Lilly's knees trembled. Cold shivers ran through her body. She refused to believe, to understand. Then she felt Mr. Dehnicke take her hand and draw her to the outside hall.
He lit a match.
On the porcelain plate she now read what she had previously been unable to decipher:
She uttered a cry, rushed back into the drawing-room, threw herself in the corner of the sofa, and wept the hot, blissful tears of desire and yearning that had so long been repressed.
When she ventured to look up again, she saw Mr. Dehnicke waiting before her, modest and correct, with his sober, serious face.
She was ashamed of herself for being so happy; and full of qualms she held her hand out to him gratefully.
"May I hope that in my capacity of Walter's representative I have chanced in a measure to satisfy your taste?"
There was no more thought of refusing.
The mottled golden tops of the chestnuts grew paler, the gaps ever wider that the autumn ate into the foliage. Where a soothing green had cut off the view, now glittered the bright wavelets of the canal. Long barges, laboriously pushed by poles, trailed along in their cumbersome fashion, and the shaggy watchdogs barked up at the aristocratic windows.
Grey, rainy days came stealing upon the city like an enemy, and loneliness laid its octopus clutch on Lilly's breast.
But her work! Yes, she had her work. So long as the first infatuation had lasted and Lilly felt she might hope for some realisation of her plans, she had clung to her work day and night.
But the hoped-for turn of events never came. The announcements she had had printed remained unheeded. Mr. Dehnicke, sole purchaser of her goods, begged her—with a hesitating, embarrassed manner, to be sure, yet explicitly enough—not to be hasty, since the general state of the market was dull.
By degrees her zest in her profession began to languish. She gave up going to Mr. Kellermann for lessons, especially since his insistence upon setting free his "chained beauty" grew steadily more annoying. She locked the half-filled sample closets and completed none but the pieces Mr. Dehnicke ordered.
Oh, those dark, pitiless days, which no laughter brightened, no waiting shortened, and no purpose bound together.
The kitchen was ruled by a young maid, ever silent, whose eyes were greedy and too knowing. Each morning, while the little canary peeped, the fish were given fresh water.
It was somewhat better in the evening when the lights were lit and the crystal chandelier radiated a brilliant white light. Lilly would then wander from room to room changing the position of this or that ornament and constantly reassuring herself how beautifully she lived and how happy she was.
But of what avail was the old rose carpet with its vague vine pattern, the wine-coloured furniture, and the bronze bodies looking as if a golden breath had blown over them? Those bronze bodies whose innermost being after all was nothing more than a zinc alloy, having originated in the factory of Liebert & Dehnicke. Of what avail the charming secrétaire and the writing paper with the golden coronet stamped on it, of which Mr. Dehnicke had immediately ordered five hundred sheets? There was nobody to rejoice with her, nobody whom her longing brought to her side.
She would often seat herself at the piano and let her fingers stray over the keys. But she did not get the pleasure out of playing that she had anticipated. Her father's discipline had long lost its effects. She had forgotten the pieces she had once known by heart, and she lacked the calm and patience to learn all over again.
Yes, it was strange what disquiet would seize her the instant she touched the keys, a feeling of dread, an anticipation of impending danger, a consciousness of her own unworthiness.
She could not keep on; she had to shut down the lid and take to wandering again from room to room until her legs wearied and ten o'clock summoned her to bed.
In those joyless, unoccupied days, a piercing, stinging desire for man awoke in her, causing her nerves to tingle and a sweet, tormenting shudder to thrill her body.
The whole of the two long years her senses had been mute. Tears of regret had drowned that which the colonel's senile depravity had enkindled, and the weeks of love with Walter von Prell had fanned into lively flames. Drowned it forever, it seemed. But there it stood again, transporting and shaming and refusing to be silenced by prayers or reproach.
Often she felt she would have to run out on the street just to catch the glance of any stranger—as in the Dresden days—and see desire flare up in eyes veiled with yearning.
But the people she might encounter on the street were rough and common. The mere thought of them made her tremble.
The only time she went out was to visit her former landlady.
The walk lasted a full hour, and before she had reached her former home, many a naïve admirer, many a keenboulevardier, had bobbed up beside her and tried to enter into a pleasant conversation. She always ran to the other side of the street, shaking herself. Sometimes, yes, sometimes, she would have liked to reply.
When she lay in bed with closed eyes, she dreamed of strong-willed, sharply cut men's faces, to which she looked up in yielding happiness.
She often dreamed, too, of Mr. Dehnicke, good, sound, loyal Mr. Dehnicke.
If he were to come to her some day and falter in that guilty way of his which she liked so well: "I love you inordinately, and want you to marry me," what would she say to him?
