Lilly was left alone in the world.
"Well, young lady," said Mr. Pieper, the prominent lawyer, "I have been appointed your guardian. I accepted the office because I thought it my duty—the papers in Lemkevs.Militzky," he interrupted himself to call to his managing clerk, who had just then entered. "What was I going to say? Oh, yes. Because I thought it my duty, despite my being an extremely busy man—to assist widows and orphans to the best of my feeble ability."
He passed his exquisitely cherished left hand over his shining bald pate and straw-coloured beard, beneath which a worldly mouth half concealed an epicurean smile.
"My wards all make their way in the world," he continued. "It's my pride to have them succeed. The way they do it—well, that's my affair, a business secret, so to say. I am convinced, my child, that you, too, will get along. If I didn't think so, I should not be so interested in you probably. The first thing is to get the young ladies the right positions. The homely ones give most trouble, unless they happen to possess a certain measure of self-abnegation. It pays them to assume the so-called Christian virtues. But of course you don't belong in that category—you probably know it yourself—I tell you merely that you may learn with time to make demands. I must explain—the main art in life is to determine the boundary line between demands justifiable and demands unjustifiable. That is, you must have a feeling for exactly how far your powers will reach in each circumstance as it arises. A girl like you—"
The managing clerk, a tall, bony fellow, suddenly appeared at the lawyer's side shoving a bundle of documents at him.
"At four o'clock the Labischin divorce case. At quarter past five Reimann—Reimannvs.Fassbender—get everything ready, and have someone here to accompany this young lady—the papers will tell you where. That will do."
The managing clerk vanished.
"Well," Lilly's guardian resumed, "the time I have to spare for you is nearly gone. You cannot continue with your schooling, that's plain. There's no money for it. But even if you had the means, I'm not certain whether in view of your future—however, a governess may make a brilliant match—it sometimes occurs, chiefly, to be sure, in English novels—but there's the danger, too, that you might—excuse me for the word—on the spur of the moment I can't think of another—besides, it's the right one—that you might be seduced. What I'd rather see you than anything else is the lady in a large photographic establishment who receives customers. But it seems to me you haven't enough self-confidence as yet for that. One must make a deep impression at first sight, because people who leave an order have to have some inducement for coming back to call for their pictures. I've selected something else for you, for the purpose more of giving you a short period of trial than of providing you with a permanent position. It's in a circulating library. It will give you plenty of opportunity—discreetly, you know—not to hide your light under a bushel. The remuneration, I need scarcely say, will be moderate—free board and lodging and twenty marks a month. You will have a chance to let your fancy—I suppose you're not yetblasé—let your fancy roam at will in the fields of general literature. There you are, young lady! Mercy on us! Why are you crying?"
Lilly quickly dried the tears from her eyes and cheeks.
"I've just come from the hospital," was the only excuse she could find. "I'm still a little—I beg your pardon."
The prominent lawyer shook his head. His bald spot looked as petted and pampered as a lovely woman's cheeks.
"You must get out of the habit of crying, too, if you want to make your way in the world. Tears are not in place until you are 'settled.' Oh, yes, something else—the things your poor mother owned must be sold. The proceeds will serve as a small capital. I lay stress on having such a sum, no matter how insignificant. Now you will go back to your home with my man—the key was deposited at my office—and select what you think you absolutely need or"—he smiled a little—"what filial devotion leads you to prize. Good-by, my dear. In six months come to me again."
Lilly felt a cool, soft hand, which seemed incapable of bestowing a pressure, lie in her own for an instant; then she found herself staggering down the dark steps behind a clerk who had been waiting for her outside the door with the key to her home.
She wanted to speak to him, ask him questions, beg him for something. But for what? She herself knew not.
When the clerk opened up the musty room, where the twilight was broken by shafts of light, as in a tomb, the tomb of her life, the tomb of her youth, Lilly felt that now everything was over and all left her was to fall asleep here and die.
The clerk threw the shutters back and raised the windows.
The clothes were still lying on the bed, the underwear and bed-linen on the floor, and close by were two brown stains, the blood that had flowed from her wound. The knife, too, was still there.
Lilly restrained her desire to cry, shamed by the presence of the clerk, who stood there stupidly, whistling, with his lower lip thrust out.
Lilly threw her clothes into the basket-trunk which her mother had intended to use in moving to the nine-room apartment, added a few pieces of underwear and some books chosen at random, and then looked around for mementos. Her brain was befogged. She saw everything and recognised nothing. But there on the table, there, bound with rubber bands, soaked in her blood, untouched because no one knew its value, lay the Song of Songs.
Lilly snatched it up, shut down the trunk lid, and with the score under her arm, stepped out into the new life, hungry for experience.
Mrs. Asmussen's two daughters had run away from home again. The whole neighbourhood knew it. Lilly had scarcely set foot in the dusky room smelling of dust and leather, where soiled volumes on pine shelves reached to the ceiling, when she, too, became acquainted with the fact.
Mrs. Asmussen was a dignified dame, whom nature had endowed with gracious rotundity. She received Lilly at the entrance to her circulating library, and amid kisses and tears declared that even before seeing Lilly she had conceived a love for her such as she would cherish for a child of her own; and now that she had met her face to face she was completely bewitched.
"And people speak of the cold world," thought Lilly, whom this sort of reception pleased very well.
"What did I say—a child of myown? Nonsense! I love you more, much more, ever and ever and ever so much more. Daughters are venomous serpents, on whom love is wasted. They are parasites to be torn from one's breast—torn—"
She stopped because the stupid clerk, who had accompanied Lilly in a cab, was shoving her trunk over the threshold. After he left Mrs. Asmussen continued:
"Do you think I loved my daughters, or didn't love them? Did I, or did I not, say to them every day: 'Your father's a blackguard, a cur, and may the devil take him'? How do you think they rewarded me? One morning I get up and find they're gone—mind you, absolutely gone—beds empty—and a note on the table: 'We're going to father. You beat us too much, and we're sick and tired of that eternal mush.' Look at me, my dear. Am I not goodness itself? Do I look as if I could beatanybody, much less my own daughters? And do you suppose this is the first time they did it, the first time they overwhelmed me with shame and disgrace in the eyes of the whole world? What would you say if I were to tell you it's thethirdtime—twice before I pardoned them and took them to my bosom. I found them lying outside my door in tears and rags. Yes, yes, that's the way it was, that's the way it is, the way it is. But if they dare to returnagain, here's a broom, here, look, behind the door—I put it there the instant I found out they had gone, and there it will remain until I take hold of it and beat them out, beat them out through the door to the street, this way, this way, this way—"
With a gesture of ineffable disgust Mrs. Asmussen swept an invisible something through the hall, and let it lie outside, giving it a look of unspeakable contempt.
