"Well, young lady," said Mr. Pieper, the prominent lawyer, "I have been
appointed your guardian. I accepted the office because I thought it my
duty--the papers in Lemke _vs._ Militzky," he interrupted himself to
call to his managing clerk, who had just then entered. "What was I going
to say? Oh, yes. Because I thought it my duty, despite my being an
extremely busy man--to assist widows and orphans to the best of my
feeble ability."
He passed his exquisitely cherished left hand over his shining bald pate
and straw-coloured beard, beneath which a worldly mouth half concealed
an epicurean smile.
"My wards all make their way in the world," he continued. "It's my pride
to have them succeed. The way they do it--well, that's my affair, a
business secret, so to say. I am convinced, my child, that you, too,
will get along. If I didn't think so, I should not be so interested in
you probably. The first thing is to get the young ladies the right
positions. The homely ones give most trouble, unless they happen to
possess a certain measure of self-abnegation. It pays them to assume the
so-called Christian virtues. But of course you don't belong in that
category--you probably know it yourself--I tell you merely that you may
learn with time to make demands. I must explain--the main art in life is
to determine the boundary line between demands justifiable and demands
unjustifiable. That is, you must have a feeling for exactly how far your
powers will reach in each circumstance as it arises. A girl like you--"
The managing clerk, a tall, bony fellow, suddenly appeared at the
lawyer's side shoving a bundle of documents at him.
"At four o'clock the Labischin divorce case. At quarter past five
Reimann--Reimann _vs._ Fassbender--get everything ready, and have
someone here to accompany this young lady--the papers will tell you
where. That will do."
The managing clerk vanished.
"Well," Lilly's guardian resumed, "the time I have to spare for you is
nearly gone. You cannot continue with your schooling, that's plain.
There's no money for it. But even if you had the means, I'm not certain
whether in view of your future--however, a governess may make a
brilliant match--it sometimes occurs, chiefly, to be sure, in English
novels--but there's the danger, too, that you might--excuse me for the
word--on the spur of the moment I can't think of another--besides, it's
the right one--that you might be seduced. What I'd rather see you than
anything else is the lady in a large photographic establishment who
receives customers. But it seems to me you haven't enough
self-confidence as yet for that. One must make a deep impression at
first sight, because people who leave an order have to have some
inducement for coming back to call for their pictures. I've selected
something else for you, for the purpose more of giving you a short
period of trial than of providing you with a permanent position.
It's in a circulating library. It will give you plenty of
opportunity--discreetly, you know--not to hide your light under a
bushel. The remuneration, I need scarcely say, will be moderate--free
board and lodging and twenty marks a month. You will have a chance to
let your fancy--I suppose you're not yet _blase_--let your fancy roam at
will in the fields of general literature. There you are, young lady!
Mercy on us! Why are you crying?"
Lilly quickly dried the tears from her eyes and cheeks.
"I've just come from the hospital," was the only excuse she could find.
"I'm still a little--I beg your pardon."
The prominent lawyer shook his head. His bald spot looked as petted and
pampered as a lovely woman's cheeks.
"You must get out of the habit of crying, too, if you want to make your
way in the world. Tears are not in place until you are 'settled.' Oh,
yes, something else--the things your poor mother owned must be sold. The
proceeds will serve as a small capital. I lay stress on having such a
sum, no matter how insignificant. Now you will go back to your home with
my man--the key was deposited at my office--and select what you think
you absolutely need or"--he smiled a little--"what filial devotion leads
you to prize. Good-by, my dear. In six months come to me again."
Lilly felt a cool, soft hand, which seemed incapable of bestowing a
pressure, lie in her own for an instant; then she found herself
staggering down the dark steps behind a clerk who had been waiting for
her outside the door with the key to her home.
She wanted to speak to him, ask him questions, beg him for something.
But for what? She herself knew not.
When the clerk opened up the musty room, where the twilight was broken
by shafts of light, as in a tomb, the tomb of her life, the tomb of her
youth, Lilly felt that now everything was over and all left her was to
fall asleep here and die.
The clerk threw the shutters back and raised the windows.
The clothes were still lying on the bed, the underwear and bed-linen on
the floor, and close by were two brown stains, the blood that had
flowed from her wound. The knife, too, was still there.
Lilly restrained her desire to cry, shamed by the presence of the clerk,
who stood there stupidly, whistling, with his lower lip thrust out.
Lilly threw her clothes into the basket-trunk which her mother had
intended to use in moving to the nine-room apartment, added a few pieces
of underwear and some books chosen at random, and then looked around for
mementos. Her brain was befogged. She saw everything and recognised
nothing. But there on the table, there, bound with rubber bands, soaked
in her blood, untouched because no one knew its value, lay the Song of
Songs.
Lilly snatched it up, shut down the trunk lid, and with the score under
her arm, stepped out into the new life, hungry for experience.