the precarious keeping of the bag, but her sister-in-law didn't answer,
only pulled the curtains together again. Irma went slowly back to her
embroidery, but after a moment or two not hearing any sounds of moving
about, she asked in a tone whose irritation was but half-suppressed:
"Don't you think you had better begin to get ready?" This having to
push her sister-in-law up and along, out of the house, filled her with
a sickening impatience.
"Yes, perhaps I had better," Frau Stacher answered obediently, "though
it isn't far."
And then Irma hearing those soft, slow movements of dressing behind the
curtain said no more. She was really only thinking of the moment of her
sister-in-law's return, with the money in her purse or perhaps enough
to be prudently pinned into her dress.
Frau Stacher was thinking of nothing. All the forces of her being were
employed in that act of clothing her body. After she was dressed she
noticed that she had on the wrong skirt, but she felt she couldn't
change--and then she _had_ put the velvet around her neck. One thing
she didn't do that morning, she only remembered it when she got out
into the street--she hadn't pulled back the curtains.
But Irma, as she saw her ready to depart, though she noticed that the
curtains weren't drawn, only said again:
"You won't lose the little figure?" and Frau Stacher with that
formidable submission in her eyes, even Irma got it, answered again:
"No, I'll be very careful." Then she turned and inexplicably to herself
embraced Irma and said, "Farewell" just as if she didn't expect to be
back in a few hours. Irma heard her steps getting fainter and fainter,
as she went down the resounding stairway, until they were lost forever.
* * * * *
Frau Stacher felt very weak, and her feet seemed made of lead, as
she turned into the Rotenthurm Street, then that pain between her
shoulders. But she was thankful that she had been able to get out and
Fanny, mercifully, lived near. A pale, uncertain sun that gave no
warmth, lay momentarily over the city.
There was an undeniable excitement about going to Fanny's, something
adventurous, like going into exotic lands, that stimulated her
momentarily and in that sick confusion of her being she did not try to
analyze her varied and commingled sentiments. Bashfulness, timidity,
the gentlest curiosity, gratitude, affection, she was conscious
of,--together with that increasing pain between her shoulders....
She was admitted by Maria whose small black eyes were snapping
pleasantly, whose wide mouth wore the most affectionate of smiles;
Maria, part of their lives since twenty-five years, Maria, who had
always opened to her ring when she went to see her brother.
"Ach, dear, gracious lady, how good of you to come to us!" she cried
warmly and bending kissed Frau Stacher's hand with all the old time
reverence and affection.
She felt like a storm-tossed little craft that has at last made port.
She hadn't thought it would be that way. It was, indeed, "just like
any other place, only much nicer."
"Fanny is making her toilette, I'm just getting her into her things,"
Maria continued easily.
"I'll be there in a minute, Tante Ilde, dear," called another welcoming
voice from the next room, then in quite a different tone:
"You old hag, you've forgotten to take that stitch in my sleeve."
"Coming, coming," called back Maria cheerfully and winked at Frau
Stacher, "She doesn't mean a thing. Just her little way," she whispered
admiringly; then aloud:
"If the dear lady will lay her things aside," and as Maria spoke she
proceeded to help her remove the old coat, peeling off the narrow
sleeves and pulling down the little woolen shawl that Frau Stacher wore
underneath; she then put her into a comfortable chair, a cushion at her
back, and with solicitous inquiries about her health, (Frau Stacher's
looks didn't please Maria) "now you just rest while I finish getting
Fanny ready," she ended with a pat of her fat hand on the thin shoulder.
"What are you talking about?" called her mistress, "Perhaps I'm not
going out."
Maria disappeared through the door and Frau Stacher heard her say
something about "stupid caprices."
Before the fine, even warmth of the porcelain stove Frau Stacher
forgot how chilly she had been in the street; and the deep armchair
with its soft cushion, how it engulfed yet sustained her! She was quite
happy and almost comfortable. She felt more at ease, more at home than
at any time since leaving Baden.
Over a card-table was spread a white cloth and on it a service for one.
She felt unreasonably disappointed;--if Fanny could have stayed. Once
in, it certainly was like any other place and truly it was nicer.
