The Song of Songs. Hermann Sudermann
The next day went after the fashion of every other, but something troubled Lilly, something like Christmas expectations, a premonitory restlessness, which pressed on to a new life.
And behold! At the same time as the day before the door opened, and in stepped two elegant young men, who emitted a strident "good evening." Their manner was both a bit assured and a bit abashed as they asked for "an interesting book," while measuring Lilly with the stare of a connoisseur.
She felt her limbs grow heavy and rigid, as always when conscious of being observed and admired. But she maintained her dignity, and when the young gentlemen after selecting their trash (which they scarcely glanced at) wanted to start up a bantering conversation, she tossed her head and withdrew behind the bookcase L to N, which sheltered her when she sat at the window-sill making her entries and calculations.
The gentlemen took whispered counsel with each other, said a low "good-by," and beat a retreat.
So her jolly friend had betrayed her after all!
From now on Mrs. Asmussen's poor little hole of a library swarmed with slim young men of fashion, who were driven by an insatiable desire for reading to exchange one musty old volume for another.
Only a few dared come in uniform, but they did not withhold their names, and the last page of the customers' book looked as if extracted from an Almanac de Gotha.
Some wrapped themselves in a coat of business-like correctness, others came with careless assurance of victory. One man began to make love on the spot, and another even had the audacity to bandy gross language over the counter. The naïvest one condescendingly inquired when within the next few days he might expect a visit from her.
Lilly soon came to see that these attentions neither honoured nor gave hurt. She chatted freely with those who were courteous, refrained from replying to those who were impertinent, and the instant a conversation threatened to become lengthy she disappeared behind case L to N.
Within a few days the sisters had discovered the aristocratic visitors.
Their rage knew no bounds. Decency was thrown to the winds. Lilly was not spared a single insult, a single abuse. Vile epithets such as she had never heard poured over her in a dirty stream. The girls demanded that she cede her place at the counter to them. She refused point blank, whereupon they took to maltreating her.
On occasions of greatest need Mrs. Asmussen came to her assistance. The broom rained blows on the white nightgowns of the jealous furies, and drove them into the back room, where the battle was drowned in rivers of tears.
Hostilities continued. In case business exigencies necessitated some self-restraint during the day while customers were present, feelings were given all the freer play in the morning and evening.
Lilly's life became a veritable hell.
A crust of hate and bitterness laid itself over her soul. Partly in fright, partly in satisfaction she felt herself growing harder and sharper. It was only at night that she melted, when she buried her burning head in the pillows and gave vent to her misery in silent weeping.
The merry friend with the white lashes, who had caused the entire catastrophe, did not put in appearance for about two weeks. He came in dragging his legs a little, and his eyes were swollen and bleared.
"This flower," he said, undoing the tissue paper of the package in his hand, "is the picotee, which keeps fresh five or six days longer than any parting pangs."
At the sight of him Lilly felt a little comforting joy light up within her. She took the bouquet as a matter of course, and reproached him for not having kept his mouth shut.
"I told you," he replied imperturbably, "that I am a man utterly devoid of moral fibre."
Then he informed her that the regiment had given him a farewell dinner for good and all, and now there was nothing more urgent for him to do than secure passage for somewhere—if he only knew where.
"But we won't scratch our heads about that," he continued. "Brilliant people such as you and I have brilliant careers. The path of my life leads by still waters of cool champagne, and is paved with little meat patties. That's kismet. No use struggling against it. Even if it finally leads to a sugar-cane plantation in Louisiana, it's all the same to me. One always comes across something new, and that's the main thing. For the present the old man, who's taken a tremendous liking to me, wants me to run about his estate as Fritz Triddelfitz."
He laughed his high-pitched, almost inaudible laugh, which shook him like a storm.
Lilly wanted to know who the "old man" was.
That a person should have to ask this seemed inconceivable to him.
"Have you the least idea of life, if you don't know who the old man is? The old man is the cat-o'-nine-tails. The old man decides what is good and what is bad on earth. The old man breaks one man's neck and pays another man's debts. He is the punch bowl of all our virtues and all our sins. Withal the old man is eternally young. The old man sees you and says to you: 'Come here, little girl. I'm a grey old horror, but I wish to have you.' Then you have just enough courage left to ask 'When do you want me, high and mighty lord?' You see, child, that's the old man. They hist him on to you long ago, and if ever he should find his way to you, then may the Lord have mercy on you! Then all's over and done for with my poor young queen."
"But I don't know yet who the old man is," said Lilly, whom this enigmatic alarum was beginning to make a little uncomfortable.
"Then don't ask," he replied, and held out his freckled hand in good-by. "It's a pity for us two," he added, smiling at her tenderly and compassionately from between his blinking lids. "We could so cosily have enriched history with another famous pair of lovers." Leaning far over the counter, "Since I am a man utterly devoid of moral fibre, I should like to bestow one kiss upon you before I go."
Lilly laughingly held her mouth up.
He kissed her and walked to the door stiffly.
"I can scarcely crawl, I'm so knocked up by my bout," he said, and with that was outside the door.
After this visit Lilly was seized with the same disquieting sense as after his first visit. It seemed to her she was being flicked in sport with tickling switches. But this time, joined to the other feeling, was a certain anxiety which set her nerves a-tingle with a tormenting yet soothing sensation, as if she were waiting outside a locked door of gold, behind which an unknown fate was crouching ready to pounce on her.
CHAPTER XI
Outside on the street the hilt of a sword and the buttons of a uniform glittered in the noon sunlight of a December day.
"A new one," thought Lilly. The stiff, thickset figure of the man who clanked up the steps of the porch was unfamiliar to her.
A masterful stamping outside the door. The bell rang more sharply than usual.
No, she did not know him. He was not a frivolous lieutenant, nor yet one of the maturer ones, who played the dignified and watched with an expectant smile for the first shy glance in order to extract from it whatever they dared.
She saw eyes piercing sharp as a falcon's with a close ring of mobile crows' feet about them; she saw a severe high-bridged aquiline nose, and gaunt cheek bones on which lay a well-defined spot of red finely chased with purple veins. Under a short, bushy moustache she saw thin, compressed lips, the corners of which turned up in a smile of mocking benevolence. She saw a receding chin, polished to a shine by the shave, and disappearing in two limp folds near the high collar.
She saw all this as in a dream. Her heart began to throb so violently that she had to lean against the bookcase.
"Why, this is what I was afraid of," a voice within her spoke. "This is the old man."
He