The Strong City

by Caldwell, Taylor;

  Hans, with that intuition of his flesh, knew her terror of strangers. This was odd, for he had never feared anyone in his life. Nevertheless, he knew her fear as well as though he experienced it himself. Sometimes, watching her taut fear and her desperate little smiles, he would sigh and tell himself that he could not bear to drive her so, and that even if she did not marry it would not be so bad. This way he would always have her, the only dear thing in his life.

  But lately his anxiety had returned, and with it, his exigency. He knew that he had a failing heart. What would become of Ernestine then, caught between an invalid brother and a whining fool of a mother? She must marry! Some man must take his place and protect her, and love her. But who? Her male contemporaries were already married. There remained only middle-aged bachelors, whom he rightfully distrusted, and widowers with children. Ernestine was too frail to take on the duties of another woman, and care for a brood of obstreperous brats.

  Too, he remembered a certain day when Ernestine was ten years old, and her mother had timidly broached the subject of a boarding-school. He could not forget that day, for Ernestine had run to him, screaming. She had clutched him with her little white hands; she had burrowed her head into his body. She had trembled so that he thought she would die on the spot. “Don’t send me away from you, Papa! No, Papa! I'm a good girl, Papa! I’ll always do what you say. But don’t send me away from you; I’ll really die! Really, I will!”

  He had not sent her away, of course. He had picked her up in his arms and had carried her to a chair. He had rocked her, murmuring soothing words, and finally had hummed old German lieder to her until she had become quiet and still. She had fallen asleep, worn out with the extremity of her terror and grief. He had sat for a long time, looking down at that exhausted, worn little face with the long wet lashes. And he had forgotten everything else, and felt that he had held the whole world in his arms, and nothing else had mattered.

  In later years he suspected that Ernestine’s aversion for strangers was due to her never-dying fear that she, by becoming attached to another, might have to leave her father. At first, this had increased his tenderness and love for her. But now he was growing old, and had a bad heart, and would have to leave her.

  Who would know his little Ernestine, and how to treat her? Who would protect her, and understand that fragile timidity?

  But there were some things that he did not know about Ernestine. He thought that she was as indifferent to her mother as he was. It is true she was quite indifferent at times, but in the last few years she had begun to pity her mother, and understand her, and even to feel for her a sad affection. Moreover, she loved Baldur, her brother. But from her earliest childhood she had hidden this love from Hans, knowing how he hated Baldur. However, life for Baldur might have been much harder had it not been for this hidden love of Ernestine’s. It was Ernestine who timidly intervened when Han’s wrath and hatred had reached its highest peaks. Her intervention, even when she had been a child, was adroit, so subtle, that Hans never suspected it. He thought that he had just frightened the child with his furies, and made her ill with his violences. She was such a little sparrow, he would say to himself, fondly, and he ought to be ashamed of himself for alarming her so. Moreover, she had such a tender little heart, and could suffer nothing to be hurt, not even Baldur. And so, to please that sensitivity to pain, he allowed Baldur to study painting, and live a life of secluded study and quietness which would otherwise have been denied to the unfortunate boy. Ernestine had kept her secret from Hans, knowing that any peace or tranquillity falling to Baldur depended on her keeping this secret.

  Hans never had that sick plunging pain in his heart without thinking first of his daughter, rather than of himself. Time was short. He must do something. Sometimes, thinking of this, his whole fat body would burst out into a flood of cold sweat. He must do something for her. He could not leave her unprotected in a world full of sharks and monsters. For Hans had no illusions about the world of men. He knew too much about it, and hated it with a sullen and vicious hatred.

  Now, as he stood beside her, looking down at her deeply, he felt a sudden surge of hope. Ernestine had looked at a man with interest and without fear, even though he was only a workman. Hans had no false snobberies. He was totally free of the caste-love of the plebeian. It was enough for him if Ernestine married a clean and healthy man, with intelligence and courage, no matter if he came from the fields or the slums. Such a man would beget strong children. He suspected, with a peasant’s dull suspicion, that the elegant young men, sons of Frances’s aristocratic friends, would not be begetters of such children. More likely, they would beget creatures like Baldur.

