The Strong City

by Caldwell, Taylor;

  “No, I have no friends.” She wrung her hands. “This is so dreadful.”

  “Then, we must hope that the carriage was not sent. I hardly think it would be. Mrs. Schmidt thought you were going to my mother.”

  She tried to fix her mind on that hope. But she could not. The sense of his nearness was like a devouring fire. Her muscles were tense, with the resistance to that fire. She saw his knees, and his strong hands on them, and had to close her eyes against the shameful pang which seemed to open in her heart like a great rose of desire. She fought against it. Her limbs relaxed, and quivered.

  She knew he had lit his pipe, for she smelled the smoke. He was leaning forward now, staring thoughtfully at the fire. He appeared to be preoccupied with new thoughts, and she drew an audible breath that was almost a sigh of passionate relief.

  She said, faintly: “And how are you doing at the mills, Franz?”

  He glanced at her with a surprised smile. “I was just thinking of them, Irmgard. I was thinking of tomorrow. For tomorrow I shall become assistant to the superintendent.” Now his smile was inward, exultant.

  “Is it so?” she exclaimed. “That is good, for you, and very flattering.”

  “But not enough,” he replied. “Not half enough. I have many more plans.” He paused. “Have you mentioned to Herr Schmidt that you have a cousin in his mills?”

  “No,” she said, surprised. “I have talked little with him. It had not occurred to me.”

  He pressed the smouldering tobacco in his pipe with his thumb. He said, not looking at her: “Then, you will please me by never telling him. Not that it is important, but sometimes it is not liked, for relatives to be employed so.”

  In her innocence, she did not suspect the real reason for his request.

  “I shall say nothing,” she said.

  Franz got up to poke the fire. The red light shot up, vividly. She saw his face, strong, brutal yet full of vitality and power, and again terror took hold of her with wrenching hands. And yet, there was something intoxicating in that terror, something which made her nerves throb, something which made a frightful roaring in her ears.

  He sat down again. He did not look at her. He spoke casually:

  “And the daughter—Fraülein Schmidt. She is her father’s favorite?”

  “I believe she is all he loves on earth,” she said simply. All at once, she felt embarrassed. “I do not like to speak of my employers. I feel it is disloyal, and disrespectful. Do we need to speak of them?”

  He answered with an impersonal and disarming smile, tinged with affection:

  “I wished only to know if the situation was a happy one for you.”

  She looked at him directly, the terror waning. “I do not believe you,” she said, quietly. “Those words are hypocritical.”

  He laughed, but with assumed surprise. “What a cynic you are, Irmgard! You believe nothing but evil of me.”

  “What else is there to believe?” she said, almost inaudibly, and with sadness.

  There was a silence. She bent her head and gazed at the fire, and he studied her profile, his face wrinkling with his thoughts. He said at last: “I am not evil. I am not good. I am only natural. Why do you not believe that of me? Why do you not realize that you and I are alike, beyond good or evil?”

  She did not answer. The slow long rigor was creeping over her limbs again. He studied his pipe intently, turning it about in his fingers.

  “Shall I tell you about myself, Irmgard? When I was a child I heard nothing but noble sentiments. If I wished to give an unscrupulous ruler a theory for building a race of unscrupulous machine-men, men without mercy or gentleness, I would tell him to allow children to hear nothing but lofty and noble sentiments all through their childhood. And then I would tell him to let these children see the world as it is. That would be all.

  “My mother and father were all nobility and all foolishness. What they said came into violent conflict with the world as I began to see it. Then I knew they were fools. I was assaulted, defenseless, on all sides by a savage reality. I had no shield against it. I began to hate my parents, for having made me so vulnerable. I began to see that they ought to have armed me with adequate weapons against other men. They did not. I was full of wounds. I had to grow an armor, quickly, or I might have been utterly destroyed. I grew the armor. If it grew too thick and heavy, it was their fault, not mine.

  “It is said that when a lobster is deprived of one of his claws he grows another, and this other is much heavier, much stronger and larger than the original. So, I grew claws. They were stronger and larger than they might have been if I had not had fools for parents.”