Each time she thought this a furtive sense of comfort stole over her.
As for the man who by full right stood closest to her, she never dreamed of him. Sometimes, it is true, when her longings did not know where to strike root, those anxious yet blissful November nights would recur to her. But the part of hero might have been played by any other man as well as Walter.
Walter himself had grown to be a sort of tyrannical conscience with her.
She loved him—of course! How could she help loving him? He was her "betrothed," and he was working for her. But sometimes, when she stood in front of the sofa and felt his cold, blue eyes resting upon her haughtily and masterfully, and she recalled the sorry, inconstant little fellow he actually had been, she felt a desire to shake off everything that came from him and held her under a spell, as one tries to rid oneself of a preposterous nightmare.
If only Mr. Dehnicke had not kept alluding to him with so much devotion and respect, treating himself as the modest agent, who would have to render account to his dear friend, when that dear friend would return in honour and glory.
Mr. Dehnicke came punctually twice a week to inquire after her health and drink tea. He would leave in time to reach his office before it was closed for the day. These scant hours were always a festival for her.
What wonder? She had no one beside him. He was the only person who bound her to the rest of the world and brought incident and interest into her life.
She spent hours in fixing up the tea table, in trying different ways of lighting the room, in arranging the flowers, and standing before the mirror—for him.
When he came at last and sat opposite her, they conversed long and seriously about the cares that oppressed him, the plans he was revolving in his mind, his disgust at the artists who considered it a disgrace to work for the trade, and did so only if the pistol was held to their heads, and then disdainfully, clenching their teeth; his trashy competitors, who built palaces in order to throw dust in the eyes of the buyers, and who thereby had forced him to transform his good old business place in accordance with modern ideas of decoration.
Most distressing of all was his clientele. The artistic ideals of the metropolis in a measure made a moral demand upon him to go over to the secession and place on the market long-necked, narrow-hipped bodies in distorted attitudes. The real public, however, the well-intentioned public with purchasing power, would have nothing to do with all that rubbish. It clung to knights and high-born dames, to maidens plucking flowers or carrying water, to fighting stags and swinging monkeys. So he stood between the devil and the deep sea. On the one hand was the danger that people would ridicule him as old-fashioned, on the other hand, the danger of losing most of his old hereditary customers. So he had to steer carefully along a middle course, and that was extremely difficult.
He also spoke frequently of the factory, with its hundreds of industrious hands, who laboured day after day for the prosperity of the house; and of the alterations being made in his yard and sample room, which, to judge by the architect's plans and the sum he calculated they would cost, would produce something worth seeing.
But what doesn't competition force a man to do?
Lilly listened with shining eyes.
She shared in all his activities. She wanted to see everything and experience it with him, not only the renovation of the sample room, but also the doings in the factory with its machines, its clatter of wheels, its hissing of flames, and screeching of files. She never wearied of questioning. She had to know how the workmen looked and behaved, their wages, their lot in life, and what became of them. She felt that there in his factory was real existence, while her life was nothing but a dull, idle waking dream.
"Oh, how happy you must be," she often cried out admiringly, "to have so many souls in your keeping!"
"If the whole bunch of them didn't keep you in a stew all the time," he rejoined.
But she would not admit the qualification.
He was certainly a beneficent god to them all, she said, even if he did not feel it himself. He must be, because of his power and his good heart.
Mr. Dehnicke gladly listened to such expressions. While she was speaking he would jump up abruptly, as if seized by a mighty, revolutionary idea, pace up and down the room excitedly, then stop in front of her and stare down at her with a dark solicitous look in his eyes, apparently unable to reach some great decision against which he was struggling.
Lilly pretended not to notice his behaviour, though she knew exactly what was fermenting in his soul.
"Let him alone, don't help him," she thought. "He must do whatever he wants to do of his own impulse. Otherwise he will bear me a grudge."
If only there hadn't been that hateful sense of duty toward Walter, which, like herself, Mr. Dehnicke probably felt only in part, and shammed as a matter of decorum.
There was something else that gave her qualms. Although he had promised to, he had never fulfilled the wish she had expressed to see his factory.
However, he spoke openly of his mother, and did not shrink from confessing how greatly she had influenced him, though Lilly could read into his words that he wished for more freedom to develop his powers. When his father had died twelve years before, he had been a minor, and had had to yield to his mother's guidance. The old lady continued to maintain her authority. Dehnicke discussed each undertaking with her, and if she approved, it was executed, even if he did not concur.
Lilly felt a dull terror arise within her of that old lady who sat commandingly in her arm-chair behind those respectable porcelain flower pots, and directed the conduct of so powerful a man as Lilly's benefactor.