Her heart had beat a little thickly as she dragged herself up the
stairs with those leaden feet. Certain mysterious things you didn't
do the first time without a feeling ... but she saw herself often in
future coming quietly up those very steps. She would always let Maria
know first, though why she would let Maria know first, instead of just
ringing at the door, she didn't try to explain.
Plenty lay again about her, the dear, familiar forms of Fanny and
Maria were ready to minister to her. She breathed in, as deeply as
the constriction in her chest permitted, the warm comfort of it all,
plenty, affection, in a starving world of old, unwanted women in
garrets--in alcoves.
From above the door Franz Joseph continued to smile paternally down
upon her, opposite him his beautiful and luckless Empress. The banished
Zita and her children struck a further absolving note of innocence
and misfortune. Frau Stacher returned gratefully the benevolent look
her Emperor was bending upon her, remembering that he too, had "had
it hard." As she slipped deeper into that comfortable chair she was
conscious of being so tired, so spent that she feared she could never
again get up. Yet it was almost delicious, the sense of languor--in
that deep chair--in that warm room.
An immense gilt basket in which was planted a young fruit tree in full
blossom stood near one of the windows. It was tied with bright, blue
ribbons, but its flowers were very pale in the hard January light. What
was it doing there in mid-winter? She breathed in the faint scent of
the forced blossoms hovering about the warm air. Ah, how indeed could
she move out of that chair, how close that door behind her on that
atmosphere of welcoming abundance?
She was sitting near the little table on which stood Fanny's collection
of elephants. One in pink jade with ruby eyes seemed to be looking
compassionately at her. Then she wondered, but without impatience, why
Fanny didn't come.
Fanny _was_ taking longer than necessary, but suddenly she had found
that she could not bear to meet her aunt's eyes. Oh, those eyes! They
would gaze at her as children's eyes gaze and she dreaded the feeling
she knew she would have when she met them, right out, in daylight, in
her own house. Behind that closed door Fanny was in a blue funk, Fanny
who would have faced armies without turning a hair, and she fussed
nervously with the objects on her dressing table and kept looking
quite unnecessarily at her shining, softly-rolled back hair with her
hand-glass....
"Why doesn't Fanny come?" her aunt began to ask herself again somewhat
anxiously and in her humility feared it was something connected with
herself. Just then the front door bell rang and she jumped in her
chair, a flush mounting to her face. She couldn't at all have said what
it was she feared might be impending but whatever it was, that ring
made a genteel old lady start up when she was too tired really to move
and blush the bright blush of her long lost youth. Maria ran out of
Fanny's room, in what seemed to her an anxious way, to open the door.
But she only took in a box, a large, flat, pleasant-looking box, the
sort of box Frau Stacher remembered from her own shopping days. She saw
the name Zwieback on it as Maria took it in to the other room. Another
long wait ensued. She could hear whispers and the rustling of tissue
paper.
Then all of a sudden the bedroom door was flung open and Fanny
appeared, holding high up, so that it hid her face, a long, black coat.
In a flash, before a word could be said, Tante Ilde knew that coat was
for her....
Fragrantly, warmly Fanny was bending over her, embracing her; a sudden,
flaming color that had come out of no box was in her cheeks.
"Stand up, Auntie," she was saying in her silver voice, more
embarrassed than she had ever been in any other of the seemingly more
formidable moments of her life.
Tante Ilde turned her wide, soft glance upon her. In a pale, silken
wrapper Fanny was looking as fresh as lilies who have neither sowed
nor spun. It was the same bright, dawnlike face that Tante Ilde knew
so well, there in the cold, grey light of the January day, it recalled
somehow early morning clouds in summer....
She got up as her niece spoke and in another minute that warm, soft
wool, that smooth, satiny lining were enfolding her. It must have cost
a monstrous sum.
"Oh, Fanny," she protested weakly, "to spend all that money on me!"
"Money, what is money?" returned Fanny blithely, her aplomb completely
restored. "You can't keep it nowadays. It just rots if you try. No more
old stocking!" And then she proceeded to throw that practiced eye of
hers over the coat.... Any niece with a beloved aunt.
"Come here," she next cried to Maria and pointed out a button that
needed changing, Tante Ilde was even thinner than they thought, "bring
some pins."