"The poor, poor woman," thought Lilly. "How she must have suffered!" And she registered a silent vow to do her utmost to replace the faithless children in the abandoned mother's heart.
At this point a young man entered, a customer, who wanted to exchange a book. He asked for one of Zola's works, and looked at Lilly triumphantly, as if to say, "You see, that's the kind I am!"
Mrs. Asmussen went to fetch the book, shaking her head softly in deprecation. The customer took it hastily without paying the least attention to the look of warning with which she handed it to him.
"Look, my dear," she said after he left, "that's the way youth goes to its ruin, and I myself am condemned to point the way."
"How?" queried Lilly, who had been listening with the keenest interest.
"Do you know what's inside an apothecary's shop?"
Lilly said she had often been in an apothecary's shop, but could not itemise the contents.
Her mistress continued:
"One closet is marked 'Poisons.' It contains the most awful poisons mankind knows. That's why it's always locked and only the owner and his assistant may have the key to it. Now look about you. Half of what you see here is poison, too. Everything written these days vitiates the soul and lures it to its destruction. Yet I must keep the wicked books, and though my heart bleeds I must hand them over to any and everybody who asks for them. Oh, I need but to think of my undutiful daughters. No use my telling them not to—they read at any rate. They read and read the whole night long, and when they were crammed full of impudence and corruption, they didn't like the food I prepared for them, and all they wanted to do was to go out walking. On top of it all they went sneaking off to their father, that miserable cur, that common cheat, that pock-marked scum of the earth. Child, I warn you against that man. Should you ever meet him, lift your skirts and spit, the way I'm spitting now."
Lilly shuddered at the man's frightful vileness, but took some courage in the thought that she had found her natural protector in this excellent woman.
An hour later they went to supper, which consisted of mush and sandwiches, with nothing but clarified fat between. Lilly, whose palate had not been pampered, was easily persuaded that nobody in the world knew how to prepare such dainty mush, and that the emperor himself was seldom served with more delicious sandwiches. Had a little ham been added to the repast, such as she had gotten for supper every evening at the hospital, the acme of earthly enjoyments in her opinion would have been attained.
Going to bed provided her with another pleasure. The books of the circulating library were kept in a large room with three windows, divided into four compartments by two bookcases running from the windowed wall deep into the room and by a counter opposite the door leading into the hall. A passageway along the wall dividing the library from the inner room was the only means of getting from one compartment to another.
When bedtime came Mrs. Asmussen had Lilly carry to the compartment farthest from the hall door two bench-like pieces of furniture and mount a spring-mattress on them. This completely blocked the space crosswise, so that, to get into bed, Lilly had to jump over the bottom rail of the benches. She thought it great sport.
Wedged in between perpendicular bookcases, the window-sill at her head, a chair holding her impedimenta at her feet, the Song of Songs clasped in her arms, Lilly fell asleep.
The next morning her apprenticeship began.
Lilly was instructed as to the system according to which the thousands of volumes were ranged on the shelves. As she knew her A B C's, she would have been able to fetch any book from its place at the end of five minutes if only Mrs. Asmussen had followed her own scheme and not produced utter confusion by disposing the books arbitrarily.
Still harder a task was finding records in the large ledger. Here, too, the plan was supposed to be alphabetic; but some customers filled the space allotted to them more rapidly than others, and when there was no more room Mrs. Asmussen had simply turned to the next blank page regardless of alphabetic succession. The result was such a jumble that finally neither Mrs. Asmussen nor her decamped daughters knew where to look for what they wanted.
Inspired by holy zeal Lilly began the great task of getting order out of chaos. This constituted her entire life.
The very day after her arrival Mrs. Asmussen provided her with some singular experiences.
During the working hours the worthy dame had for the most part kept out of sight. When Lilly went in for supper she found her mistress dreamily inclined over a steaming cup of tea in a room pervaded by a pleasant aroma of lemon and rum.
"I suffer very much from a catarrhal affection of the mucous lining of my nose," explained Mrs. Asmussen, blinking at Lilly with somewhat watery grey eyes. "So I must take some medicine which one of the most eminent physicians in the city prescribed for me."
Lilly stirred her mush while Mrs. Asmussen sipped tea, every now and then giving vent to a distressed sigh.
"Have I told you about my daughters?"
"Oh, certainly," said Lilly, respectfully.
In the morning, too, Mrs. Asmussen had spoken of scarcely anything but those miserable creatures and the contemptible wretch they called father.
"I don't think it's possible for you to get even a remote conception of the charm of those two girls. They are my own flesh and blood, and modesty should forbid me to speak of them this way. However, from a purely objective point of view, I may say that never, never in the wide world have I ever seen, even from afar, two young ladies endowed with such striking qualities of mind and character. Such tender filial devotion, such self-sacrificing industry, such touching modesty, so much genuine feeling in all the small relations of life, such quiet strength in the judgment of great questions, have never before, I warrant, been united in two such youthful souls. Let them be an example to you, my child. You are far removed, far, far removed from those models of maidenhood."
In her astonishment and shame Lilly dropped her spoon. The old lady went on:
"It was with a bleeding heart that I had to part from them. As for them, they cried day and night before leaving me. But what was to be done? They had to go to their father. Have I ever told you about my splendid husband? An untoward destiny has separated us, but his love, I know, clings to me, and I will love him all the days of my life. Oh, what a man he was! My child, pray to the Lord that he may make you worthy to become the wife of such a man. Alas, I was not worthy, no, not I!"
Two tears of infinite contrition ran down her cheeks.
She related a good deal more on this second evening concerning the virtues of her two daughters, her husband's nobility of character, and her own unworthiness.
After she had taken several more doses of the medicine prescribed by one of the most eminent physicians of the city, she finally wept herself to sleep.
The next morning she began the day's work by bursting into a rage because Lilly had used the broom, which was to remain undisturbed behind the door, for sweeping the library.
"This broom is here for only one purpose—to beat those two monsters when they come to my door. And if you, wretched creature, take hold of it once again, you will be the first to make its acquaintance."
Lilly now began to divine that the strange world was not so roseate as her eagerness for experience had led her to picture it.
But worse was to come.
Mrs. Asmussen, who seemed to be greatly concerned for the salvation of Lilly's soul and the purity of her virgin fancy, immediately forbade her to read any of the books in the library.
"Experience with my daughters," she said, "taught me where such misconduct leads. And I will see to it that you are spared a similar fate."