Her heart would contract when she imagined her first meeting with the old lady.
Before Christmas Lilly had more work to do. Two dozen transparencies had been ordered and had to be completed before the holidays. 24x30=720. Well, she could see ahead again.
For the first time in four years she forgot to send her mother a Christmas gift. To compensate, she made a particularly "poetic" lamp shade and had it delivered anonymously to Mr. Dehnicke's mother the day before Christmas. She herself did not know why she did this. Perhaps it was a sort of propitiatory offering, such as timid souls were wont to sacrifice to unknown gods as an expiation for unknown sins.
Counting upon her friend's coming, though by no means certain he would, she had made a little heap of her gifts for him, and at the fall of dusk with throbbing heart began to listen for the ring of the door bell.
Her fears were idle. At half past five he appeared loaded with parcels. He had displayed tact in his choice of the simple presents—things she still needed in the apartment, a few embroidered collars, a boa, because she had to be careful of her sables, and a few little pieces from his factory to adorn the empty top of her secrétaire. At each of her exclamations of delight he protested mildly. The things really came from Walter, as she knew.
"And what comes from you?" she asked.
"Nothing," he replied, turning his palms upward.
"I know of something you could give me that Walter has nothing to do with."
"What's that?"
"Show me your factory."
This time he did not evade her request. A date was immediately set—the first workday after New Year, when everything would be in running order again.
Then Mr. Dehnicke added with an embarrassed air:
"But please wear something dark and simple."
"Why?" asked Lilly, frightened. "Do I usually dress conspicuously?" She felt as if some one had boxed her ears.
"Oh, not that. But your good clothes might be soiled."
On January the second at about noon Lilly stood in front of the house in Alte Jakobstrasse, which she had not seen since she had paid Mr. Dehnicke that memorable first visit in his office.
"It has almost turned out to be a path of destiny after all," she thought, and looked up furtively at the porcelain flower pots in the second story windows. She started. It seemed to her a white head had moved behind the lace curtains.
"That smacks of a guilty conscience," she thought, and with awed, sidelong glances walked past the door that opened upon the broad, laurel-lined staircase which her unworthy feet might never tread until she had been received into the circle of bourgeois virtue.
But the carriage gate stood hospitably open. The scaffolding had been removed, and the imitation marble of walls and columns shone challengingly in their variegated colours. The magnificence of the courtyard beyond oppressed her heart again.
The office building had also undergone changes. The dun-coloured plaster had given place to a broad sandstone façade adorned by the busts of eminent artists; and gilded railings gleamed where once the sorry-looking iron staircase had been.
There was her friend hurrying down the steps to meet her.
Despite the stinging cold he wore no hat. In holding out his hand to her he cast a furtive look of scrutiny at all the windows. It seemed he, too, had a guilty conscience.
He first led her to the sample room. Its brand-new magnificence exceeded her boldest expectations. Columned halls with coffered ceilings stretched out in a long vista as in a museum. There were endless rows of tables and cases, on which, gleaming with gold and silver lights, sparkling with crystal prisms, glowing with the hot red of copper, or shading off softly into the light green of the patina, stood thousands of works of German art and industry, "imitation bronzes," destined to fill the show windows of shops and carry the semblance of display-loving prosperity into the huts of the poor.
There were corpulent begging friars, dancing gypsy girls clad in boleros, ogling dandies, postillions blowing horns, pecking chickens, dogs fetching game, calenders set in horse-shoe frames, cigar clips in the shape of little champagne bottles; tall pelicans holding lamps in their bills; figurines of men and women stretching up their arms, just as in Mr. Kellermann's studio, though here not aimlessly, since they bore aloft vases, candelabra and bowls. There were arbours screening love couples, with red electric bulbs hidden in the foliage; brownies beside shining mushrooms, sea shells to serve as ash trays, snakes writhing about the chalices of flowers, or about porcelain eggs, or copper dice. The whole pitifulness of a vulgar sense of art seemed to have crept into this glittering conglomeration and been concentrated there ready to scatter to all quarters of the globe.
When Lilly gave her friend a questioning or astonished look because of some monstrosity, he shrugged his shoulders and observed:
"That's what the people want."
Despite some dissatisfaction with what she saw Lilly could have walked up and down for hours amid all that sparkle. She felt she belonged there by right. Had she been asked for her opinion she would have said without a moment's reflection: "Throw this away, and this, and this." But nobody appealed to her judgment, and everything went its way without her.
Mr. Dehnicke then took her to the factory.
Unfortunately the foundry, in which the basic part of all the work is done, happened just then to be closed. Through an open window Lilly saw the black gaping depths of the hearths, about which dirty troughs were standing, and over all, over chimney-hoods and vessels, a thick layer of ashes.
