Myra sat beside Gwen in the car.
“My hair looks something terrible, doesn’t it?” said Gwen. “If mamma
sees me like this, she’ll begin to lecture me. How do you manage to keep
your hair in place? You danced too! Mamma would be delighted with you.
In fact, mamma likes you a whole lot. She’s always holding you up to me
as a model. But even that doesn’t make me dislike you. I’m really quite
smitten with you, really—but I think you don’t like me.”
Myra laid her arms lightly around her shoulder.
“Silly little Gwen,” she said, smiling. “You don’t know what you’re
chattering.”
“That’s nice,” said Gwen, cuddling up to her like a little kitten,
“leave your arm there, it feels nice. I know very well what I’m talking
about. Mamma always says ‘Don’t talk, you’re dizzy with dancing,’
because she insists that I talk so much nonsense after a dance—more than
usual. But I’m really not dizzy with dancing, and I know that I like you
a lot, and I know too that you don’t like me. And you don’t contradict
me either, you’re much too honest for that. You say, ‘Don’t talk
nonsense, little Gwen,’ which is what people always tell little children
when they happen to hit on the truth. But I don’t want to embarrass you.
Your eyes look very sad now because you don’t know how you’re going to
get out of this mess.”
“I was thinking,” said Myra honestly, “that you are a very charming
little creature and that I like you very much indeed—and that
nevertheless I disavowed you today and said you were not my friend.”
“At the table,” said Gwen seriously, “I felt it. But it doesn’t make me
angry with you.” She smiled. “You oughtn’t to admit it either, if you
want to keep in the good graces of my dear Henry. Did he tell you what a
beast I am?”
“He said nothing at all,” replied Myra, shocked. “How on earth did you
know that I said it to Rantzau?”
“Because I know _him_!” said Gwen triumphantly. “He hates me like—like
sin would hardly be the proper expression. But I know he does, and I
know why.”
By these words and by the expression of Gwen’s face Myra felt somewhat
repelled. “She’s like every other woman,” she thought contemptuously.
“She thinks that Henry Rantzau hates her because he loves her and she
doesn’t love him! Now she’ll tell me that she broke with him on some
occasion. It’s the only thing that these little creatures can get
through their heads.”
“Shall I tell you why your friend hates me?” A thousand little imps were
dancing on Gwen’s face.
“If you like,” said Myra somewhat coolly.
“I’ve taken his friend away from him!”
“What does that mean—taking a friend away? Can a woman take a man’s
friend away from him?”
“From Henry? Oh, yes! For he wants his friend all to himself, hair and
hide, body and soul. Don’t try to pretend, dear little Miss Innocence,
that you haven’t noticed what the whole town knows!”
“Strange,” Myra shook her head, “all that a town knows!”
“Stranger yet is all that it doesn’t know!” said Gwen with a laugh. “All
that goes on in its midst without anybody’s suspecting it. But Rantzau
is known because he’s a public menace. He has an influence over young
men that is nothing short of uncanny. He’s always got a circle around
him that idolizes him. And I don’t like that....”
“You mean when somebody else is idolized?” teased Myra.
“Yes, exactly,” declared Gwen defiantly. “That one thing I can’t stand
at all is to see a man idolized by men. I don’t know if I can explain
it, but you see the essential thing about human beings is their sex. The
great two-fold division of all life—it’s not my own idea, of course.
Later on there’s the division into races, with the races dividing into
nations, the nations into classes and families, each of them struggling
against the others. I am a bourgeois as compared with the nobility and
an aristocrat as compared with the plebs. But first and foremost I am a
woman in contrast to a man, and the most unpardonable insult that can be
offered me is one to my sex. Don’t you understand that? If a man can’t
see me because he worships another woman, that doesn’t wound my vanity.
But a man for whom no woman is good enough, who prefers men, who is
contemptuous of my whole sex—oh, it drives me almost insane with anger.
Rantzau is incorruptible—I know that—but I lure away his favorites, one
after the other. Ever since I could think, no, ever since I could feel,
we’ve waged a bitter war. Do you know, Myra, sometimes it seems like a
holy mission to me and not just an amusing game!” There was a strange
light in her eyes, they blazed like blue jewels. “He loved Fred Reimer,
for example, loved him insanely. But Fred is very happily married today.
