luxuriousness. Like the pictures and books, it was Konrad's personal
property. It stood, with its handsome carving and wide, open leaf, like
a dark and solemn altar in the middle of the room. Not a single
photograph of a woman was anywhere to be seen. She had not given him
hers, and no other woman's was worthy of a place on his desk. Behind
maps and ink-bottles was propped the portrait of an old gentleman in a
frame. The face was that of a weather-beaten old gourmet, with
beautiful, well-kept white hair, and eyes, peculiar to connoisseurs of
women, blinking shrewdly under wrinkled drooping lids.
This was the famous old uncle who had paid for Konrad's education and
now supported him.
Lilly was conscious of a profound depression of spirits as she looked
at the portrait, as if one glance of those keen old eyes could read her
soul and bring to light the secret that she was keeping from her lover
with a thousand artifices and subterfuges.
"I'll take care that I never meet him," she thought,
Konrad took from a drawer his proudest treasure, the introduction to
his great work, and showed her the closely written sheets of the
manuscript.
She let her fingers pass caressingly over it. She regarded it with
quite reverent awe. But then all of a sudden the jealousy that had of
late been tormenting her soul attacked her with renewed force.
This manuscript was his real love, and she was nothing but a dark,
bloodless shadow, who preyed on his nights like a vulture.
"Lock it up again," she said; and she turned despondently to go.
As if the _magnum opus_ was not enough, there was a number of smaller
things that kept him drudging. The more his name became known as that
of a specialist in literary circles, the more frequently was he asked
to contribute articles, and he strove to execute every order he
received.
One day it came out what the important post was that he had been
offered and had mentioned to her three weeks ago, on their memorable
expedition into the country.
"I haven't dared to come to a decision till to-day," he said. "But now
I have made up my mind. The editor of the periodical which I am to
sub-edit in future has called on me, and left me no loophole for
refusing. I was obliged to say 'Yes.' He is a charming fellow! In spite
of his great intellectual ability, a man of almost childlike simplicity
... and so frank, so genial.... You must get to know him--if you don't
know him already."
"What's his name?" she asked.
"Dr. Salmoni."
CHAPTER XVIII
No, it was not to come out in this way! Fate was not to lay hands on
her quite so rudely and clumsily.
She was to be spared the disgrace of being caught like a criminal, and
ultimately, by an act of self-denial, she was to prove that she had not
been altogether unworthy of the great blessing of her life.
Since the name Salmoni had been mentioned between them, she scarcely
dared venture into the streets in Konrad's company. As she walked with
him arm-in-arm, she imagined that every step she heard coming behind
them was that of the dreaded man who had once followed her into the
Alte Jakobstrasse.
At last, to end the torture of this new anxiety, she made up a story to
Konrad about a lady she was acquainted with calling on her, and asking
who the tall, slim young man was in whose company she was now so often
seen.
The result of this necessary lie was terrifying. He would not speak or
eat, but strode about the room in great perturbation, finally leaving
her at an hour when generally her bliss was just beginning.
The following day brought forth an explanation. He came at dusk, paler
than usual, with unnaturally brilliant eyes.
"Listen, dearest!" he said. "I thought it over all last night, and I
now see my duty clear before me. This must not go on."
She could interpret this only as a wish to leave her. Her body seemed
to become numb; she faced him calmly, and awaited her death-blow.
"Since we have belonged to each other," he continued, "we have made no
further allusion to your fiance. Nevertheless, I have thought all the
more about him in private. You, too, have been very reticent with
regard to your friend Herr Dehnicke. I only know that he is at present
travelling, and has left you, so to speak, without a protector."
She forced herself to smile. Why must he prolong the agony?
"To-day I must confess to you that in the midst of all my happiness I
have felt that my taking advantage of such a situation is altogether
despicable. But my feelings are not in question. The main consideration
is, what will become of you? What I feared from the first has come to
pass: people are beginning to remark on our being together.... You
can't bind anyone to secrecy.... It would be lowering to one's dignity.
Thus the mutual friend of you and your betrothed is certain, sooner or
later, to hear all about it, and to call you to account. You will be,
of course, too proud to deny it, and the upshot of it all is that you
will be left stranded and alone--without any sort of guardianship in
the world. For I, as matters now stand, have not even the right to
protect you. The thought is perfectly intolerable to me, whatever it
may be to others."
He jumped up, ran his fingers through the imaginary mane of hair, and
tramped up and down.
She came slowly back to life and consciousness, as the blood began to
course more naturally through her veins.
The dear, noble boy! How unsuspecting he was! She could have almost
shrieked with laughter. But she controlled herself and said: "You
needn't disturb yourself, Konni. His friend is not likely to hear
anything, and if he does he won't believe it. And even if he does
believe it, he will take good care that ..."
She could not go on. The great guileless eyes frightened her.
"You think, then, he would ..."
He too hesitated, unable to find words in which to express the
unspeakable.
She examined the buttons on her bodice and didn't answer.
"When is Herr Dehnicke coming home?" he asked.
"It is not certain. He is gone wife-hunting," she replied, with a
little feeling of triumph at having said something that placed her
miles outside the radius of any suspicion now or to come.
"Where is he at present?"
"Why do you want to know?"
"Because I must have a talk with him."
She could hardly credit what she heard. He couldn't have said it.
Surely, either he or she must be taking leave of their senses.
"Don't be anxious," he said. "I am quite aware what I owe to your
reputation. But I must find out once for all what opinion he has of
your position.... Here is a man in America who has your promise, yet
makes no sign.... He doesn't turn up, and he doesn't write. Why doesn't
he write? If he hasn't got your address, why should he not write
through Herr Dehnicke, whose business is known all over Berlin? No one
is even sure if he is still alive. For a long time I tried to explain
his silence in various ways; but now I can't help saying to myself, the
only explanation there can possibly be is that he is dead, or as good
as dead. Are you to continue bound to a dead man? Is your social
existence to be dependent, as it were, on a guard of honour who has
nothing to guard? This is the point I would like to discuss with the
mutual friend. He'll have to answer me, or do you think he'll object?"
Really, he has less knowledge of the world than is permissible, she
thought compassionately; and aloud she replied, "I don't quite see,
Konni, how you are justified in forcing an interview on a stranger."
"That's my affair," he said, throwing back his head defiantly. "First,
I must know if he will let you be free to do as you like. I don't see
why he should hold the slave-driver's whip over you."
"And I don't see why you should put yourself in a false position," she
cried in newly awakened alarm. Already she heard fisticuffs and
pistol-shots resounding in her ears. "I will speak to Herr Dehnicke
myself; I will set myself free. I promise you that. But you ... if I
let you go to him, what will he think of me? You will only succeed in
compromising me."
He drew himself up. His eyes were those of a conqueror. "If a man loves
you and wants you for his wife, I fail to see how that can compromise
you."
* * * * *
It was dusk and oppressively close when these words were spoken. The
little bullfinch flapped its wings languidly in its sand, the goldfish
remained motionless behind their wall of hot glass, and the small naked
monkey whimpered in his sleep. Heavy masses of bluish-black clouds were
reflected in the slimy water of the canal. There was a menace of storm
in the air--and this was the thunderbolt.
Her first feeling was one of surprise--certainly not pleasant surprise;
then followed an unutterably plaintive cry, unheard by any human ear,
and which hurt all the more because it was dumb.
"Too late ... played out ... past caring. No more happiness on earth
... too late ... too late!"
She leaned back in the sofa-corner and examined the ceiling minutely
and carefully.
He waited for his answer.
If she lowered her eyes they must meet his, full of a fire which burned
into her soul. No salvation from these eyes, no escape from what had to
come!
And he waited.
Then she heard her own voice speaking quite calmly and distinctly, as
if instead of herself Frau Jula was speaking--life's little mountebank
with the brow of brass.
"I thought, dear Konni, we had agreed that neither of us should talk of
marrying."
"How can you remind me of that?" he cried vehemently. "When I said so,
could I foresee how things would turn out? Had I the least inkling then
of what you are? Did I know you were so divine an angel, who can exalt
a poor devil like me one moment into a seventh heaven of bliss, and the
next plunge him into hell's torments?... Yes, I mean it! Torments, for
to-day all must come out--the unvarnished truth. There's a gap in my
life. All is in chaos: my work, my thought, my faith in you. You would
be my good genius, but often you are something almost the reverse.
Don't distress yourself. I am not reproaching you ... but only myself,
for being so weak.... I want to work; I ought to work.... I have just
undertaken a whole pile of new duties. I thought that if my duty was
imposed on me from outside, I should be bound to stick to it. But the
very opposite has happened. I am running to seed through perpetual
inner wrestling and questioning.... If I don't bring our lives into a
peaceful and equable channel, we must both be lost. I can't do it
unless you belong to me properly and altogether, unless your room is
next to mine and you are always within sight of my desk--always near,
always beside me."
"I can arrange to come to you in the autumn," she interrupted
timorously.
"No, not in that way! I will have no more secretiveness, no more ground
for self-reproaches. Am I to have it on my conscience that every day
you sacrifice yourself for me further you come nearer to your ruin? For
in the end it must ruin you; it will stick to you like mud. And why
should we make a polluted thing out of what is most sacred to us? Or is
it that I am not good enough to be your lasting companion through life?
Do you shrink from being my wife on the score of poverty?"
In repudiation of this idea she almost screamed aloud.
"What you have and how much," he continued, "I do not wish to inquire.
I am well enough off for both of us. My uncle allows me three hundred
marks a month, and I get four hundred from Dr. Salmoni."
Ah! how she shuddered at that name!
"Besides, I can easily earn three hundred marks by articles alone ...
that's altogether a thousand marks a month. As good as a general's
pay.... Isn't that enough for you?"
"Oh, for pity's sake, be quiet!" she cried, hardly able to contain
herself. "I wasn't thinking of money."
"Of what, then?"
He planted himself in front of her with an air of challenge. The dent
of wrath was between his brows, as if it had been chiselled there. She
bowed her head. Since the days of the colonel she had never been so
afraid of any man.
"Well, why not? Out with it and say what it is! To all appearances you
do not love me sufficiently. You still cling, perhaps, to the memory of
the fellow who has long ago forgotten you. You may probably have said
to yourself, 'I can make use of this foolish boy as a lover _pro tem_.
He's all very well as an amusement to pass the time, but when it comes
to his seriously interfering with the course of my life, I must get rid
of him--throw him over, eh?' Isn't that it? Be brave and say it
straight out! I am merely a stop-gap, not the sort of man you want for
a husband. Not till I have begun to make a name could you think of
marriage. Am I not right? Very well."
He had taken up his hat, and looked as if he intended going.
"Oh, Konni, have mercy on me!" she implored. She had slid down from her
seat in order to clasp his knees. Now she cowered on the floor between
the sofa and his chair.
"There is no need for me to have mercy, or for you to have mercy!" he
exclaimed. "Till to-day you have been the holiest thing on earth to me.
But I cannot submit to being brushed away like a fly. Tell me why you
won't marry me. One plausible reason will satisfy me. When you have
given it, I promise never to return to the subject."
"Give me till to-morrow," she moaned.
"Why till to-morrow? To-day is the same thing. I cannot go through
another night of torturing suspense."
"I'll write."
He was evidently amazed. "Write? What is there to write?"
"Whether I may or not. The reasons and everything."
"Some way out of it will come to me in the night," she thought.
"When shall I get the letter?"
"To-morrow morning by the first post."
"Very well. Till then I will have patience. Good-bye, Lilly, for the
present."
He helped her back to the sofa and held out his hand in farewell, and
as she saw his great eyes fixed on her, with that steadfast clearness
which no lie or suspicion of a lie had ever clouded, she knew there was
no escape for her. Evasion was no longer to be thought of; the truth,
the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, was what Konrad must be
told. It swept over her like a warm, soothing stream: "Whether it means
your damnation or not, he shall know the truth." Only, to tell him face
to face was more than any mortal could endure.
When she was alone, reaction set in. The instincts of self-preservation
asserted their rights. Surely, what Frau Jula had done she could do.
She had had far worse things to explain away.
Richard would undoubtedly keep silent, and that was the most important
point. Now that he was bent on marrying, it would be in his own best
interests to allow her to vanish as gracefully as possible out of his
life. The rest of "the crew" might gossip as much as they liked. Konrad
was invulnerable to their slander.
The one danger ahead was Dr. Salmoni. But she had only to go to him, to
entreat his silence, and he, too, would hold his tongue. He certainly
would have good cause to prefer that his abominable attempted assault
should not be brought to light. So she reflected. Yet in the midst of
her planning and scheming a sudden disgust of herself and what she was
going to do seized her, and shattered with one blow the whole fabric of
intended deception.
