It was shortly before midnight one evening late in November.
Miss von Schwertfeger had said good-night, andhewas sitting at Lilly's pillow wet and frozen through. He had been standing in the chilly drizzle a long time before the signal agreed upon—two rattles of the shutter bolt—had summoned him to her room.
Now, everything was serene. The entire house was asleep; the watchman had made his rounds, and the ladder, which Von Prell drew up after him for greater security, reposed peacefully on the balcony.
The blue-shaded chandelier bathed the warm, perfumed room in the light of a summer evening. Drops of rain splashed softly against the shutters, and the November wind whined like a beggar.
Lilly lay comfortably under her blue silk quilt, holding his hand and dreaming up into his face, which, even in moments of self-abandon, retained its expression of abashed roguery. She saw the freckled bridge of his nose, the white-lashed, blinking eyes, the peaked chin covered with stubble and almost hidden by the green collar of his working jacket. He could no longer smarten himself for her sake. His housemates might notice the change.
They did not say much to each other. If only he was with her, he who belonged to her in life and death, who like herself had been cast astray in this strange world.
She drew his head down and stroked his forehead smooth from lack of a man's cares, and wiped away a few drops still clinging to his temples.
The clock on the wall struck twelve softly, the hanging lamp swung back and forth, casting long sliding shadows on the ceiling, like the shadow of a rocking cradle, or like great raven's wings flitting to and fro inaudibly.
Suddenly from the court came the rumble of carriage wheels, whether in arrival or departure they could not determine. Both started up and listened and looked at the clock.
Twelve—impossible! The horses were never harnessed before quarter to two. They would have to wait entirely too long at the station.
Perhaps it was the milkman who had been delayed at the railroad in getting his cans.
They calmed down.
A long, precious hour was still ahead of them, rich in care-free pleasures and oblivion.
To express his triumph Von Prell sucked in his cheeks and rounded his eyes.
With a luxurious smile Lilly put out her arms and drew herself up to him.
At that instant three short, sharp raps sounded on the door opening into the corridor, and Miss von Schwertfeger called:
"Open the door, Lilly! At once!"
Walter jumped to his feet.
When Lilly looked around he had already left the room.
She felt a ringing in her ears, a dull desire to let herself sink down; but renewed raps at the door tore her out of bed and insisted upon her turning the key.
Before she could stow herself under the covers again to conceal her overwhelming shame, she noticed Miss von Schwertfeger look about the room hastily, make a dash for something round and grey unostentatiously lying in a corner—Lilly did not realise it was Walter's cap until later—shove back the bolt of the door to the colonel's room, and then in sudden transition to tranquillity seat herself alongside Lilly's pillow.
"Be careful not to cry," Lilly heard her say; and that instant the colonel's step resounded in the corridor.
"Well, well, so late! How time does fly when you talk!" cried Miss von Schwertfeger for the benefit of the colonel before he entered. Her voice expressed endless astonishment.
There he stood disagreeably surprised, it seemed, not to find his young wife alone.
"Where did you drop from all of a sudden, colonel? You didn't order a special train, did you? You couldn't have flown here either. At least I've never observed that you possess the art of flying, have you Lilly dear? Poor Lilly's lying there perfectly stiff with surprise."
Thus Miss von Schwertfeger talked against time, evidently trying to secure a few moments for Lilly in which she might pull herself together.
And the colonel willy-nilly had to render account. On the way to the station it had occurred to him that one of the neighbours—he mentioned the name—was celebrating his birthday that day. So he drove over to his place instead of going to town.
"Well," said Miss von Schwertfeger, "the greatest marvels have the simplest explanations. Good-night, dear, I hope you sleep well and get rid of that headache of yours."
The colonel pricked up his ears.
"If she has a headache, why didn't you let her go to sleep long ago?"
When once aroused, not the least inconsistency escaped his attention. But Miss von Schwertfeger was his match, and rejoined without an instant's hesitation:
"She wanted compresses again, but I thought it better simply to hold my hand to her forehead. She was just about to go to sleep; and we ought not to disturb her any more. Don't you agree with me, colonel? Good-night, colonel."
With that she extinguished the lights.
Lilly wanted to cry to her:
"Stay here, stay here, he'll choke me."
But Miss von Schwertfeger was already out in the corridor; and she had done such excellent preliminary work that the colonel after a brief "I hope you feel better," to Lilly, left the room without further question.
Had he remained, the game might have ended in a nervous breakdown.
Lilly lay in bed paralysed by a dull fright, listening now for sounds in the colonel's room, now to the wailing of the wind, interrupted for three or four seconds by a very, very soft rustle.
That was the ladder gliding over the rail as Walter let it down from the balcony. So long as he had seen the light in Lilly's room, he had wisely remained on the balcony. She could hear him remove the ladder and set it where it belonged. Now at length, now that she felt they were both secure, came a shuddering realisation of what had happened, accompanied by a desire to call out and cry aloud.
Anna von Schwertfeger! What had her conduct meant? What had impelled her to implicate herself in so sinful a deed? Wasn't she risking her name, her existence, the reward of many years' labour? How had Lilly, wretched sinner that she was, come to deserve so great a sacrifice? Her heart expanded in gratitude. She could no longer endure lying in bed. She would have to go down and thank Anna forthwith.
She dressed without making a sound, took the precaution to bolt the door between the two bedrooms, and slipped out into the dark corridor, where she peeped through the keyhole of the colonel's room, and saw him lying in bed already. The old oak steps cracked frightfully; but they had that habit even when no one was walking on them, and often kept up the sound of a tread all night.
Light was shining in Miss von Schwertfeger's room. Lilly heard her sharp, hard steps as she paced to and fro.
Finally she ventured to knock.
"Who's there?"
"I, Anna. I—Lilly."
"What do you want? Go back to bed."
"No, no, no. I must speak to you. I must."
The door opened.
"Well, then, come in."
Lilly wanted to throw her arms about Miss von Schwertfeger's neck, but she shook her off.