What do I get out of it? Well, sometimes when I see his wife, I think,
‘You owe it to me and you never even suspect it.’”
“What a queer mixture you are.” Myra looked at her, shaking her head
reflectively. “A well-bred, sheltered girl and yet....”
“And yet? Go ahead and say it!”
“Oh, nothing. But tell me, how does it happen that your parents don’t
notice anything—Henry Rantzau, for instance, whose reputation the whole
town knows?”
“Don’t you know, Myra,” said Gwen with a superior smile, “that parents
have an unerring eye only for what doesn’t exist?”
* * * * *
“I’m coming out directly,” called Gwen from behind the door of the
bathroom where one could hear the splashing of water and the pelting of
a shower. “Take a seat, Myra, and pick up a book! I’ll be ready in five
minutes.”
“I have time,” said Myra quietly.
But Gwen wished to shorten her wait for her. “You’ll find something to
look at. There’s a package on the table. I bought myself some stockings
today. See if you don’t think they’re stunning. But you mustn’t open
what’s under them, something flat in tissue paper. Ah, I’ll show it to
you anyhow. Go ahead and open it!”
“I’m not curious.”
“Go on, go on, open it. It’s better that you should look at it when I’m
not there. Then I won’t have to blush at least. Hurry up, I’ll be out in
two minutes! Do you hear? I’m already emerging from the crystal flood,
and when I’m halfway dry, I’ll be out there!”
Myra removed the tissue paper. She looked into Fred Wietinghoff’s face,
lifelike and expressive. She felt a flash of pleasure pass over her as
she studied the handsome features, and almost at the same moment a
childish desire to steal the picture so that she could always have it
before her eyes, and could delight in it when she was far from here.
For she was perfectly conscious at that moment, without thinking about
it at all, that she would leave Hamburg in a very short time. She had
never yet thought of the change, but suddenly she saw herself with
visionary distinctness, so self-evidently that there was nothing
terrifying about it, in a state of loneliness in which this picture
would make pleasant company for her.
She started when Gwen leaned over her shoulder.
“Handsome picture, what?” she laughed. “You started so just now that I
might imagine you have a little weakness for the gentleman. Confess the
truth, Myra! Out with it. You were so lost in the picture, so lost that
you didn’t hear me coming.”
Myra put down the picture without glancing at it again.
“Because my thoughts were somewhere else entirely,” she said, still
rather distractedly.
“Too bad,” teased Gwen, “where else if not with Fred? Certainly not with
me, I’m afraid. Very far off? Don’t you want to tell me where?”
She laid her soft bare arm around Myra’s neck, pressing it against her
cheeks.
“I don’t know where myself,” said Myra. “Not in the past and not in the
present. Somewhere I’ve never yet been. Perhaps in the future. I have a
feeling, quite indistinct and hazy, of a snowed-up lonely house.”
Gwen shook her by the shoulders.
“Come out of it,” she cried, “you’re supposed to be here and not in any
snowed-up lonely houses. How do you like our friend, Freddy?”
“_Our_ friend?” repeated Myra with a smile.
“Of course ours. He’s your friend as much as mine. He thinks a great
deal of you, a great deal!”
“He only says that to make you jealous,” said Myra consolingly.
“Make me jealous!” Gwen laughed aloud. “No, I’m not that petty. And
besides, you mean too much to me. I’m always very proud, really, my
heart is filled with pleasure when I hear people praising you. And Fred
praises you very often....”
“He would send me his picture if he really thought so much of me,”
thought Myra. “If it weren’t all just silly talk, he’d send me his
picture. I don’t want anything more of him than that.”
“Do you really like him?” Gwen asked it lightly. But Myra felt something
watchful, almost lowering in her look.
She shrugged her shoulders.
“He’s good looking and has a very agreeable disposition,” she said
indifferently.
“Nothing more?”
Myra did not want to reply. “I don’t know much more about him.”
“He is discreet and trustworthy,” said Gwen after hesitating a moment.
Then she laughed through her teeth, “And he has very good taste!”
“Perhaps,” said Myra somewhat guardedly.
