"I'm neither a poet nor a painter, nor a historian, nor a psychologist. Yet I must be something of each, and more to boot. My work requires it."
Then he told his story.
His father had been instructor at a university and an eminent jurist. His mother had died in giving him birth, and his father did not survive her long. He then came under the care of his uncle, a rich, experienced old bachelor, who had passed a lively life in business and pleasure-seeking, and now dwelt in merry singleness in his castle. He had given Dr. Rennschmidt an education and had assured him a small income which enabled him in a modest fashion to indulge his wishes and whims. Dr. Rennschmidt had intended to follow in his father's footsteps and enter an academic career, but the examinations, which he had passed honourably, had tried his health. So, to satisfy his uncle, he had given up the idea of a university career for the time being, and had gone out into the world. He had been drawn to Italy by his studies in the history of art, which he had always pursued with interest, though without considering them his life work. What fascinated him more than the churches and the museums was the free, beautiful humanity in which the lively southern race expressed its personality. He felt as if it had awakened in him a new, free humanity, conscious of its own powers. He felt more and more strongly the original unity of artistic and personal experience, past and present. The heroes of mythology and history, the characters in poetry and painting, and the poets and painters themselves all became so real and familiar that they seemed to be part of his own being. Surrounded by a people saturated with its own history, possessing the skill of a thousand years' exercise of art, always in touch with the spirit of the time, it seemed possible to him to penetrate into the emotional world of past generations. He learned to distinguish monuments of different periods and follow those related to each other step by step along the course of time.
His guide always had been and remained art. Art was best able to wring speech from the silence of death and bid the dust add new forms to the old. Only one thing was still missing, knowledge of the sources of its convincing might, the A B C's of the language in which it expressed its thoughts.
Lilly strained herself to follow him. She had never before listened to such language; yet it was not strange. Remnants from of old, from long-forgotten times seemed to cling to the bottom of her soul, which harmonised with what he said.
"One day," he continued, "while I was staying in Venice, I went off on a short excursion to Padua. By railroad it's about the same as going from Berlin to Potsdam. I wasn't keen about seeing the art there, because I was still in the honeymoon intoxication of my love for the early Venetians. It was only for the sake of completeness. I got into a little church in which there are frescoes by Giotto. Do you know who he was?"
"Certainly—Giotto and Cimabue," she said proudly.
"Then I needn't say more. I really had little left in me for him and his people, because, as I said, the quattrocentists had heated my imagination. Now just conceive a Roman amphitheatre completely ruined and overgrown with ivy, nothing but the outer walls still standing, like the walls of a garden. In the enclosure is the little church built of brick, as sober and prosaic as a Prussian Protestant praying barn."
Lilly smiled gratefully. A side-thrust at Protestantism was still a personal favour to her.
"Services are no longer held there. It has been set aside as a national monument. When I entered I saw nothing at first but a blue radiance from the walls, a sort of modest background, with long rows of pictures on it, the story of Christ told quite simply, the way a preacher speaking to poor people would tell it on Good Friday, provided he is the right preacher for poor people."
"But aren't we all poor people in the presence of Christ?" Lilly ventured to interpose.
He paused, looked at her with large eyes, then assented eagerly.
"Certainly. But not only in the presence of Christ, in the presence also of every great personality, of every great truth. But it isn't easy for us to cultivate that feeling—to make it clear to ourselves that we must be poor when what is given to us ought to enrich us. Religion is best able to inspire us with the feeling, if it finds the correct means of expression. And the Italians did. A poor man spoke to poor men. Therein lay the wealth of Giotto's gift. For what moves us to tears is not his vast competence, it is his incompetence. Do you get what I mean?"
"I think I do," said Lilly, her face lighting up. "If a man desires something of us, and can merely stammer and stutter his desire, he affects us more than if he says it in a prepared discourse."
"Exactly!" he cried joyously. "That's why Giotto's scant speech, his stammering created the whole language of art. Everything before him had simply been learned by heart from dead, Byzantine models. For the first time a man read life with simple eyes and a simple heart, and extracted from it what he had to say. That is why he became the universal master. To this very day if anyone succeeds in portraying supreme suffering and supreme delight with his brush, he owes his skill to that little church."
"I can conceive," cried Lilly, "that if the ocean had a source and a man were suddenly to come upon it, he would feel as you do."
In the exuberance of his emotion Dr. Rennschmidt seized Lilly's arm with both hands.
"That's the missing figure. It's strong enough to express what took place in me. But I came upon another source. While I walked along those frescoed walls, something suddenly stood before me clearly—and my work was there, sprung from nothing: the history of emotions. Emotions, you know, as art has seen and portrayed them in all generations. Not only the pictorial and plastic arts. They are only a fraction. Literature also. Poetry as well as painting, sculpture as well as music. I thought in that way I might succeed in creating a true, genuine history of the development of the human heart, which no moralist, no historian, no psychologist has yet attempted. Why not? The documents are at hand; just as fossils lie embedded in rocks for the guidance of zoölogists. They need merely be cut out. What do you think? Isn't it a work worth spending a lifetime on?"
"It is," said Lilly, with the same solemnity.
"Oh, but there's much to be thought over first," he went on. "You cannot make an impetuous onslaught like a bull on a red rag. Often art leads us astray because it strove to reproduce something entirely different from the emotional life of its time. Whether it succeeded or not is another question. And often it was wanting in the necessary means of expression. Oh, you and I will speak of this many more times. Don't look so frightened. I need you. After this evening I could not get along without you. Nobody before you ever listened with such faith and understanding. Besides, I've grown to be an utter stranger here. The people I know are full of their own interests, and scarcely listen to me. Then, too, there's a bit of madness in my undertaking, of which I really ought to be ashamed. But one thing comforts me: a bit of madness has underlain every great work until that work was completed and had compassed its end. Of course everybody has the same idea of his own work. So some time I'll rise above that feeling. But now, while I'm wrestling, and every day I think I have discovered a new vein of gold and then am compelled to throw a good deal away because it's pinchbeck, if I have nobody on whom I can pour out what oppresses and torments me, why the jumble fairly chokes me. So fate sent me to you. It was like an inner voice, which would not let me rest at my desk, but sent me out to watch your light. Now I have you, and I won't let you go. God knows, I shouldn't be so bold in my own behalf, but it's for my work. It is clamouring for you. For heaven's sake, why are you crying?"
"I'm not crying," said Lilly, and smiled at him.
But the tears kept rising, and veiled his lovely picture.
"I know what it is," he said sadly. "I wasn't considerate. You are regretting your lost art, because I spoke so happily of my own work." Lilly started back as if she had seen a ghost, and made vehement denial.
"No, no, it isn't that! Really not!"
