"DEAREST HERR VON PRELL,
"You will have concluded from what has happened that all must be over
between us. Yes, everything has come to an end. We shall never meet
again except at table. If you ask whether this makes me sad I will be
brave and say 'No,' in the hope that it will cause you to feel our
parting less. But the question is not whether we find it difficult or
easy. We have to consider whether our feelings in the matter are
elevating and humanly disinterested. True self-sacrifice must be the
keystone of our lives. Yes, I expect from you the nobility of
renunciation. The whole of our future must be dedicated to memories
alone. Are we ever likely to enjoy again such exquisite hours as we
have spent together? I have done with thoughts of happiness, and so
must you too. Henceforth my one sacred duty will be my husband's
welfare, and I must request you to devote all the energy you are
capable of to the reordering of your life. You know life is a very
sacred thing. I feel that it is so, since I have had a kind woman
friend to set me on the right road, and I want you to feel it too.
"This letter is my last. You may write to me just once. Please do, and
put your answer in the pea-shooter, which still stands as before in the
corner of the balcony. Ah! indeed, I shall have no peace till I know
that our souls are united by the same desires. Good-bye, and when you
come to meals, be sure you make no secret reference to what has been.
It would only be painful to me, and I should doubt your good faith.
"Always yours in true sisterly affection,
"L. v. M."
"Gracious Friend and Lady,
"The profound emotions I have experienced since my last interview with
our honoured Fraeulein von Schwertfeger are only deepened by your most
kind lines. I feel a great impulse to perform deeds of atonement never
yet attempted. I am ready to heap scorn and contumely on the seven
deadly sins. I will take as example all the paragons of virtue the
world has ever known, and will try to find in the lofty renunciation
you demand of me that undiluted happiness which is the only kind devoid
of the sting of remorse--an advantage which cannot have much weight
with one so fatally constituted that he has heard of such a thing but
never felt it.
"Thus, dearest and most charming of women, farewell! We certainly had a
good time. I can swear to this without committing perjury. Should you
require more pledges for the future, I can also swear, first, to abhor
alcohol; second, to shun the fair sex like the plague; third, to devote
to the Encyclopaedia of Agriculture unremitting love and attention, two
volumes of seven hundred and twenty pages each notwithstanding.
"Once more, farewell! The ladder of my hopes, which I have climbed for
the last time, shall find a wintry grave under fir cones and branches.
When the times comes, may it rise therefrom to greet a new spring.
"Till then, I kiss in all constancy your slim and refreshingly large
hand.
"Yours,
"Already reformed,
"Walter von Prell."
Lilly found this letter, on the morning but one after the foregoing
events, stuffed in the mouth of the pea-shooter, which reposed
innocently against the balcony glass doors. It cannot be said that it
gave her unlimited satisfaction. There were expressions in it that
raised scepticism with regard to the sincerity of his conversion. Yet
his assurances of amendment were so frank and concise, one could not
doubt that the sentiment that prompted him to make them was genuine. It
was only that he could not give up the incorrigible levity with which
he expressed himself. Those who loved him must tolerate this
eccentricity, whether they liked it or not.
She kissed the letter and put it inside her blouse, that it might rest
there comfortably for a little while before being torn up.
In the afternoon she went for a stroll round the castle, and found
under the balcony a heap of fir-branches freshly gathered, out of which
a rung or two of the buried ladder greeted her confidentially. Pleased
at this tender evidence of his pain at parting from her, she ran on to
the boggy outskirts of the park, and marvelled every now and then at
the easiness of renunciation.
Yet it proved not so easy after all. She began to discover this during
the next few days of reaction, when life seemed hollow and barren of
excitement, when the sad grey autumn hours passed drearily and evening
came, followed by morning, apparently without rhyme or reason.
She did not did in Anna von Schwertfeger's society the solace and
support she had hoped for. Although her friend did not withdraw her
promises, she remained behind a wall of reserve, which made any close
and loving intimacy out of the question. It almost seemed as if she was
afraid of being implicated in the sinner's guilt, if she encouraged
Lilly's advances.
At this time Lilly had to put up with a great deal from the colonel.
His outbursts of ungovernable fury now fell on her, as on the rest of
the household. But what she dreaded more was the gloomy, threatening
glance he fixed on her at moments when she sat indulging in quiet
introspection; she felt instinctively that something was in his mind
that boded her no good. She began even to fear that he had got wind of
her affair with Prell. But Fraeulein von Schwertfeger would not hear of
such a thing.
"If that were so," she said, "he would adopt a rather different
procedure. Broken chairs and smashed lamps would be the consequence of
his first-awakened suspicion. I think the matter stands thus: he is
bored to extinction at home, he is hankering for the regiment, and he
holds you, child responsible for the change in his manner of living.
God forbid that he gets to hate you for it, otherwise, as far as I can
see, you will have no choice but to get a separation--or commit
suicide."
All this was not very consoling. No less discouraging was his
persistent refusal to introduce her to his neighbours. Anna assured him
Lilly's education was long ago complete, and no colonel's dame could
find anything amiss in her manners. Yet he looked at her in distrust,
and put off the visits week after week.
Nevertheless, Lilly cheerfully endured her troubles. Belief in herself
and in him buoyed her up, and gave her strength and composure. She made
herself out a time-table, so that every hour of the day should be
occupied. She learnt Goethe's lyrics by heart, she read Shakespeare in
English, pored over Art books and studied the labyrinthine history of
the French Revolution. Especially attractive reading did she find in a
big geographical tome containing illustrations of Southern harbours and
tropical forests, rocky mountains, and the like. Italy, too, was
represented. There were pious pilgrims praying at shrines, mystic
churches and buildings, slender pillared porticos, and all filled her
with the old hunger to wander under those sunny skies.
And so she lost her way travelling in spirit in foreign countries, to
look round suddenly and find herself face to face with a fair young man
with freckles in a black and white check suit stiffly bowing and
saying, "as gracious baroness commands." Then tears sprang to her eyes.
Her only distraction now was to stand at the balcony door, and over the
rampart of Virginian creeper, the last leaves of which fluttered about
like red flags, to gaze across at the outside of the bailiff's house.
Of course, he had no idea she was there. Oh, how proud she felt of him!
For she saw him spending all his spare hours with the Encyclopaedia of
Agriculture on the window ledge. Quickly she caught up her geographical
work again, fired by his example not to idle.
In the evening he closed the shutters early, and drew the heavy
curtains, which he had put up in his wild days, so close that not a
crack of light glimmered through. But Lilly hadn't the smallest doubt
that the lamp went on burning far into the night, and that he sat over
his books copying memorable passages, and revelling in great creative
ideas. And she revelled with him, for now she knew he could not fall.
She had his word, and he her honour in his keeping. This must be his
talisman leading him on to a higher life. So the weeks went on.
He excused himself from appearing on Sundays, and she was grateful to
him. Another thing she congratulated herself on was that in that fatal
night she had caught a cold, which the doctor said was severe enough to
prevent her rides for the rest of the winter. Probably Fraeulein von
Schwertfeger had a hand in this too.
* * * * *
One morning early in December it happened that the colonel varied his
ordinary confirmed grumpiness and appeared at table in excellent
spirits. He chuckled to himself, looked into vacancy with eyes that
twinkled, and seemed to be shaking inwardly with suppressed laughter.
Lilly ventured to inquire what was the cause. At first he declined to
tell her. "Rubbish! Mind your own business," he said, but finally he
could not keep the news to himself.
"Now, would you believe it?" he began. "I was warned lately at the
Casino to keep an eye on my young Prell. It turns out from all accounts
that he has been haunting low quarters at night, and has distinguished
himself in a brawl about some little baggage of a barmaid."
Lilly felt a freezing sensation rise from her feet and slowly creep up
her spine. Her limbs became numb. She smiled, and the smile cut into
her cheeks like the sharp corners of a stone.
"At first I laughed at them," he went on, "for, in the only train that
goes out and comes in of an evening, I have been a passenger myself, as
you know, every day. No horse could stand twenty miles each way for
long. And the pocket-money I give him wouldn't pay for a special train.
So I told our major. But he stuck to his story, and said he had
heard it from the younger men, and that it would be a pity if the boy
was stripped of his uniform. When I got to the station at one, it
struck me that I had time to search the train from end to end, which I
did--fourth class and all. Not a sign of him of course. I did the same
the next night and the next, and went on doing it till I was sick, even
calling up the inspector to ask if he could give me a clue. He
couldn't, he called out from inside, half asleep. So I began to think
the whole thing a swindle. Now, just listen to this: yesterday evening
when I got to the station here and was already in the carriage, I
remembered that I had forgotten my umbrella, an appendage to which I
can never get accustomed. So I went back for it. The station was quite
empty, but the train was still standing there; and just as I passed the
luggage van, which had its doors wide open, I saw someone jump out on
the line on the other side. I shouted 'Stop!' but he bolted off into
the woods. It flashed into my mind that it was Prell. I told Heinrich
to drive like the devil, and in less than ten minutes we were here.
Then I reflected he must have heard the sound of wheels from the
footpath, and I went straight to my room and turned on the lights. I
wanted him to think I was there. Did I disturb you, Lilly? By Jove,
Lilly!" and he started, "I never saw such a face!"
"What's the matter with it?" she asked, faintly smiling again.
"She hasn't been well all day," interposed Anna hurriedly. "Your story
too, colonel, is rather exciting. I am quite wound up."
"Humph!" he ejaculated, twisting his dyed moustache, and he seemed
unwilling to take up the thread of his tale again. But Lilly could not
maintain her composure.
"I must know the rest, I must!" she cried, clasping her hands
imploringly, quite beside herself.
"Very well," said the colonel, fixing his eyes on her. "I went down
again quickly and stood in ambush before the bailiff's house. Two
minutes--and my gentleman comes along, slouching like a pole-cat,
stands still, looks up and eyes my room, sees the light, and thinks,
'Ha, ha! it's all right.' Then just as he puts his latchkey in the
door, I collar him."
Lilly burst into a fit of wild laughter. "Oh, how funny! How very
funny!" she exclaimed, and this time the colonel believed her.
"Yes; but something funnier is coming," he continued. "I said to him,
'If you confess the whole truth, I'll forgive you; if not, you'll go
packing to-morrow early.' And then it came out--what do you think the
rascal has been up to? Carrying on with the barmaid at the _Golden
Apple_, if you please--the resort of non-commissioned officers and
clerks. So that he might loaf there at his ease, he bribed the porters,
and actually went and came back in the same train with me evening after
evening concealed in the luggage van. If that isn't impudence, I don't
know what is--eh, Lilly?"
There was a pause. She felt herself tossing on a stormy sea, a boiling
and singing in her ears, and felt at the same moment Anna's hand
closing on hers under the table, in warning pressure.
"Yes, it certainly is very funny," she said.
The tone in which she spoke was not convincing, for another pause
ensued.
Then the colonel rose, took her head between his hands, pressing it so
hard she thought her ears would split, and said:
"You certainly appear in need of rest."
With this he turned on his heel and went out of the dining-room.
"Now pull yourself together, dear," Lilly heard her friend's voice
urging her, "because after this he'll be on the _qui vive_."
Lilly was going to throw herself on Fraeulein von Schwertfeger's bosom,
hoping to be petted and consoled, but she held herself aloof, as if she
feared being caught in too intimate converse with Lilly, and said in a
tone of strained friendliness:
"Excuse me, Lilly dear. There is something I must attend to at once,"
and she too left the room.
"What now?" she thought.
She looked about her. The remains of their abruptly finished meal were
still on the table. The dark oak furniture cast shining black shadows
into the wintry half-light of the room. The old brass chandeliers
gleamed dully. All was as it always was, and yet there was nothing
there--only a cruel, all-devouring void, an abyss which lured her into
its depths as if drawing her with hooks and pulleys.
She went to the window, and looked out apathetically. The bare branches
shook in the wind, the ivy on the railing swayed; even the bent
rose-trees, the shoots of which the old gardener had protected with
straw, moved quiveringly backwards and forwards. All of them writhed in
the grip of winter, and only the fallen leaves lying in heaps on the
thin coating of snow were still, but they were dead eternally.
What was to be done now?
If this could happen, then all was in vain. There was no hope, no
rising to loftier heights, no more strength of purpose, and no more
truth. You might as well throw yourself down on the ground beside the
dead leaves and die.
She heard the clatter of plates behind her. The maid-servant, as no one
had rung, had come unsummoned with old Ferdinand to clear the table.
She thought of Kaete and of that other creature, in whose arms he had
made a mock of her and of her faith in him. She dragged her lifeless
legs upstairs to the only room in the house where she ever felt at
home. As she passed she heard the colonel raving in his bedroom, and
almost running as he paced up and down.
"Let him rave!" she thought indifferently.
Next she heard him give orders from behind the closed door for the
carriage to come round.
"He may stay or go, for all I care," she thought.
