CHAPTER IV
Spring brought renewed hope and promise of brighter times for Frau Czepanek. So certain was she that in a very short time now her husband would return, that she determined to give up the needlework drudgery and find a pleasanter way of making a living. It would be simple enough to rent a floor consisting of nine rooms, to furnish them on credit, and put up a plate with the inscription "Board and Lodging for Students." Once start the enterprise and the rest would follow. The idea took possession of Frau Czepanek's brain, half dazed as it was from the perpetual maddening whir of the sewing-machine. Lilly, though she liked the prospect of a less strenuous life, entertained doubts as to the scheme working. She remembered, with a shudder, the abusive threats of the duns who had bombarded them after papa's departure, and she failed to see where enough students were to come from to fill nine rooms when the summer term had begun and all had found other accommodation. But her mother would not listen to reason. The attic resounded with her triumphant "I shall do this," and "I shall do that." She announced her intention of calling on the mayor, and going to the council of the college to get them to recommend her.
In these days she set out on mysterious expeditions alone, and when Lilly came in from school she was no longer greeted at the bottom of the stairs by the familiar din of the sewing-machine. She would find the front-door key under the mat. Her mother became more reserved and secretive as the time for the great plunge drew nearer. Her face wore the suppressed smile of parents before a Christmas tree, only that there was a certain defiant contempt in it as well. She painted herself more thickly than ever, and the rouge-pot, which once had been hidden from Lilly's eyes, stood flaunting itself openly on the chest of drawers. Money did not grow more plentiful. Lilly had to devote every minute she could spare from her lessons to make up for mamma's neglect. Frau Czepanek set her feet on the treadles only on rare occasions when Lilly urged her to resume the work, which was delivered more and more irregularly, so that mother and daughter stood in danger of losing the employment on which their existence depended. Lilly, young and vigorous though she was, felt her strength severely taxed, but she took it calmly, assuring herself optimistically that "something would turn up before long." She would not have grudged her mother the intoxication of her new-born hopes so much, if she could have had her proper nights' rest instead of having to lie in her clothes on the outside of the bed from two till six in the morning. In school Lilly sat with heavy red eyes, unable to see or think as she was expected to do, and masters began to complain of her, more and more frequently.
It was high time for the change to come, and fate ordained that it should come on a sultry grey July day, when Lilly, returning home from school, saw two vans standing at the door, crammed with furniture smelling of recently applied varnish, and heard her mother's shrill tones in converse with strangers. With a beating heart she ran up the steps. Two carmen in leather aprons, with amused red faces, one with an open bill in his hand, were demanding payment. Frau Czepanek, running her fingers through the hair which she had just frizzed with the curling-tongs, marched up and down the room and shouted bitter reproaches about broken promises and extortionate rascally conduct. The men simply laughed at her, and reminded her that they wanted to get home that night. Then Frau Czepanek, in a fury, tried to snatch the bill from the carman, and when he declined to give it up she started belabouring him with her fists. Lilly quickly sprang between them, seized her struggling mother's wrists and ordered the men to go, assuring them everything would be arranged. They obeyed, and now her mother's wrath descended on Lilly.
"If you had not interfered," she yelled, "I should have got the receipt out of them, and the furniture would have been unpacked to-night in the new flat. You've spoilt it all, and I shall now have to be at them again to-morrow."
"The new flat!" echoed Lilly. "What new flat?"
Frau Czepanek laughed. How stupid Lilly was! Did she think that she had been doing nothing all this time? And then it all came out. The flat of nine rooms had been taken and they were to move in at once. The plate even was already engraved, and when hung up would have a magical effect. She had made every sacrifice, strained every nerve, that the rooms should be furnished in a way worthy of their exterior. She had bought curtains for twelve windows in a Chinese pattern; six good rugs to bear the tread of students, who wore out cheap carpets like muslin, and large-sized English jugs and basins, in white and gold, to put on the marble washstands. The dinner service, which she had also purchased, was not ready, as it took some time to get a monogram burnt in, but they could make shift with a common set of sixteen pieces for the present. She had expended great care and thrift on her choice of things, and everything would be in perfect taste.