Sometimes she had a feeling of fear in the presence of this fair-haired
child. Frequently she was afraid to put a question because she did not
want to hear the answer—an answer that would tear off the thin covering
of the abyss.
Suddenly Gwen stroked her cheeks with a childish gesture.
“Don’t be angry,” she said gently.
Myra laid her lips against that soft little fragrant hand.
“Why should I be angry at you, you child?” she asked, smiling.
But she knew very well that she had been angry.
“Tell me something!” begged Gwen. “Yes, sit right down beside me here
and tell me something. I’ll lie down, I’m a little tired from my bath,
and you sit beside me and we’ll jaw a little.”
With one hand she drew Myra fawningly to the divan, with the other she
held together her kimono of peach-bloom china crêpe which showed every
line of her slim, soft body.
She adjusted her mountain of pillows and made herself comfortable on it.
Myra sat quiet and erect beside her on a chair. She always felt rather
stiff in the presence of so much sinuous grace, and a little frosty in
the warm breath of this sunny creature.
“Do you know, Myra,” said Gwen after a while, “that I haven’t got a step
closer to you since the first day you came here? You allow me to call
you by your first name. Sometimes you call me by mine, but mostly you
omit it because it’s so counter to your nature. No, no, you don’t have
to make a polite denial! You are quite a stranger to me. Never, never,
never do you tell me anything of your own volition. Sometimes you’ll
answer one out of ten of my questions. I don’t even trust myself to ask
you questions any more for fear I’ll frighten you away so that you’ll
never come back again.”
“And what do I know of you either?” asked Myra without looking at her.
“You are just as much of a stranger to me. You have a very childlike and
open nature. My own, perhaps, is more reserved and cold, but there may
be a hundred times bigger and more serious secrets hidden behind your
innocent little mask than behind my reticence.”
“That’s still another matter,” Gwen interrupted sharply. “I can’t ever
tell you anything, either, because you always put me off! Many times I
feel the need of confiding in you, something that is worrying me, or
simply occupying my attention. But you always turn me aside, or you make
such a face that the words stick in my throat. As if, Heaven help you,
you didn’t want to know anything about me, in order not to despise me.
Or as if you already knew too much and were afraid of permitting any
affection. Then again I feel that you really are not cold and lacking in
understanding, you are not a prude, and you have no right to be.... Oh,
Myra, don’t be angry with me for saying that! But you can never make me
believe that you’ve spent your life sitting and knitting in a quiet
friendly way with a lot of old ladies.”
Myra laughed. “I’ve never tried to make you think so.”
“But you act that way,” said Gwen hopelessly. “You’re like a stone that
won’t give off a spark no matter how hard you strike it. Oh, Myra, I
can’t get rid of the feeling that I could strike a whole series of
fireworks out of you—such glorious fireworks! Am I not steel enough, or
what is the matter? It torments me terribly....”
She was so shaken with emotion that the tears came into her eyes. She
stretched her limbs as if in convulsions and tore the silk cushions with
her teeth.
Suddenly she sat up, and throwing her arms around Myra’s neck, rubbed
her face, between tears and laughter, against her shoulder.
“Tell me, Myra,” she wheedled, “tell me what I’ve known for a long time.
Some time in your life you have been in love with a woman. You know how
it can be—how heavenly it can be! Why don’t you like me, Myra? Am I not
good enough for you? Not beautiful enough? Or do you think I haven’t had
any experience? Or do you think I’d betray you? Why don’t you say
something? Do you despise me so that you don’t think I’m worth an
answer?”
Myra gritted her teeth and sat a little more stiffly. “I don’t know, my
child,” she said with a labored smile and lifeless eyes. “I don’t know
what you’re talking about. Why do you suspect me of such a thing?”
“Stop!” said Gwen almost angrily, laying her hand on Myra’s mouth. “I
don’t suspect anything—I _know_! You can keep quiet as long as you like.
I’ll never force you to tell me, but I won’t let myself be deceived. And
I won’t let myself be pointed out as a mad woman. I know that I’m right.
