"Yes, my dear young lady," said the distinguished lawyer, Herr Doktor
Pieper, "I have been appointed your guardian, and have accepted the
post because I considered it my duty. Ah! you want the papers _re_
Lemke _versus_ Militzky," he went on, interrupting himself to speak to
the head clerk. "What was I saying? Oh, to be sure. I considered it my
duty, although I am a very busy man, to befriend, as far as lies in my
power, the widow and orphan."
He passed his well-manicured left hand over his shining bald pate and
straw-coloured beard, which half concealed the mouth of a man of the
world and an epicure.
"My wards all do well," he continued. "I am proud of their success. How
do they manage it? Well, that's my affair--a secret of business, as it
were. I am certain, my child, that you too will fall on your feet
eventually. I should hardly be so interested in you if it were not
highly probable. The first thing to be considered is a suitable
situation. Plain young ladies are the most difficult to suit, unless
they happen to be humble and unassuming. It pays them to boast of
so-called Christian virtues. You, of course, do not belong to the plain
sort. Possibly you are conscious of it, and I only tell you in order
that you should learn to assert yourself. The main point in the art of
living is to discriminate between self-assertion that is justified, and
the reverse. You must, that is to say, gauge your own power according
to circumstances. Now, young girls such as you----"
At this moment the head clerk, tall and lank, again appeared at his
elbow, with a portfolio.
"At five o'clock the Labischin divorce suit comes on," he said to the
man, as he took the documents from his hand, "At quarter past, Reimann
and Reimann _versus_ Fassbender. Get everything in readiness and see
that someone accompanies this young lady. You will learn where from the
papers."
The man vanished.
"Well, my dear young lady," her guardian continued, "the time which I
can spare you is at an end. You will not be able to resume your school
studies, of course. The means are not forthcoming. Even if they were, I
rather doubt its being advisable. Governesses do sometimes make
brilliant marriages certainly, though oftenest in the pages of English
novels; but they are exposed--excuse my plain speaking--to all sorts of
temptation, and are sometimes led astray. I should like to get you a
place in a large photographic studio, where your duties would be to
receive customers; but you would hardly have enough self-assurance for
such a post at present. I have therefore found a position for you in a
lending library, more as a trial than a permanency. There your light
will not be altogether hidden under a bushel. The salary--I need not
emphasise the fact--will be moderate: twenty marks a month with board
and lodging. You will have every opportunity of letting your fancy
browse among the literature of all people and all ages. So, my dear
young lady----Good God! why are you crying?"
Lilly wiped tears from her eyes and cheeks. "I'm only just out of the
hospital," she explained. "I feel rather----I am very sorry."
The distinguished lawyer, smiling, shook his head, the baldness of
which appeared to be as tended and cared for as the face of a beautiful
woman.
"You'll have to give up the habit of crying. Tears are quite out of
place till you have a settled career before you.... There's something
else I have got to say. Your poor mother's small effects must be sold.
The proceeds of the sale will serve as a little competence for your
rainy days. It is very important that you should make sure of this
capital, such as it is. Now, under the escort of my man, you shall go
back to your home--I have the key in my bureau--and select a few
articles which you may care to have either for use or as mementoes.
Good-bye, my dear.... In six months come to me again."
Lilly felt in hers a cool, flabby hand that seemed incapable of giving
or returning pressure. Then she found herself staggering down the dark
staircase, conducted by a clerk who had the key and was to take her to
her old home. She wanted to ask questions, to protest about what she
didn't know. The clerk swung the key in silence, and didn't look round
till he opened the door of the room in which she and her mother had
lived. It was close and smelt musty; shafts of light came through the
blinds, piercing the dusk. As she stood there, Lilly felt as if she
were standing on the grave of her childhood and youth, that everything
had come to an end, and there was nothing to be done but shut herself
up here and die.
The clerk unfastened the shutters and threw open the windows. The
clothes were still piled on the bed, the linen strewed the floor, and
on the boards were dark brownish stains--the blood which had flown from
her throat. The knife, too, still lay there. Lilly was ashamed to cry
before the clerk, who stood staring vacantly and whistling to himself,
as she threw her things into the basket-trunk which her mother had
intended to use for the move to the nine-roomed flat. She chose a few
books at random, and put some copybooks on top; then she looked about
her for keepsakes. Her head swam; she saw things without recognising
them. But there on the table, held together with india rubber bands,
splashed with her blood, was the score of "The Song of Songs." No one
had touched it because no one knew its value. She caught it up, shut
down the lid of the box, and with the roll of music under her arm she
stepped out into her new life, thirsting for new experiences.