She wandered restlessly, as she talked, round the table in the middle of the room. Her small narrow eyes, that looked as if they hadn't closed in sleep for many a night, glittered, and under the rouge on her hollow cheeks burned the scarlet flush of fever.
Lilly, who began to feel a little uncomfortable, ventured to ask what had been done about paying for the things.
Her question was laughed to scorn. "If you are a lady, you can do anything with the tradespeople. They know that I, as the wife of Kilian Czepanek, musical conductor, am entitled to respect and to credit; or they ought to know it."
"Has all the furniture been taken to the flat?" Lilly queried again.
Frau Czepanek's merriment was renewed. "Before the rooms are ready, you goose? Not likely! Rooms have to be painted, papered, and decorated. I have taken no end of trouble to select artistic papers," she added, with the grand air of a person whose powers of paying are unlimited.
A sickening feeling of perplexity took possession of Lilly. It was like not being sure whether your school-fellows were making a fool of you or not. There was nothing for dinner too, which made matters worse. Lilly set the coffee on the hob to boil and put the rolls on the table. They would have to skip dinner to-day. The Czepanek household had become quite expert in the art of skipping meals.
Lilly's mother said no time must be lost before beginning to pack, and she gulped down her coffee hurriedly. Then suddenly she got into another towering rage.
"If only you hadn't held my hands, you idiot!" she screamed, "we should have got that lovely new furniture into its place by to-morrow. Now we shall have to move in with this rubbish. What will people think when they see it?"
She ran her fingers through her singed locks and brandished the bread-knife with which she was cutting her roll in half. Next she turned up her sleeves, put on her blue working apron, and declared that she would start the packing that very instant. She turned out the wardrobe and piled clothes on the foot of the bed. Underwear and linen out of the linen-press she scattered over the floor in wildest confusion.
The veins stood out in knots on her shrivelled arms, perspiration ran down her face. Lilly, with a feeling of oppression at her heart, looked on. When she saw the score of "The Song of Songs," their dearest treasure, carelessly thrown on the floor, she stooped to pick it up from amongst the litter of sheets and nightgowns.
"What are you doing with 'The Song of Songs'?" cried her mother, rising in haste from her knees.
"Nothing," said Lilly in surprise. "I was merely putting it on the table."
"You're a liar," the woman screeched, "and an abandoned girl! You want to steal the score from me as you stole the receipt. But I'll be even with you!"
Lilly, to her horror, saw a sudden flash of steel before her eyes, felt a sharp pain at her throat and something warm trickling soothingly over her left breast.
It was not till her mother attempted a second thrust that Lilly realised it was the bread-knife that her mother held in her hand. With a piercing scream, she grasped her mother's wrist; but she had developed all at once the strength of a lioness, and Lilly would most probably have been worsted in the struggle if neighbours had not rushed in to see what all the noise was about.
Frau Czepanek was caught from behind and bound with towels, the bread-knife still clenched in her hand with a tenacity that no power on earth could loosen. Not till the doctor, who was called in to give her a soothing draught, came did she let it fall. Lilly's wound was dressed, and she was taken to the hospital, where she was kept because no one knew what to do with her. There she learnt, in due course, that her mother had been removed to the provincial lunatic asylum, of which she was likely to be an inmate for the rest of her days. Lilly was alone in the world.
CHAPTER V
"Yes, my dear young lady," said the distinguished lawyer, Herr Doktor Pieper, "I have been appointed your guardian, and have accepted the post because I considered it my duty. Ah! you want the papers re Lemke versus Militzky," he went on, interrupting himself to speak to the head clerk. "What was I saying? Oh, to be sure. I considered it my duty, although I am a very busy man, to befriend, as far as lies in my power, the widow and orphan."
