One grey, hazy October morning, when winter's approach was tempered by
a muggy warmth, a wonderful thing happened. Frau Asmussen's runaway
daughters returned.
Without giving a hint of their coming beforehand, they suddenly
appeared in the library, gave Lilly an astonished stare, and asked her
to pay their cab as they had no change. Lilly's heart beat with
excitement. Directly she saw the two imposing figures of the girls,
who, though somewhat travel-stained and jaded, victoriously took
possession of the field, she had no doubt who they were. She gave a
scared glance at their pretty little snub-nosed faces, out of which
their bright grey eyes looked inquiringly from the door of the back
room to the door behind which the broom of welcome stood. Its hour had
now come, and Lilly ran out in a panic to escape the painful scene that
would inevitably follow on the opening of Frau Asmussen's door.
She gathered up from the floor of the cab two faded bouquets of
stephanotis, a tartan shawl rolled up in a hold-all, from which two
bizarre umbrella-handles, topped with blue glass balls, projected in
company with two soiled embroidered cushions and a flask. Besides
these, there were a tin box of acid drops without a cover, a cardboard
box falling to pieces, and disclosing not only hats, but such
miscellaneous articles as a comb and pieces of bread-and-butter.
Lilly, with the things in her arms, paused in the entrance, listening
in terror for the sound of cries. But all was quiet, and when she
ventured into the room she saw mother and daughters locked in each
other's arms, hugging and kissing.
As there was no time before the midday meal to kill the fatted calf, in
addition to the ordinary cabbage a huge pile of cakes from the
confectioner's was provided as a second course. The daughters helped
themselves to these before the meal began, laying them aside for a
rainy day, Frau Asmussen beamed with maternal tenderness and pride.
"Well, did I exaggerate?" she asked Lilly. "Aren't they a splendid
pair? Isn't it a wonder that I could do without them for so long? But I
mustn't be too greedy; I am only thankful to get as much of them as I
do, for I know their filial hearts are torn between their father and
me. They cannot bear to pain either of us by absenting themselves," And
she seized and patted the hands of the girls sitting on either side of
her, and all three exchanged looks of rapturous affection.
The absent husband and father was also touchingly alluded to. The girls
said that the lively, talented darling was on the point of giving up
his business to manage vast estates in south Russia, where he had been
urgently summoned. Later, in a gloomier hour, Frau Asmussen interpreted
this announcement as meaning that the spotted scoundrel had to hide
himself in the fastnesses of Odessa till the air cleared, owing to some
shady transactions of his about bonds.
At first, to Lilly's unpractised eyes, the two home-flown birds
appeared as like as two sparrows. Both of them were pert, quarrelsome,
fickle, and flirtatious. After a time she learned to distinguish
between them. Lona, the elder, she discovered to be the best-looking in
a coarse, barmaidish sort of way. Her hard commercial character was
also the stronger. She led Mi, who set up for being a wit, by the nose.
For the time being their attitude towards Lilly was one of friendly
neutrality. So far she gave them no cause to adopt a hostile line,
though hints were dropped that if a certain young lady dared to usurp
their position she would be taught her place and war to the knife would
follow.
When, however, they had satisfied themselves that Lilly was tractable
and inoffensive, they made her the recipient of their confidences,
which they poured forth late at night as all three girls sat together
on the bed, undressing and brushing each others' hair. They sucked
contraband bonbons and discussed different styles of coiffure. Now
Lilly, whose mind had hitherto remained pure and innocent, was
enlightened on subjects she had never dreamed of. They whispered
mysteriously of love intrigues and man-hunting, revealed sexual secrets
in a stream of sordid chatter.
What they cared for more than anything, it would seem, was to have
their figures admired.
"When I turn my shoulder like this, am I not like a Greek statue?" one
would ask.
"Isn't my bust like marble?" was another question.
"If I were not so modest, I should like to let down my night gown and
show you my hips. They are divine."
Much more rarely did they challenge Lilly's criticism of their
features.
"We know we are good-looking; we've been told so hundreds of times.
There can be no doubt about it," they would say.
All the same, when the draughts of a chilly autumn necessitated their
throwing scarves over their heads in the house, they did not fail to
draw attention to the classic way in which their hair grew on their
foreheads, and to the fascinating curve of their profiles.