  “You do not know this young man, this workman, liebchen?” he asked, again, his thick blond brows drawing together, not with anger, but with concentration.

  “No, Papa. I’ve told you.” She colored again, with distress. Her father must think her very forward, she thought, and very unladylike. She made a movement to rise, but his urgent heavy hand pressed her back into her chair.

  “You like his looks, eh?”

  She dropped her eyes. “How can I tell?” she murmured. “I’ve never been close to him. But he stops so often. I’ve been watching him for months.”

  “Maybe he is a thief?”

  Her eyes flew up, alarmed and indignant. “Oh, Papa, how can you say that? Thieves don’t stand and look at a house, openly, day after day. And—and he seems so nice. Sometimes, when Gillespie comes out to see if the maids are washing the windows properly, this young man speaks to him, and they have quite a conversation together. I can’t hear what they say—”

  Hans was even more hopeful. If his butler, that Englishman, knew who the young man was, the matter could easily be settled.

  “How’d you like to meet him, Ernestine?”

  Again her painful blush ran over her pale face, and she shrank. “Oh, no, Papa! That would be terrible, truly. Why—why should he want to know me? Why, he wouldn’t even look at me!”

  Hans was silent. He stared at her with increasing thoughtfulness. He saw her piteous desire, and her fear that the stranger would repudiate her, or despise her. “Don’t be a fool, child,” he said at last, in his rough guttural voice. “Remember who you are. Well, well, if you are so frightened, you little rabbit, we won’t speak of it again.”

  He frowned, drew out his watch, and cursed. He replaced it. He bent and kissed his daughter’s cheek and patted her shoulder. He smiled a smug and secret smile. When he left the room he almost pranced, and hummed under his breath.

  He emerged into the corridor with a better humor than he had felt for many a day. Matilda was passing down the hallway with Frances’s tray. She dropped her eyes respectfully when she approached Hans, but a faint secret smirk touched her lips. Hans planted himself in her path, and she was obliged to halt.

  “Your mistress is feeling better, eh?” he asked, beaming up at her from his short height.

  She was surprised, but inclined her head.

  “That is good. The women in the morning—hah!” he shook his head. He moved aside and allowed her to pass. His eye fixed itself with pleasure at a spot on her person just below the discreet bunching of her black dress which was a servant’s modest attempt at the fashionable bustle. The spot was voluptuous and gleaming. His tongue touched the corners of his mouth and his neck swelled. Then he descended the stairway, humming aloud:

  “Ach du lieber Augustine!”

  He forgot to look down the well as usual. The morning, begun so inauspiciously, was beginning to take on the look of a happy and expectant day. He totally forgot Baldur. He never remembered Baldur, unless he was enraged about something.

  Once downstairs, he went into the library, then into one of the great drawing-rooms, looking for Gillespie, the butler. He finally found him. The butler was severely and primly upbraiding a maid for some delinquency, and then, happening to glance up, he saw Hans in the doorway. He lost color. He stammered last instructions, and came towards
his master, bending his head with anxious inquiry, remembering the fury of only an hour ago.

  But when he came close to Hans, he saw that the formidable old man was actually smiling. It was a ferocious kind of a smile, but, thank God! it was really a smile. Gillespie was surprised, but thankful, and then he was amazed, for Hans was beckoning to him with an almost jocular air. Bemused, he followed Hans into the privacy of the library.

  Once there, Hans attempted to assume a stern expression. He stood before the fire, with his back to it, his thumbs in his armpits.

  “Who is that young feller who stops outside the house nearly every day? Eh? Do you know him?”

  Gillespie started with renewed fright. He wet his drying lips, and made a drowning motion with his hands.