He passed his well-manicured left hand over his shining bald pate and straw-coloured beard, which half concealed the mouth of a man of the world and an epicure.
"My wards all do well," he continued. "I am proud of their success. How do they manage it? Well, that's my affair--a secret of business, as it were. I am certain, my child, that you too will fall on your feet eventually. I should hardly be so interested in you if it were not highly probable. The first thing to be considered is a suitable situation. Plain young ladies are the most difficult to suit, unless they happen to be humble and unassuming. It pays them to boast of so-called Christian virtues. You, of course, do not belong to the plain sort. Possibly you are conscious of it, and I only tell you in order that you should learn to assert yourself. The main point in the art of living is to discriminate between self-assertion that is justified, and the reverse. You must, that is to say, gauge your own power according to circumstances. Now, young girls such as you----"
At this moment the head clerk, tall and lank, again appeared at his elbow, with a portfolio.
"At five o'clock the Labischin divorce suit comes on," he said to the man, as he took the documents from his hand, "At quarter past, Reimann and Reimann versus Fassbender. Get everything in readiness and see that someone accompanies this young lady. You will learn where from the papers."
The man vanished.
"Well, my dear young lady," her guardian continued, "the time which I can spare you is at an end. You will not be able to resume your school studies, of course. The means are not forthcoming. Even if they were, I rather doubt its being advisable. Governesses do sometimes make brilliant marriages certainly, though oftenest in the pages of English novels; but they are exposed--excuse my plain speaking--to all sorts of temptation, and are sometimes led astray. I should like to get you a place in a large photographic studio, where your duties would be to receive customers; but you would hardly have enough self-assurance for such a post at present. I have therefore found a position for you in a lending library, more as a trial than a permanency. There your light will not be altogether hidden under a bushel. The salary--I need not emphasise the fact--will be moderate: twenty marks a month with board and lodging. You will have every opportunity of letting your fancy browse among the literature of all people and all ages. So, my dear young lady----Good God! why are you crying?"
Lilly wiped tears from her eyes and cheeks. "I'm only just out of the hospital," she explained. "I feel rather----I am very sorry."
The distinguished lawyer, smiling, shook his head, the baldness of which appeared to be as tended and cared for as the face of a beautiful woman.
"You'll have to give up the habit of crying. Tears are quite out of place till you have a settled career before you.... There's something else I have got to say. Your poor mother's small effects must be sold. The proceeds of the sale will serve as a little competence for your rainy days. It is very important that you should make sure of this capital, such as it is. Now, under the escort of my man, you shall go back to your home--I have the key in my bureau--and select a few articles which you may care to have either for use or as mementoes. Good-bye, my dear.... In six months come to me again."
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."
Frau Asmussen shook her head reproachfully, and fetched down the book required from an upper shelf. He clutched it eagerly, without heeding in the least the glance of warning with which the old lady handed it to him.
"You see, my dear," she said when he had gone, "that's how the young go to perdition, and I am condemned to help them on the way."
"Why?" asked Lilly.
"Do you know how a chemist's shop is arranged?"
Lilly said she had often been in one, but couldn't remember.
"One place is marked 'Poison,'" her employer went on, "and in it are kept the most deadly poisons known to humanity. On that account the door is kept locked, and no one may touch the contents save the chemist and his assistants. Now, just look round; half these books are poison, too. Nearly everything that's written in these days is pernicious trash, and lures the reader on to destruction. Yet I am bound to keep these books, bound to distribute them, though my heart is wrung as I hand them over the counter. My undutiful daughters are an example. They read, read--did nothing but read the whole night through; and when they were stuffed full of impudence and nonsense, they turned up their noses at the food I gave them and the cooking, and went out for walks, till at last they sneaked off to their father--that miserable worm! that swindler and scum! with his face all out in pimples! I warn you, my child, against that man. Should you ever meet him, gather up your skirts as I am doing now, to avoid contamination."
