On Olga Radó’s writing-table was a beautiful box of heavy, angular
crystal with a smooth silver cover. It was almost always empty, for the
cigarettes were smoked so fast that it was almost no use to take them
out of the original package.
One evening, Olga again took the last of the twenty-five from her pack.
“Oh, dear, what a shame! Myra do look on the desk. Of course, there
isn’t one there either! What an imbecile I am!”
“I’ll run down quickly and get you some.”
“No, don’t, I won’t have you running downstairs for that. Wait, give me
my case, there must be a few left in it.”
Olga was lying as usual on the divan, and she now sat up, tugging keys,
handkerchiefs and letters from her pocket; finally she opened the case.
“Hurrah! By a wise economy we can hold out till tomorrow! Have one?” She
proffered the open case.
“No,” said Myra, “I’ll be very nice and decline, otherwise they won’t
last till morning.”
“Angel!” said Olga, snapping the clasp. “My one consolation is that you
don’t care much anyhow.”
“May I look at the case?” asked Myra.
“There it is, my angel.” Olga handed it to her. “It’s beautiful, isn’t
it?”
Myra turned the smooth, reflecting gold with careful hands. “Incredibly
beautiful. I’m simply wild about that broad low design. But why the
crab? Is it a heraldic beast?”
“My coat of arms!” said Olga, laughing. “Our family device. It signifies
that ‘like the crab we would go backward.’”
“It’s not a crab,” said Myra, hesitantly, blushing.
“No? Who told you so? But in any case, it is unfortunately, not a very
useful or agreeable creature. It’s a scorpion.”
“Ooh!” said Myra. “Why such a monster? From some special preference?”
“Yes,” said Olga. “Someone had this case made for me because I once said
that the scorpion is the most decent creature on earth. It is my
favorite animal.”
“You’re not serious?” cried Myra, shocked.
“Oh, but I am. Yes, I am quite serious—about the scorpion. Do you know
that it is the only animal in the world that commits suicide? It does
not let itself be slowly tortured to death by human curiosity and
cruelty. It struggles like a mad thing, and when it knows that it is no
longer possible to save itself, it kills itself. Isn’t that wonderful?”
Olga had sat up. She was gazing at Myra out of great, dark eyes. Her
beautiful pale features were set in a strangely anguished, yet heroic,
expression.
Myra was shocked. “And you?” she said, clasping Olga’s hand with an
involuntary movement. “Is that why you took it for your device?”
Olga smiled, a kindly, gentle smile.
“Little stupid,” she said, “that has another significance altogether. I
must be a scorpion because I have a poison sting. Because my wits must
be ‘like scorpion stings.’ Someone who loved me once declared it was so.
And declared, too, that if I were driven to an extremity, I would turn
my sting against myself and kill myself. I do not know if it is true or
not. I get no particular pleasure out of thinking about myself. But that
is how this person saw me. And so he had this case made for me. See!”
She opened it. The little rubies of which the scorpion was formed were
set _à jour_: the device was visible on the inside also. And right under
it was engraved her name—Olga Radó.
Myra scolded herself furiously, but she could not help it—her heart was
filled to bursting with furious jealousy of this stranger who loved Olga
Radó and gave her gold cigarette cases.
“A beautiful hand-writing,” she said distractedly.
“It isn’t mine,” said Olga. Slowly she closed the case and with a gentle
gesture laid its smooth surface against her cheek.
“It is so beautiful. I love it so. And I am so glad that I _can_ love
it. It was a parting gift. And it was a very beautiful parting.”
Myra was on fire with a torment of aversion.
“A beautiful parting!” she said bitterly. “Are there such things?”
Olga sat up abruptly. “Yes, Myra,” she said with real fervor. “And there
should be more, many more. It is a misfortune that people do not
understand how to part from one another. Learn it, Myra, learn it in
time.”
“No,” said Myra obdurately, “I’ll probably never learn. Let people to
whom love is only a game make a game of parting.”
“Myra,” said Olga earnestly, “you are a child! Do you think that it is
any proof of a great love, for me to cling to someone till he is sick
and tired of me? I would rather die a thousand deaths than become a
burden to someone whom I love. It is an art to begin, though I believe
that any individual can conquer any other individual, and the beginning
will always be beautiful. But the end will always be a horrible, bitter,
hateful torture. It is a great art, indeed, to know how to end. At the
right time. And in the right way. Learn, Myra, learn it in time.”
Their silence lasted so terribly long. Yes, she must rise now and go.
But it seemed to her as if the chair were holding her tight, or the gray
wall above it on which her eyes were fastened. She felt that the moment
she rose, the tears would start from her eyes. That must never be. She
strove to set her mind on something else, on something quite remote. She
wanted to go to the theatre next week. She had been very happy at the
prospect. But actually, the nicest part of going to the theatre or a
concert was to sit here afterwards and discuss what she had seen and
heard. That could no longer be. Not next week. Never again, perhaps.
The silence in the room took away her breath. If only Olga would say
something. Anything. Scold her, humiliate her. It was so cruel of her
simply to say nothing.
Myra made an attempt to get up. Her movement was imperceptible, but she
felt it in every muscle. At the same instant, those painfully retaining
lids could no longer hold back the constantly welling tears; they
quivered, were closed, and the heavy drops oozed forth.
