When he dropped in at Alice's a few days later he found her sitting,
hot-cheeked and absorbed, over Strauss's _Life of Jesus_.
"Just fancy," she said, holding up her forehead for his kiss, "that
young poodle of yours is making me take notice. He gives me
intellectual nuts to crack. It's strange how this young generation--"
"I beg of you, Alice," he interrupted her, "you are only a very few
years his senior."
"That may be so," she answered, "but the little education I have
derives from another epoch.... I am, metaphysically, as unexacting as
the people of your generation. A certain fogless freedom of thought
seemed to me until to-day the highest point of human development."
"And Fritz von Ehrenberg, student of agriculture, has converted you to
a kind of thoughtful religiosity?" he asked, smiling good-naturedly.
In her zeal she wasn't even aware of his irony.
"We're not going to give in so easily.... But it is strange what an
impression is made on one by a current of strong and natural
feeling.... This young fellow comes to me and says: 'There is a God,
for I feel Him and I need Him. Prove the contrary if you can.' ...
Well, so I set about proving the contrary to him. But our poor
negations have become so glib that one has forgotten the reasons for
them. Finally he defeated me along the whole line ... so I sat down at
once and began to study up ... just as one would polish rusty weapons
... Bible criticism and DuBois-Reymond and 'Force and Matter' and all
the things that are traditionally irrefutable."
"And that amuses you?" he asked compassionately.
A theoretical indignation took hold of her that always amused him
greatly.
"Does it amuse me? Are such things proper subjects for amusement?
Surely you must use other expressions, Richard, when one is concerned
for the most sacred goods of humanity...."
"Forgive me," he said, "I didn't mean to touch those things
irreverently."
She stroked his arm softly, thus dumbly asking forgiveness in her
turn.
"But now," she continued, "I am equipped once more, and when he comes
to-morrow--"
"So he's coming to-morrow?"
"Naturally, ... then you will see how I'll send him home sorely
whipped ... I can defeat him with Kant's antinomies alone.... And
when it comes to what people call 'revelation,' well! ... But I assure
you, my dear one, I'm not very happy defending this icy, nagging
criticism.... To be quite sincere, I would far rather be on his side.
Warmth is there and feeling and something positive to support one.
Would you like some tea?"
"Thanks, no, but some brandy."
Rapidly brushing the waves of hair from her drawn forehead she ran
into the next room and returned with the bottle bearing three stars on
its label from which she herself took a tiny drop occasionally--"when
my mind loses tone for study" as she was wont to say in
self-justification.
A crimson afterglow, reflected from the walls of the houses opposite,
filled the little drawing-room in which the mass of feminine ornaments
glimmered and glittered.
"I've really become quite a stranger here," he thought, regarding all
these things with the curiosity of one who has come after an absence.
From each object hung, like a dewdrop, the memory of some
exquisite hour.
"You look about you so," Alice said with an undertone of anxiety in
her voice, "don't you like it here any longer?"
"What are you thinking of," he exclaimed, "I like it better daily."
She was about to reply but fell silent and looked into space with a
smile of wistful irony.
"If I except the _Life of Jesus_ and the Kantian--what do you call the
things?"
"Antinomies."
"Aha--_anti_ and _nomos_--I understand--well, if I except these dusty
superfluities, I may say that your furnishings are really faultless.
The quotations from Goethe are really more appropriate, although I
could do without them."
"I'll have them swept out," she said in playful submission.
"You are a dear girl," he said playfully and passed his hand
caressingly over her severely combed hair.
She grasped his arm with both hands and remained motionless for a
moment during which her eyes fastened themselves upon his with a
strangely rigid gleam.
"What evil have I done?" he asked. "Do you remember our childhood's
verse: 'I am small, my heart is pure?' Have mercy on me."
"I was only playing at passion," she said with the old half-wistful,
half-mocking smile, "in order that our relations may not lose solid
ground utterly."
"What do you mean?" he asked, pretending astonishment. "And do you
really think, Richard, that between us, things, being as they
are--are right?"
"I can't imagine any change that could take place at present."
She hid a hot flush of shame. She was obviously of the opinion that he
had interpreted her meaning in the light of a desire for marriage. All
earthly possibilities had been discussed between them: this one alone
had been sedulously avoided in all their conversations.
"Don't misunderstand me," he continued, determined to skirt the
dangerous subject with grace and ease, "there's no question here of
anything external, of any change of front with reference to the world.
It's far too late for that. ... Let us remain--if I may so put it--in
our spiritual four walls. Given our characters or, I had better say,
given your character I see no other relation between us that promises
any permanence.... If I were to pursue you with a kind of infatuation,
or you me with jealousy--it would be insupportable to us both."
She did not reply but gently rolled and unrolled the narrow, blue silk
scarf of her gown.
"As it is, we live happily and at peace," he went on, "Each of us has
liberty and an individual existence and yet we know how deeply rooted
our hearts are in each other."
She heaved a sigh of painful oppression. "Aren't you content?" he
asked,
"For heaven's sake! Surely!" Her voice was frightened, "No one could
be more content than I. If only----"
"Well--what?"
"If only it weren't for the lonely evenings!"
A silence ensued. This was a sore point and had always been. He knew
it well. But he had to have his evenings to himself. There was nothing
to be done about that.
"You musn't think me immodest in my demands," she went on in hasty
exculpation. "I'm not even aiming my remarks at you ... I'm only
thinking aloud.... But you see, I can't get any real foothold in
society until--until my affairs are more clarified.... To run about
the drawing-rooms as an example of frivolous heedlessness--that's not
my way.... I can always hear them whisper behind me: 'She doesn't take
it much to heart, that shows ...' No, I'd rather stay at home. I have
no friends either and what chance had I to make them? You were always
my one and only friend.... My books remain. And that's very well by
day ... but when the lamps are lit I begin to throb and ache and run
about ... and I listen for the trill of the door-bell. But no one
comes, nothing--except the evening paper. And that's only in winter.
Now it's brought before dusk. And in the end there's nothing worth
while in it.... And so life goes day after day. At last one creeps
into bed at half-past nine and, of course, has a wretched night."
"Well, but how am I to help you, dear child?" he asked thoughtfully.
He was touched by her quiet, almost serene complaint. "If we took to
passing our evenings together, scandal would soon have us by the
throat, and then--woe to you!"
Her eager eyes gazed bravely at him.
"Well," she said at last, "suppose----"
"What?"
"Never mind. I don't want you to think me unwomanly. And what I've
been describing to you is, after all, only a symptom. There's a kind
of restlessness in me that I can't explain.... If I were of a less
active temper, things would be better.... It sounds paradoxical, but
just because I have so much activity in me, do I weary so quickly.
Goethe said once----"
He raised his hands in laughing protest.
She was really frightened.
"Ah, yes, forgive me," she cried. "All that was to be swept out....
How forgetful one can be...."
Smiling, she leaned her head against his shoulder and was not to be
persuaded from her silence.