CHAPTER III

The first few weeks in her new home were not so unpleasant as Marie had anticipated. Frau Schultz and her good husband took the girl under their wing, and in their simple kindly way, tried to help her fit herself to her new environment.

After all, it is only the transition period that is difficult for any of us to live through. We adjust ourselves rapidly to the life that lies on either side of it, but in that short span between what was and what is to be, lies our keenest sorrow and suffering.

After the first hard wrench that carried her out of the little house in the _Blumen Strasse_ into these very different surroundings, Marie began to enjoy the companionship of the old couple.

Herr Schultz, Shatzi, as his wife called him, played the piano in a café in an out-of-the-way corner of the city. He was a heavy, rather stupid old man, who had lived his life pounding out indifferent music on café pianos. His round, prominent eyes looked out into the world with a mild wonder. His thick gray hair was rough and unkempt, and his shabby clothes kept his neat wife busy brushing away the spots which, in spite of her vigilance, would persist in garnishing them. His heavy mouth always wore a half-childish smile, and his manner was one of apology for his very existence, but his little wife, with her wrinkled face, her sharp old eyes, lived only for him. At first Marie wondered, but she came to understand that no man can be so utterly devoid of attraction, but that some woman will love him.

These simple people took the girl to their hearts. They were staunch socialists who believed firmly in the tenets of their order, still they realized that the accident of birth which had placed them in the social status in which they lived, made them not inferior, but different from those who occupied a higher stratum of society. They had not failed to observe the difference between Marie and themselves, yet it was not in the least an obstacle to the mutual respect and love which increased as the days passed.

Their own daughter, whose photograph was omni-present, they had lost years before. Frau Schultz, whose fond, though mistaken imagination had seen a resemblance in Marie's blond prettiness to the plain Frieda, pointed it out to her husband, who, always ready to acquiesce with her opinions, eagerly agreed.

The tiny flat, with its old-fashioned furniture, with Hanzi, the canary, singing in his cage, and the shining leaves of the little rubber tree in the corner, came to mean home to Marie.

The furnishings of her father's house realized less than Herr Gutmann had anticipated. While the money lasted, Marie busied herself helping Frau Schultz about her duties and sewing buttons on the shirts which the thrifty little woman made to eke out the scanty exchequer.

In her inexperience, she had believed that the world was made up of people like her father and the nuns at the convent. People who were kind and thoughtful, considerate of the feelings of others, each man ready and willing to help his weaker brother. The splendor and riches that sparkled along the boulevards, the fertile fields, with their bounteous harvests that spread about the convent, this was the world to her. She had no realization that there might be people who could have no share in all this. She had supposed that she would always be surrounded by the comforts of a home such as the little house in the _Blumen Strasse_. The sudden awakening out of this pleasing supposition, had left her dazed, breathless, as one would feel when a supposedly secure shelter had been suddenly shattered by wanton hands.

Although Marie's education at the convent had given her no definite training for earning her living, still she was not without an inherent quality of courage, that dogged something that had made her father go on with his life when his heart was in the grave. With her natural timidity, she shrank from contact with the world of which she knew so little, but the realization that her money was fast dwindling away, warned her that a means of augmenting her slender resources, must be found. Mentally shutting her eyes, and gulping as a child does before taking a dose of bitter medicine, she faced the situation.

Herr Gutmann managed to get two pupils for her. Twice a week, Marie went to teach them the scales.

One was the small daughter of a rich brewer. She was a delicate, weak-eyed child, without any initiative or interest in anything. She always seemed to Marie like a pale spot in the gloom of the huge drawing-room. Her thin legs, dangling down from the music bench seemed ever to be seeking a resting-place, and her transparent fingers played the scales in a tinkling, apologetic way, making the same mistakes in the same places, lesson after lesson. When Marie's patience gave out, which was seldom, for she loved children and even had a spark of affection for this unresponsive little creature, the pale eyes would blink at her uncomprehendingly, and the thin fingers would tinkle out the same mistakes in the same way.

Her other pupil was a boy of eleven, a square, flat-faced youngster who hated the lessons and spent his time between them in devising methods of annoyance for his patient teacher. He was never happier than when, with both feet on the pedals he would come crashing down on the keys, till poor Marie held her ears in terror, for the boy's mother was nervous and abhorred noise of any kind, and each lesson ended in the servant bringing word that the _Gnädige Frau_ could not be disturbed any longer.

