Fanny went over and knelt by her aunt who had always loved her—who loved her now—and put her shining head against that thin breast and wept. Fanny hadn't wept, except in rage, for a long time, and there were many tears to fall.
"I can't bear it, I can't bear it," she whispered, but she didn't say what she couldn't bear and Tante Ilde didn't ask her, only pressed that gleaming head more closely to her. And Fanny should have noticed how strangely her aunt was breathing when she had her head there against her breast. But suddenly she got up and said something about her nerves being "total kaput" and went into her bedroom and closed the door.
Maria crept in from the kitchen.
"It's the Count," she whispered, "I'm afraid we're going to lose him. Fanny adores the ground he walks on. A fine gentleman, a Cavalier," (Maria pronounced it "cawlier" in her soft, thick Viennese) "but not a kreutzer to bless himself with and a South American girl whose Papa has more head of cattle than in all Europe, is crazy about him and wants to marry him. Whatever we'll do, I don't know. She's that jumpy when the bell rings, she's afraid it's bad news coming in at the door. His family is ruined by the Peace and his father commanding and his mother praying him to save them, and four unmarried sisters too. A bad mess we're in and what will be the end? I went to the fortune-teller a week ago,—a wonder,—and she saw cattle, cattle everywhere and told me I was to beware of them, but how can I beware of stupid cattle stamping about in South America?" asked Maria helplessly, resentfully. "I knew all the time what she meant—and saying, too, that she saw a letter coming. Oh, I've been that worried! Naturally I haven't told Fanny, but I've been waiting for that letter ever since. You don't know Fanny," Maria's eyes filled with tears, "one day she says she will kill herself and another that she's going into a convent," she whispered dismally, after a cautious look at the closed door; "and if Fanny ever gets started that way, she'll make Maria Magdalena look about like this," and she proceeded to measure a negligible quantity of the surrounding atmosphere between her thumb and forefinger. There was, however, pride in her voice.
Frau Stacher was listening vaguely. For all her deep interest in Fanny, she was finding it difficult to focus her thoughts. Things were getting blurred again.
Maria kept on, a warning note in her voice, "I'll feel sorry for the family if Fanny doesn't hold out," (Maria, it will be seen, was at the other side of "holding out"—the far side.) "She bought the villa at Moedling last year and we put a lot of money in England through a Jew," here Maria was quite contemptuous ... "but," she added in another and fondly indulgent tone, "we had to let the Count, his people were starving, have a lot of that. We still get some income from it, but there are so many of us, and if Fanny should lose her nerve,"—Maria broke off; only she didn't use the ordinary word for "nerve" but the famous Vienna expression "Hamur," which means, beside nerve, a lot of things that are both more and less.
Tears overflowed her small, dark, friendly eyes. There was no nonsense about Maria. She adored Fanny, she was proud of Fanny and to have the revered aunt sitting there made a priceless occasion on which to relieve her feelings. Crossing her arms over her ample bosom she went on:
"She gives everything away, not only to the family and naturally to the Count, but yesterday—will you believe it,—to a shameless hussy, no better than she should be, she gave a heap of money to keep her out of the hospital, where she truly belongs. I told Fanny where I thought she'd end herself if she didn't look out, but Fanny" ... she broke off suddenly as the bedroom door opened.
"What are you gossiping about?" Fanny cried sharply to her, "Didn't you hear the door bell ring?" Then as it rang again a contraction passed over her face and she started to the door herself.
But Maria, in spite of her avoirdupois, was out like lightning. After a moment's parleying in the hall she was back.