"My dear sweet Konni,
"I have shamefully deceived you. I am a bad woman, and nothing else. The fiancé I have told you about never existed. That despicable little cur of a lieutenant for whom I was untrue to my husband never dreamed of marrying me, but handed me over to his rich friend, who made me his mistress. And that is what I am now. For years I have been living in a world of vice and vulgarity. Long ago I was ostracised from all decent society. Kept women and the lovers who financed them have been my sole associates. I have clung to you because you in your ignorance respected me, and I, in my slough of degradation, longed to be respected. So now you know why I cannot be your wife.
"If you want my kisses, come. For anything more, I am no longer good enough.
"Lilly."
The clock struck eleven. Adele had gone to bed. She would have to go down herself to drop the letter in the box. But the long-threatened storm just then burst in fury. Hailstones rattled down, and gusts of wind rushed through the open windows, scattering raindrops on the writing-table. The paper on which her dry feverish eyes were fixed became wet; it looked as if she had drenched it with her tears.
"That is a happy coincidence," she thought. Then she was ashamed. The time for acting was surely over. But as she settled herself to rewrite the letter she stopped, shuddering in horror. What was to be gained by such a monstrous indictment of self? And was it, after all, the truth? In the slanderous mouth, perhaps, of a back-biting woman who twists out of bare facts evidence of crime against a friend, or in that of one of those social hangmen who have a halter ready for every past. She alone knew how it had all come about. How from inner necessity and outer compulsion, from too-confiding trustfulness and unprotected innocence link by link the chain had been forged, which now clanked its weight of guilt about her limbs. She, at least, knew that there was another less harsh and hideous truth, which would excuse and purify her in the eyes of any sympathetic person.
So she tore up the sheet of notepaper and began again. She made a rough copy, and then polished and polished till it satisfied her.
Now the letter ran:
"Dearest and beloved Friend,
"She who writes you these lines is a most unfortunate woman, whom you really know very little about, and who had to deceive you until to-day because all that is most sacred to her--her love for you--was at stake. And now, by writing this, that also is lost! I sacrifice it on the altar of your happiness for the sake of the divine fire that flashes from your eyes, consecrating and ennobling my soul.
"The world has treated me cruelly. It has wrenched from me by degrees my faith in human nature, my ideals, my buoyancy of spirit; it has brought me to sin, and so robbed me of the right to continue my journey through life at your side.
"I set out once on that journey full of confidence and hopefulness, and pure to the very core of my being. But every man I was destined to meet plucked off a twig of my virtue. I lifted my eyes in adoring reverence to the aged husband who promised to be my hero and master, my pattern and god. He used me as a tool for his basest lusts.
"Another came, who was young as I was, whom I wanted to save while I saved myself in his arms. He took me and enjoyed me as if I were a romantic adventure, then flung me off and went to the dogs. He wrote a Uriah sort of letter to a friend of his, who took mean advantage of my stranded position, both spiritual and physical, and made me by a low trick so dependent on him that I found I had been long completely in his power without knowing it. Helpless and utterly crushed as I was, I yielded and became his victim and slave, and I had not even the spirit left to be angry with him.
"This was the pass to which my destiny brought me. In vain I tried to struggle out of the darkness of night, but nowhere did I see light breaking ahead. I caught with enthusiasm at any hand held out to me, but each seemed to pull me down lower, till my whole being seemed paralysed with hopeless despair.
"Then you came, my beloved, my saviour, my redeemer! Once more it was light around me, once more the world burst into blossom, the parched fountains were unsealed, and 'The Song of Songs' echoed again within me.
"And with pride and elation I recognised the fact that nothing impure had taken root in my character; that the days of degradation had passed over me without touching my integrity of soul, my desire for pure and beautiful things, my instincts for a lofty humanity. It had all been only slumbering, and you, beloved, have awakened it to new life.
"And even if I may not be your wife--only one free of stain deserves you--I want to be worthy of you, whether near you or far away, as you decree.
"I am quite resolved to free myself from the shackles that so long have encumbered me outwardly, and to ascend out of the misery of my lot to a higher life, more in harmony with the demands of my inner self. You have pointed the way, and in gratitude I kiss your dear, gentle, diligent hand.
