A TRAGEDY OF GOWNS
From husbands in general, and from oogly German husbands in particular
may Hymen defend me! Never again will I attempt to select “echt
Amerikanische” clothes for a woman who must not weary her young
husband. But how was I to know that the harmless little shopping
expedition would resolve itself into a domestic tragedy, with Herr
Nirlanger as the villain, Frau Nirlanger as the persecuted heroine, and
I as—what is it in tragedy that corresponds to the innocent bystander
in real life? That would be my role.
The purchasing of the clothes was a real joy. Next to buying pretty
things for myself there is nothing I like better than choosing them for
some one else. And when that some one else happens to be a fascinating
little foreigner who coos over the silken stuffs in a delightful
mixture of German and English; and especially when that some one else
must be made to look so charming that she will astonish her oogly
husband, then does the selecting of those pretty things cease to be a
task, and become an art.
It was to be a complete surprise to Herr Nirlanger. He was to know
nothing of it until everything was finished and Frau Nirlanger, dressed
in the prettiest of the pretty Amerikanisch gowns, was ready to astound
him when he should come home from the office of the vast plant where he
solved engineering problems.
“From my own money I buy all this,” Frau Nirlanger confided to me, with
a gay little laugh of excitement, as we started out. “From Vienna it
comes. Always I have given it at once to my husband, as a wife should.
Yesterday it came, but I said nothing, and when my husband said to me,
‘Anna, did not the money come as usual to-day? It is time,’ I told a
little lie—but a little one, is it not? Very amusing it was. Almost I
did laugh. Na, he will not be cross when he see how his wife like the
Amerikanische ladies will look. He admires very much the ladies of
Amerika. Many times he has said so.”
(“I’ll wager he has—the great, ugly boor!” I thought, in parenthesis.)
“We’ll show him!” I said, aloud. “He won’t know you. Such a lot of
beautiful clothes as we can buy with all this money. Oh, dear Frau
Nirlanger, it’s going to be slathers of fun! I feel as excited about it
as though it were a trousseau we were buying.”
“So it is,” she replied, a little shadow of sadness falling across the
brightness of her face. “I had no proper clothes when we were
married—but nothing! You know perhaps my story. In America, everyone
knows everything. It is wonderful. When I ran away to marry Konrad
Nirlanger I had only the dress which I wore; even that I borrowed from
one of the upper servants, on a pretext, so that no one should
recognize me. Ach Gott! I need not have worried. So! You see, it will
be after all a trousseau.”
Why, oh, why should a woman with her graceful carriage and pretty
vivacity have been cursed with such an ill-assorted lot of features!
Especially when certain boorish young husbands have expressed an
admiration for pink-and-white effects in femininity.
“Never mind, Mr. Husband, I’ll show yez!” I resolved as the elevator
left us at the floor where waxen ladies in shining glass cases smiled
amiably all the day.
There must be no violent pinks or blues. Brown was too old. She was not
young enough for black. Violet was too trying. And so the gowns began
to strew tables and chairs and racks, and still I shook my head, and
Frau Nirlanger looked despairing, and the be-puffed and real
Irish-crocheted saleswoman began to develop a baleful gleam about the
eyes.
And then we found it! It was a case of love at first sight. The
unimaginative would have called it gray. The thoughtless would have
pronounced it pink. It was neither, and both; a soft, rosily-gray
mixture of the two, like the sky that one sometimes sees at winter
twilight, the pink of the sunset veiled by the gray of the snow clouds.
It was of a supple, shining cloth, simple in cut, graceful in lines.
“There! We’ve found it. Let’s pray that it will not require too much
altering.”
But when it had been slipped over her head we groaned at the inadequacy
of her old-fashioned stays. There followed a flying visit to the
department where hips were whisked out of sight in a jiffy, and where
lines miraculously took the place of curves. Then came the gown once
more, over the new stays this time. The effect was magical. The
Irish-crocheted saleswoman and I clasped hands and fell back in
attitudes of admiration. Frau Nirlanger turned this way and that before
the long mirror and chattered like a pleased child. Her adjectives grew
into words of six syllables. She cooed over the soft-shining stuff in
little broken exclamations in French and German.
Then came a straight and simple street suit of blue cloth, a lingerie
gown of white, hats, shoes and even a couple of limp satin petticoats.
The day was gone before we could finish.
I bullied them into promising the pinky-gray gown for the next
afternoon.
“Sooch funs!” giggled Frau Nirlanger, “and how it makes one tired. So
kind you were, to take this trouble for me. Me, I could never have
warred with that Fraulein who served us—so haughty she was, nicht? But
it is good again pretty clothes to have. Pretty gowns I lofe—you also,
not?”
“Indeed I do lofe ’em. But my money comes to me in a yellow pay
envelope, and it is spent before it reaches me, as a rule. It doesn’t
leave much of a margin for general recklessness.”
