew cold and haughty.
+
+She extended her finger-tips to him. "It was kind of you to come," she
+said.
+
+This was the moment to invite him to come again, but the words froze on
+her lips.
+
+His face had grown very pale, and he looked at her with great,
+inquiring, expectant eyes.
+
+"I hope we shall meet again," he said.
+
+"I hope so, too," she replied frigidly.
+
+He brushed her hand with his lips and was gone.
+
+The end--the end! And all her fault. Happiness had looked in upon her,
+had lightly laid its hand in blessing on her brow, and then flown away,
+leaving nothing but this pain, a pain more intolerable than any she had
+ever known. It clutched at her throat and tore her heart like a
+physical pain.
+
+During the night that followed she concocted a thousand plans by which
+she could contrive to find him out and meet him. As a scholar, he would
+probably be a constant visitor to the library. She would go there to
+read and study, in the hopes of coming across him. But, simpler still,
+why shouldn't she write to him?
+
+"I don't love you," she would write. "Why should I love you when I
+hardly know you? But I feel that I am destined to have some influence
+in your life, and so ..."
+
+Finally she rejected all her plans, disgusted with her own lack of
+dignity. No; Lilly Czepanek would not throw herself thus at any man's
+head.
+
+She became tormented once more with restlessness.
+
+In the daytime she haunted the Leipziger and Potsdamer Strassen, and
+other parts where metropolitan life is at its busiest. Of an evening,
+instead of roaming about in distant suburbs as of yore, she kept close
+to the neighbourhood of her own dwelling, walking up and down
+incessantly on the solitary banks of the canal with quick, businesslike
+strides.
+
+In spite of the economy on which she plumed herself, she left the light
+burning in the corner drawing-room, when she went out, for no apparent
+object.
+
+
+                           *   *   *   *   *
+
+
+It was on the fourth evening after their meeting that while she was
+pacing the further bank of the canal at about eight o'clock, when the
+stars hung like lamps in the sky, she happened to see among the trees
+the figure of a young man, who stood gazing up fixedly in the direction
+of her flat.
+
+She could see nothing of his face, for his back was turned towards
+her, and it was dark just at that spot. With a slightly accelerated
+heart-beat she went on her way, but in a few moments her feet declined
+to take her further, and she was obliged to retrace her steps. The dark
+figure still stood motionless among the trees, and regarded, through
+the bare branches, the light in her corner drawing-room. This time he
+heard her footstep and turned towards her.
+
+Startled, she recognised his features. He too showed signs of being
+perturbed, for at first he made a foolish little attempt to look as if
+he had not seen her, then with an embarrassed smile he took off his
+hat.
+
+She trembled so violently that she dared not give him her hand.
+"Dr.--Rennschmidt," was all she managed to ejaculate.
+
+He was the first to regain his composure.
+
+"You will wonder," he began, walking beside her, "why I was standing
+here in the dark looking over there.... If I said it was by accident,
+you would scarcely credit it; so I may as well confess at once.... I
+have been troubled, since we parted the other evening, with the thought
+that things were not quite all right between us; there was a
+misunderstanding somewhere, a hitch, a hastiness--I don't exactly know
+what--but I feel that I owe you an apology for something."
+
+"Why, if that was on your mind," she replied, "did not you come in and
+tell me?"
+
+"Would it have been permitted?" he asked.
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"Pardon, but I have always believed that what privileges and rights we
+men enjoy with regard to women are accorded to us by them. For us there
+exist no others. We may stand here, of course, in the dark and tear our
+hair ..."
+
+"Have you been doing that?"
+
+"Don't, please, ask for any explanations," he begged. Though his voice
+did not betray emotion, the arm that touched hers trembled a little.
+
+She stood still, startled, and glanced helplessly down the dark avenue
+she had come by.
+
+"Does this mean you wish me to leave you?" he asked.
+
+In the light cast by a lamp she saw his eager questioning look.
+
+"Oh no!" she answered slowly, and it seemed as if someone else was
+speaking for her. "Now we've met, we need not part at once."
+
+"That's what I think," he said, as gravely as if he were making an
+affirmation.
+
+They walked on together in silence. Then he said in a lighter tone:
+"There's one thing I ought to draw your attention to. You have left
+your light burning. If you are so good as to spare me an hour, I am
+afraid it will cause you anxiety."
+
+"Oh, never mind the light! We'll go and put it out," she exclaimed
+joyously; and turned on her heel so quickly that he was left two or
+three steps behind her.
+
+As they crossed the slender span of the Hohenzollern Bridge, he pointed
+to the sky.
+
+"Jupiter shines on our enterprise," he said. "I like him better than
+Venus, who gallivants after the sun, and will have a rosy carpet for
+her feet."
+
+"Show me Jupiter," said Lilly, standing still.
+
+Eagerly he pointed out to her the brilliant ruler of the heavens, and
+five or six constellations besides.
+
+She clapped her hands with sheer delight. "Now I shall never feel
+lonely again in my flat," she cried, "when I am alone in the evenings
+and look out of the window."
+
+While he waited for her at the foot of the staircase, she ran up,
+turned off the light, and put the latch-key in her pocket. She told
+Adele she would have supper out, and prepared to be off again.
+
+Her heart was so full of ecstasy that she held on for a moment to the
+doorpost to prevent herself reeling, and gave a sob. But by the time
+she got downstairs she was quite herself again.
+
+"If you will do me the honour to trust to my guidance," he said, "I
+know a corner where no one will disturb us, and where we shall be
+transported to Italy."
+
+She gave a deep sigh. "Oh, how fond he is of talking about Italy!" she
+thought. Yet she wouldn't have gone anywhere else for the world.
+
+They pursued their way for five or six minutes along the dark bank of
+the canal, talking nonsense. Now the medley of lights on the Potsdamer
+Bridge were quite near, and he stopped before a small dimly lit window
+in which were displayed a dozen or so of wine-bottles wreathed with
+green cotton vine-leaves, looking like heads of asparagus popping out
+of the sand.
+
+"Here Signore Battistini will serve us with a Chianti as good as any to
+be had in Florence," he declared.
+
+They went in, and threaded their way through a small front room where
+the proprietor, black as the devil himself, was pasting on labels
+behind the bar. He was greeted with "Sera, padrone" by Lilly's new
+friend. They passed into a long room full of rough tables and chairs.
+The only attempt at decoration were garlands cut out of green glazed
+paper, which were evidently ambitious of being taken for vines. They
+twined round the bare gas-brackets and cascaded over hooks on the wall,
+and in order that there should be no mistake as to what was the origin
+of all these festive tokens, a placard hung from the middle, wishing
+all who entered--at the end of March--a belated "Prosit Neujahr."
+
+"How do you like this fairy-garden?" Lilly's friend asked her, as the
+waiter, black as his master, with eyes like fiery Catherine-wheels,
+beseechingly held out his hands for her cloak.
+
+At the tables round them sat bushy-haired youths, who rolled long, thin
+cigars between their teeth, and nearly thrust their knuckles in each
+other's eyes as they gabbled Italian with fascinating rapidity.
+
+"They are marble-cutters," Dr. Rennschmidt said _sotto voce_, "employed
+by our leading sculptors. They earn a lot of money, and when they have
+saved enough go home to start housekeeping."
+
+Among them were two ladies. They wore their black lustreless hair so
+low on their foreheads that their eyes resembled torches burning out of
+a dark forest. They had gold rings in their ears, and their low-cut
+dresses were clasped by barbaric brooches. They glanced up at Lilly's
+tall figure with envious admiration, and then began an animated
+conversation in whispers.
+
+Dr. Rennschmidt bowed to them cordially, with an air that seemed to say
+he had nothing to conceal and nothing to confess. He told her that they
+were mandoline singers belonging to a troupe of Neapolitans, whose
+manager had thrown them over, and they were now in search of an
+engagement.
+
+"Where am I?" Lilly thought.
+
+It was like a dream, as if magic wings had wafted her into a strange
+country; only the genial "Prosit Neujahr," on the placard swinging
+close to her, reminded her that Germany, Berlin, and the Potsdamer
+Bridge were not far off.
+
+"I have come here every day since my return," Lilly's friend said, as
+they made themselves at home in a corner. "Nostalgia for the South
+still afflicts me. The most perfect German cooking has no charms for me
+now, and I must have my Chianti, To-day we will, however, drink
+something else, because the palate has to acquire a taste for Chianti."
+
+He beckoned to the waiter, who was called Francesco, just as if he had
+stepped out of a romance about knight-errantry and brigands--and after
+a lively discussion between the two a dusty, light-coloured bottle was
+produced and put on the table. Then came dishes of curious-looking
+macaroni and meat bathed in orange-red sauce.
+
+Lilly could not remember that she had ever tasted anything half so
+good, and she told him so; in fact, altogether she had never enjoyed
+herself so much in all her life. But this she did not tell him.
+
+They wound up with a dish of fruit--called "_giardinetto_"--mandarins,
+dates, and gorgonzola cheese. The yellow wine, which had a perfume of
+nutmegs, frothed in the glasses, radiating tiny bubbles.
+
+Leaning back against the wall, she let her eyes rest dreamily on her
+new friend. He turned his head from side to side with quick little
+movements rather like a bird. Everywhere he found something to observe,
+to remark upon, to absorb him; or perhaps he did it all to be specially
+entertaining to her. His eyes sparkled with eagerness and zest in life;
+the wrinkles on his forehead rose up and down, and what she had
+mistaken for a cloud of wrath was, after all, only the expression of
+his brain's boiling activity.
+
+He had a dear, funny habit, which heightened this effect: he would put
+his outspread fingers to his head as if he were going to run them
+through a mass of hair; but the hair was not there, and so he clapped
+his hand instead on his bare temples. He seemed compounded of force and
+resolution, which commanded her admiration and even awe. But his
+physique was not of the most robust, although a golden-brown hue of
+health, fresh from the South, tinged his cheek. His throat was
+delicate, his breath from time to time came in gasps, and when his eyes
+became veiled with fatigue, after some introspective probings, there
+was something pathetically boyish about him that awakened maternal
+tenderness.
+
+"Ah, so this is you!" she thought, and stretched herself in blissful
+languor. "This is you at last, at last."
+
+"Why do you shut your eyes?" he asked, concerned. "Aren't you feeling
+well?"
+
+"Yes, oh yes," she said, flattering him with her eyes and mouth. "But
+do, please, tell me more about the land of my desires, where I have
+always wanted to go and where I have never been."
+
+She then described to him her youthful longing, which the consumptive
+master had awakened in her, the longing which had continued to smoulder
+amidst the ashes of her life's experience.
+
+"In your place I should have tramped there as a barefooted pilgrim," he
+said.
+
+"Oh, but I've had money enough to go often. I could have afforded it
+perfectly well. Once I was as far on the road as Bozen. But I had to
+turn back as a punishment because a young man made eyes at me."
+
+"How sad!" he said, laughing. "That was hard lines on you, harder than
+you have any conception of."
+
+"I have some conception," she sighed. "I have only got to look at you
+to be convinced of how hard it was."
+
+"Why me?"
+
+"Because you shine like Moses after he had looked on the glory of the
+Lord."
+
+He became serious at once. "There are glories here, too, if we have
+eyes to see them," he said. "But, nevertheless, you are right. I am so
+chock-full of the life and reflected radiance that I have stored up
+there, so many sources have been opened out, so many seeds have
+germinated, that I scarcely know how to use all my vast wealth, I write
+till my fingers bleed, and there is always more to write.... I want to
+give, give, and go on giving; but to whom I don't know."
+
+"To me!" she implored, holding out her hands, palms upwards. "To me! I
+am so desperately poor. Such a beggar!"
+
+With the stern eyes of a visionary he gazed down on her. "You are not
+poor," he said. "You have merely been allowed to starve."
+
+"Isn't it the same thing?"
+
+He shook his head, still fixing her with his gaze.
+
+"What was your husband?" he asked next.
+
+"I ... am the divorced wife ... of an officer of high rank," she
+replied, dropping her eyes to the floor.
+
+Thank God! This time she had not lied.
+
+But hadn't she? What was she _now_? For a moment he pressed her hand,
+which lay on the table.
+
+"Don't speak of your past if you would rather not," he said; "leave it
+for the present. When we are old friends it'll be time enough. I'll
+tell you about myself and how I came to think of my great work."
+
+"The work that you mentioned just now?" she asked, curiously moved by
+the sudden solemnity of his tone.
+
+Breathing deeply, he stretched out his clenched fists, and his eyes
+burned into space.
+
+"Yes; the work for which I live ... the work that is my pillar of
+strength, my goal, my future--my everything ... that stands for father,
+mother, brother, friend, and love.... For _it_, this wine was vintaged,
+this hour created, and you yourself, dear gracious, beautiful one, with
+your delicate infinite charm, and your two begging hands, which really
+were made for giving."
+
+"I thought you were going to talk about your work," she said softly.
+
+"I am talking about it--of that and that alone. I want you to know how
+all that I live and love is part of it. For instance, think of the
+thousands of times the Annunciation has been painted, sculptured, and
+sung, and how I have toiled and moiled over the subject, and yet now at
+this moment when I see your great wistful 'Mary-eyes' fixed on me in
+half-humble, half-astonished questioning, I feel that the last word has
+not been said, the highest rung of knowledge has yet to be reached....
+So you see how everything must be made to serve my work."
+
+"Are you a poet?" she asked, quite carried away.
+
+He shook his head, smiling. "I am not a poet, I am not an artist,
+neither am I an historian nor a psychologist; but I have to be all and
+a great deal more besides, for my work demands it."
+
+Then he told her his whole story. His father, a university professor
+and distinguished jurist, had died young, not long after the death of
+his mother, at his birth. His uncle, a wealthy old bachelor who had
+travelled a great deal both on business and pleasure, had adopted him.
+He had given him a good education, and since made him an allowance
+sufficient to indulge his modest whims and requirements. Acting on his
+uncle's wishes he had gone abroad, and postponed for a time entering on
+the same academic career as his father, owing to his health having
+suffered severely from the strain of the examination, which he had
+passed with honours. His studies and researches in the history of art,
+which he had always pursued with ardour, had finally drawn him to
+Italy. More than churches and museums and picture galleries the teeming
+humanity and charm of personality in the Southern race attracted and
+enchanted him. It seemed to him as if contact with it awakened in him a
+new fresh human impulse and consciousness of his own powers. He was
+more than ever strongly impressed by the original unity of artistic
+endeavour and personal experience both in history and modern life....
+Heroes of mythology and history, characters in poetry and painting, the
+creators and painters, too, all became to him so objective, so alive,
+that they seemed a part of his being. He had felt nearer than ever
+before to penetrating into the emotional world of bygone ages when
+living in the midst of a people who were saturated with history, yet in
+their thousand-year-old practice of Art had never lost touch with their
+own epoch. He learned to discriminate and date at first sight monuments
+of various periods, and trace them back step by step down the
+centuries. Creative Art was, and always would be, his inspiration and
+guide.... Art was able, above all, to wring speech from the dumbness of
+death, and to create new forms out of the dust of ages. The only thing
+still lacking was the key to the origin of all this amazing and
+convincing force. The A B C of the language was not forthcoming.
+
+Lilly, with strained attention, strove to follow him. She had never
+heard anyone talk like this, and yet much that he said sounded
+familiar. It seemed to her as if some residue of long-past days left on
+the floor of her mind echoed to his ideas.
+
+"One day it happened," he continued, "that while I was in Venice I
+started off on an excursion to Padua. By rail it is about as far as
+from Berlin to Potsdam. I was not attracted there by its art, for I was
+still on my honeymoon with the Early Venetians. I went for the sake of
+completeness. So I found myself in the little chapel where Giotto's
+frescoes are. You know him?"
+
+"Giotto and Cimabue--of course," she answered proudly.
+
+"Then I needn't explain further. I hadn't much enthusiasm left for him
+and his school, for, as I said just now, the Quattrocentists had turned
+my head. Now, please picture a ruined Roman amphitheatre overgrown with
+ivy--nothing but the outside walls still stand, like the walls of a
+garden--and somewhere in the middle the little chapel built of slates,
+every bit as bare as a Protestant conventicle in the royal realm of
+Prussia."
+
+Lilly smiled. A fling at Protestantism always gratified her, like a
+personal favour.
+
+"Services are no longer held there. It has been preserved as a national
+monument. When I first went in I saw nothing for a minute but a blue
+glory on the walls--a sort of background of light--then picture after
+picture, in long rows. The history of the Saviour told simply, just as
+a poor friar would tell it to poor people on Good Friday, provided he
+was the right sort of preacher."
+
+"But are we not all _poor_ people in the Saviour's eyes?" she ventured
+to put in shyly.
+
+He paused, stared at her for a moment, and then assented with fervour.
+"Certainly we are, and not only in the Saviour's, but in those of every
+great personality, and every great truth.... But that feeling is not
+easy to cultivate ... the feeling that we must be poor if what is given
+us is to make us rich. Religion can inspire us with it if it finds the
+right means of expression. In this case it was found. Here was a poor
+man speaking to the poor, and therein lay the richness of his gift.
+Then what in him goes to our hearts and brings tears to our eyes is not
+his great power, but quite the opposite--his lack of power. Do you
+grasp my meaning?"
+
+"I think so," she said, her face lighting up. "When someone would beg
+anything of us and can only stammer out what he has got to say, we are
+far more touched than if he expressed himself in a stilted speech
+learnt by heart."
+
+"Yes, that is exactly what I mean," he cried, delighted. "And it is
+from this bald, hesitating speech that the whole language of Art has
+arisen. Then, all that preceded it was merely a lifeless copy of
+worn-out Byzantine models. Here, for the first time, was an artist who,
+out of the simplicity of his heart, went straight to Nature for what he
+had to say. For this reason he became the supreme master of them all.
+And to-day whoever may succeed in depicting with his brush the acme of
+joy and the acme of sorrow has to thank that little chapel."
+
+"I can well believe," cried Lilly, "that if the ocean had a source, and
+a man suddenly came upon it, he would feel as you did at Padua."
+
+He caught her arm with both hands in his excitement.
+
+"You have hit on the missing simile," he said, "and it is graphic
+enough to describe to the letter what took place within me. And yet
+another source was revealed to me all of a sudden, while I, with folded
+hands, made the tour of those walls. My work was there, leaping out of
+nothingness. I said to myself, 'You must write the History of Effects.'
+The effects, as Art, not only Creative Art, has created, seen, and
+represented them through the ages. Pictorial Art is only a part, you
+see; there are besides the elocutionary arts, poetry as well as
+painting, sculpture as well as music. It struck me that by adopting
+this method I might succeed in producing a real genuine record of the
+development of human emotions, which no historian, moralist, or
+psychologist has ever yet attempted. But why should it not be
+attempted? Material is hidden everywhere, and awaits elucidation just
+as fossils lie embedded in the rocks ready for the zoologist's hammer.
+Tell me what you think of my plan? Is it not worth a lifetime's
+labour?"
+
+"Indeed, I think it is," she said, with the same solemn air as before.
+Had she been requested at this moment to sacrifice her own life on the
+altar of his work, she would have done it without a moment's
+hesitation.
+
+"Ah! but there is a lot to think over first. One cannot start at a
+tangent," he continued. "Often Art leads us astray because she has
+deliberately tried to reflect something quite different from the spirit
+of her time. Whether she succeeded or not is another question. Often,
+too, the right channels of expression were lacking. Ah! you and I must
+have many, many more talks together. Don't look so horrified at the
+idea. Yes, my dear gracious one, I need you sorely. After this evening
+I can't do without you, for no one has ever listened to me so
+intelligently and sympathetically. And I have become such a stranger
+here, it's almost as if I were a foreigner. All the men I know are so
+wrapped up in their own interests that they hardly listen to me.
+Besides, I am conscious that my undertaking _is_ a little mad. But
+there is solace to be derived from that when one thinks how every great
+work is supposed to be a little mad till it is finished and has
+accomplished its aim. Of course, everyone thinks the same about his own
+work, and I shall get over the feeling in time. But during the period
+of wrestling, when every day I think I have found a new vein of gold,
+and perhaps have to reject it afterwards as dross, if I have nobody to
+whom I can pour out my soul, I get into such a muddle I feel fairly
+disheartened. And now fate has sent you to me, and the thought of you
+has prevented my sitting calmly at my desk; a voice has seemed to call
+me to come out and gaze across at your light. Well, now I have you, I
+won't let you go in a hurry. I shouldn't, God knows, be so bold if it
+were for myself alone, but it's for my work. It clamours for you. Good
+heavens! why are you crying?"
+
+She pressed the back of her hand against her eyes, and said, smiling at
+him, "I am not crying." But fresh tears gushed forth and dimmed the
+image of her loveliness.
+
+"I can understand what it is," he said regretfully. "I have been
+inconsiderate, and by talking so happily of my own work I have revived
+your grief about your old art. I am very sorry."
+
+She started back as if she had seen a ghost. Then, with a violent
+effort, she collected herself.
+
+"No, no; that isn't it. Really, it isn't," she assured him.
+
+But he persisted in reproaching himself, and his every word was a stab,
+when she thought of her own unworthiness.
+
+"Let us go," she begged. "So many conflicting feelings overwhelm me. I
+am both happy and unhappy.... Outside in the air I shall be calmer."
+
+It was long past midnight when they left the restaurant, A cold wind
+rippled the water and sighed among the bare branches.
+
+He offered her his arm, and she clung to it as if she had been at home
+there for countless ages. Neither spoke for some time.
+
+"In five minutes he'll be gone," she thought, and she could hardly bear
+the pain the threatened parting cost her.
+
+"I have it on my conscience," he said at last, "that I have made so
+much of my work in our conversation you will think me conceited. I know
+it's not of greater importance than hundreds of other people's. I
+believe that in nearly every vigorous-minded young manhood there is
+such a goal to strive for, and to point the way. One fellow may have a
+book to write, another a great business to work up, a third may have
+others dependent on him, and many find it as much as they can do to
+swim against the current. It's all the same thing. If we let ourselves
+drift, we're lost; and none of us want to be lost, do we?"
+
+"I think I lost myself long ago," she whispered, shuddering.
+
+He laughed out loud. "_You_, noblest, tenderest, best of women!"
+
+She knew how undeserved it all was, yet how sweet it was to hear him
+say it!
+
+They were now walking so close to each other that their cheeks nearly
+touched. She closed her eyes, drinking in the warm breath of the strong
+life beside her. She felt that without volition she was being carried
+away to unknown blissful regions. She only came to herself when they
+stood before her door.
+
+"When?" he asked.
+
+To-morrow she was not free. She had been invited out.
+
+The day after to-morrow?
+
+Yes, the day after to-morrow she would have the whole evening. He might
+call for her.
+
+Then, in fear that if she lingered she would say that she could
+see him to-morrow, she ran upstairs and hid her joy in the solitude of
+her rooms. She did not turn on the lights; the reflection of the
+street-lamps playing on the walls and the prisms of the chandelier was
+light enough.
+
+Then she began to roam through the open doors, from room to room, into
+the corner where the bed stood, round the dining-table, across the
+corner drawing-room into the cold guest-chamber where no guest had ever
+been, up and down, up and down, singing, weeping, exulting. And then
+out of her tears, her humming and rejoicing, words came suddenly:
+
+
+         "Come, my beloved, let us go forth into the field; let
+      us lodge in the villages. Let us get up early to the
+      vineyards."
+
+
+No, that was not exactly how it went. Something was not quite right;
+but she would find out what it was.
+
+She wrenched back the lid of the piano, which hadn't been opened for a
+long time, and, as if the neglected and silenced old keys had acquired
+a voice of their own, a perfect volume of sound rushed forth, which she
+could never have believed herself or the piano capable of producing.
+
+
+         "Let us see if the vine flourish, whether the tender
+      grape appear, and the pomegranates bud forth; there will
+      I give thee my loves."
+
+
+Yes, that was it! She had got it now--every bar, every note. Where had
+it hidden itself all these long years? It seemed like yesterday that
+she had sung it for the last time.
+
+And yet what worlds of suffering lay between!
+
+"No, not suffering! If it had been nothing but suffering," she thought,
+"'The Song of Songs' would never have become mute."
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XIII
+
+
+The next morning, on waking, new troubles faced her. Nobody could be so
+blind as not to detect, sooner or later, what a rotten existence hers
+was; least of all he whose refinement, at every spiritual contact,
+awoke in her an anxious echo. Even if she could keep from him every
+contamination of the world she lived in, and create in it an isolated
+platform on which to associate with him alone, would not her appearance
+at last betray her? All those nights of wild dissipation surely must
+have left some traces behind. It was two years ago that Dr. Salmoni had
+spoken of the "cold contempt" in her eyes.
+
+She jumped out of bed and ran to the looking-glass to subject every
+feature to a suspicious scrutiny. Her eyes had a tired look, it was not
+to be denied; but there was no contempt in their expression. _He_ had
+called them "Mary eyes," not Madonna eyes. Was there a difference, she
+wondered? There were a few faint lines on her forehead, but these she
+could almost rub out with her finger. A little massaging was all that
+was necessary. Worse were the lines on either side of her mouth, giving
+to her face a _blase_, rather haughty look.
+
+"The paths that devouring passion long has trod," she quoted from
+"Tannhaeuser in Rom," which she knew almost by heart.
+
+Yet, had she not preserved all that was best and deepest in her nature,
+as if she must guard it, for one who was to come into her life? And now
+that he had come, the _one_, it might perhaps be too late.
+
+The day passed in fretting and worrying, and when Richard appeared at
+tea-time he found her with red eyes. She learnt this afternoon what a
+treasure she possessed in Richard. He asked her so few questions, was
+so full of tactful solicitude, that for a few moments at least she felt
+comforted and sheltered. She was almost tempted to confide in him what
+she had gone through the last day or two. Was he not her kindest
+friend? Fortunately, however, she refrained. She would rather, on the
+whole, tell Adele, who on several occasions had let fall the
+encouraging remark that her mistress might place absolute confidence in
+her, as she knew life too well not to take the lady's part.
+
+Lilly, feeling that she could not endure any of "the crew" this
+evening, pleaded headache, and Richard did not grumble. But when night
+drew near she remembered that she had told Dr. Rennschmidt that she was
+going out, and in order not to be caught in a falsehood she hurriedly
+extinguished the light and sat brooding in the dark till bedtime.
+
+In the morning the first post brought her a letter addressed in an
+unknown hand. She broke the seal. Oh, God! What was this? Could these
+lines apply to her, to Lilly Czepanek, who was eating her heart out in
+morbid self-humiliation?
+
+If anyone on the face of the earth could think of her like this,
+especially he, the grandest and best of all--for these verses were his,
+without any manner of doubt, though there was no signature--then, after
+all, things were not going so badly with her. The life she led had not
+as yet entirely mastered her; the innermost core of her being remained
+unaffected; there must still be latent good in her, which if used might
+be a blessing to herself and to others.
+
+After she had learnt the verses by heart, she went on reading them over
+and over again, as she could not tear her eyes away from the beloved
+handwriting.
+
+Then she tried to set them to music. She opened the piano and
+improvised, and, as on the previous evening, her playing came back to
+her. Soon she could play once more all the things she had known years
+ago and long since forgotten. She just struck the notes and everything
+came back. But her fingers were stiff, and her wrists and the muscles
+of her forearm soon ached. She must exercise them and get them supple
+again. Then when he came to see her she would be able to play him
+something classical. This hope still further increased her new-born
+self-esteem, and she began to count the hours till evening.
+
+When Richard came in the afternoon he found her at the piano practising
+diligently.
+
+"What's come over you?" he asked. "I had no idea you could play so
+well."
+
+"Nor I," she replied, laughing.
+
+"You must show what you can do when we're out this evening."
+
+"This evening?" she exclaimed, horrified. "I thought that I was free
+this evening."
+
+"Free! I don't know what you mean by 'free,'" he answered irritably.
+"You talk as if our going out together were a sort of martyrdom. You
+get off whenever you can trump up an excuse. Only yesterday Karla was
+saying no one knew what you did with yourself when you were alone."
+
+"I should have thought that applied much more to Karla than to me," she
+replied. "No one even knows her real name."
+
+"That's nothing to do with it. She is not the only person who has
+remarked how reserved you are. I have been advised by a man to look
+after you a little more, and not let you go your own way so much. To
+shut them up I promised to bring you this evening instead of yesterday;
+and I must keep my word."
+
+Lilly quickly reflected that opposition to his wishes would not help
+her, and only give him further cause for suspicion, so she bravely
+choked back her tears and disappointment. But when he was gone she
+suffered all the more acutely, and her grief and despair knew no
+bounds.
+
+What would her new friend think of her if he came at the appointed time
+and found her not at home? She could not send a note to put him off,
+for he had not given her his address, and he would have twenty-four
+hours in which to think the worst of her.
+
+As a last resource she confided in Adele. Her dry, sour face brightened
+perceptibly, for deception of any kind was meat and drink to her. She
+proposed that the gracious mistress should say that she had been
+summoned to a friend's sick-bed. Such sad occurrences, she knew by
+experience, always appealed to gentlemen; and Lilly agreed to act on
+her advice.
+
+The round-table derived little amusement from her society that evening.
+She ignored the men and was rude to the ladies. Frau Jula, the only
+person she wanted to see, was absent, as she had been often of late.
+They soon left her to her own devices, and the worthy Richard, who had
+imagined he was going to show her music off, gnawed the ends of his
+moustache in helpless vexation.
+
+The next morning she again suffered torments. She had roused up Adele
+in the middle of the night, and learned that he had been and had gone
+away again, greatly perturbed.
+
+Another day passed in nervous counting of the hours. She stood before
+the glass and arrayed herself for him despondently. She would have
+liked to throw herself at his feet, but in spite of this she resolved
+to adopt a certain melancholy quiet dignity in her manner towards him,
+which would nip suspicion in the bud and make him feel that she tallied
+with the ideal depicted in his verses. Had he not in them termed her
+flighty, flirtatious head a "head divine"? The mere thought made her
+feel holy.
+
+At half-past seven the bell rang. She received him with a conventional
+"How do you do?" and smile; and the quiet melancholy hauteur, which she
+assumed, became her remarkably well, and effectually concealed her
+chagrin and anxiety.
+
+His manner, too, was not so composed and frank as usual. At a single
+glance she perceived it. His eyes wandered beyond her with a curiously
+vacant expression.
+
+"He guesses everything," a voice cried within her.
+
+But she knew how to control her feelings. "I must apologise," she said,
+"that I was unable to keep my appointment with you yesterday."
+
+"Is your friend better?" he inquired; and a smile of scornful
+incredulity played about his lips.
+
+She now said anything that came into her head, and although she did not
+look at him, she knew that he did not believe a syllable.
+
+"I also must apologise," he said, with the same covert scorn in smile
+and voice.
+
+"Why, Dr. Rennschmidt?"
+
+"I took the liberty of sending you a few verses, which I hope you
+accepted in the spirit in which they were written--merely as an
+exercise in style, without any special application or significance."
+
+"He is cooling already," her consciousness of guilt told her. And so
+all the colder and more unconcerned was her answer.