But he persisted in his belief; which drove the thorn of her own unworthiness all the deeper into her soul.
"Let us go," she requested. "There is so much assailing me—happiness and unhappiness and all sorts of things—outside I'll be calmer."
It was long after midnight. A cold wind swept across the water and soughed in the bare branches.
He offered her his arm, and Lilly nestled in it as if she had been at home there from times immemorial.
For a while they were both silent
"In five minutes he'll leave me," she thought. She could not bear the grief of impending loss.
"One thing is lying heavy on my conscience," he began. "You might think me overweening because I make so much of myself. But I don't wish to appear more important than others. I know every vigorous young fellow must have a similar work to bring purpose into his life. One has a book to write, another a business to carry on, another a dependent to support. For some it's enough if they keep their heads above water. It doesn't matter what. If you let yourself go, you're lost. And none of us want to be lost, do we?"
"I think I lost myself long ago," whispered Lilly, shuddering and crouching like a whipped dog.
He burst out laughing.
"You, the best, the finest, the noblest."
She knew how undeserved his praise was. Yet how delicious, oh, how delicious.
They were now walking so closely pressed against each other that their cheeks almost touched. She closed her eyes and ardently drank in the warm breath of his life. She felt she was being wafted to unknown blessed distances.
She did not come to herself until they reached her home.
"When?" he asked her.
She had no time the next day. She was invited out. But the day after. Yes, the day after, she had the whole evening free. He need only call for her.
For fear she might after all ask him to come the very next day, she hurried into the house, ran up the steps, and concealed her happiness in the hushed apartment.
She did not turn on the lights. The street lamps, shining on the walls of the drawing-room and touching rainbow colours on the chandelier prisms, provided sufficient illumination.
She began to wander through the open doors from room to room, into the corner where the bed stood, around the dining table, across the drawing-room, into the cold guest room, which had never received a guest, up and down, back and forth, singing, crying, exulting.
And from amid her tears and singing and exultation suddenly arose—how did it go?
Come, my beloved! Let us go forth into the field,Let us spend the night in the villages.Let us get up early to the vineyards,Let us see if the vine have blossomed.
Come, my beloved! Let us go forth into the field,Let us spend the night in the villages.Let us get up early to the vineyards,Let us see if the vine have blossomed.
No, not quite—a little different. But she would surely get it.
Impetuously she raised the lid of the piano, which had long remained closed. As if the neglected instrument, unforced into silence, had suddenly acquired a life of its own, a flood of sound rushed toward her, of which she had deemed neither the piano nor herself capable.
Let us see if the young grape have opened,Whether the pomegranates have budded,There will I give my young love unto thee.
Let us see if the young grape have opened,Whether the pomegranates have budded,There will I give my young love unto thee.
Yes, that was the way it went. Exactly. She had found each note again.
Where had it kept itself hidden all those long years?
It seemed as if the last time she had sung it had been the very day before.
Yet worlds of suffering lay between.
No, not suffering.
"If only it had been suffering," thought Lilly, "the Song of Songs would never have become mute."
The next morning on awaking Lilly began to worry anew.
Nobody was so blind as not to detect, on coming closer how worm-eaten was her existence. Least of all he whose fine feelings vibrated under each spiritual touch and awoke an anxious echo in her soul.
Even if it were possible for her to create a sort of island on which she might prevent him from coming into contact with her world, wasn't her very appearance a traitor? All those mad nights could not have passed over her without leaving traces. Two years before Dr. Salmoni had already remarked a change in her appearance. "A cold, disdainful look," he had said.
She jumped from bed, and ran to the mirror to subject every feature to suspicious scrutiny.
Her eyes had grown tired. There was no disputing that. But they did not look disdainful. "Virgin Mary eyes," Dr. Rennschmidt had said, not "Madonna eyes." Was there a difference? On her brow were faint cobwebby lines; but she could well-nigh rub them away with her finger. "They will disappear with a little massaging," she said to herself. But the deep grooves on either side of her mouth were bad. They gave her face a haughty, satiated expression. "The paths that consuming passion long has trod," she quoted from "Tannhäuser in Rom," which she knew almost by heart.
And yet—had she not preserved her noblest, her profoundest feelings? As if to save them up for this One, and now that the One had come, it was too late perhaps.
She spent the day in misery, and when Richard came for his tea, he found red eyes.
That afternoon proved to her clearly what she possessed in Richard. He asked so few questions, and was so sympathetic and full of solicitude, that for a moment or two she felt comforted and secure. She almost succumbed to the temptation to tell him a little about her new acquaintance, as was right between two such good friends. Fortunately she resisted the impulse. Rather let Adele into the secret, who had several times observed encouragingly:
"You may trust me fully. I know life far too well not to take the lady's side."
Wishing to avoid "the whole crew," as she dubbed the circle of her friends, Lilly pled sickness, and Richard rested satisfied. In the evening it occurred to her she had told Dr. Rennschmidt she was going out. She hastily put out the light, and sat brooding in the dark until bedtime.
The next morning the mail brought her a letter addressed in an unknown hand.
She tore the envelope open and read:
I cannot rest, I cannot sleep beforeI speak to you, before the prayer tornFrom out my breast in passionate outpourSwiftly on wind and wave to you is borne.I sit and dream by lighted lamp; still liesMy work. With hours stolen I entwineA crown of flame that heavenly aspiresIn tongues of fire up round your head divine.Oh, chide me not for uttering words uncalled;Chastise me not for sacred spell I've brokenIn which your lofty spirit is enthralled.I am a struggler—I must needs have spoken.
I cannot rest, I cannot sleep beforeI speak to you, before the prayer tornFrom out my breast in passionate outpourSwiftly on wind and wave to you is borne.
I sit and dream by lighted lamp; still liesMy work. With hours stolen I entwineA crown of flame that heavenly aspiresIn tongues of fire up round your head divine.
Oh, chide me not for uttering words uncalled;Chastise me not for sacred spell I've brokenIn which your lofty spirit is enthralled.I am a struggler—I must needs have spoken.
Good Heavens! Did this refer to her, to Lilly Czepanek, who ate her heart out in dull self-depreciation?
If any human being in the world could think of her so, above allhe, the most glorious—she knew the poem, though unsigned, came from him—then after all she was not in such a bad way; then perhaps her life had not taken a permanent hold upon her; probably her innermost being had remained intact, and values lay strewn in her soul which needed only to be used in order to sanctify and bless herself and others.
Long after she knew the verses by heart she read them again and again. She could not tear her eyes from the beloved writing.
Then she tried to set the words to music. She opened the piano, and fantasied. Her playing came back to her as on the other night; everything she had known as a girl and had thought long forgotten came back. She needed merely to drop her fingers on the keys, and there it was—or nearly so.
