Bertha Garlan Part 9

Perhaps he would answer: "Come to my rooms...." No, no, no! It would be best to let him have a definite statement of fact. She would write to the effect that she was going to Vienna on such and such a day and was to be found at such and such a place....

Oh, if she only had someone with whom she could talk the whole thing over!... She thought of Frau Rupius--she had a genuine yearning to tell her everything. At the same time she had an idea that, by so doing, she might become more intimate with her and might win her esteem. She felt that she had become much more important since the receipt of Emil's letter. Now she remarked, too, that she had been very much afraid that Emil might quite possibly have changed and become conceited, affected and spoiled--just as was the case with so many celebrated men. But there was not the slightest trace of such things in the letter; there was the same quick, heavy writing, the same warmth of tone, as in those earlier letters. What a number of experiences he might well have had since she had last seen him--well, had not she also had many experiences, and were they not all seemingly obliterated?

Before going out she read Emil's letter again. It grew more like a living voice; she heard the cadence of the words, and that final "Come soon"

seemed to call her with tender yearning. She stuck the letter into her bodice and remembered how, as a girl, she had often done the same with his notes, and how the gentle touch had sent a pleasant thrill coursing through her.

First of all, she went to the Mahlmanns', where she gave the twins their music lesson. Very often the finger exercises, to which she had to listen there, were positively painful to her, and she would rap the children on the knuckles when they struck a false note. On the present occasion, however, she was not in the least strict. When Frau Mahlmann, fat and friendly as ever, came into the room and inquired whether Bertha was satisfied, the latter praised the children and added, as though suddenly inspired:

"Now, I shall be able to give them a few days' holiday."

"Holiday! How will that be, then, dear Frau Garlan?"

"You see, Frau Mahlmann, I have no choice in the matter. What do you think, when I was in Vienna lately my cousin begged me so pressingly to be sure to come and spend a few days with her--"

"Quite so, quite so," said Frau Mahlmann.

Bertha's courage kept rising, and she continued to add falsehood to falsehood, taking a kind of pleasure in her own boldness:

"I really wanted to put it off till June. But this very morning I had a letter from her, saying that her husband is going away for a time, and she is so lonely, and just now"--she felt the letter crackle, and had an indescribable desire to take it out; but yet restrained herself--"and I, think I shall perhaps take advantage of the opportunity...."

"Well, to tell the truth," said Frau Mahlmann, taking Bertha by both hands, "if I had a cousin in Vienna, I would like to stay with her a week every fortnight!"

Bertha beamed. She felt as though an invisible hand was clearing away the obstacles which lay in her path; everything was going so well. And, indeed, to whom, after all, was she accountable for her actions?

Suddenly, however, the fear flashed through her mind that her brother-in-law really intended to go with her to Vienna. Everything became entangled again; dangers cropped up and suspicion lurked even under the good-natured smile of Frau Mahlmann....

Ah, she must on no account fail to take Frau Rupius into her confidence.

Directly the lesson was over she went to call upon her.

It was not until she had found Frau Rupius in a white morning gown, sitting on the sofa, and had observed the surprised glance with which the latter received her, that it struck Bertha that there was anything strange in her early visit, and she said with affected cheerfulness:

"Good morning! I'm early to-day, am I not?"

Frau Rupius remained serious. She had not the usual smile on her lips.

"I am very glad to see you. The hour makes no difference to me."

Then she threw her a questioning glance, and Bertha did not know what to say. She was annoyed, too, at the childish embarra.s.sment, of which she could not rid herself in the presence of Frau Rupius.

"I wanted," she said, at length, "to ask you how you felt after our trip."

"Quite well," answered Frau Rupius, rather stiffly. But all at once her features changed, and she added with excessive friendliness: "Really, it was my place to have asked you. I am accustomed to those trips, you know."

As she said this she looked through the window and Bertha mechanically followed her gaze, which wandered over to the other side of the market square to an open window with flowers on the sill. It was quite calm, and the repose of a summer day shrouded the slumbering town. Bertha would have dearly liked to sit beside Frau Rupius and be kissed upon the brow by her, and blessed; but at the same time she had a feeling of compa.s.sion towards her. All this puzzled her. For what reason, indeed, had she really come? And what should she say to her?... "I'm going to-morrow to Vienna to see the man who used to be in love with me when I was a girl?"... In what way did all that concern Frau Rupius? Would it really interest her in the very slightest degree? There she sat as if surrounded by something impenetrable; it was impossible to approach her. _She_ could not approach her, that was the trouble. Of course, there was a word by means of which it was possible to find the way to her heart, only Bertha did not know it.

"Well, how is your little boy?" asked Frau Rupius, without taking her eyes off the flowers in the opposite window.

"He is going on as well as ever. He is very well-behaved, and is a marvellously good child!"

The last word she uttered with an intentional tenderness as though Frau Rupius was to be won over by that means.

"Yes, yes," answered the latter, her tone implying that she knew he was good, and had not asked about that. "Have you a reliable nursemaid?"

she added.

Bertha was somewhat astonished at the question.