Lilly shuddered at the account of this vile monster in human shape, and was happy that she had found a protectress in his deserving wife.
An hour or so later they sat down to supper, which consisted of milk pudding and slices of bread and dripping. Lilly, unused to anything but the simplest fare, was easily persuaded that no milk puddings in the world were as delicious as Frau Asmussen's, and that the Kaiser himself could not sit down to a more daintily prepared meal than was spread on her table. She missed, it is true, the slice of ham which she had been given every night at the hospital; if this had been added, her supper would have seemed the acme of gastronomic delights.
More enjoyment awaited her when she went to bed. The library was part of a big room with three windows, which was divided into four compartments by two long bookcases running from the wall where the windows were, and by a counter opposite the door that communicated with the entrance, and thus there was only one narrow gangway to connect one compartment with another. At bed-time Frau Asmussen carried into the furthest compartment two forms, on which she laid a mattress and made up a bed. The space was so confined and filled up that Lilly had to jump over a bench at the foot of her improvised bed to get into it, and she thought this great fun. She fell asleep wedged in between two high upright bookcases, the window above her head, a chair beside her on which her things were piled, and "The Song of Songs" clasped in her arms.
The next morning she was initiated into her duties as librarian. She learnt the system by which the thousands of volumes were arranged on the shelves, and as she knew her alphabet she would have mastered it in five minutes, and been able to fetch any of the popular books from their places, if Frau Asmussen had followed her own system, instead of placing the books anyhow and so courting confusion and muddle. A worse task was to find the names of books and authors in the general catalogue, and entries of customers in the ledger, which were also supposed to be alphabetical; but the carelessness of Frau Asmussen and her daughters had reduced the whole to chaos. Lilly set to work with burning zeal to put things in order, and for several weeks the attainment of this desired goal was her sole object in life.
Frau Asmussen provided her with some surprises, even on the day after her arrival. Lilly saw nothing of her after the morning hours till supper-time; then Lilly found her nodding over a steaming teacup which exhaled an agreeable odour of rum and lemons.
"I suffer from nasal catarrh," Frau Asmussen explained, blinking at Lilly with her rather watery grey eyes, "And one of our most noted physicians has prescribed this medicine."
Lilly ate her milk pudding while Frau Asmussen continued sipping at the contents of her teacup, giving now and then a melancholy groan.
"Have I told you about my daughters?" she asked, after a pause.
"Oh yes," responded Lilly respectfully. All the morning there had been scarcely any other topic of conversation than these two scapegrace daughters and the wicked man they called father.
"But I don't think I can have given you any idea how charming they are," Frau Asmussen went on. "Though I say it that shouldn't, there isn't their match in the world for beauty and talent and lovable qualities. In such young girls, filial devotion, self-sacrificing industry, and touching modesty like theirs is not often found. They are so practical too, so thoroughly reliable in all that relates to business, besides being brimful of affection. You should take example from them, my dear, for you are very far from being anything like those models of perfect girlhood."
Lilly's spoon dropped from her fingers. She could hardly believe her ears, and the old lady maundered on:
"It was heartrending to part with them, and they cried themselves ill for days and nights beforehand. They were obliged to go to their father. Have I mentioned my husband to you? The best and noblest of men, from whom fate has parted me, but who cherishes for me an undying tenderness, and whom I shall love till death.... What a man! Pray, my child, on your knees that you may one day be the wife of such a man, and worthy of him. Alas! I was not--not worthy, no, not at all."
Two tears of unutterable remorse ran down her cheeks. She had a deal further to say about the superlative virtues of her two daughters, her husband's lofty character, and her own abject inferiority, and after several more doses of the medicine prescribed by the eminent physician she sobbed and moaned herself to sleep.
The next morning Frau Asmussen began the day's work by scolding Lilly for sweeping out the library with the broom standing behind the door.