  Irmgard lifted her head and interrupted him with a scornful flash of her jade eyes. “It is so easy for one to blame one’s parents! It is also very cowardly. Because one must learn to stand alone, and not to denounce others. I am afraid you are a coward. I knew it from the start. But why do you not have the courage to stand on your own feet, and accept your nature as your own responsibility? I believe you are a weakling because you could not adjust yourself, as others adjust themselves, to reality.”

  He looked at her without speaking. Green fire blazed from her pale face. Her disordered hair was bright gold in the firelight. A slow heavy flush rose over his own face, and it became secret. Then he said softly: “Why do you hate me, Irmgard?”

  Angry words rushed to her lips, and then she could say nothing at all. Hate you? drummed her heart. Hate you?

  He stood up, and began to walk slowly up and down the room. She could feel him pause occasionally, and look at her, but she did not turn.

  “Why do you not let yourself be free, Irmgard? You have no emotion, and you will not think, because you are afraid. And you call me a coward! You are afraid of living, even though you have never lived.”

  She still gazed at the fire: “It is late,” she said. “I think I shall lie down.”

  He stopped behind her. He put his palms to her cheeks. At his touch, renewed fire, roaring and trembling possessed her. She tried to struggle against them, but she could not move. But it seemed to her that her very flesh responded to his touch and ignited, as dry wood responds to flame. Tears filled ner eyes, and something choked in her throat, as though all grief had concentrated in her, and all ecstasy. She felt him bend and press his mouth against her hair. A dreadful yearning came over her, and with it, a renewal of her grief.

  “My dear, my darling,” he whispered.

  Now it appeared to her that all the strange things which possessed her suddenly roared up in her with passionate fury and overwhelming anger. “You do not mean that,” she said, in a low breaking voice. “No one to you, ever, will be your dear or your darling, except yourself.”

  He sat down beside her, and took her hand, and she had to look at him. His expression was strange, and curiously gentle. He lifted her hand to his lips, and kissed it slowly and deeply. He looked into her eyes, still holding her hand.

  “I loved you from the first moment I saw you. Believe me, Irmgard. It is true. If I never speak the truth again, I am speaking the truth now. Do not look away. Look at me, and you will see I am not lying.”

  She tried to gaze at him with a pale and scornful smile. But her smile faded. His blue eyes, always so hard and smiling, were gentle, piercing. He did not smile now. His expression was grave, almost sorrowful. He is acting, she thought. But she knew this was not true. Ecstasy flowed up and within her, like a golden tide. Truly, he loves me, she thought, with a kind of simple wonder. Truly, he loves me, as I love him.

  The golden tide, flowing from her, seemed to stretch visibly before her eyes, spreading out over a dazzling landscape bright with joy and amazement. She sat and looked at it, overcome with astonishment, and with a joy so intense that it did not seem possible to bear it. Slow tears began to run over her white cheeks, and she smiled a little, like a child.

  He held her hand tightly, and leaned towards her. “I thought I hated you, at first. You knew too much about me. And then I k
new it was necessary for me to have some one who knew all about me. It is a strain, living alone, always acting. I do not need to act, with you. And I knew never in my life would I want anything as I want you.”

  Now, he will ask me to marry him, she thought, and a spasm of rapture ran through her. They would marry, and they would be together to the end of their lives, and they would understand each other. Nothing else would ever matter.

  Her short dark life, the winter of her life, seemed to be breaking up all about her like black ice floes, and the living water welled and bubbled through them, bringing life and glory to the barrenness of her existence. She looked at him simply, the living water shining in her eyes, her lips parted and glowing.

  And he knew what she was thinking, as he would always know. He bent his head, and ran his thumb gently over her hand. He could feel its trembling. For an instant shame filled him, and a strange kind of regret. Nothing would ever make him pause and look back, when he had once decided upon a thing. But he knew that the thing he could not look back upon lay behind him, and he would not look. For a few moments he did want to glance back. But the inexorable torrent of his nature soon overcame the weak desire, the human softening and yearning. He believed that a man could have all things, if he were strong enough.