Myra was terribly ashamed of herself. Something inside her made itself
small. She would have been so glad to make her exterior body small in
the same way, to bend down, to hide her face. But she did not dare move.
She did not want to attract attention by the slightest movement. Perhaps
Olga’s thoughts were far away and she had not even noticed her.
The tears splashed on her hand. She did not dare dry them.
Suddenly she shrank together with a pang. She heard the divan creak and
the soft rustling of a dress. Olga was on her feet. She heard an
infinitely gentle, soft voice at her side. “Myra, child, what on earth
are you crying about?”
Myra did not look up, but sank her head still lower. Then Olga was
kneeling beside her with a sudden movement, as one kneels beside a
crying child and tries to peer up into its face.
“What are you crying about?”
Myra saw the beautiful face before her through a blur of welling water.
She smiled.
“I don’t know,” she said.
She looked at the slender white hand that lay on her knee, covering her
own folded hands. She bent slowly over this hand, and pressed her lips,
her hot, tear-wet cheeks against it.
“Child!” said Olga almost impatiently, trying with her other hand to
raise Myra’s forehead. “If only I knew what it is you are crying about!”
Myra was frightened by her tone. She raised her head and again stared at
the gray wall on the far side of the court-yard.
Olga had risen. Her hand still lay on Myra’s head. Its cool smooth palm
pressed firmly, almost heavily, upon her hair and brow. Myra felt this
pressure as something infinitely beneficent. Felt as if she would fly
asunder, were that forceful hand to be removed.
“I don’t know myself,” she said softly. “But I wish I had been dead a
hundred years. Perhaps you would love me, too, then.”
With a sudden gesture, Olga Radó clasped Myra’s head to her shoulder and
pressed her lips hard, almost painfully, against her forehead.
“And what now?” she asked curtly. There was a strange vibrant ring in
her deep voice as if she suppressed some resentment only by an effort.
In her temples, in her finger-tips, Myra felt the furious hammering of a
pulse. But she did not know whose heart it was throbbing.
She had a feeling as if it were now her duty to do something infinitely
great. It seemed to her as if Olga Radó must now rise before her in
super-human greatness and demand some heroic deed of her.
Myra felt a holy determination to jump out a window at the slightest
word, or to pierce her breast with a dagger and to proffer her
palpitating heart in her own two hands.
But Olga Radó made no such demands. She suddenly released Myra and went
to the window. She laid her fingers on the lock and her forehead against
the pane. And thus, without looking at Myra, without even turning her
head, she said after a pause, in a strangely quiet, even matter-of-fact
tone, “Go home, child!”
“Why?” asked Myra frightened. She got up, her legs trembling under her.
That oppressive feeling of something mysterious, something gruesome, lay
like a heavy weight on her breast. Why was she being sent away? What had
she done?
She wanted some kind of explanation. She wanted to place her hands on
Olga’s shoulders, to turn her around by force and search her face for an
answer. “I have a right to do so,” she thought with mounting anger. “I
certainly have a right.”
But as she made her first step toward the window, Olga faced about
violently. Crossing her arms on her breast, she clasped her elbows with
her spread fingers. In her white face, her eyes flashed deep, dark and
threatening.
“You are to go home,” she said with a composure so forced that she
seemed to be controlling a simply boundless rage. “Can’t you hear? Am I
no longer mistress in my own apartment? Take your hat and go. Go, go,
go, go!”
The anger that had been blazing up in Myra was quenched. Nothing was
left save fear, and a deep, deep sadness.
Something seemed to be driving her to Olga as if she were scourged. She
wanted to fall on the floor before her, she wanted to clasp her knees,
she wanted to beseech her.
“Weep, scream, beat me, but don’t use this kind of force against me.
Tell me what is the matter. I will die for you, but don’t send me away,
because you are suffering.” She stood without moving.
“Go, go, go!” said Olga.
Myra Rudloff picked up her hat and went. She strove to walk erect and in
a straight line. She staggered a little as the lock snapped behind her,
and she had to support herself against the wall. She leaned her whole
weight against the balustrade because the stairs spun around beneath her
like a raging whirlpool.
* * * * *
For a few days Myra lived in a state of dull torment. Through the haze
of awakening she would remember that today she must not take the road to
Motz Street. Not today, not tomorrow; perhaps nevermore. She was
outlawed, outcast, banned from all the joys of life.
Long, drab and barren, the day stretched out before her. A heaviness
like lead lay upon her limbs. When the telephone rang, she would start
up with her heart furiously throbbing, as if out of a profound lethargy.
But it never rang for her.
There was nasty weather during those days, cold and rainy. But one
Sunday night the wind swept the sky clean of clouds and dried the
streets. In the morning, a blue summer sky shone over the city. The
sun’s rays, dancing on one corner of her mirror, awakened Myra.
She felt as liberated on awakening, as filled with the unconquerable
force of life, as if at one stroke all her troubles had vanished, all
her heavy burden lightened. She felt able to resume the struggle with
all its impediments. Indeed, there no longer seemed to be any
impediments.
Today she would return the books she had borrowed from Olga Radó.
