GERMAN LOVING
Fräulein Elsa was a blooming, almost blue-eyed young woman of
twenty. Such a fresh, strawberry and cream complexion under a
plenteous harvest of flaxen hair would not be associated in America
with anyone very serious. _There_ she would have been thought
arrayed by Nature as a tearing blonde, suitable for the equivocal
light stage, or as a frivolous artist's model, or as promenade girl
in a suit and cloak house. But in Fräulein the extraordinary
combination of volatile comeliness and unimpeachable earnestness
daily worked growing wonders in Kirtley.
It is a luckless young traveler who does not find himself or herself
engaged in some romance, permanent or transient, which ever after
sweetens or gilds the memories of the tour. Moreover Gard was at an
age when youthful susceptibilities were softened by the
lackadaisicalness of his returning state of health and hope.
So his difficulties with the German language, feasting, sleeping and
redoubtable ways in general, were to be complicated by German
loving. The shining object of his tenderness--how she was to lend
brightness to the short dismal days and long black nights of the
Teuton winter! At first he had asked himself:
"Is a campaign of the heart in Deutschland as portentous, dreadfully
systematic, a proceeding as the other undertakings? Do the Germans
go at that sort of thing, too, hammer and tongs?"
The glowing Fräulein was able-bodied, full-chested, with every
golden promise of a rich maternityhood. Did American girls have
any bosoms to speak of? Gard seemed now to have never noticed that
feature in them. Yet bounding breasts are the unashamed pride of
German girls.
While the Yankee miss is often to be identified by complaints of a
physical nature, Elsa had no aches or pains to talk about. She had
a strength competent to support all her energetic, meritorious
endeavors. A thoroughly well woman--what an exceptional being, a
god-send! It is not the fashion with maids beyond the Rhine to be
ailing. Weak backs, nervous prostration, indigestion and similar
indispositions were not topics at the Buchers'. To be coquettishly
delicate or romantically ill is a liability to the Germans. Health,
unenchanting as it may be, is a prime asset. That the Teuton women
are gormands--what is that compared with their willingness to mother
six or more sturdy youngsters?
Had Frau Bucher been an Elsa at twenty? Yes, in the main, yet
impossible to conceive. Would Elsa become at fifty-five like her
parent? Heaven forbid! But Youth ignores such deterrent
probabilities.
The daughter and her manifold achievements easily bowled Gard over.
Was he in love or did he merely imagine he was? Was he filling with
the divine fire or only being smitten? Who could ever tell? And what
is, in fact, the practical difference? Kindly old Rebner had hinted
that it would not be amiss in Gard to bring home one of the
excellent German _mädchens_ with her brimming stock of health and
efficiency.
"She would be an answer to our American servant girl question, flood
your fireside with invigorating music, and rear a house full of
robust children. It would be a novel and commendable experiment and
experience for you, Kirtley."
Of course Heine is the approved route with a German girl. Gard
borrowed from Fräulein an old copy of the "Buch der Lieder." Very
obliging at times like the rest of the family in the business of
improving his accent, she urged that if he would commit some of
those little prized poems to heart, she would supervise his
intonations. He eagerly betook himself to this charming exercise,
and it was not long before he was inviting her to walk along that
alluring path through the meadow by the persuasive water. Here he
repeated over and over to her the very pertinent lines,
Thou'rt like unto a flower,
and
Thou lov'st me not, thou lov'st me not,
under the conscientious reproofs of her engaging diction.
But never more than for half an hour at a time. This was all she
could spare him. Her days were very strictly divided by her pressing
concerns. A sightly young woman so tremendously busy--it was almost
exasperating.
And he could not establish any tender quality of relationship that
would warm a delectable exchange of rosy intimations or tentative
expressions of budding feelings of delight. It was teacher and
pupil. She unsuspectingly insisted on following her rôle of
preceptress and very earnest was she about it, too.
She saw nothing comical in his frequent linguistic stumblings that
would naturally lead to melting moods. As the Germans have, of
course, little humor, she found in these faulty exhibitions only
causes for disappointed glances and reprimands approaching severity.
Often you would have thought he was a boy of ten reciting his lesson
at her knee.
"Now Thursday by half past ten, you must have that line right or I
will _scold_ you." And she would sometimes laugh a little in her
discouragement.
She looked upon it as a duty, a voluntary drudgery, but which, she
assured him, she was most pleased to do. For she loved Heine--raved
about him, like sentimental German maids. She could never go over
his verse often enough. And so she encouraged Gard to keep on. It
was a reflected part of her normal disciplined life of acquisition.
After a month of these tactics he realized he was making no headway
toward--he did not acknowledge what. Young men as a type did not
seem to Elsa of special interest any more than a hundred other
objects on earth. And then the cold weather before long put an end
to the little promenades of rime by the shore, and Gard had to try
other lines of attack on this radiant and beflowered German
fortress.
The park of fir trees lay quite beyond the meadow. It was a silent,
evocative spot, unfrequented except for a peasant now and then
trudging along under a bundle of wood or a weather-beaten basket of
provisions. Kirtley had managed to stray that far once with Elsa,
but learned that the mother was expected to accompany at such
distances. It provoked his silent comment,
"As nearly as I can estimate, about a half a mile from home is all
that is allowed a German miss unchaperoned."
It was the same when he invited Fräulein to the opera or theater.
The parent must attend. As she was equally occupied, it did not
appear easy for him to arrange for the two. Besides, Frau Bucher
killed everything under these confounding and confounded
circumstances. She sat between him and her daughter and ruled the
conversation. It was little better than taking her alone, so he
abandoned also these enterprises.
In the talk at table the family, with Teuton tactlessness, now and
then cried out the surpassing merits of the German young man.
Unquestionably he led all others. Gard met no success in stemming
the tide, miffed as he was about this social seclusion of the
daughter. He soon saw his mistake in feeling personally hurt, as if
insulted. It was but the custom. Could it be indeed a fact that
German youths were such moral reprobates that girls could not be
trusted to their unguarded companionship? The question had no
meaning to his hosts. It was useless to hint of such an idea,
burning as he often was to launch it upon the waves of discussion.
To them, chaperoning signified the highest morals.
They exploded with, "It may very well be as you say in America!
That is to be expected. Are there any morals in the United States?
We have heard awful things. There are the Mormons. There is
co-education. And young girls of the best families go around loose
with men day and night. What _could_ be the result? Free love. And
free love means cheap love or no love at all. Admittedly pretty low
conditions for virtue. What else can be looked for in a country
where all sorts of people come promiscuously from everywhere?
Divorces, voting females, slatterns, homelessness, neglected, poorly
educated children."
If, in passing, America and Americans were referred to in the
family, and this was rare, Elsa, Gard noticed, kept silent. Yet she
could be very wrought up about other Europeans. This nursed his
fancies. He interpreted it in terms of promise. Elsa, he decided,
was a good girl in a hedge-hog environment of unbelievable traits,
of warring contrasts.