The scorpion

By Anna Elisabet Weirauch

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Title: The scorpion

Author: Anna Elisabet Weirauch

Translator: Whittaker Chambers

Release date: December 31, 2025 [eBook #77582]

Language: English

Original publication: New York: Arno Press, 1932

Credits: Adam Buchbinder, Jens Sadowski, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SCORPION ***

THE SCORPION

BY ANNA ELISABET WEIRAUCH

The Scorpion

Translated from the
German by
WHITTAKER CHAMBERS

WILLEY BOOK COMPANY
New York

Printed in the United States of America

Frankly, I desired to make Myra’s acquaintance because of her evil
reputation.

It was from Aunt Antonia that I first heard of her. Aunt Antonia was a
very pious and respectable lady, and lies and slander were alien to her.
She saw things with a sharp eye, but saw them from a set viewpoint.

According to her tale, Myra had even as a child exhibited a peculiar
propensity to lying and stealing. In school she was considered stupid
and lazy. As a young girl, she had run around with a remarkable woman, a
fashionably dressed sharper, with a decidedly masculine manner. Misled,
perhaps, by this friend, she had stolen her father’s silver service and
pawned it. After a fit of downright insanity during which she tried to
strangle her aunt, who had been the motherless child’s faithful
guardian, she was dispatched to her Uncle George in a small town. There
she stole everything not nailed down, very skillfully forced her uncle’s
desk and, appropriating a large sum of money, fled.

Her father, a mental man of a most sensitive nature, did not long
survive this news: he died of a stroke.

Myra’s mother had died in giving her life. “Luckily,” as Uncle George
was wont to say bitterly.

But Myra did not share his opinion. She had a fantastic notion of what a
mother is, and believed that her own mother’s premature death was the
cause of all the misfortunes in her life.

For my part, I cannot say which view is correct. Certain it is, that
Myra’s childhood would not have been as dismal and joyless as under Aunt
Emily’s bony fingers; at the same time, even the gentlest of mothers’
hands could not have saved her from the bitterest struggles of her life.
And when I recall the latter, I understand Uncle George’s “luckily”
quite well. Doubtless he had a clearer picture of his sister than Myra
could possibly have had.

Little Myra was not to go to school; her father, Franz Rudloff himself
ordered it so. He had an almost morbid fear of anything that suggested
“the common people.” It seemed to him as if his cool, high-ceilinged
home would be contaminated with the exhalations of poorly ventilated
class-rooms, as if his quiet walls would re-echo to hundreds of shrill
voices, to hundreds of trampling feet, were he to send his daughter to
school.

So a governess came to the house.

Aunt Emily was in secret opposition from the first. She had gone to
school, and school had not harmed her in any way. Quite the contrary.

She was absolutely opposed to the idea that anybody in this world should
have anything better than she had or had had. One of the few pleasures
she permitted herself in life was that of “impartial justice,” as she
called it. That is to say, if anyone is getting along undeservedly well,
he must be made to suffer for his unmerited good fortune by some heavy
blow of fate.

Other people have another name for this type of pleasure.

Aunt Emily was “against” the teacher. But Aunt Emily was much too much
of a model to object when the master of the house expressed a desire.
She knew that in such cases she must submit in silence. Not that poor
Franz would ever have _demanded_ it of her. Oh dear no! But it was the
proper thing to do. So she pinched the corners of her mouth a little
tighter and submitted in silence.

The teacher had such wavy, wayward hair that the brown curls refused to
be laid flat and were always fluttering about her face. Moreover, she
had the disposition which, according to the proverb, goes with such
hair. All the men who had played a brief or a lengthy rôle in her life
declared she would have made a ravishing lover. She was somewhat less
qualified to educate a little girl.

Aunt Emily had not chosen her. That had been quite definitely Franz
Rudloff’s and Myra’s concern. One thing father and daughter had in
common—all their senses thirsted for beauty and harmony. They put a
premium on externals, as Aunt Emily expressed it.

The governess, the “young lady,” had such a charming, girlish face, such
gentle gestures and such a beautiful, vibrant voice.

But it was no sense of personal interest that attracted Franz Rudloff to
the “young lady.” It was simply that if he must take a stranger into his
house, he preferred that she be an agreeable creature. Perhaps he was,
to a degree unsuspected by himself, heartily sick of a disagreeable one.

Myra’s case was different. She had never in all her life seen any human
soul that so appealed to her. All her eager child’s heart, which neither
love nor tenderness had ever filled, went out toward this stranger, this
stranger who took her into her arms, who brushed the hair from her
forehead with her gentle hands while her voice caressingly called her
“darling” and “pet.” The prospect of having this person always near her
was an inconceivable, a delirious joy.

She did not beg her father. Myra Rudloff never could beg, not even if it
were a question of her life.

But when her father asked her if the “young lady” should come, she said,
“Yes.” And the “young lady” came. But Aunt Emily pinched the corners of
her mouth tighter and submitted in silence.

In the next three or four years, while the “young lady” remained in the
house, Myra experienced all the tortures of unhappy love.

For the first few months everything went splendidly. That is the most
unhappy part of an unhappy love—it always begins with an extravagant
happiness.

The “young lady” was very fond indeed of Myra, and Myra was very fond
indeed of the “young lady,” and they studied together and played
together and went for walks together. It was a glorious time. But like
all glorious times, of brief duration.

Surely some fiend suddenly cast the former lieutenant of hussars, von
Hanston, in their path, that very lieutenant of hussars whom the “young
lady” had loved ardently from the time when she was not a young lady at
all, but was called Frieda Ellert and went to the seminary and danced at
her first balls in the city where she was born.

This former lieutenant of hussars had no very clean record behind him.
He had had to leave the service on account of debts, and had since tried
his hand at a little of everything. He referred to his present
occupation only in very ambiguous, albeit in very high-sounding, terms.

But that in no sense prevented the flame from kindling again in the
“young lady’s” bosom, or Myra, “sweet little Myra, who was as good as
gold,” from being a nuisance who was continually in the way.

At first, Myra was simply cross when her “brother” paid the “young lady”
a visit and the child was sent to her bedroom, because the “young lady”
could not receive a gentleman in a room where there was a bed. Later
they changed all that.

It was enough to make anybody cross. And if the visits had continued and
Myra had continued to be shut out, and if that cold, unfriendly tone
which was habitual with the “young lady” these days, had continued, too,
Myra’s burning love might have changed very quickly to hate—and all
would have been well.

But the devil alone knows, that same devil who had washed up von Hanston
on Victoria Louisa Square one morning, what von Hanston had up his
sleeve. Some private worries, no doubt, or debts or another little love
affair—at any rate, the “young lady” presently began to feel aggrieved,
and to mope and to weep all night.

That was too much for Myra.

Myra Rudloff did not cry easily. She did not believe that a human being
could cry unless he were suffering the extremes of agonized despair.
Therefore, she would have torn her heart out of her breast to comfort
anyone who was crying.

So when Frieda wept for her lieutenant of hussars, Myra suffered all the
torments of Hell.

At first, since the “young lady” did not want to wake the child, she
wept softly; in fact, wept herself to sleep in a quarter of an hour. But
when she observed that Myra woke up, or perhaps did not dare go to
sleep, and made an effort to remain awake, listening to every breath,
then she felt quite free to give vent to her grief and let herself be
comforted.

At the sound of the first sobs, Myra would jump out of her little bed
and run in her bare feet across the bare floor. Then she would crouch at
the “young lady’s” bedside and weep and shiver, and comfort her with her
sweet, delicate child’s voice, and her gentle and good child’s hands.

And the “young lady” permitted herself to be caressed and comforted
while she braced her feet against the foot of the bed, bent back her
head, tore the pillows with her nails and cried, “The dog! The
scoundrel! I can’t stand it any longer! I’ll die! He’s killing me!”

By the time that these scenes took place, Myra had already known for
some while that these outbursts referred to the “brother,” and that this
“brother” was no brother at all.

She felt such a furious torment of hatred against the man that she often
pondered with fierce intensity how she could manage to do away with him.

These “nights of memories and of sighs” were bad. But they were by no
means the worst. The worst was that the gentleman would appear again the
next day and be received between laughter and tears, with open
reproaches and hardly dissembled tenderness, and Myra would be sent to
her room.

Then Myra would grind her teeth and dig her nails into her palms, and
give way to the most torturing rage.

Myra was capable of much rudeness on these occasions. It was not her way
to show sorrow when she was suffering. She preferred to be rude. Hence
it is quite understandable that there were times when the “young lady”
was furiously angry at her.

Had Myra been able to tell how she felt inside, she would have wept and
said, “I love you and I am jealous. Doubly jealous because your love is
bestowed on a man who torments you and whom you pretend to despise. I
suffer because I have to love a creature who has so little pride and
character.”

Myra went into the room, _her_ room that she was not permitted to enter
while that hated “scoundrel” was sitting there. She entered without
knocking, she carried her head very high and set her tiny foot down very
firmly.

She laid her books and notebooks on the table, opened the ink-well with
a bang and pretended to be looking at the clock. She really was, but she
was still so small that she had some difficulty in telling the time.

“I have a lesson,” she said.

“That scoundrel” sneered contemptuously and excused himself.

“How dare she do such a thing?” the “young lady” hissed at her.

Myra strove to think of some hateful reply, and she succeeded.

“My father doesn’t pay you simply to keep that ‘scoundrel’ sitting here
all the time!” she said.

The “young lady” would have liked to strike her. But she shrank from the
menacing gravity of the child’s pale face.

Never had anybody dared strike Myra Rudloff, although many may have felt
the temptation.

The “young lady” caught her by the arm and shook her. She gripped the
child so tightly that the pressure of her fingers was visible several
days afterward as five blue marks on the tender skin.

If Myra had blue marks on her arm once, she had them a hundred times, or
welts on her shoulders, or scratches on her hands. Had she wanted to
complain, help was assured. If she had just once showed Aunt Emily the
traces of one such scene, instead of anxiously hiding them, “that
person” would have gone for good. Myra knew this but did not want to do
it. Hence she had to fight her battle through single-handed.

When Frieda perceived that the child was superior to her, she changed
her tactics. Myra must no longer be treated as an enemy, she must be
made a confidante. Everything must be poured forth to Myra’s silent,
little heart, all the joys and sorrows of this affair, and a whole mass
of rubbish, besides.

Myra had to stand watch, Myra had to convey letters and carry on
telephone conversations, and Myra was showered with kisses and caresses.
Another child might have been quite happy in this state of affairs. Myra
continued to suffer.

The difficulty probably lay in the fact that she detested the man so
much. If it had been someone she liked, she might have accommodated
herself more readily to the situation.

Sometimes, when the “young lady” was in a mood to belabor her heart’s
dearest, she would take the child on her knee and swear to leave that
terrible man. Then amidst tears and oaths everything would be promised.

“Yes, my darling, yes, my angel, he shall never cross that threshold
again, the dirty dog! I have you, my pet, my comfort, I will live for
you alone!”

For Myra these were moments of an agonized bliss.

But they were only moments, for all that, for when the telephone rang,
or when a letter came, or when they met the gentleman “accidentally” in
the public gardens, everything was forgotten again.

Myra comprehended that here was something against which she could do
nothing. She comprehended darkly that she had no right to demand a human
being entirely for herself, because she was a child. And she burned with
a desire to grow up quickly, quickly, in order to possess what she
loved, wholly and solely.

Then came that strange business with the silverware.

One night the “young lady” gave Myra the keys to the silver closet and a
shallow leather-covered case. Myra was to return the case to the closet.
The “young lady” had borrowed it secretly because her bridegroom wanted
to see the pretty silver.

Myra wanted to see, too. She teased so long that the “young lady” opened
the case. There were the thick, shiny spoons, row on row, each in its
groove in the dark blue velvet. Not one was missing.

Myra felt an irresistible pleasure in stealing down the long hall, as
silently as a cat, groping her way in the dining-room without turning on
the lights, cautiously unlocking the closet without the key’s grinding
or the door’s creaking, laying the case in its place and looking up
again. Then she had to suppress her joy with an effort as she flew into
the “young lady’s” arms and let herself be praised.

This first attempt was only an introduction. With astonishment and
admiration Myra discovered the workings of the pawn system. It was quite
miraculous—all one needed to do was lend silver or jewelry in order to
receive a whole heap of money. And in a short time you received your
things back again unharmed. Indeed, they were not even used during that
time, as the “young lady” replied assuringly to Myra’s questions, with a
laugh. It was a wonderful arrangement.

It was so lovely to lie in bed at night and chatter and nibble candy.
But candy was so terribly dear. Therefore, from time to time, the silver
was “lent.” It did the silver no harm, and the secrecy with which it had
to be taken and returned was a real lark.

But once the big case was sent away and did not come back again. It was
gone so everlastingly long that nobody gave a thought to it any longer.

Then it occurred to Aunt Emily during house-cleaning one day to have all
the silver counted over and cleaned. Aunt Emily knew to a fork-tine just
how much silver was in the household. But Aunt Emily was much too much
of a model to depend upon her memory in matters so tremendous. On the
inside of each door in the sideboard was tacked a little slip of
rice-paper on which was written in Aunt Emily’s eminently distinct and
legible hand:

Contents

A leather case with 12 soup spoons, monogram L. R.

A wooden case with 12 dessert spoons, monogram G. v. S.

With the help of these lists she established beyond a doubt that one
case was missing.

Myra was not even frightened when she heard Aunt Emily’s shrill, excited
voice and the weeping of the affronted maid. She was simply happy to be
able to straighten out the situation. Thank heaven! Else poor Bertha
would very likely have been suspected of stealing! Myra entered the room
and said quite coolly and somewhat proudly, “You don’t need to be upset,
Aunt. The silver is safe. I pawned it!”

As a result of the next few days’ events, it gradually dawned on Myra
that she had done something which, in the opinion of the others, she was
not justified in doing.

The house-maid told everybody who would listen to her that honest people
were accused of stealing in her house because the “little brat” had
“snitched” the silver and taken it to the pawnbroker.

The fat old cook wept and wrung her hands in lamentation.

Aunt Emily went about as if horror had turned her to stone. Tears came
to the eyes of Myra’s father whenever he looked at his unhappy child. A
children’s specialist even appeared on the scene, bearing the fearful
and uncanny title of “psychiatrist,” and subjected Myra to a long
examination.

And the “young lady” stormed and wept and screamed at her, calling her
an “idiot” and an “imbecile,” and kicked and scratched her, then fell on
her knees before her, declaring she was a “little saint,” and imploring
her “to keep quiet.”

Myra “kept quiet.” But as she did not know what it was she should keep
quiet about, she kept quiet about everything. She let them question her
gently or angrily, during inquisitions that lasted for hours. She let
them shake her, beseech her, let them lock her in her room—she would not
talk. Her silence became a wall about her. She could no longer have
broken it, had she wished.

But the “young lady” had to leave anyway. Whether she was an accessory
or innocent, it was clear that no child could be so abandoned if its
education were in good hands.

The “young lady” left. And Myra suffered all the mortal pangs of
separation and loneliness.

Myra was sent to school.

But since they had deprived her of her “young lady,” she avenged herself
by refusing to learn anything.

It was more than a year before her defiance gradually wore down. Then it
was too late to make up what she had lost. Nor did she want to. She did
not make the slightest effort to catch up. But neither was it any longer
worthwhile to resist. She did what was demanded of her because it was
less troublesome to learn the bare rudiments than to be always listening
to long scoldings and admonitory harangues.

She grew incredibly fast at this period and was always tired.

* * * * *

When she finished school, she stayed at home for a few years and bored
herself. She took the usual piano lessons and practised the prescribed
number of hours. But she had no inborn musical talent, though she did
have an exaggerated sensitiveness, so that she suffered from the
shortcomings of her own playing, without the ability, or even the
determination, to make up her deficiencies.

During these years her moods alternated like sun and showers in April.
She longed to be dead, or to come of age, to be alive in another
century, or some other part of the earth, to be a nun or so beautiful as
to ravish the entire world.

These were years barren of incident. So barren that Myra seldom recalled
them, and if the conversation turned on anything that had happened
during these years—a journey, a birth or a death among their
acquaintances, or some public occurrence—she always had to think for a
long time when it could have happened and how old she had been. On the
other hand, she possessed an amazing memory for the period when people
and things began to glide swiftly past her because she connected them
with those days that stood like memorials in her mind—before or after
Olga’s death, when she was together with Olga or separated from her.

The moment when her life really began—with hundreds of roaring voices,
with a full, singing, swinging motif that was never again to be mute,
but would sound now in the major, now in the minor, now from all the
violins and celli, now from a single complaining oboe, in a thousand
intricacies, a thousand nuances, until the closing chord—that moment was
when Olga Radó opened the door at Consul Moebius’, and walked into the
room.

There was nothing to be said, on the whole, against the Moebiuses. It
was an acquaintance that Aunt Emily herself had cultivated. There were
two daughters, Fannie and Emmie, both younger than Myra, both reddish
blondes, very precise about their clothes and hair, and both so
marvellously insignificant that after watching them for weeks, it was
impossible to tell whether they really were pretty or homely.

The degree of their relationship with Olga Radó is no longer possible to
ascertain. When she first appeared and everybody was raving about her,
it was always—“Our cousin.” Later every recollection of that
relationship was completely effaced from the Moebius’ mind.

Olga herself had never made much use of this “relationship” with Consul
Moebius, in good days or in bad. She would never have visited the house
had she not been begged three separate times.

Myra, the Moebius girls and Erika Hanneman formed a little circle. They
met once a week and did needlework or read French plays, taking
different parts. It bored Myra to tears, she never listened when the
others read and always managed to miss her cue.

One such Wednesday afternoon in April, the four girls were again sitting
on their white-lacquered chairs in the elegant young ladies’ room when
the door opened, and Olga Radó entered.

She must accidentally have left another door open behind, too, for with
Olga a breath of air as fresh as a puff of wind swept through the room.
The window, which was ajar, flew open, the white mull curtains blew out
and fluttered, the pages of the books rustled, the flies buzzed up
around the light, while some hand in the sky tore a tatter of cloud from
the face of the sun: a dazzling brightness and a cool breeze filled the
room to its darkest corner.

Then the door closed with a loud bang, the window creaked to, the
curtains fell back into the room like sacks, and a new cloud blotted out
the sun. But none of these things did Myra Rudloff perceive, for she
could do nothing but gaze at Olga Radó, could not take her eyes or her
mind from her—not for a long, long time.

Olga was very tall and very slender. Her face was beautiful and boldly
chiselled. Her smooth, rich, dark hair exposed much of her high and
admirably modelled forehead. Her thin black brows drew together at the
top of her nose, which gave her sharp, metallic-gray eyes an almost
threatening expression. Her speech was crisp and hard. But her voice had
a deep, soft, cello quality. It made a striking contrast.

There was something in her manner of dressing which pleased Myra without
her being able to define it. One could not dispose of it with a word
like “tasteful” or “elegant” or “smart.” Myra felt dimly—“That is how I
should like to dress.”

Myra felt her throat go dry and her heart throb wildly when her turn
came to read. She had never been so nervous in school no matter how
unprepared she had come. Every word seemed a snare to her. She would
mispronounce everything and make a fool of herself, irrevocably. It was
really a crime to know so little French. She would go to her father
tomorrow and ask him to let her take French lessons. He would be
overjoyed to have her come to him with such a request.

She was relieved when she had stammered her few lines. Then came Erika’s
turn, and then Fannie again, with all the pathos at her command.

When they were all standing again, putting on their hats in front of the
mirror, Myra noticed with an inexplicable joy that she was almost as
tall as Olga Radó, much taller than the three fair, plump misses.

In a trio they descended the stairs and walked part of the way together.
Erika Hanneman did most of the talking.

From time to time, Olga Radó said, “Isn’t it?—No!—Indeed—Oh!—No?”

Myra was silent.

At last Erika Hanneman said good-bye and turned to the left.

Olga and Myra walked briskly side by side in silence for a while. Myra
should long ago have turned off if she wanted to take the shortest way
home. She observed with some concern that she kept right on going, but
she was much too happy to stop now that Erika Hanneman had finally left
them: the air seemed to have become purer and one could stride along
more freely. It was a joy to keep up with this lovely, regular pace, and
she comforted herself with the thought that nobody knew where she lived
anyhow, and that she had just as much right on the street as anybody
else.

Myra glanced at every house with a certain anxiety: was it at this one
or the next that Olga Radó would stop with a hasty good-bye, and the
heavy door close behind her, leaving the street barren and lonely?

But at last they had reached a house in front of which Olga Radó
suddenly halted.

“My home,” she said, “if you can call a boarding-house home. But after
all, what can you call home? Are you familiar with the Pension Flesch?”

“I don’t know any boarding-houses.”

“Lucky girl! You live with your parents?”

“With my father.”

“Oh, the house is quite nice. I have lived in worse. Drop in once in a
while and have a look at my cubbyhole!”

“I’d love to.”

* * * * *

That “love to” was no mere manner of speaking. For the next few days and
nights Myra pondered how she should contrive to accept this invitation
and visit Olga Radó.

Once she actually started out. Then she returned because she thought it
better to announce her call by telephone. But then again, it did not
seem proper to disturb Olga by a telephone call. She would rather write.
But that gave the matter such importance and formality, deprived it of
all its chance, its accidental character. And then if she received a
polite refusal, all possibility would be gone of making a further
attempt. But if she simply went up and did not find Olga at home, she
could leave her card with a few words—and wait for a reply.

She went, went as far as the house, but again she did not go in. She
walked up and down the street and stood for a long time, lost in
thought, in front of a few utterly uninviting shopwindows. It might well
happen that Olga Radó would leave the house at this time, or better yet,
might be returning home and would ask Myra to come in with her.

In addition, Myra cultivated her relations with the Moebius girls with a
touching zeal. She invited them to her house as often as Aunt Emily
permitted, she went to see them as often as she was asked. And she found
occasion to phone them a hundred times in order to make various
arrangements. She borrowed books that had to be fetched and returned,
and withal made such lavish efforts to be amiable that the consul’s wife
was quite charmed with her, and was never weary of impressing on Aunt
Emily how much Myra was changing for the better. To which Aunt Emily
commonly replied by a silent, all but offended shrug of her shoulders.

This went on for weeks. But Myra did not lose patience. It was enough
for her to hear from time to time a remark let fall—“as Olga always
says” or “Olga likes that so much.” It was enough, in fact almost too
much, to hear Fannie say, “Olga was up for a moment last night, I
thought she looked very bad!” Or to have Emmie, who at this time was
conceiving something like a mild passion for Myra, observe, “Myra has
such remarkably beautiful hands, almost as beautiful as Olga’s....”

Ah, it was even enough to hold the little black dog on her lap and laugh
and call it “Sophonisba,” a pet name Olga had given it.

All this afforded hope and suspense for days. It was at this time, that
Myra began to find life beautiful again.

She did not know why.

III

One evening—the girls were again sitting together in the
twilight—because they could chat better that way than in the glaring
lamp light, there came a shrill ring of the bell, and a few moments
later those deep, vibrant tones that sent a thrill of terror into Myra’s
very heart sounding from the next room.

She knew that voice perfectly, but she was afraid she might be mistaken.
She wanted to ask, “Isn’t that Olga?” but was afraid of receiving the
answer “No.” And more than all else, she was afraid that that
conversation in the next room might stop, that the door might open, and
she would hear too late, “Olga just dropped in for a moment.”

But the voices did not stop. They grew louder, drew nearer, the door was
thrown wide open of a sudden, and in the frame stood the tall apparition
of Olga Radó, in bold relief against the yellow light flooding the next
room, like a silhouette on a golden background.

“Do you want to have tea with me tomorrow, children?” she called into
the dark room. “Somebody has just sent me some Kugler’s confections.”

The Moebius girls shouted for joy.

Emmie pushed forward a chair and wanted Olga to sit down, but she
declined and did not take her hand from the door-knob.

“No, no, children, I haven’t a moment’s time. But be there promptly
tomorrow, at four, or half past at the latest, I have to go to the opera
in the evening.”

Myra did not move. When the door opened she had uttered a semi-audible
“Good evening.” Now it seemed obtrusive to call attention to herself.
Perhaps, Olga had not even seen her in her dark corner. Perhaps, too,
she did not want to see her. It would have been understandable. But
something hurt her at the thought.

“Won’t you come, too, Miss Rudloff? If you have nothing better in the
offing. You are heartily welcome.”

“I should love to,” said Myra, and went pale with pleasure.

* * * * *

Olga received her guests with what appeared to be cordial and genuine
pleasure. It seemed inconceivable to Myra that this woman should not
wrap herself in cold hauteur as in a coat of mail.

The girls could not restrain their amusement at the ingenious darkness.

“Yes,” said Olga, “I wanted to present my cubbyhole in the best light.
And the best light is the least light possible.”

Myra was urged to sit in a deep easy-chair.

“Yes, you must make yourself at home with us. After all you are our
guest of honor, you are the oldest! You are probably still proud of the
fact, but when you are as old as I am, it ceases to be a compliment.”

In all her life Myra had never felt as much at home as in the
easy-chair.

In front of her, Olga was crouched on a low taboret. The inevitable
cigarette was already between her fingers and she clamped it in her
teeth whenever she needed her hands free to pour tea or pass the cake.

When a lull occurred in the conversation, she brought out a box of
photographs she had taken on various trips, or a book with Dulac
illustrations, or a magazine with pictures of the latest screen stars.

Again Myra was conscious of a feeling of pain. It was all she could do
to answer yes or no to the conversation. “She is making such a dreadful
effort to entertain us,” she thought. “But in reality, we’re a bore and
a burden to her. As soon as the door has closed behind us, she’ll draw a
long breath and say, ‘Thank God!’ I can hardly blame her. But why did
she ever invite us?”

She had the greatest desire to go, simply to free Olga Radó from this
visitation. At the same time, she felt that if she tried to break away
with some excuse or other, and they questioned her and pleaded with her,
and all their attention was focussed on her, she would be unable to keep
back the tears which were even now threatening and smarting.

She was almost glad, and yet deeply unhappy, when Olga suddenly glanced
at her watch and said, “I’ll have to throw you out, children, sorry as
it makes me. I have to dress quickly as possible—the time passed so
dreadfully fast.”

* * * * *

Myra spent a whole week in aimless promenades, practised the piano at
home and studied French, and when she had practised and studied for half
an hour, would throw herself on the divan and stare at the scrap of blue
sky netted with silvery telephone wires which she could see from where
she lay. Then her thoughts would fly hither and yon—how glorious it
would be to understand all the languages in the world, or to master some
instrument perfectly, or to have a wonderful voice, or to be ravishingly
beautiful. But since one never could attain to any of those things,
perhaps it would be pleasantest to be dead.

Then there would come pressing duties which compelled her to go down
Motz Street. And since one had to pass _the_ house, it was natural that
one should walk a little slower, gaze up at the windows and peer down
the street.

And since one was in town and wanted to go home, one might just as well
go down Motz as Kleist Street. And since one went out to get a little
fresh air, it was the most natural thing in the world that one should
sit down on a bench on Victoria Louisa Square and watch the children
playing.

Every day Myra stood in front of a shop-window containing gloves,
ribbons and laces, and stared in profound thought at the display—because
at the back was a mirror, and in this mirror she could watch the door of
the house opposite.

Every time the door opened, Myra started.

Once when Olga Radó emerged from that door, Myra scarcely recognized
her. Olga wore a loose cloak, both hands were thrust in her pockets and
she had no hat. She ran, rather than walked, two houses farther down to
the mail-box, and dropped a letter.

Myra hurried across the street to intercept her on her return. Her heart
was throbbing so that she had to gasp for breath. With the extreme speed
of thought she decided on a hundred different courses and instantly
rejected them again. She would say something to Olga. She would pass her
with a silent greeting. But suppose she were not recognized! She had
better say something to her. But what?

While she was still crossing the street, Olga had seen her and waved her
hand.

“Hello, Myra! Were you going to call on me?”

“Not exactly,” said Myra paling with excitement. Perhaps this was a
further stupidity, perhaps she should have said yes.

“Yes, exactly.” Olga hooked her hand in Myra’s arm. “Come up for an
hour. Or shall you be neglecting something? No? Well, then, fine! Wait,
I must see my friend at the corner and buy me some cigarettes. Will you
come, too?”

Never in all her life had Myra seen such a charming tobacco shop as this
at the corner. Never had any individual pleased her so much at first
sight as this white-haired, simpering little man, with the withered,
trembling hands, from whom Olga Radó bought her cigarettes.

Olga sat at the broad diplomat’s desk of black stained oak, her legs
crossed in a Luther chair, leaning somewhat forward, both elbows resting
on the high arms.

Myra sat facing her in the easy-chair. She felt a little strained as at
an examination. Something went tense deep within her, so that she
gritted her teeth and said to herself, “I will pass this test, I will
pass it.”

For a while all went well. They talked of the Moebius girls and of Erika
Hanneman and Olga’s aunt, the consul’s wife. And Myra told about her
life at home, about Aunt Emily and the beautiful days of her childhood.

Suddenly Olga said, “Tell me frankly, how do you come to be friends with
my so-called cousins?”

“I don’t know,” said Myra, “Aunt Emily....”

“I don’t mean to say anything against them,” said Olga quickly, “they
are as good as gold. But aren’t you bored to death in this perpetual
round?”

“Yes,” Myra replied, “but I’m always bored, anyway.”

“Why, how dreadful!” said Olga really shocked. “I’d rather be dead than
be bored. Don’t you really know anybody but Fannie and Emmie and Aunt
Emily?”

“No,” Myra hesitated. “It’s probably my own fault. I’ve never had a
friend. But then I’ve never wanted one.”

“It is not so easy,” Olga reflected. “Usually we miss our best friends
by a century or two. We know some by reading about them or seeing their
pictures. But that is all, of those who will be born after us, we know
nothing. That is why I so envy people who create. They can greet those
who come after us. They can keep themselves alive in pictures, words or
deeds. Yes, in deeds, too. It is like a cry. Thus I am, thus I was, love
me! And if in their own lifetimes they have never found anyone—perhaps
in a hundred years, or maybe two hundred, somebody will be born who will
love them as they desired to be loved. Who will understand them as they
desired to be understood. We poor creatures—once we’re dead, we most
certainly will never be loved again. Not for as long as ten years after,
ah, not even for ten months. Sometimes I would like....”

Her eyes were very dark and menacing under her furrowed brows.

She broke off and began again in another one. “Do you know, there are a
great many very congenial people of the Renaissance. We should have
lived four or five centuries sooner. I should certainly have been
friends with Margherita Sforza. I have just read a wonderful story about
how she held her brother’s possessions when Julius Caesar was sent
against them.”

Myra felt a tempest in her brain which was not unlike vertigo.
Renaissance—that was a familiar idea. Her mind made some kind of hazy
connection with the name Sforza.

But—“Julius Caesar,” she muttered to herself, disconcerted.

Olga laughed. “No, no, not the great one! Julius Caesar of Capua. Some
stupid, little princeling or other. You don’t need to know him.”

“Ah,” Myra sighed with sincere feeling, “there’s so much that I don’t
know, that I have to learn.”

“Oh, well, it won’t be so dreadful,” said Olga. “You know Queen Jeanne,
don’t you?”

“Which one?” asked Myra quite at sea. “I know the Queen of Navarre’s
stories....”

“But not herself, I trust,” said Olga in fun. “Besides, she was a
Margueritte. But you don’t know the Sforza?” She asked it as tenderly,
as encouragingly, as if she were talking to a child whom she did not
wish to hurt.

“I don’t know ... no ... and yet....”

“Well, what _do_ you know about her?”

“Nothing,” said Myra disconcerted. “Only the picture by Rubens—the
little girl with the liverwurst....”

Olga listened for a moment with her eyebrows lifted as if she were
recollecting. Then she laughed loudly and merrily, more merrily than
Myra had ever heard her laugh. But, strangely enough, her amusement did
not wound Myra, although she was surprised at this failure on her part
to be hurt. It was so nice, to see Olga Radó laugh so heartily. Even if
one’s self was being laughed at.

“You poor child!” cried Olga still laughing. “What must your mind look
like! Ah, I should like to introduce some order there for a change!”

“Do,” said Myra fervently. “Please, please, do!”

For a moment Olga’s face grew serious and thoughtful.

“No, no,” said Myra, immediately terrified, “that’s just impertinence on
my part. After all, you’re not our governess!”

“Child!” said Olga, leaning forward suddenly and laying her hand on
Myra’s. “Are you really so sensitive? But you have no reason to be. Do
you want to learn to read with me? There is nothing more I can do for
you. But come up and study, won’t you? Come up here to me as often as
you wish until you are bored.”

“I never will be!” said Myra as if she were taking a sacred oath.

“But you know, before we can really dig into anything, you will have to
make a general survey. First you’ll have to work your way through a
history of the world. Shall I give you Schlosser? Here are eighteen
volumes. One volume after the other. Yes, my child, Heaven won’t help
you this time! If you can’t do more, at least you can read a round
hundred pages a day, that’s all. And when you’re finished, every three
or four days you’ll come up and exchange your book for another and we’ll
have tea and chat a little. Like the idea? Shall we make it a go?”

That is the way it began.

And that is the way it went along for quite a while.

With passionate zeal Myra read the books that Olga Radó lent her. And
when she had put down the book, her face ablaze, it would seem to her as
if Olga sat in front of her, holding a long conversation with her. On
every page there was something, something horrible or beautiful,
something strange or incomprehensible, something which she must tell
Olga or question her about.

And sometimes she really did have these conversations, sometimes she did
say what she had it in mind to say, what she had resolved to tell
Olga—but very seldom.

It was a peculiarly surprising and delightful fact, of which Myra was
probably always conscious, but which was not clear to her until much,
much later—one could not steer a conversation with Olga Radó.

So strong were her moods that they created an atmosphere in a room so
that it was impossible to partake of any other feeling than hers. And
whoever was not sensitive to this, whoever did invoke another mood than
that with which wood and glass and air and silk seemed softly to
vibrate, called forth a screaming dissonance.

Myra felt this sometimes, later on, when strangers entered the room. She
herself never called forth, not even at the very beginning, the
slightest discord, because she was quiet, because she effaced herself in
order, half unconsciously, and yet almost anxiously, to intercept every
vibration that quivered in the air.

It was half unconscious only at first, that is. She felt herself so
abysmally small and stupid that she hardly dared have an idea of her own
in Olga’s presence. Later, when her healthy nerves had been stretched
fine and thin to the breaking-point, she mastered the art consciously.
She used to say sometimes, in fun, “You must have gone down the street
in a very bad humor today. The houses are still making faces at you
behind your back!”

It was the third or fourth time that Myra had been up. Olga was lying on
the divan, smoking so incessantly that the blue clouds had difficulty in
escaping out the window.

Myra sat in her easy-chair, reading Jean Paul aloud to her. “Others,
too, at least the reader and myself, would have been affected by this
transparent night with which April was closing, the vast stillness on
which the drum-taps beat, that longing for one’s beloved with which the
morrow again restores a barren heart and a shattered life remove;—these
things would have filled us both with a gentle tremulousness and
dreams....”

“Please stop!” said Olga, pressing her hand to her temples. “Don’t be
angry, but I can’t stand that today. Be a good girl, up there you’ll
find Walt Whitman—on the top shelf—more to the right. But never mind,
don’t bother. Go to my dressing-table, you’ll find a silver brush there.
No, the one with the handle. Let me have it, will you?”

Obediently, Myra fetched the brush.

Olga took it from her without rising and beat a mighty tattoo against
the wall with the back; after a short pause, a second and a third.

Myra laughed. “Must you have the brush for that?”

“Yes,” said Olga. “It’s my telegraph instrument. After long years of
experience, proved the best. What else can I use? The ink-well is no
good. A book makes no noise, and besides, I don’t like to treat it
so....”

Meanwhile there came a knock on the door.

“Come in, come in, come in,” called Olga.

The door was partly opened and a man’s blond head peered in.

“Ah, a caller?” said a high, thin, husky, and yet not unpleasant, voice.

“Come in, Peterkin,” said Olga, “it’s only Myra.”

Her words sent a wonderful feeling of happiness through Myra. They gave
her a certain justification, a sense of being at home in this room,
where simply to be tolerated was a pride and joy.

The little man, who insinuated his delicate and deformed body through
the door, knew her, was aware that it was she who was “just Myra”—that
is to say, that she was not a mere caller, not a stranger, but somebody
who belonged there, who would not be in the way. One was as good as
alone.

All Myra’s sympathy darted out to the young man. Perhaps, if he had been
a more commanding, more handsome youth, she would have experienced some
feeling of jealousy toward him. But he was anything but handsome, in
spite of his gentle blue eyes and his exquisitely manicured hands.

Myra loved him from the very first, in the same way she had loved the
tobacconist at the corner, with an almost real affection.

This first meeting was the beginning of a faithful friendship that was
to last for years.

Otto Peterkin was, on the whole, not inclined to overestimate himself or
the fascinations which his person was likely to exert—and yet, may there
not have been moments during which he thought Myra’s feeling for him to
be of a different quality than her love for the little tobacconist?

“Peterkin,” said Olga, “fetch your fiddle and play us something.”

“All right, what?” said Peterkin.

“Something nice. Nothing is too good for this little girl.”

Peterkin played. Played what they both loved best, Olga and he, and
which he would not, could not have played, had there been someone
listening for whom it was “too good.”

Myra sat perfectly still. It seemed to her as if the notes bore her
onward like a gently flooding stream, on and on, everything was left
behind, the drab and dirty city, the crowds of carping, clawing
people—all were outdistanced, grew smaller, vanished in the haze. But
the air was ever clearer, ever purer, the water ever deeper, the shores
more lovely, more free. An island appeared, the low-hanging branches of
its flowering trees were lapped by the lifting waves.

That day, for the first time, Myra came home late for supper. The long,
agitated and irate lecture with which Aunt Emily received her, made her
feel as if someone had thrown dirty water on her. She shuddered with
loathing, but she felt no pain.

On Olga Radó’s writing-table was a beautiful box of heavy, angular
crystal with a smooth silver cover. It was almost always empty, for the
cigarettes were smoked so fast that it was almost no use to take them
out of the original package.

One evening, Olga again took the last of the twenty-five from her pack.

“Oh, dear, what a shame! Myra do look on the desk. Of course, there
isn’t one there either! What an imbecile I am!”

“I’ll run down quickly and get you some.”

“No, don’t, I won’t have you running downstairs for that. Wait, give me
my case, there must be a few left in it.”

Olga was lying as usual on the divan, and she now sat up, tugging keys,
handkerchiefs and letters from her pocket; finally she opened the case.

“Hurrah! By a wise economy we can hold out till tomorrow! Have one?” She
proffered the open case.

“No,” said Myra, “I’ll be very nice and decline, otherwise they won’t
last till morning.”

“Angel!” said Olga, snapping the clasp. “My one consolation is that you
don’t care much anyhow.”

“May I look at the case?” asked Myra.

“There it is, my angel.” Olga handed it to her. “It’s beautiful, isn’t
it?”

Myra turned the smooth, reflecting gold with careful hands. “Incredibly
beautiful. I’m simply wild about that broad low design. But why the
crab? Is it a heraldic beast?”

“My coat of arms!” said Olga, laughing. “Our family device. It signifies
that ‘like the crab we would go backward.’”

“It’s not a crab,” said Myra, hesitantly, blushing.

“No? Who told you so? But in any case, it is unfortunately, not a very
useful or agreeable creature. It’s a scorpion.”

“Ooh!” said Myra. “Why such a monster? From some special preference?”

“Yes,” said Olga. “Someone had this case made for me because I once said
that the scorpion is the most decent creature on earth. It is my
favorite animal.”

“You’re not serious?” cried Myra, shocked.

“Oh, but I am. Yes, I am quite serious—about the scorpion. Do you know
that it is the only animal in the world that commits suicide? It does
not let itself be slowly tortured to death by human curiosity and
cruelty. It struggles like a mad thing, and when it knows that it is no
longer possible to save itself, it kills itself. Isn’t that wonderful?”

Olga had sat up. She was gazing at Myra out of great, dark eyes. Her
beautiful pale features were set in a strangely anguished, yet heroic,
expression.

Myra was shocked. “And you?” she said, clasping Olga’s hand with an
involuntary movement. “Is that why you took it for your device?”

Olga smiled, a kindly, gentle smile.

“Little stupid,” she said, “that has another significance altogether. I
must be a scorpion because I have a poison sting. Because my wits must
be ‘like scorpion stings.’ Someone who loved me once declared it was so.
And declared, too, that if I were driven to an extremity, I would turn
my sting against myself and kill myself. I do not know if it is true or
not. I get no particular pleasure out of thinking about myself. But that
is how this person saw me. And so he had this case made for me. See!”
She opened it. The little rubies of which the scorpion was formed were
set _à jour_: the device was visible on the inside also. And right under
it was engraved her name—Olga Radó.

Myra scolded herself furiously, but she could not help it—her heart was
filled to bursting with furious jealousy of this stranger who loved Olga
Radó and gave her gold cigarette cases.

“A beautiful hand-writing,” she said distractedly.

“It isn’t mine,” said Olga. Slowly she closed the case and with a gentle
gesture laid its smooth surface against her cheek.

“It is so beautiful. I love it so. And I am so glad that I _can_ love
it. It was a parting gift. And it was a very beautiful parting.”

Myra was on fire with a torment of aversion.

“A beautiful parting!” she said bitterly. “Are there such things?”

Olga sat up abruptly. “Yes, Myra,” she said with real fervor. “And there
should be more, many more. It is a misfortune that people do not
understand how to part from one another. Learn it, Myra, learn it in
time.”

“No,” said Myra obdurately, “I’ll probably never learn. Let people to
whom love is only a game make a game of parting.”

“Myra,” said Olga earnestly, “you are a child! Do you think that it is
any proof of a great love, for me to cling to someone till he is sick
and tired of me? I would rather die a thousand deaths than become a
burden to someone whom I love. It is an art to begin, though I believe
that any individual can conquer any other individual, and the beginning
will always be beautiful. But the end will always be a horrible, bitter,
hateful torture. It is a great art, indeed, to know how to end. At the
right time. And in the right way. Learn, Myra, learn it in time.”

Their silence lasted so terribly long. Yes, she must rise now and go.
But it seemed to her as if the chair were holding her tight, or the gray
wall above it on which her eyes were fastened. She felt that the moment
she rose, the tears would start from her eyes. That must never be. She
strove to set her mind on something else, on something quite remote. She
wanted to go to the theatre next week. She had been very happy at the
prospect. But actually, the nicest part of going to the theatre or a
concert was to sit here afterwards and discuss what she had seen and
heard. That could no longer be. Not next week. Never again, perhaps.

The silence in the room took away her breath. If only Olga would say
something. Anything. Scold her, humiliate her. It was so cruel of her
simply to say nothing.

Myra made an attempt to get up. Her movement was imperceptible, but she
felt it in every muscle. At the same instant, those painfully retaining
lids could no longer hold back the constantly welling tears; they
quivered, were closed, and the heavy drops oozed forth.

Myra was terribly ashamed of herself. Something inside her made itself
small. She would have been so glad to make her exterior body small in
the same way, to bend down, to hide her face. But she did not dare move.
She did not want to attract attention by the slightest movement. Perhaps
Olga’s thoughts were far away and she had not even noticed her.

The tears splashed on her hand. She did not dare dry them.

Suddenly she shrank together with a pang. She heard the divan creak and
the soft rustling of a dress. Olga was on her feet. She heard an
infinitely gentle, soft voice at her side. “Myra, child, what on earth
are you crying about?”

Myra did not look up, but sank her head still lower. Then Olga was
kneeling beside her with a sudden movement, as one kneels beside a
crying child and tries to peer up into its face.

“What are you crying about?”

Myra saw the beautiful face before her through a blur of welling water.
She smiled.

“I don’t know,” she said.

She looked at the slender white hand that lay on her knee, covering her
own folded hands. She bent slowly over this hand, and pressed her lips,
her hot, tear-wet cheeks against it.

“Child!” said Olga almost impatiently, trying with her other hand to
raise Myra’s forehead. “If only I knew what it is you are crying about!”

Myra was frightened by her tone. She raised her head and again stared at
the gray wall on the far side of the court-yard.

Olga had risen. Her hand still lay on Myra’s head. Its cool smooth palm
pressed firmly, almost heavily, upon her hair and brow. Myra felt this
pressure as something infinitely beneficent. Felt as if she would fly
asunder, were that forceful hand to be removed.

“I don’t know myself,” she said softly. “But I wish I had been dead a
hundred years. Perhaps you would love me, too, then.”

With a sudden gesture, Olga Radó clasped Myra’s head to her shoulder and
pressed her lips hard, almost painfully, against her forehead.

“And what now?” she asked curtly. There was a strange vibrant ring in
her deep voice as if she suppressed some resentment only by an effort.

In her temples, in her finger-tips, Myra felt the furious hammering of a
pulse. But she did not know whose heart it was throbbing.

She had a feeling as if it were now her duty to do something infinitely
great. It seemed to her as if Olga Radó must now rise before her in
super-human greatness and demand some heroic deed of her.

Myra felt a holy determination to jump out a window at the slightest
word, or to pierce her breast with a dagger and to proffer her
palpitating heart in her own two hands.

But Olga Radó made no such demands. She suddenly released Myra and went
to the window. She laid her fingers on the lock and her forehead against
the pane. And thus, without looking at Myra, without even turning her
head, she said after a pause, in a strangely quiet, even matter-of-fact
tone, “Go home, child!”

“Why?” asked Myra frightened. She got up, her legs trembling under her.
That oppressive feeling of something mysterious, something gruesome, lay
like a heavy weight on her breast. Why was she being sent away? What had
she done?

She wanted some kind of explanation. She wanted to place her hands on
Olga’s shoulders, to turn her around by force and search her face for an
answer. “I have a right to do so,” she thought with mounting anger. “I
certainly have a right.”

But as she made her first step toward the window, Olga faced about
violently. Crossing her arms on her breast, she clasped her elbows with
her spread fingers. In her white face, her eyes flashed deep, dark and
threatening.

“You are to go home,” she said with a composure so forced that she
seemed to be controlling a simply boundless rage. “Can’t you hear? Am I
no longer mistress in my own apartment? Take your hat and go. Go, go,
go, go!”

The anger that had been blazing up in Myra was quenched. Nothing was
left save fear, and a deep, deep sadness.

Something seemed to be driving her to Olga as if she were scourged. She
wanted to fall on the floor before her, she wanted to clasp her knees,
she wanted to beseech her.

“Weep, scream, beat me, but don’t use this kind of force against me.
Tell me what is the matter. I will die for you, but don’t send me away,
because you are suffering.” She stood without moving.

“Go, go, go!” said Olga.

Myra Rudloff picked up her hat and went. She strove to walk erect and in
a straight line. She staggered a little as the lock snapped behind her,
and she had to support herself against the wall. She leaned her whole
weight against the balustrade because the stairs spun around beneath her
like a raging whirlpool.

* * * * *

For a few days Myra lived in a state of dull torment. Through the haze
of awakening she would remember that today she must not take the road to
Motz Street. Not today, not tomorrow; perhaps nevermore. She was
outlawed, outcast, banned from all the joys of life.

Long, drab and barren, the day stretched out before her. A heaviness
like lead lay upon her limbs. When the telephone rang, she would start
up with her heart furiously throbbing, as if out of a profound lethargy.
But it never rang for her.

There was nasty weather during those days, cold and rainy. But one
Sunday night the wind swept the sky clean of clouds and dried the
streets. In the morning, a blue summer sky shone over the city. The
sun’s rays, dancing on one corner of her mirror, awakened Myra.

She felt as liberated on awakening, as filled with the unconquerable
force of life, as if at one stroke all her troubles had vanished, all
her heavy burden lightened. She felt able to resume the struggle with
all its impediments. Indeed, there no longer seemed to be any
impediments.

Today she would return the books she had borrowed from Olga Radó.

And then she would call her to account, would ask her quite frankly and
cheerfully what was really the matter, whether it was Olga’s intention
to put her out again. If so, she might do it with an easy mind.

But she would not do so. It had been a mood, a caprice—but no deep-going
rift, no conflict between them.

And if she really had committed some offense in Olga’s eyes, she would
like some explanation, and then would like—ah, yes, for her own
sake—would like to beg forgiveness.

Myra whistled and hummed to herself while she dressed and brushed her
hair. When she rang, her stupid heart throbbed so that she could not
breathe. That came from running upstairs too fast.

The maid was surprised. “Miss Radó is travelling,” she said hesitantly.
“Didn’t you know?”

For the first few moments the shame of not knowing was greater in Myra
than fear. She felt that she was exposed to the maid in the most absurd
way.

“But, but ...” she said, “I just wanted to leave these books in her
room. But I can just as well give them to you. Be so good, as to take
them, Erna. Then I won’t even have to go up. I am in a hurry. I will see
you again.”

She bounded down the first stairs so that the girl should hear her
haste. Not until the door had closed behind her, did she walk more
slowly.

Olga was gone. Without saying a word to her, without once calling her
up, or dropping her a line, without as much as leaving a message for her
with the maid.

She was gone. Without saying where. Without saying for how long.

Myra bowed her head very low on her breast and descended quite slowly,
step by step.

* * * * *

A few days later, Myra heard the telephone ring, and the maid trotting
at a run through the long hall. Myra opened her door.

“For me, Hedwig?”

“Yes. A gentleman wishes to speak to you. A Mr. Petersen or Peterkin, I
didn’t quite catch it.”

On the girl’s round features were emblazoned unconcealed admiration.
This was the first time that a man’s voice had asked to speak with her.

“Peterkin!” Myra shouted excitedly into the mouthpiece without paying
the slightest heed to the fact that Aunt Emily was sitting in the next
room. “Yes, this is Myra. What’s the matter? Nothing has happened, has
it?”

“No, no, thank heaven! I am simply commanded to give you ‘her dearest
regards’: I received a card today.”

“From where? From whom?” She did not need to ask.

“From Kissingen. I had to look up your address in the directory. I did
not know your telephone number, nor even the name of the street. I
wasn’t even sure of your name.”

“Good Lord, you poor fellow. Can’t I see you, or have you no time for
me?”

“Of course, I have. I’d be glad to....”

“Shall we go walking for an hour? Will you? Please do, please! Today, if
you can! Right away? Really? Wonderful! And you’ll bring the card with
you!”

They met. After a two word greeting, Myra asked, “Did you bring the
card? Please, show it to me. Please!”

Beside the address there was written in a firm, laboriously condensed
hand:

“Please, Peterkin, do me a favor and return the books to the Royal
Library. One is on my desk, two are on the shelf, to the left of the
window in the case farthest to the right. And take my plant to your
room, the maids will forget it and I don’t want it to die.”

On the other side was written across the sky that capped the landscape:

“Please ring the little girl and greet her for me. You’ll have to look
up her number in the book. Tell her not to be angry with me. All the
best to all of you. O. R.”

Hundreds and thousands of such picture post-cards had passed through
Myra’s hands in the course of her life, but this was the first time the
thought had occurred to her: “What a wonderful and beautiful invention
whereby one can send a picture of the place where one is staying. So
that is how it looks where Olga is now. She sees these houses every day,
goes walking under these trees, these mountains greet her every morning
and every evening—truly a wonderful and beautiful invention!”