She stepped on to the balcony. The icy-cold sensation that still
stiffened her neck crept down her arms to her finger tips.
Over there sat Walter, employing his leisure as usual in deep study of
the great Encyclopaedia of Agriculture. He lifted his hand every now and
then wearily to his brow and knocked the ash from his cigarette against
a flower-pot without looking up. He hadn't time to look up. Good God!
Confronted by this abominable farce, enacted solely with the object of
deceiving her, Lilly was seized with such mad, accusing fury that she
was rendered almost senseless. A pricking and stinging ran through her
benumbed arms. Then an excruciating burning fever throbbed painfully in
her temples and hung a blood-red curtain before her eyes.
She saw nothing more, heard nothing more.
She rushed down the stairs, tore back the bolt of the garden door,
sprang down the terrace steps, and flew like mad across the lawn to the
bailiff's lodge.
What did she care whether anyone saw her or not? At this moment she
minded nothing. She didn't so much as knock at his door, but opened it
with a vigour that sent it swinging against the wall. A hateful,
pungent smell like the interior of a menagerie greeted her nostrils. He
was still at the window, and bounded up when he saw her.
The grey daylight shone on the top of his head.
"He's got his hair cut like a clothes-brush again," she thought. "The
fast life he's now leading requires that it should be so. He must look
a swell."
"Lord in heaven!" he said, crumbling his lighted cigarette between his
fingers. "This is a pretty rumpus."
"Why--why have you----?" she shrieked incoherently. "Oh, you
blackguard! you dishonourable scoundrel!"
"Damn it!" he said, looking round him in despair, "I don't see how the
gracious baroness is to get out of this without compromising herself."
"I don't care! You have broken your word; you have thrown away what was
sacred between us--thrown it to a low barmaid ... a barmaid, a person
who would hang round the neck of any man who gave her twopence ... You
are a miserable wretch, not worth trying to save ... You won't be saved
... You insist on going to the dogs as fast as you can ..."
"That's all well and good," he said, "and you may be stating very
deplorable and indisputable facts; but what I should like to know, dear
baroness, is how you mean to save yourself?"
"I am absolutely indifferent with regard to myself!" she exclaimed. "I
have come here to have it out with you ... I demand an explanation
here--now--instantly--on the spot."
"With pleasure, gracious baroness," he answered, "but first, for God's
sake, move away from the window."
Whereupon he cast a swift, keen, nervous glance across at the windows
of the castle, which so far looked unsuspecting enough.
Shocked by his rudeness, she fled into the interior of the apartment.
It was low-ceilinged, dark, and badly furnished, like a labourer's
dwelling. The obnoxious doggy odour was here more strongly apparent.
Where it came from was a mystery revealed a moment later, when, as she
approached the wall at the back of the room, something snapped
viciously at her foot, and two little circlets of fire gleamed angrily
in the dusk.
"Behave yourself. Tommy," he commanded as she drew back with a cry.
So it was Tommy, the third party to the Triple Alliance!
She leaned against the back of the old spindle-legged sofa. Its worn
springs creaked and its bristly horsehair pricked her hands. The
thought shot through her brain: "What am I doing here? How does it
concern me?"
He glided meanwhile, listening hard, from door to door.
"If old Leichtweg happened to be in the next room," he said, "there'd
be the devil to pay. But if you go away at once by the front entrance
into the yard, it might be supposed you only came to ask a question,
and we may still save the situation."
She saw in this proposed move nothing but a crafty attempt at evasion,
and a fresh volume of wrath overwhelmed her.
"I shall not go," she said, "till I hear what you've got to say for
yourself;" and to give force to her resolve, she sank on to the
creaking sofa, which was covered by a dirty, odoriferous grey
horsecloth, folded several times to protect whoever sat down or lay on
it from the projecting springs.
He was forced to yield. "Well, then, look here. A man is, so to speak,
a man, isn't he? And when he is given up in a beastly mean sort of way
he----"
"Mean way!" Lilly faltered. "What was there mean in my letter? Didn't I
pour out my whole heart in it, and didn't dear Schwertfeger----?"
She could not go on, she was so choked with scorn and anger.
In the meantime he had arrived at the right policy to pursue, after
being completely nonplussed at first.
"That's just it," he said, growing more offended every moment. "Can it
be supposed that a love affair like ours was to close with a lukewarm
moral sermon? ... and from that Schwertfeger woman too? Did I deserve
it of you, to be dismissed through a third person that shabby, hideous
old thing too? Wasn't it enough to drive a fellow desperate ... after
all I have done for you?"
"Done for me?" echoed Lilly. "What have you done for me, pray?"
"Well, wasn't I always ready to be your self-sacrificing comrade?
Haven't I even sacrificed my loyalty to my old colonel for your
sake--the man I honoured and reverenced, who you may say picked me out
of the gutter? That's no trifle, I can assure you. Do you imagine it
didn't go against the grain? Do you imagine I didn't get awfully
depressed? And then night after night to have nothing to do but fool
round with a dog that stinks; for that beast Tommy does, you know. Can
a man be blamed in the circumstance for trying to deaden his feelings,
to still the qualms of his love-anguish? How you can expect that I
shouldn't entirely amazes me. We speak different languages, my child, a
yawning chasm divides our two natures. You actually don't mind risking
both our lives for the sake of a petty grievance. I don't belong, as a
rule, to the prudes; but the devil knows what I wouldn't give to get
you out of this room."
During this lengthy oration he had walked round Lilly with one hand in
the belt of his shooting-jacket, his short, jerky steps expressing his
indignant consternation.
She for her part sat rigidly erect, turning her head, with great
despairing eyes, towards him mechanically, first to the right, and then
to the left.
When he had finished he took a new cigarette from a case and
energetically brushed off the superfluous tobacco with his forefinger.
She rose to her full height, leaving the sofa and sofa-table a long way
below her.
"Listen, Walter," she said; "from this moment all is at an end between
us."
"Wasn't it so long ago?" he asked.
"I mean inwardly too," she explained.
"Oh, indeed ... inwardly!" He made a grimace. "That means, I suppose,
in your case, when you are sick and tired of one."
When she saw her love so vulgarly derided and jeered at, her
self-restraint completely collapsed. With a loud moan she ran behind
the sofa and hid her face in the wall.
"Don't go near the window," she heard him hiss, as he ground his teeth.
But what did she care about the window?
In his distraught anxiety he took to pleading.
"Do come away from the window," he entreated. "I was only rotting. I
wanted to make you laugh again; nothing else, I swear. Please come away
from the window."
She did not stir. She wanted to crawl into something--crawl away with
her shame.
Then she felt herself roughly seized by his hands.
So it had come to that, too! She was to be beaten by him!
She struck at him, wrestled with him, dug her fingers into his throat,
and then suddenly ... A whizzing, clashing, and clattering, and
splinters of glass flew over their heads; and an oblong, dark, slender
thing glanced by them, like the shaft of a lance, hit something,
rebounded, and lay at their feet.
At the same time she felt a gust of wind blow on her forehead and
awaken her from the stupefaction of the moment.
One of the upper window-panes was shivered to atoms. But no sign of a
living person was to be seen. Only the balcony door, which a minute or
two had been shut, stood open, showing blackness within as it swung to.
"A near shave, by Jove!" said Walter, and stooped to pick up the
mysterious weapon, the splintered panes of glass crashing beneath his
feet.
"The pea-shooter!" faltered Lilly.
Yes, it was the pea-shooter that a quarter of an hour ago had stood on
her balcony.
"It's a good job he hadn't his gun at hand," said Walter, "or we should
be riddled now like sieves."
He wiped the anxious sweat that beaded his brow away with the back of
his hand.
For all that he was a plucky little chap, and knew exactly what to do.
He sprang to the wardrobe under which the foxy dog roosted, got out his
military revolver, drew back the trigger, and tested the barrels.
Then he said: "Now, oblige me by going into Leichtweg's room. Bolt
yourself in. He's simply gone to load, and then he'll be here."
But Lilly wouldn't. Her anger against him had completely evaporated.
"Let me stay with you. Please let me stay."
"It won't do, child," he said, wrinkling his forehead into the old
masterful folds. "What is to follow now is man's business."
"Then I shall stay in the passage, and receive him at your door."
He gnawed his moustache. "Well, if you will take it like that, I can't
reason with you," he said. "Please be seated."
He took the key from the outside of the door, put it in the lock on the
inside and cautiously turned it several times.
"There's a vast difference between loading and shooting," he said, "the
devil only knows."
Hereupon he drew out his watch, and listening attentively to every
sound outside, he counted: one, one and a half--two minutes.
"It looks as if he couldn't find his cartridges," he said; and then,
with a commanding air, he added, "Sit down; you will need your legs
later."
She sank into one corner of the sofa and he took the other. He laid the
watch between them on the bumpy seat. Both counted now with their
eyes fixed on the minute-hand. "Two and a half--three, three and a
half--four, four and a half--five minutes."
Nothing was to be heard but the wind whistling through the branches.
Then it seemed as if they could hear horses' hoofs in the courtyard and
a trotting away on the other side of the gates.
"Whom can he be going to fetch?" asked Walter. "It hasn't come to
seconds yet."
Lilly saw red suns dancing before her eyes. The ceiling of the room
began to descend on her.
And Walter went on counting: "Seven--eight, eight and a half." Still
nothing. "Nine, nine and a half--ten----" Then he suddenly uttered a
low whistling sound and seized his revolver.
The front door grated on its hinges, steps drew near, but not the
threatening thunder of an outraged husband's, bent on revenge; these
crept softly, catlike, hesitatingly onwards.
Then for a while silence again, only broken by the breathing of two
anxious beings, and of someone else's breathing on the other side of
the door.
"Who is there?" called out Walter.
Next came a tap, low, broken, unassertive, as if made by fingers that
trembled and failed.
"Who the devil is there?" he shouted again.
"Anna von Schwertfeger."
He jumped up and opened the door.
There she stood, ashen-grey, and only red about the mouth and eyelids.
"The colonel has just driven to Baron von Platow's, and will be back in
three hours. He has bidden me tell you, Lilly, that when he returns he
does not wish to find you in his house or on his estate."
"And what has he bidden you tell me?" sneered Walter von Prell.
Fraeulein von Schwertfeger, without heeding him, took Lilly's hand.
"Come," she said, "there's not much time. We must begin packing at
once."
"Yes, but where am I to go?" she asked helplessly as she slowly rose to
her feet.
* * * * *
Directly they were outside she saw the carriage that was to take her to
the station drive up.
PART II
CHAPTER I
She was Lilly Czepanek once more. The divorce suit had been quickly
settled. There had been no attempt at defence, and after the colonel's
evidence the judges decreed that Lilly had forfeited the right for ever
to bear her husband's honourable name.
"There is nothing to rescue from this wreck," wrote Doktor Pieper,
"except the jewels which I hope, acting on my advice about looking in
at shop-windows, you have industriously accumulated. The pearls which
your ex-husband--prompted, I may confess now, by me--put round your
neck on the wedding day I will get permission for you to retain, and
they alone will keep your head above water for many a long day."
In consequence of this letter, Lilly, who after her flight had found
the pearls in one of her trunks among her gala dresses and rare lace,
took them to a jeweller's to be carefully packed, and returned them
then and there, addressed to Fraeulein von Schwertfeger.
The less valuable ornaments she kept, feeling that they might justly be
considered her personal property. She had disposed of a good many to
start with, and what remained would scarcely keep her for another year.
After that she would be destitute. But she did not think of the future.
It was hidden from her behind the veil of tears that she had shed.
Regret for what she had lost, acute consciousness of her grievous
position, occupied her mind to the exclusion of almost everything else.
Oh, how she cried and cried--she understood now what crying meant. She
learnt to gulp down her tears as one gulps down seawater; she sucked
them back with her lower lip, she shook them off her cheeks as if they
were raindrops; but always they gushed forth afresh. After the pain
that caused them was deadened they still welled up, from habit. Whether
she was asleep or awake, her tears came.
Trembling and stunned, without defending herself, without complaints or
reproaches, she had driven away that grey, gusty December evening
between the hour of vespers and nightfall. Away, it did not matter
where, only away as quickly as possible.
She landed in Berlin, the harbour for all wastrels and wrecks. In that
world where oblivion lays its hands in blessing on the heads of
righteous and unrighteous alike; where eternal hopes illumine drab days
of depression like firework sparks; where grief for the past is soon
changed into an eager expectation of coming happiness; where the great
god, Luck, holds sway as lord and master--in that world of the unknown
and stranded, where only those who are old and poor together sink
hopelessly, into that world crept Lilly on her hands and knees. She
stayed in pensions for many a dreary month, frequented by guilty
_divorcees_ who congregate together in such places like apples rotting
in heaps, by Chilian attaches and agents of mysterious businesses in
Bucharest and Alexandria, who gave a tone to the roof they sojourned
under. As inoffensively as she could she avoided the confidences of
companions in tribulation, who wished to console her, and kept at bay
the advances of olive-complexioned neighbours at table.
