Chapter XIII
"The lady you are always hiding," said Frau Zalewski, "you have no need to hide. She can come quite openly. I like her."
"You haven't ever seen her," I replied.
"Don't worry, I have seen her," declared Frau Zalewski with emphasis. "I have seen her and I like her—very much, indeed—but she is not a woman for you."
"Really?"
"No, I've been wondering wherever in all your pubs you can have dug her up. But of course, the worst vagabond—"
"I think we're getting off the subject," I interrupted.
"That," said she, putting her hands on her hips, "is a woman for a man in good, secure circumstances. For a rich man, in short."
Direct hit, my boy, thought I. The very thing you lack.
"You could say that of any woman," I declared irritably.
She shook her grey locks. "You wait. The future will show."
"Ach, the future!" I flung my cuff links on the table. "Who cares about the future these days? Why should anyone bother about that now?"
Frau Zalewski looked pained and wagged her majestic head.
"Extraordinary creatures you young people are, altogether. The past you hate, the present you despise, and the future is a matter of indifference. How do you suppose that can lead to any good end?"
"Well, what do you mean by a good end?" I asked. "An end can be good only if everything before it has been bad. So a bad end is better."
"Those are Jewish perversions," replied Frau Zalewski with dignity, turning resolutely to the door. She had her hand already on the latch when she stopped short as if suddenly nailed to the spot.
"Dinner suit?" she breathed in astonishment. "You?"
With large eyes she contemplated Otto Köster's suit hanging on the wardrobe door. I had borrowed it, as I meant to go to the theatre with Pat that evening.
"Yes, me," said I poisojnously. "Your powers of association are unsurpassed, Frau Zalewski—"
She looked at me. An entire thunderstorm of ideas passed over her fat face, ending in a broad initiated smirk.
"Aha!" said she. And again "Aha!" And then from outside, over her shoulder, with relish transfigured by woman's eternal delight in such discoveries: "So, that's how it is!"
"Yes, that's how it is, damned old witch," I growled after her when I was sure she could not hear me. Then I flung the box with my new patent leather shoes on the floor. A rich man—as if I didn't know that.
I called for Pat. She was in her room already dressed and waiting. It almost took my breath away when I saw her. For the first time since I had known her she was wearing evening dress.
The frock was of silver brocade and hung in graceful smooth lines from the straight shoulders. It looked narrow and was yet wide enough not to impede Pat's lovely, long stride. In front it came up high to the neck, but the back was cut away to a deep sharp angle. In it Pat gave the effect of a silver torch in the blue twilight, swiftly and amazingly changed, dignified and remote. Behind her like a shadow' rose the ghost of Frau Zalewski with uplifted finger.
"It's as well I didn't meet you first in that dress," said I. "I would never have trusted myself near you."
"I don't believe that just on your say-so, Robby.". She smiled. "Do you like it?"
"It's simply incredible. You are an entirely new woman in it."
"That's not incredible, though. That's what clothes are for."
"Maybe. But it floors me a bit. You want a very different man to match it. One with lots of money."
She laughed. "Men with lots of money are mostly awful, Robby."
"But not money, eh?"
"No." said she, "not money."
"I thought as much."
"Don't you think so, then?"
"Sure," said I. "Money may not make happiness—but it can be a great comfort."
"It makes one independent, darling, and that's still more. But I can put on another dress if you like."
"Absolutely not. It's superb. From this day forth I place dressmakers above philosophers. Those people bring beauty into life, and that's worth a hundred times the most unfathomable meditations. But look out, or I'll be falling in love with you."
She laughed. Stealthily I glanced down at myself. Köster was bigger than I, and I had had to do some tricky work with safety-pins on the trousers to make them sit decently. They did sit, praise be.
We drove to the theatre in a taxi. On the way I was rather silent, without knowing quite why. As we got out and I was paying, I glanced, as under some compulsion, at the driver. His eyes were strained and red-rimmed, he was unshaven and looked very tired. He took the money indifferently.
"Had a good day?" I asked softly.
