The Strong City

by Caldwell, Taylor;

  He added, curiously: “There was a personal, as well as business, triumph in defeating Sessions?”

  “It is something to defeat Ernest Barbour,” answered Franz, impatiently. Somehow, his great victory had fallen very flat in the telling. Of course, it was ridiculous that he should feel this deflation after narrating the story to Baldur. What did this aging cripple know of business, of triumphs, of victories wrenched like iron out of mountains? He saw through the small end of a telescope, where everything was made minute and insignificant. It was absurd of him, Franz, to experience this acrid sensation of disappointment. It was alarming of him, Franz, to feel all at once that the victory had been nothing at all. Like the petty triumph of children playing with stones, and quarrelling over worthlessnesses, in the shadow of a great sunlit wall. The hideous and almost physical malaise, colored darkly with despondency, fell over him again, and he thought, with real terror, that this wave had been coming with closer frequency in the last year or two. It made him feel impotent and weak, flaccid and powerless.

  It was this terror which made him exclaim loudly, as a man shouts over crushing breakers: “But how could you understand? It is nothing to you that I have made Schmidt the greatest steel-making company in America! You can’t know what effort was involved, what struggle, what sleeplessness and ambition—”

  “And exploitation, and skulduggery, and greed, and expediency,” said Baldur, goadingly.

  Franz flung up his hands with a contemptuous and hopeless gesture. “Words! Sentimental, childish words!” He relapsed into German now, as he always did under stress. “The words of old maidens, who knit under trees and sip coffee! The words of a man removed from life, and living, and a world of men. They annoy me, as the prattlings of my little children annoy me. I cannot tell how you disappoint me—”

  You mean, thought Baldur, you dare not tell me how well I understand you. You are afraid that I will knock down your house, which you already know in your heart is a house of cards.

  He shrugged. “I have told you, Franz, that I know nothing, and care nothing, about the mills. My life seems small and petty to you. And, yours seems small and petty to me. Who is wrong? Perhaps I have teased you too much. I am sorry. I really admire you, and the work you have done. But men like me often pretend contempt for men like you. Perhaps we only envy you. Impotence always derides, and secretly envies, potency. I know all this. But in some way, I can’t believe your type of potency is very valuable. Perhaps that is my rationalization. Otherwise, my life might really become too unendurable. What I have said may be only a kind of self-defense. But let me tell you now that I am frequently proud of you. You have come a long way, with nothing but your hands, and your—er—ambition, to help you.”

  He smiled placatingly, out of his treacherous compassion, which always destroyed, at the last moment, his own ruthless irony. He could not always bear the results of his irony, just as he could rarely refrain from voicing it.

  He thought that Franz would look relieved and flattered at his words. But Franz was silent. His tired drawn face became darker, as though he were thinking. You are a weakling, thought Baldur, compassionately. You are not an Ernest Barbour. Neither of you has a conscience. But you, at least, know there is something else beyond what you have made for yourself. Ernest Barbour would contemptuously accept flattery as a tribute. You accept it suspiciously as irony.

  He said: “We can’t seem to arrive on common ground, can we? Let us talk of something we can both understand. How is Dick progressing at the mills?”

  Franz aroused himself. “Eh? Dick. Ah, yes. I had forgotten him. I have reports that he asks a great many questions, without doing much work. But they say he is very clever, when he does work. He is friendly with the other laborers. That is all I know. Have you really any idea why that whippersnapper went into the mills? It always puzzled me.”

  “I think he is just hungry to learn everything he can about everything,” said Baldur, vaguely. He smiled to himself. Dick was less impulsive and heedless than he thought. Even an incendiary, it seems, can learn to walk drably and quietly.

  “A waster of time,” said Franz, impatiently. “His mother is wealthy. That is the trouble. If he had to work by necessity, he would have some idea what he wants. You can be sure I shall never indulge my children like that.”

  “I am certain your children will know what they want, Franz. I’m much encouraged about Sigmund. He is much less nervous and vapory, and has learned to control himself to a great extent.”

