Читать книгу The Song of Songs - Hermann Sudermann - Страница 17

Table of Contents

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 raised his hand carelessly to his cap, but did not think of removing it.

"Colonel von Mertzbach," he said in a voice whose rough intonations spread a whole world of authoritative power before her. "I should like to speak to you a few minutes. I have reasons for wishing to know you."

Lilly felt she was to be subjected to a humiliating examination, which she was by no means in duty bound to suffer. But never in her life had she seemed so defenceless as at that moment. She felt as if she were standing in the presence of a judge who had the right to pardon or condemn entirely at his own discretion.

Her lips trembled as she stammered something meant to express consent.

"You seem to be an extremely dangerous young woman," he said. "Why, you've fairly crazed my men, especially the younger ones—there's no managing them."

"I don't understand," replied Lilly, summoning all her courage.

He uttered "h'm," stuck a monocle in his eye, and looked her up and down, or rather looked down to the point where the top of the counter cut her figure off. Then he uttered another "h'm," and observed:

"It's very easy to play the innocent in cases like this. However that may be, I can thoroughly comprehend my young men. Probably I myself should not have behaved differently. But it seems that despite your youth and—inexperience, you possess a very respectable amount of feminine cunning, otherwise you would not have succeeded, in spite of your irreproachably reserved manner—or, perhaps, just because of your manner—you would not have succeeded, I say, in bringing the young men here on repeated visits—they are somewhat fastidious."

Lilly felt the tears rising. It would have been easy to repudiate the insults he offered her; but from where derive the strength to oppose a word in defence to this man whose eyes disrobed her and drilled her through and through, whose smile held her in a wire net?

So she sat down and cried.

He, in his turn, rose from his seat and stepped close to the counter.

"How deeply your sense of honour has been wounded I cannot say offhand. At any rate, it is not my intention to make you cry. On the contrary, I should like you to give me with the utmost composure possible a little information which will enlighten me and which may be of some importance for your future."

Lilly was conscious of only one thought: "You must pull yourself together because he wants you to."

She wiped her eyes and looked at him obediently, sniffling a little, as when she had been scolded in her childhood.

He asked her name, where she had been born, where her parents were, what school she had attended, and what she was doing in the library. At the mention of her guardian's name an ironic smile passed over his face.

"I know the gentleman's views," he said. "So, in short, you have been left absolutely alone in the world?"

Lilly assented.

"And it would not be disagreeable to you to have some mainstay—to know someone to whom you could turn in moments of need?"

"Where is a person like that to come from?"

"Let me think it over at leisure," he said, wrinkling his forehead. "In any case, you cannot remain in this hole. Do they treat you well here at least?"

"Oh, tolerably," said Lilly, and added between laughter and tears, "Only—the food is bad and sometimes I get—" she was going to say "beaten," but was ashamed to, and substituted "punished," which was a perversion of the truth.

The colonel burst into a laugh that sounded like the crack of a whip.

"Very commendable in you to take the matter humorously," he said, and rose to go. "Well, I know what I wanted to know. My men may continue to come to you—in uniform, in civilian's clothes, whichever way they want. They will find no more irreproachable company among the young ladies of this town. Should they ever forget their manners, just drop me a line. But I am sure they won't. Good afternoon, Miss Czepanek."

Lilly watched him walk across the porch with the jerky, springy strut of an old cavalry man. The wintry sun seemed to be shining for the sole purpose of casting a dancing radiance about his figure.

When he reached the pavement he turned to her window and lifted his cap slightly but respectfully. The eyes behind the lowering brows pierced hers, searching, almost threatening. Then he passed out of sight.

Lilly's soul was assailed by a tumult of questions:

"What was it? What was expected of her? Why wasn't she let alone?"

She wanted to cry, wanted to pour out complaints and feel herself pitied. But her trouble had a certain festal tinge, a certain shadowyness and unreality. She bedizened herself with it as with a new hope, and what he had said about some one to whom she could turn in moments of need re-echoed in her soul like a soothing, easing melody. Didn't it seem almost as if he himself wished to be the mainstay so sorely lacking in her floundering young life?