"I'm not in the mood for scenes," she said. Her trumpet-toned voice, which she muffled with difficulty, had lost all traces of sympathy. "And you needn't thank me, because I did not act from love of you."
Lilly seemed very small to herself and very much scolded. Since the days of her thrashings at the hands of Mrs. Asmussen no one had ever given her such a reception.
"First you help me," she faltered, "and then—"
"Since you are here, you might as well answer some questions I have to ask," said Miss von Schwertfeger. "Close your dress—it's cold here—and sit down." Lilly obeyed. "In the first place: did I in any way ever help to bring about a meeting between you and that man?"
"When could you have?"
"That's what I am asking."
"On the contrary. You weren't even willing for me to take the riding lessons."
"Then, later, did I ever leave you without supervision while you were taking your lessons?"
"Without supervision? Why, almost always you yourself were present."
"Was it I who proposed your going out riding alone with him?"
"You? Of course not. The first time we went without asking, and after that it was the colonel who wanted us to."
"Was I careful to see that everything in your room was in order?"
"I don't know. I think so. Why, even lately I've noticed you come to my room before you went to bed as if to say good-night."
"You've probably taken me to be your enemy, your spy."
"You wouldn't put yourself out for me very much, I thought."
Miss von Schwertfeger laughed a hard, dreary laugh.
"What you say is very valuable," she said. "It proves to me that I made no blunders in carrying out my plan, and need not reproach myself for anything."
"What plan?" asked Lilly, utterly bewildered.
Miss von Schwertfeger measured her with a glance of pitying scorn.
"My dear child, I knew everything. I saw it coming from the very first, the moment you met him. I calculated it on my fingers the way I calculate the cost of a meal. I simply let matters drift. I could do so without dishonouring myself. Besides there was no use interfering. You were bent upon your own ruin."
"What have I done to you," Lilly stammered, swallowing her tears, "to make you hate me so? I never wanted to oust you from your position. I subjected myself to you from the very first. I put myself completely into your hands, and now you do this to me."
"If I hated you, you wouldn't be sitting here. You would probably be straying along some country road. I had you in my grasp and could have crushed you at least a dozen times, but didn't. However, I'll tell you the truth. Ididhate you, that is, before I knew you. I imagined you a sly, fresh little thing, who held off from the colonel in a pure spirit of calculation, until he adopted the extreme measure to which old libertines resort in such cases. But when I saw you, you dear child, without malice or guile, defenceless, and with the best intentions in the world to love the colonel and me, too, if possible, I had to back down—I and my hate. Then you became nothing else to me than a small, insignificant creature, which one uses so long as it is serviceable, and shoves aside after it has fulfilled its purpose. I am not concerned with you any more. You dropped out of the game long ago, and now the colonel and myself are playing it alone. I'll have to have it out with him, and then my work's done."
Lilly felt nothing but dull, impotent astonishment, as if doors were being opened and curtains drawn aside, and she were looking into men's hearts as into a fiery abyss.
"I thought you were so attached to him," she said. "I thought—"
Suddenly it occurred to her that her first suspicion had not been far from the truth. This hardened, commanding spinster, whose beauty was not yet entirely faded, had found favour in the eyes of her employer some ten or fifteen years before, had then been neglected, and was now taking revenge.
Miss von Schwertfeger divined her thoughts, and dismissed them with a shrug of her shoulders.
"Had it been that," she said, "I should have known how to acquiesce in my fate. And if I had still retained my place in the castle, I should have cherished it as my sanctuary. No, my dear, matters in this world are not so simple. There are even worse hells."
Lilly now heard a story which filled her soul with horror and pity—the story of the house she lived in, the story of which she was the concluding chapter.
The colonel, who had always been a man of violence and a mad voluptuary, had insisted upon taking in pupils in housekeeping under the pretext that when he came home on leave, he had to have youth and jollity about him. He reserved for himself the choice of the pupils. In this way only those came whom he had decided upon in advance. For a long time Miss von Schwertfeger noticed nothing amiss. But the servants began to tell her stories of secret orgies and mad chases on the upper floor, of how the colonel pursued girls clad in glittering raiment—the colonel had always liked transparent robes of silver. Miss von Schwertfeger's eyes were completely opened when some of the girls attempted suicide. She left. But she was poor and accustomed to command, and she could not endure subordinate positions. Dreadful distress was the result. The colonel had not lost her from sight; and when it seemed to him she had sunk low enough, he again offered her the position of housekeeper in his castle, promising she would have nothing to complain of. She crawled back to him like a starved dog. Soon he broke his word, and the indecent goings-on began again. But she no longer had the courage to resist. She learned to be blind and deaf when lewd glances were exchanged at table and screams and laughter penetrated to her room during the night. She even learned to keep curious servants at a distance, and throw a cover of concealment over the house's shame. Her relation to the girls became motherly.
"I shouldn't be surprised," she interposed, "if he hadn't made the same proposition to you, saying I would take care of you."
The fateful evening in which she had become the colonel's betrothed arose in Lilly's memory. While walking about her greedily, still in a state of indecision, he had spoken of a fine, aristocratic woman under whose protection she should live in his castle until she had grown into womanhood.
Miss von Schwertfeger went on with her recital. She described how rage at the disgraceful position she was in ate into her soul like a malignant cancer, how it finally took sole possession of her being to the exclusion of every feeling except the desire for reprisal. His marriage should furnish the weapons. She would be blind and deaf, just as she had been compelled to be before. Nothing else. She would simply let matters take their natural course.
Thus she had acted until that night.
And that night the sword must surely have fallen on Lilly and the colonel; but at the last decisive moment she realised her strength would not hold out. That young, good-natured, guiltless yet guilty wife, had become too dear to her. She could not sacrifice Lilly to her scheme of revenge.
"I thought you said you hadn't acted out of love for me," Lilly ventured to interject.
Miss von Schwertfeger fixed her eyes on Lilly's face in an aggrieved stare.