+
+"Your pretty lines did rather surprise me at first, as I couldn't
+conceive why they should be addressed to me, but afterwards it occurred
+to me that it might be what you have just said it was, and I did not
+mind. If you don't object, I would rather not talk about it any more."
+
+He gazed at her with eyes dilated from amazement, and she was glad that
+she had driven her thrust home with such bitterness.
+
+Next she asked him if he would have supper with her, as she wished to
+do the right thing, though nothing had been prepared for a guest.
+
+"I thought that I had been given permission to call for you and take
+you out," he said in a cold, disillusioned tone.
+
+She smiled graciously. "If you wish, I shall be happy to come," she
+said.
+
+In silence they descended the staircase, in silence they walked along
+the bank of the canal the same path that they had taken, in such
+rapturous proximity to each other, three evenings ago. They had been
+silent then, but what a different silence it had been from this.
+
+"What have you been doing the last few days?" she asked, for the sake
+of saying something.
+
+"Nothing special," he replied. He had been trying to write an article
+for a Munich art paper, to which he was a contributor, on the subject
+of the Siennese School outside Sienna. But he hadn't succeeded. His
+editor wouldn't be satisfied with his stuff.
+
+She read in his words a reproach to herself. Obviously he wished to
+imply that her entrance into his life was to blame. And when he asked
+to which restaurant she would like to go, she was so hurt that she
+begged to be excused.
+
+"I am neither hungry nor thirsty," she said, "and lights and people
+would jar on me."
+
+"If you would rather avoid people, we might perhaps turn into the
+Tiergarten?"
+
+She acquiesced; and if he had proposed plunging with him into the canal
+she would have consented even more readily.
+
+Before them stretched the roads of the park like long galleries with
+garish walls of electric light, between which one was obliged to run
+the gauntlet. The pedestrians who came towards them stared at this tall
+pair, as they passed, with cold impertinent curiosity.
+
+"This is worse than the crowded streets," she said. Her sore heart
+fluttered dully with excitement.
+
+He indicated a side path that was dark, and without speaking a word
+they dived into the benighted solitude. Above the dense canopy of
+branches the sky showed through rents in the clouds like tarnished
+metal, reflecting the city's glare. The glimmer of lamps from the great
+main avenues twinkled through the lattice-work of bare shrubs, and the
+bells of the electric tramways, shooting hither and thither at a short
+distance, sounded like repeated fire-alarms. Yet, here in the thickets
+of the park, stillness and darkness reigned. You felt as if you were
+being swallowed up by a sea of black oblivion. Every moment the silence
+grew more oppressive. Then, all at once, he hurried a step in front of
+her to bar her progress.
+
+"What is the matter?" she asked, frightened.
+
+"I am going to say something to you now," he began, "something which
+will either bring us together again, or estrange us more than ever--in
+fact, end everything.... I was too great a coward just now, and tried
+to prevaricate. When I said I did not mean my verses seriously I was
+not speaking the truth. I felt all that I wrote, only I felt it a
+thousand times more strongly. But I should have refrained from
+expressing my feelings.... I know now that it must have alarmed you. It
+has caused you to change your opinion of me. You may be thinking that I
+am a mere seeker of love adventures, who has tried to make capital out
+of your trust and confidence. I promise you, dear gracious one, never
+to annoy you by revealing my feelings again. But don't withdraw your
+friendship, I earnestly entreat you.... Please do not.... Think what
+will become of me if I lose you now!"
+
+Ah! so this was it! This! It was this deviation from an excess of
+reticence which had divided and stood between them. Oh, would to God
+there had been nothing else! She could not help herself; she just
+leaned against a tree and burst out crying. Her tears came with such
+force that her veil was soon drenched through and through. She had to
+throw it back and press her hands against her eyelids.
+
+"For God's sake, what is it?" she heard him ask in a voice quite husky
+from anxiety. "Have I wounded you so deeply? Is what I have said so
+bad? I will retract everything; only forgive me--you must forgive me!"
+
+When he thus asked her forgiveness for all the infinite joy he had
+given her, her passion leapt up and set her on fire. The pose of
+haughty dignity--aye, and her shame too--she cast to the winds; and
+with a groan of abandonment she flung her arms round his neck, pressed
+herself against him, and clung to his mouth with her lips and teeth.
+
+Under the onslaught of this wild and impure embrace he recoiled, and in
+thrusting her from him he dug his fingers deeply into the upper part of
+her arm. How it hurt, but how she liked it!
+
+"At last! at last!" her soul cried. Now he knew who and what she was,
+and how much she had to give him.
+
+When she gained command of herself again, she saw him leaning against
+the same tree from which she had sought support a moment before. His
+hat had fallen off, his eyes were closed. He was as pale and inanimate
+as death.
+
+For a moment all was still save for the clanging bells of the electric
+trams from the near distance.
+
+"Dearest, beloved," she whispered, stooping and leaning against his
+knees. "Wake up, darling; wake up and come."
+
+He opened his eyes and stared at her as if his wits were wandering.
+
+"Come, come!" she cried joyously. "Come away from here. Come home. I
+don't want to wander about any more here in the dark among the trees,
+or in the restaurants and streets. I want to go home. With you, with
+you!"
+
+He did not answer. He seemed quite distracted. A dull sense of guilt
+awoke in her, to be quickly drowned in exultation.
+
+"Come, come to me!"
+
+With both hands she drew him from the spot that had become the cradle
+of her happiness--and of his too. His happiness stunned him and robbed
+him of his senses; was there anything very extraordinary in that? When
+Lilly Czepanek, whom hundreds of men had wanted in vain, gave herself
+voluntarily it was enough to turn any man's brain. And as they made
+their way through avenues and streets she poured out her pent-up soul
+to him in an avalanche of chatter.
+
+Didn't he realise what unheard-of folly it was for him to cherish any
+doubts? From the very first moment she had been his. A miracle had been
+worked for both of them. Never had she known what love really was till
+the day when she had whistled to the squirrels skirmishing above their
+heads.... Life had been nothing to her since then.... There was nothing
+in the world that mattered except him--him and his eyes, his mouth, his
+great purpose, his splendid wonderful work, for which she was ready to
+work like a galley slave, and which she would enrich with her love; for
+in his researches amongst ancient pictures and books he could gather
+nothing but the grey ashes of love. She could teach him--she, Lilly
+Czepanek--what true fresh young love meant; she who had been waiting
+for him ever since she could remember. Had she not belonged to him
+before the world began? God had meant them for each other. Nothing
+could be clearer than that, because they had both felt that they had
+met each other before. And so they had, in some dream-life. Yes, they
+had met in their dreams, for she had dreamed of him always--always. It
+was all just like what one read of in fairy-tales.
+
+"Perhaps it is a fairy-tale! You--you whose Christian name I don't
+even know yet--but what does that matter? Say, say it is _not_ a
+fairy-tale."
+
+But he said nothing. He walked on like a man walking in his sleep. He
+followed her mechanically up her staircase, and stood stiffly under the
+chandelier in the middle of the corner drawing-room, into which she had
+led him, gazing round him in shy uncertainty, as if he had never been
+in the room, and was puzzled to know how he had got there.
+
+She clasped him to her playfully, saying he should rest and close his
+eyes. Then she helped him off with his overcoat, forced him into an
+arm-chair, and kissed his eyes till his lids drooped and he lay there
+as if really asleep.
+
+"Rest there, beloved, till I come back," she said.
+
+And away she ran, bursting with joyous excitement, to the kitchen to
+tell Adele to get supper as soon as possible. Next, she hurried into
+her room and changed the rustling silk she was wearing for a pale-blue
+tea-gown with turquoise embroideries, in which Richard used gallantly
+to declare she looked like Venus herself. She loosened her hair to make
+it look more curly, and took off all her rings. A single plain gold
+bracelet was her only ornament.
+
+The sulky Adele, who had transformed the table like magic into a
+flower-garden, was actually beaming, for at last it seemed as if a
+little human comedy was to come off in this dully respectable,
+disorderly household. The plate gleamed on the clean damask cloth, and
+golden-yellow bananas and pears sent forth a fragrance from the
+dessert-dishes.
+
+He ought to be as satisfied as she was. Her heart beat normally now;
+she had lost all fear. She would have felt like a conquering heroine if
+she had not been so humble in her joy. One thing she could be proud of,
+and that was, she had so much, so very much to give him.
+
+When she went into the drawing-room again, she found him no longer
+resting in the arm-chair. He was standing at the writing-table,
+absorbed in contemplating Richard's photograph, to her great
+discomposure. If only she had thought of slipping it into a drawer; but
+now it was too late. He let his eyes glide over her Venus draperies in
+perplexity; then he caught hold of both her hands.
+
+"Why have you made yourself so beautiful for me?" he asked.
+
+"I wanted you to feel just a little bit at home here," she said,
+letting her eyes fall. "Nothing more. Now come to supper. You know
+we've had nothing to eat this evening."
+
+"Eat and drink _now_ ... But I will sit with you at the table, if you
+like, while you eat."
+
+"Then I won't have anything, either," she said, putting her arm round
+his neck and drawing him so closely to her that the pressure almost
+took her breath away.
+
+Peterle, the small monkey, who had been asleep in his corner, now woke,
+and made a little jealous whimper as he stretched his grey hands
+through the bars as if to plead his right to be a third in the compact.
+
+The strange sound made the guest start.
+
+Lilly smilingly reassured him. "After supper I must introduce you to my
+little people. My friends must be your friends, you know."
+
+He drew himself up. "How can you? What would you introduce me as?" he
+asked.
+
+"Oh no!" Lilly protested; "I did not mean anything of that kind. I only
+meant ..." She couldn't say what.
+
+Then she felt her arm clasped in his trembling fingers. His eyes burned
+into hers.
+
+"Who are you?" he asked.
+
+She felt a little giddy. "Who am I? ... I am a woman who loves you as
+you have never been loved by anyone."
+
+He passed his hands over her shoulders in a grateful caress. "I must
+make you understand me clearly," he said. "I don't want to force your
+confidence. But when two beings have stood as near to each other as we
+have during the last hour, they naturally want to know everything there
+is to know. I have never met a woman in the least like you before. I am
+quite ignorant, for the one or two little experiences I have had count
+as nothing. In Rome a baker's daughter was in love with me, but she ran
+away with a marquis. In my student days I had a few other affairs of
+the kind. That is all. I have been in society very little. And now, all
+at once, here I am with you in my arms--you, the most glorious and
+perfect thing I have ever seen in my life! A woman who hardly seems to
+belong to this world at all.... I cannot take my eyes off you in your
+blue _peplus_.... You stand there the image of an antique statue, a
+masterpiece of Lysippus or Praxiteles come to life. And I am to call
+that mine? Why, the mere thought is sheer tragedy. We are both making
+for a precipice without an attempt to save ourselves."
+
+"Why should we?" she cried, throwing back her head in ecstasy, as if
+she were tossing back a bacchante's wild locks. "We love each other,
+and nothing else matters."
+
+He sank into the chair next her, and with dry tearless sobs buried his
+face in his two hands. She knelt down in front of him, and bending
+forward planted little fugitive kisses on his clenched hands.
+
+"No!" he cried, springing up again, "this must not be. I must not let
+myself be driven into a false position. You may think as you do, and be
+willing to sacrifice all that you have and are--very well. But I, who
+am to accept such infinite goodness--I must speak out, so that you will
+be quite clear for whom you are doing it. I must not leave open a
+shadow of a possibility of your being misled. I am a poor young chap
+living on his uncle's bounty. I have no prospects, for my great work is
+still in embryo, and the articles I write are nothing to speak of. I
+have still to win by unremitting toil a _pied-a-terre_ in life. It may
+take me ten years.... I could never submit to being supported by you.
+You must think what you will of me, but I say now, once for all, that a
+marriage between us is out of the question."
+
+At first she could hardly believe her ears. Here was someone
+so-unworldly, so naive and ingenuous, as actually to mention marriage
+seriously in Lilly Czepanek's corner drawing-room! Then she laughed
+shrilly, in scorn of her shameless life.
+
+"Do you take me for an adventuress who inveigles men into her net?" she
+cried, jumping to her feet. "Do you take me for a harpy?"--Frau Jula's
+expression came back to her--"a harpy who tries to catch every person
+she chances to meet? Am I such a miserable wretch?"
+
+He stared at her face with an astonished, uncomprehending glance.
+
+"The woman who loves a man and desires to give him his crowning
+happiness is not a 'miserable wretch,'" he said.
+
+Ah, then he really meant it!
+
+She thought of the days when she had still been innocent enough to wish
+she was Richard's wife. How long ago was that? She must have sunk low
+indeed for this most natural relationship between man and woman to
+appear so strange to her!
+
+She shuddered and felt she was turning pale. What if he had noticed?
+She could bear anything but that. Shrinking from his searching eyes,
+she replied timidly:
+
+"I only wanted you to understand that you are free, and can always be
+free. You can go when you like, at any time, and have nothing to fear."
+
+"And you?" he asked.
+
+"What about me?"
+
+"In what position should I leave you if I went?"
+
+"Oh, that would be my lookout," she exclaimed, laughing.
+
+That was such a remote contingency, why should they worry about it
+to-day? But he was not satisfied.
+
+"There is something inscrutable about you. A touch of mystery.... How
+shall I put it? Some wrong seems to cast a shadow upon you.... You say
+that you go into society a great deal, yet I cannot get over the
+feeling that you are lonely and perhaps unprotected. When I try to
+penetrate farther into your soul, I feel that in some way or other you
+have been harshly dealt with.... From now onwards I shall stand by you
+as protector and adviser, but I am handicapped in being so ignorant of
+the world and its ways. It might happen that with every good intention
+I should only increase the mischief.... And I don't want to do that,
+because to me you are hallowed. So I beg of you now to tell me as much
+as you feel you can and may, of all that you have lived through and
+suffered. Will you?"
+
+She felt now that evasion was no longer possible. The hour of which she
+had been in dread and had tried to postpone indefinitely had sounded.
+Again a phrase of Frau Jula's came into her mind: "The way back to the
+community of all the virtues is only made by lying."
+
+With lying she had begun, with lying she must continue. For a moment
+the wish rose in her heart to tell him the whole truth, but that would
+be insane folly, absolutely suicidal. After all, it was not necessary
+to lie. She had only to put a different complexion on her life's story,
+to tell it as if it had been what to-day she would like it to appear.
+
+"I'll turn down the lights," she said, and extinguished the
+crystal-white flames of the chandelier, leaving only the rose-shaded
+standard lamp to cast a subdued glow on their corner.
+
+His hands in hers, leaning her head against his shoulder, she began her
+whispered and halting confession.
+
+She told him of her sheltered, merry childhood, free from care and full
+of music, which played the part of both fairy and demon in her youth;
+of her father's flight and the beginning of poverty and desperate
+struggles. So far she had withheld nothing, perverted nothing. Even the
+colonel was not altered, except that from habit she now and again
+promoted him to the rank of general. Only, when Walter von Prell came
+into the picture for the second time, it seemed inevitable that fresh
+colours should be mixed on the palette; for she would, without doubt,
+descend rapidly in her friend's esteem if she owned that she had
+abandoned herself body and soul in light-hearted frivolity to a little
+ne'er-do-well. So she made of that incorrigible rascal an ill-fated
+laughing young hero, who had only been vanquished because all the
+powers were ranged against him.
+
+Once started, the rest was smooth sailing. She invented a touching
+farewell scene, taking place amidst a thousand vows of faithfulness,
+floods of tears, and promised bridal prospects. The horrors of the
+duel, of which she had never taken the trouble to find out the
+particulars, were exaggerated to such a degree that her lover emerged
+from it an incurable cripple. He had set steam for America, firmly
+resolved not to turn up again in the old country till he was in a
+position to expiate his misdeed by marrying her; and he had in the
+meantime confided her as a sacred trust to his friend, a worthy,
+excellent young man, whose character was made up of nobility and
+unselfishness. It was the latter who, out of regard for the unhappy
+banished lover, had four years ago taken her fate into his keeping,
+kept watch over her, and introduced her into society. He had also, with
+rare tact and unselfishness, managed for her the little fortune saved
+from her days of affluence, and given her the support of his valuable
+advice and assistance in all questions concerning her everyday
+practical life. He came every day at tea-time to inquire courteously
+after her health, and he sometimes escorted her home from a theatre or
+social gathering, and had a cigarette afterwards. His circle of friends
+had become hers, and everyone they knew honoured and respected their
+relationship, as it was based on high-souled loyalty to his friend
+abroad.
+
+Thus Lilly Czepanek related her story with so much conviction that she
+almost began to believe it herself. And was it not a fair enough
+account of her life, as Richard had represented it before her descent
+to the depths on the night of the Kellermann carnival?
+
+She did not mention either Kellermann or Dr. Salmoni, or make any
+reference to "the crew," which was natural enough; but she spoke of her
+ill-fated art with tears and regret, and said it should be for the last
+time. She wished never to allude to it again.
+
+When she had finished speaking and looked up at him with a feeling of
+relief, expecting to receive his absolution, she was startled at the
+change in his face. He had turned a deathly hue, his feverish eyes were
+cast up to the ceiling, and there were deep lines of pain in his
+cheeks.
+
+"Doesn't he believe me?" flashed through her brain.
+
+He sprang up, seized Richard's photograph, which stood on the
+escritoire in a frame, and brought it close to the light of the shaded
+lamp.
+
+She knew that he was thinking of Walter, and said, "That is not his
+photograph."
+
+"Who is it, then?"
+
+"His friend ... the manufacturer."
+
+Disappointed, he threw the frame on one side. "Have you no picture of
+_him_?"
+
+Yes ... she had, but where was it? The big pastel portrait was in the
+attic; the smaller photograph she must have crammed away in some
+drawer.
+
+"I put it away," she said apologetically; "I could not bear seeing it
+before me every day."
+
+The reason was not very clear. He could, if he liked, interpret it as
+her growing love for him. Yet, how pitiable and ludicrous it all was!
+She would rather have thrown herself at his feet, and cried, "Forgive
+... forgive. Take me as I am; don't cast me off!" Instead, she was
+obliged to go on lying, disgracefully, desperately, like a common
+adventuress on the verge of being found out.
+
+"Will you mind very much if I ask you to look for the photograph?"
+
+"Oh, my beloved! Why do you torment yourself?"
+
+"Please look for it," he said.
+
+Further resistance was not to be thought of. She fetched the key of the
+escritoire, unlocked and opened the drawers at random, and searched
+wildly, hardly seeing what she was doing, among the papers. Ah, here it
+was! She hadn't looked at it for years. Imperiously and vindictively
+the light-lashed eyes glanced at her as much as to say: "Cheat, lie,
+and swindle. I have done it too."
+
+"This is it," she said.
+
+He took it to the light, stared long and earnestly at the features. His
+lips twitched, and he jerked the photograph nervously as he held it in
+his hand.
+
+"Just as I once stood before the photograph of the young orphaned
+heiress," she thought; but that was long ago.
+
+Then she heard his voice asking hoarsely, "Will you answer a single
+question, which is of vital importance to me?"
+
+"Ask anything you like, dearest."
+
+"Are you still building on the return of this young man?"
+
+Where did the question lead? She felt she only had to say "No" to break
+down all obstacles. But if she did, the tale she had been telling her
+friend about Walter would be utterly without sense or meaning, and who
+could tell then if his suspicions would not at last be aroused?
+
+So she steered a middle course, and said, "Often I am inclined to
+doubt"--she hesitated over her words. "You see, I am waiting for two
+... There's my father, who seems to have vanished for ever.... I never
+hear from him either."
+
+"And you feel yourself bound to him still?"
+
+She felt the noose tightening about her neck.
+
+"Answer me."
+
+There was something in his tone that abolished every loophole of
+escape. She felt that it was a matter of life and death. She held up
+her arms as if taking a solemn oath.
+
+"Since I have known you, I don't care one way or the other. If you wish
+me to be faithful to him, then I will wait for him ... till the crack
+of doom; if you would rather I threw him over, I will do that too."
+
+He laid his head back and closed his eyes. He stood now exactly as he
+had done in the dark bit of the park. And she felt the same anxiety on
+his behalf. "Why will he torture himself so?" she thought. And it
+occurred to her for the first time that he was taking her and
+everything she said in earnest; that he, to whom loyalty was a law,
+expected loyalty from her in the natural course of things. Ah, how
+little he knew!
+
+She was so deeply ashamed of herself that she dared not question or
+come near him.
+
+He drew himself up with a powerful effort, and she saw the cloud of
+wrath on his brow that had awed her the first day of their
+acquaintance.
+
+"Listen," he said. "After what you have been telling me, I see that I
+was on a wrong tack. You are not lonely and forsaken, the world has not
+sinned against you. On the contrary, you are protected and cared for,
+and have a future, however uncertain, to look forward to. You would
+lose all this through me. His friend would not, of course, continue his
+support if he heard anything about me. And it would be the same with
+the others, who at present constitute your world."
+
+She wanted to shriek with laughter, to whistle her contempt of all that
+had made up her life hitherto, but the sound was stifled in her throat.
+She recollected in time that to snap her fingers at her past might
+precipitate a catastrophe, which would expose the misery of her
+position. To him she might only belong in dark, secret hours.
+
+"And what have I to offer you in compensation?" he continued. "Nothing.
+My work is still in the clouds. I am not even sure of myself. And when
+I think of this last hour----" He broke off and turned his eyes away.
+
+"Then you don't love me?" she said in a depressed tone.
+
+He flung himself on her chair, so that kneeling on the cushions he
+could encircle her waist with his hands.
+
+"My God! be merciful! You see what I am enduring; don't make it harder.
+I should always be repeating to myself, every day and every hour, 'Over
+in America there's a fellow working himself to death for her.... He
+doesn't write because he is ashamed to confess how his maimed body is
+standing in his way and bringing all his enterprises to naught' ... at
+least, I can think of no other reason for his silence--for no man could
+forget a woman like you. Meanwhile, I have stolen you from him, and sit
+here with you in my arms.... I don't know ... the idea of a man leading
+a profligate life does not shock me ... but to rob a poor hard-working
+cripple of his all ... I think the meanest scoundrel in creation would
+draw the line at that.... I know I shall never get over it, but"--he
+collapsed, hitting his head against the arm of the chair, and
+sobbed--"better to part now, at once, on the spot, than wait till it is
+too late for both of us."
+
+The blow had fallen. Cleverly as she thought she had garbled her story,
+she was caught in her own net.
+
+"You mean that you will--oh God!" she cried.
+
+He got up. "Good-bye," he said, "good-bye, and thank you. Do not think
+too harshly of me."
+
+"If I tell him the truth now, it'll only make him go all the faster,"
+she thought, looking round her helplessly.
+
+His hands were held out waiting for hers; his eyes drank her in, as if
+by so doing he could imprint her image on his heart for ever.
+
+"I will put myself in front of the door," she thought. "I will throw
+myself on him and suffocate him with kisses."
+
+But the desire not to sink in his estimation made her timid and
+faint-hearted.
+
+"Don't go yet," she besought him, clinging to his hands. "Stay one more
+hour, just one--a farewell hour."
+
+He disengaged himself gently, and turned to the door.
+
+She stood in the middle of the room, drawn up to her full height, the
+wide sleeves of her blue Venus drapery fell back from her arms,
+displaying their matured beauty, as she held them out to him
+beseechingly.
+
+"If he sees me like this," she thought, "he will yet be mine."
+
+But he did not look back. He staggered, and knocked his forehead
+against the panel of the door as he opened it; and then all at once it
+seemed as if he were wiped off the face of the earth, and with him
+light and everything.... A swarm of bees rose buzzing into the air, and
+in the darkness that suddenly surrounded her the floor sank deeper and
+always deeper towards the canal waters ... a hatchet struck her on the
+head and then all was over.
+
+
+                           *   *   *   *   *
+
+
+At first it sounded like a twittering of birds, then like the murmur of
+an enormous crowd in a wide sunny square, and then there were only
+two voices left: a man's voice and a woman's whispering eagerly
+together--the old cook, Grete, and the manservant with the impudent
+twinkle in his eye. Yes, of course, it was they. The colonel would come
+in immediately and ask her to be his wife. At the same instant she felt
+something cool, damp, and soothing on her aching head. Just as she had
+felt that night.... "Am I to live through it all again?" she thought,
+startled, and she began to cry, and entreat, "Oh, please, Herr Colonel,
+let me go. I am far too bad a girl for you. Oh, dear Herr Colonel!"
+
+"Good God! she is delirious," said the masculine voice, which was
+certainly not that of the impudent manservant.
+
+Ah! how comforting it was to lie under the magic of this voice, in
+which a note of homeliness quivered.
+
+"So he hasn't gone, after all," she thought, and leaned back
+contentedly on her cushion, which had been placed on the carpet as a
+support for her neck. If she had known his Christian name, she would
+have called him by it now. But she was still ignorant of it, even after
+all that had passed between them. What a shame it was! She could only
+put out her arms a little towards him in silence. He was already
+kneeling beside her, stroking her hands.
+
+She must keep quiet, absolutely quiet.
+
+"Will everything be all right now?" she asked, smiling up at him in
+bliss.
+
+Yes, yes; everything. Ways and means must be found of seeing each other
+often as friends, as brother and sister. No; there should be no
+parting, no separation. No one was bound to inflict such hideous
+torture on himself as that.
+
+She thought with a shudder of the moment when darkness had gathered in
+around her, and she had sunk into the mire. So would her life always
+have been without him. But now, as brother and sister, they were free
+to greet in light-hearted joyousness a new dawn.
+
+Such happiness was almost inconceivable.
+
+She groped for his arm, and pillowed her cheek in the palm of his hand
+with a deep-drawn happy sigh. But Adele, who had all this time been
+discreetly looking out of the window, now interposed with the
+suggestion that a fresh compress was needed, as the wound in her
+mistress's forehead was still bleeding. And so it was adjusted.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XIV
+
+
+In human development each spring, as it comes round, has its particular
+significance and associations. Every spring finds a man different;
+every one opens old wounds anew, and sounds hidden depths. Sometimes it
+passes like a stupid unprofitable game, because he himself is feeling
+stupid and unprofitable; others torment him with a thousand futile
+admonitions, because he is utterly unable to render account to his own
+conscience. Sometimes spring finds him barren and clogged, like ground
+that cannot recover from the ravages of winter. And, again, spring
+carols deceptive songs of liberation and redemption in a man's heart,
+as if it was in its power to liberate and redeem. But the most
+beautiful manifestation of spring is when we are scarcely aware of it,
+because its budding and sprouting is but symbolic of the jubilant
+stirring of spring within us, the widening and growth of our being
+spiritually.
+
+Such a spring now dawned for Lilly. Everything seemed to wear a new
+face. The early sunshine had never before cut such grotesque little
+capers on the wall, never had there been such ravishing violet
+twilights at the end of rainy days, never had people worn such hopeful
+festive looks as they passed her, never had the din of street traffic
+sounded so full of an infectious revelling in activity.
+
+Yes, and all at once she too found no end of things to do. Every hour
+was full of delightful and urgent engagements. If anyone had told her
+during the last few years that she would ever again, with burning
+cheeks and a feverish brain, get up dates, quotations, historical
+allusions, and foreign words, she would have laughed at them.
+
+But now, whatever she did, she must not idle. As that time she had been
+ready with her answer about Giotto, so she must always have a response
+on the tip of her tongue when it was expected of her. All her eagerness
+to learn, which had been quenched in her for years by a feeling of
+isolation and uselessness, now streamed forth anew. And her mind--like
+a starved and uncultivated pasture--absorbed everything it was offered
+with an insatiable maw. It demanded hardly an effort to commit things
+to memory; she had only to imagine that she was quoting to him, and
+lines remained with her.
+
+She managed it all with the utmost secrecy, for Konrad--yes, that was
+his name, Konrad; he was called Konrad--must not suspect that her
+knowledge was brand-new and fresh from the mint. She sneaked alone to
+the museums and picture galleries because she wanted him to think she
+had been at home in them from time immemorial. Then she practised up
+several pieces of old music that might be of use to him in his work.
+And often did she bless her father's rigid discipline, which had kept
+her at the piano till late in the night.
+
+They saw a great deal of each other. He came every other evening as a
+regular thing. He avoided the afternoons, knowing that they were
+devoted to the friend of her fiance, but often in the middle of the day
+he bounded up the stairs with a book or a flower, and begged for a
+little music. He never would stay to lunch, however warmly she pressed
+him. For the most part he was not at his ease in her flat; he would
+walk up and down restlessly, look at his watch and then hurry off. At
+first she was hurt, and asked him teasingly if he thought he was in the
+enemy's country when he came to see her. But, of course, she did not
+yet thoroughly understand him. Every day revealed some new and unusual
+trait in his character.
+
+He was still extremely young, not only in years. She had known many
+callous, _blase_ old men of twenty-five--which was his age. His youth
+was within him. His thoughts were young and passionate, and she had
+never met anyone who expended so much care on mere thinking. His ideas
+seemed to be to him tangible beings, with whom he had to come to grips
+and either hug to his heart or spurn with his foot. Friends or enemies
+to him were all the great thinkers and creators of other times. He
+associated with them as with masters and comrades; defied them or
+despised them; submitted reverently to their teaching, or made fun of
+them.
+
+His thought and his conversation were a perpetual flow of antitheses
+and a whirl of paradoxes, a forcible pushing forward of research, a
+ruthless sport. He could not be neutral or indifferent. He saw in
+everything problems that cried out for solution, questions of urgency
+in which it was necessary to take sides. He loved or he hated; there
+was no middle course for him.
+
+She followed him and hung on his lips, with all the fervour of a
+disciple and lover. She annexed his ideas, and let them take root or
+die off in her mind as chance willed it. She had such riches to choose
+from that one more or less did not matter.
+
+Of his personal affairs he talked very little. Not because he was
+reserved or lacking in confidence, but because he deemed them of no
+importance or interest. Lilly had to drag everything out of him, bit by
+bit.
+
+The image of his parents had faded with time, though he still cherished
+an enthusiastic regard for their memory. For him his uncle had stood in
+the place of parents, the rich parvenu and man of the world, whose heir
+he would ultimately be, and to whom he now owed his freedom from sordid
+cares about money.
+
+She could not quite make up her mind what their relations were to each
+other. Often he spoke as if he loved the old man tenderly, but at other
+times a hardness, even bitterness, crept into his judgment of him,
+showing that their natures were diametrically opposed, and there was a
+lack of harmony between them.
+
+His friends were few--mostly old fellow-students, who went their own
+way--and he had no experience of family life. Thus he was able to
+bestow on Lilly all his free hours.
+
+They met frequently in restaurants, oftenest in the little Italian
+wine-shop, where they wondered when the waiter turned out the lights,
+as it seemed to them that they had only just come.
+
+Now and then they bought their supper at the butcher's and baker's for
+a few pence, and, laughing over their purchases, shook the dust of the
+town off their feet and retired to the Tiergarten. There they looked
+for an empty seat off the beaten track of the wide avenues, but not too
+lonely and remote. It was not till loving pairs began to wander by,
+like shades from the nether world, that they felt they were hidden and
+unseen. If a couple sat down beside them, they were sure to get up
+again soon, for they needed the night and darkness more urgently than
+these two.