She would gladly have kept the card, but she did not have the courage to
ask Peterkin for it.

“It happened so quickly,” she said, “—this trip.” She was reluctant to
say that she had known and suspected nothing. But she was reluctant,
too, to ply him with direct questions. Half unconsciously, she spoke in
phrases that left everything indefinite, but which, to a certain degree,
sounded him out.

“Yes,” said Peterkin, “rather peculiarly sudden. On Tuesday we were all
there, why, we were all sitting together. But that night Olga came into
my room and said, ‘Give me your railway guide.’ And she kept fingering
it through and asking me, ‘Do you know the Black Forest, is it pretty
there? What do you think, should I go to the North Sea?’ And so on,
which is not her way. So undecided, I mean, so perplexed. And Wednesday
night she was off. Didn’t tell a soul where. At first I had a
suspicion—a notion, I should say, an idea....” Peterkin hesitated, and a
faint red overspread his pale features—“that you had gone away
together.”

Myra did not answer. It never occurred to her for a moment that her
profound silence might possibly produce a queer impression.

His words had struck her like a bolt of lightning and she was in flames.
Travel! Travel with Olga! There was something joyfully improbable about
the idea. For a few seconds, she lived through in imagination all that
it might have meant, had they decided to do this that Tuesday!

Abruptly, painfully, she returned to her senses: it was a silly,
unfulfilled dream, one never, never to be fulfilled, perhaps. The
reality was that she was here—alone—and that Olga was gone. Also alone?
Or with whom? Nothing in the world gave Myra the right even to ask.

* * * * *

During those weeks Myra’s sole pleasure was to go walking with Peterkin.
They made excursions together, lay half the day beside the water, or
took a row-boat, or drank coffee in some out of the way inn with a
garden, and talked about books, about strange cities, and distant
mountains, about beasts and plants, and of people long dead—and about
Olga.

Sometimes, when they were together they wrote to Olga, sent her picture
post-cards, or long poems in doggerel, and from time to time they
received some hasty reply, and once the news that she was planning to
return in three weeks.

Myra was quiet and happy during this time. The companionship of Peterkin
did her good. When she was home, she read and studied under his guidance
and counted the days until Olga’s return. She drew up a long list of
books which she intended to have read, of things which she intended to
have accomplished by that time. She wanted to surprise Olga with all the
knowledge she had acquired in the interval, and labored with a burning
zeal.

Everything would have gone nicely, if it had not been for Aunt Emily.
Aunt Emily watched and held her tongue and stored up gall and poison.
And one day it broke out.

It was after dinner. Myra wanted to leave the table with a curt, “I hope
you enjoy your meal,” and fetch her hat from her room. Aunt Emily who
had sat on the defensive throughout dinner, brushed together a pile of
minute crumbs, on the tablecloth, with her elegant fingers, and at
Myra’s words, cleared her throat quickly and sharply and said with
emphasis, “Perhaps you will be so good as to remain seated until I leave
the table.”

Bored, but patient, Myra sat herself down again. She did not know that
this was but the prelude to greater things. She thought it was merely
one of those daily bits of chicanery that wasted at least one’s time and
energy if they were not taken with the greatest unconcern.

Myra cast a covert glance at the clock. “Now, of course, she’ll sit for
another five minutes before she gives the sign to rise,” she thought.
“Very well, I’ll come five minutes late. Peterkin will wait.”

Aunt Emily continued to heap up crumbs and to clear her throat. “Will
you be so good, Franz,” she began (it would be more precise to say she
struck up), “will you be so good as to ask your daughter where she
intends going this afternoon, and with whom? When I ask her, she
answers, ‘Walking—with an acquaintance,’ or some such bit of wit. So
please ask her yourself. Perhaps she still retains enough respect to
tell you the truth, at least.”

Franz Rudloff rolled up his napkin and unrolled it again, thrust it into
the napkin-ring and pulled it out again while he sat in mortal
embarrassment.

“You know, my dear Emily,” he said without looking up, “that I have
turned over my daughter’s education to you because I know that she could
nowhere be so well brought up as in your excellent hands. Myra owes you
exactly the same obedience she does me. You are in full possession of
all the necessary authority....”

“Authority!” said Aunt Emily with a mocking laugh. “What am I supposed
to do? You can’t spank a twenty-year-old girl or lock her in her room.”

“Not very well,” said Myra quietly, “thank God! But perhaps, I, too, may
ask one question—would you mind telling me why you need to take such
measures?”

“Why? In your own interest!” said Aunt Emily in a tone that was meant to
express flaming indignation.

“Oh?” Myra was still rather amused than excited. “And what is going to
bring about my total destruction? The fact that I go walking with a
young man? Good Lord, poor little Peterkin! Did you ever happen to see
him? I can introduce you to him some time, perhaps that will calm your
fears!”

“Well, what sort of a man is he then?” asked Franz Rudloff, knitting his
brows. This was intended to sound stern and forceful. It sounded rather
timid.

Myra felt a tender pity for her father that was not altogether free of
contempt.

“Good heavens, papa,” she said, “a fine, intelligent man. But a poor,
ailing, deformed, little fellow. Hardly the person who could prove very
dangerous to a young girl’s virtue or reputation.”

“Perhaps not to a normal young girl,” said Aunt Emily, quivering with
malice. “Unfortunately, I do not know how far one can assume that you
are normal. Unfortunately, there are plenty of young women who have some
sick and perverse attraction to all repellent and unhealthy persons.”

Myra pushed back her chair so that it grated sharply on the floor.

“You are absolutely insane,” she said. That was all. Then she walked
with her firm long stride into the next room, to the telephone, and
called a number.

“May I speak to Mr. Peterkin? Forgive me, Peterkin, I’ll have to
disappoint you today. My Aunt will not allow me to go walking with you.
Yes, I am sorry, too. But there is nothing one can do about it. My Aunt
thinks it improper. No, no, better not ring me, probably that is
improper, too. God bless you, and don’t worry about it!”

Without turning, without casting as much as a glance in their direction,
she went up to her room, and locked and bolted herself in.

Thus her friendly companionship with Peterkin was interrupted for the
moment.

Franz Rudloff’s quiet sensitive nature suffered severely from the tense
atmosphere in the house. The meals were eaten in a painful silence,
every activity in common, a walk, a visit to the theatre seemed
impossible.

He resolved to negotiate a peace and endeavored to bring his daughter to
apologize. With this in mind he went, as he seldom did, to her room.
Myra was poring, her head propped on her hands, over her books. When her
father entered, she sprang up and received him as she would an honored
guest. She moved up the most comfortable chair for him and offered him a
cigarette.

He did not know how he should introduce the subject and felt dreadfully
embarrassed. Myra endeavored to make the situation easier for him, for
it pained her to see how he was suffering.

She promised the apology, promised to make conversation at table,
promised to put on a pleasant face and manner from morn to night.

“I promise to control myself, Father,” she said.

Control! That was not what Franz Rudloff was asking.

“Couldn’t you try,” he said timidly, “to reach some different kind of
feeling for Aunt Emily in your own heart? She really has such very
estimable qualities. We could have a much happier family life if you—I
know it is difficult to conquer one’s feelings—but if at least you _made
an attempt_ to love her.”

“Love!” echoed Myra. Her face was stony in its repose as she gazed past
him, out of the window, but her breath came quicker. “I can promise you
one thing, all my life long I have rejoiced at the thought of one thing,
have waited for just one thing—the moment when she would die. I have
prayed every night to God to make her die, soon, soon.”

Franz Rudloff turned quite pale.

“Myra!” he said, his eyes wide.

“I will promise you not to do that any more,” said Myra with a gentle,
mournful smile. “Besides, it’s too late now anyway. Now I will pray God
only to let me be twenty-one soon. To make this unhappy year pass
quickly, quickly. When I am of age, we can always find some way. If she
makes things too lively for me, I shall leave the house, even if it has
to be as a nursemaid. If I don’t have to be together with her, she can
live to a hundred for all I care. But before this, I don’t mind telling
you, before this there were times when I would gladly have killed her
with my own two hands.”

A yawning chasm opened before Franz Rudloff. He clutched the arms of his
chair tightly, so violently and spasmodically was his poor weak heart
pounding.

He rose and left the room, heavily and slowly, like an old man.

For a moment, Myra felt an impulse to jump up and stop him, to guide him
back to the easy-chair again. Was there not some possibility of an
explanation, some means of arriving at an understanding?

“He’s going because he is afraid,” she thought. “He’s going because he
can no longer breathe the same air that I do, the air that is poisoned
by the venom of my evil thoughts. He’s asking himself now why he has to
be so bitterly punished, why he had to give life to a murderess. Who
knows; he may go directly to Aunt Emily and ask her advice, what to do
with his abandoned daughter. Perhaps they will consult an alienist
again. I have expressed an intention to murder my whole family. No, no,
there’s no point in trying explanations. Father simply does not
understand me.”

He had gone. She let him go without moving.

Three weeks passed, four weeks, five weeks—nothing was seen nor heard of
Olga Radó. In desperation, Myra resumed her long neglected friendship
with the Moebius girls. She endured the torture of a few boring
afternoons without finding the courage to inquire about Olga. And when
finally she did ask, no one knew anything about her.

But one afternoon Emmie burst into the room just as Fannie was telling
Myra the highly exciting story of a letter to her which her mother had
opened. Myra was not especially clever at such things, but she had
achieved some sort of ability to say “Yes? Oh! Really?” at suitable
places, without once understanding what the whole business was about.
Tossing a couple of little packages onto the table, Emmie cried, “Guess
whom I saw, girls! Olga!”

Joy and anguish contended in Myra’s breast. So she was here! There was
the possibility of meeting her, of coming face to face with her quite
suddenly and unexpectedly—that was her first thought. But her second
was—“she is back and hasn’t told me. She doesn’t want to see me. She
went away without telling me, she has returned without telling me, I am
so irksome to her that she has gone to some trouble to be rid of me.
What can I do? Oh, what can I do?”

Between the sisters there developed a long conversation about Olga. “She
takes humors,” said Fannie, “for a while she’ll come and see you every
three days, and then again you won’t catch a glimpse of her for three
months.”

“She doesn’t want to meet me,” thought Myra bitterly, “that is why she
won’t come here.”

“But she’s been travelling all this time,” said Emmie in extenuation.

“Yes? And before that?” asked Fannie. “What about the three months
before this trip? Did she bother her head about us? I suppose she had no
time for us then either!”

“But for me,” thought Myra with proud anguish, “oh, for me she had
time—every day, every day....”

“You make me think of Aunt Sophie,” said Emmie and strove to distort her
doll’s face to imitate her aunt. “‘This Olga is a very dangerous person.
She plays with people as though they were puppets. When she is tired of
them, she throws them to one side. At the same time, she’s fascinating,
I admit it, positively fascinating!’”

“Yes,” thought Myra, “your Aunt Sophie may be as imbecilic as you like
about everything else. But she’s right. In this she’s right. Olga _is_
fascinating. Oh, so fascinating. And she has thrown me aside. What can I
do? What can I do?”

* * * * *

Myra brooded for days and nights, trying to think of some way out. She
felt that she would not be able to persist in her pride and say, “She
does not want me, therefore she no longer exists as far as I am
concerned.” To be sure, she told herself so, not once, but a hundred
times. But a much stronger feeling said to her, “It is misunderstandings
that are separating us, it is impediments that a frank word could
remove. I must speak to her, I must ask her. She has courage enough and
hardness enough to tell me the truth. I will make it easier for her.
I’ll ask in such a way that she can tell me, that she’ll have to tell
me. And if she says to me, ‘Go and never come back again,’ then I’ll go
and never come back again. I’ll endeavor to order my life without her
somehow. I’ll be proud too, but first.... First!”

Myra purchased a bouquet of white roses of a peculiarly stiff and
melancholy beauty, and took them to Olga.

The maid who let her in received her, beaming with joy. “It’s so long
since you’ve been here, Miss Rudloff! Miss Radó is up in her room. You
know your way?”

It seemed impossible to Myra that she should be announced by the maid.
If Olga were not at home to her, it might lead to an extremely painful
situation. If Olga were not in a mood to see her, it would, at any rate,
be much better to say so to her face rather than to learn it from the
maid.

She stepped quickly and firmly along the endless corridor. But her heart
beat a little faster as she went.

She rapped lightly on the door and pressed down the latch. Olga was
sitting at her writing-table, just as she always sat: one hand on her
open book, her forehead supported in the palm of the other, the fingers
of which held a cigarette.

As the door opened, she turned her head somewhat unwillingly, her brows
knitted. Recognition passed like a bright gleam over her features.

“Myra!” she said. “You here again? Where did you come from? What do you
want?”

Myra tore the paper from the roses, tossed it in the waste basket and
laid the flowers on the writing-table.

“What do I want?” she said, meanwhile without taking her eyes from what
she was doing. “To visit you. To see how things are with you. But if you
wish, I can go again.”

“No!” With a sudden, almost violent gesture, Olga stretched her hand
after her. Myra laid one finger in it, which Olga clasped tightly. “But
remember—I did not call you!”

She glanced up at Myra with a strangely compulsive and almost
threatening expression of the brow and eyes.

“I know it,” said Myra with a bitter smile. “It had not even occurred to
you to call me. I feel myself that I am intruding. You hardly need tell
me so flatly.”

She wanted to retract her hand, but Olga held it fast and smiled.

“Child,” she said, “little girl! You make me very, very happy! More than
you can ever imagine. I think if you knew how happy I am, you would
become quite conceited. But remember, I did not call you.”

“Yes,” said Myra almost impatiently, “I don’t know why you attach so
much importance to that statement.”

“But I know,” said Olga quietly. “I don’t want you ever to be able to
reproach me with being egoistic.”

“Ah,” said Myra, “that’s hilarious! So that I may never reproach
you—incidentally, I do not know for what—you let me go and die and never
trouble your head about me! No, you are not a bit egoistic!”

Olga laughed. “I give up. It always comes back on me. One way or the
other. So let us bear what we can as long as we act sincerely. It’s like
a fall day outside.”

“It is good to have you here. Light the samovar and bring us a cup of
tea. We’ll call Peterkin, to come and play something for us.”

* * * * *

Once as Myra entered the room she saw Olga hastily conceal an open
letter she had been holding in her hand, under the books on her desk.
Myra thought that Olga seemed distracted during their greeting, rather
vexed and embarrassed.

“What is the matter?” she asked, without relinquishing Olga’s hand. “Has
something provoked you? You look so comical today.”

“I?” Olga flushed. Again that sudden, dark wave of blood overspread her
features, making them appear all the paler the next moment. “What are
you thinking of? What could have provoked me? Quite the contrary.”

“Quite the contrary?” said Myra with a somewhat forced gaiety. “Is it
pleasure that is making you like this? Then it would be indiscreet to
question further. Let’s talk of something else. I’ve brought back your
Chamberlain. And also your Herz. Father has him in the library.”

They talked of this and that. But Myra could not forget the letter.
While they were speaking, her thoughts kept straying into other
channels.

“What can it be?” she thought. “Jealousy? Have I any right to be
jealous? What do I mean by being hurt, suspicious, yes, actually angry,
because this woman receives a letter which she does not want to let me
see? Good God in Heaven, she is not bound nor obligated to me in any
way. She may be secretly engaged, may have a dozen love affairs—why
should I expect her to tell me everything or make me her confidante?
What business is it of mine what letters she receives?”

Myra was vexed and scolded herself. And all the while she fretted and
was sad and struggled against her feelings and could not conquer them.

“It isn’t jealousy,” she thought, “it isn’t an insane desire to possess.
It is simply the understanding that life is only bearable when people go
hand in hand. It is the consciousness that I can only go on if Olga
takes my hand and leads me. Now I have a feeling as if she had let go my
hand, that a door has shut between us, that I am left alone, helpless,
in the dark, and that she is going laughingly along—I don’t know with
whom....”

Olga was called to the telephone. It was some time before she returned.
Myra was sitting a few feet from the desk. One corner of the letter was
peeping out from beneath a pile of books. If she stretched out her hand,
she could touch it, could draw it out, without rising from her chair.

It was a painful struggle. She would have liked to slap herself because
she could think of but one thing to do. She meant to commit a crime. Oh,
it was worse than that, was indelicate, tactless, contemptible. But she
thought of a thousand excuses for herself.

“It isn’t just curiosity,” a voice cried within her. “Whom will I be
hurting by it? Who will it make suffer? Nobody. Neither her nor the
person who wrote the letter. And it is of such immense importance to me.
Here I cling to her with every fibre of my body, and yet I do not really
know what kind of person she is. Why is she so reserved? If I can arrive
at some certainty that will alter my whole life at one stroke, I will do
it at any cost—even at the cost of a crime.”

With one twitch she had drawn out the letter. Her heart was pounding
like mad; there was a thick film over her eyes so that the letters
danced on the paper. There was the letterhead of some firm, a few
words—“pay”....

Myra heard Olga’s voice at the door and hastily crammed the letter into
her pocket. Olga would probably never miss it. And although she had
hardly read it, hardly understood what it contained, Myra already had a
plan.

She was extraordinarily anxious to get home that day, and so abstracted
and laconic that Olga finally asked, “What is the matter with you today?
Has something happened? Are you in a bad humor?”

Myra was amused as she recalled the conversation when she arrived.
“Quite the contrary,” she said with an exaggerated emphasis that escaped
Olga. “I’m in an unusually good humor!”

Myra locked herself into her room and studied the letter as if it were a
momentous document. So this was the love letter which had been kept
secret from her.

The company “again” requested a payment of several hundred marks, “in
default whereof we regret that we shall have to place the matter in the
hands of our attorney.”

Myra’s heart was filled to overflowing with a tender pity.

“Poor dear pet,” she thought, “so that’s how they plague you!”

She raised the letter and was tempted for a moment to carry it to her
lips. Then she began to calculate. The few marks that she could save
from her pocket-money—no, that would never be enough. She had squandered
too much, namely for the flowers. But hadn’t she something else? Her
roving glance searched the room. Books? No, she would give them up only
in case of extreme necessity. But her jewelry! All that trash for which
she cared absolutely nothing! No one would ever ask what had become of
bracelets and rings, necklaces and scarf-pins. She never wore such
things. At worst, she could pretend she had lost them. Or she could
redeem this or that bauble from her pocket-money.

She wrapped the entire contents of her jewel-case in tissue paper and
thrust it deep into the pocket of her coat.

The way to the pawn-shop was not hard to find. Myra recalled almost with
pleasure that she was not unpractised in enterprises of this nature.

It was much harder to take the money to the fashion-shop. In doing so,
Myra had a feeling that she was perpetrating some dreadful deception.
After all, she had a perfect right to pawn whatever jewelry had been
given to her. But to act for Olga Radó, to do something in Olga Radó’s
name, that seemed an unheard of piece of daring to her. And it was so
difficult to assume the correct tone. To have debts was, according to
everything that Myra had ever heard or been told, something very
dishonorable, almost unclean.

Therefore, when one came at last to pay a debt after many duns, one must
be humble, must sue for pardon. But it was different when one came for
Olga Radó. Then one could come only in the manner of a princely emissary
and with majestic superiority discharge the forgotten trifle.

Myra put on her best dress and her top-loftiest expression. It all went
much better than she had expected. The people really did treat her like
a princely emissary, and she was very proud about it, doubly proud
because she felt that their all but obsequious amiability was meant for
Olga Radó.

Yes, all that was very easy. But now that she had the receipted bill in
her pocket, nothing in the world could have given her the courage to
return it to Olga. She consoled herself with the thought that it
probably wasn’t necessary. The shop would not dun her any further, and
Olga would forget the affair.

After a week, Myra was still secretly triumphant and thought that all
perils were happily averted. But one day she was received by Olga with a
stony face.

“What on earth can be in your mind!” said Olga instead of her usual
greeting. “What right have you to do a thing like that in my name?”

“I?” said Myra, struggling to assume an innocent expression, “What have
I done?”

“You know very well what you’ve done!” said Olga harshly, “You’ve acted
irresponsibly. Irresponsibly! I won’t tolerate any meddling with my
affairs. Least of all from you. Can’t you see the unheard of presumption
in your conduct? Are you going to appoint yourself my guardian? Or do
you intend to support me? What on earth can you be thinking of?” She
paced to and fro with long strides. Her tone became more and more
heated, more violent. Suddenly, she stopped short, leaning against the
desk, stood arms akimbo and asked very quietly, with simply a gentle
movement of her hand, “How did you get hold of the bill anyway?”

Myra was terrified. This was the moment she had dreaded. All the rest
might have been foolish, but it was generously and unselfishly done. She
could defend it with an appearance of rectitude, at least in her own
eyes. But to this question she had no excuse to offer.

Now the game was up. No lie could save her now. So she resolved
defiantly, desperately, to tell the truth. She threw back her head and
glanced at Olga with an expression that seemed to say: “I deserve death,
but I do not fear it.”

“I stole it,” she said. “From your desk.”

Olga remained quite calm. She merely knitted her brows a little as if
trying to recollect. “It came while you were there, didn’t it?”

“Yes!”

“But I didn’t leave it lying open. Now I remember very well—I pushed it
somewhere under the books.”

“Yes,” said Myra, gritting her teeth, “but I took it out from under the
books.”

“When?” asked Olga genuinely astonished.

“While you were telephoning.”

Olga did not answer. She bowed her head and stared in silence at the
floor. Myra saw that her mouth was tightly shut, but she was biting her
lower lip.

Her silence was more dreadful than the harshest words. Myra felt that
she was really incredibly depraved. And the inquisition was by no means
at an end. Many more questions followed, much more terrifying.

After a while, Olga raised her head. “But you had no way of knowing what
it was. It might just as well have been a personal letter.”

Myra’s forehead began to burn. “Now I will have to lie,” she thought for
a moment, “I’ll have to say I saw the figures or the letter-head.” But
she could not lie. She had done something so contemptible that she had
no right to purchase Olga’s forgiveness with a lie. She must confess,
apologize, atone.

“That is what I thought, too!” she said as if with sudden resolution.
But she could not look at Olga’s face while she said it. She stared past
her at the window. But without looking, she saw Olga make a sudden angry
gesture which she instantly controlled.

“So that is what you thought?” she said.

To Myra it seemed as if she made this effort, as if she forced herself
to speak so softly in order not to scream.

“But tell me, you must have had some reason. I can’t believe that you
would go rummaging in every strange letter, like a maid, out of mere
curiosity.”

“No,” said Myra. “I did have a reason, of course I had a reason. But I
can’t tell you what it is.”

“If you can’t tell me what it is,” said Olga with a gentle smile, “then
I will not ask you either. But reason or no reason, do you think it was
a very pretty thing to do?”

“No,” said Myra honestly.

“No, I don’t think so either,” said Olga quickly. But after a pause she
added reflectively, almost as if it hurt her, “But understandable. If I
wanted to keep anything secret, my dear child, I would do it so artfully
that you and your silly little tricks would never even find it out.”

It was said in a tone of such scornful superiority that Myra blenched.
She felt the truth of those words, she felt that Olga was as if
surrounded by a wall, one through which she, stupid, little, Myra, could
never penetrate to the heart of this being, even by tracking her like a
criminal and reading her letters.

It seemed as if Olga sensed Myra’s dumb terror. For she said suddenly in
her deep, warm voice, “For the rest, I never conceal things from you.
Nothing that could be of any interest to you. I write no love letters
and receive none. But if there is ever anything that you are itching to
find out, ask me—it is the easiest way.”

Her kindly, cordial tone did Myra no end of good, ten-fold good after
all the anxiety she had endured. She made an involuntary movement. A
feeling that welled up hotly within her drove her to Olga, to kiss her
hands in gratitude. Olga saw or sensed this emotion—and averted it. It
was a barely perceptible twitching of her eyebrows that frightened Myra
back and held her spellbound where she stood.

It was not until Myra had put on her hat and was going that Olga asked
suddenly, “Will you do me a favor, Myra?”

“Anything,” said Myra with conviction.

“But this is no easy task—I....”

“So much the better!”

“No, no, it’s nothing heroic in the romantic style. Something quite
unpleasant in a paltry way.” She bit her lip and hesitated. “I should
prefer to do it in any other way, but I don’t know how. I want you to do
something that you have certainly never done before in all your life—to
pawn something for me.”

Myra broke into a laugh. “There you underestimate me considerably. The
pawn-shop is one of the commonest of my childhood memories.”

“Why, Myra!”

“It’s a long story. I must tell it to you some time. But first you tell
me what it is you want.”

“I want you to take this and pawn it for me.”

With a sudden gesture Olga swept the cigarette case from the desk and
gave it to Myra, who took it, shocked, in both hands.

“But you can’t do that, Olga!”

Olga gazed out the window. “Don’t discuss it, please,” she said in a
hard voice, without turning her head. “I alone know what I can, and what
I must do!”

Myra was silent. There was no contradicting that tone. But she was not
convinced.

* * * * *

Myra kept remembering the tender gesture with which Olga had once
pressed the cigarette case to her cheek. And then she recalled the
pawn-broker’s hairy hand with its flattened, dirt-rimmed nails. No, she
could not lay the scorpion in those hands.

She took the case to a jeweler and had it appraised. She did not have
enough money in her possession to accomplish the pious deception which
she had in mind.

But she knew how to remedy that. Not in vain had she been Frieda
Ellert’s pupil. She knew very well how to get at the silverware, and
which cases contained the most valuable pieces.

As Myra stole secretly to the side-board, she thought of a dozen years
before and smiled. It was no longer as exciting as it had seemed then.
Although, if Aunt Emily were to discover it, it would lead to precisely
the same unpleasantness. Her aunt was prepared to call in a psychiatrist
again. What a ridiculous farce the whole business really was. In a year
she would be of age, and free to dispose of her grandmother’s legacy,
and yet for the sake of a hundred marks today, she had to steal in her
own father’s house!

“Will you let me have the ticket?” asked Olga when they met.

“The ticket?” Myra grew a trifle embarrassed and rummaged in her pocket.
“Yes, just a minute! What did I do with it? Don’t worry, it’s here
somewhere. But first I’ll count out the money!”

“Not necessary,” said Olga emphatically. “The money is just where it
belongs. No scenes, please! I have given you no right to insult me.”

“I don’t understand,” said Myra disconcerted. “What does it all mean?”

“It means that I would far rather sit at a street corner and beg than to
be obligated to you for money. I sent you to the pawn-shop simply so
that the money would be given into your own hands. Otherwise, I should
have had to force it on you, and I hate such scenes. Now that’s enough,
I don’t want to hear another word about it!”

“But....”

“Not another word, I said. As for the ticket, you can keep it, and
redeem it for me later. I would rather not see in whose hands it had
been. I’ll give you the money for it the first chance I get.” She
laughed quickly. “When, the gods alone know! Come, let’s play a game of
chess. I’ll concede you a castle.”

“You know,” said Olga the next time they met, “I have an idea. Don’t you
think I could give instruction in languages, Myra? Five lessons every
day, at two marks a lesson, makes ten marks, and one can certainly live
on that if one manages very carefully.”

“A wonderful idea,” said Myra angrily. “In the first place, I see you
living on ten marks a day. And in the second place, I should never see
you at all any more.”

“What on earth are you complaining about!” said Olga, laughing. “You
spend every day God gives us from morning till noon and from noon till
night with me!”

“If it’s too much,” said Myra soberly and somewhat hurt, “all you have
to do is say so.”

“Never fear,” Olga consoled her, “I can take care of myself. If I want
to be rid of anybody, I am perfectly explicit!”

“Thank heaven. If only I can depend on that. But it is I who have the
idea. We’ll combine pleasure with profit. You give me five hours
instruction in foreign languages, and I will have my father pay you for
it—at his own express request.”

* * * * *

But it did not go quite as smoothly as Myra had anticipated. Aunt Emily
herself went to look for language teachers, and unearthed a pair of very
dignified elderly ladies. A sixty-four-year-old professor was, in her
opinion, questionable because he was unmarried. She took Myra herself to
introduce her niece.

As a result, Myra had the painful task of declining their instruction.

But at least, she succeeded in getting her father to give the money for
the classes directly to her instead of sending a money order or having
the bank arrange it.

Olga was very exact with the lessons. She insisted on a conscientious
punctuality and, as a teacher, was strict and pedantic. Myra was a
zealous student in order to live up to her teacher’s good opinion.

So far everything went as planned. Except that Olga did not think to
economize and live on the money from the lessons.

* * * * *

Peculiar happenings multiplied.

One day Uncle George bobbed up suddenly in the city. Myra had always had
a special predilection for Uncle George. He was really the only one of
her relatives whose stately and distinguished appearance, definitely
masculine manner and a certain matter-of-fact seriousness pleased her
and even compelled her respect.

He greeted Myra in a peculiar way, with a conscious affability that
seemed to say: “I’m really quite innocent, there’s no reason for you to
wonder why I am here or what it has to do with you.”

Myra’s delicate perceptive apparatus instantly registered suspicion. Her
suspicion was intensified when she heard the key grind as all
three—Father, Aunt Emily and Uncle George—withdrew into the study.

So they were locking themselves in? What might that mean? Did it concern
the servants or her?

She had never taken any particular interest in family conferences. But
the cautious turning of that key aroused an uneasy curiosity in her. She
sauntered past the door several times. But all she could hear was an
indistinct murmuring. No doubt about it, they were whispering.

Myra longed to escape the oppressive and unfriendly atmosphere of the
house.

After dinner, during which only Uncle George had spoken, extolling in
loud and well-rounded periods the beauties of the little city and the
virtues of its children, Myra finally ventured a question.

“You are all going to sleep after dinner, aren’t you? Then may I spend
an hour with my friend before tea?”

A general silence followed. All three looked at one another, nobody
looked at Myra and nobody answered.

Her father cast an uneasy glance that seemed to beseech succor, from one
to the other. Uncle George drummed on the table and looked expectant.
Aunt Emily cleared her throat and distorted the corners of her tightly
compressed mouth in a sweetish grimace that was intended for a friendly
smile.

Nobody spoke. Aunt Emily did not wish to obtrude herself. She withheld
her answer, waiting to see if either of the men would reply. But they
did not look as if they intended to break the painful silence within the
next few moments.

They had left it up to her, hence she must speak. She drew herself up
and made a face whose wrinkles were intended to express profound
sympathy and serious concern. But to Myra it seemed as if those sharp
little eyes were flashing, as if that rigidly erect lean body was
trembling with malicious joy.

“I guess you will have to omit that today, for a change, my dear child,”
she said in a gentle tone, but her voice was as sharp as a knife. “We
are expecting a visit this afternoon which concerns you most
particularly.”

“Me?” asked Myra, and glanced at her father.

But Rudloff veiled his eyes and endeavored to control a nervous
twitching of his lips. He did not answer.

“Yes, you!” said Aunt Emily as affably as if she were announcing a great
pleasure to Myra.

At that moment, Myra felt that danger was threatening her. She felt as
if she were caught in the fine meshes of a net, which would be drawn
over her head the next moment by a slight twitch of Aunt Emily’s bony
fingers.

She felt as if all the doors were locked and guarded, as if nothing
could save her now, but at this very moment, without hesitation, without
a second thought, to jump out the window, and to run, as long as her
breath lasted, to rush in mad flight through the streets to Olga.

She turned pale and started to run. It was not even a start, it was only
the will to move that thrilled her muscles. But Uncle George must have
perceived it.

“Now, no, Myra!” he said in a somewhat forced tone of kindness and
assurance. “Just keep cool, my lass! Nobody’s going to do anything to
you. You must simply have confidence in us and say to yourself that
everything that happens is happening, in the last analysis, for your own
good. You must try to help us a little in our efforts, which are
motivated wholly by a regard for your welfare, and not make our task
more difficult by any childish spleen. Thus by a mutual effort we will
get over this period, and later on you will be very grateful to us for
having used a loving coercion to put you on the right track. You’ll look
back on this period as on a bad dream of no significance for your later
life.”

This solemn pronouncement increased Myra’s vague uneasiness to all but
insane terror. It was all so mysterious and incomprehensible. She knew
that Aunt Emily was only waiting for a question in order to gush forth
in a torrent of words. Therefore she did not ask any. But what had
happened? What was about to happen?

“Out the window! Out the window!” was the only thing she could think of.
But the moment she heard the door-bell ring, she shrank within herself,
for she knew that it was too late.

The maid came slinking in, as if she were entering a sick-chamber, and
handed Franz Rudloff a card.

His hand trembled as he took it from the little silver tray. He had to
support himself against the table in rising. His face was distorted,
drawn.

“Have you taken the Professor to my room? I will be there in a moment.”

Hastily he poured himself a swallow of water. His stiff, starched cuff
rattled against the carafe.

He went out, making a visible effort not to stagger, and to hold himself
upright.

The three who were left sat on in silence. But Myra could not bear to
remain at the table. When she rose, Uncle George made a hasty gesture as
if to detain her. But she did not go to the door, she would make no
further effort to escape. She went to the window and gazed through the
drawn lace curtains down at the street.

Monotonous cries ascended of children at play. A delivery truck drew up
and stopped at the house opposite. The driver’s helper jumped out,
unlocked the back, loaded himself with parcels and closed the doors
again with a sharp bang.

Every movement, every sound impressed itself with unusual distinctness
on Myra’s brain. She was aware of nothing, nothing, but the sharp
perception of commonplace things.

The door opened behind her back. She heard her father’s restrained and
rather hoarse voice saying, “Emily, will you be so kind as to come here
a moment?” Then the scraping of a chair and the rustle of skirts. Myra
did not turn.

The door closed again.

Now she was alone with Uncle George. Now she might have asked him for
some kind of explanation. Of these three individuals he was by far the
most sensible. Ah, but what use was it? He, too, was a stranger to her,
an utter stranger.

“Mother!” she thought as something like a convulsive sob rose in her
throat. “Dear, good mother, why did you leave me alone, all alone in
this world?”

When the door next opened, and her father appeared and said nervously,
“Please, come with me, Myra,” she experienced a feeling almost of joy—as
a man who has studied well rejoices at an examination, or a brave man at
a battle.

She walked with a perfectly firm step through the room, smiling a
superior, rather disdainful, smile.

At her entrance, a slight man with sharp features and piercing eyes rose
from her father’s chair. In his well-trimmed pointed black beard several
premature white hairs were showing.

As no one appeared to be going to introduce him, he murmured his own
name, with a slight bow, while casting at the others a glance that
resembled a command for instant withdrawal.

Rudloff was visibly relieved, but Aunt Emily hesitated and departed
grudgingly. Even at the door, she cast back a long and curious glance,
but the Professor did not utter a word, did not make a gesture until she
had closed the door.

Then he drew up a chair. “Please be seated.”

Myra sat down obediently.

The man in front of her leaned forward somewhat. “And now, my child,” he
said in a soft, almost ingratiating voice, “tell me that you will trust
me.”

Myra drew herself up stiffly. “I certainly shall not, Professor!” she
said quietly.

The man drew back a little.

“What does that mean?” he asked in surprise.

“It means,” said Myra while her heart throbbed as if it would burst,
“that my Aunt called you in, and that I distrust everything she does.
Probably she intends to shut me up in an insane asylum, and your
function is to declare me mentally deranged. She held a similar party
for me when I was quite a little girl. But if you are a psychiatrist,
you know that the feeling that one is under observation is capable of
inducing something resembling insanity, even in the most normal of
individuals. And you will make allowance for that in my case.”

The physician smiled—a shrewd smile.

“I have not the slightest reason to question your exceptional mental
ability. On the contrary, nobody questions it. And neither has anyone
the slightest intention of shutting you up in an insane asylum. I came
here to talk with you a little, because of certain scientific and human
interests. May I ask you a few questions?”

“Certainly!” said Myra, “I probably will answer your questions more
exactly if you will permit me to smoke a cigarette.”

“Gladly!” said the Professor obligingly.

Myra took the cigarette case from the table and offered him one. He
accepted and while he scratched his lighter and held the little flame
for her he asked in a casual tone, “You are a confirmed smoker, are you
not?”

“I got into the habit studying,” she said. “It helps me concentrate. And
as I can’t rid myself yet of the suspicion that you will construe some
stupid answer into feeble-mindedness....”

The Professor laughed. “I would have a hard time doing that. However,
you are right, one can chat much more easily over a cigarette. But tell
me now, what was this affair you mentioned? What kind of wicked designs
did your estimable Aunt have on you when you were a little girl?”

“Oh,” said Myra, “she called in a children’s psychiatrist because I took
the silver from the side-board.”

“Aha!” said the Professor with an interested and amused smile. “Why did
you do that? Did you like silver?”

“No, I pawned it!”

“Pawned it!” The Professor laughed aloud. “How did such an idea ever get
into your child’s head?”

“It was not my own,” said Myra seriously. From the hazy past the image
of Frieda rose clearly and distinctly. “My governess led me to do it. I
was completely under her influence, which was not a very good one.”

“Ah!” said the Professor with mild astonishment. “Are you easily
influenced? You do not look it. Probably there is nothing on earth that
could make you do such a thing now!”

“The Devil!” said Myra in sudden terror. “I forgot to redeem that stupid
silver!”

The Professor was tremendously amused, but he did not let her see it.

“What,” he asked, “the silver you pawned ten years ago? It certainly
must be lost by now!”

“No,” said Myra, frankly, “that which I just pawned. I clean forgot it!”

“Don’t worry about it,” said the Professor amiably, “it has already been
redeemed.”

For a moment Myra did not quite comprehend. “How can that be? Nobody
knew about it.”

“The ticket was found in your pocket.”

“Found!” Myra sprang up. “Found? That is to say, that that shameless
person has been going through my things again! Oh, what a pity that I
did not catch her at it—I think I would have throttled her with my bare
hands!”

“Please sit down,” said the Professor, not sharply, but so imperatively
that Myra obeyed.

“If by ‘that person’ you mean your Aunt, I should urge her, as a man and
a physician, to supervise you more closely than is customary among adult
human beings.”

“I am an adult human being,” said Myra angrily.

“You are a child,” said the physician mildly, “a child that does not
even suspect the danger it is getting into, but who will be very
grateful to us all once it has grown up and learned to understand from
what we protected it.”

“I believe you are mistaken,” said Myra, in an icy voice. “I am not in
any danger. But if I were, I can protect myself.”

“As long as you are not of age, you cannot refuse our helping hand.”

It sounded kindly, but quite definite. “I question whether you would
find in yourself the necessary strength to break with the friend who is
at present influencing you.”

The blood rushed suddenly to Myra’s heart. She felt that she had turned
as white as snow.

“What do you know about my friend?” she asked bluntly. She felt as if
she could not breathe.

The physician smiled a superior smile. “In any case, more than you.”

“I doubt that,” Myra interrupted in a hard, disdainful tone. But his
composure was not to be ruffled.

“I know,” he said imperturbably, but firmly, “that you are under the
influence of a woman who can do you a great deal of harm. I understand
you quite well. You _are_ a child. I will not deny that the lady
possesses intelligence and charm. You are proud of this friendship and
would be willing to sacrifice anything for her. You would let this
friendship start you on a path of crime....”

“Oh, bosh!” said Myra.

“I understand you to be contradicting me. But just let your cool
intelligence come into play for a moment and think logically. You
purloin silver from your parents’ side-board. You ask your father for
money for lessons and spend it on automobile excursions with your
friend, on champagne and tickets for the Opera. You pay your friend’s
dress-maker’s bills with money that you have come by in irregular ways.
Yes, my child, don’t you see yourself what an abyss you are heading
for?”

How did they know all that? As if lit up by a flash of lightning, the
whole chain of events was suddenly clear to Myra. They had had a
detective watch every step she took. Wherever she went, strange eyes had
been glued to her, strange eyes and Aunt Emily’s notions.

Myra sat quite still and did not stir. She felt as if brutal hands were
tearing her clothes from her body piece by piece. Not the hands of this
stranger; it was Aunt Emily’s hands that were doing it, it was Aunt
Emily’s face she saw before her, wreathed in a mocking smirk and
slavering with foul enjoyment. Slowly, slowly, Myra’s fingers clenched
to a fist. She bowed her head; the corners of her mouth twitched and she
swallowed hard.

Again the Professor’s voice came softly and soothingly. “Just think back
on your childhood! Didn’t you love this young woman who influenced you
as a child? And aren’t you glad and grateful now that you were separated
from her? Well, you will be just as grateful to us later on when you are
capable of judging. If you stop to think, you know it now in your heart
of hearts. It is you who are the true friend. It is you who love, who
sacrifice yourself. It is you who are used, are treated as a plaything,
or denied on occasion, and sooner or later tossed aside. Do you imagine
that this is the first case I have seen? Meanwhile you will be ruined
for the rest of your life, made sick in body and soul, robbed of every
possibility of happiness. What is left for you? According to your
capacities—death or suicide. I have seen terrible tragedies come about
in this way....”

Myra strove in vain against the impression which the words made upon
her. Her tensed nerves felt a cold breath that made her shudder to the
very core of her being. It seemed to her like a warning cry from the
darkly veiled future. Death—the end! A fearful something strode
inexorably toward her, casting its cold shadow in advance. She shivered.
She had to make an effort to regain her outward calm. She dug her nails
in the arms of her chair and swallowed once or twice.

“All that is quite aside from the point,” she said at last with an
effort. “Perhaps you will be so good as to tell me why they really
called you in and what they have decided concerning me. If not an insane
asylum, do they intend to shut me up in a cloister, or a reform school,
or send me to America?”

The physician smiled. “None of those things. But you will leave in a
short time to stay with your Uncle George and his family. There in the
fresh air and amidst quiet surroundings, your nerves will grow strong
again and you will be in a position to make sane and healthy judgments
unassisted.”

“When do I leave?” asked Myra curtly.

“Today!”

“At least I have to pack my suitcase!”

“It has been packed while we were talking!”

That was what she had feared. Myra felt the walls, the hand-cuffs. She
glanced about her like a hunted animal driven into a trap. No escape
anywhere, no possibility of flight.

They were separating her from Olga. That was bad, but not the worst.
They were doing it by force. They should have asked her to take this
journey, they should have allowed her time, time to say good-bye, time
for an explanation, time to pack her own things, her books. Now Aunt
Emily was at her bureau, was packing for her, was rummaging around. In
an hour she would be sitting in the train, without having been able to
inform Olga. And Uncle George would be sitting across from her—as her
keeper. And what would happen here in the meanwhile—to her desk, her
books, to Olga....

She had a desire to tear something to pieces, to dash out her brains
against the walls. She did nothing. She rose from her chair, quite pale.

“Is that all?” she asked.

“I am delighted,” said the Professor, rising at the same time, “that you
agree to this journey.”

“Agree?” said Myra with a contemptuous twitch of the lips. “I submit to
coercion because I know that all resistance is useless. If my Aunt
wished, she could have dragged me off in chains, and my father would
look on, and all the courts in the world would uphold her.”

The Professor went up to her and opened the door.

“Miss Myra and I find ourselves in perfect agreement,” he announced
cheerfully. “I have prescribed a little change of air, and she is
overjoyed to pass a few weeks under your hospitable roof, Herr von
Seyblitz!”

Uncle George rubbed his powerful hands, Franz Rudloff attempted a feeble
smile, and Aunt Emily made a surprised, and as it seemed to Myra,
disappointed face.

She rushed up to the Professor and hissed in a low voice, but loud
enough for all to hear, “But you told me, Professor, that you wanted to
examine her, to see if there were not some physical abnormalities ...
and I think....”

The Professor endeavored in vain to silence her by a slight motion of
the hand and eyelids. It was too late.

Myra had already heard. Had suddenly, instantly, understood. It was too
late.

She was conscious only of the fierce desire to see this horrible
creature die under her hands. She did not know she moved. The floor
moved under her feet. She heard a gurgling that was strange and hideous,
and yet seemed to come from her own throat. She felt her fingers close
on a thin, withered neck, felt at the same moment her own wrists gripped
by hands that were like iron, gripped so tightly that all the blood
seemed to stop in her veins and she thought she would smother. She felt
she could not endure this torture one heart-beat longer.

“Let me go!” she growled. “Let me go!”

The physician immediately released her right arm, and a moment later
Uncle George released her left.

Then her wrists began to ache. She rubbed them quite mechanically. She
felt exhausted, quiet, shattered. She was almost happy at the idea that
she must leave this house, these people, at once, this very moment.

She turned to the physician. “When does the train leave? Isn’t it time
to get ready?”

“We are going the same way, I think,” the Professor remarked casually
when the auto had drawn up before the door. “Have you room in the car?”

Myra looked at him in surprise and with a little smiling scorn.
“Subterfuge is unnecessary, Professor, if you want to take me to the
station. My family will gladly forego the pleasure. It is better for all
concerned.”

She gave her father her finger-tips, which he clasped in both hands.
“Good-bye, papa, take care of yourself.”

Aunt Emily drew back against the wall as if she feared a new assault on
her life, but Myra passed her with a contemptuous glance.

The journey on the train was longer than she expected. Myra gazed
intently out the window, striving to impress on her mind the name of
every station, every village, every crossing. It was possible that she
would have to return on foot.

She had no money—whether she would have the opportunity to pawn or sell
valuables was doubtful. She glanced at the mileage-signs—fifty miles
from home. She could make four miles an hour with ease. Too bad it
wasn’t summer. It wouldn’t be pleasant passing the night in the open at
two below zero.

VII

Myra sat on the window-sill in the bright, friendly mansard room,
smoking a cigarette and polishing her nails. On the white cover of the
sewing-table which Myra had degraded or advanced to a dressing-table, a
thick, little, black book lay open—The New Testament.

The door was pushed ajar and her Cousin Herman insinuated himself
through the crack. But he stopped midway and stood toying with the
latch.

“Coming down for supper, or have you still got a headache?” he asked
laconically.

“Shut the door, child,” Myra commanded in a low voice. She did not want
the cigarette smoke to float downstairs and assail Aunt Antonia’s
sensitive nostrils.

The boy closed the door but continued to toy with the latch.

“Why do you hang on to the door?” asked Myra, amused. “Come in, come in!
Take a seat!”

The boy hesitated. “Of course, we’re not supposed to come up here,” he
ventured. “But if your headache is better, I guess you can’t be sick any
more!”

“Sick?” said Myra in some surprise. “Are you supposed not to come up
here because I’m sick?”

“Yes,” said the twelve-year-old, too shrewdly for his age, “because it’s
contagious!”

“Ah, Mannie!” Myra uttered a short laugh. “My sickness certainly isn’t
contagious.”

“What kind of a sickness have you?” The boy drew nearer curiously.

Myra hesitated. The boy cast a covetous glance at the cigarettes.

“Give me one!” he begged suddenly.

“Certainly,” said Myra. “As many as you like. But you’ve got to mail a
letter for me, secretly, so that not a soul sees you. Can you be
depended on?” Myra glanced at him sharply and searchingly. The boy’s
honor was touched.

“Do you think I’d let myself get caught?” he said with conviction. “What
do you think I am, a dummy?”

He received the cigarettes and the letter and stowed them so artfully in
his blouse that Myra smiled. “This is not the first thing he’s hidden
from mother’s sharp eyes,” she thought.

But he was still reluctant to go. He hesitated for a while and then came
out with it. “Say, what kind of sickness _have_ you got?”

Myra wondered what she should tell him. Then her glance fell on the
cigarette case. “Well, Mannie,” she said after a pause, “I was bitten by
a scorpion, and now the poison is all through my blood. And you know,
the only thing that will cure a scorpion’s bite is scorpion’s poison.
But there aren’t any scorpions here. It’s all superstition that it’s
contagious. It’s only phalanges that are so poisonous you die from
washing in a basin that’s been used by somebody who has been bitten by
one. Your mother has mixed them up.”

“Then it’s not contagious?” asked the boy, venturing a step nearer.

“No!” Myra shook her head with a doleful smile, “I believe that people
can die of it—but it’s not contagious.”

* * * * *

Young Herman, who undertook to convey the letter to the post-office with
much secrecy and a most important air, was firmly convinced that it must
be a love letter which had been confided to him. He would have been
greatly astonished could he have learned that the letter spoke more of
him, of little Herman himself, than of love.

“Formerly I used to hate my Uncle’s children,” Myra wrote after a
matter-of-fact recital of the events of the past few days. “I had no
reason to hate them except that they had such protruding ears. Tell me,
dear, what has changed me so completely? Now I see character in every
childish action, I see destinies inextricably bound up with those
characters. I see that little Anna is going to have a hard time of it in
life—not merely because her ears stand out—and I feel that I would like
to help her, to give her something, to multiply the few happy hours of
her life....

“I have made a discovery, Olga. You’ll laugh at me. My Aunt Antonia has
closed the bookcase to me and laid the New Testament on my table. I have
a suspicion that she meant to punish me with it. A year ago, at the
height of my rebellion, I flung it against the wall and would never have
believed that I could actually read it again. And yet we’ve made friends
once more! What a glorious book it is! But you’ll laugh at my discovery
of the fact. Is there anything beautiful on earth that you do not know
and love?”

* * * * *

Uncle George and Aunt Antonia were most agreeably surprised by Myra’s
behavior. They had expected an unmanageable child whom it would be
necessary to tame, if the occasion required, force. They found a quite
perfect and lovable young lady. Hence they disliked to be always
restricting and supervising her, and allowed her one liberty after
another.

Myra took full advantage of these liberties and began preparations for
her flight. Day or night, she had never had any other intention and her
constant preoccupation with such plans kept her in a state of almost
wantonly happy excitement.

But the first problem was where to find money. Myra sold everything with
which she could possibly dispense. Still it was not enough. She began to
dispose of articles from the household. But that was difficult and
impractical. In the first place, it might be discovered before she was
gone, and then all would be lost. In the second place, the results did
not repay the trouble it required, and it hurt her to see valuable
things given away for a song.

One day Uncle George received a large sum of money by mail, and locked
it away in the desk, in Myra’s presence.

Myra stared as if hypnotized at the locked desk. Here was all she
needed, but how could she get at it?

She lay all night without sleeping, or even trying to. Her mind was
working feverishly. Should she break open the desk that night? There was
no train at that hour which would be certain to bring her to the city
before daybreak.

Should she take a wax impression of the lock? The locksmith might become
suspicious if she asked him to make the key. Should she steal the
key-ring? They would miss it immediately and search the whole house.
Should she remove the key to the desk from the ring? They would
immediately notice that this most important key was missing.

The next day Myra procured a half dozen keys from the locksmith. She
told him some story about a key to the bookcase which she had lost, and
was delighted at the assured and unembarrassed manner with which she
told it.

That night she stole down and tried the keys. Nearly all were easy to
insert, but they did not unlock the desk.

Next day she asked for her Uncle’s keys in order to get a book from the
library. While she was kneeling in front of the bookcase, she removed
the key to the desk from the ring. In its place, she attached one
resembling it.

She took a book from the case without seeing what it was.

As she handed the keys back to Uncle George, she felt sure he must hear
the furious throbbing of her pulses. She thought her face must be as
white as chalk and made an effort to set her frozen lips in a smile.

Her Uncle took the keys without glancing up from his newspaper, and with
a brief “Thanks,” thrust them into his trousers pocket.

Myra packed her suitcase and sent a telegram. Late in the afternoon, she
carried the suitcase to the station.

At half past seven they sat down to supper. The train left at half past
eight. During supper Myra complained of a headache. At her request her
Uncle gave her a headache-tablet and advised her to lie down
immediately.

