It was shortly before midnight one evening late in November.
Miss von Schwertfeger had said good-night, and _he_ was sitting at
Lilly's pillow wet and frozen through. He had been standing in the
chilly drizzle a long time before the signal agreed upon--two rattles of
the shutter bolt--had summoned him to her room.
Now, everything was serene. The entire house was asleep; the watchman
had made his rounds, and the ladder, which Von Prell drew up after him
for greater security, reposed peacefully on the balcony.
The blue-shaded chandelier bathed the warm, perfumed room in the light
of a summer evening. Drops of rain splashed softly against the shutters,
and the November wind whined like a beggar.
Lilly lay comfortably under her blue silk quilt, holding his hand and
dreaming up into his face, which, even in moments of self-abandon,
retained its expression of abashed roguery. She saw the freckled bridge
of his nose, the white-lashed, blinking eyes, the peaked chin covered
with stubble and almost hidden by the green collar of his working
jacket. He could no longer smarten himself for her sake. His housemates
might notice the change.
They did not say much to each other. If only he was with her, he who
belonged to her in life and death, who like herself had been cast astray
in this strange world.
She drew his head down and stroked his forehead smooth from lack of a
man's cares, and wiped away a few drops still clinging to his temples.
The clock on the wall struck twelve softly, the hanging lamp swung back
and forth, casting long sliding shadows on the ceiling, like the shadow
of a rocking cradle, or like great raven's wings flitting to and fro
inaudibly.
Suddenly from the court came the rumble of carriage wheels, whether in
arrival or departure they could not determine. Both started up and
listened and looked at the clock.
Twelve--impossible! The horses were never harnessed before quarter to
two. They would have to wait entirely too long at the station.
Perhaps it was the milkman who had been delayed at the railroad in
getting his cans.
They calmed down.
A long, precious hour was still ahead of them, rich in care-free
pleasures and oblivion.
To express his triumph Von Prell sucked in his cheeks and rounded his
eyes.
With a luxurious smile Lilly put out her arms and drew herself up to
him.
At that instant three short, sharp raps sounded on the door opening into
the corridor, and Miss von Schwertfeger called:
"Open the door, Lilly! At once!"
Walter jumped to his feet.
When Lilly looked around he had already left the room.
She felt a ringing in her ears, a dull desire to let herself sink down;
but renewed raps at the door tore her out of bed and insisted upon her
turning the key.
Before she could stow herself under the covers again to conceal her
overwhelming shame, she noticed Miss von Schwertfeger look about the
room hastily, make a dash for something round and grey unostentatiously
lying in a corner--Lilly did not realise it was Walter's cap until
later--shove back the bolt of the door to the colonel's room, and then
in sudden transition to tranquillity seat herself alongside Lilly's
pillow.
"Be careful not to cry," Lilly heard her say; and that instant the
colonel's step resounded in the corridor.
"Well, well, so late! How time does fly when you talk!" cried Miss von
Schwertfeger for the benefit of the colonel before he entered. Her voice
expressed endless astonishment.
There he stood disagreeably surprised, it seemed, not to find his young
wife alone.
"Where did you drop from all of a sudden, colonel? You didn't order a
special train, did you? You couldn't have flown here either. At least
I've never observed that you possess the art of flying, have you Lilly
dear? Poor Lilly's lying there perfectly stiff with surprise."
Thus Miss von Schwertfeger talked against time, evidently trying to
secure a few moments for Lilly in which she might pull herself together.
And the colonel willy-nilly had to render account. On the way to the
station it had occurred to him that one of the neighbours--he mentioned
the name--was celebrating his birthday that day. So he drove over to his
place instead of going to town.
"Well," said Miss von Schwertfeger, "the greatest marvels have the
simplest explanations. Good-night, dear, I hope you sleep well and get
rid of that headache of yours."
The colonel pricked up his ears.
"If she has a headache, why didn't you let her go to sleep long ago?"
When once aroused, not the least inconsistency escaped his attention.
But Miss von Schwertfeger was his match, and rejoined without an
instant's hesitation:
"She wanted compresses again, but I thought it better simply to hold my
hand to her forehead. She was just about to go to sleep; and we ought
not to disturb her any more. Don't you agree with me, colonel?
Good-night, colonel."
With that she extinguished the lights.
Lilly wanted to cry to her:
"Stay here, stay here, he'll choke me."
But Miss von Schwertfeger was already out in the corridor; and she had
done such excellent preliminary work that the colonel after a brief "I
hope you feel better," to Lilly, left the room without further question.
Had he remained, the game might have ended in a nervous breakdown.
Lilly lay in bed paralysed by a dull fright, listening now for sounds in
the colonel's room, now to the wailing of the wind, interrupted for
three or four seconds by a very, very soft rustle.
That was the ladder gliding over the rail as Walter let it down from the
balcony. So long as he had seen the light in Lilly's room, he had wisely
remained on the balcony. She could hear him remove the ladder and set it
where it belonged. Now at length, now that she felt they were both
secure, came a shuddering realisation of what had happened, accompanied
by a desire to call out and cry aloud.
