Part 4

“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.

V

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.