After a time she began to think of finding a situation. It would have
to be something quite special--something between a lady-in-waiting and
chaperon, which would not be at variance with her former high station
and ladylike dignity.
This sort of position seemed remarkably scarce. The only result of all
her efforts was to win the tender regard of a few old gentlemen who
called on her at dusk and would not go till they were shown the door.
So, utterly discouraged, she gave up calling at employment agencies and
ringing at front doors, though she could not resign herself yet to
joining the ranks of shopgirls and dressmakers' apprentices. The day
was still far off when she would have to do that; indeed, she would
never sink so low, because she was labelled all over "Generalin," and
wherever she went and whatever she did everyone recognised her supreme
gentility.
On this seething human ocean she tossed anchorless, without so much as
a straw to cling to. Nothing but Walter's letter, which two months
after her dismissal and his was forwarded to her by Fraeulein von
Schwertfeger. In it the poor fellow, whose own prospects were utterly
blighted, made an unselfish suggestion of support for her future. It
ran:
"Gracious Friend,
"I am broke. He shot me through the arm. A trifling misfortune when it
happens to someone else, but, when it falls on yourself, a damning
obstacle in the way of founding a career on the other side of the
Atlantic as head-waiter.
"Nevertheless, I cannot be grateful enough to fate for having thrown in
my path so touchingly virtuous and lamblike a guardian angel as my
baronissima. You will readily understand, most dear and too-kind lady,
that I now feel an obligation on my side to act as guardian angel to
you. How is it to be done? There are difficulties in the way,
certainly. Were I to commend you to the care of my former friends and
equals, your future, I am afraid, would be settled too easily, 'For,
still, leaves and virtues ever fall in hours of tenderness.'
"For this reason I prefer to descend a degree lower, to where citizens
crawl on their stomachs before our coronets, even if they be tarnished
and dented.
"In Alte Jakobstrasse in Berlin there dwells a highly respectable
manufacturer of bronze wares, by name Richard Dehnicke. He was a
comrade of the Reserve, and feels himself particularly indebted to me
because I borrowed money from him on more than one occasion. I am
writing to him by the same mail as this. Go boldly in among his lamps
and vases. The former I trust will illumine your nights, and the latter
ornament your path through life. He will not, I believe, demand the
price from you which others of our compatriots customarily consider
their due where pretty women are concerned.
"There must be some cranks in the world, I suppose.
"My address in future will be--
"W. v. P.
"Street-loafer and Fortune's aspirant,
"Chicago (first stockyard on the left).
"PS.--Tommy would send his love, only I took care to plant a bullet in
his forehead before leaving."
Lilly took this last and only communication from her comrade very
calmly. She heard afterwards through Fraeulein von Schwertfeger that he
had sailed for America with a maimed arm. As he could think of her
without bitterness or reproach, so she would try to think of him. Their
love deserved honourable burial, even if its raptures had been a sham,
and its elevated sentiments dragged through the dirt in shame.
He would like to be her "guardian angel," the dear little man had
written. Well, anyhow, his letter offered a certain guarantee of
protection in time of trouble, and indicated where a helping hand would
be held out to her. But the course he advised she had no thought of
adopting. Never would she avail herself of that helping-hand. She was
in deadly terror of desirous masculine eyes reading her face, of
masculine lips pouring out persuasive and convincing arguments.
She would take her fate in her own hands and go her own way. Whither it
would lead her of course was not clear. In truth, grief and anxiety had
rendered her so irresolute, that it needed but a breath of wind to
drift her in a direction that would have decided her future once for
all. The breath of wind, however, did not blow on her.
Month after month went by. Fraeulein von Schwertfeger gave up writing.
Want of money caused her little hoard of jewels to dwindle rapidly. The
pensions she boarded in became more and more modest. Instead of Chilian
attaches and Greek merchants, bankrupt auctioneers and clerks out of
employment offered to cheer her evenings by forcing their company upon
her; and the ladies who paid her visits in soiled tea-gowns glanced
covetously at the few bracelets, brooches, and rings which she still
had left. Thus she decided to end this mode of living and find a new
one.
CHAPTER II
Among highly recommended "best rooms" in Berlin belonging to apartments
which had known much-boasted "better days," and now were let for thirty
marks a week, including breakfast and attendance, to respectable young
gentlewomen, were those of the widow, Klothilde Laue.
The furniture was upholstered in crimson plush, which had been the
latest thing in decorations at the time of the Franco-Prussian war.
There was a long mirror, the sides of which from top to bottom were
fantastically plastered with new years' and birthday cards, and
advertisements of soaps and powders. On the walls hung photographs of
once famous actors, whose fame had meanwhile faded like the ink in
which they had inscribed their autographs. The marble-topped washstand
had an embroidered splasher bearing the following cryptic couplet:
"If you would wash yourself clean,
Take care that your conscience is pure."
There were also endless photograph-albums, card-cases, a sandal-wood
windmill meant to clip cigars, a green frosted glass punch-bowl, and a
rickety pitch-pine bedstead, behind blue woollen curtains. Finally, to
crown all, there hung over the sofa in a gilded glass case a mysterious
globular-shaped creation, consisting of six plaited strands of tissue
paper radiating from a common centre, and through its covering of gauze
an ornamentation of pressed flowers was dimly discernible.
In this best room of 10, Neanderstrasse, situated up four flights of
stairs above a china shop, a piano business on the hire system, and a
studio for repairs, Lilly landed one day, to look out from the window
on the greenish-grey waters of the Engelbecken and a strip of Berlin's
smoky sky.
Frau Laue, an overworked, prematurely aged woman of fifty, with a face
like a dried apple and great eyes that always looked tearful, revolved
round her in incredulous admiration. She seemed unable to grasp that so
much brilliance and beauty had positively strayed into her abode.
On the day of her arrival Lilly heard her whole history. Her husband
had been cashier and book-keeper at one of the most popular variety
theatres in Berlin, but twenty years ago he had died, leaving her
pensionless in an unfeeling world where no rosy stage glamour disguises
solitary tears, and no comic patter stills the pangs of hunger.
At this juncture that mysterious paper-creation, which on nearer
inspection proved to be a lamp-shade, became her salvation. She had
once been made a present of it by an artistic friend, and in her need
she hit on the happy idea of making others after the same pattern and
offering them for sale.
After years of hawking her wares about, after drudgery and
disillusionment of all kinds, she had wrung from the public a market
for "pressed flower lamp-shades," and a reputation as a specialist in
this line of business.
In her back parlour, with one window, which smelt of hay and paste, and
where on a long white deal table lay in their hundreds and thousands
the skeletons of floral denizens of the Thuringian Forest--she could
not, of course, afford the time to gather them herself--she had drudged
for nearly two decades, tapping, daubing, pasting, drying, and
threading sixteen hours a day, and had earned, thanks to her reputation
as a specialist, enough to enable her to let her best room--her
treasure-trove and sanctuary--to a stranger for thirty marks a month.
The two did not long remain strangers, however.
Into the back-room existence of this downtrodden being, before whose
eyes the pictures of a few bedizened ballet-girls shone and glittered
as paragons of unattainable magnificence, Lilly descended from the
real aristocracy like a heaven-born divinity. Her landlady idolised
her as an emissary from regions that she had believed hitherto were
only possible in fiction; where such expressions as "footman,"
"drawing-room," "pearl necklace"--Lilly took care to tell all about
hers--came quite naturally instead of being rolled on the tongue and
allowed slowly to melt as with closed eyes one conjured up the
surroundings to which such a vocabulary belonged.
Frau Laue became in very early days Lilly's confidante and adviser. She
helped her to live down the shame following her divorce, she cheered
her when a feeling of desolation overcame her, and painted for her a
future in radiant colours.
No one need perish in a great powerful miracle-working city like
Berlin. Every day there were dozens of happy chances that might set you
on your legs again. There were lonely old ladies dying to find someone
to whom they could leave their money; there were aristocratic young
ones who yearned to hold out a hand of sympathy and friendship to a
poor, beautiful orphaned sister; there were famous artists who would
gladly escape from the snares laid for them by female admirers in the
arms of a good woman; and there were great poets with whom the post of
muse was vacant. In fact, one of the greatest capitals in the world, it
would appear, had only been waiting for Lilly's advent to lift her to
its throne as conquering heroine.
Again the months passed. Regret for her wasted opportunities became
gradually less acute. Her nights were calmer and no longer disturbed by
this or that scene from her lost paradise rising before her vision with
horrible clearness, when she was in a state between sleeping and
waking, to make her start up and cry aloud.
One lesson, however, she had not learnt, and that was to estimate
correctly how brief had been her sojourn in high places: she could not
accept it as a mere episode that had interrupted the ordinary course of
her real life like a capricious dream. In her inner consciousness she
continued to be a kind of enchanted princess who, in the disguise of a
beggar, went about unknown and unrecognised till such time as Divine
dispensation should reinstate her and restore her lawful rights.
With anxious solicitude she clung to everything that reminded her of
her vanished splendour. In Frau Lane's wardrobe she hung the festive
raiment that the colonel had ordered for her in Dresden, Frau
Lane's empty drawers were filled with the snowy fragrance of her
coronet-embroidered underclothes, and in front of the big mirror in
Frau Lane's best room were ranged the costly ivory and gold toilette
articles, which once had proudly graced her dressing-table in the
"boudoir." These, too, still bore the seven-pointed coronet, and to
think of parting with them would have seemed an outrage to Lilly on her
most sacred property. She stood waiting meanwhile for what the future
would bring forth. She still studied advertisements and wrote letters
applying for vacant situations, but very often forgot to post the
letters.
For the sake of having something to do, and craving for companionship
of some kind, she began to sit with Frau Laue in the back room and help
her with her work. Soon she tapped, cut out, daubed, pasted, and
plaited as diligently as her instructress, and as in her cradle she had
been endowed with a gift and taste for all things artistic, she
speedily excelled Frau Laue, who, when she returned from disposing of
the lamp-shades, would relate without envy that the flower pattern
Lilly had designed had been singled out for admiration, and that the
shades she made were preferred to her own.
Her ambition was aroused. She strove to produce works of art, and never
tired of toiling for this end.
"If you didn't waste so much time over every little bunch of flowers,"
said Frau Laue, who shared honestly with Lilly the proceeds of their
joint labours, "you might earn more than I do."
But Lilly was content with the forty or fifty marks a month that her
work brought in. Her new craze for lamp-shade making led her on to
higher aims. The dried grasses, or grass flowers, as Frau Laue called
them, specially took her fancy. Their slender graceful stalks, the
delicacy of their veinings, the melancholy charm with which they
drooped, reminded her of little forest trees, weeping willows beside
brooks, ashes bending over marble tombs, or palms waving yearning
fronds on torrid rocks.
She dreamt of starting a new kind of art. She would paint on
transparent plaques of glass with dried grass foregrounds. She would
paint lamp-shades and window-blinds with woods of flowering grass and
ferns, with little cottages in relief, with their doors and windows cut
out as if light were shining from inside; fleecy clouds, pink sunsets,
lines of misty hills, dark-blue rivers in which the moon was reflected,
building across them bridges of light.
The pictures succeeded each other in her brain with inexhaustible
fecundity; there seemed no end to them. It was difficult to know where
to begin with such a vast wealth of ideas at one's disposal.
Frau Laue, who had been pasting her oil paper in exactly the same way
for twenty years, had a horror of innovations, and warned Lilly to
stick to her last. But a demon of inventiveness possessed Lilly. One
day she made a tremendous coup. She took her arrow-shaped brooch set
with six small emeralds to a jeweller, who gave her eighty marks for
it--needless to say, the brooch was worth five times as much--and
purchased on her way home after the transaction several cut-glass
plaques, held together in pairs by screws, so that they could be easily
attached to the window-panes. She also invested in a paint-box, and
while Frau Laue clasped her hands in dismay to her head, Lilly set to
work gallantly. But her practical knowledge of art had no foundation
except in the memory of a few water-colour lessons at school, and it
failed her utterly. The colours ran into each other, and the woods in
the foreground would not look as if they had anything to do with the
landscape behind, but remained simply grasses straggling about
objectlessly.
For a long time Lilly struggled to gain her effects, then, crying
bitterly, she threw the rubbish into a corner, and returned sorrowfully
to lamp-shades again.
Frau Laue, who had sulked and scarcely spoken during the weeks of
Lilly's apostacy, began once more to make plans and to build castles in
the air for her. All the wild schemes that for the last twenty years
had taken shape in her poor brain were now, when she had no hope of
maturing them for herself, freely poured into Lilly's outstretched
palm.
She listened eagerly, yet as her days passed thus a feeling of
depression grew--almost imperceptibly. She felt herself sinking into
this sordid groove, and a feeling of repulsion took possession of her
for the narrow-minded creature in whose great moist red-rimmed eyes
still lingered a hope for an unattainable happiness, though her
lamp-shade drudgery had brought her nearly to the brink of the grave.