He looked up. "So-so—" said he uncommunicatively. He took me for some inquisitive fellow.
For a moment I had the feeling that I must get on the box beside him and drive off—then I turned round. There stood Pat, slim and graceful, a short silver jacket with wide sleeves over the silver frock, beautiful and expectant. "Quick, Bob, come, it begins in a minute."
People were piled up in the entrance. It was a big First Night, the theatre was floodlit; car upon car glided up; women in evening clothes got out, glittering with jewellery; men in tails, with pink upholstered faces, laughing, jolly, superior, self-assured—and, grinding and snarling among it all, the cab with the tired driver rattled off.
"Well, come, Robby," called Pat looking at me, radiant and excited. "Have you forgotten something?"
I gave a hostile look at the people around.
"No," said I, "I have forgotten nothing."
Then I went to the office and changed the tickets. I took two box seats, though they cost a fortune. I suddenly did not want Pat to sit among these assured people, to whom everything was self-evident. I did not want her to belong to them. I wanted to be alone with her.
It was a long time since I had been in a theatre. And I would not have come now had Pat not wanted it. Theatres, concerts, books—all these middle-class habits I had almost lost. It was not the time for them. Politics provided theatre enough—the shootings every night made another concert— and the gigantic book of poverty was more impressive than any library.
The circle and the stalls were full. No sooner had we found our seats than it was dark. Only the reflection of the footlights drifted through the room. The music started full, and everything seemed to lift and sway.
I pushed my chair back into a corner of the box, whence I need see neither the stage nor the blanched faces of the spectators. I heard only the music and saw Pat's face.
The music enchanted the air. It was like the south wind, like a warm night, like swelling sails beneath the stars, completely and utterly unreal, this music to Hoffmann's Tales. It made everything spacious and colourful, the dark stream of life seemed pulsing in it; there were no burdens any more, no limits; there existed only glory and melody and love, so that one simply could not realize that, at the same time as this music was, outside there ruled poverty and torment and despair.
Pat's face was full of mystery, irradiated by the light from the stage. She was wholly surrendered; and I loved her that she did not lean toward me or reach for my hand, yes, did not once look at me, but appeared not to think of me at all and to have quite forgotten me. I hate it when people mix things, I hate the cowlike yearning toward one another while the beauty and the power of a great work breaks over one; I hate the swimming looks of lovers, the foolish blissful cuddling, the indecent sheepish happiness that can never rise above itself; I hate all the talk of becoming one through love; it seems to me we cannot sufficiently be two nor remove ourselves from one another often enough in order to meet again. Only those who are constantly alone know the joy of being together. Anything else breaks the spell of the tension. And what can more powerfully penetrate the magic circle of solitude than the uprush of emotion, the surrender to a shock, the might of the elements, storm, night music? And love . . .
The lights flamed up. I shut my eyes an instant. What had I been thinking of? Pat turned round. I saw the people pressing toward the doors. Itwas the long interval.
"Do you want to go out?" I asked.
Pat shook her head.
"Thank God for that. I hate the way people gape at each other out there."
I went to fetch her a glass of orange juice. The buffet was heavily besieged. Music makes some people extraordinarily hungry. The warm sausages were disappearing as if an epidemic of hunger typhus had broken out.
This would be the place for Mother, thought I, elbowing my way to the counter and taking the last glass of orange juice from under the nose on an indignant chap with a walrus moustache. He grunted with wrath.
"You've had two already," said I disarmingly.
"But I have a thirst for three," he replied.
There was no other reply to that but not to give way. Taking something from somebody else is one of the oldest practices of humanity—and it always affords the same satisfaction. Man is not kindly, and never will be.
When I arrived at the box with my glass someone was standing behind Pat's chair. Her head was turned back and she was talking with him vivaciously. "This is Herr Breuer, Robert," said she.
Herr Ox, thought I looking at him with displeasure. Robert, she said, not Robby. I put the glass on the parapet and prepared to wait until the fellow went. He had on a marvellously cut dinner suit. But he chattered about the production and the audience and still he stayed. Pat turned to me. "Herr Breuer has asked if we would not like to go to 'The Cascade' afterwards."
