It was on a March afternoon, when the sun was shining with young
impertinence and the heat was untimely.
The black slabs of snow at the edge of the pavement had melted into
gleaming puddles, and a sparkling shower fell from the icicles clinging
to the roofs. Over to the south-west the red evening glow lay spread on
the house fronts like gay rugs separated by an oblique line from the
shadow of the walls on the near side. The window-panes glowed as if they
were suns radiating their own light, and the sparrows chased one another
along the dripping eaves.
But best of all in this sorry spring of city streets was the rare spicy
smell of thawing. Even the vapours rising from the gutters, now running
again, gave an inkling of greening meadows and bursting boughs.
Lilly, who had gone out on hardly more than three occasions the whole
winter, sat behind the counter and looked through the window longingly.
Everywhere she saw that windows and doors had been opened wide,
everywhere breasts hungering for air greedily drew in the breath of
coming spring. So she, too, opened the casement wide and gave the door
to the hall a push, which sent it flying back and knocked down the
broom, standing at its post, as always.
Through the open doorway she could see into the parlour of the tenant
who lived on the other side of the hall and who, likewise, had flung
back his door for spring to enter.
She saw a cherry-red sofa with embroidered antimacassars symmetrically
plastered on its old-fashioned scroll arms. She saw framed wreaths of
dried flowers with inscriptions hanging on the walls; she saw an
artillery officer's helmet and two swords with sword-knots crossed
beneath. She saw China lions serving as cigar holders, ladies in dancing
attitudes holding tallow candles, photographs of family groups with
peacock feathers stuck behind, a spherical aquarium containing gold
fish, and a spotted goat skin. Amid all these comfortable-looking
knick-knacks she saw a young man walking up and down with a book in his
hand murmuring studiously. He would appear and reappear in the field of
vision allowed by the hall door.
This young man awakened Lilly's sympathy at the very first glance.
He wore his waving light hair brushed from his forehead in free and easy
fashion, and carried his head boldly erect. His brown and lilac necktie
seemed to her aristocratic perfection.
She passed in review all her favourite heroes to see which of them he
most resembled. After some wavering she finally decided he came nearest
to Herr von Fink, the rogue in _Soll und Haben_.
Since the young man did not notice her, she could study him at leisure.
Each time he appeared she felt a warm wave pour over her body, and when
he remained away too long by the fraction of a second, she experienced a
sensation of nausea, as if some one were trying to cheat her of a dear
possession.
This continued until once he looked up from his book, became aware of
the open door to the circulating library with the young lady on the
other side observing him, started in dismay, and quickly stepped back to
the invisible part of the room.
The next time he came into view he had assumed a conscious and studied
manner. He looked at his book a little too closely and moved his lips
one degree too zealously, while a severe frown clouded his countenance.
Lilly, too, had found it necessary somewhat to improve the picture she
presented. She smoothed her hair, which she wore parted Madonna fashion,
and let her arm droop over the side of the chair in idle dreaminess.
Some maids, who had come to exchange books for their mistresses, put an
end to this dual posing. On leaving they closed the door and Lilly did
not venture to open it again.
But that night she carried the vision of the new hero into her dreams.
It was too late in the day to speak to Mrs. Asmussen, who was now in the
habit of preparing her medicine some time before the evening meal. The
next morning, however, she seemed to be in a gracious humour, and Lilly
felt emboldened to make a few inquiries concerning the neighbours, of
whom she knew practically nothing.
"What are the neighbours to you, Miss Inquisitive?"
Such was the tone of intercourse that had developed from the first state
of enchantment.
Lilly took heart, and concocted a story of a steady customer who had
asked about the neighbours the day before, and Lilly had not been able
to give any information.
Mrs. Asmussen, who cherished boundless respect for the customers'
wishes, forthwith became communicative.
They were two very good people, but of low station, with whom she, Mrs.
Asmussen, a woman of greater aristocracy both of mind and heart, could
not, of course, associate. The man, a sergeant out of service, was clerk
in some office, and the woman sewed neckwear for a living.
Lilly blushed. She recalled the brown and lilac tie, the sheen of which
had been dazzling her eyes since the day before.
An idea might be obtained of the vulgar existence those plebeians led,
Mrs. Asmussen continued, if one knew they considered potato soup with
sliced sausage in it a festal delicacy, whereas anyone with refined
tastes would shudder at the mere thought.
