“You know,” said Olga the next time they met, “I have an idea. Don’t you
think I could give instruction in languages, Myra? Five lessons every
day, at two marks a lesson, makes ten marks, and one can certainly live
on that if one manages very carefully.”
“A wonderful idea,” said Myra angrily. “In the first place, I see you
living on ten marks a day. And in the second place, I should never see
you at all any more.”
“What on earth are you complaining about!” said Olga, laughing. “You
spend every day God gives us from morning till noon and from noon till
night with me!”
“If it’s too much,” said Myra soberly and somewhat hurt, “all you have
to do is say so.”
“Never fear,” Olga consoled her, “I can take care of myself. If I want
to be rid of anybody, I am perfectly explicit!”
“Thank heaven. If only I can depend on that. But it is I who have the
idea. We’ll combine pleasure with profit. You give me five hours
instruction in foreign languages, and I will have my father pay you for
it—at his own express request.”
* * * * *
But it did not go quite as smoothly as Myra had anticipated. Aunt Emily
herself went to look for language teachers, and unearthed a pair of very
dignified elderly ladies. A sixty-four-year-old professor was, in her
opinion, questionable because he was unmarried. She took Myra herself to
introduce her niece.
As a result, Myra had the painful task of declining their instruction.
But at least, she succeeded in getting her father to give the money for
the classes directly to her instead of sending a money order or having
the bank arrange it.
Olga was very exact with the lessons. She insisted on a conscientious
punctuality and, as a teacher, was strict and pedantic. Myra was a
zealous student in order to live up to her teacher’s good opinion.
So far everything went as planned. Except that Olga did not think to
economize and live on the money from the lessons.
* * * * *
Peculiar happenings multiplied.
One day Uncle George bobbed up suddenly in the city. Myra had always had
a special predilection for Uncle George. He was really the only one of
her relatives whose stately and distinguished appearance, definitely
masculine manner and a certain matter-of-fact seriousness pleased her
and even compelled her respect.
He greeted Myra in a peculiar way, with a conscious affability that
seemed to say: “I’m really quite innocent, there’s no reason for you to
wonder why I am here or what it has to do with you.”
Myra’s delicate perceptive apparatus instantly registered suspicion. Her
suspicion was intensified when she heard the key grind as all
three—Father, Aunt Emily and Uncle George—withdrew into the study.
So they were locking themselves in? What might that mean? Did it concern
the servants or her?
She had never taken any particular interest in family conferences. But
the cautious turning of that key aroused an uneasy curiosity in her. She
sauntered past the door several times. But all she could hear was an
indistinct murmuring. No doubt about it, they were whispering.
Myra longed to escape the oppressive and unfriendly atmosphere of the
house.
After dinner, during which only Uncle George had spoken, extolling in
loud and well-rounded periods the beauties of the little city and the
virtues of its children, Myra finally ventured a question.
“You are all going to sleep after dinner, aren’t you? Then may I spend
an hour with my friend before tea?”
A general silence followed. All three looked at one another, nobody
looked at Myra and nobody answered.
Her father cast an uneasy glance that seemed to beseech succor, from one
to the other. Uncle George drummed on the table and looked expectant.
Aunt Emily cleared her throat and distorted the corners of her tightly
compressed mouth in a sweetish grimace that was intended for a friendly
smile.
Nobody spoke. Aunt Emily did not wish to obtrude herself. She withheld
her answer, waiting to see if either of the men would reply. But they
did not look as if they intended to break the painful silence within the
next few moments.
They had left it up to her, hence she must speak. She drew herself up
and made a face whose wrinkles were intended to express profound
sympathy and serious concern. But to Myra it seemed as if those sharp
little eyes were flashing, as if that rigidly erect lean body was
trembling with malicious joy.
“I guess you will have to omit that today, for a change, my dear child,”
she said in a gentle tone, but her voice was as sharp as a knife. “We
are expecting a visit this afternoon which concerns you most
particularly.”
“Me?” asked Myra, and glanced at her father.
But Rudloff veiled his eyes and endeavored to control a nervous
twitching of his lips. He did not answer.
“Yes, you!” said Aunt Emily as affably as if she were announcing a great
pleasure to Myra.
At that moment, Myra felt that danger was threatening her. She felt as
if she were caught in the fine meshes of a net, which would be drawn
over her head the next moment by a slight twitch of Aunt Emily’s bony
fingers.
She felt as if all the doors were locked and guarded, as if nothing
could save her now, but at this very moment, without hesitation, without
a second thought, to jump out the window, and to run, as long as her
breath lasted, to rush in mad flight through the streets to Olga.
She turned pale and started to run. It was not even a start, it was only
the will to move that thrilled her muscles. But Uncle George must have
perceived it.
