fond of people if you keep it all on a high level,” and a scrawl from Harriett, pure slang from beginning to end. Both these letters and an earlier one from her mother had moved her to tears and longing when they came. She reread them now unmoved and felt aloof from the things they suggested. It did not seem imperative to respond to them at once. She folded them together. If only she could bring them all for a minute into this room, the wonderful Germany that she had achieved. If they could even come to the door and look in. She did not in the least want to go back. She wanted them to come to her and taste Germany—to see all that went on in this wonderful house, to see pretty, German Emma, adoring her—to hear the music that was everywhere all the week, that went, like a garland, in and out of everything, to hear her play, by accident, and acknowledge the difference in her playing. Oh yes, besides seeing them all she wanted them to hear her play. … She must stay … she glanced round the room. It was here, somehow, somewhere, in this roomful of girls, centring in the Germans at her end of the table, reflected on to the English group, something of that influence that had made her play. It was in the sheen on Minna’s hair, in Emma’s long-plaited schoolgirlishness, somehow in Clara’s anger. It was here, here, and she was in it. … She must pretend to be writing letters or someone might speak to her. She would hate anyone who challenged her at this moment. Jimmie might. It was just the kind of thing Jimmie would do. Her eyes were always roving round. … There were a lot of people like that. … It was all right when you wanted anything or to—to—“create a diversion” when everybody was quarrelling. But at the wrong times it was awful. … The Radnors and Pooles were like that. She could have killed them often. “Hullo, Mim,” they would say, “Wake up!” or “What’s the row!” and if you asked why, they would laugh and tell you you looked like a dying duck in a thunderstorm. … It was all right. No one had noticed her—or if either of the Germans had they would not think like that—they would understand—she believed in a way, they would understand. At the worst they would look at you as if they were somehow with you and say something sentimental. “
Sie hat Heimweh” or something like that. Minna would. Minna’s forget-me-not blue eyes behind her pink nose would be quite real and alive. …
Ein Blatt—she dipped her pen and wrote
Ein Blatt …
aus …
Ein Blatt aus sommerlichen Tagen … that thing they had begun last Saturday afternoon and gone on and on with until she had hated the sound of the words. How did it go on? “
Ein Blatt aus sommerlichen Tagen,” she breathed in a half whisper. Minna heard—and without looking up from her writing quietly repeated the verse. Her voice rose and trembled slightly on the last line.
“Oh, chuck it, Minna,” groaned Bertha Martin.
“Tchookitt,” repeated Minna absently, and went on with her writing.
Miriam was scribbling down the words as quickly as she could—
“Ein Blatt aus sommerlichen Tagen
Ich nahm es so im Wandern mit
Auf dass es einst mir möge sagen
Wie laut die Nachtigall geschlagen
Wie grün der Wald den ich—durchtritt—”
durchtritt—durchschritt—she was not sure. It was perfectly lovely—she read it through translating stumblingly—
“A leaf from summery days
I took it with me on my way,
So that it might remind me
How loud the nightingale had sung,
How green the wood I had passed through.”
With a pang she felt it was true that summer ended in dead leaves.
But she had no leaf, nothing to remind her of her summer days. They were all past and she had nothing—not the smallest thing. The two little bunches of flowers she had put away in her desk had all crumbled together, and she could not tell which was which. … There was nothing else—but the things she had told Eve—and perhaps Eve had forgotten … there was nothing. There were the names in her birthday book! She had forgotten them. She would look at them. She flushed. She would look at them tomorrow, sometime when Mademoiselle was not there. … The room was waking up from its letter-writing. People were moving about. She would not write today. It was not worthwhile beginning. She took a fresh sheet of notepaper and copied her verse, spacing it carefully with a wide margin all round so that it came exactly in the middle of the page. It would soon be teatime. “Wie grün der Wald.” She remembered one wood—the only one she could remember—there were no woods at Barnes or at the seaside—only that wood, at the very beginning, someone carrying Harriett—and green green, the brightest she had ever seen, and anemones everywhere, she could see them distinctly at this moment—she wanted to put her face down into the green among the anemones. She could not remember how she got there or the going home, but just standing there—the green and the flowers and something in her ear buzzing and frightening her and making her cry, and somebody poking a large finger into the buzzing ear and making it very hot and sore.
The afternoon sitting had broken up. The table was empty.
Emma, in raptures—near the window, was calling to the other Germans. Minna came and chirruped too—there was a sound of dull scratching on the window—then a little burst of admiration from Emma and Minna together. Miriam looked round—in Emma’s hand shone a small antique watch encrusted with jewels; at her side was the new girl. Miriam saw a filmy black dress, and above it a pallid face. What was it like? It was like—like—like jasmine—that was it—jasmine—and out of the jasmine face the