"Just as you like," said I.
Herr Breuer explained one might be able to get a dance perhaps. He was very polite and I liked him quite well actually. Only he had the disagreeable elegance and facility which I imagined could not fail of its effect on Pat, and which I myself did not possess. Suddenly—I could hardly believe my ears—I heard him say to Pat, "my dear/' Though there might have been a hundred good reasons why he should, I should have liked to heave him over into the orchestra on the spot.
The bell sounded. The musicians tuned their instruments. The violins made subdued little flageolette runs.
"Agreed then, we meet at the exit," said Breuer and went st lust
"Who's the tramp?" I asked.
"He isn't a tramp, he's a very nice man. An old friend."
"I've something against old friends," said I.
"Darling," replied Pat, "but listen—"
Cascade, thought I and reckoned up my money, damned expensive dive.
I followed along in sullen curiosity. This Breuer had recalled to me Frau Zalewski's ill-omened croakings. He was already waiting for us at the entrance.
I beckoned a taxi.
"Don't bother," said Breuer. "There's room in my car."
"Good," said I. It would have been ridiculous to do otherwise. But it annoyed me all the same.
Pat recognized Breuer's car. It was a big Packard, standing in the car park opposite. She walked straight up to it.
"It's a different colour, though," said she, stopping in front of it.
"Yes, grey," replied Breuer. "Don't you like it better?"
"Much better."
Breuer turned to me. "And you? Do you like the colour?"
"I don't know what it was before," said I.
"Black."
"Black also looks very well."
"True. But one must have a change. I'm going to do it again in the autumn."
We drove to "The Cascade," a very smart dance club with an excellent band.
"Seems to be full," said I delightedly as we stood at the entrance.
"Pity," said Pat.
"Ach, we'll fix that," announced Breuer and exchanged a few words with the manager. He seemed to be well known here, for we actually had a table brought and some chairs; and a few minutes later we were sitting in the best place in the whole room, whence we could survey the whole dance floor.
The band was playing a tango. Pat leaned over the parapet. "Ach, but it's a long time since I had a dance."
Breuer stood up. "Shall we?"
She looked at me beaming. "I'll order something in the meantime," said I.
The tango lasted a long while. Pat looked across now and then and smiled at me. . .I nodded back, but did not feel any too special. She looked wonderful and danced magnificently. Unfortunately Breuer danced equally well and the two looked most distinguished together. They danced as if they had often partnered one another before. I ordered myself a large rum.
The two came back. Breuer went to greet some people and for a moment Pat and I were alone.
"How long have you known the boy?" I asked.
"A long time. Why?"
"Ach, I only wondered. Did you often come here with him?"
She looked at me. "I don't remember any more, Robby."
"One remembers that all right," said I obstinately, though I knew what she meant.
She shook her head and smiled. I loved her very much at that moment. She meant to show me that all that had been, was forgotten. But something bored in me, something I felt to be ridiculous, myself, and yet something I could not shake off. I put my glass down on the table. "You can tell me. It doesn't signify."
She looked at me again. "Do you suppose we would be here otherwise?" she asked.
"No," said I ashamed.
The band started to play again. Breuer came up. "A Blues," said he to me. "Wonderful. Wouldn't you like to dance it?"
"No," I replied.
"Pity."
"You ought to try once, Robby," said Pat.
"I'd sooner not."
"But why not?" asked Breuer.
"I don't care for it," I replied unamiably. "I never learnt. Never had time. But you dance, I can amuse myself here all right."
Pat hesitated.
"But Pat—" said I. "You enjoy it so."
"That's true—but are you enjoying yourself too?"
"What do you think?" I showed her the glass. "This is a kind of dancing too."
They went. I beckoned a waiter and emptied my glass. Then I lolled on the table and counted the salted almonds. Beside me sat the shade of Frau Zalewski.