So long as the work of ordering the books and the ledger continued, the temptation to disobey this mandate did not arise very frequently. But when fall came, when despite increase of custom, unoccupied hours grew more frequent, and the lamp hanging over the counter shone invitingly, when Mrs. Asmussen from day to day succumbed earlier to the effects of the medicine prescribed by one of the most eminent physicians in the city, and fell into an untroubled dream existence, curiosity and loneliness drove Lilly irresistibly on to commit the sinful deed.
The final impulse was given by a girl of about her own age, who had come one rainy October evening to exchange the first volume of a novel for the second. But the second had been loaned already, and the girl actually cried in disappointment. She couldn't bear waiting, she said. Shehadto know how the story ended. She woulddieif she didn't.
Lilly good-humouredly advised her to go to one of the other circulating libraries, which were said to be larger and more aristocratic. She even returned the three marks deposit for use at the other place. Happy in reawakened hopes the novel-reader left.
Lilly examined the torn and soiled volume on all sides and took a cautious peep between the covers.
"Soll und Haben, by Gustav Freytag," was on the title page. She recalled that even the girls of the first year high school had gone into raptures over the book. But the seamstress's daughter had had no time for reading novels.
Lilly glanced timidly at the first page, then slipped to the glass door and listened for a while to Mrs. Asmussen's peaceful breathing—now, with sails spread, she launched forth on the high seas of romance.
When she finished the volume at four o'clock in the morning she could have torn her hair in sheer desperation at having so lightly put the sequel into the hands of some stranger, who might not bring it back. She mapped out ways and means of unearthing his name and address and slipping to him secretly in order to hasten the return of the book. Then she fell asleep.
She spent hours going over the ledger time and again to find the name. In vain! The entries were made by numbers, not by titles, and each time she skipped the number ofSoll und Haben.
So, like a toper who seeks intoxication in a new drink, she greedily devoured another book.
From now on Lilly's life was one great orgy, and bore all the marks of such an existence—blurred eyes, aching limbs, huge bills for midnight oil, and spying and lying every few minutes to allay Mrs. Asmussen's suspicions.
One winter morning the dreadful crime came to light.
The fire in the library stove would die out about midnight and Lilly's feet would then grow cold. So she got into the habit of reading in bed, with the lamp, which she removed from its hanging socket, set on the broad window-sill directly back of her head. She indulged in the luxury even though reduced to the bitter necessity of getting out of bed later to replace both the lamp and the book, for nowadays Mrs. Asmussen was frequently at her post earlier in the morning than Lilly. But Lilly, for the sake of the few extra hours thus gained, would not have been deterred from allowing herself this great joy, even if it had involved going out on the icy street in her nightgown.
But once she started up from sleep in terror to find Mrs. Asmussen standing at the bottom of the bed all dressed. A black strap lay across her white shirt, and the lamp, which she had gotten up at one o'clock to refill, was still burning behind her.
Never having been beaten in her life, she refused at first to take it seriously when Mrs. Asmussen, despite her corpulence, suddenly jumped over the bottom of the bed and squatted on the covers like a great turkey and began to strike her over the ears with the black strap.
Bad times set in.
Of what avail that Lilly felt genuinely repentant and swore to herself to reform. She was so steeped in the new passion, so absorbed by that lovelier existence, where people experienced and loved, suffered and enjoyed, where there were no pert servant girls who came to exchange books, no wet umbrellas, no second volumes loaned out, no ledger numbers not to be found, no mush, and no blows, that she could not have returned to her former self had she had the self-renunciatory ability of a martyr and saint.
To such an extent was she dominated by her fancy that what was her actual existence, moving on from day to day in monotonous prison-like loneliness, seemed to her a dream, an oppressive death stupour, painless, but also pleasureless. Her being did not expand in real life until the sticky pages of a novel began to rustle in her hand.
Intimidated and unresisting as she was, she did not find the courage to justify what was holiest to her even in her own eyes. She felt it to be a sin on which her hungry soul fed as on manna.
Mrs. Asmussen had bethought herself of a diabolic way of still further humiliating Lilly. Like many a believing Protestant, she regarded religion solely as a scourge. Hitherto she had not shown the least solicitude concerning Lilly's piety, but now she began each meal with a long prayer of repentance, and while the steam curled invitingly from the soup tureen, she would beseech God with sighs and tears to raise Lilly from the depths to which she had sunk.
And woe to Lilly if caught backsliding!
That first chastisement was not the last. Every pretext was seized for beating and cuffing her. Storms of abuse showered down on her unprotected head. She did not dare breathe until the medicine prescribed by the eminent physician began to have its soothing effect.
Then she would pounce on the first book she came across, and amid the forging of signatures and broken marriage vows, amid death by poisoning and the mad acts of love, she would suffer and triumph, triumph and die, blissful in her sufferings, intoxicated to the very end.
It was on a March afternoon, when the sun was shining with young impertinence and the heat was untimely.
The black slabs of snow at the edge of the pavement had melted into gleaming puddles, and a sparkling shower fell from the icicles clinging to the roofs. Over to the south-west the red evening glow lay spread on the house fronts like gay rugs separated by an oblique line from the shadow of the walls on the near side. The window-panes glowed as if they were suns radiating their own light, and the sparrows chased one another along the dripping eaves.
But best of all in this sorry spring of city streets was the rare spicy smell of thawing. Even the vapours rising from the gutters, now running again, gave an inkling of greening meadows and bursting boughs.
Lilly, who had gone out on hardly more than three occasions the whole winter, sat behind the counter and looked through the window longingly.
Everywhere she saw that windows and doors had been opened wide, everywhere breasts hungering for air greedily drew in the breath of coming spring. So she, too, opened the casement wide and gave the door to the hall a push, which sent it flying back and knocked down the broom, standing at its post, as always.
Through the open doorway she could see into the parlour of the tenant who lived on the other side of the hall and who, likewise, had flung back his door for spring to enter.
She saw a cherry-red sofa with embroidered antimacassars symmetrically plastered on its old-fashioned scroll arms. She saw framed wreaths of dried flowers with inscriptions hanging on the walls; she saw an artillery officer's helmet and two swords with sword-knots crossed beneath. She saw China lions serving as cigar holders, ladies in dancing attitudes holding tallow candles, photographs of family groups with peacock feathers stuck behind, a spherical aquarium containing gold fish, and a spotted goat skin. Amid all these comfortable-looking knick-knacks she saw a young man walking up and down with a book in his hand murmuring studiously. He would appear and reappear in the field of vision allowed by the hall door.
This young man awakened Lilly's sympathy at the very first glance.
He wore his waving light hair brushed from his forehead in free and easy fashion, and carried his head boldly erect. His brown and lilac necktie seemed to her aristocratic perfection.
