Part 15

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.”