And then she would call her to account, would ask her quite frankly and
cheerfully what was really the matter, whether it was Olga’s intention
to put her out again. If so, she might do it with an easy mind.
But she would not do so. It had been a mood, a caprice—but no deep-going
rift, no conflict between them.
And if she really had committed some offense in Olga’s eyes, she would
like some explanation, and then would like—ah, yes, for her own
sake—would like to beg forgiveness.
Myra whistled and hummed to herself while she dressed and brushed her
hair. When she rang, her stupid heart throbbed so that she could not
breathe. That came from running upstairs too fast.
The maid was surprised. “Miss Radó is travelling,” she said hesitantly.
“Didn’t you know?”
For the first few moments the shame of not knowing was greater in Myra
than fear. She felt that she was exposed to the maid in the most absurd
way.
“But, but ...” she said, “I just wanted to leave these books in her
room. But I can just as well give them to you. Be so good, as to take
them, Erna. Then I won’t even have to go up. I am in a hurry. I will see
you again.”
She bounded down the first stairs so that the girl should hear her
haste. Not until the door had closed behind her, did she walk more
slowly.
Olga was gone. Without saying a word to her, without once calling her
up, or dropping her a line, without as much as leaving a message for her
with the maid.
She was gone. Without saying where. Without saying for how long.
Myra bowed her head very low on her breast and descended quite slowly,
step by step.
* * * * *
A few days later, Myra heard the telephone ring, and the maid trotting
at a run through the long hall. Myra opened her door.
“For me, Hedwig?”
“Yes. A gentleman wishes to speak to you. A Mr. Petersen or Peterkin, I
didn’t quite catch it.”
On the girl’s round features were emblazoned unconcealed admiration.
This was the first time that a man’s voice had asked to speak with her.
“Peterkin!” Myra shouted excitedly into the mouthpiece without paying
the slightest heed to the fact that Aunt Emily was sitting in the next
room. “Yes, this is Myra. What’s the matter? Nothing has happened, has
it?”
“No, no, thank heaven! I am simply commanded to give you ‘her dearest
regards’: I received a card today.”
“From where? From whom?” She did not need to ask.
“From Kissingen. I had to look up your address in the directory. I did
not know your telephone number, nor even the name of the street. I
wasn’t even sure of your name.”
“Good Lord, you poor fellow. Can’t I see you, or have you no time for
me?”
“Of course, I have. I’d be glad to....”
“Shall we go walking for an hour? Will you? Please do, please! Today, if
you can! Right away? Really? Wonderful! And you’ll bring the card with
you!”
They met. After a two word greeting, Myra asked, “Did you bring the
card? Please, show it to me. Please!”
Beside the address there was written in a firm, laboriously condensed
hand:
“Please, Peterkin, do me a favor and return the books to the Royal
Library. One is on my desk, two are on the shelf, to the left of the
window in the case farthest to the right. And take my plant to your
room, the maids will forget it and I don’t want it to die.”
On the other side was written across the sky that capped the landscape:
“Please ring the little girl and greet her for me. You’ll have to look
up her number in the book. Tell her not to be angry with me. All the
best to all of you. O. R.”
Hundreds and thousands of such picture post-cards had passed through
Myra’s hands in the course of her life, but this was the first time the
thought had occurred to her: “What a wonderful and beautiful invention
whereby one can send a picture of the place where one is staying. So
that is how it looks where Olga is now. She sees these houses every day,
goes walking under these trees, these mountains greet her every morning
and every evening—truly a wonderful and beautiful invention!”
She would gladly have kept the card, but she did not have the courage to
ask Peterkin for it.
“It happened so quickly,” she said, “—this trip.” She was reluctant to
say that she had known and suspected nothing. But she was reluctant,
too, to ply him with direct questions. Half unconsciously, she spoke in
phrases that left everything indefinite, but which, to a certain degree,
sounded him out.
“Yes,” said Peterkin, “rather peculiarly sudden. On Tuesday we were all
there, why, we were all sitting together. But that night Olga came into
my room and said, ‘Give me your railway guide.’ And she kept fingering
it through and asking me, ‘Do you know the Black Forest, is it pretty
there? What do you think, should I go to the North Sea?’ And so on,
which is not her way. So undecided, I mean, so perplexed. And Wednesday
night she was off. Didn’t tell a soul where. At first I had a
suspicion—a notion, I should say, an idea....” Peterkin hesitated, and a
faint red overspread his pale features—“that you had gone away
together.”
Myra did not answer. It never occurred to her for a moment that her
profound silence might possibly produce a queer impression.
His words had struck her like a bolt of lightning and she was in flames.
Travel! Travel with Olga! There was something joyfully improbable about
the idea. For a few seconds, she lived through in imagination all that
it might have meant, had they decided to do this that Tuesday!
Abruptly, painfully, she returned to her senses: it was a silly,
unfulfilled dream, one never, never to be fulfilled, perhaps. The
reality was that she was here—alone—and that Olga was gone. Also alone?
Or with whom? Nothing in the world gave Myra the right even to ask.
* * * * *
During those weeks Myra’s sole pleasure was to go walking with Peterkin.