"Good-bye, my love! If you want to punish me, never come near me again. But, if you can put up with the love of a woman who loves you as you never can be loved again on earth, do not let me perish. I have nothing but what I am to give you, but that is yours till death.
"Lilly."
She read and reread what she had written, and worked herself up into a state of rapture over it.
Now the truth appeared in quite another light. And then all at once the question rose within her: But is this the truth? Was it not rather a conglomeration of turgid phrases expressive of high-flown emotions which were not spontaneous or sincere, belonging to the pages of sensational novels, but not to herself? Instead of despair she had in reality only suffered from boredom, and in the "darkness of night" she had many times enjoyed herself thoroughly and held high revel. She had made out that the worthy Richard was a tyrannical despot and herself a poor downtrodden victim, whereas she had always been at liberty to do what she liked.
It was the truth, and yet it was--just as much and as little the truth as she had confessed in that first terrible letter. It was possible to write this letter and that letter, and many another; but the truth, the genuine, illuminating, naked truth, would not be in any.
She herself did not know what it was, and no one else knew.
The truth had dissolved into nothingness the moment after the events to which it related had happened, and no power on earth could conjure it up again. A distorted mirage, changing with her mood and as her pen moved over the paper, was all that was left of it.
"But I don't want to tell any more lies," she cried to herself, tearing up the second letter. "To-day, at any rate, I want to speak the truth."
Should she write a third letter?
It was long past midnight. Her eyes burned. Over-excitement made her temples throb. And to-morrow morning he must have his answer, as she had sworn he should.
Then suddenly she awakened to a consciousness of what had really been happening, how during the last four hours she had been face to face with the danger of losing him for ever. A frenzy of sickening anxiety overwhelmed her. She ran about the flat, reeled, battered herself against the walls, rushed to the window and cried out his name. She must go to him, go to him at once. It was the only thought she was able to grasp. She would get the front door opened somehow, wake him out of his sleep, force her way into his room, stay with him to-night and always, no matter what the consequences might be.... She did not care. Only to be quit of this dread, which consumed her like a furnace.
The thunderstorm had raged itself out, but rain was still falling steadily. She scarcely gave herself time to fling on a cloak. In her house-shoes, without hat or umbrella, she flew along the streets, splashing through the mud and puddles, followed by foul epithets from homeless night-waifs in dark doorways. She arrived breathless and panting at his lodgings.
Light glimmered in the two windows on the third floor. She clapped her hands and called out "Konni! Konni!" repeating his name several times. But he had closed the windows and did not hear her.
As she stared up at his window, she saw the shadow of his tall figure on the blind glide up and down, from one end of the room to the other--up and down, up and down. And all the time the rain was descending on her in torrents, and the chill dampness of the street creeping up her limbs.
"Konni! Konni!" she cried louder. Foot-passengers who went by offered her their umbrellas, others mimicked her, and called out too, "Konni! Konni!" Then at last the restless shadow came to a standstill. One of the windows was opened.
"Lilly, is it you?" he asked, in a voice hoarse with alarm.
"Now here you are at last, my sweetest Konni," answered, instead of Lilly, an exhilarated gentleman who insisted on holding his umbrella over her.
"My God!"
Upstairs it became dark, and a few moments later he was standing with the lamp and door-key in his hand at the glass entrance-door.
The exhilarated gentleman took his leave, with repeated bows.
"Lilly, what has happened? What are you doing here?"
She crouched trembling against the doorway. She could not speak. She had only one sensation--that she was with him now, and all would be well.
He felt her clothes.
"You are wet through!... You have only house-shoes on! My God, Lilly!"
She tried to say something, but she was ashamed that he should see how her teeth chattered.
"And I can't take you in. You know why.... But I must--yes, I must take you in. If I let you go home like this you'll catch your death. We must be very quiet--as we were before. We mayn't speak above a whisper. The invalid is still not out of danger. Give me your hand.... Come!"
With eyes half closed, she suffered him to lead her up the stairs. Her wet dress flapped against, the banisters. She felt as if she must cower down on one of the steps and lie there till the charwoman came with her broom and swept her away. Yet she went on climbing the stairs, drawing nearer every minute to the fate in store for her above. With bowed head she followed him down the passage into his room, where the lingering sultriness of the summer day half stifled her. Konrad pushed her down into his easy-chair. He drew off the soaked velvet rags from her feet, and brought her dry stockings. The wet dress too he peeled from her body, threw his great-coat round her shoulders, and wrapped her in warm blankets.