"It's kept there for one purpose only," she said, "and that is to chastise those two hussies when they appear at my door; and if you ever dare to touch it again you will be the first to feel what it's like."
After this, Lilly began to regard her future through less rose-coloured glasses. A worse blow was to come. Frau Asmussen, who seemed deeply concerned about Lilly's spiritual welfare and the purity of her mind, strictly forbade her to read any of the books in her library.
"After what I have experienced with my daughters," she said, "I know the evil results of novel-reading, and I'll take care that you don't go the same way."
While the work of rearranging the catalogue and the ledgers lasted, the temptation to disobey orders did not occur frequently. But when autumn set in, and, in spite of the increase of subscribers, her time became less occupied and the hanging lamp was lighted early over the library table, when Frau Asmussen yielded sooner to the effects of the medicine prescribed by the eminent physician, and fell into a stupor, Lilly was driven by curiosity and boredom to do what she had been forbidden.
She was first put up to it by a girl who came to change the first volume of a novel for the second. The second volume was out, and the girl positively wept for disappointment. She declared that she couldn't wait to know how the story ended. It would kill her. Lilly good-naturedly advised her to go to one of the other circulating libraries, which were said to be larger and superior, and she went so far as to return the girl her three marks deposit. The novel devourer thanked Lilly and departed with renewed hopes.
Lilly scanned the outside of the dirty, torn volume she had left on the counter, then cautiously peeped inside. "Debit and Credit," by Gustav Freytag, was on the title-page. She had heard them raving about this book when she was in the first class at school, but there was no time for novel-reading in the life of a sweated machinist's daughter. She glanced timidly at the first page, then went to the glass door and listened for a few minutes to the peaceful snores that came from the back parlour. Soon afterwards she was launched with full-spread sails on the wide ocean of romance. At four in the morning, when she had finished the first volume, she was in desperation at the thought that she could not go on with the story, and wondered who had the missing volume, and how she was to get hold of it. Then she fell asleep.
The next day she pored over the ledger to try and trace the name and address of the subscriber who had not returned the second volume of "Debit and Credit." But, as the entries were made by the numbers and not by the titles of the books, she missed it over and over again in her excitement. So at last she was compelled to seek an outlet for her newly awakened craving in another book.
Henceforward her life became an orgy of novel-reading. She went about her daily task with heavy lids and aching limbs, burnt a huge amount of midnight oil, and only escaped the suspicions of Frau Asmussen by lies and tricks. Then one dreadful winter morning it all came out. The stove in the library burning low towards midnight, Lilly's feet became cold, and she took to reading in bed with the lamp, which she removed from its hanging socket, on the window-sill above her pillow, where there was plenty of room for it. Though this involved the bitter discomfort of having to get out of bed again in order to put back lamp and book in their places--Frau Asmussen was often now in the library earlier than Lilly--she would have rather gone out in the cold street in her nightgown than have sacrificed those dearly bought extra hours.
So it came about that one morning she awoke in a fright to behold Frau Asmussen, already dressed, dangling a black strap over her white nightgown, while the lamp, which Lilly had secretly refilled at one o'clock, still burned on the window-sill. She had never in her life before been whipped, and at first hardly grasped what was going to happen, when Frau Asmussen leapt as nimbly as her corpulence would permit on to the counterpane over the bedrail, and crouching there like some fat old plucked hen, began to belabour her over the ears with the strap.
A bad time now began for Lilly. What was the good of being sincerely repentant, and swearing to herself and to Frau Asmussen that she would not do it again? The new craze so intoxicated her, she was so absorbed with the new, beautiful imaginary world in which there were no tiresome servants sent by subscribers to change books, no wet umbrellas, no missing volumes, no back numbers of magazines that refused to be found, no insipid milk puddings, and no thrashings, that, had she had a martyr's joy in renunciation, she could not have returned to her former unbroken routine. She was now so completely governed by her imagination that her actual everyday existence, with its deadly monotony and lonely hours, seemed to her an unreal dream, and her life had no reality till she opened a book and turned over its sticky pages. She was too docile and unresisting to attempt to justify this passion even in her own eyes. It was wrong, she knew, to feed her mind on this heaven-sent food; but she could not help it.