“Now, no, Myra!” he said in a somewhat forced tone of kindness and
assurance. “Just keep cool, my lass! Nobody’s going to do anything to
you. You must simply have confidence in us and say to yourself that
everything that happens is happening, in the last analysis, for your own
good. You must try to help us a little in our efforts, which are
motivated wholly by a regard for your welfare, and not make our task
more difficult by any childish spleen. Thus by a mutual effort we will
get over this period, and later on you will be very grateful to us for
having used a loving coercion to put you on the right track. You’ll look
back on this period as on a bad dream of no significance for your later
life.”
This solemn pronouncement increased Myra’s vague uneasiness to all but
insane terror. It was all so mysterious and incomprehensible. She knew
that Aunt Emily was only waiting for a question in order to gush forth
in a torrent of words. Therefore she did not ask any. But what had
happened? What was about to happen?
“Out the window! Out the window!” was the only thing she could think of.
But the moment she heard the door-bell ring, she shrank within herself,
for she knew that it was too late.
The maid came slinking in, as if she were entering a sick-chamber, and
handed Franz Rudloff a card.
His hand trembled as he took it from the little silver tray. He had to
support himself against the table in rising. His face was distorted,
drawn.
“Have you taken the Professor to my room? I will be there in a moment.”
Hastily he poured himself a swallow of water. His stiff, starched cuff
rattled against the carafe.
He went out, making a visible effort not to stagger, and to hold himself
upright.
The three who were left sat on in silence. But Myra could not bear to
remain at the table. When she rose, Uncle George made a hasty gesture as
if to detain her. But she did not go to the door, she would make no
further effort to escape. She went to the window and gazed through the
drawn lace curtains down at the street.
Monotonous cries ascended of children at play. A delivery truck drew up
and stopped at the house opposite. The driver’s helper jumped out,
unlocked the back, loaded himself with parcels and closed the doors
again with a sharp bang.
Every movement, every sound impressed itself with unusual distinctness
on Myra’s brain. She was aware of nothing, nothing, but the sharp
perception of commonplace things.
The door opened behind her back. She heard her father’s restrained and
rather hoarse voice saying, “Emily, will you be so kind as to come here
a moment?” Then the scraping of a chair and the rustle of skirts. Myra
did not turn.
The door closed again.
Now she was alone with Uncle George. Now she might have asked him for
some kind of explanation. Of these three individuals he was by far the
most sensible. Ah, but what use was it? He, too, was a stranger to her,
an utter stranger.
“Mother!” she thought as something like a convulsive sob rose in her
throat. “Dear, good mother, why did you leave me alone, all alone in
this world?”
When the door next opened, and her father appeared and said nervously,
“Please, come with me, Myra,” she experienced a feeling almost of joy—as
a man who has studied well rejoices at an examination, or a brave man at
a battle.
She walked with a perfectly firm step through the room, smiling a
superior, rather disdainful, smile.
At her entrance, a slight man with sharp features and piercing eyes rose
from her father’s chair. In his well-trimmed pointed black beard several
premature white hairs were showing.
As no one appeared to be going to introduce him, he murmured his own
name, with a slight bow, while casting at the others a glance that
resembled a command for instant withdrawal.
Rudloff was visibly relieved, but Aunt Emily hesitated and departed
grudgingly. Even at the door, she cast back a long and curious glance,
but the Professor did not utter a word, did not make a gesture until she
had closed the door.
Then he drew up a chair. “Please be seated.”
Myra sat down obediently.
The man in front of her leaned forward somewhat. “And now, my child,” he
said in a soft, almost ingratiating voice, “tell me that you will trust
me.”
Myra drew herself up stiffly. “I certainly shall not, Professor!” she
said quietly.
The man drew back a little.
“What does that mean?” he asked in surprise.
“It means,” said Myra while her heart throbbed as if it would burst,
“that my Aunt called you in, and that I distrust everything she does.
Probably she intends to shut me up in an insane asylum, and your
function is to declare me mentally deranged. She held a similar party
for me when I was quite a little girl. But if you are a psychiatrist,
you know that the feeling that one is under observation is capable of
inducing something resembling insanity, even in the most normal of
individuals. And you will make allowance for that in my case.”
The physician smiled—a shrewd smile.
“I have not the slightest reason to question your exceptional mental
ability. On the contrary, nobody questions it. And neither has anyone
the slightest intention of shutting you up in an insane asylum. I came
here to talk with you a little, because of certain scientific and human
interests. May I ask you a few questions?”
“Certainly!” said Myra, “I probably will answer your questions more
exactly if you will permit me to smoke a cigarette.”
“Gladly!” said the Professor obligingly.
Myra took the cigarette case from the table and offered him one. He
accepted and while he scratched his lighter and held the little flame
for her he asked in a casual tone, “You are a confirmed smoker, are you
not?”