They descended a flight of dirty steps and passed through damp rooms smelling of all sorts of poisons, where rows of mighty vats stood filled with vile fluids, and elderly men bustled about, who looked like sombre scholars, whereas they were nothing more than mere labourers. At Lilly's entrance they cast a look of surprise at her then concerned themselves about her no further. And they did not greet their employer.
"This is the galvanising room," explained Mr. Dehnicke, and continued as they walked past the vats, "The nickle bath, steel bath, silver bath, and so on."
Up in a loft surrounded by an iron netting, the wheels of a machine whirled, and vari-coloured electric bulbs glittered among them.
"That's where the electric current is generated which goes through the different baths."
Lilly did not understand, but she enjoyed the inconceivable rapidity with which the wheels span around and the buzzing sound they made.
In the room where the chasing was done many men stood at long tables industriously at work smoothing down the unevennesses of the cast metal, and preparing the separate parts of an ornament for joining. The joining was done in the next room, where the flames of the blowpipes darted and hissed and little clouds of metallic vapour shot sparks into the air. At each workman's place lay small heaps of burnished limbs, which made one feel sorry for the truncated body from which they seemed to have been severed.
In the next room the thinner parts were beaten into shape in iron dies. It was here that the flowers and foliage were made, the ribbons and vines and arabesques, everything that curled and dangled daintily. The workingmen looked all the coarser and unwieldier by contrast. They scarcely glanced up when Lilly and Mr. Dehnicke entered, and continued to hammer as if stupefied into dealing those blows.
Lilly had a keener eye for the appearance and bearing of the men than for the work they turned out. She made comparisons, decided who was well off and who in distress, who took pleasure in his work and who went through the day's toil doggedly, because driven to it by need. Each shop had its peculiar physiognomy. In one the majority looked fresh and agile, in another galled and weary.
And now, as often before when Mr. Dehnicke had spoken to her of his employés, a senseless desire arose in Lilly to watch over the fate of all these people, help where help was necessary, bring sunshine to the gloomy, and relief to the suffering. But she took good care not to acquaint Mr. Dehnicke with her absurd ideas.
"Now we will see the most delicate of all the operations," said Mr. Dehnicke. "It is putting on the patina, which gives the pieces their real style."
He opened the door to the next shop, and the smell of a thousand poisons again assailed Lilly's nostrils.
Here there were women at work also, side by side with the men. They applied varnish and acids and brushed and rubbed. They looked sallow and jaded. At Lilly's entrance they were so taken aback that they dropped their brushes and cloths and stared at her in utter astonishment.
"One would have to begin with these to win the confidence of all," Lilly thought, and gave them a cordial nod.
But they seemed to take her greeting as mockery or blame, and turned back to their work with a grimace well-nigh scornful.
In the packing room, where women and children were employed exclusively, Lilly's appearance produced a happier impression. The girls laughed and whispered, and nudged one another with their elbows.
The only one who paid no attention to her was a pregnant woman, who seemed to find it difficult to keep from sinking to the floor. She held her drooping lips tightly compressed and a vivid red spotted her cheeks. Nevertheless her arms moved in feverish haste wrapping one paper wisp after the other about the limbs of the figure standing on the table in front of her, and inclining now to the right, now to the left under her manipulations.
Lilly led Mr. Dehnicke aside and asked:
"May I give her something?"
"She's being provided for," he replied, unpleasantly affected, it seemed. He quickly opened another door.
"This leads to the store room, where the pieces are kept until sold, with the exception, of course, of those which are made to order."
Lilly looked down a dimly lighted corridor, from which the cold air blew upon her. On the shelves and stands stood endless rows of phantom beings, shapeless in their grey paper envelopes.
"Oh, how queer," said Lilly, shivering a little, and preparing to walk along the narrow passageway. The very same instant, however, she noticed her friend start as in fright, and cast a helpless look about him. Then he stepped in front of her and blocked the way.
"What's the matter?" asked Lilly, surprised.
He turned colour and said:
"We had better not go in there. We'll go somewhere else. Besides, there's nothing to look at there, not a thing. You yourself see there isn't."
He planted himself squarely in front of her, so that she could not possibly look down the long line of shelves.
This, of course, merely heightened her curiosity.
"But I would like to," she said, and assumed the over-bearing, haughty expression with which she was wont to get her way with him.
"No, no," he burst out hastily. "It's a business secret. I mayn't betray it to a soul. Even the employés are not allowed to come here. Really I can't permit it."
"Then you shouldn't have brought me here at all," said Lilly, feeling insulted; and she turned back.