Breuer brought some people with him to the table. Two good-looking women and a younger fellow with a completely bald head. Afterward a fourth joined us. All of them light as cork, glib and sure. Pat knew them all four.
I felt as heavy as a clod. Until now I had always been alone with Pat. Now I was seeing for the first time people she had known before. I could not start anything with them. They moved easily and freely, they came from a life where everything went smoothly, where one saw nothing one did not want to see; they came from another world. Had I been alone there, with t,enz or Köster, I should not have troubled about it. But Pat was there, Pat knew them, and that made everything seem wrong, it crippled me and forced me to make comparisons.
Breuer suggested going to another place.
"Robby," said Pat as we went out, "wouldn't you rather go home?"
"No," said I. "Why?"
"It's so boring for you."
"Not in the least. Why should it be boring? On the contrary. And you are enjoying it."
She looked at me but said nothing.
I started to drink. Not as before, but really. The chap with the bald head began to take notice. He asked what it was I was drinking. "Rum," said I. "Grog?" he asked. "No, rum," said I. He sampled it and choked. "Good heavens," said he respectfully, "one needs to be used to that." Now the two women also took notice. Pat and Breuer were dancing. Pat looked across often. I did not look any more. I knew it was unfair, but it came over me suddenly. And I was annoyed too that the others should remark my drinking. I had no wish to impress them like an undergraduate. I got up and went to the bar. Pat seemed quite strange to me. She could go to the devil with her people. She belonged to them. No, she didn't belong to them. Yes she did.
The bald head followed me. We had a vodka with the mixer. Mixers are always a comfort. You can get on with them anywhere, and without having to talk. This one was good too. Only the bald head was feeble. He wanted to unburden himself. A certain Fifi lay heavy on his soul. But that petered out soon. He told me Breuer had been in love with Pat for years. "Really?" said I. He sniggered. I silenced him with a Prairie Oyster. But it stuck in my head, what he had said. It annoyed me that I should come in on it. It annoyed me that I cared. And it annoyed me that I did not bring my fist down on the table. But somewhere I felt a cold lust for destruction that turned not against others, only against myself.
The bald head was soon speechless and disappeared. I remained sitting. Suddenly I felt a hard, firm breast against my arm. It was one of the women Breuer had introduced. She was sitting close beside me. Her oblique, grey-green eyes caressed me slowly. It was a look that left nothing more to be said—only something to be done.
"Wonderful to be able to drink like that," said she after a while. I said nothing. She stretched out a hand to my glass. The hand was like a lizard, glittering with jewels, dry and sinewy. It moved very slowly, as if it crawled. I knew what was coming. I'll soon settle you, thought I. You underestimate me, because you see I'm annoyed. But you're mistaken. I'm through with women already—it is love I'm not through with. It is the unrealisable that is making me miserable.
The woman began to talk. She had a glassy, brittle voice. I saw Pat looking across. I took no notice. But I took no notice either of the woman beside me. I had the feeling of slipping down a smooth bottomless pit. It had nothing to do with Breuer and the people. It had nothing to do with Pat even. It was the melancholy secret that reality can arouse desires but never satisfy them; that love begins with a human being but does not end in him; and that everything can be there: a human being, love, happiness, life—and that yet in some terrible way it is always too little, and grows ever less the more it seems.
I looked stealthily across at Pat. There she moved in her silver dress, young and lovely, a bright flame of life; I loved her, and if I should say to her "Come," she would come; nothing stood between us; we could be as near as only human beings can—and yet occasionally everything would in some puzzling way be overcast and full of torment, I could not free her from the circle of things, not tear her out from the contact of the existence that was above us and in us and compelled us to its laws, the breathing and the passing, the questionable glamour of the present immediately falling back into nothingness, the shimmering illusion of passion which in the possession is already lost again. It was never to be checked, never. Never would be loosed the rattling chain of time; never out of restlessness come rest—out of seeking, stillness; to falling come a halt. Not even from chance could I free her, from what had been before I knew her, from the thousand thoughts, memories, from all that had fashioned her before I was there, not even from these people here could I free her. . .