"My maid has, of course, many other things to attend to besides her nurse's duties," she replied; "but I cannot complain of her. She is also a very good cook."

"It must be a great happiness to have such a boy," said Frau Rupius very drily, after a short interval of silence.

"It is, indeed, my only happiness," said Bertha, more loudly than was necessary.

It was an answer which she had often made before, but she knew that, on that day, she was not speaking with entire sincerity. She felt the sheet of paper touch her skin, and, almost with alarm, she realized that she had also deemed it a happiness to have received that letter.

At the same time it occurred to her that the woman sitting opposite her had neither a child nor even the prospect of having one, and Bertha would have been glad to take back what she had said. Indeed, she was on the point of seeking some qualifying word. But, as if Frau Rupius was able to see into her soul, and as if in her presence a lie was impossible, she said at once:

"Your only happiness? Say, rather, 'a great happiness,' and that is no small thing! I often envy you on that score, although I really think that, apart from such considerations, life in itself is a joy to you."

"Indeed, my life is so lonely, so...."

Anna smiled.

"Quite so, but I did not mean that. What I meant was that the fact that the sun is shining and the weather is now so fine also makes you glad."

"Oh yes, very glad!" replied Bertha a.s.siduously. "My frame of mind is generally dependent on the weather. During that thunderstorm a few days ago I was utterly depressed, and then, when the storm was over--"

Frau Rupius interrupted her.

"That is the case with every one, you know."

Bertha grew low-spirited. She felt that she was not clever enough for Frau Rupius; she could never do any more than follow the ordinary lines of conversation, like the other women of her acquaintance. It seemed as though Frau Rupius had arranged an examination for her, which she had not pa.s.sed, and, all at once, she was seized with a great apprehension at the prospect of meeting Emil again. What sort of a figure would she cut in his presence? How shy and helpless she had become during the six years of her narrow existence in the little town!

Frau Rupius rose to her feet. The white morning gown streamed around her; she looked taller and more beautiful than usual, and Bertha was involuntarily reminded of an actress she had seen on the stage a very long time ago, and to whom at that moment Frau Rupius bore a remarkable resemblance. Bertha said to herself: If I were only like Frau Rupius I am sure I would not be so timid. At the same time it struck her that this exquisitely lovely woman was married to an invalid--might not the gossips be right then, after all? But here, again, she was unable to pursue further her train of thought; she could not imagine in what way the gossips could be right. And at that moment it dawned upon her mind how bitter was the fate to which Frau Rupius was condemned, no matter whether she now bore it or resisted it.

But, as if Anna had again read Bertha's thoughts, and could not tolerate that the latter should thus insinuate herself into her confidence, the uncanny gravity of her face relaxed suddenly, and she said in an innocent tone:

"Just fancy, my husband is still asleep. He has acquired the habit of remaining awake until late at night, reading and looking at engravings, and then he sleeps on until midday. As for that, it is quite a matter of habit; when I used to live in Vienna I was incredibly lazy about getting up."

And thereupon she began to chat about her girlhood, cheerfully, and with a confiding manner such as Bertha had never before noticed in her. She told about her father, who had been an officer on the Staff, about her mother, who had died when she was quite a young woman; and about the little house in the garden of which she had played as a child. It was only now that Bertha learned that Frau Rupius had first become acquainted with her husband when he was just a boy; he had lived with his parents in the adjoining house, and had fallen in love with Anna and she with him, while they were both children. To Bertha the whole period of Frau Rupius'

youth appeared as if radiant with bright sunbeams, a youth replete with happiness, replete with hope; and it seemed to her, moreover, that Frau Rupius' voice a.s.sumed a fresher tone when she went on to relate about the travels which she and her husband had undertaken in the early days of their married life.

Bertha let her talk and hesitated to interrupt her with a word, as though she were a somnambulist wandering on the ridge of a roof. But while Frau Rupius was speaking of her past, a period through which the blessedness of being loved ever beamed brightly as its chiefest glory, Bertha's soul began to thrill with the hope of a happiness for herself such as she had not yet experienced. And while Frau Rupius was telling of the walking tours through Switzerland and the Tyrol, which she had once undertaken with her husband, Bertha pictured herself wandering by Emil's side on similar paths, and she was filled with such an immense yearning that she would dearly have liked at once to get up, go to Vienna, seek him out, fall into his arms, and at last, at last to taste those delights which had hitherto been denied her.

Her thoughts wandered so far that she did not notice that Frau Rupius had long since fallen silent, and was sitting on the sofa, staring at the flowers in the window of the house over the way. The utter stillness brought Bertha back to reality; the whole room seemed to her to be filled with some mysterious atmosphere, in which the past and the future were strangely intermingled. She felt that there existed an incomprehensible connexion between herself and Frau Rupius. She rose to her feet, stretched out her hand, and, as if it were quite a matter of course, the two ladies kissed each other good-bye like a couple of old friends.

On reaching the door Bertha remarked:

"I am going to Vienna again to-morrow for a few days."

She smiled as she spoke, like a girl about to be married.