They made excursions together, lay half the day beside the water, or
took a row-boat, or drank coffee in some out of the way inn with a
garden, and talked about books, about strange cities, and distant
mountains, about beasts and plants, and of people long dead—and about
Olga.
Sometimes, when they were together they wrote to Olga, sent her picture
post-cards, or long poems in doggerel, and from time to time they
received some hasty reply, and once the news that she was planning to
return in three weeks.
Myra was quiet and happy during this time. The companionship of Peterkin
did her good. When she was home, she read and studied under his guidance
and counted the days until Olga’s return. She drew up a long list of
books which she intended to have read, of things which she intended to
have accomplished by that time. She wanted to surprise Olga with all the
knowledge she had acquired in the interval, and labored with a burning
zeal.
Everything would have gone nicely, if it had not been for Aunt Emily.
Aunt Emily watched and held her tongue and stored up gall and poison.
And one day it broke out.
It was after dinner. Myra wanted to leave the table with a curt, “I hope
you enjoy your meal,” and fetch her hat from her room. Aunt Emily who
had sat on the defensive throughout dinner, brushed together a pile of
minute crumbs, on the tablecloth, with her elegant fingers, and at
Myra’s words, cleared her throat quickly and sharply and said with
emphasis, “Perhaps you will be so good as to remain seated until I leave
the table.”
Bored, but patient, Myra sat herself down again. She did not know that
this was but the prelude to greater things. She thought it was merely
one of those daily bits of chicanery that wasted at least one’s time and
energy if they were not taken with the greatest unconcern.
Myra cast a covert glance at the clock. “Now, of course, she’ll sit for
another five minutes before she gives the sign to rise,” she thought.
“Very well, I’ll come five minutes late. Peterkin will wait.”
Aunt Emily continued to heap up crumbs and to clear her throat. “Will
you be so good, Franz,” she began (it would be more precise to say she
struck up), “will you be so good as to ask your daughter where she
intends going this afternoon, and with whom? When I ask her, she
answers, ‘Walking—with an acquaintance,’ or some such bit of wit. So
please ask her yourself. Perhaps she still retains enough respect to
tell you the truth, at least.”
Franz Rudloff rolled up his napkin and unrolled it again, thrust it into
the napkin-ring and pulled it out again while he sat in mortal
embarrassment.
“You know, my dear Emily,” he said without looking up, “that I have
turned over my daughter’s education to you because I know that she could
nowhere be so well brought up as in your excellent hands. Myra owes you
exactly the same obedience she does me. You are in full possession of
all the necessary authority....”
“Authority!” said Aunt Emily with a mocking laugh. “What am I supposed
to do? You can’t spank a twenty-year-old girl or lock her in her room.”
“Not very well,” said Myra quietly, “thank God! But perhaps, I, too, may
ask one question—would you mind telling me why you need to take such
measures?”
“Why? In your own interest!” said Aunt Emily in a tone that was meant to
express flaming indignation.
“Oh?” Myra was still rather amused than excited. “And what is going to
bring about my total destruction? The fact that I go walking with a
young man? Good Lord, poor little Peterkin! Did you ever happen to see
him? I can introduce you to him some time, perhaps that will calm your
fears!”
“Well, what sort of a man is he then?” asked Franz Rudloff, knitting his
brows. This was intended to sound stern and forceful. It sounded rather
timid.
Myra felt a tender pity for her father that was not altogether free of
contempt.
“Good heavens, papa,” she said, “a fine, intelligent man. But a poor,
ailing, deformed, little fellow. Hardly the person who could prove very
dangerous to a young girl’s virtue or reputation.”
“Perhaps not to a normal young girl,” said Aunt Emily, quivering with
malice. “Unfortunately, I do not know how far one can assume that you
are normal. Unfortunately, there are plenty of young women who have some
sick and perverse attraction to all repellent and unhealthy persons.”
Myra pushed back her chair so that it grated sharply on the floor.
“You are absolutely insane,” she said. That was all. Then she walked
with her firm long stride into the next room, to the telephone, and
called a number.
“May I speak to Mr. Peterkin? Forgive me, Peterkin, I’ll have to
disappoint you today. My Aunt will not allow me to go walking with you.
Yes, I am sorry, too. But there is nothing one can do about it. My Aunt
thinks it improper. No, no, better not ring me, probably that is
improper, too. God bless you, and don’t worry about it!”
Without turning, without casting as much as a glance in their direction,
she went up to her room, and locked and bolted herself in.
Thus her friendly companionship with Peterkin was interrupted for the
moment.
Franz Rudloff’s quiet sensitive nature suffered severely from the tense
atmosphere in the house. The meals were eaten in a painful silence,
every activity in common, a walk, a visit to the theatre seemed
impossible.
He resolved to negotiate a peace and endeavored to bring his daughter to
apologize. With this in mind he went, as he seldom did, to her room.
Myra was poring, her head propped on her hands, over her books. When her
father entered, she sprang up and received him as she would an honored
guest. She moved up the most comfortable chair for him and offered him a
cigarette.
He did not know how he should introduce the subject and felt dreadfully
embarrassed. Myra endeavored to make the situation easier for him, for
it pained her to see how he was suffering.
She promised the apology, promised to make conversation at table,
promised to put on a pleasant face and manner from morn to night.