Myra said, “good night,” while the others were still at table.

In order to reach the stairs from the dining-room, she had to pass
through the darkened living-room. While she listened to their voices in
the adjoining room, expecting at every moment to hear a chair scrape as
someone rose, she unlocked the desk and crammed a handful of bills into
her pocket.

In the hall her coat was hanging, a piece of forethought. She slipped
into it and opened the little rear-door that gave on the garden. She did
not dare pass the dining-room windows in front.

There was nothing difficult about swinging herself over the low garden
fence. She looked back once. That side of the house was completely dark.
She listened. Not a door opened or window rattled. Then she turned and
ran as if the Devil were after her, across the fields, to the station.

* * * * *

During the journey on the train, she fought against an agony of fear.
She saw herself pursued, hand-cuffed. The train seemed to crawl along at
an intolerable pace, and to stop much longer than required at each
station.

At times she felt that it would be better to get out and run, simply to
run and run and run until she had no more breath or strength, than to
wait, an inactive, restless captive, until the lazy engine brought her
to her destination.

With sudden terror she thought of the possibility that her telegram
might not arrive in time or that Olga might not be at home to receive
it.

And what in God’s name was she to do if Olga were not at the station!

To go home was impossible. She could already feel the straight-jacket
and hand-cuffs. Should she rush through the night to Olga? Ring a
strange door-bell and wake up the people in the pension? What right had
she to do that?

There was nothing left but to take a room for a night at a hotel. But
where would she be safe? Early next morning they would be searching
everywhere for her. She shuddered to think of what lay ahead.

She shuddered, too, at the thought of a lonely night in a strange room.

There were moments, too, when she regarded her own actions with
astonishment, terrified by her daring. Suddenly feeling the bills
crinkling in her waist, she asked herself with amazement, “Good God, how
did I ever manage to do it?”

At eleven twenty the train arrived at the depot. The light and the
tumult in the buzzing hall whose vast vault was lost in darkness, was
still more alarming than the silent night of the fields.

But Olga Radó was there.

Amidst that sea of hurrying, scurrying, searching people she stood
perfectly still, but drawn up a little taller than usual. Surrounded by
stupid, stolid, deformed faces, her own pale face shone brightly. From
under her dark brows, which were knitted as if threateningly, her dark
eyes sparkled and peered along the line of coaches.

Myra flung open the door before the train stopped. Regardless of all,
she forced her way through the crowd, jabbing her suitcase into people’s
knee-joints. She stretched out her hand, no, she clutched like a falling
man at a support, crying between tears and laughter, “Olga!”

Olga’s face which had turned abruptly to her, remained grave. Not the
ghost of a smile relaxed those tense features.

“Myra!” she said in her deep voice. “My child! What folly are you up to
now!”

Myra was a little taken aback. Not much. She would have preferred
another reception—but what difference did these words make to her or the
tone of these words? Olga was there. She gazed into her face, held her
hand, listened to her voice.

Now everything was all right.

“Are you angry?” asked Myra, her eyes laughing, while she clung to
Olga’s hand. “If you really are angry, you old Philistine, I won’t even
dare confess all the wicked things I’ve done!”

“I’m not angry,” said Olga earnestly, “I simply refuse to be in any way
responsible. If you’ve run away, that’s your affair! I have not
influenced you to it by a single word, a single glance. I knew nothing
about it. I want to get that straight now and forever!”

“Yes,” said Myra, “but as soon as you’ve got it straight, perhaps you’ll
tell me whether or not you’re glad to see me.”

“If I must be candid,” said Olga with a vague smile and without looking
at Myra, “I’m not unglad that you’re here, but I’m a little disturbed.
Have you reflected at all as to what is to become of you now?”

Myra had thought about it. But reflected? No, that was certainly not the
right word. She had thought of herself as coming to Olga in order to be
with Olga, to remain with Olga. She had pictured herself in Olga’s
comfortable room, the one room in which she had known happy hours, had
meant to hide herself there, never to go into the street, never to go
home—now she was aware of the folly of the idea and did not dare to
declare it to the shrewd eyes watching her.

“I don’t know,” she said pitifully. “I only know that I can never go
home, never, never, never, never! I’ll look for a job as a nursemaid or
a chambermaid—anything!”

“Then you might just as well have remained where you were. They
certainly wouldn’t have beaten you or let you go hungry. Or do you
expect that you’ll have more freedom as a maid?”

“Yes,” said Myra defiantly, “at least I’ll have my Sundays free and
nobody can forbid me to spend them with you!”

“Do what you like as far as I’m concerned!” Olga stood still and closed
her eyes for a moment as if in mortal terror. “You are positively
brutal, Myra! Don’t you see how you’re going to incriminate me! I can’t
accept responsibility for this, I can’t!”

They were still standing on the platform which was by then almost
emptied of its swarming crowds. Only a few night-travellers were still
hurrying toward the exit.

Myra felt tired and shattered; the light suitcase was like a ton in her
hand. The draught in the vast hall made her shiver.

“Can’t we sit down in the waiting-room for ten minutes?” she asked
dejectedly. “Perhaps if I think about it quietly, something will occur
to me that I can do. But if you feel so tired, why don’t you go home?”

“Yes,” said Olga, “and leave you sitting here alone all night in the
depot! Have you gone clean crazy, my dear child?”

They sat in the empty waiting-room, warming their cold fingers on their
glasses of hot tea. Myra related the story of her flight. She took the
crinkled bills out of her waist and thrust them into her pocket.

Myra had almost expected Olga to laugh. While she was telling the story,
the whole business struck her like an incredibly comical adventure. But
Olga’s face remained intensely serious.

“And now?” she asked.

“I’m going to a hotel!”

“And I?”

“You are going back to your pension!”

“I won’t leave you alone.”

“Come with me, then,” said Myra with a flare of hope.

“Yes,” said Olga bitterly, “and the first thing tomorrow morning the
police will come and arrest us. No thank you. I’ll probably be accused
of making you commit grand larceny.”

“Then,” said Myra after further reflection, “in that case we’ll have to
behave like real embezzlers. That is, take the next train and keep
going. We’ll simply get off at some station or other and go to a hotel.
From there I’ll write my father, and beg him first of all to straighten
out the money business. Perhaps he’ll be reasonable and I’ll be able to
come to some agreement with him. In six months, I’ll receive my
grandmother’s legacy. If my father won’t give me anything, I’ll borrow
against my legacy: it can be done somehow.” Myra looked at the huge
schedule. “The next train leaves at midnight!”

Olga’s face had lost its stern expression. Her eyes were laughing with a
deep joy. But she still hesitated.

“You’re absolutely crazy!” she said. “No night-dress, no toothbrush!”

“I have linen enough,” said Myra eagerly, “and we can buy a toothbrush!”

“What ideas you do have!” said Olga slowly.

Myra saw that she was already half convinced.

“Grand ideas!” she said radiantly. “Fascinating, entrancing ideas. Don’t
you think so?”

“Yes, but _I_ never would have thought of it,” said Olga emphatically.
“_You_ talked me into it. It’s your idea and no one’s else!”

“Absolutely! I’m much too proud of it to let anybody else claim the
authorship.”

* * * * *

The midnight train was a passenger train. They sat alone in a
compartment for non-smokers, that was dimly illuminated by the
blue-shaded light in the ceiling. They made an unsuccessful effort to
remove the shade in order to turn on the little gas flame full force.

“Let it be,” said Myra in fun. “It’s better for us if the compartment is
dark, then our pursuers can’t recognize us from outside.”

Myra was in such high spirits that she elaborated the idea into a merry
comedy and even induced Olga to take part.

They played at flight. They stooped whenever anybody passed outside.
They breathed freely again as soon as the train had started. Myra did
her hair differently so as not to be recognized. They “bribed” the
conductor with the “sum” of three marks not to let anybody enter their
compartment and afterwards, were worried lest the enormous tip might
cause them to be suspected as embezzlers.

“You know,” said Myra mysteriously, “we certainly ought not to get off
at the place our tickets call for. If we do, they’ll be after us
immediately. We’ll simply get off at some other stop.”

“Yes,” Olga agreed, “seven stops from here. Seven is a mystic number.”

Myra was enthusiastic. “It’s beautiful, it’s wonderful! We go on, and we
don’t know where. We get off, and we don’t know where. We’ll wake up
early tomorrow morning in a strange city, and won’t know the name of
it.”

“How strange that sounds!” said Olga, paraphrasing the words. “Like
something really profound! We live—and we don’t know how! We love—and we
don’t know why! We die—and we don’t know when!”

“No,” said Myra, “I don’t know when! Thank God! But I do know why! Also,
thank God!”

The ghost of a shadow seemed to pass over Olga’s face as if she wished
not to hear what Myra said. “I used to long so dreadfully to know when I
would die,” she said reflectively. “I think it is so unjust for us to
know absolutely nothing about how much time we have before us. We ought
to have a right to regulate that! I used to envy a friend of mine who
died of tuberculosis. She knew exactly—so much of my lung is left, I can
live so much longer provided I economize, provided I spare myself. Or I
have the choice of squandering the rest, of throwing away what’s left.
That must be beautiful! As it is, you know, I never can leave my room
until it is cleaned up, because I suffer so from the fixed idea—who
knows if I shall ever return. The thought is so appalling to me that
some time I may have just to step out of life and leave everything in
disorder behind me!”

Myra was on the verge of tears. She wanted to conceal, to dispel the
sadness that was tormenting her, so she said with affected rudeness,
“Don’t you think you’re really insane? Perhaps you’ll be good enough to
choose some other topic of conversation for this dismal night-journey!
If you don’t, I’m going to sit in the next compartment until you’ve
finished your meditations.”

“Child!” said Olga, smiling and clasping her hand. “You are quite right!
Scold me! It’s because of my stupid oracle!”

“Oracle?” said Myra, astounded.

“Haven’t you found that out about me yet? I’m like these old peasant
women who, whenever they are in trouble, stick a knitting-needle in the
Bible and fish out a quotation.”

“But you haven’t got a knitting-needle,” said Myra, laughing.

“Nor a Bible either! The Bible must be an heirloom. A new one is no
good. But you really don’t have to have a Bible for that purpose: you
can take any book and open it. It’s remarkable, what answers you
sometimes find. I asked yesterday, for example—when your telegram
came—whether I should go to the depot....”

“And?” asked Myra in suspense.

“Oh, it’s all silliness,” said Olga with a wry smile. She turned away
and stared intently out of the window into the black night that was
flitting by them.

“Of course, it’s silliness,” said Myra sincerely. “But it worries you
all the same. And you won’t see how really silly it is until you’ve told
me. So tell me—then we can laugh at it together.”

Olga turned to her again. She was trying to maintain an uncertain smile.

“When Radomonte Gozaga entered Genoa—in some campaign of vengeance or
other, I don’t remember just what—he wore a doublet on which was
embroidered a scorpion. Under it was the legend: _Qui vivens laedit,
morte medetur_.[1] Is that an answer or not?”

[1] “What life wounds, is healed in death.”

Myra seized Olga’s hand. She must rend some veil that the words, which
had been uttered with such effort, had thrown over her.

“You are certainly insane!” she said. But her voice did not ring true.
She had to clear her throat of a sudden huskiness.

* * * * *

The brakes ground under the coaches. “The sixth stop!” said Myra
mysteriously, her eyes big. “The next is our fate. I hope to heaven, it
isn’t a large city.”

When the train was once more in motion, they began to make ready to get
off. The next stop might be ten minutes or an hour distant—they did not
know.

They had placed their suitcase on the seat, and were standing side by
side at the window, their faces pressed against the pane in an effort to
penetrate the darkness rushing past.

“There are lots of woods in this country,” said Olga, “pine woods!”

“Yes,” Myra exulted, “we’ll go walking in them tomorrow.”

The woods ended. A slate-gray, clouded sky hung above long, gently
rolling, dark fields. More trees, at first singly, then a thick black
woods that extended to the railway embankment, and above which not a
scrap of sky was to be seen.

Again, the trees grew more sparsely, disappeared. Again, broad fields.
Then at a distance they could not estimate, as though set between the
gently rolling furrows, a tiny light twinkled. Another, and another.

“Look! Look!” cried Myra, in raptures. “Maybe that’s our stop.”

“Strange,” said Olga, “maybe one of those lights will be in our window
tomorrow morning. And perhaps we’ll have a feeling of home when we pass
those lights ten years hence. But now we don’t even know the name of the
place.”

A watchman’s shack flitted past. Now and again a section of shiny rails
was lit up by a lantern. Once more woods grew right up to the tracks,
but more open, criss-crossed by numerous paths. Then a hedge ran along
beside them for a while. After the clipped hedge, a bright wooden fence.
Behind it, quite close at hand, the outlines of individual houses
already loomed darkly. A rather smoky lantern, and gates that closed a
dark tree-bordered highway.

Other bits of woods and gardens. Beyond them, little light after little
light. The train was slowing, creaking, puffing. Wooden columns flashed
out suddenly, supporting the roof of a narrow shelter. The train
stopped.

Olga seized the suitcase, lifted the latch and sprang down the high
steps. Myra followed her, in a strange dreamy trance. She was worn out
by the two sleepless nights; her senses, sharpened a thousandfold,
seemed to notice everything. The thin film of hoar-frost that covered
the earth and the trunks of the trees, the coarse faces of two women in
peasant’s attire, who hurried past, the conductor’s long-drawn shout,
the leisurely slamming of doors, the red hands in knitted mittens, of
the man at the guard-gates, the little dark room, its walls pasted up
with bills, and the worn benches, the whistle of the departing train
behind her—all was impressed on her mind with ineradicable distinctness.

Olga pushed open a door, descended a flight of stone steps, and they
were standing on the uneven flag-stones of a broad square, feebly
illuminated by the lights of the station.

Left and right—pitch darkness. As far as they could see—nothing but
bare, twisted trees, unpaved, sodden paths, slightly frozen over.

At a little distance there was something that resembled the beginning of
a street.

Olga stood still and looked at Myra with a smile. “Well,” she said, “are
you shivering already? What would you give now to be safe at home under
a down-comfortable, with the electric light to turn on whenever you want
it?”

“Nothing at all!” said Myra defiantly. “On the contrary, I think it’s
extremely pleasant right here. And if we don’t find any accommodations,
I shall mind it for your sake only. It was I who led you into this
excursion!”

“Oh, for all I care,” said Olga deprecatingly, “for all I care, we can
spend the night on those benches in the station. But if you’re afraid,
we can go back and ask the man at the guard-gates if there’s a hotel.”

“No,” Myra insisted, “don’t ask. Let’s go on.”

A few hundred paces ahead of them, the houses began. Dark and sleeping
or with an occasional lighted window. They stood rather apart,
surrounded by their gardens and fields. The road was paved with cobbles.
Presently the houses stood closer together, began to form a street which
was illuminated by flickering lanterns.

The street broadened to a kind of market-place. It was a dreary polygon,
without any artistic embellishments, lime-trees, or a purling spring. On
one side, was a long, squat, gray box with a broad roof, sloping low,
and several dormer-windows. Over the broad arch of the dark entrance a
tin star was swaying, not unlike a shaving-basin, while a big blue
lantern, swinging from a beautifully curved arm, illuminated the words:
“At the Sign of the Blue Star. Hotel and stable accommodations.”

“Look,” said Olga, “even a hotel!”

They looked for a night-bell. But they could not find even a door.
Beside the entrance-way was a handle for ringing a big bell at the end
of a rusty iron rod. But it was difficult to reach. Myra made an
attempt.

“Don’t bother,” said Olga, “that’s not for poor pedestrians like us.
Moreover, we’ll wake up the whole town. Let’s try inside instead.”

They ventured into the dark cavern of the entrance, but did not get far.
Before the passage could open into a court, a huge rack-wagon barred the
way. But beside the wagon they found a flight of steps and a little
wooden door in the wall. They felt a metal knob, tugged at it and
succeeded in evoking a shrill ring that made them start, so
hair-raisingly did it shatter the silence.

Steps, voices, a light.

A sleepy-looking individual appeared in the doorway, slippers on his
bare feet, in grayish-yellow underwear, over which he had managed in
some remarkable fashion to pull on a jacket that he held closed under
his chin with his left hand. In his upraised right he carried a wax
candle.

Olga took over the management of negotiations.

She told the sleep-drunk man a long tale of the train by which they had
just arrived, and of how the “Blue Star” had had been recommended to
her, and how she regretted having had to disturb his slumbers, but the
trains arrived at such uncomfortable hours, and they couldn’t remain on
the streets, and, of course, the people at the station had directed them
here.

The man rallied sufficiently to say, “One moment, please!” vanished and
left them standing there.

They looked at one another and laughed, waiting patiently. After some
time a gas-lamp without a globe was lighted farther up the stairs, and
the man reappeared, this time in black trousers.

The fact that he was collarless and wore neither a jacket nor stockings
did not prevent a certain deftness of his movements from revealing at
once that he was “mine host.”

He conducted them into a big, dark, cold room, jumped up on the cushion
of a chair and lit the gas-jet. It was evidently the “Blue Star’s”
“imperial suite.”

The high, broad bed, the ponderous plush sofa almost vanished in the
vast room. Between the windows stood a huge, gold-framed mirror before
which, on the console, were wax flowers under glass, while the walls
were elegant with numerous gay prints, most of them in heavy gold
frames.

“Mine host” stooped and lit a gas-heater. A long row of little pointed
blue flames puffed up, were mirrored in a reflector of grooved copper
that cast a warm and ruddy glow on the shabby carpet.

“Splendid!” said Olga, tossing her gloves on the big, round,
plush-covered table. “Now it will be warm here, too. That’s simply
ideal! No, sir, we don’t need another thing. We should like to have
breakfast here in the morning. Is this the bell—splendid! Thank you!
Good night!”

The door closed behind him.

“Wonderful!” said Olga, including it all in a wide embrace.

“Are you serious?” asked Myra timidly. “I was afraid your sense of
beauty would be in constant agony! Those pictures! And those artificial
flowers, and the plush-upholstery!”

“Simply splendid!” said Olga. “It just couldn’t be any different. I’d
have been terribly disappointed if those fighting stags were not here,
or that wonderful Empire maiden with the apple-tree in bloom. Do you
think I want to see Chippendale furniture or a Kokoschka in the ‘Blue
Star’? God forbid! As it is, I think it’s simply heavenly!”

Myra unpacked her suitcase, spread night-gowns on the bed, set bottles
and boxes on the wash-table. Olga walked about noiselessly, whistling
with soft, sweet flute-tones. She stopped before each picture, studying
it with childish enthusiasm, while she made up long stories about it.

“Here!” said Myra, laying her silk kimono on the chair, “you can put
that on.”

“And you?”

“I have my wrapper, that’s all right for me.”

“Wonderful,” she said, “simply wonderful! Now all I need is warm feet.
Then I’ll be absolutely happy.”

She rolled a chair up to the gas-heater and began to untie her shoes.

“Shall I help you?” asked Myra, eager to serve.

“I never heard of such a thing!” said Olga provoked. “Why, I wouldn’t
let my maid do such a thing for me!”

“That’s another matter,” said Myra, smiling. “It’s a distinction that
one does not confer on maids.”

“You’re certainly insane!” Again that sudden deep crimson pulsed into
Olga’s cheeks.

She had drawn off her thin silk stockings and was holding her bare feet
toward the flame. She raised her arms and slowly ran Myra’s brush over
the hair that fell in heavy black curls about her neck.

Myra jumped on the chair and turned out the gas-light.

“Now,” she said with a laugh, “you can have a painting made of yourself,
or a chromo and frame it in gold and hang it on the walls here. Title:
_Au coin du feu_, or The Witch, or Firelight, or something just as good.
How can anybody be so shamelessly lovely?”

“Indeed!” said Olga dryly. “Now you’ve done it! We haven’t any matches!”

“In the first place, there’s light enough for me,” said Myra, seating
herself on the floor in the ruddy firelight. “And in the second place,
we can always light a spill from this. If we can’t find anything better,
we’ll use a hundred mark note. We have plenty of them. Child, what a
marvellous foot you have! But so cold, they’re always like ice!”

She clasped both hands about Olga’s foot. It was as nobly shaped, as
beautiful in line and color as if a masterhand had chiselled it out of
marble. But it was as heavy and as cold as stone.

Myra endeavored to warm it in her hands, but then she could not resist
temptation—she set her lips upon its cool, smooth, white skin.

Olga broke away, sprang up and ran through the dark room to the window.

“Olga!” cried Myra, terrified, and rose, hesitantly. “What is the
matter? What’s wrong with you?”

No answer. Myra went over to her. But when she reached the window and
stretched out her hand toward her, Olga dodged as if hunted, along the
wall.

She stood, cowering, in a corner, Myra barring her way.

Her lovely pale face gleamed weirdly in the dark. Her tense features
were at once frightened and threatening, like a wounded animal’s, that
sees itself surrounded and prepares to defend itself desperately.

Myra shrank from the expression of those compressed lips, those darkly
glowing eyes. Timidly she laid her hand on Olga’s arms, which were
folded across her breast.

Olga started and cowered deeper in her corner.

“Go away!” she said through clenched teeth. “Let me be!”

“You must not stand in your bare feet on the bare floor,” said Myra on
the verge of tears. “You’ll catch your death of cold. I don’t want you
to do anything but sit by the heater. I can sleep in the hall, in front
of the door, or I can take another room, or I can jump out the window.
But come out of that corner, I can’t bear to look at you a minute
longer!”

She seized her by both shoulders, but Olga shook her off.

“Let me be!” she said angrily. “Can’t you see that you’re torturing me
to death? How can anybody be so stupidly cruel?”

Her voice broke and suddenly her face was covered with tears.

Myra could control herself no longer. Her eyes, too, brimmed over.

“I don’t understand!” she said with quivering lips. “If I’m so hateful
to you that you can’t stand me, what are you here for? Why do you have
anything to do with me? No one can like a person whose presence is a
torture to him. But I know why you can’t stand me!”

“Why?” asked Olga astonished.

Myra shook her head in silence, still struggling with her tears.

“Why can’t I stand you?” Olga demanded more urgently. “Answer me! I want
to know!”

Myra still avoided looking at her. “Because I love you too much!” she
said bitterly and sadly. “It must be dreadful to be loved by someone
whom you do not love! Almost disgusting!”

“Idiot!” said Olga and stroked Myra’s hair very tenderly.

“Oh, don’t,” said Myra and disengaged herself from the hand. “There’s no
use forcing one’s self.”

Olga let her arms drop heavily.

“One must force one’s self,” she said, breathing softly but with an
effort. “If I did not force myself, I would so smother you with caresses
that you’d be frightened to death and run away.”

Myra felt the pulse throbbing in her neck so that she could scarcely
breathe.

“Don’t do it,” she said. “Though I would certainly never run away, I
might go mad with happiness!”

Then Olga slowly raised both her slender white arms and laid them on
Myra’s shoulders. Myra felt their powerful, delicious pressure grow
tenser and tenser.

Since Olga was barefoot, their faces were almost on a level. Their eyes
bored into one another, gravely, unflinchingly, while they felt in every
vein the terrible throbbing of their hearts.

Then they bent toward one another, like two thirsting souls, and laid
mouth upon mouth.

They did not release one another again. They kissed one another more and
more covetously. They walked through the room, nestling close together,
they sat on the edge of the bed in one another’s arms. Their clothes
slipped off and lay on the floor.

The coarse, damp sheets exhaled a chill miasma. They hardly felt it, so
hot was the blood in their youthful bodies.

They pressed upon one another as if they wanted to pass one into the
other, to be merged, be one.

Their slender, supple limbs wove one into the other, as the trees of a
virgin forest inextricably interpenetrate.

They did not speak. But like a murmuring music, they heard the droning
pulse of one another’s hearts, and the breath that came quicker and
quicker.

Their bodies seized each other as wild beasts seize and shake the bars
of their cages. They buried their nails in one another’s flesh, their
teeth in their tensed muscles.

Then they lay nestling one against the other like children tired with
play, while their lips brushed eyelids and cheeks as gently, as softly,
as a butterfly a swaying flower.

“Little one!” said Olga, and all the bells pealed in her voice. “My
beautiful, my good one!”

“My dear,” said Myra. “Oh you miracle of heaven! What are you really?
Are you a wild creature? Or a god? Or the spirit of a white orchid?”

“I don’t know,” said Olga. “I believe I am a god. But an hour ago I was
a poor tortured creature. Are you not proud, little girl, to be able to
work such miracles?”

“I wish I could work miracles,” said Myra longingly.

Olga laughed a hard laugh. “Then you’d change me into a man!” she said.

“God forbid!” cried Myra, clasping her in both arms. “Never! Never!
Never! But if I could work miracles, I’d never let this night end. I
would make it last forever!”

The red glow of the copper behind the gas flame filled the room with a
warm light. The little pointed flames trembled gently, and the bright
spot on the worn gay carpet trembled, too.

Olga leaned on her elbows, supporting her head in her hands. Between her
white fingers her black curls peeped. In her pale face, her clear dark
eyes glowed in infinite majesty and clarity, like twin stars.

“Forever!” she said softly. “Everything that is God, is eternal! Do you
not feel that this night belongs to God? Time is an invention of the
Devil. Satan invented the passage of time in order to make man apostate
to God. But God remains eternal. Satan invented much else, besides,
sickness, pain, vermin and money. Above all—money! But time came and the
passage of time, and could never be dispelled again. Now they are a part
of every invention of the Devil. But what is God’s is eternal. New
happiness always effaces old pain as if it had never been. And happiness
endures. No pain can efface it. I would die of shame if I thought that
only the nerve-endings in our skin vibrate. Don’t you feel that
something has happened to your soul that must remain with it beyond all
death? Don’t you feel that this hour has changed you beyond any power of
death to change?”

“Yes,” said Myra. “And more than any birth. I was born today—not twenty
years ago. Now I can say to myself for the first time consciously: ‘I
live!’”

“_We_ live!” said Olga, clasping her to her, with an exultation in her
voice that was like the jubilant cry of a wild bird rising in flight.

“We live, sweetheart! Forever, and ever, and ever, we live!”

VIII

When Myra awoke the next morning, she found a bright, cheerful, winter
sunshine in the room. Her first thought was of Olga. She was not there.
Her coat, too, was gone from its hook. Myra felt a sudden pang of
terror. Olga was gone, forever, would not return, was lost,
irretrievably lost.

Myra sprang out of bed, suddenly wide awake.

Then she saw Olga’s hat and gloves. She picked up the gloves and stroked
them, pressing them against her cheek. A sense of joy and tranquillity
seemed to emanate from the soft gray leather. So it was no dream, no
witchery: Olga had really been there, Olga would return. The gloves
retained the shape of her beautiful slender hands, were still filled
with their life....

From below came a familiar grinding and scraping sound.

Myra ran in her bare feet to the window and drew the heavy white twill
curtain a little to one side. On the window-ledge lay a thick cushion of
white snow. The houses below all had roofs of dazzling white, while
above, flashed a sky of the purest blue.

In front of the hotel, the servant of the house was scraping a dark path
with his shovel through the white carpet. Beside him stood Olga, her
coat open, both hands plunged in its pockets, her head thrust somewhat
forward in the intentness of her conversation with the old man.

Myra gazed down for a while, delighting in every line of Olga’s figure.
She watched her speak, seeming to hear the intonations of her voice. She
wondered what she could find to talk about with the servant. She admired
her talent for embarking on conversations with all kinds of people, and
giving each just the proper tone.

Myra knew that talent of hers. If Olga were in the mood, she could make
the grouchiest waiter or conductor beam at her.

After a few moments Olga suddenly glanced up: she must have felt Myra’s
gaze. She saw her standing at the window, or perhaps only the trembling
curtain. She waved and ran into the house.

Olga brought a breath of cool snowy air into the room. Her eyes were as
clear and as transparent as ice, while a very faint rosy flush mantled
her cheeks.

“Where have you been, you gad-about?” asked Myra.

“Have a nice long sleep, my wench?” Olga inquired by way of reply. “I’ve
been walking. I was in town. I wanted to get some flowers for your
breakfast table. But flowers in winter—such sinful things are unheard of
here! But there’s a bake-shop below, one of those with steps and a
railing in front of the door. You know the kind? And a gold pretzel up
above! And it smells of fresh bread. Hurry up, I’ve got a ravening
appetite.”

They breakfasted in their room. Then Myra urged that they go walking.
Snow and sunshine beckoned them out.

“First you must write to your father,” said Olga seriously.

“Yes,” said Myra, making a face. “You don’t want to accept any
responsibility—I know without your saying it.”

She sat down and wrote a long, well-considered letter. She described the
incidents at Uncle George’s with much humor. She told where she was
stopping, earnestly begged her father to let her remain where she felt
happy and was in no one’s way. She begged him, too, to believe that she
was a mature and intelligent person and knew exactly what was best for
her. And she begged him to pay back the money which she had unwillingly
borrowed from Uncle George—and to support her for the short period until
she came of age, or else to give her an advance against her
grandmother’s legacy.

But of the fact that she was not alone, she did not write him a word.

They took the letter together to be mailed. Olga already knew the way.
When the letter had dropped into the blue box, she breathed more freely,
and took Myra’s arm.

“Come,” she said, “what had to be done, is done. In three days you may
get an answer. But let us enjoy those three days.”

“Do you suppose,” said Myra, glowering, “that any power on earth could
compel me to return home? If they won’t send me money, I’ll hire out to
do washing or sewing, or I’ll run up debts.”

“I don’t know,” said Olga, “I only know that as long as that letter is
on its way we are safe. No living soul knows where we are—that’s a
glorious feeling—as if one were safe behind walls and moats. But once
that letter arrives, the drawbridge will be lowered. What will happen
then, I do not know. I know nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing! But it’s
always possible that we’ll be torn into little pieces!”

“Then why did we lower the draw-bridge?” asked Myra, stopping short.
“Why did you force me to write?”

Olga smiled rather gloomily. “Because I will _not_ accept
responsibility!” she said, making an effort to jest.

* * * * *

They walked along the broad streets with the little low houses. The
show-windows were strangely fascinating.

As they entered the woods, it was suddenly still and warm about them—so
warm that their faces, lashed by the wind, began to burn.

In the branches, high above them, the wind murmured, now and again
shaking down a silvery star to the dark ground. But they did not feel
the cold rush of its fall.

They wandered plunged in silence. Only when gay titmice flitted past, or
a squirrel dashed up a tree trunk, did they indicate it to one another
by a gesture, a whisper. And when their glances met, they remained fixed
on one another till they smiled and closed their eyes.

“Aha, there it is!” said Olga at last.

“What? Where?” asked Myra in surprise.

Olga pointed ahead. A red brick wall was suddenly visible between the
tree trunks.

“Did you know all the time where we were going?” Myra was filled with
wonder.

“Of course, child! I would not lead you through here at random. By all
human computations, this should be the wild-cat’s lair. In summer
there’s coffee, music and dancing here. In winter we may get a bite to
eat—if we’re lucky. The servant at the hotel told me all about it this
morning. Such a lovely story about a haunted mill where there are only a
donkey, a cat and a dove. And one other animal. Look, there goes the
dove, and there’s the cat. But not a soul to be seen. Are you
frightened, Myra? Wait and see, the cat will say something to us.”

They crossed a kind of inn courtyard and shook a couple of locked doors.

“They can’t have died,” said Olga, pointing to the wisp of smoke that
arose from the chimney. “Or perhaps the cat made the fire. But if she
can do that, she can also cook us something to eat.”

They found one door open. Through a cold and empty hall, from the
ceiling of which hung strips of torn and dusty paper, they reached
another door that gave when they lifted the latch. The room they next
entered was filled with a comfortable warmth and a penetrating smell of
cabbage. An iron stove was giving off a glowing heat while on top a blue
enamel pot was bubbling and steaming. At one of the tables a big-boned
maid was sitting sprawled, eating her mess of cabbage with her knife.

“Good day, Anna,” said Olga, beaming affably. “Well, how goes it? Does
it taste good?”

The girl rose slowly, grinning. “I’m not Anna,” she said. “The girl
before me was Anna. I’m Bertha.”

“It’s lovely and warm in here, Bertha.” Olga drew off her gloves and
spread her fingers before the fire. “And it smells wonderfully of
cabbage! Will you give us a little of your lunch?”

“If the ladies would like something to eat, I’ll ask the mistress.”

The black and white spotted cat stole into the room.

“There’s the wild-cat!” said Olga. “Come here, Mies! Come to me!”

The cat let her pick him up and hold him. Olga stroked him and pressed
him to her while she talked to him in a whisper, asking sympathetic
questions.

“Strange, that you like cats so much and can’t bear dogs,” said Myra a
little disapprovingly. “It’s certainly typical of you!”

Olga raised her head quickly and her brows were lifted. “In what way is
it typical?”

“Because you set more value on grace than on faithfulness,” said Myra
with a melancholy smile. “Because you love what scratches you
unexpectedly more than what lets itself be whipped and then licks your
hand. I guess I’ll have to take care that you don’t grow to despise me.”

Olga pushed the cat off her lap. “No, Myra,” she said, her big eyes
grave, “there you misunderstand me completely. I have an antipathy to
dogs, not because they are faithful, but because they are shameless.
Because they carry on their love affairs on the street.” Again that
crimson flush overspread her features. “Cats are more cultured about
such things—if I may use that much misused word. There are insects that
mate only in the darkest nights, in the most forsaken corners, so that
no forester has ever succeeded in observing them. I’ve always held that
there will come a time when we will speak of the barbarous practices of
this century, or the last ten centuries, as if they were a fairy-tale.
Just think how tremendously funny it must strike any sensitive person
when two people, having conceived a certain desire to go to bed with one
another, set a special date for the event. They inform certain public
institutions, the State, the Church. They tell their friends and
relations, their own parents, their own brothers and sisters. On the day
which is to end in that night, they gather everybody they know about
them, let themselves be observed by persons who stuff themselves and
drink until they are sick, listen to suggestive songs and suggestive
speeches—and yet do not get sick themselves. I’ve always had a feeling
that marriage as it is practiced today would be fit punishment for a
hardened criminal. It is such a cruel, such an exquisite torture. Myra,
my child, oblige me and if you ever decide to marry, do it when you
desire and not on some appointed day. Do it in utter secrecy so that no
living soul can suspect the possibility of such a thing....”

“I?” cried Myra, her eyes filled with the horror of a shattered dream.
“I?”

“Yes, you!” said Olga, smiling. “Ah, my child, do you fancy that you
even begin to suspect all the things that can still happen in your
life?”

* * * * *

The next day they went to see if there was a letter. Olga was relieved
to find none.

“This blessed postal service,” she said. “The mail comes here only once
a day.”

Myra shook her head. “I don’t understand you. I shan’t really be able to
rest until the answer comes. Until then we’re always on the _qui vive_,
sitting on a volcano or some such thing. Once we know where we’re at,
then we can arrange matters. Eventually, I’ll have to write to the
attorney who is my grandmother’s executor. He will surely advance me
some money on which we can live for the six months until I’m of age. But
I wish I were finished with all these things.”

Olga played with the fringe of the table-cloth and smiled.

“Why do you keep smiling?” asked Myra.

“Because you make such elaborate plans. Your father will write, Come,
and you will go.”

“You know very well that that is impossible,” said Myra almost angrily.

Olga rose with a shrug of her shoulders and walked to the window.

“Perhaps I will send you!” she said in a hard voice.

That afternoon they took another long walk across the fields. The early
nightfall surprised them, and they did not reach the hotel until dark.

They trudged along the highway, struggling hard against the wind, and
saw the lights of the town beginning to twinkle in the blue dusk.

“Strange,” said Olga, “we’re going home. There is a town ahead of us
whose name I had never heard of three days ago. And yet it is home to
me. There is a hotel room in which some salesman may have slept three
days ago, a room in which there is not a picture, not a book to attract
me—and yet I call it home. When I think of our gas-heater and its
reflection of the worn carpet, I feel so warm that I scarcely notice the
wind. How happy a person must be who really has her own home, and loves
each chair and the color of the carpet and the light of the lamp and
each picture and each cup.”

“You could have that,” said Myra.

“I? Never! Never! Never!”

“But you can!” Myra objected somewhat timidly, “if you have the
patience—in six months.”

Olga laughed abruptly. “Child!” she cried and hugged Myra’s arm tighter.
“My dear, sweet, wonderful little creature! In six months! Where will
you be then, and where will I? You will be married perhaps, and I—dead.”

* * * * *

As they entered the room, something white was lying upon the dark
table-cover. Myra seized it and ran to the window. The lantern outside
shed a faint light.

It was an urgent telegram. “Turn on the light, please,” she asked in a
rather shaky voice. She tore the message out of the envelope, and read
it in the dusk by the window. She read it again by the bright gas light.
It was no different:

“Your father has suffered a stroke. End expected hourly.”

Without a word, Myra handed the open telegram to Olga, and walked past
her to the heater. She held her hands in front of the flame, and was
filled with the strangely painful sensation of not knowing how she ought
to behave.

For no feeling welled up irresistibly from the depths of her being,
darkening every thought—neither grief nor fear, nor yet love. Only ugly,
painful thoughts: “Now I’ll have to go away and arrive too late anyhow.
So that it’s quite useless for me to go at all. If he really is going to
die, why couldn’t I have just received word that he’s dead, instead?
Then no power on earth could drag me away from here.”

She cast a stealthy glance at Olga whose back was still toward her.
“She’ll wait for me to do something,” she thought. “I’ll have to say
something or other. I suppose the most natural thing for me to do would
be to cry. But I simply can’t. Of course, I think it’s dreadful. But
it’s nothing to weep about. What would Olga do in my place? Strange, how
little we actually know of one another! I don’t know what she would do.
And I don’t know what she expects me to do.”

At last Olga turned, laying the paper on the table with a beautiful and
extraordinarily discreet gesture. Her face was calm, but very pale.

“I’ll go ask about the trains,” she said and went out quietly.

Myra was glad to be left alone for a moment. She could now consider in
quiet what was to be done. If Olga were going to inquire about the
trains, she must accept it as a foregone conclusion that Myra would
leave at once for home. And it probably was a foregone conclusion: of
course, it was.

She rose with a sigh from her easy-chair by the fire, opened her
suitcase and began to pack. Meanwhile her thoughts kept flying hither
and thither.

Perhaps it was not true!

Perhaps Aunt Emily had thought it up to lure her back home! To shut her
up in prison!

If only a telegram would come from her father, denying the first.

Or supposing it were true, if only a telegram would come from Aunt Emily
saying that all was over! Then she would not have to go. Or would Olga
demand that she go?

If only Olga would come back now and say, “There is no train, not today,
not tomorrow, not ever. The trains, are snow bound. Or there’s been a
wash-out.”

Or if Olga would return and say, “Don’t go! Don’t leave me! Let us go
somewhere else, anywhere they can’t find us. Prove to me how much you
love me: give up everything for me! What is that strange dead man to
you? Nothing! You belong to me, are mine! I demand of you that you
remain with me. I don’t want to be parted from you, not for a single
hour.”

Yes, that would be the most beautiful way, but of all impossible things,
the most impossible.

Olga opened the door. Her movements, though quick, were as gentle as if
she were entering a sick-room.

“At nine forty-five,” she said and glanced at her wrist-watch. “So we
have plenty of time to pack and eat a bite.”

Myra felt a twinge of something like resentment. She _had to_ go. She
was simply being sent. Would Olga have gone in her place? Olga acted
freely and flew in the face of everything that was considered
convention. But Myra must be bound by what was normal, commonplace,
proper. The train left at nine forty-five—she was not even asked if she
wanted to take it. It was the next train, therefore she was to go on it.

She continued to pack her suitcase, with a sullen expression.

“Can I help you?” asked Olga gravely and gently.

“Thanks, no!” said Myra curtly.

Olga’s compassionate tone tormented her. She would have liked so much to
speak the brutal truth: “You don’t need to treat me as if I were an
invalid. The worst of this business for me is that we have to part, that
I have to go away from here, that our fairy-tale life here must end.”
But she did not possess the courage to say so. Yet she felt that Olga
was withdrawing herself almost timidly, as if she had no right to
disturb Myra in her sacred, childish grief.

In packing, Myra’s hand accidentally touched something carefully wrapped
in tissue paper on the bottom of the suitcase. She tore off the
wrapping, so that the shreds fluttered to the floor and held the gold
cigarette-case in her hand.

“Oh, Myra!” cried Olga with a soft exclamation of surprise. “There it is
again! How long has it been there?”

“It has never been anywhere else,” said Myra with a rather strained
smile. “I could never bring myself to give it into a stranger’s dirty
hands. I really did not want to say anything about it to you. I intended
to send it to you at Christmas. But that’s all silliness, I’d rather
give it to you now.”

Myra walked over and placed it in Olga’s hands.

Olga held the case very quietly on her fingers without closing them over
it while she regarded it with a profoundly thoughtful smile.

“Strange,” she said without raising her eyes. “Why now? Why today? One
must not be superstitious, but sometimes it is hard....”

* * * * *

At home there was the odor of sickness and death. The maids sat about
drunk with sleep, with swollen eyes and stupid faces.

Everywhere there were lights burning. Not bright, cheerful, radiant
lights, but individual lamps casting a faint glow in one or two rooms.
The doors stood open or ajar so that one could see that it was not night
in this house, that no one was sleeping, that people were constantly
hurrying to and fro. And through the open doors, too, came the
monotonous rattling in the throat of the dying man. It filled all the
rooms.

Her owlish eyes wide open in her puckered face, Aunt Emily flitted about
like a spook.

“You come too late!” she said with icy triumph as she confronted Myra.
“There is no more hope.”

Myra felt as if something dreadful ought to happen to her, and the
sudden consciousness of being so depraved, so unfeeling that nothing
could happen to her, that even this woman’s immeasurable hate implied
too high an opinion of her, brought the tears to her eyes, for she was
tired and over-excited.

Aunt Emily, of course, could not divine these thoughts.

“Your tears are too late, too!” she said meanly.

Each of the twenty hours that followed had a thousand minutes. Myra
paced to and fro, or sat now in one chair, now in another. Everywhere
she felt out of place, in the way, and observed by evil eyes.

She was worn out in every limb and felt the need, if only for an hour,
to lock herself into her room and throw herself on her bed. But she
lacked the courage.

She knew they expected her to stand flooding repentant tears or to sit
by her father’s death bed, or better yet, to kneel. She endeavored to
control the horror that from time to time shook her, and went in. The
heavy air smelt of decomposition and medicines. Among the many white
pillows lay a small, strangely bony skull with closed eyes, an alien,
distorted mask, whose yellowish lips moved gently as it gasped.

Myra sat for a while beside the bed, terrified lest that dreadful rattle
in the throat should cease suddenly; terrified still more lest that
strange something should suddenly open its eyes and begin speaking.

Doctors entered, conferred in whispers, bestowed sympathetic glances on
her, and went out again.

The maid spread the table at the usual time and urged her to eat
something. Aunt Emily left all the connecting-doors open, listening
intently while she spooned her soup, for any change in that monotonously
rattling throat.

It was all Myra could do to choke down a bite.

The twilight set in early and again the lamps were lit.

Myra picked up a book, but encountered so furious a glance from Aunt
Emily that she laid it down again, and folded her hands spiritlessly in
her lap.

Toward evening the rattlings grew feebler. The bridge of the nose stood
out sharply against the tiny shrunken face. The doctor who came at night
did not go away again. Now there was one more to sit in silence or pace
noiselessly to and fro across the thick carpets—waiting.

The rattlings grew more and more feeble. Then a louder, grating
expiration of the breath, twice, with short pauses. Then
suddenly—silence.

And suddenly, too, as if it had just begun, they heard the ticking of
every clock in the house.

The doctor bent over the bed, then drew himself up and walked over to
Myra to give her his hand. Aunt Emily dabbed her dry eyes and the maids
outside sobbed.

Myra saw and heard it all as if through a dense veil; she was afraid of
fainting.

The doctor probably observed her greenish, livid appearance, and laid
his hand on her hair. “Go lie down, my child,” he said gently. “You can
be of no further use here. You have sad days behind you and before you.
Youth needs sleep.”

Myra was glad to be in her room. But she did not think of lying down.
When, after an interval, she heard the doctor go a nameless dread seized
on her. She was so tired and yet so afraid to sleep lest horrible dreams
torment her once she relaxed control of her thoughts.

If her heavy eyelids shut for a moment, she saw the dying man’s
distorted features, or Aunt Emily trying to seize her with her claws to
strangle her, or Uncle George raising his arm to strike her with an
enormous bunch of keys that would crush her aching head.

Myra reached out longingly for another hand that would clasp hers warmly
and firmly. But her cold fingers remained empty. Finally, she could not
endure her terrors any longer. Slipping into her coat, she stole down
the rear stairs and out of the house.

The cold night air awoke her from her trance. She ran, rather than
walked, through the streets to Olga’s house. The house was locked. Myra
stood for a while undecided. Perhaps someone who lived there would be
coming home late, or the watchman would unlock the door for her for a
tip.

She waited a long time. She was shivering with cold. At last she woke up
the doorman. But at the top of the first stairs, she hesitated again
before she dared ring.

She sat down on the steps and laid her forehead against the wooden
door-jamb. She endeavored to awaken Olga, to summon her by thinking
intensely of her, by ardent entreaty, by fierce willing. From time to
time she thought she heard her light step approaching the door and she
listened breathlessly, only to perceive that she was mistaken.

At last she had to make up her mind to ring. It was a long time before a
very sleepy, half-dressed girl opened the door. She told some tale of
having just come from the train and of being unable to go home because
she had left her key with Miss Radó. She laughed as she was saying it
and had a feeling that the girl thought her positively demented.

She groped her way along the familiar hall, fearing, for some
incomprehensible reason, to strike a light. Perhaps she was afraid that
the noise or the illumination would wake someone, or perhaps she had
some unconscious dread of being seen, and felt herself safer in the
dark.

As she stood in front of Olga’s door she felt suddenly, and with a
painful intensity so strong that she thought it must be premonition,
that Olga was not alone—that this horrible day was to have a still more
horrible close.

She leaned against the wall, not daring to knock or to lift the latch. A
voice, which she seemed to hear speaking distinctly outside her, said,
“What are you seeking here? What right have you to force your way in
here? Where did you acquire the boundless audacity to feel at home
here?”

The door opened noiselessly and a feeble ray of light appeared. In its
glow stood Olga Radó, tall and slender in a varicolored dark kimono, one
hand on the latch, peering sharply from under her knitted brows. She saw
and recognized Myra at once.

“Myra!” she exclaimed softly, and closed her eyes a moment as if
frightened. “I knew it! What has happened, child? How did you get up
here?”

Myra did not walk, she staggered. She went into the room, looking at the
soft light of the shaded lamp on the papers, on the desk, on the backs
of the books, on the silk cushions. Colors and shapes were a marvellous
exhilaration. She let herself slide to the floor, laying her head
against the easy-chair, and saying between tears and a laugh, between
waking and sleeping, “Let me stay here, it is so good!”

Olga raised her, undressed her like a little child and laid her in the
bed. As the cold sheets touched her body, horror set her trembling
again. Once more she was wide awake, and sat bolt upright in the bed,
striving to control the chattering of her teeth.

“Lie beside me,” she pleaded, “I must feel that I’m not alone. I’m so
dreadfully frightened.”

Olga did not answer. She bolted the door, she set the lamp behind the
bed, spread another silken veil over the light and let the kimono fall
from her shoulders—all with a sad smile and slow, languid movements as
if she were preparing for a sacrifice. Then she put her arm under Myra’s
neck, tucked the coverlet more tightly around her and stroked the
tangled hair from her forehead.

And as Myra felt the warmth of that beloved life, the strong pulse of
that heart, she began to weep, quietly, released from pain. She cried
herself to sleep.

After an interval, she did not know if it were hours or minutes, she
awoke again. The light was still burning. Olga lay motionless beside
her, her eyes wide open. Myra sat up and released her arm.

“Why didn’t you wake me?” she said reproachfully. “Poor thing, I must
have broken your arm, that’s why you can’t sleep.”

Olga turned her head a little. “I should not have slept anyway. I’m so
wide awake.”

“What were you thinking of?” asked Myra, trying to fathom her eyes.

Olga smiled a little wearily.

“I was thinking that your people are probably searching the whole house
by now. I should like to know, or better, I’d rather not know, what is
going on in Aunt Emily’s head at this moment. She certainly must think
you’ve been bitten by a tarantula!”

Myra laughed softly and put her arm around Olga.

“By a scorpion!” she said tenderly. “There is no antidote but its own
poison. You know that very well.”

Olga sat up and clasped her hands about her knees. Her glossy black
curls fell luxuriantly about her shoulders. Her eyes gazed straight
ahead and her wide pupils darkened the irises.

“What a strange fate!” she said in a vibrant tone as soft and deep as a
cello’s. “That I must be stung by the scorpion and yet look for healing
to the same creature.”

Her pale beautiful features assumed an expression of fierce, of
sorrowful, of almost weird energy.

Myra was so terrified that her heart seemed to miss a beat. She did not
have the courage to touch Olga, to embrace her.

“Olga!” she cried, in fear and pain, and stretched out her hands to her.

Again that troubled smile played about those pale lips. Olga threw both
her arms around Myra and clasped her to her as if her embrace must
smother, must annihilate, must destroy.

“Ah, little Myra!” she said with a little explosive laugh, “it’s all no
good! You’ll have to let me take the easy road first, then perhaps,
everything will be all right.”

In her sleep Myra heard a violent ringing. Then she woke up: doors were
slamming, steps approaching, there were many excited voices.

She opened her eyes and saw Olga standing beside the bed, already fully
dressed. She was very pale, her eyes dark and blazing. “Get up, Myra,”
she commanded in a voice that was breathless with excitement, “get up
for God’s sake and dress!”

Myra threw on her things in mad haste. Meanwhile they were pounding on
the door. Olga immediately went over to it, unbolted and opened it a
crack.

“Who is there?”

Loud excited voices in the hall: excited faces trying to force
themselves through the crack.

“I’m sorry, I can’t permit you in my room at this moment,” Olga said
with icy courtesy.

Some voices began to shout louder than the others, Aunt Emily and Uncle
George. Also the girl who had admitted Myra that night.

Myra’s hands were trembling as in a nightmare. She could not button her
dress. She was aware only of a dreadful desire to be invisible or to
jump out of the window or to sink into some vast unconsciousness.

Olga’s voice rose above the clamor, deep and calm, but as cold and sharp
as polished steel.

“Does this conversation have to take place in the hall?”

Then suddenly, a soft, gentle voice: “May I offer the use of my room.
I’ll be glad to step out.”

The voices withdrew next door and a few moments later—Myra had thrown on
her dress—Peterkin stole into the room.

“Can I help you, Myra?” he whispered. His eyes were troubled.

At the same moment, there came a sound from next door as if a stick had
been smashed across a table.

“I’ll have you thrown into jail!” thundered Uncle George.

Myra wanted to rush in, but Peterkin restrained her, imploring her not
to go. “Don’t, don’t!” he begged. “Fix your hair quickly! Put on your
shoes!” While she smoothed her hair, he knelt before her and buttoned
her shoes. She let him. She could not dash next door in her
stocking-feet, with her hair unkempt, to the immense pleasure of all the
people peeping through the cracks in their doors.

When Myra did go down the hall to the next room, she was quite calm,
quite erect, and sustained by a strong, brave, hot and almost joyous
determination.