  “Mr. Schmidt, sir! I—I am sorry. He is just some lad from the mills. Very pleasant-spoken, rather. Not a bad sort. Just a working-man, but with good manners. I have seen him for a long time, but he spoke to me recently. A—a foreigner of some kind, judging by his accent. I—believe me, sir, I don’t encourage that sort of familiarity from persons of his class—but there seemed no harm—” He gulped. “I’ll see to it, sir, that he does no more loitering—” The unhappy man’s voice trailed away, stifled with fear, and the certainty that he would now be discharged.

  But Hans was contemplating him thoughtfully. “What is his name? Where does he come from? Where does he work?”

  The butler struggled to regain his fainting voice. He was visibly palsied, and the color of raw dough.

  “I know him only by the name of Franz. He told me his whole name, but—it was a foreign name. I don’t remember it. And I believe he works in your mill, sir.”

  His frantic mind darted about, despairingly. It was so hard to find work in these days—he had been in America six months before he had gotten this post. And now a confounded swine of a German was going to lose it for him, and he would be adrift. His despair made him cry out: “I assure you, sir, it won’t happen again! There’ll be no more loitering on the premises!”

  But Hans was merely gazing at him mildly, though his butler’s distress gave him the sadist’s thrill of pleasure.

  “Stop jabbering, and answer my questions. What does he talk to you about?”

  Gillespie gulped, wringing his hands until it seemed that he would pull the flesh from his bones. “Nothing—of consequence, Mr. Schmidt, sir. He is pleasant-spoken, and respectful. Just passes the time of day.”

  “But why does he stop at this particular house, and stare like that?”

  Gillespie shook his head mutely. He said thinly: “He—admired it, he said.”

  Hans was pleased. He shot a furtive look about his enormous gloomy library with a smug satisfaction. But he scowled. “Oh, he did, did he? That’s very kind of him. The impudence! What did he say, eh?”

  Gillespie was so sure that he was to be discharged that he decided that nothing mattered. He bent his head and almost whispered: “He told me it was the finest example of ugliness he had ever seen, sir. He said—that there was something grand in complete ugliness.”

  Hans shouted, furiously, turning crimson. He stamped his feet, lifting each one and setting it down so violently that the crystal pendants on the lamps quivered and rattled. “The Schwein!” he exclaimed. “I’ll go out there myself some morning and teach him a lesson!”

  “Yes, sir,” murmured Gilespie, completely undone now. “Shall I—shall I go now, sir?”

  Hans glared at him, enraged. “Go? No, I’m not finished, yet.” He paused. Slowly the crimson receded from his fat face. He began to smile again. “The man’s not. a fool, eh? You wouldn’t call him a fool, would you?”

  Gillespie took renewed hope. He looked up. “No, Mr. Schmidt! No!” He became feverishly animated. “I’d say he was a very respectable young person, for his class. And not at all impudent, or dangerous. He—carries a dinner pail, and seems hardworking and diligent.”

  “And he works in my mill?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Hm.” Hans began to pace slowly up and down the room. Gillespie watched him.

  “I’ll see he does no more loitering, Mr. Schmidt,” he promised.

  Hans stopped and stared at him inimically over his shoulder.

  “You’ll do nothing of the kind, you fool! Let him look. Why not?” He began to grin. “And now, get me my coat and hat, and call the carriage. I’m late enough already.”

  CHAPTER 5

  The light, though it quickened, did not become warmer. Rather, it grayed and sharpened, like the reflection from cold steel.

  Baldur Schmidt flung wide the curtains from the great windows, and looked with dissatisfaction at the sky. There was no sign of clearing. The rain and the wind strengthened, and now there were flakes of vagrant white mixed with the rain. He stood for a long time, gazing out at the street and the sky, musing. Even in repose, and in solitude, there was no bitterness, no wryness, in his expression. Rather, it was contemplative, but not serene. It was even severe about the eyes and the extraordinarily pure forehead. His head was more than ever like that of a heroic statue’s. All bodily activity was suspended in him in his contemplation, but there was something about him which suggested tremendous inner movement.