He poured forth excuses, grew hoarse with excitement, and coughed and choked. Then he led her back over the resplendent mosaic of the yard to the gateway with its imitation marble columns, through which a chilly draught was blowing.
"You will catch a cold," said Lilly to hasten her departure.
His face lighted up with a brilliant idea.
"Besides, you know," he said, "the store room wasn't heated."
"You should have thought of that sooner," rejoined Lilly, holding out her hand with a smile of partial reconciliation. She was really sorry for him in his helpless solicitude.
Nevertheless she continued to feel hurt. And a bit disturbed. The day she had been looking forward to so happily for months had ended in a discord.
And no matter how much she pressed him later, Mr. Dehnicke refused to tell her what mystery lay concealed in his store room.
Lilly began to ail. She suffered from headaches, heart-burn, lassitude, insomnia and occasional attacks of vertigo.
The physician, called in at Mr. Dehnicke's insistence, was one of those extremely busy men who make the rounds of numberless houses a day. First he took a good look at the apartment—a setting he seemed to know—then, upon a cursory examination, prescribed social distractions, walks, and iron, much iron.
Social distractions had to be dispensed with; there was no opportunity for them. Taking walks was not so easy either. Lilly did not care to stroll about alone, and Mr. Dehnicke, the only person to accompany her, preferred not to be seen on the street with her too frequently. In order, he said, not to compromise her, though in all likelihood the truth was, he feared becoming conspicuous by appearing in public with that exotic, flowerlike beauty.
For no matter what happened, no matter that trouble, want and all sorts of humiliations swept over her, no matter that boredom and displeasure with herself crushed her spirits, Lilly's appearance never lost thereby.
On the contrary, the delicate milky whiteness of her cheeks, which before had been a golden brown, lent her a new, soft charm. The great, narrow, long-lashed eyes with the heavily drooping lids—those improbable Lilly eyes—now had a weary, languishing brilliance, as if they veiled all the painful riddles of the universe. Moreover, the last year had given back to her the slim, regal figure of her maiden days and taken away the womanly peacefulness it had acquired at Lischnitz. No wonder that many a head turned after her and many an appreciative, envious glance was sent askance at her companion, who was considerably shorter than she.
Mr. Dehnicke was aware of all this, and being a staid, respectable business man, and not wishing to be the object of gossip, he preferred to stay indoors with her.
About the middle of February she received an invitation by mail from Mr. Kellermann, whom she had not seen for several months.
That seemed like distraction enough, and Mr. Dehnicke, who, it happened, had also been invited, was so energetic in his persuasions that he finally conquered her timidity and induced her to go.
But when the day for the carnival came Lilly was seized by a great dread of it, and at the last moment felt like withdrawing from her engagement.
She saw herself running the gauntlet of a gaping crowd of sardonic sneerers, who whispered the story of her rise and fall behind her back. She saw herself neglected and avoided, the object of derisive side glances. She passed through all the tortures of the déclassées, who must drag through life with the mark of the sinner caught in the act branded on their brows.
She chose the most beautiful of her Dresden dresses, which in the two years had grown to be the very height of fashion. It was a white Empire gown embroidered with gold vines. She arranged a narrow bracelet in her hair like a diadem, and loosely laid over her head an oriental veil shot with threads of gold. In case of need it would serve to conceal the bareness of her bosom. When she had completed her toilet, she seemed to herself so repulsive and conspicuous that this alone was sufficient ground for not showing herself.
She did not venture to cherish a faint hope until her friend came to fetch her. He saw her, and held on to the door knob, uttering a slight cry of astonishment.
"Am I all right?" she asked with a diffident laugh, which entreated encouragement.
Instead of replying he ran up and down the room breathing heavily and choking over inarticulate words—a mute language which Lilly immediately understood.
While sitting beside him in the coupé, she succumbed to another attack of dread.
"You will stay right next to me, won't you?" she implored. "You won't leave me, and you won't let a stranger speak to me, will you?"
He promised all she wanted.
Four flights up—a way she well knew.
The landing outside Mr. Kellermann's door was filled with clothes-racks, on which awe-inspiring furs and humiliating lace mantles hung.
She clung to his arm.
Now to her ruin!
The large anteroom, into which not a single ray of light penetrated in the daytime, and which Mr. Kellermann used as a kitchen, bedroom and dining-room, had been converted into a sort of fairy forest. Vari-coloured Chinese lanterns swung on the branches of pine trees, and in their dim red glow several couples sat smiling and whispering on narrow bamboo benches. They were so absorbed in themselves that they paid little heed to the new arrivals.
