Myra was sent to school.
But since they had deprived her of her “young lady,” she avenged herself
by refusing to learn anything.
It was more than a year before her defiance gradually wore down. Then it
was too late to make up what she had lost. Nor did she want to. She did
not make the slightest effort to catch up. But neither was it any longer
worthwhile to resist. She did what was demanded of her because it was
less troublesome to learn the bare rudiments than to be always listening
to long scoldings and admonitory harangues.
She grew incredibly fast at this period and was always tired.
* * * * *
When she finished school, she stayed at home for a few years and bored
herself. She took the usual piano lessons and practised the prescribed
number of hours. But she had no inborn musical talent, though she did
have an exaggerated sensitiveness, so that she suffered from the
shortcomings of her own playing, without the ability, or even the
determination, to make up her deficiencies.
During these years her moods alternated like sun and showers in April.
She longed to be dead, or to come of age, to be alive in another
century, or some other part of the earth, to be a nun or so beautiful as
to ravish the entire world.
These were years barren of incident. So barren that Myra seldom recalled
them, and if the conversation turned on anything that had happened
during these years—a journey, a birth or a death among their
acquaintances, or some public occurrence—she always had to think for a
long time when it could have happened and how old she had been. On the
other hand, she possessed an amazing memory for the period when people
and things began to glide swiftly past her because she connected them
with those days that stood like memorials in her mind—before or after
Olga’s death, when she was together with Olga or separated from her.
The moment when her life really began—with hundreds of roaring voices,
with a full, singing, swinging motif that was never again to be mute,
but would sound now in the major, now in the minor, now from all the
violins and celli, now from a single complaining oboe, in a thousand
intricacies, a thousand nuances, until the closing chord—that moment was
when Olga Radó opened the door at Consul Moebius’, and walked into the
room.
There was nothing to be said, on the whole, against the Moebiuses. It
was an acquaintance that Aunt Emily herself had cultivated. There were
two daughters, Fannie and Emmie, both younger than Myra, both reddish
blondes, very precise about their clothes and hair, and both so
marvellously insignificant that after watching them for weeks, it was
impossible to tell whether they really were pretty or homely.
The degree of their relationship with Olga Radó is no longer possible to
ascertain. When she first appeared and everybody was raving about her,
it was always—“Our cousin.” Later every recollection of that
relationship was completely effaced from the Moebius’ mind.
Olga herself had never made much use of this “relationship” with Consul
Moebius, in good days or in bad. She would never have visited the house
had she not been begged three separate times.
Myra, the Moebius girls and Erika Hanneman formed a little circle. They
met once a week and did needlework or read French plays, taking
different parts. It bored Myra to tears, she never listened when the
others read and always managed to miss her cue.
One such Wednesday afternoon in April, the four girls were again sitting
on their white-lacquered chairs in the elegant young ladies’ room when
the door opened, and Olga Radó entered.
She must accidentally have left another door open behind, too, for with
Olga a breath of air as fresh as a puff of wind swept through the room.
The window, which was ajar, flew open, the white mull curtains blew out
and fluttered, the pages of the books rustled, the flies buzzed up
around the light, while some hand in the sky tore a tatter of cloud from
the face of the sun: a dazzling brightness and a cool breeze filled the
room to its darkest corner.
Then the door closed with a loud bang, the window creaked to, the
curtains fell back into the room like sacks, and a new cloud blotted out
the sun. But none of these things did Myra Rudloff perceive, for she
could do nothing but gaze at Olga Radó, could not take her eyes or her
mind from her—not for a long, long time.
Olga was very tall and very slender. Her face was beautiful and boldly
chiselled. Her smooth, rich, dark hair exposed much of her high and
admirably modelled forehead. Her thin black brows drew together at the
top of her nose, which gave her sharp, metallic-gray eyes an almost
threatening expression. Her speech was crisp and hard. But her voice had
a deep, soft, cello quality. It made a striking contrast.
There was something in her manner of dressing which pleased Myra without
her being able to define it. One could not dispose of it with a word
like “tasteful” or “elegant” or “smart.” Myra felt dimly—“That is how I
should like to dress.”