"My dear child, if you weren't a stupid thing, who has to sin in order to mature, you would have a better understanding of what goes on inside a person like myself. For the present be satisfied that you are out of danger."
In a gush of gratitude Lilly threw herself on Miss von Schwertfeger, and kissed her face and hands; and Miss von Schwertfeger no longer repulsed her. She stroked her hair, and spoke to her as to a child.
Kneeling at her feet Lilly confessed. She told how her relations with Walter had developed insensibly, how they had been old friends, and how he had really been the author of her happiness.
"Happiness?" Miss von Schwertfeger drawled, and drew in the air through the right corner of her mouth, causing a sound like a whistle.
Lilly started, looked at her, and understood.
The question burned in her brain: "Am I better than I should have been had I allowed the colonel to drag me here without marrying me?"
Eleven months had passed since that night when he courted her.
She put her arms about Miss von Schwertfeger, and cried, cried, cried. It was so good to know there was a sisterly, no, a motherly, person in whose dress she could bury her tearful face. She had not experienced such easement since the day a certain knife had been waved over her head.
The affair with Von Prell, of course, could not go on. He and Lilly must not meet even once again. Miss von Schwertfeger demanded it, and Lilly acquiesced without a word of protest.
If only she had not had her mission!
"What mission?" asked Miss von Schwertfeger.
Lilly told of the holy task she had to perform in his life; how her love had awakened him to the realisation of a loftier, purer life; how she had to answer with every drop of blood in her body for his rising to better things and entering upon a noble, beneficent field of activity.
It was Miss von Schwertfeger's turn to be astonished. She listened, and looked at Lilly with great, doubting eyes, then got up, and paced the room agitatedly, muttering:
"Incredible! Incredible!"
When Lilly asked her what was incredible, she kissed her on her forehead, and said:
"You poor thing!"
"Why?"
"Because you will suffer much in life."
Thereupon it was agreed that Miss von Schwertfeger should speak with him once again, and the price of her silence was to be the breaking off of all relations between him and Lilly. They must not take their rides together, either.
Lilly begged for only one thing, to be allowed to write him a farewell letter. She thought she owed this to him so that he should not harbour doubts of her and his future.
Then the two women parted.
Released, redeemed, born into a new life, Lilly walked upstairs, forgetting every precaution. But, thank goodness! the colonel was snoring.
The clock struck four, and the shuffling of the stablemen already resounded in the courtyard.
Before Lilly threw herself in bed, she cast a look of farewell at the lodge, and rejoiced that renunciation was so easy. She had not thought it possible.
"Dear Beloved Mr. von Prell:—From what has happened you can imagine that everything between us must come to an end. Yes, all's over. We shall never see each other except at meal times. If you ask me whether I am very sad, I will be brave and say, "no," hoping thereby to assuage the pain of parting for both of us.But easy or difficult—that's not the question. The main thing is, our feelings should raise us to pure heights. True greatness of renunciation must illumine our lives. Yes, I expect you to show the greatness of renunciation. Our lives after this must be dedicated entirely to recollections of the past. Besides, can we hope ever again to find anything so beautiful as those unspeakably exquisite hours we passed together? I have given up thoughts of happiness, and you must do the same. From now on my one sacred interest will be my husband's welfare; and I ask you, with all the strength you possess, likewise to labour at the reconstruction of your life.Life is earnest, solemn, holy. I feel it is. The conviction comes upon me with force, and has possessed me ever since I was led back to the right path by a friend of mine. You must feel it, too.This letter is my last to you. Write to me once again. Oh, only once. And stick the answer in the pea-shooter, which still stands on the balcony. I shall have no peace until I know our souls are united by the same ideal. Farewell, and at table don't make any secret allusions to the past. You would merely hurt me and make me doubt your good faith.Ever with feelings of sisterly friendship,Your L. v. M."
"Dear Beloved Mr. von Prell:—
From what has happened you can imagine that everything between us must come to an end. Yes, all's over. We shall never see each other except at meal times. If you ask me whether I am very sad, I will be brave and say, "no," hoping thereby to assuage the pain of parting for both of us.
But easy or difficult—that's not the question. The main thing is, our feelings should raise us to pure heights. True greatness of renunciation must illumine our lives. Yes, I expect you to show the greatness of renunciation. Our lives after this must be dedicated entirely to recollections of the past. Besides, can we hope ever again to find anything so beautiful as those unspeakably exquisite hours we passed together? I have given up thoughts of happiness, and you must do the same. From now on my one sacred interest will be my husband's welfare; and I ask you, with all the strength you possess, likewise to labour at the reconstruction of your life.
Life is earnest, solemn, holy. I feel it is. The conviction comes upon me with force, and has possessed me ever since I was led back to the right path by a friend of mine. You must feel it, too.
This letter is my last to you. Write to me once again. Oh, only once. And stick the answer in the pea-shooter, which still stands on the balcony. I shall have no peace until I know our souls are united by the same ideal. Farewell, and at table don't make any secret allusions to the past. You would merely hurt me and make me doubt your good faith.
Ever with feelings of sisterly friendship,
Your L. v. M."
"Dearest Friend:—The profound emotions which have held me in their grip since my interview with our honoured friend, have, if possible, been deepened by your lovely letter. I feel a tremendous impulse to accomplish by deeds of atonement that which has never yet been. I am prepared to scorn the seven deadly sins. I will carry in mind all the paragons of virtue from the young Tobias to St. Helena, and will try to find that pure happiness in the great renunciation you demand of me, which alone, they say, is unalloyed with regret—an advantage which bears little weight with me, since I am acquainted with that evil institution only by hearsay.Well, then, dearest, most charming of women, farewell. It wasverydelightful. I can swear to that without perjuring myself. Should you require pledges for the future, I can further swear that: 1, I will shun alcohol; 2, I will declare war upon the female sex; 3, I will devote myself to the encyclopedia of agriculture with inordinate, unalterable love. Ha, do you smell the rarified atmosphere?Once more, farewell. After I have climbed the ladder of my hopes for the last time, I will lay it to repose under a wintry grave of pine branches. When the time comes, may it awaken to a new spring.With a kiss on your slim, refreshingly large hand,Your much improved,Walter von Prell."