She let him do it all impassively, wishing to enjoy to the full his tender care of her. So far she had not spoken a word. Now, when she wanted to thank him, he pointed to the door of the adjoining room.
"Speak low," he whispered in her ear beseechingly. "The poor thing seems to be having a good night for the first time."
Faint compassion awoke in her; yet talking was imperative.
"What is the matter with her?" she asked under her breath. "Tell me."
He hesitated. "The landlady has sworn me to strictest secrecy.... But you are part of myself; I may tell you. The girl, her only child, ran away three or four months ago, and was confined in secret. Her mother went and brought her home, and for six weeks she has been lying between life and death; at last she has taken a turn for the better."
"Poor thing!" she said, and then the consciousness of her own wretchedness came over her with renewed force.
"Konni, Konni," she wailed whisperingly on his breast, "it's all over now. I wanted to starve with you, beg, do anything; but what's the use?... When you know all...."
"How can that make any difference, dearest?"
"I mean about me--my life, my past."
He disengaged himself with a slight jerk and sat down opposite her. The inquiring look of consternation, which stiffened his pale face like a mask, filled her with a fresh fear. This time it was not fear of him, but fear for him. She was afraid of causing him pain, making her own suffering his.
"I was going to write to you everything exactly as it happened, but somehow it wouldn't come. As I wrote, it got all wrong. So instead I came, came to you in the middle of the night. If you like, I will tell you ... all ... now."
She could not go on, and buried her face on the edge of the writing-table.
"Why don't you speak, then?"
He had quite forgotten his strict injunctions about keeping quiet. Both started at the sudden sound of his voice.
"She is probably asleep," he said, again lowering his tone. "So speak out at last. What can it be that you have to say?"
His breath came heavily, under the weight of anxiety that oppressed him.
And she began. Bending towards him, she tried to relate in a whisper the history for which she had not been able to find words at home.
And this time, too, it was not the truth. She felt that it was not. It was even less, much less, the truth than what she had written in her letters. No power on earth could have induced her to pain him with every sordid detail. So she told of a long succession of martyrdoms, and in a funereal train let her injuries, humiliations, and insults pass in review before him. All had been darkness around her, unrelieved by a ray of hope or light. She had struggled in vain for deliverance and salvation, had made a dismal sacrifice of herself for no end. So she talked on. And he, half turned to stone, with wide-open eyes, listened. Only at the name "Salmoni," which she dared not withhold, he started and shrank from her.
They had both entirely forgotten the patient in the next room. Constantly she had to wipe tears out of her eyes; she grew indignant with herself and others by fits and starts, skated gingerly over places where the ice was thin, indulged in self-reproaches, and said to herself defiantly as she drew near the end: "This is the truth." And it was, in the sense that it was an inventory of the best in her; the truth as she hoped, with justice, it might shape itself in his perplexed vision.
There was silence. Her glance glided guiltily beyond him and rested on the portrait which leered at her from the writing-table with cynical worldly eyes, as much as to say: "I know you, my dear child, better than you know yourself." Something familiar and confidential lay in those eyes, a sort of reflection from that mad merry world which she had just been representing as a purgatory of tortures.
Fascinated, she dared not look away from them, and their mocking searching gaze stripped her soul bare, and caused every gleam of hope to die within her.
The silence became painful. Their thoughts seemed to vibrate in zigzags through the breathless stillness of the room. Then suddenly it was broken by a low piteous moaning, muffled at first, as if a handkerchief were being thrust into the mouth, then breaking out again more violently and loudly. It came from the next room, where the sick girl who had sinned secretly had been struggling for so many weeks for her young life. Soon, crooning words of comfort mingled with the moans. The girl's mother had come from the room beyond where she slept to ascertain the cause of this fresh outburst of grief.
Their eyes met. "She must have heard everything," their glance seemed to say.
For a moment another's misfortune made them forget their own. The great flood of suffering common to humanity swept over them, softening the sting of their own personal woes. The sobbing now was smothered by the pillows.