“I promise to control myself, Father,” she said.
Control! That was not what Franz Rudloff was asking.
“Couldn’t you try,” he said timidly, “to reach some different kind of
feeling for Aunt Emily in your own heart? She really has such very
estimable qualities. We could have a much happier family life if you—I
know it is difficult to conquer one’s feelings—but if at least you _made
an attempt_ to love her.”
“Love!” echoed Myra. Her face was stony in its repose as she gazed past
him, out of the window, but her breath came quicker. “I can promise you
one thing, all my life long I have rejoiced at the thought of one thing,
have waited for just one thing—the moment when she would die. I have
prayed every night to God to make her die, soon, soon.”
Franz Rudloff turned quite pale.
“Myra!” he said, his eyes wide.
“I will promise you not to do that any more,” said Myra with a gentle,
mournful smile. “Besides, it’s too late now anyway. Now I will pray God
only to let me be twenty-one soon. To make this unhappy year pass
quickly, quickly. When I am of age, we can always find some way. If she
makes things too lively for me, I shall leave the house, even if it has
to be as a nursemaid. If I don’t have to be together with her, she can
live to a hundred for all I care. But before this, I don’t mind telling
you, before this there were times when I would gladly have killed her
with my own two hands.”
A yawning chasm opened before Franz Rudloff. He clutched the arms of his
chair tightly, so violently and spasmodically was his poor weak heart
pounding.
He rose and left the room, heavily and slowly, like an old man.
For a moment, Myra felt an impulse to jump up and stop him, to guide him
back to the easy-chair again. Was there not some possibility of an
explanation, some means of arriving at an understanding?
“He’s going because he is afraid,” she thought. “He’s going because he
can no longer breathe the same air that I do, the air that is poisoned
by the venom of my evil thoughts. He’s asking himself now why he has to
be so bitterly punished, why he had to give life to a murderess. Who
knows; he may go directly to Aunt Emily and ask her advice, what to do
with his abandoned daughter. Perhaps they will consult an alienist
again. I have expressed an intention to murder my whole family. No, no,
there’s no point in trying explanations. Father simply does not
understand me.”
He had gone. She let him go without moving.
V
Three weeks passed, four weeks, five weeks—nothing was seen nor heard of
Olga Radó. In desperation, Myra resumed her long neglected friendship
with the Moebius girls. She endured the torture of a few boring
afternoons without finding the courage to inquire about Olga. And when
finally she did ask, no one knew anything about her.
But one afternoon Emmie burst into the room just as Fannie was telling
Myra the highly exciting story of a letter to her which her mother had
opened. Myra was not especially clever at such things, but she had
achieved some sort of ability to say “Yes? Oh! Really?” at suitable
places, without once understanding what the whole business was about.
Tossing a couple of little packages onto the table, Emmie cried, “Guess
whom I saw, girls! Olga!”
Joy and anguish contended in Myra’s breast. So she was here! There was
the possibility of meeting her, of coming face to face with her quite
suddenly and unexpectedly—that was her first thought. But her second
was—“she is back and hasn’t told me. She doesn’t want to see me. She
went away without telling me, she has returned without telling me, I am
so irksome to her that she has gone to some trouble to be rid of me.
What can I do? Oh, what can I do?”
Between the sisters there developed a long conversation about Olga. “She
takes humors,” said Fannie, “for a while she’ll come and see you every
three days, and then again you won’t catch a glimpse of her for three
months.”
“She doesn’t want to meet me,” thought Myra bitterly, “that is why she
won’t come here.”
“But she’s been travelling all this time,” said Emmie in extenuation.
“Yes? And before that?” asked Fannie. “What about the three months
before this trip? Did she bother her head about us? I suppose she had no
time for us then either!”
“But for me,” thought Myra with proud anguish, “oh, for me she had
time—every day, every day....”
“You make me think of Aunt Sophie,” said Emmie and strove to distort her
doll’s face to imitate her aunt. “‘This Olga is a very dangerous person.
She plays with people as though they were puppets. When she is tired of
them, she throws them to one side. At the same time, she’s fascinating,
I admit it, positively fascinating!’”
“Yes,” thought Myra, “your Aunt Sophie may be as imbecilic as you like
about everything else. But she’s right. In this she’s right. Olga _is_
fascinating. Oh, so fascinating. And she has thrown me aside. What can I
do? What can I do?”
* * * * *
Myra brooded for days and nights, trying to think of some way out. She
felt that she would not be able to persist in her pride and say, “She
does not want me, therefore she no longer exists as far as I am
concerned.” To be sure, she told herself so, not once, but a hundred
times. But a much stronger feeling said to her, “It is misunderstandings
that are separating us, it is impediments that a frank word could
remove. I must speak to her, I must ask her. She has courage enough and
hardness enough to tell me the truth. I will make it easier for her.
I’ll ask in such a way that she can tell me, that she’ll have to tell
me. And if she says to me, ‘Go and never come back again,’ then I’ll go
and never come back again. I’ll endeavor to order my life without her
somehow. I’ll be proud too, but first.... First!”
Myra purchased a bouquet of white roses of a peculiarly stiff and
melancholy beauty, and took them to Olga.