At the bottom of the hall stood a strange man with his hat and overcoat
on. He looked her over with a piercing glance.

“Straight from her father’s dead body!” whimpered Aunt Emily with high
pathos.

“The criminal police in a decent house!” screamed Frau Flesch. “Never in
all my life have I had anything to do with the police!”

Myra pressed down hard on the latch. Her pulse was throbbing in her
neck. For an instant the thought flashed through her mind: Perhaps it
was best that this happened. Perhaps it was a good thing that she must
now have the courage to take her place beside Olga and say, “I belong to
her and will never leave her, even if you tear her and me into little
pieces! If you have the courage and the right, use force on me, for I’ll
never go one step with you of my own free will.”

Olga was standing, leaning against the table, her arms crossed on her
breast, the fingers clasping her elbows.

As Myra opened the door, Aunt Emily rushed to her with a choking cry,
“Here is the unfortunate child!”

Myra stood for an instant as though numbed. For a moment she felt as if
she were among lunatics or had gone mad herself. With a hasty glance,
she thought how very becoming to Uncle George were his stern manner, his
steel-blue eyes and his iron-gray mustache against a face crimson with
rage.

He came up to her and said in a deep, rough voice that trembled with
something like emotion, “Myra, my child, what are you doing here? We’re
burying your poor father tomorrow and you’re here!”

He laid his heavy hand on her shoulder.

Myra did not look at him. She was looking at Olga.

“This is my home,” she said. She meant her voice to sound vibrant and
firm, but she could not manage it, and it sounded soft and tremulous.

“If you think you have the right, go ahead and use force on me, for I’ll
never go one step with you of my own free will.”

It was hard, very hard, to say that. Very hard to say it under Uncle
George’s honest gaze while his face was distorted with rage and sorrow,
under Aunt Emily’s little blinking bird-eyes, or Frau Flesch’s spongy
face that seemed fixed in a repulsively avid grin. Hard to say it in
front of the strange man and the maid, who were listening in the hall.

But now it was said. And now everything would be all right. Now Olga
would come and take her in her arms, would press Myra’s head against her
breast so that she need not hear or see anything more, would, with one
of her haughty and imperious gestures, show all these strange and
horrible faces the door, would point her revolver at these intruders and
drive them out with a single word....

Olga turned her head without changing her position, and looked at Myra.
Everybody thought she was looking at Myra and gave an involuntary start.

But actually her eyes were merely resting on Myra’s forehead, eyebrows
and hair.

Myra strove to intercept her gaze, but could not. It was fixed on her
forehead, her eyebrows, her hair—on a line above her eyes.

“My dear child,” said Olga with a gentleness that was icy-cold, “your
sense of dependence on me is touching, but I have done nothing to merit
it. If you feel about me as you say, you ought to go with your
relatives, behave like a rational creature and spare me your visits in
the future. You must see that they occasion me nothing but
unpleasantness!”

Myra hesitated for a moment. “Something must happen,” she thought, “she
must look at me, she must give me some sign, a glance, a gesture, that
this is all comedy, that I must trust her, believe in her, wait for an
explanation....”

But nothing did happen.

Myra racked her brain for something terrible with which to shatter that
stony mask. Could she not say, “You made me come, lured me, forced me
and now you deny me”? No, she had no right to do that. But could she not
think of some abusive word, something that would pierce, would wound,
something cruel?

She turned over various silly childish epithets in her mind: they were
as heavy as blocks of stone.

“Canaille!” she thought. “Harlot!” That was not what she was seeking. It
seemed to her as if she must shove the blocks of stone this way and that
in feverish search for the one sharp word she must fling.

Suddenly, she felt as if she had stood there an endless time, with arms
hanging, and vacant eyes and open mouth.

She drew herself up and attempted a smile that would be at once proud
and affable. But she felt as she was doing it, as if madness were
twitching the distorted muscles of her face.

“Will you telephone for a taxi, Uncle George?” she said. “I am too tired
to walk.”

She went to the door. “I just want to gather up my things. I won’t be a
moment.”

She went into the next room, put on her hat before the mirror very
carefully, threw on her coat and looked for her bag. She did not hurry
at all. She still had some mad feeling that Olga must steal in and
whisper something to her—where they could meet, where she should write,
when she could explain it all to her. But no Olga came.

As Myra opened her bag, she noticed a little wad of tightly pressed
bills.—What was left from their trip. She took them out, laughing
bitterly. Probably she would no longer be in any way tempted to steal.

Probably she would never again need money as long as she lived.

She raised her hand and opened it, letting the bills flutter down on the
disordered bed.

Then she went out, past the strange man, past the maid, downstairs and
out of the house, without once looking back.

* * * * *

In the street she got into the taxi with her relatives.

Uncle George remained for a while in the city. His behavior was really
curious. He was quiet and kind, and always fixed upon Myra a pair of
honest, anxious blue eyes, and always spoke to her in a slightly
emotional tone. But there was never a word about the money or her
flight.

When Myra pondered this behavior—she did not do so very often—she found
only one explanation for it. She did not think it might be remorse
because his vehement letter had occasioned her unhappy father’s death.
Nor did it ever occur to her that he was striving to win her affection
through love and kindness. No, probably she was a source of irritation
to him. But he had seen Olga Radó. Had heard her voice. Had experienced
something of her power. When Myra thought of that, she almost loved him.

He had heard how Olga denied, betrayed and humiliated her. And he
sympathized with her. When Myra thought of that, she hated him.

Even Aunt Emily was singularly gentle. Myra thought later that it would
have been better if they had tormented and wounded her at that time, and
thereby made her strong through steely hate.

Aunt Emily and the entire family were all for expressing the depth of
one’s grief by the length of one’s veil. Nobody was going to say that
Myra, the depraved daughter, the unruly offspring, did not mourn her
father’s death.

The first time Myra saw herself in a mirror, black crêpe from head to
toe, slender and pale, with lifeless eyes and a mouth distorted with
grief, she thought, “Like a widow!” Her heart contracted painfully.

When they drove to the interment, they sat side by side. Aunt Emily’s
black-gloved right hand held a white handkerchief to her quivering lips;
her left held Myra’s hand. And Uncle George stared out the window while
from time to time a tear rolled from his blue eye and into his mustache.

Myra felt as if she had been a mountain: her stony invulnerability had
turned aside every shot. But now an explosion had torn a crater in her.
She was hollow inside, a deep, dark, precipitous chasm. The savage wound
lay exposed to view, and everything fell into it without let or
hindrance, lay in her like heavy stones, tortured her—everything,
glances, words, tears, gestures.

“Woe to those who have torn me asunder!” she thought bitterly.

Then her fingers clasped Aunt Emily’s a little tighter for a moment. “We
belong together,” she thought. “Forsaken, loveless, unhappy people who
have grown hard and bitter—we belong together. There are two great
families in this world—the rich and the poor, the sound and the sick,
the laughers and the weepers.... Olga Radó belongs among the happy: she
has triumphed, she has justified herself, she has rid herself of me—now
she can go, laughing, to the next adventure.”

Myra did not always think such thoughts. She was a prey to the most
conflicting feelings. There were sleepless nights when she thought that
everything would be all right if only she could hold Olga’s hand and
ask, “How did you come to do it, child? How could such a thing happen?
What were you thinking of at the time?”

The next day she would pace up and down Motz Street and stare at the
house across the way—but always in vain.

Then there were days when Aunt Emily displayed a loathsomely friendly
sympathy and let fall insinuations concerning the ingratitude of the
world in general and in particular, and how lonely Myra now was because
she had given all her affection to such a person.

Then Myra hated them both—Aunt Emily and Olga—with a terrible hatred.
But she hated Olga the more—Olga who had thrown her down where Aunt
Emily could trample her, Olga who had torn that wound which Aunt Emily’s
foul fingers could probe.

Sometimes she resolved to die, but more often to flee, to pack up a
bundle and run down the highroad, to pass the night in meadows and
hollows with nothing over her but the eternal starry skies.

At other times, it seemed to her as if that sort of life, particularly
that sort of life, would be merely a constant torment without Olga—but a
treasure without end, an inconceivable happiness if only Olga were
there.

She strove to reconcile herself to the thought that Olga no longer loved
her. But it was impossible that she actually hated her. She had simply
sacrificed her, surrendered her without second thought in order to
shield her reputation, in order to protect herself from
unpleasantnesses. It is true, she did not love her. That was why her
words had been lies. She had simply been glad when Myra came. Always.
And she would be glad again if she returned.

It was becoming clearer and clearer to Myra every day how rich she was.
Franz Rudloff had been no miser, but there was nothing for which he
really cared to spend money. And Aunt Emily was much too much of a model
not to economize, even in the pettiest ways.

Myra had no very clear understanding of money or the value of money. But
she knew that the sums mentioned to her, guaranteed her freedom,
promised her that in a few months she could live her life where she
wished and as she wished.

A life without Olga?

Myra finally resolved to write to Olga. Not how she felt, nothing about
her longing, her love—God forbid! But a line or two, quite businesslike,
if one might use the expression—lines whose purpose would simply be to
bring about an explanation.

With much effort she composed a letter which she amended and improved
and copied; she felt quite satisfied with her handiwork. No one could
find in it a trace of affection or humility of any kind.

Rather it was sharp, ironic and somewhat challenging in tone. She mailed
the letter and awaited the answer. None came.

* * * * *

Meanwhile Aunt Emily decided to inform Myra of the “facts of life.” To
be sure, she chose a rather remarkable method.

Aunt Emily was too much of a model to discuss morally offensive matters
with a young girl. Besides, she was probably afraid of Myra’s outbursts
of temper, though otherwise she was not cowardly.

Myra had fallen into the habit of sitting in her father’s study. She
would sit and read the whole day through, the most difficult and
abstruse things, simply in order not to think. Here she had all the
books within reach. It was more convenient to sit down at the
writing-table with them, than to lug the sometimes heavy folios into
another room.

On his desk she now found from time to time pamphlets, brochures,
apparently of a quite varied character, novels, medical works, daily
papers with passages underlined—but all treating of one theme.

There were strange and weird stories of countesses who dressed in men’s
attire and frequented various dives until they were lured into a trap
and brutally murdered.

Or accounts of sickening orgies in well-known clubs where hundreds of
women dressed and disported themselves like men, and men were dolled up
with false curls with open-work silk stockings, and with their bare arms
and shoulders powdered.

There were statistics showing all the unfortunates who fell victim to
softening of the brain, lunacy, tuberculosis of the spine and other
diseases as a result of unnatural practices.

Or descriptions of the soul life of sexual inverts which led one to
suppose that these thousands of human beings constituted a vast
community, a community bound together by no ties of common interest, no
similarity of education, origin, taste or attitude toward life, and
never by love, but by a common lust for a common form of excess.

There was the biography of a famous man who was miserably murdered by a
blackmailing waiter with whom he had had intimate relations—whom he had
_loved_.

Myra shuddered when she thought of the word love in this connection.
Sometimes it seemed to her as if she would be stifled by so much filth.
She became physically ill simply from touching the books. Then she would
not read them—for quite a while. She would read historical, philosophic
and scientific works. But there were long periods when she was not
conscious what she was reading. Her eyes ran along the lines and
reflected the words. But her thoughts struggled with the dreadful things
that had been flung at her, like blocks of stone, to kill her. Then she
would pick up the other books again, the bad ones, and look for
enlightenment and draw conclusions and make comparisons.

Whenever masculine women were discussed, mention was made of their
superior intelligence, their thirst for knowledge and their desire for
culture, coupled with an abnormal tendency to spendthriftness, a
passionate desire for luxury, and an unnatural predilection for
beautiful foot-gear. Mention was made, too, of weird Don Juan natures
who passed with insatiable lust from one adventure to another.

As a result of such readings, Myra was left in the most dreadful
bewilderment. These books should have taught her to understand the
person who, of all others, had been closest to her. She had said to
herself a hundred times in the past months, “This woman is a riddle that
cannot be guessed, a mystery that cannot be solved, forever strange and
remote, not to be grasped or comprehended. And each time she had felt
with every fibre of her being, ‘such and such is the solution; now
everything is clear, everything is all right, nothing can ever arise to
divide us again.’”

But now, now?

Now Myra felt an anguished need to pack up these books and take them to
Olga Radó! “Tell me, are there such people? Are you one of them? Am I?
What do you know about it?”

Olga had had to express an opinion about everything that Myra had heard
or read in the last year. And Olga’s opinion had nearly always been
Myra’s, or had aroused, strengthened, clarified another opinion in her.

Now, for the first time, she had to settle such monstrous matters
single-handed and she groped about blindly in the dark. Where she
thought to find a light, a way out, she merely strayed deeper into the
maze. She could neither make headway nor go back.

So Myra wrote a second letter. This time, too, there was not a word
about love or longing—simply an urgent appeal for help, a good deal of
complaining about what was happening inside her and a certain
reproachfulness: you have brought me so far, you must take my hand and
lead me out of this swamp.

No answer came.

Spring came, however. Warm, caressing winds came, and broad flashing
rays of sunlight and a veil of buds shrouding every branch, and
snow-bells and crocuses, forcing their way with difficulty through dark
purple, rotting leaves.

Myra could not bear the heavy, soft air. She could not sleep and
suffered from headaches day and night. Reading no longer sufficed to
distract her mind. She sat bowed over her books and stared out the
window. The same page would lie in front of her for hours without her
ever turning it.

She began to read novels. She could not forget she was reading them as
easily as she could dry scientific works because they stirred her
imagination and evoked certain pictures.

But those pictures were a torture to her.

There were always people in love with one another. They struggled with
one another, discovered one another, came together or parted, destroyed
one another, died or abandoned one another. It hurt her to read of love.

She read of riches, of luxury, of automobiles dashing along highways, of
white hotels beside blue waters, of balls and banquets and yachts and
journeys by sledge. Then she would begin to calculate her fortune and
think, “Olga Radó could have led just such a life if she had remained
with me.”

The cherries blossomed. Olga Radó was no doubt going by steamer with
some lovely woman, over the blue waters of the Havel. And all about her
was a world of beauty and sunshine and light.

Myra was seized with a mad desire to be where Olga was, to lead Olga’s
life. Pride dropped away from her like a burned rag. She stood naked to
herself and cried out with the pain.

She wrote her third letter to Olga Radó. She wrote that she could no
longer live and breathe without her. That she wanted nothing from her,
not love, or affection or friendship. That she wanted nothing but to
serve her with all her strength, and in payment she would let herself be
beaten and kicked. That she would feel no jealousy, no craving, no lust
of possession. That she would serve anyone, man or woman, whom Olga
loved, and that she would chain and immure her love so deep within her
that never, never, never would anyone suspect its existence, not even
Olga.

Again she waited for an answer. Again none came.

Suddenly it occurred to her that Olga might not have received her
letters, certainly had not received them.

She went to Motz Street and every step made her feel as if she were
walking on red hot coals. The same maid answered her ring who had
admitted her that night. Myra could not bring herself to utter Olga’s
name, so she asked for Peterkin.

He had moved—address unknown.

She lived through ten more days of torture. Then she went again. A new
maid opened the door. “I’m in luck,” thought Myra and she was dizzied
for a moment as the idea flashed through her mind that the next instant
she might be standing face to face with Olga in her room. What might
happen afterwards was of no moment.

Miss Radó had moved—address unknown.

Myra went to the bureau of registry. She filled out the prescribed blank
and gave it to the gray-haired official while her heart throbbed wildly.

The friendly old gentleman rose, went searching, returned and asked if
the lady lived in her own house. No? Unfortunately, they did not
register people who lived in lodging-houses.

Then Myra made her last and most difficult attempt. She went to the
Moebiuses. The girls grinned in her face, impudently, when she asked
about Olga Radó.

No, they didn’t know anything about her. Naturally, she had not put in
her appearance here again, and father would probably have very politely
given her the air if she had. But they would be _delighted_ to find
things out. Ablaze with curiosity and pruriency, they began to ply her
with questions, whether it was true that....

Myra blushed and paled, turned hot and cold. She might have murdered one
of them if she had not been so tired. “I don’t know,” she said. She
answered all their questions with “I don’t know.”

Perhaps she should have become indignant and defended Olga Radó. Perhaps
she should have let them slander her and have made all kinds of
mysterious insinuations. Perhaps she should have laughed and led the
girls a merry chase. She supported herself against her chair with both
hands, and said, “I don’t know!”

As she left the house she realized that she would never enter it again.
A senseless expression kept running through her mind as in a
delirium—“To be on everybody’s tongue....”

It had never before had any meaning for her. Now she felt, actually in a
physical way, as if she had been chewed over and spat out on the
sidewalk. She shuddered with nausea.

* * * * *

From time to time, but at ever shorter intervals, a dull racking hatred
began to tarnish the surface of her feeling for Olga Radó. That woman
was to blame for all that she was now suffering—heedlessly,
cold-heartedly and quite unscrupulously to blame.

During this period, Myra was very unjust to Olga Radó. For it seemed to
her as if she had been torn by her from a happy shielded youth, as if a
profound and placid peace had been destroyed in her, some marvellous
equilibrium shattered.

The be-all and end-all of her desire seemed to her to be a return to
what she had once been. Her one wish was to strike the last year out of
her life, to expunge, to forget it.

Then she would take up those evil books again and deliberately read the
things which had most nauseated her. She thus artificially intensified
her hate and anger and fear.

There were days when she said to herself, “At last I am free! It’s as if
I had recovered from a severe illness; I feel that my blood is pure
again. From now on I shall live as other people do, without pain and
without joy, without desire and without fulfillment.”

And there were nights when she felt as if a burning poison were eating
at her veins, when fear of an unutterly horrible future made her
shudder. Nights when she felt she must succumb to her unbridled
appetites, must give herself unresistingly to every loose woman who for
criminal reasons chose to arouse her passion. She saw herself victimized
by blackmailers, tracked by the police, sick, insane, in prison or
murdered.

In one such period of abysmal despair she permitted herself to become
engaged. Some decent, solid man or other came courting her.

She knew nothing about him. She did not know when or where she had seen
him for the first time, knew hardly anything of his character or his
inclinations. She simply became aware one day that for some time there
had been some person around her who had made an effort to be kind to
her. Someone who helped her on most carefully with her coat, stooped
when she dropped something, brought her flowers, and tried to tell her
cheerful stories in order to brighten her face a little.

The man knew as agreeably little about her. In his presence Aunt Emily
bubbled over with gentle, motherly solicitude. She could just as well
have made biting observations or cutting innuendoes about him, but he
fitted into her program.

He pitied Myra tremendously because she was an orphan. He ascribed all
the suffering in her pale face to grief for her father. Sometimes he
ventured to take her cold fingers in both his hands and gently stroke
them. At such moments Myra would close her eyes and scrutinize her
feelings in terror. Warmth and peace flowed from his big strong hands.
His gentle tenderness was pleasant rather than abhorrent. Then Myra
would say to herself with a burst of hope, “Perhaps everything will be
all right, after all. Perhaps I shall have somebody near who is good to
me, I’ll have children and a home, I’ll always have something to
do—perhaps it is still possible for a life like that to be bearable.”

She felt, too, an irrepressible desire for revenge. It might wound Olga
Radó’s vanity somewhat, if she learned how quickly she had been
forgotten.

The man was rich. That suited Aunt Emily and incidentally suited Myra.
She pictured herself in the loge at the opera, flashing with jewels,
beside this man, a very attractive and stately man—it would never occur
to anyone that she had not married him for love—and suddenly Olga Radó
would appear from somewhere. Or she saw herself driving past Olga Radó
in a de luxe car. Or best of all, she saw them meeting when she was
walking with her fair-haired children dressed neatly in white. Then she
would draw the children away from Olga as if from a venomous snake. That
was the way, yes, indeed, that was the way to wound Olga most cruelly.

As the man was persistent, Myra said yes. She had had sufficient time to
accustom herself and took good care that it appeared in various
newspapers.

On her twenty-first birthday, there was a little garden party at the
villa of her parents-in-law. It was a very hot day in summer, the
nineteenth of June, and on Aunt Emily’s advice, Myra again put on a
white dress trimmed with black.

As she strolled past a mirror in that strange house with all the strange
people about her, she did not recognize herself. She was shocked and
could not rid herself of the idea that she was not the pretty girl
dressed in white, who smiled at her from the mirror, on the arm of that
strange man.

She tried to find herself and could not imagine where she could be. But
it seemed to her as if she saw herself, thin and dark, like a specter,
wandering through great, dark, empty rooms. Again, it seemed to her as
if she really was the reflection in the glass, and that that other Myra,
who was so identically like her, was the stranger. Dream and reality
began to merge inextricably; all her nerves seemed to thrill like
snapped chords. In mortal fear she longed for complete unconsciousness
or for sudden complete clarity, feeling as if she were blinded by fog or
a prey to vertigo. A moment later, she could not understand exactly what
had happened to her, or give any answer to her fiancé who anxiously
inquired the cause of her paleness.

But the singular feeling persisted all evening that all this was simply
a dream, a game. The whole business of the engagement was simply a joke,
a comedy. Each moment might step forward like a stage-manager and cry,
“Enough! Let reality resume!”

* * * * *

On the twentieth of June, in the morning, Myra was called to the
telephone. A light masculine voice spoke from the receiver, curiously
restrained and hesitant.

“Is this Miss Rudloff herself? Myra, is that you? Forgive me for
disturbing you—I wanted to speak to you!”

Myra felt her heart tear itself loose and plunge into an unfathomable
dark abyss.

“Peterkin?” she said and tried to suppress her smile without stopping to
think that no one could see her face. Nor could anyone have heard that
smile in the trembling of her voice.

“May I speak with you, Myra? I mean....” Again that timid hesitation in
his voice. “If you care to, you understand. Of course, I don’t know how
interested you are in your old friends now.”

“It goes without saying,” said Myra firmly, “that you can see me any
time, where and when you wish.”

She did not ask what had happened. She did not want to ask.

“It can’t come very well.” Again that timid tone. “And I’d rather not go
on the street ... or to a coffee-house.... It really wouldn’t do....”

“I’ll come to you,” said Myra quickly. “Tell me where you live!”

“Yes—but—is that all right either? Particularly—if anything unpleasant
should happen.... You’re engaged....”

“Nonsense!” said Myra roughly.

* * * * *

As she hurried down the street she did not try to picture what might
actually have happened. She did not want to. “Perhaps Olga is sick and
wants to see me,” she thought. “Perhaps she doesn’t know anything about
it, and Peterkin simply called me of his own accord.”

She simply thought that she would see Olga, that she would take her
hand. At the same time she thought, “I tell myself these things as we
tell a feverish child stories, I paint them in the brightest colors, and
believe them no more than we believe in fairies and sorcerers.”

But it was better to tell herself stories, better to sing herself
cradle-songs, than to listen to the voice that cried the truth deep
within her.

It was strange how, without a moment’s hesitation, she found the house
and the street as if she had been there a hundred times.

When she rang, Peterkin was already at the door. That spared her any
interrogation. And she felt, looking at the maid, the first human face
she noticed, that she was in no condition to answer questions.

Peterkin took Myra by the hand and, without a word, led her past the
astonished maid and into his room. He shut the door, and without looking
at her, said, “Sit down, Myra.”

The first thing that Myra noticed in the room was the gold cigarette
case on the black surface of the table. A ray of sunlight was flashing
on it.

She made an effort to restrain herself. It was as if she tugged at the
reins with both hands in order to check herself. But when Peterkin
turned to her, and she saw how his hands, how his small white face
quivered, with what an effort he was struggling for control—she lost
control herself. She began to cry.

“Cry, cry,” he said at last, his chin quivering, while the tears started
from his eyes. “Cry, for she was worthy of tears, you can believe
me....”

“Believe you?” said Myra with heart-rending bitterness. She laid the
handkerchief over her eyes and supported her head in her hand. Her other
hand stroked his nervously.

“Now tell me everything, Peterkin. You see that I’m quite calm again,
quite, quite calm. When did it happen? How? And why? Tell me everything,
everything you know!”

“I could not tell you, Myra—not before your twenty-first birthday. That
was yesterday, wasn’t it? I’ve marked it here on the calendar—for
another reason—I’ll have to tell you all about that, too. I had a
message to deliver to you. But of course, I had no suspicion—sometimes
it is as if we were struck blind....”

Myra glanced up for a moment. “Did she do it herself?” There was nothing
interrogatory in her tone.

“Yes.”

“Did she shoot herself?”

She covered her eyes again with her handkerchief.

“Go on.”

“She was sick during the spring, a light case of influenza. She had some
fever and I used to sit beside the bed while she talked of death and
burial, quite cheerfully and unconcernedly, as she always did. You know
very well that nobody ever knew whether she was jesting or in earnest.
She said to me at that time, ‘If I die now, Peterkin, take good care to
keep it quiet. Don’t let it get into any of the papers, and don’t let
anybody know about it, not even Myra. I’d like to strew my ashes on the
sea or at least on the Wannsee. But the State won’t permit that, I
believe. So simply make haste and have my remains cremated. I will have
no traffic with my corpse. I won’t be inside it, you can be sure of
that. Not for one moment longer than necessary will I remain inside my
corpse.’”

To Myra it seemed as if she were hearing Olga speak. So clearly did she
hear her voice, that her heart was filled with an inner joy and she
smiled.

“I smiled, too, at the time,” said Peterkin sorrowfully. “But she became
quite serious and sat up and looked at me. You know how she could look
at one out of her intense eyes. ‘It is my sacred wish,’ she said.
‘Promise me you’ll do it, give me your word of honor!’ I promised her,
but I said, ‘You’re crazy, in three days you’ll be well again.’ And she
was well again in three days.” He stopped. Somewhere a clock was ticking
and flies were buzzing against the window-pane.

Something filled Myra with a few moments of joy and tranquillity. An
obscure feeling—how good that Olga was well again in three days. There
was so much vigorous life in that beautiful body.

Then the present struck at her heart like a clenched fist. And now? And
now? She had to wait a few moments before she could bring herself to
utter the terrible word.

“Did you bury her at once?” she asked in a very low voice.

“She was cremated. The urn was sent to Vienna. Her sister lives
there....”

“Did she live here toward the end?”

“Two doors away, around the corner.”

“And it happened there?”

“Yes.”

“Can one ...” Myra swallowed hard, “can one see the room?”

Peterkin shrugged his shoulders slowly. “What is the use? Everything is
changed. Nothing of hers is left. It has been rented again.”

She had a peculiar feeling; it seemed to her as a curiously happy fact
that every pattern which this spirit had created was now destroyed.
There was not even a room left in the world which those hands, that
mind, had arranged, and in which a trace of her being might have
survived. Half unconsciously, Myra felt as if the shifting of a few
pieces of furniture had broken the stones from a prison wall.

Now Olga Radó was wholly free.

A gentle breeze stirred the curtains at the open window. A sweet, cool
breeze blew over Myra’s burning eyes. She smiled.

“It is best that way!” she said again.

Suddenly she understood that Olga had not received her letters. There
was no need to inquire about it. But Peterkin was the only person of
whose opinion she was a little afraid. She felt that she must justify
herself.

“I wrote Olga three times!” she said.

“I had an idea that you did,” said Peterkin with a gloomy smile.

“She never received a line.”

“But you knew it anyway?”

“Of course. We talked often enough about you.”

While Peterkin was speaking, Myra had a curious feeling that she was
living over in a few minutes and with the most powerful intensity, the
last six months of her life. It seemed to her as if on that unhappy
morning the woof-thread had been broken and day by day had labored at a
make-shift pattern that was false. Now that false woof had suddenly been
unravelled as the shuttle plied backwards like lightning. The thread was
knotted where it had been broken and the true pattern was resumed, a
little curtailed, perhaps, a little fainter in color, but there it was,
woven for the present and for all days to come.

“What did you say about me?”

“Oh, a great many things. I urged her so often to write to you, to
establish some sort of contact with you. But she was convinced that she
must not do it. Sometimes I thought I would telephone you, or I’d waylay
you somewhere against her will. Once I suggested it to her. She glared
at me out of her big eyes. ‘If you ever do any such thing,’ she said,
‘our friendship is over with for all time! Do you want to destroy the
poor child?’ She was always of the opinion that you were happy and that
things were going well with you. But I was sure you must divine what was
going on. I tried so hard, you’ll never know how hard. Once I promenaded
under your windows for a whole hour. I always thought that if I could
only speak to you, we would find some way out. I always thought that
everything would be all right in the end. Then you became engaged. Yes,
then I had to admit at last that she was right.”

“Oh, you idiot!” said Myra, laughing through her tears.

“I remember the day so well. Olga came up to my room early in the
morning. She sat huddled over in the easy-chair, smoking one cigarette
after another. For half an hour she did not utter a word. I sat here at
the desk, pretending I was working. I had tossed aside my paper when I
heard her coming. But from the way she sat there, I thought, ‘She knows
already!’ She knew I knew it, but neither of us wanted to begin the
conversation. When she finally did, she kept saying ‘I’m so happy, I’m
so glad!’ And she demanded that I celebrate with her, too. In the
evening we went to have a bottle of wine together. She made me do it. I
can still see her as she sat at the table, turning the wine-glass in her
hand. She had such a curious smile all that day. Again she said to me,
‘So little Myra is going to be married. That’s fine, fine. Our little
Myra will have children, real lads who will never know a trouble in
life.’ Then she kept demanding that I say how happy it made me. And I
had to say so—as matters then stood it was the best thing to do—but from
that day on she lived in morbid dread of meeting you somewhere on the
street. Sometimes when she needed something, she would ask me to get it.
She would sit here, pale, with her hands folded, and say, ‘Please,
please, Peterkin, I can’t go to the store.’ For the last eight or ten
days she hardly left her room. She used to telephone me to come over,
she did not want to go on the street. But of course, there was another
reason for that as well....”

“What was that?” asked Myra after staring silently out of the window for
a long time.

He cast a quick and searching glance at her. “So you don’t know?” he
asked as if relieved. “You really know nothing about it? I was sure you
didn’t. But they had her shadowed—your people, you know. No matter where
she went there was always a detective after her. Oh, she suffered so
cruelly because of that!”

“But why?” asked Myra. “Why should they do that? They had me where they
wanted me. They knew just where I spent every hour of the day.”

“Probably they were afraid. They may have thought, before your
engagement at any rate, that you might waver in your resolves, or that
she might try to influence you again; they may have wanted to catch her
at something so that they could have her deported as an undesirable
alien. Your Uncle bought up all her debts. You did not know that either,
I believe. So they had her cornered. Every day there were letters from
attorneys, from the courts.... Later on she simply refused to open them.
She used to let them pile up on her desk. I said to her sometimes, ‘You
can’t do that, you must answer them, you must go, you must make
promises.’ Then she would smile an infinitely melancholy smile. ‘I’ve
lost my sense of humor, Peterkin,’ she would say, ‘I’m old and tired. It
isn’t a hunt as far as I’m concerned’—and she indicated the pile of
papers with a wave of her hand.

“Then there were threatening letters—I can’t tell you how vulgar. Filled
with expressions that one simply can’t repeat. From your Aunt Emily, I
think. But they were sent as if they came from you. They said you knew
now the sort she was and wanted her to drop every attempt to get in
touch with you and to stop blackmailing you. It was sufficient that she
had seduced you into stealing and breaking open people’s desks, that she
had undermined your health, that she had caused your father’s death—ah,
I don’t know all that was in them. And then, things you were supposed to
have said—they must have been horrible, for she would never tell me what
they were or let me read them.

“She used to sit here in front of me, her face perfectly white and her
eyes blazing, while she gripped my wrist so that I thought she would
snap the bone. ‘Myra doesn’t know anything of this, does she, Peterkin?’
she kept repeating, ‘Myra doesn’t know about this?’

“There were times when I did not like that tone of voice. But now, when
it is ringing in my ears again, I don’t see how I could have failed to
understand it. From that time forth, she began frequently to speak of
the journey. ‘I’m going home on the twenty-second of June.’ She was
always saying it. Once I asked her why she had chosen that particular
day. She laughed and said, ‘Because it is three days after the
nineteenth.’ I pondered over it considerably. But at that time the
connection was not clear to me....

“But after your engagement everything was different. Suddenly she began
to say ‘When I go away—next week—or the day after tomorrow,’ I teased
her about it, ‘So you’ve turned traitor to your plans? I thought you
weren’t going away until three days after the nineteenth?’ Then she
looked at me mysteriously and shook her head. ‘Ah, no, Peterkin, I have
no reason for waiting now!’”

* * * * *

“On the evening of the ... on Monday evening, she appeared here suddenly
in what I thought was a very cheerful state of mind. She laid the
cigarette case on my desk just where it’s lying now, and asked me to do
her the favor of placing it in your hands. She intended to go away and
was already packing. If she sent the case to you, it would probably be
taken as an attempt at blackmail!

“I was to give it to you after she had gone—on your birthday. And she
insisted that I mark the date on my calendar. I said I could remember it
without that. But she opened my calendar to the date and marked it
herself.”

With an almost devout gesture, he turned back the last leaf and pushed
the calendar toward Myra. In the white space, under the nineteenth of
June, which had been carefully circled, was written in Olga’s bold,
beautiful hand, “Myra’s birthday. Don’t forget, Peterkin!” Underneath
were three crosses, playful little crosses marked in black ink.

Myra said nothing. She laid the palm of her hand on the paper and did
not remove it.

Peterkin cleared his throat a few times and continued. “Before she left,
we arranged everything for the next day. We would inquire about the
trains in the morning; in the evening, I would take her to the station.
But when she had gone, I grew terribly nervous. Something struck me as
wrong, but I didn’t know what it was. I tried to telephone her, but
there was no answer. I sat here at my desk in a quite indescribable
state of nerves. This thing was lying before me,” he picked up the
cigarette case. “I picked it up quite without thinking. Suddenly it
occurred to me—pardon, Myra, if it was not discreet, but I felt such
dreadful anxiety—suddenly it occurred to me to open it. I did so half in
fun, half with the notion that I might find something in it which would
tell me something. When I opened it, I found this note.”

He handed it to Myra. Under the clasps that were to hold the cigarettes
against the case, was a slip of paper. On it was written in Olga’s
unmistakable hand:

“_Qui vivens laedit, morte medetur!_”

“_Qui vivens laedit, morte medetur!_” repeated Peterkin. “I read it
several times like a drunken man without understanding. Then I rushed
down. Without my hat, without my keys. The lower house was locked. I
rang for the doorman. He did not come at once. I rushed upstairs again
to get my keys. It took me ages to unlock the house, to run around the
corner and ring for their doorman—ages. On the stairs I met the maid,
screaming and sobbing. It had already happened.”

Myra laid her forehead against the edge of the desk. Not a sound was to
be heard. Peterkin stroked Myra’s hair once or twice, with trembling
fingers.

“There is something else that I must tell you,” he said in a low voice.
“She was completely covered with your flowers. Perhaps that will make
you happy. You know, when you parted that time—you ran downstairs with
your people after you—I half heard what was said between you. After
quite a long while I went back to my room—there was Olga still standing
in the middle of the room, supporting herself against the table. When I
entered, she looked at me as if I were awaking her from sleep. I took
her by both arms and shook her. ‘What’s happened, Olga? What have you
done to Myra?’ She looked distractedly at me and kept repeating
‘Something terrible, Oh, God, Peterkin, something terrible!’ She showed
you the door quite formally, did she not? She said that you shouldn’t
bother her again, or something like that, didn’t she?

“Then she seized my hand and said very quietly, ‘I’m lying, Peterkin,
I’m simply lying. It was nothing but my miserable cowardice. But Myra
must know that, she understands me. I would have jumped in front of a
train for her, I’d have jumped out a window, but I can’t let the clothes
be torn off my body in front of such people, I can’t, I can’t. I know,
I’m a miserable, contemptible creature, but I can’t, I can’t.’ I asked
her what you had answered. She turned quite pale and said, ‘Nothing. Not
a word. That’s the terrible part. She was so defenseless against my
commonness.’

“Then she had another discussion with Miss Flesch. You have no idea how
that woman acted. Olga would not remain in the house another hour. For
which I could hardly blame her. Then she went to pack her things. In a
few moments she came back, and seizing me by the wrist, drew me into her
room.

“‘That is her answer,’ she said and showed me the money on the bed. ‘She
is articulate,’ she said. ‘We underestimated her powers.’ Oh, Myra, why
did you do that? To be quite frank, I was dreadfully angry with you
myself at the time. She kept saying ‘What shall I do? What shall I do?’
I said ‘Put the money in an envelope and send it back without any
message.’ But she shook her head. ‘I deserved the blow,’ she said at
last, ‘I will have to take it and smile.’ She gathered the bills almost
lovingly, saying several times in a low voice, ‘What a child! What a
child! She did not know what she was doing! She did not know what she
was doing!’ Then she gave me the roll of bills. ‘Keep it for me,
Peterkin, the time may come when I shall need it, and when it will be a
joy to me to know that it comes from Myra.’

“I mentioned it to her often before the end, when she literally did not
know which way to turn for troubles. But she always shook her head and
said, ‘Not yet, not yet!’

“After she—was dead,” his voice broke, “I bought white orchids for her,
I spent the whole sum: she looked beautiful.”

He could get no further. His lips quivered, the tears rolled down his
cheeks. After a long, long pause, Myra sat up: her eyes were dry.

Beside the cigarette case, on the desk, lay a revolver.

“Is that the revolver?” asked Myra and reached for it.

“Yes.”

“Give it to me.” She clasped the butt in her fingers.

Peterkin made a gesture of terror. But Myra slowly shook her head.
Peterkin looked into her eyes, then he reluctantly drew back his hand.

“I do not want to keep it,” he said, “it is too much of a constant
temptation. And not everyone has as steady a hand as Olga Radó. You have
a right to it. Of course. But I should not like you to keep it either.
Promise me something, Myra—promise me you will give it to the man you
love. Then it will be in the best hands.”

She had risen. “I promise you,” she said almost solemnly, “I will give
it to the man I love.”

“Promise that you won’t do anything silly with it, that you won’t carry
it carelessly or foolishly.”

“I promise you,” said Myra, “with this proviso. I have no right yet to
swear on my life that I won’t shoot myself. But I will swear by my
eternal salvation. I will swear by Olga Radó’s ten thousand times sacred
memory.”

Something struck him in her tone. He rose slowly from his chair as if
trying to search her eyes with his own. “Tell me, Myra,” he said, “I
hope you are not angry with me. I should not like anything that I have
said to influence your decisions in any way.”

Myra held his fingers in a short firm clasp. From the swift gesture with
which she drew herself up and ran her hand over his hips, it was
apparent that she was at the utmost limit of her powers.

“I swear,” she said, “that from this hour forth nothing and nobody can
ever again influence my decisions.”

* * * * *

Myra did not return home at once. In a few seconds she had made plans
which instantly became decisions. There was no wavering as they took
form; it all advanced with one stride from darkness into light and
remained there irrevocably.

She visited a shipping-agency and the landlord of the house in which she
had spent so many years. There was a time when she would have dreaded
such tasks. Now she felt that never as long as she lived should anyone
relieve her of such unpleasantnesses.

It made her feel good, to be determined, to manage her affairs prudently
and deliberately. When she entered her room and laid her hat in the
closet, her hand touched the black dress that she had worn to her
father’s burial. For a moment, she felt a desire to put it on, to see
herself in gloomy crêpe. But she drew herself up. “Nonsense!” she
muttered, gritted her teeth and shut the closet.

She went to her father’s study, seated herself at the desk and wrote
various letters, to the attorney, to the bank.

After a while the maid entered. “Your Aunt, my mistress, requests you to
come to dinner.”

Myra did not raise her head. “Tell your mistress, my Aunt, that I have
already eaten. And request my Aunt, your mistress, to come here after
dinner.”

The maid stood in the door for a moment, her mouth wide open. But as
Myra did not stir, adding nothing and retracting nothing, simply
scratching her pen hurriedly over the paper, she trotted off.

Presently, Aunt Emily appeared, visibly undecided as to whether to be
indignant or affable.

“Sit down, please,” said Myra in a tone, so businesslike, so short, so
firm and unimpeachably polite that it threw Aunt Emily into confusion
and deprived her of all power of speech. “Pardon me, if I shorten your
afternoon nap a little, but I have something to say to you and time is
pressing.”

Myra picked up the paper-knife, turned it over and over, bent it, rapped
her outstretched fingers with it, and stared intently at it while she
spoke.

“You will have to decide quickly where you are going—I am about to
travel....”

“You?”

“I am about to travel. We are going to break up the household. The house
will be rented. Newes has agreed to let me break the lease. The
furniture will be put in storage. Within the next few days. I’m
beginning today. The moving-men will be here tomorrow. You will
certainly want to get out of the way of the commotion. I suggest that
you go to a hotel or a pension until you have definitely made up your
mind. If you need the maid this afternoon to help you pack, she will be
at your service. And then—I should not like you to suffer in a pecuniary
way on my account. I should prefer if you were to state your wishes in
writing and hand them to Rosenbaum. I have already written him in this
connection.”

Myra laid down the paper-knife.

“That’s about all!” She rose and supported herself with her hands behind
her, against the desk. “But if we should not see one another again,
God’s will be done, and well done by you.”

Aunt Emily also rose, her knees trembling, while her face turned all
shades of color from citron yellow to ash gray.

“And—and Alfred?” she asked with a vain effort to inject a touching
gentleness into her sharp voice.

“What? Who?” Myra knitted her brow. “Oh, yes—no thank you. You don’t
have to notify him. I will take care of everything necessary myself.”

“Myra!” said Aunt Emily solemnly, “what would your dear father say! I
have cared for and shielded you from the day you were born, and for
thanks I am shown the door....”

Myra seized the paper-knife again.

“I have already written Rosenbaum that he is to transfer fifty thousand
marks of my fortune to you. With what you have and what is coming to you
from father, you can live very comfortably indeed. I will go tomorrow
morning and give him the necessary authorizations.”

“Myra,” said Aunt Emily with mounting pathos. “I shielded you from an
awful fate. You ought to go down on your knees and thank me!”

“All right, all right,” said Myra and made a rather wry mouth. “I’ll
tell Rosenbaum a hundred thousand.”

Then Aunt Emily turned and rushed out.

Myra packed her things in feverish haste as if for flight. She worked
all day and night, permitting no one to help her, not even the maid, not
even Peterkin.

But on the evening, when she was departing, Peterkin came to fetch her
from the house and accompany her to the depot.

The house was dark and empty. All the furniture had been removed. The
chandeliers were down and the windows curtainless. Here and there a
picture hook projected disconsolately from the bare wall, or a square on
the paper showed that a picture had hung there for years. A big suitcase
and a small bag stood in the middle of the empty room. Myra had stuck a
lit taper on the window-sill. It gave a strange, flickering half-light.
Their shadows glided, huge and bent along the walls and ceiling.

Peterkin kept glancing at his watch. “Isn’t it time for me to call the
taxi?” he asked uneasily.

Myra raised her hand. “Stop it! We have oceans of time. What would we do
at the station? And what difference does it make if I miss the train?
I’ll simply leave in the early morning.”

“Ah,” said Peterkin relieved, “I’d much prefer that. I don’t understand
how anybody can travel at night.”

“I’ll travel in the morning,” said Myra. “In a few hours the dawn will
come. But I love the night. Whoever loves the stars must love the night.
Tell me, Peterkin, have you really never thought that they’re up there
in the daytime, too—just as remote and just as near as at night?
Sometimes I try to see them when the sun is shining—and I feel quite
certain—that such and such a one is here, and another there, and I can
hardly wait for twilight to make them visible.”

“You get that from her, too,” said Peterkin sadly, “that insane love of
the stars.”

“Yes,” said Myra and her deep voice was like a bell, “what have I that I
didn’t get from her? Everything! Certainly all love. The earth and sky
are full of things she loved. And her love streams back to me again from
all those things. Good God, how many things she loved. Mountains and
seas and flowers and spiders and little children and leather and silk
and crystal and Günderode and the blessed St. Francis of Assisi—and—me.

“Truly, she taught me love. Good heavens, if Aunt Emily were to hear
that she would certainly read a wrong meaning into it.

“Once she said something to me, Olga, I mean, it was when we were on our
trip and were talking about our future, and I said that I did not want
to be separated from her until I came of age. Then she grew quite
impatient and said, ‘Good heavens, what a dreadful attitude, never to be
able to love what you aren’t holding in your own two hands!’

“Wasn’t she right, too? Why shouldn’t one love the dead and those who
are arriving and those who are far away, whose existence we can only
surmise or whose creation wafts us a breath of their souls? And why only
one, why not thousands—those for whom we yearn and those who yearn for
us—those who have died with longing for us unfulfilled, and those who
will live with longing unfulfilled after us, when we have long been
dead. Sometimes I feel as if I should stretch both my arms into space
and call, ‘I love you, I love you, I love you!’”

“It is strange,” said Peterkin timidly, shaking his head as he gazed up
at Myra who stood, weirdly tall and slender in the spectral light, “it
is strange how like her you sometimes are.”

“It is much stranger how _unlike_ her I was,” said Myra, with a smile.
“Remote, strange, unrelated. So horribly unlike her that I really did
not understand her at all. I think I tormented her to death with
jealousy and distrust.”

“And now?” asked Peterkin. “Would you be jealous and distrustful now?
Who knows, if you had remained together, perhaps in a few months you
would have had cause to be.”

Myra shook her head slowly. “You’re just trying to comfort me, Peterkin.
But you don’t succeed. My delight in her was so uncontrollable. Even
though her form were destroyed a thousand times, my delight in her will
always remain. I see now that I should not have been so greedy as to rob
heaven and earth of her love. But Olga never deceived me. Never, never,
never!”

“The train, Myra,” warned Peterkin.

Myra glanced at her wrist-watch. “Yes, we must go.”

Peterkin went to call a taxi. The chauffeur carried down the luggage.

“And look there,” she rose with a strange rapture on her face and
pointed to the starry sky, “there’s Antares! The heart of the Scorpion!
I’ll follow it, farther and farther south. We may remain together, or I
may wait until it appears again, for it is the most trustworthy of
friends.”

“Nevertheless,” said Peterkin, “I have a feeling that it will be very
little protection or friendship for you. When I think that in a few
nights you will be sleeping in a strange city, in a strange bed....”

“Splendid!” said Myra. “That is the one thing that can give me peace. A
room that I’ve never set eyes on before. And what if that room is
already there and another person occupies it and fills it with his
sorrows and joys and worries and thoughts? Must one always lie down in a
strange bed with a feeling of aversion? There are no strange microbes
and bacteria in a freshly made hotel bed.

“In the morning the strange bed will tell me everything it has ever
experienced. That’s also a fairy gift, you know. I’m no longer afraid
because things begin to talk to me. It is always the lucky children in
the fairy tales or the wise men in the stories—King Solomon conversing
with the birds—to whom things and animals and trees tell their secrets.
You don’t know what that means. The whole world was so dreadfully mute.
And now everywhere I hear beloved, familiar, inaudible voices. You can’t
imagine with what joy and pride that fills one. See, Peterkin, that is
something else that I learned from her, from Olga.”

“I am grateful to her for what hours of pleasure I may again find in
this masked ball of life, but if the effort seems worthless to me, then
I shall be grateful to her for showing me the exit.”

“Yes,” said Peterkin somewhat bitterly, “a loaded revolver.”

“Oh, more than that,” said Myra, “it isn’t done with that alone. Don’t
you remember what the little mermaid yearned for, why she let them cut
off her tongue, why she suffered a thousand agonies at every step she
took—what only a great, a truly great love could give her? Well, Olga
gave me that. Olga has given me everything one needs to confront the
future with imperturbable calm—a loaded revolver and an immortal soul!”

Myra locked and bolted the door. She heard the footsteps of the maid
grow fainter, a click as the electric lights were turned on and off, a
latch lifted somewhere in the distance, the creaking of a hinge—more
steps, probably on the next floor—and a slowly repeated, irregular sound
as if an open window were banging. Then silence. Vast, overarching,
empty, cool, dark, unmoving silence.

Myra had to make up her mind at last to take her hand from the lock and
go to the electric button, although she was afraid of the sound of her
footsteps and the rustling of her own skirt. She turned on all the
lights, even the little lamps beside the bed and on the desk. In the
overilluminated room, she stole along the walls, opening and closing the
closets, raising the curtains and drawing them again.

She was not afraid that there might be a murderer hidden in the room,
but she wished to familiarize herself with every detail of her strange
surroundings. She was merely afraid that something might surprise, and
thereby terrify, her. The unfamiliar furniture might assume the form of
a phantom figure in the dark room, a draft might twist the curtains into
human shape. She also examined the pictures very carefully. She
recollected from feverish nights in her childhood that even well-known
pictures, when seen in the dusk or in the penumbra of the night-lamp by
the bed, can transform themselves into terrifying faces.

When she had examined the room in this fashion, she again turned out all
the bulbs except one that shed only a very diffuse light. But there was
no longer anything to terrify her in this twilight: Myra knew that that
crouching shadow was the curved commode, and that unaccountable ray of
light came from the edge of the mirror above the wash-basin, reflecting
the reflection of the electric light in the mirror on the bureau.

She opened her suitcase and took out various articles she needed—a
night-dress, which she spread on the bed, a couple of bottles and
brushes, which she carried to the wash-basin. Then she brought the box
from the night-table and laid a piece of soft white silk on the
bottom—as carefully as if she were smoothing her lover’s couch, or
preparing for a priestly service. With cautious movements, as if she
were handling living objects, she laid the revolver and the
cigarette-case with the scorpion inside. She shut the box with a
determined gesture, for, as always, the sight of the revolver aroused in
her an almost passionate desire to set its cool, smooth, metallic mouth
to her temple. She was afraid to give way to this desire, for she was
not sure that some sudden impulse might not make her pull the trigger,
and thus, lead her, rather by accident than from necessity, to destroy
herself, and thereby extinguish thought, feeling, memory, anticipation.

She did not wish to die. Or rather, she would gladly have died, if it
had not involved being dead. She would gladly have died the same death
as Olga, if only to be able to know with her last thought that she was
suffering all that Olga had suffered, and that it was not so unbearable,
so terrible, as inexperience imagined it.

On the other hand, she felt a fierce desire for life of which she knew
so little. Not that she promised herself any great joys, any fine
raptures therefrom. But she felt so well armed against the beautiful and
terrifying monster that it would have been a pity to give up the
struggle. It seemed to her as if Olga’s blood had bathed her soul in
that invulnerability that Siegfried found in the dragon’s blood. She was
convinced that she had surmounted the most beautiful, the most
difficult, the most significant part of her life. In the tragedy or
comedy in which birth compelled her to participate, she had had to play
her part only in the first act. She had expended all her strength and
feeling—and now she mingled with the supers, still eager, but exhausted
by the shocks which she had undergone: half curiously, half wearily, she
watched the others act.

In reality, her curiosity was stronger than she knew, and although she
thought, or wished to think, that she was no longer capable of any
powerful emotion, either joy or pain, although she felt that her peace
of mind was steeled against impacts of every sort, she felt moved to try
the invulnerability of her armor, to seek out new impressions, and
expose herself to them. She would plunge into the thickest of the fray,
pressing the bristling spear-heads to her breast.

The first to which she so eagerly offered herself and whose wounds she
had certainly not suffered before, were strangeness of surroundings and
solitude.