Sometimes they were even severe critics of themselves.
"We haven't fine eyes, we know--yours, for instance, are, strictly
speaking, finer. But if _you_ were to make eyes at anyone it wouldn't
have any effect, whereas if we so much as cast a sidelong glance out of
the corner of ours, the men are after us like lightning."
Their small cat's eyes would sparkle with satisfaction in their sense
of limitless sway and triumph over the weaknesses of masculine
strength.
The advice they generously gave Lilly was summed up in the phrase: "Go
as far as you like, so long as you don't make a present of yourself to
any man."
They told, without stint, piquant stories, describing exciting and
thrilling situations in which they themselves had been true to this
motto. There was patent in everything they said a strong vein of coarse
sensuality. Once, when one of them remarked, "I should like to be a
Queen of the Bees, but have no children," the other, whose temperament
appeared to be more given to ethical contemplation, quickly retorted,
"I would rather be a nun, only with no morals."
She pursued the topic, shocking Lilly's pious reverence with
Boccaccio-like details. In spite of their latitude of thought, all
their hopes and dreams were really centred on marriage. Marriage, the
speediest and most advantageous possible, appeared to them in the light
of a career and salvation from all earthly troubles, the consummation
of all heavenly bliss. That was to say, the bridegroom must be old, he
must be rich, and he must be a fool.
They demanded this triple qualification of fate. In the same way as
others invested their intended husband with a halo of all the virtues,
these maidens revelled in depicting his infirmities, and showing him as
the miserable dupe of their abounding power and superior strategy.
They were not always at one on the point as to how this valuable
acquisition so indispensable to their happiness was to be obtained, and
a favourite bone of contention between them was the question of whether
it was expedient or not to compromise oneself before marriage.
Lona, whose daring in dealing with problems of conduct knew no bounds,
was of opinion that it was expedient. Mi, who was more cautious and
liked to feel her ground, took the opposite view.
"If you knew what men are as well as I do," Lona snapped at her sister,
"you'd know that the best way to get hold of them is to make them
afraid.... Let them sin, and then make their sin a halter to hang them
with. Then you've got them fast."
Mi ventured to wonder that Lona had not tried to put the theory into
practice; if she had she would certainly long ago have----
Here she discreetly came to a pause, for her sister's fingers looked
like scratching.
And, in fact, only eight days after their return, these two did
come to blows, and the air was thick with flying hair-pads and
petticoat-strings. Mi emerged from the fray with a wound, which Lilly
spent the night in bathing with vinegar and water.
The cause of the quarrel was a "swell" who had followed them during
their afternoon walk, and who, according to Mi's account, had been put
off from making further advances by her sister's discouraging reception
of him.
Lona maintained that it was a dangerous principle to take up with
"swells," while Mi asserted that he might, at any rate, have been good
enough for a husband.
The chief and all-engrossing occupation of their daily routine was
parading the streets and getting spoken to by men. Lilly's fears that
they might take the reins of management into their own hands she soon
discovered were groundless. They lay in bed till nine, took two hours
to dress, and then started for their morning walk, to take stock of the
garrison officers who at this time were promenading the town in groups.
The first half of the day being thus devoted to the military, the
second half was given up to civilians. Afternoon coffee was, as a
matter of course, ordered and partaken of at Frangipani's, where a
handful of lieutenants joined city magnates and young barristers at
chess or bridge, and where perhaps a solitary schoolmaster, priding
himself on his smartness, would put in an appearance and attempt to cut
a dash with the rest.
After an hour spent in devouring all sorts of sweets came the twilight
stroll, very favourable for making chance acquaintances, and serving as
a subject of conversation afterwards in the house.
It cannot truthfully be stated that Frau Asmussen had given this mode
of life her sympathy and blessing. It was scarcely likely, considering
that the first spell of seraphic calm that succeeded the homecoming of
her prodigal daughters had given place to mutterings of a storm, and
the storm itself had soon burst. Rows took place in rapid succession
and became such a matter of course that Lilly, who had at first wept
and howled with the combatants, began to accept them as part of the
normal family life. Abusive epithets of extraordinary vigour flew
hither and thither, boxes on the ear resounded through the library, and
even the broom, the existence of which at first had been ignored, was
now introduced into its limited sphere of activity.
