CHAPTER XI
During the year that followed, Lilly engaged in two small love adventures, which had no influence on her subsequent life.
While she was staying for a month's change of air in the Riesengebirge she came across a novelist whose name at that time was in everybody's mouth. He was parading his newly acquired fame at the Bohemian bathing resorts, and accepted cheerfully any good thing that came in his way. He forced his acquaintance on Lilly without much difficulty, and in a few days left her in search of fresh conquests.
Back in Berlin, she flirted with a handsome and elegant officer of the Hussars whom she had first met in an aristocratic restaurant. But on his sending her a little leather case from a jeweller's, she speedily threw him over.
Both these affairs gave her no pleasure to look back upon, and she tried to erase them from her memory.
At Christmas her little household was increased by a new member. She had often complained to Richard that her life was empty of interest. She would like something alive to pet and cherish and love, and so one day he brought her a little naked monkey, that even when he nestled close to her breast could not get warm, and in his wrath spat in her face scorn of her yearning caresses.
From time to time there was the excitement, too, of new marriage schemes.
How well she knew the signs! When Richard, with scowlling brows, absent-minded, and taciturn, made the tour of the rooms, when he began to philosophise over the rottenness of everything, when his mother wanted the carriage at unwonted hours, when little packets of concert and opera tickets fell out of his pocket-book, then she knew that something was going on out of the ordinary routine. And soon he would break silence and tell her what it was. One of them had three millions, influential relatives, mines, factories, trusts, house property, making up a dazzling perspective. Often figures were talked in Lilly's corner drawing-room to such an extent that it might have been the office of an outside stockbroker. Another eligible young woman was actually poor, but she was a general's daughter, and his mother thought no end of her.
"And I am a general's widow," said Lilly, in her wounded pride.
This church mouse he called his "distinguished lady-love." But it went no further. She and all the rest were soon heard no more of, because none of them turned out in the end to be good enough for him.
Lilly meditated and planned what she must be like.... She must have white, softly rounded statuesque arms like the tall Danish girl's at the artists' carnival, and a very delicate, scarcely perceptible bust--her own seemed to her now to be too prominent--and when she smiled she must show two dimples in her cheeks; for dimples denoted a peaceable disposition.
Yes, that was what he wanted more than anything--peace. She knew how he hated wrangling, and, as a matter of fact, they hardly ever did wrangle; but, if such a thing as a little quarrel did occur, he would be miserable for three days, speak in a woebegone, injured tone, and had to be coaxed back to good temper like a child. And Lilly enjoyed doing this, though she knew he did not deserve it. For there was no blinking the matter any longer; he had become a regular reprobate. It was not so much that he had lost enormous sums at his club, but he led the debauched existence of the fastest married man, and his amours were not of the purest.
One day a pretty young thing, with a baby eight weeks old in her arms, called on Lilly, screamed and cried and declared that she ought to be promoted to Lilly's place, as she had a child by him.
Lilly consoled her, gave her some wine to drink, and, full of envy of the baby, tickled it under its damp little chin till it gurgled with bliss; whereupon the girl departed, deeply touched, after kissing Lilly's hand gratefully.
Richard, however, came in for no unpleasant scene that afternoon, for Lilly was entirely free from jealousy. When he came to her, looking sheepish, and avoided meeting her eyes, while his person exhaled an odour of cheap perfume, she always gave him a smile of maternal indulgence, which he well understood and couldn't bear.
However determined he might be to keep silent, he invariably broke down at last, and in about half an hour had poured out shuffling confessions, for which he expected to be praised or comforted.
It was inevitable that Lilly, in an existence of this sort, in which were rampant all the evils of married life, without any of its rights and dignity, should become more and more self-centred, and look forward to the future with increasing sadness.
She passed her days as if seated on a bough which every gust of wind threatened to snap, and so plunge her into the depths below. Before her lay a straight, dull, endless road, stretching onwards without goal, without horizon--nothing but the same old pleasures, the same aimless wandering about from one haunt to another till morning dawned. Often she felt as tired out as if she had been doing hard manual labour. Sometimes she struck, and lay the whole day in bed reading Fliegende Blätter, or dreaming of old days with closed eyes.
The sunless hole of the widow Asmussen's library came back to her like a paradise, and the milk puddings in retrospect seemed veritable ambrosia. The memory of her early loves she scarcely dared conjure up, as if it were sacrilege to think of them in such a present. Yet she caught herself indulging in vague hopes that one or other of them might one day turn up out of the past, and, holding his hand out to her, say, "You have wandered long enough in the wilderness, now come home." Who it would be she hadn't a notion, but she felt it must happen. Things could not go on like this for ever.