As a result of the feeling that in her new freedom she had herself
elected strangeness and solitude, and as a result, too, of the thought
that nothing more could hurt her, nothing more must hurt her since her
separation from Olga Radó, she felt the cold and almost hostile silence
as a kind of beneficent release.

One thing she knew—she could endure solitude. But tomorrow she would be
compelled to take her meals in a room containing ten or twenty strange
people. The idea almost took away her breath. She felt curious eyes
pricking her skin like pin-points. But she would endure that, too.

Somewhere below a door slammed, with a dull, heavy sound that shook all
the walls. The elevator rose with a humming noise as if the huge body of
the house were drawing a labored breath. In the stillness of the night
she could hear quite clearly the click as it passed the first, then the
second, floor.

She heard, too, the opening of doors, the clinking of keys and grinding
of locks, the snapping of electric buttons, footsteps moving carefully
over muffling carpets or pounding on the bare floor. A suppressed laugh,
a whispered good night.

Myra tried to decide whether these voices which she could barely hear
were pleasant or unpleasant. She arrived at no very definite decision.

The door opened in the adjoining room. Again she heard the softest
rustling, the click of the electric light, the drawing of curtains.

Myra knew nothing of the man in the next room, nothing. Not even his
name, not even his age, not even as much as can be read in any face that
hastily passes one by in a dark street. And yet she knew that her
neighbor did not care to be waked up early, for she heard the window
shut with considerable care. That he was a considerate person, for he
took pains to make no noise, pulled off his shoes quietly and stole
about in soft slippers so that she could no longer hear him walking, and
sensed his presence only by a slight vibration. He was a cleanly person,
too, for despite the lateness of the hour, he brushed his teeth at some
length.

It made Myra laugh. Perhaps it would be best to make the acquaintance of
all one’s fellow humans in this fashion. What good did it do to learn a
stranger’s name, or his occupation, or his father’s position? What use
was it to talk with someone and know no more about him in the end than
where he spent last summer or what he thought of the latest operetta?
But what use was it, either, to live with only a wall dividing you from
someone so that you could hear every breath he drew—and still know
nothing about him?

Ah, of what use was it to be of one blood with someone, and spend your
life with him from the day you were born? Of what use was it to love
someone, to love him with every fibre of your body and soul—if in the
last analysis you really knew nothing about one another?

Myra went to the window and leaned out. She scanned the heavens for
Antares, her star. But the brick walls of the houses hid it. She leaned
out a little farther, peering down into the air-shaft. She felt a
strange dizziness. If she were to fall down there, no one would notice
it. If they found her body there in the morning, nobody would know what
to do, whom to notify, whom to send for.

Myra was indeed free. So free that it sent a little shiver down her
spine. Not the trace of a chain left, but no bond of any kind, either;
no walls to circumscribe her, but also no sheltering roof.

The persons to whom love or obligation had bound her were dead. Her
father was dead, Olga was dead. From the others she had severed herself
with one sharp slash.

“Dear stars,” thought Myra, “how good it is that you are up there!
Always the same, after tens of thousands of years, the same as when Olga
and I lay by the Wannsee. There is no such thing as chance, there can be
no such thing as chance. Why do not the stars collide and plunge with a
trail of sparks through the night? Eternal, immutable laws keep their
huge bodies floating in space and guide them with as vast composure
along their courses as if it were the easiest thing in the world to rule
the stars. At some point I, too, am subject to those laws and cannot
resist—nor do I want to. I am afraid when I must decide to go right or
left, and yet all roads are closed to me except that single one which I
shall and must take because it is mine, the one immutably predestined
road which will lead me to my goal. To what goal? That I do not know.
But since I am alive there is probably something in store for me
somewhere, and the best course is to await it in patience.”

* * * * *

In the large dining-room of the pension, Myra had her table in the
darkest corner. The friendly hostess had felt obliged to apologize
because all the places near the window were occupied by prior guests. It
quite suited Myra. She sat with her back to the wall and the little
table before her like a bastion. Usually she appeared when the first
gong struck so that she could watch the others pass by and would not
have to weave her way between the crowded tables. Once she was late, and
the short walk across the room had been a torture to her. She felt
herself racked and impeded by all the shamelessly inquisitive, and even
the indifferent, glances. Although she always looked into the mirror
before she left her room, she thought that her hair must be disordered
if a glance rested on it, or that she had a hole in her stocking if
someone stared at her legs. Then she would have to struggle sternly
against the impulse to put her hand to her head, or to glance at her
feet. She would press her elbows against her body, and endeavor to
assume an impenetrable expression, and to move cautiously—she was
plagued by the idea that she would overturn a chair or upset a plate.
She tried to walk so quickly that no one could observe how precisely she
navigated. Once seated, she felt as if she had reached a haven.

Generally, she took a newspaper with her, in order to screen herself
behind it while she was waiting. She was not afraid that someone might
accost her—talking was much less terrifying to her than walking—she was
afraid of looking as if she were expecting to be accosted, so
unoccupied, so solitary, so hungry for a charitable word.

Actually, she was nothing of the kind. The less she had occasion to
speak, the less she missed speaking. But while it caused her no
unhappiness, it did require a certain resolution before she could bring
herself to say something to the maid. When, in the evening, she went to
her room, and bolted the door after the last, “That will be all, thank
you, Bertha,” the feeling that now she could be silent, now she was
permitted to be silent, was like a deliverance to her. At times it
seemed to her as if her tongue had become atrophied like any other
disused muscle. And she wasted no further pity on the Trappists because
she perceived quite clearly that it requires but a few weeks so to
accustom one’s self to silence that the utterance of a word presents
tremendous difficulties.

Myra’s yearning for Olga almost drove her mad—but that was by no means
the worst of it. The worst was that her yearning was the cry of a human
soul, not for love, not for companionship or understanding, but for the
warmth of a body, for the pressure of encircling arms and tender lips.

At such times, Myra would tear the pillow with her nails and teeth, and
shake as if in fever. At such moments, too, she felt certain that she
really must be a wicked creature, the most damning evidence being that
she could never succeed in feeling repentant or in making good
resolutions. On the contrary, if she were very unhappy, she resolved at
once to be wicked. Her desire to study and improve herself was only for
the sake of acquiring more power over people, to beguile, to seduce
them. Then she would enjoy whatever stirred her desire or her curiosity,
were it only for an hour; she would merely skim the chalice, squeeze the
juices from the fruit, and pass quickly from one sensation to another,
never boring herself, never tying herself to anything, never creating
from the depths.

Some such resolution impelled her to mingle with people. She meant to
plunge head first into the stream, because she felt within herself the
power to master the current. She determined to start an acquaintance the
next day, to place herself on speaking terms with someone. Like a stone
cast in the waters, a word can spread wider and wider ripples. In a few
weeks she might find herself the center of a circle.

But next day when she reviewed all the faces, they seemed to her
suddenly vacuous and boresome, or false and sinister, and she drew into
herself like a frightened hedgehog, timid and hostile. She made a new
resolution—not to speak, never, never to say a word, never to utter more
than was absolutely essential, to erect barricades and walls of silence
between herself and the world.

Things might have gone along in this fashion for weeks and months, had
not Gisela Werkenthin arrived at the pension one day, to visit the
painted young lady. She attracted Myra the instant that she entered the
dining hall. Not that she was especially beautiful. She was built on the
slim, slight, boyish scheme. Her narrow face seemed even narrower
because of her dark hair, which was cut in page fashion and concealed
half of her cheeks. Her mouth was all but lipless, simply a delicate,
pale red, proud, severe curved line. Her dark eyes with their strikingly
wide lids lay in great, deep ashen-gray hollows.

That night Myra did not rise from table immediately after supper as
usual. She ordered a cup of tea and in order to have a pretext,
pretended to be stirring the tea impatiently, to cool it while she
watched the table at which sat the pale girl with the bobbed hair.

She laughed with the others, drank and smoked innumerable cigarettes.
But she had a trick of withdrawing completely into herself in the midst
of the noisy conversation. Her slender hand with its lit cigarette would
remain as if petrified in the air, while her eyes bored through the fog
of tobacco smoke and steam as if they were beholding something
indescribably horrible.

The next day Myra visited Mrs. Meidinger, the hostess. There was a small
matter she had to discuss with her which ordinarily she would have
conveyed by the maid. But during the night, she determined irrevocably
to make her leap into “life.” It was for this reason that she
constrained herself for the first time to pay a personal call. The
hostess, blond, rotund, coiffured and as amiable as ever, received her
in her comfortable living-room, enthroned behind a well-covered
tea-table.

She seemed quite enchanted to see Myra. She teased so long that at last
Myra accepted a cup of tea, while she began to ply the girl with
questions in which curiosity and friendliness were equally commingled,
and which Myra answered because she saw no reason not to answer them.
But she smiled slightly and thought, “If I really wanted to hide
something from you, my dear, I would do it so well that you would never
even suspect it.”

She readily admitted that she was an orphan. Yes, she believed that the
mourning she was now wearing for her father did explain her pale and
sorrowful expression. Thus the good-natured and inquisitive woman would
never think of any secret grief or probe its causes.

Myra’s story was soon told. She was an orphan, had neither brothers nor
sisters nor grandparents, and had visited this strange city in order to
dispel her sad memories in a new environment. The hostess was satisfied
with that explanation, or appeared to be. She confessed to Myra—what
surprised her very much—that all the guests had inquired concerning her,
and that each had assumed some romantic history behind the silent young
lady in mourning. Miss Luigi—no doubt Myra knew who Miss Luigi
was—worked at a cabaret and had enjoyed a great success, a really
extraordinary success. Yes, the little lady with the beautiful red
hair—dyed, quite obviously, as perhaps Myra had already remarked? Anyway
Miss Luigi was always teasing her to introduce her to Myra. But when
Mrs. Meidinger had told Miss Peters, the latter had said—Miss Peters was
always very outspoken—and sometimes even a little broad—she had said,
“What, you mean to introduce that delicate, tender, unborn babe to
those....” Well, she would rather not repeat what Miss Peters had said.
Miss Peters was sometimes a little broad. But little Miss Luigi was by
no means as bad as that. Of course, she was no angel from heaven—but
whose business was that? She, Mrs. Meidinger, was not her sister’s
keeper—and the most important thing was that her house remained honest;
that was her business and nobody could say anything against it. If a
young woman has to earn her bread these days like a man, she wants to
take her fun like a man, too. Of course, she liked respectable people,
that went without saying. But, ah, who was respectable in these days?
Some did one thing, some another. Had Myra noticed Gisela yesterday?

Myra assumed a forgetful expression, but felt as if she had blushed.

“One of the girls who visited Miss Luigi?”

“Yes, the dark one. Oh, you must have noticed her, Miss Rudloff! She
looks so unhappy, so dreadfully unhappy! Didn’t it strike you? Of
course, you wouldn’t notice such a thing, but it’s easy for anybody who
knows, to see that she’s a dope-fiend. It certainly is no indiscretion
on my part to tell you what the whole town is talking about. And such a
talented person! It’s a terrible pity, but she’s going to pieces,
literally going to pieces, over another woman!”

An artistic pause. Mrs. Meidinger looked at Myra expectantly. Myra felt
that the glance demanded some comment from her.

“How dreadful!” she said in the tone of a child to whom someone has just
told something incredibly horrible.

“Yes, my dear little girl,” said the hostess with an almost
commiserating condescension, “in your big innocent eyes it is easy to
read the question: ‘Are such things possible?’ My child, have you any
idea of all that goes on! We live in an appalling age, really! But what
can one do about it? We can no more escape our times than we can jump
out of our own skins. If I had had my way, I’d have lived among
respectable people where things are decent. Or have sat at the feet of
Goethe. But where is one to find a Goethe today?”

Myra frankly regretted her inability to assist Mrs. Meidinger to this
longed-for situation. She pictured it very amusingly to herself, and
took her leave as soon as possible.

Even while she was traversing the long, feebly lighted corridor that led
to her room, her thoughts returned to poor Gisela, and did not leave her
again.

Poor Gisela, going to pieces over a woman! Ah, how well Myra understood
that! Just as Gisela would understand Myra. Would understand all that
Myra had been through, her struggles, her sorrow, her love.

Myra felt as if she must seek out this strange girl with the burning,
tormented eyes, must follow her, must seize her hand and say, “We
understand each other, we belong to each other, because we are the most
unfortunate souls in the world! We must become friends because no one
except ourselves can ever understand what we have suffered.”

* * * * *

The next evening the conversation between the tables concerned some
story in the newspapers. Some had read it, others not, and since Myra
had a paper in her hand she offered it to her neighbor. Little Miss
Luigi also asked if she might glance over it, a request which Myra
granted with great cordiality, and in five minutes a general
conversation was in swing.

Next day it seemed perfectly natural to Miss Luigi to say a few friendly
words to Myra. In the evening when she was inviting her usual crowd to
“sample” a glass of brandy in her room, she walked over to Myra’s table
and asked her to come up, too, for a quarter of an hour—nothing
“formal,” just “sociable.”

Myra gave herself a mental push, and rose to go. She had to pass the
table at which were sitting Luisa Peters and her companions. Myra held
her head high as she walked by, but she thought she could feel their
surprised and scornful looks along her spine. Defiance welled up within
her, and she linked her arm in little Mara Luigi’s. “I belong with
these,” it was meant to say to the others, “with these whom you despise
but who sympathize with me. I don’t belong with you hardened saints. You
never gave a thought to me before, now it serves you right if I am
lost!”

As she became conscious of this feeling, it struck her as the height of
absurdity. What had these utter strangers to do with her? In what way
were they responsible for her? Then she felt darkly—“That crowd who are
staring after me, scornfully and pityingly—are my kind. We have ties in
common, I belong to them. But I am cutting those ties and going with
these others, with these strangers with whom I also have something in
common. But it is a common destiny, not merely a common existence. For
they understand not merely suffering but passionate grief and passionate
love. They are not merely ardent, but jealous, not merely active, but
impetuous. No, I do not belong to you! I hate you, I despise you! You
and your kind! Olga Radó has killed you for me. I no longer belong to
you. But since I must belong somewhere, I shall try to belong with these
others.”

She entered Mara Luigi’s room as tensely and determinedly as if she were
entering a new life.

* * * * *

Mara Luigi had to snatch something from nearly all the chairs before she
could offer her visitors a seat. She tossed an armful of all kinds of
articles on the bed and said, “There you are, my children, be seated!”

Miss Lorenz, a slender, well-dressed, blondined girl with a pretty,
expressionless doll’s face threw herself among the cushions on the divan
and took a big teddy bear affectionately in her arms. A chap named
Kramer, a slight, fair-haired young fellow, with the face of a child who
has known too much too soon, struggled for a place on the divan. But
pretty Miss Lorenz opposed him so vigorously that her slim kicking legs
in their thin silk stockings were visible above her knees.

A grave and sickly looking man, who was not, strictly speaking, a member
of this circle, since Myra had often observed him in friendly
conversation with the other party, silently moved up a chair for Myra.
She was standing irresolutely in the middle of the room.

Myra smiled her thanks to him, somewhat confused, and sat down.

Meanwhile young Kramer had encountered so powerful a blow that he
scrambled down from the divan with a howl of pain and sat on the carpet
where he remained, refusing to be elevated by force or entreaty.

Mrs. Breslauer, a buxom lady, with strikingly painted eyebrows, had
discovered a corset of white tricot under a heap of other things on the
bed, and she must absolutely know whether it was made in mass production
or whether the famous Fischer had “created” it and how much it had cost.

Giesbert, a young painter, a slender, good-looking fellow, wrenched the
corset from the lady’s hands and danced through the room with it. Mara
Luigi rushed after him. She had caught up her short little skirt in her
left hand, her right was clutching after the artist. When Giesbert held
the corset on high, she jumped on a chair to reach it. When he hopped
back and forth on the far side of the table, prepared to change his
direction any moment, she did the same on the other side. Her comb
clattered to the floor; curls and strands of hair danced around her
face.

Myra grasped the arms of her chair tightly and shut her eyes for a
moment because she felt herself becoming dizzy.

“So this is ‘life,’” she thought. “I must accustom myself to it.”

The ugly, sickly looking man, who had been standing behind her chair,
said in an uncommonly gentle and pleasant voice, “You are a stranger
here, are you not?”

“Yes,” said Myra with a helpless sort of smile, “rather.”

She scolded herself for being petty and narrow-minded, but she could not
help feeling that it was easier to get along in one of those stiff and
conventional gatherings where the hostess felt obliged to look after a
strange guest. She did not wish to be noticed, did not wish to play a
part. She would gladly have attended this promiscuous gathering of the
clans as a nonparticipating spectator—but a quite invisible one.
For—quite mistakenly—she felt that everybody was staring at her and
thinking rather uncomfortably that this serious, embarrassed and silent
young lady did not belong. She was very grateful, therefore, when the
strange and not very congenial looking man spoke to her, grateful that
she could turn to him occasionally, if only so that the others might not
think that she was waiting stiffly for somebody to befriend her.

The ugly man bent forward slightly. “My name is Eccarius,” he said.
“We’ve been invited here very kindly, but unfortunately they’ve
neglected to introduce us to one another.”

He smiled, and his smile was so kind, so indulgent that it captivated
Myra at once.

“You shouldn’t say that,” she said, prepared to be indulgent on her
side, too. “We can get along somehow this way.”

She mentioned her own name.

“May I?” He drew up a chair beside her. “Of course, we can get along, my
dear Miss Rudloff! We are hidebound by too many outworn conventions. I
envy these children their ease. They skip and frisk about, speak
familiarly to one another, sharing all their secrets, and never dreaming
how difficult it is for one of us to bridge the gap from individual to
individual.”

By the word “us” Myra felt she had been recognized. No matter what pains
she took, they realized that she was a stranger to this circle. She was
not quite sure whether it was for better or for worse.

The pretty Giesbert was dancing before the large mirror. He had put on
the corset over his gray jacket and was trying to pull it shut.

“My best corset!” screamed Mara Luigi in a rage. “You’re going to ruin
it! You’re a beast! Take it off, I say, take it off!”

“You don’t need it,” said Giesbert laughing, “don’t try to act as if
you’d ever worn one!”

He pinched her sides which caused her to squeak loudly.

Myra would not have admitted even to herself that she felt offended by
his tone.

“How splendidly young these people are,” she said smiling at Eccarius.
“I feel quite old and sour beside such children.”

“Children ...” repeated Eccarius with a strangely reserved expression as
if his eyes were turned inward, “yes, perhaps—children....” Then he
glanced at Myra again with his frank expression and his kindly smile.

“You must have had a very happy childhood.”

“Yes,” said Myra with complete conviction.

Myra recalled that she had learned to know struggle, unhappiness and
suffering very young, that she had felt real hatred for Aunt Emily who
had managed her upbringing with so much righteousness and so little
understanding, that she was aware at an early age what it means to be
jealous. And it seemed to her as if that period, a period when she was
not yet quite ten years of age, no longer belonged to her childhood.
Childhood had been those few years when a stream of happy love had
bubbled up from her heart and had flowed forth without distinction
toward whatever trees, animals, persons or dolls happened within range
of her feelings.

At the moment when this stream of love had had to force its way over
obstacles, when it was dried up in places which it had formerly
enriched, leaving nothing but arid indifference or a swamp of hate—at
that moment the idea of childhood seemed ended for Myra.

“Yes,” she said, again fastening her gaze on Eccarius, “a very happy
childhood, but not a very long one. I have a feeling that I was awakened
before most children—not that I was mature, I don’t want you to
misunderstand me—I am not mature even today....”

“Who is?” asked Eccarius with his gentle smile.

“But I believe that I was awakened earlier than other children from the
bliss of unconsciousness.”

“That is too bad.” Over his grave and clear gray eyes a veil, as of
profound grief, seemed to be drawn. “It is a great pity, a great, great
pity.”

Involuntarily Myra looked surprised, but he made an effort to explain
his sympathy.

“You know whenever I see happy children, I always want to build walls
and ramparts around them, so that they will remain as they are, will
remain so for a long, long time. It is dreadful to think that one
poisonous breath can change all the happiness of these little creatures
into horrible pain.”

“Let him keep them,” cried little Kramer from his place on the floor,
“let him keep them, if he can’t bear to part with the corsets! Every man
has his passion, and there must be people who find corsets quite
diverting.”

“You swine!” said Miss Lorenz and kicked his shoulder.

Giesbert had picked up a tulle hat with egret feathers and clapped it on
his head. With one hand he held the corsets together across his stomach,
with the other he clutched anxiously at the hat with every step, to keep
it balanced.

“I’m going to wear this to the artists’ ball,” he announced in a tone of
triumph, “I’ll be a sensation!” Suddenly he passed into falsetto. “Oh,
no! I’ll be the fairest maid of all! Sugar-daddy will give me an
education. If only I knew what for! I have so frightfully many talents!”

“Yes, yes,” cried little Miss Luigi meanwhile and skipped into the air,
“the artists’ ball at Sophus’! Stand still a minute, you loathsome
little darling! Tell me seriously, what are you going to wear? A costume
or what? Come, put those things down, Giesbert, else you certainly won’t
get a single glass of brandy!” She stamped on the floor for emphasis.

Giesbert pretended a terrified trembling and quaking while his knees
shook as he put the articles on the bed.

Mara laughed and brought the bottle of brandy from the closet.

“I have only two glasses! Ring, will you, Erich?” she commanded.

“Oh, what’s the use,” said Miss Lorenz indifferently, without rising,
“we’ll drink one after the other. If Emma brings glasses in here, she’ll
report that we’re holding an orgy.”

“All right.” Mara Luigi rinsed the glasses in the wash-basin. She
reached for a hand-towel, and Myra was somewhat shocked, thinking she
was about to dry the glasses with it, but she merely wiped her
finger-tips. She filled the glasses to the brim, and offered the first
to Myra.

“Do you know what, Miss Rudloff?” she asked as she stood before her,
“you must come with us tomorrow night, you really must.”

“I?” asked Myra frightened. “Where?”

“To the artists’ ball, of course! Probably you’ve never been to a really
truly artists’ ball in all your life. But you must see one.” Myra did
not feel the slightest inclination to accept. She even regretted having
accepted the first invitation, instead of remaining in her room where
she could shut out every disturbing sound, and take refuge from her own
thoughts in quiet and clever books.

“But I don’t know the persons who are giving it at all,” she said
helplessly. “Isn’t it strange?” she thought. “At home I should certainly
have said, ‘The people,’ and have been sharply reprimanded by Aunt
Emily. And here where ‘persons’ will be sure to strike everybody as
affected, Aunt Emily’s good teachings burst forth for the first time in
full flower.”

“Don’t know whom? Sophus and Nora?” asked Giesbert, checking his crazy
behavior for a moment and speaking like a rational human being while,
still out of breath, he smoothed his hair. “You don’t know them? Then
you certainly will have to go there tomorrow for it’s high time that you
did know them! A pair of splendid women, two of the most remarkable
people I know! Would anybody like to take exception to that? If so, I
challenge him to put on the gloves immediately.”

He rolled up his sleeves, drew his head between his shoulders, and bared
his teeth.

“You need have no qualms about going,” said buxom Mrs. Breslauer in her
somewhat unctuous voice. “I was lugged up there the first time
positively _sans façon_, and was received charmingly, isn’t it true,
Marakin, they were really perfectly charming.”

“Yes,” laughed little Kramer, “I really believe they never meet anybody
except as their guest!”

“Is Gisela coming for us, or shall we see her there?” asked Miss Lorenz.

“Gisela,” thought Myra, “so she’s going to be there, too. I’ll really
have to do it. The only alternatives I have are to bury myself like a
hermit, or to take advantage of every opportunity to meet people and
learn to know the world and human beings. Gisela! Here I sit trying in
some way to meet her, and when I’m asked to make her acquaintance in the
easiest way in the world, I haven’t the slightest desire, but only fear
and shyness and aversion and a feeling that I’d like to creep away
somewhere and be quiet.”

Eccarius must have read the inner struggle on her face. He bent forward
slightly. “I think you can venture it,” he said in his very soothing
way. “You will find a rare bouquet of people there. They will certainly
distract and may even interest you. There are some really worthwhile
characters among them. And if it becomes too lively for you, I shall
undertake to bring you home at any time you wish.”

“So you will be there, too?” asked Myra, relieved.

He nodded.

“Yes, then I believe I can ‘venture it.’”

While Myra was dressing to go to the artists’ ball, she was not
conscious of any effort to beautify herself in order to attract
attention, to please, to cause sensation. Indeed, she desired to attract
as little attention as possible, and would have given a good deal to be
invisible, or to watch the hubbub from a gallery or a darkened adjoining
room.

She selected a very simple black taffeta dress quite void of color or
boldness of line. Nevertheless, she could not prevent something striking
in her appearance. Perhaps it was caused by the anticipation which
flamed up in the depths of her lifeless eyes and which was in such sharp
contrast to the gentle, almost colorless composure of her pale face.

* * * * *

As Myra took off her coat in the vestibule of the little villa and was
at once surrounded by a throng of persons in fantastic costumes, and a
throng of noises, her immediate thought was of escaping. She looked for
little Mara Luigi who was raising waves of people about her. Perhaps no
one would notice if she asked for her coat again and slipped quietly out
the door. She glanced about, weighing the chances of flight, and
encountered the eyes of Eccarius who stood directly behind her.

“Look around a bit first,” he said soothingly as if he had divined her
thoughts, “and if it’s too much for you, give me a sign and I’ll take
you home. I have no intention of staying here till daybreak myself.”

The rooms were large and bright, and so full of noisy people that Myra
grew dizzy. A thin, bluish pall of smoke hung over the groups and spun
in rings around the lamps. Faces stood out, impressed themselves on
Myra’s mind, sharp and yet unreal, like visions in a fever—then
disappeared again.

Eccarius remained at her side, pointing occasionally to someone whom she
could not discover in the throng, or mentioning some name that she did
not understand or could not catch because it had no meaning for her.

A tall, slender, beautiful girl passed them in a sort of page’s costume.
Eccarius called to her and she stopped and greeted him. Myra had an
opportunity to observe her. She wore black silk knee-breeches, white
stockings, a jacket with lace cuffs, and had secured her dark, curling
hair in a great black knot at her neck. Her features were clear and
regular, a high and beautifully modelled forehead, and an almost
challenging, free and bold expression which captivated Myra at first
glance. She seemed to perceive that Myra did not feel quite at home in
that tumult. She took her by the hand like a child.

“Come,” she said, half to Myra, half to Eccarius, “I’ll take this little
girl to Nora. She is always ‘the pole of repose in the flux of
appearances.’ You’ll feel much better with her. Good Lord!” She took
Myra’s chin in her hand and turned her face to Eccarius. “Doesn’t she
look like a little child on its first day at school? Come, baby; you
shall have a place of honor.”

She forced her way through chattering, noisy groups. Everywhere the
beautiful woman was called to, stopped, embraced, greeted, questioned.
With a patience and affability that never altered she always managed to
release herself again, but it took a quarter of an hour for Myra and her
to cross two rooms.

At the end of the second room was a raised alcove on which, towering
above the other chairs and a table with a charming cover, stood a
Renaissance easy-chair, with high and very beautifully carved arms. In
this arm-chair, standing out against its strawberry-red brocade as
against a painted background, sat a very fair woman, dressed in white,
softly flowing white veils over her shoulders, a soft white covering
over her knees.

Myra was astounded at first sight by the beauty of this vision. On
closer inspection she perceived that the woman in the chair had passed
her fortieth birthday, that she was too buxom to be beautiful, that age
and sickness had ravaged and obscured the once pure lines of her face.
But the next moment, as Myra held her warm, matronly hand, and felt a
smile of indescribably warming cordiality and kindness envelop her, she
forgot all about beauty or ugliness, and surrendered without reserve to
the mild fascination of this personality.

“Here, Norina.” The slender page laid her arm lightly across Myra’s
shoulder. “Take this little girl under your protecting wings. Else
she’ll be lost in the hubbub.”

Something in the words, the solicitude concealed by a gentle irony,
recalled Olga so vividly that Myra wanted to howl like a whipped dog.
She no longer seemed to see the bright room with its throngs of people
and strange faces as through panes of glass. They seemed to crowd in
upon her, somehow to break through those glass casements which she had
set about her life. It was all too much after the silence and solitude
of the last few weeks. She felt herself in a condition not unlike a
violent attack of fever.

Myra had to smile when she saw a shade of concern pass over the fair
face of the woman while the room seemed whirling about her. She felt a
chair moved against her legs while she was forced to her seat by gentle
but firm hands.

She was sitting on a low chair close beside the high arm-chair.

“There,” said the dark-toned voice behind her. “Now if it’s too bright,
or too loud, or too gay for you, just lay your little head against the
arm of my chair and creep under my veil. That’s what I always do.”

Obediently, Myra nestled her cheek against the arm of the high chair and
felt the veil being drawn over her head. A gentle scent of mignonette
emanated from the soft, filmy silk.

Nora turned to Myra. “You mustn’t imagine that it’s always as gay here
as it is tonight. You must come sometime when we are more intimate, more
quiet. We have a nice little garden which is our real joy. Just as long
as it is possible, we take tea out there and love to have someone keep
us company.”

“Yes, when the flag is up!” laughed the young person on the step,
turning with a jerk. “You ought to know that we do here as at court.
When their majesties are at home, the flag is hoisted!”

“You ought to explain, Will,” Nora amended, “just how it is done. On the
roof of the arbor there is something like a little flag-staff _en
miniature_, with a gay little pennant on it. You can see it from all
sides, even in front, if you are passing the house.

“But if Sophie has to work very hard, or I am not feeling particularly
well, we haul in the little flag. Then no one, at least none of the
initiates, needs trouble to come to the door simply to be turned away.
For, of course, that’s always painful to both sides. For those who have
to interrupt their work or control their illness, and are disagreeable
hostesses anyway; or for those who feel like disturbers of the peace. If
they are really turned away, they usually think, ‘Well, they might have
made an exception in my case,’ or, ‘They did not have to have the maid
tell me.’ Most of them are habituated to the lie they tell themselves:
There is no one at home. That someone should be working never seems a
sufficient excuse for them.

“But all our friends know that I never leave the house and Sophie very
rarely. So the little flag is there to avoid any unpleasantness. When it
is unfurled that means, ‘Please come in, we’re expecting you.’ Then
there’s no need even to come through the house, for everyone who wishes
can enter by the garden-gate, or if it should be locked can jump the
hedge, eh, Will?”

But Will had sprung up and motioned with his hand without even glancing
back, for he was staring intently into the room where a circle was
gathering around a dancing couple.

“Fiametta is dancing,” he called back, with a hasty turn of his head,
“the woman is marvellous! You must see her!”

Quite youthful in his impetuousness, he seized Myra by the elbow and
dragged her from her chair to the step.

“I ask you, have you ever seen anything like that in all your life?
Isn’t she dazzling? Isn’t she perfect?”

In the rather narrow circle which the crowding spectators had left free,
a slender, well-built young man was dancing with a woman of refined
beauty and great charm. She was so perfectly at one with the music that
its tones seemed to emanate from her supple body.

She had a manner of dancing such as Myra had never before seen. Her
movements were gentle, cool, subdued, noble and almost solemn. At the
same time it seemed as if the beautiful girl consumed a vast reserve of
strength in compelling her symmetrical body to maintain its dignified
repose, as if it would have required only a moment’s forgetfulness for
that bridled temperament to leap up like a flame, for those soft,
relaxed muscles to turn to steel and impel her sinewy body through the
air, like a wild beast springing on its prey.

Myra felt a kind of painful, burning sensation at the sight of her, and
when she sought, with her habitual honesty, to account for it, she
decided that it was envy. A thousand appraising glances could never
embarrass this woman: it would have been no task for her to cross a
crowded dining-room to her table.

“Isn’t she marvellous?” said the young man beside Myra, aglow with
enthusiasm, “isn’t she fascinating? Isn’t it just as if she stepped out
of another century? Out of a century when there were still beautiful
women, beautiful women who left the stamp of their personality on their
environment, the courts, the city, the arts!”

Myra nodded silently. She would have been glad had he kept silent, too,
for she wanted to know what was being said behind her. She could hear
Nora’s quiet, gentle voice.

“Certainly, she is very beautiful, Ulrich. She has breeding, temperament
and culture, everything one could wish, but she is a little strange to
me, and a little strange she will always remain. Perhaps it will sound
very silly and sentimental to you if I say that she has no heart. But I
really believe that she has not even the most elementary sort of
kindliness....”

Myra could not catch what Ulrich might have objected. But she heard
Nora’s reply.

“No, Ulrich, I cannot agree with you. A woman without kindliness is
something without charm, without fragrance for me, no matter if she is
as beautiful as your Fiametta. Oh, yes, I know you have a foible for
her, and forgive in her everything that you would never forgive in
another. Of course, no one is obliged to love simply because she is
loved by another. But then one should not arouse feelings in others if
one has no use for them....”

“Oh, that! Yes, she does do that! And not in one case only—in hundreds
of cases. And she keeps right on doing it! She completely ruined poor
little Miss Bernhardt, she drove Erwin half mad, and she’s destroying
Gisela now—for the mere diversion!”

At the name of Gisela Myra started. So this was the woman for whose sake
Gisela’s life was being destroyed—poor Gisela! Oh, Myra knew only too
well that it is possible to be destroyed for a woman’s sake! Her heart
burned with anger and pity, with painful recollection and a desire to
help, to alleviate, to save.

She had not another glance to spare for the beautiful woman. Her eyes
sought Gisela, and found her on the opposite side of the room, her
shoulders hunched over, the inevitable cigarette between her lips,
staring into space with an expression of complete abstraction. Myra
chose a moment when Mara Luigi was approaching Gisela, to turn to Nora
and excuse herself.

“If you will pardon me, I should like to say a word to Miss Luigi.”

Nora’s tone seemed to veil a mild astonishment. “Ah, you know her? Are
you friends?”

Myra felt a sudden redness invade her cheeks and forehead.

“Yes.... No ... that is, we stay at the same pension,” she said somewhat
embarrassed.

She forced a path for herself along the walls, fearing all the while
that little Mara would have stopped talking to Gisela by the time she
reached her. She felt that she was committing a deed of great daring.
She had a feeling, almost of homesickness, for the low seat beside the
soft, concealing veil; she thought of herself as a half-fledged bird
that has abandoned its nest to make a flight into the world.

But a fierce impulse drove her forward.

“I must not be a coward,” she thought, “I will have my destiny and I
will go forward to meet it. I will open my arms and bear with joy
everything that is meted out to me. I will love life no matter what it
brings.”

The sweet, hot dance melodies quivered through the air. They seemed to
force Myra’s steps to fall into their light and fiery rhythms, while her
thoughts kept iterating like the refrain of a song, “I will love life, I
will love life.”

When Myra stood before Gisela and Mara had mentioned names and made a
gesture of presentation, there was that strange feeling again—“What is
the purpose of it all? What will happen now? We have been introduced,
that is, we know one another’s names, the series of letters whereby we
are listed in official registers, and that gives us the right to talk to
one another. But nothing gives me the right to utter what I am thinking.
If I were to say, ‘I wanted to know you because you make me feel so
dreadfully sorry, because Mrs. Meidinger has told me that you take
morphine in order to deaden your grief, your sorrow over a woman, and
because I understand you so well and would like to try to help you, or
at least be unhappy with you’—if I said that to her, they would shut me
up in a lunatic asylum. And quite rightly, for if I were in a normal
state of mind I could never bring myself to say such things.”

“I believe that I have seen you before,” said Myra with a reserved
smile, half to Gisela, half to Mara Luigi. “Weren’t you at the pension
recently?”

“Yes, of course,” Gisela’s dark eyes were fastened on Myra. “That’s
where I saw you, too. That’s why your face looked so familiar to me.
Come on and sit down beside me, there’s still room.”

“Thanks,” said Myra and smoothed her taffeta dress before she sat down.

Again she felt a slight anxiety because she thought that it was her duty
to say something, something, too, that would lift her above the
average—but she couldn’t think of anything.

Gisela was not so easily embarrassed in beginning a conversation. “You
know little Luigi from the pension, don’t you?”

Myra nodded.

“She brought you here, didn’t she? You haven’t got anything to do with
art and such awful things, have you?”

“Unfortunately, no,” said Myra.

“Unfortunately? Thank God and your most honorable parents that you have
a decent occupation.”

“But I haven’t any.”

“Haven’t any? That’s the most decent of all.”

“Are you serious? I think it’s dreadful not to have any occupation.”

“Why dreadful? Having an occupation means being paid for work. Taking
money from somebody, that means being subservient to somebody, whether
it’s an individual, or a company, or the public. Being at the public’s
beck and call is the worst of all! If you have no occupation and don’t
need to have one, then you’re your own master! That is to say, you’re
not anybody else’s servant. Why is that dreadful?”

“I don’t know.” Myra wrung her hands with a gesture of helplessness.
“Perhaps because then we don’t belong anywhere. Home has no meaning for
us any more. I was born and brought up in the city. But does that give
me any feeling of home? Yes, perhaps, if I were in Tokio and heard
someone from the city talking I might discover some such feeling in
myself, and might even become sentimental with him, when we thought of
Potsdam or Linden. But just think how ridiculous it would be if we
addressed somebody in Lucerne or Baden-Baden with ‘I believe you come
from my native city!’

“We have no families any more either! Or we have no use for them.
Sometimes I envy the old noble houses with their hundreds of branches,
each linked by name. But above all I envy people who have an occupation,
for every cobbler has connections with every other cobbler, cabmen have
something in common with all other cabmen, physicians have their
colleagues to help them in almost every village on the earth. The
artists are like one big family, especially theatrical people. And
sometimes—I don’t know if you will understand the feeling—it seems to me
that it must be good to be chained quite firmly to something—so that one
will not plunge into the abyss.”

“Oh, I understand it all right.... Have a cigarette?” She offered a
narrow birchen case. “Only, I don’t altogether believe in this
fellow-feeling of fellow-workers. No more than I believe in blood
relationships. The greatest stranger in the world to me is my own
sister. No, no, the same kind of education, the same kind of
interests—they have about as much to do with people’s feeling for one
another as the same kind of incomes.”

“But one must feel one belongs somewhere,” Myra objected, bewildered.

Gisela shrugged her shoulders wearily. “Yes, if you want to feel happy,
to feel secure. But our best emotion is probably a fellow-feeling for
our fellow man. Only, it is in very rare cases that we ever discover who
he is. And what else is there? Sometime I think that people who have
suffered the same misfortune, the same sickness should band together.
The blind, the lame, the hunchbacked.”

This was approximately what Myra herself had previously thought. But
when she heard it uttered by someone else, it roused her opposition.

“I don’t think,” she said reflectively, “that I would like to see myself
surrounded by my own infirmities, especially if they were exaggerated or
distorted, any more than I’d like to see myself in a mirror if I were a
leper. At bottom it always pleases people more to hide their infirmities
and keep them as inconspicuous as possible. And I don’t believe either
that the ailing are especially sympathetic to one another! Everyone says
to himself, ‘He’s a much worse case than I am!’”

A young man came up to Gisela and embraced her with a girlishly gentle
and fawning gesture.

“You must sing something for us, Gisela,” he pleaded, “please, please,
be nice!”

She shook her head without answering, knitting her brows a little.

But he did not release her and begged like a child. “Oh, please! Do be
nice! Only for a few of us, one tiny little song!”

“My lute isn’t here, John.”

“Oh, you can use Sophus’, but come!”

With gentle coercion John tugged her from her place. His narrow face,
sensitive features and delicate bloom of color were almost angelic in
their beauty. His fair, gently waving hair was a little too long, his
big dark blue eyes too soft, almost ardent in their expression.

Despite his surprising beauty, Myra thought his exterior almost
repellent. But after a few moments she decided that it was really his
costume which disturbed her, because it suited him so little. In a white
tunic, in a silk doublet with puff sleeves, even in a gold embroidered
rococo jacket he would have been a perfect picture.

Gisela, still tightly embraced by his arm, held out her hand to Myra.
“Come with us, little girl,” she said. “I can’t promise you any great
enjoyment, but I’ll be flattered if you’ll listen to my croakings.”

Myra seized the outstretched hand, letting it draw her along. It was a
slender, feverishly hot, ruinously thin hand that clasped her fingers in
a loose, but tenacious grip.

Somewhere in the distance she saw Eccarius’ face emerge. He did not even
glance at her, and yet his grave and worried face seemed a reproach to
her.

“I suppose I ought to pay some attention to him.” A slight feeling of
fear, then her defiance blazed high. “But why should I? Why must I
always be talking obligations into myself which really aren’t mine? From
now on I’ll have regard for no one, I’ll go where I feel attracted—and
only where I feel attracted!”

In the small adjoining room a dozen people were sitting, lying and
crouching in the most varied postures. Sophie was there in her becoming
page’s costume. Beside her was the young man called Will who had sat on
the top of the alcove step, little Mara Luigi and the painter Giesbert,
who was wearing a kind of cowboy costume, and Ulrich, the man with the
grave, haggard face, and deep minor voice.

Someone lifted Gisela’s slight, light figure and set it on a table. John
took the lute from Sophie and laid it in Gisela’s arms.

A young person in a silk Pierrot’s costume who was dashing about with a
tray of glasses, offered one to Myra. Myra drank down the sweet and
fiery wine at a draught, in order to be rid of the glass, and found
herself searching for a seat.

Sophie extended her hand to her. “Come here to me, little lost bird,”
she said. “No one will hurt you here.”

“I’m not afraid,” said Myra smiling.

And she really was not. She felt quite content and well concealed in the
deep, soft silk cushions between two faces that did not seem strange or
unpleasant to her.

Little John with his page-like grace seated himself at her feet. And
although she felt no particular liking for him, she enjoyed his slightly
cuddling touch.

Gisela tuned the strings, her head bent low. Her loose black hair fell
about her cheeks. With a sudden toss she raised her head, shook back her
hair, and after a few opening chords began to sing.

Somewhere
A voice is calling through the dark night,
A voice that makes me tremble.

Somewhere,
On their hot couch, hot hands incite
My longing hands to tremble.

Somewhere
A heart weeps quietly for the right
Against my own to tremble.

Her voice was small as if muffled by a veil, but the deeper tones
especially had a passionate, enthralling ring. Myra felt as if she were
caught in the web of a sweet, dreamy happiness that was, nevertheless, a
painful longing.

Sophie had put her arm around her, and now and again her hand kept time
to the music by stroking Myra’s shoulder gently and soothingly.

Sometimes Gisela’s eyes sought out Myra while she was singing. Their
glances met, were fixed one upon another, and it seemed to Myra as if
Gisela were singing every word to her. “Sweet life,” she thought,
“beautiful, beloved life!”

She felt a feverish longing that filled her heart to overflowing. It was
a longing without name or object. It was a longing for distant lands, a
longing for affection. It was a longing for glittering fame, for heroic
deeds, and a longing, too, for grandmother’s quiet garden, for the
meadow over which the bees hummed.

Your sad and silvern soul
Draws its last gasp in blood.
Alas, that it stands sole,
Alone, by me unfound.
For your soul will be drowned,
Will plunge beyond control,
Sink, drown in burning blood—
Since my cool hand has never found
Your brow to still the fevered flood.

A shade of almost sorrowful gravity passed over Sophie’s beautiful,
cheerful features. She smiled, but it seemed as if her smile were
steeped in melancholy.

“Wait a moment.” She motioned to Gisela with her hand. “I want to get
Nora. You know how much she loves to listen to you.”

She rose abruptly. John sprang up at the same moment. “Can I help you?”
he asked, it was a plea.

Myra thought his words sounded mysterious.

Sophie and John did not enter the large hall-like room from which they
had come. Sophie opened a glass-door behind a curtain which gave upon
the night-darkened garden.

“Leave it open a moment,” she begged. “It is so warm outside. We’ll be
back this way.”

Gisela hesitated. Some interior struggle was reflected in her mobile
features.

“Sophie,” she called, springing down from the high table, “would you
rather that I came with you? I can sing in the next room just as well.”

“No, no,” said Sophie. She was standing on the step and had lifted the
two parts of the curtain so that they framed her slender figure for a
moment. “It is so crowded and smoky in there, and dusty from the
dancing, and one can’t make the whole crowd listen quietly. Besides, I’m
glad to have a good reason for enticing Nora out for a while. She’d
never decide to come herself, and if she doesn’t, the evening will be
too much for her.”

She nodded gratefully to Gisela and vanished in the darkness. Through
the half-open door, streamed the manifold fragrances of the night and
its flowers.

Over the little circle lay an expectant silence. Those who were sitting
side by side made observations in hushed voices. Gisela strummed her
lute without raising her eyes.

The murmured conversation presently grew louder and somewhat more
lively, only to subside entirely when heavy steps were heard crunching
the gravel in the garden. Then the most intimate friends of the
household began to talk rapidly again in a fashion that seemed to say:
“We were not waiting for you, we shall pay no particular notice to you
when you come.”

Involuntarily Myra glanced at the garden-door, and though she instantly
controlled herself, she started and felt that she had turned pale.

They were leading, they were dragging Nora in.

Sophie was supporting her on one side, John on the other. But they could
not raise her heavy upper body; it sagged forward as if it were bent,
broken. With an effort Nora raised her head, and her soft brown eyes,
filled with silent suffering, like those of an injured animal, met
Myra’s for a second.

Ulrich moved up a chair, Will set down cushions for her feet; an instant
later she was sitting in her easy-chair, her hands laid upon its arms,
her knees, which were drawn up a little higher than most people’s,
covered by the lightly flowing folds of her silken veils, her fair head
laid back upon a violet-colored cushion. Again a picture of almost
queenly beauty.

Not unless one observed closely, was a slight twitching discernible
around her mouth and cheeks—from pain or the unusually violent exertion.

Myra’s heart was quite filled with contradictory feelings. She felt a
terror that verged on horror and even aversion; an anguish of sympathy,
but at the same time, a fear as of dark veils falling, of a slowly
settling, unbearable burden.

Had not life been simply bright and gay and alluring? Had she not loved
it with a hot, longing, ardent, sacrificing love? And was it not now as
if a fiery and flexible dancer, the swaying of whose arms had
intoxicated her, suddenly had torn the mask from his face, and with a
mocking grin pointed to a fleshless death’s head?

What was there in the world after all? What could one expect from life?
Misery and affliction, sickness and death, and bitter, freezing
solitude....

Gisela plucked several chords and began to sing.

Somewhere
The alarm rings dull and heavily.

Somewhere,
It says, home-going tolls for me.

Somewhere
The long white roads lead well away;

Somewhere
Will lead me home to earth, some day.

She bowed her head lower over her instrument. It was strange how the
tones found their way out of her restricted breast.

Everyone was silent when she had finished.

Will was the first to speak. “More, more,” he cried. “Another, another!”

Others shouted after him. Gisela slipped down from the table and laid
the lute in a corner. Her weary movements were those of a child, but her
face, which was always narrow, had become old and small.

“I believe I cannot sing any more,” she said, as if asking forgiveness.
Her voice was no more than a hoarse whisper.

Through the door of the adjoining room came an elderly fat man with an
ugly, bloated face. Inside, someone was thumping the piano, but it could
hardly be heard for the noise and laughter and the shuffling of dragging
feet.

The fat man seized little John around the body with a firm grip. “Come,
Johnnie boy, we’ll dance,” he cried and pulled him about in a circle.
John swayed from his hips like a coquettish girl. Myra observed for the
first time that above his small and narrow foot in its low-cut
patent-leather pumps, he was wearing open-work silk stockings.

Suddenly she loathed him. She loathed the fat man. She loathed Gisela
because her face looked old and sick and worn out. She loathed Will
because he spattered wine down Mara Luigi’s low-neck dress, and then ran
his hand down her back on the pretext that he was drying her. She
loathed Mara Luigi because she was pleased by the performance although
she shrieked and kicked and struggled.

Myra felt a terrible longing for the peaceful solitude of her own room.

Giesbert was standing before her, asking her to dance with him. She
pressed with both hands against his arms which were seeking to clasp her
and carry her away.

“Please, don’t,” she said, impatient but pleading. “Don’t, don’t,
please, I don’t like it!”

Suddenly, after she had released herself and was swaying a little
dizzily, her glance came to rest on Eccarius’ face. He approached her
with a gentle smile, and involuntarily she extended her hand to him.
“I’m so glad you’re here,” she would have liked to say. “I want to go
home!”

Then it occurred to her that she had no right to command him as she
would a servant, when she had not given him a thought the whole evening.

But before she had found anything to say, he spoke himself. “You look
tired, Miss Rudloff. I don’t want to hurry you, if you still wish to
stay here. But if you would like to go, simply say so.”

Myra was heartily grateful to him, although she had again been almost
shocked by his ugliness as he suddenly appeared before her.

She was not entirely satisfied with herself. It must be her own fault
that she was always seeing ugly and pathetic things everywhere. Probably
she was not strong enough for life, not healthy enough, not stupid, or
perhaps not wise, enough.

Everywhere life had angles and edges, points and sharp corners. Wherever
one groped among the rosy, shimmering clouds that so beautifully
enveloped them, one was struck and hurt. One had to be a cobble-stone or
a diamond not to be shattered by their hardness.

She walked after Eccarius in an almost stony silence. Let him think what
he would of her! She was tired and upset, angry and dispirited. She had
no desire to torment herself further with a laboredly indifferent
conversation.

Eccarius allowed her time to cool her feverishly hot forehead in the
night air. She gazed up at the bright flames of the stars and again, as
always, felt the need to spread her folded wings, to launch herself at
last, at last into the infinite; so impatient was she that her heart was
depressed, her breathing labored, and there was an aching against her
ribs.

Finally, after a long time, she heard a quiet voice beside her utter
what seemed to be the last link in a long chain of thought.

“You will do me a great favor, Miss Rudloff, if you do not pass judgment
upon your hostesses and their house because of this evening’s rather”—he
hesitated—“rather turbulent festivities. You must sit out there in their
garden with them some quiet afternoon and talk with both ladies. I am
quite certain that you might gain much by it, and it would be a pity if
tonight’s performance had spoiled your taste for it.”

Myra felt as if she had been looked through and through and was a little
ashamed.

“Oh, of course not,” she said with some embarrassment. “I was really
very charmed by both ladies. I am simply not accustomed to such noisy
society. Ah, I am really not accustomed to sociability at all, and there
were simply too many and too varied impressions for me. I am suffering a
little from a _carrousel feeling_, if you can imagine what that is.”

“Oh, yes,” Eccarius laughed softly. “I imagine that it is mostly
dizziness and nausea.”

“Not only,” said Myra, “but music too, music that keeps droning on, and
a lot of gaiety and a lot of light, a mysterious and fascinating
gaiety—pearl-bespangled, dazzling decorations behind which mysterious,
alluring, weird things are concealed—the driving power, the machinery,
the engine. And out of the darkness appear single brightly illuminated
faces that keep vanishing and reappearing. But above all, above all is
the impression of a longed-for pleasure that has been tasted till one is
sick and tired of it.”

“That’s all right then.” Eccarius smiled as if his thoughts were already
somewhere else. “You did not know that Nora is an invalid?” he inquired
after a pause.

“No,” said Myra. Then, half involuntarily, as if driven by a sense of
guilt for which she somehow hoped to atone, she said, “Oh, she made me
feel so terribly bad!”

