Chapter XVIII
Our taxi was standing outside "The Bar." I went in to relieve Gottfried and to get the key and the papers. Gottfried came out with me.
"Made any money?" I asked.
"So-so," he replied. "Either there are too many taxis or too few people to ride in them. How was it with you?"
"Bad. Stood around the whole night and didn't take twenty marks."
"Dull times." Gottfried raised his eyebrows. "Then you're probably not in such a hurry to-day, eh?"
"No, why?"
"You can take me along a bit."
"All right." We climbed in. "Where do you want to go then?" I asked.
"To the cathedral."
"What?" I asked. "Do you think I might have misheard? 'Cathedral,' I understood."
"No my son, you did not mishear. Cathedral it is."
I looked at him astonished.
"Don't stare; drive," said Gottfried.
"Very good." We set off.
The cathedral lay in an old quarter of the city in an open place surrounded by houses of the clergy. I stopped at the main door.
"Farther," said Gottfried; "right round."
He pulled me up outside a little doorway at the back and got out.
"Lots of fun," said I. "I take it you're going to confession."
"Come with me," he replied.
I laughed. "Not to-day. I've said my prayers already this morning. That does me for the whole day."
"Don't talk silly, baby. Come on. I want to be generous and show you something."
I followed him curiously. We passed through the little door and were immediately in the cloisters. They made a large quadrangle and consisted of long rows of arches supported on the inner side by grey granite pillars; and they framed a garden. In the middle rose up a large, weatherworn cross with the figure of Christ. At the sides on stone reliefs were depicted the Stations of the Cross. In front of each picture was an old praying bench. The garden had run wild and flowered over and over.
Gottfried pointed to a couple of immense white and red rosebushes. "I wanted to show you that. Do you recognise them?"
Surprised, I halted. "Of course I recognise them," said I. "So this is where you glean, you old church-robber."
When Pat had moved into Frau Zalewski's a week ago Lenz had sent her in the evening, by Jupp, an immense bunch of roses. There had been so many that Jupp had had to go down twice, and each time returned with both arms full. I had already given myself a headache trying to think wherever Gottfried could have got them; for I knew his rule, never to buy flowers. I had never seen them in the city park.
"That is a real idea," said I, appreciatively. "Takes a man to think of that."
Gottfried beamed. "The garden here is a proper gold mine." He laid a hand gaily on my shoulder. "I hereby take you into partnership. I imagine you'll be able to make good use of it just now."
"Why just now?" I asked.
"Because the park is pretty bare. And that's been your hunting ground to date, I think?"
I nodded.
"Besides," continued Gottfried, "you're coming now to the time when the difference between a bourgeois and a cavalier begins to show. A bourgeois always gets less attentive the longer he knows a woman. A cavalier, always more attentive." He made an extended gesture. "With all this you can become an absolutely staggering cavalier."
I laughed. "That is all fine, Gottfried," said I. "But what happens when you get caught? There's not much of a getaway, and pious people might easily consider it as desecration of a holy place."
"My dear boy," replied Lenz, "do you see anybody here? Since the war people go to political meetings, not to church."
That was true. "But what about the parsons?" I asked.
"The flowers don't mean anything to the parsons, or the garden would be better looked after. And the Almighty will have his fun, if you give someone pleasure with it. He's not built that way. He's an old soldier."
"Yes, you're right there." I contemplated the gigantic old bushes. "They will take care of the next couple of weeks, Gottfried."
"Longer than that. You're really in luck here. This is a very lasting, long-flowering sort of rose. You'll reach well into September. And then there are asters here, and chrysanthemums. Come, I'll show you."
We walked through the garden. The smell of the roses was intoxicating. Swarms of bees like a buzzing cloud flew from flower to flower.
"Just look at that," said I and stood still. "Where ever can they come from here, in the middle of the city. There aren't any beehives around here. Unless you think the parsons keep a few up on their roofs."
"No, brother," replied Lenz. "They come dead straight from a farm somewhere. Only they happen to know their way." He winked an eye. "We don't, eh?"