If the mere name of Dr. Salmoni had prevented her going out in the
streets with Konrad, how could she expect to pass her life at his side
without quailing in hourly fear? How numerous would be the snubs and
humiliations she must expect directly Konrad made any attempt to
introduce her as his wife into the society to which he belonged! She
who had figured in the newspapers as the latest acquisition to the
circles of the fashionable demi-monde! And what if he too began to
suspect? How he would be consumed with shame and horror--he who was so
proud, and the mirror of all refinement, whose pure unworldliness alone
accounted for his not seeing what sort of life she had been leading!
What an awakening that would be from a short tormenting dream!
No, she could not emulate Frau Jula after all. And she thrust from her
with scorn the atrocious thought which in the stress of the hour she
had stained her soul by entertaining.
An exultant longing for self-destruction came over her, and she felt a
strong impulse to tear her heart from her breast and hurl it at his
feet as she sat down and wrote:
"My dear sweet Konni,
"I have shamefully deceived you. I am a bad woman, and nothing else.
The fiance I have told you about never existed. That despicable little
cur of a lieutenant for whom I was untrue to my husband never dreamed
of marrying me, but handed me over to his rich friend, who made me his
mistress. And that is what I am now. For years I have been living in a
world of vice and vulgarity. Long ago I was ostracised from all decent
society. Kept women and the lovers who financed them have been my sole
associates. I have clung to you because you in your ignorance respected
me, and I, in my slough of degradation, longed to be respected. So now
you know why I cannot be your wife.
"If you want my kisses, come. For anything more, I am no longer good
enough.
"Lilly."
The clock struck eleven. Adele had gone to bed. She would have to go
down herself to drop the letter in the box. But the long-threatened
storm just then burst in fury. Hailstones rattled down, and gusts of
wind rushed through the open windows, scattering raindrops on the
writing-table. The paper on which her dry feverish eyes were fixed
became wet; it looked as if she had drenched it with her tears.
"That is a happy coincidence," she thought. Then she was ashamed. The
time for acting was surely over. But as she settled herself to rewrite
the letter she stopped, shuddering in horror. What was to be gained by
such a monstrous indictment of self? And was it, after all, the truth?
In the slanderous mouth, perhaps, of a back-biting woman who twists out
of bare facts evidence of crime against a friend, or in that of one of
those social hangmen who have a halter ready for every past. She alone
knew how it had all come about. How from inner necessity and outer
compulsion, from too-confiding trustfulness and unprotected innocence
link by link the chain had been forged, which now clanked its weight of
guilt about her limbs. She, at least, knew that there was another less
harsh and hideous truth, which would excuse and purify her in the eyes
of any sympathetic person.
So she tore up the sheet of notepaper and began again. She made a rough
copy, and then polished and polished till it satisfied her.
Now the letter ran:
"Dearest and beloved Friend,
"She who writes you these lines is a most unfortunate woman, whom you
really know very little about, and who had to deceive you until to-day
because all that is most sacred to her--her love for you--was at stake.
And now, by writing this, that also is lost! I sacrifice it on the
altar of your happiness for the sake of the divine fire that flashes
from your eyes, consecrating and ennobling my soul.
"The world has treated me cruelly. It has wrenched from me by degrees
my faith in human nature, my ideals, my buoyancy of spirit; it has
brought me to sin, and so robbed me of the right to continue my journey
through life at your side.
"I set out once on that journey full of confidence and hopefulness, and
pure to the very core of my being. But every man I was destined to meet
plucked off a twig of my virtue. I lifted my eyes in adoring reverence
to the aged husband who promised to be my hero and master, my pattern
and god. He used me as a tool for his basest lusts.
"Another came, who was young as I was, whom I wanted to save while I
saved myself in his arms. He took me and enjoyed me as if I were a
romantic adventure, then flung me off and went to the dogs. He wrote a
Uriah sort of letter to a friend of his, who took mean advantage of my
stranded position, both spiritual and physical, and made me by a low
trick so dependent on him that I found I had been long completely in
his power without knowing it. Helpless and utterly crushed as I was, I
yielded and became his victim and slave, and I had not even the spirit
left to be angry with him.
"This was the pass to which my destiny brought me. In vain I tried to
struggle out of the darkness of night, but nowhere did I see light
breaking ahead. I caught with enthusiasm at any hand held out to me,
but each seemed to pull me down lower, till my whole being seemed
paralysed with hopeless despair.
"Then you came, my beloved, my saviour, my redeemer! Once more it was
light around me, once more the world burst into blossom, the parched
fountains were unsealed, and 'The Song of Songs' echoed again within
me.
"And with pride and elation I recognised the fact that nothing impure
had taken root in my character; that the days of degradation had passed
over me without touching my integrity of soul, my desire for pure and
beautiful things, my instincts for a lofty humanity. It had all been
only slumbering, and you, beloved, have awakened it to new life.
"And even if I may not be your wife--only one free of stain deserves
you--I want to be worthy of you, whether near you or far away, as you
decree.
"I am quite resolved to free myself from the shackles that so long have
encumbered me outwardly, and to ascend out of the misery of my lot to a
higher life, more in harmony with the demands of my inner self. You
have pointed the way, and in gratitude I kiss your dear, gentle,
diligent hand.
"Good-bye, my love! If you want to punish me, never come near me again.
But, if you can put up with the love of a woman who loves you as you
never can be loved again on earth, do not let me perish. I have nothing
but what I am to give you, but that is yours till death.
"Lilly."
She read and reread what she had written, and worked herself up into a
state of rapture over it.
Now the truth appeared in quite another light. And then all at once the
question rose within her: But is _this_ the truth? Was it not rather a
conglomeration of turgid phrases expressive of high-flown emotions
which were not spontaneous or sincere, belonging to the pages of
sensational novels, but not to herself? Instead of despair she had in
reality only suffered from boredom, and in the "darkness of night" she
had many times enjoyed herself thoroughly and held high revel. She had
made out that the worthy Richard was a tyrannical despot and herself a
poor downtrodden victim, whereas she had always been at liberty to do
what she liked.
It was the truth, and yet it was--just as much and as little the truth
as she had confessed in that first terrible letter. It was possible to
write this letter and that letter, and many another; but the truth, the
genuine, illuminating, naked truth, would not be in any.
She herself did not know what it was, and no one else knew.
The truth had dissolved into nothingness the moment after the events to
which it related had happened, and no power on earth could conjure it
up again. A distorted mirage, changing with her mood and as her pen
moved over the paper, was all that was left of it.
"But I don't want to tell any more lies," she cried to herself, tearing
up the second letter. "To-day, at any rate, I want to speak the truth."
Should she write a third letter?
It was long past midnight. Her eyes burned. Over-excitement made her
temples throb. And to-morrow morning he must have his answer, as she
had sworn he should.
Then suddenly she awakened to a consciousness of what had really been
happening, how during the last four hours she had been face to face
with the danger of losing him for ever. A frenzy of sickening anxiety
overwhelmed her. She ran about the flat, reeled, battered herself
against the walls, rushed to the window and cried out his name. She
must go to him, go to him at once. It was the only thought she was able
to grasp. She would get the front door opened somehow, wake him out of
his sleep, force her way into his room, stay with him to-night and
always, no matter what the consequences might be.... She did not care.
Only to be quit of this dread, which consumed her like a furnace.
The thunderstorm had raged itself out, but rain was still falling
steadily. She scarcely gave herself time to fling on a cloak. In her
house-shoes, without hat or umbrella, she flew along the streets,
splashing through the mud and puddles, followed by foul epithets from
homeless night-waifs in dark doorways. She arrived breathless and
panting at his lodgings.
Light glimmered in the two windows on the third floor. She clapped her
hands and called out "Konni! Konni!" repeating his name several times.
But he had closed the windows and did not hear her.
As she stared up at his window, she saw the shadow of his tall figure
on the blind glide up and down, from one end of the room to the
other--up and down, up and down. And all the time the rain was
descending on her in torrents, and the chill dampness of the street
creeping up her limbs.
"Konni! Konni!" she cried louder. Foot-passengers who went by offered
her their umbrellas, others mimicked her, and called out too, "Konni!
Konni!" Then at last the restless shadow came to a standstill. One of
the windows was opened.
"Lilly, is it you?" he asked, in a voice hoarse with alarm.
"Now here you are at last, my sweetest Konni," answered, instead of
Lilly, an exhilarated gentleman who insisted on holding his umbrella
over her.
"My God!"
Upstairs it became dark, and a few moments later he was standing with
the lamp and door-key in his hand at the glass entrance-door.
The exhilarated gentleman took his leave, with repeated bows.
"Lilly, what has happened? What are you doing here?"
She crouched trembling against the doorway. She could not speak. She
had only one sensation--that she was with him now, and all would be
well.
He felt her clothes.
"You are wet through!... You have only house-shoes on! My God, Lilly!"
She tried to say something, but she was ashamed that he should see how
her teeth chattered.
"And I can't take you in. You know why.... But I must--yes, I must take
you in. If I let you go home like this you'll catch your death. We must
be very quiet--as we were before. We mayn't speak above a whisper. The
invalid is still not out of danger. Give me your hand.... Come!"
With eyes half closed, she suffered him to lead her up the stairs. Her
wet dress flapped against, the banisters. She felt as if she must cower
down on one of the steps and lie there till the charwoman came with her
broom and swept her away. Yet she went on climbing the stairs, drawing
nearer every minute to the fate in store for her above. With bowed head
she followed him down the passage into his room, where the lingering
sultriness of the summer day half stifled her. Konrad pushed her down
into his easy-chair. He drew off the soaked velvet rags from her feet,
and brought her dry stockings. The wet dress too he peeled from her
body, threw his great-coat round her shoulders, and wrapped her in warm
blankets.
She let him do it all impassively, wishing to enjoy to the full his
tender care of her. So far she had not spoken a word. Now, when she
wanted to thank him, he pointed to the door of the adjoining room.
"Speak low," he whispered in her ear beseechingly. "The poor thing
seems to be having a good night for the first time."
Faint compassion awoke in her; yet talking was imperative.
"What is the matter with her?" she asked under her breath. "Tell me."
He hesitated. "The landlady has sworn me to strictest secrecy.... But
you are part of myself; I may tell you. The girl, her only child, ran
away three or four months ago, and was confined in secret. Her mother
went and brought her home, and for six weeks she has been lying between
life and death; at last she has taken a turn for the better."
"Poor thing!" she said, and then the consciousness of her own
wretchedness came over her with renewed force.
"Konni, Konni," she wailed whisperingly on his breast, "it's all over
now. I wanted to starve with you, beg, do anything; but what's the
use?... When you know all...."
"How can that make any difference, dearest?"
"I mean about me--my life, my past."
He disengaged himself with a slight jerk and sat down opposite her. The
inquiring look of consternation, which stiffened his pale face like a
mask, filled her with a fresh fear. This time it was not fear of him,
but fear for him. She was afraid of causing him pain, making her own
suffering his.
"I was going to write to you everything exactly as it happened, but
somehow it wouldn't come. As I wrote, it got all wrong. So instead I
came, came to you in the middle of the night. If you like, I will tell
you ... all ... now."
She could not go on, and buried her face on the edge of the
writing-table.
"Why don't you speak, then?"
He had quite forgotten his strict injunctions about keeping quiet. Both
started at the sudden sound of his voice.
"She is probably asleep," he said, again lowering his tone. "So speak
out at last. What can it be that you have to say?"
His breath came heavily, under the weight of anxiety that oppressed
him.
And she began. Bending towards him, she tried to relate in a whisper
the history for which she had not been able to find words at home.
And this time, too, it was not the truth. She felt that it was not. It
was even less, much less, the truth than what she had written in her
letters. No power on earth could have induced her to pain him with
every sordid detail. So she told of a long succession of martyrdoms,
and in a funereal train let her injuries, humiliations, and insults
pass in review before him. All had been darkness around her, unrelieved
by a ray of hope or light. She had struggled in vain for deliverance
and salvation, had made a dismal sacrifice of herself for no end. So
she talked on. And he, half turned to stone, with wide-open eyes,
listened. Only at the name "Salmoni," which she dared not withhold, he
started and shrank from her.
They had both entirely forgotten the patient in the next room.
Constantly she had to wipe tears out of her eyes; she grew indignant
with herself and others by fits and starts, skated gingerly over places
where the ice was thin, indulged in self-reproaches, and said to
herself defiantly as she drew near the end: "This is the truth." And it
was, in the sense that it was an inventory of the best in her; the
truth as she hoped, with justice, it might shape itself in his
perplexed vision.