  His room was large and plain and quiet, without one discordant object. It was lined with books. Here and there on a pedestal were the marble busts of Beethoven and Goethe, Schiller and Lessing, and, not incongruous in that noble array, was a bust of Abraham Lincoln. The busts were no more still than he, and between them and himself there was a curious lofty resemblance. In a distant corner was a more than lifesize marble statue of a winged archangel, so beautiful, so strong and so powerful, that it seemed visibly alive and vibrant with passion. The figure stood in an attitude of profound prayer, but it was not the mealy-mouthed and sanctimonious posture of the conventional angel. The hands were lifted a little, palm up, and the head was arched proudly and thrown back, so that the eyes appeared to importune God without fear or sentimentality, but only with prideful reverence and urgency. It was not the usual sexless angel: it had the body of a strong and virile man, vivid with tremendous life and force, which would excite love not only in God but in women. The face was the face of an extremely handsome man, but not effeminate. Rather, it was somber and a little hard, with arrogant eyes and a heavy gloomy mouth. In looking at that body and that face, those half-folded wings and the lifted posture, one thought of the old Biblical legend which, in Genesis, sang of the splendid hour when “the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men,” and “there were giants in those days.”

  Half in light, half in shadow, it lived and appeared to move with passionate breath. Clad in a beautifully carved robe, it was clasped at the waist by a broad belt, in which was thrust a long two-edged sword. Baldur Schmidt had bought the statue from a sculptor in New York who had confessed that he had carved no statue before this, and would carve no more. It was a vision that had been with him since childhood, and he had no wish to profane it with lesser work. He had studied his art only to give this one supreme vision objectivity.

  Baldur’s tastes were of the simplest. There were no gimcracks on the black marble mantelpiece, under which burned a quiet scarlet fire. His bed was neat and narrow, and covered with dark-red velvet. His tables were heaped with books, and in another corner was a small piano upon which he played frequently and softly. His chairs were small and straight, without softness or luxury, and the high ceiling was lost in shadow and darkness.

  He left the window, finally, and went to the fire. He stirred it up. Lances of crimson flame leapt over the walls and the bare polished floor. He looked over his crooked shoulder at the busts and the statues. They semed, in that firelight, to be carved out of snow and fire, and the angel shook on his low pedestal. Baldur smiled his strange and secret smile. He was comforted, as always, by the coming to life of his friends, his companions in mysterious silence.

  Someone knocked gently on his door. “Come in,” he called. The door opened
and Ernestine entered, smiling timidly.

  “Good morning, Tina,” he said, with fondness. “The light is very bad today. But I’ll see what I can do.”

  On coming into this room, Ernestine’s glance was always first on the angel. It never failed to make her heart tremble with ecstasy and fear. Now she looked at her brother and smiled uncertainly.

  “If the light is so bad,” she began.

  “No, no, dear. Sit down in your usual place at the window.” He regarded her with indulgent affection. She was a year older than he, but he always thought of her as much younger. He watched her walk across the wide floor with grace and shy lightness. She wore a bustled dress of dark blue velvet, and there was a fine string of rosy pearls about her childish throat. Her dark curling hair was swept back from her pale temples and lay in a knot of curls on the nape of her neck. She sat down in a chair by one of the windows, and half her grave colorless face was in shadow and the other in pallid light. But her gray eyes were radiant with inner lucidity.

  Baldur talked of quiet inconsequential things as he prepared his paints. He was painting a miniature of his sister, which was to be her gift to her father for Christmas. She listened to her brother, smiled a little, and hardly answered. She was used to Baldur’s gentle monologues, little of which she understood.

  “On a day like this,” he was saying, “one should not work. It’s a day for contemplation and memory. But memories of what? Not of one’s life, surely. There are very few memories of conscious existence which are worth thinking of. But memories of the mind—perhaps. Memories of old life, sensations—turn your head a little this way, Tina. That is right. The light’s very bad. I don’t think I’ll be able to do much today, unfortunately.”