“She has had a very sad life,” said Eccarius, rather reluctantly, “but
in spite of that, I would not say that she makes me feel bad. Somehow I
wouldn’t dare say that. It would seem almost presumptuous of me. There
is so much about the woman that compels one’s admiration, so much that
is superior to us, so much that one can almost envy, that pity, in my
opinion, hardly enters into the case.”

Myra felt that his remark was worded very discreetly in order that she
might understand, though not too harshly or emphatically, that she had
said something stupid. She was grateful to him for his considerateness,
for it hurt her dreadfully to be corrected by anyone.

“At any rate, I will make every effort to know her better,” she said
with a hearty determination. “I believe that there is much to be learned
from her, and there is nothing I need more in this world than to learn.”

“It is already a great deal simply to know that,” said Eccarius with a
smile. “Most young people of twenty think they know enough. If you
always pick your instructresses with as sure an instinct, you can’t go
far wrong.”

“I hope so.” Myra knitted her brows. Fear again cast its shadow on her
like a cloud, fear of making a misstep, of becoming bewildered, of
straying into treacherous morasses, of walking into an abyss—courting
disaster in some form or other.

“In any case, I won’t have to suffer any long-drawn death,” she thought,
“when my shattered limbs are lying at the bottom of the abyss. Then
there will be nothing left for me but Olga’s bequest—my friend, the
revolver!”

XII

For the third time during one of her walks, Myra suddenly found herself,
on that corner in the suburbs, on which stood Sophie’s little house. But
this time she did not turn quickly in the opposite direction. Instead,
she walked down a street flooded with late autumn sunlight, quite bathed
in whiteness except for the thin tremulous shadows cast by the delicate
plumage of the young mountain-ashes.

Myra no longer remembered the number, but it would not be difficult to
discover the house. It must be the third to the right. Yes, the
garden-gate bore a rather striking name-plate, and above the arbor the
little pennant was hanging limply in the motionless air.

Myra’s heart beat somewhat faster as she opened the little grille-gate.
She was as embarrassed as she had been as a child when she had to go to
strange houses and knock on strange doors. If she walked right into the
garden they would stare at her in some surprise. No one would remember
her name, no one would recall her face, they would ask her what right
she had to force her way in here. Oh, she would create a very painful
situation for herself and others.

It would certainly be better to climb the short flight of steps to the
front entrance and give one’s card to the maid. Then they could bundle
her off with a polite remark if they no longer remembered her.
Hesitantly, she retraced a few steps.

But they must already have seen her, or heard the crunching of the
gravel—a blonde head appeared behind the house.

“Ah, Miss Rudloff!” Little John literally sprang forward to meet her.
And for the first few moments she forgot all that she had heard about
him, all that she had thought about him, and was captivated by his
boyish charm, by the lightness of his movements which were like a
dancer’s.

“How nice of you to come! No, no, right this way, there’s no need to go
through the house. We’ve spoken of you frequently, wondering where you
were. Nora will be frightfully glad to see you. Sophus still has
something to do, but she’ll be down any moment.”

He led her past a green wall where the first plump beans were hanging
between countless red and white flowers. In the narrow beds phlox and
asters were a riot of dazzling colors. They were surrounded by a
golden-green border of fragrant mignonette. In the big hexagonal arbor a
cozy tea-table was spread.

Myra also experienced a slight unconfessed fear of meeting Nora again.
Now she was almost gratefully surprised by her beauty and by the
commanding nobility of her movements. Nora was so accustomed to her
ailment that it never even occurred to her to make an attempt to rise
only to have to sink back helpless and pitiable in her chair. She sat a
little stiffly and very regally, extending her hand to Myra with a
winning smile.

Beside her sat Ulrich Zeeden, who in his haste to spring up and come out
from behind the table imperilled the tea service, which caused both John
and Myra to clutch frantically at it. The result was a merry confusion
which got them over the first few moments of what might have been
painful formality, and the conversation became general and lively.

In a few moments Sophie, too, emerged from the house with a long, quick
stride. She greeted Myra very cordially, demanding a cup of tea “right
away.” She insisted on drinking it standing, only to let them force her
into a chair where she chatted for a quarter of an hour, declaring
anxiously every two minutes, “Oh, children, the light is forsaking me, I
must get back to work!”

When she finally dashed off, she turned at the house and called back,
“If you’ll just wait there until I’m through, I’ll have another hour of
joy tonight. I’ve worked so hard today.”

“You forgot to add, ‘at my mournful occupation,’” John laughed after
her.

“Yes, at my mournful occupation,” she called from the door.

“Why mournful occupation?” asked Myra, puzzled.

“She always says that she’s next in line after the undertaker and the
funeral parlor,” John explained. “She makes gravestones.”

“Oh, that really is mournful,” said Myra, endeavoring to assume a slight
smile so that they would not think her exaggeratedly sentimental. The
words “grave” and “death” were always a stab of pain to her.

“One accustoms one’s self to death,” said Nora gravely, “as to
everything else. And that is well. One becomes a little brutal—which is
a very good thing for us hyper-sensitives. We come to feel as much at
home among urns and sorrowing angels, as a coffin manufacturer at the
sight of a coffin, or a physician at the sight of a wound. When one has
as much to do with death as Sophie, and through her I, death loses all
its horror, and one comes to see the humor in tragic situations. Ask
Sophie, she will tell you some stories of her profession.”

* * * * *

Nora took her needle-work from a little basket beside her, and asked
John to call the maid to clear the table. John begged like a child to be
allowed to do it himself, and skilfully and carefully removed all the
dishes. When he returned, he sat silent for a long while, his longing
eyes fastened on Nora’s flying fingers.

At last, he could restrain his childish desire no longer, and he
stretched out his hands. “Oh, please, please, let me stitch a little,
too!”

With a smile Nora handed him the sewing and searched her basket for some
crocheting with which to keep her own hands busy.

“Gracious,” cried Myra, “that wonderful hemstitching! Aren’t you
afraid?”

“Oh, no,” Nora assured her, “John can sew quite as well as I.”

“I can, can’t I,” said John, a blush of pride mantling his cheeks. “I
should have been an expert embroiderer or a miniature painter. I have an
inexhaustible patience for such things. Otherwise, I have no patience at
all.”

He bent his head over his work so that his wavy blonde hair fell over
his face. His slender, almost too well manicured hands moved with charm
and precision, setting stitch beside stitch.

It was an astonishing scene. Involuntarily the thought flashed through
Myra’s mind, “Thank God, he’s not my son. If he were, I think I’d tear
that embroidery from his hands and slap his ears with it. And yet—he
looks like a painted angel or a saint.”

* * * * *

John had to go before Sophie returned. He waited for her until the last
moment, then said a hasty, but cordial, good-bye, and leaving many
greetings for Sophie, dashed off.

Ulrich Zeeden gazed after him, shaking his head.

“A strange little fellow,” he said.

“A heart of gold,” added Nora with a slight note of defense in her tone.
“We’ve grown so used to him here, we can hardly get along without him.
He’s really like a loyal little page, always anxious to please and be
kind—ah, much more than that, he’s inexhaustibly good-hearted and
self-sacrificing.”

“Yes, there are some really fabulous rumors of his good-heartedness
going the rounds.” The corner of Ulrich Zeeden’s mouth twitched a little
contemptuously.

“There _are_ many rumors circulating about him—unfortunately,” Myra
burst forth. She felt her cheeks burning with embarrassment, but she was
determined, now she had spoken, to defend her cause courageously. “It
looks so ugly, so gossipy, to discuss someone the moment he has turned
his back. But because he’s your friend and because I think he’s very
nice, it makes me angry when people say horrible things about him, and I
have absolutely no right to tell them to hold their tongues or to punish
them for their lies.”

“Would you do that?” asked Ulrich Zeeden. “It would be very courageous
and really friendly of you, but in most cases I’m afraid it wouldn’t be
very successful. For whatever horrible things may be said, they are
certainly surpassed by the horrible things that are done in private, of
which no one has any idea.”

“Is that true?” Myra turned imploringly to Nora.

“Ah, my child,” she said comfortingly, “it is much too complicated and
bewildering for one to be able simply to say yes or no. But there’s no
reason to have such a desperate look in your eyes. Good and evil are so
intertwined that one can never hope to disentangle them and balance one
against the other.

“But I will tell you one thing, for I know very well what Myra means by
horrible things, and you, too, Ulrich. You mean the affair with
Drencker. People say and you know that it is true, Ulrich, and so do I,
if I must be candid—that Drencker has bought the little fellow body and
soul, so to speak; that he has furnished a charming apartment for him,
that he supports him, ‘provides’ for him, as they say. That Drencker
does not do all this simply to rid himself of his millions in a good
cause, all of us know. And that our good John has not attached himself
to this, to put it mildly, decidedly unpleasant gentleman, like
Alcibiades to Socrates, for the purpose of drinking wisdom from his
lips, but merely for a pecuniary advantage, is also obvious.

“Nevertheless, when one looks a little deeper, one discovers something
that atones for all these horrible facts. Ever since he was a child,
little John has felt a great and unswerving love, or rather a kind of
devout infatuation, for a school-fellow of his who possesses everything
which he himself lacks—manliness, self-assurance, a somewhat brutal
quality. This childhood devotion became an utterly unselfish, utterly
idolatrous friendship. Now it happens, that the other boy possesses
decided talent, which further compels John’s admiration. Neither of them
had any money. John had probably never thought of himself as worth very
much—he sold himself, sold himself with open eyes and very dearly, too,
in order to enable his friend to study, in order to be able to support
him in this way.”

“And Will Kraft allowed him to do that? You mean he acquiesced in such a
thing?” asked Ulrich Zeeden sharply, drawing out his words.

Nora shrugged her shoulders slightly. “I did not mention any names.”
There was a trace of bitterness in her gentle voice.

“What has Will Kraft allowed? What has he acquiesced in?” Sophie’s deep
resonant voice suddenly rang out close beside them.

“We’ve been slandering your friend, Sophus.” Nora smiled up at her.
“You’ve come just in the nick of time to defend him.”

“Defend him if you can,” said Zeeden in a harsh, censorious tone. “Will
Kraft has allowed a young, immature and rather unstable young man, whose
friend he is supposed to be, to sell himself to satisfy the unnatural
lusts of a beast in human form, and has accepted the purchase price. To
me that is about the lowest thing that anybody could do—just as I find a
whore-master a good deal more contemptible than a whore.”

“Indeed!” Sophie drew up a chair and sat down. “I’ve let you have your
say, now you let me have mine. In the first place, instead of ‘beast in
human form,’ you might say ‘human in beast’s form’—though that has only
incidentally to do with ‘my friend’, Will Kraft. But I can muster a few
points in his defense, too. Notably, that he has talent, not to say
genius, and that talent always and under all circumstances has the right
to achieve its object. Because work alone is of value, not life. Least
of all the moral life of the individual.”

“That is a matter of opinion,” interrupted Zeeden, “nevertheless,
continue!”

“But even if he were without talent, if he could create no work of any
value, whom is he injuring? The possibility is given him to work, as he
imagines, and as I imagine, for human culture. He is happy. Still
happier is old Drencker, who finds himself at the goal of all his
desires, having at last escaped the danger of blackmailers and
extortioners, and even robbers and murderers, whose life is no longer
embittered by the fear of prison, and who for the first time is
beginning to feel the blessedness of those millions that all his life
long have been only a curse to him.

“But the happiest of all is undoubtedly our little John. He is desired,
pampered, idolized. He sees his beauty, which incidentally he knows very
well how to prize, in the right setting. He spends half the day seated
before his three-leaf mirror, admiring himself, and coddling himself
with salves and powders and hair tonics. Do you mean to tell me he is
doing all that for Will Kraft’s sake? Don’t imagine it! He would do
exactly the same thing without Will Kraft! No, not exactly the same, for
he certainly has a better side, a tendency to idealism. He would do it
remorsefully without Will, and be disgusted at himself. But since he can
expend a portion of the sums which are earned by him (for a person of
his nature really without effort) on someone whom he adores, he can view
himself in quite a transfiguring light. He can do just what he pleases
and be a martyr and a saint into the bargain!”

Zeeden moved his hands as if he were clapping an inaudible applause. “A
beautiful speech, dear Sophus! Hearing your explanation, makes it
bearable. But there’s a flaw in it somewhere. I don’t know just where.
Perhaps it’s in defective Christianity again. But I think Nora is
shivering, it’s time that we went into the house. The evenings are
already quite cool.”

Myra rose. “Yes, and it’s high time that I went home, too. I intended to
stay for a few moments and I sit here hours and hours.”

“Bosh!” said Sophie, remaining quietly seated, and staring up at her
almost as if surprised. “That sounds like a _façon de parler_. Why do
you want to go? Have you something better in mind? Or did somebody once
tell you that a first visit should never last more than twenty minutes?”

“Yes, somebody did tell me that!” laughed Myra. “I think those are the
very words my Aunt Emily said to me.”

“And do you mean to say that you have the damnable intention of carrying
out all your Aunt Emily’s precepts? I thought not, well, don’t try them
on us! Whatever aunts tell you, you should _eo ipso_ do the reverse! So
you’ll stay and eat with us. The only excuse is the well-known
‘something better to do.’”

“There’s nothing that I’d like to do better in all the world.”

“Poor child—well, there will be.”

Sophie rose and drew herself up energetically. “I can feel my muscles
today! Come, Norina, let’s make things bright and comfortable inside.
It’s already decided that you’ll remain, Uli.”

Zeeden bowed in silence.

With one powerful push, Sophie moved the table aside to clear the way
for Nora. With a sudden resoluteness which she herself could not
explain, Myra pressed close to the invalid.

“May I help?” She thought they must hear the throbbing of her heart in
her voice.

“Oh, thank you so much—I will be too heavy for you.”

“Not at all, I am very strong. And if one does not need any particular
practice, believe me, it would gratify my ambitions! I could feel that
there’s something in this world for which I am useful.”

“That is an unanswerable argument,” said Sophie. “Will you call Martha,
then, Ulrich? Or will you be good enough to carry the chair yourself?”

Zeeden had already picked up the chair.

“Really, why don’t you have a wheel-chair?” he asked.

“Are you going to ask me that, too?” Sophie flung angrily over her
shoulder. “Because this lady must walk! And she can do it very well,
too. She has the soundest pair of legs in the world. But she’s too vain.
If she weren’t, she could walk for miles.”

The pressure of the invalid’s arm did not weigh unbearably on Myra’s
supporting hands. And the feeling that she was helping overcame her
horror to such an extent that even pity disappeared. This gentle woman’s
desperation over her ruined hampered body had long ago been dispelled,
so that her life now knew only its good and bad moments like every one’s
else. With more good and less bad, perhaps, for her illness shielded her
from the fiercest attacks of base natures; she almost never left the
house, in which she was treated as a queen, while no one who was not
filled with the friendliest of feelings, ever came to see her.

* * * * *

As they were sitting together after the meal, over a cup of tea and
cigarettes, Gisela suddenly appeared. Myra could not decide just what
she felt when she first saw her. She was glad that Gisela had come. At
the same time she was disturbed at the idea of being jolted out of her
comfortable repose even by a pleasure.

For the first time Myra endeavored to isolate the cause of that
disturbing quality which everyone felt in the presence of Gisela. She
was not noisy, not even particularly talkative. She would sit without
ever stirring from her place, staring in front of her. And yet it seemed
as if the atmosphere around her vibrated.

Myra felt this vibration in every nerve, felt her quiet repose being
more and more encroached upon by this burning, prickling, disquieting
sensation.

It began to seem to her as if the smiling resignation on Nora’s face
were merely a mask behind which the cruelest despair was at work.

It seemed to her as if Sophie bore up in vain, with the strength and
repose of a caryatid, against the intolerable burden.

It seemed to her as if Ulrich Zeeden’s deliberate manner cloaked a
ceaseless torturing struggle.

It seemed to her as if Gisela were as consumed by pain and sorrow as a
house in which the flames are raging, and whose blackened walls threaten
at every moment to crash into complete ruin.

And it seemed to her as if she, Myra, were the most unfortunate of all
these unfortunate creatures since Olga was dead and she was left alone
in the world. In a world, too, filled with strange, menacing,
pain-bringing, terrifying things.

Suddenly she wanted to go home because it seemed to her as if her
hostesses were struggling against their weariness out of a sense of
politeness.

Zeeden and Gisela left with her and they walked without speaking for
some time. Zeeden broke the long silence to address himself to Myra, and
to Myra only, “May I take you home, Miss Rudloff?”

“Thank you very much,” said Myra, “but only provided you live in that
neighborhood. I am not at all afraid of going by myself.”

Gisela leaned forward in order to speak past Myra. “Don’t put yourself
out in the slightest, Herr Zeeden. And it would put you out a great deal
if you had to go into the city again and then return to your lodgings. I
will take Miss Rudloff home. Besides we’re going the same way.”

Myra hesitated a moment, wondering whether she ought to protest this
arrangement. It displeased her to have Zeeden think she had declined his
escort in order to be alone with Gisela. But if she asked him to go with
her now, Gisela would be offended. She said nothing, telling herself
with a quiet defiance that people’s opinions were and must be
indifferent to her.

Zeeden took leave of them at the next corner, though somewhat more
stiffly and formally than usual.

“Do you like him?” asked Gisela when he was scarcely out of hearing.

“I hardly know him.” Myra shrugged her shoulders.

“He certainly likes you.”

“Why?” Myra laughed between her teeth.

“Why? He likes all the women I like. That’s why he can’t bear me,” she
added quickly, almost hurriedly. “That is to say, he’s unlucky with all
women, and has never been able to free himself from one dreadful
specimen.”

“How is it possible for him not to free himself from a dreadful woman if
he feels in himself the capacity for loving others?”

“You ask me?” Gisela shrugged her shoulders noncommittally. “They say
that she used to beat him till he bled and that he can’t live without
that! But he may have some other mania which she pampered, too. After
all, what does bind people together? The fact that one of them knows the
other’s concealed manias, and fattens them and coaxes them forth and
fondles them and trains them to turn against their former master like a
mad dog.”

“And you mean to say that that is the crux of all human relation?” asked
Myra sadly, much perturbed. “What kind of eyes do you see life with?”

“With unclouded eyes,” said Gisela and laughed bitterly.

“And Sophie?” asked Myra, “and Nora?”

“Sophie’s mania is called Nora. And she is the happiest person I know
because she can concentrate completely on her mania. As for Nora? What
goes on in her mind, nobody knows. I don’t even know if she is happy or
not.”

“I don’t know if she can be happy,” said Myra dejectedly. “It must be
dreadful always to have to take, never to give.”

“She knows that she gives a great deal,” Gisela contradicted.
“Everything for Sophie! Sophie became a human being for the first time
the day Nora went to live with her. She was lazy and idle and slovenly
and lived on cigarettes, alcohol and cocaine. We tried time and again to
shake her out of it—but it did no good.”

“And Nora,” asked Myra with bated breath, “was she sick then?”

“When she came here? Yes, of course—I think she had made an attempt on
her life. She married a syphilitic and had a feeble-minded child, or
something like that.”

“World, world,” thought Myra, “where can I fly from you? I’d rather be
dead and sleep in one of Sophie’s beautiful, rose-garlanded urns! How
can I, all by myself, ever stand all that makes up human destiny?”

They walked along in silence for a time, each plunged in his own
thoughts.

“Do you know, Myra Rudloff, that I have a mania of my own?” Gisela asked
suddenly; her voice was softer and more vibrant than usual.

Myra was frightened. She was afraid of confessions. “Good God,” she
thought, “here comes the morphine! What shall I say to her? I can’t help
her in any way.”

Gisela did not wait for an answer. “My mania,” she said, in a soft,
hovering tone, without glancing at Myra, without turning her head in her
direction, “is to love beautiful, pure, regal women—always those who are
above me, those who are too good for me, who in my own opinion are too
good for me. Women like you, Myra Rudloff!”

They had reached the house and stopped. Myra was racking her brain in
torment for a reply. She could think of none. She gave her hand to
Gisela, shyly, and said, “I thank you.”

The corner of Gisela’s mouth twitched in a hurt, ironic smile. “What
for?”

“For bringing me home—and for everything, for what you have just said,
too.”

Myra’s heart was throbbing as if it would burst, but only from a kind of
embarrassment. She would have been glad to retract her words. Perhaps it
would have been more tactful if she had pretended not to hear or not to
understand.

Gisela turned her head away with an impulsive, rather irritated
movement. The light from the street lamp fell on her face; it looked
wretched, sorrowful, almost decayed.

“Perhaps it would make her happy if I kissed her,” thought Myra. “It is
sad enough, but it can’t hurt anybody.”

She bent forward with a slight, embarrassed smile and laid her lips
against Gisela’s. She felt Gisela’s lips burn like a flame, open like a
flower; sharp teeth ground against hers and were pressed into her lips.
A small hand clasped her neck, twisted itself into her hair, would not
release her.

When Myra drew herself up again, she was somewhat dizzy.

“I don’t love her,” she thought sadly, “probably she loves me, and I
don’t love her.”

“Good night,” she said, laying her hand tenderly and discreetly against
Gisela’s cheek for a moment. It was as if she were speaking to a little
child. “Sleep tight.”

* * * * *

Myra intended to lie down on her divan.

Though it was still early in the afternoon, she had lighted the lamp and
drawn the curtains in order not to have to see how the endless autumnal
rain poured down the gray walls of the buildings opposite.

She had heaped up cushions and covers on the divan, moved a chair within
reach on which was a pile of books. The afternoon would be long and she
wished to have no cause to get up again. Neither did she want to drown
herself hour after hour in one book. So she had collected a half dozen
books with the pleasurable foretaste of a gourmand preparing himself for
an exceptional repast.

On the little glass-topped table at the head of the divan, she set
cigarettes, chocolate and a vase with a few pale pink, pungent
carnations that she had bought in town.

But no sooner had she lain down, drawn a light cover over her feet, and
reached for the topmost book when there came a knock on the door.

“Why didn’t I lock the door,” she thought for a moment in vexation. “If
I had, I would certainly never move. Whoever is there could rattle it as
much as he likes.”

But when in response to her “Come in!” Gisela opened the door, she was
really glad.

“Oh, how nice it is here!” cried Gisela before she had even said good
day. “No, for Heaven’s sake, don’t jump up from there, or I’ll run right
off again. You’ve made yourself so nice and cozy, don’t let me get you
up. I was going to see Mara Luigi, but she isn’t home, and I wanted to
have a look at your room. Heavens, how spick and span we are—my room
never looks like this even on high holidays.”

“If you don’t want me to get up,” said Myra with a smile—she was resting
on one elbow, the cover in her other hand, still in the act of springing
up—“you’ll have to come here. Otherwise I’ll have to put on the light
and settle you solemnly in an easy-chair.”

“No, no, I’m coming.” Gisela ran to the divan, pressed Myra back against
the cushions and drew the cover up about her chin.

“Do you want to go to sleep, my love? Shall I sing you to sleep and then
steal out on tiptoe? Sleep, little baby, sleep!” She knelt on one knee
on the divan, clasped Myra about her shoulders and rocked her to and
fro.

Myra experienced a slight and not at all unpleasant dizzying sensation.

“Don’t,” she said with her eyes closed, “I’m getting dizzy.”

She felt the rocking movement stop, and at the same time a gentle
breath, and soft lips brush very lightly, very tenderly, over her
forehead, her cheeks, her eyelids.

It was pleasant, but she resisted this pleasant sensation.

“I don’t love her,” she thought obstinately. “I did not desire her
lips—this is the way an animal must feel when it is stroked.”

The soft lips ceased to brush her face and Gisela crouched down on the
divan. Quite irrelevantly she pointed to the flowers. “Who sent you the
lovely carnations?” she asked.

Myra turned her head to follow Gisela’s gesture with her eyes.

“I did,” she smiled.

“What do you mean?”

“What do I mean? I bought them myself this morning.”

“That’s strange!” Gisela shook her head. “Are you expecting a visitor?”

“No, why?”

“Because that would be the only reason I’d ever buy flowers for my
room.”

“In fact, I bought them because I expected to be alone.”

“It’s very nice of you not to say ‘because I hoped....’”

Myra smiled. “Well then, because I feared I would be alone.”

“That’s just a polite lie,” said Gisela. “Anyhow, I’m thankful that I’m
at least worth a lie to you. For I think you don’t lie very often.”

“I don’t know.” Myra reflected seriously. “I think that I lied a good
deal as a child, at least as long as I was in the hands of my mentors.
But it was cheerless and unimaginative living. I never had much talent
at thinking up interesting tales. It was more a kind of denying, very
persistent and obstinate.”

“Lying and denying—there are worlds between. You are quite right. But
when a child denies, everybody says, it’s lying, or it’s deceiving. And
all the while it’s probably just ashamed, or stubborn, or bewildered. I
was treated so terribly when I was a child. Why don’t you have children?
You’d certainly make a fine, understanding mother.”

“I’ve never thought about it.” Myra shrugged her shoulders. “I’ve always
imagined that every mother is good and understanding. But that may very
well be because I never knew my own mother.”

Gisela laughed bitterly. “I wish I’d never known mine either!”

Myra was shocked and seized Gisela’s hand. “It sounds dreadful when you
talk that way! Was she so bad?”

“Bad? Oh, no, not just bad.” There was a note of forced lightness in her
voice. “She was a worthy, efficient, excellent woman. Too worthy and
efficient for my father. He left her and two years later hanged himself.
And since I resembled him (naturally I couldn’t do anything about it;
after all, she chose him for a husband, I didn’t choose him for a
father)—but because I resembled my father’s family, my mother felt that
I was hereditarily tainted in advance. You know, there are people—and my
mother was one of them—who are so moral that they sniff immorality
everywhere. We had to sleep with our hands outside the quilt, and if we
forgot in our sleep, and my mother came in to check up, she’d tear the
covers off the bed. I swear, I never once knew why she did it.”

Myra did not know either, but she did not ask, because she was ashamed
to confess her ignorance, and furthermore she suspected that an
explanation might be painful.

“That was the beginning.” Gisela sprang up and began to pace restlessly
to and fro, with noiseless steps, on the thick carpet. “And it went on
that way. At fourteen I had my first rendezvous. It was with a boy from
dancing-school, a little fellow who was, if possible, more innocent and
idealistic than myself. When this transgression came to light, I was
subjected to a terrifying inquisition. Had we kissed, did we put our
arms around one another, and when and where and how. These possibilities
were first brought to my attention in this way....

“The same thing at school. Near the school there was a stationery store
where we used to buy our copy-books. The man had picture post-cards in
his window—among others a nude woman, the reproduction of some
masterpiece or other. A terrible case was made out of that post-card.
Investigation finally brought out which of the girls had stood in front
of the shop-window. Parents and pupils together descended on the
shop-keeper and forced him to remove all offensive pictures from his
window. It became a real sport with us to buy pictures of nudes—during
the Bible reading they circulated under the desks with inscriptions and
observations. The contagion spread to the whole class, but they had
first been inoculated with the virus, and at considerable pains, too.

“In a few among us, perhaps in many, there may have been a painfully
repressed, immature sensuality. But children are by no means as
shameless as adults—they are much more afraid of being shocked. But the
general discussion of the ‘immoral picture’ removed all obstacles. Now
everybody talked to everybody else about ‘it.’

“I resisted. I didn’t want to have anything to do with it. It may be
that I resisted out of timidity, because I felt that this thing, which
was just a joke to the rest of the children, might become fate to me. Do
you know how children act in such cases? Oh, so cruelly, so lustfully,
so sadistically! Because I resisted, I was pursued, the whole class was
in a conspiracy against me. I had to see what I didn’t want to see, hear
what I didn’t want to hear, do what I didn’t want to do. I was driven to
a pass from which I never again escaped.”

She folded her hands and wrung her fingers so that the bones cracked as
if the thin wrists were going to snap.

“No, how can anybody buy herself flowers like that?” she said suddenly,
standing before the carnations. “Why do you do it? Were you thinking of
somebody to whom you wanted to give them? But didn’t—perhaps, well,
because you happened to be put out with one another just then?”

“I have no one in the world to whom I might give flowers,” said Myra
bitterly, “unless it is a grave, and that’s too far away.”

She did not know herself how she came to say it. She blushed violently
at the thought that she was opening her heart, an error which she
forgave in others with a certain condescending indulgence, but which she
hated so intensely that she would be upset for weeks if she caught
herself at it.

But perhaps it was not even a need to open her heart. Perhaps it was
worse. Perhaps it was the desire—though still quite unconscious—to drape
herself with this holy, destructive sorrow, to endow herself with a new
mystical charm in the eyes of this ... this....

It seemed as if Gisela divined the feeling. She had started as if she
meant to throw herself upon Myra, to overwhelm her with sympathy and
comfort and affection—but checked herself and sat hunched over on the
end of the divan, her head bowed, her hands folded.

“Promise me one thing,” she said softly with a quality in her voice as
of joylessness which nothing could ever animate again. “When I am dead,
put flowers on my grave. Not at my funeral and not a large bought
wreath.

“I like to imagine how I’ll receive visits, how I’ll lie there and
sleep. I love graveyards so—generally those that are a little run down.
I don’t want any well-groomed gaudy grave—but a gray stone, half sunk
already and half overgrown with ivy. Then the beautiful woman in the
white dress who stops before it will think of me for a moment, not with
grief, but with a gentle melancholy, and will strew a handful of flowers
over me. I’ll feel them, oh, make no mistake, I’ll feel them!”

Myra sat up and taking her by both shoulders, shook her.

“Child!” she said. “Are you asking _me_ to do that? I’ll hand on the
commission to my grandchild! By the time that stone has sunken on your
grave, my ashes will have long been scattered by the wind.”

“How long does it take a stone to sink?” asked Gisela in such a
comically impatient and plaintive tone that Myra laughed aloud.

“But you’re not dead and buried yet,” she said consolingly.

“Unfortunately,” Gisela said in a lifeless voice but with suddenly
flashing eyes. There was bitterness in the words.

Again Myra felt a slight aversion. “She has no right to say that,” she
thought. “She certainly can’t have suffered so terribly.... But then,
who can estimate what gives another the right to desperation? Perhaps it
is much harder to struggle against one’s self than against fate.”

Her objection melted and she felt only a warm but helpless pity. With
timid hands she began to stroke the soft, tangled, dark hair from the
white forehead before her. Those burning eyes were shut, while on that
narrow face appeared the expression of quiet, yearning bliss.

As Gisela sat motionless, without breathing, as if her pulse had stopped
in her veins, Myra experienced a weird sensation.

“Open your eyes,” she commanded in a frightened voice. “I suppose it’s
this devilish violet light, but you look like a marble death mask.”

The long lids opened heavily. The wide-open eyes were a lightless deep
abyss to which life and vision returned gradually.

“Believe me, little Myra,” she said with her soft ailing child’s voice,
“I will soon be dead.”

“What do the words ‘be dead’ mean to you?” asked Myra timidly.

“A deep, cool, undisturbed repose.” She closed her eyes, and immediately
her face resembled a marble mask again.

“Eternal rest. Even in my childhood the words were like a melody, a
sweet mysterious seductive song. I heard it the first time when I was
quite small and had no ideas about it. It was a characteristic
expression of my mother. This or that person had gone to his eternal
rest. And it has never forsaken me, I have always longed to go to my
eternal rest.”

In her high voice was a sustained disembodied tone.

There was a sparkle and glitter under those dark eyelashes that were
like shadows on her face, and several pearly drops trickled down.

Myra kept both her hands clasped around Gisela’s blue-veined temples.

“No,” she said, without herself knowing what that “no” might mean. “No,
no, no!”

The lids were raised like a curtain, and the tear-filled eyes in which
the light was refracted, seemed larger and more burning than ever.

“No,” said Gisela. “No, no, no! Still no eternal rest, little Myra,
sweet, beautiful little Myra! Life streams from your finger-tips, life
flowers from your lips, life gleams from your eyes. I feel as if I were
already dead, and you were saying to me: ‘Arise and walk!’ Oh, how hard
it must be to rise up and leave a cool and narrow coffin because it
pleases some miracle-maker!

“I am dead, little Myra, I have died of a mortal sickness that is called
Fiametta. If you would bewitch the dead, little sorceress, you must
nourish them with your own blood, but that you know. If I am to live, I
must imbibe your blood.”

The slender hands fastened like talons in Myra’s shoulder, forcing her
back on the cushions. Supine above her, lay Gisela’s light muscular
body, close to her own hovered Gisela’s white face with the burning
eyes.

Fear, horror, aversion, pity, tenderness and the infatuating throb of
her own and another’s blood, whirled in a mad maelstrom that engulfed
all thought in its brightly foaming depths.

XIII

Myra was glad to get out on the street. The keen east wind and the rain
mixed with hail cut her face and felt good to her. She walked so fast
that Gisela found it too difficult to keep up.

She felt as if she were being grievously insulted on all sides, and as
if she might avenge herself by letting the rain lash her as she hurried
through the cold dark night.

* * * * *

Myra and Eccarius walked down a street that echoed with the cold and was
feathered with a fine frost.

“Did you wonder,” asked Eccarius, “why I spoke so ostentatiously about
my friends at the table? It was because I have had a little dispute with
Miss Peters. Miss Peters is really a splendid person, but somewhat
strict in her judgments. Or I should rather say, is somewhat limited in
her understanding of things. What she doesn’t understand she tosses all
together into one pot and damns eternally. And among such understandable
things, of course, is included a friendship like that of Sophie and
Nora. She flung about words like abnormal and perverse and unnatural,
and intimated that it was no place for you!”

“For me?” Myra was astonished. “How on earth did you come to be talking
of me?”

“To be quite frank, we began with you,” Eccarius explained with a laugh
that pleaded for forgiveness. “Yes, yes, one never knows how important
one is to others or what interesting conversation one makes. Seriously,
we never know who our enemies are or who is going to pick us to pieces
next. Conversely, we don’t know our friends either or who is looking out
for our weal and woe.

“Miss Peters has a heart of gold and she is concerned about you. She was
explaining to me today that it is my duty to open your eyes for you. But
if I were to open your eyes about Sophie and Nora, with the best will in
the world I could only tell you that they are splendid people.”

“Nora told me recently that she had known you a long time,” said Myra
with a gently insistent effort to turn the conversation from herself.

“A very long time.” She sighed with relief as Eccarius changed the
subject. “I knew her when she was still the beautiful Nora Zeyern, the
most popular of dancers, the most daring of riders! She had hundreds of
suitors, and, out of those hundreds, of course, she had to pick
Hersfeld!”

He stopped for a moment with a bitter laugh.

“He was diseased, wasn’t he?” asked Myra.

“Oh, if you know that much, there’s no indiscretion in my telling you
more. He was ‘cured’ so-called, as he used proudly to relate to anyone
who wanted or did not want to listen to him. But not to his wife and her
family.”

“Hersfeld was an oldest son and he wanted an heir. And an heir did
arrive, but it was covered with pimples from the day it was born. What
that most maternal of women suffered with that child can never be told.
And all of us, his so-called friends, we looked at the child and looked
at one another and knew that it would never be anything else but a
child. But not one of us dared say a word to the young mother. Meanwhile
she hoped and hoped and cherished the unhappy little worm, rejoicing at
the tiniest sign of progress. There wasn’t much progress to rejoice at.

“At an age when other children were running around, shouting and
crowing, he would lie on his pillow, hardly turning his head when
someone shook something bright before his eyes. ‘He’ll be a thinker,’
Nora said then, and smiled, a heart-rending smile. But when at four
years he could not speak a word, and would merely utter an incoherent
babble, she hid him and hid herself from the world. She never left her
own house, she received no one. She shut herself and her child in the
most impenetrable solitude. She still cherished him, played with him,
strove tirelessly and futilely to make something human out of him.

“But Mr. Hersfeld needed an heir. In another six months, the unhappy
woman was once more in hope—Oh, God, she really did hope.

“At this point a friendly doctor took the matter in hand. That is to
say, he let fall a careless, but honestly indignant word about the
irresponsibility of bringing babies into the world. And when she
questioned him and would not let him go, he asked in great astonishment
if she really did not know what was wrong with her child. And since she
did not, he told her. Certainly he was entirely within his rights in
doing so. But he reproached himself bitterly afterwards. For that very
day Nora was hurt by a fall from a hay-loft, and suffered such severe
internal injuries that she was never well again. Whereupon Hersfeld
procured a divorce!”

“Is he still alive?” asked Myra.

“Why? You made a face when you asked me that as though you intended to
kill him if he were. But you can rest easy—he is dead. He came to quite
a dramatic end, or rather, his end had quite a dramatic beginning.
Imagine, that man intended to marry a second time after he divorced
Nora! A beautiful innocent young girl from one of the best families. You
have no idea what qualms of conscience Nora suffered at that time. She
knew the bride, she knew her parents, and she knew particularly
Hersfeld, her former husband. But despite the fact that she knew him so
well, she must still have loved him. Somewhere in the innermost recesses
of her heart were still the ruins of a strong passion. And it seemed a
crime to her to accuse the man. Besides, everybody would have called it
an act of petty revenge. On the other hand, it would be a far greater
crime to let the poor girl make such a marriage out of ignorance.”

“Good God!” said Myra, “did she do it?”

“Nora was so helpless, she could scarcely move, and the situation was
further complicated by the fact that the girl had already been in love
with Hersfeld while he was married, and regarded his wife, if not
hostilely, at least with suspicion. Nora has often told me that in her
desperate dilemma she used to pray for a miracle.

“And the miracle happened. The wedding did not take place—the bridegroom
did not appear. When they went to fetch him, he hid himself in the
stable and began shooting with his revolver. At last he was overpowered
and taken to an institution. He lived a few months longer subject to
delusions of persecution and raving madness. Then he died. Softening of
the brain. When the cause of his death became known, one of his former
cronies observed that it was the first time anyone suspected Hersfeld of
having a brain.”

They walked on a while in silence, each wrapped in his own thoughts.

Then Eccarius looked up with sudden resolution. Once more his face was
irradiated by that fugitive, friendly smile.

“But you have got me off my subject very insidiously. I’ve told you a
long story, but not a word about what I was instructed to tell you. And
not only instructed, what I want to tell you of my own free will....”

“Must you?” asked Myra with imploring eyes. “Do you really believe there
is anything you can tell me? I know that you mean well by me, and I am
grateful to you for it. But I feel so strongly—perhaps because I am so
young and have just come of age—that only I can help myself and that I
must help myself. I know that I will not always find the best and the
shortest way, and I haven’t even any goal, or only insofar as it may be
a goal to want to know life whole, as far as it is possible for a woman
to do so, its light and its shadowy sides, its merits and demerits. Just
as one gets to know a person—whom one loves!”

“If you love life,” said Eccarius with an accommodating persistence,
“you must approach it very discreetly. And if you have no goal, or only
the desire to see as much as possible in the paths of your own
selecting, then you should be careful not to end up in a blind alley
from which there is no escape. Don’t be angry with me, but I have been
guilty of watching you on the quiet. I’ve seen you twice a day at least
in the last two months. In the course of the years I have acquired some
little knowledge of people, and the impression you make is not that of a
person who loves life, but of one who is not afraid of death.”

Myra was already ringing the door-bell, and she turned to him.

“Is that a contradiction? Can’t one do both—love life and not be afraid
of death? Perhaps they belong together. I will make it my motto and
write it large over all my days and ways—‘Love life and be not afraid of
death.’”

“I know a still better motto,” said Eccarius, “it is possible to turn
the sentence about. Then I will make it my motto.”

The maid opened the door. To Myra’s questioning glance Eccarius shook
his head slightly.

“Some other time.”

* * * * *

They were sitting together in the early twilight of a winter’s day,
Nora, Sophie, Eccarius and Myra. It was already dark in the room so that
it was no longer possible to distinguish the features of the person
sitting next one. But nobody wanted the light.

Myra had asked after John. And Sophie told her with anger and
perturbation that he was the victim of some very hateful gossip. Someone
had informed his friend, the fat old Drencker, in a very ugly way, that
his money was making it possible for young Kraft to pursue his studies,
or rather that Will Kraft was squandering his, Drencker’s, money at
cards and on women.

Nora had defended John. Even though she saw him in no very transfiguring
light, and his relationship with Drencker was always incomprehensible
and painful to her, she had never ceased to believe that his friendship
for Will Kraft was an entirely ideal infatuation.

“And suppose it weren’t!” said Sophie stubbornly. “Whenever a human
bargain is struck the buyer is to blame. The person who sells himself is
always in extremity. And it is bad enough that it is possible for a rich
swine like him to buy a share in a human creature. His demand to have
him wholly and solely to himself is insolence!”

“Every transaction must be honest!” said Eccarius in his gentle,
reflective way.

“No,” Sophie became excited. “Whoever buys a human being with his filthy
money for the gratification of his base little lusts ought to be
deceived. There _ought_ to be things that cannot be bought, that really
cannot be bought, whether it’s love of honor or fame or talent or
nobility—the buyer is always the first on the scene, thumping his
money-bags and commanding, ‘I want that, do this for me, I can pay.’ It
is not until then that the commodity appears. Do you suppose that the
idea would ever enter the head of a poor musician to offer his songs,
the most precious things he possesses, to a rich money-grubber so that
they may appear under the latter’s name? No, that idea could flower only
in the mind of a rich money-grubber.

“I know many such cases—from the most innocent beginnings when the
well-fed son of a middle class father has his poor, but talented
school-mate compose his love letters for him for a handful of
cigarettes—to those first nights at the opera when a gentleman takes his
bows as the composer who has never written a line of music, and couldn’t
write one. Ah, the world is a rather disgusting place! One can only be
happy by having as little to do with it as possible. We sit here on our
island, eh, Norina? And many as are the ships that touch here, they all
voyage on again. No one may settle on our domain. For the rest, all I
have to say is, that Drencker should be happy that his fate is not that
of the poor fellow who shot himself a week ago because a gang of
extortioners were slowly throttling him, and the unhappy man preferred
to be dead than always living in the shadow of the jail.”

Eccarius shook his head. “To think that this medieval punishment still
exists!”

“But there must be some protection for children and people not yet of
age,” Nora declared, “even when those minors happen to be over
twenty-one. There is a very true saying that where there is no accuser,
there is no judge. When two mature people live with one another, it is
no more the concern of any official body than is the private life of a
married couple. Unfortunately, I must say, in most cases. Where there is
punishment, there must first have been accusation, and where someone
accuses, he must first feel that he has suffered an injustice.”

“Paragraph one hundred and sixty-five is a cloak for scoundrels and
extortioners,” Eccarius objected more vehemently than was his wont, “and
no protection at all for children of whatever age. Children endure in
silence and make no accusations. When a case does come to light, then
the world cries out in indignation. But there are thousands of cases of
such crimes committed against children which never see the light of
day.”

“That can’t be possible,” said Sophie, her voice vibrant with emotion.
“In the whole world there cannot be a thousand monsters to whom a child
is not something sacred.”

Eccarius laughed, a harsh, lifeless laugh.

“I will describe to you one case, one out of thousands. One case out of
the thousands where the criminal goes unapprehended. I knew a family, a
well-to-do and respected family, clever, kindly parents, who had four
healthy, talented children—boys. The mother could not take care of the
needs of four growing boys unassisted, besides it would not have been
the proper thing to do, so they hired a maid for the lads. A
half-educated person, as is customary, with an agreeable exterior, good
references and all possible recommendations. This maid delighted in
nothing more than to inform the boys of matters against which they had
been carefully guarded. The unhappy children were thus completely under
her thumb. They knew that they were doing forbidden things. They were
tangled up in the terrible concept of ‘sin’ and prayed to God for
succor. The infamous woman had an inexhaustible imagination and
constantly invented new devices to whip up the resisting and jaded
children. They became more and more miserable. Everything possible was
done for them, they were sent to expensive baths—accompanied, of course,
by their maid. From time to time, one of the boys would resolve to
confess everything to his mother—but he got no farther than the resolve.
Such things were too frightful to confess to the gentlest of mothers.
Perhaps you can imagine what kind of ‘childhood’ such children enjoyed.
Exhausted in body and soul, disinclined to play or work, in spite of
their talents hardly able to pass through school, living in everlasting
fear of discovery, of punishment, of sickness, of Hell—and never able to
withstand their vices, slinking more and more like shadows through the
days, living only in the perilous practices of the night.

“When the maid left to continue her work in another family, it was too
late. Not one of the four recovered. One shot himself the night after
his marriage. The second remained an unhappy monomaniac and after a
complete nervous break-down had to be taken to a sanitarium. The two
youngest turned their backs on everything that suggested Eros. One, an
ascetic, took refuge in a monastery. The other dragged his way through a
drab and joyless world, shrinking from all human companionship. The
woman is probably an esteemed children’s maid to this very day, under
whose prudent care more charges are being ruined.”

Nobody said anything. The darkness had slowly filled the whole room,
leaving the windows hardly more than pale gray oblongs.

“Oh,” said Sophie. Myra seemed to hear her voice trembling with angry
tears, and seemed to feel her clench her fist. “She ought to be hanged!”

“Then you’d have to hang a great many people,” said Eccarius quietly.

Again the heavy silence weighed on them.

There was a knock, somebody opened the door. A ray of light stabbed the
darkness, a voice tore the silence.

“Here is the newspaper,” said the maid, stopping in surprise at the
door. “Shall I turn on the lights, madame?”

“Yes, do, Martha.”

The light was like a trumpet blast. They all bowed their heads to escape
its glare, knitting their brows and blinking their eyes.

None of them had the courage to look at the others. Sophie took the
paper from the maid and began to read aloud, the most indifferent things
in the world, things that could interest nobody. But all of them feigned
interest, and everybody had something to say, so that a lively
conversation ensued, made up entirely of trifling remarks.

Eccarius left before the conversation had died down again.

They continued to speak of various things after he was gone. But they
seemed no longer able to sustain an affectedly frivolous conversation.
Sophie had a saving idea. She proposed a game of scat so that they could
sit together for a little longer and have something to occupy their
minds.

But suddenly, in the middle of the game, she let the hand holding her
cards sink to the table.

“He has one brother in the insane asylum,” she said as if she had been
thinking of nothing else all the while.

“I know,” said Nora just as seriously. “And another in a monastery.”

XIV

When Myra reached home she was met in the hall by one of the maids who
said—as it seemed to Myra, with an ambiguous and lewd smile—“Miss
Werkenthin is waiting for Miss Rudloff.”

Myra felt her heart palpitate, as it had so often of late. She walked
more slowly, not wishing to reach the door of her room too soon. She
felt that she must have a few moments’ reprieve. But she felt, too, as
if the maid had stopped, and she thought that mocking, spying glance was
stabbing her back, between the shoulder blades. So she walked quicker.

It was cold outside, cold on the stairs, cold in the hall.

She had been so happy at the idea of her warm, quiet room, of the mild
light of the lamp, of an hour in the easy-chair with a good book in her
hand. Now her beloved room was quite filled with a strange presence, a
cloud of opium and stupefying perfume would assail her, and she would
not enjoy a quiet quarter of an hour that night.

Once more she would lie awake half the night with all her nerves
jumping, taking one sleeping-tablet after another to induce a few hours
of dull unrefreshing slumber.

She was shaken by sudden anger.

“I want my room to myself!” she thought, gritting her teeth like a
defiant child, and clenching her fists. “Every animal has its hole into
which to creep! I want a room where I can be alone. I must be alone, I
must have rest. I don’t want any stranger in my room!”

Exhausted and close to tears, she supported herself for a moment against
the wall. She was considering whether it would not be better to go out
again, to take refuge in a coffee-house and read the papers. But she was
tired and dreaded the cold dark street. Moreover, she would have to come
home in the end, and up until midnight there would be someone constantly
waiting for her in her room.

So she walked with sudden decision to her door. She decided to feign a
headache. Ah, she would probably have one soon from anxiety and anger.
She would simply go to bed, make compresses, and swallow powders,
replying to all questions with a curt yes or no. Then, perhaps, she
would presently be left alone.

As she opened her door, she felt for a moment as if she were dreaming or
insane.

All the doors and drawers of her desk were open. White heaps stood up
like little mountains. Her hasty glance took in letters, pictures,
books, notebooks—everything in wild disorder.

Before the open drawers Gisela was kneeling in a shirt and black silk
underwear, rummaging among Myra’s linen.

The worst that one could do to Myra was to touch her unprotected things.

She sprang at Gisela, seizing her bare arm angrily.

“What are you doing here? What’s in your mind?” she cried.

Gisela was not in the least frightened. “You come too soon,” she said
coldly, baring her teeth with a mocking twitch of her lips. “Yes, you
come too soon. I know very well what I’m talking about. I mean not too
late, too soon. If you had come five minutes later, all would have been
over.”

“What is the meaning of this?” Myra was becoming more and more enraged,
rather than frightened, although the face that had been pushed close to
hers for some hundred seconds, was strange and weird. “What are you
doing here? Why are you going through my things?”

“I’m looking for something,” said Gisela, sharply and contemptuously.
“You can see for yourself that I’m looking for something. Is it any of
your business? I really don’t think it _is_ any of your business. I
really don’t believe that anything,” she touched Myra’s breast several
times with one finger, “goes on in there, in your heart. Or in my heart
for you. I’m in the ground, deep in the ground.” With a gentle broken
voice and a face distorted by sorrow, she sang, “In the cool ground.”
Suddenly in a completely altered tone that was clear and almost
businesslike, she said, “I’m looking for your revolver.”

Myra started to glance at the night-table, but with almost superhuman
energy checked herself when she saw that Gisela’s eyes were glued to her
face, watching every expression.

“What do you want with the revolver?” she asked very quietly. “It’s no
plaything for you.”

“What do I want with the revolver?” said Gisela with a plaintive singing
child’s voice. “To hold it against my temple, to pull the trigger, to
die, to sleep. What a question! What do I want with the revolver? Ai,
ai, what do people generally do with revolvers? Ai, ai....” She suddenly
began to laugh. “Have you ever heard anybody say ‘Ai, ai,’ before in
your life? It’s too stupid! Who can have invented the expression? Ai,
ai! Ai, ai!” She began to laugh louder and louder. She laughed so much
that the tears ran down her face. She shook her head so that wisps of
hair fluttered about her forehead while she kept repeating, “Ai, ai! Ai,
ai!”

Suddenly she got up and her slender elegantly shod foot kicked her
clothes which were lying on the floor.

“You mustn’t be surprised that I got undressed,” she said, “I did it
intentionally because I felt too warm. You’ll probably think it’s not
right for me to undress in your room. If so, I forthwith beg your
pardon, ask your forgiveness.” She said it very formally. “You’ll think
a lot of things are not right because you come from a higher sphere of
society. In other words, you’re just a spheroid!” Again she began to
laugh hysterically. “I never did know what that was, but you’re exactly
what I imagined a spheroid looked like!” She tottered and supported
herself with both hands against the commode; her eyes were half shut,
her mouth was distorted with pain. “If anybody in all this world loved
me, she would put me to bed now. Oh, if I could only lie down so that my
brain would get back into place again. It has turned over. But that’s
the way it feels, exactly that way.”

Myra caught her elbow and supported her.

“Come, I’ll put you to bed.” She made an effort to speak very gently.
“Come, you poor child. You can lie down and be comfortable on the divan.
Then your poor brain will get back into place again. You are tired and
you must sleep. Then you’ll be fresh and cheerful again in a few hours.”

