Trembling and stunned, without defending herself, without complaints or reproaches, she had driven away that grey, gusty December evening between the hour of vespers and nightfall. Away, it did not matter where, only away as quickly as possible.
She landed in Berlin, the harbour for all wastrels and wrecks. In that world where oblivion lays its hands in blessing on the heads of righteous and unrighteous alike; where eternal hopes illumine drab days of depression like firework sparks; where grief for the past is soon changed into an eager expectation of coming happiness; where the great god, Luck, holds sway as lord and master--in that world of the unknown and stranded, where only those who are old and poor together sink hopelessly, into that world crept Lilly on her hands and knees. She stayed in pensions for many a dreary month, frequented by guilty divorcées who congregate together in such places like apples rotting in heaps, by Chilian attachés and agents of mysterious businesses in Bucharest and Alexandria, who gave a tone to the roof they sojourned under. As inoffensively as she could she avoided the confidences of companions in tribulation, who wished to console her, and kept at bay the advances of olive-complexioned neighbours at table.
After a time she began to think of finding a situation. It would have to be something quite special--something between a lady-in-waiting and chaperon, which would not be at variance with her former high station and ladylike dignity.
This sort of position seemed remarkably scarce. The only result of all her efforts was to win the tender regard of a few old gentlemen who called on her at dusk and would not go till they were shown the door. So, utterly discouraged, she gave up calling at employment agencies and ringing at front doors, though she could not resign herself yet to joining the ranks of shopgirls and dressmakers' apprentices. The day was still far off when she would have to do that; indeed, she would never sink so low, because she was labelled all over "Generalin," and wherever she went and whatever she did everyone recognised her supreme gentility.
On this seething human ocean she tossed anchorless, without so much as a straw to cling to. Nothing but Walter's letter, which two months after her dismissal and his was forwarded to her by Fräulein von Schwertfeger. In it the poor fellow, whose own prospects were utterly blighted, made an unselfish suggestion of support for her future. It ran:
"Gracious Friend,
"I am broke. He shot me through the arm. A trifling misfortune when it happens to someone else, but, when it falls on yourself, a damning obstacle in the way of founding a career on the other side of the Atlantic as head-waiter.
"Nevertheless, I cannot be grateful enough to fate for having thrown in my path so touchingly virtuous and lamblike a guardian angel as my baronissima. You will readily understand, most dear and too-kind lady, that I now feel an obligation on my side to act as guardian angel to you. How is it to be done? There are difficulties in the way, certainly. Were I to commend you to the care of my former friends and equals, your future, I am afraid, would be settled too easily, 'For, still, leaves and virtues ever fall in hours of tenderness.'
"For this reason I prefer to descend a degree lower, to where citizens crawl on their stomachs before our coronets, even if they be tarnished and dented.
"In Alte Jakobstrasse in Berlin there dwells a highly respectable manufacturer of bronze wares, by name Richard Dehnicke. He was a comrade of the Reserve, and feels himself particularly indebted to me because I borrowed money from him on more than one occasion. I am writing to him by the same mail as this. Go boldly in among his lamps and vases. The former I trust will illumine your nights, and the latter ornament your path through life. He will not, I believe, demand the price from you which others of our compatriots customarily consider their due where pretty women are concerned.