She passed in review all her favourite heroes to see which of them he most resembled. After some wavering she finally decided he came nearest to Herr von Fink, the rogue inSoll und Haben.
Since the young man did not notice her, she could study him at leisure. Each time he appeared she felt a warm wave pour over her body, and when he remained away too long by the fraction of a second, she experienced a sensation of nausea, as if some one were trying to cheat her of a dear possession.
This continued until once he looked up from his book, became aware of the open door to the circulating library with the young lady on the other side observing him, started in dismay, and quickly stepped back to the invisible part of the room.
The next time he came into view he had assumed a conscious and studied manner. He looked at his book a little too closely and moved his lips one degree too zealously, while a severe frown clouded his countenance.
Lilly, too, had found it necessary somewhat to improve the picture she presented. She smoothed her hair, which she wore parted Madonna fashion, and let her arm droop over the side of the chair in idle dreaminess.
Some maids, who had come to exchange books for their mistresses, put an end to this dual posing. On leaving they closed the door and Lilly did not venture to open it again.
But that night she carried the vision of the new hero into her dreams.
It was too late in the day to speak to Mrs. Asmussen, who was now in the habit of preparing her medicine some time before the evening meal. The next morning, however, she seemed to be in a gracious humour, and Lilly felt emboldened to make a few inquiries concerning the neighbours, of whom she knew practically nothing.
"What are the neighbours to you, Miss Inquisitive?"
Such was the tone of intercourse that had developed from the first state of enchantment.
Lilly took heart, and concocted a story of a steady customer who had asked about the neighbours the day before, and Lilly had not been able to give any information.
Mrs. Asmussen, who cherished boundless respect for the customers' wishes, forthwith became communicative.
They were two very good people, but of low station, with whom she, Mrs. Asmussen, a woman of greater aristocracy both of mind and heart, could not, of course, associate. The man, a sergeant out of service, was clerk in some office, and the woman sewed neckwear for a living.
Lilly blushed. She recalled the brown and lilac tie, the sheen of which had been dazzling her eyes since the day before.
An idea might be obtained of the vulgar existence those plebeians led, Mrs. Asmussen continued, if one knew they considered potato soup with sliced sausage in it a festal delicacy, whereas anyone with refined tastes would shudder at the mere thought.
Lilly, who, like the good-for-nothing daughters, had long lost her joy in the daily mush, could not quite sympathise with this statement. On the contrary, she felt her mouth watering, and in order to change the subject quickly she timidly inquired whether anyone else was living next door.
"Not that I know of," replied Mrs. Asmussen. "But there's a son. He goes to high school. I don't know why such people have their sons study."
"I know," thought Lilly. "Because he's one of the elect, because genius shines in his eyes, because destiny has marked him to be a ruler on earth."
That afternoon she kept the door open. But it had turned bitter cold, and the idea of friendly reciprocation occurred to nobody next door.
After an hour spent in studying the oval door plate on which was inscribed:
she found herself under the necessity of closing the door, because her legs were depending from her body like icicles and she had the humiliating consciousness of being scorned.
Henceforth she kept on the watch for one o'clock, when the students living in the house returned from school. Holding her forehead pressed against the window-pane, she could recognise at an inconceivable distance the blue and white rimmed caps worn by high school students.
When he came up the steps leading to the porch in front of the house, she slipped behind the curtain, and in a joyous tremour caught the shamed, sidelong glance he sent her. If he looked straight ahead she was unhappy and afraid she had hurt his feelings.
Other blue and white rimmed caps besides his entered the house. They belonged to friends who came to cram with him.
Lilly loved them all. She felt she was a secret member of the union of these young souls who were going to storm the world, and when they seated themselves in the room she took her invisible place in the circle.
Some of them Lilly recognised, not by their features, because they passed her too quickly for that, but by their caps, which she distinguished accurately. There was the "sad one," the "washed-out one," the "stylish one" and the "wireless one." She could also recognise their walk and the manner in which they rang the bell at the opposite door. Even if occupied with customers, she could tell, without having looked through the window, exactly how many and which of the friends were working with young Redlich, and she would revolve in her mind why this or that one had not come that day.
Spring advanced. The inmates of the house began occasionally to sit on the front porch, where there were benches on either side of the door.
Before leaving, the young gentlemen would remain there a while chatting, and now and then He would lean over the railing in the twilight, dreaming, no doubt, of future conquests.
With fluttering heart Lilly would stand behind a bookcase where she had cunningly contrived an observatory for herself by removing a number of books, and from there read the world-stirring thoughts that lay on the bold soaring forehead.
The benches on the right side of the porch, in front of the windows of the circulating library, generally remained unoccupied, because Mrs. Asmussen, to whom this side belonged, preferred not to desert her evening medicine, and Lilly lacked courage to ask for permission to sit there by herself.
But one evening in May, when dark blue clouds hung in the heavens shot with red, enticing rather than threatening, when the streets were so quiet that Lilly could hear the distant plashing of the fountain in the market-place, when the only stir was created by swallows darting hither and thither, she could no longer stand the library's pasty, leathery smell, and fetching her embroidery—more for show than from eagerness to sew—she went out to sit on the porch.
She knew he had gone out and was not in the habit of remaining away after ten o'clock.
So he would be bound to pass her at all events.
Half an hour went by, another half hour, then a quarter of an hour. Finally she saw a blue and white cap come swinging down the street in the last glow of evening.
Her first thought was to run into the library with all possible speed. But she was ashamed of the idea, and remained seated.
He came, he saw her, he raised his cap and went in.
She thought gleefully:
"Well, he bowed at last."
At the end of scarcely ten minutes he reappeared on the scene, seated himself on the bench belonging tohisside of the house, toyed with pebbles, whistled softly, and acted altogether as if he did not see her.
Lilly sat in her corner with her face turned aside, rolling and unrolling her embroidery, and every now and then fetching a little sigh, not to show her love—oh, certainly not!—but because her breath came short.
About half an hour passed in this fashion and Lilly was beginning to lose all hope of a rapprochement, when all of a sudden he said, half raising his cap:
"The front door, I believe, is soon going to be closed, Miss."
"Impossible!" she cried, feigning lively astonishment. But if she were to act on the suggestion implied in his words her chance of at last becoming acquainted with him would certainly be lost, and she added in a tone lighter than accorded with her mood: "But it doesn't matter. The window is open."
He uttered,
"H'm, h'm."
Whether in agreement or blame she could not determine, and the conversation would have come to a standstill without fail had not Lilly made an effort to keep the ball rolling.
"We are neighbours, aren't we?" she asked.
He jumped from his seat and with a sweep of his cap describing a semicircle between his head and his trousers' pocket, he said:
"Permit me to introduce myself. Fritz Redlich, senior in the high school."