"My pet, my own!" entreated the mother's consoling voice, every intonation of it overflowing with love; "be good again, my darling ... it's not so very dreadful.... We will bring up the little one, and even if he doesn't marry you it won't matter so much. Think we shall have the little baby, and what a joy it will be when the baby laughs and says, 'mamma.' You see, it is not so very bad, after all, my pet, is it?"
The sobbing subsided and gave place to a gurgling sigh of content.
"'It's not so very bad, after all.' Ah! I wish someone would say that to me," thought Lilly.
But no one ever would. A burning desire to be soothed and comforted, even as the poor little sinner in the next room was being comforted, rose within her. "She has her mother!" she moaned, bursting into tears, "but I haven't anyone."
Konrad bent over her and drew her hands from her face. In his sorrowful eyes a radiance dawned, so dear, so full of unspeakable loving-kindness, that he was quite transfigured, and seemed like a visitant from another world.
"Haven't you got me?" he asked.
"Yes, but you can't help me now," she said. "How can you endure me any longer?"
In the next room all was still again. Now the girl's mother must also be aware that he was entertaining a belated guest.
"Listen," he whispered, with his lips close to her ear. "We mustn't talk much, and my head's going round; but there's one thing that seems quite clear to me, and that is, the absurdity of everything that we call guilt and sin when two people love each other ... and when one of them has suffered like you. To me you have always been an angel, and an angel you shall continue to be in the future."
"In the future?" she stammered, listening eagerly. "Is there any future?"
He wiped his forehead, which was damp from perspiration.
"I don't know yet," he said. "I only know that I cannot live without you."
She closed her eyes. She wanted the dream to last.
"It may not be now as we hoped, of course." She noticed that his words came haltingly. "Everything will have to be different."
"But nothing in your life ought to be altered," she said; "it mustn't be different."
"You can't disregard facts, dear. Where we shall live it's impossible to say yet; but we shall find some corner of the earth where no one knows us."
For the first time it dawned on her what he meant. And forgetful of herself, the sick girl, and everything else, she sank down on her knees with a cry, and sobbed:
"I won't let you! You shall not do it! You know the world so little. You are far too young. You don't know what you are doing. You mustn't sacrifice yourself.... I don't want to ruin you. I love you too well for that."
He bent back her head and stroked the hair out of her eyes. Oh! if there had not been that heavenly light of goodness and of suffering in his eyes! A whole world of grief already burned in their depths.
"If we've come to the question of sacrifice," he said, "then I must ask you to make a sacrifice for me. Will you?"
"Yes--anything. Do you want me to die? Say it."
"I only want you to do one thing. Come to me as you are. Don't bring a single bit of your property with you. Never go back to your ... that flat. From this moment let it all be as if it had never been. Promise me that."
She struggled against a feeling of shock.
Not go home! Never see her dear corner drawing-room again, nor the little bullfinch; never give Peterle his dinner again! Never!
A horrid feeling that it was insane folly to ask this came and went like a splash of mud. Then she answered in hasty resolution:
"Yes, I promise."
He breathed deeply. "Now we will keep quite still," he said. "The girl must get her sleep, and to-morrow I will explain everything to the landlady."
"But your great work?" she asked, attacked by another fit of self-reproach. "What will become of it?"
A melancholy smile stole over his face.
"Who knows? It will depend on my uncle. If he consents, we can live as we like.... All will be well."
"And if he doesn't?"
His right hand, which had been caressing her hair unceasingly from her forehead downwards to her neck, for a moment pressed her crown almost painfully, as if by the closer contact gathering strength for the approaching life's battle.
"Then all will be well too," he said, and smiled again.
A few minutes later she lay beside him on the narrow camp-bedstead, the hard edges of which hurt her limbs. Her head was on his shoulder; her arms, one under his back, the other flung across his chest, clung to him as always, when she sought solace and protection from him in trouble. But this time she slept, and he kept watch.
CHAPTER XIX
The old lampshade-maker of the Neanderstrasse was not a little astonished when her former lodger, whom she had always admired as a smartly-turned-out grand lady, came one day in a badly fitting alpaca coat and skirt, and a sailor hat with a grass-green ribbon round it, and asked to be taken in. Last year's young lady occupant of the best room having recently married, however, she was glad to let it again to Lilly.
Thus it happened that Frau Laue's fiery crimson plush upholstery once more played a part in her life. The pictures of famous actors smiled down on her patronisingly from the walls, and she was reminded of the connection between cleanliness of person and purity of conscience as she made her toilette.
