CHAPTER I
She was Lilly Czepanek once more. The divorce suit had been quickly settled. There had been no attempt at defence, and after the colonel's evidence the judges decreed that Lilly had forfeited the right for ever to bear her husband's honourable name.
"There is nothing to rescue from this wreck," wrote Doktor Pieper, "except the jewels which I hope, acting on my advice about looking in at shop-windows, you have industriously accumulated. The pearls which your ex-husband--prompted, I may confess now, by me--put round your neck on the wedding day I will get permission for you to retain, and they alone will keep your head above water for many a long day."
In consequence of this letter, Lilly, who after her flight had found the pearls in one of her trunks among her gala dresses and rare lace, took them to a jeweller's to be carefully packed, and returned them then and there, addressed to Fräulein von Schwertfeger.
The less valuable ornaments she kept, feeling that they might justly be considered her personal property. She had disposed of a good many to start with, and what remained would scarcely keep her for another year. After that she would be destitute. But she did not think of the future. It was hidden from her behind the veil of tears that she had shed. Regret for what she had lost, acute consciousness of her grievous position, occupied her mind to the exclusion of almost everything else.
Oh, how she cried and cried--she understood now what crying meant. She learnt to gulp down her tears as one gulps down seawater; she sucked them back with her lower lip, she shook them off her cheeks as if they were raindrops; but always they gushed forth afresh. After the pain that caused them was deadened they still welled up, from habit. Whether she was asleep or awake, her tears came.
Trembling and stunned, without defending herself, without complaints or reproaches, she had driven away that grey, gusty December evening between the hour of vespers and nightfall. Away, it did not matter where, only away as quickly as possible.
She landed in Berlin, the harbour for all wastrels and wrecks. In that world where oblivion lays its hands in blessing on the heads of righteous and unrighteous alike; where eternal hopes illumine drab days of depression like firework sparks; where grief for the past is soon changed into an eager expectation of coming happiness; where the great god, Luck, holds sway as lord and master--in that world of the unknown and stranded, where only those who are old and poor together sink hopelessly, into that world crept Lilly on her hands and knees. She stayed in pensions for many a dreary month, frequented by guilty divorcées who congregate together in such places like apples rotting in heaps, by Chilian attachés and agents of mysterious businesses in Bucharest and Alexandria, who gave a tone to the roof they sojourned under. As inoffensively as she could she avoided the confidences of companions in tribulation, who wished to console her, and kept at bay the advances of olive-complexioned neighbours at table.
After a time she began to think of finding a situation. It would have to be something quite special--something between a lady-in-waiting and chaperon, which would not be at variance with her former high station and ladylike dignity.
This sort of position seemed remarkably scarce. The only result of all her efforts was to win the tender regard of a few old gentlemen who called on her at dusk and would not go till they were shown the door. So, utterly discouraged, she gave up calling at employment agencies and ringing at front doors, though she could not resign herself yet to joining the ranks of shopgirls and dressmakers' apprentices. The day was still far off when she would have to do that; indeed, she would never sink so low, because she was labelled all over "Generalin," and wherever she went and whatever she did everyone recognised her supreme gentility.
On this seething human ocean she tossed anchorless, without so much as a straw to cling to. Nothing but Walter's letter, which two months after her dismissal and his was forwarded to her by Fräulein von Schwertfeger. In it the poor fellow, whose own prospects were utterly blighted, made an unselfish suggestion of support for her future. It ran:
"Gracious Friend,
"I am broke. He shot me through the arm. A trifling misfortune when it happens to someone else, but, when it falls on yourself, a damning obstacle in the way of founding a career on the other side of the Atlantic as head-waiter.
"Nevertheless, I cannot be grateful enough to fate for having thrown in my path so touchingly virtuous and lamblike a guardian angel as my baronissima. You will readily understand, most dear and too-kind lady, that I now feel an obligation on my side to act as guardian angel to you. How is it to be done? There are difficulties in the way, certainly. Were I to commend you to the care of my former friends and equals, your future, I am afraid, would be settled too easily, 'For, still, leaves and virtues ever fall in hours of tenderness.'
"For this reason I prefer to descend a degree lower, to where citizens crawl on their stomachs before our coronets, even if they be tarnished and dented.
"In Alte Jakobstrasse in Berlin there dwells a highly respectable manufacturer of bronze wares, by name Richard Dehnicke. He was a comrade of the Reserve, and feels himself particularly indebted to me because I borrowed money from him on more than one occasion. I am writing to him by the same mail as this. Go boldly in among his lamps and vases. The former I trust will illumine your nights, and the latter ornament your path through life. He will not, I believe, demand the price from you which others of our compatriots customarily consider their due where pretty women are concerned.
"There must be some cranks in the world, I suppose.
"My address in future will be--
"W. v. P.
"Street-loafer and Fortune's aspirant,
"Chicago (first stockyard on the left).
"PS.--Tommy would send his love, only I took care to plant a bullet in his forehead before leaving."
Lilly took this last and only communication from her comrade very calmly. She heard afterwards through Fräulein von Schwertfeger that he had sailed for America with a maimed arm. As he could think of her without bitterness or reproach, so she would try to think of him. Their love deserved honourable burial, even if its raptures had been a sham, and its elevated sentiments dragged through the dirt in shame.
He would like to be her "guardian angel," the dear little man had written. Well, anyhow, his letter offered a certain guarantee of protection in time of trouble, and indicated where a helping hand would be held out to her. But the course he advised she had no thought of adopting. Never would she avail herself of that helping-hand. She was in deadly terror of desirous masculine eyes reading her face, of masculine lips pouring out persuasive and convincing arguments.
She would take her fate in her own hands and go her own way. Whither it would lead her of course was not clear. In truth, grief and anxiety had rendered her so irresolute, that it needed but a breath of wind to drift her in a direction that would have decided her future once for all. The breath of wind, however, did not blow on her.
Month after month went by. Fräulein von Schwertfeger gave up writing. Want of money caused her little hoard of jewels to dwindle rapidly. The pensions she boarded in became more and more modest. Instead of Chilian attaches and Greek merchants, bankrupt auctioneers and clerks out of employment offered to cheer her evenings by forcing their company upon her; and the ladies who paid her visits in soiled tea-gowns glanced covetously at the few bracelets, brooches, and rings which she still had left. Thus she decided to end this mode of living and find a new one.