The Song Of Songs Part 98

Or they bought their suppers for a few pennies at a delicatessen shop, and escaped the city dust in the Tiergarten, where they hunted up an empty bench somewhat removed from the public ways, yet not in too secluded a spot. It was not until love couples began to wander by in the dark like shades of the netherworld that they felt wholly concealed; and if others seated themselves on the same bench, they little objected, knowing well that love couples would never remain beside them long. They had much more urgent need of the night and solitude than Lilly and Konrad.

While the light green leaves, still stemless, gradually melted into a dark, shadowy, jagged ma.s.s, and the sunset flames above merged into the sombre purple of night, and the nightingale sang for them sometimes only a few feet away, they would sit there shoulder to shoulder waiting for the stars to dot the twilight, each evening later and fewer in number.

Their winged thoughts travelled far into the realms of music, painting, northern sagas and Italian landscapes. Questions of infinity arose, hesitating and halting, and were promptly disposed of with the sure, clear discernment of a happy, youthful lat.i.tudinarianism. Lilly was now accurately informed of the meaning of the universe and immortality and the soul and G.o.d.

Often she felt as if she had been left alone to freeze in a vast, icy waste where there was no Father, no life after death, and certainly no St. Joseph.

"What you believe, I suppose, is atheism, isn't it?" she asked timorously.

"If that's what you want to call it," he laughed.

So, from now on Lilly was an atheist, one of those who in the eyes of the Church were roasting in nethermost h.e.l.l. But if excommunication did not drive _him_ to despair, she, too, could suffer it. She would even endure a Fatherless condition.

Her one regret was for St. Joseph.

Although he had not entered her thoughts for many a day, none the less it was a pity never again to be able to run to him in sorrow or joy, never, at least, without having to feel ashamed of herself, and that exactly at a time when she needed him so urgently, when her experiences fairly overwhelmed her with their force and number.

She felt a desire to be lulled and calmed, and the lofty art that Konrad spread before her eyes by no means soothed her; rather, it goaded her on, though, to be sure, to fresh delights.

They went to what few concerts the late season still offered, and heard the Eroica and Brahms' Second Symphony and an unutterably exquisite production by Grieg.

They would take their stand in the cheaper part of the house, where they both delighted to be, and listen with the backs of their hands touching as if by chance. A slight pressure conveyed the feelings awakened by some subtle charm or expressive bit.

What wonderful hours those were!

And what wonderful hours when she sat at Konrad's side in the pit (where none of the "crew" could see her). As she learned to know Shakespeare's characters belonging to every age and time and Wagner's luminous fairy-tale realism, she understood fully how infinitely poor her previous life had been.

He took her to see the moderns also.

Of all the plays Rosmersholm affected her most.

She, Lilly, with her secret guilt, was Rebecca. He in his unsuspicious purity was Rosmer. His high-pitched spirituality had an increasingly strong influence on her, as Rosmer's on Rebecca. But if the filth of her existence should gradually roll from her upon him, would she not be his evil demon, his ruination?

The thought was intolerable. She wept so bitterly during the performance as to attract general attention, and Konrad offered to take her out. She indignantly repudiated the suggestion.

On going home she staggered along the river side, still sobbing. He had chosen that way because it was darker and quieter, and he half carried her on his arm.

On the Spreebrucke she stopped and stared down into the dark, living depths. He let her have her way, but when she began to climb up on the railing--to see what it was like--he forced her down from the precarious position.

"What's the difference?" she thought. "When he finds it all out, I'll have to go down there after all--and alone."

From that evening on the effort to keep him free of the slightest suspicion as long, as long as possible troubled her more than ever, occupied her thoughts every moment of the day.

Her great ignorance caused her no shame--nevertheless she fought against it with all her might--but she lived in constant terror that the slovenly, cynical tone to which she had gradually habituated herself through long intercourse with the "crew," might crop out in her conversation.

The bit of carefully cherished rigour and good-breeding which she fetched out from among the remnants of her former spiritual state did her sluggish being good. And so she acquired some of that "grandeur"

which she had demanded of herself at the beginning of her relations with Konrad. This time, however, it was not empty affectation, but an inner quality, a natural outcome of the finest and tenderest feelings, which she might still call her own.