There was silence. Her glance glided guiltily beyond him and rested on
the portrait which leered at her from the writing-table with cynical
worldly eyes, as much as to say: "I know you, my dear child, better
than you know yourself." Something familiar and confidential lay in
those eyes, a sort of reflection from that mad merry world which she
had just been representing as a purgatory of tortures.
Fascinated, she dared not look away from them, and their mocking
searching gaze stripped her soul bare, and caused every gleam of hope
to die within her.
The silence became painful. Their thoughts seemed to vibrate in zigzags
through the breathless stillness of the room. Then suddenly it was
broken by a low piteous moaning, muffled at first, as if a handkerchief
were being thrust into the mouth, then breaking out again more
violently and loudly. It came from the next room, where the sick girl
who had sinned secretly had been struggling for so many weeks for her
young life. Soon, crooning words of comfort mingled with the moans. The
girl's mother had come from the room beyond where she slept to
ascertain the cause of this fresh outburst of grief.
Their eyes met. "She must have heard everything," their glance seemed
to say.
For a moment another's misfortune made them forget their own. The great
flood of suffering common to humanity swept over them, softening the
sting of their own personal woes. The sobbing now was smothered by the
pillows.
"My pet, my own!" entreated the mother's consoling voice, every
intonation of it overflowing with love; "be good again, my darling ...
it's not so very dreadful.... We will bring up the little one, and even
if he doesn't marry you it won't matter so much. Think we shall have
the little baby, and what a joy it will be when the baby laughs and
says, 'mamma.' You see, it is not so very bad, after all, my pet, is
it?"
The sobbing subsided and gave place to a gurgling sigh of content.
"'It's not so very bad, after all.' Ah! I wish someone would say that
to me," thought Lilly.
But no one ever would. A burning desire to be soothed and comforted,
even as the poor little sinner in the next room was being comforted,
rose within her. "She has her mother!" she moaned, bursting into tears,
"but I haven't anyone."
Konrad bent over her and drew her hands from her face. In his
sorrowful eyes a radiance dawned, so dear, so full of unspeakable
loving-kindness, that he was quite transfigured, and seemed like a
visitant from another world.
"Haven't you got me?" he asked.
"Yes, but you can't help me now," she said. "How can you endure me any
longer?"
In the next room all was still again. Now the girl's mother must also
be aware that he was entertaining a belated guest.
"Listen," he whispered, with his lips close to her ear. "We mustn't
talk much, and my head's going round; but there's one thing that seems
quite clear to me, and that is, the absurdity of everything that we
call guilt and sin when two people love each other ... and when one of
them has suffered like you. To me you have always been an angel, and an
angel you shall continue to be in the future."
"In the future?" she stammered, listening eagerly. "Is there any
future?"
He wiped his forehead, which was damp from perspiration.
"I don't know yet," he said. "I only know that I cannot live without
you."
She closed her eyes. She wanted the dream to last.
"It may not be now as we hoped, of course." She noticed that his words
came haltingly. "Everything will have to be different."
"But nothing in your life ought to be altered," she said; "it mustn't
be different."
"You can't disregard facts, dear. Where we shall live it's impossible
to say yet; but we shall find some corner of the earth where no one
knows us."
For the first time it dawned on her what he meant. And forgetful of
herself, the sick girl, and everything else, she sank down on her knees
with a cry, and sobbed:
"I won't let you! You shall not do it! You know the world so little.
You are far too young. You don't know what you are doing. You mustn't
sacrifice yourself.... I don't want to ruin you. I love you too well
for that."
He bent back her head and stroked the hair out of her eyes. Oh! if
there had not been that heavenly light of goodness and of suffering in
his eyes! A whole world of grief already burned in their depths.
"If we've come to the question of sacrifice," he said, "then I must ask
you to make a sacrifice for me. Will you?"
"Yes--anything. Do you want me to die? Say it."
"I only want you to do one thing. Come to me as you are. Don't bring a
single bit of your property with you. Never go back to your ... that
flat. From this moment let it all be as if it had never been. Promise
me that."
She struggled against a feeling of shock.
Not go home! Never see her dear corner drawing-room again, nor the
little bullfinch; never give Peterle his dinner again! Never!
A horrid feeling that it was insane folly to ask this came and went
like a splash of mud. Then she answered in hasty resolution:
"Yes, I promise."
He breathed deeply. "Now we will keep quite still," he said. "The girl
must get her sleep, and to-morrow I will explain everything to the
landlady."
"But your great work?" she asked, attacked by another fit of
self-reproach. "What will become of it?"
A melancholy smile stole over his face.
"Who knows? It will depend on my uncle. If he consents, we can live as
we like.... All will be well."
"And if he doesn't?"
His right hand, which had been caressing her hair unceasingly from her
forehead downwards to her neck, for a moment pressed her crown almost
painfully, as if by the closer contact gathering strength for the
approaching life's battle.
"Then all will be well too," he said, and smiled again.
A few minutes later she lay beside him on the narrow camp-bedstead, the
hard edges of which hurt her limbs. Her head was on his shoulder; her
arms, one under his back, the other flung across his chest, clung to
him as always, when she sought solace and protection from him in
trouble. But this time _she_ slept, and _he_ kept watch.
CHAPTER XIX
The old lampshade-maker of the Neanderstrasse was not a little
astonished when her former lodger, whom she had always admired as a
smartly-turned-out grand lady, came one day in a badly fitting alpaca
coat and skirt, and a sailor hat with a grass-green ribbon round it,
and asked to be taken in. Last year's young lady occupant of the best
room having recently married, however, she was glad to let it again to
Lilly.
Thus it happened that Frau Laue's fiery crimson plush upholstery once
more played a part in her life. The pictures of famous actors smiled
down on her patronisingly from the walls, and she was reminded of the
connection between cleanliness of person and purity of conscience as
she made her toilette.
Konrad, in touching concern for her appearance, drew all the money that
he had saved out of the bank--about five hundred marks altogether--and
had purchased her a wardrobe at the draper's, for she could not go out
and shop for herself in the costume she had worn the night that she
came to his rooms. He had been persuaded by the shopgirls to buy the
most ridiculous things. She would have died of laughing if he hadn't
laid out a great deal of his money on them.
Dressed in the shoddy apparel, she felt she was masquerading, and not
for the world would she now have been seen in the streets.
Frau Laue shook her head doubtfully.
"Four years ago you left me with court-dresses, bracelets, and
brooches, and all sorts of lovely things, and now you are come back in
these rags! That doesn't seem to me to be fitting to your career, Lilly
dear."
Neither did Konrad find favour in the old lady's eyes.
"He's too young for you," she said, "and not enough of a swell. He may
have high ideals, and be sentimental, otherwise he wouldn't see
anything in you; but I tell you all that high-flown rubbish means
sorrow."
To Lilly this chatter was intensely objectionable. But as she had
nothing to do all day, she sat down with Frau Laue, as had been her
wont of old, and helped her tap and press her dried flowers. And often
it seemed as if she had never been away.
The first day of her absence she had written to Adele--without giving
her address, of course--and instructed her not to be concerned about
her, but to continue her duties at the flat till Herr Dehnicke came
back.
It was more difficult to write a letter of farewell to Richard. She
made no allusion to her engagement, which was to be kept secret for the
present, and gave as the sole motive of her flight an ardent desire to
live a new life. She again expressed herself unwilling to stand in the
way of his matrimonial prospects, and ended with heartfelt cordiality,
which robbed the separation of every sort of bitterness. On reading the
letter over, she experienced a genuine pang of parting emotion, of
which she was a little ashamed.
Days went by. The new life that for years had been the subject of her
fondest dreams had begun, and under auspices happier than any her
imagination had ever dared to depict.
At the side of the man she loved, whom but a few days ago it would have
seemed arrogance and sacrilege to have thought of possessing, she was
to enter again the society from which she had been banned--rescued,
purified, regenerate.
Who could have believed it possible? Yet, for all that, it required an
effort to realise and appreciate this unheard-of happiness. The more
she said to herself that this was a period of transition that would
soon be over, the more she felt the sordid wretchedness of the old
quarters that had become so strange to her. The frowsy atmosphere, the
spiritual flatness, the want of decent clothes and money, the bad food
and service, all weighed on her spirit and left the impression that
instead of ascending to honour and position she had on the contrary
sunk suddenly from affluence and splendour into a degraded poverty. No
matter how much she scolded herself for this ungracious mood, it
remained with her and would not budge. And she could not explain why it
should be so. Five years ago, when she had really come down from high
places, a spoilt child of fortune, petted and used to every luxury and
attention, she had hardly suffered at all from the dreary squalor of
her surroundings; and, though without any prospects to speak of, she
could still hope. But now, when the idle pleasures of a frivolous
existence lay behind her, and she had been happily drawn out of the
slough, when her beloved was at her side, ready to fling open the doors
for her to enter into a kingdom of undreamed-of joy, she nearly choked
among the red plush furniture, vexed her soul about trifles, and pined
for a bathroom and a hairdresser's services.
Some change had come over her during these years, but what it was,
though she racked her brains in thinking about it, she could not
discover.
In the midst of these trials, her anxiety with regard to Konrad gave
her no peace. She was subject to violent heart-beatings at the mere
thought of him. Her conscience perpetually stabbed her. She longed for
expiation, reproached herself, and in her secret soul reproached him
too.
She dared no longer think of him with the rapture of desire as
formerly, yet she was always on the lookout for a message or letter
from him. If he did write, it was never enough to please her, but if he
was silent she grumbled and fretted, although she knew that he had
scarcely a moment to call his own during the day, and was drudging
harder than he had ever done for her sake.
Between eight and nine in the evening he arrived, laden with books and
papers. He had manuscripts to read, proofs to go through, and letters
to answer. He scarcely gave himself time to eat, and while he swallowed
a few mouthfuls, troubled thoughts of things that he had forgotten to
do during the day constantly occurred to his over-taxed mind.
Hours devoted to amorous dalliance were out of the question. Often
indeed he fell asleep in a corner of the sofa in the middle of his
work. Then Lilly could contemplate at her leisure the ravages his
strenuous life had made on him. He looked haggard and worn, his clothes
were neglected, and the velvety blue sheen of his cheeks, in which she
had taken such delight, had given place to pimples and a stubbly growth
of hair.
She would have given anything to know what he was really thinking about
her at the bottom of his soul, but she could extract nothing from him.
Dumbly he gazed before him with burning eyes, his lips so tightly
compressed that the edge of a razor could not have been inserted
between them. She had no grounds for doubting him, for she knew that
all his energies were concentrated on preparing for their joint future.
The post of professor of German in a college in Buenos Ayres was
vacant, also a similar post in Caracas, and on the other side of the
herring-pond he could easily get employment on any university staff.
All that was necessary was a few testimonials from celebrated
professors.
It was only in the contingency of his uncle disapproving of his
marriage and cutting him off that he laid these plans. If the old man
said "Yes," there would be ample means to set up housekeeping anywhere
they liked, and in surroundings most congenial for the precious work.
Konrad had at once announced his engagement to his uncle, and given a
heart-moving account of Lilly's past. He did not conceal that there had
been stains on it, but he emphasised the more her fine qualities, her
inner purity, her grandeur of soul, her gifts of mind, the wealth of
her intellectual interests.
He read her an extract from a copy of the letter after he had
despatched it, sounding like the manifesto of a social revolution:
"I know you are, thank God, as I am, far above the narrow Philistine
conventions of society, the uncharitable social standards, the
Pharisaism that entitles itself to be the guardian of public morals and
would sacrifice all aspirations, freedom of conduct, and high living to
the fetish of family-life bondage. You have travelled in all parts of
the world and learned how mutable are the laws of morality everywhere,
how hollow the sham of pretending to regard each as the divinely
ordained dogma, and how hypocritical the sly methods by which men
wriggle out of them. You know that in the realm of ethics there is one
thing alone that commands unconditionally a reverence and esteem, and
that is the will to _kallokagathia_, to that mode of living in which
the super-men of all times combined the Good and Beautiful. Yes, in her
aspirations and her troubles, _she_ has personified the good and
beautiful for me, and has brought into my life imperial rights and the
dawn of morning's glory."
Could anything be more splendidly and touchingly put? Who could be so
crassly dull and stupid as to resist the power of such language? And
with this she consoled him when he was weighed down with a feeling of
depression about the uncertainty of their immediate future.
A week passed before the answer came, the longed-for answer that meant
joy or despair to two human beings.