But her finger joints were stiff, and the muscles of her lower arm soon wearied. She would have to practise and limber them.
"When he visits me, I can even play a classic for him," she thought. Buoyed by the new hope she floated further along on the current of her newly won self-esteem.
At the same time she kept careful count of each minute that separated her from the evening.
Richard found her practicing assiduously.
"What's gotten into you to-day?" he asked. "I hadn't the slightest idea you could play so well."
"Neither had I," laughed Lilly.
"You must play for the others this very evening."
"This evening?" Lilly asked, alarmed. "I thought I had this evening free."
"Free! What do you mean by free?" he rejoined, evidently annoyed. "You act just as if our going out in company were heaven knows what a sacrifice. You keep to yourself whenever you can possibly get a chance. Yesterday, in fact, Karla said nobody really knows what sort of life you lead."
"I think that applies much better to Karla than to me. Nobody really knows her name."
"It doesn't matter. Others have criticised your reserved ways, too. One man even hinted I'd better keep my eye on you more than I do, and not let you go your own way so much. So to hush them up I promised I'd bring you this evening instead of yesterday. There's no getting out of it."
Lilly instantly reflected that a refusal, far from helping, would merely arouse his dormant suspicions. So she bravely choked down fright and tears. But when he left the anguish of disappointment was all the keener.
What would Dr. Rennschmidt think if he came at the appointed time and found her out? Since he had not mentioned his address, she could not write to him, and he would have a full day in which to nurse evil suspicions.
In an agony of apprehension she sought comfort with Adele, whose dry, peevish face perceptibly brightened. She seemed to be in her element when it came to deceiving a person, or, better still, two persons.
"The best thing," she said, "would be for you to say a sick friend had asked you to come. Something sad like that takes them all in." She knew it from experience, she assured Lilly.
That evening her friends did not get much entertainment out of Lilly. She disregarded the gentlemen, and gave the ladies rude answers. Mrs. Jula, the only one whose presence would have pleased her, was absent, as had become usual of late. They finally left her to herself and Richard, the dear fellow, who had hoped to parade his possession, helplessly gnawed the ends of his moustache.
The next morning Lilly again suffered the torments of dread.
When she had come home the night before, despite the late hour, she had awakened Adele, who said he had come and had looked dreadfully upset. He had gone away without saying anything.
Another day spent in nervously counting the minutes. She stood in front of the mirror, utterly despondent, and dressed herself for him. She would have liked to sink at his feet when he entered. Nevertheless she determined to maintain in words and gesture, then and in the future, a certain gentle, melancholy grandeur of manner which would nip suspicion in the bud, and would correspond with the picture of her he had drawn in his verses. When she thought that that stupid, much-kissed head of hers should from now on be a "head divine," she grew thoroughly ill at ease from sheer sanctity.
At half past seven the bell rang.
She received him with a conventional smile, and the gentle, melancholy grandeur, which she succeeded in adopting perfectly, concealed her harassed spirits.
His manner, she saw at the first glance, was also constrained. His eyes glided past her with a singularly empty expression.
"He has divined everything," her soul cried.
But she bore up nobly.
"I must beg your pardon," she said, "for not having kept our appointment."
"I hope your friend is feeling better," he said, while a disdainful smile of doubt played about his lips.
She made all kinds of explanations, said whatever came into her head; and without looking at him, she knew he believed not a syllable.
"I must begyourpardon," he rejoined after she had finished, with the same lurking disdain in his voice and smile.
"Why?"
"I sent you some verses which I hope you will consider nothing more than what they really are, a mere harmless stylistic effort without sense or significance."
"He's already withdrawing," her guilty conscience cried; and all the colder and worldlier was her reply.
"I admit your pretty verses did astonish me at first. I couldn't conceive that I was a fitting subject to inspire them. But then I thought you probably meant nothing more than what you just now said, and I did not feel offended. If you wish we won't say more about it."
He looked at her with great questioning eyes, and she rejoiced at having requited him so bitterly.
Wishing to observe the rules of decorum she invited him to stay for supper, though absolutely nothing had been prepared for a guest.
"I thought I was to be permitted to take you out," he replied in a hard, disillusioned tone.
She smiled politely.
"Just as you wish."
They descended the stairs in silence, and in silence paced along the canal, the same way they had walked three evenings before, pressed close against each other in drunken bliss. Then, too, they had not spoken; but, oh, how different had their silence been!
"What have you done the last few days?" Lilly finally asked, to make conversation.
"Nothing special. I tried to write an article for theMünchener Kunstzeitschrift, on which I'm a collaborator. My subject was the Sienna School outside of Sienna. But it didn't turn out very well. The editor won't be satisfied."
Lilly read reproach of herself in his words. Evidently he wanted to indicate that her entrance into his life was to blame.
And when he asked to what restaurant she would like to go, she said, her wounded heart quivering:
"I'm neither hungry nor thirsty, and people and light would hurt me."
She wanted to add something about "not wishing to be a burden" and similar things, but swallowed the words before they were spoken.
"If you wish to avoid people, we might go to the Tiergarten."
Lilly agreed. Had he said, "Come down into the water of the canal with me," she would have assented even more willingly.
The hard park roads stretched before them in the light of the electric lamps like long galleries with garish walls between which one was forced to run the gauntlet. The pedestrians coming toward Lilly and Dr. Rennschmidt measured the tall couple with cold, intrusive curiosity.
"It's worse here than in the crowded streets," said Lilly.
Her aching, despondent heart fluttered with excitement
He pointed to a side path leading into darkness; and without speaking they dipped into solitude.
Above the towering masses of branches the cloudy sky, looking like a metal whose brilliance has worn off, reflected the invisible sea of city lights. Through the lattice work of the leafless bushes gleamed the lamps lining the more public ways; and on all sides the gongs of the electric trams, shooting hither and thither, sounded like fire alarums.
But there in the interior of the park, quiet and darkness prevailed. Lilly felt she had sunk into a black sea of mournfulness.
The silence between them became intolerable.
Suddenly Dr. Rennschmidt stepped in front of Lilly and blocked the way.
"What's the matter?" she asked, startled.
"Mrs. Czepanek—Mrs. Czepanek—what I am going to say—what I am going to say"—his raised hands jerked back and forth before her face—"will either bring us together again—or—send us apart forever. I was cowardly before. I thought I could evade the truth. When I said I didn't mean what I wrote in my poem, I was lying. I felt exactly what I wrote. And a thousand times more strongly. But I oughtn't to have spoken. I know I frightened you. You were bewildered. You didn't know how to take me. You probably think me some enamoured adventurer who wants to exploit the trust you show. Dear, dear Mrs. Czepanek, I promise you I will never again annoy you with a display of my feelings. But don't withdraw your friendship from me. Please don't. Just imagine what would become of me if I were to lose you!"