Konrad, in touching concern for her appearance, drew all the money that he had saved out of the bank--about five hundred marks altogether--and had purchased her a wardrobe at the draper's, for she could not go out and shop for herself in the costume she had worn the night that she came to his rooms. He had been persuaded by the shopgirls to buy the most ridiculous things. She would have died of laughing if he hadn't laid out a great deal of his money on them.
Dressed in the shoddy apparel, she felt she was masquerading, and not for the world would she now have been seen in the streets.
Frau Laue shook her head doubtfully.
"Four years ago you left me with court-dresses, bracelets, and brooches, and all sorts of lovely things, and now you are come back in these rags! That doesn't seem to me to be fitting to your career, Lilly dear."
Neither did Konrad find favour in the old lady's eyes.
"He's too young for you," she said, "and not enough of a swell. He may have high ideals, and be sentimental, otherwise he wouldn't see anything in you; but I tell you all that high-flown rubbish means sorrow."
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.
Hours devoted to amorous dalliance were out of the question. Often indeed he fell asleep in a corner of the sofa in the middle of his work. Then Lilly could contemplate at her leisure the ravages his strenuous life had made on him. He looked haggard and worn, his clothes were neglected, and the velvety blue sheen of his cheeks, in which she had taken such delight, had given place to pimples and a stubbly growth of hair.
She would have given anything to know what he was really thinking about her at the bottom of his soul, but she could extract nothing from him. Dumbly he gazed before him with burning eyes, his lips so tightly compressed that the edge of a razor could not have been inserted between them. She had no grounds for doubting him, for she knew that all his energies were concentrated on preparing for their joint future.
The post of professor of German in a college in Buenos Ayres was vacant, also a similar post in Caracas, and on the other side of the herring-pond he could easily get employment on any university staff. All that was necessary was a few testimonials from celebrated professors.
It was only in the contingency of his uncle disapproving of his marriage and cutting him off that he laid these plans. If the old man said "Yes," there would be ample means to set up housekeeping anywhere they liked, and in surroundings most congenial for the precious work.
Konrad had at once announced his engagement to his uncle, and given a heart-moving account of Lilly's past. He did not conceal that there had been stains on it, but he emphasised the more her fine qualities, her inner purity, her grandeur of soul, her gifts of mind, the wealth of her intellectual interests.
He read her an extract from a copy of the letter after he had despatched it, sounding like the manifesto of a social revolution:
"I know you are, thank God, as I am, far above the narrow Philistine conventions of society, the uncharitable social standards, the Pharisaism that entitles itself to be the guardian of public morals and would sacrifice all aspirations, freedom of conduct, and high living to the fetish of family-life bondage. You have travelled in all parts of the world and learned how mutable are the laws of morality everywhere, how hollow the sham of pretending to regard each as the divinely ordained dogma, and how hypocritical the sly methods by which men wriggle out of them. You know that in the realm of ethics there is one thing alone that commands unconditionally a reverence and esteem, and that is the will to kallokagathia, to that mode of living in which the super-men of all times combined the Good and Beautiful. Yes, in her aspirations and her troubles, she has personified the good and beautiful for me, and has brought into my life imperial rights and the dawn of morning's glory."
Could anything be more splendidly and touchingly put? Who could be so crassly dull and stupid as to resist the power of such language? And with this she consoled him when he was weighed down with a feeling of depression about the uncertainty of their immediate future.
A week passed before the answer came, the longed-for answer that meant joy or despair to two human beings.