Lilly once more experienced the reverential thrill that used to pass through her soul when she was in the Selecta and the last year class of the boys' high school was mentioned. The fact was suddenly borne in upon her that now she was nothing better than a shop girl, and she grew hot with shame at the thought.
But she would not have it that her glorious past was to have been lived in vain.
"I was in the Selecta. I left last autumn," she said, "and I got to know some of you then."
"Whom?" he asked eagerly.
Lilly mentioned the names of two young men who had fluttered about her at the skating-rink, and asked whether he knew them.
"Certainly not," he answered with scorn, which did not seem wholly sincere. "They loaf too much for fellows like us, and they're going to join a students' corps. We don't do that sort of thing."
Silence ensued.
It had now grown so dark that Lilly could see only the outline of his figure as he idly leaned against the corner post of the balustrade.
Fine drops of rain fell and lay in her hair. She could have remained there forever with the dark youthful form before her searching eyes and spring's blessing lying cool on her head.
"You are engaged here in the circulating library?" he asked.
Lilly said "Yes," and was grateful to him for the elegant word "engaged," which seemed somewhat to improve her position.
"And you are preparing for the examinations?" she inquired in turn.
"In autumn—if everything goes well," he answered with a sigh.
"Then you are going out into the wide, wide world," she said with the rapt expression that girls adopt in compositions. "Going out to fight your way through life. Oh, how I envy you!"
"Why?" he asked in wonder. "Aren't you fighting your way through life already?"
Lilly burst out laughing.
"Oh, if I were you," she cried, "what wouldn't I do—oh!"
She exulted in her sensations. She felt her limbs stretching. She knew a gleam of triumph was flashing in her eyes, a gleam which could not triumph simply because it dissipated itself unseen in the dark.
It was impossible for her, from sheer joy, to remain where she was. She would have gone mad had she been compelled to stay there, formulating stiff words, while everything in her cried out:
"I love you."
She bade him a hasty good-night and ran into the library, bolting the door behind her. She ran up and down the narrow aisles between the cases, laughing and sighing, raising her arms aloft like a priestess at prayer, and knocking her elbows painfully against the shelves.
A yearning for symphonies, for great sustained major chords, welled up within her. She wanted to sing the Walhalla motif, but the Walhalla motif cannot be sung.
Suddenly an aria flitted through her mind, one of those songs which had palpitated through her childhood, without conveying any meaning to her, but which, for that very reason, had been the more purely consecrated.
I sought him whom my soul loved,I sought him, but I found him not.I called him,But he gave me no answer.The watchman that went about the city found me.They smote me, they wounded me.The keepers of the walls took away my veil from me.
I sought him whom my soul loved,I sought him, but I found him not.I called him,But he gave me no answer.The watchman 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 in a soft, uncertain voice, loud enough, however, to be heard through the window. But when she peeped from her observatory to convince herself that he was listening, she no longer saw him standing there.
She sang louder and leaned out. She tore open her tight-fitting dress to expose her bare breast to the rain drops.
Then all of a sudden she was overcome by a feeling of wretchedness; why, she did not know, but so strong it was she thought she would die of it. She felt how the cruel watchers seized her; she felt the smart of the wound which rude hands caused her; she felt how the veil was being torn away which concealed from the eyes of the world the holy nakedness of her body. In shameless nudity, yet weeping drops of blood for bitter shame, she tottered through the streets, and sought and sought, yethewas farther off than ever.
She sank on her knees at the window-sill, and pressing her face on its edge, wept bitterly in sweet dark sympathy with that image of herself straying through Jerusalem's nocturnal streets.
Yet all this was sheer happiness!
And the happiness endured.
It nestled in the dusty corners, it perched on the bookshelves, it span golden cobwebs from beam to beam, it rode on every ray of light reflected from the windows opposite on the leather backs of the books.
Wherever she went, Lilly was accompanied by a humming medley of quivering tones, half motifs and snatches of melodies, strains from an æolian harp, the chirping of a cricket-on-the-hearth, the singing of a boiling kettle, and the soft twittering of birds.
Awake or asleep, she always heard it.
Now and then a few measures of the Song of Songs joined in exultingly.
Outwardly everything went along in the old ruts. Mrs. Asmussen was sometimes sober, sometimes full of sweet drugs. Husband and daughters rose and sank, sank and rose, through the entire gamut of ethical appraisement, plunged one moment into the deepest pit of depravity, exalted the next to the shining heights of apotheosis. One day a volume of Gerstäcker was missing, another day a Balduin Möllhausen seemed to have been sucked into the swamps of the Orinoco.
Sometimes a puff of wind blowing through the window carried a little cloud of yellow powder to the edges of the shelves, from which it was wiped off like ordinary dust. Yet it conveyed a greeting from swaying boughs in bloom, which was all this spring brought to Lilly, except for a loads of lilacs carted past the library on their way to market.
The young hero from the other side of the house had not approached her again.
She trembled whenever she heard him go down the steps, and twice a day with beating heart she received his shy greeting—that was all.
And he was not to be seen on the porch again. The digging and cramming with the other young men lasted until late at night, and it was often two o'clock before she heard their departing tread.
Not until then would she throw herself in bed, where she lay staring into the dusk of the summer night, her spirit roving over the world to findthethrone worthy to serve as her hero's goal. She saw him a general winning epoch-making battles in the open country, she saw him a poet walking up the steps of the capitol to receive the laurel wreath, she saw him an inventor soaring through the ether in the airship he himself had perfected, she saw him the founder of a new religion—but here she came to a terrified halt, for in her heart she had remained a good Catholic.
Under the oppression of bodily and spiritual castigation she had not dared seek refuge in religion. Quickly enough the courage had gone from her to ask Mrs. Asmussen for permission to visit St. Anne's early every morning, and soon she had completely forgotten that such a thing as a confession or a mass ever took place.
Now, however, in the exuberance of her feelings, feelings such as she had never before suspected, her longing for spiritual disburdenment grew so strong that she decided to acknowledge her Catholicism to Mrs. Asmussen and beg for the privilege to pray in that quiet corner where St. Joseph, who had always been good to her, stood behind six gold-encircled candles and smilingly shook his finger.
In Lilly's avowal Mrs. Asmussen found an explanation of all her vices; her sneakiness, her hypocrisy, her laziness, her lack of a sense of order. Mrs. Asmussen, therefore, concluded her daily prayer with the wish for immediate and complete conversion.
Nevertheless she did not refuse Lilly two excursions a week to early mass, which was all Lilly had dared hope for.
The meeting between Lilly and St. Joseph was touching.