Not because, as you’re thinking now, I’ve heard some gossip. I have a
feeling for such things. Dear little Myra, if you were to sit in front
of your mirror for a week and practice a face for me like a stone mask,
it would still bear the stamp. Your hands would have it, and your
eyelids and the corner of your mouth—here—this corner of your dear
proud, yearning mouth. Promise me, Myra, promise me one thing—I believe
that you live like a saint and want to live that way—but I know too,
that you can’t. You can’t do it much longer. But when it gets too much
for you, call me. I would like to kiss you until your yearning mouth is
quite sated. I would like to see you bloom in all your tenderness you
rose of Jericho! And if I could not bring it about, at least I should
like to be present. Oh, Myra, you’re making a face as if I were saying
hateful things. The ecstasy of the beautiful human body _is_ beautiful,
and the throbbing pulse and the gasping breath of someone we love is the
most beautiful music in the world. Everything else, art and sport, and
alcohol and morphine, are just miserable attempts at substitutes for the
one real thing—for love.”
“So many things are called love!” said Myra with a bitter taste in her
mouth.
“I call love the thrill of the blood and the ravishment of the senses.
And it is something I should like to give everybody.” Gwen sat up and
the soft silk slid from her wonderfully modelled shoulders. Her eyes
blazed with blue fire.
“Well, not everybody, but the beautiful, the profound, the warm, the
sensitive, those who hunger and those who thirst, and I would like to
give it to them because I am capable of giving it, because I am rich,
because God has given it to me. And God gives no man anything to keep
for himself but He cannot be too lavish because He has to give to so
many. We are here as God’s stewards, we are here to save Him trouble,
that is why He gives us so much, in order that we may share it with the
most worthy.”
Myra shook her head. “You talk like the angel in a Christmas story, and
you come out with these lovely theories in a Christmas story voice.
Sometimes I have a feeling that you have no idea what you are saying.
You are like a strip of garden in which a strange hand has strewn all
possible seeds, so that it is surprised itself at all the gay flowers
that come to light. But I am afraid I know the gardener who has made
such a wildflower garden out of you!”
“Myra,” wheedled Gwen, “tell me one thing, please, please, tell me. Are
you in love with Fred?”
“Nonsense,” said Myra in a hard voice. “What makes you think such a
thing?”
“Perhaps not love,” said Gwen hesitantly, “perhaps you call ‘love’
something else. But don’t you feel that he’s wonderfully stimulating?”
Myra made a face, and without answering, rose and went to the window.
She heard the soft silk behind her rustle and crinkle. Gwen thrust her
sinuous body between Myra and the window-pane, beyond which lay the
wintry garden. Her angelic face was suffused with red. Her large eyes
under their long lashes were filled with tears. Her blonde hair, tousled
and damp from her bath, trembled in ringlets and curls about her
childish face.
She pursed her lips as if she were struggling against violent tears and
clung to the folds of Myra’s waist with her soft little hands.
“Do you dislike me so much?” she asked shyly. “Do you? Am I really so
distasteful to you?”
Laughing, Myra kissed her round firm cheeks with their peach-bloom
complexion.
“You are very sweet!” she said sincerely.
* * * * *
“I’d rather not,” said Myra, knitting her brows slightly.
“Myra!” Gwen stamped her foot angrily. “I can’t understand you! How can
it hurt you to go too? And you would be pleasing me so much! We had it
planned so nicely. Really no sensible person can see anything wrong in
our going together....”
“But your parents,” Myra objected.
“You will simply be doing them a favor if you don’t let me go alone to
visit a bachelor in his apartment! For I’m going anyway! But it would be
much nicer if you’d come too. And Fred will show you his library!”
That was the only thing that could tempt Myra as Gwen knew very well.
Myra would very much have liked to see the rooms and the books. She felt
something akin to envy when she thought that Gwen and Fred would enjoy
tea and a pleasant hour of conversation in what was undoubtedly a very
pretty and tasteful apartment—while she would not be there. Because of
stubbornness, because of obstinacy, because of a silly shyness.
She had done many other things which had still less to do with
conventionality and propriety. She had done them from passion, from
caprice, from pity—or from stupidity. For the first time in her life she
was anxiously resisting an innocent dereliction from the conventional
such as this tea with a young unmarried man.