This repulsion was often so powerful that she was compelled to rush
out; she didn't care where so long as it was out into the world, into
life.
She did not stay long; in an hour or less she was back again. The
streets frightened her. The painted women who jostled her, the bold,
adventurous youths who followed on her heels, the callous indifference
with which everyone elbowed his way through the hurly-burly--all this
scared and made a coward of her.
A gloomy foreboding told her that she would never regain her
self-reliant joy in combat. When she compared what she was now with the
little shopgirl who gave out Frau Asmussen's trashy volumes in
sheltered security, confident that she was doing her duty and always in
the right, even when beaten for telling lies and obviously in the
wrong, she felt she was a helpless straw drifting on the waters.
Then this waiting, waiting; this sleepless, hungry waiting! What for?
She did not know herself. But something must happen. She could not
exist for ever among these snippets of oiled paper, live and die making
lamp-shades. Sometimes the thought of Walter's rich manufacturer of
bronze wares cropped up in her mind with a longing which had to be
suppressed. She was alarmed to find herself clinging to this shadow,
and chased it away.
A year had passed since that letter of introduction was written. It
would be far too late to avail herself of it now. So she went on
waiting.
Often as she undressed and caught the reflection of herself in the
glass, her form consecrated by beauty, round and slender limbed, her
long-lashed wistful eyes, her ripe mouth shaped for kisses, she would
be seized with glad ecstasy, and say to herself, "Am I like that?" And
then she would revel in a sense of her youth and readiness for love.
Then the whole world seemed there for no other object than to press her
to its heart. Then this dreary round of drudgery was a good thing in
disguise, for it was bracing her up for flights of intoxicating
enjoyment. When she stretched herself on the sofa at dusk to rest, and
she saw the blue flash made by the electric tramcars flit across the
ceiling, blissful dreams stole upon her and transformed that burning
fever of expectancy into half-fulfilled delights; a feeling of having
been saved rose like a thanksgiving in her soul, and what she had been
bewailing as lost happiness became nothing but a nightmare from which
she was grateful to be relieved. But these moods were rare, and they
resembled the mirage of thirsty travellers rather than the refreshing
waters.
* * * * *
The winter passed in rain and fog; mild March evenings came when rosy
cloudlets floated over the housetops, and then spring was really there.
The trim little trees in the squares put forth their brown buds, which
by degrees burst into pale green leaves. Lilly saw as little of the
riot of blossom out of doors, the white foam of the cherry-trees, the
red glory of the hawthorn, as she had done when she swept the golden
dust that sprang from Frau Asmussen's bookcases. Frau Laue did not care
to take walks and expose herself to temptation. For to see a park and
not collect plants, a garden gate, and not thrust your hand through it
to pick flowers, was to her an altogether inconceivable act of
self-restraint. Lilly would not go out without her, for she dreaded
being alone in a crowd.
Warm, oppressive Sunday afternoons followed, when endless troops of
townsfolk make pilgrimages to the suburbs and country round, when the
streets stretch away in empty desolation, and the sultry skies seem to
weigh down suffocatingly on the unfortunate people left at home,
panting within four walls. On such afternoons Frau Laue put on a pair
of real Rhinestone earrings, a brown velveteen dress with a collar of
black sequins on the square-cut neck, and in this festive attire paid
Lilly a formal visit in the best room. Then the Dresden evening gowns
came out of the wardrobe, and entered into competition with those worn
twenty-five years ago by frail ladies in the stage box of the variety
theatre. The faded photographs of long-extinguished stars would be
brought down from the wall and their charms examined. Apropos of these,
thrilling stories would be related of personal adventures, in which,
amid much laxity of morals and gay peccadilloes, matrimonial fidelity
had maintained its modest value.
The summer Sunday afternoon would wear away, wan and exhausted as a
fever patient, a stifling breeze blow in at the window. The varnish on
the cheap rosewood furniture would reek, the houses opposite shine as
if they were perspiring, and Frau Laue, munching her bread and cheese,
would once more repeat the oft-told tale of her virtuous married life.
When at last she took her departure, Lilly would sink groaning on her
bed, hide her face in the stuffy pillows, and listen to the shouts of
the merry-makers in the street below returning from their trips. The
next morning the pressing and pasting of flowers would begin again with
renewed vigour.
July came, and she could stand it no longer. One Monday morning, when
daylight found her awake and waiting, her pillow soaked with tears, a
sudden longing for life so warm and irresistible filled her heart that
she bounded out of bed with an exultant cry.
Resolve cried within her, "I'll do it to-day--to-day! Go on a begging
expedition to that unknown man." No, it would not be begging. God
forbid! Long ago she had settled in her mind what line she would take.
She would merely ask for advice such as he, a connoisseur with a wide
experience in arts and crafts, would be able to give the inquiring
amateur, anxious to learn, in a few minutes.
Where and how she could get good lessons in painting transparencies on
glass plaques, was the question she wanted to ask him. And whatever his
answer might be, it would be the first step in a new phase of life.
CHAPTER III
Was it the path of fate that she pursued?
The street looked the same as usual. Vans rumbled along, housewives
crowded in front of the butchers' doing their marketing, young men
hurried by with rolls of music and books under their arms, but were not
in too great a hurry to turn round and look after her, causing her, as
of old, mingled feelings of satisfaction and annoyance.
The path of fate? Yes, said the throbbing of her heart. She felt almost
as if she were on her way to exhibit herself for sale. Herself? How
much was there of her left, of her little stock of pride, of her faith
in herself as one of the elect, her belief in the great miracle that
was to happen to her? How much?
Her walk took over an hour. She lost her way and was put right by
policemen. She stopped to look at her reflection in the shop-windows,
for she was afraid of not pleasing. But every time she saw the soft
curves of her slight tall figure, with its nonchalant dignity of
carriage, she breathed a sigh of relief.
At last, when she read the name of the street in which he lived, she
started. She had hoped in secret that she would not be able to find it
after all, and have to go home. There was nothing remarkable about his
house. It was a grey four-storied building, with a wide unadorned
entrance, across which a board was erected.
Liebert and Dehnicke,
Bronze Founders and Manufacturers of Metal Wares
was inscribed in gold letters on a massive wrought-iron plate, which
extended half the width of the house.
From the opposite side of the street she took in every detail,
still asking herself whether she should not turn round and go home.
The windows on the first floor were closely hung with delicate
primrose-coloured curtains embroidered with gold thread in a broken
conventional pattern. Out of snow-white china flower-pots nodded
geraniums and pinks, and on the whole everything here looked better
kept and more prosperous than its surroundings.
"He lives on that floor, I expect," she thought, feeling slightly awed
at the chaste severity of the exterior decorations.
Then she took heart, crossed the street, and made straight for the door
of latticed ironwork, which was close to the carriage entrance, and
probably led up to that impressive first floor. But this door was fast
locked, and before ringing she glanced through the lattice and beheld a
stately garden stairway flanked by cypresses and laurels ascending to a
landing where a stained-glass window cast ruby and sapphire rays on a
fair white statue. It was the bust of Clytie, which she had always
admired in the art shops because of its gentle melancholy.
Her heart sank again at all this splendour. She seemed unworthy of
breaking in on such decorous calm, so she sprang down the steps again
and preferred to enter by the general entrance, where some workmen were
busy facing the bare bricks with ornamental stucco. In the yard men
were at work, too. The cobble-stones, with which it had evidently been
hitherto covered, were piled in clumsy heaps, and mosaic tiles with
white circles on a grey ground, such as one sees in churches, were
being laid. At the back of the yard rose the red bald brick walls of
the factory itself. But this too appeared to be included in the
universal beautifying scheme, and was undergoing alterations. As far as
the second story the walls were being inlaid with a dado of yellow and
blue, which looked very gay. In fact, the old dingy aspect of the yard
was being gradually converted into the elegance of a room.
"They are doing things artistically here," Lilly thought, and felt
still more nervous.
On her left she saw a corner building that so far had escaped a
drop of renovating paint or varnish. In contrast to the rest, its bare
plaster walls presented a dirty, chalky, and almost forlorn appearance.
At the top of its plain iron steps was a brass tablet bearing the
words "Office" on its face. Lilly ascended the steps and entered an
ill-lighted dusty apartment divided into two parts by a wooden railing.
In the farther division half a dozen young men sat at desks covered
with shabby green baize. At her entrance they riveted their eyes on her
in gaping astonishment, and it did not apparently occur to any of them
to ask what she wanted. It was evident that such a dazzling apparition
as herself had never been seen in the office within the memory of man.
Not till she had taken a card from her brocaded wrist-bag and laid it
silently on the table did the petrified company show signs of life.
Then they all jumped up with one accord and scuffled for the card. It
was almost a free fight.
A lank, pasty, overgrown youth, who seemed to have authority over the
rest, finally sent the others back to their places, and bowing and
scraping to Lilly, murmured that he would inform "the Chief" of her
presence, and he disappeared with the card in his hand into a back
room.
A few moments elapsed. Lilly heard through the half-open door a lowered
voice say, "Czepanek? Don't know the name. Ask her what she wants.
What's she like?"
The answer, which was inaudible, lasted several seconds and evidently
was satisfactory, for the clerk came out, and without further inquiry
let Lilly through, and ushered her into the private room at the back of
the office.
Now she saw him in the flesh. He was a thick-set man, of middle
height--shorter than she was--inclined to corpulency, with a round
fresh-complexioned face, nice greyish-blue eyes, without any
expression, a high forehead, and arched eyebrows. His hair was light
brown, brushed smoothly back from his temples, and his moustache turned
up abruptly at the ends to mark the Lieutenant. He had remarkably small
ears and small hands. His whole person breathed scrupulous neatness and
cleanliness, and, if anything, he was too well groomed.
He was clearly taken aback when he saw Lilly. His eyes widened with
polite amazement.
Consciousness that she had made an impression gave her back her
self-assurance and _sang-froid_. Not in vain had she gone through
Fraeulein von Schwertfeger's training.
"The introduction of a mutual friend, who has, I think, prepared you
for my visit, brings me to you," she began, inwardly rejoiced to have a
chance once more of playing the great lady.
In a mirror hanging opposite Lilly saw with satisfaction the reflection
of her heliotrope toque, with its wreath of violets and swathing of
tulle, her heliotrope tailor-made costume, with its correctly cut long
coat, and felt as if she had stepped out of the picture of a society
portrait-painter.
In silence he offered her a chair. The surprise that his manner had at
first shown was succeeded by an air of distrustful perplexity.
Apparently he was puzzled as to her social rank.
His head was inclined slightly to the left, as if it were stiff from a
recent attack of rheumatism. This pose increased Lilly's suspicion that
he did not altogether trust her.
She looked down at her brocaded wrist-bag and pretended to be
suppressing a smile.
He grew more embarrassed. "May I ask," he stammered, "who the mutual
friend ... er ... is? I don't seem to ... recollect."
He turned over the visiting-card, which his clerk had handed to him, in
desperation.
She shrank from being forced into mentioning the name of her former
lover, and so exposing her shame to this man who lived behind china
flower-pots.
"Is it possible that you don't remember," she answered hesitatingly,
"receiving a letter from a comrade in your regiment, asking you to
interest yourself in a ... a lady----?"
He jumped to his feet and flushed to the roots of his hair. His pupils
dilated so visibly between his wide-stretched lids that she thought his
eyes were going to start out of his head.
"I beg your pardon," he stammered. "You refer to a letter which I had
nearly a year and a half ago from Lieutenant von Prell?"
"Yes," Lilly said.
"But, gracious baroness," he exclaimed, completely losing his
self-possession, "if I had suspected ... could have had the least idea
that the gracious baroness ..." And his face depicted so much
grovelling reverence that Lilly's feeling of innate aristocracy again
came to the surface, but he had to be undeceived.
"I call myself Lilly Czepanek now," she murmured, congratulating
herself on the happy phrase, "I call myself," which left it open for
him to suppose that she had chosen voluntarily to resume her maiden
name.
Alarm at the blunder he imaged himself to have committed was to be read
on his features.
"I am sorry," he said; "I ought to have remembered that the gracious
baroness must have gone through many trials." Then he blurted out: "Why
didn't you come sooner? I waited, waited, and waited a month, six
months.... Then I started searching for you, with no results; but I
half thought of employing a detective, only I feared to transgress the
bounds of delicacy ..."
Lilly nodded encouragingly. She appreciated his scruples.
"Unfortunately, it never struck me to search for you under another
name.... So I had to abandon the hope of ever having the great
pleasure ..."
Here, in the intensity of his emotions of delight, he would have
grasped her hand, but he had the tact to resist the impulse when he saw
that she did not respond.
Lilly was conscious of being mistress of the situation. She felt so
saturated with the romance of martyrdom, so surrounded by the delicious
incense of lofty aloofness, that it was as if she had stepped out of
the pages of one of Frau Asmussen's novels into the light of day.
