  Now followed happy times. With part of the sum she had earned Lilly bought new material, and soon more sunsets glowed beyond woods of dried grass. When she lay on her bed during the hot summer nights, sleepless from overwork, she would give herself up to wild dreams of what she would do when her art had conquered the world. She would start a workshop, like Mr. Dehnicke's, employ about a dozen women with Mrs. Laue, of course, as forelady. Then hunt up her father, and transfer her poor crazy mother to a fine private insane asylum. What else? Oh yes, provide for Walter, certainly. Now that she felt she was his fiancÉe, and her future was his, this was her bounden duty. To be sure he must first let himself be heard from. But some day, Lilly knew, when he was at a loss where to turn, he would get word to her in some way or other. Then she would send him money—in abundance—in overflowing measure—everything her craft threw into her lap. No, not everything. One task, the greatest, the holiest, merely to think of which was presumption, dominated her life. Whether or not her father returned, his work, his immortal work, must never be allowed to sink into oblivion. Awaiting its summons to life the score of the Song of Songs still lay asleep in Lilly's locked trunk. But its sleep was no longer so sound, so dreamless as in the years just gone by. It began to stir and moan. It gave out a humming and ringing which echoed through the day's work and crooned in Lilly's sleep, causing chords and melodies to sound when she least expected them. From the blue hills beyond which the sun set in flames came a soft strain as if blown by evening winds: "How beautiful are thy feet in sandals, O prince's daughter!" And out of the dark depths of the fabulous woods fluttered fragments of songs of the rose of Sharon and the lily of the valley. It was almost as if invisible little beings were singing who led a pleasant existence inside those bright-windowed pasteboard huts. Like Lilly herself the whole world would some day have a share in the treasure whose guardian fate had destined her to be. Wherever she went or stood, whatever she did or thought, from all corners hopes came dancing forth, beckoning and smiling. A new, larger, purer existence was now to begin. The ends of that golden thread which her insane mother had cut in two with the bread knife, had been tied together again, and drew her upward, upward. She had divinations of something sacred which gave forth blessings, something to be prayed for and struggled for. A few more months and it would all come to pass. A piece of good fortune seldom comes unaccompanied by another; and so it happened that—miracle of miracles!—her betrothed gave a sign of life. It was one of the first days in September between eleven and twelve o'clock in the morning when Mr. Dehnicke appeared at her door without having announced his coming. Lilly was not completely dressed, and refused at first to see him in. However, he was so insistent that the business on which he had come was extremely important, that she did not venture to dismiss him, and offering a thousand excuses she received him in her matinÉe. He let a shy glance of admiration travel over her, and then drew a broad, strange-looking piece of paper from his pocket, which proved to be a check on the Lincoln and Ohio Bank for two thousand and some odd marks. "What shall I do with it?" asked Lilly. "Read the letter it came enclosed in," he replied unfolding a large sheet. "Mr. Richard Dehnicke, Dear Sir," was informed that Mr. Walter von Prell had deposited five hundred dollars to be paid over to Baroness Lilly von Mertzbach. Lilly was shaken by a storm of gratitude. She ran up and down the room pressing her handkerchief to her eyes. She had wanted to provide for him, and now he was providing for her. Suddenly she was fairly overwhelmed by a feeling of distrust. She came to a standstill, and looked from the check to Mr. Dehnicke and back at the check again. Both were wrapped in silence. "Do explain," she cried, utterly perplexed. "What is there for me to explain?" he rejoined. "I am merely the middleman, or, if you will, the agent in the affair, which really concerns no one but you and your affianced." "If at least he had given his address," cried Lilly. "It almost looks as if he wanted to eradicate all trace of himself," Mr. Dehnicke observed. It was so romantic and so unlike Walter—how could she help being at a loss! But there was "Baroness von Mertzbach." Walter was the only person not likely to know of her having had to renounce her married name. That, at least, was an indication of the genuineness of the remittance. Mr. Dehnicke inclined his head to the left as usual, and