Suddenly all her defiance rose within her. Why should she deny herself a
pleasure because these well-born and highly conventional families could
thenceforth refuse to receive her in their expensively furnished and
meticulously clean houses? Let these families first so educate their
sons and daughters that they did not wantonly strive to disturb the
hard-won peace of a poor defenseless Myra Rudloff.
“I’ll go with you,” she said, gritting her teeth.
Gwen clasped her jubilantly in her arms.
* * * * *
A soft, but bright light streamed over a noble polished table. Gleaming
bronze. Deep luxurious carpets.
“Isn’t it beautiful here?” asked Gwen, and strutted about proudly,
showing this and extolling that as if it were all her property, or
rather her own handiwork.
She moved through the rooms with an assurance that gave no indication
that she was visiting them for the first time.
“And you must see the Corot!” Whereupon she rushed into the adjoining
room, and lit a concealed lamp that cast a flood of light on the
picture.
Myra followed her, an ironic smile on her lips.
“I thought I was supposed to go with you so that you could explore this
place!” she murmured. “But you really seem to be quite at home here.”
Gwen laughed, not in the least offended or embarrassed.
“Haven’t I ever told you that I was here before? Not alone, of course. I
came to tea then, too. Old Mrs. Wietinghoff was here and mamma. Wait,
some member of my family was with me. Fred, who was with me when I had
tea here before?”
A newspaper rustled in the next room.
“What did you say, dear?” came Fred’s voice.
“Idiot!” she said in a low voice.
Myra laughed too. It was very easy to see through the whole affair, and
take in at a glance the tangle that a word had uncovered. She told
herself that it was all right. But she did not feel any sincere
pleasure. Her feelings said to her, “Go, you are superfluous here,
perhaps even in the way. You are playing a part which has been forced
upon you, and which doesn’t suit you.” But she would have scolded
herself for being a silly prude if she had given in to this feeling and
gone.
Gwen put her arm around Myra and drew her toward the door.
“What does Fred mean?” she asked as she stood in the door. “I don’t
recall that we ever herded swine together.”
Fred laid down the paper with some embarrassment.
“Why the image, Miss Peters? I trust you will pardon me for glancing at
the paper a moment while you ladies were out of the room. Have I
absent-mindedly said something improper?”
Gwen sat on the arm of a leather chair and dangled her legs.
“Improper? Oh, no, it’s all right,” she said magnanimously. “You only
addressed me familiarly through an error. You are so accustomed to
having visitors whom you address familiarly, that it never even occurs
to you to do anything else. Moreover, I just observed in the next room
that you are an idiot!”
“Which clarifies matters perfectly.” Fred bowed slightly. “But my dear
Miss Rudloff,” he turned to Myra, “let us make the extraordinary and
highly improbable assumption that I did not make a mistake in identity,
but really blurted something out, as they say. It would simply be a
further proof of how much inferior men are to women in the arts of lying
and deception.
“A woman simply could not blurt out something and address someone
familiarly. She simply couldn’t carry damaging letters around in her
coat pocket for a week just because she forgot to take them out and
destroy them. She simply couldn’t be trapped under any circumstances.
“But a man is so simple, so transparent, so trusting, so innocent....”
His manner was intentionally sanctimonious.
“Ho! Ho! Ho! Ho!” Gwen interrupted. “Stop, my friend! The woman may be
more discreet, more distrustful, more anxious—but only because she has
more to fear. Once let a man get caught, let him be observed, or let him
blurt out something, or let his correspondence be found—what then? He
denies it! With a coolness, with a face as if—well, with cheek, in
short! I know hundreds of cases....”
“From your own experience?”
“No, thank God! It ‘simply couldn’t happen to me in any case.’ But let
me go on. You’re just afraid that I’ll say something to the point, and
that’s why you’re trying to get me off the track....”
“Why should I be afraid?”
“Because you’re vain like all men. In the first place, you don’t like
anybody but you to say something good, and in the second, you don’t like
to feel that somebody sees through and through you.”
“But _you_ haven’t let _me_ go on. I was going to say, why should I be
afraid that you would say something good, something to the point? The
fear would not be well founded.”