"I am grateful to you, Herr--Lieutenant." She could not bring the
plebeian name of Dehnicke over her lips. "Now I fed that I have not
knocked at your door in vain."
"I can assure you," he replied, cocking his head still more to the left
as a sign of his good-will, "that I place myself entirely at your
service, all I am and all I----" He was going to say "have," but as an
astute man of business he hesitated to commit himself so lightly.
"Of course, I shall not impose on you too much," she replied airily, in
order to damp his ardour a little. "I simply wish to be put in the way
of earning my living, and to have someone who will advise me, and, as
Herr von Prell"--now his name was spoken--"said that I might have
absolute confidence in you----"
"Indeed, you may rely on me as on yourself," he could not forbear from
assuring her.
"That would not mean much," she thought, but took care not to betray
what passed through her mind by even a smile.
"Have you, by-the-by, heard anything from him lately?" he asked.
She blushed. To admit that she hadn't would expose his treatment of
her. So, not to appear in the light of being neglected and cast off,
she said:
"We promised each other at parting not to write. We thought it would be
best in the struggle that lay before us not to be always looking out
for letters, and expecting to hear from one another. But you probably
have heard from him, have you not?"
He started and reflected a moment. "Yes ... that is to say ... not
recently.... Some time back he wrote that he was getting on all right.
He was starting a career. He made urgent inquiries after the gracious
baroness's whereabouts, and I, of course, was not fortunate enough to
be able to enlighten him."
This sounded scarcely likely. A moment before he had asked her for news
of Walter, and now when she asked him what Walter's address was, he was
compelled to confess that his letter had given no address.
It was plain that he had lied.
It may have been that he hoped to raise her opinion of him by
representing himself to be still on terms of friendship with her lover,
and, as she for a similar motive had not strictly adhered to the truth,
she could not very well blame him.
She now went on to explain the purpose of her visit. She told him of
her difficulties with the delicate art which she had taken up a few
months ago, of her desire to improve and perfect herself. Would he be
so kind as to put her on the right road by recommending some artist who
would give her lessons? This was really the only reason why she had
called on him.
He listened with close attention, as if he took a professional interest
in her future. But behind his gravity there lay something that
disquieted her. It was certainly not pity, rather was it a sort of
restraint, a concealment of the fact that the more she revealed the
helplessness of her position the more he felt he was gaining some
advantage.
"A perfectly simple matter, gracious Frau," he replied, and his manner
was more natural than heretofore. "I have several good painters among
the artists who supply models for my business. One of them," he turned
over the pages of an address-book, "Kellermann ... is the very man ...
but of that we can talk later. What seems to me of the first importance
in the art you have chosen are other things. So you will pardon my
indiscretion, I hope, if I ask you a few questions?"
She nodded assent.
"What training have you had in Art?"
"That is just it," she replied, struggling with her embarrassment; "it
is because I have had no training that I want to learn."
He did not move a muscle.
"What are your means of support?" he asked next.
She was silent. She began to feel as if she were being stripped of
every rag she had on.
"You understand, of course," he added, "that I haven't the least
intention of prying into your private affairs, but as you did me the
honour of asking my advice ..."
"I have a few ornaments," she said, looking him straight in the eyes
with proud defiance. "When they come to an end I shall have nothing."
He inclined his head as much as to say, "I thought so."
"And one more question: Where are you living at present?"
"I am living, as befits my means, up four flights of stairs with a poor
woman who has taught me how to press flowers."
As she said this she caught sight, in the glass opposite, of the
elegant woman of the world who had condescended to pay Herr Dehnicke,
"comrade of the Reserves," a visit in his gloomy hole of an office.
He rose and paced up and down a few seconds between the writing-table
and door. His clothes were so tight and new that he crackled and
creaked at every movement. He looked as if he had just stepped out of a
bandbox, he was so polished and rotund. He was a little bit bald too,
already. His face remained very serious, almost careworn. It seemed as
if her hard lot weighed him to the earth.
"My dear madam," he began, pausing in front of her, and his voice
trembled a little, "what I am going to say to you is only prompted by
the memory of the many years of sincere friendship that have existed
between Herr von Prell and me ..."
The scornful, patronising way in which Walter had referred to him in
his letter came back to Lilly.
"I have had so many happy, jolly hours in his society. I am indebted to
him for so much kindness ..." He stopped. He could not, indebted as he
was, name the kindness.... "All my life long I shall be grateful to
him."
Lilly recalled Walter's words: "He feels himself particularly indebted
to me because I borrowed money from him on more than one occasion."
It was really refreshing to meet with such touching loyalty.
"But what I am most grateful to him for is that he should place such
confidence in me as to entrust his fiancee to my care."
"Fiancee!" Her ears had not deceived her; he had actually pronounced
the word. She was startled, but did not contradict him. Until that
moment it had never entered her head to consider that there was any
binding tie between her and Walter--the poor little irresponsible
fellow who could not be expected to look after himself, much less a
wife and child. But in the eyes of this man of middle-class morals, and
perhaps not only in his but in the eyes of the world, and in her own,
the only excuse for her irregular, bungled existence lay in this
contingency. If she centred all her hopes and wishes on the absent one
whom she never imagined she would see again, she would have a new
anchor to cling to. She might even justify herself before God and hope
for absolution.
This all flashed through her mind while Herr Dehnicke continued to
assure her of his friendship for Walter, and fasten on her round eyes
of disinterested adoration.
"As his representative, and for his sake," he said, coming to the
point, "I would urge you most seriously, dear madam, to quit
surroundings that are not congenial to you, and find others more
fitting to your former rank. It is absolutely necessary if you wish to
put your plans into execution."
"What have my surroundings to do with my art?" she asked, shrugging her
shoulders.
"Well, to begin with, you certainly must have a studio in which you can
receive your customers, ... where you can show them who you are, and
what you can do, and how far you are capable of carrying out your
designs. This is the only method of ensuring those who give you orders
treating you as a crafts-woman and not a mere ordinary work-woman."
"But they won't come to me to give their orders," she interposed.
"They should do so, undoubtedly," he exclaimed, working himself up into
a decorous enthusiasm. "An artist who has any self-respect ought never
to step outside his door to offer his wares to the public, and I advise
you to act on this principle."
She mentally calculated the number of rings, pendants, and bracelets
that she had left, and replied, smiling:
"It's more easily said than done."
He grew bold. "My old and intimate friendship with Walter"--he used
his Christian name for the first time--"entitles me to the privilege
of--how shall I put it?--making provision ..."
She foresaw what was coming and choked him off.
"I am quite content where I am," she declared. "And till I am able, out
of my own resources, to provide myself with the surroundings you are
kind enough to wish for me, I do not feel justified in making a
change."
He bowed, his zeal perceptibly cooled. He asked her at least to leave
her present address, so that he might send her the desired information.
Hesitating, she gave the number and name of the street where she
lodged, and added the request that he would not think of calling on
her.
He bowed again stiffly. His coolness increased and he became almost
rigid.
She felt glad that she had understood so well how to keep him at a
distance. No one could say she was a beggar after this.
She took leave graciously, for it was not her intention to snub him too
mercilessly.
He was quick to take advantage of her warmer tone, and became ardent
again.
"Was there anything else that he could do for her?... Did she feel
lonely? Did she wish for society?"
She glanced at his right hand, on which there was no wedding-ring, and
shook her head, smiling.
He had perfectly understood both glance and smile, and, struggling with
a fresh attack of embarrassment, he cleared his throat and said:
"I live alone with my mother, but, unfortunately, I cannot ask you to
come and see her, as she is in very poor health, and since my father's
death sees nobody. But I might introduce you to a few people of
irreproachable position, of course if you cared to know them."
"Thank you very much," Lilly replied patronisingly. "Naturally, I
should take for granted that you would only introduce me to nice
people. But, in spite of that, I think I would rather not. It will be
best, at present, for me to do without society."
With this she made a regal inclination of her head, held out her hand,
and departed.
He followed her deferentially to the door, and the six young gentlemen
stood up with one accord in a row and bowed like their master.
She passed out through the unfinished alterations in the courtyard,
with flushed cheeks. When she was out in the street her mood was one of
mingled triumph and disappointment. "No, that was _not_ my path of
fate," she said to herself.
But she had unexpectedly acquired a fiance, and that was something.
CHAPTER IV
August Kellermann passed for an artist of considerable reputation,
though his pictures did not sell. He was a sharp-witted, sharp-tongued,
good-natured person in the middle of the thirties, well-versed in all
the vices of the capital. He had a sandy Rubens beard, prominent little
eyes, with an eternal weariness in them as if he had never been in bed
the night before.
He rented a studio that had once been a photographer's. It was of huge
dimensions, like a magnified glass case. He had draped the roof, as a
protection from glare and heat, with Turkish rugs propped by poles,
giving his studio the air of a Bedouin's tent.
When Lilly stepped out of the dim twilight of the anteroom into the
garish brilliance of the studio, which was so lofty it seemed part
of the sky, she found him in a plum-coloured overall, with green
down-at-heel slippers over which his red plaid socks hung in rucks,
seated on the floor, beside an Oriental coffee apparatus, stirring an
extinguished spirit-lamp.
"Good Lord!" he exclaimed, without getting up to return her greeting;
"this is a visit worth having."
Lilly turned to go away again, and he immediately sprang to his feet,
pulled up his trousers, and with a shrug of his shoulders dusted a
bamboo chair with his sleeve.
"Sit down, my child. Though I have nearly given up painting for
pottery, and couldn't make use of Helen of Troy herself as a model, I
am not going to let you slip through my fingers."
Lilly handed him her benefactor's letter of introduction, and pointed
out his mistake. "Now he'll change his behaviour," she thought. But
nothing of the sort happened.
"What a bore!" he said, scratching his head. "Most noble of women, why
are you so beautiful? Ex-general's wife!"--here she was, labelled
again--"I should have expected eye-glasses and pimples, and _you_ come
along!"
"You probably know my reasons for coming to you?" asked Lilly, too
downhearted to resent his manner.
He clapped his fleshy hand to his forehead.
"Let me see! Let me see! The worthy Dehnicke, who is my dry-bread
giver--'dry' referring to giver as well as bread--did, I think, mention
the matter to me a day or two ago; but I suffer from a congenital
dulness of comprehension, perhaps you will kindly ... er ...?"
Lilly explained what she wanted, and he burst into uncontrollable
laughter.
"Yes, my fair noblewoman, I'll give you the benefit of my
instruction--and would do it, even if you hadn't entered the world like
Venus! Such a chance doesn't come in my way every day. I promise to
charm sunsets out of the sky and perpetrate them on glass for you in
hues so vivid that you'll never care to look a raspberry in the face
again."
Lilly was quite aware that if she had stood on her dignity as
"noblewoman" she would have at once left the studio. But her desire to
turn his readiness to teach her to account was too strong. She could
not sacrifice the opportunity so carefully obtained.
"I wonder what Anna von Schwertfeger would say?" she thought. And then,
with a toss of her head, she said:
"There are certain preliminaries to be arranged before we go on. First,
I wish to know distinctly what your terms are, so that I may make up my
mind whether I can afford your services."
He looked a little dashed, and said that he supposed Herr Dehnicke
would arrange the matter.
"Herr Dehnicke has nothing at all to do with my financial affairs," she
replied. "Should there be any misunderstanding on this point ..." She
took up her sunshade; her gloves were already on.
"Now, now, don't be so hasty," he said; and after reflecting a few
moments he, named a charge of five marks for the morning's lesson.
"My ruby ring will just do it," Lilly thought, and agreed to the sum.
"Well," he said, "I am curious as to the other preliminaries."
"It's only this. I wish to be treated like a lady."
"Ah, indeed! I'm not refined enough for you, eh? But I tell you I can
be as much as you like. I have six degrees of refinement, so you've
only got to choose: extra refined, super-refined, highly refined,
medium refined, unrefined, and beastly vulgar. Now take your choice."
Lilly was so delighted with this pleasantry and others of the same
sort, that she yielded her claims to consideration as a _grande dame_,
and was content to be on terms of "hail fellow, well met" with him so
long as he didn't pay compliments. However, her reminder was not
without effect, and when she came again the next day he had even put on
a pair of boots.
On the whole, he proved to be an intelligent and kindly master, who did
not expect too great things of his pupil; and took an encouraging
interest in her childish ambition. He contrived a medium out of
gelatine especially for her work, which threw up the brilliancy of the
transparent colouring, and he was indefatigable in suggesting new
combinations.
"I'll make you half a dozen blood-red sunsets," he said, "that will
knock all competitors out of the field, including that unconscionable
old lady who commits the most glaring impertinences. I mean, of course.
Dame Nature."
