LX
Galgenberg, Dec. 12th.
Dear Mr. Anstruther,--I must write to-night, though it is late, to tellyou of my speechless surprise when I came in an hour ago and found youhad been here. I knew you had the moment I came in. At once I recognizedthe smell of the cigarettes you smoke. I went upstairs and calledJohanna, for I was not sure that you were not still here, in the parlor,and frankly I was not going down if you were, for I do not choose tohave my fastnesses stormed. She told me of your visit; how you had comeup on foot soon after Vicki and Joey and I had started off for anafternoon's tobogganing on the hills, how you had stayed talking toPapa, and talking and talking, till you had to hurry down to catch thelast train. 'And he bade me greet you for him,' finished Johanna.'Indeed?' said I.
Do you like winter excursions into the country? Is Berlin boring youalready? I shook my head in grave disapproval as Johanna proceeded withher tale. I am all for a young man's attending to his business and notmaking sudden wild journeys that take him away for a whole day and mostof a night. Papa was delighted, I must say, to have had at last, as hetold me with disconcerting warmth, at last after all these months anintelligent conversation, but with his delight the success of your visitends, for when I heard of it I was not delighted at all. Why did you gointo the kitchen? Johanna says you would go, and then that you went outhatless at the back door and down to the bottom of the garden and thatyou stood there leaning against the fence as though it were summer.'Still without a hat,' said Johanna, in her turn shaking her head, '_beidieser Kaelte_.'
_Bei dieser Kaelte_, indeed. Yes; what made you do it? I am glad I wasout, for I do not care to look on while the usually reasonable behaveunaccountably. I don't think I can be friends with you for a littleafter this. I think I really must quarrel, for it isn't very decent todrop unexpectedly upon a person who from time to time has told you withthe frankness that is her most marked feature that she doesn't want tobe dropped upon. No doubt you wished to see Papa as well, and, on yourway through Jena, Professor Martens; but I will not pretend to supposeyour call was not chiefly intended for me, for it is to me and not toeither of those wiser ones that you have written every day for monthspast. You are a strange young man. Heaven knows what you have accustomedyourself to imagining me to be. I almost wish now that you had seen mewhen I came in from our violent exercise, a touzled, short-skirted,heated person. It might have cured you. I forgot to look in the glass,but of course my hair and eyelashes were as white with hoar-frost asVicki's and Joey's, and from beneath them and from above my turned-upcollar must have emerged just such another glowing nose. Even Papa wasstruck by my appearance--after having gazed, I suppose, for hours onyour composed correctness--and remarked that living in the country didnot necessarily mean a complete return to savage nature.
The house feels very odd to-night. So do I. It feels haunted. So do I. Iwant to scold you, and yet I cannot. I have the strangest desire to cry.It is the thought that you came this long way, toiled up this long hill,waited those long hours, all to see some one who is glad to have missedyou, that makes me want to. The night is so black outside my window, andsomewhere through that blackness you are travelling at this moment,disappointed, across the endless frozen fields and forests that you mustgo through inch by inch before you reach Berlin. Why did you do a thingso comfortless? And here have I actually begun to cry,--I think becauseit is so dark, and you are not yet home.
ROSE-MARIE SCHMIDT.
LXI
Galgenberg, Dec. 16th.
Dear Mr. Anstruther,--I don't quite understand. Purely motherly, Ishould say. Perhaps our notions of the exact meaning of the word friendare different. I include in it a motherly and sisterly interest inbodily well-being, in dry socks, warm feet, regular meals. I do not likemy friend to be out on a bitter night, to take a tiring journey, to bedisappointed. My friend's mother would have, I imagine, precisely thesame feeling. My friend should not, then, mistake mere motherliness forother and less comfortable sentiments. But I am busy today, and have notime to puzzle out your letter. It must have been the outcome of arather strange mood.
Yours sincerely,
ROSE-MARIE SCHMIDT.
