Carlotta was led to the farther of the two stretchers. The cloth was lifted from Valeria's face. Then shriek after shriek resounded through the bare chill room, echoing through the wide corridors, reaching the patients lying selfish and sad in their wards. Shriek after shriek. But the two quiet figures on the stretchers were not disturbed.
Valeria was buried in Nervi near Tom.
IX
When Nancy in New York received the news of her mother's death she wore black instead of brown, and wept, and wept, and wept, as children weep for their mothers. Then she wore brown again, and went on living for Anne-Marie, as mothers live for their children.
They had left Mrs. Schmidl's kindly, dingy roof, and moved a little further away from the niggers, into a small flat in 82nd Street. Mrs. Schmidl's niece, Minna, came and did the housework, and took Anne-Marie for walks. Anne-Marie loved Minna. Anne-Marie watched her with entranced gaze when she spoke to the tradesmen, and followed her from room to room when she swept and did the beds. Minna wore low-necked collars, and a little black velvet ribbon round her neck, and pink beads. She was beautiful in Anne-Marie's sight, and Anne-Marie imitated as much as possible her manner, her walk, and her language. Nancy could hear them talking together in the kitchen. Minna's voice: "What did you have for your tea? A butter-bread?" And Anne-Marie's piping treble: "Yes, two butter-breads mit sugar." Minna: "That's fine! To-morrow Tante Schmidl makes a cake, a good one. We eat it evenings." "A cake—a good one!" echoed Anne-Marie.
Nancy's soul crumbled with mortification. She had taken out her manuscript, and it lay before her on the table once more. Its broad pages were dear to her touch. They felt thick and solid. The tingling freshness of thought, the little thrill that always preceded the ripple and rush of inspiration, caught at her, and the ivory pen was in her hand.
"A cake—a good one," repeated in the next room Anne-Marie, who liked the substantial German sound of that phrase.
"Oh, my little girl! My little girl! How will she grow up?" And Nancy the mother took the ivory pen from Nancy the poet's hand, and Anne-Marie was called and kept, and taught, for the rest of the day.
During the months that followed, Nancy played a game with her little daughter which, to a certain extent, was successful.
"We will play that you are a little book of mine, that I have written. A pretty little book like Andersen's 'Märchen,' with the pictures in it. And in this book that I love——"