Hermine was possessed by vague, youthful expectations of what life could so easily bring her, out of its whole long length, a life wherein someone would surely love her,—for want of another the thin young man she sometimes met on the stairs, who gave violin lessons to keep a passionate soul in a delicate body. Perhaps, sensitive, artistic, he would indeed be goaded on by that lurking, tricking spirit of the will-to-live to take Hermine, dull Hermine for wife, wrapping her for the brief moment necessary for the act in his own passion which would so perfectly conceal her essential poverty....
Suddenly Pauli stopped, the blood had gone from his face, leaving him very pale, but his eyes were full of a dark fire and in his bones was a grinding pain. He was in a mad hurry to be gone from that house of ghosts where he couldn't hold his being together.
"I'm rushed this afternoon, heaps of things to attend to," he cried as he lay down his batons and threw the scarlet cloth over the zimbalon. To his goodbye to Tante Ilde he added the reminder loudly, distinctly:
"It's understood, Tante Ilde, you're coming every Tuesday?" Then suddenly he was gone leaving the room dim and chill.
Anna went over to the window and stood by it, though she couldn't see into the street. Hermine almost immediately began to clear off the table.
But Tante Ilde sat quite still. She was thinking, "poor Anna, poor Anna." There was something very tender in her leave-taking, something that Anna gratefully, dumbly accepted without knowing what it was that was offered her, and then Tante Ilde slipped away to walk those several miles back to the Hoher Markt.
She had vaguely, diffidently hoped that she might go away when Pauli did, be carried along on his momentum. But he had gone so suddenly, there hadn't been time for any little arrangement or suggestion.
It was beginning to rain. The wind blew flat, cold drops against her face. She stood a moment looking at the trolleys clanging up and down the Mariahilfer Street. Why hadn't she walked in the morning?