Every now and then, when secret restlessness gave her no peace, she resumed her nocturnal strolls, and taking the electric tram to distant suburbs would wander guiltily up and down unfamiliar lively streets, just as Frau Jula did; only, unlike Frau Jula, she never could bring herself to answer her pursuers.
It was on one of these expeditions--in a northerly direction far away beyond the Rosental gate--that one May evening she met a young man who did not take any notice of her, who also did not look like a gentleman, but whose appearance struck her as familiar--so familiar that it gave her a stab at the heart.
Yet, though she racked her brains, she could not recall where she had seen him before.
With quick decision she began to follow him. He wore a brown hat, a pepper-and-salt suit with a yellowish tinge, which had known better days. His coat-collar was shiny, and his trousers were very baggy at the knees. They hung over his down-at-heel boots in fringes, as if someone had tried to mend them, and left black uneven ends of cotton.
No, this could not be one of her friends even in disguise. Her friends would never own to such trousers. He paused once or twice to look in at the shop-windows. First, he looked in at a cigar-shop, then at a butcher's; but he lingered longest before a hosier's, from which Lilly concluded that his shirts also were in need of renewal.
When he thus gave her a view of his profile, she saw in the reflection of the rows of lights a haggard, bony face, with prominent nose, and a tuft of reddish-brown hair on either side of his chin. He seemed to be dried up and needy, rather than actually ill. The lids of his small, narrow eyes were swollen and inflamed, and before coming within the radius of shop-window lights, he clapped a pair of dark-blue goggles on his nose to protect them.
He had a cane in his hand, which as he walked he pressed into a bow against the kerb, letting it rebound again. The silver knob of this cane, which matched ill with the shabbiness of his attire, somehow awoke recollections of a frosty morning, hot rolls, and church bells.
She gave an exclamation, for she remembered now. Fritz Redlich it was--Fritz Redlich! Yes, it was; it was!
There could be no further doubt. Her first love, her first lover ... her brave young champion in life's battle. Hers and St. Joseph's protégé!
Oh dear, yes, St. Joseph! And then the revolver! And the potato soup with sliced sausage! Oh!... and "The graves at Ottensen"!
"Herr Redlich! Herr Redlich!"
Trembling and laughing she stood behind him, holding out her two hands to the young man, who shrank back nervously.
He dropped his goggles and gazed blankly at the tall, elegantly dressed lady, from behind whose lace veil two star-like, tear-filled eyes gave him a blissful greeting. His red lids blinked suspiciously; then he raised his left hand with a clumsy gesture to his hat brim.
"But, Herr Redlich ... Don't you know me? I am Lilly--Lilly Czepanek. Don't you remember Lilly?"
Yes, now he remembered. "Of course," he said, "why shouldn't I remember you?"
At the same moment he pulled down his waistcoat with a stealthy jerk, as if to rectify as best he could the shortcomings of his personal appearance.
"Oh, Herr Redlich, what a long time it is since we've met! It must, I think, be six or eight years. No, it can't be as long; and yet to me it seems longer. Things have gone well with you, I hope? I expect you are terribly busy, otherwise we might spend a little time together."
He certainly was busy, but, in spite of that, if she liked, he could spare her a quarter of an hour.
"Shall we go into a restaurant," she suggested, still half-crying and half-laughing, "and have a glass of beer? I can hardly believe it, Herr Redlich, that we've really met again."
He had decided objections to the glass of beer.
"Restaurants are so stuffy and crowded," he said, "and the beer about here is so bad--not fit to drink."
"Poor fellow! He's too poor to pay for it," she thought; and she suggested that they should sit down on a seat somewhere instead.
He didn't mind doing that so long as ... He glanced shyly to the right and left to see if anyone had remarked what a badly matched couple they were.
They walked side by side along the more secluded Weinsberg path. Lilly kept looking at him with pride and emotion, as if she had created him out of space.
"Dear, dear Herr Redlich," she reiterated, "is it possible?--is it possible?"
Then they found a bench outside a church, in a dusky spot, overhung with lilac branches. A pair of lovers had just vacated it.
"Now tell me everything, Herr Redlich. Oh dear, what a lot we have to tell each other!"
"There is a good deal," he replied, hesitating; "perhaps the gracious baroness will begin?"
