The Song of Songs. Hermann Sudermann
yours, Lilly Czepanek."
Done! Peace at last restored—as much peace as the bad sisters permitted.
Christmas was drawing near. It cannot be stated with accuracy that the preparations in the Asmussen household produced an atmosphere of mirth.
For weeks Mrs. Asmussen had been sighing over the bad times and the nuisance of having to give everybody in the world a gift. The sisters discussed as frequently and as loudly as possible the question whether it was necessary for refined and aristocratic young ladies to share a Christmas tree with low and vulgar hussies. There was no indication whatsoever of those gladsome mysteries that at this time brighten the saddest of human habitations.
Lilly knitted a brown sweater for her mother, bought her two picture puzzles, a box of sweets, and a wooden vase for flowers—objects of china, being breakable, were not desired—and sent them to the asylum.
At this time her thoughts frequently wandered from her mother to her father, who had now been gone four and a half years, and in that time had given no sign of his existence.
In the forlorn condition she was in, her confidence in his return waxed strong. Christmas eve, about six or seven, he would suddenly enter, snow covering his havelock, and draw her into his embrace with that demonstrative ardour peculiar to him. She almost breathed in the fragrance always streaming from his anointed locks. That was one way. Another was, a servant would bring a little package as a preliminary greeting. Inside would be costly material for a dress. A hat would come, too. She needed it badly.
After the others had gone to sleep she would fetch from the bottom of her trunk the score of the Song of Songs and softly hum the more beautiful arias.
There were some passages which always made her cry. Oh, she cried a great deal these nights. Yet at this very period a tiny, hesitating sense of happiness found its way into her being.
It was a lovely, dreamy feeling of being lifted up, of growing wings, of astonished listening to inner voices, which sounded sweet and familiar as words from a mother's lips, yet strange, like a gospel from the mouth of one who was still to come.
Now and then she found herself kneeling in her nightgown, but not praying, merely dreaming, with arms outspread and rapturous eyes raised to the lamp, as if the salvation she was awaiting would approach from somewhere up there.
Thus, after all, she celebrated Christmas in the quiet of her soul.
Christmas eve was at hand.
At the eleventh hour a few gifts were scraped together. The sisters ran about like wild animals making their preparations. They even bestowed a few kindly words on Lilly, who showed her gratitude by winking when the older sister had to look for something near the cash box. Lilly knew there was not much inside, and should anything be missing later she would replace it from her own funds.
A few minutes before suppertime she was summoned to the back room, where the Christmas tree was already lit. The company was embarrassed.
The sisters held out their hands. Mrs. Asmussen, who was already sitting over her medicine glass, delivered a few dignified words about the significance of Christmas in general and her misfortune in particular in having to forego the company of so splendid a husband on such an occasion.
Then everybody asked everybody else's pardon because the presents were not more munificent. First of all, there had been a "must," which ought not to exist for refined souls, and which at first caused great chagrin. Then all of a sudden time had grown short. Besides, the apron with the red edge was very decent—they themselves had long been wanting one like it—and the pen-wiper was not to be despised, either. Above all, business had been bad.
"I am ashamed to say, I have nothing at all to give," Lilly answered. But what she was most ashamed of was that she now felt kindly disposed toward the sisters.
"I haven't a bit of character," she thought, as she bit into the marchpane which the older, the wickeder one, offered her.
The library bell rang. A lackey loaded with parcels stumbled in and asked:
"Does Miss Czepanek live here?"
Lilly's heart leapt.
"From papa—actually from papa!" she rejoiced.
For a few moments she scarcely dared touch the packages. She ran about the room helplessly passing her hands over her hair. She did not venture to undo the cords until urged on by the sisters. They stood next to her, staring with great, greedy eyes.
The things those boxes contained! A light cloth dress trimmed with lace, a delicate foulard dress, a pink silk petticoat, black patent leather and tan shoes, six pairs of glacé and undressed kid gloves, some of them elbow length, three kinds of collars, a fichu of Valenciennes lace to wear with empire gowns, books, writing paper, conserved fruit, and more things, and still more, many more—the boxes seemed bottomless. Even the hat she had hankered for was there, a simple shepherdess shape of light grey felt, which shape had always been most becoming to the grand style of her features. It was trimmed with light brown ribbons and silver-tipped pompons.
A veritable trousseau!
The sisters began to pull long faces. Lilly, too, soon ceased to rejoice. She was full of apprehension. All she wanted now was to find a letter, a card, some token of the sender's personality, which surely accompanied the gifts. She groped for it nervously. Though she had long given up all thought of her father and his return, an instinct of self-preservation impelled her to pretend in the sisters' presence that it was he, and only he, who had poured this flood of treasures over her.
At last—underneath the gloves—she found an envelope and ran off to the library with it.
There beneath the hanging lamp she drew out a visiting card and paled with fright as she read:
"Freiherr von Mertzbach, Colonel and Commander of the——Regiment of Ulans," followed by a few lines in the heavy, bold strokes with which she was acquainted: "from the depths of his own loneliness wishes his lonely little friend an hour of Christmas joy."
She returned to the back room, where the sisters, green with envy, received her with a chilly smile, while Mrs. Asmussen, nodding over the steaming glass, dropped fragments of mysterious words.
"The things actually do come from papa," said Lilly, amazed at the strange, stifled sound of her own voice.
The sisters gave a short laugh, and silently began to put the gifts back into the boxes.
Lilly was holding a little porcelain bon-bon dish filled with fragrant, odd-looking confections. She glanced hesitatingly from one sister to the other without daring to offer them the sweets for fear of being repulsed with some abusive word or other. She set the lid—a little rose-wreathed Cupid—back on the delicately cut rim, let the dish sink down among the other gifts in one of the boxes, crawled to the corner where she slept, and cried bitterly.
The sisters whispered together a long time. They built a pyramid of the boxes on the counter and passed by it at a respectful distance.
The next morning Lilly summoned a porter from the street and returned everything to the donor without a word of explanation.
Then she went to the sisters and said:
"I didn't tell you the truth yesterday. The gifts did not come from papa. So I returned them."
The sisters, who had come toward her with a sweet-sour air of attentiveness, made no effort to conceal their disillusionment.
"Well, I didn't take her for such a muff!" said the younger.
"She's not," said the older sarcastically, who, true to her nature, scented an arrière pensée. "On the contrary she's particularly calculating—wants to drive her adorer still madder. I hope she doesn't get stuck at her own game. Even the blindest mortal soon comes to know the difference between false and genuine worth."
Therewith, in order to furnish on the spot an example of the genuine quality, she drew her