Anna von Schwertfeger! What had her conduct meant? What had impelled her
to implicate herself in so sinful a deed? Wasn't she risking her name,
her existence, the reward of many years' labour? How had Lilly, wretched
sinner that she was, come to deserve so great a sacrifice? Her heart
expanded in gratitude. She could no longer endure lying in bed. She
would have to go down and thank Anna forthwith.
She dressed without making a sound, took the precaution to bolt the door
between the two bedrooms, and slipped out into the dark corridor, where
she peeped through the keyhole of the colonel's room, and saw him lying
in bed already. The old oak steps cracked frightfully; but they had that
habit even when no one was walking on them, and often kept up the sound
of a tread all night.
Light was shining in Miss von Schwertfeger's room. Lilly heard her
sharp, hard steps as she paced to and fro.
Finally she ventured to knock.
"Who's there?"
"I, Anna. I--Lilly."
"What do you want? Go back to bed."
"No, no, no. I must speak to you. I must."
The door opened.
"Well, then, come in."
Lilly wanted to throw her arms about Miss von Schwertfeger's neck, but
she shook her off.
"I'm not in the mood for scenes," she said. Her trumpet-toned voice,
which she muffled with difficulty, had lost all traces of sympathy. "And
you needn't thank me, because I did not act from love of you."
Lilly seemed very small to herself and very much scolded. Since the days
of her thrashings at the hands of Mrs. Asmussen no one had ever given
her such a reception.
"First you help me," she faltered, "and then--"
"Since you are here, you might as well answer some questions I have to
ask," said Miss von Schwertfeger. "Close your dress--it's cold here--and
sit down." Lilly obeyed. "In the first place: did I in any way ever help
to bring about a meeting between you and that man?"
"When could you have?"
"That's what I am asking."
"On the contrary. You weren't even willing for me to take the riding
lessons."
"Then, later, did I ever leave you without supervision while you were
taking your lessons?"
"Without supervision? Why, almost always you yourself were present."
"Was it I who proposed your going out riding alone with him?"
"You? Of course not. The first time we went without asking, and after
that it was the colonel who wanted us to."
"Was I careful to see that everything in your room was in order?"
"I don't know. I think so. Why, even lately I've noticed you come to my
room before you went to bed as if to say good-night."
"You've probably taken me to be your enemy, your spy."
"You wouldn't put yourself out for me very much, I thought."
Miss von Schwertfeger laughed a hard, dreary laugh.
"What you say is very valuable," she said. "It proves to me that I made
no blunders in carrying out my plan, and need not reproach myself for
anything."
"What plan?" asked Lilly, utterly bewildered.
Miss von Schwertfeger measured her with a glance of pitying scorn.
"My dear child, I knew everything. I saw it coming from the very first,
the moment you met him. I calculated it on my fingers the way I
calculate the cost of a meal. I simply let matters drift. I could do so
without dishonouring myself. Besides there was no use interfering. You
were bent upon your own ruin."
"What have I done to you," Lilly stammered, swallowing her tears, "to
make you hate me so? I never wanted to oust you from your position. I
subjected myself to you from the very first. I put myself completely
into your hands, and now you do this to me."
"If I hated you, you wouldn't be sitting here. You would probably be
straying along some country road. I had you in my grasp and could have
crushed you at least a dozen times, but didn't. However, I'll tell you
the truth. I _did_ hate you, that is, before I knew you. I imagined you
a sly, fresh little thing, who held off from the colonel in a pure
spirit of calculation, until he adopted the extreme measure to which old
libertines resort in such cases. But when I saw you, you dear child,
without malice or guile, defenceless, and with the best intentions in
the world to love the colonel and me, too, if possible, I had to back
down--I and my hate. Then you became nothing else to me than a small,
insignificant creature, which one uses so long as it is serviceable, and
shoves aside after it has fulfilled its purpose. I am not concerned with
you any more. You dropped out of the game long ago, and now the colonel
and myself are playing it alone. I'll have to have it out with him, and
then my work's done."
Lilly felt nothing but dull, impotent astonishment, as if doors were
being opened and curtains drawn aside, and she were looking into men's
hearts as into a fiery abyss.
"I thought you were so attached to him," she said. "I thought--"
Suddenly it occurred to her that her first suspicion had not been far
from the truth. This hardened, commanding spinster, whose beauty was not
yet entirely faded, had found favour in the eyes of her employer some
ten or fifteen years before, had then been neglected, and was now
taking revenge.
Miss von Schwertfeger divined her thoughts, and dismissed them with a
shrug of her shoulders.
"Had it been that," she said, "I should have known how to acquiesce in
my fate. And if I had still retained my place in the castle, I should
have cherished it as my sanctuary. No, my dear, matters in this world
are not so simple. There are even worse hells."
Lilly now heard a story which filled her soul with horror and pity--the
story of the house she lived in, the story of which she was the
concluding chapter.
