THE LADY FROM VIENNA
Two more aborigines have appeared. One of them is a lady aborigine.
They made their entrance at supper and I forgot to eat, watching them.
The new-comers are from Vienna. He is an expert engineer and she is a
woman of noble birth, with a history. Their combined appearance is
calculated to strike terror to the heart. He is daringly ugly, with a
chin that curves in under his lip and then out in a peak, like pictures
of Punch. She wore a gray gown of a style I never had seen before and
never expect to see again. It was fastened with huge black buttons all
the way down the breathlessly tight front, and the upper part was
composed of that pre-historic garment known as a basque. She curved in
where she should have curved out, and she bulged where she should have
had “lines.” About her neck was suspended a string of cannon-ball beads
that clanked as she walked. On her forehead rested a sparse fringe.
“Mein Himmel!” thought I. “Am I dreaming? This isn’t Wisconsin. This is
Nurnberg, or Strassburg, with a dash of Heidelberg and Berlin thrown
in. Dawn, old girl, it’s going to be more instructive than a Cook’s
tour.”
That turned out to be the truest prophecy I ever made.
The first surprising thing that the new-comers did was to seat
themselves at the long table with the other aborigines, the lady
aborigine being the only woman among the twelve men. It was plain that
they had known one another previous to this meeting, for they became
very good friends at once, and the men grew heavily humorous about
there being thirteen at table.
At that the lady aborigine began to laugh. Straightway I forgot the
outlandish gown, forgot the cannon-ball beads, forgot the sparse
fringe, forgave the absence of “lines.” Such a voice! A lilting,
melodious thing. She broke into a torrent of speech, with bewildering
gestures, and I saw that her hands were exquisitely formed and as
expressive as her voice. Her German was the musical tongue of the
Viennese, possessing none of the gutturals and sputterings. When she
crowned it with the gay little trilling laugh my views on the language
underwent a lightning change. It seemed the most natural thing in the
world to see her open the flat, silver case that dangled at the end of
the cannon-ball chain, take out a cigarette, light it, and smoke it
there in that little German dining room. She wore the most gracefully
nonchalant air imaginable as she blew little rings and wreaths, and
laughed and chatted brightly with her husband and the other men.
Occasionally she broke into French, her accent as charmingly perfect as
it had been in her native tongue. There was a moment of breathless
staring on the part of the respectable middle-class Frauen at the other
tables. Then they shrugged their shoulders and plunged into their meal
again. There was a certain little high-born air of assurance about that
cigarette-smoking that no amount of staring could ruffle.
Watching the new aborigines grew to be a sort of game. The lady
aborigine of the golden voice, and the ugly husband of the peaked chin
had a strange fascination for me. I scrambled downstairs at meal time
in order not to miss them, and I dawdled over the meal so that I need
not leave before they. I discovered that when the lady aborigine was
animated, her face was that of a young woman, possessing a certain
high-bred charm, but that when in repose the face of the lady aborigine
was that of a very old and tired woman indeed. Also that her husband
bullied her, and that when he did that she looked at him worshipingly.
Then one evening, a week or so after the appearance of the new
aborigines, there came a clumping at my door. I was seated at my
typewriter and the book was balkier than usual, and I wished that the
clumper at the door would go away.
“Come!” I called, ungraciously enough. Then, on second thought:
“Herein!”
The knob turned slowly, and the door opened just enough to admit the
top of a head crowned with a tight, moist German knob of hair. I
searched my memory to recognize the knob, failed utterly and said
again, this time with mingled curiosity and hospitality:
“Won’t you come in?”
The apparently bodiless head thrust itself forward a bit, disclosing an
apologetically smiling face, with high check bones that glistened with
friendliness and scrubbing.
“Nabben’, Fraulein,” said the head.
“Nabben’,” I replied, more mystified than ever. “Howdy do! Is there
anything—”
The head thrust itself forward still more, showing a pair of plump
shoulders as its support. Then the plump shoulders heaved into the
room, disclosing a stout, starched gingham body.
“Ich bin Frau Knapf,” announced the beaming vision.
Now up to this time Frau Knapf had maintained a Mrs. Harris-like
mysteriousness. I had heard rumors of her, and I had partaken of
certain crispy dishes of German extraction, reported to have come from
her deft hands, but I had not even caught a glimpse of her skirts
whisking around a corner.