+
+Then, when the pale-green lacework of leaves, which appeared quite
+detached from the grey branches, darkened gradually into a shadowy
+black ragged outline, when the fire of the evening sky toned down into
+the purple of night, when the nightingale--often only a few yards
+away--burst into song, then they watched shoulder to shoulder the stars
+come out one by one and illumine the twilight, which night after night
+became longer. Then their thoughts rose on wings to pictures and music,
+to sagas of the North and Italian olive-groves. Then questions of
+mystery and solemnity were mooted, hesitatingly and fearfully, and
+answered promptly with the charity and cocksureness of a joyous young
+scepticism.
+
+Lilly was left in no uncertainty as to his opinion about the
+immortality of the soul, the origin of the universe, and God Almighty.
+Often she felt as if she were left shivering alone in a vast icy-cold
+wilderness where there was no All-loving Father, no hope of an
+after-life, and much less of a St. Joseph.
+
+"Your creed, then, is simply atheism?" she asked nervously.
+
+"If you like to call it so, yes," he replied, laughing.
+
+She felt forthwith bound to become an atheist too--one of those who in
+the eyes of Holy Church must roast for all eternity in the depths of
+hell. But if he could exist under the bann of excommunication, so could
+she. Her only regret was for St. Joseph.
+
+How long it was since she had given her dear saint a thought!
+Nevertheless, it would be a pity if she could never run to him again
+with her joys and sorrows--at least, never without feeling ashamed of
+herself--especially now when her soul was burdened with so many new and
+varied experiences. There was nothing restful and soothing in the high
+art that Konrad unfolded before her; rather did she feel perpetually
+stimulated and goaded on to further delights and excitements.
+
+Together they listened to all the great orchestral works the spring
+produced. They heard the Eroica, Brahm's Second Symphony, and a gem of
+Grieg's beyond expression beautiful. At concerts they joined the crowd
+in the cheap places, which they both loved; their hands, touching as if
+by accident, telegraphed with a slight pressure the vibrations of their
+souls' sympathy with some subtle passage of hidden beauty. Oh, what
+hours those were! And then those other hours which they spent high up
+among the "gods" at theatres, where they were far out of sight of "the
+crew." With Shakespeare's deathless characters, and Wagner's legendary
+heroines passing before her, how intensely did she realise the wretched
+barrenness of her previous life!
+
+They did not neglect the modern drama either. Of all the plays he took
+her to, "Rosmersholm" moved her most deeply--she, with her load of
+concealed guilt, was the counterpart of Rebecca; he in his unsuspecting
+purity was Rosmer. His high-toned emotional life had, as it happened in
+the play, an ever-stronger and more elevating influence on hers. But
+what if the garbage in which her existence had its being should
+gradually revert from her on to him, would she not then be his evil
+genius and destroyer? The thought was intolerable. Even while the play
+was going on she cried so bitterly that she attracted the attention of
+people sitting near her, and Konrad proposed taking her out, but she
+indignantly refused to go.
+
+Still sobbing and supported by his arm, she tottered home along the
+bank of the river, a path he had chosen because it was quieter and
+darker than the main street. When they came to the bridge across the
+Spree, she stopped, and seemed fascinated by the black waters below. He
+let her be, till she began to climb up the railed parapet to see "what
+it felt like." Then he pulled her down by force from her dangerous
+position.
+
+"Why shouldn't I?" she thought. "When he knows all, I shall be bound to
+go down there and alone."
+
+After that evening, more anxiously than ever did she devote herself
+daily and hourly to keeping the slightest breath of suspicion from him.
+She was not ashamed of her great ignorance, which she combated with all
+her might, but it was the loose, cynical tone to which intercourse with
+"the crew" had habituated her that she lived in terror of disclosing in
+conversation.
+
+She braced up what had become lax in her by resuscitating the remnants
+of the good manners and breeding she had once practised, and so it came
+about that she recaptured a good deal of that inner dignity of spirit
+which she had assumed at the outset of her relations with Konrad. Only
+now it was not the mere empty acting of an affected _role_, but the
+outcome of all that her nature still possessed of nobility and
+refinement. Much that had recently dominated her mind became absolutely
+unintelligible to her, especially the tendency caught from her circle
+of regarding everything from an erotic point of view. Amazed, she saw,
+beyond the narrow sphere in which she had revolved, world after world
+opening, so full of glorious and beautiful things to be enjoyed that
+she had hardly time to bemoan and feel ashamed of the past.
+
+It was true that when she remembered how she had been bold enough to
+kiss him, hot shame crept over her. She could not help being afraid
+that her behaviour on that occasion must ever remain a blot on his
+image of her. Yet there was not the smallest sign either in word or
+look that he did not reciprocate the reverence and esteem which she
+cherished for him. And this mutual respect always seemed to hang
+between them like a veil, obscuring the beloved one's features in a
+vertigo of happy fears which, however, robbed of their sting her
+self-reproaches for her failings.
+
+There was to be no mention of love between them. Instead, they carried
+on a tender, almost shy, brother and sister comradeship. The word
+"friendship" was constantly occurring in their conversation; they
+extolled its sacred influence with grave faces without exactly
+understanding what they meant by it.
+
+It was hard for her to endure his actual presence. The only caress that
+Konrad permitted himself from time to time was, when they were sitting
+together, to lay his right arm lightly on her shoulder. Though she
+would then have gladly drawn closer to him, she finally moved further
+away, unable to bear the torture of restraint. She never dared
+contemplate for a moment the remotest prospect of their being actually
+lovers. At night, when she couldn't sleep, she was content with
+picturing herself dozing on his shoulder; that was in itself supreme
+bliss enough; her imagination hardly ever strayed into forbidden
+preserves. It was as if her girlhood's modesty, which the sensuality of
+her old husband had so rudely outraged, had come back to throw a
+merciful shroud over her trembling soul. And all the wealth of golden
+thoughts and virginal sensations, the fairy-tale glamour that common
+things irradiated, the amusing importance of every tiny event, the
+delightful expectancy of hoping for she knew not what--all this was
+girlish, and reminded her of long-vanished and forgotten days.
+
+If she had but known a single human being to whom she could have
+confided all this happiness and folly, how glad it would have made her!
+This desire to tell someone became at last almost uncontrollable. More
+than once she had only just checked herself in time, and nearly told
+Richard her secrets, risking thereby a disastrous ending.
+
+One day she plucked up heart and journeyed to the south of Berlin to
+tell her former landlady some of the experiences she was passing
+through. The old friendship between them had never quite ceased. Even
+if they rarely saw each other, Lilly had taken care, by sending
+frequent greetings and little presents, to keep herself alive in Frau
+Laue's affectionate remembrance.
+
+The present "young lady" tenant of the best room opened the door to
+her.
+
+Frau Laue sat as usual at the long white work-table, with her damp
+finger-tips tapping energetically among the heaps of pressed flowers
+and the paper lamp-shade lappels. She did not stop tapping when Lilly
+sat down beside her, and pushed the offering of sweets that she never
+forgot to bring in front of her.
+
+"No, thank you, child," she said. "Every sweet I bite is a flower the
+less. The likes of us can only afford to eat sweets on holidays. We
+have no one, you see, to give us everything heart can desire and keep
+us like princesses. I would like to change places with you for a day,
+before I go down to my grave, just to see what it feels like to have
+nothing to do but go for walks in the morning and feed a pair of
+goldfish."
+
+"Is that your idea of happiness?" exclaimed Lilly, with a sigh.
+
+"You are never beginning to complain of your lot!" cried Frau Laue
+indignantly. "If I were you I should thank the Lord every hour for
+having given me such a friend."
+
+"And you think there is nothing more to wish for?" asked Lilly.
+
+"What more can anyone want?" she scolded, still tapping. "You can't
+expect him to marry you now. And marriage isn't an enviable estate
+after anyone has gone through the mill you have.... He's sure to make
+you a handsome allowance if you behave yourself, and you'll never
+suffer want to the end of your days."
+
+"So all my hopes are to be centred, then, on a pension?" demanded
+Lilly.
+
+"Well, why not?"
+
+"I can think of other more desirable objects in life."
+
+"What are they then, eh? Work? Just try it! See what it is to work,
+after living by your emotions for years.... Or perhaps you're thinking
+of taking up with another lover? You'd have a fine time of it if you
+did. Take my advice, child, and never do that, or you'll deserve to
+paste flowers like me, sixteen hours a day till you die."
+
+And while she went on ceaselessly pasting one dried plant after another
+on the gummed paper, she continued to lecture and admonish Lilly
+severely.
+
+Lilly got up to go with a little shiver. Here she had nothing to hope
+for, that was evident. She looked round her, feeling suddenly as if it
+was all strange to her, and said to herself, "I don't think I shall
+ever come here again."
+
+
+                           *   *   *   *   *
+
+
+The next morning the tormenting desire to unburden her heart to some
+sympathetic ear awoke in her more strongly than ever, and she bethought
+her of Frau Jula.
+
+The clever flighty little woman had been holding aloof from the set
+for some time. No one seemed to know what she was doing; even her
+red-headed admirer had no information to give, and was shy of talking
+about her. Still, Lilly felt sure that the sympathy she needed would be
+forthcoming if she could find her out.
+
+The smart, yellow satin little nest that the red-headed one had fitted
+up for her near Unter den Linden was deserted. The porter told Lilly
+that the "gnaedige Frau" had recently moved into the suburbs, as she had
+become nervous of the town. Lilly smiled and asked for her address,
+which was written down for her on a card, and then she set out to call
+on Frau Jula.
+
+In a quiet wooded neighbourhood, much patronised by poets and
+philosophers, she had taken up her abode in a simple-looking little
+villa, crammed with books and manuscripts and busts of eminent men.
+
+She herself appeared to be greatly changed. Her dark hair, which she
+had worn before in a wild frizz on her forehead, was now parted in the
+middle and smoothly brushed down over her ears in a prim fashion, which
+gave her an alarmingly virtuous air, although this particular style of
+coiffure happened just then to be the rage in circles where virtue for
+aesthetic reasons is not a valuable asset.
+
+Though she welcomed Lilly as usual with outstretched arms, there was a
+want of spontaneity in her manner, and the delight that beamed from her
+eyes seemed rather forced, as if she were thinking of something else.
+Without asking Lilly how she was, or paying any attention to her looks
+or clothes, she poured forth an account of her own affairs.
+
+"You'll be awfully surprised, of course," she said; "but I can't help
+it. I never made any secret to you of my little conscientious scruples,
+which, after all, were superfluous, as I was not so very bad."
+
+"Oh really?" thought Lilly.
+
+"And so you shall be the first of my former friends----"
+
+"Former?" thought Lilly.
+
+"To be told of my return to the bosom of respectability. To cut a long
+story short, I am about to get married."
+
+"To your red-headed boy?" asked Lilly, pleased and sympathetic.
+
+"Well, no, not exactly." She contemplated her fingernails with a
+pleased smile. "He has given his blessing, and there his _role_ ends."
+
+"Then who is your future husband?"
+
+Frau Jula meditated a moment. "It is rather an old story," she said,
+hesitating. "You couldn't understand it unless you knew more of my
+inner life during the last year or two. Do you happen by any chance to
+have heard of Clarissa von Winkel, the authoress?"
+
+Lilly remembered hazily having seen the name in certain old-fashioned
+and puritanical magazines for family reading, which she had glanced
+through for the sake of the pictures in cafes and confectioners' shops.
+
+"Well, then, Clarissa von Winkel, who has gained quite a reputation as
+the champion of a sound domestic morality, as opposed to the dangerous
+modern ideas about free-love--that Clarissa von Winkel is myself."
+
+Lilly was far too wrapped up in her own affairs to be able to bestow on
+the humour of these confessions the appreciation they merited, though
+she did experience a faint glimmer of amusement as she realised what
+strange pranks human puppets can be made to play in life's great farce.
+
+"Now, don't go and jump to the conclusion that I am converted, and have
+become a prude and a canting bigot, or anything of the kind," Frau Jula
+went on, with a certain dignity of tone, which became her quite as well
+as her former outspoken cynicism. "There's been no Damascus in my
+career. I have always had, as you know, two selves. One ..." She
+hesitated a moment, "I needn't tell _you_ what it was like.... The
+other craved for propriety, and white damask table-linen.... That is
+why you always attracted me so, my dearest Lilly. I couldn't help
+admiring your refined loyalty. Did I not always impress on you and urge
+you to hold fast, no matter in what circumstance you were placed, to
+this loyalty, which to us women is the crown of life? Don't you
+remember what a point I made of it?"
+
+Lilly could not remember, but she remembered a good many other
+sentiments expressed by the lady at different times scarcely in
+accordance with it. Her friend's new outlook on the world seemed ill
+adapted to give her the sympathy she had come to seek in the joyous
+tumult of her present feelings.
+
+"Well, to continue my story," Frau Jula said. "Through getting my
+articles and stories easily accepted, especially when I submitted them
+to editors in person, I found myself on the road to making a nice
+little fortune. My red-headed boy became merely a decorative appendage.
+For that is where virtue scores; it pays so much better than vice if
+you know the right way to set about it." There she slid her little
+tongue along her red lips, in her old arch manner, though her face
+remained immovably demure. "It was in the business of disposing of my
+work that I met my intended husband. I have got a divorce from the
+first brute at last.... He--this one--is the editor of a lady's paper
+just started, which caters for quiet domestic and housewifely tastes.
+It has got heaps of advertisements already. He is a man of high
+intellectual endowments and strictly moral principles, which, as you
+perceive, have not been without influence on myself."
+
+So saying, she made a little double chin and folded her hands piously
+in her lap.
+
+"And, if I may ask, how did you manage to break with your old friend?"
+questioned Lilly at length, almost forgetting her own trials in these
+extraordinary confidences.
+
+"Break with him?... What are you talking about?" Jula answered
+suddenly, radiant again with foolish frivolity. "I couldn't be guilty
+of such heartlessness, and when I said just now that his _role_ had
+ended, I didn't mean you to take it literally.... What on earth would
+the poor fellow do with his dyspeptic liver if I did not now and then
+invite him to a family dinner? In the first place, I have sworn
+solemnly to my future husband that my red-headed boy has never been
+anything more to me than a brother. Yes, we women can swear things like
+that, and not even blush in the process."
+
+Lilly nodded thoughtfully. She, too, on a certain evening, would have
+taken any oath that had been desired of her.
+
+"And, secondly, I tell you in confidence that he has contributed
+generously towards founding the new magazine. So the two are, as it
+were, colleagues and partners. I arranged matters thus intentionally,
+for I thought that it would be the best guarantee of the continuance of
+amicable relations all round. You needn't open your eyes so wide, my
+dear. Life is made up of compromises. Every bird feathers its own nest.
+Pray don't think I am afraid of disclosures and revelations. I shrug my
+shoulders at the notion of such a thing. You know tragedy is a matter
+of taste. I abhor it, so there's no tragedy in my philosophy. I say to
+myself, it's safe to smile perpetually so long as you are made of iron
+underneath."
+
+Lilly felt slightly disgusted.
+
+"If it is at such a price as this," she thought, "that one purges one's
+life of tragedy, I would rather stick to unhappiness and leave
+happiness alone."
+
+She rose to go.
+
+However much this small creature might surpass her in strength of mind
+and will-power, so that she now stood with both feet firmly planted on
+the rock of an honourable life, she was no longer a suitable friend for
+Lilly.
+
+"At all events," she said aloud, "I hope that your trust won't be
+misplaced."
+
+Frau Jula waved her hand in the air.
+
+"Bah!" she sneered. "Men are all alike. Those who know the world are
+devourers of women; those who don't are imbeciles. I can get on with
+both classes."
+
+"There is possibly a third," Lilly put in, annoyed. She felt as if
+Konrad had been insulted.
+
+"Possibly," responded Frau Jula, with a shrug of the shoulders. "I
+don't know it." And then, putting both hands round Lilly's waist, she
+said: "Tell me honestly, child; when you see me as I am now, and
+compare me with what I was, does it strike you that I am posing?"
+
+"To speak the truth," Lilly confessed, "it did at first."
+
+Frau Jula sighed, "It is difficult to grow accustomed to a dress which
+was not made for you.... Every one of us has a certain moral ambition;
+no one more than the so-called immoral person. But I would like to know
+one thing: whether my past sins or my present virtues are more to my
+credit."
+
+She smiled up at Lilly with a melancholy but mischievous face.
+
+Lilly answered nothing. Beyond this little self-satisfied madcap she
+saw rising her own fate, dark and threatening as a thunder-cloud.
+
+When she was once more in the street, her restlessness and sense of
+isolation took stronger possession of her than before. And yet she was
+thankful that she had kept silent. She knew full well that if she had
+submitted the portrait of her beloved to Frau Jula's acute judgment it
+would have been returned to her desecrated. And now she faced the fact
+that there was absolutely no one left in whom she could confide.
+
+
+                           *   *   *   *   *
+
+
+A few days later, however, in glancing, as she was in the habit of
+doing, through the morning paper, her eye alighted on a passage that
+awoke a ray of hope in her soul:
+
+"St. Joseph's Chapel, Muellerstrasse. Vespers and Benediction" at
+such-and-such an hour.
+
+Her old, long-forgotten friend and counsellor was, then, still living!
+He had his own church, even here in cold hardhearted heretical Berlin.
+In all these years she had never entered a church. Since, acting on the
+advice of Fraeulein von Schwertfeger, she had joined the Protestants in
+worship, she had regarded herself as an apostate from the true Church,
+and had not dared to seek solace in religion, and now she had become a
+regular infidel. Yet the sight of the name of St. Joseph in the paper
+touched a soft warm place in her heart.
+
+Her feelings were as if, after long wanderings in foreign lands, she
+had suddenly caught sight in the alien crowd of a dear long-lost home
+face. Now she knew to whom she might turn, without any fear of being
+misunderstood and sent empty away. Even if the great philosophers had
+demolished him a thousand times over, he was still there, ready to
+receive the outpourings of her poor silly overflowing heart.
+
+Muellerstrasse lay somewhere in an extreme northerly direction; it was
+in "Franz-Josef Land," the owner of a fruit and vegetable stall, of
+whom she made inquiries, informed her. The way led through a network of
+narrow streets, from one electric tram to another, past the Reichstag
+buildings, the Lessing Theatre, along an interminable tree-flanked
+road; and beyond the Weddingplatz, which Berliners regard as the end of
+everywhere, the Muellerstrasse began.
+
+No one seemed to have heard of a chapel dedicated to St. Joseph, not
+even people who lived in the neighbourhood. At last someone she asked
+said he thought there was a Catholic place up there in a yard, and
+after a little further exploration she found what she sought. It was a
+low iron building shaped like a shovel, between flowering shrubs, with
+high tenements surrounding it. The side door was open, and garlands of
+pine bid her "Welcome." She entered a plain whitewashed hall, filled
+with the odour of incense, laurel, and new pinewood. In the background
+was an alcove decorated to resemble a starry canopy. Behind the wooden
+balustrade that separated the pictureless chancel from the rest of the
+building rose two magnificent feathery palms. The low rolling tones of
+an organ proceeded from the loft; the organist had probably lingered
+behind after the funeral to improvise dreamily at the instrument.
+
+Lilly's eyes wandered anxiously over the walls in quest of the shrine
+of her saint. She wondered if he held up his finger here in smiling
+warning, as did the kind old gentleman of St. Ann's in her native town.
+
+There was no room for side altars, as every inch of space was filled
+with benches. But that big picture over there in tawdry gilt frame,
+with a console-table beneath piled with dusty nosegays, was that----?
+She started back, shocked. Her saint, her own dear beloved saint was
+simply absurd, with his sharp-featured, wax-doll's face, his flaxen
+beard and seraphically pious smile. An infant Jesus in pink sat
+triumphal on one arm, while in his other hand he daintily clasped a
+spray of lilies. And pity succeeded her horror. How far behind her, how
+infinitely far away, was the time when one could worship and pray for
+miracles to a saint like this!
+
+Could her good, faithful monitor in St. Ann's have been like this? She
+hardly dared think of such a thing. He couldn't; no, he couldn't have
+been so insipid and ridiculous. One place on earth must remain to which
+one's memory in hours of smiling pensive melancholy might return on
+holy pilgrimages. The organ began the prelude to an exquisite mass of
+Scarlatti's with which Lilly had been familiar in her girlhood, and so
+gradually she became more at home in the little chapel.
+
+She knelt on a bench at the back, shut her eyes, and tried to fancy
+that instead of this flaxen-haired caricature her real old friend was
+looking down on her.
+
+A saying of St. Thomas Aquinas came into her head that she had learnt
+in class when a child: "Other saints have been given the power by God
+to help us in certain circumstances, but to St. Joseph has been granted
+the power to help us no matter what our need may be."
+
+Such a power he had once had in her life. So she spoke to him again for
+the last time across the waste of years that separated her from the
+altar in St. Ann's. She was sure it would be the last time, because for
+such childish things there could no longer be room in her soul. And as
+she felt it was a farewell talk, she related, without reserve,
+everything that had happened to her: how supremely happy she had
+become; how she felt an awakening of new life within her, and her dead
+self blossoming forth afresh, while the whole of creation seemed one
+great symphony of joy. And she told him, too, of the gross deception
+she was forced to practise, of her fear of discovery, and of the
+delicious expectant tremors for which she could find no name.
+
+Then she added that she no longer had any faith in him, and was, to all
+intents and purposes, an atheist. Feeling reconciled, she placed the
+carnations she had brought as an offering to the poor saint among the
+dusty nosegays, and with a lighter heart went out, laughing, to meet
+the spring that laughed at her.
+
+
+                           *   *   *   *   *
+
+
+There was not only this new-born Lilly who rode on the crest of the
+wave far above all earthly cares and annoyances, but another Lilly, who
+every other night enchanted her old set with her triumphant humour, her
+_elan_, and brilliant wit, which amazed and took everyone by storm.
+Richard, when he came to tea in the afternoon, never ceased to wonder
+at the change in her. Instead of the gloomy listlessness, which had
+characterised her for so long, he found her sprightly and full of gay
+pranks, a creature of surprises, never still for a moment.
+
+He accustomed himself readily to this new aspect of her being, though
+it slightly abashed him, owing to his inability to keep pace with her;
+and he praised the magical effects of the new tonic, haematogen, which
+the doctor, with a knowing twinkle in his eye, had prescribed this
+spring instead of iron.
+
+Every night that they went out together on pleasure bent, the same
+little comedy was enacted. At first she would say that she had caught
+cold, or had a headache, that she was not in a mood for meeting people;
+but when once he had prevailed on her to come, she would play with her
+admirers as if they were puppies, and tell her lady friends things to
+their faces that filled them with nervous gratification. Sometimes, it
+is true, she would sit apart in sulky self-absorption, lost in dreams,
+though now, if anyone teased her for doing it, she neither blushed nor
+looked uncomfortable, but made such sharp, stinging repartees that the
+men retired and hid their diminished heads. Only once during this
+period did she drink herself into a light-headed condition, and that
+happened to be on the very day that she at last decided to tell Richard
+about her new friend. She had grappled with the question for two
+months. It would have to be done in the end, but indecision as to how
+she should do it made her put it off from day to day.
+
+She was helped in her quandary by chance. One day Richard brought her
+some sketches of vases about which he wanted her opinion, and forgot to
+take them away with him when he left. Afterwards Konrad came across
+them, and with a few swift pencil-strokes inserted the outline which
+was in the original draft, but which the artist had omitted in
+developing the plan. The next day Richard was utterly astonished to
+find that the corrections had been made, and so accurately. Who was
+responsible for them? Lilly, with recollections of her bungled
+glass-plaque painting, dared not say that she was, and courageously
+took the bull by the horns.
+
+"My art history master made the corrections," she said.
+
+"How long have you had an art history master?" he asked with round
+severe eyes.
+
+To his surprise and consternation, she began to rate him soundly. She
+asked if he expected her to spend a miserable barren and frivolous
+existence till the end of her days. Did he think it was a crime for a
+woman of no occupation to try and improve her mind a little, so that
+she might be clever enough to talk to a sensible man like him and his
+associates? Surely that was better than spending all her time on gossip
+and finery, and going to the dogs dressed up like a frivolous doll.
+
+The phrase, "a sensible man like you," mollified him considerably.
+
+"It's all very well," he said in a milder tone, "but why not have told
+me before?"
+
+She now began a long story.
+
+She had seen an advertisement about six weeks ago in the _Lokal
+Anzeiger_, in which an erudite young scholar offered his services as
+coach to ladies and gentlemen with a thirst for self-improvement. She
+had answered it, and the scholar had come and arranged a course of
+lessons forthwith. It had led to a friendship between master and
+pupil--of a purely platonic nature, of course. She had made up her
+mind, she said, not to tell him, being afraid of exciting his jealousy,
+till she was able to convince him of the absolute disinterestedness of
+her intellectual endeavours by proving their success.
+
+He knit his brow, and a sardonic smile, which she could not account
+for, played about his lips.
+
+"So you have got a young scholar for a friend again?" he asked, leaning
+his head on one side and winking at her.
+
+"Yes, and I am proud of it."
+
+"I suppose he's going to be Regius professor?"
+
+"He hasn't made up his mind what he's going to be."
+
+"He is extremely brilliant, intellectual, and superior, I presume?"
+
+She cast up her eyes ecstatically. "I should think so. I have never met
+anyone like him." She stopped short, horrified at her own indiscretion.
+
+"Ha! ha! I see," he said, as if some long-cherished suspicion had been
+confirmed. "I see," and he got very red, and gnawed his moustache.
+"Didn't I say what it would be?"
+
+"You are jealous!" she cried. She felt herself writhing under a
+shameful injustice.
+
+Without another word he departed, scowling. An hour later a parcel from
+Liebert & Dehnicke's was left at the door. As she opened it, a light
+suit which she had seen Richard wear the summer before fell out. The
+note that accompanied the parcel ran as follows:
+
+
+"Darling Lilly,
+
+"You see that I am true to my promise of coming to the assistance of
+your intellectual affinities with cast-off wearing apparel. I shall be
+happy, too, to send another supply of old boots to help them on their
+road to success. This will show you how jealous I am.
+
+                                         "Yours,
+
+                                               "Richard."
+
+
+That same evening she was in such exuberant spirits that she drank wine
+immoderately; and never, not even when she had danced for Dr. Salmoni's
+delectation, had she let herself go with such unbridled abandon and
+exercised her art of mimicry with wilder _eclat_.
+
+To wind up with, she danced on the top of the tables, joined together,
+a Salome dance which was just then the rage. She accompanied herself
+through her clenched teeth with quaint Eastern snatches of melody.
+
+"What on earth is that gibberish?" the spectators asked each other.
+
+Afterwards, when they put the question to her herself, she was
+incapable of giving an answer. Insensible, she heard and saw nothing
+more.
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER XV
+
+
+The big railway station's grimy glass roof was pierced by the peaceful
+golden light of a June Sabbath morning. Beneath the three bold archways
+that led into the open air such masses of blue ether seemed to be
+concentrated that, as the trains passed under them, it was like being
+precipitated into a sun-drenched sea. Ribbons from girls' smart hats
+fluttered against the Sunday coats of their swains, each of whom
+appeared to think himself an indispensable master of the revels.
+Athletic and boating clubs were represented in the crowd, smoking clubs
+and music societies, and one warehouse's whole staff of clerks was
+there.
+
+Through the excited holiday throng a quiet, happy pair, looking round
+them cautiously and keeping at a judicious distance from each other, so
+that it might be doubted whether they were together, made their way to
+a carriage in the front part of the train. Lilly walked ahead, and
+again and again she saw the faces of people coming towards her grow
+rigid with an almost solemn awe as they regarded her--a mute homage to
+which she was used, but which had never filled her with so much
+satisfaction as to-day, when she was followed by the only man in the
+world in whose eyes she cared to be pleasing.
+
+In his honour she was dressed entirely in festive white, a linen coat
+and skirt, a soft lawn blouse, and a wide straw hat draped with a white
+lace veil which shaded her brow, and beneath which her burnished brown
+hair projected in great glossy waves. On her arm she carried a white
+woollen shawl as a protection against the chilly night air, for it had
+been agreed between them that they were not to worry about catching
+certain trains home, but were to stay in the country till they were
+tired of it.
+
+They sat opposite each other in the corner seats of a third-class
+compartment, without speaking. Together they were travelling into an
+undiscovered land. "Trust yourself to my guidance," he had said, "and I
+will give you a surprise. We are going on a voyage of discovery. I am
+not in the least certain where the place is; if I were, it wouldn't be
+a voyage of discovery."
+
+This sensation of being led like a little child was a new and exquisite
+joy. After an hour's journey, when the carriage had emptied, he signed
+to her to get out.
+
+"Where are we?" she asked.
+
+"Does that matter?" he rejoined.
+
+He was right. What did it matter?
+
+She did not even look to see what the name of the station was, and they
+walked out of it into the main street of a bare little country town. On
+the front of the yellow houses the sunlight lay like a soothing hand.
+The low doors of the shops were locked, and half of the poor goods
+displayed in the windows was covered by a sheet to show that it was
+Sunday. Organ-notes sounded round street corners like sighing winds. A
+turkey-cock came strutting consequentially from under a gateway and
+gobbled at them; and then there were no more organ-notes ...
+
+Houses were gradually left behind. A whiff of ripening grain came from
+the fields, but the pungent fragrance of the yellow lupins outscented
+it. All round them were meadows carpeted with white and pink tufts of
+clover, and, beyond, dark firs rose on the slopes of sandy hills.
+
+The road was shadeless, but they tramped along it gaily, and little
+columns of silvery dust whirled in front of them. He knew everything,
+and nothing escaped his keenly observant eye. He pointed out a wild
+rabbit flicking the white underpart of its tail impertinently as it
+scampered away with comical self-importance. Every moment there was
+something fresh to look at.
+
+Since her married days at Lischnitz Castle, Lilly had never seen the
+spring blossom forth in the pure open country.
+
+"Ah! if then I had had him for my guide," she thought, "all would have
+been different."
+
+As they entered the warm shade of the pine-woods, a squirrel ran almost
+over their feet and darted a few feet up a tree, where it paused and
+sat motionless, as if turned to stone.
+
+They looked at each other, both thinking of the moment that had first
+brought them together.
+
+Lilly went close up to the little animal, but he did not stir.
+
+"I feel as if I were on enchanted ground," she said; "if he began to
+talk to us I shouldn't be surprised."
+
+She threw herself down, with a sigh of content, on the grey cushiony
+moss.
+
+He followed her example. Shading their eyes with their hands, they lay
+on their backs and blinked at the sunshine flickering down on them
+through the branches. They had nearly forgotten the squirrel, when
+suddenly, close above them, he made a whistling sound, and then
+scuttled for his life further up the tree to the topmost branches.
+
+The scared little fellow had been staring at them all the time, not
+daring to move until now.
+
+"Do you see?" Konrad said. "As long as our human language sounds in
+their ears, they'll take care to have nothing to do with us."
+
+"All the same, we are bewitched here," she said, laughing. "I've never
+before lain so luxuriously on the moss and had the sun shine on me so;
+have you?"
+
+"Yes, once," he answered. "I remember it quite well."
+
+"When did you, and where?" she demanded instantly, jealous of any
+moment of happiness in his life that she had not created for him.
