... Perhaps he never would, and then again the day might come when it wouldn't hurt Mimi so much. The children would never understand. And it would be as if Geza, heavy with premonition, had never charged that hill and said those last words,—as if he had never been at all. That was the way of life, but Pauli didn't like to think of it ... all that being no more ... as if you had never been; his bright, strong flesh rejected it.
He was, somewhat vaguely to his wife, in business that brought with it frequent mention of the Travel Bureau in the Kaerntnerring and entailed many absences. They had grown accustomed to his travels, and anyway the thoughts of his wife and daughter ran, with that of the rest of the population on what they were going to eat and how they were going to get it, rather than on the coming or going of any non-edible, even husband and father. So, though they were among the relatively well-to-do in the starving city, the two women talked almost entirely of what they had eaten or were going to eat and Hermine was to experience her greatest enthusiasms when scurrying home with a bit of fat or a can of jam.
The difficulty of getting to Anna's from the Hoher Markt was occupying Frau Stacher's thoughts as she lay awake in the early dawn, watching the day grow stronger, till she could see Haydn leading the young Mozart by the hand, and the gilt of the flat, white vase on the bracket underneath began to glisten faintly in the dull light coming in over the top of the curtains.
The trolley that she could take at the Opernring was itself far off and the fares had jumped up to prohibitive prices. Foreigners, workmen and Jews alone had the wherewithal. She decided finally as she proceeded, soundlessly as possible, to make the limited toilet the alcove permitted, that she would walk. The hot cup of ersatz coffee with the ersatz sugar and the thin slice of gritty bread seemed somehow quite sufficient. She had entirely lost that wild hunger of the night before, so curiously the result of the tasty meal at Liesel's. She made up her divan, put her things in order and carefully pulled back the curtains of the alcove. She had been made aware, the morning before, that Irma liked to have them drawn back early and tight, and certainly it did give a more spacious aspect to the living room, off which were the two little bed chambers, one occupied by Irma with her youngest boy and the other by Ferry and Gusl. Except for the fading photograph, on the chest of drawers, of the long dead Commercial Advisor in its wooden frame of carved Edelweiss, got when he and his bride had gone to Switzerland, his widow was completely wiped out of that living space. She felt no more at ease there than if she were suspended in mid-air, or pressed into some shadowy yet too-narrow dimension,—in a word horribly uncomfortable....
The boys had had their cocoa, their thick slices of bread so carefully measured and cut, and had gone off to school. Heinie would get a midday meal at a relief station near the seat of learning, which provided for one scholar out of each needy family each day. The three boys took turns, coming home for dinner on alternate days. There was a fierceness about Irma where food for the boys was in question. When they had licked their spoons and looked about at the empty plates on the table, with their eyes a trifle too big, and Ferry with those bright spots on each cheek, Irma's jaw would set and her brow darken. Not long before she had discovered however, a way of adding to their nourishment ... the "Friends" in the Singerstrasse ... you received a ticket there and then you went to the Franzensplatz to get the package. But as the endeavor of the various foreign relief societies was not to fully nourish any one family or quarter at the expense of other families and quarters, but to the best of their limited ability to keep as large a part as possible of the two and one half millions from actually dying of hunger, that relief in any one case was only palliative....
When Tante Ilde set out on that tramp to Anna's dressed again in her best things,—Pauli always noticed what women wore, even old women,—she left Irma planning the midday meal. Irma in an extraordinarily fortunate way had got hold of some chicken legs,—it would never happen again she was sure, being inclined to pessimism. She had scraped and washed them, and was going to cook them with the rice. Furthermore into the rice she was going to put a little of the evaporated milk that had come in the thrice blessed package from the Franzensplatz, it would be nearly equal to meat. Enough for three plates full, two large ones for Gusl and for little Heinie and a smaller one for herself. A box of zwieback had come in the package too, and a piece for each would be dipped into some of the milk. It was a good day and she warmly returned Tante Ilde's farewell and told her she hoped Anna would have something fit to eat. She had a feeling that she couldn't get rid of, that some day Tante Ilde would have a cold or something and wouldn't be able to get out. However sufficient unto the day, and that morning she was almost affectionate.
When Frau Stacher got down into the street a great puff of wind caught her and slapped her dress about her legs, but she disentangled herself and stepped, not unbriskly, into the Rotenthurm Street. The day was cold and overcast, but the rain had not yet begun to fall. She passed St. Stephen's, crossing herself as she did so and got into the Kaerntner Street. In spite of the chill dampness and the great slaps of wind doing full honor to the reputation of the windiest of cities, (the Windobona of the Romans, that name on which generations of windswept inhabitants have made their jokes and puns), she felt more at home than in the alcove. After all the pavement was free to everybody, just as much hers, when you came down to it, as anybody's. Quite unlike the alcove which in some pervasive, though not at all indefinite way, seemed not to be hers. She tried to comfort herself with the thought that she was paying for it, just as Irma decently tried to remember that fact. But Irma clearly wanted to be alone with her children. Irma's nerves, for all her seeming bodily health, were certainly in a bad way....
Passing down the Kaerntner Street Frau Stacher stood a moment looking in at Zwieback's windows, such warm stuffs in such bright colors were displayed, gay knitted Jerseys and scarves,—a purple one that would have lain consolingly against her pale thinness. There were silk stockings too, beribboned underwear and in another window incredible evening dresses. Who on earth wore evening dresses—now? She remembered how she had got her grey silk dress there for Kaethe's wedding. In the old days she had shopped just like anybody else, buying things she didn't need and would soon forget she had....
Then suddenly she found that her heart was beating thickly. She was passing Fanny's corner, timidly looking away from it, magnetically drawn to it; the pavement seemed somehow alive under her feet.... She longed yet feared to meet Fanny; Fanny wrapped to her sea-blue eyes in her scented furs, Fanny young and beautiful, Fanny who knew neither cold nor hunger, nor about being unwanted. Fanny's desirability, though it brought no images with it, sent the blood pounding up darkly to her face....