I gave a shrug. "Perhaps we do, though. Anyway, a small part. So far as one can. You know?"
"No. And don't want to know. Purposes make life bourgeois."
I glanced up at the cathedral spire. Silky green it stood out against the blue sky, endlessly old and still, with swallows flying round.
"How quiet it is here," said I.
Lenz nodded. "Yes, my son, here one recognises it is only for want of time one is not a good man, eh?"
"Time and quiet," I replied. "Quiet, too."
He laughed. " 'Too late.' said the old Captain, weeping bitterly. Now it's reached a pitch where we can't endure quiet. . . . So out we go. Back into the rumpus."
I put Gottfried down and drove back to the stand. On the way I passed the cemetery. I knew that Pat would be lying in her lounge chair on the balcony, and hooted a few times. But nothing showed up and I drove on. To compensate I did see, a bit farther on, Frau Hasse in a sort of taffeta silk wrap sailing along the street and disappearing round a corner. I drove after her to ask if I might take her anywhere. But as I reached the crossing I saw her get into a car that had been waiting behind the corner. It was a rather dilapidated Mercedes limousine, from 1923, that rattled off immediately. A chap with a nose like a duck's bill and a loud checked suit was sitting at the wheel. I gazed after the car for some time. That comes of a woman sitting alone in a house all the time. Pensively I drove back to the stand and took my place in the line of waiting taxis.
The sun beat upon the roof. We moved forward slowly. I sat dully on the box and tried to sleep. But I could not get the picture of Frau Hasse out of my head. It was quite a different matter, but when all was said and done Pat was also alone all day.
I got out and went forward to Gustav's car. "Here, have a drink," he commanded, offering me a thermos flask. "Wonderfully cool. My own invention. Iced coffee. Stays like that in the heat for hours. Yes, Gustav is practical."
I took a cup and drank it out. "If you're so practical," said I, "then tell me what can a man get to amuse a woman who is alone a lot?"
"As simple as that?" Gustav looked at me with a lofty expression. "Robert, man—why, a child or a dog. Ask me something harder."
"A dog!" said I in surprise. "Damn it, of course, a dogl You've hit it. With a dog one is never lonely."
I offered him a cigarette. "Listen, you don't happen to know about them? A mongrel must be fairly cheap to buy."
Gustav shook his head reproachfully. "Ah Robert, you little know what a treasure you have in me. My future father-in-law is assistant secretary of the Dobermann Terrier Club. You can have a pup, of course; first class pedigree, too. We've a litter there: four-two, grandmother the champion Hertha von Toggenburg."
Gustav was a fortunate man. Not only was his fiancee's father a breeder of Dobermanns, but he was a pub-keeper as well, proprietor of the Neuerklaus; and his fiancee herself had a laundry. Gustav did himself proud. He had his eats and drinks off his "father-in-law" and his fiancee washed and ironed his shirts. He was in no hurry to marry. Then it would be his turn to worry.
I explained to Gustav that a Dobermann was not quite the right idea. It was too big for me and not reliable.
Gustav reflected a moment. As an old soldier he was accustomed to act on the spur of the moment.
"Just come with me," said he. "We'll do a bit of speculating. I know something. Only don't you put your spoke in."
"Right."
He led me to a little shop. In the window were aquariums full of algae. In a box were squatting some wretched guinea pigs. On the sides hung, cages with restlessly hopping, forever turning bullfinches, goldfinches, and canaries.
A bandy-legged little chap with a brown embroidered waistcoat came toward us. Watery eyes, sallow skin, a nose like a fire ball—a beer and schnapps drinker.
"Say, Anton," said Gustav, "how did Asta do?"
"Second prize and honourable mention at Cologne," replied Anton.
"Lousy," declared Gustav. "Why not first?"
"Gave the first to Udo Blankenfels," growled Anton. "But I don't complain."
In the rear of the shop there was barking and whimpering. Gustav went over. He turned, carrying by the scruff of the neck two little terriers, in the left a black and white, in the right a reddish brown. Imperceptibly the hand with the reddish brown twitched. I looked at him: yes.