+
+"Oh, there's not much to tell about it," he said. "It was at Ravello,
+perched like a gull's nest high up on the rocks above the sea, not far
+from Amalfi--just about there is a fairy-land of magic country. Picture
+old Moorish palaces half deserted and half lived in; marble courtyards
+shut in by trellises; ruined fountains, with myrtle and laurel growing
+in profusion, and little white climbing-roses trailing over every nook
+and cranny. There was one place I would have given anything to get
+inside ... It was a small mysterious gallery standing out against the
+deep blue sky like a web of silver filigree. So once when there
+was no one about--only a handful of olive-gatherers live in the
+neighbourhood--I behaved like a schoolboy, and climbed the great iron
+gate as high as a house, bar by bar, up one side and down on the
+other."
+
+"Oh, how splendid!" cried Lilly.
+
+"Yes. I got inside. And when I had examined all the gorgeous details
+with a professional eye, I threw myself full length on the warm stone
+steps, and let the sun bake me through; just in the same position as we
+are lying in here now under these Brandenburg pines. And--would you
+believe it?--the little bluish-green lizards that you are so fond of
+came and slowly and cautiously crawled all over me."
+
+"Oh, how heavenly!" cried Lilly in rapture.
+
+"And while I lay there, with the old marble fountain making music in my
+ears, I fell fast asleep. But I had better have left going to sleep
+alone, because there's a risk of getting sunstroke even in mid-winter.
+I should in all probability have been a victim, if some tourists hadn't
+come and thrown sticks and stones at me. Everything looked red and swam
+before my eyes. To climb back over the gate was out of the question.
+The key had to be fetched from the Sindaco, and subsequently I had to
+appear before him and give an account of myself. But, thank goodness,
+they didn't lock me up for trespassing, because all the witnesses
+tapped their foreheads and said '_e matto_'--'he's mad.'"
+
+"Never mind," she laughed. "You at least got your way, and saw the
+inside of the forbidden garden. Many people have to be satisfied with
+standing outside and looking through the railings."
+
+"That's a pleasure that may be ours to-day," he remarked. And she had
+to restrain her curiosity.
+
+"It doesn't hurt, at any rate," he went on, "to practise now and then
+standing outside. For God knows that generally the happiness we happen
+to be craning our necks to reach is a forbidden garden."
+
+Lilly gazed at him in alarm. What did he mean by that? Then their eyes
+met in shy understanding. The disquieting expectancy to which she was
+afraid to give a name crept over her suddenly like an ague.
+
+"Let us go on," she said, springing to her feet, and she walked on
+rapidly without looking round to see if he followed.
+
+The woods grew clearer. They came to a little swampy coppice where
+silver birches shot up their slender trunks gaily from mossy pedestals.
+
+The hot midday air stirred in tiny wavelets. Somewhere not far off
+church-bells were ringing, but no farmstead was in sight, and suddenly
+they found themselves at diverging paths without knowing which
+direction to take.
+
+"A decision is called for," he said, and strained his ears for a moment
+in the quarter whence the sound of church-bells came.
+
+"I wish with all my heart," he added, "that there was a bell ringing
+thus to guide me on my road in life." And he turned to the right.
+
+Then he told her that he was standing figuratively at cross-roads. He
+had been offered a post which, considering how young he was, ought not
+to be scoffed at; but before accepting he was bound to consider whether
+it would interfere with the progress of his life's work.
+
+"It's a very good post, I suppose?" Lilly asked proudly. If he had been
+appointed minister of the fine arts or Emperor of China she would not
+have thought it in the least extraordinary. But he seemed disinclined
+to say more.
+
+"I would rather talk to you about it when it's settled one way or the
+other," he replied. And she was perforce satisfied.
+
+Red-tiled roofs appeared above the bushes, and the mirror-like surface
+of a lake made a shining line against the horizon.
+
+"Is that where we're going?" asked Lilly.
+
+"It may be," he answered.
+
+"Oh, don't be so mysterious," she scolded him in fun. "I've been very
+good in not asking questions. But now I really must insist on your
+telling me what your programme is."
+
+"Yes, when we've got there," he laughed. "I know you, and don't want to
+make you jealous before the right moment."
+
+Could it be that there was another woman in the case?
+
+Another woman? She did not betray her emotion, but as they walked on
+she felt quite faint--partly from hunger and partly from mental
+distress. The lake now lay before them in its early summer beauty, with
+its greenish-grey girdle of reeds and rushes, and lights and shadows
+flitting across it.
+
+A little distance from the bank, on a shrubby slope, was the inn,
+with "Logierhotel" printed on its signboard. It was one of those
+orange-brick monstrosities built in the barbarous palatial-barn style.
+But round it three or four ancient lime-trees spread their wide shady
+branches, and they seated themselves on a white bench beneath them,
+their mood harmonising with the scene.
+
+To their left the lake stretched away into the hazy distance; on their
+right, beyond the reeds and sedges of the shore, was a tiny village
+with moss-green thatched roofs, and a stumpy, storm-beaten spire half
+hidden among reeds and bushes. And close to them, not a hundred steps
+from where they sat in the shade of the limes, there rose the wooded
+slopes and mighty tree-tops of an ancestral park, from the interior of
+which they caught the gleam of pillars, bridges, and white, vine-clad
+balustrades. Very likely that was the forbidden garden, outside the
+gates of which they were to stand to-day. How charming! how mysterious!
+
+Anglers came up from the lake, scarlet of face and panting with thirst,
+and these apparently were the only guests at the inn besides
+themselves, for the Sunday stream of excursionists had not yet begun to
+flow in the direction of this quiet nook.
+
+The bill of fare which the landlady, equipped with all the wiles she
+had acquired in the capital, smilingly handed to them presented a
+dazzling abundance of good things. It was too bad that they all came
+together. Lilly was asked to choose, but declined. Thoughts of the
+strange woman who was certainly in the case depressed her. And she only
+saw the laughing world, which threw its early summer gifts at their
+feet so bountifully, through a mist of suppressed tears.
+
+"Here we are at last," she said, sighing. "So you may as well confess:
+what sort of woman is she?"
+
+He laughed heartily. "So you've guessed, have you, that it _is_ a
+woman?"
+
+"If not, why should I be jealous?"
+
+"I must admit you have every cause. I never set eyes on anything more
+beautiful; the only pity is, that she is marble."
+
+Oh! then that's all it was!
+
+"I am and always shall be a silly," she said, laughing from relief, and
+he kissed her hand in contrition.
+
+While they were waiting for the fish which they had ordered, he told
+her the story of how they came to be making their present pilgrimage.
+
+He had one day, during his sojourn in Rome, seen in the window of an
+art-dealer's shop the antique cast of a woman's head, much damaged, but
+of such inspiring and sombre beauty that he went again and again day
+after day to feast his eyes upon it. And one morning he found the owner
+of the shop and a German gentleman standing in the doorway engaged in a
+lively conversation, which, however, did not progress, as neither of
+them understood what the other was talking about. He offered his
+services as interpreter, and to his chagrin learned that the subject of
+discussion was his favourite bust, which the German, a courteous and
+cultivated country gentleman, wished to purchase. Setting aside his own
+feelings, Konrad assisted in concluding the bargain on the Baron's
+behalf, and had received an invitation from him to visit his house on
+returning to Germany, in order that he might see the marble bust
+adorning his park, and convince himself that its new surroundings were
+not unworthy of its beauty.
+
+"Oh! so the garden isn't forbidden after all?" cried Lilly, holding out
+her arms ecstatically towards the green mysterious barriers. "We may
+just walk straight in."
+
+Konrad's face became thoughtful. "It's not so simple as that," he said,
+"for how should I introduce you? You are not my wife.... Only between
+ourselves you are my sister, and we are too young to trump up any other
+plausible relationship."
+
+A sudden bitterness welled up within her. Once more she felt despised
+and rejected, ostracised from honourable society.
+
+"You should have left me at home," she broke out. "I am only an
+encumbrance to you."
+
+"Ah, Lilly," he said, "what do I really care about marble busts? I
+would rather stand behind the fence with you than have the run of the
+whole park without you."
+
+She caressed his hand, as it hung by his side, mollified and grateful.
+And then at last the carp came.
+
+
+                           *   *   *   *   *
+
+
+Two hours later they were pacing along a seemingly endless wall, half
+as high again as a man, with no break in it to peep through. "Not till
+they came to the corner of the park where the wall ended did they find
+a less impenetrable, high, moss-grown fence, which ran along to the
+right. Now through the gaps they could get a view of the interior.
+Venerable plane-branches formed arches over shady nooks, with groups of
+oaks and limes between. The open grassy lawns were banked with
+rhododendrons, the blossoms of which looked like violet eyes. On a
+knoll in the background, a little round temple with Tuscan columns and
+a shining green roof looked solemnly out of its dark surrounding
+cypresses.
+
+"She must be in there," Konrad said. But the little temple was empty,
+so they prosecuted their search further afield. Not a single opening in
+the foliage escaped their vigilance. Here and there statues gleamed, a
+Ceres, a Satyr playing on his flute, and in a cypress thicket they
+caught a glimpse of a shrine of the Virgin, but nowhere did they see a
+sign of the strange, beautiful woman's head they were looking for.
+
+They went on. A stream ran out from the park across the road, spanned
+by a rough plank such as is to be met with in any country lane. But a
+hundred paces away, inside the park, was another snow-white glistening
+bridge, throwing its graceful arch boldly over the water.
+
+"The Venetian bridges are like that," he said.
+
+"Across such a bridge the gods entered Walhalla," she sighed.
+
+They stood still and conjured up the joy of crossing that bridge. But
+still they could not get on the track of the marble bust.
+
+Beyond the plank bridge, where the village began, the park receded some
+way from the lane. A row of Weymouth pines flanked the inner side of
+the fence. The quaint village street was gay with Sunday festivities.
+Dancing was going on to the accompaniment of piano and fiddles, and
+somewhere bowls were rolling merrily; but they passed without taking
+any notice of these things, for all their interest was still centred on
+the forbidden garden. Every moment it drew them with more compelling
+charms. Crumbling gate-posts were half-hidden among the village
+lime-trees, and the palings were so rotten they hardly held together.
+At this spot the foliage on the inner side was quite impenetrable to
+the eye. Trunk was garlanded to trunk by growths of clematis and ivy,
+and lilac and spiraea bushes were massed underneath. It looked as if the
+master of the garden had, in addition to a stone wall, drawn a living
+one around his demesne to hedge in himself and his family in happy
+seclusion.
+
+For a long time they walked on without being rewarded by another
+glimpse of the inside of the park. Then unexpectedly they came to an
+old three-cornered gateway which, with its vases and pillars, its
+cracked belfry and lacework of latticed railings, was half buried in
+blossoming acacias.
+
+Here at last they got an uninterrupted view of the inside of the park.
+A straight avenue of pines led in solemn dignity up to the castle, but
+even at this favourable standpoint nothing of its architecture was
+revealed to their gaze. Trees and bushes hid it from view. The only bit
+of stone-work their eager eyes discerned was a flight of steps on the
+columns of which marble nymphs raised aloft their snow-white wings.
+
+"Isn't that lovely?" Lilly murmured with a sigh; and thrusting her face
+through the iron bars, she whimpered and begged playfully to be let in.
+
+"That is exactly how I stood, outside the gate at Ravello," he said.
+"Now you know what it is like."
+
+As he said this, it struck her that the sensation of being shut out
+somewhere was familiar to her too. She knew as well as he did what it
+was like. But where was it that cold iron had pressed her cheeks
+before?
+
+Ah! now she recollected. Had she not many a time stood without the
+latticed door which barred the staircase to the private part of
+Liebert & Dehnicke's warehouse? That pretentious, proud, forbidding
+laurel-flanked ascent, which her unholy feet might never tread?
+
+It, too, was a forbidden garden. Forbidden gardens abounded everywhere,
+it seemed!
+
+"I think we had better give it up," she said softly; "it only makes our
+hearts ache."
+
+So hand-in-hand they wandered back along the path they had come, close
+to the fence, and talked persistently of other things. And yet their
+eyes still lingered longingly in the neighbourhood of the park, and the
+aspiration they both felt, but did not express for fear of hinting
+reproaches, gilded everything with a fairy-tale glamour.
+
+
+                           *   *   *   *   *
+
+
+Evening came. Violet mists hung over the meadows, and the
+copper-coloured trunks of the pines glowed like torches. The deeper the
+setting sun sank into the reeds and rushes, the more the lake lost its
+cool, blue, silvery sheen, and took on a network of ruddy gold. It
+looked now as if it bore on its face the sparkling fulfilment of all
+earthly promises.
+
+Neither of them could tolerate being on shore any longer.
+
+A boat lay at anchor by the hotel's bathing pavilion, where in the cool
+of the evening happy bathers were splashing, and they hired it for a
+mere song. Konrad took the oars and Lilly seated herself at the stern.
+All kinds of water-flowers rose with a swish lightly to the surface as
+the boat cut through a carpet of sedges. Mingled with the young green
+of the sprouting reeds were the brown battered remnants of last year's
+growth; stately bulrushes bordered the banks, and the water flag
+planted her golden tents between them. Like huge dense walls of purple,
+the park's wealth of timber rose high against the sky.
+
+When Lilly pointed this out, Konrad shook his head and said: "It's no
+good thinking any more about it." But, nevertheless, he kept casting
+glances in that direction.
+
+Lilly had scarcely ever been in a boat, and soon gave up steering as a
+bad job. She spread her shawl at the bottom of the boat and made
+herself a comfortable soft nest, into which she retired.
+
+Crouched at Konrad's feet, she lay there with her back against the seat
+in the stern. And thus, her eyes dreamily fixed on blue space, she
+began to build castles in the air about her future, devising plans by
+which, with a bound, she was to swing herself back into the midst of
+respectability.
+
+She would give music lessons--she was good enough for beginners--and
+with the proceeds prepare herself for the stage, for which she had a
+decided talent.... Or perhaps it would be wiser to go in for science,
+to train her mind so that it might not lag behind his. She must be
+intellectual enough to deserve his friendship so long as he desired her
+to be his friend. Or--so that no harm should happen to anyone else--she
+would go abroad and teach German, and come back a new and regenerated
+woman at his summons. Or ... Ah! what? Or ... or ... lie and dream, and
+drain the happiness of the hour to the dregs. Exposure and death--one
+must entail the other--would come time enough....
+
+The sun went down, melting into a blood-red haze. Nearness and distance
+were now veiled in violet mists. The whole globe seemed to be diluted
+into light and air, the reeds alone, with their slender black stems
+latticing the evening afterglow, retained an earthly corporeal form.
+
+The foliage of the park gradually melted into a dark undefined mass.
+More than ever did it now seem to be a forbidden garden, filled with
+thrills and mysteries, sinking for ever into the unattainable.
+
+As the boat glided along the edge of the reeds, it suddenly drifted
+near a blue bay, which cut like a wedge into the land on the park side,
+so far in that it was impossible to see where it ended. For a moment
+Konrad rested on his oars motionless, then he sprang to his feet with a
+cry of delight.
+
+"What is it?" she asked.
+
+"You remember we saw a stream flowing out of the park on the village
+side?"
+
+"Of course I do."
+
+"It must have flowed in somewhere, mustn't it?"
+
+"Why, yes."
+
+He pointed with his hand to the gleaming bay's narrowing tip.
+
+"There's the place!"
+
+"And do you really think that at last we have ..." She dared not
+suggest it.
+
+"If we like, we can in this boat traverse the whole unexplored region
+by water."
+
+In her childlike jubilation she jumped up with an exclamation, and
+simply fell on his neck as if it was a natural thing to do, and they
+had never made any platonic vows.
+
+Slowly the boat drifted on with the current--between meadows lined with
+weeping willows, where the evening mist hung like white scarves.
+Peasants' cottages stood near, with fishing-nets spread out over the
+fences. Then, at a bend in the stream, a dark gateway of foliage opened
+like a huge vault in front of them.
+
+"Oh, goodness!" cried Lilly.
+
+"Hush!" he whispered, in pretended awe. "Now we must be as quiet as
+mice, or we shall get turned out for trespassing, after all."
+
+And the dip of his oars became so stealthy that it might have been
+taken for the splash of a leaping fish.
+
+Thus they rowed under the triumphal arch of leaves which thickly
+interlaced overhead. It was pitch dark close around them, though here
+and there from the right bank came an occasional gleam of summer
+twilight. Lamplights, too, twinkled in the distance, and they could
+catch the hum of voices, the clink of glasses, and now and then a stray
+chord struck on the piano. The foliage parted, and an unimpeded view of
+the castle lay before them. It was a wide, two-storeyed, box-like
+structure, its ponderous simplicity dating from a period when the
+grandees of Brandenburg still possessed little sense of the artistic.
+But on the stone steps gleamed the marble nymphs that had greeted them
+in the afternoon, and beyond their white bodies one saw on the terrace
+itself a long table, round which was gathered, in the flickering
+lamplight, a chattering, laughing party, passing gaily with song and
+wine the intoxicating summer evening.
+
+"And he might be sitting there too," thought Lilly, "if I were not
+hanging like a millstone about his neck," and she felt almost as if she
+must apologise to him.
+
+They drifted quickly by on the current, and like the vision of a moment
+the banquet vanished from their sight. They passed the brightly lighted
+windows of the castle kitchen and offices, where servants flitted to
+and fro like ministering spirits, and glided again into silence and
+darkness. To their right, at the back of the house with its countless
+windows, was a grass plot bordered with old statues and ivy-draped
+urns; on their left everything was plunged in shadow. Here was an
+avenue of century-old limes running along the bank of the stream, every
+ray of light extinguished in its dark depths.
+
+Maybe somewhere near here stood the marble head they longed to find.
+Lilly's eyes searched every corner furtively, as if she scrupled to
+deprive him of the joy of discovery.
+
+The arched bridge, which they had admired earlier in the day, now
+gleamed at them again out of the dusk. It evidently did not lead to
+Walhalla, but to an islet of spiraea and hemp bushes, under the branches
+of which a pair of swans were roosting. At the sound of the oars they
+awoke, and with flapping wings pursued the boat, opening their beaks
+for bread.
+
+"Swans! the one touch that was wanted to make everything perfect!"
+Lilly exclaimed jubilantly. "I wish I had some crumbs to give them."
+
+She turned her head to look after the swans, and her neck rested
+against his knees.
+
+"May I stay like this?" she asked a little nervously.
+
+"Yes, if it's comfortable," he answered; and there was a caressing
+yielding in his tone that sent a warm glow through her limbs.
+
+She took off her hat, not to crush it, and laid it on the seat in the
+stern. Now her head was free to lean too against him lightly, and in
+sweet anxiety she felt his hand rest for a moment tenderly on her hair.
+Yet he was silent and preoccupied, as if some burden were weighing on
+his mind, which he could not throw off. And again she felt as she had
+often felt before, as if a veil hung between him and herself--a veil
+that seldom lifted, and obscured from her the true characteristics of
+his nature, much as she clung to him in loving intimacy.
+
+Oh, if only he would be merry!
+
+The park came to an end, and the red after-glow, no longer hidden by
+walls of foliage, flamed in full glory over them. The spell threatened
+to be broken. The world of magic became almost ordinary.
+
+"Come, let us turn round," she begged softly.
+
+And they turned the boat's head and rowed again into the dreamy bliss
+of semi-darkness.
+
+But now he had to strike out with a will, because they were rowing
+against the current, and he could not prevent his oars from splashing
+audibly in the water.
+
+"We shan't get off. They will catch us now!" he said.
+
+"Oh, but they are far too happy," she replied, "to be down on other
+happy people."
+
+"Yes, it looks almost like an enchanted castle; but--who knows? it may
+be a snare and a delusion."
+
+"Why should it be?"
+
+"Ah, God knows!... Bleeding wounds can be hidden under flowers, and the
+beauty with which a man may surround himself is often deceptive."
+
+This scepticism displeased her.
+
+"They must be happy!" she cried; "they who have given us so much to-day
+must have enough for themselves too."
+
+"It, doesn't follow, darling," he answered. "It's possible to make a
+rich man of a beggar, and to be as poor as a church mouse one's self."
+
+"Are we beggars, then?" she asked, raising herself gently up to him.
+
+"No, by Jove! we are not beggars;" and he drew a deep breath.
+
+There was a silence, and then it seemed as if something warm and damp
+was falling on her forehead.
+
+He was actually crying--crying for joy!
+
+Did she deserve it? She, Lilly Czepanek, who ... And to hide her own
+tears she withdrew into herself. It was more than she could bear. She
+would have liked to sob and cry and kiss his hands, but instead she was
+obliged to clench her hands, and stuff her gloves between her teeth so
+that he should not notice her agitation. It was like an intervention of
+Providence that, as they once more drifted close by the castle, the
+sound of a woman's voice singing should fall on their ears.
+
+What was the song? Ah! out of "Tristan." She had never heard it in the
+theatre, but she was sure it could be nothing but "Tristan."
+
+She raised her head interrogatively, and Konrad, stooping, whispered in
+her ear, "Isolde's 'Liebestod.'" He quickly ran the boat ashore at the
+darkest spot on the bank, for not a note must be lost. On the terrace
+above, laughter and chatter were silenced. Only the nightingale in the
+lime-boughs was undisturbed, and mingled its sweet rhapsody with the
+exultant death-agony of the woman who, more than any other creation of
+God or man, teaches us that the will not to be is the most triumphant
+manifestation of being.
+
+Lilly trembled from head to foot. She stretched her hands behind her to
+reach his. She could not help holding on to him. If she had not held on
+to him she must have sunk into space. Not till she felt his warm
+fingers between hers did she become calmer.
+
+The last note died away; the grand arpeggios of the _Nachspiel_ melted
+into silence. There was no clapping or applause of any kind. That
+lively party up there on the terrace were evidently impressed, and
+realised what was due to the singer.
+
+Konrad, with a silent pressure, let go her hands and went back to the
+oars. She did not demur. The forbidden garden vanished, vanished
+utterly.
+
+The dusk of early night now lay on the meadows. Not a sound was to be
+heard far or near. Yet the world seemed to echo with the melody of harp
+and the sound of song.
+
+"And we've never seen your marble beauty," murmured Lilly, stroking his
+knees. "Yet I keep thinking that was _her_ voice."
+
+"And I, too," he burst out passionately. "She wasn't singing for those
+good people up there at all, but for us--for us alone."
+
+"Ah! I wish I could sing it like her!"
+
+"Try, at any rate."
+
+She sang a few passages here and there. But she could not connect them,
+and, what was more, something else rose and forced its way imperiously
+into her memory.
+
+With that grandest and most exquisite inspiration of the great master
+mingled, unbidden, her own poor "Song of Songs." And she sang out into
+the profound silence:
+
+
+           "Tell me, O thou whom my soul loveth, where thou
+            feedest, where thou makest thy flock to rest at noon: for
+            why should I be as one that turneth aside ..."
+
+
+She paused.
+
+"What is that?" he asked. "I don't know it at all."
+
+"That is my 'Song of Songs,'" she replied, drawing a deep breath.
+
+Never before had she mentioned its name to a living soul.
+
+"_Your_ 'Song of Song'?" he asked in astonishment.
+
+And what lay before her was as clear as daylight; she would perhaps
+never have such a chance again. This was the moment to lay bare the
+secret of her youth to him.
+
+"Put down the oars and listen, I am going to confide something to you.
+You may think it quite silly and ridiculous, but to me it has always
+been sacred."
+
+Speechless, he shipped his oars,
+
+"You must come and sit beside me, so that I can see your face."
+
+His eye swept the water with a searching glance. The boat was again
+drifting serenely on the mirror-like bosom of the lake, which seemed to
+have gathered on its ripples all the throbbing blue and purple shadows
+of the summer night. There was not the slightest sign of danger ahead,
+so he obediently did as she wished.
+
+They crouched close together at the bottom of the little craft, with
+their heads propped against the seat that Konrad had occupied for so
+long, and she told her story. She related how the legacy her poor
+runaway father had left behind exercised a powerful influence on her at
+all periods in her life.... If the years of her girlhood had been full
+of it, later it even attained a higher and more mysterious
+significance. It became, as it were, a symbol of all her efforts and
+actions. When her life became a whirl of useless frivolity then it was
+silent--sometimes for years together--but whenever her soul had an
+uplifting, whenever her pursuits and ideals accorded, then it came to
+life again. It outsang all that was low and unlovely in the world. From
+disgrace and wickedness outwardly it had not been able to protect her
+altogether, but it had at least kept her free within, and susceptible
+to the advent of one for whom she had unconsciously waited. And now
+that this one of all others had really come, she felt that the hour of
+fulfilment, both for herself and for her "Song of Songs," had sounded.
+Now it seemed that it must go forth into all the world to touch and
+conquer every heart and to bring its creator and herself glory and
+redemption.
+
+So she talked herself into such a state of exalted enthusiasm that she
+became unmindful of time and place, and everything but the one thought
+that she still had more of what was best and purest within her to lay
+at his feet. But she had said as much as she could say, more than she
+could ever have believed she would confide to any human being, more
+than till this hour she had known of herself. He now held her noblest,
+truest self in the hollow of his hand, to do with it what he listed.
+All that was lax and impure, all that had brought ruin into her heart
+and life, was gone. She need no longer trouble herself about it.
+
+While she had been telling him this wonderful tale, she would have
+liked to see what effect it had upon him, but had not trusted herself
+to glance at his face. Now, however, that it was finished, she ventured
+to turn in his direction, and became aware that his eye rested on her
+with a curiously confused and wild expression, such as she had never
+noticed in him before; for, as a rule, he kept his emotions at a
+distance with, as it were, fisticuffs. Her heart began to beat loudly,
+and the unrest of expectation to which she could give no name became so
+strong that she nearly ran to the other end of the boat to control it
+and prevent herself suffocating.
+
+Then she saw him shut his eyes and throw his head back against the
+sharp edge of the seat. "You will hurt yourself," she whispered; and,
+instead of fleeing from him as she wanted to do, she placed her arm to
+serve as a cushion between his neck and the seat.
+
+Now he lay on her breast and breathed heavily.
+
+"Shall I sing you some more out of it?" she asked, bending over him
+tenderly.
+
+"Yes, yes, please," he murmured.
+
+And she sang, in a half-coaxing voice, as if she were singing
+lullabies, all those arias which, since the day her poor mother's mind
+had sunk into eternal night, had never been heard by any human ear.
+"The lily of the valleys" and "The rose of Sharon" she sang, and that
+other lyric in which all the sounds and magic of spring were mingled:
+
+
+     "For, lo, the winter is past ... the flowers appear
+      on the earth ... and the voice of the turtle is heard in our
+      land."
+
+
+So she went on singing, more and more. When she sometimes paused and
+asked if he had heard enough, he only shook his head and pressed closer
+to his soft pillow.
+
+Once she glanced round and saw that they were moored in the reeds, and
+that it was now completely night. But why should she mind that? Somehow
+or other they would manage to get home.
+
+She was drawing to the end. There were only "Set me as a seal upon
+thine heart," "How beautiful are thy feet with shoes, O prince's
+daughter," to come; and, above all, the verse which began with words so
+singularly appropriate to this day's adventures: "Come, my beloved, let
+us go forth into the field." But when she came to the lines:
+
+
+     "Let us see if the vine flourish, whether the tender
+      grape appear, and the pomegranates bud forth: there will
+      I give thee ..."
+
+
+her breath failed her and she could not go on.
+
+"Why have you stopped singing?" she heard him ask.
+
+There was a buzzing of bees and a ringing of bells in her ears.
+
+"Be brave!" a voice shouted within her; "be brave, or you will lose him
+for ever."
+
+But at that moment she felt two trembling lips seeking hers, and then
+it was all over with thoughts of being brave.
+
+
+                           *   *   *   *   *
+
+
+Midnight was long past when the boat at last put in to the shore. The
+bathing pavilion was dark and deserted, but in the hotel lights still
+glimmered.
+
+In extreme trepidation they rang the bell.
+
+"There's always a room ready here for belated young married couples,"
+said the deferential, smiling landlady reassuringly.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XVI
+
+
+It would be incorrect to say that no lucky star shone on Lilly's love
+at this stage of its development. In the first place, Adele proved, in
+her born uncommunicativeness and passionate partiality for the handsome
+"friend" of her mistress, a valuable ally. Secondly, Richard, who on
+the memorable Sunday had been obliged to go off and join his mother at
+Harzburg, remained away not for a day only, but for a whole week;
+thirdly, when he visited her on his return, he was so full of his own
+affairs that he had no eyes for her guiltily embarrassed reception of
+him.
+
+He affected a lofty and superior air, the nasal drawl of his
+cavalry-officer days, and wore a monocle dangling over his navy-blue
+silk waistcoat. Judging from which, and such symptoms as his head
+inclining to an extreme angle on his left shoulder and his eyes
+blinking slyly, it might have been gathered that instead of joining his
+mother dutifully, he too had been on a spree _a deux_ in the country on
+his own account.
+
+This, however, proved an erroneous supposition. He had not only been
+actually at Harzburg till the evening before, but he had to go back
+there at once for a longer stay--for a month, at least.
+
+"What's the matter with you?" he exclaimed; for Lilly, in a seventh
+heaven of delight at the news, fell back in her chair almost swooning.
+
+It was true that she immediately scrambled up again and would not own
+to anything unusual in her behaviour; but he insisted on piling
+cushions at her back, and would not allow her to risk the exertion of
+pouring out tea for him. His every act was eloquent of a guilty
+conscience.
+
+"A summer holiday together is out of the question for us," he said,
+trying to return to his lofty manner. "And not only that, we have
+become much too dependent on each other. It will be well for both of us
+to go our own gait for a bit, and best for all parties concerned. In
+fact, it's absolutely necessary in view of coming circumstances."
+
+This speech sounded as familiar to Lilly as an old tune in music. She
+knew exactly what was coming.
+
+"Confess," she said, smiling. "What's on the cards now?"
+
+And then he came out with it, stuttering and drawling out his words. An
+American, born of German parents, with millions of dollars, of
+irreproachable style, extremely _chic_, approved by his mother, and her
+own parents not averse, and she herself to all appearances agreeable.
+If he didn't do it now, he never would.
+
+"I congratulate you," Lilly said, tapping his hand playfully. He stared
+at her with astonished and somewhat reproachful eyes.
+
+"Is that all you've got to say to it?" he asked.
+
+"What else should I say?"
+
+"You can take it so coolly? Are you so utterly without feeling that the
+thought of parting from your old friend doesn't affect you in the
+least? I thought you were a little more womanly and sympathetic; I must
+say I did."
+
+"Please recollect," she said, "that every time that you have talked of
+marrying you have made the same reproach when I have said I have no
+desire to stand in your way. You talk as if it was _I_ who was showing
+_you_ the door, instead of its being the other way about."
+
+Then he flared up. "What expressions you use! How can you possibly tell
+what I am going through--the wrestling and struggles I have with
+myself? How many nights do you think I haven't slept a wink for
+wondering what is to become of you? But you go on as if it had nothing
+on earth to do with you. You are, in fact, as frivolous and heartless
+as you can be; so now you know my opinion of you."