  Yet, he was stung with compassion for her. He had never felt compassion before, and he knew he might never feel it again. It was weakness, he told himself. If he were weak, now, he was ruined. A man could have all things, if he were not weak.

  The design and pattern of his life was before him, laid out, waiting, by his will. Nothing must interfere with it, not even Irmgard. But he need not sacrifice his desire for her, even if she would not be allowed to interfere.

  He took both her hands now, and kissed them fiercely, goaded by his compassion.

  “I want nothing but you, my darling,” he said, his lips against her fingers.

  He has not said the words, but he means them, she thought. She had a swift vision of her aunt, who would be overcome with happiness. She smiled again, with childlike simplicity. She laughed a little, in a shaking voice.

  “And I—I want nothing but you, Franz,” she said, her words dropping into a whisper.

  He was shaken by this virginal simplicity, this trust, this pure candor. He had never known a woman like this, he thought, with astonishment, and returning shame. To him, women were either prudes or wantons. The wantons were candid. He had never known a woman before who was not a wanton, but spoke openly, from the purity and sweetness of her heart. For an instant he thought: I must not touch her. I must go away, and never see her again. It would be a dreadful thing if I took her now.

  He actually dropped her hands and stood up. She lifted her eyes and gazed at him, puzzled and surprised. She rose slowly and stood before him. His expression was earnest, even grave, and thoughtful. She waited. And then, simply, she put her arms out to him.

  To his credit, he hesitated even then, though the dark color rose from his neck and washed over his face. It was more in compassion than desire that he took her hand and drew her gently to him. He put his arms about her, with an odd impulse to comfort her. She lifted her lips to his, and smiled, waiting, her eyes trembling with light.

  He intended to kiss her, as a brother might do, and then put her from him. But when he did kiss her, everything was forgotten. The design of his life was washed away from his sight in a dark roaring of passion and desire. It was there, under the roaring, and his cold mind knew it, knew that nothing must interfere with it tomorrow. But there was this night—

  She clung to him, and even then he was astonished at the power of her love. He felt the pressure of her firm young breasts, the warm clinging of her arms, the fire of her lips under his. He murmured something inarticulately, in a thick hoarse voice. She murmured in return, and he heard the beating of her violent heart against his.

  Still holding her against him, so that they seemed one flesh, and one flame, his hand reached out and turned out the lamp.

  Then there was only darkness, faintly lit by the red glimmering of the fire on the dirty hearth. There was only the wind and the rattling of the sleet against the windows. But once there was a woman’s faint cry, filled with premonition, fear and dread, and then complete silence, except for the wind.

  CHAPTER 25

  It was the gray soiled light of dawn which finally awakened Irmgard. It crept through the dirty windows and lay on her face. She stared, confused, terrified, disoriented. She looked about her. Franz still slept at her side, his fingers entwined in her long yellow hair. Icy water appeared to creep over her body, and her limbs became rigid and very cold. What have I done? she thought. She felt Franz’s warm breath against her throat, but it did not warm nor console her. She turned her head slightly and looked at his sleeping face. It was the face of a terrible stranger, who had destroyed her.

  Painful, aching tears crowded her eyes, and self-hatred and shame made her heart beat sickeningly. In the gray light of the coming day she saw the drabness, the sordidness, of the room. The fire was white cold ashes on the hearth. The windows were streaked with dirt and water. The wind was louder, and the window-panes rattled desolately.

  Gone was the night of ecstasy and joy, of passion and peace, of self-forgetfulness, rapture and fulfilment. Gone was the glory that had lifted the earth into radiant seas of blissful exhaustion. Gone was the sublime satisfaction and the mystery of love. There was left only this gray dead light, the dead ashes, the shame and the despair and the overwhelming dread, the miserable hidden room.

  Irmgard had heard a discreet phrase from Mrs. Schmidt about girls “who forgot themselves.” It had to do with a former servant, a slut who had to be spirited away one shameful night through a back door.