"Pooh! I am not a 'gracious baroness' now, and haven't been for a long time."
"Ah! so I think I have heard," he replied, and his tone implied blame and a sense of outrage.
"And I don't in the least regret it," she added quickly, "for, taking things altogether, I live a much freer and happier life than I did before. I have no cares, and my little home is delightful. I am in the happiest circumstances and ought to be thankful. I should be so very pleased if you would come and convince yourself that it is so.... You would always find me at home in the middle of the day.... Perhaps you will dine with me some time?"
"Oh!" he said, apparently agreeably surprised.
She gave a sigh of relief at having steered clear of the rocks of her autobiography. He made no further inquiries. But he seemed equally unwilling to give information about himself, either with regard to his present or his past circumstances.
"Life has its shady side," he said, "and when one finds one's self among the shadows, it's a question whether it's advisable to speak about it."
"But I am such an old friend!" cried Lilly. "You can confide in me. Fancy that we are sitting on the old terrace in the Junkerstrasse.... Don't you remember ... that time we first spoke to each other? It was just such a May evening as this."
"It was warmer," he replied, turning up the collar of his jacket as far as his ears.
"You are cold?" she asked, laughing, for she was aglow from head to foot.
"I haven't"--he paused--"my summer overcoat with me to-night."
"Oh, then we had better get up," she said, becoming thoughtful; "we can talk just as well walking about."
And so they paced up and down in the shadow of the old church; but the interchange of personal confidences flagged. He evaded questions and she evaded them, and they put each other off with generalities. She extolled her happy lot; he sighed over his: "It's hard--very hard!" just as he had done at the time of his examination; she could hear him as plainly as if it were yesterday.
"How are your people?" she asked, to change the subject:
His father had died after a short illness two years ago, his mother still made cravats.
As he told her this, he settled the invisible tie under his upturned collar. No doubt he was wearing a gay token of maternal skill and maternal generosity.
Then, when she had expressed her condolences, she inquired with a slightly beating heart how Frau Asmussen was, and her daughters.
He made a sound with his lips as he answered: "They are very undesirable neighbours. The elder of the two girls has married a cashier, who is likely to lose his berth owing to irregularities. The younger has charge of the library, and the mother now drinks like a fish."
He related this in the same outraged tone in which he had previously alluded to Lilly's divorce.
"He is evidently still very proper," Lilly thought, with a sense of her own unworthiness and impropriety.
He was unhappy, nevertheless. She was sure of that.
And poor, very, very poor! Poorer than she had ever been in all her life. Who could say if he were not suffering the pangs of hunger now as he walked along beside her, shivering in his threadbare, shabby coat?
"Well, Herr Redlich," she said, "if your engagements will allow you, why not come to-morrow and dine with me?"
His engagements interfered most emphatically with his getting off in the middle of the day to change his clothes ... but if she wouldn't mind his coming as he was ...
"You may come just as you like," she cried with a laugh. "And you shall have your mother's potato soup."
So saying, she squeezed both his hands and jumped into a tramcar.
Oh, what a joy this was! What a joy! Now she had found what she had been looking for so long. Someone for whom she could care, someone to pet and spoil. Someone to whom she would be more than a toy and a plaything; who would regard her as his sunshine and bread of life, and his gentle guide to hope and happiness.
Someone who would be hers alone--hers alone!
He hid risen from the grave of her youth, even as she had imagined in her dreams. And now life was going to be different; full of riches, full of secrets. Little, funny, but perfectly innocent secrets!
That night she slept little. Her new-found happiness kept her awake like children's Christmas anticipations. Her present servant, a buxom country girl, who had soon got accustomed to town ways, stared in astonishment the next morning when Lilly, whom she had hitherto regarded as lazy, rose early and prepared to go out marketing.
"I am expecting a friend," explained Lilly, smiling.
She wanted to buy everything herself--the meat, the radishes; above all, the sausages that once had been the glory of his mother's potato soup.
She also superintended the cooking. She laid the table, moved the palm from the aquarium so that there should be something green on the table, for in her excitement she had forgotten to buy flowers. This was her very first guest at dinner for more than two years; and such a dear guest, perhaps the dearest she could possibly have entertained.
At half-past twelve the servant came in, turning up her nose in contempt, to say that a young man wanted to speak to her mistress.
"That is my guest!" cried Lilly.
"I shouldn't have thought it," said the girl, with a haughty inflection in her voice, as Lilly rushed past her to welcome him.