"My dear Boy,
"I have no idea what _kallokagathia_ means, and other foreign words of
the kind. It is half a century since I ran away from school, but, all
the same, I flatter myself that I have a keen eye for faces, and can
take a man's measure pretty accurately, whether it's striking a bargain
on the Yoshiwara, on the Stock Exchange, or at a game of baccarat.
Nevertheless, this insight did not stand in the way of my being fleeced
and of making a fool of myself about women. My life represents a long
sequence of such blunders. Once I wanted to bring home a young
Circassian because her eyebrows grew prettily; another time I nearly
married a little Musme, because she understood how to massage my feet.
I won't recount how many times I wanted to act the part of saviour of
souls, for everyone goes through that phase. Fortunately, the patron
divinity of old rips and old bachelors--with your wide classical
learning you may be able to tell me who he is--has hitherto had the
grace to save me from putting any plans into execution. _Your_ case,
however, appears on the surface to be essentially different. If,
as you relate, your sweetheart is a pattern with every attribute of
virtue--life is full of surprises and if she doesn't pose as a
repentant magdalen, then I shall with the greatest enjoyment give
respectability, which I have detested all my life, a slap in the face
by bestowing on you my hearty blessing. But if by any chance your love
affair bears a family likeness to my own tender recollections, you must
excuse me if I back out of any responsibility with regard to what you
call your future and break off any relations with you. The best plan I
can think of is to come to Berlin to-morrow, and to ask you and your
future bride to keep an evening free for your old uncle. As I don't
know as yet the best place to dine at, I will fix a _rendezvous_ later.
Till then,
"Your affectionate
"Uncle Rennschmidt."
For the first time during these sad days, Lilly saw Konrad's face relax
into a smile.
"If that is his attitude," he said, "there is nothing to fear. One
glance at you and his doubts will be dissipated; besides, who in the
world could possibly resist you? You have only to make yourself a
little nice to him and he will be your slave."
But Lilly cherished secret misgivings.
If only she had her old extensive wardrobe to select from, she might,
with great care, have made herself as presentable as she could wish
in his uncle's eyes; but in either of these two ready-made little
frocks--which only by pinning she could make fit her--without ornaments
and the hundred and one etceteras that contribute to a perfect
_ensemble_, how was she to achieve the conquest of the old connoisseur
of women?
"I am afraid I shall have to put you to the expense of an evening
dress," she said timidly.
He was delighted at the idea. Anything she wanted she must have, of
course. A hat with feathers, a lace scarf ... like those he had seen
her in. And he handed out two hundred and sixty marks, all that he had
left, for her purchases. Poor dear boy! what did he know of the
costliness of _chic_ in the world of fashion?
When he was gone she thought it over. While she was trying to devise
plans of getting herself up decently out of the means at her disposal,
there were dozens of lovely dresses hanging in the cupboards of her old
flat, dresses that he had never seen in his life, for she had never
been escorted by him to any party. And the lace scarf, which had cost a
fortune, was there too, and God only knew what besides. She dared
hardly trust herself to think of all these wasted treasures.
With all her might she resisted the temptation. She had given him her
word of honour, and, whoever else she might deceive, she could not
deceive Konrad. So she decided to go on a shopping expedition the next
morning. There might be something she could pick up in stock at
Wertheim's or Gerson's that would prove a bargain. She was well known
in the shops, and though never extravagant, was noted for always
choosing the very best materials. What astonishment would be depicted
on the faces of the saleswomen when they beheld her in her present
cheap, shoddy clothes!
No; it would be too painful an ordeal. She couldn't go through it. Yet
think and think it over as she did by the hour, nothing could prevent
her thoughts travelling back to the wardrobes where her finery reposed,
silently offering her an exquisite choice. Nowhere could she find a
loophole by which she could evade her promise, nowhere an excuse for
the crime of breaking it. In spite of all this wrestling with herself,
the night passed in happy dreams, for the sun of hope had risen once
more. And, as usual, when Lilly's sleep was refreshing and profound,
she felt her senses lapped in familiar melodies. The "Moonlight Sonata"
stole on her, and Grieg's "Ung Birken," and, with the Rhine maidens'
motif out of "The Ring," "The Song of Songs."
As she lay half awake the aria still rang in her ears: "Come, my
beloved, let us go forth into the field."
And then, in sudden terror, she started up in bed crying out, "The Song
of Songs!" The score--her precious roll of music--her heritage--where
was it?
In a drawer of the escritoire in the corner drawing-room--buried,
forgotten.
She had never given it a single thought.
Now there was no longer any question of keeping her promise. If in that
supreme hour she had kept her head, she would never have given it. She
had been casting about for an excuse, and now here was more than an
excuse, a justification. No pangs of conscience troubled her. This was
a sacred cause, for which she must go through fire and water.
Before eight o'clock she was out of the house. The sun-drenched mist of
the rosy August morning melted into a violet sky; from the yellowing
poplars dropped sooty dew, and the electric trams hummed their secret
storm-signals.
She mingled with the little crowd that gathered and melted again at the
nearest stopping-station waiting for the car which was to take her
west. Nervously she looked about her, fearful that Konrad might chance
to come along the street; and when seated in the tramcar she screened
her face with the morning paper that she had brought. Along the canal
path she glided, under cover of the trees, like a hunted animal.
And so she came to the flat at last. The porter was sweeping the steps,
as he did every morning, and greeted her with an exclamation of wonder
and pleasure. The greengrocer whose stall was in the cellar gave her a
roguish welcome, and his small fry, to whom she had sometimes given a
bonbon, hung on to her skirts in jubilation. Altogether it felt like
coming home.
Adele was still in bed. Why shouldn't she be? There was nothing for her
to do.
When Lilly opened the door of her room she displayed unbounded delight.
She even shed tears of satisfaction, and Lilly all at once realised
what she was losing in her.
Everything shone brightly in the morning sunshine. The flowers had been
watered. The bullfinch flapped his wings in greeting, and Peterle
nearly broke the bars of his cage to scramble up on her shoulder. She
scarcely knew whom to attend to first--out of sheer happiness and
affection.
There were three letters and two telegrams on the salver. The letters
were in Richard's handwriting; the telegrams were addressed to Adele,
urgently demanding the address of her vanished mistress.
In the meantime her master had given up his courtship, and returned to
Berlin. He had advertised in the papers, and came every day to see if
there was any answer. He sat in his old place and drank his tea as
usual, afterwards smoking cigarettes till it was time to go back to the
office.
Had she mentioned Konrad? What did the _gnaedige Frau_ take her for?
Adele hoped she understood better than that how to look after her
mistress's interests. And now the best thing for the _gnaedige Frau_ to
do was to come back and act just as if nothing at all had happened.
That is what her former ladies had always done.
Lilly asked her to fetch down the smaller of her two leather trunks
from the attic, explaining that she wished to take away with her a few
things which had belonged to her before. As Adele sullenly obeyed,
Lilly collected Konrad's letters from their secret hiding-place, then
ran to her big wardrobe, snatched the dresses from the pegs, and piled
them on the bed to choose what she would take.
It was now that she thought of "The Song of Songs." She went down on
her knees before the escritoire. The roll of music, which had been
lying for years at the back of the bottom drawer neglected and forlorn,
had assumed a different aspect. The elastic band that held the sheets
together had become slack and sticky, and fell to pieces when Lilly
touched it: The crumpled sheets slipped out of her hand and fluttered
over the carpet. There they lay--the arias, the recitations, the duets,
and the connecting orchestral passages--all in confusion, and on the
top the "Turtle Dove" solo for the clarionet, which she had hummed with
her mother almost before she could lisp. Dismayed, she gazed at the
scattered sheets. They had turned yellow and musty. Several were
stained with her own blood, which had flown from her veins after her
mother's assault on her with the bread-knife. The bloodstains entirely
obliterated many of the notes. Others had been gnawed away with the
paper by mice at Schloss Lischnitz. And this was what it had come to,
her "Song of Songs."
It held out no message of hope now; it was no refuge for the future. No
faithful Eckart, no guide to dizzy golden heights. It was a mere
derelict, used up though never used, a time-honoured bit of lumber
that one drags about without knowing why--an extinguished light, a
masterpiece of wisdom that had become meaningless.
Shrugging her shoulders, she hastily gathered together the disarranged
rolls of paper and tried to thrust one inside the other, regardless of
how they came--she was in such a hurry!
"I can arrange them some time later," she thought, dimly conscious that
she would never take the trouble.
Adele came with the box. She seemed to have been a remarkably long time
getting it. Her eyes kept wandering guiltily to the clock, and her
answers were absent-minded. Then she threw back the lid, and Lilly
threw the score into the bottom of the box. Its yawning depths seemed
to cry out for further booty. There lay the dresses spread out on the
bed. Her row of shoes stood by the washstand. Hats, blouses, veils,
lace wraps, silk petticoats--all were waiting as much as to say, "Take
us too!"
For a moment she closed her eyes with a moan, remembering the one and
only sacrifice he had asked of her. But it must be done--both their
futures depended on it.
"Frau Laue will hide them for me, and afterwards Frau Laue can keep
them," she thought.
Then, with a rapid resolve, she made a dash at the clothes, and
gathered up blindly anything and everything she could lay hands on.
She seized even the gold-coroneted ivory brushes, the three-winged
hand-mirror, the bromide, the recipe for the summer storage of her
furs, and a dozen other little indispensable articles of the toilette.
And jewels were not forgotten! "_He_ may want money later," she
thought.
Meanwhile Adele had been sent out for a four-wheeler, and again it was
ages before she came back. The porter helped to carry down the trunk,
and Adele held the hat-boxes in her free hand. One last caress of the
bullfinch's grey-green wings, a kiss on the small monkey's velvety
snout, and the door closed behind her for ever.
"Will not the _gnaedige Frau_ leave an address?" Adele inquired. How sly
she looked!
"Later on I will write to you, dear Adele, and I hope you may come and
live with me again."
"Dear Adele" did not respond, but glanced down the street expectantly.
A few minutes afterwards, as Lilly drove along the canal, she saw from
the cab window a smart yellow-striped hired motor whiz past from the
opposite direction. Richard was inside. She recognised him as he
flashed by. Red as a lobster, his head slanting, he stared past her,
with wild and searching glances, at the house that she had just left.
She hurriedly directed her driver to turn into a side street, for she
had no desire to meet him till her fate with regard to the world had
been decided. But in a few minutes she heard, with a beating heart, the
same clatter of wheels that had died away in the distance coming behind
her, and drawing nearer and nearer. The yellow side of the motor had
almost shot beyond her, when the word "Stop!" brought it to a
standstill, and at the same moment her cab drew up too.
Richard confronted her with his hand on the door-handle: "Where are you
going?"
His voice rose to a feminine shrillness. Above his high starched collar
his throat worked up and down convulsively.
She felt perfectly calm and mistress of the situation.
He appeared to her now a poor, helpless shadow of a creature, he who so
long had been her lord and master.
"Please let me drive on, Richard," she said. "I have said good-bye to
you by letter. I wanted a few things, and have been to fetch them. Why
should we annoy each other further?"
"Turn round!" he said, grinding his teeth. "Turn round!"
"Why should I turn round?"
"I say you shall! You know where your home is. I will not allow you to
knock about the world by yourself any longer, God knows what mayn't
happen to you. Driver, turn round!"
The driver, with his red face, looked inquiringly at his fare before
obeying.
"Really, Richard, I alone have the control of this cab, and of my
future proceedings--as you have control of yours."
"What rot! If you are thinking about the American heiress, she may go
to the deuce for all I care. But _you_--you _must_ come back. You must!
you shall!"
He grasped with both hands the hem of her skirt as if he would drag her
out of the cab by her clothes.
"I beg you to come back.... I can't sleep, I can't work.... I have got
so used to you.... If it had come off, I should have joined you again
directly the wedding was over. And everything in your rooms is as you
left it that you have seen for yourself. Peterle won't eat, Adele says,
and Adele is moped. She says she simply can't exist without you. I'll
give you twenty thousand--no, thirty thousand--marks a year for life.
Mother won't mind.... She understands ... for, you know, I've given up
the idea of marrying for good; that need never worry you again.... And
you may come to the office when you like.... And you shall have the
carriage instead of a hired one. I'll have the telephone put on between
your flat and the stable. Or perhaps you'd prefer a motor-car? If so,
you shall have one, ten thousand times better than this."
He had played his trump-card. What dreams of earthly grandeur could
exceed a motor-car? He paused and, kneeling on the step, stared hard
into her face to see the effect of his speech.
