and when the express slowed to climb a grade, the song of water was everywhere too, water running and shouting down the gray rocks of the Alps. I fell asleep that night with the descant of that icy purity sounding through the plainsong of the rails, and I woke in the station of I——, the old capital of J——, now a province of K——.
I engaged a porter to convey my trunk to the hotel where I had made reservations by telegraph the day before, and amused myself for a few hours by strolling about the city. Here I found the Middle Ages might almost be said to have remained rather than lingered. The city wall was complete on three sides, with its merloned towers in repair, and the cobbled streets surely dated from a period when wheeled traffic of any kind was scarce. As for the buildings—Puss in Boots and his friends must have loved them dearly: there were bulging walls and little panes of bull’s-eye glass, and overhanging upper floors one above another until the structures seemed unbalanced as tops. Upon one gray old pile with narrow windows and massive doors, I found a plaque informing me that though it had been first built as a church, it had been successively a prison, a customhouse, a private home, and a school. I investigated further, and discovered it was now an arcade, having been divided, I should think at about the time of the first Louis, into a multitude of dank little stalls. Since it was, as it happened, one of the addresses mentioned by Baron H——, I went in.
Gas flared everywhere, yet the interior could not have been said to be well lit—each jet was sullen and secretive, as if the proprietor in whose cubicle it was located wished it to light none but his own wares. These cubicles were in no order; nor could I find any directory or guide to lead me to the one I sought. A few customers, who seemed to have visited the place for years, so that they understood where everything was, drifted from one display to the next. When they arrived at each, the proprietor came out, silent (so it seemed to me) as a specter, ready to answer questions or accept a payment, but I never heard a question asked, or saw any money tendered— the customer would finger the edge of a kitchen knife, or hold a garment up to her own shoulders, or turn the pages of some moldering book, and then put the thing down again, and go away.
At last, when I had tired of peeping into alcoves lined with booths still gloomier than the ones on the main concourse outside, I stopped at a leather merchant’s and asked the man to direct me to Fraulein A——.
“I do not know her,” he said.
“I am told on good authority that her business is conducted in this building, and that she buys and sells antiques.”
“We have several antique dealers here. Herr M——.”
“I am searching for a young woman. Has your Herr M——a niece or a cousin?”
“—handles chairs and chests, largely. Herr O——, near the guildhall—”
“It is within this building.”
“—stocks pictures, mostly. A few mirrors. What is it you wish to buy?”
At this point we were interrupted, mercifully, by a woman from the next booth. “He wants Fraulein A——. Out of here, and to your left; past the wigmaker’s, then right to the stationer’s, then left again. She sells old lace.”
I found the place at last, and sitting at the very back of her booth Fraulein A——herself, a pretty, slender, timid-looking young woman. Her merchandise was spread on two tables; I pretended to examine it and found that it was not old lace she sold but old clothing, much of it trimmed with lace. After a few moments she rose and came out to talk to me, saying, “If you could tell me what you require? . . .” She was taller than I had anticipated, and her flaxen hair would have been very attractive if it were ever released from the tight braids coiled round her head.
“I am only looking. Many of these are beautiful—are they expensive?”
“Not for what you get. The one you are holding is only fifty marks.”
“That seems like a great deal.”
“They are the fine dresses of long ago—for visiting, or going to the ball. The dresses of wealthy women of aristocratic taste. All are like new; I will not handle anything else. Look at the seams in that one you hold, the tiny stitches all done by hand. Those were the work of dressmakers who created only four or five in a year, and worked twelve and fourteen hours a day, sewing at the first light, and continuing under the lamp, past midnight.”
I said, “I see that you have been crying, fraulein. Their lives were indeed miserable, though no doubt there are people today who suffer equally.”
“No doubt there are,” the young woman said. “I, however, am not one of them.” And she turned away so that I should not see her tears.
“I was informed otherwise.”
She whirled about to face me. “You know him? Oh, tell him I am not a wealthy woman, but I will pay whatever I can. Do you really know him?”
“No.” I shook my head. “I was informed by your own police.”
She stared at me. “But you are an outlander. So is he, I think.” “Ah, we progress. Is there another chair in the rear of your booth? Your police are not above going outside your own country for help, you see, and we should have a little talk.”
“They are not our police,” the young woman said bitterly, “but I will talk to you. The truth is that I would sooner talk to you, though you are French. You will not tell them that?”
I assured her that I would not; we borrowed a chair from the flower stall across the corridor, and she poured forth her story.
“My father died when I was very small. My mother opened this booth to earn our living—old dresses that had belonged to her own mother were the core of her original stock. She died two years ago, and since that time I have taken charge of our business and used it to support myself. Most of my sales are to collectors and theatrical companies. I do not make a great deal of money, but I do not require a great deal, and I have managed to save some. I live alone at Number 877 —— strasse; it is an old house divided into six apartments, and mine is the gable apartment.”
“You are young and charming,” I said, “and you tell me you have a little money saved. I am surprised you are not married.”
“Many others have said the same thing.”
“And what did you tell them, fraulein?”