Lilly, who, like the good-for-nothing daughters, had long lost her joy
in the daily mush, could not quite sympathise with this statement. On
the contrary, she felt her mouth watering, and in order to change the
subject quickly she timidly inquired whether anyone else was living next
door.
"Not that I know of," replied Mrs. Asmussen. "But there's a son. He goes
to high school. I don't know why such people have their sons study."
"I know," thought Lilly. "Because he's one of the elect, because genius
shines in his eyes, because destiny has marked him to be a ruler on
earth."
That afternoon she kept the door open. But it had turned bitter cold,
and the idea of friendly reciprocation occurred to nobody next door.
After an hour spent in studying the oval door plate on which was
inscribed:
L. Redlich
Please ring hard,
she found herself under the necessity of closing the door, because her
legs were depending from her body like icicles and she had the
humiliating consciousness of being scorned.
Henceforth she kept on the watch for one o'clock, when the students
living in the house returned from school. Holding her forehead pressed
against the window-pane, she could recognise at an inconceivable
distance the blue and white rimmed caps worn by high school students.
When he came up the steps leading to the porch in front of the house,
she slipped behind the curtain, and in a joyous tremour caught the
shamed, sidelong glance he sent her. If he looked straight ahead she was
unhappy and afraid she had hurt his feelings.
Other blue and white rimmed caps besides his entered the house. They
belonged to friends who came to cram with him.
Lilly loved them all. She felt she was a secret member of the union of
these young souls who were going to storm the world, and when they
seated themselves in the room she took her invisible place in the
circle.
Some of them Lilly recognised, not by their features, because they
passed her too quickly for that, but by their caps, which she
distinguished accurately. There was the "sad one," the "washed-out one,"
the "stylish one" and the "wireless one." She could also recognise their
walk and the manner in which they rang the bell at the opposite door.
Even if occupied with customers, she could tell, without having looked
through the window, exactly how many and which of the friends were
working with young Redlich, and she would revolve in her mind why this
or that one had not come that day.
Spring advanced. The inmates of the house began occasionally to sit on
the front porch, where there were benches on either side of the door.
Before leaving, the young gentlemen would remain there a while chatting,
and now and then He would lean over the railing in the twilight,
dreaming, no doubt, of future conquests.
With fluttering heart Lilly would stand behind a bookcase where she had
cunningly contrived an observatory for herself by removing a number of
books, and from there read the world-stirring thoughts that lay on the
bold soaring forehead.
The benches on the right side of the porch, in front of the windows of
the circulating library, generally remained unoccupied, because Mrs.
Asmussen, to whom this side belonged, preferred not to desert her
evening medicine, and Lilly lacked courage to ask for permission to sit
there by herself.
But one evening in May, when dark blue clouds hung in the heavens shot
with red, enticing rather than threatening, when the streets were so
quiet that Lilly could hear the distant plashing of the fountain in the
market-place, when the only stir was created by swallows darting hither
and thither, she could no longer stand the library's pasty, leathery
smell, and fetching her embroidery--more for show than from eagerness to
sew--she went out to sit on the porch.
She knew he had gone out and was not in the habit of remaining away
after ten o'clock.
So he would be bound to pass her at all events.
Half an hour went by, another half hour, then a quarter of an hour.
Finally she saw a blue and white cap come swinging down the street in
the last glow of evening.
Her first thought was to run into the library with all possible speed.
But she was ashamed of the idea, and remained seated.
He came, he saw her, he raised his cap and went in.
She thought gleefully:
"Well, he bowed at last."
At the end of scarcely ten minutes he reappeared on the scene, seated
himself on the bench belonging to _his_ side of the house, toyed with
pebbles, whistled softly, and acted altogether as if he did not see
her.
Lilly sat in her corner with her face turned aside, rolling and
unrolling her embroidery, and every now and then fetching a little sigh,
not to show her love--oh, certainly not!--but because her breath came
short.
About half an hour passed in this fashion and Lilly was beginning to
lose all hope of a rapprochement, when all of a sudden he said, half
raising his cap:
"The front door, I believe, is soon going to be closed, Miss."
