The Strong City

by Taylor Caldwell

  His whole spirit was pervaded, not with thought and pain, but with a vast unthinking peace. Sometimes, he reflected that so a tree must feel, a consciousness not involved with mobile restlessness and aching movement, but a consciousness simply absorbing light and wind and water, and opening its heart to an existence that was only pure awareness of passive joy.

  When he became aware that he was dying, he did not know. He only knew that the knowledge came in on him like a gentle noiseless tide, and he felt gratitude. Sometimes he felt a yearning sadness for Emmi, and then he would think: She will not grieve, knowing my happiness, knowing that I have felt no pain or terror. He did not know that in this dreamy thought was the final sign of dissolution. He only knew that a strange comfort was in him, like a hearth-fire.

  Nevertheless, he did not tell Emmi. She was bustlingly absorbed in the final details of the purchase of the farm. He would watch her, animated, quick-moving, her angular body always in motion, and his tired bright eyes would grow soft and full of love. Never had he felt so tender towards her, so understanding. He would sit in his chair by the stove in the kitchen, beaming at her, listening. He heard her plans, full-bodied and vigorous. And he was content. When he was gone, the land would sustain and comfort her. Death, in a dark industrial city, with its ugliness, dust and noise, is a desert for the bereaved, in which pain echoes back from gritty pavements, and sorrow fixes itself like a livid patina on the face of dank walls. But death in the country, on the land, was a fulfilment of life, a golden autumn, a quiet and sleeping winter, a cycle of life which cannot be deplored, but only understood. It is prelude to spring, and birth, and brilliant skies shining with promise. Emmi would know this, he was certain. He was so happy, contemplating the quiet and lofty melancholy of her coming grief, which would contain no frenzy, no anguish.

  God is good, he thought, simply. These days, he was concerned absorbedly with God. God was no longer an entity vaguely fixed in far space, involved only with gigantic systems and the furious flaming and falling of limitless life. He was the sunlight, lying on window-sills, the chirp of sparrows in the snow, light on a distant roof, the first star in the endless depths of the green evening sky. He was the glance of a beloved eye, the sound of a beloved voice, the rising of wind at midnight. He was nearer than the beat of a heart, closer than an inner sigh. He was all peace, all comfort, all consolation, all happiness. Tears would fill Egon’s eyes, but they were not tears of pain. They brought humility, but they also brought exaltation and tranquillity. He did not know whether he would think or know again, after death. It is enough, for me, he thought, to have lived and known Him. What a boon it was, to have been born and become aware, if only briefly, of God! The eternal darkness of death was little enough to pay for such a fleeting awareness. The trees must be aware. They had no complaint for death. In their final falling leaf was a rustling sigh of remembered rapture. In their death there was no sorrow, no moaning. It had been enough.

  He did not know that Emmi gave him furtive glances of anxiety. His patient face was becoming translucent, through which a gathering light brightened day by day. Franz had accused her of unwillingness to face reality. Against the warning of her senses, to face the doom of reality which her hidden mind detected, she put up a stern barrier of denial. Egon was in no pain, he assured her. He was very happy. He smiled more than usual. He was only tired. Her desire to believe made her pounce avidly on these false evidences of returning health. I should know it, she would say stoutly to herself, if all were not well with him. But her refusal to face reality made her deny the anguish of her knowing soul, which kept thrusting burning fingers into her heart.

  Now he began to long for her realization of his true condition. His efforts to appear normal, to rise when his one desire was to sleep, to smile when he wished only to close his eyes, became almost more than he could bear. If she would only understand! he would murmur humbly to himself. It would be so restful to me. But she would not realize, and for her sake he must speak cheerfully, when the very effort exhausted him. It was his last burden. He bore it achingly, but with silent courage. Sometimes, however, he was frightened. What if, at the end, she was not resigned, not quiet, not understanding? Would he not, even in his peaceful grave, become aware of her agony? What could he do, then?