All the more animated was Lilly's reception in the studio, which was filled with a bright, glittering mass of humanity. A general "ah," then absolute silence. A passageway naturally formed itself, down which the couple seemed to be expected to pass. Lilly made a gesture, as if to hide behind her friend. But he reached only up to her nose.
At the same instant Mr. Kellermann came hurrying up to them. He wore a brown velvet costume consisting of a jacket, knee-length breeches, and a Phrygian cap. Everybody, in fact, wore what seemed to him original and becoming.
"Welcome, goddess, queen!" he cried in a voice for the entire company to hear; and since nothing better occurred to him, he pressed kisses on her gloved arm from wrist to elbow.
Then he begged to be allowed to show her the incomparable arrangements of his new court of love. She followed him, whispering to her friend to be sure to remain at her side.
Electric lights had been hung in the open air directly over the skylight, converting it into a many-coloured, starry heaven. On looking up one really thought a thousand little suns were shining down from out of the night.
Rugs and ivy vines divided the left side, where the gable roof sloped downward, into a number of small arbours, the entrance of each of which was hung with gaily coloured bead portières. And over each hung a great printed placard bearing a highly suggestive inscription.
The first was called "Arbour of Lax Morality." Lilly turned a startled look upon her guide, who observed with a smile:
"That's only the beginning, meant for bread-and-butter-misses and little afternoon-tea-souls like you." And added:
"This is but an intimationOf more wicked adjuration,"
"This is but an intimationOf more wicked adjuration,"
while he pointed to the second entrance, the inscription over which read: "Arbour of Wicked Vows."
"Oh, dreadful!" she cried in righteous dismay. Kellermann rolled with laughter.
She could not help reading the next two signs, "Arbour of the Right to Motherhood" and "Arbour of the Cry for Man," but she said nothing more.
There were two more divisions, a "Powder Room" and an "Arbour of Perversity." This she did not understand.
"Now we'll go to the Criminal Side," said Mr. Kellermann, and led her diagonally across the room, making way for her among the people, who at her approach began to nod and hum and buzz, but with no trace of malice or contempt. The very reverse. It was an ovation, a suppressed demonstration of her triumph.
Her breast expanded. A faint, humble sensation of happiness stole over her body like hot wine. She threw back her scarf. She no longer needed to feel ashamed of her bare throat and shoulders. In the looks turned upon her she read that no one would scoff at her.
She did not succeed in reaching the Criminal Side. So many gentlemen wanted to be presented to her that Mr. Kellermann had all he could do telling off their names.
From now on the carnival became something absolutely unreal, a dream land, a fairy meadow, on which strange, large-eyed flowers were blooming and sweet scents set heads a-reeling, and a haze sparkled with red suns; where people laughed and jested and whispered, where bold, unheard-of compliments floated in the air, and everything existed for Lilly to caress and admire and love.
Yes, she loved them all, the men and the women, as soon as she met them. They were all good, noble souls, scintillating with delightful conceits and ready to perform friendly services. Each awakened a new hope, each brought a new joy.
She felt how her cheeks glowed, what blissful intoxication was burning in her eyes. And he at whom she looked with those eyes would quiver, and respond with a gleam from his own, which seemed to be the reflection of her happiness.
That was no longer another strange Lilly, who laughed and returned jest with jest and went from arm to arm with a faint pang of regret. That was she herself, doubly, triply herself.
Sometimes, when a gentleman became too bold in his talk, when an unlicenceddouble entendreseemed to lurk behind a joke, and Lilly became nervous and did not know what to say and involuntarily looked around for help, she always found her friend somewhere near at hand, glancing over at her as if by mere chance.
That gave her a delicious sense of peace, a consciousness of being cared for and hidden away, so that she could be even merrier than before, and need not take offence at audacities.
Once she overheard behind her:
"Who's the lucky dog who has her for his mistress?"
The answer was:
"A little polished Mr. Snooks. There he stands."
This made her stop and think a moment, though she could not know to whom it referred. But in the whirl of incidents it soon passed from her mind.
Oh, what people she met!
There were young blades in dress suits and white flowered waistcoats, who paid her mad court, and asked, as if casually, though their eagerness was visible under the nonchalance of their exterior: "What is your day at home?"
Alas, she had no day at home. She lived a very retired life.
There were sombre philosophers, who agonised over the world's pain, wore very long hair and monstrous neckties. They spoke to Lilly of "spiritual high pressure" and the "specific gravity of related individualities," themes which did Lilly's soul good. One of them kept addressing her as "Your Excellency." When she asked him why, he looked staggered and said he had heard she was—then he broke off and substituted the paltry joke that she so "excelled" all the women present he could find no more suitable title.
One of the men was an exuberant old high liver, whose name she had read with awe on many a beautiful picture. She would rather have kissed the hem of his garment than see him dance about her comically trying to be youthful.