“Oh, Myra, he’s common. Don’t you think he’s simply frightfully common
to talk to me like that? But I’m going to say just what I wanted now,
straight out. I know hundreds of cases of men who deceive their wives.
And when the wife thinks she has finally got some irrefutable proof in
her hands, when she has jealously watched her husband for weeks, and has
finally seen him or found a letter—what happens then? Then the husband
explains that his wife is blind or stupid, she is mistaken, or it was
Miss Mayer with whom she saw him, or the letter is quite innocent, or it
is a practical joke on the part of a crony. He goes into a rage or he
laughs. In any event, he’s in the right....”
“I’m astonished!” Fred leaned far back in his easy-chair, crossed his
legs, joined his finger-tips and shook his head at her. “I am
astonished! Such fullness of wisdom in such a little curly head! You
must have had all the assembled washwomen, cooks and children’s maids of
all your acquaintances instruct you in their marital experiences.”
“Good heavens!” Gwen’s delicate nostrils twitched contemptuously. “As if
the upper ten were any different! To be sure, they call their hang-out a
Club. But they deceive their wives just the same.”
“Those less decent souls excepted,” said Fred in his measured way, “who
do not marry in order to escape that embarrassment. But may I add an
observation to your argument, young lady? Why is the husband believed
when he offers the most threadbare explanations, when he declares the
most striking proof of his infidelity to be innocent? Because women are
so anxious to believe! Why do the wives look for proofs? Because they
want divorces? Oh, no! Because they want their fears quieted. How is a
matter of no moment. There is no more ghastly bare brutality than to
tell a jealous woman to her face, ‘You are quite right, I love somebody
else!’ A fig for the man who could do such a thing!”
“But why are women so petty and so—so horribly silly?” asked Gwen, her
face blazing. “Why do they let themselves be deceived and rejoice when
they are deceived still further?”
Fred joined his finger-tips and reflected for a moment.
“Perhaps it can be explained in a single sentence,” he said with a
rather malicious smile. “Women always love most that which is closest to
them, and men that which is farthest from them. Or to put it more
clearly, a woman loves that man the most who has most often possessed
her—and a man loves that woman the most whom he will never possess.”
A shade of melancholy passed quickly over his face.
“Shall we look at some illustrations?” he asked, springing up. “Have you
any special preferences? Doré or Rackham, Cornelius of Bayros? They’re
all here. See, this is beautiful! Do you feel the same enjoyment in
handling buckskin? Or do you understand anyone’s taking a really insane
delight in it? Just feel this,” he handed Myra a flexible volume in red
leather. “Isn’t it splendid?”
“Yes, it’s just like velvet!” said Gwen crossly, swinging her dangling
legs faster.
“Velvet!” He shrugged his shoulders indignantly. “This low little person
is trying to provoke me! There are silly people who mean to flatter such
leather by saying it’s like velvet! As a result, I have a real aversion
to velvet. It always gives me a horrible dusty feeling under my
finger-tips.”
Myra opened the book. Her glance chanced on the graceful curlicues of an
illustrator whose peculiar style was unfamiliar to her.
“For God’s sake!” Fred laid both hands with fingers spread, on the pages
of the book. “You may feel the books, but you mustn’t look at the
pictures. They are not for young ladies. Afterwards, you’ll tell Auntie
that I’ve been showing you improper pictures. But I really have young
ladies’ books in my library and only keep this single volume because of
its beautiful binding.”
“Are they pictures that one shouldn’t look at?” asked Myra calmly. “I
know a great many such and they always fascinate me.”
“Of course, you may look at them.” Fred took his hands away and drew
himself up. “I was only jesting. Any sensible person may look at and
enjoy them. Look at them as much as you like. Moreover, the book is a
rarity. It has been suppressed. You probably know that the illustrator
has been banished?”
“No,” said Myra in surprise. “I didn’t know it! But why?” She eagerly
snatched at any subject of conversation that would permit her to take
her eyes from the book. She was rather afraid to turn over the page, and
even more afraid, if anything, of appearing prudish and cowardly if she
put it down without looking through it.
So she laid it open on her knees, glancing rather deliberately in the
other direction—for example at Fred’s assured and reassuring face.