Sothat'swhat it was!
Oh, God! If nothing else stood between them.
She could not help herself—she had to lean against a tree and cry. Her tears soon soaked her veil, and she raised it and pressed her finger tips to her eyes.
"What's the matter?" she heard his voice, hoarse with anxiety. "Did I wound you so deeply? Was what I said so very bad? I will atone for it. Just pardon me. You must pardon me."
When she heard him beg her pardon so humbly for the immeasurable happiness he had bestowed upon her, she was seized with a frenzy, and throwing her grand manner to the winds and her shame, to boot, she flung her arms about his neck with a groan of abandon, pressed her body against his, and kissed his lips, and sucked and bit them.
Under the impetus of this wild, unchaste kiss, he staggered and held himself erect on her, digging his fingers into the flesh of her upper arm.
How good it felt, because it hurt so!
"At last, at last!" her heart cried.
Now he knew who she was and what she had to give him.
When she pulled herself together, she saw he had sunk back with his head leaning against the same tree that had supported her. His hat had fallen to the ground. His eyes were closed. His face had the ashen hue of death.
For a few moments all was still. The only sound was the clanging of the tram bells.
"My love, my love!" she whispered, stooping and then drawing herself upward on him. "Wake up, my love! wake up, and come!"
He opened his eyes and stared at her with the look of a foolish slave.
"Come, come," she exulted. "Come back, come home. I don't want to roam about any more—in the woods or restaurants. Come home! Come to me!"
He did not respond. He seemed to have lost his mind completely.
A dull sense of guilt awoke in her, but was instantly stifled by joy.
"Come, come!"
With both hands she drew him away from the spot that had become the cradle of her bliss—and his, too. Was it remarkable that happiness should benumb him and rob him of his senses? He upon whom Lilly Czepanek bestowed herself, Lilly Czepanek for whose favour hundreds had begged in vain, might well lose his senses. It by no means derogated from his dignity.
While she drew him along the roads and streets, she let loose upon him her soul's tempest in a delirium of happy prattle.
Hadn't he an inkling of what he was that he should have harboured such doubts? She had belonged to him from the very first instant. A miracle had taken place in her as well as in him. Never had she known what love was until the day when the squirrels chipped over their heads. The rest of her life no longer existed for her.Healone was there. He and his eyes. He and his mouth. He and his will. He and the great, glorious work which she would toil for like a slave; which she would enrich with her love, because from old pictures and poems he would gather nothing but the grey ashes of love. Genuine, young blissful love,shewould teach him, she, Lilly Czepanek, who had waited for him ever since she could remember, who belonged to him from the beginning, from the beginning of time, you might say. He could see God had destined them for each other, because they both thought they had met before, whereas they had never met in life. At most in dreams. She had seen him in her dreams always, always. Exactly as in fairy tales.
"Perhaps it is a fairy tale. Tell me, tell me, you whose first name I do not even know. But no matter. Tell me, it's not a mere fairy tale."
But he said nothing. He walked along like a somnambulist. He followed her up the steps mechanically, and remained standing stiffly in the centre of the drawing-room, into which she had led him. When the lights were turned on, he looked about with a shy, searching glance, as if he had never seen the room, and could not recollect how he had come there.
She clung to him, and said he should sit quite still and rest, and close those eyes of his. Then she helped him remove his overcoat, and pressed him into a seat and kissed him on both "those eyes" until his lids closed and he reclined there as if actually asleep.
"Now wait, beloved, until I come back."
She ran joyously into the kitchen to order Adele to prepare supper hastily. Then she hurried into the bedroom, where she changed her rustling silk dress for a light blue tea-gown, turquoise-studded, in which, as Richard was wont to say gallantly, she was Venus herself. She arranged her hair more loosely and discarded her rings The only jewel she left was a gold bracelet.
Adele, the sulky, had transformed the table as if by magic into a bower of flowers, and her face was wreathed in smiles; for at last there were human goings-on in this respectably indecent house. The plated silverware gleamed on the fresh damask, and the aroma of golden bananas came from the fruit basket.
He might be content. Lilly was. Her dread had disappeared. She felt well-nigh victorious. But her happiness was too humble to be totally unqualified.
Her one pride, greedy for recognition, was that she had so much, so much to give him.
When she entered the drawing-room, she no longer found him reclining on the arm-chair. To her terror she saw he was standing in front of the secrétaire—absorbed in contemplation of Richard's picture.
"Oh, if only I had taken it away before!" she thought Now it was too late.
He let a confused, astonished look glide over the Venus robe, and fetching a deep breath, grasped both her hands.
"Why did you make yourself so beautiful for me?"
"Just to give you a little feeling of being at home here," she said, dropping her eyes. "Nothing more. But come. Let's go to supper. We haven't had anything to eat all evening."
"Eat and drink now? Oh, very well—I'll just sit at table, if you want."
"Then I don't care for anything either," she cried, clinging to him, and drawing her arm so tight about his neck that the pressure of his body fairly robbed her of her breath.
Peter, the little ape, who had slept in his corner the whole time, awoke and whimpered jealously, and stretched his grey arms yearningly between the bars of his cage, as if wishing to be the third party in the alliance.
Dr. Rennschmidt heard the strange sound and started.
Lilly smiled and calmed him.
"Later I'll introduce you to all my little ones. My friends must be yours, too."
He drew himself up to his full height.
"How is that possible? As what would you introduce me?"
Lilly hastily parried.
"Oh, I didn't mean it that way. I merely meant—" She was at a loss what explanation to offer. Then she felt his trembling fingers clutch her upper arm. His eyes burned their way into hers.
"Who are you?" he asked.
Her brain reeled.
"Who am I? I am a woman—who loves you—who has never loved anyone before."
He gratefully caressed her shoulders.
"Understand me," he said. "I am not trying to force myself into your confidence. But if the relation between two human beings is what ours has been for the past hour, they want to mean everything in the world to each other. I have never met a woman like you. I am utterly helpless. The few little experiences I have had don't count. In Rome a baker's daughter loved me. She ran away with a marquis. When I was a student I went through a few similar episodes. I never mingled much in society. And now all of a sudden I have you in my arms—the noblest, the most glorious thing I've ever beheld. A creature not of this world. I keep looking at you as you stand there in your blue peplum—why, it's as if an old marble statue by Lysippus or Praxiteles had come to life. And that is to be mine? The mere desiring of it is naked tragedy. We are both making straight for a precipice, and we don't even resist."
"Why resist?" she cried, in bliss, throwing her head back, as if to toss from her brow streaming bacchantic locks. "We love each other. Nothing else concerns us."
He sank into the chair next to her, and pressed his face into both hands, his body heaving as with sobs.