She saw clearly that she would never be free of him unless she told him
the truth. She was sorry for him, but it was her duty.
"Look here, Richard. All that you offer me is no good to me now, for I
love another man who can give me far more than you can--far, far more!"
"What! What! You've caught a young Vanderbilt?" he exclaimed in jealous
rage. "Well, I must say I never suspected that side to your character."
"No, dear Richard; it's not a young Vanderbilt. On the contrary, he is
so poor that he lives from hand to mouth. But, all the same, he and I
are engaged, and as his future wife I must ask you to leave me free to
do as I like."
His jaw dropped, his eyes grew round; he reeled back against the hind
wheel of the yellow car.
"Drive on!" called Lilly to the cabman.
She leaned back in her corner with a sigh of relief, and yet with a
slight sense of guilt at having got rid so lightly of the old love.
The whole way she heard the puffing of a slowly progressing motor
behind her, and when she descended from the cab, Richard got out of his
motor at a little distance, but near enough for her to see an
expression in his eyes like that of a whipped dog.
She ran up the four flights of stairs as if pursued by furies,
forgetting all about her box. A moment afterwards the cabman came up,
panting under its weight, and when she offered him his fare he declined
to take the money.
"The gentleman downstairs," he said, "has already settled everything."
CHAPTER XX
It was the evening of the next day. The carriage, which was bearing
Lilly to the most dreaded interview of her life, drew up at the door of
the Unter den Linden Restaurant, which had been a favourite haunt of
the _beaumonde_ for generations. Although Lilly had not been there for
a long time, she knew every inch of it. She knew, too, the giant
commissionaire, Albert, who stood at the entrance and laid his hand
respectfully on his braided cap. It was he who of old used to apprise
her of the approach of the handsome officer of Hussars. With downcast
eyes and her head pressed against Konrad's shoulder, she glided past
him, trusting that he no longer remembered her.
"Uncle, this is Lilly!"
An old gentleman below middle height, with bow legs, and in an
ill-fitting lounge-jacket and limp collar, came swaggering out of a
private room and held out to her a broad fleshy hand, the skin of which
was as loose and brown as a dog-skin glove. She cast a shy,
scrutinising glance at this all-powerful person, whom she had pictured
as a man of commanding presence and iron will, and who, after all, was
only a shaky, corpulent, rather common-looking dwarf.
Then, as she told herself that her own and Konrad's happiness depended
on her conduct now and during the next hour or two, she felt the old
paralysing nervousness which had not troubled her much of late years
come over her. When suffering from these attacks she became as wooden
as a doll, and could do nothing but smile inanely, and hardly knew how
to pronounce her own name.
The old uncle, too, seemed frozen into silence at the first sight of
her. He scanned her from head to foot, and from foot to head, and
nearly forgot to invite her into the private room.
This room, with its gold Japanese wall-paper, its carnation silk
hangings, its blue Persian rugs, and high-backed sofa, was as familiar
to her as everything else in the place. Many a festive midnight hour
had she caroused away here with Richard and his chance acquaintances at
the time when it was still his ambition to hobnob with the _creme de la
creme_ of fast society.
An immaculately shaved waiter took her brocaded evening coat and lace
scarf, and measured her as he did so with an eye that seemed to say,
"Surely I must have seen _you_ before?"
That was an agonising moment.
The old uncle, who had never ceased to regard her stealthily with awed
but grim glances, pulled himself together and said:
"Well, now we are going to have a jolly time together, children ...
cosy and friendly--eh? Jolly cosy."
Lilly bowed.
Her bow was a stiff enough inclination of the head, apparently, to
increase the bandy-legged old gentleman's reverent esteem for her. He
seemed puzzled and ill at ease, trampled restlessly about the room,
toyed with the gold charms that dangled from his watch-chain, and
nodded two or three times at Konrad in solemn appreciation.
Then they seated themselves at the gleaming white table, which was a
mass of glittering cut-glass and flowers. Round the bronze lamp, with
its claws and dainty iris stem--Lilly remembered it well--hung a
festoon of lilac orchids, which must have cost an immense sum.
Evidently this slovenly old rascal understood the art of good living.
Lilly saw herself reflected in a mirror as she sat in her place on the
sofa, a radiant picture of composure and distinction. She had chosen a
sunray pleated black Liberty silk dress with a bodice of Chantilly
lace, which, despite its costliness, clung in the simplest lines
gracefully about her neck and shoulders. An innocent masculine mind
might easily believe that such a costume could be bought anywhere
between San Francisco and St. Petersburg, or Cape Town and Christiania,
for two hundred marks.
She had wisely left her jewellery at home. Only the slender gold chain,
which she generally wore with a low bodice, encircled in maidenly
unpretentiousness her high transparent collar.
She looked like a strictly reared young gentlewoman of quality making
her first _debut_ in the great world, full of shyness and curiosity.
Konrad occupied the chair on her right. The third place, nearest the
door, his uncle had retained for himself.
From the moment he sat down to table he seemed to be in his element. He
growled and issued orders, and found fault with everything.
"Look here, my boy," he said to the waiter as he placed the _hors
d'[oe]uvres_ in front of him, "do you call that the correct decanter for
port wine? Don't you know that if port wine doesn't sparkle in the
decanter it assuages thirst?"
Intimidated by his bullying tone, the waiter was going off for another
decanter, but Konrad's uncle declared he couldn't spare the time, he
must have a "starter" straight away.
"I am still feeling a little stiff," he said apologetically, "I am
unaccustomed to entertaining such very beautiful and at the same time
stand-offish ladies."
Lilly felt a stab at her heart.
Her lover's eyes met hers with a glance full of reproach and
encouragement which said: "You mustn't be so silent. You must try to be
nice to him." And in the same mute language she answered humbly and
deprecatingly: "I cannot; _you_ talk for both of us."
And then he began in his anxiety to converse as if he had been
paid to entertain the company. He described the antiques which his
uncle had collected in his castle on the Rhine, referred to threatened
American competition, passed on to Italy and the evils of the Lex
Pacca--goodness only knew what topic he didn't touch on.
It was quite an illuminating little discourse, which his uncle appeared
to follow with modified interest, as he squinted across at Lilly and
smacked his lips while he let morsels of tunny in oil slip down his
throat.
Suddenly he said, "All very well, my son. Highly instructive and
proper. But I wonder if you could not be equally enlightening on the
subject of what sort of whisky they provide here?"
Konrad sprang up to look for the bell, but his uncle pulled him back.
"Stop! stop! This is my private entertainment. The port wine is for
you. And a beautiful woman, after all, is a beautiful woman, even when
she is someone else's beautiful wife. So here's to the health of our
beauty."
That sounded very like sarcasm. Was it his intention to make game of
her before finally rejecting her claims?
"Permit me," he continued, "to give you my congratulations. You have
worked wonders already with the boy.... He dances prettily to your
piping--eh?"
Now she was bound to make some answer.
"I don't pipe and he doesn't dance," she said, with an effort. "We are
neither of us light-hearted enough for that."
"Ah, that's a nasty one for me," he laughed; but his laugh sounded
cross and irritable.
"Lilly meant no harm," interposed Konrad, coming to her rescue. "And
certainly the time of stress that we are passing through at present is
not easy. If it were not for the help she gives me daily with her
understanding and kindness of heart, I am not sure that I could
struggle on."
"Very good, very good," he replied; "or perhaps I should say, very
pitiable. But your old uncle hasn't had as much as one pretty look or
speech from her yet as a seal of our future relationship."
"Oh, that's what he wants, is it?" thought Lilly; and she raised her
glass to his, and sought to mollify him with a coquettish little
shamefaced smile.
It filled him with evident satisfaction. He twirled his pointed beard,
and ogled her familiarly with his twinkling eyes, as if he wished to
elicit a sign of secret understanding betwixt them.
"Thank God, perhaps he's not so very formidable after all!" she
thought, and gave a sigh of deep relief that the ice was broken at
last.
When the waiter came back, a lively discussion ensued between him and
Konrad's uncle as to the brands of whisky the hotel boasted.... The
debate ended in the manager of the establishment appearing on the
scene, and offering to go down into the cellar himself to search for a
bottle, which he thought he had somewhere, bearing the label of a
certain celebrated firm, and the date of a certain famous year.
Not till this important matter was settled did the old gentleman again
devote his attention to his fair future niece-in-law.
"I am an old mud-lark," he said. "I have done business in guano, train
oil, Australian pitch, ship grease, and other such unclean things. So
you can't wonder at my wishing to refresh myself for once in a way with
an appetising object like yourself, dear ungracious lady. All I require
is a little return of my interest."
"Ah well, then, I'll just be impudent," thought Lilly. And aloud she
said: "You know, Herr Rennschmidt, I am sitting here trembling
in my shoes like a poor, unlucky candidate for an examination! I
implore you"--she raised her clasped hands towards him--"don't play
cat-and-mouse with me."
Now she had struck the right note and given him the opening he desired.
"Her lips are unsealed at last!" he exclaimed, beaming. "And I say,
Konrad, what pretty lips she has! I like those long teeth that make the
upper lip say to the lower, 'If you won't kiss when I do, I'll have a
separation.' Do you see what I mean, Konrad, you dullard?"
Lilly could not help laughing heartily, and at once they were on the
best of terms. Even Konrad's dear, haggard face lighted up for a moment
with a reassuring smile which did her heart good. For his sake she
could almost have thrown herself under his uncle's feet, so dearly did
she love him. And with a feeling of rising triumph she thought, "I'll
just show him how awfully nice I can be to the old curmudgeon."
It was not so difficult, after all. When she looked at his round,
puckered, mischievous old face, with the keen shrewd grey eyes and the
beautifully waved snow-white wig--it was actually a wig peaked on the
forehead and brushed into two outstanding curls over his ears like a
judge's--she felt more and more that he was a good and tried comrade,
with whom she had often had good times in the past. And yet she had
certainly never met him before.
He had a masterful air of breeding about him, despite his plebeian
exterior. His choice of the menu was simply admirable. The 'sixty-eight
Steinberger, which flowed into the crystal glasses like liquid amber,
suited the blue trout to such perfection that it might have been their
native element; and the sweet-bread patties _a la Montgelas_ were
worthy accompaniments. Neither Richard nor any of his crew understood
so well the gourmet's art.
If only he had not drunk whisky so perpetually in between!
"My brain has been so deadened by money-making," he said in
justification, "I am obliged to give it a fillip now and then, or it
would become completely dulled."
With the punch _a la romaine_, a brief and vivacious debate arose as to
the merits of certain American drinks, in which Lilly, with her
extensive knowledge of bars and beverages, scored. She even knew the
exact ingredients of her host's speciality, the "South Sea Bowl," in
which sherry, cognac, angostura bitters, with the yolks of eggs and
Chateau d'Yquem, or, if necessary, moselle, contributed to make a fiery
mixture. She went so far as to offer to prepare this curious mixture
for him after dinner with the skill of an expert, so that he would have
to confess he had never drunk anything more delicious between Singapore
and Melbourne.
Konrad, who obviously had never suspected her genius in this direction,
listened to her with an amazement that filled her with pride. She
telegraphed to him one secret signal after the other, asking, "Aren't
you pleased? Am I not being very, very nice to him?"
But somehow he would not respond. He was silent and absent-minded, and
it often seemed as if he did not belong to the party.
"Well, he may dream if he likes," she thought blissfully. "I'll look
after our interests."
Thus every minute the friendship between her and the old worldling grew
apace.
By the time they had got to the wild-duck and the dark glowing
burgundy, which slid down their throats like warm caresses, she had
already begun to call him "dear uncle." He, on his side, declared over
and over again that he was "totally wrapped up in his dear, dear little
Lilly."
So this was the test, the cruel probation, which she had dreaded with
all her soul, through which she had expected to come dissected and
unmasked, with every rag of concealment rudely torn off!
When she thought of how differently things were turning out, she could
hardly contain herself for glee. There sat the mighty, dreaded peril,
whose money-bags meant victory or defeat, a little wild beast tamed,
who squeezed her fingers in his repulsive shrivelled hands and fawned
on her for a smile.
He was undoubtedly quite amusing, especially when he told good stories.
What a lot of scandal he had gathered in the Colonies! In one evening
he told more anecdotes than she had heard for a year. There was, for
example, the story of the German Governor, Herr von So-and-So--she had
once met him herself at Uhl's--who took up his duties abroad with a
suite consisting of secretary, valet, and cook. In six months the cook
came and said, "Herr Governor, I am----" He gave her two thousand marks
and said, "Here you are, but keep quiet." Then she went to the
secretary and said, "Herr Mueller, I am----" He gave her three hundred
marks and said, "Not a word." Then she went to the valet and said,
"Johann, I'm so far gone, we'd better marry." After three months the
valet came to the Governor and said, "Your Excellency, the hussy took
us all in. The child is black!" And many another yarn followed of the
same sort. In short, she nearly died of laughing.