Really, going back to him was like going back home. The cherubs that fluttered in the gay glass case behind him greeted her with a knowing, confidential look, like brothers and sisters who have been let into the secret that the punishment after all is not going to be so very severe. The golden-yellow carpet extended a hospitable invitation to kneel, and the flowers on the Holy Virgin's altar close by perfumed the air.
The saint at first seemed a little hurt because she had not visited him for so long. But after she had made her moan—telling of her loneliness, the daily mush and the blows—he softened and forgave her.
Since her last visit he had received three new silver hearts, which shot out rays of light the length of a finger. She felt like dedicating one to him, too, but on what grounds she did not know, since the miracle to be worked in her was yet to be accomplished.
"Perhaps it's only jealousy in me, or a desire to show off," she thought, for it was painful to her that others should stand in closer relations to her saint than she. "After all," she comforted herself, "how can I expect anything else when I neglected him so long?"
After confessing everything—except, of course, her love story—he had become too much of a stranger forthat—she hastened away. The clocks were striking quarter of seven, and if she did not meet her hero on his way to school, her morning meditations would have had neither purpose nor significance.
She met him and his companions at the corner of Wassertor street.
He raised his cap and passed by. But she, fetching a deep breath, remained for a time on the same spot, like one who has just escaped a great danger.
From now on there were two such encounters a week.
Her secret wish that some morning, when he was alone, he would stop and enter into a neighbourly conversation, was never fulfilled. Not the faintest glimmer of joy appeared in his face at her approach, and the tense concern depicted on his features did not relax even when—blushing a bit—he raised his cap to her.
Lilly had long given up all hope of his ever addressing her again, when one rainy July Sunday in the evening, when the door of the circulating library was closed to customers, she heard a faint tinkling of the bell. She opened the door—therehestood.
"Mercy!" she cried, almost shutting the door in her confusion.
Did she happen to have Rückert's poems in her library?
Lilly knew for certain she didnothave them, but if she admitted forthwith her inability to furnish the book he would find no pretext for entering into a conversation, so she said she would go see, and wouldn't he step in and wait? He hesitated a moment, then seated himself on the customers' chair placed close to the door.
Lilly spent some time searching, because she was afraid the inevitable "no" would send him off with a curt "thank you," and she ran up and down the aisles between the shelves aimlessly, reiterating:
"I'm sure I saw the poems just a little while ago."
Then, in order to think the matter over more quietly, she seated herself opposite him with the counter between. But he encouraged her to renew the search.
"If you saw them only a short time ago, then they are bound to be here."
When finally convinced that Rückert's poems were not in the library, he fetched a deep sigh and murmured something like, "What shall I do?" and disappeared.
Lilly, completely dazed, stared at the doorway, which a moment before had framed his figure.
She wanted to cry out and plead, "Stay here! Come back!" But she heard the door on the other side of the hall fall shut, and everything was over.
She crouched at the window-sill indulging in speculations of whatmighthave taken place if he had happened to remain.
Her heart throbbed violently.
About quarter of an hour later the bell rang again.
She jumped up. Supposing it was he?
It was he.
He begged pardon; he had forgotten his umbrella.
"This time you don't slip away!" something within her cried.
He caught up his soaking umbrella, which she had failed to notice despite the shining puddle which was crawling along the crack between two floor boards, and was about to escape again, when Lilly essayed:
"For what do you need Rückert's poems?"
He began to complain:
"Life is made so hard for us, you have no idea how hard."
He went on to tell about the speeches they had to deliver offhand on a subject sprung on them without warning, regardless of whether or not the students had prepared the theme. But this time they had gotten wind of the surprise in store—the next day in literature class they would be required to give a comprehensive view of Rückert. That was why he would have to glance over the poems once again to find out exactly who had been buried in the three graves at Ottensen.
Lilly thrilled with joy.
Shecould help him—she, the low-flying sparrow, could helphim, the soaring heaven-dweller.
She timorously related the story of the poor, defeated count of Brunswick and Klopstock, the pious bard of "The Messiah." The only thing she had forgotten was who the twelve hundred exiles were who lay in the first of the graves.
He seemed unwilling to believe in this unexpected good fortune. Was she sure of what she said? That about Klopstock was correct; he knew it from the tables of his history of literature. But the rest of it? Oppressed by grave doubts he shook his triumphant mane.
Lilly eagerly allayed his fears. To be sure, it was more than a year since she had heard of those lovely things, but she had a good memory, and would certainly not misinform him lightly.
At last he seemed relieved. He drew a deep breath, and observed, with his mind bent more upon general matters:
"Yes, it's very hard, very, very hard."
Once embarked on the current of open talk, he went on to offer his views concerning the other difficulties of human life. Mathematics was all right; in fact, he had done very well in analytic geometry. But history and the languages, and above all, German composition! A fellow was sometimes driven to despair by the wretched state of things in this world.
In this Lilly fully concurred. She, too, had little cause to be satisfied with the course of mundane events, and she gave eloquent and passionate expression to her sentiments.
"As for you," she concluded, "what tortures your spirit must undergo when it feels itself hampered in its flight by the humiliating demands of the schoolroom!"
He looked at her in some wonderment and remarked:
"Yes, indeed, it's hard, very hard."
"I in your place," Lilly went on, "would not care a fig inside myself for all that vapid stuff. I would just do what is necessary in an offhand way, and then in complete spiritual freedom climb to the height where the great poets and philosophers dwell."
"Yes, but the examinations!" he exclaimed, utterly horrified.
"Oh, those stupid examinations!" she rejoined. "What difference does it make whether or not you pass?"
Here he became eager.
"You don't understand at all, not at all. Examinations are in a sense the avenue leading to every good position in life, no matter whether you enter the university or study architecture, or merely try for a good place in the postal service. But that, of course, I wouldn't do."
"A man like you!" she interrupted.
He smiled faintly, feeling stroked the right way.
"I don't want to storm the heavens exactly," he said, "but I have my ambitions. What would a fellow be if he had no ambitions?"
"That is so, isn't it?" Lilly cried, looking up to him with a grateful gleam in her eyes. The feeling that she had never experienced such an hour of joy took complete hold of her.
When he arose to go—it had grown quite dark—she felt actual physical pain, as if a piece of her body were being torn from her.
He had almost closed the door when he turned and said as one who wishes to be sure where he treads:
"If it's not troubling you too much, do hunt for the poems once more. Perhaps you will find them."
Turning back a second time:
"You might lay the book under the door-mat if you find it."
Lilly hastily lighted the lamp and obediently started on the search. After a time the futility of doing so occurred to her.
He spent the summer vacation in the country with a companion in misery, with whom he crammed for the examinations. The written tests were to be given immediately after the opening of school, and the oral tests about the middle of September.
