“Ask the gentleman in,” said the Frau Consul; for she understood now that it was the “Company” who desired admittance. The maid went. Then the glass door was opened again to let in a stocky figure, who remained in the shadowy background of the room for a moment and said with a drawling pronunciation something that seemed as if it might have been: “I have the honour—”
“Good morning,” said the Frau Consul. “Will you not come in?” And she supported herself on the sofa-cushion and rose a little; for she did not know yet whether she ought to rise all the way or not.
“I take the liberty,” replied the gentleman in a pleasant singsong; while he bowed in the politest manner, and took two steps forward. Then he stood still again and looked around as if searching for something—perhaps for a place to put his hat and stick, for he had brought both—the stick being a horn crutch with the top shaped like a claw and a good foot and a half long—into the room with him.
He was a man of forty years. Short-legged and chubby, he wore a wide-open coat of brown frieze and a light flowered waistcoat which covered the gentle protuberant curve of his stomach and supported a gold watch-chain with a whole bouquet of charms made of horn, bone, silver, and coral. His trousers were of an indefinite grey-green colour and too short. The material must have been extraordinarily stiff, for the edges stood out in a circle around the legs of his short, broad boots. He had a bullet head, untidy hair, and a stubby nose, and the light-blond curly moustache drooping over his mouth made him look like a walrus. By way of contrast, the imperial between his chin and his underlip stood out rather bristly. His cheeks were extremely fat and puffy, crowding his eyes into two narrow light-blue cracks with wrinkles at the corners. The whole face looked swollen and had a funny expression of fierceness, mingled with an almost touching good nature. Directly below his tiny chin a steep line ran into the white neckcloth: his goiterous neck could not have endured a choker. In fact, the whole lower part of his face and his neck, the back of his head, his cheeks and nose, all ran rather formlessly in together. The whole skin of the face was stretched to an immoderate tightness and showed a roughness at the ear-joinings and the sides of the nose. In one of his short fat white hands the visitor held his stick; in the other his green Tyrolese hat, decorated with a chamois beard.
The Frau Consul had taken off her glasses and was still rising from her sofa-pillow.
“What can I do for you?” she asked politely but pointedly.
The gentleman, with a movement of decision, laid his hat and stick on the lid of the harmonium. He rubbed his free hands with satisfaction and looked at the Frau Consul out of his kindly, light-blue eyes. “I beg the gracious lady’s pardon for the card,” he said. “I had no other by me. My name is Permaneder—Alois Permaneder, from Munich. Perhaps you might have heard my name from your daughter.” He said all this in a puzzling dialect with a rather loud, coarse voice; but there was a confidential gleam from the cracks of his eyes, which seemed to say: “I’m sure we understand each other already.”
The Frau Consul had now risen entirely and went forward with her hand outstretched and her head inclined in greeting.
“Herr Permaneder! Is it you? Certainly my daughter has spoken of you. I know how much you contributed to make her visit in Munich pleasant and entertaining. And so some wind has blown you all the way up here?”
“That’s it; you’re just right there,” said Herr Permaneder. He sat down by the Frau Consul in the armchair which she gracefully indicated to him, and began to rub his short round thighs comfortably with both hands.
“I beg your pardon?” asked the Frau Consul. She had not understood a single word of his remark.
“You’ve guessed it, that’s the point,” answered Herr Permaneder, as he stopped rubbing his knees.
“How nice!” said the Frau Consul blankly. She leaned back in her chair with feigned satisfaction and folded her hands. Actually, she was quite as much at sea as before, and inly wondering if Antonie were really able to follow the windings of the Bavarian tongue. But Herr Permaneder—though his appearance hardly led one to expect that he possessed acute sensibilities—saw through her at once. He bent forward, making—God knows why—circles in the air with his hand, and, struggling after clarity, enunciated the words: “The gracious lady is surprised?”
“Yes, Herr Permaneder, yes!” she cried, with disproportionate joy, for she had really understood him. Perhaps they could manage after all! But now there came a pause. To fill it out, Herr Permaneder gave a sort of groan, and followed it up by an exclamation in the broadest of dialect: something that shocked the Frau Consul because it sounded so like swearing, though it probably wasn’t—at least, she hoped not! Should she ask him to repeat it?
“Ah—what did you say?” she ventured, turning her light eyes a little away, that he might not see the bewilderment they expressed.
Herr Permaneder obliged by repeating, with extraordinary loudness and coarseness. Surely it was something about a crucifix! Horrors!
“How nice!” she stammered again, with desperate finality; and thus this subject also was disposed of. It might be better to talk a little oneself. “May one ask,” she went on, “what brings you so far, Herr Permaneder? It is a good long journey from Munich!”
“A little business,” said Herr Permaneder, as before, and waved his broad hand in the air. It was really touching, the efforts he