A tiny sigh came from Frau Nirlanger. “There will be little to give to
Konrad this time. So much money they cost, those clothes! But Konrad,
he will not care when he sees the so beautiful dresses, is it not so?”
“Care!” I cried with a great deal of bravado, although a tiny inner
voice spake in doubt. “Certainly not. How could he?”
Next day the boxes came, and we smuggled them into my room. The
unwrapping of the tissue paper folds was a ceremony. We reveled in the
very crackle of it. I had scuttled home from the office as early as
decency would permit, in order to have plenty of time for the dressing.
It must be quite finished before Herr Nirlanger should arrive. Frau
Nirlanger had purchased three tickets for the German theater, also as a
surprise, and I was to accompany the happily surprised husband and the
proud little wife of the new Amerikanische clothes.
I coaxed her to let me do things to her hair. Usually she wore a stiff
and ugly coiffure that could only be described as a chignon. I do not
recollect ever having seen a chignon, but I know that it must look like
that. I was thankful for my Irish deftness of fingers as I stepped back
to view the result of my labors. The new arrangement of the hair gave
her features a new softness and dignity.
We came to the lacing of the stays, with their exaggerated length.
“Aber!” exclaimed Frau Nirlanger, not daring to laugh because of the
strange snugness. “Ach!” and again, “Aber to laugh it is!”
We had decided the prettiest of the new gowns must do honor to the
occasion. “This shade is called ashes of roses,” I explained, as I
slipped it over her head.
“Ashes of roses!” she echoed. “How pretty, yes? But a little sad too,
is it not so? Like rosy hopes that have been withered. Ach, what a
foolish talk! So, now you will fasten it please. A real trick it is to
button such a dress—so sly they are, those fastenings.”
When all the sly fastenings were secure I stood at gaze.
“Nose is shiny,” I announced, searching in a drawer for chamois and
powder.
Frau Nirlanger raised an objecting hand. “But Konrad does not approve
of such things. He has said so. He has—”
“You tell your Konrad that a chamois skin isn’t half as objectionable
as a shiny one. Come here and let me dust this over your nose and chin,
while I breathe a prayer of thanks that I have no overzealous husband
near to forbid me the use of a bit of powder. There! If I sez it mesilf
as shouldn’t, yez ar-r-re a credit t’ me, me darlint.”
“You are satisfied. There is not one small thing awry? Ach, how we
shall laugh at Konrad’s face.”
“Satisfied! I’d kiss you if I weren’t afraid that I should muss you up.
You’re not the same woman. You look like a girl! And so pretty! Now
skedaddle into your own rooms, but don’t you dare to sit down for a
moment. I’m going down to get Frau Knapf before your husband arrives.”
“But is there then time?” inquired Frau Nirlanger. “He should be here
now.”
“I’ll bring her up in a jiffy, just for one peep. She won’t know you!
Her face will be a treat! Don’t touch your hair—it’s quite perfect. And
f’r Jawn’s sake! Don’t twist around to look at yourself in the back or
something will burst, I know it will. I’ll be back in a minute. Now
run!”
The slender, graceful figure disappeared with a gay little laugh, and I
flew downstairs for Frau Knapf. She was discovered with a spoon in one
hand and a spluttering saucepan in the other. I detached her from them,
clasped her big, capable red hands and dragged her up the stairs,
explaining as I went.
“Now don’t fuss about that supper! Let ’em wait. You must see her
before Herr Nirlanger comes home. He’s due any minute. She looks like a
girl. So young! And actually pretty! And her figure—divine! Funny what
a difference a decent pair of corsets, and a gown, and some puffs will
make, h’m?”
Frau Knapf was panting as I pulled her after me in swift eagerness.
Between puffs she brought out exclamations of surprise and unbelief
such as: “Unmoglich! (Puff! Puff!) Aber—wunderbar! (Puff! Puff!)”
We stopped before Frau Nirlanger’s door. I struck a dramatic pose.
“Prepare!” I cried grandly, and threw open the door with a bang.
Crouched against the wall at a far corner of the room was Frau
Nirlanger. Her hands were clasped over her breast and her eyes were
dilated as though she had been running. In the center of the room stood
Konrad Nirlanger, and on his oogly face was the very oogliest look that
I have ever seen on a man. He glanced at us as we stood transfixed in
the doorway, and laughed a short, sneering laugh that was like a
stinging blow on the cheek.
“So!” he said; and I would not have believed that men really said “So!”
in that way outside of a melodrama. “So! You are in the little
surprise, yes? You carry your meddling outside of your newspaper work,
eh? I leave behind me an old wife in the morning and in the evening,
presto! I find a young bride. Wonderful!—but wonderful!” He laughed an
unmusical and mirthless laugh.
“But—don’t you like it?” I asked, like a simpleton.
Frau Nirlanger seemed to shrink before our very eyes, so that the
pretty gown hung in limp folds about her.
I stared, fascinated, at Konrad Nirlanger’s cruel face with its little
eyes that were too close together and its chin that curved in below the
mouth and out again so grotesquely.