+
+At his words, delightful visions of her freedom danced before her eyes,
+glowing nights given up to uninterrupted love, days of sweet
+anticipatory dreams. Anything that might happen afterwards seemed as
+far off as the end of the world. She listened to the rest of his
+harangue with an absent, indulgent smile.
+
+"If _you_ don't see there's anything to worry about in your future," he
+wound up, "that's all the more reason why I should take it into
+consideration. I have to provide for you, and mamma agrees that it's my
+duty."
+
+The word "mamma" made her pull herself together.
+
+Since the terrible scene in the counting-house, her name by mutual
+consent had been left out of their conversations. They had substituted
+for it evasions which each had understood and appreciated in the other.
+
+Now, without warning, "mamma," the symbol as it were of all that was
+disgraceful and degrading in her existence, flamed before her eyes.
+
+"Any scheme that _she_ has a finger in," Lilly cried, "must humiliate
+me to the dust. I tell you both straight that you had better be
+careful. If you make any proposals to me about an allowance of money, I
+shall consider it a bitter insult and never forgive you."
+
+He paced the room, wringing his hands. "There you are, talking nonsense
+again! Don't you see that the world would cry shame on me if I turned
+you off with nothing? And, apart from that, what do you think would
+become of you?... You'd be on the streets. Woman, do you realise that?"
+
+With sublime indifference, she ignored both him and his heroic zeal on
+her behalf.
+
+"I can think of other ways," she said, half to herself.
+
+Before her rose a life full of struggle and strenuous triumphs, a
+tossing hither and thither through storms and hardships, and a jubilant
+victory as she entered at his side into the society of those who were
+as good and steadfast as _he_ was. But that final consummation could
+only come later--much, much later.
+
+Richard interpreted her differently. His eyes were fixed on her
+suspiciously. He paused in front of her and asked, with a slight
+shudder, "I say, are you going ... to act like a fool and injure
+yourself?"
+
+She burst out laughing. Already he evidently pictured her beautiful
+corpse being dragged out of the water and laid out.
+
+"No, I am not going to commit suicide ... at least, certainly not on
+your account; and, if I wanted to, I would manage it with such good
+taste that you would not be inconvenienced or have anything to reproach
+yourself with."
+
+"You can't mean that you think you'll marry!" he rejoined, still
+unconvinced. "What decent fellow would marry you after you've lived
+with me for four years?"
+
+"There are other ways," Lilly repeated obstinately.
+
+He seemed relieved, but went on: "I don't half like leaving you here to
+mope alone. You'll get depressed, and then you'll be nasty to me. What
+do you say to having a little change somewhere? You might go to Ahlbeck
+or Screiberhau, or some strait-laced place like that."
+
+Only by a slight quiver of the eyelids did she betray the scornful
+laughter that convulsed her inwardly.
+
+"You know I hate making acquaintances," she answered lightly; "and in
+the midst of people who don't want me I feel doubly alone."
+
+He relapsed into frowning meditation.
+
+"Well, then," he hesitated, and drawled out his words as people do who
+are afraid of their own boldness, "then ... perhaps the best thing
+would be for you to come ... somewhere near."
+
+"Near where?"
+
+"Don't pretend you don't know what I mean."
+
+"I do know, but I can hardly believe my ears."
+
+"What is there so wonderful in it?" he growled. "I could look after you
+sometimes, and have a chat about one thing and another."
+
+"And show me her, I suppose, to get my opinion and my blessing?"
+
+"Well, what if I did? You and I have consulted each other about
+everything we have done for years.... I cannot for the life of me see
+why it should be so monstrous in this case."
+
+She felt something of patronising pity for him. She patted his hand and
+said:
+
+"I don't think, my dear boy, that I am quite the right person to assist
+in your courtship."
+
+"Good Lord! What next? You talk quite theatrically to-day. You are
+evidently suffering from swelled head. Yes, swelled head, I say! You
+are trying to get a rise out of me, and I don't like it, just now
+especially."
+
+She laughed and stretched herself. How petty it all was, and how
+ridiculous! How little she cared! And why should she care?
+
+Alone--to be alone with him. That was the only thing that mattered in
+the whole world.
+
+"You would rather not, then?"
+
+She silently shook her head.
+
+"Very well," he said, and looked as if he were going to leave her in
+anger; but he hadn't the strength of mind, "Lilly."
+
+"Yes?"
+
+"I should like to prevent any future misunderstandings between us. You
+seem to think that, this time too, it's all a joke."
+
+"Not at all, Richard. I wish you every happiness. Only, with the best
+intentions, I cannot be of much use to you in this matter."
+
+"Of use to me! Who was saying anything about your being of use to me?
+Mamma is right! She says if I don't pull it off this time I never
+shall. So, understand once for all, in a few weeks all will be over
+between us."
+
+She nearly said, "So much the better"; but seeing that there were tears
+in the corners of his eyes she refrained, for she didn't wish to hurt
+him.
+
+Four years of life spent together lay behind them. He was so dependent
+on her for sympathy that she could not let him go without a word of
+advice and encouragement. She spoke to him as if he were a child, said
+that his mother was right, praised his scheme, and enumerated the many
+good reasons why it ought to come about; and in order to put his mind
+at ease with regard to her own complacent attitude, she reminded him
+that it had always been her highest ambition that he should feel free
+to do as he liked. She also assured him that to the end of her life she
+would retain her sentiments of friendship towards him. And in the end
+they both shed tears at parting.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XVII
+
+
+Now the way was clear, now the new life might be consecrated with
+rejoicing and thanksgiving. July came and scorched the deserted
+streets. Those who remained in the aristocratic West-end, with no
+employer to ply the lash, spent dreamy days behind closed shutters, and
+wandered between bedroom and bath.
+
+Lilly did not come to life till evening, when the town breathed out the
+heat that it had absorbed during the day in a redhot glow, when dusty
+clouds rolled over the yellow surface of the canal, and behind the
+parched and prematurely faded chestnuts the red furnace of the sky
+melted into the reflected lights of the street-lamps.
+
+Then at Konrad's side she strolled through the blue twilight of the
+streets, using her eyes so as to escape observation from acquaintances
+who might chance to be about.
+
+They met worthy, middle-class families on their way to the gardens.
+Lovers joined each other at appointed street corners. And between these
+two extremes was the floating element of those detached beings who are
+alone and solitary in crowds, and who yearn to steal from laughing
+Chance what they have prayed for in vain from sterner gods. A sultry
+vapour of secret desires hung over the exhausted city, in which
+conventional reserve and genuine sentiment flickered up and were
+extinguished as if they had never been.
+
+How long ago seemed the days when she herself had sauntered around,
+hoping for fate to come her way, yet not daring to compel it. And, with
+a shudder at the thought of the dangers she had escaped, she clung
+closer to Konrad's protecting arm.
+
+They always succeeded in finding some private nook after their own
+heart to dine in, where a gipsy band scraped their fiddles wildly, or
+Tyrolese played their zithers, or the landlord himself, a musician who
+had known better days, acted as conductor of an orchestra. In ivy-clad
+arbours, where the hot breeze stirred the dust on the evergreens in
+tubs, they could pass the evening hours together without fear of
+discovery. In the meantime a change had come over their intercourse.
+There were still instructive and erudite harangues on every conceivable
+subject, and listening attentively she hung on his lips with as much
+eagerness as ever, but her holy zeal for scientific studies had
+evaporated.
+
+That God did not exist, that Fra Filippo Lippi was a scoundrel, that a
+line gone mad should be consigned to an asylum even if it was modern of
+the modern, that baroque art had its redeeming qualities--all this and
+much else that was interesting Lilly had heard many times, but it no
+longer provoked argument.
+
+Often they looked long and silently into each other's eyes with a
+tender smile of yearning, as if that were the most eloquent language in
+which they could converse. Often too his thoughts wandered away on
+their own solitary excursions, and only came back to her under
+coercion. Then she was sad and jealous, and begged to go home.
+
+Not till he was pillowed in her arms, lying close to her heart, was she
+content. The heat of the day had baked the walls through. The curtains
+were oppressive, and through the blinds a kind of desert cyclone blew;
+but they took no notice, the sultriness suited their mood.
+
+They dreaded falling asleep as a misfortune, which shamefully
+abbreviated the hours of their being together, and so they promised
+that the one who kept awake longer was to rouse the other.
+
+It was she who always kept awake longer; for he was exhausted by the
+day's work. For him there was no prospect of another doze after
+breakfast in bed, or of a siesta on the couch as alleviation from the
+midday heat. And as he lay with tired limbs outstretched, twitching
+like a noble hound's after a day's sport, she had not the heart to keep
+her promise. Then she would sit up beside him, and in the light cast
+from the pink-shaded, dimly burning lamp gaze at him hour after hour
+without tiring.
+
+There was always something in his face to study. The frown of wrath, or
+rather of power, between his brows was more sharply defined than it
+used to be, and still frightened her a little. The muscles in his
+temples were never at rest, and the firm, curved upper lip trembled at
+the corners as if he were smiling at her in his sleep. He had become
+thin. In the haggard hollows of his cheeks were shadows spreading
+towards the jaws which they darkened, and there was a line of suffering
+about his nostrils. He was like a young Christ, made to be worshipped.
+
+Often as she gazed at him she thought, "If I killed him at this
+moment--plunged a hat-pin into his heart--then he would belong to me
+entirely, now and always."
+
+Then she would grope on his left side for his heart, lay the hollow of
+her hand against it, and fancy that she held it fast in her power, and
+with his heart, his love for her, and need never more relinquish
+either.
+
+Once while she stooped over him, contemplating him thus earnestly, she
+woke him, and he looked at her in alarm, and, still half-asleep, asked:
+
+"What is the matter? Have I hurt you?"
+
+"Why do you ask?"
+
+"Your eyes have such a curious expression, almost as if you were angry
+with me."
+
+She made a vow that she would not gaze at him any more, but she could
+not help herself, and stared at him as much as ever. She loved him so
+dearly.
+
+It was terrible when a sudden anxiety possessed her that she might lose
+him. Many a night this feeling of fear came over her with such cruel
+realism that she could hardly resist the impulse to rave and scream and
+tear her hair out by the roots. But she must not wake him, so she crept
+gently closer to his side, put one arm behind his back, and flinging
+the other across his breast, laid her head under his shoulder, and
+clung to him so tightly that she felt almost as if she were growing
+into a limb of his body.
+
+Thus she became by degrees calmer, and could have a good cry, or give
+herself up to fancying how infinitely happy she would make him.
+
+Never since time began would a son of Adam have been so happy. She
+would wrap him in a mantle of love, so soft and thick that no rude
+strokes of fate could penetrate it. She would be his Egeria and inspire
+his muse; with an invisible aureole surrounding her head she would
+stimulate and encourage him to noble undertakings and great
+achievements; she would tend him with the holy devotion of a sister of
+mercy.... She would attend cookery classes, learn laundry-work and
+dressmaking. No, it would be better for her to go to University
+lectures, study science and music, and a hundred other useful things,
+so that he should never find her a dull companion, or a useless
+helpmate.
+
+For all this, she must of course be free and get rid of Richard. She
+thought a great deal about him, too; invariably without bitterness or
+resentment. Long ago he had been forgiven for setting her feet on the
+downward path.
+
+"Everyone has his own standard of right," Konrad was wont to say. And,
+after all, to Richard she once owed her salvation.
+
+The new life was to begin publicly as well as privately, with his
+engagement, which he wrote was on the eve of taking place. But she
+still felt hardly equal to a crisis. She shuddered at the thought of
+all the lies that would have to be told to Konrad as soon as a change
+took place in her household.
+
+She preferred to avoid as long as possible the inevitable hardships
+lying before her in the future. Only at night, when she lay on the
+sleeping man's breast, did she work herself up into an ecstasy of
+sufficient rapture to look forward to poverty and privations shared
+with him as a royal inheritance of purple and gold. At three o'clock in
+the morning, when the lamps outside were extinguished one by one, and
+the reflection of the first grey shadows of cold dawn lay on the
+ceiling, she was bound in honour to wake him.
+
+He must not meet other residents in the house on account of his own
+reputation and hers.
+
+As he dressed, he fumbled, half-asleep, among the ivory coroneted
+brushes, and managed to complete a hasty toilette in time to reach the
+nearest Viennese cafe as soon as it opened for a pick-me-up in the
+shape of a black coffee.
+
+For from Lilly's arms he insisted on going straight to his desk. She
+could not talk him out of this insane proceeding. It was an atonement
+that the night's pleasure demanded from him, and so he would sit
+brooding among his books and papers till noon, often unable to write a
+line from fatigue.
+
+She, on the other hand, sank into a profound slumber, from which she
+was awakened about ten o'clock by the entry of Adele, smiling
+approvingly, with the breakfast-tray.
+
+Every other night she allowed him to devote to his work. She had no
+desire to sap his young life's blood. He made her anxious enough as it
+was. She did not like his hectic colour, nor the glitter in his eye. It
+disquieted her to see the abrupt changes in his mood from uproarious
+gaiety to absent-minded self-absorption.
+
+All this should be altered when--what?
+
+Oh! why bother about plans? Why not go on just as she was--loving
+him and making him happy? She passed her days in half-joyous,
+half-terrified dreams. She now had lost her zest and delight in mental
+exertion. There were other things that seemed more important than
+cultivating her intellect--the abject desire to be ever pleasing to his
+eyes, to hand him with unfailing regularity the intoxicating draught
+that held him in her toils. Hitherto she had accepted her personal
+charms as a matter of course, and valued them little more than anything
+else that was not seen and of no use. Now the cult of her body became a
+mania, for she so dreaded falling short of the ideal of her that she
+knew he had engraved on his heart. The desire to be beautiful, and the
+necessity of remaining beautiful, drove her to adopt methods which she
+had hitherto disdained. She took as much pains with herself as a woman
+in a harem. She perfumed her baths, tinted her nails, lengthened her
+eyebrows, powdered her arms and shoulders, and continually fancied she
+saw blemishes which needed new cosmetics to remove.
+
+Then she was overtaken by a dread that all this care might only convert
+her appearance into that of a beautiful professional harlot. For this
+reason she left off wearing jewellery, and dressed more quietly than a
+parson's wife. Only the eye of a connoisseur could detect the amount of
+artistic ingenuity that her plain garb concealed.
+
+Most of all when she was alone did jealousy occupy her thoughts. Not
+that she imagined he had anything to do with other women. He was far
+too noble to be suspected of that. But she was jealous of all that he
+did, and of all his concerns. It was torture to her to think of his
+writing-table. Every hour not spent in her society seemed like
+treachery to their love, and she cherished an hostility towards his
+friends such as she could never have believed herself capable of.
+Often, on the nights that he spent apart from her, she would keep watch
+on his rooms. She would stand opposite the house and look across the
+street and up at the windows, much as she had once done in the Alte
+Jakobstrasse. If the lamp was burning in his window she was content,
+but if she saw him going out or coming in she did not close her eyes
+all night.
+
+He lived not far away, on the third floor of a Karlsbad lodging-house.
+It was long before he would allow her to visit him there. Next door to
+him, he had told her, was an invalid who needed the utmost care; any
+excitement caused by the sound of strange voices might prove fatal to
+her. When he spoke of the invalid his eyes avoided meeting hers, and
+she thought there were a hundred chances to one that he was keeping
+some secret from her.
+
+When, however, after her persistent entreaties, he admitted her one
+afternoon she found nothing to confirm her suspicion. She was only
+besought to speak in a low tone, and she had known she must do this
+beforehand. His room was little more than a student's den. It was
+lofty, with two windows, but cheaply furnished--with no sofa and no
+carpet. On the walls hung rare engravings, and the usual pier-glass was
+displaced by a valuable copy of the "Madonna de Foligno," which looked
+down with sublime serenity on the barren wastes of northern
+Philistinism. Heaps of books were ranged on long low shelves, while
+others were simply piled on the floor in different corners of the room,
+covered with pieces of American cloth to keep them from the dust.
+
+The writing-table alone, as might have been expected, boasted a certain
+luxuriousness. Like the pictures and books, it was Konrad's personal
+property. It stood, with its handsome carving and wide, open leaf, like
+a dark and solemn altar in the middle of the room. Not a single
+photograph of a woman was anywhere to be seen. She had not given him
+hers, and no other woman's was worthy of a place on his desk. Behind
+maps and ink-bottles was propped the portrait of an old gentleman in a
+frame. The face was that of a weather-beaten old gourmet, with
+beautiful, well-kept white hair, and eyes, peculiar to connoisseurs of
+women, blinking shrewdly under wrinkled drooping lids.
+
+This was the famous old uncle who had paid for Konrad's education and
+now supported him.
+
+Lilly was conscious of a profound depression of spirits as she looked
+at the portrait, as if one glance of those keen old eyes could read her
+soul and bring to light the secret that she was keeping from her lover
+with a thousand artifices and subterfuges.
+
+"I'll take care that I never meet him," she thought,
+
+Konrad took from a drawer his proudest treasure, the introduction to
+his great work, and showed her the closely written sheets of the
+manuscript.
+
+She let her fingers pass caressingly over it. She regarded it with
+quite reverent awe. But then all of a sudden the jealousy that had of
+late been tormenting her soul attacked her with renewed force.
+
+This manuscript was his real love, and she was nothing but a dark,
+bloodless shadow, who preyed on his nights like a vulture.
+
+"Lock it up again," she said; and she turned despondently to go.
+
+As if the _magnum opus_ was not enough, there was a number of smaller
+things that kept him drudging. The more his name became known as that
+of a specialist in literary circles, the more frequently was he asked
+to contribute articles, and he strove to execute every order he
+received.
+
+One day it came out what the important post was that he had been
+offered and had mentioned to her three weeks ago, on their memorable
+expedition into the country.
+
+"I haven't dared to come to a decision till to-day," he said. "But now
+I have made up my mind. The editor of the periodical which I am to
+sub-edit in future has called on me, and left me no loophole for
+refusing. I was obliged to say 'Yes.' He is a charming fellow! In spite
+of his great intellectual ability, a man of almost childlike simplicity
+... and so frank, so genial.... You must get to know him--if you don't
+know him already."
+
+"What's his name?" she asked.
+
+"Dr. Salmoni."
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XVIII
+
+
+No, it was not to come out in this way! Fate was not to lay hands on
+her quite so rudely and clumsily.
+
+She was to be spared the disgrace of being caught like a criminal, and
+ultimately, by an act of self-denial, she was to prove that she had not
+been altogether unworthy of the great blessing of her life.
+
+Since the name Salmoni had been mentioned between them, she scarcely
+dared venture into the streets in Konrad's company. As she walked with
+him arm-in-arm, she imagined that every step she heard coming behind
+them was that of the dreaded man who had once followed her into the
+Alte Jakobstrasse.
+
+At last, to end the torture of this new anxiety, she made up a story to
+Konrad about a lady she was acquainted with calling on her, and asking
+who the tall, slim young man was in whose company she was now so often
+seen.
+
+The result of this necessary lie was terrifying. He would not speak or
+eat, but strode about the room in great perturbation, finally leaving
+her at an hour when generally her bliss was just beginning.
+
+The following day brought forth an explanation. He came at dusk, paler
+than usual, with unnaturally brilliant eyes.
+
+"Listen, dearest!" he said. "I thought it over all last night, and I
+now see my duty clear before me. This must not go on."
+
+She could interpret this only as a wish to leave her. Her body seemed
+to become numb; she faced him calmly, and awaited her death-blow.
+
+"Since we have belonged to each other," he continued, "we have made no
+further allusion to your fiance. Nevertheless, I have thought all the
+more about him in private. You, too, have been very reticent with
+regard to your friend Herr Dehnicke. I only know that he is at present
+travelling, and has left you, so to speak, without a protector."
+
+She forced herself to smile. Why must he prolong the agony?
+
+"To-day I must confess to you that in the midst of all my happiness I
+have felt that my taking advantage of such a situation is altogether
+despicable. But my feelings are not in question. The main consideration
+is, what will become of you? What I feared from the first has come to
+pass: people are beginning to remark on our being together.... You
+can't bind anyone to secrecy.... It would be lowering to one's dignity.
+Thus the mutual friend of you and your betrothed is certain, sooner or
+later, to hear all about it, and to call you to account. You will be,
+of course, too proud to deny it, and the upshot of it all is that you
+will be left stranded and alone--without any sort of guardianship in
+the world. For I, as matters now stand, have not even the right to
+protect you. The thought is perfectly intolerable to me, whatever it
+may be to others."
+
+He jumped up, ran his fingers through the imaginary mane of hair, and
+tramped up and down.
+
+She came slowly back to life and consciousness, as the blood began to
+course more naturally through her veins.
+
+The dear, noble boy! How unsuspecting he was! She could have almost
+shrieked with laughter. But she controlled herself and said: "You
+needn't disturb yourself, Konni. His friend is not likely to hear
+anything, and if he does he won't believe it. And even if he does
+believe it, he will take good care that ..."
+
+She could not go on. The great guileless eyes frightened her.
+
+"You think, then, he would ..."
+
+He too hesitated, unable to find words in which to express the
+unspeakable.
+
+She examined the buttons on her bodice and didn't answer.
+
+"When is Herr Dehnicke coming home?" he asked.
+
+"It is not certain. He is gone wife-hunting," she replied, with a
+little feeling of triumph at having said something that placed her
+miles outside the radius of any suspicion now or to come.
+
+"Where is he at present?"
+
+"Why do you want to know?"
+
+"Because I must have a talk with him."
+
+She could hardly credit what she heard. He couldn't have said it.
+Surely, either he or she must be taking leave of their senses.
+
+"Don't be anxious," he said. "I am quite aware what I owe to your
+reputation. But I must find out once for all what opinion he has of
+your position.... Here is a man in America who has your promise, yet
+makes no sign.... He doesn't turn up, and he doesn't write. Why doesn't
+he write? If he hasn't got your address, why should he not write
+through Herr Dehnicke, whose business is known all over Berlin? No one
+is even sure if he is still alive. For a long time I tried to explain
+his silence in various ways; but now I can't help saying to myself, the
+only explanation there can possibly be is that he is dead, or as good
+as dead. Are you to continue bound to a dead man? Is your social
+existence to be dependent, as it were, on a guard of honour who has
+nothing to guard? This is the point I would like to discuss with the
+mutual friend. He'll have to answer me, or do you think he'll object?"
+
+Really, he has less knowledge of the world than is permissible, she
+thought compassionately; and aloud she replied, "I don't quite see,
+Konni, how you are justified in forcing an interview on a stranger."
+
+"That's my affair," he said, throwing back his head defiantly. "First,
+I must know if he will let you be free to do as you like. I don't see
+why he should hold the slave-driver's whip over you."
+
+"And I don't see why you should put yourself in a false position," she
+cried in newly awakened alarm. Already she heard fisticuffs and
+pistol-shots resounding in her ears. "I will speak to Herr Dehnicke
+myself; I will set myself free. I promise you that. But you ... if I
+let you go to him, what will he think of me? You will only succeed in
+compromising me."
+
+He drew himself up. His eyes were those of a conqueror. "If a man loves
+you and wants you for his wife, I fail to see how that can compromise
+you."
+
+
+                           *   *   *   *   *
+
+
+It was dusk and oppressively close when these words were spoken. The
+little bullfinch flapped its wings languidly in its sand, the goldfish
+remained motionless behind their wall of hot glass, and the small naked
+monkey whimpered in his sleep. Heavy masses of bluish-black clouds were
+reflected in the slimy water of the canal. There was a menace of storm
+in the air--and this was the thunderbolt.
+
+Her first feeling was one of surprise--certainly not pleasant surprise;
+then followed an unutterably plaintive cry, unheard by any human ear,
+and which hurt all the more because it was dumb.
+
+"Too late ... played out ... past caring. No more happiness on earth
+... too late ... too late!"
+
+She leaned back in the sofa-corner and examined the ceiling minutely
+and carefully.
+
+He waited for his answer.
+
+If she lowered her eyes they must meet his, full of a fire which burned
+into her soul. No salvation from these eyes, no escape from what had to
+come!
+
+And he waited.
+
+Then she heard her own voice speaking quite calmly and distinctly, as
+if instead of herself Frau Jula was speaking--life's little mountebank
+with the brow of brass.
+
+"I thought, dear Konni, we had agreed that neither of us should talk of
+marrying."
+
+"How can you remind me of that?" he cried vehemently. "When I said so,
+could I foresee how things would turn out? Had I the least inkling then
+of what you are? Did I know you were so divine an angel, who can exalt
+a poor devil like me one moment into a seventh heaven of bliss, and the
+next plunge him into hell's torments?... Yes, I mean it! Torments, for
+to-day all must come out--the unvarnished truth. There's a gap in my
+life. All is in chaos: my work, my thought, my faith in you. You would
+be my good genius, but often you are something almost the reverse.
+Don't distress yourself. I am not reproaching you ... but only myself,
+for being so weak.... I want to work; I ought to work.... I have just
+undertaken a whole pile of new duties. I thought that if my duty was
+imposed on me from outside, I should be bound to stick to it. But the
+very opposite has happened. I am running to seed through perpetual
+inner wrestling and questioning.... If I don't bring our lives into a
+peaceful and equable channel, we must both be lost. I can't do it
+unless you belong to me properly and altogether, unless your room is
+next to mine and you are always within sight of my desk--always near,
+always beside me."
+
+"I can arrange to come to you in the autumn," she interrupted
+timorously.
+
+"No, not in that way! I will have no more secretiveness, no more ground
+for self-reproaches. Am I to have it on my conscience that every day
+you sacrifice yourself for me further you come nearer to your ruin? For
+in the end it must ruin you; it will stick to you like mud. And why
+should we make a polluted thing out of what is most sacred to us? Or is
+it that I am not good enough to be your lasting companion through life?
+Do you shrink from being my wife on the score of poverty?"
+
+In repudiation of this idea she almost screamed aloud.
+
+"What you have and how much," he continued, "I do not wish to inquire.
+I am well enough off for both of us. My uncle allows me three hundred
+marks a month, and I get four hundred from Dr. Salmoni."
+
+Ah! how she shuddered at that name!
+
+"Besides, I can easily earn three hundred marks by articles alone ...
+that's altogether a thousand marks a month. As good as a general's
+pay.... Isn't that enough for you?"
+
+"Oh, for pity's sake, be quiet!" she cried, hardly able to contain
+herself. "I wasn't thinking of money."
+
+"Of what, then?"
+
+He planted himself in front of her with an air of challenge. The dent
+of wrath was between his brows, as if it had been chiselled there. She
+bowed her head. Since the days of the colonel she had never been so
+afraid of any man.
+
+"Well, why not? Out with it and say what it is! To all appearances you
+do not love me sufficiently. You still cling, perhaps, to the memory of
+the fellow who has long ago forgotten you. You may probably have said
+to yourself, 'I can make use of this foolish boy as a lover _pro tem_.
+He's all very well as an amusement to pass the time, but when it comes
+to his seriously interfering with the course of my life, I must get rid
+of him--throw him over, eh?' Isn't that it? Be brave and say it
+straight out! I am merely a stop-gap, not the sort of man you want for
+a husband. Not till I have begun to make a name could you think of
+marriage. Am I not right? Very well."
+
+He had taken up his hat, and looked as if he intended going.
+
+"Oh, Konni, have mercy on me!" she implored. She had slid down from her
+seat in order to clasp his knees. Now she cowered on the floor between
+the sofa and his chair.
+
+"There is no need for me to have mercy, or for you to have mercy!" he
+exclaimed. "Till to-day you have been the holiest thing on earth to me.
+But I cannot submit to being brushed away like a fly. Tell me why you
+won't marry me. One plausible reason will satisfy me. When you have
+given it, I promise never to return to the subject."
+
+"Give me till to-morrow," she moaned.
+
+"Why till to-morrow? To-day is the same thing. I cannot go through
+another night of torturing suspense."
+
+"I'll write."
+
+He was evidently amazed. "Write? What is there to write?"
+
+"Whether I may or not. The reasons and everything."
+
+"Some way out of it will come to me in the night," she thought.
+
+"When shall I get the letter?"
+
+"To-morrow morning by the first post."
+
+"Very well. Till then I will have patience. Good-bye, Lilly, for the
+present."
+
+He helped her back to the sofa and held out his hand in farewell, and
+as she saw his great eyes fixed on her, with that steadfast clearness
+which no lie or suspicion of a lie had ever clouded, she knew there was
+no escape for her. Evasion was no longer to be thought of; the truth,
+the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, was what Konrad must be
+told. It swept over her like a warm, soothing stream: "Whether it means
+your damnation or not, he shall know the truth." Only, to tell him face
+to face was more than any mortal could endure.
+
+When she was alone, reaction set in. The instincts of self-preservation
+asserted their rights. Surely, what Frau Jula had done she could do.
+She had had far worse things to explain away.
+
+Richard would undoubtedly keep silent, and that was the most important
+point. Now that he was bent on marrying, it would be in his own best
+interests to allow her to vanish as gracefully as possible out of his
+life. The rest of "the crew" might gossip as much as they liked. Konrad
+was invulnerable to their slander.
+
+The one danger ahead was Dr. Salmoni. But she had only to go to him, to
+entreat his silence, and he, too, would hold his tongue. He certainly
+would have good cause to prefer that his abominable attempted assault
+should not be brought to light. So she reflected. Yet in the midst of
+her planning and scheming a sudden disgust of herself and what she was
+going to do seized her, and shattered with one blow the whole fabric of
+intended deception.
+
+If the mere name of Dr. Salmoni had prevented her going out in the
+streets with Konrad, how could she expect to pass her life at his side
+without quailing in hourly fear? How numerous would be the snubs and
+humiliations she must expect directly Konrad made any attempt to
+introduce her as his wife into the society to which he belonged! She
+who had figured in the newspapers as the latest acquisition to the
+circles of the fashionable demi-monde! And what if he too began to
+suspect? How he would be consumed with shame and horror--he who was so
+proud, and the mirror of all refinement, whose pure unworldliness alone
+accounted for his not seeing what sort of life she had been leading!
+What an awakening that would be from a short tormenting dream!
+
+No, she could not emulate Frau Jula after all. And she thrust from her
+with scorn the atrocious thought which in the stress of the hour she
+had stained her soul by entertaining.
+
+An exultant longing for self-destruction came over her, and she felt a
+strong impulse to tear her heart from her breast and hurl it at his
+feet as she sat down and wrote:
+
+
+"My dear sweet Konni,
+
+"I have shamefully deceived you. I am a bad woman, and nothing else.
+The fiance I have told you about never existed. That despicable little
+cur of a lieutenant for whom I was untrue to my husband never dreamed
+of marrying me, but handed me over to his rich friend, who made me his
+mistress. And that is what I am now. For years I have been living in a
+world of vice and vulgarity. Long ago I was ostracised from all decent
+society. Kept women and the lovers who financed them have been my sole
+associates. I have clung to you because you in your ignorance respected
+me, and I, in my slough of degradation, longed to be respected. So now
+you know why I cannot be your wife.
+
+"If you want my kisses, come. For anything more, I am no longer good
+enough.
+
+                                                     "Lilly."
