V

Trude's twenty-fourth birthday. Twenty-four candles around the monster of a cake. Trude announces that Edda, the youngest of us, is to light the candles when we're ready for the toasts and the dessert.

I lent my vases, my old red-flowered armchair, and my draperies. This morning when the preparations were completed and their voices in triple unison leapt to me: "Come and look!" I was in the room in three bounds like an answering echo.

It really looked nice. Who would have recognized Clara's impossible room? Heavy ropes of foliage dotted with roses festooned the walls, my beautiful blue stuff entirely hid the toilet-table, flowers covered the mantelpiece and starred the corners of the mirror; and the table covered with a white cloth was gay with pyramids of fruit.

Now the guests are all here except Markowitch, who said beforehand he would be late. "I am not going to seat you," Clara cries to them above the rising hubbub. "Choose your own places." And she turns her back to give the last touches to the table. Her heavy braided knot hangs low on the nape of her neck. In spite of the two spreading wings of her skirt at her waist line she looks thinner than ever in her greenish dress. Someone glides up behind her, a pink arm for an instant twines about her waist. "Clara, can I help?" She turns round. Dahlia.

Dahlia is not an ordinary creature; she is no one; she is the young girl. But that really is saying nothing. Juliet and Miranda are dead; our times are not made for a creature of the dawn who is supposed to be finer than the promise of herself, but who is already herself; who is supposed not to be ignorant, who is pure and who, in order to love, does not await love.

Dahlia comes of another age; she comes from the country of fjords and legends. Her father was exiled, she wanted to go with him, they had no money; they made almost the whole journey on foot. One evening when their heavy limbs would carry them no further, they were stranded in a squalid quarter on the outskirts of Paris. They took a room.... The next day the man did not get up. And since then Dahlia has bowed her head to the yoke and works all day long for a poor monthly wage in an office where the walls press upon her like a vice. "It's to keep up my father's spirits," she said with a shake of her head when I saw her the second time.

I shall never forget the first time. I had come in a little later than usual, and probably more tired, too. I did not even think of lighting the lamp, the dusk was unreal ... heavens!... a vision took shape between the threshold and the shadows, scarcely daring.... There was a brow set in pale gold, the delicate blur of a face, eyes like a thousand forget-me-nots; between two young arms the strait, retiring modesty of the angels, and their light movements also. She drew nearer. "We have made a cake, the sort we make at home, let's divide." She disappeared. Her present remained behind on my table....

In her thin linen dress this evening, with a whiff of paradise about her, Dahlia seems to be enveloped in a pink illumination. She smiles on everybody as one must smile at happiness when one catches a glimpse of it.

"Your beautiful red dress," she assures Trude, gently clasping the soft spindles of her hands.