At first he seemed too shy to enter the light. He hung about the doorpost and tugged at his suit, which indeed looked dreadfully shabby and frayed, more so than last night.
His inflamed eyes, like two red slits blinking behind his round glasses, gave him an air of groping helplessness. The lofty intellectual forehead had acquired an ugly receding look, because the forelock of genius no longer fell over it. His once magnificent mass of fair hair had become a matted thatch of tow, and looked as if a comb hadn't touched it for many a long day.
He appeared disinclined for conversation. He devoured the potato soup with tremulous appreciation, leaving the slices of sausage to the last. When his soup-plate was dry, he stuck his fork into one bit after the other, and conveyed it to his mouth with uneasy glances to the right and left, as if he suspected someone were waiting in ambush to deprive him of his pleasure.
The roast meat filled him with less awe, and he heaped his plate high, regardless of the waiting-maid's sneers. Moreover, he drank Richard's good claret in long, unconscionable draughts, and with flushed, mottled cheeks began to laugh and find his tongue.
Lilly, who had been rather depressed at first, watched him thaw with relief, and thought perhaps, after all, he might be made presentable. And then the idea occurred to her that here really was a case of working out a man's salvation, very different from her delusions about saving a Walter von Prell. And this reflection filled her with renewed blissful assurance.
After the meal, they retired to the corner drawing-room. And here, under the influence of the unaccustomed wine, he became a prey to frivolity, seated himself in the rocking-chair, and tickled the snarling monkey.
He presented a ghastly spectacle as he lounged back in the chair with his legs nonchalantly stretched out before him. The frayed ends of his trousers were tucked into the tops of his boots, exposing to view ragged loops; and as Lilly contemplated him, she said to herself, "This must be altered," and she began to cudgel her brains as to how a transformation was to be achieved.
As for him, the barriers of reserve being once broken down he began to disclose his innermost soul and to air his views on life.
Oh! what feelings of gall and bitterness came to light! He had been so soured by the long struggle with privations and hardships, and eternal envy of others happier and brighter and more favoured by fortune than himself, that he could see no merit in anything, and attacked all talents, attainments, and prosperity--called everyone humbugs and hypocrites, said that getting on was entirely a matter of birth, interest, and push, and anathematised success as a hollow fraud.
At the same time he had very little to say about his own personal experiences. She could not find out whether he was still a student; he would only confess that his deepest feelings had been hurt irreparably in the grim fight for existence. And while he talked and laughed stridently, two semicircular dents appeared in his lean cheeks, giving his face a hard, sarcastic expression. Lilly had a dim remembrance that of old these marks had been visible on his youthful countenance, though less accentuated.
"Oh, poor, poor fellow!" she thought compassionately, and resolved on the instant to make a man of him again, inwardly and outwardly. But when he was gone she felt very sad and depressed. "Am I much better off?" she asked herself. "What has become of the joyous confidence in life that I once had? Where is my joy of life, where my Song of Songs?"
That afternoon, before Richard came, she evolved a scheme by which she could bestow a new wardrobe on Fritz Redlich, without drawing on Richard's purse or offending Fritz Redlich.
"What do you think?" she said to him after tea. "Since yesterday two rather extraordinary things have happened--one a very nice thing, and the other a very sad thing. First, I have met an old friend of mine, who before he went to the university lived on the same floor as I did. And then this morning a poor student called and begged for something to eat. He looked so miserable! Have you, in case he calls again, any clothes to give away? Suits and boots--he wants everything."
"I'll give you some with pleasure," said Richard. "I don't know what to do with all my left-off stuff." But the other, the "old friend," made him thoughtful. "What sort of a chap is he?" he asked.
In her effort to keep distinct the two mythical beings that she had made out of one living reality, she began to sing the old friend's praises with far too much exaggeration to be judicious. He was an extremely clever and quite distinguished young professor, who had completed his university course and was just entering on a brilliant career, a paragon of knowledge and intellect, and goodness knew what else.
"What was his special subject?"
She really didn't know, only that it was something very profound and erudite. Nothing but an academic career was worthy of his talents.
She found herself immersed in such a whirlpool of lies that at last she did not know what she was saying.
Richard, acutely conscious of his intellectual limitations, cherished an unbounded reverence for anyone with brains; he grew very red, looked uneasy and vexed.
"I suppose he'll be coming to see you?" he asked.
"Of course," she replied, highly satisfied with her finesse.
"Congratulations on your soul's affinity," he said with a mocking bow, "so long as I am not expected to meet him."