"Konrad, why don't you laugh? Laugh, dearest."
And then he really did smile, but his eyes remained grave and his brow
tense.
When the champagne came, they drank each other's health again, and
kissed. The touch of those thick sensual old lips was horrible, but to
ensure her future happiness it had to be endured. She was going to give
Konrad a kiss too, but he declined it. Still worse, he tried to prevent
her drinking so much.
"She ought to be more careful," he urged. "Please, uncle, don't fill up
her glass so often. We never drink so much as this."
The other two laughed at him.
"He always was a bit of a muff," jeered his old uncle, "and never knew
what was good. He's not good enough for you, Lilly; you ought to have a
fellow like me--not a prig. He's like a mute at a funeral."
But she saw no joke in this.
"You shan't abuse my darling Konni, you old wretch! Go on telling your
old chestnuts. _Allons_! Fire away!"
No, not a word should be breathed against her dear, sweet Konni!
So uncle started telling good stories again. This time he related them
in pigeon-English, that gibberish which the Chinese and other
interesting inhabitants of the far East use as a medium of
communication with the white sahibs. "Tom and Paddy in the Tea-house";
"The virtuous spinster Miss Laura"; "The Guide and the Bayadere." Each
was received with a box of the ears.
"But we mustn't let Konni hear any more, uncle dear. Konni might be
corrupted."
So saying, she inclined her left ear very close to dear uncle's lips,
and made with her hollowed hand between them a "whispering-tube," which
was the custom of "the crew" when any of them wanted to flirt unheard,
or do anything else particularly outrageous.
It would be a sad mistake to suppose that she was in the least abashed
or unequal to giving as good as she got. The general's "lullabies" were
spicy enough, and she had learned from "the crew" much that was of
unquestionable origin and questionable taste. For such an appreciative
audience as uncle proved to be, it was worth while doing one's best.
But the innocent Konrad had to submit to his ears being stuffed up with
the wadding on which the Colville apples had been served.
After the coffee, uncle challenged her to keep her promise about
brewing the South Sea Bowl, her vaunted knowledge of which, of course,
had been mere brag.
She would show him! He shouldn't scoff at her a second time. A variety
of bottles were brought; besides the sherry and the angostura, an old,
sweet liqueur. It was a pity, uncle thought, to mix such good things,
and he took two or three glasses of the latter neat, and she followed
his example.
The tiresome eggs broke at the wrong place, it was true, and emptied
their contents on her dress and the carpet. But what did that matter?
It merely increased the fun ... and dear old uncle was paying for
everything. To make up for the eggs smashing, the blue flame of the
alcohol-lamp leapt up merrily as high as the orchids, as high as the
ceiling.... She would have loved to lick up the flames, as the witches
did.
"Your luck, Konni!--_our_ luck, Konni!"
"Don't drink it," she heard him say, and his voice sounded harder than
usual. Indeed, she hardly recognised it as his voice at all.
"Muff!" she laughed, and thrust out her tongue at him. "Muff!"
"Don't drink it!" the warning voice said again. "You are not used to
it."
_She_ not used to drinking! How dared he say so? This was an insult to
her honour; yes, an insult to her honour.
"How do you know what I am used to? I am used to plenty of things you
don't guess.... Here, on this seat where I am sitting now, I have sat
more than once--more than ten times--and have drunk ten times more."
"Dearest heart, you don't know what you are saying. It isn't true."
Once more his voice sounded gentle and soothing, as if he were
reproving a naughty child.
"How dare you say it isn't true? Do you take me for an impostor? I
suppose you think I am not at home in swell places like this!... Pooh!
Shall I give you a proof? I can--I can!... You'll find my name
scratched at the foot of this lamp. Look and you'll find it.... 'Lilly
Czepanek ... Lilly Czepanek.' Look! Look, I say!"
He had started to his feet, his face rigid, and fixed his eyes in
horror on the polished silver mirror of the lamp, on which was a jumble
of scribbled hieroglyphics. He could not distinguish amongst them the
L. C. for which he was looking till she came to his assistance. Here,
no; there, no. The letters swam into one another. It was like trying to
catch hold of the goldfish in the aquarium.
Hurrah! here it was. That was it--"L. v. M." and the coronet above. For
in those days she had often had the audacity to call herself by the
forbidden title as a temporary adornment.
"Now, do you see, Konni, that I was right? Now you won't mind how much
I drink, will you, you dear, precious little muff?"
Utterly crushed by the proof, he sank back in his chair without a
single word.
His uncle and Lilly went on drinking and laughing at him.
At this moment she happened to catch sight of herself in the glass.
Through a billowy haze she beheld a flushed, puffy face with
dishevelled hair falling about it from under a crooked hat, and two
deeply marked lines running from mouth to chin. It was not a pleasing
spectacle, and she was a little disturbed at it; but before she could
distress herself further, the old uncle claimed her attention with a
new joke.
"Do you know, Lilly dear, how the Chinese sing 'Die Lorelei'?"
Before she had heard a syllable she went into a fit of giggles. He
crossed his bandy legs and played a prelude on the side of his foot as
if it were a banjo, "Ping, pang, ping"; and then he began in a cracked,
nasal, gurgling voice, drawling his "l's."
"O, my belong too much sorry
And can me no savy, what kind;
Have got one olo piccy story,
No won't she go outside my mind."
When he came to the second verse:
"Dat night belang dark and colo"
he heightened the effect by tearing the wig from his head, and now he
looked for all the world like an old nodding mandarin, with his slits
of eyes and his polished bare ivory skull.
It was fascinatingly and overwhelmingly funny. Never in her life had
she seen such a mirth-provoking, side-splitting piece of clowning. You
could have died of envy if you hadn't been Lilly Czepanek, the renowned
mimic and impersonator, who, when the spirit moved her, had only to
open her lips to rouse a tornado of applause.
Her incomparable _repertoire_ had been growing rusty for too long. "La
belle Otero" was not yet stale, and Tortajada was dancing her ravishing
dances, while Matchiche was just becoming the rage.
All you had to do was to tilt your hat a little further back, to raise
your black skirt--the _dessous_ was part of what had been brought away
yesterday, and would not have disgraced a Saharet--and then you were
off!
And she was off! Off like a whirlwind over the carpet, slippery with
the yolks of eggs that she had spilt. Hop, skip--ole! ole! Yes, you
must shout "Ole!" and clap your hands. "Ole-e-e----"
Dear uncle bawled; the floor rocked in great waves.... Lamps and
mirrors danced with her. All hell seemed to be let loose.
"Konni, why don't you shout 'Ole'? ... Don't be so down ... Ole!"
"Uncle, you will have this on your conscience!"
What did he mean by saying that? Why was he sobbing? Why did he stand
there as white as the tablecloth?
"Ole--ol-e-e-e!"
CHAPTER XXI
Towards noon Lilly awoke in a rapture of joy.
The formidable uncle had been won--the last obstacle cleared from her
path--the future lay spread out at her feet like a land of milk and
honey. The probation looked forward to with such anxiety and terror had
turned out, after all, only a delightful spree. What a mountebank and
buffoon that shrewd old man of the world was, who probably had ground
women's hearts under his heel as indifferently as he crunched walnuts.
When she tried, however, to review the events of the previous evening
she felt a slight dismay at nothing emerging from her blurred memory
but the sounds of song and uproarious laughter, just as it used to be
in that other life when she had spent the night in mad revels with
Richard and his friends.
As the mist lifted a little, she saw a deadly white face petrified by
pained surprise, heard an exclamation that was half a sob and half a
groan, and saw herself, sobbing too, kneeling before someone who pushed
her away with his hands.
Had that happened, or had she dreamed it?
And she had danced and sung so beautifully! She had exhibited her art
at its best. Could there have been anything displeasing in it? Had she,
perhaps, gone a little too far in her high spirits?
Her anxiety grew. She sprang out of bed, and her one thought was that
she must go to him instantly.
At twelve the bell rang.
That was Konrad; it must be Konrad. But, when she flew to the lobby
door to throw herself into his arms with a cry of joy and relief, she
found that she was standing face to face with his uncle, who stood
twirling his hat in his horrid fingers, and looked at her with a
significant smile that she did not like at all.
"Is it to come all over again--the probation," she thought, "or is it
now only coming off for the first time?"
"How do you do?" died in her throat. She let him in without speaking. A
sensation of faintness came over her, as if she were going to fall
backwards through the wall into her room.
It was the old man who opened the door and walked in, with the air of
an acquaintance who knew his way about.
"Where is Konrad?"
"Konrad?" he repeated, and scratched the silk band of his wig with his
little finger. "I've something to say about Konrad."
He drew out his glittering watch, with its massive chain, and studied
the hands.
"I make it just ten minutes past twelve. By now he will be on his way
to the station--most probably he has started."
"Is he ... going away?" she stammered, while her breath began to fail
her.
"Yes, yes. He is going away.... We settled that last night.... He needs
a change."
"It's nonsense," she thought; "how can he go away for a change without
me?"
But she put a restraint on herself and asked casually, "Where is he
thinking of going so suddenly?"
"Oh! he's taking a little trip abroad hardly worth speaking about. It
seemed a favourable opportunity. A double cabin was going begging on
the steamer leaving--er--never mind where!... an outside cabin, you
know; on the promenade deck; pleasantest position, you know; no
splashing, and lots of air.... One wants plenty of air, especially
during those four days in the Red Sea."
Then she was right. Her suspicions that the probation of her character
and intentions was only to begin seriously now were being verified.
"What takes people to the Red Sea, uncle dear?" she asked, with her
most ingenuous smile.
"Yes, what takes them to the Red Sea? Four thousand years ago the
ancient Jews asked the same question, and everyone asks it to-day when
he finds himself sweltering there. But still, if you want to go to
India, you must pass through the Red Sea.... And I want to go to India
once more. I've been quite long enough trotting about the pavements at
home. And as our Konrad is overworked--you'll admit he is, child--I
have talked him into coming to travel with me a bit. For in cases like
this I believe change of scene is the best remedy. Do you see?"
Lilly felt a lump rise in her throat as if all the links of his gold
watch-chain were choking her.
"This joke isn't in the best of taste," she thought; "and God knows
what he means by it."
But whether she liked it or not, she had to play at the game. "Konrad
might have had the grace to come and say goodbye to me prettily," she
replied, pouting a little, as if a journey to Potsdam or Dresden was in
question.
"Well, you see, child, that's what he wanted to do, of course. But I
said to him, 'Look here, my boy, farewells are far too exciting and
unnerving, and may bring on apoplexy.' He agreed, and left it to me to
put matters straight with you."
"Well, by all means let us put matters straight," she answered, with
the patronising smile that such a farce merited.
"I shouldn't be surprised," she thought, "if he were not waiting
outside in the cab for a signal to come in."
"Uncle" placed his smart panama hat beside him on the floor, leaned his
short body back in Frau Laue's red plush arm-chair, and affected an
expression of distress and sympathy.
What an old clown he was! It mystified her more than anything that he
seemed so absolutely to have forgotten the alliance they had entered
into on the previous evening. But perhaps this was only part of the
probation farce.
"If it were only a question of me, my dear," he went on, "it wouldn't
matter. I honestly confess I'm mad about you--'wrapped up,' as I said
last night. I have met womenfolk in all parts of the globe, and it's as
clear to me as palm-oil that you are made of the choicest materials
it's possible to find. But there are people, you know, who take life
seriously and cherish grand illusions.... people who have no notion
that a human being must be a human being. They think they are something
extra, and expect life to afford them extra titbits. And then come
disappointments, of course ... reproaches, despair ... tearing of hair,
wringing of hands. I'm blowed if he didn't try to thrash me last
night!"
"Whom are you talking about?" asked Lilly, becoming every moment more
uneasy.
"Just as if I had led you on into the little overshooting of the mark!
No, no ... that's not my way. I don't lay man-traps. And so I told him
ten times over. The misfortune is, that you and I understood each other
too well. You and I are in the same line of business.... We two are
like two old colleagues."
"We two ...? You and I?" gasped Lilly in frigid amazement.
"Yes, you and I, my dear child. Don't have a fit--you and I; you and I.
