which meant relief from her ego, her troubles, while in her mind she endeavored to accompany the old gentleman across the courtyard. And then upstairs to Frau Thumann’s door. She thought she could hear him ring, and now she wanted to concentrate on his conversation with the landlady.… She would talk, that woman! Oh, she would talk, reveal everything, fling mud at them both, lament over the lost money.…
And suddenly she could see their room, the ugly den gilded by the rays of love.… There they had laughed, slept, talked, read.… Wolf stood brushing his teeth at the wash stand. She said something.…
“I can’t hear,” he shouted. “Talk louder.”
She did.
“Louder.” He went on brushing his teeth. “I can’t hear a word. Louder still.”
She obeyed, he brushed, the soap foamed.
“I said much louder.”
She obeyed and they laughed.
Here they had been together; she had waited for him, never in vain.…
And she saw the street in one quick stab and knew that she was walking along … fairy fountain … Hermannspark … on, still farther on … And now she was in the country, with fields and forests, bridges and bushes … And again towns full of houses with doorways, and again land and water, vast oceans … and distant lands and country and town; unimaginable.… The myriad potentialities of life at every corner in every village … “To thee will I give all the glory of them.” Her brain grew confused. “And I will worship before you if you will give me back our room and the vigil for him within it.”
Slowly the world went dark. Everything was extinguished. The world was obscured. Dark shreds floated away, hiding her.… At one moment she thought she could still see the curtains in the room, yellow-gray, and hanging limp and motionless in the immense sultry heat. Then they too were swallowed up in the night.
The servant Ernst laid his hand on her shoulder and said admonishingly: “Fraulein, please, Fraulein.”
Petra saw him from a long way off and, as if she had been urgently waiting to put the question ever since he had gone, asked at once: “What did they say?”
The man shrugged his shoulders. “Where has the young master, gone to?” She hesitated and he said soothingly: “You needn’t feel embarrassed with me. I’m only his aunt’s servant. I needn’t tell her everything.”
“He has gone to get some money.” He couldn’t learn anything worse from her than he had heard upstairs.
“And hasn’t come back?”
“No. Not yet. I’m waiting.”
They were both silent for a while, she waiting for what fate and perhaps this man had in store for her, he undecided whether to go away and report to his mistress. He could guess without difficulty what Frau Major General von Anklam thought of this girl, and what she would say to active help. All the same.…
Ernst stepped slowly through the doorway on to the street to look irresolutely right and left, but the man they expected was nowhere to be seen. For a moment he entertained the thought of simply going away. The girl would not hinder him at all, he believed; it was an easy solution; any other might bring him into difficulties with Her Excellency. Or cost him money—and the less the value of the small capital which Ernst had for a lifetime saved up, the more firmly he held on to it. In his small room at home he would fill one tea canister after another with notes and their incredible figures.
Nevertheless.…
He looked up and down the street once more, but there was no one.
Hesitatingly, almost a little indignant with himself, he went back to the doorway and asked with reluctance: “And suppose the young master doesn’t bring any money?”
She looked at him with a slight movement of the head—revived by the vague prospect, suggested in the servant’s words, that Wolfgang would still return, even if penniless.
“And suppose he doesn’t come back at all, what will you do then?”
Her head fell forward, her eyelids closed—without uttering a word it was clear enough that she would then be indifferent to everything. “Fraulein,” he, said uncertainly, “a manservant doesn’t earn much. And I’ve lost all my savings, but if you would like to take this …”
He tried to push a note for 50,000 marks into her hand; he had taken it out of his worn, thin pocketbook. And as she withdrew her hand, he went on more insistently: “No, no, you must take it. It’s only for the fare, so that you can go home.” He stopped short and pondered. “You can’t go on standing here like this. Surely you’ve got some relative to go to?”
He broke off again. It struck him that she could not possibly get on a streetcar in such a get-up, legs bare to above the knee, slippers down-at-heel, a man’s miserable overcoat displaying too much of her breast.
He stood there embarrassed, almost angry. He would like to help her but—how could one help her? He couldn’t exactly take her with him, dress her, and then what? “O God, Fraulein,” he said, suddenly downcast. “How could the young master have let things get to this?”
But Petra had understood only one thing. “So you also think that he won’t come back?”
He shrugged his shoulders. “How can I tell? Have you quarreled? Weren’t you going to get married today?”
Marry! Yes. She’s heard the word but hadn’t given it any further thought. “We’re getting married today,” she said, and laughed vaguely. She remembered that today was the day she would be getting rid of the name Ledig, which had always been something like a stain. She remembered it when she woke up, didn’t dare look for his wallet, and was sure of it all the same. It would happen today! Then the first doubts came—his indecisive attitude when she first urged him, then demanded, then begged.… And how she already felt when the door slammed—Well, it won’t be today after all.
Suddenly (and incomprehensibly, because hunger had caused her burning head even to forget that, though it had happened)—suddenly, in front of the mirror, she realized, she knew that he might well have gone, but that he would still remain with her, in her forever. What had happened next—the humiliating begging in Frau Thumann’s kitchen, the squinting at Ida’s brioche, the expulsion, the endless passive waiting in the corridor—that was all caused by hunger, that crafty enemy of body and brain that had made her forget what she never should have forgotten, that he was in her.
What was the matter? Was she bewitched? So far she had always managed to get along. Her mother may have been as brutal as she could be—a few tears and Petra went on. The fascinating gentlemen with knife-sharp creases to their trousers may have proved vulgar and stingy she had set her teeth and gone on. Wolfgang might return or might not return—that was dreadful, yes. But for twenty-two years she had eaten humble pie for her own sake, and now she was standing there doing nothing, bespoken and not called for, when, for the first time in her life, another being was dependent on her, on her alone—no other woman in the world could replace her. It was absurd.
A stream of thoughts entered her mind, so that she was almost overwhelmed. After hunger had immersed her poor head for a time in dark, vague dreams, it now made it over-active, wide awake and clear—everything seemed simple. She had somebody to look after, and because this somebody was within herself she must first of all look after herself—this was obvious. Everything would then come right again.
And while she was thinking this, she was already thinking about other things. She was already making her plans—the things to be done immediately and the things later. And therefore she said suddenly, clear and decided: “Yes, it’s nice of you to give me the money. I can make good use of it. Many thanks.”
The manservant looked at her dumbfounded. Only the fraction of a minute had passed since he reminded her that today she had intended to marry. Ernst could not guess the train of thought this one remark had evoked, or what she had experienced and planned in these few seconds. He saw only the change in her face, which was no longer vacant but full of life and had even regained some of its color. Instead of a hesitating mutter he heard energetic tones, almost a command. Without any hesitation he put the money in her hand.
“Well, Fraulein,” he said, a little angry, “so you’re alert again. Why? The registry office is closed by now. I really believe you’ve had a drop too much.
“No,” she replied. “An idea has occurred to me, that’s all—I haven’t been drinking. I appear strange to you because I’ve eaten nothing for a long time and that makes one queer in the head.”
“Eaten nothing!” Ernest now waxed really indignant. All his life he had had his meals regularly at the appointed times. “Nothing to eat! The young master oughtn’t to do such things.”