regarded her with calm indifference—he was the innocent middleman, nothing more. "After this unexpected turn of events," he finally said, "you will, of course, no longer refuse to take up the sort of life that accords with your social position and is so essential for the sale of your works." She shook her head, biting her lips. Hereupon he became insistent, more insistent than she had thought his modesty would permit him to be. "You must. For his sake you must. I am responsible to him for that. If he should return and want to marry you, he must not find a dÉclassÉe. I am responsible to him for that." Lilly asked for time to consider. From now on her distant lover held sway over her life with a certain emphasis. What had been mere fancy became reality. Not that she thought of him unqualifiedly as the real sender of those mysterious five hundred dollars. On the contrary, the voice would not be silenced that said to her: "You are being played with." But she was afraid to listen to it, or even draw inferences and come to conclusions. For if she were to lose the single friend she had, then what? In order to down all her doubts and scruples she worked diligently, and nearly once a week had batches of sunsets ready to be taken away. And in the meantime Mr. Kellermann had brought her new motifs: a Gothic cathedral perched on perpendicular rocks, a hunting lodge with many gleaming windows, and—chef d'oeuvre—the moon rising over peaceful waters, whose silvery sheen was broken by fern fronds. October came. The first Sunday of the month Mr. Dehnicke called to take Lilly out walking. He had come for her twice before, and Lilly had accompanied him gladly. Had he offered to take her to the country, her happiness would have been complete. The autumnal sun lay peacefully upon the tattered leaves of the bare little trees that edged the square fountain. Groups of people sauntered by aimlessly, looking bored and depressed. The winter was already laying its icy touch on men's spirits. Mr. Dehnicke and Lilly went along many strange streets all filled with human beings; and Lilly was happily conscious of having a leader and protector at her side in all that bustle. Mr. Dehnicke, who had been brooding over something a long time, finally began: "Have you reached a decision yet as to your way of living in the future?" Lilly did not reply. She was fully determined to reject every offer on this point. But it is heavenly to have someone begging of you; you feel you are of some value in the world. "If I had the right to make a choice for you," he continued in his modest, prim way, "I think I could find a little corner that you would delight in." "I'm not so sure of that," she rejoined, half in jest. "You seem to assume that our tastes are absolutely similar." "Oh, no! I'm not so presumptuous. But recently I saw an apartment that I think would please you, unless I'm very much mistaken. It belongs to a lady customer of mine who left town." "What a pity! I should like to have seen it, if for no other reason than to find out whether you have a correct estimate of me." He reflected. "I think it can be arranged. I think I can take you to see it. The maid, to be sure, won't be in, because it's Sunday, but the porter's wife knows me and will give me the key. So if you want to—" Lilly hesitated to force herself into the home of an absolute stranger, but Mr. Dehnicke overbore her objections, summoned a cab, and ordered that they be driven to the western section of the city, where the houses are statelier and the people look more aristocratic and a row of glorious chestnut trees planted in velvety grass hang over the blue waters of a canal. "Oh, what a joy it must be to live here!" she cried. The cab drew up at a corner house on the "KÖnigin-Augusta-Ufer." Dehnicke went to the porter's lodge and spoke a few words through the window. A key was handed to him, and he led Lilly up the carpeted stairs of carved oak. How easy to ascend them, and how different from the bare flagging at home, which hurt one's feet. He stopped at a door on the second floor, and politely rang in case the maid should be in after all. But no one answered the ring, so he unlocked the door with the key. In the meanwhile Lilly tried to read the name posted alongside the door on a porcelain plate, but unsuccessfully, owing to the dim lighting in the halls. They entered a narrow, dark anteroom smelling of fresh paint, and passed through it to a room with one window. Here tall closets with glass doors curtained with green silk were ranged against the walls. The furniture consisted of nothing but two armchairs, a few small gilt chairs, and a large, dark, highly polished dining-table. "This is really a