"Dearest Friend:—
The profound emotions which have held me in their grip since my interview with our honoured friend, have, if possible, been deepened by your lovely letter. I feel a tremendous impulse to accomplish by deeds of atonement that which has never yet been. I am prepared to scorn the seven deadly sins. I will carry in mind all the paragons of virtue from the young Tobias to St. Helena, and will try to find that pure happiness in the great renunciation you demand of me, which alone, they say, is unalloyed with regret—an advantage which bears little weight with me, since I am acquainted with that evil institution only by hearsay.
Well, then, dearest, most charming of women, farewell. It wasverydelightful. I can swear to that without perjuring myself. Should you require pledges for the future, I can further swear that: 1, I will shun alcohol; 2, I will declare war upon the female sex; 3, I will devote myself to the encyclopedia of agriculture with inordinate, unalterable love. Ha, do you smell the rarified atmosphere?
Once more, farewell. After I have climbed the ladder of my hopes for the last time, I will lay it to repose under a wintry grave of pine branches. When the time comes, may it awaken to a new spring.
With a kiss on your slim, refreshingly large hand,
Your much improved,Walter von Prell."
Your much improved,Walter von Prell."
Lilly found this letter the second morning after the great event in the shape of a pellet stuck into the mouth of the pea-shooter, which leaned innocently against the jamb of the balcony door.
It did not provide her with unqualified satisfaction. There were turns of expression in it which raised doubts as to the sincerity of his conversion. Nevertheless, his asseverations were so plain and unmistakable she felt she might take the core to be sound. It was simply that he could not refrain from his wanton way of speaking, which the person who loved him would have to acquiesce in.
She kissed the letter and stuck it in her bosom, to lie there warm and secure awhile before she tore it up.
In the afternoon she took a walk about the grounds, and actually found under her balcony a long heap of pine branches from between which a few ladder rungs peeped at her familiarly.
Rejoiced at this token of his pain she ran off to the park, now soggy from the autumn rains, and sauntered about, marvelling from time to time that renunciation was so easy.
After all it was not so easy.
She discovered it was not in the course of the next few days, when life began to lose its content and intensity, when the hours jogged along in dreary autumnal greyness, and the evening came and the morning came without a reason why.
Moreover, she failed to find that support in Anna von Schwertfeger which she had expected to. Although her friend withdrew none of the promises she had made, yet a shadowy wall circumscribed her, which no insinuating love could penetrate. She seemed almost to fear that too great familiarity with Lilly would bring down upon her own head the sin of the adulteress.
Lilly had much to suffer from the colonel these days. She, like the rest, now fell a victim to his attacks of fury. And what was worse, in moments of quiet self-abandon, she would suddenly feel his dark, lowering look fastened upon her, betokening many a thought in his mind which boded her no good.
She began to fear he had gotten wind of her affair with Von Prell; but Anna pooh-poohed the idea.
"The symptoms would be rather different," she remarked. "Such a suspicion would not pass without leaving a few broken chairs or lamps behind. My opinion is, he feels bored at home. He's hankering for the regiment, and holds you responsible for the change in his life. I sincerely hope he doesn't come to hate you on that account. In that event only two courses would be open to you: separation or suicide."
Here was small comfort. And no less dispiriting was his hesitation to introduce her to the neighbours. Long before, Miss von Schwertfeger had declared Lilly's education complete. No colonel's wife or high-born dame could now find fault with her manners. But the colonel looked at her distrustfully, and deferred the visits from week to week.
Lilly kept up bravely in all her tribulations. Faith in herself and, still more, faith in him, gave her peace and strength.
She regulated her days strictly according to rule with a fixed occupation for each hour. She learned Goethe's poems by heart, studied Shakespeare in English, read histories of art, and lost herself in the mazes of the French Revolution.
She took special delight in a large geographical work, in which there were many pictures of southern ports, tropical forests, and bald, rocky mountain ranges.
There were also full illustrations of Italy—pious pilgrims on crusades, enigmatic churches, and slender-columned porticos, which filled her with an ardent longing to be there.
When she travelled great distances into strange countries and looked about timidly to find her way back again, whom did she see standing there all of a sudden, blond, freckled, in a black and white checked fall suit, making deep reverences? "As my lady commands."
The tears welled up in her eyes.
Her one diversion was to stand behind her balcony door—without his knowing she was there, of course—and look over to the lodge through the openings in the vine, the last leaves of which fluttered like little red flags.
Oh, she might be proud of him. When he sat at the window in his leisure hours he never let himself be seen without the encyclopedia of agriculture in his hands.
He closed his shutters early every evening. In his frivolous days he had hung heavy portières at the windows, which, with the help of the shutters, prevented the tiniest ray of light from penetrating to the outside.
Lilly doubted not in the least that his student's lamp burned until late at night, while he sat there over his book copying valuable extracts and soaring on the pinions of great creative ideas.
She soared with him. She knew he could not lose his footing now. She had his vow, and he held her honour in his keeping. That would serve as a talisman, a guide on the road leading upward to a new life.
A few weeks passed.
He begged to be excused from coming to Sunday dinners; for which she was grateful to him. Fortune had favoured her still further by having bestowed a cold upon her that fateful night, as a result of which the physician forbade horseback riding throughout the winter. In this Miss von Schwertfeger probably had a hand.
Once on a day early in December, the colonel, as if to spite his customary surliness, appeared at dinner in high feather. He chuckled to himself, his eyes danced and looked cunning, secret laughter, as it were, ran down his cheeks in rivulets.
Lilly ventured to ask what was amusing him.
At first he refused to speak.