Not till the evening, when Frau Asmussen's soothing medicine claimed
her attention, was peace restored. The sisters were now at liberty to
take more walks, only their sense of propriety forbade them to go out
at so late an hour.
"Anyone who met us now would take us for fast girls," they said, "and
then it would be all up with marrying."
Indeed, it was hardly credible how many were the rules and restrictions
by which these young ladies ordered their apparently unlicensed method
of life.
You might be kissed, but on no account must you return kisses. Men
might address you by your Christian name and call you "_du_" in
conversation, but to write in the same familiar strain would be an
unpardonable insult. You would allow a man to pay for your coffee and
cakes, but not for your bread-and-butter. A stranger might press your
foot under the table, but should he squeeze your hand you must
instantly rise, and so forth.
Lilly had not the slightest comprehension what all these pros and cons
meant. Man in the abstract for her, up till now, had been merely a part
of existence that had no separate individuality--that passed her in the
streets without attracting her notice in the least. The only men she
had admired were those who existed in her dreams, in her novels, and
imagination. The creature that stared at her from the pavement, that
came to get books and found ridiculous excuses for starting
conversations with her, that held aside the baize curtain at the church
door for her to go out, that smiled over the counter in shops--this
creature was something stupid, contemptible, scarcely tolerable, to
whom she was utterly indifferent, and to give a thought to whom would
be degrading.
She was now to learn that a girl could exist solely for the sake of
that gross, coarse thing called "man," that she could think of nothing
but him from the moment she got up till the time she went to bed, as if
she were created for him, and must put him before her work and faith
and God.
Though Lilly knew that she was far above being influenced by the two
girls' example and precepts, she could not help feeling a slight
curiosity awake within her to learn more of what these creatures were
like who caused such a flutter in the dovecot of feminine emotions,
whose approval was so keenly to be sought, and whose coldness meant
absolute annihilation.
A nervous dread began to torment her about that unknown vortex of
wickedness outside, from which dirt was now brought every day and laid
at her threshold, and about the timid curiosity that it aroused within
her. Whether she would or not, her thoughts were always recurring to
the panorama of pictures, painted in vivid poisonous colours and
unrolled before her nightly by the two degenerate sisters. It was quite
a relief when the hot friendship, after a month's duration, began to
cool.
The coolness was caused by an unaccountable deficit, which occurred not
once, but many times, in the cash-box, and became a standing mystery.
Lilly, in a fever, added up the figures. She counted every pfennig over
and over again; at last she was forced to conclude that someone had
taken advantage of her absence for a moment to open the drawer and dip
into the cash-box.
She knew that she would be accused of the theft when it was discovered,
so, in order to save herself, she took the key of the drawer with her
when she left the room, as if by accident. She repeated the ruse
several times till she was certain that she was on the right track, by
the change of manner in the girls, who regarded her with increasing
scorn and displeasure.
At last they could no longer contain themselves for wrath and
disappointment. Did she, miserable interloper, imagine that she was
mistress of the business? they burst forth. She should have both books
and keys taken out of her hands if they chose. In her terror, Lilly ran
to their mother, and threatened to leave the house on the spot if she
was not allowed to have a free hand in the control of the shop as
hitherto.
Frau Asmussen, knowing too well her daughters' character, took Lilly's
part and the storm blew over. The girls resumed their intimacy with
Lilly, and again confided to her the secret depths of their soul. Did
she think that they wanted money to spend on ices and meringues at
Frangipani's? She was very mistaken. They were cute enough to lay up
for the future. It was impossible to stay for ever with the old
tippler, especially as the place had turned out a barren wilderness as
far as the prospect of making a good match was concerned. How could
Lilly, with her petty ambitions, have any conception of theirs, and of
what they suffered, struggling against the temptations of meringues and
chocolate cakes at the confectioner's? They had been saving up for a
long time for another journey. They were literally starving themselves
for this praiseworthy object.
Lilly remained unmoved. She refused to be wheedled or talked over
again, and black looks were turned on her. They began to regard her
with an offended air of hauteur without speaking, and approaching
events were to fan their smouldering wrath into a blaze.