Nothing could have turned out better. The next morning a factory porter brought her a huge bundle from Herr Dehnicke. It contained a nearly new summer tweed suit in the latest fashion, several coloured cambric shirts, a pair of boots, and blue silky-looking undergarments.
He seemed to have wanted to exhibit his charity in a very magnificent manner; for, as a rule, generosity to the poor was not in his line.
The next thing to be thought of was how to hand the clothes over to Fritz Redlich without giving offence.
Three days later, when he came again, she made an excuse after dinner for showing him over the flat. He must see how well it was arranged. When they came to the lumber-room she opened the door quite casually, and there, in the company of discarded blouses, broken vases, faded flowers, and other rubbish, the tweed suit hung ostentatiously.
"When I left the general's house I brought it and some other men's clothes here by mistake," she explained. "That's why it hangs there getting spoilt."
His small, weak eyes lighted greedily.
Did he perhaps know of someone to whom such things would be useful?
He answered snappily that he did not, but he could not resist casting a downward glance at his own trousers.
Wasn't there anyone to whom he would be doing a favour by offering the clothes?
There was no one that he knew of, he repeated.
In spite of her anxiety not to hurt his feelings, she plucked up courage and remarked that there was, if she were not mistaken, an extraordinary similarity between his figure and the quondam wearer's of the suit. The general might have been a trifle stouter, but any little tailor would alter ...
Then he became seriously angry. He was not the man to accept benefits from any charitably disposed person he met. Did she think he had sunk so low as that? He had principles, and to wear cast-off raiment belonging to people he knew nothing about was a proceeding his principles would never tolerate.
Lilly, with a sigh, reluctantly relinquished her idea.
He seemed unable to tear himself away. He sat on and on and at last she was obliged to give him a hint, for at any moment now Richard might be coming in.
At the top of the stairs he turned round again, and asked, stuttering, would it be as convenient if next time he came in the evening?
"Can you no longer manage to get off at midday?" she asked, taken aback. On Richard's account she never received strangers late in the afternoon.
"It wasn't that," he began to explain, lingering and hesitating, so that she listened in a fever for footsteps on the stairs.
"Well, what then?"
"I should like to think over the matter you mentioned just now, and ... and ..."
"Well, and what?"
"And perhaps when it's dark I might ... carry the parcel away with me." And he rushed down the steps.
"So he had to swallow his pride, poor fellow!" she thought, as she looked after him full of pity.
The same evening she made a parcel of the things and sent them to him by post, with a sovereign and a thousand apologies. She wanted him to have a new hat, she said, and no trouble with regard to alterations.
A few days later, when he put in an appearance again at dinner, one would hardly have known him, he looked so smart and brushed-up. The suit fitted as if made for him, and though the dandy boots were too long, he had prevented them turning up at the toe by padding them with cotton wool. Even the scornful servant scanned him with a more friendly eye.
It was a pity he hadn't parted with his shock of hair and got his beard shaved off. You could almost have been seen in the street with him if he had. His cheeks had filled out wonderfully. His eyes, too, were better; thanks to the doctor to whom she had sent him almost by force. Gradually, too, his manners became less rough. He gave up bolting his food and putting his fingers into his mouth, and he acquired the art of drinking claret without flushing. And not only in externals, but mentally he began to reflect some of the tranquil well-being of his hospitable surroundings. His abuse became more discriminating, and he could even forgive people the unpardonable crime of being happy.
He displayed charming tact in refraining from inquiries as to Lilly's position. And she knew how to thank him for it. Though she avoided cross-examining him about his own affairs, she was able to piece together a picture of his scholastic failure from the remarks and self-upbraidings that he let fall.
After two years of distressing poverty he had abandoned the teaching profession and his cherished convictions to take up theology for the sake of a stipend offered to him in his native town.
"Only think of that!" Lilly said to herself, deeply moved. She recalled the sunny early morning when the sound of the church bells had greeted them from the green valley.
Even this supreme act of renunciation seemed to have brought him no lasting blessing, for he had been obliged for more than a year to earn his bread by addressing envelopes and doing other mysterious odd jobs, about which he was not communicative.
"All the same," he said, "I have kept up my dignity in spite of everything. And however poor and despised I am, I have not lost my self-respect. No, I have not lost it."
As he said this he paced up and down the room gloomily, with fire flashing from his small eyes. And when he expanded his chest and threw back his shoulders and ran his fingers through his tousled mane, he resembled once more the youthful hero who had once fired Lilly's enthusiasm and filled her imagination with ambitious dreams.
