One grey October morning, which hid the threat of approaching winter
behind a mask of moist, warm mist as behind a hypocritical smile, the
wonderful happened: Mrs. Asmussen's runaway daughters came back again.
Without casting a shadow before them, there they were all of a sudden,
shoving several bulging hand-bags into the library, measuring Lilly with
an astonished look of gracious frigidity, and ordering her to pay for
the cab--they had no change.
Lilly felt the throbbing of her heart up to her neck. The moment the two
grand, voluptuous figures appeared on the scene and, though looking a
bit weather beaten and washed out, swept victoriously into possession of
the territory, she knew they were Mrs. Asmussen's daughters.
She cast one anxious look at the pretty, pug-nosed faces, where two
pairs of bright grey eyes challenged the door of the rear room, and
another anxious look at the broom of welcome, whose hour had come. Then
she hurried off to avoid the terrors bound to follow upon the opening of
the middle door.
In the cab she found two withered bouquets of gladioli, a Scotch plaid
rolled in a shawl strap, from which two umbrella handles--large blue
glass knobs, the size of a man's fist--were sticking out, some cushions
trimmed with diagonal bars, and a whisky flask. There was also a tin box
of lemon drops sans lid, and a disjointed paper hat-box, between whose
cracks a comb and a piece of buttered bread were striving in unison to
find their way into freedom.
Lilly gathered up the effects, and stopped in the hall, listening in
terror. She expected to hear the screams of the maltreated girls. But
all was serene, and when she entered she saw mother and daughters
hugging and kissing.
Since there was no time left before the midday meal to buy a roast in
honor of the festive occasion, dinner consisted of cabbage as usual,
with the addition of a mountain of cakes from the confectioner's, to
which the girls helped themselves before the meal in order to lay some
aside for days of less plenty.
This was the first evidence of their housekeeperly thrift.
Mrs. Asmussen beamed with motherly joy and tenderness.
"Well," she said, "did I exaggerate when I told you about these glorious
creatures? Too bad I had to do without them for so long. But I am modest
in my demands, and I am glad enough to get what I do. I know their
hearts draw them now to their father, now to their mother, because they
cannot make up their minds to deprive either of us permanently of the
gift of their pure filial love."
She was sitting between the girls, and she pressed a hand of each. All
three looked into one another's eyes devotedly.
The absent pater familias was remembered touchingly. Their gay, talented
father, the girls said, intended to give up his large business, to
assume the management of extensive farms in the south of Russia at the
urgent invitation of influential patrons.
Later, in Mrs. Asmussen's gloomier hours, it transpired that that
"pock-marked scoundrel" had had to scurry off because of some
questionable notes, and hide in Odessa until the atmosphere in the north
cleared.
To Lilly's unpracticed eye the girls were as like as two
sparrows--saucy, greedy, inconstant, and amorous. It was only after a
time that she learned to distinguish between them. Lona, the older, who
possessed some beauty of a coarse kind, had the ways of a clutching,
grasping barmaid, and was the sharper of the two, usually dragging her
sister Mi in tow, whose chief characteristic was a sort of flabby
drollness.
In their treatment of Lilly they observed for the time being the pacific
attitude of suspicion willing to bide its time. Hints were not omitted
to inform a certain person that they would soon learn what position to
take and whether there was to be peace or war.
When they were finally convinced that Lilly was shy and harmless, the
waves of their tender confidences met over her head.
It now became the regular thing for all three of them to sit on the edge
of the bed until late at night with their corsets open and their knees
drawn up to their chins, talking, talking, talking, while they sucked
candies bought on the sly, or dressed one another's hair. Beautiful
souls poured forth confessions. Whispered confidences about love
adventures and man-baiting flowed on steadily, flooding Lilly's pure
fancy with a turbid stream of sexual mysteries.
What the Asmussen girls liked above all was to have their bodies
admired.
"When I turn this way, isn't the set of my shoulders classic?"
"Haven't I a marble bosom?"
"If I weren't so bashful, I'd take off my shirt and show you my hips.
They are like a goddess's."
They made less frequent appeals for criticism of their features.
"We've gotten so many compliments about our good looks that we can't
have any doubts on that score."
Nevertheless when cold weather set in, and necessitated the wearing of
woolen scarfs over their heads, they did not scorn to discuss the truly
Greek way their hair had of growing low on their foreheads, or the
seductive curves of their mouths.