Frau Asmussen hit on a fiendish method of humiliating Lilly still further. She regarded religion, like many orthodox Protestants, solely in the light of a penance, and, though hitherto she had not concerned herself in the least about Lilly's creed, she now took to beginning every meal with a long-winded prayer, in which, in face of the steaming soup-tureen, she commended Lilly amidst tears and sighs to the Lord, and begged Him to forgive her sinful depravity.
Woe to Lilly if there was any backsliding! That first chastisement did not by any means remain the only one. She was cuffed and beaten on the slightest provocation, and storms of abuse descended on her unprotected head. In fact, she scarcely dared breathe till the soothing medicine prescribed by the eminent physician began to do its work. Then Lilly seized the first book she came across, and suffered all the agonies of the heroines in the stories about lost wills and broken marriages, about poison, arson, and murder; with them she loved, and conquered, and died, finding in it all a never-ending source of ecstasy.
CHAPTER VII
It was a spring-like evening in March, with bright sunshine. The last grimy heaps of snow lying along the gutters had melted into radiant paddles, and a shower of silvery drops fell from the icicles clinging to the roofs. The glow of sunset lay on the houses facing south like brilliant decorative carpets, sharply divided from the shadows on the opposite side of the street. The window lattices shone as if they themselves were suns reflecting their own light, and sparrows twittered on the dripping eaves. But most welcome feature of all in this early spring of city streets was the peculiar spicy fragrance of the melting snows, rising in vapour from the gutter with promise of meadows growing green and of boughs bursting into bud. Lilly, who had hardly been out more than two or three times during the winter, sat at the counter gazing wistfully into space.
Everywhere windows and doors were wide open. Everywhere lungs thirsty for fresh air inhaled the zephyrs of coming spring. At last she too pushed open the casements, and gave the hall door a kick, which made it swing back and knock down the broom that stood in the corner behind it. She saw through the opening of the door into the rooms of the opposite tenant, who had also thrown his door wide to greet the spring.
There was a cherry-coloured sofa with embroidered chair-backs stretched over its old-fashioned scroll-shaped arms; there were wreaths of dried flowers with inscriptions framed on the walls; the helmet of a cavalry officer with swords crossed; china lions used as cigar-holders; ballet girls supporting tallow candles; photograph groups with peacock's feathers stuck between them; a glass bowl of goldfish; a goatskin rug. In the midst of all this wilderness of knick-knacks a youth paced up and down with a book in his hand, conning something diligently; one minute he vanished from view, only to reappear the next. At the first glance, this young man attracted Lilly's sympathetic notice. His wavy fair hair was brushed carelessly back from his forehead, the carriage of his head was erect and nonchalant, and he wore a mauve and brown striped necktie, which Lilly thought the height of refined taste.
She tried to think which of her favourite heroes he resembled most, and came to the conclusion that it was Finck in "Debit and Credit." The young man did not observe her, so she had every opportunity of studying him. When he was in sight, a warm thrill ran through her, directly he disappeared and remained hidden from view for the fraction of a second she felt a sick sensation as if someone were robbing her of her dearest possession. So it continued till he glanced up from his book, and, seeing the young lady who watched him through the door, withdrew hastily to the invisible part of his room. When he next disclosed himself he had adopted a much stiffer and more self-conscious air. He bent over his book with a studiousness that was hardly natural, moved his lips too obviously, and frowned heavily. Lilly, too, thought it necessary to improve slightly the picture she presented. She smoothed the hair that was parted Madonna fashion on her forehead, and let her arm fall carelessly over the side of the chair. A couple of maid-servants who came to change books for their mistresses put an end to this silent duet by shutting the door as they went out. Lilly did not dare to open it again. But from that evening the new hero became part of her dreams.
