CHAPTER XI

There was a trolley line along the end of the street where Von Pfaffen lived, and almost without her own volition, Marie found herself making toward it. She boarded the first tram that came along, regardless of the direction. She paid her fare and sat staring ahead of her. What was to become of her? Across the way, a fat market woman sat mumbling her gums. Marie found herself watching the huge, uncorseted figure, quivering with the motion of the car.

At each corner, the tram stopped and people kept getting on and off, continually passing between Marie and the old woman who dozed and woke every once in a while, with a start.

"I'll get off where she does," thought the girl. "I'll leave it to Fate."

After what seemed an interminable time, the old woman pulled herself up with a jerk, gathered her basket and various other bundles and waddled out of the car. Marie jumped to her feet and stumbled after her. She stood and watched the ungainly figure till it disappeared round a corner, then she looked about to see where she was. The houses seemed strangely familiar, and suddenly, she realized that she was near the little flat where she had lived with the Schultzes. Fate was kind.

It was almost with joy that she started toward what had been her home. True, her letters had been unanswered, sent back unopened, but kind Frau Schultz and the old man would surely not turn her away, when she told them everything.

With a beating heart, she climbed the stair. On the second landing, a slatternly old woman put her head out of a door.

"Who are you looking for, Fräulein?" she asked, in a hoarse voice.

Marie told her.

"They're not here any more," croaked the creature. "The old man's dead, he had a stroke or something; the old woman's gone, I don't know where."

Marie choked and staggered back against the wall. Her only friends in all the city--one of them dead, the other vanished.

As the door slammed, the girl started blindly down the stairs. An old Bible lesson came into her mind: "_The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests; but the Son of Man hath not where to lay his head._"

She was alone, absolutely alone in this great city, with no one to whom she could go for help. She walked up the street aimlessly, slowly, her lips murmuring over and over: "What shall I do? What shall I do?"

On the corner she stopped. She realized she must collect her scattered thoughts, she must form some plan. It was growing late, here and there the street lights were beginning to flicker.

Presently two men came toward her. She watched them as they drew near, half conscious of what she was doing. One was a dark, heavy-set man who wore a plaid traveling coat and carried a shabby valise. The other was younger, quite thin and stoop-shouldered, his hat pulled down over his eyes. As they passed her, Marie heard the thin man say:

"You will arrive at the _Gare du Nord, mein Herr_. I'm sure they will be there to meet you. Parisians are notably hospitable."

"We must hurry, or we'll miss the train," rumbled the other in a deep voice and they swung into a brisker walk as they passed Marie.

Like a flash she had the answer to her question. In Paris, lived the only relatives she had in the world, some distant cousins of her mother's. She remembered that once her father had brought one of them to the convent to see her. She remembered the kindly sparkle in his eyes, as he playfully pinched her cheek and told her that some day when she was grown, she must come to visit them. They had sent her a letter of sympathy on the occasion of her father's death. She would go to Paris.

She had half forgotten their address, but she would try to remember it on the train. Turning, she almost ran after the two men on their way to the railroad station.

At the ticket office, she emptied her purse. There was very little left when she had paid her fare, but it was with a sense of relief that Marie followed the porter as he went toward the train with her bag. She had taken a second-class ticket and he thrust her into a compartment, holding out a dirty hand for his tip. There was scarcely time to pay him his few _hellers_, when the train began to move, and with a gasp she realized that she was starting out into an absolutely unknown world, with almost nothing in her purse between herself and starvation.

The compartment was empty. She took off her hat and tried to make herself as comfortable as she could for the long journey and, as the train came to full speed and they left the city behind, she stared out into the darkness.

She tried to remember where this cousin she was setting out to find, lived. His name was Le Grand--Jules Le Grand--the address was--the address was--and Marie, exhausted by the bitter disappointments of the day was sound asleep.

Toward midnight, she awoke. Pain, humiliation, anxiety, returned. The dim emptiness of the swaying railway carriage seemed to symbolize her own life. She was so utterly helpless, so absolutely alone, being carried on swiftly by a force over which she had no control.

She tried to remember the Paris address as she sat and stared at the lamp in the ceiling, swinging with the motion of the train.

"Avenue--Avenue----" she kept repeating, when suddenly it came to her. "Avenue Victor Hugo, Number Five _Bis_!"

She almost cried aloud with joy. Paris was no longer a desert to her. There was such a place as the Avenue Victor Hugo, Number Five _Bis_--there was such a person as Monsieur Jules Le Grand. There was some one in the world to whom she could go, and Vienna, Von Pfaffen and all the months she had spent with him, that chapter was closed, finished forever.

She dug her nails in her palms.

"I'm going to bury it all," she whispered to herself. "I'm going to bury it deep. None of it ever happened. I'm going to be born again the day I reach Paris."

Early in the morning the train rumbled into the station at Munich, and a fat guard snapped open the door of her compartment, shouting:

"_Aus steigen! München!_"

She gathered her wraps and the little bag and followed the ungainly porter to where the Paris train was waiting at the far end of the platform.

This time the compartment was almost filled.