Tell me more about your daily life in Berlin, the people you see, thehouses you go to, the attitude, kind or otherwise, of your chief. Tellme these things, instead of swamping me with subtleties of sentiment. Idon't understand subtleties, and I fear and despise sentiment as acertain spoiler of plain bread-and-butter happiness. There should be nosentiment between friends. The moment there is they leave off being justfriends; and is not that what we both most want to be?
LXII
Galgenberg, Dec. 19th.
Oh, I can do nothing with you. You are bent, I'm afraid, on losing yourfriend. Don't write me such letters--don't, don't, don't! My heart sinkswhen I see you deliberately setting about strangling our friendship. AmI to lose it then, that too? Your last letters are like bad dreams, sostrange and unreasonable, so without the least order or self-control. Iread them with my fingers in my ears,--an instinctive foolish movementof protection against words I do not want to hear. Dear friend, do nottake your friendship from me. Give yourself a shake; come out from thosevain imaginings your soul has gone to dwell among. What shall I talk toyou about this bright winter's morning? Yes, I will write you longerletters; you needn't beg so hard, as though the stars couldn't get alongin their courses if I didn't. See, I am willing to do anything to keepmy friend. You are my only one, the only person in the world to whom Itell the silly thoughts that come into my head and so get rid of them.You listen, and you are the only person in the world who does. You helpme, and I in my turn want to be allowed to go on helping you. Do not putan end to what is precious,--believe me it will grow more and moreprecious with years. Do not, in the heat and impatience of youth, killthe poor goose who, if left alone, will lay the most beautiful goldeneggs. What shall I talk to you about to turn your attention somewhereelse, somewhere far removed from that unhappy bird? Shall I tell youabout Papa's book, finally refused by every single publisher, come backbattered and draggled to be galvanized by me into fresh life in anEnglish translation? Shall I tell you how I sit for three hours dailydoing it, pen in hand, ink on fingers, hair pushed back from an anxiousbrow, Papa hovering behind with a dictionary in which, full of distrust,he searches as I write to see if it contains the words I have used?Shall I tell you about Joey, whose first disgust at finding himself oncemore with us has given place by degrees that grow visibly wider to arollicking enjoyment. Less and less does he come up here. More and moredoes he stay down there. He hurries through his lessons with a speedthat leaves Papa speechless, and is off and hauling the sled up past ourgate with Vicki walking demurely beside him and is whizzing down againpast our gate with Vicki sitting demurely in front of him before Papa iswell through the list of adjectives he applies to him once at leastevery day. I never see the sled now nearer than in the distance. Vickiwears her stiff shirts again, and her neat ties again, and the sportingbelt that makes her waist look so very trim and tiny. If anything she ismore aggressively starched and boyish than before. Her collars seem togrow higher and cleaner each time I see her. Her hat is tilted furtherforward. Her short skirts show the neatest little boots. She isextraordinarily demure. She never cries. Joey reads _Samson Agonistes_with us, and points out the jokes to Vicki. Vicki says why did I nevertell her it was so funny? I stare first at one and then at the other,and feel a hundred years old.
'I say,' said Joey, coming into the kitchen just now.
'Well, what?' said I.
'I'm going to Berlin for a day.'
'Are you indeed?'
'Tell the old man, will you?'
'Tell the who?'
'The old man. I shan't be here for the lesson to-morrow, thank the Lord.I'm off by the first train.'
'Indeed,' said I.
There was a silence, during which Joey fidgeted about among the culinaryobjects scattered around him. I went on peeling apples. When he hadfidgeted as much as he wanted to be lit a cig
arette.
'No,' said I. 'Not in kitchens. A highly improper thing to do.'
He threw it into the dustbin. 'I say,' he said again.
'Well, what?' said I again.
'What do you think--what do you think--' He paused. I waited. As hedidn't go on I thought he had done. 'What do I think?' I said. 'You'd bestaggered if I told you, it's such a lot, and it's so terrific.'
'What do you think,' repeated Joey, taking no heed of me, but, with hishands in his pockets, kicking a fallen apple aimlessly about on thefloor, 'what do you think the little girl'd like for Christmas and that,don't you know?'
I stopped peeling and gazed at him, knife and apple suspended inmid-air. 'The little girl?' I inquired. 'Do you mean Johanna?'
Joey stared. Then he grinned at me monstrously. 'You bet,' was hiscryptic reply.
'What am I to bet?' I asked patiently.
Joey gave the fallen apple a kick. Looking down I observed that it wasthe biggest and the best, and stooped to rescue it. 'It's not pretty,'said I, rebuking him, 'to kick even an apple when it's down.'
'Oh, I say,' said Joey impatiently, 'do be sensible. There never was anygettin' much sense out of you I remember. And you're only pretendin'.You know I mean Vicki.'
'Vicki?'
He had the grace to blush. 'Well, Fraeulein What's her name. You can'texpect any one decent to get the hang of these names of yours. Theyain't got any hang, so how's one to get it? What'd she like forChristmas? Don't you all kick up a mighty fuss here over Christmas?Trees, and presents, and that? Plummier plum-puddings than we have, andmincier mince-pies, what?'
'If you think you will get even one plum-pudding or mince-pie,' said I,thoughtfully peeling, 'you are gravely mistaken. The national dish iscarp boiled in beer.'
Joey looked really revolted. 'What?' he cried, not liking to credit hissenses.
'Carp boiled in beer,' I repeated distinctly. 'It is what I'm going togive you on Christmas Day.'
'No you're not,' he said hastily.
'Yes I am,' I insisted. 'And before it and after it you will berequired, in accordance with German custom, to sing chorales.'
'I'd like to see myself doin' it. You'll have to sing 'em alone. I'minvited to feed down there.'
And he jerked his head toward that portion of the kitchen wall beyondwhich, if you passed through it and the intervening coal-hole and gardenand orchard, you would come to the dwelling of the Lindebergs.
'Oh,' said I; and looked at him thoughtfully.
'Yes,' said he, trying to meet my look with an equal calm, butconspicuously failing. 'That bein' so,' he went on hurriedly, 'and mydroppin', so to speak, into the middle of somebody's Christmas tree andthat, it seems to me only decent to give the little girl somethin'. Whatshall I get her? Somethin' to put on, I suppose. A brooch, or a pin,what?'
'Or a ring,' said I, thoughtfully peeling.
'A ring? What, can one--oh I say, don't let's waste time rottin'--'
And glancing up through cautious eyelashes I saw he was very red.
'It'd be easy enough if it was you,' he said revengefully.
'What would?'
'Hittin' on what you'd like.'
'Would it?'
'All you'd want to do the trick would be a dictionary.'
'Now Mr. Collins that's unkind,' said I, laying down my knife.
He began to grin again. 'It's true,' he insisted.
'It suggests such an immeasurable stuffiness,' I complained.
'It isn't my fault,' said he grinning.
'But perhaps I deserve it because I mentioned a ring. Let me tell you,as man to man, that you must buy no brooches for Vicki.'
'A pin, then?'
'No pins.'
'A necklace, then?'
'Nothing of the sort. What would her parents say? Give her chocolates, abunch of roses, perhaps a book--but nothing more. If you do you'll getinto a nice scrape.'
Joey looked at me. 'What sort of scrape?' he asked curiously.
'Gracious heavens, don't you see? Are you such a supreme goose? My pooryoung man, the parents would immediately ask you your intentions.'
'Oh would they,' said Joey, in his turn becoming thoughtful; and after amoment he said again, 'Oh would they.'
'It's as certain as anything I know,' said I.
'Oh is it,' said Joey, still thoughtful.
'It's a catastrophe young men very properly dread,' said I.
'Oh do they,' said Joey, sunk in thought.
'Well, if you're not listening--' And I shrugged my shoulders, and wenton with my peeling.
