Читать книгу The Song of Songs - Hermann Sudermann - Страница 19

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It was a spring-like evening in March, with bright sunshine. The last grimy heaps of snow lying along the gutters had melted into radiant paddles, and a shower of silvery drops fell from the icicles clinging to the roofs. The glow of sunset lay on the houses facing south like brilliant decorative carpets, sharply divided from the shadows on the opposite side of the street. The window lattices shone as if they themselves were suns reflecting their own light, and sparrows twittered on the dripping eaves. But most welcome feature of all in this early spring of city streets was the peculiar spicy fragrance of the melting snows, rising in vapour from the gutter with promise of meadows growing green and of boughs bursting into bud. Lilly, who had hardly been out more than two or three times during the winter, sat at the counter gazing wistfully into space.

Everywhere windows and doors were wide open. Everywhere lungs thirsty for fresh air inhaled the zephyrs of coming spring. At last she too pushed open the casements, and gave the hall door a kick, which made it swing back and knock down the broom that stood in the corner behind it. She saw through the opening of the door into the rooms of the opposite tenant, who had also thrown his door wide to greet the spring.

There was a cherry-coloured sofa with embroidered chair-backs stretched over its old-fashioned scroll-shaped arms; there were wreaths of dried flowers with inscriptions framed on the walls; the helmet of a cavalry officer with swords crossed; china lions used as cigar-holders; ballet girls supporting tallow candles; photograph groups with peacock's feathers stuck between them; a glass bowl of goldfish; a goatskin rug. In the midst of all this wilderness of knick-knacks a youth paced up and down with a book in his hand, conning something diligently; one minute he vanished from view, only to reappear the next. At the first glance, this young man attracted Lilly's sympathetic notice. His wavy fair hair was brushed carelessly back from his forehead, the carriage of his head was erect and nonchalant, and he wore a mauve and brown striped necktie, which Lilly thought the height of refined taste.

She tried to think which of her favourite heroes he resembled most, and came to the conclusion that it was Finck in "Debit and Credit." The young man did not observe her, so she had every opportunity of studying him. When he was in sight, a warm thrill ran through her, directly he disappeared and remained hidden from view for the fraction of a second she felt a sick sensation as if someone were robbing her of her dearest possession. So it continued till he glanced up from his book, and, seeing the young lady who watched him through the door, withdrew hastily to the invisible part of his room. When he next disclosed himself he had adopted a much stiffer and more self-conscious air. He bent over his book with a studiousness that was hardly natural, moved his lips too obviously, and frowned heavily. Lilly, too, thought it necessary to improve slightly the picture she presented. She smoothed the hair that was parted Madonna fashion on her forehead, and let her arm fall carelessly over the side of the chair. A couple of maid-servants who came to change books for their mistresses put an end to this silent duet by shutting the door as they went out. Lilly did not dare to open it again. But from that evening the new hero became part of her dreams.

It was hopeless to think of asking Frau Asmussen questions so late, because she was now in the habit of preparing her medicine before the evening meal; but the next morning, as she seemed in a fairly good temper, Lilly ventured to make a few inquiries about the neighbour of whose existence till now she had been ignorant.

"What do the neighbours matter to you, you inquisitive thing!" retorted Frau Asmussen, in that tone of polished urbanity with which she had addressed Lilly after the raptures of the first night were over.

Lilly plucked up courage to invent a tale of a regular subscriber who had asked her the day before for information about their neighbours, which she had been unable to give him. Frau Asmussen's esteem for this subscriber was so great that she instantly became communicative.

They were respectable enough people over the way, but of low birth, and she, as a woman of a more highly-cultured mind, could not associate with them. She believed the husband was a pensioned-off sergeant-major, now working as a clerk, and that his wife made cravattes for a living. Lilly flushed, remembering the mauve and brown tie which had so dazzled her eyes the day before. How vulgarly these common people lived might be gathered from the fact that on high-days and festivals they indulged in potato soup with slices of sausage in it, which made anyone with a delicate palate like Frau Asmussen's shudder to think of.

Like the erring daughters, Lilly had long ago got tired of the eternal milk pudding, and found herself unable to agree that potato soup was vulgar. Indeed, her mouth began to water at the mere mention of it, and she changed the subject by asking if anyone else lived next door.

"I believe there's a son," replied Frau Asmussen. "He goes to the Gymnasium, though why people in that class of life should have their sons educated I don't know."

"I know why," Lilly said to herself. "I know why: it is because he is great, and genius looks forth from his eyes, because he must succeed and become a ruler of men."

The same afternoon she pushed open the swing-door again, but the weather was raw and cold, and there was no friendly face opposite to cheer her eyes. After she had gazed longingly for an hour or more at the door-plate bearing the inscription:

L. Redlich,

Kindly ring and knock

she was forced to close the door, her legs feeling like icicles, and with a feeling of humiliation that she had been snubbed. Henceforth she looked out for one o'clock, the hour when the Gymnasium students came home from school. With her nose pressed against the window-panes, she could recognise at an almost incredible distance the blue and white college caps. When he flew up the steps, she slipped behind the curtains, trembling with joy at the bashful glances he cast at her. But if he looked straight in front of him she was extremely unhappy, and hoped that she had done nothing to hurt his feelings.