"Oh, stuff and nonsense, mind your own affairs." But he could not contain himself, and finally began: "Well, guess what happened to me. One of the men at the club said to me I'd better look sharp to my Prell, because stories were afloat that he kept knocking about in vile joints night after night and had even gotten mixed up in a nasty brawl on account of a hussy of a barmaid."
Lilly felt an icy numbness creep slowly upward from her feet. Her limbs grew rigid. She smiled, and the smile cut into her cheeks like a sharp-edged stone.
"At first, of course, I merely laughed at him, because, you know, there's only the one train to take going and coming, and latelyI'vebeen on that train nearly every day. No horse can stand twenty miles each way night after night, and the pocket money I give him won't hire a special train. That's what I said to the major; but he insisted. The younger gentlemen had told him; and it would be a pity if after all Von Prell had to be deprived of his uniform. When I got to the station at one o'clock, the business was still buzzing about in my head. I had a few moments' time, so I looked through the whole train—fourth class and all. Of course, not a sign. I did the same thing three times in succession. Well, I thought, it's a lie. And now listen. Yesterday, when I was just about to get into the train at this end, I remembered I had left my umbrella in the carriage. I can't get used to that piece of furniture. So I went back. The platform was already empty, but the train was still standing there; and when I passed the baggage car—sliding doors open—I saw someone on the opposite side jump out to the tracks and scamper off. 'Stop!' I called. But he ran and ran, into the woods. I was going to tell the baggage master, who was on the platform next to the locomotive, but Prell flashed into my mind. I said to Henry: 'Drive as if the devil were after you,' and we reached here in five minutes. But then, I reflected, he must have heard the carriage wheels from the path. So I went up to my room to hurry and turn on the lights. I wanted him to think I was in my room already. Did I wake you up, Lilly?" The colonel started. "How you look, Lilly!"
"I?" she said, and smiled again.
"She hasn't been feeling very well all day," Miss von Schwertfeger interjected hastily. "Besides, your story's very exciting, colonel. I'm all keyed up, too."
"Hm," he muttered, twisting the end of his black dyed moustache, evidently little desirous of concluding his tale. But Lilly could not calm herself.
"I must know, I must know," she cried, clasping her hands. She was beside herself.
"Well, then," said the colonel, fixing his eyes on her, "down I go again in a jiffy—in ambush in front of the lodge—there he comes, stooping like a polecat—stands still—eyes my window—sees the light—aha, he thinks, all right. And just as he's about to stick the key in the lock, I tackle him by the collar."
Lilly burst out into a mad laugh.
"Isn't that funny, isn't that funny!" she cried. This time the colonel believed her.
"Something funnier's coming," he continued. "'If you confess everything,' I said, 'I'll pardon you. But only on that condition. Otherwise you're off to-morrow bright and early.' Well, what do you think the rascal was up to? The good-for-nothing has a lady love—barmaid in the Golden Apple—where the sergeants and clerks resort. So, for the sake of bumming with her, he bribed a railroad official and actually went to town and came back as a piece of the king's baggage. Night after night rode in the same train as I did—each way. Ifthatisn't rank impudence, what—Lilly!"
A pause ensued. Lilly experienced a sensation of swaying and reeling as if tossed on stormy seas, a buzzing and singing; at the same time she felt Miss von Schwertfeger press her hand under the table by way of warning.
The colonel rose, took Lilly's head between his hands, and pressing it until she thought her ears would split, said:
"It seems youdoneed rest."
With that he faced about, and left the room abruptly.
"Now gather your wits together," Lilly heard her friend's disturbed voice behind her, "because after this he'll be on the look-out."
Lilly wanted to throw herself on Miss von Schwertfeger's breast and be petted and comforted. But Miss von Schwertfeger, as if afraid somebody might catch her in too intimate a conversation with Lilly, held herself aloof, and said coolly, though in a friendly tone:
"Excuse me, dear, I have something I must attend to this minute."
With that, she, too, left the room.
What now?
Lilly stared into space. The remnants of the precipitate meal littered the table; the dark carved furniture cast black-edged rays from out of the room's wintry twilight; the brass chandeliers gleamed palely. All was as usual, and yet nothing was there, nothing but an awful, all-devouring void, an abyss which drew her into its bosom with the enticements of grappling hooks and huge tongs.
She stepped to the window and looked out apathetically.
The bare branches swayed in the wind, the ivy on the railing fluttered, even the arched stalks of the rose bushes, the heads of which the gardener had secured under heaps of earth, trembled and quivered this way and that. The world was writhing in the clutch of winter. The only still things were the leaves lying on the thin coating of snow which covered the ground; but the leaves were dead already.
What now?
Ifthatcould happen, then the very earth beneath her feet gave way; then there was no hope, no rising to loftier heights, no strength, and no fidelity; then you might as well throw yourself down beside the leaves out there and die.
But before that—what?
Dishes rattled behind her. No one had rung for the maid, but she had come of her own accord and was helping Ferdinand clear the table.
Lilly thought of Katie and that other creature in whose arms he had made mock of her and her faith in him.
She dragged her torpid legs up the steps to the rooms where she felt at home. In passing the colonel's door, she caught the sound of his tread as he fairly ran to and fro.
She experienced not the faintest fear of him.
"Let him run, if he wants to," she thought.
When in her own room, she heard him give orders to have the carriage brought around immediately.
"For all I care, he may stay here."
She stepped out on the balcony.
The iciness benumbing her neck crept into her arms and spread down to her very finger tips.
There sat Walter, as always in his free time after dinner, completely absorbed in the great encyclopedia of agriculture, so full of zeal for study that every now and then he would pass his hand through his hair in a preoccupied way and without looking up—he hadn't so much time to spare, Heavens! no!—he would flick the ashes from his cigarette into a flower pot.
In the face of this infamous game, which he played for the sole purpose of deceiving her, Lilly was seized by a wild, infuriated desire to denounce him, which completely robbed her of her senses. A stinging and pricking lifted her paralysed arms. The iciness gave way to a painful fever, which throbbed in her temples, and hung a red curtain before her eyes.