"Impossible!" she cried, feigning lively astonishment. But if she were
to act on the suggestion implied in his words her chance of at last
becoming acquainted with him would certainly be lost, and she added in a
tone lighter than accorded with her mood: "But it doesn't matter. The
window is open."
He uttered,
"H'm, h'm."
Whether in agreement or blame she could not determine, and the
conversation would have come to a standstill without fail had not Lilly
made an effort to keep the ball rolling.
"We are neighbours, aren't we?" she asked.
He jumped from his seat and with a sweep of his cap describing a
semicircle between his head and his trousers' pocket, he said:
"Permit me to introduce myself. Fritz Redlich, senior in the high
school."
Lilly once more experienced the reverential thrill that used to pass
through her soul when she was in the Selecta and the last year class of
the boys' high school was mentioned. The fact was suddenly borne in upon
her that now she was nothing better than a shop girl, and she grew hot
with shame at the thought.
But she would not have it that her glorious past was to have been lived
in vain.
"I was in the Selecta. I left last autumn," she said, "and I got to know
some of you then."
"Whom?" he asked eagerly.
Lilly mentioned the names of two young men who had fluttered about her
at the skating-rink, and asked whether he knew them.
"Certainly not," he answered with scorn, which did not seem wholly
sincere. "They loaf too much for fellows like us, and they're going to
join a students' corps. We don't do that sort of thing."
Silence ensued.
It had now grown so dark that Lilly could see only the outline of his
figure as he idly leaned against the corner post of the balustrade.
Fine drops of rain fell and lay in her hair. She could have remained
there forever with the dark youthful form before her searching eyes and
spring's blessing lying cool on her head.
"You are engaged here in the circulating library?" he asked.
Lilly said "Yes," and was grateful to him for the elegant word
"engaged," which seemed somewhat to improve her position.
"And you are preparing for the examinations?" she inquired in turn.
"In autumn--if everything goes well," he answered with a sigh.
"Then you are going out into the wide, wide world," she said with the
rapt expression that girls adopt in compositions. "Going out to fight
your way through life. Oh, how I envy you!"
"Why?" he asked in wonder. "Aren't you fighting your way through life
already?"
Lilly burst out laughing.
"Oh, if I were you," she cried, "what wouldn't I do--oh!"
She exulted in her sensations. She felt her limbs stretching. She knew a
gleam of triumph was flashing in her eyes, a gleam which could not
triumph simply because it dissipated itself unseen in the dark.
It was impossible for her, from sheer joy, to remain where she was. She
would have gone mad had she been compelled to stay there, formulating
stiff words, while everything in her cried out:
"I love you."
She bade him a hasty good-night and ran into the library, bolting the
door behind her. She ran up and down the narrow aisles between the
cases, laughing and sighing, raising her arms aloft like a priestess at
prayer, and knocking her elbows painfully against the shelves.
A yearning for symphonies, for great sustained major chords, welled up
within her. She wanted to sing the Walhalla motif, but the Walhalla
motif cannot be sung.
Suddenly an aria flitted through her mind, one of those songs which had
palpitated through her childhood, without conveying any meaning to her,
but which, for that very reason, had been the more purely consecrated.
I sought him whom my soul loved,
I sought him, but I found him not.
I called him,
But he gave me no answer.
The watchman that went about the city found me.
They smote me, they wounded me.
The keepers of the walls took away my veil from me.
She sang in a soft, uncertain voice, loud enough, however, to be heard
through the window. But when she peeped from her observatory to convince
herself that he was listening, she no longer saw him standing there.
She sang louder and leaned out. She tore open her tight-fitting dress to
expose her bare breast to the rain drops.
Then all of a sudden she was overcome by a feeling of wretchedness; why,
she did not know, but so strong it was she thought she would die of it.
She felt how the cruel watchers seized her; she felt the smart of the
wound which rude hands caused her; she felt how the veil was being torn
away which concealed from the eyes of the world the holy nakedness of
her body. In shameless nudity, yet weeping drops of blood for bitter
shame, she tottered through the streets, and sought and sought, yet _he_
was farther off than ever.
She sank on her knees at the window-sill, and pressing her face on its
edge, wept bitterly in sweet dark sympathy with that image of herself
straying through Jerusalem's nocturnal streets.
Yet all this was sheer happiness!