"My dear Boy,
"I have no idea what kallokagathia means, and other foreign words of the kind. It is half a century since I ran away from school, but, all the same, I flatter myself that I have a keen eye for faces, and can take a man's measure pretty accurately, whether it's striking a bargain on the Yoshiwara, on the Stock Exchange, or at a game of baccarat. Nevertheless, this insight did not stand in the way of my being fleeced and of making a fool of myself about women. My life represents a long sequence of such blunders. Once I wanted to bring home a young Circassian because her eyebrows grew prettily; another time I nearly married a little Musme, because she understood how to massage my feet. I won't recount how many times I wanted to act the part of saviour of souls, for everyone goes through that phase. Fortunately, the patron divinity of old rips and old bachelors--with your wide classical learning you may be able to tell me who he is--has hitherto had the grace to save me from putting any plans into execution. Your case, however, appears on the surface to be essentially different. If, as you relate, your sweetheart is a pattern with every attribute of virtue--life is full of surprises and if she doesn't pose as a repentant magdalen, then I shall with the greatest enjoyment give respectability, which I have detested all my life, a slap in the face by bestowing on you my hearty blessing. But if by any chance your love affair bears a family likeness to my own tender recollections, you must excuse me if I back out of any responsibility with regard to what you call your future and break off any relations with you. The best plan I can think of is to come to Berlin to-morrow, and to ask you and your future bride to keep an evening free for your old uncle. As I don't know as yet the best place to dine at, I will fix a rendezvous later. Till then,
"Your affectionate
"Uncle Rennschmidt."
For the first time during these sad days, Lilly saw Konrad's face relax into a smile.
"If that is his attitude," he said, "there is nothing to fear. One glance at you and his doubts will be dissipated; besides, who in the world could possibly resist you? You have only to make yourself a little nice to him and he will be your slave."
But Lilly cherished secret misgivings.
If only she had her old extensive wardrobe to select from, she might, with great care, have made herself as presentable as she could wish in his uncle's eyes; but in either of these two ready-made little frocks--which only by pinning she could make fit her--without ornaments and the hundred and one etceteras that contribute to a perfect ensemble, how was she to achieve the conquest of the old connoisseur of women?
"I am afraid I shall have to put you to the expense of an evening dress," she said timidly.
He was delighted at the idea. Anything she wanted she must have, of course. A hat with feathers, a lace scarf ... like those he had seen her in. And he handed out two hundred and sixty marks, all that he had left, for her purchases. Poor dear boy! what did he know of the costliness of chic in the world of fashion?
When he was gone she thought it over. While she was trying to devise plans of getting herself up decently out of the means at her disposal, there were dozens of lovely dresses hanging in the cupboards of her old flat, dresses that he had never seen in his life, for she had never been escorted by him to any party. And the lace scarf, which had cost a fortune, was there too, and God only knew what besides. She dared hardly trust herself to think of all these wasted treasures.
With all her might she resisted the temptation. She had given him her word of honour, and, whoever else she might deceive, she could not deceive Konrad. So she decided to go on a shopping expedition the next morning. There might be something she could pick up in stock at Wertheim's or Gerson's that would prove a bargain. She was well known in the shops, and though never extravagant, was noted for always choosing the very best materials. What astonishment would be depicted on the faces of the saleswomen when they beheld her in her present cheap, shoddy clothes!
No; it would be too painful an ordeal. She couldn't go through it. Yet think and think it over as she did by the hour, nothing could prevent her thoughts travelling back to the wardrobes where her finery reposed, silently offering her an exquisite choice. Nowhere could she find a loophole by which she could evade her promise, nowhere an excuse for the crime of breaking it. In spite of all this wrestling with herself, the night passed in happy dreams, for the sun of hope had risen once more. And, as usual, when Lilly's sleep was refreshing and profound, she felt her senses lapped in familiar melodies. The "Moonlight Sonata" stole on her, and Grieg's "Ung Birken," and, with the Rhine maidens' motif out of "The Ring," "The Song of Songs."
As she lay half awake the aria still rang in her ears: "Come, my beloved, let us go forth into the field."
And then, in sudden terror, she started up in bed crying out, "The Song of Songs!" The score--her precious roll of music--her heritage--where was it?
In a drawer of the escritoire in the corner drawing-room--buried, forgotten.
She had never given it a single thought.
Now there was no longer any question of keeping her promise. If in that supreme hour she had kept her head, she would never have given it. She had been casting about for an excuse, and now here was more than an excuse, a justification. No pangs of conscience troubled her. This was a sacred cause, for which she must go through fire and water.
Before eight o'clock she was out of the house. The sun-drenched mist of the rosy August morning melted into a violet sky; from the yellowing poplars dropped sooty dew, and the electric trams hummed their secret storm-signals.
She mingled with the little crowd that gathered and melted again at the nearest stopping-station waiting for the car which was to take her west. Nervously she looked about her, fearful that Konrad might chance to come along the street; and when seated in the tramcar she screened her face with the morning paper that she had brought. Along the canal path she glided, under cover of the trees, like a hunted animal.