She saw nothing, heard nothing.
She rushed down the staircase, tore open the garden door, leapt down the stone steps, and ran at full speed straight across the lawn to the lodge.
Whether someone spied her or not she did not care.
The door to his room banged against the wall.
She had not stopped to knock.
A rank, pungent smell, as in a menagerie, assailed her nostrils.
There he was, sitting at the window. He jumped to his feet. The grey daylight glided over his head.
"He's had his hair cut brush fashion again," thought Lilly. "The dissolute life he's living demands it; the elegance of the dives demands it."
"Good Lord!" he said, crumbling his burning cigarette between his fingers, "a pretty howdy-do!"
"Why—? Why did you—?" she screamed at him. "You're a blackguard! Your word's not to be trusted! You're a liar!"
"Confound it!" he said, and looked about helplessly. "Howwill my lady get out of this mess?"
"You broke your promise—the most sacred bond uniting us. You—you—threw it away on a barmaid—a barmaid, a creature who would hang herself on anybody's neck for a couple of pennies. You're a vulgar profligate! You're not worth a woman's having tried to save you—you don'twantto be saved—youwantto go to the bad—"
"All very good and fine," he said, "and probably very saddening and incontrovertible truths; but will my lady please explain how she expects to get out of here?"
"I don't know anything I am more indifferent about," she cried. "I came for you to give me an account of yourself. I am asking you to answer me—immediately—here—now—on the spot."
"Certainly, my lady, I will without fail. But first—damn it! hell! Get away from the window!"
He cast a sharp, all-embracing glance at the castle. Nothing suspicious to be detected at that moment, at least.
Alarmed by his snarling at her in that way, Lilly fled into the interior of the room, which was low, dark, and ill furnished. Here the vile animal smell was still stronger. From where it came was made clear to her the next instant. As she approached the rear wall, something suddenly snapped at her foot, and two little circular torches gleamed up at her wickedly.
"Down, Tommy!" called Von Prell, while Lilly recoiled with an exclamation of fright.
So that was Tommy, the other member of the triple alliance.
Lilly leaned against the arm of the old spindle-legged sofa. Its worn springs squeaked under her pressure and pricked her thumbs, and the thought flashed into her mind:
"What am I doing here? What is it all to me?"
Von Prell the while stepped from door to door listening.
"If that old Leichtweg had happened to be in the next room," he said, "we should be dying a dog's death. But if you go this instant, the front way, into the courtyard, they might suppose you had come to ask something, and perhaps we can patch it up still."
All Lilly perceived in his words was a sly attempt at evasion, and a fresh flood of indignation overwhelmed her.
"First justify yourself," she cried. "Until you do, I won't go this way, or that way, or the other way."
To enforce her resolve she dropped down on the screeching sofa, which was covered with a dirty grey horseblanket folded into several thicknesses for protection against the sharp points of the springs.
He was compelled to yield.
"Very well, then, look here—a fellow's a human being, isn't he? And if he's given the go-by in that common way—"
"Common way?" faltered Lilly. "What was common in my letter? Didn't I tear my heart out and throw it at your feet, and didn't Miss von Schwertfeger—?"
She could not continue. Wrath and despair choked her utterance.
In the meantime Von Prell, who at first had been at a complete loss, arrived at the proper policy to adopt.
"Yes, that's just it," he said, growing more aggrieved with each word. "Is a love like ours to be concluded with a lukewarm homily? And that Schwertfeger—did I deserve being dismissed by you like an asthmatic old dog through the intermediation of a third person, a horrid, disgusting creature? Isn't it enough to make a man desperate after all he's done for you?"
"What—did you—do for me?" queried Lilly.
"Well—wasn't I a self-sacrificing comrade the whole time? Wasn't I disloyal even to my old colonel for your sake, that fine old gentleman, who saved my life, you might say? You see, all that's no small matter. Do you suppose it didn't cut me to the quick? Do you suppose I didn't get the blues? And then to be fooling round here alone night after night with that dung-beetle, that Tommy—the beast smells, I tell you. So why not try to dull one's feelings? Shouldn't I—how shall I say?—deaden the anguish of lost love? Not even deaden it? It's a perfect mystery to me how you can demand such a thing of me. We speak different languages, my dear child—there's a yawning chasm dividing our natures—and you're even willing to risk our two lives for such mummery. As a rule, I'mnotan old aunt, but indeed, if only I had you out of this place."
Throughout this long speech he had walked about Lilly in a semicircle, with one hand thrust in the belt of his Norfolk jacket, making short, jerky steps, which forcefully expressed his righteous indignation.
Lilly sat on the sofa stiffly upright, mechanically turning her head after him now to the right, now to the left, and staring at him with great, uncomprehending eyes.
When he stopped speaking, he drew a cigarette from the case and energetically beat off the superfluous tobacco with the index finger of his left hand.
Lilly rose in all her height, leaving the sofa and the table next to the sofa far below her.
"Listen, Walter," she said, "from this moment everything between us is at an end."
"Why, wasn't it long ago?"
"I mean—inwardly, too."
"Oh, inwardly, too!" He made a little grimace. "With you that probably means if you have something in your stomach."
When Lilly saw her love so ridiculed and mutilated, she could no longer restrain herself. With an outcry she ran from the sofa, and hid her face—anywhere at all—on the wall next to the window.
"Get away from the window!" she heard him hiss.
Oh, what did she care!
In the extremity of his fright he took to pleading.
"Just come away from the window," he said. "It was all mere twaddle. I simply wanted to make you laugh again, nothing more. Please come away from the window."
She did not budge.
To crawl off somewhere! To crawl away and hide herself and all her shame.
She felt his hands seize her rudely.
That, too! To suffer violence, too!