Perhaps he would get Mr. Pieper, who did not concern himself about her at any rate, to give up his guardianship over Lilly. Or, perhaps the colonel might even adopt her, or something like that. There was no knowing.

If only there had not been those dagger eyes, that amused laugh, and that evil, evil look at the end, and above all her friend's warning: "If ever he should find his way to you, then may the Lord have mercy on you!"

However, for all that, what could possibly happen to her behind the counter? Nobody had ever dared to raise the drop leaf and pass through. And surely she was safe behind the bookcase L to N, where she could not even be seen.

The colonel's visit seemed to have acted like a cold douche on his men, despite—or, perhaps, on account of—the guarantee he had given for their good behaviour. Not one of them came to visit her again.

"Is that a sign of the protection he is to favour me with?" Lilly wondered.

Something was missing, she did not know what.

A week passed, and one day the younger sister, who held watch every morning for possible billets-doux, threw an envelope at Lilly's feet, saying:

"Something else again, with a coronet on it, you flirt, you!"

"Flirt" was one of the milder titles of honour that the sisters lavished upon her.

Lilly opened the letter and read:

"My dear Miss Czepanek:—

Remembering the interview that took place between us recently, I take the liberty of making a proposition to you. The position of private secretary and reader with me is open. Would you be inclined to accept it? Since I am an unmarried man, it would be in better form for you not to live in my house, but I pledge myself to provide for your maintenance in a suitable and respectable family. Your guardian, whom I took the opportunity to consult in the matter, has given his consent to the plan.

—Respectfully yours,

Freiherr von Mertzbach,

Colonel and Commander of the——Regiment of Ulans."

So here it was—her fate!

It was there, on the other side of the gleaming snowy street, beckoning and calling to her:

"Come out of your hole. I will show you life. I will show you something new."

But then she pictured herself sitting at the colonel's great desk writing at his dictation. She saw his eyes drilling her, searching her soul, and threatening, always threatening. The pen would fall from her fingers, she would have to jump up and run away, but she would not be able to; the eyes would hold her in a spell.

So Lilly sat down and wrote a very correct letter declining his proposition. She fully appreciated, she said, the honour he did her, but she felt she was not qualified to assume so difficult a position, and she thought that even if she was not so well off she did better by remaining in her modest situation, since she could fulfil the duties it involved. "Very gratefully 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 petticoat tight about her legs with her left hand and with her right hand gathered her matinée close under her bosom, and sent Lilly a smile of utter contempt from over her shoulder, such a smile as only lofty souls can summon on occasion.

Nevertheless, Lilly noticed that from now on she was treated with a certain heedfulness, from which she deduced that something was still expected of her.

During the next few days nothing of importance occurred, though the day after Christmas a few of the young gentlemen had put in appearance again. Their manner was jerky as they exchanged their books, they outdid themselves in politeness and they showed no disposition to make themselves at home on chair or counter.

Then—the day before New Year—Lilly received this letter:

"Dear Miss Czepanek:—

You shamefully mistook the motives that led me to send you those Christmas gifts. I feel I must justify myself and bring about a perfect understanding between us. I have plans concerning you which I should like to set before you personally, but my position forbids my visiting you repeatedly, and I would ask you, if your future is dear to you, to come to my house to-morrow evening. I shall expect you some time before eight. I give you my word of honour for your safe return. Yours,

Mertzbach."

To go or not to go.

That night Lilly did not sleep a wink.

If only the feeling of dread had not obsessed her, dread which robbed her of breath and the power to defend herself. If the mere thought of him brought it on, what would become of her should she stand before him face to face?

She finally decided not to go, while she knew for a certainty she was going.

She lived through the day as in a dull dream.

In the afternoon she obtained permission from Mrs. Asmussen to attend New Year's eve service. The sisters, who spied upon her every movement, exchanged significant looks, but seemed too preoccupied with their own affairs to give hers their usual sweet attention.

Lilly donned the old felt hat which many a storm had buffeted and many a shower discoloured. Her winter coat made her look narrow shouldered, and tug as she would, the sleeves refused to reach her wrists.