And so she came to the flat at last. The porter was sweeping the steps, as he did every morning, and greeted her with an exclamation of wonder and pleasure. The greengrocer whose stall was in the cellar gave her a roguish welcome, and his small fry, to whom she had sometimes given a bonbon, hung on to her skirts in jubilation. Altogether it felt like coming home.
Adele was still in bed. Why shouldn't she be? There was nothing for her to do.
When Lilly opened the door of her room she displayed unbounded delight. She even shed tears of satisfaction, and Lilly all at once realised what she was losing in her.
Everything shone brightly in the morning sunshine. The flowers had been watered. The bullfinch flapped his wings in greeting, and Peterle nearly broke the bars of his cage to scramble up on her shoulder. She scarcely knew whom to attend to first--out of sheer happiness and affection.
There were three letters and two telegrams on the salver. The letters were in Richard's handwriting; the telegrams were addressed to Adele, urgently demanding the address of her vanished mistress.
In the meantime her master had given up his courtship, and returned to Berlin. He had advertised in the papers, and came every day to see if there was any answer. He sat in his old place and drank his tea as usual, afterwards smoking cigarettes till it was time to go back to the office.
Had she mentioned Konrad? What did the gnädige Frau take her for? Adele hoped she understood better than that how to look after her mistress's interests. And now the best thing for the gnädige Frau to do was to come back and act just as if nothing at all had happened. That is what her former ladies had always done.
Lilly asked her to fetch down the smaller of her two leather trunks from the attic, explaining that she wished to take away with her a few things which had belonged to her before. As Adele sullenly obeyed, Lilly collected Konrad's letters from their secret hiding-place, then ran to her big wardrobe, snatched the dresses from the pegs, and piled them on the bed to choose what she would take.
It was now that she thought of "The Song of Songs." She went down on her knees before the escritoire. The roll of music, which had been lying for years at the back of the bottom drawer neglected and forlorn, had assumed a different aspect. The elastic band that held the sheets together had become slack and sticky, and fell to pieces when Lilly touched it: The crumpled sheets slipped out of her hand and fluttered over the carpet. There they lay--the arias, the recitations, the duets, and the connecting orchestral passages--all in confusion, and on the top the "Turtle Dove" solo for the clarionet, which she had hummed with her mother almost before she could lisp. Dismayed, she gazed at the scattered sheets. They had turned yellow and musty. Several were stained with her own blood, which had flown from her veins after her mother's assault on her with the bread-knife. The bloodstains entirely obliterated many of the notes. Others had been gnawed away with the paper by mice at Schloss Lischnitz. And this was what it had come to, her "Song of Songs."
It held out no message of hope now; it was no refuge for the future. No faithful Eckart, no guide to dizzy golden heights. It was a mere derelict, used up though never used, a time-honoured bit of lumber that one drags about without knowing why--an extinguished light, a masterpiece of wisdom that had become meaningless.
Shrugging her shoulders, she hastily gathered together the disarranged rolls of paper and tried to thrust one inside the other, regardless of how they came--she was in such a hurry!
"I can arrange them some time later," she thought, dimly conscious that she would never take the trouble.
Adele came with the box. She seemed to have been a remarkably long time getting it. Her eyes kept wandering guiltily to the clock, and her answers were absent-minded. Then she threw back the lid, and Lilly threw the score into the bottom of the box. Its yawning depths seemed to cry out for further booty. There lay the dresses spread out on the bed. Her row of shoes stood by the washstand. Hats, blouses, veils, lace wraps, silk petticoats--all were waiting as much as to say, "Take us too!"
For a moment she closed her eyes with a moan, remembering the one and only sacrifice he had asked of her. But it must be done--both their futures depended on it.
"Frau Laue will hide them for me, and afterwards Frau Laue can keep them," she thought.
Then, with a rapid resolve, she made a dash at the clothes, and gathered up blindly anything and everything she could lay hands on. She seized even the gold-coroneted ivory brushes, the three-winged hand-mirror, the bromide, the recipe for the summer storage of her furs, and a dozen other little indispensable articles of the toilette.
And jewels were not forgotten! "He may want money later," she thought.