She flung him off, wrestled with him, clawed at his neck—
And suddenly—
A whistling, a clash and clatter—shivers of glass flew over their heads, and a long, dark something, like the shaft of a lance, sped past them, knocked against something, rebounded, and fell at their feet.
The same instant Lilly felt a rush of cold air on her forehead, which aroused her from the stupefaction of surprise.
One of the two upper window panes had been broken.
No living creature was to be seen. But the balcony door yonder, which had been closed a moment before, now showed a dark opening, and was swinging shut.
"A narrow escape," murmured Walter, and stooped to pick up the mysterious thing from the floor, while the fragments of glass gritted beneath his feet.
"The pea-shooter," Lilly faltered.
"A mercy he didn't happen to have his fowling-piece at hand," said Walter, "else we'd be riddled into sieves."
With the back of his hand he wiped away the sweat of fright standing on his forehead in bright beads.
None the less he was a brave little chap, and knew on the instant what to do.
He sprang to the wardrobe under which Tommy had burrowed, fetched out his army revolver, and tested all its parts. Then he said:
"Now, please go into Leichtweg's room, and lock yourself in. The colonel's simply gone to load his gun. Then he'll be here."
But Lilly refused. Her wrath against him had completely evaporated.
"Let me stay with you, let me stay with you!" she begged, clasping his shoulders.
"Impossible, child," he replied, with the old masterful lift to his brows. "What's coming is men's business."
"Then I'll stand out in the hall, and receive him at your door."
He bit his lips.
"Well," he said, "if you take it that way, I can't help myself. Sit down, please."
He removed the key from the outside of the door, stuck it in the lock on the inside and cautiously turned it several times.
"Between loading and shooting," he said then, "there's a great big difference—but the devil knows."
He took out his watch, and listened intently for sounds from the outside, while he counted, "a half—one—one and a half—two. Probably can't find his cartridges." Then commandingly: "Do sit down. You'll need your legs to-day."
Lilly sank in one corner of the sofa, and he seated himself in the other, placing the watch between them on the bumpy seat. Both counted now with their eyes fastened on the second hand. "Two and a half—three—three and a half—four—four and a half—five minutes."
Not a sound, save the wind howling in the bare branches.
Then it seemed to them they heard the trot of horses starting in the courtyard and dying away on the other side of the gates.
"Whom's he gone to fetch?" asked Walter. "We're not ready for seconds yet."
Red suns danced before Lilly's eyes. The ceiling began to rise and sink.
Walter kept on counting.
"Seven—eight—eight and a half."
Nothing.
"Nine—nine and a half—ten—" Suddenly he emitted a faint whistle, and grasped his revolver.
The front door grated on its hinges, steps resounded, but not the threatening, thundering steps of a vengeful husband. They were soft, hesitating, dragging steps.
Then for a while nothing again—no sound, except the breathing of two persons—and someone else—on the other side of the door, it seemed.
"Who's there?" called Walter.
Now came a knock.
Soft, broken, as if of trembling, failing fingers.
"Who's there, in the devil's name?" he called again.
"Anna von Schwertfeger."
He jumped up and opened the door.
There she stood, ashen-hued, red about the mouth, her lids quivering.
"The colonel has just driven off to Baron von Platow. He will return in three hours. He charged me to tell you, Lilly, that when he comes back he doesn't want to find you on his premises."
"And what did he charge you to tell me?" sneered Walter von Prell.
Miss von Schwertfeger, without regarding him, took Lilly's hand.
"Come. You haven't much time. We must pack."
"But—but where am I to go?" she asked, helplessly, suffering herself to be drawn to her feet.
When she got to the door of the lodge, she saw the carriage that was to convey her from the castle already rolling up the driveway.
She was Lilly Czepanek again.
In the divorce proceedings there had been no attempt at dissimulation or concealment, and the case moved along rapidly. Lilly alone was found guilty, and, upon the colonel's deposition, was deprived of the right to use her married name.
"There is nothing to be saved from the ruins," wrote Mr. Pieper, "except the jewels which I hope you diligently accumulated by following my advice and standing in front of fine shop-windows. The pearl necklace your ex-husband put about your neck on your wedding day—owing in part, I may now say, to my suggestion—which I will try to get back for you, is in itself sufficient to keep your head above water several years."
The result of this letter was that Lilly took the pearl necklace, which after her flight she had found in one of her trunks among the laces and evening gowns, carried it to a jeweller, had him pack it up, and addressed it to Miss von Schwertfeger.
She felt justified in considering the less valuable trinkets to be her personal property. She had already disposed of a considerable number of them, and what was left would scarcely suffice for more than half a year. Then poverty.
But her material condition gave her little concern.
Her regret for what she had lost was too profound, her consciousness of the shame she had undergone too lively, but that her future should not have been hidden from her perceptions behind a veil of tears.
Yes, tears, tears—oh, she learned to shed tears.
She learned to swallow tears like salt sea water; she sucked them into her mouth with her lower lip thrust out, she shook them from her cheeks like drops of rain. And they kept welling up again, finally without cause, even after the pain had subsided—awake or asleep, they just came.
She had gone away that grey, windy December day just before nightfall in a trembling state of stupefaction without complaint, without attempts at self-justification.
Gone away blindly—anywhere—simply gone away—in all haste.
She landed in Berlin, the haven of all the wrecked.
In that world where oblivion spreads its blessing hands alike over the righteous and unrighteous, where enticing possibilities flash and sparkle, illuminating the dark days of inertness and prostration, where regret over a lost past by and by becomes tense, desirous expectation of happiness, and where the god Chance reigns supreme—in that world of the unknown and forsaken, in which none but those who are both old and poor sink into nothingness, hopeless outlaws—into that world Lilly crept.
Many a dreary month she knocked about in lodging houses where divorcées with lost reputations huddle together, reminding one of little heaps of decaying apples; where the tone is given by Chilian attachés and agents of mysterious trades from Bucharest and Alexandria. In a friendly way she avoided the confidences of companions in misery, who lavished words of comfort, and with mute disregard repelled the advances—physical advances as well—of her enterprising, olive-complexioned neighbours.