The maid who let her in received her, beaming with joy. “It’s so long
since you’ve been here, Miss Rudloff! Miss Radó is up in her room. You
know your way?”
It seemed impossible to Myra that she should be announced by the maid.
If Olga were not at home to her, it might lead to an extremely painful
situation. If Olga were not in a mood to see her, it would, at any rate,
be much better to say so to her face rather than to learn it from the
maid.
She stepped quickly and firmly along the endless corridor. But her heart
beat a little faster as she went.
She rapped lightly on the door and pressed down the latch. Olga was
sitting at her writing-table, just as she always sat: one hand on her
open book, her forehead supported in the palm of the other, the fingers
of which held a cigarette.
As the door opened, she turned her head somewhat unwillingly, her brows
knitted. Recognition passed like a bright gleam over her features.
“Myra!” she said. “You here again? Where did you come from? What do you
want?”
Myra tore the paper from the roses, tossed it in the waste basket and
laid the flowers on the writing-table.
“What do I want?” she said, meanwhile without taking her eyes from what
she was doing. “To visit you. To see how things are with you. But if you
wish, I can go again.”
“No!” With a sudden, almost violent gesture, Olga stretched her hand
after her. Myra laid one finger in it, which Olga clasped tightly. “But
remember—I did not call you!”
She glanced up at Myra with a strangely compulsive and almost
threatening expression of the brow and eyes.
“I know it,” said Myra with a bitter smile. “It had not even occurred to
you to call me. I feel myself that I am intruding. You hardly need tell
me so flatly.”
She wanted to retract her hand, but Olga held it fast and smiled.
“Child,” she said, “little girl! You make me very, very happy! More than
you can ever imagine. I think if you knew how happy I am, you would
become quite conceited. But remember, I did not call you.”
“Yes,” said Myra almost impatiently, “I don’t know why you attach so
much importance to that statement.”
“But I know,” said Olga quietly. “I don’t want you ever to be able to
reproach me with being egoistic.”
“Ah,” said Myra, “that’s hilarious! So that I may never reproach
you—incidentally, I do not know for what—you let me go and die and never
trouble your head about me! No, you are not a bit egoistic!”
Olga laughed. “I give up. It always comes back on me. One way or the
other. So let us bear what we can as long as we act sincerely. It’s like
a fall day outside.”
“It is good to have you here. Light the samovar and bring us a cup of
tea. We’ll call Peterkin, to come and play something for us.”
* * * * *
Once as Myra entered the room she saw Olga hastily conceal an open
letter she had been holding in her hand, under the books on her desk.
Myra thought that Olga seemed distracted during their greeting, rather
vexed and embarrassed.
“What is the matter?” she asked, without relinquishing Olga’s hand. “Has
something provoked you? You look so comical today.”
“I?” Olga flushed. Again that sudden, dark wave of blood overspread her
features, making them appear all the paler the next moment. “What are
you thinking of? What could have provoked me? Quite the contrary.”
“Quite the contrary?” said Myra with a somewhat forced gaiety. “Is it
pleasure that is making you like this? Then it would be indiscreet to
question further. Let’s talk of something else. I’ve brought back your
Chamberlain. And also your Herz. Father has him in the library.”
They talked of this and that. But Myra could not forget the letter.
While they were speaking, her thoughts kept straying into other
channels.
“What can it be?” she thought. “Jealousy? Have I any right to be
jealous? What do I mean by being hurt, suspicious, yes, actually angry,
because this woman receives a letter which she does not want to let me
see? Good God in Heaven, she is not bound nor obligated to me in any
way. She may be secretly engaged, may have a dozen love affairs—why
should I expect her to tell me everything or make me her confidante?
What business is it of mine what letters she receives?”
Myra was vexed and scolded herself. And all the while she fretted and
was sad and struggled against her feelings and could not conquer them.
“It isn’t jealousy,” she thought, “it isn’t an insane desire to possess.
It is simply the understanding that life is only bearable when people go
hand in hand. It is the consciousness that I can only go on if Olga
takes my hand and leads me. Now I have a feeling as if she had let go my
hand, that a door has shut between us, that I am left alone, helpless,
in the dark, and that she is going laughingly along—I don’t know with
whom....”
Olga was called to the telephone. It was some time before she returned.
Myra was sitting a few feet from the desk. One corner of the letter was
peeping out from beneath a pile of books. If she stretched out her hand,
she could touch it, could draw it out, without rising from her chair.
It was a painful struggle. She would have liked to slap herself because
she could think of but one thing to do. She meant to commit a crime. Oh,
it was worse than that, was indelicate, tactless, contemptible. But she
thought of a thousand excuses for herself.
“It isn’t just curiosity,” a voice cried within her. “Whom will I be
hurting by it? Who will it make suffer? Nobody. Neither her nor the
person who wrote the letter. And it is of such immense importance to me.
Here I cling to her with every fibre of my body, and yet I do not really
know what kind of person she is. Why is she so reserved? If I can arrive
at some certainty that will alter my whole life at one stroke, I will do
it at any cost—even at the cost of a crime.”
With one twitch she had drawn out the letter. Her heart was pounding
like mad; there was a thick film over her eyes so that the letters
danced on the paper. There was the letterhead of some firm, a few
words—“pay”....