While she splashed colour on a window-pane he stood smoking Turkish
tobacco and chewing ginger before one of the modelling easels that
filled the middle of the studio. Here he "pottered" away, as he
expressed it, at his modelling in bronze. For the most part it was
human figure that he created out of "the depths of his soul," half or
three parts life-size: armoured knights with banners, girls in old
German dress with problematically outstretched arms, allegorical female
forms likewise employed, heralds trumpeting, and now and again
impressionist nudity, long, too-slim limbs, and nixie bodies wriggling
off into mermaids' tails; ash-trays, finger-bowls, and other
utilitarian articles. And all the time there hung or leaned against
the walls, covered with dust, half-finished pictures and sketches of
daring originality and riotous delight in colour, every one stamped
with unpremeditated power and joyous ease in execution. There was a
half-ruined chapel in a tropical forest, on the high altar of which a
herd of monkeys were gambolling; in a monotonous desert background a
group of stubborn-eyed camels drew round the dead body of a lion,
sniffing it; best of all was the nude figure of a woman loaded with
chains, her white limbs shining out in relief from a rugged barren
rock, and round her head swooping a horde of red-eyed vultures. There
was much else that showed restrained strength and wealth of
imagination; but the woman in chains remained Lilly's favourite.
One day she ventured to ask her master why he left all these things
unfinished, instead of working them up for exhibitions.
"Because I have to turn out pot-boilers, you unsuspecting angel," he
replied, laughing, and slapped a clod of wet clay against the leg of
the allegorical lady whom he had in hand; "because the world wants
lamp-stands and flower-vases, but no immortal beauty, with mother-wit
inside her body to boot; ... because there are manufacturers of
imitation bronze wares who keep you from the workhouse; and because I
am a chap with sound teeth who wants a few crusts of life to masticate
after twenty years of fasting, and will hunt for once with the
worshippers of Dionysus. Can you, with your five-o'clock tea soul,
grasp that ...?"
"But could you not at least finish the woman with the chains?" she
urged.
He broke into a shrill laugh of self-contempt, and threw himself full
length on the fur-covered couch which stood in the most shadowed corner
of the glass-walled room. Then he sprang up again and offered Lilly
ginger out of the pot he always kept handy.
She thanked him and pressed for an answer to her question.
"Dear God! Have you no conception of how heavily loaded everyone is in
this world with his own chains? Divine fire would have to descend from
heaven and melt my handcuffs or the goddess herself must appear in the
flesh, throw her clothes on that chair, and say, 'Here I am, dear sir.
This is the body born from the foam.... Now, fire away; look and paint
your fill.'"
He had stopped in front of her, chewing ginger, and raised his clasped
hands to her in an attitude of petition.
"How funny you are!" she said in confusion. "What does it concern me?"
"I am not going to say," he said. "I am by a long way too damnably full
of respect.... But if one day my chain-loaded beauty is sick of crying
to be set free--she cries to be set free day and night, and often keeps
me awake--then maybe a miracle will come to pass and someone who is now
flushing up to her eyes will come and----"
"I think we had better go on with our work," Lilly cut him short.
From that day she was careful to keep off the subject of the picture,
and she did not dare so much as to glance across at it if Herr
Kellermann was looking; but, all the same, he made constant allusions
to his presumptuous idea, which seemed to obsess him, and at last Lilly
had to forbid him to mention it.
Her enthusiasm for her work grew day by day. She was not content with
the lessons in the studio, she practised at home, and when she tried
her newly acquired talent on the glass plaques she had purchased, the
results were, both in her own and Frau Laue's opinion, highly
creditable. The sunsets ran blood-red over cornflower blue hills, and
in the foreground stood dark silent primaeval forests of grass and
ferns, shading huts which had been built and brilliantly illuminated
apparently by a prehistoric race of men.
She had never shown any of her performances to her master, for
he had declared that he could not on principle tolerate such
paste-and-scissors atrocities. But Herr Dehnicke would have been
interested, she was sure, in her progress, and she would dearly have
loved to show him her works of art.
Unfortunately, since his letter of introduction to Herr Kellermann she
had heard no more from him, and she felt a little piqued at being so
easily forgotten.
One day Herr Kellermann said suddenly: "By Jove! The bronze business
has begun to boom all at once. Our Herr Dehnicke keeps me at it with
orders. He's up here nearly every day to see how things are getting
on."
Something in his manner as he said this, with his eyes blinking at her,
made Lilly redden and feel uncomfortable, though it filled her at the
same time with a quiet satisfaction. And when at last the seven pairs
of glass plaques were finished, she was so brimming over with pride in
them that she couldn't keep it all to herself, and boldly wrote him a
note on her superb ivory paper, with the seven-pointed gold coronet, of
which she had about twenty sheets left. Would he, she wrote, come next
Sunday afternoon, as he had been so good as to take an interest in her
work?
An answer came at once. Nothing could have given him greater pleasure
than her kind letter; he had been longing to come and see her, and he
hoped that she wouldn't doubt that it was only out of regard for her
wishes that he had kept away.
On the appointed Sunday afternoon he appeared. Lilly arranged a plant
of gladiolas in the punch-bowl, and pink carnations round the box
containing the specimen lamp-shade. Fastened against the windows by
ribbon bows hung the glorious sunsets like conflagrations, casting a
magic glow over the room and the tawdry treasures which Frau Laue had
preserved with her own character from "better times." Lilly presented a
gay and charming appearance in the white lace blouse washed and ironed
by her own hands; and when she went to receive her guest, who stood at
the door in patent-leather boots, with a top-hat in his hand, she was
quite the self-possessed, condescending, unapproachable fine lady who
had entered his office a few weeks before.
Her benefactor was all the more embarrassed. He sniffed the frowsy
odour which reached Frau Laue's best room from the other part of the
house, cast uneasy glances at the walls, and behaved altogether as if
he were poaching on forbidden ground.
He could not express how happy he was that she had at last given him
permission to call ... he had not wished to be intrusive ... he would
have deferred coming still longer if her note had not set his mind at
rest ... and so on. He repeated all he had said in his letter in a
nervous, stumbling way, which was hardly in keeping with his elegant
attire and naturally frigid manner.
She, on her side, thanked him in a friendly tone for all the favours he
had done her, and she was sorry to have given him the trouble of coming
to see her; and as she said all this she felt, against her will, quite
the "Frau Generalin" doing the honours of her drawing-room with
sociable courtesy.
By degrees she brought the conversation round to her work, deplored her
artistic incompetence, and pointed to the sunsets glowing on the
window-panes.
Herr Dehnicke sprang up, and after a moment's silent contemplation
burst into raptures of enthusiasm, for each of which he had to draw
fresh breath and repeat himself rather mechanically, while he
maintained an awkward smile. But Lilly was far too delighted to suspect
that his favourable criticism wasn't genuine. He asked if she had shown
the transparencies to Herr Kellermann, She confessed that she had
lacked the courage. "Besides, I wanted you to see them first," she
said.
His eyes did her grateful homage as he remarked, "If you haven't yet
done so, I strongly advise you to omit it altogether. The man, obliging
as he seems, is really a mass of professional conceit, and he would
probably ..."
He seemed afraid to say more.
Lilly plucked up courage to ask casually, as if it didn't matter much,
whether he thought she would find purchasers for her work.
He was silent again, and scratched meditatively the place to which the
left end of his moustache was glued. Then, putting his round smooth
head very much on one side, he said, carefully weighing his words:
"You had much better, dear lady, entrust the sale of your stuff to me.
You see, I have my customers, and I know what buying is. I might set
your glass-work in bronze frames or something similar, and they would
pass, doubtless, as goods of my own."
Gratitude bubbled up warmly within her.
"Oh, will you really do that?" she cried, grasping his hand. "I shall
be very pleased to let you, till I have found customers for myself."
The pressure of her hand turned him scarlet to the roots of his hair.
"To achieve that," he said, looking the other way bashfully, "it is
above all things necessary that the gracious baroness doesn't hesitate
any longer to establish herself in a home that is worthy of her."
"I shall be only too glad," she replied merrily, "when I can afford
it."
"It may be years before you can," he interposed.
"Well, I don't mind waiting years."
"Allow me," he stammered, "to remind you once more, that as an old and
intimate friend of your fiance, I am entitled----"
She drew herself up. "If my fiance," she said, "was, or is ever likely
to be, in a position to support me, I perhaps should not refuse; but as
matters stand I can permit no one in the world, not even his dearest
friend, to make me offers that can only humiliate me in the end."
She turned her face aside to hide how hurt she felt.
He instantly hung his head in penitence, nevertheless there was a gleam
of triumph in his eyes.
It was then arranged that one of his vans should call the next day for
the transparencies, and business thus being concluded, he begged
modestly to be allowed to stay a few minutes longer. He would so enjoy
a little chat about the absent friend; he had so few opportunities.
"I shall enjoy it too," Lilly responded, inviting him to sit down.
"It's a great happiness for me to find someone who knows my fiance."
The word "fiance" now fell glibly from her lips as something quite
natural. As the chance of his staying longer had been foreseen and
provided for, she had only to ring, and Frau Laue appeared in the
famous brown velvet gown with the black sequin square decolletage,
which was now decorously filled in with one of Lilly's white silk
fichus. She bore a tea-tray with two dainty cups of mocha coffee; and
when presented to Herr Dehnicke she made a curtsey, which would have
graced a ball at Prince Orloffski's. After she had added a few remarks
about the great histrionic artists of the past and the photographs to
which they had affixed their autographs at her special request, she
retired, as it beseemed her to do.
Then Lilly displayed her charms as a hostess, and with the aroma of
mocha coffee the spirit of "better days" pervaded everything.
* * * * *
Nearly a week later the post brought Frau Lilly Czepanek a money-order
for two hundred and ten marks, from Richard Dehnicke, of the firm of
Liebert & Dehnicke, metal-ware craftsmen, "Due for seven landscapes
painted on glass, with dried flowers, sold at thirty marks apiece."
Thus the foundation of a future career seemed to be laid.
CHAPTER V
Bright times followed. With part of the sum she had earned, Lilly
invested in new materials, and soon more sunsets flared behind woods of
dried grass and flowers pasted on glass.
As she lay sleepless, through the hot summer nights, from overwork, she
made plans of all the great things she would do when her art had
conquered the world. She would have a workshop like Herr Dehnicke's,
and employ a dozen women-hands with Frau Laue as forewoman. Then she
would advertise for her lost father, and move her poor insane mother to
an expensive private asylum.
She would, of course, provide for Walter too. Now that she had worked
herself up into imagining herself his fiancee, it would be her duty,
and she cheerfully took the responsibility on her shoulders. He must,
however, first make some sign, or how was she to know where he was? She
felt sure that one day, when he had no one to turn to, he would think
of her, and find some way of communicating with her. Then out of her
abundance she would send him money without stint, all that her art
poured into her lap.
No, not all. She must think first of that great and sacred task which
dominated her life with such a gigantic influence. Whether she traced
her father or not, his work, his immortal masterpiece, must never be
allowed to sink into oblivion. Awaiting its resurrection, the score of
"The Song of Songs" still lay slumbering at the bottom of Lilly's
locked box, but it slumbered not quite so dreamlessly as in past years.
It began to be restive and to exhort, sobbing and humming an
accompaniment to the day's work, breaking out in the night and at other
times, when one least expected it, into harmonies and melodies.
From over the sunlit, cornflower blue hills it came, as if wafted by an
evening breeze, "How beautiful are thy feet with shoes, O prince's
daughter!" and from the dark interior of the mythical woods echoed
snatches of song concerning the lily of the valleys and the rose of
Sharon. It almost seemed as if the invisible inhabitants of those
illuminated pasteboard cottages were singing, as evidence of the
pleasant lives they led; and so one day would all the people of the
earth enjoy those treasures of song, of which fate had appointed her
guardian.
Everywhere she went, whatever she might be thinking of or doing, hope
smiled and beckoned to her from all corners of the world. A new, more
exalted and pure, life must be coming. That golden thread, which her
poor mad mother had severed with the bread-knife, became again
interwoven with an ambition to climb upwards, ever upwards, and with
presentiments of some sacred blessing to be prayed and struggled for.
A few months more, and all might be accomplished; and on the top of
this recovered happiness came another. Wonder upon wonder--her
so-called future bridegroom suddenly gave a sign of life.
It was early in September, at about twelve, that Herr Dehnicke
appeared unannounced at her door. As she had not quite finished
dressing she was at first unwilling to admit him. But when he explained
that his mission was urgent, she received him, in her _peignoir_, with
a thousand apologies. He eyed her with shy admiration, and then drew a
folio-shaped, strange-looking piece of paper out of his pocket, which
purported to be a cheque drawn on the Lincoln and Ohio Bank for two
thousand and odd marks.
"What am I to do with it?" Lilly asked.
"Read the letter, which accompanied it, addressed to me," he replied,
unfolding a large sheet.
In the letter "Dear Sir" was informed that Mr. Walter von Prell had
paid in five hundred dollars to his account, and wished the sum to be
handed over to the "Baroness" Lilly von Mertzbach.