  But Franz was not interested in Sigmund. He had begun to smile. “Joseph is a rascal. His teachers can do nothing with him. That is because they are stupid. They admit he’s beyond them. He keeps them in a ferment. You have always thought that Sigmund had more intelligence, but Joseph is two grades ahead of him, and the schoolmaster says that he is afraid that Sigmund is more than a little dull.”

  “The schoolmaster is a fool,” said Baldur, annoyed. “But then, most schoolmasters are. They have a certain standard, and those who are above it are suspect.” He could not resist adding: “Do you think it is a mark of cleverness that Joseph is cruel and foxy, and that he has been suspected of stealing, especially from weaker children who cannot defend themselves?”

  Franz waved his hand. “He took. He did not steal. There is a difference. But you would not understand that. You never liked Joseph, because he is so quick and sharp. I admit he is a pig. But it is necessary to be a pig in this world. Your degree of success is measured by your degree of piggishness. Unfortunate, perhaps, but true. I have great hopes for Joseph. He is really very subtle. You would call that slyness. But time will tell. You will have to admit I am right, eventually.”

  His expression changed. “But there is my little Gretchen! Do you know what the little maid said to me tonight? ‘Papa is tired. Papa must go to sleep. Papa sleep with Gretchen.’” His face took on a look of sheepish softness. “The child is only a handful, but she has sharp eyes. I am tired, I confess.”

  Baldur watched him narrowly. “The little one needs a mother. Some kind good woman. Have you ever thought of marrying again, Franz?”

  Now his expression changed somberly. “I’m finished with marrying. I have had enough. You will think that insulting to your sister. But there is no room for more than a casual woman in my life.”

  He stood up, restlessly. Baldur slowly turned back to his piano, as though to dismiss him. He struck a few notes. Then his hands wandered feverishly over the keys. The notes became stronger, wilder, more tempestuous, as though to shut out his thoughts. They became a wind, a sunlit storm, a torn fragment of lightning on a hill.

  Franz listened, fascinated. He saw again that wind-swept hill, with the tall strong woman upon it, against the sky. Clearly now, more sharply than ever before, he saw how the wind carved her full dress against her large thigh and heroic breast, and how the sun lay golden on her lifted profile. The woman who was Irmgard, yet not Irmgard.

  Now the impression was becoming vivid with clarity. A child—watching the young woman on the hill, standing below her. There were others with him—his father and mother. His mother was holding his hand. He could feel the warm hardness of her fingers. He could hear her rather harsh laugh. He clenched his fists, and panted a little, concentrating so fiercely that beads of sweat appeared on his suddenly pale face, and his eyes, fixed on Irmgard’s portrait, became large and dark with the intensity of his concentration. There was an impression of strangeness in his mind, of a small white house in the valley below, which he hardly knew. A stranger’s house, which he had visited. And an unfamiliar countryside, drenched with light, a harder, more turbulent and less friendly country than his own. Yes, he and his parents had been visiting that country! He was hardly five years old—And the young woman on the hill, laughing, but bemused with the wind and the sun, a young woman who had recently lifted him in his arms, and had kissed him, and called him beautiful. Who was she? It was coming clearer now. A relative, perhaps, whom he had never seen before, and had nev
er seen since. A kind of relative—He had it! It was the sister of Irmgard’s father, Emil Hoeller! She was married. There was a baby, in the little house in the valley. What was her name? Why was it so terribly important to remember her name?

  The tip of his tongue touched the sweat on his upper lip. His whole body was damp. The music which Baldur was creating was like a shouting urgent voice, full of frightful sound, like a voice that cried out behind a thick wall, the words unintelligible but coming clearer. His flesh shivered; his forehead pounded with swelling blood. He closed his eyes, sternly willing himself to remember.

  The name. Yes, he had it now! Darmstadter! Young Frau Darmstadter!

  Suddenly, he was deathly still, and turning very cold. The clue had come to him. The Mrs. Darmstadter who helped his mother on the farm. Was it she, the stranger whom he and his parents had visited? His mind rocked; his hands reached out desperately, as though clutching in the dark. Let me see, he thought, feverishly. The report of my detectives was that this woman was young. She had a little boy. It was impossible. She would be old, now, as old as his mother. In her sixties. The baby in the house in the valley would be a man now, almost as old as himself, in his late thirties. Who, then, was this young woman with the little boy, in his mother’s house, this young Mrs. Darmstadter? Another relative?