Down on her silken knees she went and put the pin where the button was
to be sewed on again.
Tante Ilde quite forgot that the family instinctively lowered their
voices when speaking of Fanny. She was her brother's child again, her
own little Fannerl, the sweet, soft, laughing, incredibly, brightly,
beautiful maiden of those far away days. Ah, she should have married a
prince!
"You are an angel," she said tremulously keeping back with difficulty
some tears that lay heavily just behind her eyes.
"'Angel' is going a bit far," answered Fanny modestly, though really
delighted in her heart, and she wondered for the thousandth time what
on earth they would have done without her.
"I'm not going out," she said crisply to Maria, "the devil can take the
Bristol. I'm going to stay with Tante Ilde. Bring another cover, and
quick, I'm sure she's hungry,--I'm nearly starved." This last wasn't
quite true, for not so very long before Maria had taken in Fanny's tray
with coffee and cream and a glossy, buttery gipfel, got, Maria and the
cuckoo alone knew from where.
"You look so tired, Auntie dear," said Fanny next.
Her aunt's face was, indeed, quite pinched and very pale in spite of
the fresh glow of her heart, near which, between her shoulders was that
increasingly unpleasant, stabbing sort of pain. But she was a game old
lady. She hadn't yet complained about anything, so she only answered:
"A bit of a cold coming on, that's all."
"I don't think you ought to go to the cemetery with us this afternoon,"
Fanny pursued somewhat anxiously.
"But going in a carriage, and if I wear my warm, new coat?" she
questioned eagerly.
The new coat made the effort seem possible. Not, oh, not at all through
vanity, but a new coat, her own,--she enjoyed, too, in anticipation,
showing it to Irma, though Irma would be sure to say something about it
designed to dim its glory.
Maria was bringing in the oatmeal soup that she had fully intended
since the evening before to make for Frau Stacher ... she knew
Fanny. It was steaming up pleasantly from its little blue and white
tureen and Fanny proceeded to ladle it out generously. She had
pushed the card-table close to her Tante Ilde's chair and drawn up a
little stool for herself on the other side. Frau Stacher took a few
mouthfuls,--delicious, there was certainly some milk in it. Tired as
she was she couldn't be mistaken about there being milk in it, but all
the same she found she wasn't hungry. She forced it down however, to
the last drop; Fanny mustn't think she didn't like it.
Fanny had jumped up restlessly after watching her take the first
spoonful and lighted a cigarette and then sat down again, bending
forward, her elbows on her knees, and her white hand, with its immense
sapphire ring, just one big, square stone, putting the cigarette up
to her red mouth, her rosily manicured finger tips flickering the ash
from it on to the floor. The pale silken sleeves would ripple back and
show Fanny's dimpled elbows. She took a little soup herself, but, like
her aunt, showed no enthusiasm when Maria brought in a cutlet and some
fried potatoes.
Frau Stacher knew well Maria's fine kitchen hand. So many years she
had sat at her brother's table and seen Maria put just such cutlets on
with those unrivalled fried potatoes. Frau Stacher was pierced cruelly
for a moment by the memories these familiar things evoked; the children
sitting around the table, talking and laughing, and her brother Heinie,
who had loved them all impartially, looking indulgently from one to
another. Indeed it seemed the most natural of things to each of the
three women; a thing they'd done a thousand times together.
But after her first mouthful of the cutlet Frau Stacher knew she wasn't
going to be able to eat it. Its odor was delicious, the edges of the
tender veal were goldly brown, and towards the middle of the piece it
could easily be seen how white the meat was.
"I believe you're ill, Tanterl," said Fanny again looking sharply at
her. "You rest here while I take Kaethe and Leo."
"But I want to go with you," she returned imploringly, "I don't want to
leave you."
Tante Ilde couldn't have told why she was so determined to go with
Fanny, but the longing took her out of her usual gently acquiescent
ways.... As if Fanny was to do something solemn, important for her, and
she mustn't be separated from her. As if she had been warned that by
keeping close to Fanny she would avoid some last, some ultimate horror.
It was suddenly as clear as that.
"It's only a little cold I've got," she repeated beseechingly, like a
child imploring some permission.