Lilly trembled with excitement. She paced up and down the room in a
storm of emotion, pressing her handkerchief to her eyes. She had been
planning to help him and now he helped her.
A sudden feeling of suspicion took possession of her. She stood still
and looked at the cheque and then at Herr Dehnicke. Both stood silent.
"I must ask you to explain," she said at length.
"What is there to explain, gracious lady?" he answered. "I am only the
middleman, or, if you like it better, the agent, in a little private
business that concerns you and your betrothed alone."
"But why couldn't he give his address?" she exclaimed.
"It looks almost as if he wanted to remove all traces of himself,"
remarked Dehnicke.
It was all so romantic and adventurous and unlike Walter ... one didn't
know what to think.
But there stood the name: "Baroness Lilly von Mertzbach." Walter was
possibly ignorant of her having been obliged to renounce her married
name. This pointed to the genuineness of the cheque.
Herr Dehnicke had inclined his head to the left side, as usual, and
gazed at her with placid deference. He played the part of the
middleman, and that was all.
"After this unexpected turn of events," he said in conclusion, "you
will, I earnestly believe, no longer hesitate to return to the manner
of life suited to your social status, and which is so requisite to the
success of your work."
She shook her head, biting her Ups.
Thereupon he became authoritative, more so than she would have given
such an exceedingly modest person credit for.
"You really must make the change," he urged her. "You must do it for
_his_ sake. I am, as it were, responsible. When he returns with the
intention of marrying you, he must not find that you have become
_declassee_ in his absence. As I say, I am responsible."
She begged to be allowed time to think it over.
Henceforth the thought of her distant lover ruled her destiny. What had
before been a play of the imagination became almost stern reality. Not
that she accepted the story unconditionally of his being at the back of
the mysteriously sent cheque. On the contrary, she could not silence a
voice that suggested someone might have tricked her, but she could not
trust herself to make further inquiries, or to draw conclusions. She
dreaded to think what would become of her if she lost the one friend on
whom she could at present rely, and in order to dispel all doubts from
her mind she worked more industriously than ever--nearly ever week a
fresh batch of sunsets was ready to be taken away. In the mean time
Herr Kellermann had given her new ideas: a Gothic cathedral perched on
perpendicular rocks, a castle with ever so many illuminated windows,
and, greatest achievement of all, the moon shining on a calm grey sea,
its silver beams represented by pressed fern-fronds.
* * * * *
On the first Sunday in October, Herr Dehnicke called to take Lilly for
a walk. He had done it twice before, and Lilly had been charmed to go.
Had he offered to take her into the country she would have liked it
still better.
The autumn sunlight lay peacefully on the ragged foliage of the stunted
town trees, which had been half bare of leaf for a long time. Groups of
people sauntered about aimlessly. They looked depressed and bored, for
winter was already laying its nipping fingers on men's spirits.
Their walk took them through various crowded streets, and Lilly
experienced the pleasant feeling of having someone to protect and look
after her in the throng.
Herr Dehnicke, after a long brooding silence, began at last with the
question:
"Have you come to any decision about your future abode, dear lady?"
Lilly did not answer. She was firmly resolved to make no change, and
yet it was heavenly to be pressed on the point. It made you feel that
you were again of some importance in the world.
"If I had the privilege of selecting for you," he said in his
unpretentious, formal way, "I believe I could find you a nook which
would be to your taste."
"I don't suppose you could," she replied, half in joke. "We are sure
not to have exactly the same tastes."
"I am not so presumptuous as to say that we should. But, nevertheless,
I have lately seen a small flat which, unless I am very much mistaken,
you would be delighted with. It belongs to a customer, a lady, who is
travelling."
"Oh, that's a pity! I should like to have seen it, if only to know what
you think my tastes are."
He was lost in thought for a few minutes; then he said, "It can be
managed. The maid-servant will not be at home to-day as it is Sunday;
but the porter's wife, who keeps the key, knows me, and if you
like----"
Lilly demurred a little to intruding into a stranger's flat, but Herr
Dehnicke overruled her scruples, hailed a cab, and they drove to a
westerly quarter of the town, where the houses looked more imposing and
the people more distinguished, and where stately chestnuts shading
velvety green turf flanked the blue waters of a canal.
"Oh, happy people to live here!" she exclaimed, and then the carriage
drew up at the corner of the Koenigin-Augusta-Ufer.
Dehnicke jumped out and said a few words at the window of the lodge. A
key was handed out, and they ascended the carved oak staircase, which
was covered with a thick cherry-coloured carpet. How different from the
stone flights of steps which led up to Frau Laue's, and were painful to
the feet! He paused on the second floor, pulled the bell as a matter of
politeness--for it might happen that the maidservant was at home after
all--and then, when no one came, put the key in the door and turned it.
Lilly tried to read the name that was engraved on an oval porcelain
door-plate, but in the dusk that prevailed on the landing she could not
distinguish it.
They entered a very dark little hall smelling of fresh paint, and
passed into a carpeted room, on the walls of which were cupboards with
glass doors curtained with green silk. The rest of the furniture
consisted merely of two armchairs, a few small gilt chairs, and a
round, brightly polished dining-table.
"This has been used as a dining-room," said Herr Dehnicke; "but it
would do very well for your private studio and showroom."
Lilly agreed, though she would rather have contradicted him.
Opening out of the dining-room on the right was a bedroom, with Rose du
Barri chintz hangings, a pink enamelled suite, and a canopied bed with
a billowy silk eider-down quilt, and curtains fastened with an old-gold
seven-pointed coronet.
"Is your customer nobly born?" asked Lilly, feeling vaguely envious.
"I wasn't aware of it," he answered; "but it's possible she may be."
Lilly sighed a little, recalling her own ivory toilette treasures and
her coronet-embroidered underwear lying in Frau Laue's fusty drawers;
how beautifully they would fit in here! She inhaled with rapture the
delicate lilac fragrance that pervaded the whole room like an
aristocratic spring, and, shuddering, she compared it with that
plebeian smell which, no matter how indefatigably she aired the Dresden
treasures, invaded them with deadly persistency.
"Happy woman!" said Lilly in a low voice.
She rather wondered that the occupant of the flat had left no trace of
herself behind--no ribbon, peignoir, or trinket.
"She must have locked up everything, or taken it all away with her,"
suggested Dehnicke.
Next they went back to the studio, and, passing through its other door,
came into a little corner drawing-room, which was completely flooded
with rosy sunshine.
Lilly clapped her hands in unbounded delight. There was a soft old-rose
carpet with a vine pattern; a charming little crystal chandelier, the
prisms of which set rainbow colours playing on the dark polished
mahogany furniture; and bronze statuettes representing such subjects as
a nymph bathing, a reaper folding his hands in prayer at the sound of
the Angelus, and so on. Then there were a few choice paintings on the
walls, an escritoire, a little bookcase, and there was even a piano.
"Oh!" sighed Lilly, "a piano!" And she shut her eyes in sheer
melancholy bliss at the thought of it.
There were live things, too. In front of one of the three windows was
an aquarium, full of sunlight and goldfish, with a palm overhead; and
from another window chirruped a tame bullfinch.
Lilly thought of her pale-blue silk domain. In comparison with that,
what a plain, confined little nest this was; yet how inexpressibly
attractive and cosy when contrasted with the revolting place in which
she was dwelling.
"It's a positive paradise!" she said ecstatically, though half crying.
"Here is another room," said Herr Dehnicke, opening a door that Lilly
had not noticed. "It can be entered separately from the hall, and was
probably intended by the lady for a guest-chamber; but if you settled
here, it would come in handy as a workroom for your assistants."
Lilly peeped in. The room was more simply arranged than the others, but
with considerable care. Greenish-grey upholstered chairs were set round
a wide table, and in one corner was a comfortable-looking brass
bedstead.
"The bed, of course, could be taken away," Herr Dehnicke explained.
It really was marvellous how exactly suited everything was to her
requirements.
They returned to the drawing-room, and Lilly noticed what had before
escaped her attention, and that was an almost life-size portrait in an
ornate frame hanging above the sofa, as if every other object in the
room was there to pay it homage. The features and figure were, however,
hidden by a covering of mauve stuff, which made it impossible to
recognise them.
"What does that mean?" Lilly asked.
Dehnicke shrugged his shoulders and pointed to a photograph on the
escritoire veiled in the same mysterious fashion.
Lilly, full of curiosity, took hold of a corner of the drapery which
screened the big picture from her view, and raised it a little.
"I wonder if I dare?" she asked timidly, as if she were about to commit
a crime.
"Certainly, if you care to," he replied; and it seemed as if he were
breathing more heavily than usual.
She tugged, tugged energetically; the drapery fell upon her ... and
there in front of her eyes stood Walter von Prell, boldly sketched in
pastel, wearing the uniform of his old regiment. Walter--her friend and
fiance!
Her knees shook. Icy-cold fingers crept through her hair. She refused
to understand--to believe. Then she felt that Dehnicke took her hand
and led her into the outer hall. He struck a match, and Lilly could now
read on the plate the name she had before failed to decipher,
"Lilly Czepanek.
Pressed Flower Studio."
She gave a shrill cry, rushed back into the little drawing-room,
and, burying her face in a corner of the sofa, gave vent to her
long-restrained emotions in a burst of hot, blissful tears.
When she looked up again, she saw him standing beside her, unassuming
and correct in his bearing, his expression sober and grave.
She was ashamed that she felt so happy, and held out her hand to him in
shy gratitude.
"May I venture to hope that in my capacity as Walter's deputy I have
succeeded in pleasing you?" he asked.
After that there was no further question of refusing.
CHAPTER VI
The gold-tinted tops of the chestnut-trees faded, and ever wider grew
the gaps that autumn's march made in their foliage. At places where a
little while ago one saw nothing but a leafy lacework, the ripples of
the canal now gleamed through. Along it, heavy barges towed by poles
drifted in their laborious fashion, and the shaggy watch-dogs barked up
at the windows of distinguished residents. Rainy dull weather stole on
the city like a thief in the night, and solitude clutched your heart
with its clammy hand.
She had her work, it was true. Her work! Lilly clung to it day and
night, as long as the first infatuation lasted and she could build
hopes of realising her ambitious plans.
But the eagerly expected "boom" in painted glass with pressed-flower
foregrounds never came. The prospectuses she had printed and sent out
were ignored, and Herr Dehnicke, who remained her one patron and
purchaser, told her in a hurried and nervous way not to lose heart so
soon, as the market was decidedly dull at present.
Gradually her zeal began to wane. She had given up going to Herr
Kellermann for lessons, his importunities with regard to the release of
his "chained Venus" having become too insupportable. She locked her
"samples" away in the glass-doored cupboards, and only finished Herr
Dehnicke's "orders."
Oh, those cruel, empty days, with no laughter to brighten them and
nothing to wait or live for!
In the kitchen a silent young servant held sway. Her eyes had a greedy,
far too intelligent expression. The goldfish were fed and given fresh
water every morning, and the bullfinch was encouraged to chirp. In the
evening, when the chandelier was lighted and radiated its dazzling
white light, things were better. Then she would wander from room to
room, rearrange ornaments, and say to herself over and over again that
no one ever had been so happy as she was, or had a prettier home.
Of what avail was it all--the soft old-rose carpet with its faint
vine-leaf pattern, the red-brown shiny furniture and those bronze
figures with their shimmering lustre of gold that were nothing
underneath but zinc alloy manufactured by Liebert, Dehnicke & Co.? Of
what avail the gold-coroneted note-paper, of which Dehnicke had
instantly ordered five hundred sheets, on the neat writing-table? There
was no one to rejoice in it all with her, no one whom longing could
summon to her side. Often she sat down at the piano and let her fingers
wander over the notes. But it was not the pleasure to her she had hoped
and expected. The rigorous technical training she had once had under
her father's tuition had long ago been forgotten. She could not
remember one of the things she used to play by heart, and she lacked
the patience and nerve to learn new pieces.
It was strange what a fever of unrest attacked her directly she touched
the keys. A fierce anxiety, a sense of terror and inward unworthiness
overwhelmed her. She could do nothing else but strike the instrument
with a bang, and fly from room to room till her feet ached; and she was
glad when ten o'clock called her to bed.
In these unemployed, joyless days there awoke in her a piercing,
tormenting desire for man's society, a sweet torture of shuddering
thrills. For two whole years her senses had lain dormant. What the
colonel's senile corruption had kindled, and the autumn weeks of
passion lashed into a blaze, had been drowned by tears of remorse--for
ever, she had vainly imagined. But here it was risen again, shaming and
enrapturing her together, and refusing to be silenced by prayers and
self-reproaches. Often she felt as if she must rush into the streets,
if only to meet the eyes of a stranger, as in the Dresden days, and see
veiled desire leap up in them. But in the streets people were vulgar
and rude, and she shrank trembling from going anywhere alone, except to
visit her old landlady.