It was a lovely, playful little thing. Straight legs, square body, oblong head, intelligent and cheeky. Gustav let them both go.
"Funny little bastard," said he and pointed to the reddish brown. "Where did you get him?"
Anton had him, so he said, from a lady who had gone to South America. Gustav burst into incredulous laughter. Offended, Anton produced a pedigree that went back to Noah's Ark. Gustav made a gesture of refusal and interested himself in the black and white. Anton asked a hundred marks for the red-brown one. Gustav offered five. He didn't like his great-grandfather. There was something wrong with his tail. And his ears weren't right, either. The black and white though—he was tip-top.
I stood in the corner and listened. Suddenly something reached for my hat. Surprised, I turned round. A little monkey was sitting in the corner on his perch, slightly huddled, with a yellow skin and melancholy face.^He had black, round eyes and the troubled lips of an old woman. Around his belly he had a leather girdle to which was fixed a chain. The hands were small, black, and shockingly human.
I stayed where I was and kept perfectly still. Slowly the monkey edged nearer along his perch. As he did so he watched me steadily, not distrustfully, but with an extraordinarily wary gaze. Cautiously he at last stretched out his hand. I offered him a finger. He drew back, then took it. It was queer to feel the cool, childish hand—how it gripped my finger. It was as if some poor, dumb human being, pent up in the crooked body, were trying to free and save itself. One could not look long into those deathly sad eyes.
Snorting Gustav emerged again from a forest of genealogical trees. "Agreed then, Anton; you get one of Hertha's Dobermann pups in exchange. The best deal you ever did." Then he turned to me. "Do you want to take him with you now?"
"What does he cost, then?"
"Nothing. Exchanged for the Dobermann I gave you before. Yes, you must let Gustav have his way. Gustav is the boy."
We arranged that I should fetch the dog later when I was through with the taxi.
"Do you know what you've got there?" Gustav asked me when we were outside. "Something really rare: an Irish terrier. Primissima. Without a blemish. And a pedigree to him, my hat, that you had better not look at or you will have to bow every time you want to speak to the little blighter."
"Gustav," said I, "you have done me a great favour. Come, let's have a drink together of the oldest cognac we can dig up."
"Not to-day," declared Gustav. "I must have a steady hand to-day. I'm playing skittles at my club to-night. Promise me you'll come along sometime. There are all sorts of big guns there, a postmaster even."
"I'll come," said I. "Even if the postmaster isn't there."
Shortly before six I drove back to the workshop. Köster was awaiting me. "Jaffé telephoned this afternoon. You are to ring him."
For an instant I could not get my breath.
"Did he say anything, Otto?"
"No, nothing in particular. Only that he would be in his consulting room until five. After that at the Dorothee Hospital. So you will have to phone there."
"Right."
I went into the office. It was warm and sticky, but I was freezing and the receiver shook in my hand. "Nonsense," said I and supported my arm firmly on the table.
It was a long while before I got on to Jaffé.
"Are you free?" he asked.
"Yes."
"Then come out here at once. I'll be here for another hour."
I wanted to ask him if something had happened to Pat. But I could not do it. "Good. I'll be there in ten minutes."
I put down the receiver and immediately rang home. The maid came to the instrument. I asked for Pat. "I don't know if she's in," said Frida uncivilly. "I'll have a look."
I waited. My head was thick and hot. It seemed endless. Then I heard a crackling and Pat's voice. "Robby?"
I closed my eyes for a moment. "How are you, Pat?"
"All right. I have been sitting on the balcony reading until just now. An exciting book."
"So, an exciting book," said I. "That's fine. I only wanted to say that I'll be home a bit later this evening. Have you finished the book?"
"No, I'm in the middle of it. It will last a couple of hours yet."
"I'll be there long before that. So now read away quickly."
I remained sitting a moment. Then I stood up. "Otto," said I, "may I have Karl for a bit?"
"Of course. I'll drive you if you like. I've nothing to do here."
"It's not necessary. Nothing's happened. I've just rung home."