  He was grateful for one thing: Franz, declaring that he must get settled, had moved to a comfortable, middle-class family hotel in Nazareth. Egon knew that Franz could not be deceived. It was a comfort that he was gone. When Emmi asked him if he did not miss Franz, who was “so selfish in his new prosperity,” Egon replied: “No, I am happy.” As usual, she did not understand.

  Once he thought: “I shall lie forever in a strange land.” At first, the thought troubled and saddened him. It would be so wonderful to lie in the soil which had given him birth, to know that the sun of his home would shine on his grave, that the voices of his own people would move over him. Then he knew that the earth and all men are one, and was comforted. If strangers spoke in strange tongues as they passed his grave, their hearts spoke only a familiar language. The sun that shone in America was the sun that shone in Germany, and the winds of both mingled into one wind, just as joy and sorrow are the same, mingling together.

  He wanted to remain in Nazareth until Christmas had passed, but Emmi was strangely urgent that they leave for the farm at once. She did not know that in her very urgency was the cry of her subconscious fear and knowledge. It was this subconsciousness which pleaded that Egon must not die in the dark and hideous city, with the sound of factory whistles in his ears, and his last glance fixed on the sooty wall outside his window. He must hear the whisper of clean snow, and see, for the final time, the vast expanse of sky and hill. Hope whispered to her that surely he must be well, when they had left here. She had the sensation of one fleeing with a threatened beloved from a pestilence.

  On the morning they were to leave, Egon found it impossible to rise immediately. Emmi came suddenly into the bedroom on slippered feet, and discovered him gasping on the edge of his bed. Icy panic and terror clasped her heart in iron hands. “I shall call a doctor!” she cried.

  Her words aroused Egon to a last supreme effort. He caught her hand in his clammy fingers. He smiled, and the smile was an agony. The doctor, at all costs, must be prevented from coming. He must not tell Emmi the words of doom and hopelessness.

  “No, I am well enough,” he urged, in a dwindling voice, which only his will made audible. “It is nothing. I—I rose too fast. I am not a young man,” he added, with his sweet smile.

  She wanted to believe. She must believe. Against the renewed evidence before her, she thrust down her knowledge. “We must leave at once,” she said. Her legs shook under her, and she hurried about the final preparations with a kind of fierce terror.

  If I die here, thought Egon, forcing himself through a fog of gathering darkness to dress, Emmi will never go to the farm. She will be trapped forever in this tomb of a city. She will never overcome her sorrow. But when I die in the country, my presence in the earth will hold her there, and finally bring her peace.

  The van called at eight for their boxes, bags and cases. Emmi had called upon a charitable agency and asked them to take her miserable and ugly furniture, for which she would have no more need. Egon was wrapped in his overcoat, and over his head and shoulders Emmi had fastened various shawls and scarfs. Among their folds, his thin transparent face with its tender smile, was the face of an old and suffering man, patient and resigned. It was snowing and blowing savagely outside. The dark sooty walls which leaned inward on the flat were lost in swirling white gloom.

  Now Emmi appeared, gloved, bonneted, and brisk. They were to go with the van to the farm. Hurry and delight had reddened Emmi’s rough flat cheeks, and her pale eyes sparkled with animation. She kissed Egon’s forehead briefly, tightened a knot in the scarfs.

  CHAPTER 40

  On Christmas morning, Mrs. Schmidt greeted Irmgard with tears and smiles. Lying in her bed, she took the girl’s hand a
nd held it in both her hot thin palms, so dry and tremulous.

  “My dear, I do not know how you have done it, but this is the first Christmas day in many years that I have been able to regard with pleasure and peace.”

  “I have done nothing,” said Irmgard, in her slow reflective English. “Nothing. What have I done?”

  Mrs. Schmidt was smilingly silent for a moment, her ringed and feverish eyes dwelling on the girl’s serene face.

  “What have you done, child? I cannot set it down in black and white. I cannot say: ‘This, Irmgard has done.’ That would be absurd. Perhaps it’s only your presence that has worked the miracle. Just you, yourself.”

