I was called down a little later and made the acquaintance of the daughter and the French girl. The former spoke German, the latter did not. As I myself did not understand French, my fellow-servant and I spoke English, and spoke it badly. I found out very soon that she was a most superficial girl who hated thoroughly the work we had to do together in the rooms and kitchen. Though she was only seventeen years old she had already flirted a good deal, and whenever we were at work beating the carpets, washing up the dishes, or cleaning the boots and clothes, she told me of the men who had crossed her way and been more or less fatal in her life. After having detailed also the latest of her conquests, a grocer or a chemist's apprentice, she urged me to tell her something about myself. But at that I shook my head decidedly and smiled. What could I have told her? That what made me sometimes so happy and sometimes so sad was a fairy-tale of such wonderful delicacy that she could never have understood it. And when, regardless of my smile and silence, she dived again into the waves of her adventures, I was all the more quiet and worked twice as quickly as she did.
So time passed away painfully, yet mingled with the blissful hope that he would come for me some day; unconscious, but not to be shaken, it lived within me, and innumerable times I pictured to myself how it would happen. The bell would ring a short, energetic ring, and he would stand in the kitchen all unexpected and all unannounced. Then I would take him upstairs to my room, show him happily—like a child shows his toys—the little forest below my window, the river and the green fields beyond it, until suddenly he would notice my black dress, my white apron, and the flowing bonnet-strings—badges of my position—would comprehend the endurance of my heart, my hands, and silently take me in his arms.
These dreams, however, were the most foolish dreams that I have ever dreamt.
By-and-by I learned to know thoroughly the ways of English home-life. Although my mistress was a widow, she gave all sorts of entertainments characteristic of English people, such as tea-parties, picnics, and so forth. It is true that these large and small gatherings doubled my work in every respect, but I tried to compensate myself by catching now and again an English word, in order to enlarge my knowledge of that language, which was poor indeed, since my mistress as well as her daughter generally spoke either French or German. Yet, with much zeal and diligence (I studied in English books deep into the night) I progressed very nicely.
My mistress always treated me most kindly, but I could not help smiling sometimes at the relations between her and her daughter. The fifteen-year-old girl tyrannized over her mother in a most incredible way. Unfortunately my mistress was convinced that her darling possessed everything that was needed to make a great artist, and did all in her power to develop the talents of that future genius. It is true that the girl sang, danced, painted, and wrote poetry, but I am doubtful as to the merit of her accomplishments. One day, when I was busily beating the carpets, my mistress rushed out of her room, and looking pale with nervousness she begged me to stop that noise because Miss Daisy was about to write a poem. I lifted the heavy carpet down at once, but thought of my own poems, which still proved to be a secret source of my scanty joys, and asked myself how many poems I could have written if absolute stillness was necessary for the writing of them.
They were composed while I was working, while I was running up and downstairs, and there was nobody who cared. Nobody? No. Now and again a letter told me that the one or the other of my poems was exceptionally beautiful.
When I had been at my post for some time, a great change happened. Miss Daisy fell ill with scarlet fever. As soon as the French girl knew about it she left the house.
"Do you want to leave too?" my mistress asked me.
"Certainly not," I replied.