It was hopeless to think of asking Frau Asmussen questions so late, because she was now in the habit of preparing her medicine before the evening meal; but the next morning, as she seemed in a fairly good temper, Lilly ventured to make a few inquiries about the neighbour of whose existence till now she had been ignorant.
"What do the neighbours matter to you, you inquisitive thing!" retorted Frau Asmussen, in that tone of polished urbanity with which she had addressed Lilly after the raptures of the first night were over.
Lilly plucked up courage to invent a tale of a regular subscriber who had asked her the day before for information about their neighbours, which she had been unable to give him. Frau Asmussen's esteem for this subscriber was so great that she instantly became communicative.
They were respectable enough people over the way, but of low birth, and she, as a woman of a more highly-cultured mind, could not associate with them. She believed the husband was a pensioned-off sergeant-major, now working as a clerk, and that his wife made cravattes for a living. Lilly flushed, remembering the mauve and brown tie which had so dazzled her eyes the day before. How vulgarly these common people lived might be gathered from the fact that on high-days and festivals they indulged in potato soup with slices of sausage in it, which made anyone with a delicate palate like Frau Asmussen's shudder to think of.
Like the erring daughters, Lilly had long ago got tired of the eternal milk pudding, and found herself unable to agree that potato soup was vulgar. Indeed, her mouth began to water at the mere mention of it, and she changed the subject by asking if anyone else lived next door.
"I believe there's a son," replied Frau Asmussen. "He goes to the Gymnasium, though why people in that class of life should have their sons educated I don't know."
"I know why," Lilly said to herself. "I know why: it is because he is great, and genius looks forth from his eyes, because he must succeed and become a ruler of men."
The same afternoon she pushed open the swing-door again, but the weather was raw and cold, and there was no friendly face opposite to cheer her eyes. After she had gazed longingly for an hour or more at the door-plate bearing the inscription:
L. Redlich,
Kindly ring and knock
she was forced to close the door, her legs feeling like icicles, and with a feeling of humiliation that she had been snubbed. Henceforth she looked out for one o'clock, the hour when the Gymnasium students came home from school. With her nose pressed against the window-panes, she could recognise at an almost incredible distance the blue and white college caps. When he flew up the steps, she slipped behind the curtains, trembling with joy at the bashful glances he cast at her. But if he looked straight in front of him she was extremely unhappy, and hoped that she had done nothing to hurt his feelings.
There were other wearers of blue and white caps who came up the steps to the house, friends who came to cram for their examination with him. Lilly adored them all. She felt that a bond existed between her and the little circle, who had the world all before them, and intended to conquer it. In spirit she sat in their midst.
Some of them passed so quickly that she distinguished them by their caps more than by their faces. There was the forlorn-looking cap, the faded, the smart, the limp. Each of the youths too had his characteristic way of walking and knocking at the door. She could tell, even when she was busy giving out books, and without looking, how many of young Redlich's chums had come or had not come to work with him.
Meanwhile, the days grew longer and spring was advancing. The tenants of the house began to sit on the terrace in front, where there were chairs and tables.
The boys often lingered there chatting with their friend before going in to their studies, and when they were gone he leaned over the balustrade in the twilight alone, dreaming doubtless of his great future.
Then Lilly, with beating heart, stationed herself behind a book-rack, from which she had artfully cleared away enough volumes to form a peep-hole, whence she could admire to her heart's content the leonine brow so full of thought and profound intellect.
The seats on the terrace in front of the library windows were mostly unoccupied, as they belonged to Frau Asmussen, who preferred taking her medicine indoors, and Lilly could not screw up courage to ask permission to sit there.