  Suddenly, quite completely, quite calmly, he knew.

  He had the sensation, immediately afterwards, of his blood running out of his body, and an immense weakness invading him. He was obliged to catch the edge of the piano. There was a darkness before his eyes. He was not aware that Baldur had stopped playing, and was staring with lively curiosity at his white face and lifted, fixed eyes. He did not know that Baldur was looking at the slipping hand that gripped the piano. He was a man in a trance, shaking violently.

  “What is it?” exclaimed Baldur, rising from his stool. “Are you ill?”

  Franz looked at him, but did not see him. Baldur heard his hard, uneven breathing. Then, to his immense surprise, Franz shook his head, numbly, turned and walked from the room, like a man walking in an overpowering dream.

  CHAPTER 21

  I had forgotten how it is, thought Franz, as he was driven rapidly through the windy autumn countryside. He had forgotten how the earth smelt, rich, warmly dark, smoke-filled, and how brilliant the light of the sky could be, bright blue and infinitely vast. He had forgotten that the world was not drab and gritty. He looked almost with wonderment at the color of the landscape, and when, through the open carriage window the wind blew in scented with leaves, he was ashamed at the sudden tightening of his heart. He passed an apple orchard. The fruit hung red and russet on the weighted, twisted boughs. Heaps of it lay in the shadow of the withered yellow leaves. He reached out and caught an apple, tasted its crisp juicy sweetness. I had forgotten how an apple tastes, ripened on the bough, he thought. Cloud shadows flung themselves over the bronzed valley, streaking the earth in long dimnesses, and leaving the tops of hills in golden incandescence. There was an immense and holy silence over the earth, broken only by the fire of distant trees, and the faint sound of the vivid blue creek over which the carriage passed on a covered bridge.

  A sleepless night of emotion had so drained Franz that he could feel nothing sharply except the silence and the brilliance of the countryside. He felt himself part of it. The desolation and dissolution of late autumn had not yet blighted the air, and the earth, and so it was that he felt the sudden uplift of excitement and promise such as one feels in the spring. Irmgard was part of it, just as she was part of this silent dazzling glory of earth and sky. For one of the very few times in his life he was unbearably happy, and it was a profound and simple happiness without thought or doubt.

  He became interested in the neat snug farms about him, which reminded him, in their mathematical precision, of Germany. Yes, the Amish lived here, the “Pennsylvania Dutch,” old Germans who had not forgotten old German ways. For the first time in many years he felt at home, that he had returned to familiar earth and familiar voices. The few farm folk he saw were familiar also, and he called out German greetings to them, and was answered in simple and friendly return. He began to laugh silently to himself, a little sheepishly, but with abandon.

  It was a ride of many miles, but he did not find it long. It was a ride to a dream, through a world of tinted warm dreams. He felt no sense of hurry, or impatient eagerness. Fulfilment waited for him, and he approached it calmly, no longer tired or wretched or confused. I have been so damned tired, he thought, not with self-pity, but with a kind of amused contempt. I have had no time to live. Yet, he knew that peace was not for him. This was only an interlude. He was struck with nostalgia. It was a pleasant nostalgia, for he knew he could never be really satisfied with peace and tranquillity.

  It was burning and radiant noon when he approached his mother’s farm. Now he began to feel curious about how he would be received. Emmi would try to shut the door in his face again. He remembered her terror, and now he knew that she had been afraid that he would guess that Irmgard was in the house. He felt a surge of contemptuous anger, and outrage. All these years, and she had been within fifteen miles of him! All that money poured out in a world-wide search by stupid men, and she had been almost on his doorstep! But it was he who had been stupid, after all. He ought to have guessed.

