CHAPTER XXII

The world went its way, calmly, gaily, busily, as if nothing had occurred, as if no lost happiness were tossing about on the sea of life, disappearing farther and farther in the distance; as if no human being had been thrown into a corner to crouch there and stare at the ground helplessly with dimmed eyes.

Mrs. Laue was pasting pressed flowers; the fried potatoes were sizzling in fat, the lamp in the hall was smoking, and the poor people's odour greeted all who entered its realm.

Lilly did not cry her heart out of her body as when she had been expelled from Lischnitz; she did not sink into a state of apathetic brooding, nor wrestle desperately with fate.

All she felt was a dim void stretching endlessly before her, broken now and again by a sharp outcry like that of an animal bereft of its mate; a sense of faint-hearted acquiescence, a consciousness of inevitable imprisonment, of a fearful descent into dark depths, of a dismal death, lacking strength and dignity.

Between the present and the future, the sort of future that beckoned to her from every street, rose the railing of the bridge she had tried to climb after seeing "Rosmersholm." And when she stared into s.p.a.ce with tearless eyes, she saw far below the black, purple-patched water rolling idly along, and heard the iron rail clink under her sole.

This clinking became stronger, and turned into an accompaniment of everything that came and went during the uneventful days.

It drilled her brain, hammered at her temples, and tingled in every pore of her body.

There was a text to the miserable melody.

The text was: "To die!"

Well, then, to die!

What could be simpler? And what more compelling?

But not to-day. To-morrow perchance, or day after to-morrow.

Something might still happen. A letter might arrive, or even he himself.

Or if neither of these contingencies came to pa.s.s--who could tell what miracle fate held in readiness for the morrow?

To let hour after hour of one additional day pa.s.s in the same melancholy monotony.

One evening, a week after Konrad's sudden departure, it happened that Mrs. Laue entered the best room at an unusual time with an emphatic manner, and said: "Now, Lilly dear, you cannot go on the same way. If you were to cry, I shouldn't say anything. But _this_ way you'll never come back to reason. There's only one sane and natural thing for you to do, return to your Mr. Dehnicke. If he had an inkling of how things are with you, he would have come to fetch you long ago. So you'll either sit right down and write him a nice letter, or to-morrow morning I'll give up my work and go to see him in his office. I'll get my expenses back."

Lilly felt violently impelled to drive the old woman out of the room, but she had grown too discouraged to do more than turn away in impotent repugnance.

"I haven't much time, I must say," continued Mrs. Laue. "I have to complete the dozen before going to bed. But you can make up your mind to one thing: if he's not here by ten o'clock to-morrow morning, he'll come at twelve at the very latest, because by that time I myself will have gone for him."

Lilly laughed sadly in scorn. So that was the way the miracle looked which fate held in readiness for the morrow.

Should she submit all over again to a man's puny supremacy? Crawl back into the cowardly comfort of perfumed imprisonment? Vegetate among inane festivities, in a sort of doze, or walk the streets when driven by disgust and boredom?

She would not have the force to resist the next day when he came. She knew it well. Richard needed merely to look at her once with that whipped-dog expression which was entirely new to her in him. The very thought of it filled her with humiliating softness. Something was already stirring within her that would compel her to throw her arms about his neck and cry on his shoulder.

It was really not worth while to bide the morrow for so pitiful a reward.

So--she would die--that very day!

That very day.

It came to her like a cup of intoxication.

With clasped hands she ran about the room weeping, rejoicing.

She would be a heroine like Isolde, a martyr to her love.

And the railing of the bridge was waiting. How it would quiver and hum when she climbed on it.

Then the buzzing in her head grew louder. The air was filled with a medley of tones. The walls re-echoed with the refrain--the noise on the streets, the mighty roar of the city--everything sang:

"Die--die--die."

She tore off her gown and dressed to go out.

At first she thought of wearing one of her two ill-fitting dresses, because they had come from Konrad, but she could not prevail upon herself to do so.

"Die in beauty," Hedda Gabler had said.

"Oh, if only I had his picture," thought Lilly, "so that I could take one last look at his eyes."

But all she had from him were his letters and a few poems. They were to accompany her on her last walk.

They were lying at the bottom of the leather trunk which was still hidden in Mrs. Laue's hole of a room, although the need for concealment was past.

When she rummaged for the little packages among the contents of the trunk she came by chance upon the old score of the Song of Songs.

She tenderly regarded the yellow stained roll.

She was no longer angry with her Song of Songs or scorned it, as she had on that unfortunate morning when she had gone to her former home to break her promise to Konrad.

Once again it became a dear, valuable possession, though neither a monitor, nor worker of miracles, nor a sanctuary. It still was an old remnant, but one to be kissed and petted and cried over, because a part of her own life clung to it.

And some of her blood also.

There were the dark stains.

On the day of her going forth they had fallen upon it and on the day of her coming home, the deep waters would wash them away.

Then her mind glided past the score back into the hazy past.

Mists seemed to be lifting and curtains to be drawn aside, and her way seemed to lie behind her like a sharply defined band.

She had been weak. And stupid. And had never considered her own interests. Every man that had entered her life had done with her what he would. She had never closed the doors of her soul, never shown her teeth, never given free play to the power of her beauty; but had always been ready to serve others, to love them, and make the best of everything.

As thanks she had been persecuted and beaten and dragged in the mud her life long. Even the one man who had esteemed her had gone away without saying good-by.

"But," she thought, "I have never hated a single one of them, and I have always had the right to regard myself as above the common, however I have suffered. However I have sinned. And the end was a heaven-sent gift."

Did it not seem as if this Song of Songs, which lay there debased, stained, decayed, like her own life, had in truth hovered over her, blessing her and granting her absolution from her sins, just as in her early dreams and just as in her rhapsodies to Konrad during that hour of blissful self-surrender?