"As you will," said Fanny sweetly, "I'm only afraid you'll take more
cold at the cemetery."
But Frau Stacher felt again that sudden, almost fierce cleaving to
Fanny, to Kaethe ... to little Carli. Where they went, there she wanted
to go. It seemed to her, too, that she wasn't feeling quite so ill, but
rather afraid to be left alone, even with Maria, nice as that would
be; Maria who would come in and talk about the old, the happy days,
and show her Fanny's things,--Fanny's jewels and gowns. But even so
she wanted to be with her own, her very own. She forced down a morsel
of the cutlet and took a bit of the fried potatoes on her fork but it
was evident to Fanny, and Maria, watching from the door, that she was
eating with difficulty. She had an unbelievable, astonishing repugnance
to the meat, to the fatty smell; then too, she was worrying about
Ferry, thinking all the time that now she must speak of him. It seemed
a mountainous exertion, one she was quite unequal to. But she could
never go back to Irma's unless she did and then, too, she wanted to
help Ferry. But it seemed beyond her strength. Anything except sitting
still and being ministered to was beyond it. Then suddenly as she sat
there toying with her cutlet, she knew that her work was done; though
whence the assurance had come she could not have told. It came, a sort
of glimmering presence, bringing its dim, sweet promise that effort
was ended. Her attention was quite engaged by that lovely, unexpected
presence, and it was as if from a long distance that she heard Fanny
say:
"I think a good, strong cup of coffee, right now, would be the best
thing for you," and then she called to Maria to make it quickly and
make it strong.
The very suggestion acted as a stimulant on Frau Stacher, and she was
able to pull herself together sufficiently to look gratefully at her
niece. Then her eyes wandered again and were caught by that flowering
tree, so spring-like to her age. It's thin fragrance foretold a true
spring that she too old, and it too young, would never see. It was
palely, tenderly confused in her mind with that gleaming presence.
She felt that she must recognize its beauty by some word--perhaps
afterwards she would get around to Ferry. She experienced a slight
timidity at mentioning that plant, however, though why it should awaken
timidity, with that other sentiment of reverence for its beauty, she
could not have told.
"What lovely things grow on the earth!" she ventured finally,
indicating it with the slightest of gestures.
"Yes," answered Fanny indifferently, she was thinking how changed her
aunt was, "but you should see the donkey that sent it."
Frau Stacher thought no more of the plant.
Fanny herself was only toying with the veal cutlet and potatoes. If the
truth be told she was aware of a slight excitement, following on her
first embarrassment, just enough to cut her appetite ... having Tante
Ilde there ... that way.
A pause ensued. They could hear Maria in the kitchen. On an important
occasion like that Maria didn't intend to be alone, behind a closed
door, and miss what they were saying. Maria herself was quite worked
up. She hoped it would be decided for Frau Stacher not to go to the
cemetery and then she would relieve her bosom of a lot of things
pleasant and unpleasant, that really Fanny's aunt, when you had a fine
aunt like that, should know, and besides she longed to show her Fanny's
things. Then she carried in the coffee, an immense cup, its aroma
filled the room, drowning the thin, sweet scent of the forced flowers.
"Just what I needed, Fanny," Tante Ilde said in what seemed to be a
loud tone, with that hammering in her ears; it was really not much more
than a whisper. From the very first swallow she felt herself being
renewed, and as she continued to sip it, a delightful feeling of actual
strength regained came to her. Not go with her dear ones to lay Carli
away? The thought was foolish ... and being driven there and back and
wearing her new coat? She was beginning to feel equal to anything.
"It's _so_ good," she murmured between her genteel little sips and when
Fanny dropped an extra lump of sugar in without asking her, it was
still more sustaining to both body and soul and she drank in longer
swallows the sweet, dark strength.
Then Maria replaced the cutlet by two pieces of Sacher tart, one for
her and one for Fanny. And that, too, was dark and sweet and she was
able to eat it. A bite, a sip of coffee and then another bite, another
sip. She got on really well with it, though for all its pleasing taste
each bite had a way of stopping for a while in her chest.
Then suddenly she knew it was time to speak about Ferry, quite time,
before she took the last swallows.