Therefore: “Frau Knapf!” I repeated. “Nonsense! There ain’t no sich
person—that is, I’m glad to see you. Won’t you come in and sit down?”
“Ach, no!” smiled the substantial Frau Knapf, clinging tightly to the
door knob. “I got no time. It gives much to do to-night yet. Kuchen
dough I must set, und ich weiss nicht was. I got no time.”
Bustling, red-cheeked Frau Knapf! This was why I had never had a
glimpse of her. Always, she got no time. For while Herr Knapf, dapper
and genial, welcomed new-comers, chatted with the diners, poured a
glass of foaming Doppel-brau for Herr Weber or, dexterously carved fowl
for the aborigines’ table, Frau Knapf was making the wheels go round. I
discovered that it was she who bakes the melting, golden German
Pfannkuchen on Sunday mornings; she it is who fries the crisp and
hissing Wienerschnitzel; she it is who prepares the plump ducklings,
and the thick gravies, and the steaming lentil soup and the rosy
sausages nestling coyly in their bed of sauerkraut. All the week Frau
Knapf bakes and broils and stews, her rosy cheeks taking on a twinkling
crimson from the fire over which she bends. But on Sunday night Frau
Knapf sheds her huge apron and rolls down the sleeves from her plump
arms. On Sunday evening she leaves pots and pans and cooking, and is a
transformed Frau Knapf. Then does she don a bright blue silk waist and
a velvet coat that is dripping with jet, and a black bonnet on which
are perched palpitating birds and weary-looking plumes. Then she and
Herr Knapf walk comfortably down to the Pabst theater to see the German
play by the German stock company. They applaud their favorite stout,
blond, German comedienne as she romps through the acts of a sprightly
German comedy, and after the play they go to their favorite Wein-stube
around the corner. There they have sardellen and cheese sandwiches and
a great deal of beer, and for one charmed evening Frau Knapf forgets
all about the insides of geese and the thickening for gravies, and is
happy.
Many of these things Frau Knapf herself told me, standing there by the
door with the Kuchen heavy on her mind. Some of them I got from Ernst
von Gerhard when I told him about my visitor and her errand. The errand
was not disclosed until Frau Knapf had caught me casting a despairing
glance at my last typewritten page.
“Ach, see! you got no time for talking to, ain’t it?” she apologized.
“Heaps of time,” I politely assured her, “don’t hurry. But why not have
a chair and be comfortable?”
Frau Knapf was not to be deceived. “I go in a minute. But first it is
something I like to ask you. You know maybe Frau Nirlanger?”
I shook my head.
“But sure you must know. From Vienna she is, with such a voice like a
bird.”
“And the beads, and the gray gown, and the fringe, and the cigarettes?”
“And the oogly husband,” finished Frau Knapf, nodding.
“Oogly,” I agreed, “isn’t the name for it. And so she is Frau
Nirlanger? I thought there would be a Von at the very least.”
Whereupon my visitor deserted the doorknob, took half a dozen stealthy
steps in my direction and lowered her voice to a hissing whisper of
confidence.
“It is more as a Von. I will tell you. Today comes Frau Nirlanger by me
and she says: ‘Frau Knapf, I wish to buy clothes, aber echt
Amerikanische. Myself, I do not know what is modish, and I cannot go
alone to buy.’”
“That’s a grand idea,” said I, recalling the gray basque and the
cannon-ball beads.
“Ja, sure it is,” agreed Frau Knapf. “Soo-o-o, she asks me was it some
lady who would come with her by the stores to help a hat and suit and
dresses to buy. Stylish she likes they should be, and echt
Amerikanisch. So-o-o-o, I say to her, I would go myself with you, only
so awful stylish I ain’t, and anyway I got no time. But a lady I know
who is got such stylish clothes!” Frau Knapf raised admiring hands and
eyes toward heaven. “Such a nice lady she is, and stylish, like
anything! And her name is Frau Orme.”
“Oh, really, Frau Knapf—” I murmured in blushing confusion.
“Sure, it is so,” insisted Frau Knapf, coming a step nearer, and
sinking her, voice one hiss lower. “You shouldn’t say I said it, but
Frau Nirlanger likes she should look young for her husband. He is much
younger as she is—aber much. Anyhow ten years. Frau Nirlanger does not
tell me this, but from other people I have found out.” Frau Knapf shook
her head mysteriously a great many times. “But maybe you ain’t got such
an interest in Frau Nirlanger, yes?”