  I “forgot myself,” thought Irmgard, with self-loathing. She had forgotten herself, as completely as though she had been some scullery maid, and she had nothing left but this humiliation, this terror, this cold waking day. She dreaded Franz’s awakening, dreaded the first recognizing glance. He must surely hate her, and scorn her now. That was the terror, which sent tears of ice down her cheeks and dripping into her heart. She no longer hated him; she hated only herself.

  Some one knocked loudly on her door. She started violently, and answered in a faint voice. It was the proprietor, and he rattled the handle impotently. She crouched on the bed, wrapping her half-naked body in her arms.

  “Milk cart goin’ by here in less’n a hour,” he said. “Better get ready, lady. Breakfast downstairs.” She heard him tramp away, grumbling.

  Franz had been disturbed by the knocking. He stirred, yawned, opened his eyes. He awoke without a start, and lay looking at her peacefully, as she sat beside him. Now, she could not meet his look; she folded her arms and her knees and bent her head upon them.

  She felt him put his arm about her; she shrank away from him, cowering. Then, with an exclamation of annoyance, he pulled her hands from her face and taking her face in his palms, he made her look at him. But her lids dropped. From under them the tears dripped, one by one. She remembered nothing of the first joy she had ever known in her life, the first fulfilment, the first rapture. Under his kisses and embraces she had come alive, like a stagnant tree forever held in winter and feeling for the first time the warmth of the living sun. She only knew that she would gladly die now.

  “Irmgard,” he whispered. “You must look at me. My darling, what is the matter?”

  She lifted her eyes, looked at him with new dread, expecting to see his derision and smiling contempt. But he was very grave and gentle and concerned. She suddenly forgot the shame and the fear, and remembered, with a warm rosy glow that spread over her cold flesh, the security and the peace, the ecstasy and wild happiness, which she had felt in his arms. With a loud sob, she relaxed against him, her hands clutching him, her lips against his throat. In that abandonment was a pathetic pleading, a passionate renewal of hope, a frantic trust. He held her to him, murmuring against her hair, kissing her cheek, her ear
, her throat and her lips.

  “Franz,” she sobbed, “you must never, never leave me!”

  He replied softly, but with a strange undertone in his voice: “Leave you, my darling, leave you? No, never. Never to the end of my life. Did you ever doubt it?”

  Her weeping was more quiet. She pressed herself against him, as one who is cold presses towards a fire. He held her tightly, almost crushingly.

  “Even if you wanted to leave me, I should not let you,” he said, and his voice took on hardness. “Wherever you went, I should follow you, and make you come back to me. You belong to me. I knew that from the first.”

  She listened, and the joy came back, for she believed him. She knew he was not lying to her.

  “I should die if you left me,” she whispered.

  “You shall not die, my dearest. You shall live. No matter what happens, you are mine.”

  She lifted her wet face, and smiled tremulously. He saw her moist green eyes, and the renewed life of her beautiful face. To cover some pang in himself, he kissed her again, and then again, with rising passion, ardor and love.

  “And I thought I hated you!” she exclaimed, laughing a little. The sound was full of pathos to him. “I thought I hated you, all this time, all these weeks! But I really loved you. It is so strange.”

  It was all settled, then. They would be married almost at once. They would have a home together. A home with Franz! At this thought a prolonged thrilling ran along her nerves, and a drowning bliss.

  She looked at him simply. “And I shall tell Aunt Emmi?” she asked.

  He knew her thoughts. Pale lines etched themselves about his lips. He looked at the dirty window. Then he said: “Not yet, my sweet. There are some things—I must be sure I can take proper care of you. It will be only a little while. You can wait?”

  A sick and horrible disappointment filled her. She looked at him with a wild question in her eyes, and a terror. “Franz! We cannot wait. I could not bear waiting!”

  He took her hands and held them tightly, fixing her with his blue hard look. “Irmgard, you must not be hysterical. I have told you that today, or tomorrow, I shall be assistant to the superintendent. That is a matter which must solidify. There must be some security. I—I cannot have you live as my parents live,—or others. I want only the best for you.”