She took the slender, limp body by the shoulders, and guiding Gisela to
the divan, laid her among the cushions and covered her with a blanket
from the bed.

She sat beside Gisela, mechanically caressing her cold, and apparently
lifeless hands until the girl’s irregular breathing grew more quiet. Her
limbs relaxed and her head sank deep among the pillows.

Myra sat for a while without moving, for she was afraid she would wake
the sleeper. At any rate, it was quiet in her room now.

She looked at the clock. In half an hour Gisela was supposed to be at
the cabaret. Myra cast a glance at the exhausted face with its worn
features and open mouth. It was hardly possible to awaken the sleeper
now and remind her of her obligations. Nor had Myra the slightest desire
to do so.

She rose quietly to go to the telephone. She wanted at least to call up
the cabaret and tell them that Gisela was sick. Perhaps she could save
her a fine in that way. Moreover, the thought was unbearable to her
middle-class sensibilities that people would be waiting there, becoming
more and more excited from moment to moment, and not know what had
happened.

At first she walked on tiptoe, glancing back cautiously like a criminal,
toward the night-table, planning to remove the revolver. She wondered
where she could put it. No place seemed safe enough. She decided to
carry it on her person, and as she did not want it seen, she thrust it
into her waist. It felt heavy and cold and gruesome hanging in her light
shirt, and although she had tried the safety catch, she thought that at
every step the slightest jolt would loosen it, jar the trigger, and
drive a bullet through her breast. Defiantly, she told herself that
nothing better could happen, controlling her fear in that fashion.

She waited a long time in the telephone booth before she gave her number
because she thought she heard steps in the hall, or doors opening. She
did not want anybody to overhear her conversation.

When she finally got her connection, she had to repeat three separate
times the litany that Miss Werkenthin was ill and could not come.

“One moment, please, I’ll connect you with the office,” said the first,
very courteous voice.

“Wait a minute, I’ll give you the manager,” said the second less
affably.

“So,” said the third sharp voice, “so Miss Werkenthin is sick. Well, the
doctor will decide that! He’ll be at her room in a quarter of an hour.”

“Miss Werkenthin is not at her room,” said Myra with a throbbing heart.
“She is at my room.”

“And who are you anyway?”

“A friend of Miss Werkenthin.” No, not even if they had broken her on
the rack would Myra have told him her name. “Miss Werkenthin was
visiting me and she fainted.”

She heard the mocking intonation with which the voice repeated, “She
went to a friend’s house and fainted!”

Another voice hoarse with rage, shouted into the mouthpiece, “She’s
drunk, huh?”

Myra heard somebody being dragged away and pacified, and more rude
muttering. “Morphine, coke and alcohol, one after the other!”

“Tell your friend,” this was the first sharp voice, and the contemptuous
“your friend” was like a blow to Myra, “that while I can understand her
preferring the pleasure of your company to an appearance on my stage, I
can also assure her that it is no pleasure at all for me to pay her a
high wage for nothing or less than nothing. Miss Werkenthin must come
with a doctor’s certificate tomorrow or she will be dismissed.”

The receiver was hung up with a bang.

For a painful moment Myra considered phoning the doctor. Perhaps he
could be moved to write a certificate.

But she would have to give her name and address. She would have to meet
this strange man and take him into her room. She was boiling with
indignation. How had she been precipitated into all this?

She returned to her room without making a sound. When she saw her things
scattered on the floor, another wave of anger swept over her.

She did not want to go out. But neither did she like to see everything
ransacked and thrown about in this fashion.

She turned a chair so that its back was to the desolation in the room
and on the divan. She picked up a scientific work and endeavored to
concentrate on it. On the divan, the regular breathing was so hoarse and
harsh that it seemed not to come from that delicate body. The disorder
behind her signified disturbance too. It was as if the open drawers and
doors were uttering a cry for help. And she seemed to have eyes in the
back of her head which could see through the easy-chair to the pieces of
paper and batiste which stood out white against the dark carpet.

The walking and talking ceased outside. It grew still in the room, still
in the house.

The heat died down, the room became colder and colder.

The cold crept from the floor into Myra’s legs. She drew up her feet on
the chair, but that did not help for long.

Beside her on the floor lay Gisela’s coat. She picked it up and wrapped
it around her knees. A cloud of dust rose from it. Disgusted, she threw
it back on the carpet.

She was shivering with cold and agitation and weariness.

Long after midnight she got up to fetch her own coat from the nearest
chair. Her limbs were stiff and hurt at every move. As cautiously as she
stepped the boards creaked, and Gisela started up with a cry.

Her eyelids were swollen thick, her hair hung in tangled strands around
her pale, haggard face.

“Who’s there?” she cried. “Oh, it’s you, Myra!” She laughed slightly
embarrassed. “I thought it was someone breaking in!”

“I called up the Trocadero,” said Myra quietly and wearily. “I think
Kayser himself answered the telephone. You missed the performance. He
was very angry. You have to bring a doctor’s certificate in the morning,
or he’ll let you go.”

“Let him,” said Gisela scornfully. “He’s ridiculous with his threats!”

Myra shrugged her shoulders. “Perhaps you can tell him that yourself
tomorrow. It was unpleasant enough to let myself be treated by such a
man as if it were my fault.”

“Poor Myra.” It sounded sincerely remorseful and without a trace of
sarcasm. “You don’t know how bad you make me feel. Must your poor little
bourgeois soul with its thousand cares be worried about me!” She worked
her way out from under the blanket. “I was pretty much in my right mind
before, when I was looking for the revolver, believe me! I know exactly
what I am worth, and what is best for my own sake and everybody else’s.”

She sat on the divan, gazing gloomily at her slender legs in their black
silk stockings.

“My mother always prophesied that I’d end in the gutter. Even when I was
a little girl. And I must end soon if it isn’t to be there. I’m sick,
tomorrow I may be breadless. My voice is gone, ruined. Tomorrow I’ll be
hunting a lover at the club, the day after at the café, the week after
on the street.”

She raised her face which was bathed in tears.

“Give me your revolver, Myra, I beg you. You’ll be doing a good deed.
I’ll write a farewell letter so that you won’t be under suspicion. I beg
you, have mercy on me!”

“I haven’t got it any more,” Myra lied. “I’ve hidden it.” At that moment
she felt it hanging heavily in the loose bulge on her shirtwaist so that
the collar was like a tight narrow band around her neck.

“What will happen now?” she thought. “I’ll never get rid of her. It will
go on like this. I’ll find her in my room every time I come home. She
won’t have a job any longer, and no money. She’ll stick to me like a
burr. And that’s what my life will be like! Why should all this have
happened? How have I deserved it? Only because I let myself be pleased
by her affection. Has she any claim on me because of that, have I given
myself into her hands body and soul?”

Shivering with cold, Gisela crossed her bare arms over her breast.

“It’s cold here,” she said. “Why didn’t you come to bed, poor little
beastie? It must certainly be very late—much too late for me to catch a
car home. Ah, I feel changed. Come, Myra girl, let us both come to bed
so that we’ll be warm. Do you feel as deathly cold as I do?”

“No,” said Myra curtly. “Lie down. I want to read a little more. I’m
still too wide awake.”

“I’ll lie close to the wall,” Gisela said. “You’ll have room.”

“Yes, yes, thanks!”

Myra sat perfectly still again in her deep easy-chair. Again the weight
of the revolver made a fine tight band across her neck. She reflected on
her conduct and became dizzy as if she saw an abyss which she had
crossed without having been aware of its terrible depth.

Had not a voice within her cried only a moment before, “Do it! Give her
the revolver! Let her make an end of it, and then you’ll have peace!”

If she had done that, there would have been a shot, blood and brains
would have spurted, a corpse would be lying in her room, or a dying
woman.

She, Myra Rudloff, would have committed a murder!

Out of cowardliness, out of love of comfort, out of petty pitiful
selfishness. She had already committed that murder in her mind. All that
had been needed was an innocent lifting of her hand....

And then....

She shuddered and cowered.

From the bed came a deep regular breathing.

Myra’s mouth twisted into a scornful smile.

“But she would not have done it,” she thought, “she’d never have done
it.”

* * * * *

A highroad stretched away toward the light. In the dark shadowy corners
that the sun never reached, little stained rotting patches of snow were
still lying. The fruit trees at either side of the road were laden with
little ball-like buds on which a white streak was already discernible.
The woods in the distance were enveloped in a reddish veil that
betokened new life.

Myra and Sophie were wandering along the road.

“God, it’s beautiful,” said Myra, opening her mouth to draw the pure
invigorating air into her lungs. “It was a wonderful idea of Nora’s to
chase us both out!”

“Nora always has wonderful ideas,” said Sophie with a happy,
affectionate pride. “She always knows what I need and what will do me
good much better than I do myself. For the most part I never know what
is the matter with me. Actually, I feel uncomfortable and I don’t know
whether I should like to sleep, eat or go for a walk. Then Nora says to
me, ‘You ought to lie down,’ or ‘you need to get out into the air’—and
it’s always the right thing.”

“Good God, how beautiful the world is!” Myra exulted. “Oh, Sophus, I’m
so insanely grateful to you for making me conscious again!”

“We will walk often in the open together,” said Sophie. “I’ll show you
all the things that I looked at a hundred times long ago, very long ago,
at a period when I was desperately lonely and devoured by the need of
some human soul to whom I could show them. We must come here when the
fruit trees are in bloom, and afterwards, when the whole woods is a
garden of dog-roses and May-flowers, and in September when the leaves
have turned.” She seized Myra’s hand, clasping the wrist with a grip so
firm that it was almost painful. “You must not go away—that was all
nonsense that I preached to you before. We’ll have to put your life to
rights here. We must find something for you to do, and you must furnish
a nice little home so that you don’t have to remain in that horrible
pension. Then you’ll come after work and chat with us and once a week
we’ll have to declare a holiday and run around the mountains from
morning till night.” Suddenly she changed her tone and said with an
amusing dryness, “And then when we’re tired out, we’ll stand on some
declivity where we can smell the dinner that God destined for us,
steaming out of the chimney pots below, and we won’t be able to get
down....”

“We’ll get down!” said Myra confidently. “If for no other reason,
because we can’t do anything else. Or shall we turn aside from our goal
to seek an easier way? Never!”

At first, while their feet sank in the rustling leaves, the going was
easy. But during the last stage, just on a level with the roofs, above
the road, there were more pines and spruces and the ground was strewn
with needles which in the bright sunlight were smoother than a waxed
floor.

Sophie who was accustomed from childhood to the ups and downs of
mountains, though she was somewhat out of practice of late, was
nevertheless much surer-footed than Myra, who looked for a supporting
branch from step to step. Sophie stretched out her hand to her, but Myra
declined it ambitiously. Whereupon both of them began to laugh at
themselves, at one another, at their little adventure, at the quips they
shouted. All that was necessary was for one of them to warn the other
that he might slip, to turn the laughter they were trying to suppress
into a peal of childish merriment. Myra laughed until the tears came
into her eyes. She was no longer watching where she stepped. Suddenly
her feet slipped, a branch which she caught at snapped and remained in
her hands. She would certainly have fallen had not Sophie, whose one
foot was supported against a root, stooped and caught her and held her
upright. They remained for a moment breast to breast, hot, laughing,
panting for breath, while their pulses throbbed. At the same moment both
became serious. Their faces bent one toward the other—humbly,
ineluctably, lips were laid against lips.

Myra closed her eyes. She felt Sophie’s feverish mouth on her eyelids,
her temples, her cheeks. She heard her hot voice in a whisper.

“Don’t move, don’t resist, or we will both go plunging down!”

She had no thought of resisting. She had no thought of moving. She stood
motionless. Her heart seemed to expand, to grow warm. It seemed to her
as if she must flower under these caresses like a young tree in May.

They ate lunch under a friendly enticing red roof, and crossing the
silvery lake, wandered toward the station. At times they were
boisterous, at times sentimental, but always courteously reserved on the
personal theme. They spoke of a thousand things, but not of themselves,
not of that which both were thinking and feeling.

At the small station, they sat with other people, silent and tired,
waiting for the train. The darkness set in early. The little lanterns
cast a melancholy light through the blue dusk. Myra began to feel cold,
and pressed her face against her raised coat collar.

At last the train came. They both looked for an empty compartment
without stating their intention. They found one and climbed in.

“Now everything will be all right,” thought Myra. “I will lay my head on
her shoulder and she will say gentle, nice things to me. Then this cold
feeling will go away.”

Sophie sat beside her, leaning slightly forward, and stared out the
window without saying a word—for a long, a long, long time. Outside,
fields and forest glided by, shrouded deeper and deeper in the twilight,
broken at rare intervals by a lighted window, a solitary lantern. At
last Sophie turned her face to Myra, a face which in the feeble glow of
the flickering little gas-lamp looked grave, deathly pale and tense in
every feature.

“I told you something this morning, Myra,” she began awkwardly,
stammering, and yet it sounded as if she had spent the last hour
learning it by heart. “Just recollect it as if it were the only thing I
had said or done. I told you to go away from here! And now I beg you if
you bear me the least—good will—‘Go away from here!’ I’ve known for
almost thirty years that I cannot live without Nora. I’ve proved it to
myself. I went to the bad in every sense when I lost contact with her,
and I became a human being and a worker at the moment she came to me. I
have lived for five years in the conviction that I am unequivocally
happy. I dare not let anything shake that conviction. I dare not ever
think that there is another possibility in life for me than Nora. She
would feel it and she would go. She endures her sufferings solely
because she is an absolute necessity to me. She would end it all if she
knew that I was happy for as much as an hour without her. Perhaps you
like us so well that it will be a real sacrifice to give up your
friendly relations with us. I would almost say, I hope so.” She bowed
her head very low so that Myra should not see the quivering of her lips.
“But I know that you will make this sacrifice because you have an
intimation of what is involved. I have overestimated my powers. It is
very bad to have to confess that to you. When you are gone, I will
confess it to Nora. But not now, as long as it might deprive her of her
peace for a moment. And I would not find the right voice in which to
tell it now!” She stared out the window again.

Myra’s throat was parched.

“Of course,” she said without thinking, “naturally.” And again, “Yes, of
course, naturally!” without knowing what she meant by it.

When the train stopped, Sophie jumped out and caught Myra’s elbow in
order to assist her. But she relinquished it again at once, and both
smiled with hurt and embarrassment.

They took leave of one another on the platform with a firm squeeze of
the hand.

“Get home safely, child,” said Sophie, “and get safely through life. And
I thank you—for everything.”

“And I you,” answered Myra in a lifeless voice.

Then she dropped the good firm hand.

For a moment their eyes met, stole one into the other’s, then they
shifted again, as if frightened, to some bright point in the distance.

Sophie turned. She plunged both hands in her pockets, bent her head and
strode away.

For a while she continued to tower above the crowds of hurrying people,
then her tall figure was submerged and disappeared.

Slowly, with heavy footsteps, Myra turned toward the opposite stairway.

They sat first in the basket-chairs in front of a café with little lamps
that had roses on the silk shades and pearl fringes. There were Gisela,
Kramer, Mara Luigi, Will Kraft, John. They ate fruit-ices and waffles
and drank a sweet liqueur, in order, as Giesbert said, “to prevent a
glaciation of their stomach walls.”

But Mara Luigi who had been dancing, and Kraft and John, who had been to
the concert, had not eaten that evening and expressed their cravings for
a real beefsteak. So they travelled two doors farther down to a wine
restaurant where the orchestra was playing the same pieces in a somewhat
different order.

After their meal they went to the nearest bar and drank a Sweden punch
and a bottle of champagne, and Mara Luigi danced with Giesbert and
Kraft, which caused all the other dancers to stop and stare with
interest. Myra felt her vanity somewhat flattered because she was with
such excellent dancers.

But the official closing time came. The waiters brought the bill, turned
down the lights and drew the heavy purple curtains across the windows.
But nobody thought of getting up and going.

At a neighboring table were sitting a beautiful blonde woman and two
gentlemen. Myra kept staring at her all evening. The blonde woman
regarded everything with a smiling or surprised curiosity, as if she
were at a zoological garden, while the two robust gentlemen sat beside
her as if it were their task to shield her from every impertinent glance
and every poisonous breath.

“Probably one of them is her husband the other her brother,” thought
Myra. “There is a place unoccupied at their table, why don’t I sit
there? Don’t I belong among that kind of people? By family, education,
training and manners? The smooth-shaven man is certainly her
brother—he’s the dead image of her. Wouldn’t it be much more suitable if
I were married to him, and were making a little evening out with my
brother and sister-in-law. That would be very nice. But why do I want
that? Merely because I have a nostalgia for perfectly plain simple
bourgeois surroundings, or because that lovely woman pleases me?”

When the three people had left the neighboring table, Myra began to find
it quite boresome and sterile. She was tired and had had her fill, but
it seemed to her as if something further must happen in order to give
this senseless expenditure of time and money some semblance of
justification. She was afraid that it would happen again, as always,
when she left a party early because she could not endure the boredom of
it any longer. Everybody would say to her next day, “Oh, what a pity
that you went so early, it was especially nice later on, we met so and
so, and we had such a good time!”

Gisela was all for going to the Club. The others, except Kraft, who
never touched a card, not from moral scruples, but because they bored
him to death, agreed.

Myra was a little frightened. She knew that it would turn out as usual.
Gisela would play and lose. Then Myra would try to save something and
place her own bet—with some caution and discretion, and would win twice
and lose three times. Or the other way round.

In any case, those hours at the Club always cost a few hundred or a few
thousand marks, and for a week Myra would calculate the lost sums in
terms of the books she saw in show-windows or handsome wood and leather
goods. Or she would look at the beggars on the street whom she could
have made happy, and the pale-faced children, with burning eyes,
standing in front of toy shops or confectioners’ windows.

To be sure—she herself was not much put out. She could telegraph the
bank and in a few hours would have as much money as she wanted. She was
not extremely clever at banking manipulations but she did know one
thing, she spent more than her interest. Sometimes it gave her an uneasy
feeling, almost a slight dizziness. But she scolded herself for a
narrow-minded Philistine. She would never have children—and she would
not live long. It might even be good not to possess another cent and
have, so to speak, to balance on a tight-rope. Such a situation would
prove whether the forces of life were strong enough in her. Perhaps she
would be happier in some very modest walk of life where she had to
work—as a waitress or a shop-girl. Perhaps physical need would be at
once an impetus and an absolution for putting her beloved revolver to
her forehead.

But it was not merely indifference to life or death that caused Myra to
go to the Club with the others. Gisela played with more bad luck than
passion, and if she was so insistent about going to the Club or some bar
or dance-hall, it was because she hoped to meet Fiametta there. Myra
knew this. They had met often during the winter, and Myra was fascinated
each time by her eloquent and haughty beauty, and was each time vexed
because Fiametta was always dressed in better taste, was more assured in
her manner, and above all, travelled in much better company than Myra.

As no one was at hand to attract Myra’s attention, she looked at herself
in a mirror. She seemed quite a stranger to herself, and yet acceptable.
She winked at herself in the glass as if to say, “Never fear, tonight
we’ll manage to put on as haughty a face as that conceited person!”

* * * * *

By the time they left the Club they were all in a more or less bad
humor. They had all lost except John, who, with his hands full of bills,
was running after Kraft and with tears in his eyes and a pleading voice,
trying to force the money on him.

Will Kraft refused it with a scarcely veiled irritation, his hands
plunged in the pockets of his jacket.

Both of them made Myra feel sorry. And Kramer made her feel sorry too,
for he had lost heavily, and was now quite pale and monosyllabic.

And Giesbert and Mara Luigi made her feel sorry: they were bandying
reproaches for not having bet at least on different sides of the table.
Under their harsh muttered words was something like a hate that has been
smouldering for years.

And Gisela made her feel sorry, because she looked wretched and decayed,
like a chronic invalid—and because she had not met Fiametta.

And she felt sorry for herself—Oh, she felt so sorry for herself!

They were all in a bad humor, but nobody wanted to go home and get over
it by himself. All of them were expecting some compensation for
this squandered night, some mad intoxication, some vast
jollification—sensation, experience, joy, or an hour’s oblivion of all
vexations.

“Where do we go from here?” asked Giesbert, swinging his cane with
somewhat affected high spirits. “Heads up, ladies and gentlemen, heads
up! As everybody knows, the tom-cat doesn’t really go into action till
morning! Forward to our sweet Emil’s! I wager that the overwhelming
majority of our distinguished little company will feel quite at home
there.”

They turned down a quiet dark side-street where stood a quiet dark
little third rate middle class beer-shop. An elderly woman, bare headed,
with a shawl around her shoulders, seemed to be waiting for a dog that
was sniffing around, and which she called and motioned to from time to
time.

Giesbert appeared to know her. He greeted her with a friendly slap on
the back, and asked her to open the door.

The old lady undertook to guide them, and amidst constant cries of
“Watch out!” they went up and down stairs, across an unlighted yard,
through narrow doors, and tiny pitch-black passages between thick baize
curtains, until suddenly there was a confusion of lights, sounds, colors
and voices.

The large long room, bathed in lilac light, was decorated with
impeccable taste. Black and lavender were the dominating colors. The
thick carpet was black strewn with lavender flowers. The polished
panelling, the marble mantelpiece, the velvet hanging covered with
wildly fantastic lavender designs were also black. On the cornice of the
panelling were black bronze and black wood-carvings, standing out
against the lilac wallpaper.

“How pretty!” said Myra her eyes wide with surprise. “How does it come
to be here?”

“Oh, his friends have furnished it for him,” said Giesbert with a rather
ironic smile. “As a kind of private establishment! Why shouldn’t it be
pretty? There are very wealthy people among them—and some very
well-known artists—painters, sculptors, interior decorators—or what have
you! In return, little Emil provides them champagne and company!”

“Emil!” called John to a slender, sinuous, dark-haired man. “Show our
ladies your establishment!”

Emil was all graciousness. He opened a narrow door, and they entered a
dimly lighted, somber room, in which were standing a dozen brown tables.
The light willow chairs had been piled on them, and the whole room was
embellished with advertisements of beer and tobacco companies.

At one table in a corner a pair of young fellows were lounging with
cards in their hands.

Next door was the real beer-shop whose window gave on the street. More
chairs and tables, the tank with its brightly polished taps and a
player-piano against the wall. The place was in almost total darkness,
only a little night-lamp above the buffet was reflected in the metal
trimmings. In one corner they saw two shadowy figures that seemed to be
wrestling, and heard suppressed gigglings.

They returned to the first room, and Emil, as he was called on all
sides, assisted them to find a cozy table and the necessary number of
chairs.

Myra regarded the people around her with a mixture of curiosity,
sympathy and aversion.

Not far off, there was sitting a fat black-bearded man on whose broad
and hairy hand a rosy solitaire flashed and sparkled. And that
fat-fingered hand adorned with rings was toying with the head and
shoulder of a pale young lad, clad in what was obviously an outworn
Sunday best. He seemed half brazen and half embarrassed.

At another table was seated a distinguished looking old gentleman, whose
finely chiselled features and gray Van Dyke, betrayed the thinker. One
of his slender white hands lay at the base of a champagne glass, the
other accompanied his long discourses as if he were on a platform or in
the pulpit. His handsome blue eyes glowed as though afire with youthful
enthusiasm. Opposite him, sat a broad-shouldered, bull-neck soldier,
with a good-looking honest peasant’s face, grinning, flattered but
uncomprehending.

More even than the men, the women attracted Myra’s attention. They ran
the whole gamut of types. Some had on dark jackets, with lapels,
breast-pockets and stiff collars. On their mannishly cut hair they wore
small men’s hats. Others betrayed themselves only by a slight
overpainting. The sharp features of a few expressed intelligence and
character. There were others who verged on the cocotte.

One in particular Myra thought very beautiful. She was tall and slender,
had short golden brown curls and the build and features of a Greek boy.
She was sitting with a big party having a very good time, and laughed a
lot and seemed slightly drunk.

A sweet provocative muffled music issued from behind the curtain. Two
young soldiers in uniform had clasped one another around the hips and
were swaying, body to body, in waltz rhythm. Despite their heavy boots,
they stepped as delicately and discreetly as women dancers—not a step
was audible.

“Ah, Emil,” said Giesbert, “how real life is here! When I think I’ll get
a bottle of champagne, I get it, but when I think, I’ll get nine
bottles, I don’t get them!”

“No, no, Mr. Giesbert,” said Emil, smiling, “you can have nine bottles
too!”

They drank champagne, and champagne with red wine, and champagne with
Port, and Benedictines, and Sweden punches and flips and champagne.

Myra drank somewhat prudently, and it amused her to watch how one after
the other, they began to talk nonsense.

But although she was still mistress of her tongue and her thoughts, she
felt her blood pulsing somewhat faster and the music lap her nerves in a
warm stream. For a moment, as she closed her eyes, she felt a desire,
and actually visualized herself sitting by the Rhine, on a terrace, or
in a garden, listening to old sentimental folk songs from the water, and
drinking a fragrant “Maybowl” with trusted friends.

When she opened her eyes and saw the room with its morbid color-scheme,
filled with smoke and fumes, she was overwhelmed with aversion and
misery.

They had become quite merry at her table. All had soft, parted, burning
lips and glowing eyes. All laughed and nestled into their chairs as into
a caress, or groped for one another with their hands.

“Intoxication, intoxication,” Myra thought, “I must force myself to feel
what the others feel! I had such a nice warm sense of well-being before,
a soft gliding dizziness. Why has it gone and left everything so stale
and horrid?”

She tossed off two glasses of champagne quickly, one after the other.
But she simply felt a dull heavy pressure over her eyes. She held her
hand over the glass that Kraft wanted to give her “to make her happy.”

“No, thanks, please, I have a head-ache, and I won’t become happy
anyway.”

“Take a little coke and get rid of your head-ache,” suggested Gisela.

“Perhaps.” Myra was ready for anything.

From all sides little gold and silver boxes were offered her.

She took a pinch of the white powder on the back of her hand, and
snuffed it up her nose. She had an impression of powdered snow when she
saw the white crystals. The room was close and stuffy and the idea made
her feel better. It was as if she were breathing pure clear winter air.
The top of her skull opened and the depressing fog that had weighed down
her brain all evening disappeared. The veils seemed to be torn from her
weary eyes. Everything seemed nearer and clearer, firmer in its
outlines, brighter in color.

“Thank God,” she said with relief, “I’m beginning to understand. It
really is a glorious feeling.”

But the effect wore off quickly. She tried it again.

Her head was clear, her thought firm. She felt well and secure.

Giesbert was paying her rather thick-tongued compliments. “Shplendid,
little Rudloff, shplendid! The little girl can carry off a thing or two!
My highest reshpects! She’ll drink ush under the table, Will, and
‘shnow’ us under the floor, into the cellar, under the cellar. We jusht
won’t be there at all, she makesh ush look shmall, sho shmall!”

Mara Luigi had changed places with Kramer in order to sit beside Myra.
She laid both her arms on the arm of Myra’s chair and spoke to her in a
low voice.

“Tell me honestly, why is it you don’t like me? I’ve always liked you so
immensely. From the very first moment—I’m right in saying that, am I
not, Gisela? But at the same time, I’ve always had the feeling that you
couldn’t abide me. I’m too feminine for you, eh? But, believe me, the
externals have very little to do with it! Or do you prefer bobbed hair?
Shall I have my hair bobbed?”

“Myra is the only woman in the world I’d ever marry,” declared little
John like a sleepy child. “I’d marry Myra right off, if I were a man!”

“God, what a fore-leg the lady has!” Kraft put his hand around her wrist
admiringly. “Show us your feet too!”

Laughing, Myra pressed her crossed feet against the edge of his chair.
He stroked her ankles in their sheer silk stockings.

“Yes, you may stroke them,” John conceded magnanimously, “you may stroke
them because it’s Myra, that’s why.”

A great and almost thrilling joy surged over Myra. She felt herself
beautiful, desirable and desired.

“She has the most beautiful legs in the world,” said Gisela, pulling
back Myra’s skirt to her knees. Myra let her do it without protest. For
the first time, in a burst of pride, she realized herself what perfect
slender legs she had.

The girl at the other table, who looked like a Greek boy, had been
constantly trying to attract Myra’s attention. Every time that Myra
glanced up, the Greek boy would carry her glass to her mouth. At first
she had done it as if by accident, now she smiled as she raised her
glass. Myra smiled back and drank to her.

Presently the girl wanted to get up. The people at her table laughed and
tried to restrain her. But she would not be deterred.

Glass in hand, she came over to Myra. The effort to walk without
staggering, lent her movements an especial grace.

“I want to drink to you,” she said with a challenging little laugh.

Myra raised her glass. They drank.

The stranger hesitated. “And—I’d like to give you a kiss, too—that is,
if Gisela will allow me.”

Everybody at the table laughed aloud and shouted remarks.

“Oh, I allow you,” said Gisela ironically.

“There is nothing for her to allow,” Myra contradicted haughtily.

The stranger bent quickly, and Myra felt against her lips a hot open
wine-wet mouth—for the space of a second. She closed her eyes, and since
her head was pressed back into her shoulders, and Kraft still held her
feet on his chair, she became so dizzy that she gripped her chair with
both hands. She felt as if the chair were tipping, the whole room
swaying, as if she were on a swing that was plunging through the air, or
on a ship whose planks were sprung and were being sucked into a raging
whirl-pool.

She sat up and pushed away the stranger almost violently in her need for
air.

At the same moment, she saw Gisela jump up, deathly pale, with her mouth
distorted, her head stretched forward like a panther ready to spring.
Her burning eyes were staring at the entrance door.

Involuntarily Myra followed her glance and saw the dark curtain fall
into place behind the latest arrivals.

Beside Ulrich Zeeden’s somewhat stooped figure stood Fiametta, on the
arm of a tall, slender elegant man.

Her eyes were large and clear and unsurprised, but full of a probing
curiosity and of a warm velvety sheen. To Myra it seemed as if those
eyes were not an arm’s length away from her, so distinctly could she
observe the play of the lids, the flecks of light on the brown iris, the
shadow of the lashes.

Those eyes were raised with a soft gleam to the man at her side as if
they had had more than enough of the scene before them. Her lips moved.
The man nodded in agreement. All three turned, and the curtain fell into
place behind them again.

Gisela seized a glass from the table and flung it with a bitter laugh at
the door. Giesbert and Kraft instantly caught her wrists. She resisted,
trying to free herself, but finally dropped her head on her breast, and
began to cry, loudly, unrestrainedly, hysterically.

The other people, occupied as they were with themselves, nevertheless
watched her attentively.

Myra began to tremble in every limb.

“Go!” she muttered. “I must go, must go, must go!”

She felt as if she would join in that strident weeping the next moment,
or throw herself on the floor, or overturn the table and trample the
glasses and bottles under her feet.

She was glad when she found herself in the street at last, in a cold
blue dawn, and still gladder to be in the taxi that they all took.

The air brought her to her senses. She felt beastly wretched.

She made the others swear not to cause any unnecessary commotion on the
stairs or in the halls. But the more she pleaded, the more exuberant
they became. Kramer had lost control completely. He was all for knocking
on Mrs. Meidinger’s door and ordering her to send him up a pretty girl.

“It’s no more than her duty,” he babbled. “She’s the mother of this
establishment. What’s to prevent her putting it on my bill, she puts
everything else on it.”

When Myra opened her door, Giesbert tried to crowd in after her. She
pushed him out, but he embraced her and a tussle ensued in the open door
in the course of which Giesbert hugged Myra and covered her face and
neck with passionate kisses.

Suddenly the door of the next room was opened with a bang, and Luisa
Peters emerged in an amazing big-checked dressing-gown, with her hair
done up for the night in two long smoothly plaited braids. She
forcefully commanded quiet.

Little Marga Luigi found her unexpected appearance so comical that she
bent double, shaking with laughter and pointing her finger at her.

Myra took advantage of Giesbert’s astonished about-face to slip into her
room where she shut and bolted the door.

She staggered against the bureau with which she supported herself,
trembling in every limb. Burning shame was devouring her, gnawing at her
inwardly, hollowing her out.

She bent double but she could not escape the incessant gnawing pain. She
wished she could get away, but she knew she did not have the courage or
the strength to pack a suitcase. But she must get away, at least out of
that house, before morning. It was unthinkable that she should ever
cross the dining-room again. Unthinkable, too, to wait for Mrs.
Meidinger to give her notice that she could not tolerate such a person
in her house.

She abhorred, she loathed herself. In addition she felt physically
wretched—dizziness, weariness, a galloping heart, the gall-like
bitterness with which the cocaine burned her jaws.

She felt that she must come to some decision, but she did not know what.

Her thoughts sought feverishly for something to which they could cling,
sought some person to whom they could confess, and who would have the
power to absolve them. She was seeking someone who would protect her
from herself, to whom she could kneel, in whose lap she could hide her
face, and who would lay kind, strong hands on her head.

“Mother!” a voice cried within her. “Mother!”

Her thoughts turned to Sophie—but Sophie repelled them. In that serene
little house, which had always been so comforting a refuge to her, she
would be a disturber of the peace. Not through any fault of hers, she
thought bitterly.

Olga—Olga alone was salvation. She would press the revolver to her
forehead, would think that it was Olga’s cool, firm hand.

And Olga’s hands would efface, erase, all the painful things, the shame,
the remorse, the disgust and grief and hopeless despair. In another
moment all that could be effaced.

And if she was dead the next morning, everything would be explained. Of
course, little Mara Luigi would not understand it: she would always
declare that Myra had been “so cheerful last night.”

But Fiametta would understand. She would recall the previous night. For
she had seen Myra, oh, Myra still felt the impact of her glance, and
Fiametta would hunch up her shoulders with a sudden shudder at the
thought that she had glanced at a dying woman.

Luisa Peters would say, “Poor child, she drank to find the courage.”

Sophie would be very shocked—perhaps she would be grieved too. But what
concern was that of Myra’s! Sophie had not given a thought as to what
became of Myra. And she had Nora....

It must happen quickly before anybody woke up in the house. In twenty
seconds it would be over—all over.

At that moment when she took the revolver out of the box, there was a
knock at the door.

Myra stood motionless, holding her breath. Perhaps she ought to do it
now, at once, quickly, spurred by that impatient knocking.

Then it would be over, then whoever was outside there could enter, for
all she cared.

Would it make a loud noise? Probably she wouldn’t hear it herself—she
hoped not, though of all the senses the ear must function the longest.
Ah, perhaps it wouldn’t happen so quickly, and she would hear them
breaking down the door and the shrieks and cries.

“Please, open the door!” called the voice outside; it was as pleading as
it was commanding. “Please, Miss Rudloff, open the door a moment!”

It was not Giesbert, or Mara Luigi, or one of the maids. It was Luisa
Peters.

Perhaps she was sick and needed someone. She would hardly be rattling
Myra’s door in the middle of the night to read her a moral lecture.

Myra tossed the revolver carelessly into the box and opened the door.

Luisa Peters forced her way into the room. She stood broad and robust,
and a little ridiculous in her big-checked dressing-gown, in spite of
her pale face.

Her quick alert eye instantly noticed the open box and the revolver with
the butt sticking out.

But she did not betray this by the slightest gesture.

“I must beg your pardon, Miss Rudloff,” she said with a good-natured
smile. “I complained because I thought that you came home in a rather
happy condition. But I saw at once that you weren’t well. You must lie
down immediately—you can hardly stand on your feet. Can I help you? You
had better believe, I know something about taking care of sick people!”

While she was speaking, she took Myra’s hat from her tangled hair. She
unbuttoned her dress. She held Myra like a doll, turning her this way
and that with her strong arms. She removed the hurting hair-pins from
the loosened knots.

Suddenly Myra felt the warm presence of a human being, felt those good,
strong, solicitous hands. It was as if all her festering wounds broke
open and warm blood washed away her pain. She began to weep,
unappeasable gentle tears, releasing her, rinsing her of pain.

“I am still too much a child,” she said, while the tears streamed down
her face. “You will think I am drunk—but I am perfectly serious. I am
still too much a child to run around the world so horribly alone!”

* * * * *

For three days Luisa Peters held Myra in gentle captivity. She did not
leave her alone for a moment, had her meals served in her room and
turned away everyone with the announcement that Myra was sick.

Myra was perfectly satisfied with this arrangement. She herself would
not have found the strength for this lie, and yet she felt the absolute
necessity of separating forever from all the people among whom she had
lived during the past year.

The very first day Luisa Peters endeavored to convince Myra—which did
not prove difficult—that her associations were altogether unsuitable and
that the best thing she could do would be to turn her back on that city
and all her so-called friends.

On the third, in the morning, she told Myra a great deal about her
native city, of its far-famed cleanliness for which she was constantly
longing, of its people who were reputed stiff and formal because they
did not wear their hearts on their sleeves—although they were honest and
courageous and pure. She told her, too, about her beautiful little
step-sister, Gwen, who was about Myra’s age, though still a child, the
carefully sheltered pet of the whole house. She would be a more suitable
companion for Myra than these horrible females here.

In the afternoon she helped Myra pack her suitcase. Myra wanted to go
away, to go to the clean city where the swift white little boats crossed
the blue waters.

Myra was quite touched by so much kindness and more so, if anything, by
Luisa’s confidence.

She smiled, a sad and knowing smile, when at parting Luisa Peters took
her in her arms and kissed her on both cheeks.

“At heart I’m at least ten years older than she,” she thought
sorrowfully, “for I know what, God be praised, she does not even
suspect—that she’s in love with me! Because she has little of the talent
of ‘the horrible females,’ she’ll never confess it to herself. Probably
she’d have to shoot herself, if she admitted it. God grant, that she
never becomes conscious.”

The only person whose hand Myra wished to shake once more was Eccarius.
There was much sympathy in his face. Perhaps Luisa Peters had informed
him of more than Myra gave her credit for knowing.

“There is something that you still have to tell me,” said Myra with an
attempt at smiling, “I’ve often thought of it on sleepless nights and
have wanted to ask you—and then I’ve always forgotten. Do you remember
when we were walking out to Mrs. Hersfeld’s one day”—a sudden shyness
prevented her from mentioning Sophie’s name—“I said that my motto would
be ‘Love life and be not afraid of death!’ But you wanted to turn the
motto around....”

“Yes,” Eccarius nodded gravely. “‘Love death and be not afraid of life!’
Or in other words, and this is my life’s motto, a good motto for a long
journey, ‘No one ought to die until he has learned to love death!’”

XVI

Somewhere
The long white roads lead well away:
Somewhere
Will lead me home on earth, some day.

Myra was sitting on the terrace with the older women, with Mrs. Peters,
with Mrs. Borgessen, with Mrs. Wietinghoff, and with the young Mrs.
Vandahl who because of her condition felt a little awkward and preferred
to sit still in her basket-chair rather than amuse herself with the
“young people” in the garden.

Nearly all the women had some knitting in hand at which they worked more
or less attentively. The conversation flowed along quietly, without
haste, but also without stopping.

Myra looked down at the white net through which, also without haste but
without stopping, she plied her needle in and out, silently rejoicing
that she did not need to take part in the conversation. All she had to
do was keep her eyes on her work. She need only look up and speak when
she was spoken to. As a result, she seemed demure and young-girlish, and
nobody ever suspected what a gloriously comfortable feeling that was.

She had sat on that terrace frequently in the last few months, but that
day for the first time she felt the beauty of the garden, the quiet
voices beside her, the clear calls from the tennis court,
everything—colors, fragrances, sounds—with a sense of ease and comfort
and grateful enjoyment.

For weeks and weeks she had lived in a state of secret apprehension like
a criminal in flight. A hundred times, she thought she saw Gisela or
heard her voice. A hundred times, when she tore open a letter from Luisa
Peters, she expected to read that Gisela had come to some horrible end.
A hundred times her heart had throbbed so violently that she had had to
struggle for breath. And a hundred times her fear and anxiety had been
unnecessary.

She often repeated to herself that there was really no need to fear a
scandal, since the opinion and favor of these people was of no account
to her anyway. And yet there were moments when she had to confess to
herself that it would be less terrible to learn of Gisela’s death than
to see her suddenly appear from somewhere—here on the terrace of the
Peters’ house, for example. Some vexatious scene was sure to result, an
unsavory scene of which she would willy-nilly be the central figure. She
could picture it to herself down to the smallest detail, so that she
would turn pale and blush, and the blood would hammer in her veins.

More than once she resolved to affect an astonished and injured
expression, a bewildered smile. When she had found her poise
sufficiently to deny the acquaintanceship, they would, they must take
Gisela for a mad woman and have her put out by the servants.

Myra went over and over it during her sleepless nights. She saw Gisela’s
face as distorted with hate and pain and vengeance as at that moment
when she had flung her glass after Fiametta.

And she would hear herself saying in a very clear and calm voice, “I am
so frightfully sorry, Mrs. Peters, to be the occasion of such a scene in
your house. But I assure you I have never seen this—lady before in my
life.”

It would make a very good impression if she paused for a moment before
the word “lady,” much better than if she were to say “person.”

Perhaps it would be cleverer yet to go right up to Gisela and speak to
her in a big sister tone. “Won’t you tell me where I have met you
before? Where did you learn my name? I know you, of course, but for the
moment I can’t recollect—won’t you help me? Did we perhaps go to school
together?”

Or might she not produce the best impression by playing the terrified
maiden, by fleeing behind a chair and trembling, or by seeking
protection from the ladies. “Help me! What does she want with me? Do you
understand what she wants with me? Do you know her? Do you know who she
is?”

Yes, perhaps that would be the most natural course for a well-bred and
somewhat timid young lady when attacked by a lunatic....

She would lie, lie to the limit—although she really did not care very
much for the opinion of Mrs. Peters, or the opinion of Mrs. Borgessen.
But she wanted peace, she wanted to be completely enveloped in an
invulnerable cloak of propriety and convention. She wanted never again
to be exposed, never again to let the shirt be torn from her shoulders.
Never again should a contemptuous glance strike her. Her skin had become
sensitive, so incredibly sensitive—a glance in which she did not read
kindliness and friendliness hurt her.

Oh, how well she understood Olga Radó, who had denied her, pitilessly
denied and handed her over. She had been hunted till she was worn out.
Her skin had been seared with contemptuous glances. She could not endure
another glance and did not mean to. She was afraid of glances, her fear
of them amounted to the paltriest cowardice.

But she had not been afraid of a loaded revolver....

Now Myra had reached the same pass.

She was prepared to die rather than endure contempt. And prepared to
lie, with a straight face, with a clear voice, to lie cold-bloodedly,
not for any personal advantage, not ever for the sake of respect, but
from shame, from the profoundest, most abysmal shame, in order that the
protecting mantle might not be stripped from her naked soul.

Of course, she had never loved Gisela. But sometimes it seemed to her as
if she were capable of denying even her greatest and most sacred love.

That was when she trembled with fear of the Moebius girls. Might it not
be that she would suddenly see Fannie’s and Emmie’s reddish blonde heads
bob up? Might she not suddenly confront one of them, totally unprepared?

Yes, and in this case it would do no good to declare them insane. No one
would ever question the sound intelligence of the Moebius girls.
Certainly no one here.

But what could they convict her of after all! Myra could meet every
attack with a counter-attack. Myra had met Olga Radó at the Moebius
house. “Our cousin,” they had proudly called her then. All she need do
was inquire of them about their “relative,” and ask with surprise if it
were true that Olga Radó was dead. Had she really shot herself?

Only, she must not weep as she asked it....

And whenever Myra thought that she must not weep, the tears would begin
streaming down her face.

But presently she would grow calmer. She was no longer thinking of the
possibility of such encounters. The last year seemed to her somewhat
unreal, vague and meaningless. The memory of Olga Radó persisted. But
she now remembered most vividly the first period of their friendship,
and the pure adoration she had felt for Olga’s intellectual superiority,
her accomplished manner, the distinguished and captivating quality of
her entrances and exits. Myra was inclined to think less frequently of
her burning tenderness, of the agony of a farewell which could not even
be called a farewell—less frequently of her death.

Sometimes she would find a touching and painful pleasure in imaging that
Olga was still living and would suddenly appear in these circles. Among
these elegant, assured and clever women, she would be the most elegant,
the most assured, the cleverest. If she but wished, she would succeed in
ravishing this cool, reserved and self-conscious company in half an
hour.

But the more clearly she had visualized the picture of the living Olga,
the more her remembrance had paled in the last few months. Now and again
it seemed to her like the giddy whirl of carnival night, and she was
convinced that no one had a right to discuss a confidence of that time,
any more than one had a right to remind a lady in the sober light of day
that one had kissed her under her mask at the carnival carouse.

Myra had taken off her mask and costume. She was once more Myra Rudloff,
and it would have been tactless to allude to any fugitive half forgotten
connections.

So completely was she Myra Rudloff that she sometimes wondered if there
were not someone of her own name to whom she could attach herself or
whom she could attach to herself.

So weary was she of her young freedom.

Or perhaps of its restriction.

If she had an older relative with her, she could take lodgings and live
more according to her taste. For, of course, it was forbidden her to
live alone, just as she must not stay at a hotel, and just as there were
a very few pensions, coffee-houses, restaurants and even streets that
she might frequent.

Sometimes it struck her as absurd when people said in quite shocked
voices, “Good Heavens, you mustn’t go there. One can see that you’re a
stranger here!”

But she always acquiesced. She knew too well that she herself had lost
her standards. For a while she had thought defiantly that she was old
and stable enough to permit herself any associates, any book, any manner
of life. Then she had found out that she could not swim in the troubled,
swirling waters into which she had plunged. When she was close to
drowning her pride had forsaken her and she was submissive and grateful
that a firm hand had pulled her out.

She no longer felt secure. She had thought she could plunge into the sea
without danger—now she was glad when expert hands prepared her bath for
her.

Sometimes she was slightly embarrassed when an astonished glance rested
upon her because she let slip that she had read a book, or seen a play
which were strictly forbidden to young ladies of “her station.”

Sometimes she had to fight down a free and easy manner that had become
so natural to her in the last few months that she noticed nothing
improper in it.

Sometimes she thought almost with gratitude of Aunt Emily. At least she
had taught Myra how to hold her knife and fork, and it would have been
bad had she had to pay attention to such details and live in fear of
violating etiquette. But in all matters of form, her “good training” had
become blood of her blood.

From time to time she was in doubt as to whether a young lady of good
family might go alone to the opera, or might be invited by an
acquaintance whom she had met in the city to partake of a tart in a
pastry-shop. Then she would think in a flash, “What would Aunt Emily say
in so difficult a dilemma?” And as Aunt Emily averred nearly everything
to be unseemly, reprehensible and immoral, Myra could feel in obeying
her that she was leading a blameless-life, even in the eyes of the
sternest critic.

She had already considered if the most sensible course were not simply
to summon Aunt Emily. Then she would have the infallible oracle in all
matters of propriety at her elbow. She could rent a house, take the
furniture out of storage, have a home, receive visitors, give little
parties. Besides, there was no occasion for contentions of any sort.
Even Aunt Emily could have nothing to say against her present
associates.

Myra was tamed. It made quite a difference whether one viewed the world,
the blooming laughing world, always from the inside of a cage, against
whose bars one continually batted one’s head and wings in an effort to
escape, if just for once. Or whether one were flying back, tired out at
evening, somewhat scratched and ruffled, to steal voluntarily into the
comfortable cage and find refuge there.

Of course, the door would always remain open now, Myra was of age.

Instantly she recalled that she had come of age a few months too late.
Otherwise Olga Radó would still be living, living with her, free at last
of all cares and debts and worries, in a beautiful cozy home such as she
had always wanted. She would be alive and happy, her laugh would still
ring out for the world’s delight—and her bell-toned voice, and her
beautiful proud face and her delicate, strong hands. Yes, none of these
would have been destroyed, annihilated, extinguished—had there been no
Aunt Emily.

And hate blazed up in Myra again like a red flame.

The voices from the tennis court drew nearer. White flannels flashed
amongst the blackish-red foliage of a purple-beech and the golden-yellow
leaves of a maple. The first pair turned the corner, passed the
rose-trellis, and approached the terrace—Gwen and Fred Wietinghoff.

Mrs. Peters smiled in greeting to her beautiful daughter. The smile
still further revealed her long prominent, rather uneven teeth, stopped
with all kinds of fillings, embellished with specks of white porcelain,
encircled with threads of gold as fine as a hair. Her teeth were the
same color as the big dull gray pearl in her beautifully shaped ear and
gave the same impression of some infinitely fragile, infinitely precious
object which must be preserved at any price and with the most tender
solicitude. Without the teeth her regular, somewhat withered but haughty
features, crowned by a pile of carefully waved blonde hair carefully
restrained by a net, regardless of fashion, might almost have been
called handsome.

She smiled proudly and complacently. She had every right to.

Myra was delighted anew by the lovely firm way in which Gwen set down
her tiny foot with its springy ankle, and by the slender firm body under
its white dress, and the curly hair glistening and fluttering in the
sunlight.

The sight of her filled Myra’s heart with a buoyant delight—but it did
not throb faster by a single beat.

She was just as pleased to see Fred Wietinghoff, who was walking beside
Gwen. He was much taller than she, broad-shouldered, and narrow in the
hips, all the contours of his muscles showing under his silk shirt. He
looked like a twenty-year-old. But when the light fell on his face, a
network of sharp little wrinkles was visible in his clear, golden brown
skin around his eyes and mouth, and a few white threads in his smooth
metallic blond hair, at the temples.

But she was pleased, too, when she saw Vandahl whose eager eyes were
seeking out his young wife from a distance, and blinking a greeting to
her.

And she was pleased when she saw Henry Rantzau and young Lucius appear
behind the others, plunged as deeply in conversation, which the younger
man was accompanying with sweeping gestures, as if they were strolling
somewhere across a lonely field, and not going to meet a group of people
who were expecting and watching them.

“My dears, I’m dying of thirst!” It was Gwen’s first utterance as she
took the last steps of the terrace at a bound.

She ran to the tea-wagon behind Myra, and poured raspberry juice and ice
water into a cut-glass goblet.

With the utmost composure, Fred took the goblet from her as she was
about to carry it to her lips and drained it at a draught.

“What is the meaning of that?” she asked amazed and angry.

“I’m sacrificing myself for you again,” he said with unshakable
equanimity. “I’ve warned you against inflaming your lungs. I beg you,
when you are thirsty, drink tea. May I pour you a cup?”

“I _will_ drink water!” Gwen stamped her foot in annoyance. “Give me
that carafe, I’m dying of thirst!”

“You won’t die of thirst for some time yet,” replied Fred. “You’re
really hardly thirsty at all, but since you’ve never suffered from
thirst in your life you have no standards by which to judge. Drink a cup
of lukewarm tea, it will be very good for you.”

“But I don’t want lukewarm tea,” said Gwen between laughter and anger.
“I drink hot tea in winter and ice water in summer. I’m going to drink
water and if I get inflammation of the lungs, it’s no concern of yours.”

“Good heavens,” said Fred pityingly, “what a little sixteen-year-old!
You’re not so young any more that you make yourself ‘cute’ that way.
Probably you think it’s very romantic to toss off a glass of ice water
in a fit of youthful impetuosity when you’re overheated with playing,
and then be carried off by inflammation of the lungs in the flower of
your youth.” He was sitting on the arm of a basket-chair, swinging his
foot in its heelless shoe. “Inflammation of the lungs is a horrid malady
with phlegm and spittle—not in the least poetic. In fact, there is no
poetic sickness.” He straightened his shoulders slightly. “Only health
is poetic, but everything from a saber cut to typhus is prosaic and
disgusting and mostly connected with bad smells.”