She kneeled before him, and bent her head, and planted little kisses on his clenched hands.
"No," he cried, jumping up. "I will not permit myself simply to drift. Ifyouthink as you do, you who are willing to sacrifice everything—very well! But I, who am the recipient, I must make everything clear to you, so that you know for whom you are making the sacrifice. I mustn't leave any possibilities open to mislead you. I'm nothing but a poor young fellow who lives by his uncle's bounty. I have no prospects. I can't build on my work. And the few articles I write don't count. I must first toil for my little place in the world. It may be ten years before I secure it. And I can't let you support me. Think what you will of me, but I must tell you: we cannot become husband and wife."
At first she scarcely comprehended. It was impossible for her to realise that a man could be so naïve, so unworldly as to speak of marriage in Lilly Czepanek's drawing-room.
She burst into a strident laugh, the overflow of her scorn of her own worthless life.
"Do you think," she cried, jumping to her feet, "that I'm nothing but an adventuress who tries to rope men into marriage, one of those harpies"—Mrs. Jula's word occurred to her—"who pounce upon every passerby? For what sort of a sorry wretch do you take me?"
He looked into her face with astonished, uncomprehending eyes.
"A woman who loves a man and wants to be the joy of his life is not a sorry wretch."
Oh, if that was what he meant!
The time when in all innocence she had wanted to be Richard's wife recurred to her. How long ago was it? How low she must have sunk if this most natural conception of the relation between man and woman should have become strange to her!
She shuddered, and was aware of having turned pale.
If only he had noticed nothing amiss. She could stand much, but not that.
Humbly, in dread of his searching eyes, she replied:
"I merely wanted to let you know that you are free and will remain free from first to last. You can leave whenever you want to, and nothing will have been."
"And you?" he asked.
"What do you mean—I?"
"As what will you remain behind if I go?"
"I'll take care of that," she laughed.
The contingency was very, very remote. Why split her head over it now?
But he was not yet satisfied.
"There's something peculiar about you. A whiff of mystery. A—a—how shall I say? The shadow of a wrong done you. You mingle much in society, you say. Yet I have the feeling that you are lonely and perhaps unprotected. Whenever I try to look into you, I feel as if rude hands had been laid on you. From now on I will stand by to protect and advise you. But I'm so inexperienced in worldly matters. It can easily come about that without divining it I may merely add to the mischief in your life. And I would not for the world—you are holy to me. So you must tell me now, to-night, whatever you may of what you have gone through and suffered. Will you?"
Lilly felt evasion was no longer possible. The hour had struck of which she had lived in dread ever since she had met Dr. Rennschmidt, though it had seemed indefinitely remote.
One of Mrs. Jula's sayings again flashed through her mind:
"The road back into the community of virtue leads through lies."
It had begun with lies; with lies it would go on.
For an instant the wish shot up within her to tell him the full truth. But that was madness, suicide. In fact, she need not lie. She need merely put a different face upon matters, the face they wore when hope still shone upon her life and she actually was what she now endeavoured to appear to be.
"It must be darker," she said, extinguishing the chandelier's piercing white glare. The only light now came from the red-shaded standing lamp, which cast a flowery shimmer upon them.
Her hands in his, her head leaning against his shoulder, she began her whispered, faltered confession.
She told of her sheltered, care-free childhood, in which music held sway, a benevolent spirit and a demon in one; of her father's flight and the poverty in which she and her mother were left.
So far nothing to conceal or alter. The colonel also remained as he had been, except that she occasionally promoted him to the rank of general. It was not until Walter von Prell stepped on the stage the second time that it became necessary to mix in fresh colours. The mere acknowledgment that she had frivolously abandoned body and soul to a tattered and torn jovial ne'er-do-well would deprive her forever of her friend's esteem. So the sorry little good-for-nothing was quite naturally converted into a happy, yet ill-fated laughing hero who had been vanquished merely because all the dark powers combined against him.
Once launched, she sailed serenely on. She represented the parting as having taken place amid a thousand vows and tears and bridal expectations. As for the duel, of which she had never learned the particulars, she exaggerated its horrors vastly, her lover emerging a total cripple, who left for America resolved not to enter her life again until he should be in a position to atone for his misdeed by marrying her. So for the meantime he placed her in the care of a simple, good young man, who was all nobility and self-sacrifice. For love of the vanished friend, this young man had taken Lilly's fate into his keeping four years before, and watched over her and led her into society. With rare disinterestedness he managed the little capital remaining from her married days, and always advised her in practical matters. He came every afternoon for a social cup of tea, and sometimes he escorted her when she went out in the evening. His circle had become hers, and everybody they knew honoured and respected the fine relationship existing between them, the basis of which was his noble loyalty to his friend.
So Lilly Czepanek, with the force of conviction, recounted her life history. She almost believed in her own words. As a matter of fact, it was a fair picture of her life, such as Richard had once portrayed it, before she had begun to slip into the abyss the night of the carnival.
Of Kellermann and Dr. Salmoni and the whole "crew," of course, she said nothing. But she alluded to her unfortunate art with tears—for the last time, she said—then it should never be mentioned again.
She concluded. When, with a hesitating feeling of security, she looked up to him expecting to receive his absolution, she started at the change in his appearance. His face was livid, his eyes, fastened on the ceiling, glowed unnaturally, deep furrows of anguish had cut themselves into his cheeks.
"Doesn't he believe me?" flashed through her head.
He jumped up, and snatched Richard's picture from the secrétaire, and carried it to the light of the standing lamp.
Lilly knew he was thinking of Walter, and timidly interjected:
"That isn't he."
"Then who is it?"
"His friend—the manufacturer."
He cast the picture aside.
"Haven't you a picture ofhis?"
Yes—but where was it? The large pastel was in the lumber room. The small one very likely was stowed away in some drawer.
"I packed it away," she excused herself, "because I couldn't bear to have it in my sight all the time."
She did not tell him why the sight of it annoyed her. She preferred him to assume the cause was her newly awakened love.
How ridiculous, how pitiful it all was!
She longed to sink at his feet and cry to him:
"Forgive me, forgive me—take me as I am, do not spurn me."
Instead, she lied on, shamelessly, desperately, like an ordinary adventuress on the verge of discovery.
"Will you do me the favour to hunt for the picture?"
"Why do you want to torture yourself?"
"Please, I beg of you."
Further resistance was out of the question. She fetched the key of the secretary from a basket, opened the drawers at random, rummaged among the papers without half looking, and actually found it. There it was. She had not seen it for years.
The white-lashed eyes looked haughty and cunning.
"Lie and deceive, lie and deceive," they seemed to say. "That's just what I used to do."
"Here it is."
He stepped to the lamp, and stared at the picture long. His lips twitched from time to time, the picture quivered jerkily in his hands.