+
+
+The clock struck eleven. Adele had gone to bed. She would have to go
+down herself to drop the letter in the box. But the long-threatened
+storm just then burst in fury. Hailstones rattled down, and gusts of
+wind rushed through the open windows, scattering raindrops on the
+writing-table. The paper on which her dry feverish eyes were fixed
+became wet; it looked as if she had drenched it with her tears.
+
+"That is a happy coincidence," she thought. Then she was ashamed. The
+time for acting was surely over. But as she settled herself to rewrite
+the letter she stopped, shuddering in horror. What was to be gained by
+such a monstrous indictment of self? And was it, after all, the truth?
+In the slanderous mouth, perhaps, of a back-biting woman who twists out
+of bare facts evidence of crime against a friend, or in that of one of
+those social hangmen who have a halter ready for every past. She alone
+knew how it had all come about. How from inner necessity and outer
+compulsion, from too-confiding trustfulness and unprotected innocence
+link by link the chain had been forged, which now clanked its weight of
+guilt about her limbs. She, at least, knew that there was another less
+harsh and hideous truth, which would excuse and purify her in the eyes
+of any sympathetic person.
+
+So she tore up the sheet of notepaper and began again. She made a rough
+copy, and then polished and polished till it satisfied her.
+
+Now the letter ran:
+
+
+"Dearest and beloved Friend,
+
+"She who writes you these lines is a most unfortunate woman, whom you
+really know very little about, and who had to deceive you until to-day
+because all that is most sacred to her--her love for you--was at stake.
+And now, by writing this, that also is lost! I sacrifice it on the
+altar of your happiness for the sake of the divine fire that flashes
+from your eyes, consecrating and ennobling my soul.
+
+"The world has treated me cruelly. It has wrenched from me by degrees
+my faith in human nature, my ideals, my buoyancy of spirit; it has
+brought me to sin, and so robbed me of the right to continue my journey
+through life at your side.
+
+"I set out once on that journey full of confidence and hopefulness, and
+pure to the very core of my being. But every man I was destined to meet
+plucked off a twig of my virtue. I lifted my eyes in adoring reverence
+to the aged husband who promised to be my hero and master, my pattern
+and god. He used me as a tool for his basest lusts.
+
+"Another came, who was young as I was, whom I wanted to save while I
+saved myself in his arms. He took me and enjoyed me as if I were a
+romantic adventure, then flung me off and went to the dogs. He wrote a
+Uriah sort of letter to a friend of his, who took mean advantage of my
+stranded position, both spiritual and physical, and made me by a low
+trick so dependent on him that I found I had been long completely in
+his power without knowing it. Helpless and utterly crushed as I was, I
+yielded and became his victim and slave, and I had not even the spirit
+left to be angry with him.
+
+"This was the pass to which my destiny brought me. In vain I tried to
+struggle out of the darkness of night, but nowhere did I see light
+breaking ahead. I caught with enthusiasm at any hand held out to me,
+but each seemed to pull me down lower, till my whole being seemed
+paralysed with hopeless despair.
+
+"Then you came, my beloved, my saviour, my redeemer! Once more it was
+light around me, once more the world burst into blossom, the parched
+fountains were unsealed, and 'The Song of Songs' echoed again within
+me.
+
+"And with pride and elation I recognised the fact that nothing impure
+had taken root in my character; that the days of degradation had passed
+over me without touching my integrity of soul, my desire for pure and
+beautiful things, my instincts for a lofty humanity. It had all been
+only slumbering, and you, beloved, have awakened it to new life.
+
+"And even if I may not be your wife--only one free of stain deserves
+you--I want to be worthy of you, whether near you or far away, as you
+decree.
+
+"I am quite resolved to free myself from the shackles that so long have
+encumbered me outwardly, and to ascend out of the misery of my lot to a
+higher life, more in harmony with the demands of my inner self. You
+have pointed the way, and in gratitude I kiss your dear, gentle,
+diligent hand.
+
+"Good-bye, my love! If you want to punish me, never come near me again.
+But, if you can put up with the love of a woman who loves you as you
+never can be loved again on earth, do not let me perish. I have nothing
+but what I am to give you, but that is yours till death.
+
+                                                     "Lilly."
+
+
+She read and reread what she had written, and worked herself up into a
+state of rapture over it.
+
+Now the truth appeared in quite another light. And then all at once the
+question rose within her: But is _this_ the truth? Was it not rather a
+conglomeration of turgid phrases expressive of high-flown emotions
+which were not spontaneous or sincere, belonging to the pages of
+sensational novels, but not to herself? Instead of despair she had in
+reality only suffered from boredom, and in the "darkness of night" she
+had many times enjoyed herself thoroughly and held high revel. She had
+made out that the worthy Richard was a tyrannical despot and herself a
+poor downtrodden victim, whereas she had always been at liberty to do
+what she liked.
+
+It was the truth, and yet it was--just as much and as little the truth
+as she had confessed in that first terrible letter. It was possible to
+write this letter and that letter, and many another; but the truth, the
+genuine, illuminating, naked truth, would not be in any.
+
+She herself did not know what it was, and no one else knew.
+
+The truth had dissolved into nothingness the moment after the events to
+which it related had happened, and no power on earth could conjure it
+up again. A distorted mirage, changing with her mood and as her pen
+moved over the paper, was all that was left of it.
+
+"But I don't want to tell any more lies," she cried to herself, tearing
+up the second letter. "To-day, at any rate, I want to speak the truth."
+
+Should she write a third letter?
+
+It was long past midnight. Her eyes burned. Over-excitement made her
+temples throb. And to-morrow morning he must have his answer, as she
+had sworn he should.
+
+Then suddenly she awakened to a consciousness of what had really been
+happening, how during the last four hours she had been face to face
+with the danger of losing him for ever. A frenzy of sickening anxiety
+overwhelmed her. She ran about the flat, reeled, battered herself
+against the walls, rushed to the window and cried out his name. She
+must go to him, go to him at once. It was the only thought she was able
+to grasp. She would get the front door opened somehow, wake him out of
+his sleep, force her way into his room, stay with him to-night and
+always, no matter what the consequences might be.... She did not care.
+Only to be quit of this dread, which consumed her like a furnace.
+
+The thunderstorm had raged itself out, but rain was still falling
+steadily. She scarcely gave herself time to fling on a cloak. In her
+house-shoes, without hat or umbrella, she flew along the streets,
+splashing through the mud and puddles, followed by foul epithets from
+homeless night-waifs in dark doorways. She arrived breathless and
+panting at his lodgings.
+
+Light glimmered in the two windows on the third floor. She clapped her
+hands and called out "Konni! Konni!" repeating his name several times.
+But he had closed the windows and did not hear her.
+
+As she stared up at his window, she saw the shadow of his tall figure
+on the blind glide up and down, from one end of the room to the
+other--up and down, up and down. And all the time the rain was
+descending on her in torrents, and the chill dampness of the street
+creeping up her limbs.
+
+"Konni! Konni!" she cried louder. Foot-passengers who went by offered
+her their umbrellas, others mimicked her, and called out too, "Konni!
+Konni!" Then at last the restless shadow came to a standstill. One of
+the windows was opened.
+
+"Lilly, is it you?" he asked, in a voice hoarse with alarm.
+
+"Now here you are at last, my sweetest Konni," answered, instead of
+Lilly, an exhilarated gentleman who insisted on holding his umbrella
+over her.
+
+"My God!"
+
+Upstairs it became dark, and a few moments later he was standing with
+the lamp and door-key in his hand at the glass entrance-door.
+
+The exhilarated gentleman took his leave, with repeated bows.
+
+"Lilly, what has happened? What are you doing here?"
+
+She crouched trembling against the doorway. She could not speak. She
+had only one sensation--that she was with him now, and all would be
+well.
+
+He felt her clothes.
+
+"You are wet through!... You have only house-shoes on! My God, Lilly!"
+
+She tried to say something, but she was ashamed that he should see how
+her teeth chattered.
+
+"And I can't take you in. You know why.... But I must--yes, I must take
+you in. If I let you go home like this you'll catch your death. We must
+be very quiet--as we were before. We mayn't speak above a whisper. The
+invalid is still not out of danger. Give me your hand.... Come!"
+
+With eyes half closed, she suffered him to lead her up the stairs. Her
+wet dress flapped against, the banisters. She felt as if she must cower
+down on one of the steps and lie there till the charwoman came with her
+broom and swept her away. Yet she went on climbing the stairs, drawing
+nearer every minute to the fate in store for her above. With bowed head
+she followed him down the passage into his room, where the lingering
+sultriness of the summer day half stifled her. Konrad pushed her down
+into his easy-chair. He drew off the soaked velvet rags from her feet,
+and brought her dry stockings. The wet dress too he peeled from her
+body, threw his great-coat round her shoulders, and wrapped her in warm
+blankets.
+
+She let him do it all impassively, wishing to enjoy to the full his
+tender care of her. So far she had not spoken a word. Now, when she
+wanted to thank him, he pointed to the door of the adjoining room.
+
+"Speak low," he whispered in her ear beseechingly. "The poor thing
+seems to be having a good night for the first time."
+
+Faint compassion awoke in her; yet talking was imperative.
+
+"What is the matter with her?" she asked under her breath. "Tell me."
+
+He hesitated. "The landlady has sworn me to strictest secrecy.... But
+you are part of myself; I may tell you. The girl, her only child, ran
+away three or four months ago, and was confined in secret. Her mother
+went and brought her home, and for six weeks she has been lying between
+life and death; at last she has taken a turn for the better."
+
+"Poor thing!" she said, and then the consciousness of her own
+wretchedness came over her with renewed force.
+
+"Konni, Konni," she wailed whisperingly on his breast, "it's all over
+now. I wanted to starve with you, beg, do anything; but what's the
+use?... When you know all...."
+
+"How can that make any difference, dearest?"
+
+"I mean about me--my life, my past."
+
+He disengaged himself with a slight jerk and sat down opposite her. The
+inquiring look of consternation, which stiffened his pale face like a
+mask, filled her with a fresh fear. This time it was not fear of him,
+but fear for him. She was afraid of causing him pain, making her own
+suffering his.
+
+"I was going to write to you everything exactly as it happened, but
+somehow it wouldn't come. As I wrote, it got all wrong. So instead I
+came, came to you in the middle of the night. If you like, I will tell
+you ... all ... now."
+
+She could not go on, and buried her face on the edge of the
+writing-table.
+
+"Why don't you speak, then?"
+
+He had quite forgotten his strict injunctions about keeping quiet. Both
+started at the sudden sound of his voice.
+
+"She is probably asleep," he said, again lowering his tone. "So speak
+out at last. What can it be that you have to say?"
+
+His breath came heavily, under the weight of anxiety that oppressed
+him.
+
+And she began. Bending towards him, she tried to relate in a whisper
+the history for which she had not been able to find words at home.
+
+And this time, too, it was not the truth. She felt that it was not. It
+was even less, much less, the truth than what she had written in her
+letters. No power on earth could have induced her to pain him with
+every sordid detail. So she told of a long succession of martyrdoms,
+and in a funereal train let her injuries, humiliations, and insults
+pass in review before him. All had been darkness around her, unrelieved
+by a ray of hope or light. She had struggled in vain for deliverance
+and salvation, had made a dismal sacrifice of herself for no end. So
+she talked on. And he, half turned to stone, with wide-open eyes,
+listened. Only at the name "Salmoni," which she dared not withhold, he
+started and shrank from her.
+
+They had both entirely forgotten the patient in the next room.
+Constantly she had to wipe tears out of her eyes; she grew indignant
+with herself and others by fits and starts, skated gingerly over places
+where the ice was thin, indulged in self-reproaches, and said to
+herself defiantly as she drew near the end: "This is the truth." And it
+was, in the sense that it was an inventory of the best in her; the
+truth as she hoped, with justice, it might shape itself in his
+perplexed vision.
+
+There was silence. Her glance glided guiltily beyond him and rested on
+the portrait which leered at her from the writing-table with cynical
+worldly eyes, as much as to say: "I know you, my dear child, better
+than you know yourself." Something familiar and confidential lay in
+those eyes, a sort of reflection from that mad merry world which she
+had just been representing as a purgatory of tortures.
+
+Fascinated, she dared not look away from them, and their mocking
+searching gaze stripped her soul bare, and caused every gleam of hope
+to die within her.
+
+The silence became painful. Their thoughts seemed to vibrate in zigzags
+through the breathless stillness of the room. Then suddenly it was
+broken by a low piteous moaning, muffled at first, as if a handkerchief
+were being thrust into the mouth, then breaking out again more
+violently and loudly. It came from the next room, where the sick girl
+who had sinned secretly had been struggling for so many weeks for her
+young life. Soon, crooning words of comfort mingled with the moans. The
+girl's mother had come from the room beyond where she slept to
+ascertain the cause of this fresh outburst of grief.
+
+Their eyes met. "She must have heard everything," their glance seemed
+to say.
+
+For a moment another's misfortune made them forget their own. The great
+flood of suffering common to humanity swept over them, softening the
+sting of their own personal woes. The sobbing now was smothered by the
+pillows.
+
+"My pet, my own!" entreated the mother's consoling voice, every
+intonation of it overflowing with love; "be good again, my darling ...
+it's not so very dreadful.... We will bring up the little one, and even
+if he doesn't marry you it won't matter so much. Think we shall have
+the little baby, and what a joy it will be when the baby laughs and
+says, 'mamma.' You see, it is not so very bad, after all, my pet, is
+it?"
+
+The sobbing subsided and gave place to a gurgling sigh of content.
+
+"'It's not so very bad, after all.' Ah! I wish someone would say that
+to me," thought Lilly.
+
+But no one ever would. A burning desire to be soothed and comforted,
+even as the poor little sinner in the next room was being comforted,
+rose within her. "She has her mother!" she moaned, bursting into tears,
+"but I haven't anyone."
+
+Konrad bent over her and drew her hands from her face. In his
+sorrowful eyes a radiance dawned, so dear, so full of unspeakable
+loving-kindness, that he was quite transfigured, and seemed like a
+visitant from another world.
+
+"Haven't you got me?" he asked.
+
+"Yes, but you can't help me now," she said. "How can you endure me any
+longer?"
+
+In the next room all was still again. Now the girl's mother must also
+be aware that he was entertaining a belated guest.
+
+"Listen," he whispered, with his lips close to her ear. "We mustn't
+talk much, and my head's going round; but there's one thing that seems
+quite clear to me, and that is, the absurdity of everything that we
+call guilt and sin when two people love each other ... and when one of
+them has suffered like you. To me you have always been an angel, and an
+angel you shall continue to be in the future."
+
+"In the future?" she stammered, listening eagerly. "Is there any
+future?"
+
+He wiped his forehead, which was damp from perspiration.
+
+"I don't know yet," he said. "I only know that I cannot live without
+you."
+
+She closed her eyes. She wanted the dream to last.
+
+"It may not be now as we hoped, of course." She noticed that his words
+came haltingly. "Everything will have to be different."
+
+"But nothing in your life ought to be altered," she said; "it mustn't
+be different."
+
+"You can't disregard facts, dear. Where we shall live it's impossible
+to say yet; but we shall find some corner of the earth where no one
+knows us."
+
+For the first time it dawned on her what he meant. And forgetful of
+herself, the sick girl, and everything else, she sank down on her knees
+with a cry, and sobbed:
+
+"I won't let you! You shall not do it! You know the world so little.
+You are far too young. You don't know what you are doing. You mustn't
+sacrifice yourself.... I don't want to ruin you. I love you too well
+for that."
+
+He bent back her head and stroked the hair out of her eyes. Oh! if
+there had not been that heavenly light of goodness and of suffering in
+his eyes! A whole world of grief already burned in their depths.
+
+"If we've come to the question of sacrifice," he said, "then I must ask
+you to make a sacrifice for me. Will you?"
+
+"Yes--anything. Do you want me to die? Say it."
+
+"I only want you to do one thing. Come to me as you are. Don't bring a
+single bit of your property with you. Never go back to your ... that
+flat. From this moment let it all be as if it had never been. Promise
+me that."
+
+She struggled against a feeling of shock.
+
+Not go home! Never see her dear corner drawing-room again, nor the
+little bullfinch; never give Peterle his dinner again! Never!
+
+A horrid feeling that it was insane folly to ask this came and went
+like a splash of mud. Then she answered in hasty resolution:
+
+"Yes, I promise."
+
+He breathed deeply. "Now we will keep quite still," he said. "The girl
+must get her sleep, and to-morrow I will explain everything to the
+landlady."
+
+"But your great work?" she asked, attacked by another fit of
+self-reproach. "What will become of it?"
+
+A melancholy smile stole over his face.
+
+"Who knows? It will depend on my uncle. If he consents, we can live as
+we like.... All will be well."
+
+"And if he doesn't?"
+
+His right hand, which had been caressing her hair unceasingly from her
+forehead downwards to her neck, for a moment pressed her crown almost
+painfully, as if by the closer contact gathering strength for the
+approaching life's battle.
+
+"Then all will be well too," he said, and smiled again.
+
+A few minutes later she lay beside him on the narrow camp-bedstead, the
+hard edges of which hurt her limbs. Her head was on his shoulder; her
+arms, one under his back, the other flung across his chest, clung to
+him as always, when she sought solace and protection from him in
+trouble. But this time _she_ slept, and _he_ kept watch.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XIX
+
+
+The old lampshade-maker of the Neanderstrasse was not a little
+astonished when her former lodger, whom she had always admired as a
+smartly-turned-out grand lady, came one day in a badly fitting alpaca
+coat and skirt, and a sailor hat with a grass-green ribbon round it,
+and asked to be taken in. Last year's young lady occupant of the best
+room having recently married, however, she was glad to let it again to
+Lilly.
+
+Thus it happened that Frau Laue's fiery crimson plush upholstery once
+more played a part in her life. The pictures of famous actors smiled
+down on her patronisingly from the walls, and she was reminded of the
+connection between cleanliness of person and purity of conscience as
+she made her toilette.
+
+Konrad, in touching concern for her appearance, drew all the money that
+he had saved out of the bank--about five hundred marks altogether--and
+had purchased her a wardrobe at the draper's, for she could not go out
+and shop for herself in the costume she had worn the night that she
+came to his rooms. He had been persuaded by the shopgirls to buy the
+most ridiculous things. She would have died of laughing if he hadn't
+laid out a great deal of his money on them.
+
+Dressed in the shoddy apparel, she felt she was masquerading, and not
+for the world would she now have been seen in the streets.
+
+Frau Laue shook her head doubtfully.
+
+"Four years ago you left me with court-dresses, bracelets, and
+brooches, and all sorts of lovely things, and now you are come back in
+these rags! That doesn't seem to me to be fitting to your career, Lilly
+dear."
+
+Neither did Konrad find favour in the old lady's eyes.
+
+"He's too young for you," she said, "and not enough of a swell. He may
+have high ideals, and be sentimental, otherwise he wouldn't see
+anything in you; but I tell you all that high-flown rubbish means
+sorrow."
+
+To Lilly this chatter was intensely objectionable. But as she had
+nothing to do all day, she sat down with Frau Laue, as had been her
+wont of old, and helped her tap and press her dried flowers. And often
+it seemed as if she had never been away.
+
+The first day of her absence she had written to Adele--without giving
+her address, of course--and instructed her not to be concerned about
+her, but to continue her duties at the flat till Herr Dehnicke came
+back.
+
+It was more difficult to write a letter of farewell to Richard. She
+made no allusion to her engagement, which was to be kept secret for the
+present, and gave as the sole motive of her flight an ardent desire to
+live a new life. She again expressed herself unwilling to stand in the
+way of his matrimonial prospects, and ended with heartfelt cordiality,
+which robbed the separation of every sort of bitterness. On reading the
+letter over, she experienced a genuine pang of parting emotion, of
+which she was a little ashamed.
+
+Days went by. The new life that for years had been the subject of her
+fondest dreams had begun, and under auspices happier than any her
+imagination had ever dared to depict.
+
+At the side of the man she loved, whom but a few days ago it would have
+seemed arrogance and sacrilege to have thought of possessing, she was
+to enter again the society from which she had been banned--rescued,
+purified, regenerate.
+
+Who could have believed it possible? Yet, for all that, it required an
+effort to realise and appreciate this unheard-of happiness. The more
+she said to herself that this was a period of transition that would
+soon be over, the more she felt the sordid wretchedness of the old
+quarters that had become so strange to her. The frowsy atmosphere, the
+spiritual flatness, the want of decent clothes and money, the bad food
+and service, all weighed on her spirit and left the impression that
+instead of ascending to honour and position she had on the contrary
+sunk suddenly from affluence and splendour into a degraded poverty. No
+matter how much she scolded herself for this ungracious mood, it
+remained with her and would not budge. And she could not explain why it
+should be so. Five years ago, when she had really come down from high
+places, a spoilt child of fortune, petted and used to every luxury and
+attention, she had hardly suffered at all from the dreary squalor of
+her surroundings; and, though without any prospects to speak of, she
+could still hope. But now, when the idle pleasures of a frivolous
+existence lay behind her, and she had been happily drawn out of the
+slough, when her beloved was at her side, ready to fling open the doors
+for her to enter into a kingdom of undreamed-of joy, she nearly choked
+among the red plush furniture, vexed her soul about trifles, and pined
+for a bathroom and a hairdresser's services.
+
+Some change had come over her during these years, but what it was,
+though she racked her brains in thinking about it, she could not
+discover.
+
+In the midst of these trials, her anxiety with regard to Konrad gave
+her no peace. She was subject to violent heart-beatings at the mere
+thought of him. Her conscience perpetually stabbed her. She longed for
+expiation, reproached herself, and in her secret soul reproached him
+too.
+
+She dared no longer think of him with the rapture of desire as
+formerly, yet she was always on the lookout for a message or letter
+from him. If he did write, it was never enough to please her, but if he
+was silent she grumbled and fretted, although she knew that he had
+scarcely a moment to call his own during the day, and was drudging
+harder than he had ever done for her sake.
+
+Between eight and nine in the evening he arrived, laden with books and
+papers. He had manuscripts to read, proofs to go through, and letters
+to answer. He scarcely gave himself time to eat, and while he swallowed
+a few mouthfuls, troubled thoughts of things that he had forgotten to
+do during the day constantly occurred to his over-taxed mind.
+
+Hours devoted to amorous dalliance were out of the question. Often
+indeed he fell asleep in a corner of the sofa in the middle of his
+work. Then Lilly could contemplate at her leisure the ravages his
+strenuous life had made on him. He looked haggard and worn, his clothes
+were neglected, and the velvety blue sheen of his cheeks, in which she
+had taken such delight, had given place to pimples and a stubbly growth
+of hair.
+
+She would have given anything to know what he was really thinking about
+her at the bottom of his soul, but she could extract nothing from him.
+Dumbly he gazed before him with burning eyes, his lips so tightly
+compressed that the edge of a razor could not have been inserted
+between them. She had no grounds for doubting him, for she knew that
+all his energies were concentrated on preparing for their joint future.
+
+The post of professor of German in a college in Buenos Ayres was
+vacant, also a similar post in Caracas, and on the other side of the
+herring-pond he could easily get employment on any university staff.
+All that was necessary was a few testimonials from celebrated
+professors.
+
+It was only in the contingency of his uncle disapproving of his
+marriage and cutting him off that he laid these plans. If the old man
+said "Yes," there would be ample means to set up housekeeping anywhere
+they liked, and in surroundings most congenial for the precious work.
+
+Konrad had at once announced his engagement to his uncle, and given a
+heart-moving account of Lilly's past. He did not conceal that there had
+been stains on it, but he emphasised the more her fine qualities, her
+inner purity, her grandeur of soul, her gifts of mind, the wealth of
+her intellectual interests.
+
+He read her an extract from a copy of the letter after he had
+despatched it, sounding like the manifesto of a social revolution:
+
+"I know you are, thank God, as I am, far above the narrow Philistine
+conventions of society, the uncharitable social standards, the
+Pharisaism that entitles itself to be the guardian of public morals and
+would sacrifice all aspirations, freedom of conduct, and high living to
+the fetish of family-life bondage. You have travelled in all parts of
+the world and learned how mutable are the laws of morality everywhere,
+how hollow the sham of pretending to regard each as the divinely
+ordained dogma, and how hypocritical the sly methods by which men
+wriggle out of them. You know that in the realm of ethics there is one
+thing alone that commands unconditionally a reverence and esteem, and
+that is the will to _kallokagathia_, to that mode of living in which
+the super-men of all times combined the Good and Beautiful. Yes, in her
+aspirations and her troubles, _she_ has personified the good and
+beautiful for me, and has brought into my life imperial rights and the
+dawn of morning's glory."
+
+Could anything be more splendidly and touchingly put? Who could be so
+crassly dull and stupid as to resist the power of such language? And
+with this she consoled him when he was weighed down with a feeling of
+depression about the uncertainty of their immediate future.
+
+A week passed before the answer came, the longed-for answer that meant
+joy or despair to two human beings.
+
+
+"My dear Boy,
+
+"I have no idea what _kallokagathia_ means, and other foreign words of
+the kind. It is half a century since I ran away from school, but, all
+the same, I flatter myself that I have a keen eye for faces, and can
+take a man's measure pretty accurately, whether it's striking a bargain
+on the Yoshiwara, on the Stock Exchange, or at a game of baccarat.
+Nevertheless, this insight did not stand in the way of my being fleeced
+and of making a fool of myself about women. My life represents a long
+sequence of such blunders. Once I wanted to bring home a young
+Circassian because her eyebrows grew prettily; another time I nearly
+married a little Musme, because she understood how to massage my feet.
+I won't recount how many times I wanted to act the part of saviour of
+souls, for everyone goes through that phase. Fortunately, the patron
+divinity of old rips and old bachelors--with your wide classical
+learning you may be able to tell me who he is--has hitherto had the
+grace to save me from putting any plans into execution. _Your_ case,
+however, appears on the surface to be essentially different. If,
+as you relate, your sweetheart is a pattern with every attribute of
+virtue--life is full of surprises and if she doesn't pose as a
+repentant magdalen, then I shall with the greatest enjoyment give
+respectability, which I have detested all my life, a slap in the face
+by bestowing on you my hearty blessing. But if by any chance your love
+affair bears a family likeness to my own tender recollections, you must
+excuse me if I back out of any responsibility with regard to what you
+call your future and break off any relations with you. The best plan I
+can think of is to come to Berlin to-morrow, and to ask you and your
+future bride to keep an evening free for your old uncle. As I don't
+know as yet the best place to dine at, I will fix a _rendezvous_ later.
+Till then,
+
+                             "Your affectionate
+
+                                       "Uncle Rennschmidt."
+
+
+For the first time during these sad days, Lilly saw Konrad's face relax
+into a smile.
+
+"If that is his attitude," he said, "there is nothing to fear. One
+glance at you and his doubts will be dissipated; besides, who in the
+world could possibly resist you? You have only to make yourself a
+little nice to him and he will be your slave."
+
+But Lilly cherished secret misgivings.
+
+If only she had her old extensive wardrobe to select from, she might,
+with great care, have made herself as presentable as she could wish
+in his uncle's eyes; but in either of these two ready-made little
+frocks--which only by pinning she could make fit her--without ornaments
+and the hundred and one etceteras that contribute to a perfect
+_ensemble_, how was she to achieve the conquest of the old connoisseur
+of women?
+
+"I am afraid I shall have to put you to the expense of an evening
+dress," she said timidly.
+
+He was delighted at the idea. Anything she wanted she must have, of
+course. A hat with feathers, a lace scarf ... like those he had seen
+her in. And he handed out two hundred and sixty marks, all that he had
+left, for her purchases. Poor dear boy! what did he know of the
+costliness of _chic_ in the world of fashion?
+
+When he was gone she thought it over. While she was trying to devise
+plans of getting herself up decently out of the means at her disposal,
+there were dozens of lovely dresses hanging in the cupboards of her old
+flat, dresses that he had never seen in his life, for she had never
+been escorted by him to any party. And the lace scarf, which had cost a
+fortune, was there too, and God only knew what besides. She dared
+hardly trust herself to think of all these wasted treasures.
+
+With all her might she resisted the temptation. She had given him her
+word of honour, and, whoever else she might deceive, she could not
+deceive Konrad. So she decided to go on a shopping expedition the next
+morning. There might be something she could pick up in stock at
+Wertheim's or Gerson's that would prove a bargain. She was well known
+in the shops, and though never extravagant, was noted for always
+choosing the very best materials. What astonishment would be depicted
+on the faces of the saleswomen when they beheld her in her present
+cheap, shoddy clothes!
+
+No; it would be too painful an ordeal. She couldn't go through it. Yet
+think and think it over as she did by the hour, nothing could prevent
+her thoughts travelling back to the wardrobes where her finery reposed,
+silently offering her an exquisite choice. Nowhere could she find a
+loophole by which she could evade her promise, nowhere an excuse for
+the crime of breaking it. In spite of all this wrestling with herself,
+the night passed in happy dreams, for the sun of hope had risen once
+more. And, as usual, when Lilly's sleep was refreshing and profound,
+she felt her senses lapped in familiar melodies. The "Moonlight Sonata"
+stole on her, and Grieg's "Ung Birken," and, with the Rhine maidens'
+motif out of "The Ring," "The Song of Songs."
+
+As she lay half awake the aria still rang in her ears: "Come, my
+beloved, let us go forth into the field."
+
+And then, in sudden terror, she started up in bed crying out, "The Song
+of Songs!" The score--her precious roll of music--her heritage--where
+was it?
+
+In a drawer of the escritoire in the corner drawing-room--buried,
+forgotten.
+
+She had never given it a single thought.
+
+Now there was no longer any question of keeping her promise. If in that
+supreme hour she had kept her head, she would never have given it. She
+had been casting about for an excuse, and now here was more than an
+excuse, a justification. No pangs of conscience troubled her. This was
+a sacred cause, for which she must go through fire and water.
+
+Before eight o'clock she was out of the house. The sun-drenched mist of
+the rosy August morning melted into a violet sky; from the yellowing
+poplars dropped sooty dew, and the electric trams hummed their secret
+storm-signals.
+
+She mingled with the little crowd that gathered and melted again at the
+nearest stopping-station waiting for the car which was to take her
+west. Nervously she looked about her, fearful that Konrad might chance
+to come along the street; and when seated in the tramcar she screened
+her face with the morning paper that she had brought. Along the canal
+path she glided, under cover of the trees, like a hunted animal.
+
+And so she came to the flat at last. The porter was sweeping the steps,
+as he did every morning, and greeted her with an exclamation of wonder
+and pleasure. The greengrocer whose stall was in the cellar gave her a
+roguish welcome, and his small fry, to whom she had sometimes given a
+bonbon, hung on to her skirts in jubilation. Altogether it felt like
+coming home.
+
+Adele was still in bed. Why shouldn't she be? There was nothing for her
+to do.
+
+When Lilly opened the door of her room she displayed unbounded delight.
+She even shed tears of satisfaction, and Lilly all at once realised
+what she was losing in her.
+
+Everything shone brightly in the morning sunshine. The flowers had been
+watered. The bullfinch flapped his wings in greeting, and Peterle
+nearly broke the bars of his cage to scramble up on her shoulder. She
+scarcely knew whom to attend to first--out of sheer happiness and
+affection.