What a light, thought I as Karl shot out on to the street, what a marvellous evening light over the roofs! How full of good life is!
I had to wait for Jaffé a few minutes. A nurse showed me into a small room in which old numbers of magazines lay about. On the window ledge stood some flowerpots with creepers. It was always the same magazines in brown wrappers, and always the same dismal creepers; they are only to be found in doctors' waiting rooms and hospitals.
Jaffé came in. He was wearing a snow-white overall that still showed the creases from the ironing. But as he sat down facing me I saw on the inside of his right sleeve a little spurt of bright red blood. I had seen a lot of blood in my time—but this tiny spot suddenly affected me more sickeningly than any number of blood-soaked bandages. My mood of hopefulness vanished.
"I promised to tell you how things stand with Fräulein Hollmann," said Jaffé.
I nodded and looked at the tablecloth. It had a bright, plush pattern. I stared at the interlacing hexagons and had the crazy feeling that everything would go all right if only I could hold out and not have to blink before Jaffé resumed speaking.
"She was six months in the sanatorium two years ago. Did you know that?"
"No," said I, and continued to look at the tablecloth.
"It improved after that. I have examined her thoroughly now. She must absolutely go in again this winter. She can't remain here in the city."
I still gazed at the hexagons. They swam into one another and started to dance.
"When must she go?" I asked.
"In the autumn. By the end of October, at the latest."
"It wasn't a passing haemorrhage then?"
"No."
I raised my eyes.
"I don't need to tell you, probably," Jaffé went on, "that it is a quite unpredictable disease. A year ago it seemed to have stopped, the patch had healed, and it was to be assumed would remain so. Just as they have now broken out again, so they may unexpectedly come to a halt again. I'm not merely saying that—it really is so. I have myself seen many remarkable cures."
"And worsenings, too?"
He looked at me. "That too, of course."
He started to explain the details. Both lungs were affected, the right less, the left more so. Then he broke off and rang for the nurse. "Bring me my portfolio, please."
The nurse brought it. Jaffé took out two large photographs. He drew off the crackling envelopes and held them to the window. "You will see better this way. These are the two X rays."
I saw the vertebrae of a backbone on the transparent, grey plate, the shoulder blades, the collar bones, the sockets of the upper arm and the flat arch of the ribs. But I saw more than that—I saw a skeleton. Dark and ghostly it rose up out of the pale, confused shadows of the photograph. I saw Pat's skeleton. Pat's skeleton.
With the forceps Jaffé traced out the various lines and colourings on the plate and explained them. He did not notice that I was no longer looking. The thoroughness of the scientist had absorbed him. At last he turned to me. "Have you understood?"
"Yes," said I.
"What's the matter, then?" he asked.
"Nothing," I replied. "Only I can't look at that too well."
"Ach, so." He put on his glasses. Then he put back the photographs into their covers and looked at me searchingly. "Don't you indulge any unhelpful ideas."
"I don't," said I. "But it's a god-damned miserable business. There are millions of healthy human beings. Then why not this one?"
Jaffé' was silent awhile.
"Nobody has an answer to that," said he then.
"Yes," I replied, suddenly embittered and numb with anger: "no one can answer that. Of course not. Nobody has an answer to misery and death. No, damn it; and what's more one can't do anything against it."
Jaffé looked at me a long time.
"Forgive me," said I. "But there's nothing I can do. That's what is so damnable."
He continued to look at me. "Have you time to spare?" he asked.
"Yes," said I. "Enough."
He stood up. "I must make my evening round now. I'd like you to come with me. Nurse will give you a white overall. Then you'll pass with the patients for my assistant."
I did not know what he intended, but I took the overall which the nurse was offering to me.
We went down the long corridor. Through the wide windows came the rosy glow of evening—a soft, subdued, quite unreal, hovering light. Some windows stood open, and the scent of lime flowers wafted in.
Jaffé opened a door. A sticky, foul smell came out to meet us. A woman with wonderful hair, the colour of old gold, in which the light shimmered in bright reflections, lifted her hand feebly. Her forehead was aristocratic and narrow at the temples, but below the eyes a bandage began. It extended right to the mouth. Jaffé loosed it carefully. I saw that the woman had no nose—in its place an encrusted, slimy, red wound with two holes in it. Jaffé replaced the bandage.