"Exactly the way I stood in front of the rich orphan's photograph," thought Lilly. But that was long ago.
Then she heard him speak. His voice was hoarse.
"Will you answer a question upon which much depends?"
"Ask it, my love."
"Do you still count upon—upon this young man's return?"
Whither did the question lead? Lilly felt she need merely say "no," and every obstacle was removed. But if she said no, all her falsehoods about Walter and his friend would have had no significance.
So she had to choose a middle course.
"Sometimes I have my doubts," she managed to say, lingering over the words. "I am waiting for two now. My father seems to be gone—gone for good. And I don't hear from him either."
"Do you consider yourself bound, just as you did then?"
She felt the halter tightening about her neck.
"Tell me."
Something in his tone seemed to bar escape. It left no nook to hide in. Her answer meant life or death.
She held up her arms as if swearing an oath.
"Since I know you I don't care one way or the other. If you want me to be true to him, I'll wait for him—till Judgment Day. If you want me to throw him overboard, I'll throw him overboard."
He threw his head back and closed his eyes, and stood there as he had in the park. She became alarmed again for his sake.
"Why does he torture himself so?" she thought. Then it occurred to her for the first time that he took her and everything she had said seriously; that he, who himself practiced loyalty, assumed that loyalty was a life principle of hers, too.
Oh, if he knew!
She was so ashamed she did not dare to speak or approach him.
He drew himself up energetically, and his forehead glowed with the wrathful will, which from the first had intimidated her.
"Listen," he said. "After everything you've told me, I know I acted on a false assumption. You arenotneglected, the world hasnotdone you wrong. On the contrary, you are protected and cared for, and you're looking forward to a future, no matter how uncertain it may now be. You would lose all that through me. The instant your friend were to suspect my existence, he would, of course, withdraw his support. And all the others who now constitute your world would go with him."
Lilly wanted to burst out laughing, and give vent to her utter contempt for everything that had constituted her former life. But another thought instantly restrained her. Dr. Rennschmidt must continue to think that Richard should not suspect his existence. To defy her past and present was to bring about a catastrophe which would irremediably expose the wretchedness of her situation. She might be his only in dark secret hours.
He continued:
"What I have to offer in return is nothing. I have nothing but my work—you know. And even my work is still in the clouds. Why, I'm not even certain of myself. If I think of what I have just—" He turned his eyes aside.
"Of course, if you don't love me," said Lilly, dejectedly.
He threw himself in front of her, placing one knee on a vacant part of the seat of her chair, and putting his arms about her body.
"Have mercy on me. You see how I'm suffering. Don't make itharderfor me. Every day, every hour, I should say to myself: 'Over in America there's a man toiling and moiling for her. He doesn't write simply because he's ashamed to admit that he has accomplished nothing on account of his mangled body.' I can't conceive any other motive for his silence. A man doesn't forget a woman like you. In the meantime I sit here with you in secret, and hold you in my arms. I don't know—I—a person can debauch, he can commit adultery—so far as I'm concerned it wouldn't matter. But to rob a poor cripple of his all—I think the lowest scoundrel would draw the line at that. I don't know how I'll get over it—" He collapsed. His forehead hit against the arm of Lilly's chair, and dry sobs shook his body. "But—it would be better—immediately—on the spot—better than later—when it's too late—for both—of us."
The blow had fallen. How cleverly she thought she had garbled the truth, and here she was caught in her own net of lies.
"For God's sake," she screamed, "do you mean to say you will—"
He rose to his feet.
"Farewell," he said. "Think of me in peace. Thank you."
"If I tell him the truth, he'll be all the more certain to go," she thought, looking about helplessly.
His hands, stretched toward her, were waiting, his eyes hung on her thirstily, as if to drink in the picture forever.
"I will plant myself at the door," she thought, "and throw myself on him, and stifle him with kisses."
But the desire not to lose his respect made her small and timorous.
"Not this instant," she implored, clasping his hands. "One hour—one parting hour—just one."
He gently extricated his hands from her grasp, and turned to the door.
Raised to her full height, Lilly stood in the centre of the room in her blue Venus robe and held out her hand to him. The wide sleeves fell away and revealed the mature womanly beauty of her arms.
"If he sees me this way," she thought, "he will still be mine."
But he did not turn about. He reeled. His forehead struck against the half-open door.
All of a sudden he seemed to have been wiped out of existence, and with him the light of the world. A swarm of bees buzzed about her head, and in the darkness enveloping her, she sank through the floor, deeper, deeper, into the canal—a club dealt her a blow on her forehead—and all was over.
At first it sounded like a chirping of birds, then like the murmur of a mighty throng in some wide sunny place; and then only two voices sounded, one a man's, the other a woman's. They kept up an eager, whispered conversation.
The cook—Maggie—and the lackey with the mischievous smile. Of course, that's who they were.
The colonel would enter the next instant and want her to be his wife.
Something cool and damp dropped soothingly on her aching head. Just as then.
"So I'll have to go through all that again," she thought in terror, and she began to cry and entreat:
"Oh, colonel, please let me go. I'm much too bad for you! Oh,dearcolonel."
"For God's sake, she's raving!" said the man. After all he wasn't the horrid lackey.
Oh, how deliciously at ease she lay in the spell of that voice, in which a home-like note quivered solicitously.
"He didn't go at any rate." The thought tranquillised her, and she settled herself more comfortably on the pillow they had placed under her neck on the floor. If she had known his first name, she would have spoken to him. Why, how disgraceful not to know his first name yet. So she merely raised her arms a little toward him.
Instantly he was kneeling beside her, stroking her hands.
"Keep real quiet," he said, "real, real quiet."
"Will everything be all right now?" she asked, smiling up to him in blissful peace.
Yes, yes, everything would be all right. Ways and means would be found for their remaining together—like two friends, like a brother and sister. They wouldn't part—no, no, they wouldn't part. Nobody need be tortured so terribly as that.
Lilly shuddered and thought of the moment when the light about her had gone out, and she had sunk into the wet, slimy depths.
Thus life would have been without him.
But now they would wander toward the dawning sun hand in hand like brother and sister in innocent gaiety, liberated and purified.
Inconceivable happiness!
Strange that neither of them had hit upon the idea sooner.
She groped for his arm and with a contented sigh nestled her cheek in his hollow hand.
But Adele, who all the while had considerately been looking out of the window, thought the compress ought to be changed, because the wound on Lilly's forehead was still bleeding.