+
+There were three letters and two telegrams on the salver. The letters
+were in Richard's handwriting; the telegrams were addressed to Adele,
+urgently demanding the address of her vanished mistress.
+
+In the meantime her master had given up his courtship, and returned to
+Berlin. He had advertised in the papers, and came every day to see if
+there was any answer. He sat in his old place and drank his tea as
+usual, afterwards smoking cigarettes till it was time to go back to the
+office.
+
+Had she mentioned Konrad? What did the _gnaedige Frau_ take her for?
+Adele hoped she understood better than that how to look after her
+mistress's interests. And now the best thing for the _gnaedige Frau_ to
+do was to come back and act just as if nothing at all had happened.
+That is what her former ladies had always done.
+
+Lilly asked her to fetch down the smaller of her two leather trunks
+from the attic, explaining that she wished to take away with her a few
+things which had belonged to her before. As Adele sullenly obeyed,
+Lilly collected Konrad's letters from their secret hiding-place, then
+ran to her big wardrobe, snatched the dresses from the pegs, and piled
+them on the bed to choose what she would take.
+
+It was now that she thought of "The Song of Songs." She went down on
+her knees before the escritoire. The roll of music, which had been
+lying for years at the back of the bottom drawer neglected and forlorn,
+had assumed a different aspect. The elastic band that held the sheets
+together had become slack and sticky, and fell to pieces when Lilly
+touched it: The crumpled sheets slipped out of her hand and fluttered
+over the carpet. There they lay--the arias, the recitations, the duets,
+and the connecting orchestral passages--all in confusion, and on the
+top the "Turtle Dove" solo for the clarionet, which she had hummed with
+her mother almost before she could lisp. Dismayed, she gazed at the
+scattered sheets. They had turned yellow and musty. Several were
+stained with her own blood, which had flown from her veins after her
+mother's assault on her with the bread-knife. The bloodstains entirely
+obliterated many of the notes. Others had been gnawed away with the
+paper by mice at Schloss Lischnitz. And this was what it had come to,
+her "Song of Songs."
+
+It held out no message of hope now; it was no refuge for the future. No
+faithful Eckart, no guide to dizzy golden heights. It was a mere
+derelict, used up though never used, a time-honoured bit of lumber
+that one drags about without knowing why--an extinguished light, a
+masterpiece of wisdom that had become meaningless.
+
+Shrugging her shoulders, she hastily gathered together the disarranged
+rolls of paper and tried to thrust one inside the other, regardless of
+how they came--she was in such a hurry!
+
+"I can arrange them some time later," she thought, dimly conscious that
+she would never take the trouble.
+
+Adele came with the box. She seemed to have been a remarkably long time
+getting it. Her eyes kept wandering guiltily to the clock, and her
+answers were absent-minded. Then she threw back the lid, and Lilly
+threw the score into the bottom of the box. Its yawning depths seemed
+to cry out for further booty. There lay the dresses spread out on the
+bed. Her row of shoes stood by the washstand. Hats, blouses, veils,
+lace wraps, silk petticoats--all were waiting as much as to say, "Take
+us too!"
+
+For a moment she closed her eyes with a moan, remembering the one and
+only sacrifice he had asked of her. But it must be done--both their
+futures depended on it.
+
+"Frau Laue will hide them for me, and afterwards Frau Laue can keep
+them," she thought.
+
+Then, with a rapid resolve, she made a dash at the clothes, and
+gathered up blindly anything and everything she could lay hands on.
+She seized even the gold-coroneted ivory brushes, the three-winged
+hand-mirror, the bromide, the recipe for the summer storage of her
+furs, and a dozen other little indispensable articles of the toilette.
+
+And jewels were not forgotten! "_He_ may want money later," she
+thought.
+
+Meanwhile Adele had been sent out for a four-wheeler, and again it was
+ages before she came back. The porter helped to carry down the trunk,
+and Adele held the hat-boxes in her free hand. One last caress of the
+bullfinch's grey-green wings, a kiss on the small monkey's velvety
+snout, and the door closed behind her for ever.
+
+"Will not the _gnaedige Frau_ leave an address?" Adele inquired. How sly
+she looked!
+
+"Later on I will write to you, dear Adele, and I hope you may come and
+live with me again."
+
+"Dear Adele" did not respond, but glanced down the street expectantly.
+
+A few minutes afterwards, as Lilly drove along the canal, she saw from
+the cab window a smart yellow-striped hired motor whiz past from the
+opposite direction. Richard was inside. She recognised him as he
+flashed by. Red as a lobster, his head slanting, he stared past her,
+with wild and searching glances, at the house that she had just left.
+
+She hurriedly directed her driver to turn into a side street, for she
+had no desire to meet him till her fate with regard to the world had
+been decided. But in a few minutes she heard, with a beating heart, the
+same clatter of wheels that had died away in the distance coming behind
+her, and drawing nearer and nearer. The yellow side of the motor had
+almost shot beyond her, when the word "Stop!" brought it to a
+standstill, and at the same moment her cab drew up too.
+
+Richard confronted her with his hand on the door-handle: "Where are you
+going?"
+
+His voice rose to a feminine shrillness. Above his high starched collar
+his throat worked up and down convulsively.
+
+She felt perfectly calm and mistress of the situation.
+
+He appeared to her now a poor, helpless shadow of a creature, he who so
+long had been her lord and master.
+
+"Please let me drive on, Richard," she said. "I have said good-bye to
+you by letter. I wanted a few things, and have been to fetch them. Why
+should we annoy each other further?"
+
+"Turn round!" he said, grinding his teeth. "Turn round!"
+
+"Why should I turn round?"
+
+"I say you shall! You know where your home is. I will not allow you to
+knock about the world by yourself any longer, God knows what mayn't
+happen to you. Driver, turn round!"
+
+The driver, with his red face, looked inquiringly at his fare before
+obeying.
+
+"Really, Richard, I alone have the control of this cab, and of my
+future proceedings--as you have control of yours."
+
+"What rot! If you are thinking about the American heiress, she may go
+to the deuce for all I care. But _you_--you _must_ come back. You must!
+you shall!"
+
+He grasped with both hands the hem of her skirt as if he would drag her
+out of the cab by her clothes.
+
+"I beg you to come back.... I can't sleep, I can't work.... I have got
+so used to you.... If it had come off, I should have joined you again
+directly the wedding was over. And everything in your rooms is as you
+left it that you have seen for yourself. Peterle won't eat, Adele says,
+and Adele is moped. She says she simply can't exist without you. I'll
+give you twenty thousand--no, thirty thousand--marks a year for life.
+Mother won't mind.... She understands ... for, you know, I've given up
+the idea of marrying for good; that need never worry you again.... And
+you may come to the office when you like.... And you shall have the
+carriage instead of a hired one. I'll have the telephone put on between
+your flat and the stable. Or perhaps you'd prefer a motor-car? If so,
+you shall have one, ten thousand times better than this."
+
+He had played his trump-card. What dreams of earthly grandeur could
+exceed a motor-car? He paused and, kneeling on the step, stared hard
+into her face to see the effect of his speech.
+
+She saw clearly that she would never be free of him unless she told him
+the truth. She was sorry for him, but it was her duty.
+
+"Look here, Richard. All that you offer me is no good to me now, for I
+love another man who can give me far more than you can--far, far more!"
+
+"What! What! You've caught a young Vanderbilt?" he exclaimed in jealous
+rage. "Well, I must say I never suspected that side to your character."
+
+"No, dear Richard; it's not a young Vanderbilt. On the contrary, he is
+so poor that he lives from hand to mouth. But, all the same, he and I
+are engaged, and as his future wife I must ask you to leave me free to
+do as I like."
+
+His jaw dropped, his eyes grew round; he reeled back against the hind
+wheel of the yellow car.
+
+"Drive on!" called Lilly to the cabman.
+
+She leaned back in her corner with a sigh of relief, and yet with a
+slight sense of guilt at having got rid so lightly of the old love.
+
+The whole way she heard the puffing of a slowly progressing motor
+behind her, and when she descended from the cab, Richard got out of his
+motor at a little distance, but near enough for her to see an
+expression in his eyes like that of a whipped dog.
+
+She ran up the four flights of stairs as if pursued by furies,
+forgetting all about her box. A moment afterwards the cabman came up,
+panting under its weight, and when she offered him his fare he declined
+to take the money.
+
+"The gentleman downstairs," he said, "has already settled everything."
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER XX
+
+
+It was the evening of the next day. The carriage, which was bearing
+Lilly to the most dreaded interview of her life, drew up at the door of
+the Unter den Linden Restaurant, which had been a favourite haunt of
+the _beaumonde_ for generations. Although Lilly had not been there for
+a long time, she knew every inch of it. She knew, too, the giant
+commissionaire, Albert, who stood at the entrance and laid his hand
+respectfully on his braided cap. It was he who of old used to apprise
+her of the approach of the handsome officer of Hussars. With downcast
+eyes and her head pressed against Konrad's shoulder, she glided past
+him, trusting that he no longer remembered her.
+
+"Uncle, this is Lilly!"
+
+An old gentleman below middle height, with bow legs, and in an
+ill-fitting lounge-jacket and limp collar, came swaggering out of a
+private room and held out to her a broad fleshy hand, the skin of which
+was as loose and brown as a dog-skin glove. She cast a shy,
+scrutinising glance at this all-powerful person, whom she had pictured
+as a man of commanding presence and iron will, and who, after all, was
+only a shaky, corpulent, rather common-looking dwarf.
+
+Then, as she told herself that her own and Konrad's happiness depended
+on her conduct now and during the next hour or two, she felt the old
+paralysing nervousness which had not troubled her much of late years
+come over her. When suffering from these attacks she became as wooden
+as a doll, and could do nothing but smile inanely, and hardly knew how
+to pronounce her own name.
+
+The old uncle, too, seemed frozen into silence at the first sight of
+her. He scanned her from head to foot, and from foot to head, and
+nearly forgot to invite her into the private room.
+
+This room, with its gold Japanese wall-paper, its carnation silk
+hangings, its blue Persian rugs, and high-backed sofa, was as familiar
+to her as everything else in the place. Many a festive midnight hour
+had she caroused away here with Richard and his chance acquaintances at
+the time when it was still his ambition to hobnob with the _creme de la
+creme_ of fast society.
+
+An immaculately shaved waiter took her brocaded evening coat and lace
+scarf, and measured her as he did so with an eye that seemed to say,
+"Surely I must have seen _you_ before?"
+
+That was an agonising moment.
+
+The old uncle, who had never ceased to regard her stealthily with awed
+but grim glances, pulled himself together and said:
+
+"Well, now we are going to have a jolly time together, children ...
+cosy and friendly--eh? Jolly cosy."
+
+Lilly bowed.
+
+Her bow was a stiff enough inclination of the head, apparently, to
+increase the bandy-legged old gentleman's reverent esteem for her. He
+seemed puzzled and ill at ease, trampled restlessly about the room,
+toyed with the gold charms that dangled from his watch-chain, and
+nodded two or three times at Konrad in solemn appreciation.
+
+Then they seated themselves at the gleaming white table, which was a
+mass of glittering cut-glass and flowers. Round the bronze lamp, with
+its claws and dainty iris stem--Lilly remembered it well--hung a
+festoon of lilac orchids, which must have cost an immense sum.
+Evidently this slovenly old rascal understood the art of good living.
+
+Lilly saw herself reflected in a mirror as she sat in her place on the
+sofa, a radiant picture of composure and distinction. She had chosen a
+sunray pleated black Liberty silk dress with a bodice of Chantilly
+lace, which, despite its costliness, clung in the simplest lines
+gracefully about her neck and shoulders. An innocent masculine mind
+might easily believe that such a costume could be bought anywhere
+between San Francisco and St. Petersburg, or Cape Town and Christiania,
+for two hundred marks.
+
+She had wisely left her jewellery at home. Only the slender gold chain,
+which she generally wore with a low bodice, encircled in maidenly
+unpretentiousness her high transparent collar.
+
+She looked like a strictly reared young gentlewoman of quality making
+her first _debut_ in the great world, full of shyness and curiosity.
+
+Konrad occupied the chair on her right. The third place, nearest the
+door, his uncle had retained for himself.
+
+From the moment he sat down to table he seemed to be in his element. He
+growled and issued orders, and found fault with everything.
+
+"Look here, my boy," he said to the waiter as he placed the _hors
+d'[oe]uvres_ in front of him, "do you call that the correct decanter for
+port wine? Don't you know that if port wine doesn't sparkle in the
+decanter it assuages thirst?"
+
+Intimidated by his bullying tone, the waiter was going off for another
+decanter, but Konrad's uncle declared he couldn't spare the time, he
+must have a "starter" straight away.
+
+"I am still feeling a little stiff," he said apologetically, "I am
+unaccustomed to entertaining such very beautiful and at the same time
+stand-offish ladies."
+
+Lilly felt a stab at her heart.
+
+Her lover's eyes met hers with a glance full of reproach and
+encouragement which said: "You mustn't be so silent. You must try to be
+nice to him." And in the same mute language she answered humbly and
+deprecatingly: "I cannot; _you_ talk for both of us."
+
+And then he began in his anxiety to converse as if he had been
+paid to entertain the company. He described the antiques which his
+uncle had collected in his castle on the Rhine, referred to threatened
+American competition, passed on to Italy and the evils of the Lex
+Pacca--goodness only knew what topic he didn't touch on.
+
+It was quite an illuminating little discourse, which his uncle appeared
+to follow with modified interest, as he squinted across at Lilly and
+smacked his lips while he let morsels of tunny in oil slip down his
+throat.
+
+Suddenly he said, "All very well, my son. Highly instructive and
+proper. But I wonder if you could not be equally enlightening on the
+subject of what sort of whisky they provide here?"
+
+Konrad sprang up to look for the bell, but his uncle pulled him back.
+
+"Stop! stop! This is my private entertainment. The port wine is for
+you. And a beautiful woman, after all, is a beautiful woman, even when
+she is someone else's beautiful wife. So here's to the health of our
+beauty."
+
+That sounded very like sarcasm. Was it his intention to make game of
+her before finally rejecting her claims?
+
+"Permit me," he continued, "to give you my congratulations. You have
+worked wonders already with the boy.... He dances prettily to your
+piping--eh?"
+
+Now she was bound to make some answer.
+
+"I don't pipe and he doesn't dance," she said, with an effort. "We are
+neither of us light-hearted enough for that."
+
+"Ah, that's a nasty one for me," he laughed; but his laugh sounded
+cross and irritable.
+
+"Lilly meant no harm," interposed Konrad, coming to her rescue. "And
+certainly the time of stress that we are passing through at present is
+not easy. If it were not for the help she gives me daily with her
+understanding and kindness of heart, I am not sure that I could
+struggle on."
+
+"Very good, very good," he replied; "or perhaps I should say, very
+pitiable. But your old uncle hasn't had as much as one pretty look or
+speech from her yet as a seal of our future relationship."
+
+"Oh, that's what he wants, is it?" thought Lilly; and she raised her
+glass to his, and sought to mollify him with a coquettish little
+shamefaced smile.
+
+It filled him with evident satisfaction. He twirled his pointed beard,
+and ogled her familiarly with his twinkling eyes, as if he wished to
+elicit a sign of secret understanding betwixt them.
+
+"Thank God, perhaps he's not so very formidable after all!" she
+thought, and gave a sigh of deep relief that the ice was broken at
+last.
+
+When the waiter came back, a lively discussion ensued between him and
+Konrad's uncle as to the brands of whisky the hotel boasted.... The
+debate ended in the manager of the establishment appearing on the
+scene, and offering to go down into the cellar himself to search for a
+bottle, which he thought he had somewhere, bearing the label of a
+certain celebrated firm, and the date of a certain famous year.
+
+Not till this important matter was settled did the old gentleman again
+devote his attention to his fair future niece-in-law.
+
+"I am an old mud-lark," he said. "I have done business in guano, train
+oil, Australian pitch, ship grease, and other such unclean things. So
+you can't wonder at my wishing to refresh myself for once in a way with
+an appetising object like yourself, dear ungracious lady. All I require
+is a little return of my interest."
+
+"Ah well, then, I'll just be impudent," thought Lilly. And aloud she
+said: "You know, Herr Rennschmidt, I am sitting here trembling
+in my shoes like a poor, unlucky candidate for an examination! I
+implore you"--she raised her clasped hands towards him--"don't play
+cat-and-mouse with me."
+
+Now she had struck the right note and given him the opening he desired.
+
+"Her lips are unsealed at last!" he exclaimed, beaming. "And I say,
+Konrad, what pretty lips she has! I like those long teeth that make the
+upper lip say to the lower, 'If you won't kiss when I do, I'll have a
+separation.' Do you see what I mean, Konrad, you dullard?"
+
+Lilly could not help laughing heartily, and at once they were on the
+best of terms. Even Konrad's dear, haggard face lighted up for a moment
+with a reassuring smile which did her heart good. For his sake she
+could almost have thrown herself under his uncle's feet, so dearly did
+she love him. And with a feeling of rising triumph she thought, "I'll
+just show him how awfully nice I can be to the old curmudgeon."
+
+It was not so difficult, after all. When she looked at his round,
+puckered, mischievous old face, with the keen shrewd grey eyes and the
+beautifully waved snow-white wig--it was actually a wig peaked on the
+forehead and brushed into two outstanding curls over his ears like a
+judge's--she felt more and more that he was a good and tried comrade,
+with whom she had often had good times in the past. And yet she had
+certainly never met him before.
+
+He had a masterful air of breeding about him, despite his plebeian
+exterior. His choice of the menu was simply admirable. The 'sixty-eight
+Steinberger, which flowed into the crystal glasses like liquid amber,
+suited the blue trout to such perfection that it might have been their
+native element; and the sweet-bread patties _a la Montgelas_ were
+worthy accompaniments. Neither Richard nor any of his crew understood
+so well the gourmet's art.
+
+If only he had not drunk whisky so perpetually in between!
+
+"My brain has been so deadened by money-making," he said in
+justification, "I am obliged to give it a fillip now and then, or it
+would become completely dulled."
+
+With the punch _a la romaine_, a brief and vivacious debate arose as to
+the merits of certain American drinks, in which Lilly, with her
+extensive knowledge of bars and beverages, scored. She even knew the
+exact ingredients of her host's speciality, the "South Sea Bowl," in
+which sherry, cognac, angostura bitters, with the yolks of eggs and
+Chateau d'Yquem, or, if necessary, moselle, contributed to make a fiery
+mixture. She went so far as to offer to prepare this curious mixture
+for him after dinner with the skill of an expert, so that he would have
+to confess he had never drunk anything more delicious between Singapore
+and Melbourne.
+
+Konrad, who obviously had never suspected her genius in this direction,
+listened to her with an amazement that filled her with pride. She
+telegraphed to him one secret signal after the other, asking, "Aren't
+you pleased? Am I not being very, very nice to him?"
+
+But somehow he would not respond. He was silent and absent-minded, and
+it often seemed as if he did not belong to the party.
+
+"Well, he may dream if he likes," she thought blissfully. "I'll look
+after our interests."
+
+Thus every minute the friendship between her and the old worldling grew
+apace.
+
+By the time they had got to the wild-duck and the dark glowing
+burgundy, which slid down their throats like warm caresses, she had
+already begun to call him "dear uncle." He, on his side, declared over
+and over again that he was "totally wrapped up in his dear, dear little
+Lilly."
+
+So this was the test, the cruel probation, which she had dreaded with
+all her soul, through which she had expected to come dissected and
+unmasked, with every rag of concealment rudely torn off!
+
+When she thought of how differently things were turning out, she could
+hardly contain herself for glee. There sat the mighty, dreaded peril,
+whose money-bags meant victory or defeat, a little wild beast tamed,
+who squeezed her fingers in his repulsive shrivelled hands and fawned
+on her for a smile.
+
+He was undoubtedly quite amusing, especially when he told good stories.
+
+What a lot of scandal he had gathered in the Colonies! In one evening
+he told more anecdotes than she had heard for a year. There was, for
+example, the story of the German Governor, Herr von So-and-So--she had
+once met him herself at Uhl's--who took up his duties abroad with a
+suite consisting of secretary, valet, and cook. In six months the cook
+came and said, "Herr Governor, I am----" He gave her two thousand marks
+and said, "Here you are, but keep quiet." Then she went to the
+secretary and said, "Herr Mueller, I am----" He gave her three hundred
+marks and said, "Not a word." Then she went to the valet and said,
+"Johann, I'm so far gone, we'd better marry." After three months the
+valet came to the Governor and said, "Your Excellency, the hussy took
+us all in. The child is black!" And many another yarn followed of the
+same sort. In short, she nearly died of laughing.
+
+"Konrad, why don't you laugh? Laugh, dearest."
+
+And then he really did smile, but his eyes remained grave and his brow
+tense.
+
+When the champagne came, they drank each other's health again, and
+kissed. The touch of those thick sensual old lips was horrible, but to
+ensure her future happiness it had to be endured. She was going to give
+Konrad a kiss too, but he declined it. Still worse, he tried to prevent
+her drinking so much.
+
+"She ought to be more careful," he urged. "Please, uncle, don't fill up
+her glass so often. We never drink so much as this."
+
+The other two laughed at him.
+
+"He always was a bit of a muff," jeered his old uncle, "and never knew
+what was good. He's not good enough for you, Lilly; you ought to have a
+fellow like me--not a prig. He's like a mute at a funeral."
+
+But she saw no joke in this.
+
+"You shan't abuse my darling Konni, you old wretch! Go on telling your
+old chestnuts. _Allons_! Fire away!"
+
+No, not a word should be breathed against her dear, sweet Konni!
+
+So uncle started telling good stories again. This time he related them
+in pigeon-English, that gibberish which the Chinese and other
+interesting inhabitants of the far East use as a medium of
+communication with the white sahibs. "Tom and Paddy in the Tea-house";
+"The virtuous spinster Miss Laura"; "The Guide and the Bayadere." Each
+was received with a box of the ears.
+
+"But we mustn't let Konni hear any more, uncle dear. Konni might be
+corrupted."
+
+So saying, she inclined her left ear very close to dear uncle's lips,
+and made with her hollowed hand between them a "whispering-tube," which
+was the custom of "the crew" when any of them wanted to flirt unheard,
+or do anything else particularly outrageous.
+
+It would be a sad mistake to suppose that she was in the least abashed
+or unequal to giving as good as she got. The general's "lullabies" were
+spicy enough, and she had learned from "the crew" much that was of
+unquestionable origin and questionable taste. For such an appreciative
+audience as uncle proved to be, it was worth while doing one's best.
+But the innocent Konrad had to submit to his ears being stuffed up with
+the wadding on which the Colville apples had been served.
+
+After the coffee, uncle challenged her to keep her promise about
+brewing the South Sea Bowl, her vaunted knowledge of which, of course,
+had been mere brag.
+
+She would show him! He shouldn't scoff at her a second time. A variety
+of bottles were brought; besides the sherry and the angostura, an old,
+sweet liqueur. It was a pity, uncle thought, to mix such good things,
+and he took two or three glasses of the latter neat, and she followed
+his example.
+
+The tiresome eggs broke at the wrong place, it was true, and emptied
+their contents on her dress and the carpet. But what did that matter?
+It merely increased the fun ... and dear old uncle was paying for
+everything. To make up for the eggs smashing, the blue flame of the
+alcohol-lamp leapt up merrily as high as the orchids, as high as the
+ceiling.... She would have loved to lick up the flames, as the witches
+did.
+
+"Your luck, Konni!--_our_ luck, Konni!"
+
+"Don't drink it," she heard him say, and his voice sounded harder than
+usual. Indeed, she hardly recognised it as his voice at all.
+
+"Muff!" she laughed, and thrust out her tongue at him. "Muff!"
+
+"Don't drink it!" the warning voice said again. "You are not used to
+it."
+
+_She_ not used to drinking! How dared he say so? This was an insult to
+her honour; yes, an insult to her honour.
+
+"How do you know what I am used to? I am used to plenty of things you
+don't guess.... Here, on this seat where I am sitting now, I have sat
+more than once--more than ten times--and have drunk ten times more."
+
+"Dearest heart, you don't know what you are saying. It isn't true."
+
+Once more his voice sounded gentle and soothing, as if he were
+reproving a naughty child.
+
+"How dare you say it isn't true? Do you take me for an impostor? I
+suppose you think I am not at home in swell places like this!... Pooh!
+Shall I give you a proof? I can--I can!... You'll find my name
+scratched at the foot of this lamp. Look and you'll find it.... 'Lilly
+Czepanek ... Lilly Czepanek.' Look! Look, I say!"
+
+He had started to his feet, his face rigid, and fixed his eyes in
+horror on the polished silver mirror of the lamp, on which was a jumble
+of scribbled hieroglyphics. He could not distinguish amongst them the
+L. C. for which he was looking till she came to his assistance. Here,
+no; there, no. The letters swam into one another. It was like trying to
+catch hold of the goldfish in the aquarium.
+
+Hurrah! here it was. That was it--"L. v. M." and the coronet above. For
+in those days she had often had the audacity to call herself by the
+forbidden title as a temporary adornment.
+
+"Now, do you see, Konni, that I was right? Now you won't mind how much
+I drink, will you, you dear, precious little muff?"
+
+Utterly crushed by the proof, he sank back in his chair without a
+single word.
+
+His uncle and Lilly went on drinking and laughing at him.
+
+At this moment she happened to catch sight of herself in the glass.
+Through a billowy haze she beheld a flushed, puffy face with
+dishevelled hair falling about it from under a crooked hat, and two
+deeply marked lines running from mouth to chin. It was not a pleasing
+spectacle, and she was a little disturbed at it; but before she could
+distress herself further, the old uncle claimed her attention with a
+new joke.
+
+"Do you know, Lilly dear, how the Chinese sing 'Die Lorelei'?"
+
+Before she had heard a syllable she went into a fit of giggles. He
+crossed his bandy legs and played a prelude on the side of his foot as
+if it were a banjo, "Ping, pang, ping"; and then he began in a cracked,
+nasal, gurgling voice, drawling his "l's."
+
+
+           "O, my belong too much sorry
+            And can me no savy, what kind;
+            Have got one olo piccy story,
+            No won't she go outside my mind."
+
+
+When he came to the second verse:
+
+
+           "Dat night belang dark and colo"
+
+
+he heightened the effect by tearing the wig from his head, and now he
+looked for all the world like an old nodding mandarin, with his slits
+of eyes and his polished bare ivory skull.
+
+It was fascinatingly and overwhelmingly funny. Never in her life had
+she seen such a mirth-provoking, side-splitting piece of clowning. You
+could have died of envy if you hadn't been Lilly Czepanek, the renowned
+mimic and impersonator, who, when the spirit moved her, had only to
+open her lips to rouse a tornado of applause.
+
+Her incomparable _repertoire_ had been growing rusty for too long. "La
+belle Otero" was not yet stale, and Tortajada was dancing her ravishing
+dances, while Matchiche was just becoming the rage.
+
+All you had to do was to tilt your hat a little further back, to raise
+your black skirt--the _dessous_ was part of what had been brought away
+yesterday, and would not have disgraced a Saharet--and then you were
+off!
+
+And she was off! Off like a whirlwind over the carpet, slippery with
+the yolks of eggs that she had spilt. Hop, skip--ole! ole! Yes, you
+must shout "Ole!" and clap your hands. "Ole-e-e----"
+
+Dear uncle bawled; the floor rocked in great waves.... Lamps and
+mirrors danced with her. All hell seemed to be let loose.
+
+"Konni, why don't you shout 'Ole'? ... Don't be so down ... Ole!"
+
+"Uncle, you will have this on your conscience!"
+
+What did he mean by saying that? Why was he sobbing? Why did he stand
+there as white as the tablecloth?
+
+"Ole--ol-e-e-e!"
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER XXI
+
+
+Towards noon Lilly awoke in a rapture of joy.
+
+The formidable uncle had been won--the last obstacle cleared from her
+path--the future lay spread out at her feet like a land of milk and
+honey. The probation looked forward to with such anxiety and terror had
+turned out, after all, only a delightful spree. What a mountebank and
+buffoon that shrewd old man of the world was, who probably had ground
+women's hearts under his heel as indifferently as he crunched walnuts.
+When she tried, however, to review the events of the previous evening
+she felt a slight dismay at nothing emerging from her blurred memory
+but the sounds of song and uproarious laughter, just as it used to be
+in that other life when she had spent the night in mad revels with
+Richard and his friends.
+
+As the mist lifted a little, she saw a deadly white face petrified by
+pained surprise, heard an exclamation that was half a sob and half a
+groan, and saw herself, sobbing too, kneeling before someone who pushed
+her away with his hands.
+
+Had that happened, or had she dreamed it?
+
+And she had danced and sung so beautifully! She had exhibited her art
+at its best. Could there have been anything displeasing in it? Had she,
+perhaps, gone a little too far in her high spirits?
+
+Her anxiety grew. She sprang out of bed, and her one thought was that
+she must go to him instantly.
+
+At twelve the bell rang.
+
+That was Konrad; it must be Konrad. But, when she flew to the lobby
+door to throw herself into his arms with a cry of joy and relief, she
+found that she was standing face to face with his uncle, who stood
+twirling his hat in his horrid fingers, and looked at her with a
+significant smile that she did not like at all.
+
+"Is it to come all over again--the probation," she thought, "or is it
+now only coming off for the first time?"
+
+"How do you do?" died in her throat. She let him in without speaking. A
+sensation of faintness came over her, as if she were going to fall
+backwards through the wall into her room.
+
+It was the old man who opened the door and walked in, with the air of
+an acquaintance who knew his way about.
+
+"Where is Konrad?"
+
+"Konrad?" he repeated, and scratched the silk band of his wig with his
+little finger. "I've something to say about Konrad."
+
+He drew out his glittering watch, with its massive chain, and studied
+the hands.
+
+"I make it just ten minutes past twelve. By now he will be on his way
+to the station--most probably he has started."
+
+"Is he ... going away?" she stammered, while her breath began to fail
+her.
+
+"Yes, yes. He is going away.... We settled that last night.... He needs
+a change."
+
+"It's nonsense," she thought; "how can he go away for a change without
+me?"
+
+But she put a restraint on herself and asked casually, "Where is he
+thinking of going so suddenly?"
+
+"Oh! he's taking a little trip abroad hardly worth speaking about. It
+seemed a favourable opportunity. A double cabin was going begging on
+the steamer leaving--er--never mind where!... an outside cabin, you
+know; on the promenade deck; pleasantest position, you know; no
+splashing, and lots of air.... One wants plenty of air, especially
+during those four days in the Red Sea."
+
+Then she was right. Her suspicions that the probation of her character
+and intentions was only to begin seriously now were being verified.
+
+"What takes people to the Red Sea, uncle dear?" she asked, with her
+most ingenuous smile.
+
+"Yes, what takes them to the Red Sea? Four thousand years ago the
+ancient Jews asked the same question, and everyone asks it to-day when
+he finds himself sweltering there. But still, if you want to go to
+India, you must pass through the Red Sea.... And I want to go to India
+once more. I've been quite long enough trotting about the pavements at
+home. And as our Konrad is overworked--you'll admit he is, child--I
+have talked him into coming to travel with me a bit. For in cases like
+this I believe change of scene is the best remedy. Do you see?"