It's true that you are a splendid beauty of twenty-five, and I am a
damned old fool of sixty.... But life has tarred us with the same
brush. How am I to explain it to you?... Have you ever hunted for
diamonds? I don't mean at the jeweller's. I'll lay a wager you know
that way of hunting them. Well, a diamond lies embedded in hard rock,
in tunnels ... so-called blue ground. If you find a blue-ground
tunnel, you may imagine what it is; you just sit in it. Once I went
diamond-hunting with a party of twenty, day and night, week after week.
The blue ground was there all right, but the diamonds had been washed
out of it. Do you follow me? The fine ground is still in both of us;
but what made it fine the devil has in the meantime walked off with."
"Why do you tell me all this?" Lilly asked. Tears of bewilderment
sprang to her eyes, for this couldn't possibly have anything to do with
the probation.
"Now, child, I'll tell you why.... There are people who when they have
given their word think there is no going back on it. They must swallow
whatever they've put in their mouths, even if it's a strychnine
pill.... My opinion, on the contrary, is that no one ought deliberately
to plunge into misfortune--neither he nor you. And since the quickest
method is to wash the wool while it's on the sheep, I've come to you to
make a little proposition. See, here's a cheque-book. You know what
cheque-books are, I expect. On the right side are printed figures from
five hundred upwards: All the figures that make the amount bigger than
the sum inscribed on the cheque are cut off, in case a little swindler
should take it into his head with one little stroke of the pen to cheat
one out of a little hundred thousand. Well now, look here. This cheque
is signed and dated; the figures alone want to be filled in. I should
never permit myself to offer you a certain sum, but I should like you
to say what you think would be a decent provision for your future."
He tore the cheque out and laid it on the table in front of her.
"Thank Heaven," thought Lilly, "I had nothing to be afraid of! My heart
need not have misgiven me."
Who could be so blind as not to see through this clumsy trick whereby
he intended to put to the test her unselfishness about money? So she
did not send the old man about his business, as she might with justice
have done, if such a proposal had been made to her seriously, but she
took the cheque off the table, smiling, tore it carefully to atoms, and
flipped them one after the other into his face.
He fidgeted about in his arm-chair.
"Allow me," he said; "please allow me ..."
"No! Such scurvy little jokes I certainly will not allow, dear uncle,"
she replied.
"But you are declining a fortune, my child. Think what you are doing.
We've upset the tenor of your life. We have, as it were, cast you on
the gutter. That you shan't perish there is our responsibility. And if
you think you will lower yourself in his eyes by accepting, I can swear
to you he knows nothing about it; and never will, I'll swear too."
She only smiled.
His small slits of eyes grew bright and hard. Suddenly they began to
threaten her.
"Or ... is it your intention not to give up the good boy--to hang his
promise like a halter about his neck?... Are you one of that kind, eh?"
"No. I am not one of that kind."
Her smile reached far beyond him. It flew to greet the beloved who
soon, very soon now, would be ascending the stairs; for surely he
couldn't have patience to wait there outside in the cab much longer.
"His promise is his own. He's never given it. And if he had wanted to I
would never have let him. And even if what you said just now was true,
he might go away if he liked, and come back again, and I would not
write to him or meet him, or remind him in any way of what he is and
always will be to me as long as I live. But I know that it is _not_
true. He loves me, and I love him. And take care, uncle, not to play so
low down with his future wife as to offer her blank cheques and such
disgraceful proposals. If I were to tell him, you would find yourself
all at once a lonely old man whose fortune might go to endow a home for
lost dogs."
He was obliged to see at last what a blunder he had committed. He
jumped from his seat, evidently annoyed at his mistake, and ejaculated
an irritable "Bah!" as he began to pace the room, jingling the charms
on his watch-chain. Once or twice he murmured something that sounded
like "A hangman's job." But she couldn't have heard right.
At last he seemed to arrive at a decision. He stopped close in front of
her, laid his repulsive hands on her shoulders and said, suddenly
becoming affectionate and familiar again:
"Listen, sweetheart, girlie, pretty one. Something has to be done. We
can't shirk the point. There must be a conclusion. If only I weren't
such a damned mangy old hound and hadn't to consider the dear boy's
feelings in the matter, things would be simple enough. I should merely
say, 'Come along with me to the nearest registry-office. But hurry up;
I haven't time to waste!' Don't stare! Yes--me. I'd ask you to marry
_me_. You wouldn't have reason to regret it. But Konrad--you must see
yourself it won't do--won't do. It would be a fatal mistake from
beginning to end. He is a rising man. He wants to climb to the top; he
is still blessed with faith, and you haven't any left. You fell too
early into the great sausage-machine which minces us all sooner or
later into average meat.... You wouldn't be happy with him long. You
couldn't keep up to him. You'd drag on him like a dead weight, and
would always be conscious of it. As for last night's revelation, which
opened his eyes, I don't lay so much stress on that. It's not a
question of what the coastline looks like--sand or palms, it's all the
same--but it's the interior that counts. And there I see waste land,
burnt-up scorched deserts; no birds flying across it; no ground in
which confidence can strike root. Child, creep into any shelter life
offers you, cling to those who have brought you to this pass; but let
the boy go. He is not made for you. Be honest; haven't you long ago
said so yourself?"
Ah, so this was what he meant! It was not a probation, but the end--the
end!
She gazed into vacancy. She seemed to hear steps growing fainter; one
after the other they slowly died away, like _his_ footsteps when at
break of day he had softly stolen downstairs.
But this was final. They had died away for ever.
A dull sense of disappointment gnawed at her heart. That was all. The
worst would come later, as she knew by experience.
And then she saw a vision of herself dancing and yelling, laughing at
foul jests, with her hat awry and her skirts held high--a drunken
wanton! She, the "lofty-minded saint" with the "brow divine," a drunken
wanton--nothing more and nothing less.
Now she knew why he had stood there with his face as white as the
tablecloth--why that sobbing groan of pain had burst from his lips. And
it was pity for him as much as shame of herself that made of this
moment a boiling hell.
"How is he bearing it?" she asked, stammering.
"You can guess how," he replied, "but I believe I shall pull him
through."
"Oh, uncle ... I ... didn't ... I didn't want to do it ..." she cried,
sobbing.
"I know, child; I know. He told me all."
For an instant her wounded pride flamed up within her. She stooped, and
gathering together a handful of the bits of torn paper, she held them
out to him on her open palm.
"And you dared to offer me _that_?"
"What was I to do, my dear? And what am I to do with you now?"
"Pah!" and she struck at him with both hands, but the next moment she
threw her arms round his neck and wept on his shoulder. Perhaps her
cheek touched the very place which Konrad last night might have wetted
with his tears!
He began to reason with her again. He made suggestions for her future.
He would help her to begin a new life, and provide tier with the means
to cultivate her brilliant histrionic talents; she should come out on
the stage or the concert platform. But she shook her head.
"Too late, uncle.... Waste land--didn't you say so yourself?--ground
where no confidence can take root. I might aspire to be a music-hall
star, but honestly I don't think it would pay."
"Cursed hounds!" he growled.
"Who are cursed hounds?"
"You know well enough, my child."
She reflected a moment as to whom he could mean. Then she said:
"There was only one ... no, two, and then afterwards one more ... and
then two more who didn't count."
"Well, that seems to me to be plenty, dear."
He patted her cheeks and smiled kindly, and somehow she did not find
his fingers repulsive any more.
She felt that she must smile too, though she began crying again
directly.
Konrad's uncle prepared to take his departure, and she clung on tightly
to his shoulder. She couldn't bear to let him go. He was the last link
with her vanished dream of happiness.
"What message shall I take him?" he asked.
She drew herself erect. Her eyes widened. She wanted to pour out the
full flood of her grief. Her shattered and squandered love sought for
winged words which should bear it to him, sanctified and hallowed anew.
But no words came.
She looked wildly round the room, as if from some quarter of it help
must come. The portraits of defunct actors smiled down on her; once so
eloquent, they were dumb now dumb as her own frozen soul. The specimen
lamp-shade in its frame greeted her, presaging a future to be passed at
Frau Laue's side.
"I have nothing to say," she faltered. Then she thought of something
after all. "Ask him ... ask him, please, why he didn't come himself to
say good-bye. I know that he is not a coward."
Uncle made one of his queerest faces.
"As you have been so astoundingly sensible, little woman, I'll tell you
the secret. He wanted to come and say good-bye--most dreadfully, of
course. And I promised him that I'd try and bring you to the station."
In an instant she was making a dash for her straw hat.
"Stop!"
He had laid his hand on her arm. The short, squat figure seemed to grow
taller.
"You won't go."
"What? Konni is expecting me, wants to speak to me? And I am not to
go?"
"I say again, 'You won't go.' If you are the plucky girl I take you
for, you will not spoil your work of sacrifice. For, depend upon it, if
once he sees you again you'll hang on to each other for evermore."
The straw hat slipped from her hand.
"Then ... tell him ... I shall always love him, always and always, that
he will be my last thought on earth.... And ... I don't know what else
to say."
He silently made his way out of the room.
And then she broke down.
CHAPTER XXII
The world wagged on, calmly, merrily, busily, as if nothing had
happened, as if nowhere on the ocean of life a lost happiness was
drifting every minute farther and farther away, as if no forsaken and
abandoned human child cowered in a corner, staring with despairing eyes
helplessly at the floor.
Frau Laue tapped at her lamp-shades, the fried potatoes frizzled
in the fat-lined pan; the stove in the lobby smoked, and the frowsy
poor-people's odour exhaled a welcome to all who came within its
radius. She did not cry her heart out of her body, as she had done
after her expulsion from the castle. She neither lapsed into a dazed
apathy nor wrestled desperately with fate. Instead, she felt that a
grey yawning void stretched before her endlessly, the silence of which
was broken now and then by a shrill cry of almost animal longing and
despair, a sense of feeble submission to the inevitable, a
consciousness of being incarcerated without hope of escape, a baffled
slipping down into life's dark depths, a dreary death unmarked by grace
or dignity.
Between to-day and to-morrow--the to-morrow that seemed to beckon from
every corner--Lilly's tearless eyes saw the railings of the bridge that
her feet had tested on the way home from "Rosmersholm." And, as she
stared into space, she beheld the dark, purple-flecked waters rolling
languidly on far below, and heard the iron chains clank under her feet.
This sound grew into a perpetual sing-song that accompanied everything
she did, floated over and swallowed up everything that the eventless
days brought forth. It pierced her brain, hammered in her temples, and
throbbed painfully in every nerve and pore of her body.
Only one word was set to this haunting melody, and that was "Die."
Yes--die. What could be simpler? What more irresistible?
Die! not to-day; but to-morrow perhaps, or the day after. Something
might happen yet. A letter might come, or he himself. Or if not this,
who could know that fate was not holding some other miracle of good
fortune up its sleeve?
So it was worth while living to-day, to drag through its countless
hours of deadly monotony.
Then one evening, a week after Konrad's sudden departure, Frau Laue
appeared in Lilly's room at an unaccustomed hour. Her manner denoted
determination.
"Now look here, Lilly dear," she began. "Things can't go on like this.
If you were crying your heart out I shouldn't say anything. But, as you
are acting now, matters will never mend. There is only one sensible
course that you can take; you must return to your Herr Dehnicke. If he
had any inkling of how things were going with you here, trust him, he
would have come and taken you away long ago. So I tell you plainly,
either you sit down and write him a nice letter or I shall leave my
work in the lurch and go straight off to his office to-morrow morning.
He'll pay my expenses fast enough."
Lilly felt a strong impulse to turn the old woman out of the room, but
she was too depressed to do more than turn away from her with impotent
distaste.
"I haven't too much time to spare now," Frau Laue continued; "the dozen
must be completed before bedtime.... But you can make your mind easy as
to one thing. If he is not here by ten o'clock to-morrow, he'll be here
by twelve, for I shall have gone to fetch him. Good-night, Lilly dear."
In melancholy scorn she sent a scoffing laugh after Frau Laue. This,
then, was the stroke of good fortune which fate had in store for the
morrow? Once more she was to cringe to man's puerile supremacy, and
live in enervating servitude--vegetate amidst fleeting and unprofitable
pleasures in a perfumed lethargy, or be goaded by ennui and disgust to
walk the streets.
Yet, if he came the next day, she knew she would not have the power to
resist. Richard would only have to look at her with that whipped-dog
expression, which was something quite new for him, and the mere thought
of which filled her with a shamefaced tenderness, and she would throw
her arms round his neck and have a good cry on his shoulder.
Was it worth waiting another to-morrow for that? No; better to die
to-day.
To-day! A feeling of ecstasy came over her. She ran about the room,
with folded hands, weeping and exulting. She would be a heroine like
Isolde, a martyr for her love.