Beside me the woman was talking in her brittle voice. She was seeking a companion for the night, a bit of unfamiliar life to whet the appetite, in order to forget herself and the all too painful, too evident fact that nothing ever remained, no I and no You and least of all a We. Wasn't she at bottom seeking the same thing as I? A companion, in order to forget the loneliness of life, a comrade to withstand the meaninglessness of existence?
"Come," said I, "we want to go back. It is hopeless— what you want—and what I want."
She looked at me a moment. Then she threw back her head and laughed.
We went to a few other places. Breuer was heated, talkative and hopeful. Pat had become quieter. She asked me no questions, she made no reproaches, she did not attempt to explain anything, she was simply there; sometimes she danced and it was as if she were a still, lovely, graceful ship gliding amid a swarm of marionettes and caricatures, and sometimes she smiled at me.
The folly of the night clubs wiped its grey-yellow hands over walls and faces. The music seemed to be playing under a glass catafalque. The bald head was drinking coffee. The woman with the lizard hands was staring in front of her. From an overtired flowergirl Breuer bought roses and divided them between Pat and the two women.
"Shall we dance once together?" said Pat to me.
"No," said I, and thought of the hands that had touched her already to-day; "no"—and felt pretty foolish and mean.
"But yes," said she and her eyes darkened.
"No," I replied; "no, Pat."
Then at last we went. "I'll drive you home," said Breuer to me.
"Very good."
We had a rug in the car and placed it over Pat's knees. She looked suddenly very pale and tired. The woman from the bar thrust a piece of paper into my hand as I was leaving. I made as if nothing had happened and got in. As we went along I gazed out the window. Pat sat in the corner and did not move. I could not even hear her breathing. Breuer drove first to her place. He knew where she lived without asking. She got out. Breuer kissed her hand.
"Good night," said I, without looking at her.
"Where can I put you down?" Breuer asked me.
"At the next corner," said I.
"I'd gladly drive you home," he replied, rather too hastily and too politely.
He wanted to prevent my going back. I considered whether I should not land him one. But he was not worth the trouble.
"All right, then drive me to 'The Bar Freddy,' " said I.
"Can you get in there, then, at this hour?" he asked.
"It's nice of you to ask," said I; "but don't worry—I can get in anywhere still."
I no sooner said it than I was sorry. He had certainly been feeling grand and that he had been coming along finely all the evening. It was a pity to shake it. I parted from him more amiably than from Pat.
"The Bar" was still pretty full. Lenz and Ferdinand Grau were playing poker with Bollwies and a few others. "Sit in, Bob," said Gottfried; "it's poker weather."
"No," I replied.
"Look at that, then," said he, pointing to a pile of money on the table. "No bluffing either. Flushes are in the air."
"All right," said I, "give us here."
With two kings I bluffed four jacks out a window. "So," said I—"seems to be bluff weather too."
"It's that always," replied Ferdinand pushing a cigarette across to me.
I did not mean to stay long. But at last I had solid ground under my feet. I was not feeling too good; but at least this was my old, time-honoured homeland. "Bring us a half-bottle of rum here," I called to Fred.
"Try some port in it," said Lenz.
"No," I replied. "Haven't time for experiments. I want to get drunk."
"Then take sweet liquors. Had a row?"
"Nonsense."
"Don't talk, baby. You can't kid your old father Lenz, who is at home in all the recesses of the heart. Say yes, and get drunk."
"A man can't have a row with a woman. You can be annoyed with them at the most."
"Those are too fine distinctions for three o'clock in the morning. I've had rows with every one. If you don't have rows it's soon over."
"Right," said I. "Who leads?"
"You," said Ferdinand Grau. "My dear Bob, you have Weltschmerz. Don't try and fight against it. Life is gay but imperfect. But I must say, for Weltschmerz you bluff wonderfully. Two kings are pretty steep."
"I once saw a hand where there were seven thousand francs against two kings," said Fred from the bar counter.
"Swiss or French?" asked Lenz.