Myra felt her throat go dry and her heart throb wildly when her turn
came to read. She had never been so nervous in school no matter how
unprepared she had come. Every word seemed a snare to her. She would
mispronounce everything and make a fool of herself, irrevocably. It was
really a crime to know so little French. She would go to her father
tomorrow and ask him to let her take French lessons. He would be
overjoyed to have her come to him with such a request.
She was relieved when she had stammered her few lines. Then came Erika’s
turn, and then Fannie again, with all the pathos at her command.
When they were all standing again, putting on their hats in front of the
mirror, Myra noticed with an inexplicable joy that she was almost as
tall as Olga Radó, much taller than the three fair, plump misses.
In a trio they descended the stairs and walked part of the way together.
Erika Hanneman did most of the talking.
From time to time, Olga Radó said, “Isn’t it?—No!—Indeed—Oh!—No?”
Myra was silent.
At last Erika Hanneman said good-bye and turned to the left.
Olga and Myra walked briskly side by side in silence for a while. Myra
should long ago have turned off if she wanted to take the shortest way
home. She observed with some concern that she kept right on going, but
she was much too happy to stop now that Erika Hanneman had finally left
them: the air seemed to have become purer and one could stride along
more freely. It was a joy to keep up with this lovely, regular pace, and
she comforted herself with the thought that nobody knew where she lived
anyhow, and that she had just as much right on the street as anybody
else.
Myra glanced at every house with a certain anxiety: was it at this one
or the next that Olga Radó would stop with a hasty good-bye, and the
heavy door close behind her, leaving the street barren and lonely?
But at last they had reached a house in front of which Olga Radó
suddenly halted.
“My home,” she said, “if you can call a boarding-house home. But after
all, what can you call home? Are you familiar with the Pension Flesch?”
“I don’t know any boarding-houses.”
“Lucky girl! You live with your parents?”
“With my father.”
“Oh, the house is quite nice. I have lived in worse. Drop in once in a
while and have a look at my cubbyhole!”
“I’d love to.”
* * * * *
That “love to” was no mere manner of speaking. For the next few days and
nights Myra pondered how she should contrive to accept this invitation
and visit Olga Radó.
Once she actually started out. Then she returned because she thought it
better to announce her call by telephone. But then again, it did not
seem proper to disturb Olga by a telephone call. She would rather write.
But that gave the matter such importance and formality, deprived it of
all its chance, its accidental character. And then if she received a
polite refusal, all possibility would be gone of making a further
attempt. But if she simply went up and did not find Olga at home, she
could leave her card with a few words—and wait for a reply.
She went, went as far as the house, but again she did not go in. She
walked up and down the street and stood for a long time, lost in
thought, in front of a few utterly uninviting shopwindows. It might well
happen that Olga Radó would leave the house at this time, or better yet,
might be returning home and would ask Myra to come in with her.
In addition, Myra cultivated her relations with the Moebius girls with a
touching zeal. She invited them to her house as often as Aunt Emily
permitted, she went to see them as often as she was asked. And she found
occasion to phone them a hundred times in order to make various
arrangements. She borrowed books that had to be fetched and returned,
and withal made such lavish efforts to be amiable that the consul’s wife
was quite charmed with her, and was never weary of impressing on Aunt
Emily how much Myra was changing for the better. To which Aunt Emily
commonly replied by a silent, all but offended shrug of her shoulders.
This went on for weeks. But Myra did not lose patience. It was enough
for her to hear from time to time a remark let fall—“as Olga always
says” or “Olga likes that so much.” It was enough, in fact almost too
much, to hear Fannie say, “Olga was up for a moment last night, I
thought she looked very bad!” Or to have Emmie, who at this time was
conceiving something like a mild passion for Myra, observe, “Myra has
such remarkably beautiful hands, almost as beautiful as Olga’s....”
Ah, it was even enough to hold the little black dog on her lap and laugh
and call it “Sophonisba,” a pet name Olga had given it.
All this afforded hope and suspense for days. It was at this time, that
Myra began to find life beautiful again.
She did not know why.