“Why!” Fred shrugged his shoulders. “Probably a temperance union would
expel Kotanyi Janos, too. Not because he drinks, but because he
manufactures paprika and paprika helps along the thirst. Mankind is
divided into four classes. Two of these classes, the extremes, belong
together. The first class (sequence has nothing to do with rank or I
would begin elsewhere) are those who thirst but do not drink. They are
the happy ones. The second class comprises those who have thirst but
nothing to drink. They are the revolutionists. The third class—those who
have all they can drink but are not thirsty. The hypocrites and the
bourgeois. The fourth class—those who drink and who are thirsty. They
are the happiest of all.
“Then, of course, there are numerous smaller subdivisions. For example,
those who stand before a spring but cannot drink because they have no
glass. Or those who drink and suffer stomach-aches afterwards. Or those
who have a perfectly marvellous thirst, but eat something hot anyway, so
that the hock will taste all the better afterwards. Or those who sit in
a wine-cellar and go thirsty because there is no white Burgundy. And
there are people to whom champagne only tastes good mixed with Port, or
with Angostura, who like the sweetness only because there is a trace of
bitterness along with it. Or people who pour dark and pale wines
together, who mix heavy warm Bordeaux with thin-blooded bubbling
champagne in order to make it fizz. Ah, yes, there are tipplers of all
sorts, and each believes that his taste is the best. Here is Frederick
the Great with Menzel’s illustrations; that looks better in your
thoughtful hands. But first and foremost, there’s our tea inside,
gentle, mild, friendly, thought-provoking tea—it will stimulate us to
more profitable conversation. This way, ladies.”
* * * * *
One, two hours had passed. It was Gwen and not Myra who first glanced at
her watch and said that they must go.
Fred helped them on with their coats and kissed their hands in
gratitude. They had to promise to come soon again. Myra promised gladly.
The distinguished beauty of these rooms fascinated her. And Fred made a
good impression, like most people, when seen among his own things. She
looked forward with pleasure to the next chat they would have together.
All the fear that had originally restrained her, had disappeared.
But as she opened the heavy street door, she started and turned pale
with terror.
“For God’s sake, Gwen, stay back! Your uncle, Senator Borgessen is
passing! Suppose he sees us! What shall we tell him if he asks us where
we’re coming from?”
“From the dentist!” said Gwen with a laugh, pushing Myra out on to the
street. “People like Fred always live in houses where there are
dentists. But Borgessen! Why should I be afraid of Borgessen? He has at
least as much reason to be afraid of me as I of him! The whole town
knows that he has an affair with his cook. Moreover, he goes to the city
every three weeks and throws away his money gambling. He can’t do it so
well here. His money and Aunt Fanchette’s. Poor Aunt Fanchette! But she
smells of sweat from the arm-pits—brr! Haven’t you ever noticed it? Such
women deserve their fate!”
* * * * *
The air was full of early spring.
There had been terrible storms so that one could not sleep at night, but
sat up in bed with a beating heart and listened to the clatter of the
tiles on the roof, to the shaking of the windows, and the banging of
doors and thought with a shiver of the ships at sea.
Suddenly the storms had stopped for breath.
So abruptly, so without warning, that the silence was even more uncanny
than the commotion. The air was heavy, full of sunlight and sweetness,
and a strange fragrance as if it had been borne over fields of hyacinths
and had never known tar, fish or salt water.
The people on the street looked at each other as if to say, “Well, what
on earth do you think of the weather?” And wherever two acquaintances
met, on the street, in the street car or in a shop, they said, “Well,
what on earth do you think of the weather?” And all who heard it, made
an effort to conceal a smile on their wooden faces, for they had just
heard their innermost thoughts revealed.
Myra could not conceal her smile. But there was something so
ingratiating, so deluding, about this still, soft air, this caressing
sunlight, all this quite improbable and impossible spring, that she was
suffused with a warm happiness which sought some expression. And as she
could not sing, she smiled.
This was not occasioned by the spring alone. It was the feeling too that
she could endure the spring without suffering. She felt well, like
someone who moves his limbs for the first time after a long illness, and
thinks every breath is a heavenly grace.
“I’m well again,” she told herself over and over like the refrain of a
song. “I’m well again, well again!”