Meanwhile Adele had been sent out for a four-wheeler, and again it was ages before she came back. The porter helped to carry down the trunk, and Adele held the hat-boxes in her free hand. One last caress of the bullfinch's grey-green wings, a kiss on the small monkey's velvety snout, and the door closed behind her for ever.
"Will not the gnädige Frau leave an address?" Adele inquired. How sly she looked!
"Later on I will write to you, dear Adele, and I hope you may come and live with me again."
"Dear Adele" did not respond, but glanced down the street expectantly.
A few minutes afterwards, as Lilly drove along the canal, she saw from the cab window a smart yellow-striped hired motor whiz past from the opposite direction. Richard was inside. She recognised him as he flashed by. Red as a lobster, his head slanting, he stared past her, with wild and searching glances, at the house that she had just left.
She hurriedly directed her driver to turn into a side street, for she had no desire to meet him till her fate with regard to the world had been decided. But in a few minutes she heard, with a beating heart, the same clatter of wheels that had died away in the distance coming behind her, and drawing nearer and nearer. The yellow side of the motor had almost shot beyond her, when the word "Stop!" brought it to a standstill, and at the same moment her cab drew up too.
Richard confronted her with his hand on the door-handle: "Where are you going?"
His voice rose to a feminine shrillness. Above his high starched collar his throat worked up and down convulsively.
She felt perfectly calm and mistress of the situation.
He appeared to her now a poor, helpless shadow of a creature, he who so long had been her lord and master.
"Please let me drive on, Richard," she said. "I have said good-bye to you by letter. I wanted a few things, and have been to fetch them. Why should we annoy each other further?"
"Turn round!" he said, grinding his teeth. "Turn round!"
"Why should I turn round?"
"I say you shall! You know where your home is. I will not allow you to knock about the world by yourself any longer, God knows what mayn't happen to you. Driver, turn round!"
The driver, with his red face, looked inquiringly at his fare before obeying.
"Really, Richard, I alone have the control of this cab, and of my future proceedings--as you have control of yours."
"What rot! If you are thinking about the American heiress, she may go to the deuce for all I care. But you--you must come back. You must! you shall!"
He grasped with both hands the hem of her skirt as if he would drag her out of the cab by her clothes.
"I beg you to come back.... I can't sleep, I can't work.... I have got so used to you.... If it had come off, I should have joined you again directly the wedding was over. And everything in your rooms is as you left it that you have seen for yourself. Peterle won't eat, Adele says, and Adele is moped. She says she simply can't exist without you. I'll give you twenty thousand--no, thirty thousand--marks a year for life. Mother won't mind.... She understands ... for, you know, I've given up the idea of marrying for good; that need never worry you again.... And you may come to the office when you like.... And you shall have the carriage instead of a hired one. I'll have the telephone put on between your flat and the stable. Or perhaps you'd prefer a motor-car? If so, you shall have one, ten thousand times better than this."
He had played his trump-card. What dreams of earthly grandeur could exceed a motor-car? He paused and, kneeling on the step, stared hard into her face to see the effect of his speech.
She saw clearly that she would never be free of him unless she told him the truth. She was sorry for him, but it was her duty.
"Look here, Richard. All that you offer me is no good to me now, for I love another man who can give me far more than you can--far, far more!"
"What! What! You've caught a young Vanderbilt?" he exclaimed in jealous rage. "Well, I must say I never suspected that side to your character."
"No, dear Richard; it's not a young Vanderbilt. On the contrary, he is so poor that he lives from hand to mouth. But, all the same, he and I are engaged, and as his future wife I must ask you to leave me free to do as I like."
His jaw dropped, his eyes grew round; he reeled back against the hind wheel of the yellow car.
"Drive on!" called Lilly to the cabman.
She leaned back in her corner with a sigh of relief, and yet with a slight sense of guilt at having got rid so lightly of the old love.
The whole way she heard the puffing of a slowly progressing motor behind her, and when she descended from the cab, Richard got out of his motor at a little distance, but near enough for her to see an expression in his eyes like that of a whipped dog.
She ran up the four flights of stairs as if pursued by furies, forgetting all about her box. A moment afterwards the cabman came up, panting under its weight, and when she offered him his fare he declined to take the money.
"The gentleman downstairs," he said, "has already settled everything."