Fresh air was the only place for him. He grabbed his hat to escape other fateful contingencies that morning, and made for the pine park where it was silent and cool. He walked hastily, with his hat off, along the path where Elsa and he used to stroll while conning together the passionate lyrics of the passionate Heine.
CHAPTER XXXIII
A Waitress Dance
HE went on and on through the firs and hemlocks, on the right bank of the Elbe, then down toward the city. A multitude of convictions, reflections, impressions, flocked in his brain. After awhile he seemed to send them all scattering by exclaiming, "I'll be damned!"
They turbulently regathered. There was the sensual ape Von Tielitz—they would marry her to him. She could love him, polluted and swinish in the low sinks of womankind. There was the flatulent Jim Deming with his money—she could quickly marry him. And at last the ideals Gard had nourished about her had finally tumbled to the ground that day in her mother's crude offer of bargain and sale.
These Germans! They were outside the pale. They were the midway people between barbaric Asia and the civilized West. America, millions, pigs, morals, love, brutality, erudition, proficiency, obscenity—the Teuton race mixed them all up hopelessly, without rime or reason.
Gard walked and walked without realizing he was becoming tired. As he neared the city he burst out again with, "I'll be damned!" It was all the résumé he could arrive at. He found himself finally hungry and made his way to Fritzi's little inn. He felt almost beaten out. Was he really well?
The middle of the afternoon had come. There she was fresh, free, like a hardy wild flower. She trotted back and forth, curtseying, chattering, with her merry heels clicking on the tiling. The hot sausages and Lebkuchen and a stein were hastened in, and she switched her short skirts down cosily on a bench in front of him to knit and look out after his needs. He had encouraged such opportunities for the practice of conversation.