They could also be severely self-critical.
"Our eyes are not beautiful, we know. Yours, for instance, are much
lovelier. But whether _you_ cast sheep's eyes at anybody or not, it's
all the same. Now, if _we_ just chuck a little sidelong glance--you'd
think no one could possibly notice it--why, in a jiffy they're after us
like mad."
Their iridescent, cattish eyes would twinkle with the pleasant sense of
unbounded power and triumph over the weakness of that strong animal man.
The advice they dispensed liberally to Lilly might be summed up in one
sentence: "Do what you please, but don't surrender yourself."
They laid no restraint upon themselves in retailing spicy stories, which
set Lilly's pulse to bounding, and in which they proved their absolute
seriousness in the observance of this motto.
They manifested a strong sensual craving. One of them once remarked:
"My highest ideal is to be queen of the bees, but to have no children."
The other, who seemed inclined to ethical speculations, rejoined
vivaciously:
"My highest ideal is to be a nun and horribly immoral."
She pursued the theme, entering into all details after the manner of the
Renaissance narrators, while Lilly's pious soul trembled and shuddered.
Their libertinism of thought notwithstanding, all their hopes and dreams
centered about marriage.
To marry, as quickly as possible and as advantageously as possible, was
salvation, career, a specific for all ills, earthly bliss, and eternal
happiness.
"That is, he must be _old_, he must be _rich_, and he must be _stupid_."
This trinity embodied all their demands of fate. As others invest their
husbands-to-be with supernatural virtues, these girls revelled in
picturing their future spouses' infirmities and in recounting the tricks
they meant to play upon them by virtue of their bodily and spiritual
superiority.
They were not always agreed as to the ways and means of obtaining this
precious possession so absolutely indispensable to life. A favorite
subject of debate between them was: "Is it expedient, or is it not
expedient, to compromise oneself with the man of one's choice?"
Lona, whose daring in hatching difficult schemes of action knew no
bounds, upheld the positive side. Mi, who wished to be sure where she
trod, inclined to the negative.
"If you knew those male milksops half as well as I do," Lona scolded,
"you'd realize that the best way to catch them is through fear. Make
them sin, and twist their sin about their necks like a halter. That's
the only way to be sure of them."
"It's very odd," Mi returned with inexorable logic, "that you haven't
practised what you preach, because if you had, you'd long ago--"
Discretion bade her break off. Her sister's fingers, crooked ready to
scratch, boded no good.
Only a week after their arrival a love tilt took place between them, in
which hair puffs and petticoat strings flew about, and from which Mi
emerged with a laceration which Lilly had to treat with vinegar
compresses the rest of the night.
The cause of their contention was a "swell" who had followed them on
their afternoon walk, and who, according to Mi, had been discouraged
from coming closer because her sister had not responded sufficiently to
his advances.
Lona asserted the principle that one must have nothing at all to do with
so-called "swells," while Mi was of the opinion that he would have been
good enough for a husband at any rate.
Strolling through the streets and permitting themselves to be accosted
soon became their chief and daily occupation. Lilly, who had credited,
and been greatly disturbed by, the threats they first made that they
would assume the management of the business, soon realized she had
nothing to apprehend in this regard.
They slept until nine, and took two hours for dressing. Then they went
out for their morning walk to make the necessary estimates of the
gentlemen of the garrison, who at that hour of the day promenaded in
groups near the main guard.
If the first half of the day was dedicated to the military, the second
half was devoted chiefly to ordinary citizens.
It goes without saying that afternoon coffee was taken nowhere else than
at Frangipani's confectionery shop, where a few lieutenants and a number
of city officials and young lawyers gathered to play chess or skat; and
where, too, many a more dashing high school teacher came to display his
kinship with the proper world of fashion.
After this hour, spiced by all sorts of sweets, followed the promenade
at twilight, which proved highly advantageous for establishing possible
connections, and provided the subjects needed for discussion at home.
It would not be stating the full truth to say that Mrs. Asmussen brought
a loving sympathy to bear in her judgment of this kind of life.
Certainly not. The mutual adulation of the first few days had given
place to a period of sultriness, when cutting remarks flashed in the
murky atmosphere like streaks of lightning. Then a season of protracted
storm set in, and mishaps occurred in swift succession, gradually
becoming so purely a matter of course that even Lilly, who at first had
wept and screamed along with the other three, began to consider this the
normal condition of the Asmussen household. Abusive epithets of
unsuspected vigor flew hither and thither, and the place resounded with
cuffings. Even the broom, which in the beginning had not been given a
thought, was now drawn into its strictly limited field of activity.
