To Lilly this chatter was intensely objectionable. But as she had nothing to do all day, she sat down with Frau Laue, as had been her wont of old, and helped her tap and press her dried flowers. And often it seemed as if she had never been away.
The first day of her absence she had written to Adele--without giving her address, of course--and instructed her not to be concerned about her, but to continue her duties at the flat till Herr Dehnicke came back.
It was more difficult to write a letter of farewell to Richard. She made no allusion to her engagement, which was to be kept secret for the present, and gave as the sole motive of her flight an ardent desire to live a new life. She again expressed herself unwilling to stand in the way of his matrimonial prospects, and ended with heartfelt cordiality, which robbed the separation of every sort of bitterness. On reading the letter over, she experienced a genuine pang of parting emotion, of which she was a little ashamed.
Days went by. The new life that for years had been the subject of her fondest dreams had begun, and under auspices happier than any her imagination had ever dared to depict.
At the side of the man she loved, whom but a few days ago it would have seemed arrogance and sacrilege to have thought of possessing, she was to enter again the society from which she had been banned--rescued, purified, regenerate.
Who could have believed it possible? Yet, for all that, it required an effort to realise and appreciate this unheard-of happiness. The more she said to herself that this was a period of transition that would soon be over, the more she felt the sordid wretchedness of the old quarters that had become so strange to her. The frowsy atmosphere, the spiritual flatness, the want of decent clothes and money, the bad food and service, all weighed on her spirit and left the impression that instead of ascending to honour and position she had on the contrary sunk suddenly from affluence and splendour into a degraded poverty. No matter how much she scolded herself for this ungracious mood, it remained with her and would not budge. And she could not explain why it should be so. Five years ago, when she had really come down from high places, a spoilt child of fortune, petted and used to every luxury and attention, she had hardly suffered at all from the dreary squalor of her surroundings; and, though without any prospects to speak of, she could still hope. But now, when the idle pleasures of a frivolous existence lay behind her, and she had been happily drawn out of the slough, when her beloved was at her side, ready to fling open the doors for her to enter into a kingdom of undreamed-of joy, she nearly choked among the red plush furniture, vexed her soul about trifles, and pined for a bathroom and a hairdresser's services.
Some change had come over her during these years, but what it was, though she racked her brains in thinking about it, she could not discover.
In the midst of these trials, her anxiety with regard to Konrad gave her no peace. She was subject to violent heart-beatings at the mere thought of him. Her conscience perpetually stabbed her. She longed for expiation, reproached herself, and in her secret soul reproached him too.
She dared no longer think of him with the rapture of desire as formerly, yet she was always on the lookout for a message or letter from him. If he did write, it was never enough to please her, but if he was silent she grumbled and fretted, although she knew that he had scarcely a moment to call his own during the day, and was drudging harder than he had ever done for her sake.
Between eight and nine in the evening he arrived, laden with books and papers. He had manuscripts to read, proofs to go through, and letters to answer. He scarcely gave himself time to eat, and while he swallowed a few mouthfuls, troubled thoughts of things that he had forgotten to do during the day constantly occurred to his over-taxed mind.