They had expeditions with the Baroness Volinsky and Minna von Escher, until Kurt, wounded to his little heart, as he could so often and so piteously be wounded, was convinced that no amount of advertising the merits of the pretty little baroness would make Fran like her. As to why Sam and Minna did not get along, he never understood, so he looked hurt and gave it up.
To Sam, Frau von Escher was a reminder that there were women who did not find him clumsy and cold, and he wanted to escape from that reminder. He could well enough picture falling into the entertaining distress of passion. He could even question whether it wasn’t merely emotional indolence and fear of getting “mixed up,” not morality, which had kept him “pure.” Wasn’t it because he did want to kiss Minna’s wide derisive mouth that he was chilly to her, and contradicted everything she said … and gave Fran a chance to point out that he was rude and that it had been only her influence which had kept him amiable all these years?
“Hell!” said Sam Dodsworth wearily, and for all his searching he never found a more competent way of expressing it.
So he groped through the fog, and there was no path to be found. In the distance was the sound of menacing waters, and always he stumbled over unseen roots in a trance less real than any dream.
XXV
It seemed a singularly undistinguished morning. Sam looked forward only to a vague dinner with Kurt and a friend from Vienna, and as Kurt had said nothing more ecstatic about his friend than that he was “soch a good fellow and he speaks seven languages and is so fonny,” Sam knew that the fellow couldn’t be up to much. For the afternoon they planned to see the exhibit of Kolbe’s sculptures at Cassirer’s and the French impressionists at the Gallerie Tannhäuser, and Sam hoped (not very optimistically) to lure Fran out to Charlottenburg to inspect factories and tenements for laborers. … She liked to discuss what she called the Lower Classes with everyone save members of the Lower Classes.
He lolled in the sitting-room of their suite, rather slovenly in dressing-gown and ancient slippers, which Fran was always going to replace by new elegance and never did. When he had finished reading the Paris American papers and had exclaimed over the fact that Mr. T. Q. Obelisk of Zenith had just landed in Europe and was going to squander an entire three weeks in Paris, he had nothing more to do. He thought of answering Henry Hazzard’s last letter. But—oh, thunder, there was no news—He thought of having a drink, and answered that it was much too early in the day. He thought of going for a walk but—oh, he’d walked all over the inner city.
He mouched. He prowled through the sitting-room, turning over tourist agency folders about Java—the North Cape—Rio de Janeiro.
He peeped into the bedroom. Fran, in nightgown and fluffy pink knitted bed jacket, was still abed, but over her chocolate she was furiously trying to read the Vossische Zeitung and the Tageblatt with the aid of a dictionary, imagination, and discreet skipping. He looked admiringly at her display of scholarship, he said that it was going to be a swell day, and returned to the sitting-room to stare out at the Pariser Platz and wish he were home.
At a knock, he said “Come in!” indifferently. It would be the room-waiter, to clear away.
It was a boy with a cable.
For a time Sam put off opening it. It pleased him to think that even in his insignificance here in Berlin, he was the sort of man who received cables. Then he read:
“Congratulate us birth nine pound son stop Emily splendid shape cheers stop your first grandchild Harry Mckee.”
Sam stood glorying. He was not finished, after all—something of him had been carried on with this new life! And Emily would be so happy! How he loved her! And now, by golly, Fran would want to go home! They’d catch the next steamer and see the baby, Emily, Harry, Brent, Tub, Henry Hazzard—In maybe two weeks—
He paraded into the bedroom, trying to playact, trying to sound unemotional as he remarked, “Um, uh, Fran—lil cable from Zenith.”
“Yes?” sharply. “Anything wrong?”
“Well—Fran!” He went to kiss her; he ignored her slight impatience. “We’re granddaddy and grandmammy! And the devils never let us know youngster was coming—prob’ly spare us worry. Emily has a son! Nine pounds!”
“And how—”
“She’s fine, apparently. So Harry wires.” In her quick, happy look he felt more secure and married and real than for weeks. “My God, I wish they had the transatlantic phone working from here, way they have from London now. We’d phone ’em, if it cost a hundred a minute. Wouldn’t that be great, to hear Emily’s voice! Tell you what I am going to do! I’ll phone Kurt Obersdorf and tell him about our grandson. I’ve got to holler—”
Her face tightened. “Wait!”
“What’s the idea?”
“I’m delighted. Of course. Dear Emily! She’ll be so happy. But, Sam, don’t you realize that Kurt—oh, I don’t mean Kurt individually, of course; I mean all our friends in Europe—They think of me as young. Young! And I am, oh, I am! And if they know I’m a grandmother—God! A grandmother! Oh, Sam, can’t you see? It’s horrible! It’s the end, for me! Oh, please, please, please try to understand! Think! I was so young when I married. It isn’t fair for me to be a grandmother now, at under forty.” With swiftness he calculated that Fran was now forty-three. “A grandmother! Lace caps and knitting and rheumatism! Oh, please try to understand! It isn’t that I’m not utterly happy for Emily’s sake, but—I have my own life, too! You mustn’t tell Kurt! Ever!”
He knew then, well enough.
He was too hard hit to dare be angry. “Yes, I see how you