There were many others who aroused her curiosity; but she could learn nothing of their rank or character.
The company even boasted a real prince, a pale, blond, very young man, who did not venture to ask to be introduced to Lilly, because his love was always in threatening proximity. So he kept making détours about her.
The women, of course, were more distant than the men, though those of them who came to make her acquaintance gave themselves up to her with effusive warmth.
One was a beautiful, voluptuous brunette with unsteady, glowing eyes and a smile betokening wild abandon.
"We must get to know each other," she said. "I will introduce you to my friend, and later we'll take supper together like a cosy little family."
Another was an extremely slim young woman with bright blue eyes, who towered above most of the men. She wandered through the throng serene and unconcerned in a long, white silk secession robe, looking like a phantom. She spoke without moving her head and smiled without drawing her lips. She had come from Denmark to study painting and at the same time "live life," as she expressed it.
"Who are you?" she asked Lilly. "You are different from the rest. The woman who comes here and does not want to be swept along in the current must have strong arms."
She boldly threw back the wide sleeves of her gown as far as her shoulders and exposed two lily-white, wonderfully curved arms, gleaming like marble pillars.
Thereupon she wandered further.
The third was an extremely light-haired, very elegant woman, no longer young. Her pretty, good-humoured face was tanned by the open air. With a merry flash of her eyes she held out her hand to Lilly, as if they were old acquaintances.
"Oh, how sweet and lovely you are!" she said softly. "We have all flown here and don't know how. But where doyoucome from? My name is ——" she mentioned the name of a great musician who in Kilian Czepanek's home had been revered as semi-divine.
"Yes, Welter's former wife—that's who I am," she added gaily, and turned to the gentleman on whose arm she had walked up to Lilly.
"Another general's wife, like myself," thought Lilly, looking after her.
There were some married couples, too; for the most part extremely young and extravagantly clad, who at first kept together timidly and looked about with great, astonished eyes, and later frolicked about like monkeys set at liberty. One couple seemed to have been dragged to the carnival as a practical joke. The husband was a genuine complacent beery German, the wife, a good, corpulent, black-silk creature. The man, Lilly was told, was the landlord of the house, a well-to-do baker, who had been invited to the carnival as a reward for good-naturedly having permitted his fourth floor to be turned topsy-turvey. But the couple by no means felt nervous or out of place. They made coarse, clumsy jokes, and were always surrounded by a group of laughing auditors.
About ten o'clock—Lilly had just been entangled by one of the long-haired and linenless in a profound discussion of false human values—when all of a sudden a sort of cry of wrath was raised, issuing at first from only one or two throats, then swelling to a loud thunder. Lilly distinguished the words "hunger" and "fodder."
Mr. Kellermann's pacifying voice resounded to still the clamour. An accident, he said, had occurred to interrupt the spreading of the bread of which each guest would receive a piece—a poor devil of an artist couldn't afford a more abundant repast. He had hurriedly sent across the street for what was missing, and would the gentlemen please content themselves until it arrived? As for those who wereveryhungry and did not worry about the taking of human life, the hosts had provided arsenic sandwiches and strychnine tarts, which were to be found in the closet marked "Poisons."
The whole assemblage made a dash for the Criminal Side, where for the sake of thecrimes passionelsa whole arsenal of deadly instruments had been prepared. Gallows dangled from the ceiling, ladders led down to abysses, and a cannon was discharged. The company immediately snatched the poisonous sandwiches from the sideboard, and sometimes even absolute strangers offered one another "a bite," like school children.
Then came the regular supper.
A buffet had been set up among the pines in the anteroom, piled mountain high with all sorts of goodies, Yorkshire hams, cold game, lobster, sliced salmon, and heaven knows what else. So stormy was the onslaught on that buffet—which, providentially had been placed against a wall—that the forest of pines gave way. Twigs flew about, branches broke, and a mass of laughing, cursing creatures rolled among the overturned tree-boxes.
Somebody had a brilliant idea—chuck the whole forest down stairs. Forthwith the Chinese lanterns were extinguished, and despite the protestations of the landlord, who feared for the sleep of his other tenants, tree after tree went crashing down the steps and piled up at the bottom.
The ladies' light dresses were completely strewn with pine needles, pine needles settled in their hair and on their bosoms. The whole place smelled of Christmas.
One could hardly enjoy eating for all the laughing.
Besides, there were not enough chairs and tables for everybody. So, to be able at least to balance the plate on their laps, they sat crowded close up against one another on the stairs, where the company was fed from above downward each time fresh provisions were procured from the buffet and brought out into the hall.