The young hero looked pale and exhausted, and reddish-brown stubble lay in the hollows of his cheeks like blotches of blood.
Lilly was unable to witness such wretchedness in silence, and one morning, when, returning from mass, she met him alone in the deserted street, she ventured to stop and speak to him.
"You must spare yourself, Mr. Redlich," she broke out anxiously. "You must keep well for the sake of your parents and those who love you."
He seemed more embarrassed than pleased, and before finding a reply, he cast rapid sidelong glances in all directions.
"Thank you," he stammered. "But later, if you please, later."
He dashed past, scarcely daring to raise his cap.
Lilly realised she had committed an indiscretion. The houses began to dance before her eyes, she chewed her handkerchief, and feared the passersby might laugh and jeer at her. When ensconced in her corner behind the entry book, she no longer doubted that she had lost him forever.
She had!
He came and went without greeting her—he came at suppertime and left—she heard his steps all the way down the street.
Over and done for! Over and done for!
But lo and behold! At dusk a knock was heard on the door. No, not exactly a knock, rather a scratching at the door, the way a dog with a guilty conscience scratches when he wants to be let in.
There he stood. Not with the embarrassed yet business-like manner with which he had entered that Sunday evening when the graves of Ottensen had justified his coming. No, this time his heart throbbed anxiously. He was like a thief who lacks skill in the art of thieving.
"Is Mrs. Asmussen here?" he whispered.
"Mrs. Asmussen doesn't come in here at this time," she whispered back, with a deep sigh of joy.
"Then may—I come in—for a moment?"
She stepped aside, and let him enter, thinking:
"How can a person endure so much joy without dying of it?"
He stammered something about "begging her pardon" and "not answering her."
She responded with something about "having reproached herself" and "having meant it well."
Then they sat down opposite each other with the counter between, and did not know what to say next.
He was the first to discover the way into the region of the permissible.
"A fellow sometimes likes to exchange thoughts with a congenial young lady," he said with an emphatic air of importance. "But he seldom finds the time—or the opportunity."
"Oh, as for the opportunity," thought Lilly.
Since she had manifested such kindly interest in him, and since an exchange of views would certainly be edifying to him, especially because of the growing emancipation of women—which—
He had steered into a tight place, but his sense of dignity did not forsake him. He looked at Lilly somewhat challengingly, as if to say, "You see how able I am to cope with this difficult situation."
Lilly had not caught the drift of his talk. From the moment she recovered her power of thinking, she was dominated by one feeling: help him, save him, so that he doesn't work himself to death.
"Once we girls had a teacher," she began, "who delivered glorious never-to-be-forgotten lectures in class. He worked too hard, like you, and by this time he must certainly have died of consumption. The same will happen to you, if you don't take care and go more slowly."
He nodded dejectedly.
"Yes, life's hard, very hard."
"You must get enough sleep, and go walking. Walking a great deal is the very best."
"Doyougo walking?"
Lilly taken aback considered a moment. Since she had been in that hole among the books, she had not seen a field of snow or a green tree.
"Oh, I!" she threw out, shrugging her shoulders. "What have I got to do with it?" Then, inwardly rejoicing at her own boldness, she added: "How would it be if we were to take a walk together?"
Now it was his turn to be taken aback.
"There are such a lot of obstacles," he observed, thoughtfully shaking his mane. "The thing would be misinterpreted. There are considerations, especially so far as you are concerned—certainly, especially for you."
Lilly had read of young cavaliers whose solicitude for their lady's good name exceeded their very passion for her, and she looked up at him in gratitude and admiration.
"Don't bother about me! I'll manage. I'll just shirk early mass."
Though she felt a tiny prick at her heart because of her blasphemous words, she knew that for the sake of such a walk she would betray God, betray St. Joseph himself, without the least hesitation.
"But I've got to get through with the examinations first," he explained.
The matter was settled and the plan sealed with mutual promises. Accompanied by Lilly's good wishes and warnings, he took leave, but not before carefully scanning street, porch, and hall.
From now on Lilly's life was one glow of hope and dreamy anticipation. She would lie awake half the night, picturing to herself how she would wander over the golden meadows with him in the light of dawn, her hand pressed against her throbbing heart, her arm now and then slightly grazing his elbow. Each time she thought of this she felt a little shock, which quivered down to the very tips of her toes.
She read nothing but hot, passionate books, in which there was much of "intoxication," "transport," and the "giddiness of endless kisses." But she did not dream of kisses in connection with herself. Whenever she found herself drifting in that direction, she checked herself in dismay—so exalted was he above every earthly desire.
Now she knew what reasons justified her in promising St. Joseph a silver heart.
One Sunday morning she told St. Joseph the whole story—about Fritz Redlich's examinations, his high ideals, and her solicitude for him. The only thing she refrained from mentioning was the walk they had planned; which she had to omit on account of the shirked mass.
She had saved about sixty marks, which she carried in a leather pocket next to her body. The silver heart would cost twelve marks at the very most. Plenty of money remained for buying a gift for her friend. She wavered long between a gold-embroidered college portfolio and gold-embroidered slippers, and finally decided on a revolver in a case, naturally assuming that in the wild struggle for existence he would be exposed to many dangers, from which only reckless daring and instant decision could rescue him. A revolver and case cost twenty-five marks, gold thread for embroidering the monogram, five marks. Thus everything was arranged in the best possible manner.
When she saw him step on the porch the morning of examination day, white as the glove with which he waved farewell to his parents—he seemed to have forgotten her—she felt as if she should have to run after him and press the weapon of deliverance into his hand without further delay. But she reflected that in all likelihood the examiners would not show themselves susceptible to that sort of eloquence.
At the last moment, as he stepped from the porch to the pavement, a timid glance of his fell upon her, and she was happy.
At one o'clock there was some stir on the street.
They were bringing him home. He looked weary and completely crushed, but the others whooped and huzzaed.
The old sergeant out of service ran to meet him in torn slippers, and violently wiped his green-grey bristly beard on his son's face. From the kitchen came the spicy smell of cooking sausages.
Lilly ran rejoicing up and down the aisles of the library, and thought with a sort of superior satisfaction:
"St. Joseph's fine!Isn'the fine!"
The very next morning she ordered the silver heart, and blushingly asked to have a monogram of L. C. and F. R. engraved on it.
When she returned she found an envelope addressed to her among the order slips in the letter-box. Inside was a soiled menu card from a restaurant, on which was written: "Sunday 5 a.m. on the porch."
The first grey of dawn entered the library through the lunettes in the shutters.
Lilly sprang out of bed and threw the windows open.