Myra heard Olga’s voice at the door and hastily crammed the letter into
her pocket. Olga would probably never miss it. And although she had
hardly read it, hardly understood what it contained, Myra already had a
plan.
She was extraordinarily anxious to get home that day, and so abstracted
and laconic that Olga finally asked, “What is the matter with you today?
Has something happened? Are you in a bad humor?”
Myra was amused as she recalled the conversation when she arrived.
“Quite the contrary,” she said with an exaggerated emphasis that escaped
Olga. “I’m in an unusually good humor!”
Myra locked herself into her room and studied the letter as if it were a
momentous document. So this was the love letter which had been kept
secret from her.
The company “again” requested a payment of several hundred marks, “in
default whereof we regret that we shall have to place the matter in the
hands of our attorney.”
Myra’s heart was filled to overflowing with a tender pity.
“Poor dear pet,” she thought, “so that’s how they plague you!”
She raised the letter and was tempted for a moment to carry it to her
lips. Then she began to calculate. The few marks that she could save
from her pocket-money—no, that would never be enough. She had squandered
too much, namely for the flowers. But hadn’t she something else? Her
roving glance searched the room. Books? No, she would give them up only
in case of extreme necessity. But her jewelry! All that trash for which
she cared absolutely nothing! No one would ever ask what had become of
bracelets and rings, necklaces and scarf-pins. She never wore such
things. At worst, she could pretend she had lost them. Or she could
redeem this or that bauble from her pocket-money.
She wrapped the entire contents of her jewel-case in tissue paper and
thrust it deep into the pocket of her coat.
The way to the pawn-shop was not hard to find. Myra recalled almost with
pleasure that she was not unpractised in enterprises of this nature.
It was much harder to take the money to the fashion-shop. In doing so,
Myra had a feeling that she was perpetrating some dreadful deception.
After all, she had a perfect right to pawn whatever jewelry had been
given to her. But to act for Olga Radó, to do something in Olga Radó’s
name, that seemed an unheard of piece of daring to her. And it was so
difficult to assume the correct tone. To have debts was, according to
everything that Myra had ever heard or been told, something very
dishonorable, almost unclean.
Therefore, when one came at last to pay a debt after many duns, one must
be humble, must sue for pardon. But it was different when one came for
Olga Radó. Then one could come only in the manner of a princely emissary
and with majestic superiority discharge the forgotten trifle.
Myra put on her best dress and her top-loftiest expression. It all went
much better than she had expected. The people really did treat her like
a princely emissary, and she was very proud about it, doubly proud
because she felt that their all but obsequious amiability was meant for
Olga Radó.
Yes, all that was very easy. But now that she had the receipted bill in
her pocket, nothing in the world could have given her the courage to
return it to Olga. She consoled herself with the thought that it
probably wasn’t necessary. The shop would not dun her any further, and
Olga would forget the affair.
After a week, Myra was still secretly triumphant and thought that all
perils were happily averted. But one day she was received by Olga with a
stony face.
“What on earth can be in your mind!” said Olga instead of her usual
greeting. “What right have you to do a thing like that in my name?”
“I?” said Myra, struggling to assume an innocent expression, “What have
I done?”
“You know very well what you’ve done!” said Olga harshly, “You’ve acted
irresponsibly. Irresponsibly! I won’t tolerate any meddling with my
affairs. Least of all from you. Can’t you see the unheard of presumption
in your conduct? Are you going to appoint yourself my guardian? Or do
you intend to support me? What on earth can you be thinking of?” She
paced to and fro with long strides. Her tone became more and more
heated, more violent. Suddenly, she stopped short, leaning against the
desk, stood arms akimbo and asked very quietly, with simply a gentle
movement of her hand, “How did you get hold of the bill anyway?”
Myra was terrified. This was the moment she had dreaded. All the rest
might have been foolish, but it was generously and unselfishly done. She
could defend it with an appearance of rectitude, at least in her own
eyes. But to this question she had no excuse to offer.
Now the game was up. No lie could save her now. So she resolved
defiantly, desperately, to tell the truth. She threw back her head and
glanced at Olga with an expression that seemed to say: “I deserve death,
but I do not fear it.”
“I stole it,” she said. “From your desk.”
Olga remained quite calm. She merely knitted her brows a little as if
trying to recollect. “It came while you were there, didn’t it?”
“Yes!”
“But I didn’t leave it lying open. Now I remember very well—I pushed it
somewhere under the books.”
“Yes,” said Myra, gritting her teeth, “but I took it out from under the
books.”
“When?” asked Olga genuinely astonished.
“While you were telephoning.”
Olga did not answer. She bowed her head and stared in silence at the
floor. Myra saw that her mouth was tightly shut, but she was biting her
lower lip.
Her silence was more dreadful than the harshest words. Myra felt that
she was really incredibly depraved. And the inquisition was by no means
at an end. Many more questions followed, much more terrifying.
After a while, Olga raised her head. “But you had no way of knowing what
it was. It might just as well have been a personal letter.”