"Swiss."
"Lucky for you," replied Gottfried. "You wouldn't have dared interrupt the play for French, eh?"
We played on for an hour. I won a good deal. Bollwies lost steadily. I drank, but only got a headache. The brown, waving handkerchiefs refused to come. Everything only became sharper. My insides burned.
"So, now stop and eat something," said Lenz. "Fred, give hirn a sandwich and some sardines. Pocket the money, Bob."
"One more hand."
"All right. Last round. Double?"
"Double," said the others.
I bought rather rashly three cards to the ten king. They were jack, queen, and ace. I won with it against Bollwies who had an eight-high straight and raised it to the moon. Cursing he paid me over a pile of money. "You see," said Lenz. "Flush weather."
We sat down to the bar. Bollwies asked after Karl. He could not forget how Köster had beaten his sports car. He was always wanting to buy Karl.
"Ask Otto," said Lenz; "but I think he'd rather sell you a hand."
"Well, well," said Bollwies.
"You wouldn't understand that, of course," replied Lenz, "you mercenary son of the twentieth century."
Ferdinand Grau laughed. Fred too. In the end we were all laughing. Not to laugh at the twentieth century is to shoot yourself. But you can't laugh for long. It's too much a matter for tears.
"Can you dance, Gottfried?" I asked.
"Of course. I taught dancing once. Have you forgotten how?"
"Forgotten—let the man forget," said Ferdinand Grau.
"To forget is the secret of eternal youth. One grows old only through memory. There's much too little forgetting."
"No," said Lenz. "It's that the wrong things are forgotten."
"Can you teach me?" I asked.
"To dance? In one evening, baby. Is that all your trouble?"
"Haven't any trouble," said I.
"Headache."
"The sickness of our time, Bob," said Ferdinand. "It would be better to be born without a head."
I went on to the Café International. Alois was in the act of hauling down the shutters.
"Anyone there still?" I asked.
"Rosa."
"Come, let's all three have one more."
"All right."
Rosa was sitting by the bar knitting little woollen socks for her daughter. She showed me the pattern. She had already completed a jacket. "How's business?" I asked.
"Bad. Nobody has any money."
"Would you like me to lend you some? Here—been winning at poker."
"Winnings work wonders," said Rosa spitting on it and putting it away.
Alois brought three glasses. Later, when Fritzi came, one more.
"Knock-off time," said he then. "I'm dead-tired."
He turned out the light. We went. Rosa said good-bye at the door. Fritzi hooked on to Alois' arm. She walked beside him, fresh and light. He shuffled along over the pavement with his fiat feet. I stood and watched them. I saw how Fritzi stooped down to the grimy, crooked waiter and kissed him. He put her away indifferently. And suddenly, I don't know how-it came, but as I turned and looked down the empty street and saw the houses with their dark windows and the cold night sky, such a mad longing for Pat came over me that I thought I should fall. I understood nothing any more, myself, my behavior, the whole evening, nothing.
I leaned against the wall of a house and stared ahead. I could not understand why I had done it. I had run into something there that had rent me asunder, made me unreasonable and unjust, tossed me hither and thither, and destroyed for me all I had laboriously built up. I stood there helpless not knowing what to do. I did not want to go home—there it would be still worse. At last I remembered that Alfons' must still be open. I went there meaning to stay until morning.
Alfons did not say much when I entered. He gave me a short glance and went on reading his paper. I sat down at a table and dozed. There was no one else there. I thought of Pat. Always of Pat. I thought of how I had behaved. Suddenly every detail came back to me. Everything turned against me. I alone was to blame. I had been mad. I stared at the table. The blood raged in my head. I was bitter and furious with myself and at my wits' end. It was I, I alone, that had ruined everything.
There was a sudden crash and tinkle of broken glass. With .the whole weight of my fist I had smashed my glass to smithereens. "One form of amusement," said Alfons, getting up.
He pulled the splinters out of my hand. "Sorry," said I; "forgot where I was for the moment."