Peace did not come until evening, when Mrs. Asmussen's medicine asserted
its rights. The two girls might have taken advantage of her oblivion to
give free play to their desires, had not their highly developed sense of
propriety strictly forbidden going out at night.
"Persons meeting us would take us for fast girls," they said, "and then
no wedding bells for us."
One would scarcely believe with what a number of conventions the young
ladies circumscribed their apparently unrestrained existence.
You may let yourself be kissed as much as you like, but on no account
kiss back.
You may let a gentleman call you by your first name in conversation, but
if he does so in a letter it is an insult.
You may let a gentleman treat you to coffee and cake, but not to bread
and butter.
You may let a strange man tread on your foot, but if he attempts to
press your hand under the table you must get up.
And so on.
Lilly had absolutely no comprehension for this set of thoughts and
desires. Hitherto man as a male had been a piece of life non-existent in
bodily form, which came to her notice on occasions, but glided by like a
stranger without holding her attention. She had solely loved the man of
her dreams, the man of her novels, the man of her own creation. The
thing that stared at her on the street, the thing that came to exchange
books and found all sorts of little pretexts for entering into
conversation with her, the thing that officiously held aside the wadded
curtain of the church door as she entered, or played the amiable over a
shop counter, this thing was a strange, annoying fact; it was stupid and
brazen, a matter of unspeakable indifference, to think of which would be
a waste of time and a degradation.
A girl's entire life, she now learned, was here simply for the sake of
that gross and disgusting race; and a girl could concern herself about
them from the moment she rose to the moment she fell asleep, without
cherishing the thought of the one for whom she had been created as for
work and faith and God.
Though Lilly knew she was infinitely above being influenced by the two
girls' advice and example, she felt, in spite of herself, a small desire
arising within her to find out what the nature of those creatures might
be about whom such a fuss was made, whose approval brought pleasure,
whose coldness meant annihilation.
She was beset by a tormenting fear of that dreadful, seething world
outside there, of the dirt that was carried to her door every day anew,
and of the disquieting curiosity with which she picked it up to examine
it. For whether or no, her thoughts _would_ return to the gay pictures,
painted in colors of poison, which the two sisters, growing ever more
demoralized, unrolled before her eyes evening after evening.
It was a piece of good fortune that the hot friendship both at first
bestowed upon her cooled off somewhat after a month or so.
The cause was the enigmatic shortage in the cash box, which occurred
time and again, and came to be a permanent phenomenon. Lilly would spend
hours calculating feverishly, entering and counting every cent, until
finally there was no other conclusion to be reached than that some one
had used the few moments of her absence to dip into the drawer where the
box was kept.
In order to save herself--in case of discovery she would be accused of
the theft--she once carried the key of the drawer away with her as if
unintentionally, and did so repeatedly, until the girls' manner, which
had grown increasingly estranged and scornful, assured her that she was
on the right tack.
On one occasion they gave vent to their wrath and disillusionment.
Did _she_, stray dog that she was, think she was mistress of the place?
If need be, books and keys would be taken from her by force.
In mortal fright Lilly ran to the mother and threatened to leave that
instant unless she was allowed to control affairs as before.
Mrs. Asmussen, who knew her scapegrace offspring through and through,
took sides with Lilly, and the storm seemed to have blown over.
The girls took to entreaty and in reawakened intimacy gave Lilly new and
comprehensive views into the depths of their soul life.
Did she think they cared a row of pins for the miserable little
meringues they ate at Frangipani's? Not a bit of it. They were clever
enough to know how to provide for the future. At any rate they couldn't
stay with that old guzzler forever, especially since the place had
turned out to be absolutely unproductive in regard to good matches. So
for a long time they had been saving money industriously for another
flight. It was no exaggeration to say they were starving themselves
miserably. Lilly with her paltry desires could have no idea how many
temptations they withstood when they sat at a table in the confectionery
shop at suppertime, and had to look upon all sorts of glorious goodies
without tasting them.
Lilly remained unmoved by their persuasive wiles. Their manner cooled
off again, and they began to pass her by, tacitly showing their sense of
injury.
Soon events occurred that fanned their enmity into a lively fire.