Children of No Man's Land

by G. B. Stern

Felix went into the sitting-room and flung himself on the sofa. Deb and his wife followed him in. The girl went straight to the window, and with some difficulty succeeded in opening it; the decent German window protesting loudly, as it had every right to do. She leant out, cooling her hot cheeks. She had behaved disgracefully that afternoon....

Marianna Koch glanced at her. Then at Felix. An elusive meanness flickered from her narrow light-brown eyes; at the comers of her pretty, fretful mouth. She was very unlike the accepted Saxon type of large blonde beauty. There had been a scandalous babble of tongues in Dorzheim when Felix Koch had first brought her back from a brief holiday he had spent in Bingen. Little worldling that she was, she had yet contrived to trap him in manner incongruously reminiscent of a Grimm’s fairy-tale. The broad window above the ironmonger’s shop; the wistful maiden, youngest of three sisters, who daily stationed herself there, hairbrush held in her hand, a light-brown, feathery cloud surrounding her pale face.... He was cured of his infatuation now, after two years’ subjection, but could still recall it with painful vividness at a thought flung backwards to that window and the magic it had framed for him. Marianna! ... but she was common and petty, and snobbish and quarrelsome; she had married him solely because he was a banker, a fine gentleman. He had a suspicion lately that she would like to be rid of him; yes, now, when he had barely placated a bitterly offended mother; when, with his reputation for sobriety and prudence, he had made a fool of himself in sight of all Dorzheim. If it had been Sigismund!... It was a constant smart to the vanity of Felix that Sigismund was still highly eligible, whereas he——

He was not even sure that his wife was not deceiving him.

In which case Sigismund would laugh. And Herr Sanitäts-Rath Hauffe would perhaps omit to raise his hat as punctiliously.

Koch’s eyes wandered to Deb, in her bluish lilac crêpe dress; harem skirt that clung as though in well-cut adoration ... the nape of her neck showed astoundingly bare; in Dorzheim it was considered smart to wear something called a jabot, and to prop the chin and ears with a high erection of lace and whalebone; in Dorzheim the dressmakers were commissioned to destroy line, not create it—as in the case of a harem skirt. She was obviously not quite “good class” this girl; probably some sort of an artist, though he had gathered her people were wealthy. “These English!”—one could account for everything by that contemptuous phrase.... And Deb had immensely gratified him that morning at breakfast by remarking: “One might easily mistake you for an Englishman, Herr Koch!”... Yes, he liked the girl; was quite glad that Marianna had taken a fancy to her recently in Switzerland, and had insisted on bringing her back for a visit. It relieved the tension of their constant bickering; and it gave him a hearer on whom to impress his status in Dorzheim. Then, too, one acquired importance in the little town, when one had guests from England. Relations from Frankfurt, yes—but guests from England were almost unheard of.

And nobody need know that Marianna had practically run away from him to Montreux. She was anæmic, needed a holiday; that sufficed for public explanation. He had recalled her with a promise of a fur coat. He had not yet given her the fur coat.

“I can smell Rindbraten,” remarked Felix appreciatively, from the sofa. “Do we have it for evening-eating? Stuffed? There was some left over from mid-day, was there not? I trust, Marianchen, that you made it clear to Emma it was not for her?”

He was smitten with gloom at the thought of the servant browsing over his Rindbraten. His wife reassured him. And she added, with slow emphasis: “I tried on some sable coats at Elly Ladenberg’s. Her husband had sent for sample styles from Köln. There was one—four thousand marks. It hung well on me. The Ladenberg has already chosen another with a fox collar. Mine has a brocade lining.”

“Yours?” Felix chaffed her. “Ei, ei, how quickly we go. It is now summer.”

“That is the time for a good bargain in fur.”