He fetched cotton wool and sticking plaster. "Go to a whore shop," said he, "that's better."
"It's all right," I replied. "It's over now. Only an attack of anger." >
"You must amuse anger away, not annoy it away," declared Alfons.
"True," said I, "but you have to be able to."
"All training. You all want to run your heads through the wall. But it passes with the years."
He put the Miserere from Il Trovatore on the gramophone. It was getting rapidly lighter.
I went home. Alfons had given me a large glass of Fernet-Branca to drink. I now felt soft axes chopping over my eyes. The street was no longer flat. My shoulders were heavy as lead. I was finished.
Slowly I climbed the stairs and was searching my pocket for the key. Then in the semidarkness I heard someone breathing—something pale, indistinct, squatting on the upper steps. I took three strides.
"Pat—" said I uncomprehendingly. "Pat—what are you doing here?"
She moved. "I believe I've been asleep."
"Yes, but how did you get here?"
"Well, I have your house key—"
"I don't mean that. I mean—" The drunkenness receded, I saw the worn treads of the stairs,_the peeling wallpaper and the silver dress, the narrow, shining shoes.-"I mean, that you are here at all—"
"I've been asking myself that a long time."
She stood up and stretched as if it were the most natural thing in the world to be sitting on the stairs in the early hours of the morning. Then she sniffed.. "Lenz would say— cognac, rum, cherry, absinth—"
"Fernet-Branca even," I acknowledged, at last beginning to get everything straight. "Damn my eyes, but you are a marvellous girl, Pat, and I am a terrible idiot."
I picked her up quickly, opened the door and carried her along the corridor. She lay in my arms, a silver heron, a tired bird; I turned my head aside that she should not smell my schnapps breath, and I felt that she trembled, though she smiled.
I put her in an armchair, turned on the light and brought a rug. "If only I had had any idea, Pat—instead of lounging around I might have—Ach, miserable bonehead. I did ring up from Alfons', and whistled outside your place. I thought you weren't having any, as you didn't answer—"
"Why didn't you come back, then, after you brought me home?"
"Yes, I might have known—"
"It would be better next time if you gave me your room key as well," said she; "then I won't have to wait outside." She smiled, but her lips quivered, and I suddenly realized what it had meant for her—this coming back, this waiting, and this plucky, jollying tone now.
"Pat," said I hastily, completely bewildered. "You're frozen, surely. You must have something to drink; I saw a light in Orlow's room when I was outside; I'll go at once, these Russians always have tea, I'll be back in a moment"—I felt myself go hot all over—"I'll never forget in all my life, Pat," said I from the doorway and went swiftly down the passage.
Orlow was still up. He was sitting in front of his icon in the corner of the room, before which a lamp was burning; his eyes were red, and on the table a little samovar was steaming.
"Excuse me," said I, "but an unforeseen accident—could you give me some hot tea?"
Russians are accustomed to accidents. He gave me two glasses, some sugar, and filled a plate with little cakes.
"I'm delighted to be of service," said he. "May I also— I've often been in similar . . . A few coffee beans—to chew—"
"Thank you," said I, "really, I thank you. I'd be glad to take them."
"If you need anything else," said he with utmost gra-ciousness, "I shall be up for some time yet; it would be a pleasure to me—"
As I walked back along the corridor I munched the coffee beans. They took away the smell of the schnapps. Pat was sitting beside the lamp powdering herself. I stood a moment in the doorway. It quite touched me to see her sitting here looking so attentively into her little looking-glass and dabbing her cheeks with the powder puff.
"Drink a bit of tea," said I. "It is quite hot."
She took the glass, I watched while she drank.
"The devil only knows what was the matter to-night, Pat."
"Oh, I know," she replied.
"So? I don't."
"And you don't have to, Robby. You know a bit too much already, if you ask me, to be really happy."
"Maybe," said I. "But it doesn't do that I get only more and more childish the longer I know you."
"Oh, yes, it does. Better than if you got always more and more sensible."
"That's one way of looking at it," said I. "You have a good way of helping one out of a jam. But everything seemed to come all of a heap."