“I got into the habit studying,” she said. “It helps me concentrate. And
as I can’t rid myself yet of the suspicion that you will construe some
stupid answer into feeble-mindedness....”
The Professor laughed. “I would have a hard time doing that. However,
you are right, one can chat much more easily over a cigarette. But tell
me now, what was this affair you mentioned? What kind of wicked designs
did your estimable Aunt have on you when you were a little girl?”
“Oh,” said Myra, “she called in a children’s psychiatrist because I took
the silver from the side-board.”
“Aha!” said the Professor with an interested and amused smile. “Why did
you do that? Did you like silver?”
“No, I pawned it!”
“Pawned it!” The Professor laughed aloud. “How did such an idea ever get
into your child’s head?”
“It was not my own,” said Myra seriously. From the hazy past the image
of Frieda rose clearly and distinctly. “My governess led me to do it. I
was completely under her influence, which was not a very good one.”
“Ah!” said the Professor with mild astonishment. “Are you easily
influenced? You do not look it. Probably there is nothing on earth that
could make you do such a thing now!”
“The Devil!” said Myra in sudden terror. “I forgot to redeem that stupid
silver!”
The Professor was tremendously amused, but he did not let her see it.
“What,” he asked, “the silver you pawned ten years ago? It certainly
must be lost by now!”
“No,” said Myra, frankly, “that which I just pawned. I clean forgot it!”
“Don’t worry about it,” said the Professor amiably, “it has already been
redeemed.”
For a moment Myra did not quite comprehend. “How can that be? Nobody
knew about it.”
“The ticket was found in your pocket.”
“Found!” Myra sprang up. “Found? That is to say, that that shameless
person has been going through my things again! Oh, what a pity that I
did not catch her at it—I think I would have throttled her with my bare
hands!”
“Please sit down,” said the Professor, not sharply, but so imperatively
that Myra obeyed.
“If by ‘that person’ you mean your Aunt, I should urge her, as a man and
a physician, to supervise you more closely than is customary among adult
human beings.”
“I am an adult human being,” said Myra angrily.
“You are a child,” said the physician mildly, “a child that does not
even suspect the danger it is getting into, but who will be very
grateful to us all once it has grown up and learned to understand from
what we protected it.”
“I believe you are mistaken,” said Myra, in an icy voice. “I am not in
any danger. But if I were, I can protect myself.”
“As long as you are not of age, you cannot refuse our helping hand.”
It sounded kindly, but quite definite. “I question whether you would
find in yourself the necessary strength to break with the friend who is
at present influencing you.”
The blood rushed suddenly to Myra’s heart. She felt that she had turned
as white as snow.
“What do you know about my friend?” she asked bluntly. She felt as if
she could not breathe.
The physician smiled a superior smile. “In any case, more than you.”
“I doubt that,” Myra interrupted in a hard, disdainful tone. But his
composure was not to be ruffled.
“I know,” he said imperturbably, but firmly, “that you are under the
influence of a woman who can do you a great deal of harm. I understand
you quite well. You _are_ a child. I will not deny that the lady
possesses intelligence and charm. You are proud of this friendship and
would be willing to sacrifice anything for her. You would let this
friendship start you on a path of crime....”
“Oh, bosh!” said Myra.
“I understand you to be contradicting me. But just let your cool
intelligence come into play for a moment and think logically. You
purloin silver from your parents’ side-board. You ask your father for
money for lessons and spend it on automobile excursions with your
friend, on champagne and tickets for the Opera. You pay your friend’s
dress-maker’s bills with money that you have come by in irregular ways.
Yes, my child, don’t you see yourself what an abyss you are heading
for?”
How did they know all that? As if lit up by a flash of lightning, the
whole chain of events was suddenly clear to Myra. They had had a
detective watch every step she took. Wherever she went, strange eyes had
been glued to her, strange eyes and Aunt Emily’s notions.
Myra sat quite still and did not stir. She felt as if brutal hands were
tearing her clothes from her body piece by piece. Not the hands of this
stranger; it was Aunt Emily’s hands that were doing it, it was Aunt
Emily’s face she saw before her, wreathed in a mocking smirk and
slavering with foul enjoyment. Slowly, slowly, Myra’s fingers clenched
to a fist. She bowed her head; the corners of her mouth twitched and she
swallowed hard.
Again the Professor’s voice came softly and soothingly. “Just think back
on your childhood! Didn’t you love this young woman who influenced you
as a child? And aren’t you glad and grateful now that you were separated
from her? Well, you will be just as grateful to us later on when you are
capable of judging. If you stop to think, you know it now in your heart
of hearts. It is you who are the true friend. It is you who love, who
sacrifice yourself. It is you who are used, are treated as a plaything,
or denied on occasion, and sooner or later tossed aside. Do you imagine
that this is the first case I have seen? Meanwhile you will be ruined
for the rest of your life, made sick in body and soul, robbed of every
possibility of happiness. What is left for you? According to your
capacities—death or suicide. I have seen terrible tragedies come about
in this way....”