Each spring in a man's life has its peculiar aspect and its peculiar history. Each spring finds him different, each stirs new depths and opens fresh, hidden wounds. One spring passes by like a dull, vapid game, because he himself just then happens to be dull and vapid. Another tortures him with a thousand fruitless admonitions, because he cannot pay off a penny of the debt he owes himself. A third finds him listless and sodden as a field which cannot recover from the winter stress. And again the spring-time chants deceptive hymns of liberation and redemption in his heart, as ifithad the power to liberate and redeem.
But most beautiful is that spring of which we are scarcely aware for all the spring joy within us; whose bourgeoning seems but a reflection of our spiritual bourgeoning, and which is but the accompaniment of the mighty growth that broadens our minds and souls and fairly bursts the bonds of our being.
Such a spring broke upon Lilly.
Everything took on a new aspect. Never had the morning sun painted such crinkly, laughing grotesques on the walls. Never had rainy days enveloped the world in such languishing violet twilights. Never had people's faces been brightened by so much expectant festivity. Never had the din and bustle of the streets revealed so much joyous, purposeful activity.
Why, all of a sudden Lilly also was overwhelmed with work.
Every hour was filled with urgent occupations. If anyone in the last few years had dared to tell her that the day would come again when with burning cheeks and a heated brain she would indiscriminately cram names, dates, biographies, lists of great men's works, poetical quotations, and foreign terms, she would have laughed him to scorn.
But it would never do to loaf now. She must be ready with a response on any occasion, just as she had been when he asked her about Giotto. All her eagerness for knowledge, which a feeling of spiritual isolation and aimless endeavour had dammed up within her for years, now gushed out. Her mind, insatiate as a fallow, unfertilised field, absorbed whatever was thrown upon it. She scarcely needed to put forth the least effort. If she merely imagined herself repeating it to him, it remained in her memory.
She went at her studies with the utmost secrecy. Konrad—yes, his name was Konrad—must not suspect that her wisdom had just issued brand-new from the laboratory. She also kept her visits to the museums a secret. He was to suppose she had always been thoroughly familiar with the masters. In addition she had to practice many a piece of early music which he wished to hear for his work. And often she blessed her father's strict hand which had held her down on the piano stool throughout many a long night.
Lilly and Dr. Rennschmidt saw a great deal of each other—every other evening of course. He avoided coming afternoons, which, he knew, belonged to her betrothed's friend. But often he ran up to her in the middle of the day to bring her a book or some flowers and ask her for a bit of music. No matter how much she pressed him, he never remained for a meal. In fact, he seemed not to feel quite at ease in her apartment. He would walk up and down incessantly, pretty soon glance at the clock, and take leave. At first she felt hurt, then she asked him teasingly whether he thought he was in an enemy's country, and finally she adopted the policy oflaissez faire.
Oh, she did not yet thoroughly understand him. Each day laid bare new, unusual sides of his being.
He was still very young. Not only in years. She had met many a cold, blasé old man of twenty-five. His youth was deep-seated. He thought passionately. Lilly had never seen such fervour expended on pure thinking. Ideas seemed to him like tangible beings with which he had to strive breast to breast, and which he drew to himself if they proved to be friendly to his intellectual attitude, or rejected if hostile. Similarly, great thinkers and creators of the past were either allies or enemies. He associated with them as with teachers and comrades, adoring or despising them, submitting to their reprimands, or turning them into laughing-stocks.
His thoughts and speech were in a constant state of flux with counter-currents and a whirl of contradictions. He was like a man forcibly cleaving a way, or giving merciless chase. He never remained indifferent or apathetic to a phenomenon, spiritual or physical. Everywhere he saw problems to be solved and vexed questions in regard to which he must take one side or the other. He either loved or hated. He scarcely knew a stage between.
And Lilly followed him with all the ardour of a pupil and lover. She planted each idea of his in her being and let it take root or die as chance willed. No need to cherish it; she enjoyed sufficient wealth without it.
He spoke little of his personal matters, not from distrust or reserve, but because he deemed them of small importance. Lilly had to extract jots of information by questioning.
He was very enthusiastic about his parents, though their pictures seemed to have faded in his mind or lost form.
His uncle had taken their place, the self-made man and globe-trotter who had made Dr. Rennschmidt his heir, and who even during his lifetime allowed him means for a modest, yet care-free existence.
Lilly could not fathom the inner relationship of the two men. Sometimes, it seemed, Dr. Rennschmidt cherished a tender love for the old man. Then again he was skeptical, almost bitter in his judgment of him. Evidently a profound difference existed in their natures, though they struggled for compromise.
He had few friends—chiefly old fellow-students—and he never paid purely social visits. As a result he could spend all his leisure hours with Lilly.
They sat in the restaurants, generally the little Italian bodega, until the waiter turned out the lights over their heads, to their invariable surprise—they had just come.
Or they bought their suppers for a few pennies at a delicatessen shop, and escaped the city dust in the Tiergarten, where they hunted up an empty bench somewhat removed from the public ways, yet not in too secluded a spot. It was not until love couples began to wander by in the dark like shades of the netherworld that they felt wholly concealed; and if others seated themselves on the same bench, they little objected, knowing well that love couples would never remain beside them long. They had much more urgent need of the night and solitude than Lilly and Konrad.
While the light green leaves, still stemless, gradually melted into a dark, shadowy, jagged mass, and the sunset flames above merged into the sombre purple of night, and the nightingale sang for them sometimes only a few feet away, they would sit there shoulder to shoulder waiting for the stars to dot the twilight, each evening later and fewer in number.
Their winged thoughts travelled far into the realms of music, painting, northern sagas and Italian landscapes. Questions of infinity arose, hesitating and halting, and were promptly disposed of with the sure, clear discernment of a happy, youthful latitudinarianism. Lilly was now accurately informed of the meaning of the universe and immortality and the soul and God.
Often she felt as if she had been left alone to freeze in a vast, icy waste where there was no Father, no life after death, and certainly no St. Joseph.
"What you believe, I suppose, is atheism, isn't it?" she asked timorously.
"If that's what you want to call it," he laughed.
So, from now on Lilly was an atheist, one of those who in the eyes of the Church were roasting in nethermost hell. But if excommunication did not drivehimto despair, she, too, could suffer it. She would even endure a Fatherless condition.
Her one regret was for St. Joseph.
Although he had not entered her thoughts for many a day, none the less it was a pity never again to be able to run to him in sorrow or joy, never, at least, without having to feel ashamed of herself, and that exactly at a time when she needed him so urgently, when her experiences fairly overwhelmed her with their force and number.
She felt a desire to be lulled and calmed, and the lofty art that Konrad spread before her eyes by no means soothed her; rather, it goaded her on, though, to be sure, to fresh delights.
They went to what few concerts the late season still offered, and heard the Eroica and Brahms' Second Symphony and an unutterably exquisite production by Grieg.