  Irmgard smiled indulgently as she patted Mrs. Schmidt’s pillows and placed the silver breakfast tray on the little table. She had drawn the heavy curtains and the blue and silver of the winter day had burst into the great fetid room like a shout of trumpets. The trees outside were coated and outlined in pure brilliant crystal, so that in their temporary death they were shining monuments to themselves. The sidewalks were sharp wet streams through plains of whiteness, and the sun, clarified and unclouded, shone with extra radiance in a sky washed clean and infinitely far. The red stone fronts of opposite houses seemed scrubbed of all grime and soot, and windows glittered.

  “A beautiful day,” said Irmgard. She touched the pale gold of the tea-roses which lay on the breakfast tray, and which had come from the conservatory.

  Mrs. Schmidt raised an arched thin finger. “Now, my love, no preliminaries and hints about a drive! I shall really be too busy this morning. Ah, that reminds me. Do give me that red box on that chaise longue.”

  Irmgard brought the box, and with triumphant sly smiles Mrs. Schmidt opened it, and revealed the soft black velvet of a sealskin jacket fastened with brilliant buttons. She extended it to Irmgard, and fresh tears were in her eyes.

  Speechless, Irmgard took the weighted beautiful thing and put it on over her black alpaca frock. Its warmth enfolded her like an intimate embrace. Her smooth cheeks flushed, and her green eyes danced with crystals.

  “How lovely!” sighed Mrs. Schmidt from her pillows, clasping her hands. “How bewitching it makes your hair, my dear!”

  Irmgard took her hand again, and kissed the dark mottled flesh. But Mrs. Schmidt stretched her neck and touched her withered lips to the girl’s forehead, simply, and with true feeling.

  The party, anticipated for Christmas Eve, had not been possible, for Mrs. Schmidt had had one of her heart attacks. The party was to be held New Year’s Eve, instead. “So much gayer, pet,” Mrs. Schmidt had apologetically pleaded to Ernestine, and the girl’s disappointment had lessened.

  The door opened, and Ernestine bounced into the bedroom, carrying numerous parcels, her eyes shining with gaiety. She kissed her mother, put her arm briefly about Irmgard, and sat down on the edge of the bed.

  “What a glorious day!” she cried, tossing her ringlets back from her small flushed face. “I’ve never been so happy! Irmgard! How elegant! Mama and I picked that jacket only after long consultation and much dreary shopping. Ah, if I were only so beautiful! Do turn around and let me see the back. It fits like a glove! What a figure you have!”

  There were envy and thoughtfulness as well as affection in her voice and smile. Irmgard made her feel small and insignificant and dark and unfashionable. She sat on the bed, smiling, but her eyes clouded a little.

  Recovering herself, she gave her mother a round diminutive box. Mrs. Schmidt opened it and found a tiny golden bodice watch, complete with a butterfly pin of gold and yellow and blue enamel. “Now that you are becoming a gadabout, in your carriage, you really do need a new watch, Mama,” said the girl, with a kiss. She insisted on pinning it on Mrs. Schmidt’s padded bed jacket, and stood off to admire it.

  There was Mr. Schmidt’s gift to his wife (bought by Ernestine, and not even seen by her father), a box of the finest white and black kid gloves. Mrs. Schmidt fingered the supple softness of these French creations, and smiled without speaking.

  There was a muff and toque of black sealskin to match the jacket, from Ernestine to Irmgard, and these too had to be put on and admired. There was an envelope from Schmidt containing two twenty-dollar gold pieces.

  “Baldur will give you his gift, himself,” said Ernestine.

  “You have been too good,” murmured Irmgard, in a strange, subdued voice. Her face was grave, and somewhat disquieted. She carried her gifts into her own bedroom, and laid them on the bed.

  Yes, they were too good to her. And soon, she must tell them that she must leave them, that she was to be married. They would be happy in her happiness, but they would be saddened. She gazed before her, mournfully. And she, too, would be saddened. It would not be easy to relinquish these pathetic friends. In some mysterious way she had brought vitality and interest to them. Now, she must deprive them. She thought of this with mingled wonder and incredulity, and without egotism. I have done nothing at all, she said to herself.