There were other wearers of blue and white caps who came up the steps to the house, friends who came to cram for their examination with him. Lilly adored them all. She felt that a bond existed between her and the little circle, who had the world all before them, and intended to conquer it. In spirit she sat in their midst.

Some of them passed so quickly that she distinguished them by their caps more than by their faces. There was the forlorn-looking cap, the faded, the smart, the limp. Each of the youths too had his characteristic way of walking and knocking at the door. She could tell, even when she was busy giving out books, and without looking, how many of young Redlich's chums had come or had not come to work with him.

Meanwhile, the days grew longer and spring was advancing. The tenants of the house began to sit on the terrace in front, where there were chairs and tables.

The boys often lingered there chatting with their friend before going in to their studies, and when they were gone he leaned over the balustrade in the twilight alone, dreaming doubtless of his great future.

Then Lilly, with beating heart, stationed herself behind a book-rack, from which she had artfully cleared away enough volumes to form a peep-hole, whence she could admire to her heart's content the leonine brow so full of thought and profound intellect.

The seats on the terrace in front of the library windows were mostly unoccupied, as they belonged to Frau Asmussen, who preferred taking her medicine indoors, and Lilly could not screw up courage to ask permission to sit there.

One May evening, however, when showery spring clouds sailed over the dark blue sky, more alluring than threatening, when it was all so still that you could hear the splashing of the market-place fountain, and the swallows were the only passers-by, Lilly simply could not contain herself any longer in the library atmosphere, smelling of old leather and parchment; and taking her embroidery, more for show than because she was industriously inclined, she went out, determined to sit on the terrace. She knew that he was out, and that he always came in before ten. He would have to pass her whatever happened. Half an hour, another half-hour, than a quarter went by, and she saw a blue and white cap coming jauntily down the street. Her first thought was to run back into the library, but she was ashamed to do this, and sat where she was. He came, saw her, raised his cap, and went in.

"He has at least bowed to me," she thought blissfully.

Scarcely ten minutes had elapsed before he appeared again. He seated himself on a bench belonging to his side of the house, played with pebbles, whistled to himself softly, and seemed altogether oblivious of her presence.

Lilly sat on in her corner rolling and unrolling her embroidery, and now and then giving vent to her tender feelings toward him by a sigh, though she told herself she only sighed because it was so hot. Half an hour sped away thus, and Lilly began to abandon hope of anything more happening, when all of a sudden he addressed her, with his cap in his hand:

"They will soon be closing the front door, Fräulein," he said.

"Not already, surely!" she exclaimed, feigning consternation. Then, reflecting that to act on his hint would be to put an end to their acquaintance making any progress, she added in a more indifferent tone:

"It doesn't matter; the window isn't shut."

"The window!" he repeated.

She could not make out whether in approval or blame. The conversation would have certainly come to a standstill here if she had not made a gigantic effort to keep the ball rolling.

"We are neighbours, I think," she remarked.

He sprang up from his bench, sweeping his cap down as low as his trouser pockets, and answered:

"Allow me to introduce myself. I am Fritz Redlich, prefect."

Lilly felt the old thrill of reverence with which the very word "prefect" had inspired her in the Selecta when her class companions had uttered it. Then she burned with shame to think that she was now nothing better than a shopgirl. But she was determined to impress him by alluding to her more distinguished past.

"Up till last autumn," she said, "I was a Selecta pupil. I used to know some of you fellows."

"Which of us?" he asked in excitement.

She mentioned the names of two young men who had once fluttered round her at the skating-rink, and asked if they were friends of his.

"Rather not," he answered with a contempt that didn't seem quite genuine. "They are slackers, and loaf about too much. They intend to join a corps, too, I believe. That's not in our line."

There was a pause. Lilly could only discern the outline of his figure as he leaned against the balustrade, it had grown so dark. Drops of soft rain fell on her hair. She would have liked to stay there for ever, watching the dark young figure before her, and with the gentle moisture of spring anointing her head.

"You are engaged now in the Circulating Library?" he asked.

Lilly assented, and was grateful to him for the nice word "engaged," which seemed a little to ameliorate her lowly position.

"And you are going in for your examination?" she inquired.

"In the autumn--if all goes well," he replied with a sigh.

"And afterwards you will go out into the world," she gushed in copy-book language, "and fight your way in life? Ah, how I wish I were in your shoes."

"Why do you wish that, Fräulein?" he asked in surprise. "You are fighting your way in life now, are you not?"

Lilly laughed shrilly. "Oh, but if only I were you!" she exclaimed. "What wouldn't I--oh!"

She felt exultant; her limbs seemed to stretch, so that she scarcely knew how to sit still; the light of conquest flashed from her eyes, but there was no conquest really, for it remained unseen in the darkness.

She was so overcome, so mad with happiness, that she positively could not stay there, uttering stilted phrases, while within her something shouted: "You standing there with your arms on the balustrade, I love you."

She bade him a hurried good-night, and ran in, bolting the door behind her. She paced up and down the narrow gangways between the books, laughing and sighing. She stretched forth her arms like a high-priestess at prayer, knocking and bruising her elbows against the shelves.