She reached down by her chair where lay her poor bag and picking it up
she took out the little wooden statue of the woman bent over waiting
for Ferry to put the full pails in her hands.
"Ferry has a lot of talent," she began musingly rather than
informingly, as she passed it across the table to Fanny, "and such an
old knife too, that he did it with. I'd like to give him a new one."
"But naturally, we'll get him the best, with six or eight blades!"
cried Fanny very pleased. Anything they needed except that eternal food
and raiment and fuel was a welcome suggestion. Fanny did love to give
people things they _could_ live without, not just bread and coal and
shoes. It got monotonous to one of her temperament. Even such a little
thing as a knife for a boy struck an agreeably releasing note. She kept
looking at the delicate figure. It imparted a pleasant sensation to her
fingers as she touched it. It was quite evident that Ferry had talent.
All was coming around as Tante Ilde had hoped.
"But Ferry is ill," she continued with her gentlest look. "He has
night-sweats sometimes, and always a little cough."
"Ach, the poor Buberl!" cried Fanny warmly.
"How easy Fanny makes things," her aunt was thinking, yet somehow she
still hesitated.
Fanny was passing her hand again over the little figure which kept
inviting the caress of her long, white fingers, of her soft, rosy palm.
"Hermann says he must go to the country,--a bit high,--if he is to be
saved and at his age one can't delay."
So it was done--as easy as that after all. That little wooden peasant
woman cried out not alone of young talent but of fresh air, the fruits
of the field, you couldn't get away from it, not that Fanny was trying
to; further more the familiar story of family needs, now one thing now
another, chased away the last trace of embarrassment. She was on the
firmest of grounds _there_, only she was thinking again how old and ill
her aunt was looking and did not answer immediately. When she did it
was to exclaim warmly again:
"But naturally! Of course we must send him to the country. Manny will
tell us where." Then Fanny, who was, indeed, as Pauli said, "a good
fellow" and no fool either added, "Don't you want to take the money to
Irma yourself?"
So that was all it was--that stone-heavy act! Light as thistledown
really--because Fanny was Fanny.
Then suddenly as she sat there looking at her, for she knew not how
long, with still unspent treasures of love in her look, she saw that
Fanny's eyes were wet, not because of Ferry either, he could be helped,
but because of other things, things that she, her poor aunt, didn't
know about. She saw that for all Fanny's gayety there were rings around
her lovely eyes and that she was pale under that merest touch of rouge.
The merest touch was all she ever used. She was too wise as well as too
lovely to be the painted woman. Fanny hung out no signs.
Then Frau Stacher found herself saying to her niece who lived just off
the Kaerntner Street:
"Fanny, precious one, you too, have some grief."
Frau Stacher was seeing all things from a great but clear distance.
Things stood out very sharply now that that feverish blur seemed
suddenly to have been wiped from her eyes. It was as if she, Ildefonse
Stacher, stood on a mountain and saw the world, a valleyed plain,
spread out before her. Mortals dwelt in it, doing their little best or
their little worst. Sharp as their figures were it was still too far
to see what exactly was their best and what their worst. Legions of
them. Hosts of them. She saw Fanny fighting under deep-dyed colors,
in an innumerable army of women, drawn up in array against the sons
of other women. The look she bent upon her niece as she turned from
the contemplation of the armies in the plain became more tender, more
grave.
Fanny's eyes flooded with tears under that look; hanging crystal a
moment about her dark lashes, they fell slowly leaving smooth, shining,
white little roads down her cheeks with just that touch of rouge. Such
a little thing as that Frau Stacher could focus her eyes on,--even
after the immensity of the plain.
Fanny went over and knelt by her aunt who had always loved her--who
loved her now--and put her shining head against that thin breast and
wept. Fanny hadn't wept, except in rage, for a long time, and there
were many tears to fall.
"I can't bear it, I can't bear it," she whispered, but she didn't say
what she couldn't bear and Tante Ilde didn't ask her, only pressed that
gleaming head more closely to her. And Fanny should have noticed how
strangely her aunt was breathing when she had her head there against
her breast. But suddenly she got up and said something about her nerves
being "total kaput" and went into her bedroom and closed the door.
Maria crept in from the kitchen.