“Interest! I’m eaten up with curiosity. You shan’t leave this room
alive until you’ve told me!”
Frau Knapf shook with silent mirth. “Now you make jokings, ain’t? Well,
I tell you. In Vienna, Frau Nirlanger was a widow, from a family aber
hoch edel—very high born. From the court her family is, and friends
from the Emperor, und alles. Sure! Frau Nirlanger, she is different
from the rest. Books she likes, und meetings, und all such komisch
things. And what you think!”
“I don’t know,” I gasped, hanging on her words, “what DO I think?”
“She meets this here Konrad Nirlanger, and falls with him in love. Und
her family is mad! But schrecklich mad! Forty years old she is, and
from a noble family, and Konrad Nirlanger is only a student from a
university, and he comes from the Volk. Sehr gebildet he is, but not
high born. So-o-o-o-o, she runs with him away and is married.”
Shamelessly I drank it all in. “You don’t mean it! Well, then what
happened? She ran away with him—with that chin! and then what?”
Frau Knapf was enjoying it as much as I. She drew a long breath, felt
of the knob of hair, and plunged once more into the story.
“Like a story-book it is, nicht? Well, Frau Nirlanger, she has already
a boy who is ten years old, and a fine sum of money that her first
husband left her. Aber when she runs with this poor kerl away from her
family, and her first husband’s family is so schrecklich mad that they
try by law to take from her her boy and her money, because she has her
highborn family disgraced, you see? For a year they fight in the
courts, and then it stands that her money Frau Nirlanger can keep, but
her boy she cannot have. He will be taken by her highborn family and
educated, and he must forget all about his mamma. To cry it is, ain’t
it? Das arme Kind! Well, she can stand it no longer to live where her
boy is, and not to see him. So-o-o-o, Konrad Nirlanger he gets a chance
to come by Amerika where there is a big engineering plant here in
Milwaukee, and she begs her husband he should come, because this boy
she loves very much—Oh, she loves her young husband too, but different,
yes?”
“Oh, yes,” I agreed, remembering the gay little trilling laugh, and the
face that was so young when animated, and so old and worn in repose.
“Oh, yes. Quite, quite different.”
Frau Knapf smoothed her spotless skirt and shook her head slowly and
sadly. “So-o-o-o, by Amerika they come. And Konrad Nirlanger he is
maybe a little cross and so, because for a year they have been in the
courts, and it might have been the money they would lose, and for money
Konrad Nirlanger cares—well, you shall see. But Frau Nirlanger must not
mourn and cry. She must laugh and sing, and be gay for her husband. But
Frau Nirlanger has no grand clothes, for first she runs away with
Konrad Nirlanger, and then her money is tied in the law. Now she has
again her money, and she must be young—but young!”
With a gesture that expressed a world of pathos and futility Frau Knapf
flung out her arms. “He must not see that she looks different as the
ladies in this country. So Frau Nirlanger wants she should buy here in
the stores new dresses—echt Amerikanische. All new and beautiful things
she would have, because she must look young, ain’t it? And perhaps her
boy will remember her when he is a fine young man, if she is yet young
when he grows up, you see? And too, there is the young husband. First,
she gives up her old life, and her friends and her family for this man,
and then she must do all things to keep him. Men, they are but
children, after all,” spake the wise Frau Knapf in conclusion. “They
war and cry and plead for that which they would have, and when they
have won, then see! They are amused for a moment, and the new toy is
thrown aside.”
“Poor, plain, vivacious, fascinating little Frau Nirlanger!” I said. “I
wonder just how much of pain and heartache that little musical laugh of
hers conceals?”
“Ja, that is so,” mused Frau Knapf. “Her eyes look like eyes that have
wept much, not? And so you will be so kind and go maybe to select the
so beautiful clothes?”
“Clothes?” I repeated, remembering the original errand. “But dear lady!
How, does one select clothes for a woman of forty who would not weary
her husband? That is a task for a French modiste, a wizard, and a fairy
godmother all rolled into one.”
“But you will do it, yes?” urged Frau Knapf.
“I’ll do it,” I agreed, a bit ruefully, “if only to see the face of the
oogly husband when his bride is properly corseted and shod.”
Whereupon Frau Knapf, in a panic, remembered the unset Kuchen dough and
rushed away, with her hand on her lips and her eyes big with secrecy.
And I sat staring at the last typewritten page stuck in my typewriter
and I found that the little letters on the white page were swimming in
a dim purple haze.