Myra strove in vain against the impression which the words made upon
her. Her tensed nerves felt a cold breath that made her shudder to the
very core of her being. It seemed to her like a warning cry from the
darkly veiled future. Death—the end! A fearful something strode
inexorably toward her, casting its cold shadow in advance. She shivered.
She had to make an effort to regain her outward calm. She dug her nails
in the arms of her chair and swallowed once or twice.
“All that is quite aside from the point,” she said at last with an
effort. “Perhaps you will be so good as to tell me why they really
called you in and what they have decided concerning me. If not an insane
asylum, do they intend to shut me up in a cloister, or a reform school,
or send me to America?”
The physician smiled. “None of those things. But you will leave in a
short time to stay with your Uncle George and his family. There in the
fresh air and amidst quiet surroundings, your nerves will grow strong
again and you will be in a position to make sane and healthy judgments
unassisted.”
“When do I leave?” asked Myra curtly.
“Today!”
“At least I have to pack my suitcase!”
“It has been packed while we were talking!”
That was what she had feared. Myra felt the walls, the hand-cuffs. She
glanced about her like a hunted animal driven into a trap. No escape
anywhere, no possibility of flight.
They were separating her from Olga. That was bad, but not the worst.
They were doing it by force. They should have asked her to take this
journey, they should have allowed her time, time to say good-bye, time
for an explanation, time to pack her own things, her books. Now Aunt
Emily was at her bureau, was packing for her, was rummaging around. In
an hour she would be sitting in the train, without having been able to
inform Olga. And Uncle George would be sitting across from her—as her
keeper. And what would happen here in the meanwhile—to her desk, her
books, to Olga....
She had a desire to tear something to pieces, to dash out her brains
against the walls. She did nothing. She rose from her chair, quite pale.
“Is that all?” she asked.
“I am delighted,” said the Professor, rising at the same time, “that you
agree to this journey.”
“Agree?” said Myra with a contemptuous twitch of the lips. “I submit to
coercion because I know that all resistance is useless. If my Aunt
wished, she could have dragged me off in chains, and my father would
look on, and all the courts in the world would uphold her.”
The Professor went up to her and opened the door.
“Miss Myra and I find ourselves in perfect agreement,” he announced
cheerfully. “I have prescribed a little change of air, and she is
overjoyed to pass a few weeks under your hospitable roof, Herr von
Seyblitz!”
Uncle George rubbed his powerful hands, Franz Rudloff attempted a feeble
smile, and Aunt Emily made a surprised, and as it seemed to Myra,
disappointed face.
She rushed up to the Professor and hissed in a low voice, but loud
enough for all to hear, “But you told me, Professor, that you wanted to
examine her, to see if there were not some physical abnormalities ...
and I think....”
The Professor endeavored in vain to silence her by a slight motion of
the hand and eyelids. It was too late.
Myra had already heard. Had suddenly, instantly, understood. It was too
late.
She was conscious only of the fierce desire to see this horrible
creature die under her hands. She did not know she moved. The floor
moved under her feet. She heard a gurgling that was strange and hideous,
and yet seemed to come from her own throat. She felt her fingers close
on a thin, withered neck, felt at the same moment her own wrists gripped
by hands that were like iron, gripped so tightly that all the blood
seemed to stop in her veins and she thought she would smother. She felt
she could not endure this torture one heart-beat longer.
“Let me go!” she growled. “Let me go!”
The physician immediately released her right arm, and a moment later
Uncle George released her left.
Then her wrists began to ache. She rubbed them quite mechanically. She
felt exhausted, quiet, shattered. She was almost happy at the idea that
she must leave this house, these people, at once, this very moment.
She turned to the physician. “When does the train leave? Isn’t it time
to get ready?”
“We are going the same way, I think,” the Professor remarked casually
when the auto had drawn up before the door. “Have you room in the car?”
Myra looked at him in surprise and with a little smiling scorn.
“Subterfuge is unnecessary, Professor, if you want to take me to the
station. My family will gladly forego the pleasure. It is better for all
concerned.”
She gave her father her finger-tips, which he clasped in both hands.
“Good-bye, papa, take care of yourself.”
Aunt Emily drew back against the wall as if she feared a new assault on
her life, but Myra passed her with a contemptuous glance.
The journey on the train was longer than she expected. Myra gazed
intently out the window, striving to impress on her mind the name of
every station, every village, every crossing. It was possible that she
would have to return on foot.
She had no money—whether she would have the opportunity to pawn or sell
valuables was doubtful. She glanced at the mileage-signs—fifty miles
from home. She could make four miles an hour with ease. Too bad it
wasn’t summer. It wouldn’t be pleasant passing the night in the open at
two below zero.