"Good," said he in a friendly voice and turned to go.
He closed the door behind him. I stood a moment outside and looked into the soft evening light.
"Come on," said Jaffé and walked ahead of me into the next room.
"The hot gurgling and coughing of delirium greeted us. It was a chap with a leaden-coloured face in which stood bright red patches. His mouth was open, his eyes bulging and his hands travelled restlessly hither and thither over the counterpane. He was quite unconscious. The temperature chart shewed a steady hundred and four degrees. A nurse was sitting by the bed reading. She put the book aside and stood up as Jaffé entered. He glanced at the chart and shook his head. "Double pneumonia and pleurisy. Been fighting like a steer for a fortnight. Relapse. Was almost well. Went to work too soon. Wife and four kids. Hopeless." He listened to his chest and felt his pulse. The nurse helped him. As she did so, her book fell on the floor. I picked it up and saw it was a cookery book. The man in the bed scratched unceasingly with spiderlike hands over the bedcovers. That was the only sound in the room. "You stay the night, here, nurse," said Jaffé.
We went out. The rosy twilight outside had become more colourful. It now filled the corridor like a cloud. "Damned light," said I.
"Why?" asked Jaffé.
"They don't go together. This and that."
"Oh yes," said Jaffé, "they go all right."
In the next room lay a woman breathing heavily. She had been brought in during the afternoon with severe veronal poisoning. Her husband had had an accident the day before, and had been carried in to his wife in the house, with his back broken, shrieking, fully conscious. He had died there during the night.
"Will she get over it?" I asked.
"Probably."
"What's the point?"
"I've had five similar cases the last few years," said Jaffé. "Only one tried a second time. With gas. She died. Of the others two married again."
In the next room was a man who had been crippled for twelve years. He had a waxen skin, a thin, black beard, and very big, still eyes.
"How goes it?" asked Jaffé.
The man made a vague movement. Then he pointed to the window—"Just look at the sky. It's going to rain, I can feel it." He laughed. "One always sleeps better when it rains." In front of him on the bedcover lay a leather chessboard with pieces that could be inserted so that they would not slip. A pile of magazines and some books lay beside it.
We passed on. I saw a young woman with horror-stricken eyes and blue lips, completely shattered by a difficult birth —a crippled child with crooked, feeble legs and water on the brain—a man with no stomach—an owl-like grey-haired old woman who wept because her relatives did not bother about her; she was too long dying for them—a blind man who believed he would see again—a syphilitic child, with its father sitting by the bedside—a woman who had had the second breast removed that morning—another twisted up with arthritis—a third whose ovaries had been taken out—a workman with crushed kidneys—room after room it went on, room after room the same thing: groaning, tormented bodies, motionless, all but extinguished figures; a seeming endless line of misery, fear, resignation, pain, despair, hope, trouble; and each time, when the door had closed, again in the corridor, suddenly, the unearthly rosy light of evening; always after the horror of the cubicles this cloud of soft, grey golden glory, of which one could not say whether it were dreadful irony or divine consolation.
At the entrance to the operating theatre Jaffé stopped. Harsh light penetrated the frosted glass panes of the door. Two nurses wheeled in a flat trolley. On it a woman was lyinc;. I encountered her gaze. She did not see me; she was looking somewhere into the remote distance. Yet I winced before those eyes, such courage and composure and calm were in them.
Jaffé's face was suddenly tired. "I don't know if it was right," said he; "but it would have been no use to try and reassure you with words. You wouldn't have believed me. Now you have seen that most of these people are much more ill than Pat Hollmann; some have nothing left but their hope. Yet the majority will come through, get better again. That's what I wanted to show you."
I nodded. "You were right," said I.
"Nine years ago my wife died. She was twenty-five. Never been sick. Flu." He was silent a moment. "You realize why I tell you that?"
I nodded again.