After a while she began to look about for a position—something unique, something between a lady in waiting and a chaperon, which would not be incongruous with her former station and the quiet dignity of her bearing.
But positions of that sort seemed remarkably scarce.
And all she reaped of her endeavours were the tender attentions of a few old gentlemen who came to see her in the evening, and could not find their way out again until the door was held wide open for them.
Discouraged, she gave up going to employment bureaus and the useless ringing of front door bells. But her expectations had not yet sunk to the level of those of a shop-girl or model in a dressmaking establishment. And they never would sink so low, because "general's wife," as she was branded, no matter where she went, was written all over her.
In that seething sea of humanity she tossed about without so much as a straw to clutch at; except, indeed, Walter's letter, which Miss von Schwertfeger forwarded to her two months after her expulsion. The poor boy was now completely ruined. Nevertheless, his letter gave proof of a modest attempt to offer her some support.
"Dearest Friend:—I'm done for. I've been shot. A mere trifle when it happens to others; but when it happens to oneself, the consequence is, it considerably lessens one's hopes of entering upon a glorious career as head waiter on the other side of the Atlantic.Nevertheless I thank fate for having been gracious enough to lead across my path so good, so touching a lamb, one so filled with the desire to redeem, as my baronissima.You will readily understand, O dearest, supergracious woman, that I in turn also feel a slight obligation to play the redeemer, if only to preserve our souls for each other.But "the how" presents some difficulties, to be sure. If I were to recommend you to the care of my former friends, your future would be settled. For in blissful hours leaves and virtues still fall.Therefore I descend a step to those regions in which a sturdy Philistinism creeps on its belly before our coronets, even when those coronets lie shattered on the ground.In Alte Jakobstrasse in Berlin there dwells a respectable manufacturer of bronze ware, a comrade of the reserves, etc., by name Richard Dehnicke, who feels he is indebted to me because I pumped him for coin.I am writing to him by this mail. Step boldly in among his lamps and vases. The former, I hope, will brighten your nights, the latter, daintily line your way in life, and he will not ask the price which it is the custom in our country to demand of beautiful women. Some queer fish there have to be in the world.My address will beWalter von Prell,Street-lounger & Candidate for Fortune,Chicago, First Stockyard to the Left.P. S.—Tommy sends his regards. Before going I planted a ball in his forehead."
"Dearest Friend:—
I'm done for. I've been shot. A mere trifle when it happens to others; but when it happens to oneself, the consequence is, it considerably lessens one's hopes of entering upon a glorious career as head waiter on the other side of the Atlantic.
Nevertheless I thank fate for having been gracious enough to lead across my path so good, so touching a lamb, one so filled with the desire to redeem, as my baronissima.
You will readily understand, O dearest, supergracious woman, that I in turn also feel a slight obligation to play the redeemer, if only to preserve our souls for each other.
But "the how" presents some difficulties, to be sure. If I were to recommend you to the care of my former friends, your future would be settled. For in blissful hours leaves and virtues still fall.
Therefore I descend a step to those regions in which a sturdy Philistinism creeps on its belly before our coronets, even when those coronets lie shattered on the ground.
In Alte Jakobstrasse in Berlin there dwells a respectable manufacturer of bronze ware, a comrade of the reserves, etc., by name Richard Dehnicke, who feels he is indebted to me because I pumped him for coin.
I am writing to him by this mail. Step boldly in among his lamps and vases. The former, I hope, will brighten your nights, the latter, daintily line your way in life, and he will not ask the price which it is the custom in our country to demand of beautiful women. Some queer fish there have to be in the world.
My address will be
Walter von Prell,Street-lounger & Candidate for Fortune,Chicago, First Stockyard to the Left.
Walter von Prell,Street-lounger & Candidate for Fortune,Chicago, First Stockyard to the Left.
P. S.—Tommy sends his regards. Before going I planted a ball in his forehead."
This letter, the last and only greeting from her friend, left Lilly untouched. Soon after, Miss von Schwertfeger wrote, he set sail for the United States with a crippled arm. Their love had deserved an honourable burial, even if its rapture had not been genuine, even if its lofty purpose had set in dirt and disgrace.
"If only to preserve our souls for each other," he had written, the dear little fellow.
The letter, however, offered a certain guarantee that in her hour of need, a helping hand would be stretched out to steady her. But the measure he recommended, she never, never thought of adopting. What she feared above all was that something which emanated from the eyes of men fixed upon her face in desire, that something which issued from men's lips persuasively, masterfully.
She wanted to keep her fate in her own hands and go her own way.
What that way was to be, she had not yet determined.
So irresolute had sorrow and anxiety made her that nothing but a faint breeze would have been required to head her life in a certain direction.
But no breeze blew upon her.
Months passed. Miss von Schwertfeger ceased to write. Lilly's money gave out. The little treasure of trinkets dwindled rapidly.
The lodging houses to which she moved grew ever more modest. Chilian attachés and Greek trafficers were replaced by bankrupt real estate agents and unemployed bank clerks, who wanted to solace her in her loneliness by spending the evenings with her. And the women who came in soiled kimonos to pay her neighbourly visits cast greedy glances at the few brooches, bracelets and rings she still had left.
So Lilly determined to make an end of this life.
One of the best of the "best rooms" in Berlin which are to be found in houses having once known those renowned better days and which are let out to decent young women for thirty marks, including service and breakfast, was to be had from the widow Clothilde Laue.
It contained red plush furniture, which embodied the acme of good taste at the time of the Franco-Prussian War. It contained a pier glass fantastically stuck from top to bottom with New Year's cards, cards of congratulation, and illustrated advertisements of soaps and powders. It contained photographs on the walls of actors once famous, whose fame in the meantime had faded no less than the autographs they had written beneath their pictures. It contained a washstand, whose marble top was covered with a tidy embroidered with the sententious couplet: