I went back and made excuses. They were very lame ones, and Frau von Lindeberg 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 far as 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, bearing down with smiles on this picture of peace.
Papa sprang up, and seeing there was no escape pretended to be quite pleased to see her. He offered her his chair, he prayed for indulgence toward his slippers, and sitting down facing her inquired in what way he could be of service.
‘I want to know something about the young Englishman who occupies a room in our house,’ said Frau von Lindeberg, without losing time. ‘You understand that it is not only natural but incumbent on a parent to wish for information in regard to a person dwelling under the same roof.’
‘I can give every information,’ said Papa readily. ‘His name in English is Collins. In German it is Esel.’
‘Oh really,’ said Frau von Lindeberg, taken aback.
‘It is, madam,’ said Papa, looking very pleasant, as became a man in his own house confronted by a female visitor. ‘We have re-christened him. And no array of words with which I am acquainted will express the exactness of his resemblance to that useful but unintelligent beast.’
‘Oh really,’ said Frau von Lindeberg, not yet recovered.
‘The ass, madam, is conspicuous for the narrowness of its understanding. So is Mr. Collins. The ass is exasperating to persons of normal brains. So is Mr. Collins. The ass is lazy in regard to work, and obstinate. So is Mr. Collins. The ass is totally indifferent to study. So is Mr. Collins. The ass has never heard of Goethe. Neither has Mr. Collins. The ass is useful to the poor. So is Mr. Collins. The ass, indeed, is the poor man’s most precious possession. So, emphatically, is Mr. Collins.’
‘Oh really,’ said Frau von Lindeberg again.
‘Is there anything more you wish to know?’ Papa inquired politely, for she seemed unable immediately to go on.
She cleared her throat. ‘In what way — in what way is he useful?’ she asked.
‘Madam, he pays.’
‘Yes — of course, of course. You cannot—’ she smiled— ‘be expected to teach him German for nothing.’
‘Far from doing that I teach him German for a great deal.’
‘Is he — do you know anything about his relations? You understand,’ she added, ‘that it is not altogether pleasant for a private family like ours to have a strange young man living under the same roof.’
‘Understand?’ cried Papa. ‘I understand it so thoroughly that I most positively refused to have him under this one.’
‘Ah — yes,’ said Frau von Lindeberg, a Dammerlitz expression coming into her face. ‘The cases are not — are not quite — pray tell me, who and what is his father?’
‘A respectable man, madam, I should judge.’
‘Respectable? And besides respectable?’
‘Eminently worthy, I should say from his letters.’
‘Ah yes. And — and anything else?’
‘Honorable too, I fancy. Indeed, I have not a doubt.’
‘Is he of any family?’
‘He is of his own family, madam.’
‘Ah yes. And did you — did you say he was well off?’
‘He is apparently revoltingly rich.’
An electric shock seemed to make Frau von Lindeberg catch her breath. ‘Oh really,’ she then said evenly. ‘Did he inherit his wealth?’
‘Made it, madam. He is an ironmonger.’
Another electric shock made Frau von Lindeberg catch her breath again. Then she again said, ‘Oh really.’
There was a pause.
‘England,’ she said after a moment, ’is different from Germany.’
‘I believe it is,’ admitted Papa.
‘And ironmongers there may be different from ironmongers here.’
‘It is at least conceivable.’
‘Tell me, what status has an ironmonger in England?’
‘What status?’
‘In society.’
‘Ah, that I know not. I went over there seven and twenty years ago for the purpose of marrying, and I met no ironmongers. Not consciously, that is.’
‘Would they — would they be above the set in which you then found yourself, or would they—’ she tried to conceal a shiver— ‘be below it.’
‘I know not. I know nothing of society either there or here. But I do know that money, there as here, is very mighty. It is, I should say, merely a question of having enough.’
‘And has he enough?’
‘The man, madam, is I believe perilously near becoming that miserable and isolated creature a millionaire. God help the unfortunate Joey.’
‘But why? Why should God help him? Why is he unfortunate? Does not he get any share?’
‘Any share? He gets it all. He is the only child. Now I put it to you, what chance is there for an unhappy youth with no brains-’
‘Oh, I must really go. I have taken up an unwarrantable amount of your time. Thank you so very much, dear Herr Schmidt — no, no, do not disturb yourself I beg — your daughter will show me the way—’
‘But,’ cried Papa, vainly trying to detain this determinedly retreating figure, ‘about his character, his morals — we have not yet touched—’
‘Ah yes — so kind — I will not keep you now. Another time perhaps—’
And Frau von Lindeberg got herself out of the room and out of the house. Scarcely did she say good-by to me, in so great and sudden a fever was she to be gone; but she did turn on the doorstep and give me a curiously intense look. It began at my eyes, travelled upward to my hair, down across my face, and from there over my whole body to my toes. It was a very odd look. It was the most burningly critical look that has ever shrivelled my flesh.
Now what do you think of this enormous long letter? It has made me quite cheerful just writing it, and I was not very cheerful when I began. I hope the reading of it will do you as much good. Good-by. Write and tell me you are happy.
Yours sincerely,
ROSE-MARIE SCHMIDT.
Do, do try to be happy!
LXIII
Galgenberg, Dec. 22d.
Dear Mr. Anstruther, — The house is quite good enough for me, I assure you — the ‘setting’ I think you call it, suggesting with pleasant flattery that there is something precious to be set. It only has the bruised sort of color you noticed when its background is white with snow. In summer against the green it looks as white as you please; but a thing must be white indeed to look so in the midst of our present spotlessness. And it is not damp if there are fires enough. And the rooms are not too small for me — poky was the adjective you applied to the dear little things. And I am never lonely. And Joey is very nice, even though he doesn’t quite talk in blank verse. I feel a sort of shame when you make so much of me, when you persist in telling me that the outer conditions of my life are unworthy. It makes me feel so base, such a poor thing. Sometimes I half believe you must be poking fun. Anyhow I don’t know what you would be at; do you wish me to turn up my nose at my surroundings? And do you see any good that it would do? And the details you go into! That coffee-pot you saw and are so plaintive about came to grief only the day before your visit, and will, in due season, be replaced by another. Meanwhile it doesn’t hurt coffee to be poured out of a broken spout, and it doesn’t hurt us to drink it after it has passed through this humiliation. On the contrary, we receive it thankfully into cups, and remain perfectly unruffled. You say, and really you say it in a kind of agony, that the broken spout, you are sure, is symbolic of much that is invisible in my life. You say — in effect, though your words are choicer — that if you had your way my life would be set about with no spouts that were not whole. If you had your way? Mr. Anstruther, it is a mercy that in this o
ne matter you have not got it. What an extremely discontented creature I would become if I spent my days embedded in the luxury you, by a curious perverseness, think should be piled around me. I would gasp ill-natured epigrams from morning till night. I would wring my hands, and rend the air with cries of cui bono. The broken spout is a brisk reminder of the transitoriness of coffee-pots and of life. It sets me hurrying about my business, which is first to replace it, and then by every possible ingenuity to make the most of the passing moment. The passing moment is what you should keep your eye on, my young friend. It is a slippery, flighty thing; but, properly pounced upon, lends itself fruitfully to squeezing. The upshot of your last letter is, I gather, that for some strange reason, some extremity of perverseness, you would have me walk in silk attire, and do it in halls made of marble. It suffocates me only to think of it. I love my freedom and forest trampings, my short skirts and swinging arms. I want the wind to blow on me, and the sun to burn me, and the mud to spatter me. Away with caskets, and settings, and frames! I am not a picture, or a jewel, whatever your poetic eye, misled by a sly and tricky Muse, persists in seeing. It would be quite a good plan, and of distinctly tonic properties, for you to write to Frau von Lindeberg and beg her to describe me. She, it is certain, would do it very accurately, untroubled by the deceptions of any Muse.
How kind of you to ask me what I would like for Christmas, and how funny of you to ask if you might not give me a trinket. I laughed over that, for did I not write to you three days ago and give you an account of my conversation with Joey on the subject of trinkets at Christmas? Is it possible you do not read my letters? Is it possible that, having read them, you forget them so immediately? Is it possible that proverbs lie, and the sauce appropriate to the goose is not also appropriate to the gander? Give me a book. There is no present I care about but that. And if it happened to be a volume in the dark blue binding edition of Stevenson to add to my row of him I would be both pleased and grateful. Joey asked me what I wanted, so he is getting me the Travels with a Donkey. Will you give me Virginibus Puerisque?
Yours sincerely,
ROSE-MARIE SCHMIDT.
If you’d rather, you may give me a new coffee-pot instead.
Later.
But only an earthenware one, like the one that so much upset you.
LXIV
Galgenberg, Dec. 26th.
Dear Mr. Anstruther, — We had a most cheerful Christmas, and I hope you did too. I sent you my blessing lurking in the pages of Frenssen’s new and very wonderful book which ought to have reached you in time to put under your tree. I hope you did have a tree, and were properly festive? The Stevenson arrived, and I found it among my other presents, tied up by Johanna with a bit of scarlet tape. Everything here at Christmas is tied up with scarlet, or blue, or pink tape, and your Stevenson lent itself admirably to the treatment. Thank you very much for it, and also for the little coffee set. I don’t know whether I ought to keep that, it is so very pretty and dainty and beyond my deserts, but — it would break if I packed it and sent it back again, wouldn’t it? so I will keep it, and drink your health out of the little cup with its garlands of tiny flower-like shepherdesses.
The audacious Joey did give Vicki jewelry, and a necklace if you please, the prettiest and obviously the costliest thing you can imagine. What happened then was in exact fulfilment of my prophecy; Vicki gasped with joy and admiration, he tells me, and before she had well done her gasp Frau von Lindeberg, with, as I gather, a sort of stately regret, took the case out of her hands, shut it with a snap, and returned it to Joey. ‘No,’ said Frau von Lindeberg.
‘What’s wrong with it?’ Joey says he asked.
‘Too grand for my little girl,’ said Frau von Lindeberg. ‘We are but humble folk.’ And she tossed her head, said Joey.
‘Ah — Dammerlitz,’ I muttered, nodding with a complete comprehension.
‘What?’ exclaimed Joey, starting and looking greatly astonished.
‘Go on,’ said I.
‘But I say,’ said Joey, in tones of shocked protest.
‘What do you say?’ I asked.
‘Why, how you must hate her,’ said Joey, quite awestruck, and staring at me as though he saw me for the first time.
‘Hate her?’ I asked, surprised, ‘Why do you think I hate her?’
He whistled, still staring at me.
‘Why do you think I hate her?’ I asked again, patient as I always try to be with him.
He murmured something about as soon expecting it of a bishop.
In my turn I stared. ‘Suppose you go on with the story,’ I said, remembering the hopelessness of ever following the train of Joey’s thoughts.
Well, there appears to have been a gloom after that over the festivities. You are to understand that it all took place round the Christmas tree in the best parlor, Frau von Lindeberg in her black silk and lace high-festival dress, Herr von Lindeberg also in black with his orders, Vicki in white with blue ribbons, the son, come down for the occasion, in the glories of his dragoon uniform with clinking spurs and sword, and the servant starched and soaped in a big embroidered apron. In the middle of these decently arrayed rejoicers, the candles on the tree lighting up every inch of him, stood Joey in a Norfolk jacket, gaiters, and green check tie. ‘I was goin’ to dress afterward for dinner,’ he explained plaintively, ‘but how could a man guess they’d all have got into their best togs at four in the afternoon? I felt an awful fool, I can tell you.’
‘I expect you looked one too,’ said I with cheerful conviction.
There appears, then, to have descended a gloom after the necklace incident on the party, and a gloom of a slightly frosty nature. Vicki, it is true, was rather melting than frosty, her eyes full of tears, her handkerchief often at her nose, but Papa Lindeberg was steeped in gloom, and Frau von Lindeberg was sad with the impressive Christian sadness that does not yet exclude an occasional wan smile. As for the son, he twirled his already much twirled mustache and stared very hard at Joey.
When the presents had been given, and Joey found himself staggering beneath a waistcoat Vicki had knitted him, and a pair of pink bed-socks Frau von Lindeberg had knitted him, and an empty photograph frame from Papa Lindeberg, and an empty purse from the son, and a plate piled miscellaneously with apples and nuts and brown cakes with pictures gummed on to them, he observed Frau von Lindeberg take her husband aside into the remotest corner of the room and there whisper with him earnestly and long. While she was doing this the son, who knew no English, talked with an air of one who proposed to stand no nonsense to Joey, who knew no German, and Vicki, visibly depressed, slunk round the Christmas tree blowing her nose.
Papa Lindeberg, says Joey, came out of the corner far more gloomy than he went in; he seemed like a man urged on unwillingly from behind, a man reluctant to advance, and yet afraid or unable to go back. ‘I beg to speak with you,’ he said to Joey, with much military stiffness about his back and heels.
‘Now wasn’t I right?’ I interrupted triumphantly.
‘Poor old beggar,’ said Joey, ‘he looked frightfully sick.’
‘And didn’t you?’
‘No,’ said Joey grinning.
‘Most young men would have.’
‘But not this one. This one went off with him trippin’ on the points of his toes, he felt so fit.’
‘Well, what happened then?’
‘Oh, I don’t know. He said a lot of things. I couldn’t understand ’em, and I don’t think he could either, but he was very game and stuck to it once he’d begun, and went on makin’ my head spin and I daresay his own too. Long and short of it was that in this precious Fatherland of yours the Vickis don’t accept valuables except from those about to become their husbands.’
‘I should say that the Vickis in your own or any other respectable Fatherland didn’t either,’ said I.
‘Well, I’m not arguin’, am I?’
‘Well, go on.’
‘Well, it seemed pretty queer to think I was about to become
a husband, but there was nothin’ for it — the little girl, you see, couldn’t be done out of her necklace just because of that.’
‘I see,’ said I, trying to.
‘On Christmas Day too — day of rejoicin’ and that, eh?’
‘Quite so,’ said I.
‘So I said I was his man.’
‘And did he understand?’
‘No. He kept on sayin’ ‘What?’ and evidently cursin’ the English language in German. Then I suggested that Vicki should be called in to interpret. He understood that, for I waved my arms about till he did, but he said her mother interpreted better, and he would call her instead. I understood that, and said ‘Get out.’ He didn’t understand that, and while he was tryin’ to I went and told his wife that he’d sent for Vicki. Vicki came, and we got on first rate. First thing I did was to pull out the necklace and put it round her neck. ‘Pretty as paint, ain’t she?’ I said to the old man. He didn’t understand that either, but Vicki did and laughed. ‘You give her to me and I give the necklace to her, see?’ I said, shoutin’, for I felt if I shouted loud enough he wouldn’t be able to help understandin’, however naturally German he was. ‘Tell him how simple it is,’ I said to Vicki. Vicki was very red but awfully cheerful, and laughed all the time. She explained, I suppose, for he went out to call his wife. Vicki and I stayed behind, and—’
‘Well?’
‘Oh well, we waited.’
‘And what did Frau von Lindeberg say?’
‘Oh, she was all right. Asked me a lot about the governor. Said Vicki’s ancestors had fought with the snake in the Garden of Eden, or somebody far back like that — ancient lineage, you know — son-in-law must be impressed. I told her I didn’t think my old man would make any serious objection to that. ‘To what?’ she called out, looking quite scared — they seem frightfully anxious to please the governor. ‘He don’t like ancestors,’ said I. ‘Ain’t got any himself and don’t hold with ’em.’ She pretended she was smilin’, and said she supposed my father was an original. ‘Well,’ said I, goin’ strong for once in the wit line, ‘anyhow he’s not an aboriginal like Vicki’s lot seem to have been.’ Pretty good that, eh? Seemed to stun ’em. Then the son came in and shook both my hands for about half an hour and talked a terrific lot of German and was more pleased about it than any one else, as far as I could see. And then — well, that’s about all. So I pulled off my little game rather neatly, what?’
Delphi Collected Works of Elizabeth von Arnim (Illustrated) Page 107