+
+Lilly felt a lump rise in her throat as if all the links of his gold
+watch-chain were choking her.
+
+"This joke isn't in the best of taste," she thought; "and God knows
+what he means by it."
+
+But whether she liked it or not, she had to play at the game. "Konrad
+might have had the grace to come and say goodbye to me prettily," she
+replied, pouting a little, as if a journey to Potsdam or Dresden was in
+question.
+
+"Well, you see, child, that's what he wanted to do, of course. But I
+said to him, 'Look here, my boy, farewells are far too exciting and
+unnerving, and may bring on apoplexy.' He agreed, and left it to me to
+put matters straight with you."
+
+"Well, by all means let us put matters straight," she answered, with
+the patronising smile that such a farce merited.
+
+"I shouldn't be surprised," she thought, "if he were not waiting
+outside in the cab for a signal to come in."
+
+"Uncle" placed his smart panama hat beside him on the floor, leaned his
+short body back in Frau Laue's red plush arm-chair, and affected an
+expression of distress and sympathy.
+
+What an old clown he was! It mystified her more than anything that he
+seemed so absolutely to have forgotten the alliance they had entered
+into on the previous evening. But perhaps this was only part of the
+probation farce.
+
+"If it were only a question of me, my dear," he went on, "it wouldn't
+matter. I honestly confess I'm mad about you--'wrapped up,' as I said
+last night. I have met womenfolk in all parts of the globe, and it's as
+clear to me as palm-oil that you are made of the choicest materials
+it's possible to find. But there are people, you know, who take life
+seriously and cherish grand illusions.... people who have no notion
+that a human being must be a human being. They think they are something
+extra, and expect life to afford them extra titbits. And then come
+disappointments, of course ... reproaches, despair ... tearing of hair,
+wringing of hands. I'm blowed if he didn't try to thrash me last
+night!"
+
+"Whom are you talking about?" asked Lilly, becoming every moment more
+uneasy.
+
+"Just as if I had led you on into the little overshooting of the mark!
+No, no ... that's not my way. I don't lay man-traps. And so I told him
+ten times over. The misfortune is, that you and I understood each other
+too well. You and I are in the same line of business.... We two are
+like two old colleagues."
+
+"We two ...? You and I?" gasped Lilly in frigid amazement.
+
+"Yes, you and I, my dear child. Don't have a fit--you and I; you and I.
+It's true that you are a splendid beauty of twenty-five, and I am a
+damned old fool of sixty.... But life has tarred us with the same
+brush. How am I to explain it to you?... Have you ever hunted for
+diamonds? I don't mean at the jeweller's. I'll lay a wager you know
+that way of hunting them. Well, a diamond lies embedded in hard rock,
+in tunnels ... so-called blue ground. If you find a blue-ground
+tunnel, you may imagine what it is; you just sit in it. Once I went
+diamond-hunting with a party of twenty, day and night, week after week.
+The blue ground was there all right, but the diamonds had been washed
+out of it. Do you follow me? The fine ground is still in both of us;
+but what made it fine the devil has in the meantime walked off with."
+
+"Why do you tell me all this?" Lilly asked. Tears of bewilderment
+sprang to her eyes, for this couldn't possibly have anything to do with
+the probation.
+
+"Now, child, I'll tell you why.... There are people who when they have
+given their word think there is no going back on it. They must swallow
+whatever they've put in their mouths, even if it's a strychnine
+pill.... My opinion, on the contrary, is that no one ought deliberately
+to plunge into misfortune--neither he nor you. And since the quickest
+method is to wash the wool while it's on the sheep, I've come to you to
+make a little proposition. See, here's a cheque-book. You know what
+cheque-books are, I expect. On the right side are printed figures from
+five hundred upwards: All the figures that make the amount bigger than
+the sum inscribed on the cheque are cut off, in case a little swindler
+should take it into his head with one little stroke of the pen to cheat
+one out of a little hundred thousand. Well now, look here. This cheque
+is signed and dated; the figures alone want to be filled in. I should
+never permit myself to offer you a certain sum, but I should like you
+to say what you think would be a decent provision for your future."
+
+He tore the cheque out and laid it on the table in front of her.
+
+"Thank Heaven," thought Lilly, "I had nothing to be afraid of! My heart
+need not have misgiven me."
+
+Who could be so blind as not to see through this clumsy trick whereby
+he intended to put to the test her unselfishness about money? So she
+did not send the old man about his business, as she might with justice
+have done, if such a proposal had been made to her seriously, but she
+took the cheque off the table, smiling, tore it carefully to atoms, and
+flipped them one after the other into his face.
+
+He fidgeted about in his arm-chair.
+
+"Allow me," he said; "please allow me ..."
+
+"No! Such scurvy little jokes I certainly will not allow, dear uncle,"
+she replied.
+
+"But you are declining a fortune, my child. Think what you are doing.
+We've upset the tenor of your life. We have, as it were, cast you on
+the gutter. That you shan't perish there is our responsibility. And if
+you think you will lower yourself in his eyes by accepting, I can swear
+to you he knows nothing about it; and never will, I'll swear too."
+
+She only smiled.
+
+His small slits of eyes grew bright and hard. Suddenly they began to
+threaten her.
+
+"Or ... is it your intention not to give up the good boy--to hang his
+promise like a halter about his neck?... Are you one of that kind, eh?"
+
+"No. I am not one of that kind."
+
+Her smile reached far beyond him. It flew to greet the beloved who
+soon, very soon now, would be ascending the stairs; for surely he
+couldn't have patience to wait there outside in the cab much longer.
+
+"His promise is his own. He's never given it. And if he had wanted to I
+would never have let him. And even if what you said just now was true,
+he might go away if he liked, and come back again, and I would not
+write to him or meet him, or remind him in any way of what he is and
+always will be to me as long as I live. But I know that it is _not_
+true. He loves me, and I love him. And take care, uncle, not to play so
+low down with his future wife as to offer her blank cheques and such
+disgraceful proposals. If I were to tell him, you would find yourself
+all at once a lonely old man whose fortune might go to endow a home for
+lost dogs."
+
+He was obliged to see at last what a blunder he had committed. He
+jumped from his seat, evidently annoyed at his mistake, and ejaculated
+an irritable "Bah!" as he began to pace the room, jingling the charms
+on his watch-chain. Once or twice he murmured something that sounded
+like "A hangman's job." But she couldn't have heard right.
+
+At last he seemed to arrive at a decision. He stopped close in front of
+her, laid his repulsive hands on her shoulders and said, suddenly
+becoming affectionate and familiar again:
+
+"Listen, sweetheart, girlie, pretty one. Something has to be done. We
+can't shirk the point. There must be a conclusion. If only I weren't
+such a damned mangy old hound and hadn't to consider the dear boy's
+feelings in the matter, things would be simple enough. I should merely
+say, 'Come along with me to the nearest registry-office. But hurry up;
+I haven't time to waste!' Don't stare! Yes--me. I'd ask you to marry
+_me_. You wouldn't have reason to regret it. But Konrad--you must see
+yourself it won't do--won't do. It would be a fatal mistake from
+beginning to end. He is a rising man. He wants to climb to the top; he
+is still blessed with faith, and you haven't any left. You fell too
+early into the great sausage-machine which minces us all sooner or
+later into average meat.... You wouldn't be happy with him long. You
+couldn't keep up to him. You'd drag on him like a dead weight, and
+would always be conscious of it. As for last night's revelation, which
+opened his eyes, I don't lay so much stress on that. It's not a
+question of what the coastline looks like--sand or palms, it's all the
+same--but it's the interior that counts. And there I see waste land,
+burnt-up scorched deserts; no birds flying across it; no ground in
+which confidence can strike root. Child, creep into any shelter life
+offers you, cling to those who have brought you to this pass; but let
+the boy go. He is not made for you. Be honest; haven't you long ago
+said so yourself?"
+
+Ah, so this was what he meant! It was not a probation, but the end--the
+end!
+
+She gazed into vacancy. She seemed to hear steps growing fainter; one
+after the other they slowly died away, like _his_ footsteps when at
+break of day he had softly stolen downstairs.
+
+But this was final. They had died away for ever.
+
+A dull sense of disappointment gnawed at her heart. That was all. The
+worst would come later, as she knew by experience.
+
+And then she saw a vision of herself dancing and yelling, laughing at
+foul jests, with her hat awry and her skirts held high--a drunken
+wanton! She, the "lofty-minded saint" with the "brow divine," a drunken
+wanton--nothing more and nothing less.
+
+Now she knew why he had stood there with his face as white as the
+tablecloth--why that sobbing groan of pain had burst from his lips. And
+it was pity for him as much as shame of herself that made of this
+moment a boiling hell.
+
+"How is he bearing it?" she asked, stammering.
+
+"You can guess how," he replied, "but I believe I shall pull him
+through."
+
+"Oh, uncle ... I ... didn't ... I didn't want to do it ..." she cried,
+sobbing.
+
+"I know, child; I know. He told me all."
+
+For an instant her wounded pride flamed up within her. She stooped, and
+gathering together a handful of the bits of torn paper, she held them
+out to him on her open palm.
+
+"And you dared to offer me _that_?"
+
+"What was I to do, my dear? And what am I to do with you now?"
+
+"Pah!" and she struck at him with both hands, but the next moment she
+threw her arms round his neck and wept on his shoulder. Perhaps her
+cheek touched the very place which Konrad last night might have wetted
+with his tears!
+
+He began to reason with her again. He made suggestions for her future.
+He would help her to begin a new life, and provide tier with the means
+to cultivate her brilliant histrionic talents; she should come out on
+the stage or the concert platform. But she shook her head.
+
+"Too late, uncle.... Waste land--didn't you say so yourself?--ground
+where no confidence can take root. I might aspire to be a music-hall
+star, but honestly I don't think it would pay."
+
+"Cursed hounds!" he growled.
+
+"Who are cursed hounds?"
+
+"You know well enough, my child."
+
+She reflected a moment as to whom he could mean. Then she said:
+
+"There was only one ... no, two, and then afterwards one more ... and
+then two more who didn't count."
+
+"Well, that seems to me to be plenty, dear."
+
+He patted her cheeks and smiled kindly, and somehow she did not find
+his fingers repulsive any more.
+
+She felt that she must smile too, though she began crying again
+directly.
+
+Konrad's uncle prepared to take his departure, and she clung on tightly
+to his shoulder. She couldn't bear to let him go. He was the last link
+with her vanished dream of happiness.
+
+"What message shall I take him?" he asked.
+
+She drew herself erect. Her eyes widened. She wanted to pour out the
+full flood of her grief. Her shattered and squandered love sought for
+winged words which should bear it to him, sanctified and hallowed anew.
+But no words came.
+
+She looked wildly round the room, as if from some quarter of it help
+must come. The portraits of defunct actors smiled down on her; once so
+eloquent, they were dumb now dumb as her own frozen soul. The specimen
+lamp-shade in its frame greeted her, presaging a future to be passed at
+Frau Laue's side.
+
+"I have nothing to say," she faltered. Then she thought of something
+after all. "Ask him ... ask him, please, why he didn't come himself to
+say good-bye. I know that he is not a coward."
+
+Uncle made one of his queerest faces.
+
+"As you have been so astoundingly sensible, little woman, I'll tell you
+the secret. He wanted to come and say good-bye--most dreadfully, of
+course. And I promised him that I'd try and bring you to the station."
+
+In an instant she was making a dash for her straw hat.
+
+"Stop!"
+
+He had laid his hand on her arm. The short, squat figure seemed to grow
+taller.
+
+"You won't go."
+
+"What? Konni is expecting me, wants to speak to me? And I am not to
+go?"
+
+"I say again, 'You won't go.' If you are the plucky girl I take you
+for, you will not spoil your work of sacrifice. For, depend upon it, if
+once he sees you again you'll hang on to each other for evermore."
+
+The straw hat slipped from her hand.
+
+"Then ... tell him ... I shall always love him, always and always, that
+he will be my last thought on earth.... And ... I don't know what else
+to say."
+
+He silently made his way out of the room.
+
+And then she broke down.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XXII
+
+
+The world wagged on, calmly, merrily, busily, as if nothing had
+happened, as if nowhere on the ocean of life a lost happiness was
+drifting every minute farther and farther away, as if no forsaken and
+abandoned human child cowered in a corner, staring with despairing eyes
+helplessly at the floor.
+
+Frau Laue tapped at her lamp-shades, the fried potatoes frizzled
+in the fat-lined pan; the stove in the lobby smoked, and the frowsy
+poor-people's odour exhaled a welcome to all who came within its
+radius. She did not cry her heart out of her body, as she had done
+after her expulsion from the castle. She neither lapsed into a dazed
+apathy nor wrestled desperately with fate. Instead, she felt that a
+grey yawning void stretched before her endlessly, the silence of which
+was broken now and then by a shrill cry of almost animal longing and
+despair, a sense of feeble submission to the inevitable, a
+consciousness of being incarcerated without hope of escape, a baffled
+slipping down into life's dark depths, a dreary death unmarked by grace
+or dignity.
+
+Between to-day and to-morrow--the to-morrow that seemed to beckon from
+every corner--Lilly's tearless eyes saw the railings of the bridge that
+her feet had tested on the way home from "Rosmersholm." And, as she
+stared into space, she beheld the dark, purple-flecked waters rolling
+languidly on far below, and heard the iron chains clank under her feet.
+
+This sound grew into a perpetual sing-song that accompanied everything
+she did, floated over and swallowed up everything that the eventless
+days brought forth. It pierced her brain, hammered in her temples, and
+throbbed painfully in every nerve and pore of her body.
+
+Only one word was set to this haunting melody, and that was "Die."
+Yes--die. What could be simpler? What more irresistible?
+
+Die! not to-day; but to-morrow perhaps, or the day after. Something
+might happen yet. A letter might come, or he himself. Or if not this,
+who could know that fate was not holding some other miracle of good
+fortune up its sleeve?
+
+So it was worth while living to-day, to drag through its countless
+hours of deadly monotony.
+
+Then one evening, a week after Konrad's sudden departure, Frau Laue
+appeared in Lilly's room at an unaccustomed hour. Her manner denoted
+determination.
+
+"Now look here, Lilly dear," she began. "Things can't go on like this.
+If you were crying your heart out I shouldn't say anything. But, as you
+are acting now, matters will never mend. There is only one sensible
+course that you can take; you must return to your Herr Dehnicke. If he
+had any inkling of how things were going with you here, trust him, he
+would have come and taken you away long ago. So I tell you plainly,
+either you sit down and write him a nice letter or I shall leave my
+work in the lurch and go straight off to his office to-morrow morning.
+He'll pay my expenses fast enough."
+
+Lilly felt a strong impulse to turn the old woman out of the room, but
+she was too depressed to do more than turn away from her with impotent
+distaste.
+
+"I haven't too much time to spare now," Frau Laue continued; "the dozen
+must be completed before bedtime.... But you can make your mind easy as
+to one thing. If he is not here by ten o'clock to-morrow, he'll be here
+by twelve, for I shall have gone to fetch him. Good-night, Lilly dear."
+
+In melancholy scorn she sent a scoffing laugh after Frau Laue. This,
+then, was the stroke of good fortune which fate had in store for the
+morrow? Once more she was to cringe to man's puerile supremacy, and
+live in enervating servitude--vegetate amidst fleeting and unprofitable
+pleasures in a perfumed lethargy, or be goaded by ennui and disgust to
+walk the streets.
+
+Yet, if he came the next day, she knew she would not have the power to
+resist. Richard would only have to look at her with that whipped-dog
+expression, which was something quite new for him, and the mere thought
+of which filled her with a shamefaced tenderness, and she would throw
+her arms round his neck and have a good cry on his shoulder.
+
+Was it worth waiting another to-morrow for that? No; better to die
+to-day.
+
+To-day! A feeling of ecstasy came over her. She ran about the room,
+with folded hands, weeping and exulting. She would be a heroine like
+Isolde, a martyr for her love.
+
+And there the railings of the bridge were waiting ready for her. How
+they would creak and groan when she set her feet on them!
+
+Now the sing-song in her head was so loud that she thought it must kill
+her. The air resounded with a whirl of tones. The walls echoed them.
+The noise of the street, the capital's roar of traffic, all sang ...
+"Die--die--die!"
+
+She pulled off her evening wrapper and dressed herself to go out. At
+first she thought of putting on one of the badly fitting dresses
+because they were connected with Konrad, but her heart failed her.
+
+"Die beautifully," Hedda Gabler had said.
+
+"If only I had his photograph that I might take a farewell look into
+his eyes," she thought. But she had nothing but his letters and a few
+verses. They should accompany her on her last walk.
+
+They lay at the bottom of the leather trunk, which was still concealed
+in Frau Laue's box-room, though there had long been no one from whom it
+was necessary to conceal it. As she rummaged in its depths to find the
+little packet, she put her hand by accident on the roll of old music
+manuscript.
+
+She looked tenderly at the yellow-stained sheet into which the rest was
+fitted. She was no longer vexed with her "Song of Songs," and did not
+despise it, as on that ill-fated morning when she had hunted it up
+again; the morning on which she had gone out to break her vow to
+Konrad.
+
+Now once more it was a dear, precious possession, not a guide,
+philosopher, and friend, not a miracle-working sacred relic, but just
+an old keepsake which we treasure and water with our tears because it
+is a bit of our own life.
+
+And a bit of our own blood!
+
+For there were still those dark stains on the paper. Her blood had
+fallen on it when she set forth on life's journey, and now that the
+journey was ending the deep waters should wash the blood-stains away.
+
+With the score lying in her lap, she looked beyond it into the
+sorrowful past. It seemed to her as if mists were lifting and curtains
+were being drawn aside, and she saw the path that she had trodden
+winding backwards at her feet, like a clearly defined boundary.
+
+She had been weak and often stupid. Her own interests and the main
+chance she had never considered. Every man who had entered her life had
+been able to do what he liked with her. Not once had she barred her
+soul, shown fight, or exercised to the full the sovereignty of her
+beauty. She had only been eager to oblige and to love and be kind to
+everyone. In reward, she had been hunted and bullied and dragged
+through the mud all her life long. Even the one man who had respected
+her had gone away without saying good-bye.
+
+"But I've never hated anybody," she thought. "And no matter what I have
+suffered, or how I have transgressed, I have always been able to feel
+there was something in me out of the common, and this at the last seems
+as if it had been a gift from Heaven."
+
+Did it not really seem as if this "Song of Songs," which now lay before
+her, defaced, stained, and rotted, like her own career, had been all
+along blessing and absolving her the presiding genius she had believed
+it to be as a child, and fancied it afterwards during the rapture of
+her abandonment to her love for Konrad?
+
+"Yes, you shall come too," she said. "You shall die when I die."
+
+And she carefully wrapped the battered papers together. Then she found
+the letters, and read them through two or three times, but without
+taking in what she read.
+
+
+                           *   *   *   *   *
+
+
+The clock struck twelve as she stepped softly out on to the landing.
+Frau Laue was asleep. She met no one on the stairs, and unseen walked
+into the street.
+
+Since her flight to Konrad that memorable night she had not been out
+alone in the streets so late. Everything looked as if she saw it for
+the first time: the long rows of houses bathed in crude light, the
+trolleys of the electric trams in between, and the gliding figures of
+night-revellers.
+
+A numbing terror seized her. Her legs felt wooden, as if stilts were
+screwed on to them, propelling her forward whether she would or not,
+without rest; and her heels tapped ceaselessly on the pavement,
+carrying her nearer and nearer her goal. Whenever she met anyone she
+felt an impulse to hide herself, fancying that it would be noticed
+where she was going. For this reason she dived into dark back-streets,
+which were unevenly paved and where fading lime-trees scattered their
+drops of rain. She passed straggling brick buildings inhospitably shut
+in behind high back-garden walls; slaughter-houses and factories; and
+all the time her heels went tap-tap-tap, as if she had a pedometer
+attached to them, registering every inch which shortened her road.
+
+She tried to remember other short-cuts to her bridge, but couldn't find
+them, and gave up the attempt.
+
+"What thou doest, let it be done quickly," she had read somewhere. So
+she pressed forward with clenched teeth.
+
+The Engelbecken was dark and deserted; yellow lights were reflected
+dimly in its unfathomable waters. "Here it would be easier," she
+thought, breathless from the oppression at her heart. But, shuddering,
+she retreated from the grass slopes. The bridge must be somewhere over
+there to the north-west. Fate had ordained that she should go to the
+bridge.
+
+It was still a long way off, quite an hour's walk. She came into more
+frequented ways. The rows of lights in front of the dancing saloons,
+where prostitutes caroused, cast their garish beams like finger-posts
+into the night. Cabs were waiting there, and sounds of revelry came
+from within. Forwards, forwards--always forwards! Hot, garlic-laden
+fumes were wafted to her nostrils from a cellar-cafe that kept its
+doors open. When had she smelt something like that before? Why, of
+course, when Frau Redlich was cooking the sausages for her son's
+farewell dinner.
+
+In front of her a hose as thick as her wrist sent a cleansing
+shower-bath over the street. What did that hissing, gurgling sound
+remind her of? Why, of course, of old Haberland watering the lawn with
+the old-fashioned sprinkler. And then all at once the thought shot
+through her brain: "None of this is really happening. I am lying in bed
+between the bookcases, and behind me the hanging lamp that I took down
+is smoking ... and this is all in an old novel that I am reading, while
+Frau Asmussen has luckily gone to sleep after taking her medicine."
+
+A growing tumult called her back to actual life. She had reached the
+heart of the city, the spot where the whirl of Berlin's never-flagging
+nightly dissipations reaches its height. She came to the Spittelmarkt,
+and onwards the huge Leipziger Strasse unrolled its chain of lights
+like a pearl necklace. Buried in a mist of silver, dotted with the
+glimmering red lanterns of night cafes and cabarets, it was like a
+brilliant picture toned down with sepia.
+
+The numb feeling in Lilly's legs increased. She walked, and was hardly
+conscious that she moved at all. She only felt the tremendous force of
+her heart-beats, which made her whole body vibrate like a mill.
+
+In the Friedrichstrasse there were nearly as many people about as by
+day. Young men pursued their smiling quarry, and the lamplight was
+reflected in the silk hose of the tripping _grisettes_.
+
+"Once submerged in this sort of world," Lilly thought with a gruesome
+envy, "and one is disturbed by no sense of wounded honour or suicidal
+impulses."
+
+Ah! but on the other side of this bright, laughing, jostling crowd came
+peace and darkness again, in the shelter of which you might die unseen
+and unknown.
+
+Through the noise she still heard her heels tapping. Why shouldn't she
+go into some cafe, she asked herself? Even if someone saw her, what did
+it matter? It would give her one miserable quarter of an hour's
+breathing space. Lights, mirrors, velvet seats, blue cigarette-smoke, a
+clink of crystal, a pricking in her parched throat. Just once--once
+more ... not a quarter ... but a whole hour, and one more poor little
+bit of life would be hers, which could do no one else any harm. But she
+could find no justification for such a cowardly action, and determined
+that her last walk should be disgraced by no such weakness. And she
+went on, on and on.
+
+The merry vortex of the Kranzlerecke was left behind; the daggers of
+light stabbed her no more. Lilly hardly knew where she was going. Most
+likely she was in one of those quiet cross-streets which led to the
+north-west end. The middle of the deserted street glistened with
+puddles. The rainy autumnal wind came sweeping along between the
+houses, and the cold lamplight was reflected in their dark windowpanes.
+Everything round her here seemed lifeless and extinct; only a human
+phantom glided forth at intervals, and cats chased each other
+noiselessly into obscurity.
+
+Lilly shivered, and clasped the score tighter in her arms. As she tried
+to catch a sight of her reflection in the glass window of a florist's,
+the blinds of which were not drawn down, she started. There she saw
+stiff branches of evergreen laurels and cypresses encircling a bust of
+the Kaiser; that recalled something strongly to her mind. What was it?
+Ah! of course. They reminded her of the Clytie which reigned on the
+pretentious private staircase of Liebert & Dehnicke's, smiling and
+dreaming. Lilly Czepanek would never now ascend that green-shaded
+stairway, either as a penitent or a triumphant sinner.
+
+She had chosen a better way, which led more directly to the great goal.
+
+She came to a bridge, and crossed it quickly. That other bridge, with
+the iron palisade, which sung her such alluring cradle-songs, was
+further away in the open, buried in darkness and silence.
+
+"You overflow with a superfluity of love ... three kinds of love: love
+emanating from the heart, the senses, and from compassion. One kind
+everybody has; two are dangerous; all three lead to ruin!"
+
+Who had said that?
+
+Why, to be sure, her first flame--that poor consumptive lecturer on the
+history of art, whom she and Rosalie Katz had clubbed together to send
+to the promised land, the land which she herself had never seen. He had
+spoken of the blue haze of the olives, of fields of shining asphodel,
+and the black sirocco sea.
+
+"Fields of shining asphodel." What sort of fields could they be, fields
+of asphodel?
+
+The foreign word sounded strange, and oh, how full of enchantment! But
+her heels still went tap-tap, and the cradle-song of the palisade
+thundered in between.
+
+A man addressed her: "Would she ...?"
+
+She shook him off as if he had been a reptile.
+
+Then she remembered another warning that had been given her, also
+divided into three heads--whose was that? Oh, now she recollected: Dr.
+Pieper's. It came back to her, every word and sentence of the pompous
+utterance sounding in her ears as clearly as if it had been spoken only
+yesterday, "There are three things to beware of: Exchange no
+superfluous glances; demand no superfluous rendering of accounts; make
+no superfluous confessions."
+
+"If I had not exchanged superfluous glances I should have seen my
+promised land. If I had not superfluously demanded a rendering of
+account, I should never have been kicked out of Lischnitz. And if I had
+not made superfluous confessions...."
+
+Well, what then?
+
+"Konni! Konni!" she wailed. A shudder of yearning overwhelmed her
+painfully, and restrained her wandering thoughts.
+
+She walked on, staggering. Fresh lines of street vanished in mist, and
+at one spot a grass lawn reared its unevenly clipped hedge.
+
+"What sort of fields could they be, fields of shining asphodel?"
+
+Ah! here was the bridge. The bridge!
+
+Like a thief in the night it loomed in the darkness, above the wide,
+deserted spaces, where the lights of thousands of street-lamps dwindled
+into infinitesimal sparks. Somewhere in the dark sky shone the mild
+face of a full-moon. It was the illuminated clock of a railway station,
+the shadowy outline of which was swallowed up by the darkness. The
+hands pointed to half-past one.
+
+Lilly saw it all dimly, as through a haze. She had sunk, paralysed with
+terror, against the corner of the wall, which she had intended to turn.
+Her heart throbbed so convulsively that she thought she must fall down
+dead.
+
+"No; I can't do it!" she said to herself. And then came her own answer:
+"But I can--I will!"
+
+She tried to stagger a few steps further, on to the bridge where the
+railings seemed to be waiting for her in malice; but her legs refused
+to carry her. The singing in her head rose to a roar of thunder. She
+stood hesitating on the dark, forsaken spot; with both hands she
+struggled to tear the score and crumple it into a ball, but it would
+not yield. Her "Song of Songs" was stronger than she was. Then, all at
+once, her feet began to move as if of their own accord, and took her
+step by step beyond the lamp-post to the railings. Yes, now the chains
+of the palisade were between her fingers. She could see nothing of the
+water below but a dark slimy shimmer. So murky was it that even the
+lamps were not reflected in it.
+
+Now all she had to do was to jump--and it would be over.
+
+"Yes, I'll do it! I'll do it!" a voice within her cried.
+
+But "The Song of Songs" must go first. It would be in the way, and
+hinder her climbing over the railings.
+
+She threw it. A white flash, a splash below, harsh and shrill, which
+made her shake in every limb, as if her face had been slapped. And when
+she heard it, she knew instantly that she would never do it. No, never!
+Lilly Czepanek was no heroine. No martyr to her love was Lilly
+Czepanek. No Isolde, who finds in the will not to exist the highest
+form of self-existence. But she was only a poor exploited and plundered
+human creature who must drag on through life as best she could. She
+would not go back to the old round of degrading dissipations, however
+much Richard might look like a whipped dog. Of that she was determined;
+and she began forthwith to review the few possibilities left of her
+earning an honest living.
+
+Perhaps all would come right in the end, though she could not disguise
+the fact that she had completely lost her zeal for work, and was never
+likely to find it again. All she asked was to be allowed to live in
+peace and the exercise of virtue. Did not millions of human beings
+think there was nothing better?
+
+She cast one more searching glance at the sullenly rolling river in
+which "The Song of Songs" had found its grave, and then turned and
+walked away.
+
+
+                           *   *   *   *   *
+
+
+In the business circles of Berlin there was a flutter of surprise the
+following spring when the papers announced that Herr Richard Dehnicke,
+senior partner of the well-known old firm of Liebert & Dehnicke, art
+bronze manufacturers, had married Lilly Czepanek, a notorious beauty of
+the _demimonde_. The announcement added that the pair had taken up
+their quarters temporarily in Southern Italy. Those who knew her were
+not surprised--they said that they had always felt Lilly Czepanek was a
+dangerous woman.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Song of Songs, by Hermann Sudermann
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SONG OF SONGS ***
+
+***** This file should be named 34361.txt or 34361.zip *****
+This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
+        https://www.gutenberg.org/3/4/3/6/34361/
+
+Produced by Charles Bowen, from page scans provided by the Web Archive
+
+Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
+will be renamed.
+
+Creating the works from public domain print editions 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 the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission.  If you
+do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the
+rules is very easy.  You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose
+such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and
+research.  They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do
+practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks.  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
+https://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 in the public domain 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 outside 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 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
+
+1.E.2.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived
+from the public domain (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 web site (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
+both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael
+Hart, the owner 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
+public domain works 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 MERCHANTIBILITY 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 web page at https://www.pglaf.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.  Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at
+https://pglaf.org/fundraising.  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 principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S.
+Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered
+throughout numerous locations.  Its business office is located at
+809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email
+business@pglaf.org.  Email contact links and up to date contact
+information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official
+page at https://pglaf.org
+
+For additional contact information:
+     Dr. Gregory B. Newby
+     Chief Executive and Director
+     gbnewby@pglaf.org
+
+
+Section 4.  Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide
+spread 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 https://pglaf.org
+
+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 including checks, online payments and credit card
+donations.  To donate, please visit: https://pglaf.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 thirty 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 Public Domain 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 Web site which has the main PG search facility:
+
+     https://www.gutenberg.org
+
+This Web site 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.
diff --git a/34361.zip b/34361.zip
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..5b9bdf3
--- /dev/null
+++ b/34361.zip
diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..6312041
--- /dev/null
+++ b/LICENSE.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,11 @@
+This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements,
+metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be
+in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES.
+
+Procedures for determining public domain status are described in
+the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org.
+
+No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in
+jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize
+this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright
+status under the laws that apply to them.
diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..873715d
--- /dev/null
+++ b/README.md
@@ -0,0 +1,2 @@
+Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for
+eBook #34361 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/34361)