He pulled his cap out of the pocket into which it had been stuffed, andbegan to put it on, tugging it first over one ear and then over theother in a deep abstraction.
'You're in my kitchen,' I observed.
'Sorry,' he said, snatching it off. 'I forgot. You always make me feelas if I were out of doors.'
'How very odd,' said I, interested and slightly flattered.
'Ain't it. East wind, you know--decidedly breezy, not to say nippin'.Well, I must be goin'.'
'I think so too,' said I coldly.
'Don't be dull while I'm away,' said Joey; and departed with a nod.
But he put in his head again the next moment. 'I say, Miss Schmidt--'
'Well, what?'
'You think I ought to stick to chocolates, then?' 'If you don't there'llbe extraordinary complications,' said I.
'You're sure of that?'
'Positive.'
'You'd swear it?'
I threw down my knife and apple. 'Now what's the matter with the boy!' Iexclaimed impatiently. 'Do I ever swear?'
'But if you did you would?'
'Swear what?'
'That a bit of jewelry would bring the complications about?'
'Oh--dense, dense, dense! Of course it would. You'd be surprised at thenumber and size of them. You can't be too careful. Give her a hymn-book.
Joey gave a loud whoop.
'Well, it's safe,' said I severely, 'and it appeals to parents.'
'You bet,' said Joey, screwing his face into a limitlessly audaciouswink.
'I wish,' said I, very plaintively, 'that I knew exactly what it is I amto bet. You constantly tell me to do so, but never add the necessarydirections.'
'Oh, I'm goin',' was Joey's irrelevant reply; and his head popped out assuddenly as it had popped in.
Or shall I tell you--I am anxious to make this letter long enough toplease you--about Frau von Lindeberg, who spent two days elaboratelycutting Joey, the two first days of his appearance in their house aslodger, persuaded, I suppose, that no one even remotely and by businessconnected with the Schmidts could be anything but undesirable, and how,meeting him in the passage, or on his way through the garden to us, theiciest stare was all she felt justified in giving him in return for hisfriendly grin, and how on the third day she suddenly melted, and stoppedand spoke pleasantly to the poor solitary, commiserating with hissituation as a stranger in a foreign country, and suggesting thealleviation to his loneliness of frequent visits to them? No one knowsthe first cause of this melting. I think she must have heard through herservant of the number and texture of those pink and blue silkhandkerchiefs, of his amazing piles of new and costly shirts, of theobvious solidity of the silver on everything of his that has a back or astopper or a handle or a knob. Anyhow on that third morning she came upand called on us, asking particularly for Papa. 'I particularly wished,'she said to me, spreading herself out as she did the last time on thesofa, 'to see your good father on a matter of some importance.'
'I'll go and call him,' said I, concealing my conviction that though Imight call he would not come.
And he would not. 'What, interrupt my work?' he cried. 'Is the womanmad?'
I went back and made excuses. They were very lame ones, and Frau vonLindeberg instantly brushed them aside. 'I will go to him,' she said,getting up. 'Your excellent father will not refuse me, I am sure.'
Papa was sitting in his slippers before the stove, doing nothing, so
faras I could see, except very comfortably read the new book about Goethe.
'I am sorry to disturb so busy a man,' said Frau von Lindeberg, bearingdown with smiles on this picture of peace.
Papa sprang up, and seeing there was no escape pretended to be quitepleased to see her. He offered her his chair, he prayed for indulgencetoward his slippers, and sitting down facing her inquired in what way hecould be of service.
'I want to know something about the young Englishman who occupies a roomin our house,' said Frau von Lindeberg, without losing time. 'Youunderstand that it is not only natural but incumbent on a parent to wishfor information in regard to a person dwelling under the same roof.'
'I can give every information,' said Papa readily. 'His name in Englishis Collins. In German it is _Esel_.'
'Oh really,' said Frau von Lindeberg, taken aback.
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