In order to complete her good work and restore to him his lost happiness she insisted on knowing what ideal he had at heart, what path in life he would choose.
What he wanted, he said, was to leave Berlin. He would like again to feel a free man who had his apportioned duty and knew how to do it, and to breathe fresher, purer air.
"Ah! all of us would like something of the kind," thought Lilly, with a sigh.
A post as private tutor would satisfy him, somewhere in the country. He would prefer a parsonage, for then a library would be at his disposal.
"And where the lime-trees will flower," thought Lilly, "the corn wave in the breeze, and the cattle will be called to drink."
She almost wept with envy at the thought.
From this day forward she left no stone unturned to gratify the heart's desire of the old friend of her youth. She gave him money to advertise in the most likely papers, wrote with her own hand testimonials and letters of introduction, and asked the comrades of her "set" to interest themselves in him.
She had to go about it all very secretly, for fear Richard should suspect what she was doing. For even as it was, she had to put up with a good deal at this time. He complained that she did not show him sufficient consideration, that she was cold and unloving, and that he could detect a hostile influence in everything she said.
"I suppose your talented friend thinks so. You had better ask the learned genius."
These little sarcastic speeches were reiterated ad nauseam. And one day the bomb burst. In defiance of his promise that when she had visitors he would always be announced, he suddenly burst in on Lilly and the friend of her youth while they were dining together. He had not rung, had hardly knocked, and his face was as black as thunder. Growing pale, she sprang to her feet, and Fritz Redlich, as if caught in a guilty act, followed her example. He looked sheepish, and the end of his napkin dropped into the soup.
For a moment silence reigned, only broken by a malicious giggle from the servant standing in the doorway.
"I ask your pardon, dear madam," said Richard, keeping up his threatening air and demeanour. "I was only anxious to know how you were."
"Herr Richard Dehnicke, a kind acquaintance; Herr Redlich, my old friend," she introduced them.
Then he looked at his much-dreaded rival more closely. In surprise and disapproval he regarded his unkempt hair and beard, but as his glance sank lower his face cleared, and a baffled though distinctly pleased ray of recognition illumined his features. Was not that his suit and his shirt?
Still further did his glance descend, past the napkin lying in the soup-plate, down to the trousers. And were not those his trousers and those his cast-off boots, which the brilliant young genius was wearing on his feet?
"Oh!" he said expressively, and nothing more. Then, with a sinister curl of the lip, he turned to Lilly. "Can I speak a few words to madame alone?" he asked.
"If Herr Redlich will excuse me," she said; and in her confusion and from old habit, she opened the door of the bedroom, as if that were quite the correct place in which to speak a few words with an ordinary "kind" acquaintance.
Richard, equally accustomed to this way, followed her, heedless of the intimacy he exposed by so doing.
"Look here," he said, when he had shut the door, "I've been fool enough to be jealous of your so-called soul's affinity. But after what I've seen just now, I swear you may entertain your friends as much as you like--morning, noon, and night for all I care. And I'll keep a stock of old suits on hand for them. Now, go back to your dinner, you little donkey!"
Then he went out by the other door. She heard him laughing to himself after he had gone.
She was so deeply ashamed that she scarcely knew how to return to the friend of her youth, he who was so strict in his morals that at the bare mention of her divorce he had displayed pained disgust.
Then it dawned on her that she was standing in her bedroom. Now everything had been shown up--everything! However little acquainted he might be with the ways of the world, he could not help perceiving her relations with the intruder who had so suddenly appeared in her flat and disappeared with equal suddenness.
For a long time she hesitated what to do, with her hand on the handle of the door. She listened in fear for his departing step, the angry rasping of his throat--even his silence filled her with alarm. Then, trembling and ready to confess everything in tears of penitence, she ventured back to the dining-room.
What did she see? Only the gentleman still seated at the table, rubbing out the stains made by the wet napkin on his waistcoat. The blue goggles lay beside his plate, and he blinked at her with friendly and unconcerned eyes.
"Is he gone already?" he asked ingenuously. Evidently he had not even heard the door slam.
When the hot joint came in he set to work with undiminished appetite, and made no further reference to the interlude. In truth, it seemed that his mind was so pure that he could not see impurity when it was almost thrust upon his vision.