Two English women were already settled for the long journey, each deeply immersed in a small red guide-book. In one corner, a smart little Viennese with penciled eyebrows and reddened lips, smiled to herself as she looked out of the window. The other two corners were also filled. One, by a heavy, over-dressed Jewess. The other, piled with the luggage of the two English women. Marie had not the temerity to ask them to remove it, so she sat silently in the small space allotted her.

The train began to jolt and slowly pulled out of the station, gathering speed, till finally it swung clear of the houses of Munich and out into the country.

It was a drizzly cold day, with a leaden sky, and the landscape, as they flew by, looked cheerless and sodden.

From the pile of luggage, the English women extracted a tea-basket and prepared to make tea. One of them offered Marie a cup.

She refused it with a shake of her head and a murmured, "Thank you."

The little Viennese began humming to herself. She was munching some cakes out of a paper bag, and the crumbs kept falling on her lap. She brushed them away with a none-too-clean hand.

"It's a long journey!" said the fat Jewess.

The little Viennese smiled.

"Sometimes long journeys have happy endings," she said.

The two English women were talking to each other in low voices.

Marie only knew a few words of their language, and she listened half curiously to the sharp, sibilant sounds as the women evidently discussed the places mentioned in their guide-books.

What a strange language English was, she thought, every other word seeming to end with a sharp hiss.

The fat Jewess, encouraged by the smile of the little Viennese, began a voluble one-sided conversation.

Marie watched the lamp above her head sway back and forth. As the trees and villages flew past, each one bringing her nearer this great unknown city, she wondered if there might be a possibility of her finding happiness there.

She became aware that the two English women were discussing her, their eyes taking in the details of her costume. It made her uncomfortable. She wondered if there was anything about her appearance that was in the least indicative of what she had been through.

The long day wore on, in fitful conversation, brief, uneasy snatches of sleep, weary watching of the flying landscape.

As the light died, the two English women settled themselves for the night and were soon asleep, their mouths open in unlovely abandon. The fat Jewess ostentatiously turned her rings with the stones inside her hands and sank into a noisy slumber. Marie leaned her head back wearily against the dusty red velvet cushions, and closed her eyes, but the sleep she so longed for as a blessed respite from her thoughts, would not come.

Toward midnight, she sat up with the sudden stopping of the train, as did the other occupants of the compartment. They were crossing the border and the custom officers were going through the luggage.

"Sugar? Chocolate? Matches? Cigars?" she heard them say, as one by one the bags were sleepily opened and gone through, sleepily locked and strapped again, and a sticky stamp pasted on the outside. Then the door was slammed and locked and they all settled down once more to slumber, but to Marie, sleep would not come.

The train sped on and as the morning broke, the others began to stir. The two English women made their toilets with the aid of a handsome leather dressing-case. The little Viennese sat up and reddened her lips with a tiny lipstick, and fluffed her hair. This done, from somewhere in her small bag she brought out a paper bag filled with food and began munching it, happily smiling to herself as she stared out of the window. The fat Jewess awoke with a yawn.

"Where are we?" she asked in guttural German, but as nobody answered, she busied herself turning her rings right side out, and smoothing her carefully dressed hair with the palms of her plump white hands.

Day had arrived.

Marie listlessly watched them preen themselves. She gave a cursory pat to her own hair, a cursory straightening to her collar. She sat up very straight. Her head twisted to see the flying landscape. Her cheeks were flushed with excitement, but under her eyes lay violet shadows. Her lips trembled like a child's about to cry. She was frightened again, now that she was hearing Paris. What was she going to find there? Suppose, after all, the address she remembered was wrong? Suppose Monsieur Le Grand had moved? With thoughts like this, she tortured herself. She blinked back the tears and bit her lips. She must not break down now.

After what seemed centuries, the train rumbled into the dark cavern of the _Gare du Nord_. The English women stuck their heads out of the window, calling:

"_Portier! Portier!_"

The little Viennese gathered her small belongings. As the train came to a standstill, and the guard opened the door, she was out like a flash, and Marie saw her running with a happy laugh into a pair of masculine arms held out to her.

The English women loaded a thin porter with their luggage which almost hid him from view, and sedately followed him along the platform.

The fat Jewess slowly gathered her valises and packages and stood blocking the doorway while she bargained with the porter. Coming at last to an agreement, she stepped heavily down and waddled after him.

Marie, in the shadow of the deserted compartment, waited, too frightened to move. The platform was a babel of voices, shrieking porters, scolding guards, trunks going this way and that, people jostling each other as they came and went.

At last a porter thrust his head in at the door.

"Mademoiselle," he asked, "are you staying here always?"

She was trembling as she stepped onto the platform, and the man eyed her curiously.

"Taxi?" he asked.

"Yes, yes," gasped Marie, "of course."

She followed him through the maze, and handed her ticket to the gate-keeper. As she stood on the steps of the great station, waiting till the man should have found her a cab, a sense of utter desolation came over her. Paris, gay, wonderful, laughing Paris, lay before her, but to the girl, it seemed as though she were staring into Chaos itself.