  It did not occur to him that Irmgard had changed with the years. He thought of her as the nineteen-year-old girl who had run from him in the winter, more than thirteen years ago. Nor did it ocur to him that she would repudiate him again. Without actually thinking of it, he was certain that she would come to him as simply and passionately as he was going to her. Now the years were only a narrow bridge, and not a landscape full of mountains and rivers and dark places. He was a young Franz again, and it was only yesterday that Irmgard had run away. He did not think of the “little boy,” of his detectives’ report. He had thought of him, but had vaguely considered that the child was some orphan, some waif, when he thought at all.

  He saw that the carriage was winding up a narrow rutted road. He remembered that road, slightly. He remembered the house with its red roof and its red barns and silos, and he was amusedly impressed by the air of prosperity and fatness of the farm. Mother has done well, he thought. The only thing in which she failed was myself. She would still consider me a failure.

  The hollyhocks were still bright against the side of the house, and along the white fences. The trees bending over the roof were saffron, brown and crimson. A pencil of blue smoke rose against a bluer sky from the red chimneys. And then he saw a familiar landau tied up near the gate.

  He uttered a short hard word, and his coachman drew up the horses. Franz leaned out of the window, and stared unbelievingly at the landau. His face turned white and tight, and he could do nothing but gape incredulously. Baldur’s landau! It was not possible! He heard the thick beating of his heart, and his forehead turned scarlet with fury. He thrust open the door of his carriage, and stepped out. The ground seemed to rock under his feet. He glared murderously at the silent shining windows of the house. He could feel the thunderous murmur of his fierce blood in his ears. He approached the waiting landau, still incredulous. There was no doubt about it. The horses were black and sleek. He knew them only too well. He put his hand on the satin haunch of one of them, and the horse turned his head and looked at him with equine recognition.

  “That’s Mr. Schmidt’s landau,” said his own coachman, with disbelief. “Ain’t it, Mr. Stoessel?”

  Franz did not answer. He walked rapidly to the door, breathing unevenly. His hand slipped on the knocker, then he seized it and struck it loudly. Then, not waiting for an answer, he opened the door and stepped into the narrow bright hall. He stared about him. He looked into the parlor, where he saw the sunlight on rows of books. No one came to him. No one had heard him, apparently. He heard the faint murmur of voices from the parlor, and the sob of a woman, muffled and heartbreaking.

  He went towards the voices, and found himself i
n the parlor, with its blowing white curtains and its worn, sun-splashed rug and pleasant old furniture. Near a fireplace filled with flowers he saw Baldur, sitting near Irmgard. She was weeping. He was holding her hand, and murmuring softly to her. She had covered her face with a handkerchief, and was shaking with sobs.

  Franz stood in the doorway, and watched them through an ebbing and deepening mist of rage. They had not seen him yet.

  “Of course, you miss her,” Baldur was saying, gently. “That is to be expected, and understood. But she was happy. She was always happy here. She told me so, herself. She was old, too, remember. She died peacefully. You ought to be glad of that, my dear.”

  Irmgard continued to weep. “I know! I know, Baldur! I am not crying for her. I’m crying for myself. Now I have no one—”

  “O yes, you have, Irmgard. You have everything.” He sighed, and smiled. “And remember, you always have me.”

  “Yes,” she murmured. She dropped her handkerchief, and Franz saw her face now, blotched and pale, the green eyes swollen with tears. It was an older face, grief-stricken, browned with wind and sun, but a woman’s face, full of dignity and beauty. He forgot everything when he saw her, forgot his rage and bewilderment, forgot the strange things he had been hearing. He took a step towards her, and cried, “Irmgard!”

  He saw them start violently, and as in a dream, he saw the sun strike Irmgard’s suddenly lifted head with its pale gilt hair. He saw nothing else but her changing face, which showed shock, horror, numbed amazement, then complete blankness. She rose slowly to her feet, and he saw the clear open greenness of her eyes, her beloved eyes, so well-remembered now, no longer a dream, but a passionate reality. She stood before him, silent and trembling, in her faded blue calico dress, voluminous and neat with its plain white ruffle at her throat. He had not remembered that she was so tall and so straight, or so slender, or so full of dignity and pride. This was no longer a girl, stiff and quiet with awkwardness, but a woman, and he knew now that it was not remembered old passion which he felt for her, but love. And feeling this, he came to her and held out his hands to her.