Some enterprising pioneers even climbed up on the heap of pine trees and swayed on the springy branches like birds. Benevolent souls on the upper landing handed them their food on forks tied to walking sticks.
Lilly, fairly sick with laughter, sat on one of the steps quite surrounded by strange gentlemen, all of whom wanted to be fed by her. She was in such a state of beatitude that she wished her life might end with the carnival. If she had any care in the world, it was to see to it that the gentlemen about her got enough to eat.
The last of the refreshments were the cream kisses promised on the invitation. They swung on long strings from the ceiling, and each guest had to snap like a dog for his portion. If anyone used his hands he was rapped over the knuckles.
This sport, which at first created fresh storms of folly, soon had to be relinquished because the cream dropped on the ladies' dresses. Lilly's Empire gown was also stained, but the instant the cream fell on it one of the gentlemen kneeled and sucked the spot away.
When a trumpet blast summoned the company back to the studio, everybody was unhappy, Lilly in especial.
But when she saw her friend again, whom she had quite forgotten, she quickly took comfort. Pressing against his arm and beaming with delight she reported to him amid gurgles of laughter all she had experienced in the meantime.
Now, it seemed to her, she again saw the looks of those who passed her fastened on her face in strange seriousness, betokening something like compassion. But she had too much to relate to give those strange looks much thought.
The speeches now began. Lilly begged her friend to stay at her side. She had romped enough, she said, and needed something "homey."
He pressed his arm against hers gratefully.
"Why are you trembling so?" she asked in surprise.
"Oh, nothing," he replied lightly.
The first of the speakers was one of the long-haired, linenless, sombre ones. Something weighty and solemn, like a hymn, was to usher in the numbers on the program.
He recited an ode entitled "Super-Smoke," in which such words as "sublime mist" rhymed with "amethyst," and "super-desire" with "passionate fire."
Lilly understood not a word, though the poem must have been very beautiful, because at the conclusion the gentlemen burst into wild applause. "Bravo! Bravo! Super-smoke! More Super-smoke!"
The sombre poet, who naturally interpreted these exclamations as a call for "da capo," bowed and felt flattered and started off again: "Super-Smoke, an Ode."
He found he was in for it. "Enough, enough," came from all sides, and it turned out that the gentlemen had merely wished to express their desire for something smokeable in the language of super-men.
The next to ascend the platform was a slim, very elegant gentleman with a dark brown Van Dyke beard and a gleaming monocle. He had been introduced to Lilly. Dr. Salmoni smiled sadly, and held his curved left hand close to his nose to scrutinise his long nails. His intention, he said was to draw up an intellectual inventory of the evening. For the purpose he would make a few remarks as a basis of his "so-to-speak destructive construction of this social heterogeneity."
With that, a hail-storm of audacities and personalities came rattling down on the heads of hosts and guests.
Though Lilly understood only a fraction of what he said, she felt she had to blush with shame for each person his ill-natured words hit. But, strange to say, nobody took offence. On the contrary, each one upon getting his raking tried to outdo the others in noisy applause.
"What a happy world," thought Lilly, "where people have become absolutely invulnerable and the most heinous sins simply add to their honour."
Her own misdeed, from which she had suffered so long as from a festering sore, suddenly appeared something like a child's amiable prank.
"Was it idiocy in me to grieve so?" she asked herself, and pushed her hips downward with her hands, as if to brush away all the old chains from her limbs.
The elegant doctor could deal in compliments also. Each of the lovely women received her little bon-bon rolled in pepper. And when he spoke of a lotos flower that had drifted there from fairyland and still seemed to dread the glory of the new sun shining upon it, Lilly again saw all glances turned upon her.
"But let her take courage," Dr. Salmoni continued. "Should she need some one to help her dreamily await the night, she may count, I feel certain, upon every one of us."
He was rewarded with the enthusiastic applause of all the gentlemen, and Lilly did not even feel ashamed.
Upon concluding, and after gathering in a harvest of praise from the auditors, who crowded up to him—those who had gotten the hottest "roast" were the most eager—he stepped to Lilly's side and saidsotto voce:
"I beg your pardon most humbly for having mentioned you in the same breath as this set. People on our level ought to have a tacit code; they ought to understand each other without making bald declarations. But I was tired of just cracking a whip. Besides, I may assure you, I don'talwaysplay the fool."
He stuck his monocle in his waistcoat pocket and looked at Lilly with his sharp grey eyes as if to tear her heart to tatters.
"People on our level," he had said. Lilly felt flattered that so clever and prominent a man should rank her with him.
The next performer was a "minstrel," a mercurial, black young fellow, who accompanied himself on the mandolin. He struck up a highly sentimental ditty, like a troubadour's.