The walk there took her an hour, and before she reached her former
lodging she had been accosted by many ingenuous chance admirers; and
many experienced _flaneurs_ walked by her side and tried to begin a
conversation. She would cross in a hurry to the other side of the
street, and wish when she got there that she had spoken to her
molesters.
As she lay in bed dreaming with closed eyes, she fancied she saw
strong, clear-cut, masculine features hovering round her, into which
she looked up with confiding admiration.
She often dreamed too of Herr Dehnicke, the faithful, loyal little
business man, who was ready to stand by her so staunchly through thick
and thin. Suppose that he were to come to her one day, and in the
deprecating, stumbling manner that she had got to like say, "I love you
to distraction, and will make you my wife!" What should she say? Every
time she contemplated his doing this it brought her a certain sense of
comfort.
Of the man who really stood nearest to her, and on whom she had the
most claims, she never dreamed. It was true that in her desultory
longings those heavenly November nights came back to her vividly, but
instead of Walter, any other man might have been their hero. Walter had
grown to be a sort of tyrannical ruler over her conscience. Of course,
she loved him. How could she help it when he was her destined
"bridegroom," working hard for her? Yet often when she stood by the
sofa under his portrait, and his cold blue eyes rested upon her with
imperious hauteur, she remembered what a scurvy part he had played, and
how fickle he had been; and she felt as if she would like to sever
every tie that bound her to him, and shake off every thought of him
from her like a detestable nightmare.
She wished that Herr Dehnicke would leave off talking of him with
devotion and respect, and looking forward to the time when he would
have to render account of his modest guardianship of her to his dear
friend, on his return in honour and glory to his home and hearth. He
came with the utmost punctuality twice a week to see how she was
getting on, and to have tea with her. He left in time to be back at his
office before it closed. No wonder that Lilly looked on these visits as
festivals. He was her only link with the outside world. She had no one
but him to bring a little brightness and interest into her life.
She spent hours arranging the tea-table and the lights and flowers for
him. For him, too, she stood before the mirror, dressing her hair.
When at last he was sitting opposite her, they talked long and
seriously about his business worries, his plans, and the trouble he had
with artists who thought it a disgrace to work for the trade, and could
only be induced to execute orders when, as it were, he held a pistol to
their heads. He spoke of the rivals with whom he competed in business,
who built palaces for their workshops in order to dazzle customers, so
that he too was forced to transform his good solid old business house
into a modern structure with the latest improvements.
His customers too were a source of endless anxiety to him. Some,
actuated by the newest ideals in art which were the fashion in the
capital, demanded his pandering to the "Secession" movement, and
putting on the market long-necked, narrow-whipped bodies in exaggerated
attitudes of insane distortion. But the steady public of mediocrity,
which was really the purchasing public, would have nothing to say to
this trash, and insisted on having knights in armour and their dames in
fancy-dress, damsels picking flowers and drawing water, hunted stags
and swinging monkeys, the same, in fact, as had been in vogue thirty
years before. So he stood, as it were, between two rocks, on one of
which he might be wrecked as out of date and old-fashioned, on the
other as too advanced and modern. In the latter case he would forfeit
most of his old and well-tried patrons. It was extremely difficult to
steer a middle course, but it had to be done.
He spoke often, too, of the factory and its hundreds of industrial
hands who from early morning till late at night worked for the welfare
of the business, and of the alterations which were nearing completion,
and which, judging by the architect's designs and the sum which he had
spent, ought to be something worth seeing.
"You see what competition compels a man to do," he wound up.
Lilly, with beaming eyes, listened attentively. She took interest in
everything. She wanted to hear details of life in the factory with its
whirling machinery, clatter of wheels, its hissing furnaces and
shrieking files. She never wearied of asking questions about the
appearance and behaviour of the workpeople, their wages, their
condition, and what became of them afterwards. She felt as if there, in
the great hum of the factory, was living reality, while outside her own
existence was a shadowy illusion.
"How I envy you," she would exclaim sometimes, "to have so many men's
lives in your keeping!"
"They keep you always on the go," he replied; "it's an enormous
responsibility and worry."
She was sure he was a benevolent master, even if he would not own it
himself. He had such great influence, and his heart was so kind.
He liked to hear her talk like this, though often in the middle of what
she was saying he would spring up and walk about the room with excited,
short steps, and then stand still in front of her, and stare down on
her with gloomy solicitous eyes, as if he could not control his
contending emotions.
Lilly appeared to notice nothing, though she knew perfectly well what
was passing in his mind at these moments.
"I shall not help him out," she said to herself. "He must do what he
likes in his own way, or in future he may cherish resentment towards
me." And in palpitating hope she awaited events.
If she could only do away with that ridiculous superstition about
Walter, which he probably half believed, like herself, and half
bolstered up for the sake of propriety. And then another thing gave her
food for reflection. In spite of her often-expressed desire to see the
factory, he never volunteered to take her over it. It almost seemed as
if he objected to be seen with her on his own premises.
He often talked about his mother, however, and was not shy of
confessing how much he was influenced by her, though he made it plain
that he would prefer to have more freedom to carry out his schemes and
develop his powers.
When his father died--twelve years before--he had not been of age, and
had been obliged to submit to his mother's rule. The old lady's regime
continued, and every new enterprise was discussed with her, and if she
approved it was put into execution, even if he were opposed to it.
Lilly felt awaking within her a dull aching terror of the old lady who
lived behind the bourgeois flower-pots and issued commands from her
armchair, which were obeyed by so great a man as her benefactor. She
pictured the moment of making her acquaintance with a sinking heart.
* * * * *
Towards Christmas she was again busy. Two dozen new designs for windows
had been ordered, and must be finished before the festive day. A future
seemed once more to open before her. For the first time in four years
she forgot to send her mother's Christmas present to the asylum.
Instead, she made Herr Dehnicke's mother a particularly "poetic"
lamp-shade, and sent it anonymously to the house on the morning of
Christmas Eve. Why she did it, she did not know herself. Perhaps it was
a propitiatory offering such as nervous souls were in the habit of
making of old to unknown gods for unknown offences. She had made a
little pile of gifts for her friend, though uncertain that he would
turn up, and she listened for his ring with a beating heart. Her fears
were groundless, for at half-past five he appeared, in the twilight of
the hall, as loaded with parcels as old Father Christmas himself!
He had selected them with tact and discretion. There were little things
that she wanted for domestic use in the flat, a set of embroidered
collars, a Persian lamb boa--to save her sables--a few trifles from the
factory to adorn the still bare top of her escritoire. At every
exclamation of delight she gave he modestly disclaimed thanks.
Everything came, as she knew, from Walter.
"And is there nothing from you?" she asked.
"Nothing!" he replied, and turned his palms outwards.
"Well then," she said, "if you'd like to know, there is something you
can give me that Walter can't."
"What can that be?" he asked.
"Take me over your factory."
This time he did not put her off, but fixed a definite day and hour. It
should be the first working-day after the new year, when everything
would be in full swing again. "Please wear something dark and plain,"
he added, when it was settled.
"Am I generally dressed loudly?" asked Lilly, horrified. She felt as if
someone had boxed her ears.
"Oh, I didn't mean that!" he stammered in confusion; "but you might
hurt your good clothes."
* * * * *
At noon on January 2nd she stood in front of the house in Alte
Jakobstrasse, which she hadn't seen since her first memorable visit.
"After all," she reflected, "it did prove a path of fate in one way."
She looked up stealthily at the porcelain flower-pots on the first
floor, and started, for she fancied she saw a white head move behind
the lace curtains. "That's what comes of having a guilty conscience,"
she thought, and with a shy sidelong glance of awe she passed the door
that led to the laurel-flanked private staircase, which her feet were
not worthy to tread till she was again received into the bosom of
middle-class respectability.
The other entrance stood hospitably open. The scaffolding had been
taken down, walls and pillars gleamed in the mirror-like glory of
imitation marble, and the splendour of the courtyard beyond made her
feel diffident again. By this time even the grimy old office had been
transformed. It now boasted a projecting facade of sandstone, with the
busts of famous artists in the niches. The ascent of worn and rickety
wooden steps had been replaced by a gorgeous gilded gateway.
Her friend hurried down to meet her, bareheaded, in spite of the biting
cold. As he held out his hand in welcome, he cast a furtive searching
glance up at the windows. It looked almost as if he too were troubled
by a guilty conscience.
He led her first into the show-room. Its brand-new smartness exceeded
her expectations. Pillared aisles with vaulted ceilings made it look
like a museum. There were interminable avenues of tables and cases,
sending forth the sparkle of gold and silver and prismatic hues, the
warm glow of deep-red copper fading into the pale green of patina, from
hundreds of works of art--products of German industry, those so-called
"bronzes," which were to be displayed in shop-windows all over the
country, and endow even the cottages of the poor with an air of
prosperity.
The subjects included, among others, fat monks and lean beggars,
dancing gipsy-girls with tambourines, elegant young men with
eyeglasses, postillions blowing horns, chickens picking corn, and
hounds retrieving game. There were calendars set in horse-shoes,
cigar-clips shaped like champagne bottles, pelicans three feet tall
holding aloft lamps in their bills; fancy figures, both male and
female, stretching out arms as they had done in Herr Kellermann's
studio, but not without reason here, for they all held up vases,
candelabra, or basins. Arbours screened loving pairs, and had red
electric bulbs hidden in the foliage, goblins sat astride on mushrooms;
sea-shells served the purpose of ash-trays; punch-bowls, antique
cream-jugs, night-light holders, snakes coiled round flower-stems or
china ducks-eggs. The whole gamut of vulgarity and poverty in artistic
invention seemed herded together here, ready to be let loose in rampant
distribution over all the four quarters of the globe.
When Lilly gave her friend an inquiring or mystified look now and
again, as she examined some monstrosity, he shrugged his shoulders and
remarked, "That is what the public likes."
In spite of a feeling of being jarred, Lilly would not have minded
spending hours amidst this glitter. She would have been in her element
if her judgment had been appealed to, and she would have said
unhesitatingly, "That is bad, weed it out; throw that away, and that
... and this too." But no one asked her opinion, and everything seemed
to get on very well without it.
Her friend next took her across to the factory. Unfortunately the
foundry, which was the first stage and basis of all the work turned
out, happened to be temporarily closed. But Lilly saw through an open
window the black yawning throats of the furnaces and the dirty trucks
standing about. Everything was covered with a mist of grey ash--the
chimney-pieces, casks, and utensils all seemed to float in the same
impenetrable sea of ashen greyness.
They went down some dirty steps and passed through damp cellars
smelling of poisonous chemicals, where huge vats containing foul fluids
were ranged. Men prematurely aged by work and disease hovered about
here looking like ascetic phantoms, when they were only common
labourers. As Lilly came in they gave her a quick glance of surprise,
and then didn't trouble to look again. They had no greeting for their
employer.
"This is the galvanic department," explained Herr Dehnicke. "Here is
the nickel-plate bath, the steel bath, the quicksilver, and so on."
He pointed to a loft surrounded by an iron crate, where the wheels of a
machine whirled and the light of electric lamps gleamed.
"There the current is generated which galvanises the various baths," he
said.
Lilly did not understand, but she took pleasure in the rapid whirl of
the wheels and the subdued buzz which they made as they spun round.
"There will be some that whirl more madly still," she thought, and
expected to hear, when the next door was opened, a deafening thunder.
But nothing of the sort happened. This was the one machine in the whole
factory to provide her with entertainment.
In the workroom where the chiselling was done, dozens of men stood at
long tables, levelling the uneven surface of the cast metal, and making
the separate parts of an ornament ready for joining. This was done in
the room adjacent, where the flames of the blowpipes leapt and hissed,
and clouds of metallic vapour shot up sparks. Each workman had a little
pile of burnished arms and legs beside him that looked as if they had
been amputated and had left the body they belonged to behind.
Then they came to the "filigree" department, where all the flowers and
foliage were elaborated--the ribbons, tendrils, and arabesques,
everything of a light, curly, and daintily twining character. So
delicate was the work that it made the men engaged on it look all the
clumsier and coarser. They scarcely raised their eyes, and hammered on
in a dogged mechanical way.
Lilly, wherever she went, had a keener eye for the appearance and
manner of the workpeople than for the work itself. She drew comparisons
inwardly, decided who was well-to-do and who the reverse, who pursued
his avocation because he liked it, and who only because he was goaded
to it by necessity and sickness at home. Each department had its own
marked physiognomy. In one the majority would be fresh and active; in
another, weary and exhausted. Lilly felt as she had done when Herr
Dehnicke first told her about his workpeople: an insane desire to have
the wielding of their fate in her hands, to help them when help was
needed, to bring sunshine into their gloomy lives, and to be a good
angel to the suffering. But she was careful not to confide her absurd
notions to Herr Dehnicke.
"Now we come to the most critical part of the business," he said, "the
patina application, which gives the figures their style."