One May evening, however, when showery spring clouds sailed over the dark blue sky, more alluring than threatening, when it was all so still that you could hear the splashing of the market-place fountain, and the swallows were the only passers-by, Lilly simply could not contain herself any longer in the library atmosphere, smelling of old leather and parchment; and taking her embroidery, more for show than because she was industriously inclined, she went out, determined to sit on the terrace. She knew that he was out, and that he always came in before ten. He would have to pass her whatever happened. Half an hour, another half-hour, than a quarter went by, and she saw a blue and white cap coming jauntily down the street. Her first thought was to run back into the library, but she was ashamed to do this, and sat where she was. He came, saw her, raised his cap, and went in.
"He has at least bowed to me," she thought blissfully.
Scarcely ten minutes had elapsed before he appeared again. He seated himself on a bench belonging to his side of the house, played with pebbles, whistled to himself softly, and seemed altogether oblivious of her presence.
Lilly sat on in her corner rolling and unrolling her embroidery, and now and then giving vent to her tender feelings toward him by a sigh, though she told herself she only sighed because it was so hot. Half an hour sped away thus, and Lilly began to abandon hope of anything more happening, when all of a sudden he addressed her, with his cap in his hand:
"They will soon be closing the front door, Fräulein," he said.
"Not already, surely!" she exclaimed, feigning consternation. Then, reflecting that to act on his hint would be to put an end to their acquaintance making any progress, she added in a more indifferent tone:
"It doesn't matter; the window isn't shut."
"The window!" he repeated.
She could not make out whether in approval or blame. The conversation would have certainly come to a standstill here if she had not made a gigantic effort to keep the ball rolling.
"We are neighbours, I think," she remarked.
He sprang up from his bench, sweeping his cap down as low as his trouser pockets, and answered:
"Allow me to introduce myself. I am Fritz Redlich, prefect."
Lilly felt the old thrill of reverence with which the very word "prefect" had inspired her in the Selecta when her class companions had uttered it. Then she burned with shame to think that she was now nothing better than a shopgirl. But she was determined to impress him by alluding to her more distinguished past.
"Up till last autumn," she said, "I was a Selecta pupil. I used to know some of you fellows."
"Which of us?" he asked in excitement.
She mentioned the names of two young men who had once fluttered round her at the skating-rink, and asked if they were friends of his.
"Rather not," he answered with a contempt that didn't seem quite genuine. "They are slackers, and loaf about too much. They intend to join a corps, too, I believe. That's not in our line."
There was a pause. Lilly could only discern the outline of his figure as he leaned against the balustrade, it had grown so dark. Drops of soft rain fell on her hair. She would have liked to stay there for ever, watching the dark young figure before her, and with the gentle moisture of spring anointing her head.
"You are engaged now in the Circulating Library?" he asked.
Lilly assented, and was grateful to him for the nice word "engaged," which seemed a little to ameliorate her lowly position.
"And you are going in for your examination?" she inquired.
"In the autumn--if all goes well," he replied with a sigh.
"And afterwards you will go out into the world," she gushed in copy-book language, "and fight your way in life? Ah, how I wish I were in your shoes."
"Why do you wish that, Fräulein?" he asked in surprise. "You are fighting your way in life now, are you not?"
Lilly laughed shrilly. "Oh, but if only I were you!" she exclaimed. "What wouldn't I--oh!"
She felt exultant; her limbs seemed to stretch, so that she scarcely knew how to sit still; the light of conquest flashed from her eyes, but there was no conquest really, for it remained unseen in the darkness.
She was so overcome, so mad with happiness, that she positively could not stay there, uttering stilted phrases, while within her something shouted: "You standing there with your arms on the balustrade, I love you."
She bade him a hurried good-night, and ran in, bolting the door behind her. She paced up and down the narrow gangways between the books, laughing and sighing. She stretched forth her arms like a high-priestess at prayer, knocking and bruising her elbows against the shelves.