And there the railings of the bridge were waiting ready for her. How
they would creak and groan when she set her feet on them!
Now the sing-song in her head was so loud that she thought it must kill
her. The air resounded with a whirl of tones. The walls echoed them.
The noise of the street, the capital's roar of traffic, all sang ...
"Die--die--die!"
She pulled off her evening wrapper and dressed herself to go out. At
first she thought of putting on one of the badly fitting dresses
because they were connected with Konrad, but her heart failed her.
"Die beautifully," Hedda Gabler had said.
"If only I had his photograph that I might take a farewell look into
his eyes," she thought. But she had nothing but his letters and a few
verses. They should accompany her on her last walk.
They lay at the bottom of the leather trunk, which was still concealed
in Frau Laue's box-room, though there had long been no one from whom it
was necessary to conceal it. As she rummaged in its depths to find the
little packet, she put her hand by accident on the roll of old music
manuscript.
She looked tenderly at the yellow-stained sheet into which the rest was
fitted. She was no longer vexed with her "Song of Songs," and did not
despise it, as on that ill-fated morning when she had hunted it up
again; the morning on which she had gone out to break her vow to
Konrad.
Now once more it was a dear, precious possession, not a guide,
philosopher, and friend, not a miracle-working sacred relic, but just
an old keepsake which we treasure and water with our tears because it
is a bit of our own life.
And a bit of our own blood!
For there were still those dark stains on the paper. Her blood had
fallen on it when she set forth on life's journey, and now that the
journey was ending the deep waters should wash the blood-stains away.
With the score lying in her lap, she looked beyond it into the
sorrowful past. It seemed to her as if mists were lifting and curtains
were being drawn aside, and she saw the path that she had trodden
winding backwards at her feet, like a clearly defined boundary.
She had been weak and often stupid. Her own interests and the main
chance she had never considered. Every man who had entered her life had
been able to do what he liked with her. Not once had she barred her
soul, shown fight, or exercised to the full the sovereignty of her
beauty. She had only been eager to oblige and to love and be kind to
everyone. In reward, she had been hunted and bullied and dragged
through the mud all her life long. Even the one man who had respected
her had gone away without saying good-bye.
"But I've never hated anybody," she thought. "And no matter what I have
suffered, or how I have transgressed, I have always been able to feel
there was something in me out of the common, and this at the last seems
as if it had been a gift from Heaven."
Did it not really seem as if this "Song of Songs," which now lay before
her, defaced, stained, and rotted, like her own career, had been all
along blessing and absolving her the presiding genius she had believed
it to be as a child, and fancied it afterwards during the rapture of
her abandonment to her love for Konrad?
"Yes, you shall come too," she said. "You shall die when I die."
And she carefully wrapped the battered papers together. Then she found
the letters, and read them through two or three times, but without
taking in what she read.
* * * * *
The clock struck twelve as she stepped softly out on to the landing.
Frau Laue was asleep. She met no one on the stairs, and unseen walked
into the street.
Since her flight to Konrad that memorable night she had not been out
alone in the streets so late. Everything looked as if she saw it for
the first time: the long rows of houses bathed in crude light, the
trolleys of the electric trams in between, and the gliding figures of
night-revellers.
A numbing terror seized her. Her legs felt wooden, as if stilts were
screwed on to them, propelling her forward whether she would or not,
without rest; and her heels tapped ceaselessly on the pavement,
carrying her nearer and nearer her goal. Whenever she met anyone she
felt an impulse to hide herself, fancying that it would be noticed
where she was going. For this reason she dived into dark back-streets,
which were unevenly paved and where fading lime-trees scattered their
drops of rain. She passed straggling brick buildings inhospitably shut
in behind high back-garden walls; slaughter-houses and factories; and
all the time her heels went tap-tap-tap, as if she had a pedometer
attached to them, registering every inch which shortened her road.
She tried to remember other short-cuts to her bridge, but couldn't find
them, and gave up the attempt.
"What thou doest, let it be done quickly," she had read somewhere. So
she pressed forward with clenched teeth.
The Engelbecken was dark and deserted; yellow lights were reflected
dimly in its unfathomable waters. "Here it would be easier," she
thought, breathless from the oppression at her heart. But, shuddering,
she retreated from the grass slopes. The bridge must be somewhere over
there to the north-west. Fate had ordained that she should go to the
bridge.
It was still a long way off, quite an hour's walk. She came into more
frequented ways. The rows of lights in front of the dancing saloons,
where prostitutes caroused, cast their garish beams like finger-posts
into the night. Cabs were waiting there, and sounds of revelry came
from within. Forwards, forwards--always forwards! Hot, garlic-laden
fumes were wafted to her nostrils from a cellar-cafe that kept its
doors open. When had she smelt something like that before? Why, of
course, when Frau Redlich was cooking the sausages for her son's
farewell dinner.
In front of her a hose as thick as her wrist sent a cleansing
shower-bath over the street. What did that hissing, gurgling sound
remind her of? Why, of course, of old Haberland watering the lawn with
the old-fashioned sprinkler. And then all at once the thought shot
through her brain: "None of this is really happening. I am lying in bed
between the bookcases, and behind me the hanging lamp that I took down
is smoking ... and this is all in an old novel that I am reading, while
Frau Asmussen has luckily gone to sleep after taking her medicine."
A growing tumult called her back to actual life. She had reached the
heart of the city, the spot where the whirl of Berlin's never-flagging
nightly dissipations reaches its height. She came to the Spittelmarkt,
and onwards the huge Leipziger Strasse unrolled its chain of lights
like a pearl necklace. Buried in a mist of silver, dotted with the
glimmering red lanterns of night cafes and cabarets, it was like a
brilliant picture toned down with sepia.
The numb feeling in Lilly's legs increased. She walked, and was hardly
conscious that she moved at all. She only felt the tremendous force of
her heart-beats, which made her whole body vibrate like a mill.
In the Friedrichstrasse there were nearly as many people about as by
day. Young men pursued their smiling quarry, and the lamplight was
reflected in the silk hose of the tripping _grisettes_.
"Once submerged in this sort of world," Lilly thought with a gruesome
envy, "and one is disturbed by no sense of wounded honour or suicidal
impulses."
Ah! but on the other side of this bright, laughing, jostling crowd came
peace and darkness again, in the shelter of which you might die unseen
and unknown.
Through the noise she still heard her heels tapping. Why shouldn't she
go into some cafe, she asked herself? Even if someone saw her, what did
it matter? It would give her one miserable quarter of an hour's
breathing space. Lights, mirrors, velvet seats, blue cigarette-smoke, a
clink of crystal, a pricking in her parched throat. Just once--once
more ... not a quarter ... but a whole hour, and one more poor little
bit of life would be hers, which could do no one else any harm. But she
could find no justification for such a cowardly action, and determined
that her last walk should be disgraced by no such weakness. And she
went on, on and on.
The merry vortex of the Kranzlerecke was left behind; the daggers of
light stabbed her no more. Lilly hardly knew where she was going. Most
likely she was in one of those quiet cross-streets which led to the
north-west end. The middle of the deserted street glistened with
puddles. The rainy autumnal wind came sweeping along between the
houses, and the cold lamplight was reflected in their dark windowpanes.
Everything round her here seemed lifeless and extinct; only a human
phantom glided forth at intervals, and cats chased each other
noiselessly into obscurity.
Lilly shivered, and clasped the score tighter in her arms. As she tried
to catch a sight of her reflection in the glass window of a florist's,
the blinds of which were not drawn down, she started. There she saw
stiff branches of evergreen laurels and cypresses encircling a bust of
the Kaiser; that recalled something strongly to her mind. What was it?
Ah! of course. They reminded her of the Clytie which reigned on the
pretentious private staircase of Liebert & Dehnicke's, smiling and
dreaming. Lilly Czepanek would never now ascend that green-shaded
stairway, either as a penitent or a triumphant sinner.
She had chosen a better way, which led more directly to the great goal.
She came to a bridge, and crossed it quickly. That other bridge, with
the iron palisade, which sung her such alluring cradle-songs, was
further away in the open, buried in darkness and silence.
"You overflow with a superfluity of love ... three kinds of love: love
emanating from the heart, the senses, and from compassion. One kind
everybody has; two are dangerous; all three lead to ruin!"
Who had said that?
Why, to be sure, her first flame--that poor consumptive lecturer on the
history of art, whom she and Rosalie Katz had clubbed together to send
to the promised land, the land which she herself had never seen. He had
spoken of the blue haze of the olives, of fields of shining asphodel,
and the black sirocco sea.
"Fields of shining asphodel." What sort of fields could they be, fields
of asphodel?
The foreign word sounded strange, and oh, how full of enchantment! But
her heels still went tap-tap, and the cradle-song of the palisade
thundered in between.
A man addressed her: "Would she ...?"
She shook him off as if he had been a reptile.
Then she remembered another warning that had been given her, also
divided into three heads--whose was that? Oh, now she recollected: Dr.
Pieper's. It came back to her, every word and sentence of the pompous
utterance sounding in her ears as clearly as if it had been spoken only
yesterday, "There are three things to beware of: Exchange no
superfluous glances; demand no superfluous rendering of accounts; make
no superfluous confessions."
"If I had not exchanged superfluous glances I should have seen my
promised land. If I had not superfluously demanded a rendering of
account, I should never have been kicked out of Lischnitz. And if I had
not made superfluous confessions...."
Well, what then?
"Konni! Konni!" she wailed. A shudder of yearning overwhelmed her
painfully, and restrained her wandering thoughts.
She walked on, staggering. Fresh lines of street vanished in mist, and
at one spot a grass lawn reared its unevenly clipped hedge.
"What sort of fields could they be, fields of shining asphodel?"
Ah! here was the bridge. The bridge!
Like a thief in the night it loomed in the darkness, above the wide,
deserted spaces, where the lights of thousands of street-lamps dwindled
into infinitesimal sparks. Somewhere in the dark sky shone the mild
face of a full-moon. It was the illuminated clock of a railway station,
the shadowy outline of which was swallowed up by the darkness. The
hands pointed to half-past one.
Lilly saw it all dimly, as through a haze. She had sunk, paralysed with
terror, against the corner of the wall, which she had intended to turn.
Her heart throbbed so convulsively that she thought she must fall down
dead.
"No; I can't do it!" she said to herself. And then came her own answer:
"But I can--I will!"
She tried to stagger a few steps further, on to the bridge where the
railings seemed to be waiting for her in malice; but her legs refused
to carry her. The singing in her head rose to a roar of thunder. She
stood hesitating on the dark, forsaken spot; with both hands she
struggled to tear the score and crumple it into a ball, but it would
not yield. Her "Song of Songs" was stronger than she was. Then, all at
once, her feet began to move as if of their own accord, and took her
step by step beyond the lamp-post to the railings. Yes, now the chains
of the palisade were between her fingers. She could see nothing of the
water below but a dark slimy shimmer. So murky was it that even the
lamps were not reflected in it.
Now all she had to do was to jump--and it would be over.
"Yes, I'll do it! I'll do it!" a voice within her cried.
But "The Song of Songs" must go first. It would be in the way, and
hinder her climbing over the railings.
She threw it. A white flash, a splash below, harsh and shrill, which
made her shake in every limb, as if her face had been slapped. And when
she heard it, she knew instantly that she would never do it. No, never!
Lilly Czepanek was no heroine. No martyr to her love was Lilly
Czepanek. No Isolde, who finds in the will not to exist the highest
form of self-existence. But she was only a poor exploited and plundered
human creature who must drag on through life as best she could. She
would not go back to the old round of degrading dissipations, however
much Richard might look like a whipped dog. Of that she was determined;
and she began forthwith to review the few possibilities left of her
earning an honest living.
Perhaps all would come right in the end, though she could not disguise
the fact that she had completely lost her zeal for work, and was never
likely to find it again. All she asked was to be allowed to live in
peace and the exercise of virtue. Did not millions of human beings
think there was nothing better?
She cast one more searching glance at the sullenly rolling river in
which "The Song of Songs" had found its grave, and then turned and
walked away.
* * * * *
In the business circles of Berlin there was a flutter of surprise the
following spring when the papers announced that Herr Richard Dehnicke,
senior partner of the well-known old firm of Liebert & Dehnicke, art
bronze manufacturers, had married Lilly Czepanek, a notorious beauty of
the _demimonde_. The announcement added that the pair had taken up
their quarters temporarily in Southern Italy. Those who knew her were
not surprised--they said that they had always felt Lilly Czepanek was a
dangerous woman.