She was very grateful to him, and, to show her gratitude, she determined to let him come in the evening if he liked, as Richard had said he might come at any time. He should come without invitation, she said, and if she chanced to be out, the servant would get him supper, and see that he had all he wanted. Then, recollecting the grimaces she had made on his first appearance, she instructed her to be specially attentive to the guest, and to make him feel perfectly at home.
The buxom country girl drew down the corners of her mouth and said nothing.
After these events, Lilly redoubled her efforts on behalf of Fritz Redlich. And once more Frau Jula proved a helpful friend.
"Leave it to me," she said one day. "I used to know up there"--she hesitated a little--"someone who has great influence and is considered a God Almighty in more than one parsonage. I might write to him, but, of course, my name mustn't be mentioned. It still acts there like a red rag to a bull."
The next day Lilly sent her an advertisement that Fritz Redlich had inserted in one of the papers. She was to forward it to the influential magnate. The answer would be direct, and the intervention of a third person not required. She, too, was of opinion that it would be better it he believed that he owed his future employment to his own unaided exertions.
As luck would have it, Frau Jula's plan succeeded. One evening in the following week he called at Lilly's unexpectedly--a frequent event now, whether she was at home or not--and told her with evident satisfaction that his advertisement had brought forth immediate results. He had been asked to send his testimonials at once to a clergyman in Further Pomerania, and to hold himself in readiness to leave Berlin. The clergyman seemed quite eager about engaging him.
Lilly's heart swelled with joyous pride. She wouldn't have betrayed on any account that she had had a finger in the pie. Nevertheless, she flattered herself that it was all her doing. She had made him, and she felt he belonged to her more than anyone else in the world.
The meal progressed in calm and beatific silence. As he had not let her know that he was coming, the first course did not consist of potato soup.
She apologised for the omission, and added, with a little pang at her heart, "I suppose we shall not have many more meals together?"
"Probably not," he said; and cast a glance at the servant, whose presence obviously embarrassed him. Otherwise she felt sure that he would have expressed his feelings more graciously.
Afterwards they withdrew to the corner drawing-room. The hot July air came in through the open windows, but the little naked monkey, whose cage was placed near the aquarium, was perished with cold, and now shivered so violently that he had to be wrapped up in his coat, an attention to which he submitted with snarls. The bullfinch piped its evening song and it grew dusk.
Fritz Redlich sat as usual in the rocking-chair, his favourite seat after he had partaken of a good meal. She walked excitedly up and down the room.
"I shall soon be lonely again," she thought, "and start knocking about all alone, as before."
Yet what a piece of luck it was for him! What a piece of luck! She told him so repeatedly.
"Yes," he said, "it certainly is very fortunate that I have fought my way as I have done"; he emphasised the last few words and went on, "When I think what awful years those have been, how often I have been compelled to belie my character, how often my principles have been endangered ... And not only that," he added after a depressed pause, "there have been the many doubtful circumstances in which I have been thrown, and the enforced connection with impurity, not to be wondered at when one takes into consideration how easily a man becomes infected by the society he is in, and finds himself doing things that he would rather leave alone. It's hard--very hard, Frau Czepanek."
"Oh, please don't Frau Czepanek me!" she exclaimed. "Can't you call me 'Frau Lilly,' or simply 'Lilly'? We are old friends, you know."
"Willingly, if you wish," he replied.
To-day she felt a tenderness for him such as she had not experienced since the days of her early youth. It was, too, a motherly, a sisterly tenderness, and something else besides--something like a shimmer of light drawing nearer and nearer from the distance.
"Tell me, Herr Fritz," she demanded, pausing in front of him, "tell me honestly, have you ever loved in all your life?"
He jumped as if he had been struck,
"Loved? What do you mean?"
"Well, what should I mean?" she laughed, drumming with her fingers on the back of the rocking-chair. "What should I mean?"
He seemed to breathe more freely. "For love, properly speaking, I have neither the time nor the inclination," he said.
"And no woman has ever loved you?"
"Do I look," he asked, shrugging his shoulders, "as if anyone could love me?"
His utter despondency irritated her. But she turned it off with a playful "Now, now!" and shook her finger at him.
Again he looked alarmed, as if the mere suggestion of such a possibility filled him with anxiety.
The poor fellow! Never had a girl's eyes glowingly sought his; never had a woman's arms encircled his neck in rapture. The highest pleasure--the only thing that both for man and woman makes life worth living--he had been denied.
A confession burned on her lips, a confession dating from far-off, half-forgotten times, which would have told him how mistaken he was. But she choked it back. Not to-day; perhaps later, when it came to saying farewell.