dining-room," said Mr. Dehnicke. "But it wouldn't be bad for a sample room and private studio for you." Lilly, who would have enjoyed contradicting him, was compelled to agree. Adjoining the dining-room on the right was the bedroom with strawberry-colored cretonne drapery, old rose enamelled furniture, and a broad, canopied bed with a puffy silk counterpane and curtains held together by a dull gold seven-pointed coronet. "Does your customer belong to the nobility?" asked Lilly, seized by a vague feeling of envy. "Not that I know of. Her husband isn't a nobleman. But maybe she herself is of noble extraction." Lilly heaved a little sigh, recalling her ivory toilet articles and her underwear embroidered with a coronet lying in Mrs. Laue's musty drawers. How well they would suit a place like this! She rapturously breathed in the delicate lilac perfume which penetrated the entire room like the aroma of an aristocratic spring, and shuddered as she compared it with the poor-people's odour that was invading her Dresden treasures with deadly certainty, no matter how persistently she aired them. "Happy creature!" she said softly. It struck Lilly as peculiar that no traces were to be seen of the life and activity of the mistress of the place, not a silk ribbon, no matinÉe, or nightgown, not a bit of underwear. "She probably locked everything away, or took everything with her," said Mr. Dehnicke. They returned to the dining-room, and through the other door on the left entered a small drawing-room at the corner of the house. It was flooded with sunlight. Lilly clasped her hands rapturously. She looked at the delicate old rose carpet with a pattern of vaguely outlined vines, at the dear little crystal chandelier, whose prisms radiated all the colours of the rainbow, at the dark reddish mahogany furniture with bronze statuettes on the dainty tables—a woman about to dive into water with outstretched arms, a reaper folding his hands in prayer at the sound of the Angelus, and similar subjects. There was a little bookcase, a lady's secrÉtaire, paintings on the walls, and even an upright piano. "A piano!" sighed Lilly closing her eyes in mournful bliss. There were animate objects, too. In front of one of the three windows stood an aquarium with a broad-leaved palm rising over it, and the sunlight gleaming on the water and the gold fish. A canary bird chirped at them from another window. Lilly recalled her light blue realm. In comparison how plain and compact all this was—like a bird's nest—yet how inconceivably charming when contrasted with the horror she now dwelt in. "Why, it's a veritable paradise!" she said gaily, though tears were rising in her eyes. "Here is one more room," said Mr. Dehnicke, opening a door which Lilly had failed to notice. "It has a separate entrance from the hall of the house. The lady probably uses it as a guest room, or something like that. If you were living here, it would do admirably for a place for your assistants to work in." Lilly looked in. The room was more simply furnished than the others, though not without care. In the middle of the floor stood a wide table with greenish grey upholstered chairs standing about it, and in a corner was a comfortable iron bed. "If you had it, of course, the bed would have to be removed," explained Mr. Dehnicke. It was really remarkable how well the apartment suited her purposes. They returned to the drawing-room. Lilly was struck by something she had not observed before. A long picture in an ornate carved frame hung over the sofa, forming, as it were, the centre about which all the rest of the furnishings were grouped. But the picture itself was concealed beneath a curtain of lavender crape. "What's that?" Lilly asked. Mr. Dehnicke shrugged his shoulders and pointed to the top of the secrÉtaire, where a photograph, the only ornament there, had the same mysterious veil. Seized with curiosity Lilly tried slightly to raise the lower end of the covering over the large picture. "I wonder whether I may," she queried timidly, as if about to commit a theft. "If you have the courage," he replied, apparently breathing a little more heavily than usual. She tugged—tugged more violently—the crape fell off—and before her hung her friend and betrothed, Walter von Prell! There he stood in the uniform of his former regiment, boldly and carelessly dashed off in crayon. Lilly's knees trembled. Cold shivers ran through her body. She refused to believe, to understand. Then she felt Mr. Dehnicke take her hand and draw her to the outside hall. He lit a match. On the porcelain plate she now read what she had previously been unable to decipher: Lilly Czepanek |
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