But even for these two pupils, Marie was grateful. The money she earned, she put away to be used when her own supply should have vanished.

The sum in the savings-box was still pitifully small, when one day the servant, coming in with the usual message about the _Gnädige Frau's_ nervousness, added that the noise disturbed her, so that in the future, she would be obliged to have the lessons discontinued. With an extra crash on the long-suffering piano keys, the square-faced youngster announced that he was glad, that he hated music, he hated teachers, hated everything in general and Marie in particular, and bounced out of the room.

The girl stood for a moment staring blankly at the servant who grinned as she held the door open for her. She could hear the thumping footsteps of her pupil as he bounded up the stair, and his voice came down to her shouting his joy at the dismissal of the hated teacher.

Her heart sank as she went down the steps into the street. There was still the pale-eyed child, however, and the money left by her father was not yet quite exhausted, why let this curt dismissal prey on her so? She squared her shoulders and lifted her chin. Things hadn't reached their worst yet.

It was raining a sad sort of drizzle that made it difficult to be cheerful, and it was with a vague foreboding that she turned into the street where the other pupil lived, and rang the bell of the big house.

The man servant who let her in, took her umbrella and threw open the door of the gloomy room. She missed the apologetic tinkle of the scales which usually came from somewhere out of the distance. Her eyes growing accustomed to the semi-darkness, she saw the pale-eyed child sitting at the piano, her dangling feet groping for a resting-place, her thin hands idle on the keys. When the man had closed the door, the child slid from the piano bench.

"Fräulein," she said, "I don't have to take any lesson to-day, the doctor says it is bad for my eyes."

Marie paused in her task of unrolling her music.

"When shall I come then?" she asked.

"Oh," and there was a quick note of pleasure in the colorless little voice which hurt the girl to hear, "I don't have to take any more lessons at all. Here's a note from mamma," and she handed her a small white envelope.

Marie took it with trembling fingers. She opened the note and found it to be a formal one of dismissal on account of the child's health. It enclosed a small sum still due.

Marie walked home through the rain. Surely this great world that she had seen stretch away in such fertile fields from the convent windows, had enough to spare for one girl who wanted so little. The uneven distribution of material things had never touched her before. Now she was beginning to realize that there were those who had more than they could use, and yet held tightly to it all. How few there were like the father whom she had lost, whose religion it had been to share with his fellow men.

She climbed the long flights to the little Schultz flat, disheartened. Her landlady's sharp eyes took in the situation at a glance.

"Both of them stopping, Fräulein?" she asked, "never mind, drink your coffee and to-morrow you can find others." Her optimism stilled Marie's fears and as she sipped the steaming beverage and munched the cake Frau Schultz was noted for, she planned how she would find other pupils.

And now began long days of seeking for something into which her poor little convent-learned accomplishments would fit.

But nobody seemed to want to study music. Her French was nearly perfect, the good nuns at the Sacred Heart had seen to that. She tried to find some one who wished to learn, but though it happened that just then the study of the French language was very popular in Vienna, everyone wanted a Mademoiselle from Paris.

She knew a little singing, a little drawing; a little, but not enough of anything. Her drawing, she tried to utilize, but no one wanted to learn the gentle art of sketching in water colors or making dainty pen drawings. The time had gone by for that, there were too many art schools where one could learn to paint boldly from the nude, in garish colors, futurist canvasses.

How many others were trying as she was trying. How much more competition than things for which to compete. This world, that seen from the convent windows, had seemed all peaceful fields, green and tranquil, that had given her kindness and comfort in her father's house, what a different aspect it wore, now that she had stepped down from her sheltered nook.

To Marie, facing it like a timid hare brought to bay, it seemed like a pack of snarling hounds, quarreling over bones thrown from some more fortunate table, wrangling and fighting, climbing on the shoulders of each other, ruthlessly trampling down the weaker. She was frightened, yet filled with a bitter wonder that here, suffering was not only a possibility, but a certainty.

The pillow on her little yellow bed was soaked with many tears, frightened, disappointed tears, and still, through it all the thoughtfulness and generosity of these two old people with whom she made her home, kept alive in her heart faith in human nature. They had so little and yet that little was divided gladly with one less fortunate than they.

The year was nearly gone now and so was the money. Soon she would have to supply herself from the small box of savings, and after that, she dared not think. She could not be a burden to these kindly people, knowing, as she did, that there was scarcely enough for themselves, and that, only, with the help of what she was paying for her tiny room.