If she had had her wits about her she would have been much too ashamed to show herself before so aristocratic a gentleman in that garb. But she was driven to her acts by something outside herself, not by her own volition. Strange, mysterious powers seemed to be pushing her, invisible hands to be helping her dress, smoothing her hair lower on her forehead, raising the arch of her brows, and opening the buttons at her throat to give her constricted chest the freedom of its young fullness. They rubbed her cheeks, pale from lack of sleep, until they glowed with a triumphant red.

When she reached the street and the frosty breath of the winter evening stroked her gently, she felt she was waking up at last.

"Where are you going?" a voice within her asked.

"Perhaps to St. Joseph," she answered evasively.

But she did not go to St. Joseph. She made a wide détour about St. Anne's, crossed the Altmarkt diagonally, saw the sisters sitting at Frangipani's in the company of two admirers, with difficulty avoided the assiduities of a gallant, and suddenly found herself in front of the latticed gateway behind which, four flights up, the sewing machine had rattled and clattered the last remnant of reason out of her poor, ruined mother's head.

Light was shining from the two dormer windows up there where Lilly had once lived.

Some one else was probably sitting there now, sewing shirts and drawers and nightgowns, day and night, night and day. Lilly, too, would be sitting there some day, bitterly ruing her lost youth as one regrets an act of criminal folly.

"If your future is dear to you," he had written.

She faced about abruptly, and ran—ran—ran—without coming to a stop until she reached the lighted house, in front of which a sentinel was pacing and freezing as he kept guard over the highest dignitary in the city.

"Where are you going?" the voice within her asked again.

To avoid answering, she rushed up the wide carpeted stairway and came upon a lackey in silver-striped knickerbockers, who without question quietly relieved her of her umbrella, while the shadow of a mischievous smile flickered across his pudding face.

High white doors were held open for her, red-shaded lamps shone like great flowers, beautiful bare-shouldered women with tiaras in their hair smiled down on her from oval gilt frames.

It was so silent and warm in the spacious rooms you could lie down on the soft carpet and go to sleep. If only there had not been that feeling of dread which was tightening about her throat and brow like a net drawn closer and closer.

Another door flew open. Beyond was green twilight, as in a thick forest, and from out of the twilight his figure came toward her, broad, resplendent, clanking. She felt her hand being taken, felt herself being led into the green dusk. Bookcases towered before her like black walls. From somewhere came the threatening glitter of swords, helmets and armour.

She did not dare look at him. Even after she had been seated in a tall, dark arm-chair, whose top hung over her head like a canopy, she had not given him a single glance.

She heard his voice, whose resounding roughness seemed to have been muffled to vibrating organ tones.

It was all unearthly, all that she perceived and felt. It was not heaven, it was not hell. It was a region of anxiety and dreams, where souls hovered between deprivation and fulfillment in a state of lethargy.

At last she understood his words. There was nothing unearthly about them. They dealt most rationally with the Christmas gifts, the return of which he did not consider final. They were securely stowed away biding the time when their mistress would graciously deign to receive them.

Lilly with a frozen smile on her lips merely shook her head. She could not summon the courage to voice a refusal.

"And now you will ask me, my dear," he began anew, "what impels me, a man advancing in years, to hang on to your skirts like a pertinacious lover."

At the words, "advancing in years," she looked up instinctively.

There he sat, too sharply illuminated by the light of the green student's lamp. The orders on his breast gave out a subdued, golden lustre. The silver tassels of his epaulets quivered and glittered like little snakes. There was a shimmer upon and around him like the halo about a saint in gold and brocade.

Confused and abashed by all this glory Lilly quickly sank her gaze again.

"I went to you that time," he continued, "because a dispute had broken out among some of my younger men, of which you were the subject. The matter promised to take a dangerous turn and it had to be adjusted. I expected to find a pert, coquettish little shop girl, and I found—well, I found—you. Now you will ask what I mean by 'you,' because you yourself cannot possibly be aware of your good points, or, rather, your potentialities—everything in you is still in process of becoming. I am what they call a connoisseur in women, my child, and behind that which you are to-day, I see that which you will be some future day, if—this 'if' is the main thing—if the opportunity is afforded you for proper development. You might go to ruin among your old books. In case you have the courage to entrust your fate to my hands, I should like to assume the care of directing your life into fitting channels."