The colonel, who had always been a man of violence and a mad voluptuary,
had insisted upon taking in pupils in housekeeping under the pretext
that when he came home on leave, he had to have youth and jollity about
him. He reserved for himself the choice of the pupils. In this way only
those came whom he had decided upon in advance. For a long time Miss von
Schwertfeger noticed nothing amiss. But the servants began to tell her
stories of secret orgies and mad chases on the upper floor, of how the
colonel pursued girls clad in glittering raiment--the colonel had always
liked transparent robes of silver. Miss von Schwertfeger's eyes were
completely opened when some of the girls attempted suicide. She left.
But she was poor and accustomed to command, and she could not endure
subordinate positions. Dreadful distress was the result. The colonel had
not lost her from sight; and when it seemed to him she had sunk low
enough, he again offered her the position of housekeeper in his castle,
promising she would have nothing to complain of. She crawled back to him
like a starved dog. Soon he broke his word, and the indecent goings-on
began again. But she no longer had the courage to resist. She learned to
be blind and deaf when lewd glances were exchanged at table and screams
and laughter penetrated to her room during the night. She even learned
to keep curious servants at a distance, and throw a cover of concealment
over the house's shame. Her relation to the girls became motherly.
"I shouldn't be surprised," she interposed, "if he hadn't made the same
proposition to you, saying I would take care of you."
The fateful evening in which she had become the colonel's betrothed
arose in Lilly's memory. While walking about her greedily, still in a
state of indecision, he had spoken of a fine, aristocratic woman under
whose protection she should live in his castle until she had grown into
womanhood.
Miss von Schwertfeger went on with her recital. She described how rage
at the disgraceful position she was in ate into her soul like a
malignant cancer, how it finally took sole possession of her being to
the exclusion of every feeling except the desire for reprisal. His
marriage should furnish the weapons. She would be blind and deaf, just
as she had been compelled to be before. Nothing else. She would simply
let matters take their natural course.
Thus she had acted until that night.
And that night the sword must surely have fallen on Lilly and the
colonel; but at the last decisive moment she realised her strength would
not hold out. That young, good-natured, guiltless yet guilty wife, had
become too dear to her. She could not sacrifice Lilly to her scheme of
revenge.
"I thought you said you hadn't acted out of love for me," Lilly ventured
to interject.
Miss von Schwertfeger fixed her eyes on Lilly's face in an aggrieved
stare.
"My dear child, if you weren't a stupid thing, who has to sin in order
to mature, you would have a better understanding of what goes on inside
a person like myself. For the present be satisfied that you are out of
danger."
In a gush of gratitude Lilly threw herself on Miss von Schwertfeger, and
kissed her face and hands; and Miss von Schwertfeger no longer repulsed
her. She stroked her hair, and spoke to her as to a child.
Kneeling at her feet Lilly confessed. She told how her relations with
Walter had developed insensibly, how they had been old friends, and how
he had really been the author of her happiness.
"Happiness?" Miss von Schwertfeger drawled, and drew in the air through
the right corner of her mouth, causing a sound like a whistle.
Lilly started, looked at her, and understood.
The question burned in her brain: "Am I better than I should have been
had I allowed the colonel to drag me here without marrying me?"
Eleven months had passed since that night when he courted her.
She put her arms about Miss von Schwertfeger, and cried, cried, cried.
It was so good to know there was a sisterly, no, a motherly, person in
whose dress she could bury her tearful face. She had not experienced
such easement since the day a certain knife had been waved over her
head.
The affair with Von Prell, of course, could not go on. He and Lilly must
not meet even once again. Miss von Schwertfeger demanded it, and Lilly
acquiesced without a word of protest.
If only she had not had her mission!
"What mission?" asked Miss von Schwertfeger.
Lilly told of the holy task she had to perform in his life; how her love
had awakened him to the realisation of a loftier, purer life; how she
had to answer with every drop of blood in her body for his rising to
better things and entering upon a noble, beneficent field of activity.
It was Miss von Schwertfeger's turn to be astonished. She listened, and
looked at Lilly with great, doubting eyes, then got up, and paced the
room agitatedly, muttering:
"Incredible! Incredible!"
When Lilly asked her what was incredible, she kissed her on her
forehead, and said:
"You poor thing!"
"Why?"
"Because you will suffer much in life."
Thereupon it was agreed that Miss von Schwertfeger should speak with him
once again, and the price of her silence was to be the breaking off of
all relations between him and Lilly. They must not take their rides
together, either.
Lilly begged for only one thing, to be allowed to write him a farewell
letter. She thought she owed this to him so that he should not harbour
doubts of her and his future.
Then the two women parted.
Released, redeemed, born into a new life, Lilly walked upstairs,
forgetting every precaution. But, thank goodness! the colonel was
snoring.
The clock struck four, and the shuffling of the stablemen already
resounded in the courtyard.
Before Lilly threw herself in bed, she cast a look of farewell at the
lodge, and rejoiced that renunciation was so easy. She had not thought
it possible.