Much that had long dominated her thoughts became unintelligible to her, especially the tendency caught from her friends, to transfer everything entering the circle of her thoughts to the realm of the erotic.

In astonishment she beheld world upon world opening up beyond the narrow whirlpool in which she had been carried around and around. Such a wealth of great and beautiful things to taste and enjoy was suddenly spread before her, that she did not find the time to feel ashamed of what had been.

But when she recalled how she had once dared to kiss him, shame ran hot through her body. That moment of wild abandon, she feared, might ever remain a stain upon his image of her.

Yet there was not the slightest indication that he did not think of her with the same respect as she of him. This mutual esteem always hung between them like a gauze veil, obscuring the beloved man's face as behind a mist of mingled happiness and anxiety, though at the same time removing the sting of self-reproach from Lilly.

They were never more to talk of love. Love gave way to a sweet, fraternal, though somewhat constrained relations.h.i.+p. The word "friends.h.i.+p" was frequently on their lips. They praised its hallowing force with a most serious mien, as if they had not the faintest notion of what it meant.

It was difficult, however, for Lilly to endure Konrad's bodily proximity. The one caress he permitted himself was to lay his arm lightly on her shoulder when they sat side by side. Though Lilly then longed to press closer up to him she finally moved farther away, because the constriction of her breast mounted by degrees to veritable torture.

She never ventured in the very slightest to think that some day he might become her lover. When unable to fall asleep, she pictured herself drowsing off with her head under his shoulder--that was bliss enough.

Her fancies scarcely ever strayed into forbidden territory. The chast.i.ty of her maiden days, which the colonel's senile greed had rudely violated, once again laid its merciful veil about her tremulous soul. In fact it was all as in the long-forgotten days of her girlhood--the golden wealth of thoughts and sensations, the witching glamour about each little object, the delightful importance of the tiniest incidents, the hopeful disquiet hoping for she knew not what.

If only there had been a single human being in whom to confide her joy and fears, her happiness would have been complete.

The desire waxed so strong within her as to be nearly uncontrollable.

She had found herself more than once on the brink of telling her secrets to Richard--a quick way of ending them.

One day she decided to visit her former landlady and acquaint her with her great experience.

The old friends.h.i.+p between Mrs. Laue and Lilly had never wholly died down. Though they saw little of each other, Lilly had kept herself alive in the old lady's memory by sending messages and little gifts.

The tenant _pro tem._ of the "best room" opened the door for Lilly.

Mrs. Laue, as always, was sitting at her long white work table tapping busily with her wet finger-tips now on a pressed flower, now on a gluey bit of paper. She did not suffer herself to be interrupted, not even when Lilly on taking a seat beside her pushed toward her the sweets she never failed to bring.

"No, thanks, child," said Mrs. Laue. "Each bite more is one flower less.

People like myself have to wait for a holiday before we can eat. We have n.o.body to provide for us and keep us like a princess. I'd like to be in your shoes just one day before I lie in my grave--go out walking early in the morning--with nothing to do but feed a couple of gold fish."

"As if that were happiness," sighed Lilly.

"Do you mean to complain of your lot?" cried Mrs. Laue indignantly. "If I were in your place, I'd thank the Lord every hour of the day for having sent me such a friend."

"Do you think that would satisfy all your hopes?"

"Why, what else do you want?" Mrs. Laue--ceaselessly tapping--rebuked her. "He can't marry you any more--that's out of the question. Besides marriage would be nasty after all you've gone through. But listen to me.

Be careful! If you always behave yourself nicely, he will make you an allowance, and you'll have something to live on all your life."

"So, I'm just to aim for an old age pension?"

"Well, what else?"

"I can conceive of many other objects in life."

"What? Work? Try it. See what it's like after you've been nothing but emotions for years. Or take another lover? Then you'd be sure of a fine time. Let me tell you one thing, child; never for a single instant think of another man. If you were to do that, you'd deserve to paste flowers like me--sixteen hours a day--until you die."

While incessantly pasting one flower after the other, she poured out a volume of well-intentioned admonitions.