“Oh, Fred, you’re disgusting.” She turned her back on him. “You’re
positively not fit to enter a drawing-room. I’m going to tell your
mother so.”

“She’ll think you’re slandering me!” He smiled complacently and somewhat
mischievously. “She knows you can’t bear me.”

Vandahl had moved a stool beside his young wife’s chair. Myra observed
how his big well-formed hands caressed the folds of her dress
stealthily.

A radiant stream of tenderness was constantly playing on him from her
soft brown eyes.

Myra was a little anxious on her account. She looked so happy, and
apparently worshipped her husband so idolatrously. If only she had
finished with her hours of pain! The wish burned in Myra’s heart like a
mute prayer.

Rantzau and Lucius were leaning against the stone balustrade. Myra could
catch disjointed fragments of their conversation when the others were
silent.

“Why not? The electrons that are thrown off by the so-called cathode
rays have a velocity of something like a quarter of a million kilometer
seconds.”

It was Rantzau’s deep, vibrant voice.

Gwen seated herself on the arm of Myra’s chair and put her arm around
her shoulders.

“Protect me, Myra,” she said, “everybody makes me angry and seems horrid
to me. You are the only person here whom I really like!”

“Oh, Gwen,” Myra smiled up at her, “it’s a good thing that you don’t
have to cross any bridges tonight!”

Gwen’s face grew serious. “I’ll kill somebody yet,” she said as if she
were telling a fairy-tale, “and I’ll bury the corpse in a cellar and
steal everything valuable and bury that in the forest. Then I’ll go
somewhere, to the courts, to the police or the senate and tell
everything. Then everybody will laugh and pity me and say, ‘Poor child,
she has a fever, she’s delirious—that’s Mr. Peters’ little daughter! get
a car, and take the youngster home, her mother ought to pack her off to
bed, she’s got the measles.’ And then the bailiff or an officer will
take me home so that nothing may happen to me on the way. Oh, Myra have
you had any of the short-cake? Deuli makes them simply divine! They make
life worth living. But I’ve never yet been able to eat enough of them.
I’ve stipulated that when I get married I want you to give me a bath-tub
full of short-cakes. And on my wedding-day I’ll eat short-cake from
morning till night. Eat something, Myra—I really believe that you live
on air and love.”

“On air perhaps,” said Fred dryly, “as far as I can judge your
consumption of the other so-called popular commodity, I couldn’t last a
week on your rations.”

Myra took good care not to understand his remark.

“I’d like to live on air,” she said, breathing in the breeze that came
from the garden. Despite the fragrance of the roses, it was strong and
sharp and smelled a little of the sea. “On pure fresh air!”

XVII

Myra sat beside Gwen in the car.

“My hair looks something terrible, doesn’t it?” said Gwen. “If mamma
sees me like this, she’ll begin to lecture me. How do you manage to keep
your hair in place? You danced too! Mamma would be delighted with you.
In fact, mamma likes you a whole lot. She’s always holding you up to me
as a model. But even that doesn’t make me dislike you. I’m really quite
smitten with you, really—but I think you don’t like me.”

Myra laid her arms lightly around her shoulder.

“Silly little Gwen,” she said, smiling. “You don’t know what you’re
chattering.”

“That’s nice,” said Gwen, cuddling up to her like a little kitten,
“leave your arm there, it feels nice. I know very well what I’m talking
about. Mamma always says ‘Don’t talk, you’re dizzy with dancing,’
because she insists that I talk so much nonsense after a dance—more than
usual. But I’m really not dizzy with dancing, and I know that I like you
a lot, and I know too that you don’t like me. And you don’t contradict
me either, you’re much too honest for that. You say, ‘Don’t talk
nonsense, little Gwen,’ which is what people always tell little children
when they happen to hit on the truth. But I don’t want to embarrass you.
Your eyes look very sad now because you don’t know how you’re going to
get out of this mess.”

“I was thinking,” said Myra honestly, “that you are a very charming
little creature and that I like you very much indeed—and that
nevertheless I disavowed you today and said you were not my friend.”

“At the table,” said Gwen seriously, “I felt it. But it doesn’t make me
angry with you.” She smiled. “You oughtn’t to admit it either, if you
want to keep in the good graces of my dear Henry. Did he tell you what a
beast I am?”

“He said nothing at all,” replied Myra, shocked. “How on earth did you
know that I said it to Rantzau?”

“Because I know _him_!” said Gwen triumphantly. “He hates me like—like
sin would hardly be the proper expression. But I know he does, and I
know why.”

By these words and by the expression of Gwen’s face Myra felt somewhat
repelled. “She’s like every other woman,” she thought contemptuously.
“She thinks that Henry Rantzau hates her because he loves her and she
doesn’t love him! Now she’ll tell me that she broke with him on some
occasion. It’s the only thing that these little creatures can get
through their heads.”

“Shall I tell you why your friend hates me?” A thousand little imps were
dancing on Gwen’s face.

“If you like,” said Myra somewhat coolly.

“I’ve taken his friend away from him!”

“What does that mean—taking a friend away? Can a woman take a man’s
friend away from him?”

“From Henry? Oh, yes! For he wants his friend all to himself, hair and
hide, body and soul. Don’t try to pretend, dear little Miss Innocence,
that you haven’t noticed what the whole town knows!”

“Strange,” Myra shook her head, “all that a town knows!”

“Stranger yet is all that it doesn’t know!” said Gwen with a laugh. “All
that goes on in its midst without anybody’s suspecting it. But Rantzau
is known because he’s a public menace. He has an influence over young
men that is nothing short of uncanny. He’s always got a circle around
him that idolizes him. And I don’t like that....”

“You mean when somebody else is idolized?” teased Myra.

“Yes, exactly,” declared Gwen defiantly. “That one thing I can’t stand
at all is to see a man idolized by men. I don’t know if I can explain
it, but you see the essential thing about human beings is their sex. The
great two-fold division of all life—it’s not my own idea, of course.
Later on there’s the division into races, with the races dividing into
nations, the nations into classes and families, each of them struggling
against the others. I am a bourgeois as compared with the nobility and
an aristocrat as compared with the plebs. But first and foremost I am a
woman in contrast to a man, and the most unpardonable insult that can be
offered me is one to my sex. Don’t you understand that? If a man can’t
see me because he worships another woman, that doesn’t wound my vanity.
But a man for whom no woman is good enough, who prefers men, who is
contemptuous of my whole sex—oh, it drives me almost insane with anger.
Rantzau is incorruptible—I know that—but I lure away his favorites, one
after the other. Ever since I could think, no, ever since I could feel,
we’ve waged a bitter war. Do you know, Myra, sometimes it seems like a
holy mission to me and not just an amusing game!” There was a strange
light in her eyes, they blazed like blue jewels. “He loved Fred Reimer,
for example, loved him insanely. But Fred is very happily married today.
What do I get out of it? Well, sometimes when I see his wife, I think,
‘You owe it to me and you never even suspect it.’”

“What a queer mixture you are.” Myra looked at her, shaking her head
reflectively. “A well-bred, sheltered girl and yet....”

“And yet? Go ahead and say it!”

“Oh, nothing. But tell me, how does it happen that your parents don’t
notice anything—Henry Rantzau, for instance, whose reputation the whole
town knows?”

“Don’t you know, Myra,” said Gwen with a superior smile, “that parents
have an unerring eye only for what doesn’t exist?”

* * * * *

“I’m coming out directly,” called Gwen from behind the door of the
bathroom where one could hear the splashing of water and the pelting of
a shower. “Take a seat, Myra, and pick up a book! I’ll be ready in five
minutes.”

“I have time,” said Myra quietly.

But Gwen wished to shorten her wait for her. “You’ll find something to
look at. There’s a package on the table. I bought myself some stockings
today. See if you don’t think they’re stunning. But you mustn’t open
what’s under them, something flat in tissue paper. Ah, I’ll show it to
you anyhow. Go ahead and open it!”

“I’m not curious.”

“Go on, go on, open it. It’s better that you should look at it when I’m
not there. Then I won’t have to blush at least. Hurry up, I’ll be out in
two minutes! Do you hear? I’m already emerging from the crystal flood,
and when I’m halfway dry, I’ll be out there!”

Myra removed the tissue paper. She looked into Fred Wietinghoff’s face,
lifelike and expressive. She felt a flash of pleasure pass over her as
she studied the handsome features, and almost at the same moment a
childish desire to steal the picture so that she could always have it
before her eyes, and could delight in it when she was far from here.

For she was perfectly conscious at that moment, without thinking about
it at all, that she would leave Hamburg in a very short time. She had
never yet thought of the change, but suddenly she saw herself with
visionary distinctness, so self-evidently that there was nothing
terrifying about it, in a state of loneliness in which this picture
would make pleasant company for her.

She started when Gwen leaned over her shoulder.

“Handsome picture, what?” she laughed. “You started so just now that I
might imagine you have a little weakness for the gentleman. Confess the
truth, Myra! Out with it. You were so lost in the picture, so lost that
you didn’t hear me coming.”

Myra put down the picture without glancing at it again.

“Because my thoughts were somewhere else entirely,” she said, still
rather distractedly.

“Too bad,” teased Gwen, “where else if not with Fred? Certainly not with
me, I’m afraid. Very far off? Don’t you want to tell me where?”

She laid her soft bare arm around Myra’s neck, pressing it against her
cheeks.

“I don’t know where myself,” said Myra. “Not in the past and not in the
present. Somewhere I’ve never yet been. Perhaps in the future. I have a
feeling, quite indistinct and hazy, of a snowed-up lonely house.”

Gwen shook her by the shoulders.

“Come out of it,” she cried, “you’re supposed to be here and not in any
snowed-up lonely houses. How do you like our friend, Freddy?”

“_Our_ friend?” repeated Myra with a smile.

“Of course ours. He’s your friend as much as mine. He thinks a great
deal of you, a great deal!”

“He only says that to make you jealous,” said Myra consolingly.

“Make me jealous!” Gwen laughed aloud. “No, I’m not that petty. And
besides, you mean too much to me. I’m always very proud, really, my
heart is filled with pleasure when I hear people praising you. And Fred
praises you very often....”

“He would send me his picture if he really thought so much of me,”
thought Myra. “If it weren’t all just silly talk, he’d send me his
picture. I don’t want anything more of him than that.”

“Do you really like him?” Gwen asked it lightly. But Myra felt something
watchful, almost lowering in her look.

She shrugged her shoulders.

“He’s good looking and has a very agreeable disposition,” she said
indifferently.

“Nothing more?”

Myra did not want to reply. “I don’t know much more about him.”

“He is discreet and trustworthy,” said Gwen after hesitating a moment.
Then she laughed through her teeth, “And he has very good taste!”

“Perhaps,” said Myra somewhat guardedly.

Sometimes she had a feeling of fear in the presence of this fair-haired
child. Frequently she was afraid to put a question because she did not
want to hear the answer—an answer that would tear off the thin covering
of the abyss.

Suddenly Gwen stroked her cheeks with a childish gesture.

“Don’t be angry,” she said gently.

Myra laid her lips against that soft little fragrant hand.

“Why should I be angry at you, you child?” she asked, smiling.

But she knew very well that she had been angry.

“Tell me something!” begged Gwen. “Yes, sit right down beside me here
and tell me something. I’ll lie down, I’m a little tired from my bath,
and you sit beside me and we’ll jaw a little.”

With one hand she drew Myra fawningly to the divan, with the other she
held together her kimono of peach-bloom china crêpe which showed every
line of her slim, soft body.

She adjusted her mountain of pillows and made herself comfortable on it.

Myra sat quiet and erect beside her on a chair. She always felt rather
stiff in the presence of so much sinuous grace, and a little frosty in
the warm breath of this sunny creature.

“Do you know, Myra,” said Gwen after a while, “that I haven’t got a step
closer to you since the first day you came here? You allow me to call
you by your first name. Sometimes you call me by mine, but mostly you
omit it because it’s so counter to your nature. No, no, you don’t have
to make a polite denial! You are quite a stranger to me. Never, never,
never do you tell me anything of your own volition. Sometimes you’ll
answer one out of ten of my questions. I don’t even trust myself to ask
you questions any more for fear I’ll frighten you away so that you’ll
never come back again.”

“And what do I know of you either?” asked Myra without looking at her.
“You are just as much of a stranger to me. You have a very childlike and
open nature. My own, perhaps, is more reserved and cold, but there may
be a hundred times bigger and more serious secrets hidden behind your
innocent little mask than behind my reticence.”

“That’s still another matter,” Gwen interrupted sharply. “I can’t ever
tell you anything, either, because you always put me off! Many times I
feel the need of confiding in you, something that is worrying me, or
simply occupying my attention. But you always turn me aside, or you make
such a face that the words stick in my throat. As if, Heaven help you,
you didn’t want to know anything about me, in order not to despise me.
Or as if you already knew too much and were afraid of permitting any
affection. Then again I feel that you really are not cold and lacking in
understanding, you are not a prude, and you have no right to be.... Oh,
Myra, don’t be angry with me for saying that! But you can never make me
believe that you’ve spent your life sitting and knitting in a quiet
friendly way with a lot of old ladies.”

Myra laughed. “I’ve never tried to make you think so.”

“But you act that way,” said Gwen hopelessly. “You’re like a stone that
won’t give off a spark no matter how hard you strike it. Oh, Myra, I
can’t get rid of the feeling that I could strike a whole series of
fireworks out of you—such glorious fireworks! Am I not steel enough, or
what is the matter? It torments me terribly....”

She was so shaken with emotion that the tears came into her eyes. She
stretched her limbs as if in convulsions and tore the silk cushions with
her teeth.

Suddenly she sat up, and throwing her arms around Myra’s neck, rubbed
her face, between tears and laughter, against her shoulder.

“Tell me, Myra,” she wheedled, “tell me what I’ve known for a long time.
Some time in your life you have been in love with a woman. You know how
it can be—how heavenly it can be! Why don’t you like me, Myra? Am I not
good enough for you? Not beautiful enough? Or do you think I haven’t had
any experience? Or do you think I’d betray you? Why don’t you say
something? Do you despise me so that you don’t think I’m worth an
answer?”

Myra gritted her teeth and sat a little more stiffly. “I don’t know, my
child,” she said with a labored smile and lifeless eyes. “I don’t know
what you’re talking about. Why do you suspect me of such a thing?”

“Stop!” said Gwen almost angrily, laying her hand on Myra’s mouth. “I
don’t suspect anything—I _know_! You can keep quiet as long as you like.
I’ll never force you to tell me, but I won’t let myself be deceived. And
I won’t let myself be pointed out as a mad woman. I know that I’m right.
Not because, as you’re thinking now, I’ve heard some gossip. I have a
feeling for such things. Dear little Myra, if you were to sit in front
of your mirror for a week and practice a face for me like a stone mask,
it would still bear the stamp. Your hands would have it, and your
eyelids and the corner of your mouth—here—this corner of your dear
proud, yearning mouth. Promise me, Myra, promise me one thing—I believe
that you live like a saint and want to live that way—but I know too,
that you can’t. You can’t do it much longer. But when it gets too much
for you, call me. I would like to kiss you until your yearning mouth is
quite sated. I would like to see you bloom in all your tenderness you
rose of Jericho! And if I could not bring it about, at least I should
like to be present. Oh, Myra, you’re making a face as if I were saying
hateful things. The ecstasy of the beautiful human body _is_ beautiful,
and the throbbing pulse and the gasping breath of someone we love is the
most beautiful music in the world. Everything else, art and sport, and
alcohol and morphine, are just miserable attempts at substitutes for the
one real thing—for love.”

“So many things are called love!” said Myra with a bitter taste in her
mouth.

“I call love the thrill of the blood and the ravishment of the senses.
And it is something I should like to give everybody.” Gwen sat up and
the soft silk slid from her wonderfully modelled shoulders. Her eyes
blazed with blue fire.

“Well, not everybody, but the beautiful, the profound, the warm, the
sensitive, those who hunger and those who thirst, and I would like to
give it to them because I am capable of giving it, because I am rich,
because God has given it to me. And God gives no man anything to keep
for himself but He cannot be too lavish because He has to give to so
many. We are here as God’s stewards, we are here to save Him trouble,
that is why He gives us so much, in order that we may share it with the
most worthy.”

Myra shook her head. “You talk like the angel in a Christmas story, and
you come out with these lovely theories in a Christmas story voice.
Sometimes I have a feeling that you have no idea what you are saying.
You are like a strip of garden in which a strange hand has strewn all
possible seeds, so that it is surprised itself at all the gay flowers
that come to light. But I am afraid I know the gardener who has made
such a wildflower garden out of you!”

“Myra,” wheedled Gwen, “tell me one thing, please, please, tell me. Are
you in love with Fred?”

“Nonsense,” said Myra in a hard voice. “What makes you think such a
thing?”

“Perhaps not love,” said Gwen hesitantly, “perhaps you call ‘love’
something else. But don’t you feel that he’s wonderfully stimulating?”

Myra made a face, and without answering, rose and went to the window.
She heard the soft silk behind her rustle and crinkle. Gwen thrust her
sinuous body between Myra and the window-pane, beyond which lay the
wintry garden. Her angelic face was suffused with red. Her large eyes
under their long lashes were filled with tears. Her blonde hair, tousled
and damp from her bath, trembled in ringlets and curls about her
childish face.

She pursed her lips as if she were struggling against violent tears and
clung to the folds of Myra’s waist with her soft little hands.

“Do you dislike me so much?” she asked shyly. “Do you? Am I really so
distasteful to you?”

Laughing, Myra kissed her round firm cheeks with their peach-bloom
complexion.

“You are very sweet!” she said sincerely.

* * * * *

“I’d rather not,” said Myra, knitting her brows slightly.

“Myra!” Gwen stamped her foot angrily. “I can’t understand you! How can
it hurt you to go too? And you would be pleasing me so much! We had it
planned so nicely. Really no sensible person can see anything wrong in
our going together....”

“But your parents,” Myra objected.

“You will simply be doing them a favor if you don’t let me go alone to
visit a bachelor in his apartment! For I’m going anyway! But it would be
much nicer if you’d come too. And Fred will show you his library!”

That was the only thing that could tempt Myra as Gwen knew very well.

Myra would very much have liked to see the rooms and the books. She felt
something akin to envy when she thought that Gwen and Fred would enjoy
tea and a pleasant hour of conversation in what was undoubtedly a very
pretty and tasteful apartment—while she would not be there. Because of
stubbornness, because of obstinacy, because of a silly shyness.

She had done many other things which had still less to do with
conventionality and propriety. She had done them from passion, from
caprice, from pity—or from stupidity. For the first time in her life she
was anxiously resisting an innocent dereliction from the conventional
such as this tea with a young unmarried man.

Suddenly all her defiance rose within her. Why should she deny herself a
pleasure because these well-born and highly conventional families could
thenceforth refuse to receive her in their expensively furnished and
meticulously clean houses? Let these families first so educate their
sons and daughters that they did not wantonly strive to disturb the
hard-won peace of a poor defenseless Myra Rudloff.

“I’ll go with you,” she said, gritting her teeth.

Gwen clasped her jubilantly in her arms.

* * * * *

A soft, but bright light streamed over a noble polished table. Gleaming
bronze. Deep luxurious carpets.

“Isn’t it beautiful here?” asked Gwen, and strutted about proudly,
showing this and extolling that as if it were all her property, or
rather her own handiwork.

She moved through the rooms with an assurance that gave no indication
that she was visiting them for the first time.

“And you must see the Corot!” Whereupon she rushed into the adjoining
room, and lit a concealed lamp that cast a flood of light on the
picture.

Myra followed her, an ironic smile on her lips.

“I thought I was supposed to go with you so that you could explore this
place!” she murmured. “But you really seem to be quite at home here.”

Gwen laughed, not in the least offended or embarrassed.

“Haven’t I ever told you that I was here before? Not alone, of course. I
came to tea then, too. Old Mrs. Wietinghoff was here and mamma. Wait,
some member of my family was with me. Fred, who was with me when I had
tea here before?”

A newspaper rustled in the next room.

“What did you say, dear?” came Fred’s voice.

“Idiot!” she said in a low voice.

Myra laughed too. It was very easy to see through the whole affair, and
take in at a glance the tangle that a word had uncovered. She told
herself that it was all right. But she did not feel any sincere
pleasure. Her feelings said to her, “Go, you are superfluous here,
perhaps even in the way. You are playing a part which has been forced
upon you, and which doesn’t suit you.” But she would have scolded
herself for being a silly prude if she had given in to this feeling and
gone.

Gwen put her arm around Myra and drew her toward the door.

“What does Fred mean?” she asked as she stood in the door. “I don’t
recall that we ever herded swine together.”

Fred laid down the paper with some embarrassment.

“Why the image, Miss Peters? I trust you will pardon me for glancing at
the paper a moment while you ladies were out of the room. Have I
absent-mindedly said something improper?”

Gwen sat on the arm of a leather chair and dangled her legs.

“Improper? Oh, no, it’s all right,” she said magnanimously. “You only
addressed me familiarly through an error. You are so accustomed to
having visitors whom you address familiarly, that it never even occurs
to you to do anything else. Moreover, I just observed in the next room
that you are an idiot!”

“Which clarifies matters perfectly.” Fred bowed slightly. “But my dear
Miss Rudloff,” he turned to Myra, “let us make the extraordinary and
highly improbable assumption that I did not make a mistake in identity,
but really blurted something out, as they say. It would simply be a
further proof of how much inferior men are to women in the arts of lying
and deception.

“A woman simply could not blurt out something and address someone
familiarly. She simply couldn’t carry damaging letters around in her
coat pocket for a week just because she forgot to take them out and
destroy them. She simply couldn’t be trapped under any circumstances.

“But a man is so simple, so transparent, so trusting, so innocent....”
His manner was intentionally sanctimonious.

“Ho! Ho! Ho! Ho!” Gwen interrupted. “Stop, my friend! The woman may be
more discreet, more distrustful, more anxious—but only because she has
more to fear. Once let a man get caught, let him be observed, or let him
blurt out something, or let his correspondence be found—what then? He
denies it! With a coolness, with a face as if—well, with cheek, in
short! I know hundreds of cases....”

“From your own experience?”

“No, thank God! It ‘simply couldn’t happen to me in any case.’ But let
me go on. You’re just afraid that I’ll say something to the point, and
that’s why you’re trying to get me off the track....”

“Why should I be afraid?”

“Because you’re vain like all men. In the first place, you don’t like
anybody but you to say something good, and in the second, you don’t like
to feel that somebody sees through and through you.”

“But _you_ haven’t let _me_ go on. I was going to say, why should I be
afraid that you would say something good, something to the point? The
fear would not be well founded.”

“Oh, Myra, he’s common. Don’t you think he’s simply frightfully common
to talk to me like that? But I’m going to say just what I wanted now,
straight out. I know hundreds of cases of men who deceive their wives.
And when the wife thinks she has finally got some irrefutable proof in
her hands, when she has jealously watched her husband for weeks, and has
finally seen him or found a letter—what happens then? Then the husband
explains that his wife is blind or stupid, she is mistaken, or it was
Miss Mayer with whom she saw him, or the letter is quite innocent, or it
is a practical joke on the part of a crony. He goes into a rage or he
laughs. In any event, he’s in the right....”

“I’m astonished!” Fred leaned far back in his easy-chair, crossed his
legs, joined his finger-tips and shook his head at her. “I am
astonished! Such fullness of wisdom in such a little curly head! You
must have had all the assembled washwomen, cooks and children’s maids of
all your acquaintances instruct you in their marital experiences.”

“Good heavens!” Gwen’s delicate nostrils twitched contemptuously. “As if
the upper ten were any different! To be sure, they call their hang-out a
Club. But they deceive their wives just the same.”

“Those less decent souls excepted,” said Fred in his measured way, “who
do not marry in order to escape that embarrassment. But may I add an
observation to your argument, young lady? Why is the husband believed
when he offers the most threadbare explanations, when he declares the
most striking proof of his infidelity to be innocent? Because women are
so anxious to believe! Why do the wives look for proofs? Because they
want divorces? Oh, no! Because they want their fears quieted. How is a
matter of no moment. There is no more ghastly bare brutality than to
tell a jealous woman to her face, ‘You are quite right, I love somebody
else!’ A fig for the man who could do such a thing!”

“But why are women so petty and so—so horribly silly?” asked Gwen, her
face blazing. “Why do they let themselves be deceived and rejoice when
they are deceived still further?”

Fred joined his finger-tips and reflected for a moment.

“Perhaps it can be explained in a single sentence,” he said with a
rather malicious smile. “Women always love most that which is closest to
them, and men that which is farthest from them. Or to put it more
clearly, a woman loves that man the most who has most often possessed
her—and a man loves that woman the most whom he will never possess.”

A shade of melancholy passed quickly over his face.

“Shall we look at some illustrations?” he asked, springing up. “Have you
any special preferences? Doré or Rackham, Cornelius of Bayros? They’re
all here. See, this is beautiful! Do you feel the same enjoyment in
handling buckskin? Or do you understand anyone’s taking a really insane
delight in it? Just feel this,” he handed Myra a flexible volume in red
leather. “Isn’t it splendid?”

“Yes, it’s just like velvet!” said Gwen crossly, swinging her dangling
legs faster.

“Velvet!” He shrugged his shoulders indignantly. “This low little person
is trying to provoke me! There are silly people who mean to flatter such
leather by saying it’s like velvet! As a result, I have a real aversion
to velvet. It always gives me a horrible dusty feeling under my
finger-tips.”

Myra opened the book. Her glance chanced on the graceful curlicues of an
illustrator whose peculiar style was unfamiliar to her.

“For God’s sake!” Fred laid both hands with fingers spread, on the pages
of the book. “You may feel the books, but you mustn’t look at the
pictures. They are not for young ladies. Afterwards, you’ll tell Auntie
that I’ve been showing you improper pictures. But I really have young
ladies’ books in my library and only keep this single volume because of
its beautiful binding.”

“Are they pictures that one shouldn’t look at?” asked Myra calmly. “I
know a great many such and they always fascinate me.”

“Of course, you may look at them.” Fred took his hands away and drew
himself up. “I was only jesting. Any sensible person may look at and
enjoy them. Look at them as much as you like. Moreover, the book is a
rarity. It has been suppressed. You probably know that the illustrator
has been banished?”

“No,” said Myra in surprise. “I didn’t know it! But why?” She eagerly
snatched at any subject of conversation that would permit her to take
her eyes from the book. She was rather afraid to turn over the page, and
even more afraid, if anything, of appearing prudish and cowardly if she
put it down without looking through it.

So she laid it open on her knees, glancing rather deliberately in the
other direction—for example at Fred’s assured and reassuring face.

“Why!” Fred shrugged his shoulders. “Probably a temperance union would
expel Kotanyi Janos, too. Not because he drinks, but because he
manufactures paprika and paprika helps along the thirst. Mankind is
divided into four classes. Two of these classes, the extremes, belong
together. The first class (sequence has nothing to do with rank or I
would begin elsewhere) are those who thirst but do not drink. They are
the happy ones. The second class comprises those who have thirst but
nothing to drink. They are the revolutionists. The third class—those who
have all they can drink but are not thirsty. The hypocrites and the
bourgeois. The fourth class—those who drink and who are thirsty. They
are the happiest of all.

“Then, of course, there are numerous smaller subdivisions. For example,
those who stand before a spring but cannot drink because they have no
glass. Or those who drink and suffer stomach-aches afterwards. Or those
who have a perfectly marvellous thirst, but eat something hot anyway, so
that the hock will taste all the better afterwards. Or those who sit in
a wine-cellar and go thirsty because there is no white Burgundy. And
there are people to whom champagne only tastes good mixed with Port, or
with Angostura, who like the sweetness only because there is a trace of
bitterness along with it. Or people who pour dark and pale wines
together, who mix heavy warm Bordeaux with thin-blooded bubbling
champagne in order to make it fizz. Ah, yes, there are tipplers of all
sorts, and each believes that his taste is the best. Here is Frederick
the Great with Menzel’s illustrations; that looks better in your
thoughtful hands. But first and foremost, there’s our tea inside,
gentle, mild, friendly, thought-provoking tea—it will stimulate us to
more profitable conversation. This way, ladies.”

* * * * *

One, two hours had passed. It was Gwen and not Myra who first glanced at
her watch and said that they must go.

Fred helped them on with their coats and kissed their hands in
gratitude. They had to promise to come soon again. Myra promised gladly.
The distinguished beauty of these rooms fascinated her. And Fred made a
good impression, like most people, when seen among his own things. She
looked forward with pleasure to the next chat they would have together.
All the fear that had originally restrained her, had disappeared.

But as she opened the heavy street door, she started and turned pale
with terror.

“For God’s sake, Gwen, stay back! Your uncle, Senator Borgessen is
passing! Suppose he sees us! What shall we tell him if he asks us where
we’re coming from?”

“From the dentist!” said Gwen with a laugh, pushing Myra out on to the
street. “People like Fred always live in houses where there are
dentists. But Borgessen! Why should I be afraid of Borgessen? He has at
least as much reason to be afraid of me as I of him! The whole town
knows that he has an affair with his cook. Moreover, he goes to the city
every three weeks and throws away his money gambling. He can’t do it so
well here. His money and Aunt Fanchette’s. Poor Aunt Fanchette! But she
smells of sweat from the arm-pits—brr! Haven’t you ever noticed it? Such
women deserve their fate!”

* * * * *

The air was full of early spring.

There had been terrible storms so that one could not sleep at night, but
sat up in bed with a beating heart and listened to the clatter of the
tiles on the roof, to the shaking of the windows, and the banging of
doors and thought with a shiver of the ships at sea.

Suddenly the storms had stopped for breath.

So abruptly, so without warning, that the silence was even more uncanny
than the commotion. The air was heavy, full of sunlight and sweetness,
and a strange fragrance as if it had been borne over fields of hyacinths
and had never known tar, fish or salt water.

The people on the street looked at each other as if to say, “Well, what
on earth do you think of the weather?” And wherever two acquaintances
met, on the street, in the street car or in a shop, they said, “Well,
what on earth do you think of the weather?” And all who heard it, made
an effort to conceal a smile on their wooden faces, for they had just
heard their innermost thoughts revealed.

Myra could not conceal her smile. But there was something so
ingratiating, so deluding, about this still, soft air, this caressing
sunlight, all this quite improbable and impossible spring, that she was
suffused with a warm happiness which sought some expression. And as she
could not sing, she smiled.

This was not occasioned by the spring alone. It was the feeling too that
she could endure the spring without suffering. She felt well, like
someone who moves his limbs for the first time after a long illness, and
thinks every breath is a heavenly grace.

“I’m well again,” she told herself over and over like the refrain of a
song. “I’m well again, well again!”

XVIII

Gwen and Myra were sitting in a compartment of the moving train. Two
elderly ladies, black, stiff and erect, were sitting opposite, watching
them sharply.

From time to time, Fred would come through the aisle and make faces,
with the desired result that Gwen nearly died laughing.

But if she controlled herself with an effort, she did everything in her
power to make Myra laugh.

“Such shamelessness,” she said with pretended indignation. “Just see how
that fellow stares in here every time he passes. Next time I’m going to
report him to the conductor.”

With an offended mien, she pushed her travelling cap on tighter in order
to lean back and cross her legs.

But Myra was not to be made to laugh by any such antic.

“Oh, don’t imagine that he stares in here because he likes your
appearance!” she said quietly. “He is either a criminal or a detective
looking for a criminal. You can see that at a glance.”

“Good heavens, no!” Gwen continued the game in the highest spirits.
“Don’t frighten the wits out of me! I read such a horrible story the
other day—about a hardened criminal who was travelling in women’s
clothes. Of course he was smooth shaven. But he had such a heavy growth
of beard that he had to shave twice a day.” She spoke in a low voice,
though just loud enough so that attentive ears could catch every word.
With that her glance strayed with intentional carelessness over the
rather downy face of the lady sitting opposite. “Just imagine, he was
alone in the compartment with a young woman, on a long journey, and she
saw—of course, at first she thought she must be mistaken—but she saw
more and more distinctly that the face of the lady sitting opposite was
gradually becoming covered with a growth of stubble! It must have been
terrible! I think I’d have died of shock. As it was, I made a resolution
never to travel alone. That’s why I begged you so hard to come with me
today.”

“I was glad to do it,” Myra assumed a worried expression, “if only Emma
will take good care of the children. Bubbie was coughing so hard again
this morning.”

This was too much even for Gwen. For a moment she stared at Myra’s
immobile, serious face, then she burst out laughing, covering her mouth
with her handkerchief and coughing in spasms.

When at last they got off the train, they stood on the platform doubled
up with laughter.

Myra stared after the departing coaches. She had not been mistaken—a
black-gloved hand rubbed the window clean, and a pointed nose was poked
against it. An attentive glance followed her.

Gwen raised her hand to wave farewell, but Myra held her arm.

“Don’t,” Gwen tried to tear her arm away. “What do I care for the old
witches? Good-bye, dear train, run along or run off the track! No,
better not do that, there may be some nice people on you!”

“Come,” said Myra, “Fred is standing here closing and buckling his
travelling bag, just in order not to attract attention—like a real
detective. But we agreed that we should leave the station first. Come.
He’s looking quite desperately in our direction.”

They passed through the gates and the waiting-room out on to the street,
which lay in a glare of sunlight. Five minutes later, Fred approached
and tipped his hat.

“If I may make a suggestion to you ladies,” said Fred, “we will get my
travelling bag from the station now, and armed with that, you can seek
accommodations at a hotel. Ladies without luggage—that would never do!
And you can’t tell every chambermaid and waiter the story about the lost
last train.”

“And you?” asked Gwen.

“I’ll borrow some kind of a suitcase from an acquaintance. We can
provide ourselves with the most essential requisites for spending the
night here on our way to the station. Then you can pack them in my bag
and betake yourselves to the ‘Emperor’. In the meantime, I’ll look up my
friend, Schmid, and borrow a suitcase with which to inspire confidence.
In half an hour I’ll come to the hotel, go to the dining-room, and be
insanely astonished to find you there. Agreed?”

“Splendid!” Gwen was again dancing for joy.

“Stop! Stop! Stop! No pirouettes and toe-dancing, if you please! I
beseech you, Miss Myra, watch out for the child, she’s going to queer us
in the hotel and all over town. I don’t know whether I dare leave you
alone with her for half an hour.”

“It is only your presence that makes her so exuberant,” Myra assured
him. “When she is alone with me, she is perfectly rational.”

“Indeed!” There was an odd twitch at the corners of Fred’s lips, his
short sharp glance flew from Myra’s face to Gwen’s.

* * * * *

The early twilight had already fallen. Gwen drew the yellow curtains
over the windows and turned on all the electric lights—the chandelier,
the lamp on the night-table, the bulb over the wash-basin and the
commode—so that the big hotel room was bathed in light.

“That’s how I like it.” She drew herself up like a purring kitten. “I
must have light and warmth.” She tried the register under the window, a
scorching heat poured out. “It’s beautiful! Like that! I detest a cold
bedroom. At home the heat is always partially turned off because mamma
thinks it’s unhealthy to sleep in a warm room. When I’m married, my
bedroom will have to be as hot as a hot-house, so that I can sleep
without a night-gown or covers!”

She opened Fred’s bag and took out their small purchases. When that was
done, she rummaged on.

“Just see all the things he has in here! Wonderful soap, smell it, Myra!
We’ll just keep it here. And a mouth-wash too. Shaving cream—we don’t
need that. My God, how many brushes! Splendid, buckskin slippers. Not
having any slippers with me is the most unpleasant part. I hate running
around bare hotel floors in my bare feet. I must see what kind of
pajamas he has. Violet and white. Very pretty. Do you want to wear
pajamas? I think they’re very uncomfortable. But they’re very nice to
take breakfast in in the morning. Do you know, I think they’re better
looking on homely people than on pretty ones. Because you don’t see
their necks and arms. But I’d like to wear them sometime just to see if
they suit me, _bleu électrique_ perhaps. And you must have strawberry
ones, not _fraise_, but strawberry-colored. Judging by the French-German
color designations, the French really are color-blind. We call _fraise,
fraise écrassée_, and are surprised that we’ve never seen
_fraise_-colored strawberries! Have you never had a shop-girl tell you,
‘We haven’t got that in blue, only in _bleu_’? Oh, the world is too
idiotic. I have such a craving for some good alcohol. What drink do you
like best? Do you want the right hand bed or the left? I suppose I’ll
have to do up my hair again. Shall I wear the cap? It’s probably the
most ladylike-looking. Are you ready? Shall we go down? How is it that
your hair is always faultless? It isn’t so much shorter than mine. Do I
look presentable? From the rear, from the front, from all sides? All
right, then give me a kiss and come.”

Gwen turned again on the stairs. She brandished the key of their room at
Myra before dropping it into her purse.

“The key! I took it out of the lock. They mustn’t find a gentleman’s bag
with shaving materials and pajamas in our room. Fred must take it away
as soon as he comes.”

Myra was a little frightened at the big bright dining-room. She had
completely forgotten how to look for a table, how to treat waiters, how
to run over a wine-card. It was like an examination. And the worst of it
was, that she could not defer the answer to these questions with a
“We’re expecting someone.”

As they entered, her first glance rested on a mirror, and in that mirror
she saw Fred’s face. He was glancing up over the paper, which he held in
both hands. His eyes, which were big and candid and of a deep luminous
blue, looked a greeting at her. From his glance, from his firm bright
face issued a current of repose and security.

How good that he was here! How good that he was here!

Presently she saw his broad shoulders and fair head in front of the
mirror.

Gwen began to giggle and nudge Myra. She made a motion as if she
intended to rush over and frighten him by a slap on the shoulder. But
Myra held her arm tightly.

“He has seen us,” she said softly, “just walk past as if you didn’t
notice him.”

Myra heard his chair scrape behind them and his quick, long stride.

They greeted one another with complete astonishment. Fred looked for a
larger table—he had purposely seated himself at a small one—and ordered
the waiter to bring over his things.

Carefully he selected a small supper and a good wine.

“Afterwards, we will have champagne,” he said when the waiter was out of
ear-shot. “Of course,” with a hunch of his shoulders, “I will happen on
the idea when he’s here. ‘Really, my dear ladies, we must celebrate this
meeting with champagne!’ Doesn’t that sound quite credible?”

“Very,” Myra agreed with a laugh.

“Good heavens, the bag!” Gwen put her hand to her open mouth in terror,
glancing from one to the other with her big frightened child’s eyes.
“Fred, you must take your bag out of our room! What will the maid think
of us? But don’t get caught, or they’ll have you arrested as a thief!
That would be a wonderful joke. Watch, I’ll give you the key without
anyone’s noticing.”

She rummaged in her purse, which she held under the table on her lap,
drew out the key, squeezing it tight in her effort to hide it in her
little hand, and thrust her clenched fist under the table.

Fred took the key from her, and slipping it into his trousers pocket,
leaned back laughing in his chair.

“Wonderful!” he said, showing his firm white teeth, “now the whole room
has seen you pass me the key without anyone’s noticing you! Well, I
don’t mind. I don’t feel that I’m compromised any further. You look
pretty enough!”

He said it rather disdainfully, with a mocking twitch at the corner of
his mouth. But his lowered eyes ran over Gwen with a glance in which
there was something intimately appraising, and at the same time, burning
and absorbing.

“What am I doing here?” thought Myra with a sudden pang. “Why must I be
the witness of their affection? Simply because they want to guard their
reputation? Ridiculous. They have certainly been alone together a
hundred times before. They can’t be afraid that something will happen
that has never happened yet. These two people know one another
completely and without reserves. I’ve been aware of it for months. How
could I have forgotten it again? What am I doing here?”

Fred filled his glass.

“To good honest comradeship!” he said.

“I’ll drink to that!” Myra raised her glass.

Fred tried to meet her glance with serious, candid eyes. “You’re a born
comrade,” he said sincerely. “Loyal, clever, reticent and daring. You
know, we often visualize people in another age, with different lives, in
other rôles, so to speak. When I visualize you, it is always a thousand
years ago, in the days of the knights and minnesingers. Then I see you
in an esquire’s costume, following your chosen loved one. There are such
figures in the old songs and sagas, and even in my boyhood they always
stirred my emotion and admiration. A heroic maiden, without personal
ambition, but all for love, enduring all hardships, sharing all doughty
deeds, chided and praised, but never receiving the wages of passion
until some time in the tumult of battle she receives a blow or a thrust,
and the knight himself carries his faithful esquire into the tent in his
arms. Then as he peels off the boy’s doublet a woman’s body lies
exposed.”

“Don’t you think he has talent?” teased Gwen. “He should run more with
poets. And what am I? Utter yourself, Mr. Wietinghoff, in what rôle do
you prefer to visualize me?”

“You are an unmistakable child of the twentieth century,” said Fred
scornfully, “silly and precocious, spoiled and childish, fond of dress
and arrogant....”

Gwen stamped her feet on the floor and opened her mouth for an
unmannerly outcry, but Fred hastened to pacify her.

“But sweet,” he said hastily, “quite charming into the bargain,
irresistible, enthralling, entrancing, enchanting!”

“It seems so,” laughed Gwen. “How did I ever enchant you that you’re so
frightfully silly? Drink, children, I find the wine glorious and life a
wonderfully beautiful affair.”

Myra drank to her. The wine made her nerves tingle warmly.

“Comrade,” she thought, “a beautiful, a dear word. Comrade! I would like
to be that, and I can be. Comradeship. That is my strength. But nobody
has ever required it of me yet. I can be a comrade to this little girl
and a comrade to this man. Whether they have other relations with one
another or not, makes no difference to me, doesn’t affect me. Strange,
nobody has ever yet wanted me for a comrade, not even Olga. And yet I
feel as if a key to my inner nature has been given me in those words. I
feel as if I could see into and recognize what is within me. I will
always be grateful to Fred for giving me that clue.”

They all remained in a good mood. Sometimes Gwen laughed so wantonly
that Fred or Myra had to quiet her. Sometimes there was a humorous
allusion which Myra did not understand. But she was no longer hurt by
it. A good comrade must be trusting and patient in all matters. Must be
able to overhear what he does not understand. And must be forever alert,
must listen with ears peeled for a cry of need addressed to him.

At the entrance to their room Fred said good night. He lingered over
both their hands as he kissed them, though not a fraction of a second
longer over one than over the other. But he carried Gwen’s fingers to
his lips and gazed piercingly into her eyes. He bowed his head low over
Myra’s hand.

“Tomorrow we’ll go to the sea!” Gwen danced exuberantly across the room.
“Myra, sweet Myra, isn’t life beautiful? And isn’t it marvellous to go
on a spree with Fred? Aren’t you fascinated by him? Well, something like
that, you don’t have to be afraid of telling me, I’m not jealous! Only I
won’t let myself be put out of business.... But otherwise.... You are a
little in love with him, you don’t have to be afraid to tell me.”

“I think you’re rather tipsy, little mouse,” said Myra, smiling. “It’s
high time that you crept into your bed.”

“Yes, high time—high time,” Gwen hummed softly. She undressed while she
danced around the room, strewing her things on tables and chairs. “But
I’m not tired. Are you tired, Myra? I hope not.”

“Why not? What have you got up your sleeve?”

“Oh, I’m going to the ball with you tonight, to the ‘feather ball.’
Didn’t you use to say that when you were a child? It’s silly, isn’t it?
All children have the same stupid expressions and always think they’re
wonderfully witty, and can repeat them a thousand times over. But when
you grow older you don’t want to hear the best joke or eat the most
beautiful dish twice. Really sad, isn’t it? Or as Fred would say, ‘The
eternal hunger for what is new drives us on.’ Otherwise we’d swing
around in a circle like horses on a merry-go-round. Therefore, long live
the urge to change! What’s taking you so everlastingly long, Myra? I’m
getting into bed already.”

But she did not get into bed at once. She ran about the room in her
undershirt, putting this and that in order and looking for something
here, and wasted time chattering and loitering.

Myra was already in bed. “You’ll catch cold,” she said, shaking her
head. “How can you dawdle around that way? You were ready a half hour
ago. Turn out the unnecessary lights and creep into bed.”

Gwen stretched her bare arms over her head.

“I am so restless,” she complained, “can’t you understand. Ah, Myra, you
always act as if you were made of ice and snow. Really don’t you feel
the wine going through your veins and thudding up against your heart,
again and again.” She struck her breast regularly with her clenched
fist. “And can’t you feel that it’s spring outside? Have you no longer
any roots in the earth so that you can’t feel how the sap is fermenting
in you—in you, as in every tree and bush.”

She stopped beside the bureau and laid her arms and her forehead against
the smooth wood.

“Sometimes I think that a poor mistreated, sawed up, polished piece of a
tree like this still has a spark of life in it. And in spring, when the
great orgy is preparing, it begins to feel a pulse and twitching in its
poor polished wood. Feel it, there’s a throb like the soft beating of a
heart in it. Then I think that the furniture is pleased with me. It
feels my life frothing over, and that fulfills its desire and gives it
rest, Myra!” With a bound she was on the edge of the bed, and was
shaking Myra by the shoulders. “Are you more lifeless than that dead
wood? It isn’t true and I don’t believe you are like that!”

She threw her arms around Myra, burrowing with her head among the
pillows.

“Why don’t you like me, Myra?” she whispered in her ear. “Tell me, is it
because you are in love with Fred? It isn’t true that you’ve never been
in love with a woman. And it isn’t true that you could not love me....”

“Love?” said Myra in a toneless voice. “What do you call love?”

“I call love making someone happy—and making myself happy by doing so. I
call everything else friendship or idolizing or infatuation, infatuation
at most. I want to know what you have against me!”

She knelt on the edge of the bed, tearing the night-gown from her
shoulders like a mad woman.

“You must look at me! You must look at me! Where have I any defect that
could repel you?”

“You are very beautiful,” said Myra with a painful smile.

“Oh, but you are more!” Gwen threw herself upon Myra, and kissed her
mouth and eyelids, her neck and cheeks.

“I don’t want her,” thought Myra. “She has opened her heart to me and I
have not urged her on. I am his comrade, I am his comrade....”

Rosy red waves surged up. They swept from her heart, over her throat up
to her eyes. The room seemed to reel, as if the walls were struggling
for breath, as if their heart were palpitating by fits and starts.

Suddenly everything went still and bright. Like a dazzling light, like
the blare of a trumpet.

Perhaps a board had creaked in the floor very softly.

Myra started up, alert, sober.

Something was in the room that had not been there before.

A violet blotch. And topping it, Fred’s face.

Fred’s eyes. Burning. Greedy. Completely unveiled like the eyes of
rutting animals. Perfectly naked eyes.

Myra did not cry out.

She threw off the soft body that lay choking her.

A catch-phrase flashed through her mind which she could not forget
again. It was the only thing she could think of, and her mind kept
repeating it over and over.

“A put up job. All a put up job!”

She sat up and reached for her clothes.

At that moment Fred sprang at her.

“Myra,” he stammered, “my sweetest one!”

She slapped his face with the palm of her hand.

He had been prepared for resistance, for kicking, scratching and
biting—he would have vanquished her laughingly. But the blow made him
stagger back.

Myra slipped into her clothes.

“A put up job,” she thought, “a put up job!”

Her hands did not shake in spite of her frantic haste. Not until she was
dressed did she cast a quick glance at Fred.

The mark of her hand on his pale face burned like a fiery brand. The
wide lids were quivering over his eyes.

A strange feeling took possession of Myra. A furious joy, “I caught him
a good one.” And then a dawning realization, “This is the first time
that I have ever touched that handsome face—that handsome face.”

She had never formulated it before in thought, it was as if her hands
had always longed to stroke that face.

An unutterable sorrow filled her heart. As if she had possessed
something beautiful and precious and was first aware of it when it lay
ruthlessly shattered and broken at her feet.

She walked quietly to and fro in the room, collecting her things. When
she had to pass Fred she walked around him. He did not look at her, but
he felt it and shuddered.

Gwen had crept out of her bed. She sat pink and naked on the big feather
comforter. She had hunched up her shoulders and was playing rather
embarrassedly with her toes.

The door to the adjoining room stood open. It was the door through which
Fred had entered.

“A put up job,” thought Myra, “a put up job!”

She went with her hat and coat on to that door. With her hand on the
latch, she stopped.

“I am going into the next room,” she said quietly. “I have no desire to
leave the hotel in the middle of the night. I will go at seven and leave
the door into the hall open.”

Fred turned.

“Miss Rudloff,” he said hoarsely, “Miss Rudloff!”

His two dark eyes in his pale face were like two open wounds.

Myra closed the door behind her and threw the bolt with a creak.

She did not turn on the light.

She knew, she sensed—there were things everywhere, strange things, his
things.

After quite a long while she heard voices from the adjoining room, high
and low, muffled and suppressed, but audible.

“Dear God, what won’t I have to hear,” she thought. “Dear God, give me
strength, give me strength. Let me die, if you can, but don’t let me go
insane, so that I will do something—something perfectly terrible....”

But the worst thing was the odor in the room. The smell of cigarettes,
the delicate scent of Russian leather, of soap, of vinegar.

Myra threw the window wide open and moved a chair up to it. The night
was cold. Myra trembled no matter how snugly she wrapped herself in her
coat.

She thought of the city which she would leave. Where would she go
now—whither?

Should she let herself be driven on, homeless, restless, the quarry of
passionate desire?

Or die?

Yes, if she could but have believed in sleep.

But stronger at this moment than ever before she felt undeniably,
inviolably, that there was in her something indestructible.

She was quite humble before that which she felt within her, with the
humility of a mother who feels a strange life stir in her womb.

“My poor soul,” she said softly, “what have I done to you? Why have I
never thought of taking care of and helping you? Why did I always want
to set you wandering in the cold space between the stars? Poor soul, why
do I have you, if you merely suffer on my account and I on yours?
Sometime I shall know, sometime I shall learn all. I would not like to
die, no, I would not like to die before I know why I have lived.”

The memory of Eccarius crossed her mind—“No one ought to die before he
has learned to love death.”

“No, I do not love death. I do not fear him, but I do not love him. I
will learn to love him. I will live in order to learn to love death.
Perhaps that is why we have to live. And perhaps that is why we have to
suffer.”

The voices in the next room hushed. The strange familiar odor had
disappeared from the room.

In the sky the stars were paling before the first feeble light of a
dawning March morning.

THE END

Transcriber’s Notes

This text was transcribed from the unchanged reprint edition in the
collection _HOMOSEXUALITY. Lesbians and Gay Men in Society, History and
Literature_, Arno Press: New York, 1975. Materials from a later date
than the original publication year 1948, such as series title, editorial
information, or publisher advertisements, have been omitted.

The original spelling was mostly preserved. A few obvious typographical
and punctuation errors were silently amended. All other changes are
shown here (before/after):

[p. 62]:
... held the little flame for her asked in a casual tone, “You
are a ...
... held the little flame for her he asked in a casual tone,
“You are a ...

[p. 84]:
... up on the cushion of a chair and lit the gas-jet. I was
evidently ...
... up on the cushion of a chair and lit the gas-jet. It was
evidently ...

[p. 231]:
... is, if Gisela with allow me.” ...
... is, if Gisela will allow me.” ...

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