Myra’s forehead began to burn. “Now I will have to lie,” she thought for
a moment, “I’ll have to say I saw the figures or the letter-head.” But
she could not lie. She had done something so contemptible that she had
no right to purchase Olga’s forgiveness with a lie. She must confess,
apologize, atone.
“That is what I thought, too!” she said as if with sudden resolution.
But she could not look at Olga’s face while she said it. She stared past
her at the window. But without looking, she saw Olga make a sudden angry
gesture which she instantly controlled.
“So that is what you thought?” she said.
To Myra it seemed as if she made this effort, as if she forced herself
to speak so softly in order not to scream.
“But tell me, you must have had some reason. I can’t believe that you
would go rummaging in every strange letter, like a maid, out of mere
curiosity.”
“No,” said Myra. “I did have a reason, of course I had a reason. But I
can’t tell you what it is.”
“If you can’t tell me what it is,” said Olga with a gentle smile, “then
I will not ask you either. But reason or no reason, do you think it was
a very pretty thing to do?”
“No,” said Myra honestly.
“No, I don’t think so either,” said Olga quickly. But after a pause she
added reflectively, almost as if it hurt her, “But understandable. If I
wanted to keep anything secret, my dear child, I would do it so artfully
that you and your silly little tricks would never even find it out.”
It was said in a tone of such scornful superiority that Myra blenched.
She felt the truth of those words, she felt that Olga was as if
surrounded by a wall, one through which she, stupid, little, Myra, could
never penetrate to the heart of this being, even by tracking her like a
criminal and reading her letters.
It seemed as if Olga sensed Myra’s dumb terror. For she said suddenly in
her deep, warm voice, “For the rest, I never conceal things from you.
Nothing that could be of any interest to you. I write no love letters
and receive none. But if there is ever anything that you are itching to
find out, ask me—it is the easiest way.”
Her kindly, cordial tone did Myra no end of good, ten-fold good after
all the anxiety she had endured. She made an involuntary movement. A
feeling that welled up hotly within her drove her to Olga, to kiss her
hands in gratitude. Olga saw or sensed this emotion—and averted it. It
was a barely perceptible twitching of her eyebrows that frightened Myra
back and held her spellbound where she stood.
It was not until Myra had put on her hat and was going that Olga asked
suddenly, “Will you do me a favor, Myra?”
“Anything,” said Myra with conviction.
“But this is no easy task—I....”
“So much the better!”
“No, no, it’s nothing heroic in the romantic style. Something quite
unpleasant in a paltry way.” She bit her lip and hesitated. “I should
prefer to do it in any other way, but I don’t know how. I want you to do
something that you have certainly never done before in all your life—to
pawn something for me.”
Myra broke into a laugh. “There you underestimate me considerably. The
pawn-shop is one of the commonest of my childhood memories.”
“Why, Myra!”
“It’s a long story. I must tell it to you some time. But first you tell
me what it is you want.”
“I want you to take this and pawn it for me.”
With a sudden gesture Olga swept the cigarette case from the desk and
gave it to Myra, who took it, shocked, in both hands.
“But you can’t do that, Olga!”
Olga gazed out the window. “Don’t discuss it, please,” she said in a
hard voice, without turning her head. “I alone know what I can, and what
I must do!”
Myra was silent. There was no contradicting that tone. But she was not
convinced.
* * * * *
Myra kept remembering the tender gesture with which Olga had once
pressed the cigarette case to her cheek. And then she recalled the
pawn-broker’s hairy hand with its flattened, dirt-rimmed nails. No, she
could not lay the scorpion in those hands.
She took the case to a jeweler and had it appraised. She did not have
enough money in her possession to accomplish the pious deception which
she had in mind.
But she knew how to remedy that. Not in vain had she been Frieda
Ellert’s pupil. She knew very well how to get at the silverware, and
which cases contained the most valuable pieces.
As Myra stole secretly to the side-board, she thought of a dozen years
before and smiled. It was no longer as exciting as it had seemed then.
Although, if Aunt Emily were to discover it, it would lead to precisely
the same unpleasantness. Her aunt was prepared to call in a psychiatrist
again. What a ridiculous farce the whole business really was. In a year
she would be of age, and free to dispose of her grandmother’s legacy,
and yet for the sake of a hundred marks today, she had to steal in her
own father’s house!
“Will you let me have the ticket?” asked Olga when they met.
“The ticket?” Myra grew a trifle embarrassed and rummaged in her pocket.
“Yes, just a minute! What did I do with it? Don’t worry, it’s here
somewhere. But first I’ll count out the money!”
“Not necessary,” said Olga emphatically. “The money is just where it
belongs. No scenes, please! I have given you no right to insult me.”
“I don’t understand,” said Myra disconcerted. “What does it all mean?”
“It means that I would far rather sit at a street corner and beg than to
be obligated to you for money. I sent you to the pawn-shop simply so
that the money would be given into your own hands. Otherwise, I should
have had to force it on you, and I hate such scenes. Now that’s enough,
I don’t want to hear another word about it!”
“But....”
“Not another word, I said. As for the ticket, you can keep it, and
redeem it for me later. I would rather not see in whose hands it had
been. I’ll give you the money for it the first chance I get.” She
laughed quickly. “When, the gods alone know! Come, let’s play a game of
chess. I’ll concede you a castle.”