It grew dark, and the light reflected from the street-lamps played on wall and ceiling. The monkey had curled himself up in a ball under his coat, and the little bullfinch had gone to roost.
Lilly still continued her pacing up and down, lightly brushing his elbow each time she passed the rocking-chair.
At last she paused again in front of him. There he sat, he whom she had once adored so passionately, and he was quite ignorant of it. Quite ignorant of all the miracles woman's love can work. The poor, poor unfortunate creature!
"You really ought to get your hair cut," she said with a nervous laugh, "and then perhaps you'll have a better chance with the women."
Slowly she lifted her left hand, which felt as if a weight was hanging to it, and laid it on his rough wavy hair. It rebounded from her gentle touch like an air-cushion.
He started, stopped rocking himself in the chair, looked round uneasily, and gave a cough.
"Yes, yes," he said after a silence, "that's sensible advice. If I want to make a favourable impression when I enter on my new vocation, I ought----"
Just then he turned his head sharply towards the window, and her hand glided down of its own accord on to his neck. She choked back a sigh, and he stood up and hurriedly took his leave. She was so embarrassed that she did not press him to stay longer.
The servant was standing outside in the passage, with the lamp in her hand to light him downstairs.
"The day after to-morrow I shall expect you," Lilly called after him from the window.
He sent up a "Thank you and good-night" in reply, and disappeared in the darkness. The poor, poor boy! Plunged in bitterness and depression he went his way, little dreaming what paradises might have been his for the asking.
For the remainder of the evening she was distraught and anxious. "It would have been better not to have put my hand on his head," she thought. Yet, all the same, she was glad that she had.
The next afternoon a postcard came from Frau Jula. She had good news from "high quarters." The negotiations were concluded. Her protégé was to start without delay, and even his travelling expenses had been provided. Lilly cried with joy.
Thus was her good work completed. The friend of her youth was saved, and his zest for life restored. Now it only remained to teach him how to laugh and enter into his inheritance of proud courageous freedom, all that belonged to him by rights, which she herself could now never hope to attain.
Fate might do with her as it pleased, so long as he made upward progress. He had become an essential part of her existence. She had made him her own by her efforts and prayers, her lies, and her toil, and when he came to-morrow evening, as arranged, she would tell him all--all about that first love ... and everything.
And once more--in farewell--she would lay her hand on his shock of hair, and then let come what might.
The next evening she dressed herself more carefully than had been her wont when she spent the evening with him. She made the potato soup with her own hands and cut the beefsteak--he ate much smaller portions than he used to --so that the servant had nothing to do but put it in the pan.
The clock struck eight, but he had not come. He was busy packing, she thought, to console herself. It struck nine, and still he had not come; then it struck ten, and there was no further hope, unless the door was locked up and he was clapping his hands to be let in, as Richard did sometimes. She leaned out at the open window till it struck eleven. Then, tired out and very sad, she went to bed.
The next morning she received the following letter:
"Honoured and Gracious Madame,
"Having succeeded by my own unaided efforts in procuring a decent position, I consider it my duty to break off all connection with my former life. As I think I have told you more than once; I was often forced by circumstances into situations repugnant to my high principles, and that, in spite of my resolute character, I was led into temptations which, I frankly confess, I have not invariably emerged from unscathed.
"I am perfectly aware that I am under obligations to you, dear madame, and I herewith tender you my heartfelt thanks, for it shall never be said of me that I am wanting in gratitude. I have kept an account of the cash which circumstances have from time to time compelled me to borrow from you, and, as soon as my salary permits, I shall refund every farthing, and also send back the suit, which I am wearing at present. I may say here, that if you had really respected me you would never have subjected me to the humiliating encounter with the gentleman to whom these articles of clothing once obviously belonged.
"In conclusion, I hope I may be allowed to give you the following exhortation. Mend your ways, dear madame, and change your mode of life, which is an outrage on all the laws of morality. I believe that in giving utterance to this sentiment I am acting the part of a friend more than if I were to leave you under the delusion that I am a simpleton.
"Yours always gratefully,
"Fritz Redlich,
Cand. Phil et Theol."
Lilly felt this experience deeply, and suffered for a long time acute anguish.
Not till several months had elapsed was the humorous side of the incident brought to her notice by the servant coming to give her warning. The visits of the student of philosophy and of strict morals on the evenings when Lilly was absent had not been, it appeared, without their consequences.