"You can't know anything beforehand. The incurable can survive the healthy. Life is a strange phenomenon." His face was now quite wrinkled. A nurse came and whispered something to him. He straightened and nodded toward the theatre. "I must go in now. Don't let Pat see you are worried. That's the main thing. Can you do that?"
"Yes," said I.
He shook hands and then went quickly with the nurse through the glass door into the chalk-white lighted room.
I climbed slowly down the many stairs. The lower I went the darker it became, and on the first floor the electric lamp's were already burning. Then as I came out into the street I saw the rosy twilight flare up once more from the horizon as under some deep breath. Then immediately it was extinguished and turned to grey.
I remained for some time sitting in the car staring ahead. Then I pulled myself together and drove back to the workshop. Köster was waiting for me at the gate.
"Did you know?" I asked.
"Yes," he replied. "But Jaffé wanted to tell you himself." I nodded.
Köster looked at me.
"Otto," said I, "I'm not a child, and I know nothing is lost yet. But it may be hard not to betray myself if I have to be alone with Pat to-night. To-morrow will be all right. I'll be through with it by then. Couldn't we all go somewhere together this evening?"
"Why, sure, Bob. I had thought of that already and fixed it with Gottfried."
"Then let me have Karl again. I'll drive home and get Pat first and then, in an hour's time, you."
"Right."
I drove off. In Nikolaistrasse it struck me that I had forgotten the dog. I turned and went back to get him.
The shop was not lighted but the door was open. Anton was sitting at the back of the shop on a camp bed. He had' a bottle in his hand. "Tricked me, Gustav did," said he, smelling like a whole distillery.
The terrier sprang toward me, sniffed me and licked my hand. His eyes shone green in the reflected light that entered from the street. Anton stood up. He swayed and suddenly started weeping.
"My little dog, now you are going away too. Everything goes away—Thilda dead—Minna gone—tell me, mister, what do the likes of us live for, really?"
The final touch! The little cheerless, electric light which he now switched on, the decaying smell of the aquariums, the light rustling of the tortoises and the birds, and the little bloated fellow in this shop . . .
"The big bugs, they know of course—but tell me, mister, the likes of us what do we have to live for, I want to know? What do we poor miserable mongrels have to live for, eh sir?" The monkey uttered a lamentable cry and sprang like a madman to and fro on his perch. His shadow leapt with him, large upon the wall. "Koko," sobbed the little man, who had been sitting alone in the darkness drinking, "my only, come!" He held out the bottle to him. The monkey reached for it.
"You'll do the creature in, if you give him that to drink," said I.
"And what of it, mister?" he stuttered. "A few years longer on the chain or not—it's all one—all one—sir."
I took the dog that was pressing warm against me and went. Graceful, with long, easy movements, it ran beside me to the car.
I drove home and with the clog on the lead, went cautiously up. In the passage I stopped and looked in the mirror. My face was as usual. I knocked on Pat's door, opened it a little, and let the dog in.
I remained outside, holding firmly to the lead, and waited. But instead of Pat's voice I heard unexpectedly Frau Zalewski's bass: "Good gracious!"
Breathing again, I looked in. I had been afraid of the first moment alone with Pat. Now it was all easy; Frau Zalewski was a bulkhead to be relied on.
She was sitting enthroned at the table, a cup of coffee beside her and a pack of cards spread out in mystic order in front of her. Pat, with shining eyes, was curled up beside her having her future told.
"Good evening," said I, suddenly very pleased.
"There he comes," announced Frau Zalewski solemnly. "The short way in the evening hour, beside him a dark gentleman at the top of the house."
The dog pulled free, and, barking, shot between my legs into the room.
"My gracious!" cried Pat. "But it's an Irish terrier!"
"One up to you," said I. "I didn't know that myself, an hour ago."
She bent down and the dog sprang up stormily on her. "What's his name then, Robby?"
"No idea. Probably Cognac or Whisky or some such, after his last owner."
"Does he belong to us?"
"So far as any living creature can belong to another, yes."