“Like it?” sneered Konrad Nirlanger. “For a young girl, yes. But how
useless, this belated trousseau. What a waste of good money! For see, a
young wife I do not want. Young women one can have in plenty, always.
But I have an old woman married, and for an old woman the gowns need be
few—eh, Frau Orme? And you too, Frau Knapf?”
Frau Knapf, crimson and staring, was dumb. There came a little
shivering moan from the figure crouched in the corner, and Frau
Nirlanger, her face queerly withered and ashen, crumpled slowly in a
little heap on the floor and buried her shamed head in her arms.
Konrad Nirlanger turned to his wife, the black look on his face growing
blacker.
“Come, get up Anna,” he ordered, in German. “These heroics become not a
woman of your years. And too, you must not ruin the so costly gown that
will be returned to-morrow.”
Frau Nirlanger’s white face was lifted from the shelter of her arms.
The stricken look was still upon it, but there was no cowering in her
attitude now. Slowly she rose to her feet. I had not realized that she
was so tall.
“The gown does not go back,” she said.
“So?” he snarled, with a savage note in his voice. “Now hear me. There
shall be no more buying of gowns and fripperies. You hear? It is for
the wife to come to the husband for the money; not for her to waste it
wantonly on gowns, like a creature of the streets. You,” his voice was
an insult, “you, with your wrinkles and your faded eyes in a gown of—”
he turned inquiringly toward me—“How does one call it, that color, Frau
Orme?”
There came a blur of tears to my eyes. “It is called ashes of roses,” I
answered. “Ashes of roses.”
Konrad Nirlanger threw back his head and laughed a laugh as stinging as
a whip-lash. “Ashes of roses! So? It is well named. For my dear wife it
is poetically fit, is it not so? For see, her roses are but withered
ashes, eh Anna?”
Deliberately and in silence Anna Nirlanger walked to the mirror and
stood there, gazing at the woman in the glass. There was something
dreadful and portentous about the calm and studied deliberation with
which she critically viewed that reflection. She lifted her arms slowly
and patted into place the locks that had become disarranged, turning
her head from side to side to study the effect. Then she took from a
drawer the bit of chamois skin that I had given her, and passed it
lightly over her eyelids and cheeks, humming softly to herself the
while. No music ever sounded so uncanny to my ears. The woman before
the mirror looked at the woman in the mirror with a long, steady,
measuring look. Then, slowly and deliberately, the long graceful folds
of her lovely gown trailing behind her, she walked over to where her
frowning husband stood. So might a queen have walked, head held high,
gaze steady. She stopped within half a foot of him, her eyes level with
his. For a long half-minute they stood thus, the faded blue eyes of the
wife gazing into the sullen black eyes of the husband, and his were the
first to drop, for all the noble blood in Anna Nirlanger’s veins, and
all her long line of gently bred ancestors were coming to her aid in
dealing with her middle-class husband.
“You forget,” she said, very slowly and distinctly. “If this were
Austria, instead of Amerika, you would not forget. In Austria people of
your class do not speak in this manner to those of my caste.”
“Unsinn!” laughed Konrad Nirlanger. “This is Amerika.”
“Yes,” said Anna Nirlanger, “this is Amerika. And in Amerika all things
are different. I see now that my people knew of what they spoke when
they called me mad to think of wedding a clod of the people, such as
you.”
For a moment I thought that he was going to strike her. I think he
would have, if she had flinched. But she did not. Her head was held
high, and her eyes did not waver.
“I married you for love. It is most comical, is it not? With you I
thought I should find peace, and happiness and a re-birth of the
intellect that was being smothered in the splendor and artificiality
and the restrictions of my life there. Well, I was wrong. But wrong.
Now hear me!” Her voice was tense with passion. “There will be gowns—as
many and as rich as I choose. You have said many times that the ladies
of Amerika you admire. And see! I shall be also one of those so-admired
ladies. My money shall go for gowns! For hats! For trifles of lace and
velvet and fur! You shall learn that it is not a peasant woman whom you
have married. This is Amerika, the land of the free, my husband. And
see! Who is more of Amerika than I? Who?”
She laughed a high little laugh and came over to me, taking my hands in
her own.
“Dear girl, you must run quickly and dress. For this evening we go to
the theater. Oh, but you must. There shall be no unpleasantness, that I
promise. My husband accompanies us—with joy. Is it not so, Konrad? With
joy? So!”
Wildly I longed to decline, but I dared not. So I only nodded, for fear
of the great lump in my throat, and taking Frau Knapf’s hand I turned
and fled with her. Frau Knapf was muttering:
“Du Hund! Du unverschamter Hund du!” in good Billingsgate German, and
wiping her eyes with her apron. And I dressed with trembling fingers
because I dared not otherwise face the brave little Austrian, the
plucky little aborigine who, with the donning of the new Amerikanische
gown had acquired some real Amerikanisch nerve.