They would take their stand in the cheaper part of the house, where they both delighted to be, and listen with the backs of their hands touching as if by chance. A slight pressure conveyed the feelings awakened by some subtle charm or expressive bit.
What wonderful hours those were!
And what wonderful hours when she sat at Konrad's side in the pit (where none of the "crew" could see her). As she learned to know Shakespeare's characters belonging to every age and time and Wagner's luminous fairy-tale realism, she understood fully how infinitely poor her previous life had been.
He took her to see the moderns also.
Of all the plays Rosmersholm affected her most.
She, Lilly, with her secret guilt, was Rebecca. He in his unsuspicious purity was Rosmer. His high-pitched spirituality had an increasingly strong influence on her, as Rosmer's on Rebecca. But if the filth of her existence should gradually roll from her upon him, would she not be his evil demon, his ruination?
The thought was intolerable. She wept so bitterly during the performance as to attract general attention, and Konrad offered to take her out. She indignantly repudiated the suggestion.
On going home she staggered along the river side, still sobbing. He had chosen that way because it was darker and quieter, and he half carried her on his arm.
On the Spreebrücke she stopped and stared down into the dark, living depths. He let her have her way, but when she began to climb up on the railing—to see what it was like—he forced her down from the precarious position.
"What's the difference?" she thought. "When he finds it all out, I'll have to go down there after all—and alone."
From that evening on the effort to keep him free of the slightest suspicion as long, as long as possible troubled her more than ever, occupied her thoughts every moment of the day.
Her great ignorance caused her no shame—nevertheless she fought against it with all her might—but she lived in constant terror that the slovenly, cynical tone to which she had gradually habituated herself through long intercourse with the "crew," might crop out in her conversation.
The bit of carefully cherished rigour and good-breeding which she fetched out from among the remnants of her former spiritual state did her sluggish being good. And so she acquired some of that "grandeur" which she had demanded of herself at the beginning of her relations with Konrad. This time, however, it was not empty affectation, but an inner quality, a natural outcome of the finest and tenderest feelings, which she might still call her own.
Much that had long dominated her thoughts became unintelligible to her, especially the tendency caught from her friends, to transfer everything entering the circle of her thoughts to the realm of the erotic.
In astonishment she beheld world upon world opening up beyond the narrow whirlpool in which she had been carried around and around. Such a wealth of great and beautiful things to taste and enjoy was suddenly spread before her, that she did not find the time to feel ashamed of what had been.
But when she recalled how she had once dared to kiss him, shame ran hot through her body. That moment of wild abandon, she feared, might ever remain a stain upon his image of her.
Yet there was not the slightest indication that he did not think of her with the same respect as she of him. This mutual esteem always hung between them like a gauze veil, obscuring the beloved man's face as behind a mist of mingled happiness and anxiety, though at the same time removing the sting of self-reproach from Lilly.
They were never more to talk of love. Love gave way to a sweet, fraternal, though somewhat constrained relationship. The word "friendship" was frequently on their lips. They praised its hallowing force with a most serious mien, as if they had not the faintest notion of what it meant.
It was difficult, however, for Lilly to endure Konrad's bodily proximity. The one caress he permitted himself was to lay his arm lightly on her shoulder when they sat side by side. Though Lilly then longed to press closer up to him she finally moved farther away, because the constriction of her breast mounted by degrees to veritable torture.
She never ventured in the very slightest to think that some day he might become her lover. When unable to fall asleep, she pictured herself drowsing off with her head under his shoulder—that was bliss enough.
Her fancies scarcely ever strayed into forbidden territory. The chastity of her maiden days, which the colonel's senile greed had rudely violated, once again laid its merciful veil about her tremulous soul. In fact it was all as in the long-forgotten days of her girlhood—the golden wealth of thoughts and sensations, the witching glamour about each little object, the delightful importance of the tiniest incidents, the hopeful disquiet hoping for she knew not what.
If only there had been a single human being in whom to confide her joy and fears, her happiness would have been complete.
The desire waxed so strong within her as to be nearly uncontrollable. She had found herself more than once on the brink of telling her secrets to Richard—a quick way of ending them.
One day she decided to visit her former landlady and acquaint her with her great experience.
The old friendship between Mrs. Laue and Lilly had never wholly died down. Though they saw little of each other, Lilly had kept herself alive in the old lady's memory by sending messages and little gifts.
The tenantpro tem.of the "best room" opened the door for Lilly.
Mrs. Laue, as always, was sitting at her long white work table tapping busily with her wet finger-tips now on a pressed flower, now on a gluey bit of paper. She did not suffer herself to be interrupted, not even when Lilly on taking a seat beside her pushed toward her the sweets she never failed to bring.
"No, thanks, child," said Mrs. Laue. "Each bite more is one flower less. People like myself have to wait for a holiday before we can eat. We have nobody to provide for us and keep us like a princess. I'd like to be in your shoes just one day before I lie in my grave—go out walking early in the morning—with nothing to do but feed a couple of gold fish."
"As if that were happiness," sighed Lilly.
"Do you mean to complain of your lot?" cried Mrs. Laue indignantly. "If I were in your place, I'd thank the Lord every hour of the day for having sent me such a friend."
"Do you think that would satisfy all your hopes?"
"Why, what else do you want?" Mrs. Laue—ceaselessly tapping—rebuked her. "He can't marry you any more—that's out of the question. Besides marriage would be nasty after all you've gone through. But listen to me. Be careful! If you always behave yourself nicely, he will make you an allowance, and you'll have something to live on all your life."
"So, I'm just to aim for an old age pension?"
"Well, what else?"
"I can conceive of many other objects in life."
"What? Work? Try it. See what it's like after you've been nothing but emotions for years. Or take another lover? Then you'd be sure of a fine time. Let me tell you one thing, child; never for a single instant think of another man. If you were to do that, you'd deserve to paste flowers like me—sixteen hours a day—until you die."
While incessantly pasting one flower after the other, she poured out a volume of well-intentioned admonitions.
Lilly rose shivering.
There was nothing to be hoped for from that quarter. She looked about her with a sudden feeling of estrangement.
"I'll never come back here again," she thought.
The next morning the uneasy desire to open up her heart and obtain counsel again awoke, even stronger and more tormenting than before. Her friend Jula occurred to Lilly.
To be sure, the clever, hot-blooded little woman had held herself aloof from the crew's jaunts. Her friends had not the least idea of what she was doing, and her red-head, when appealed to, became reticent. But Lilly felt sure Mrs. Jula would not withhold the bit of comprehending sympathy she needed.
It took Lilly a long time to find her.
The coquettish yellow silk nest her red-head had fixed up for her near the "Linden" was empty.
Mrs. Jula had migrated to a suburb, the porter informed Lilly. She had thought the neighbourhood too dangerous; which made no sense, because the street was never empty, day or night.