She put the glass on the table. I leaned against the bed. I had the feeling of having come home at last after a long, difficult journey.
The birds began twittering. Outside a door banged. That was Frau Bender, the orphanage nurse. I looked at my watch. In half an hour Frida would be in the kitchen; then we would no longer be able to escape unseen. Pat was still sleeping. She breathed deep and regularly. It was a shame to wake her. But it had to be.
"Pat—"
She murmured something in her sleep. "Pat—" I cursed all furnished rooms. "Pat, it's time. We must get you dressed."
She opened her eyes and smiled, still warm from sleep, like a child. I never ceased to be astonished at this cheerfulness on waking, and liked it in her very much. I am never cheerful when I wake.
"Pat—Frau Zalewski is cleaning her teeth."
"I'm staying with you to-day—"
"Her?"
"Yes."
I sat up. "Splendid idea—but your things—these shoes and dress are for evening."
"Then I'll stay here till evening."
"And what about home?"
"We'll telephone that I've stayed somewhere for the night."
"We'll do it now. Are you hungry?"
"Not yet."
"In any case I'll dash out and grab a few fresh rolls. They're hanging outside on the passage door. Now's just about the time."
When I came back Pat was standing at the window. She had on only her silver shoes. The soft of early morning fell like a shawl over her shoulders.
"We've forgotten about yesterday, eh, Pat?" said I.
She nodded without turning round.
"We simply won't go any more together with other people. True love can't abide people. Then we won't have any more rows and attacks of jealousy. This Breuer and the whole set can go to the devil, eh?"
"Yes," said she, "and Markowitz too."
"Markowitz? Who's that then?"
"The one you sat with in the bar at 'The Cascade.'"
"Aha," said I, suddenly rather pleased. "Aha, that one."
I turned out my pockets. "Look at that now. It did serve some useful purpose anyway. I won a heap of money at poker. Now we'll go out again, to-night, eh? But properly, without other people. We have forgotten them, eh?"
She nodded.
The sun rose behind the roofs of the Trades Hall. Windows began to glitter. Pat's hair was full of light and her shoulders were golden.
"What was it you said, what does this Breuer do actually? As a profession, I mean?"
"Architect."
"Architect," said I, rather winged—I would sooner have heard he was nothing at all—"Well, after all—architect; what's that anyway, eh, Pat?"
"Yes, darling."
"Nothing special, is it?"
"Nothing at all," said Pat with conviction, turning round and laughing. "It's nothing at all, absolute nothing. Just mud it is."
"And this shack, it's not so bad, eh, Pat? Other people have better, of course—"
"It is wonderful, this shack," she interrupted me; "it's a perfectly lovely shack, I really don't know any nicer, darling."
"And I, Pat, I have my failings, of course, and I'm only a taxi driver, but—"
"You are a perfect darling—a bread-snatcher, a rum drinker—a darling you are."
With a swing she threw her arms about my neck. "Ach, you chump I How good it is to be alive!"
"Only with you, Pat. Truly."
The morning rose up wonderful and bright. A thin mist still lay over the gravestones below and drifted to and fro. The treetops were already full of light. Out of the chimneys of the houses smoke was curling up. The first newspapers were being called through the streets. We lay down to a morning sleep, a waking sleep, dreaming on the borders of sleep, each in the arms of the other—wonderful hovering, breath in breath. Then about nine o'clock, as "Geheimrat Burkhard" first I telephoned Lieutenant Colonel Egbert von Hake, personally; and then I telephoned to Lenz, asking him to take over my morning cruise with the taxi.
He interrupted me. "Leave it to me, child; not for nothing is your Gottfried a connoisseur in the vagaries of the human heart. I had counted on it already. Lots of fun, Goldbaby."
"You shut up," said I happily and then explained in the kitchen that I was not well and would stay in bed till midday. Three times I had to beat off the assault of Frau Zalewski, offering me camomile tea, aspirin, and cold packs. Then I could smuggle Pat into the bathroom, and we had peace.