Lilly felt in hers a cool, flabby hand that seemed incapable of giving or returning pressure. Then she found herself staggering down the dark staircase, conducted by a clerk who had the key and was to take her to her old home. She wanted to ask questions, to protest about what she didn't know. The clerk swung the key in silence, and didn't look round till he opened the door of the room in which she and her mother had lived. It was close and smelt musty; shafts of light came through the blinds, piercing the dusk. As she stood there, Lilly felt as if she were standing on the grave of her childhood and youth, that everything had come to an end, and there was nothing to be done but shut herself up here and die.
The clerk unfastened the shutters and threw open the windows. The clothes were still piled on the bed, the linen strewed the floor, and on the boards were dark brownish stains--the blood which had flown from her throat. The knife, too, still lay there. Lilly was ashamed to cry before the clerk, who stood staring vacantly and whistling to himself, as she threw her things into the basket-trunk which her mother had intended to use for the move to the nine-roomed flat. She chose a few books at random, and put some copybooks on top; then she looked about her for keepsakes. Her head swam; she saw things without recognising them. But there on the table, held together with india rubber bands, splashed with her blood, was the score of "The Song of Songs." No one had touched it because no one knew its value. She caught it up, shut down the lid of the box, and with the roll of music under her arm she stepped out into her new life, thirsting for new experiences.
CHAPTER VI
Frau Asmussen had two daughters, who had run away for the third time. All the neighbours knew it, and Lilly was given full particulars almost directly she set foot in the badly-lighted room, smelling of leather and dustiness, where torn volumes, ranged on shelves of pine, mounted to the ceiling.
Frau Asmussen was a dignified-looking and portly person, who received Lilly at the entrance of the library, and amidst kisses and tears assured her that she had loved her as her own daughter before she saw her, and now that they had met she was perfectly enchanted with her. "Who can ever say that strangers are cold and distant again?" thought Lilly, delighted with her reception.
"Did I say my own daughter? I should have said, ten times more than my own daughters. One's own daughters are vipers who turn and sting; one must pluck them from one's bosom----"
She had to pause, because the lethargic clerk who had come with Lilly in the cab was bringing in her box. When he had gone, Frau Asmussen continued:
"Do you suppose I loved my daughters, or that I did not love them? Haven't I said to them every day: 'Your father was a blackguard, a cur, and may God forgive him!' And what do you think they did? Went off one fine morning--went off on their own hook--leaving a note on the table: 'We're going to father. You bully us more than we can put up with, and we are sick of everlasting milk puddings.' You see what I am, my dear--I am kindness itself. Do I look as if I could hurt a fly, much less my own daughters? And they did it not once, but three times; this is the third time they have exposed me to the scoffs and jeers of the town--the third time they have disgraced me. Twice they came back in rags and misery, and I have taken them to my heart and forgiven them. But just let them try it on again--let them come back a third time! There's a broomstick behind the door ready for them. Directly they show their noses inside, out they shall go into the street. I'll beat them, and then sweep them out at the door like so much waste-paper." And with an air of unspeakable disgust Frau Asmussen swept an invisible something through the hall and gave it a kick over the step.
"Poor, poor woman!" thought Lilly. "How much she must have suffered!" and she vowed inwardly to do her best to make up to the mother for the loss of such unworthy daughters.
At this point a young man came in to change a book. He asked for a volume of Zola, and looked at Lilly as much as to say, "You see what a dog I am."