  She found a letter waiting for her on her commode, and when she recognized the writing her senses swam dizzily, knowing it an answer to a note she had sent Franz a few days ago. She opened it with shaking fingers, and her eyes misted at the passionate salutation. But as she read, she became troubled.

  “You must forgive me for reminding you of my former request, that your employers not know of the relationship between us. It is not expedient, as I have told you. Therefore, I cannot visit you at the Schmidt mansion, though you remark that there is a servants’ sitting-room where we can be alone, and unseen.

  “However, as you have a few hours to yourself, I suggest that you come to my hotel and spend them with me. I am all alone, as you know, and I had no desire to visit my parents on their distant farm at this time. There would necessarily be some confusion, and I have always detested confusion. You will accuse me of being selfish. I admit it. Only the weak are unselfish.”

  At this, Irmgard smiled wryly, and a little contemptuously. How afraid he is of appearing weak! she thought. But that is the essence of weakness.

  She read on: “I have already ordered a dinner for us at my hotel. We can be alone, and very happy. We have much to say to each other.”

  Yes, thought Irmgard, a trifle grimly, we have much to say. Nevertheless, her heart began to beat with excitement. She regarded the jacket, muff and toque with bright pleasure, and leaned down to smooth them with her hands. She imagined herself confronting Franz, arrayed in this new rich finery, and color rose swiftly to her cheeks and forehead.

  When she went back into the bedroom of Mrs. Schmidt for the tray, Ernestine was curled up in a chair near the window, reading a chapter of “East Lynne” to her mother. “Ah,” murmured Irmgard, shaking her head slightly, “that is a dreary book for so bright a morning.”

  But poor Mrs. Schmidt was one of those unfortunate creatures who find an enhancement of present happiness in reading of the sorrows of others, though the emotion is not sadistic. It is as though pure pleasure is too bright for their tired eyes, and must be subdued in a soft mist to be thoroughly enjoyed. Irmgard knew this, and after her first remonstrance she allowed Ernestine to continue reading in her high fluting voice.

  “Oh, the poor Isabel!” sighed Mrs. Schmidt, her eyes fondly dwelling on her daughter, who she thought resembled the fabulous heroine. “My darling, I hope you will always give your husband the benefit of your wifely doubts.”

  Ernestine trilled her light childish laugh, but her little face blushed deeply. “I have no husband, Mama, as yet. Perhaps I shall never have one.” The book dropped on her lap, and her eyes became deeper, as though with some shy and blissful thought.

  Mrs. Schmidt shook her head archly, tenderly smiling.

  “But that young man from the mills, love, that you spoke about to me only yesterday, and whom your Papa is inviting for New Year’s. So clever, your Papa says. He is going to be Superintendent some day, is he not?”

  Irmgard was standing by the window, gazing abstractedly down at
the street. But now some vague monstrous disquiet seized her. Her hand clenched on the drapery. She did not turn, but angrily wondered at the sudden horrible leaping of her heart. She heard Ernestine’s shy laughing reply through the thunders in her temples:

  “Oh, Mama, don’t be so fanciful, and so full of plots! I do not know the young man. Possibly he is already married, or something equally dreadful.”

  She did not look at her mother, though the color was still high and vivid in her face. She continued: “Papa has said that he is very brilliant, and unusual, and that is why he is inviting him. Poor Mr. Dietrich is not invited this year. I hope Papa is not annoyed with him about something.”

  But Mrs. Schmidt was engrossed in happy dreams about her daughter. Ernestine, in attempting to escape her mother’s tender regard, turned to Irmgard.

  The girl was standing with her back to the blazing radiance of the window. In that shadow made by herself, Ernestine could not see her face. But she saw her tall rigidity, the tense immobility of her shoulders and head. Ernestine frowned. The resemblance to someone teased her again. Ah, she had it! It was an extraordinary resemblance to the young man, Franz Stoessel, Papa had called him! But she dared not remark on it, for fear of her mother’s excited and puzzled questions as to where her daughter had seen the gentleman. It would be very embarrassing to explain.