The street resembled a great bowl of milk, so heavily the white mist of early autumn weighed upon the ground. The cold damp drizzle did her hot limbs good. She spread her arms and washed herself in the icy air as in a bath.
Her light summer dress, which she herself had washed and ironed the evening before, hung like a bluish drift on the white wall. She smartened herself as never before. This festal day should find her worthily adorned.
With the paltry remnants of her savings she had bought a large yellow shepherdess hat tying under the chin, so doing away with the need for a collar. And openwork silk gloves suddenly came to light, having been discovered at the bottom of the trunk, where they had long lain forgotten.
She would carry the heavy revolver in her work-bag. Before slipping it in, she kissed it several times, and said:
"Watch over him faithfully, destroy his enemies, and lead him on to victory."
It was a genuine consecration of arms.
At five o'clock sharp the door opposite creaked on its hinges. She glided into the hall. On the porch they shook hands.
His eyes were bleared, yet he looked rather enterprising. There was even something of the beau in his get-up. He wore his hat tilted a bit to one side, and in his left hand swung a light bamboo cane tipped by the head of a sea gull in silver.
Lilly stammered congratulations.
He thanked somewhat condescendingly, as if so insignificant a matter were not worth all that to-do.
"We loaf about dreadfully now," he went on. "I can't say I get a great deal of sport out of it, but a fellow has to know something of the follies of human life, too."
When they passed St. Anne's, a thought suddenly flashed into Lilly's mind, which filled her with bliss. If they were to go into the church for a moment, the sin of silence would be removed from her soul, and St. Joseph could even bestow his blessing on the day.
Timidly she gave voice to her wish—and found herself in a pretty mess.
"I am a free-thinker," he said, "I would never go counter to my convictions. Nevertheless, it is an enlightened man's duty to be tolerant, and if you want to go in, I will wait outside."
No, she no longer wanted to, and she was terribly ashamed. Of course, he could not know what close connection existed between St. Joseph and his good fortune. Otherwise he would not have been so ungrateful.
They walked in silence through the deserted streets of the suburbs. The fog lifted a little. Lilly chilled through and through shivered at each step. Perhaps excitement was the cause. On the whole, however, she felt much calmer than she had expected to. Everything was so altogether, altogether different. A little disenchantment had occurred, she did not know how.
She cast a yearning gaze down the street, at the end of which dark trees showed their heads.
"When once we are out there!" she thought, and clenched her teeth to keep them from chattering.
The silence began to paralyse her thoughts. She would gladly have started a conversation, had she been able to think of a suitable beginning.
A baker's boy was walking ahead of them whistling.
"When we worked all night," said Fritz Redlich suddenly, "we always bought warm rolls. We might get some now."
Lilly became joyous again.
To be sure, had he said "we might steal some," she would have liked it better.
The baker's boy was not permitted to sell his rolls—just the right number for delivery had been doled out to him—but on the opposite side was an open shop.
When Lilly saw her hero reappear with a large bag in his hand, she had a pleasant sensation, as if they were beginning housekeeping together.
They now walked along gardens under a veritable shower of dew falling from the trees. Lilly shrugged her shoulders, and did not know what to do she felt so cold.
At last they were out in the open country.
Mats of silver-grey cobwebs, each weighted down with a burden of dew, were spread over the fields of high stubble. Yellow ridges of hills bounded the semicircle of the landscape, and in the distance rose the walls of the woods.
Lilly stretched her arms like a swimmer, and drew in through her open mouth five or six deep breaths.
"Aren't you feeling well?"
Lilly laughed.
"I must make up for all I've lost," she said. "I haven'tbreathedfor a whole year."
Feeling frozen still she began to run. He tried to keep pace, but soon fell behind, and panted after her, hopping rather than running.
When they reached the top of the first hill, the sun began to rise over the plain. The brushwood seemed to be on fire, and the cobwebs shone like silver. Each dew-drop became a glittering spark, a flame ran along each thread.
Lilly, warmed and excited from running, pressed her hands to her heaving breast, and stared into the sea of red with drunken eyes.
"Oh, look, look," she stammered, giving his face a questioning, searching glance.
She half expected him to recite odes, sing hymns, and play the harp.
He stood there trying to get his breath, to all appearances occupied exclusively with himself.
"Do recite something, Mr. Redlich," she begged. "A poem by Klopstock, or something else." She had not gotten up to Goethe in school.
He gave a short laugh, and replied:
"Catch me! Now that examinations are over German literature may go to the dogs for all I care."
Lilly felt ashamed and said nothing more, fearing the expression of such crude desires must make her culture appear half baked. When she looked up again, the glow was gone. The fields still sent up yellowish-red vapours to meet the climbing sun, whose effulgence hung coldly, almost indifferently, over the earth begging for light.
They walked on toward the woods.
He swung the paper bag. From either side of the road she gathered blackberries, which depended like bunches of glistening black beads from bushes overlaid with a film of cobwebs.
Some distance on, at the edge of the woods, they came upon a bench. Without discussing it, they simply made for the seat. It was the place they needed.
Lilly felt a little oppression at her heart. Here she was finally to receive the revelations for which her soul languished; here she was to look into the heaven-gazing eyes of the young genius.
He opened the bag, and she laid her handkerchief filled with the blackberries alongside.
The work-bag containing the heavy revolver was deposited for the time being between the rounds of the bench. Lilly hollowed out the rolls, and filled them with blackberries, and the two breakfasted together very cosily.
The golden shimmer of early autumn poured its enchantment over them. Lilly's brain grew heavy with longing and happiness. She could have sunk to the ground, and laid her forehead against his knees merely for support, because approaching fulfillment was more than she could bear.
He had removed his cap. A curly lock fell over his forehead down to his eyebrows, giving his face a sombre expression, as if he were challenging the whole world. This "genius lock" was the fashion among the boys of the last year high school and was especially cherished by those who did not aspire to the stylishness of belonging to a students' corps.
His gaze rested on the church towers of the old city, which resembled awkward, faithful, sleepy watchmen looking down on the wide-spreading clusters of house tops.
"Will you tell me what you are thinking about?" asked Lilly, bashfully admiring. The great moment—at last it had come.
He gave a short and somewhat mocking laugh.
"I am calculating how many ministers get their living in a nest like that, and how comfortable it is for a fellow if he just studies theology."
"Why don't you? Learning flows in on one from all sides."
"You don't understand," he reproved her gently. "Learning is not the chief thing. Conviction is. One must do everything for the sake of one's conviction, suffer want, suffer all sorts of privations. The city has six scholarships to bestow upon theological students, but I would rather chop my hand off than accept one. A man must take up the fight for his convictions, and that's what I'm going to do—day after to-morrow."