But Otto Steiner wasn't thinking of any of these things as he greeted his aunt Ilde. He saluted her affectionately; some not very urgent realization that she "had had it hard" put an additional cordiality into his voice. He was further melted by the odor of those fresh noodles and hot butter just as she had been.
A sizzling sound, like sweetest music, coming from the kitchen, next fell on their ears. Liesel disappeared anxiously.
"What have you got today?" he cried through the door, "do I really smell noodles and butter? I'm just dying of hunger!"
A moment after, Liesel, divested of her pink apron, in the neatest one-piece dark blue dress, a red leather belt holding it snugly about her waist, appeared rosily bearing a smoking black and white checkered soup tureen. Little tendrils of dark hair lay softly, damply about her brow, her dimples were very deep, her eyes very bright. She was sure of that soup, cunningly made of left-over crusts of black bread, roasted crisply in the oven and then ground up with a bountiful seasoning of onions and various other more discreetly sustaining herbs. On that dark January day it put heart into them all. Their spoons clicked joyously. Then those shining noodles! Liesel had strewn over them the crispest little heaps of fried crumbs. A very, very small golden-brown veal cutlet was put closely, significantly by Otto's plate. Generally he and Liesel halved their small bits of meat, but today she set the example of taking none. It was plainly fitting that the wage-earner, the master should have it all and more especially in those days when nourishment was the first need, the last preoccupation. Above saving one's soul for eternity was that of saving one's body for a span.
When the pale wine was poured out Liesel said sweetly:
"We must drink to Tante Ilde's health!" and Otto cried promptly, "Prosit" looking at her affectionately through his pince-nez, across the brim of his glass.
She began to feel herself a new woman. Food, youth, love, happiness, the taste, the sight, the feeling of it all! Paradise in some way regained. She forgot that she was there as a poor old relative, who for decency's sake, had to have her breath kept yet awhile in her body by the efforts and sacrifices of those of her blood; no, she was again Tante Ilde of Baden who would soon say:
"Well, children, are you coming out to me for dinner on Sunday, and will you have an Apfelstrudel or an apricot tart?"
Then Otto began to tell about the hard case of his friend, Karl Schober, who though a war-cripple had been inexplicably dismissed that very day. There were four cripples in Otto's room, for that is where,—in the rooms of some Ministry, with a little "protection," they mostly and justly landed. After they had called it a shame, and unbelievable, and had given a shudder, (being dismissed in those times was like being condemned to death without the preliminary security of prison) insensibly they fell to talking of other days. Tante Ilde, who had forgotten nothing that had ever happened to any of the children, began to tell the most interesting things about Liesel when she was little. How she had fallen from the apple tree in the garden of the Baden house and broken her wrist, and how Tante Ilde had held her other hand when the doctor was setting the bone and that Liesel had been so brave and hadn't cried, at which Otto leaned over and gave his wife a pat on the arm. And the time she had taken Liesel to the races so conveniently near; Liesel remembered that well, that was the day she had first put her hair up and wore the lovely wine-colored dress with little pleated ruffles and had gone out with her aunt Ilde as Fräulein Bruckner instead of "die Liesel." They had put money on a certain Herr Hafner's four year-old and Liesel had actually won 20 Krones!
Otto listened with his somewhat full lips parted, entranced by these tales of his treasure's earliest youth, and all of a sudden they found they had eaten everything there was on the table and drunk every drop of wine, but they continued to sit for a while longer, pleasantly engaged in picking their teeth and sucking in their tongues. Liesel always did things well and kept the two little blue glass toothpick holders filled. They had been given by Mizzi, who went so far and no further in the matter of presents, even to some one she liked, on the occasion of Liesel's marriage. When shown to the various members of the family they had, one and all, wondered how Mizzi had had the face....