That sounded composed and paternal.

Lilly felt herself breathing easier, experienced a little relaxing hopefulness. She ventured to raise her look once more, and beyond the gold and silver dazzle she saw a pair of brilliant glassy eyes, which had lost their sharpness and were fairly forcing themselves on her with a mighty, greedy questioning. The shuddering and stiffening came upon her anew. She sat there motionless with paralysed will, while she thought:

"Of what avail? He will do whatever he wants with me at any rate."

He went on.

"I own a beautiful old estate, Lischnitz, in West Prussia, near the Vistula, to which my duties prevent me from going frequently. My household there is managed by a middle-aged aristocratic lady, Miss von Schwertfeger—but her name's immaterial. If you were to go there she would receive you with open arms, I promise you that, and you would have an opportunity to develop under the most favourable conditions into the woman I already foresee in you. Your problems for the time being would be solved, and I should benefit by finding my home, when I visit it, lighted by a ray of youth and beauty."

He had risen and in his eagerness to persuade began to pace about her with short see-sawing steps. Each time he moved there was a clinking and jingling like delicate dance music played on small bells. Finally all she heard was this metallic ringing, and she no longer understood what he said.

She pressed against the back of her chair with an indistinct feeling that he was tying her with cords, packing her up, and carrying her off to some spot where no rescuer could hear her cries of distress. She knew she would not offer the least resistance, so completely was she in his power.

"Look at me," he said.

She wanted to obey, certainly—oh, she was so obedient! But she could not.

He put a finger under her chin and shoved her head back. She kept her eyes almost closed and saw nothing except the red border of his military coat.

Suddenly she felt herself sinking. The red border mounted to the ceiling, bees buzzed about her ears—then nothing.

When she came to, something cold and wet was lying on her breast, and a woman's clothes smelling of smoke grazed her cheek.

The green twilight was still there.

A breastplate was hanging in front of her. It looked like a brightly scoured kettle.

She did not dare move, she felt so comfortable and easy.

A rough, bony hand kept chafing her forehead and a kindly voice repeated two or three times in succession:

"Poor little thing! Poor little thing! So young!"

After a time Lilly could not help giving a sign of consciousness, and the instant she stirred a sure arm came to the support of her head, and the kindly voice asked, was she feeling better and did she want anything?

"I want to go home."

"Not so easily done," said the voice, "because he gave orders that he wanted to speak to you again. But if you'll take a good piece of advice, say 'much obliged,' and 'good-by,' and be off as quickly as you can. This is no sort of place for a poor young girl like you."

Lilly sat up, and pulled down her waist.

The cook was standing beside her—a brown, furrowed, thick-lipped face. Stroking Lilly's shoulder she asked if she should bring her something to strengthen her heart, a cordial beaten up with the white of an egg, or something else.

"I want to go home."

"You shall, pretty soon, my dear. But I must call him in first."

She hustled out of the room.

Lilly reached for her hat, on which she must have been lying, because it was completely crushed and misshapen.

"Now I must certainly get a new one," she thought, and tried to reckon how much she could spare for it.

The door opened. He entered, followed by the cook.

Lilly was no longer afraid. Everything seemed far, far away. Even he. Nothing seemed to concern her any more.

"I think she's fit to be taken to the cab already," said the cook.

"You are no longer needed here," he said imperiously.

The cook ventured to stammer another suggestion.

"Get out!" he thundered.

With that she was outside the door.

Lilly experienced merely a lazy sensation of being startled.

"Nevertheless, I'm curious to know what he means to do with me now," she thought.

But her interest in her own fate was not great.

He walked up and down with a heavy tread. The silver spurs on his heels jingled.

"We'll have some light," he said. "The subject we're now to discuss requires clearness."

He summoned the lackey who had smiled the furtive, cunning smile. The lackey lit the gas jets of the chandelier, and on leaving the room gave Lilly a glance of wildly eager curiosity, this time without a smile.

Lilly still sat on the couch on which she had come back to consciousness, twirling her old hat without a thought in her brain.

In the full light of the chandelier she saw the colonel in all his resplendence still pacing silently up and down.

Lilly could look him in the face without a flutter.