One evening, Herr Schultz came home with the announcement that there was a chance for her if she cared to take it, singing in the little café where he played.

"The salary is very small, Fräulein," he said, "but I shall be there to bring you home each night, and your voice is not a bad one."

Marie loathed the very thought of doing such a thing, but she dared not refuse with a knowledge of her ever-dwindling funds, and the danger of at last living on the Schultz's bounty, so it was decided that she was to go with the old man the next day and apply for the position.

"Have you a pretty dress, Marie?" asked Herr Schultz. "You will have to wear something with no neck or sleeves."

Marie made a mental inventory of her wardrobe. There was a simple frock that could be arranged, so she nodded. The old man rubbed his hands.

"Now," he said, "come and sing some of the Schubert Lieder, or perhaps a little Grieg."

Her voice was a small high soprano, with a very sweet note in it, and her natural appreciation for all that was beautiful and tender, gave her singing an appealing quality that more than compensated for its lack of volume.

The old man was delighted.

"Good!" he said. "We go to-morrow," and Frau Schultz nodded approval, as she threaded a needle, her small head on one side, the bird-like eyes squinting at her work.

The café or tingle-tangle where old Schultz played, was one of the sort the outside world referred to as Bohemian, tucked away in an obscure corner of the city. The proprietor was an oily-faced man whose good humor depended entirely upon the amount of patronage his house received.

He nodded to old Schultz and looked Marie over appraisingly. He noted with approval her blue eyes and delicate features. The mourning frock, for she still wore black, set off the gold of her hair.

"Sing for me," he said, and to Schultz's accompaniment and with her heart pounding, Marie sang.

"H'm," grunted the proprietor, "the voice will do, but Gott, those songs, do you think this is a church? Find something lively, something gay, a bit--you know," and the girl felt her face flush at his tone.

She was about to say she couldn't, but she thought of the little that stood between her and starvation, and that not only she, but the good people with whom she lived, needed this position, so swallowing hard, she said she would try.

"And your dress," the proprietor called after them as she and the old man were leaving, "mind you put some dash in it!"

"It will be all right," soothed Schultz, when they were walking down the street together, "don't mind, _kleinchen_, I'll be there to take care of you. We'll go now and pick out some songs, and to-night the good _Frau_ will help you fix up the dress."

They went into a music shop, in the window of which hung a gaudy display of popular music. With the help of an anæmic youth who stood behind the counter and ogled Marie, they selected four or five, and having paid for them out of her slender purse, they started home. All that afternoon they went over the songs, the old man explaining to her how she must sing them, with more dash, more life, and the girl going over them patiently.

"Can't I put in one of the Schubert songs?" she begged. "Just so I won't feel so terribly away from myself?" and after a good deal of debate, they settled on "Impatience," trusting that its swift-rung cadence might make up for its very evident incongruity to the surroundings.

All evening, Frau Schultz and Marie pulled and snipped and sewed at the simple frock, trying to arrange it so as to please her new employer, and when at last the girl stood before the little mirror and looked at her reflection, she was startled at the change she saw. Her slender arms were white, even against the white of the gown, and her almost childish throat and young bosom with its delicate curves looked very lovely where the lace fell away. She had piled her hair high on her head, and the good Frau, after searching among her belongings, had unearthed an old-fashioned high comb which she had insisted upon her wearing.

"You look very sweet," she said, "to-morrow you'll win every one's heart."

"I don't want to do that," sighed Marie. "It's a horrid place, really Frau Schultz, but I must do my best. That means a lot to all of us, doesn't it?"

The good little woman kissed her.

"There, there," she said, "if things don't go right, you must not worry. Shatzi and I are always here. Now go to bed," and with a kind little pat, she took the lamp and left her, closing the door after her.

For a long time Marie sat and looked at the girl in the mirror. What would be the outcome of this venture, she wondered. What would her father have said, if he could have known. If she could have looked ahead, how she would have hated the little white dress that she laid aside so carefully, how she would have hated the old-fashioned comb, which she drew out to permit her wonderful hair to come tumbling about her shoulders.

What an all wise Providence it is that has made us blind to what lies before us! How few would have the courage to go on if they could look even one day ahead!

As she turned down her lamp and slipped into bed, her only thought was, could she manage to keep this place that had come to her when she so much needed it.