She was quite breathless with joy. "We'll call him Billy, Robby. My mother had one when she was a girl. She often told me about it. His name was Billy too."
"Then I've struck it lucky," said I.
"Is it house-trained?" asked Frau Zalewski.
"He has a pedigree like a duke," I replied. "And dukes are house-trained."
"Not when they are little. How old is he then?"
"Eight months. That is as much as sixteen years with a human being."
"He doesn't look house-trained," declared Frau Zalewski.
"He needs washing, that's all."
Pat stood up and put her arm about Frau Zalewski's shoulder. I looked at her, perplexed. "I've always wanted to have a dog," said she. "You will let us keep him, won't you? You surely haven't anything against it."
For the first time since I had known her, Frau Zalewski was at a loss what to say. "Well, in that case—so far as I am concerned," she replied. "Of course it is there in the cards. A surprise about a gentleman in the house."
"Is it also in the cards that we are going out this evening?" I asked.
Pat laughed. "We hadn't got that far, Robby. We had just arrived at you."
Frau Zalewski rose and swept up the cards. "You can believe in it, and you cannot believe in it, and you can believe in it mistakenly, like Zalewski. With him the nine of spades always stood as an evil omen above the watery element. He took it to mean he must beware of water. But it was schnapps and Pilsner."
"Pat," said I when she had gone, and I took her in my arms, "it is wonderful to come home and find you here. It is a constant new surprise to me. When I come up the last flight and open the door, I always have palpitations lest it may not be true."
She looked at me smiling. She almost never answered when I said that sort of thing. I couldn't have imagined it, and could hardly have suffered it anyway if she had said anything like it—it seemed to me a woman ought not to tell a man that she loves him. Pat's eyes became only radiant and happy, and thereby she said more than many words.
I held her tight a long time, I felt the warmth, of her skin and the faint fragrance of her hair—I held her tight and there was nothing there but her; the darkness fell away, she lived, she breathed, and nothing was lost.
"Are we really going out, Robby?" she asked, near to my face.
"All of us together," I replied. "Köster and Lenz too. Karl is at the door now."
"And Billy?"
"Billy comes, of course. What should we do with what is left of the supper otherwise? Or have you eaten already?"
"No, not yet. I've been waiting for you."
"But you shouldn't wait for me. Never. It's terrible waiting for someone."
She shook her head. "You don't understand, Robby. It's only terrible to have nothing to wait for."
She switched on the light over the looking-glass. "But now I must start to dress, or I shall never be ready. Are you dressing too?"
"Later," said I. "I'll soon be done. Let me stay here awhile."
I called the dog to me and sat in the armchair by the window. I liked to sit quietly and watch Pat while she dressed. I was never more aware of mystery, of the eternal strangeness of woman than in watching this light hither-and-thithering before the looking-glass, this contemplative appraisal, this complete absorption in herself, this slipping back into the unconscious sagacity of sex. I could not imagine a woman talking and laughing when she dressed— and if she did, must lack the mystery and inexplicable charm of the ever illusive. I loved Pat's graceful and yet lithe movements before the mirror, it was marvellous to watch how she reached to her hair, or deftly and cautiously . applied an eyebrow pencil to her forehead. She had something then about her of a deer and of a slim panther, and something too of an Amazon before the battle. She forgot everything around her, her face was grave and concentrated, quietly and attentively she held it up to its reflection in the looking-glass, and, as she leaned close toward it, it seemed no longer to be a reflection, but as if two women were there eyeing one another with age-old, knowing look —bold and appraising, out of the twilight of reality and the centuries.
The fresh breath of evening came in through the open window. I sat quietly there, I had forgotten nothing of the afternoon, I knew it all quite well—but as I looked across at Pat I felt the sombre grief, that had sunk down in me like a stone, begin to be lapped about by a wild hope, change and in some strange way mingle with hope; the one became the other; the grief, the hope, the wind, the evening, and the beautiful girl between the shining mirror and the lights; yes, for a moment I had a strange intuition that just this, and in a real and profound sense, is life: and perhaps happiness even—love with a mixture of sadness, reverence, and silent knowledge.