"It's all the same to me what he does," she thought. "I cannot defend myself at any rate."

He moved a chair in front of her, and sat down—so close that his knees almost touched her.

"Now listen to me, my child," he said. His words rang out steely and choppy as words of command at a drill. "While you were lying here in a faint, I thought about you in the other room, and came to a decision—but more of that later. You have long noticed, I suppose, that my feeling for you is not paternal. The older I grow the less I comprehend so-called fatherliness. To be brief—I am seized by a passion for you which—rather upsets me. If I were ten years older than I am—I am fifty-four—I should say: 'That's senile.' Do you know what I mean?"

Lilly shook her head.

She saw his face next to hers so distinctly that, had she never looked upon it again, she would have remembered it to the end of her days.

His eyes embedded in red puffs, burned and bored again in the way that had frightened her so at first. His hair lay in bristling strands of grey at his temples and over his ears, but his moustache was black as coal, and shadowed his dark teeth like a spot of ink with a white line down the centre. From his mouth started the two limp folds which passed his shiny chin and disappeared in the collar of his military coat.

"How strange," thought Lilly, "that I must be the mistress of that bad old man."

But he wanted it so, and there was nothing else to do.

"If you were to make inquiries concerning me," he continued, "they'd tell you that despite my age, I know how to subdue women—probably because I never respected them any too highly. But this time—how shall I say?—the affair is in a manner peculiar. I need not conceal it—I cannot sleep. I haven't slept for many nights; which has never happened to me before. Such a state of matters may not continue, and I pledged myself to make an end of the absurdity in some way or other at the death of the old year." He looked at the clock. "I have half an hour still. I'm expected at a function. In short: it's true, I wanted to seduce you. That is, for a man of my years, who hasn't anything seductive about him any more, seduce is not the right word. At any rate not here; I'd given my word of honour in my letter. But you were in my power—you need not doubt that an instant."

"I don't," thought Lilly, who was listening to all he said with as little concern as if she were reading it in a thrilling romance. The old fear had not returned. She was still waiting with lazy curiosity for what was to follow.

"If you had showed fight, you would have been defeated all the more certainly. I am somewhat of an adept in such things. But your fainting spell occurred, and gave me an insight into your soul. I had to admit I should never have taken joy in my conquest. You're fine stuff, and I have no use for someone who would pine. Tearful mistresses have always been a horror to me. I love my comfort. I have had experiences I should not like to repeat. So, while you were lying here with my cook to take care of you, I determined I was on the wrong course."

Lilly had a warm sensation of happiness, as if some great act of kindness were being shown her.

"How noble, how glorious of him," she thought, "to let poor stupid me alone."

She cast a furtive glance at his hands hanging between his knees. They were yellow and long and bony. Had she not been ashamed to, she would have leaned over and kissed them, to show her gratitude.

The next moment she felt almost sorry that so noble a man should have nothing to do with her any more.

"I took further counsel with myself," he continued, and his voice was still steelier, as if tempered in the fire of his resolve. "The idea was not a new one. It had occurred to me frequently. At first it seemed ridiculous, then it came to be a last resort, from which I would not cut myself off, in case circumstances warranted—I am taking that way now. Why shouldn't I? I'm not very ambitious. I'm too well acquainted with the vile machinery of the government. It doesn't pay to oil it any longer than need be with one's sweat and blood. So the idea of quitting doesn't frighten me—of course I shall have to leave service. Perhaps I should at any rate. There are days when I can scarcely keep the saddle because of that cursed rheumatism in my hips."

"Why is he telling me all this?" thought Lilly, not a little flattered that so great and aristocratic a man should discuss such weighty matters with her.

"What exercises me more is that a whole generation stands ready to revenge itself for the robbery perpetrated upon it. To be sure, a strong hand would do some good. We should have to dare something—why not our side as well as the other? Well, what do you say, child?"

Lilly did not reply. She was ashamed that she was so stupid as not to have extracted a single idea from all he said. His words sounded like Hottentotese.

"Well, will you—yes or no?"

"I don't know—I don't understand what you mean," she stammered.

"Good Lord! I've been asking you all this time whether you'll be my wife," said the colonel.