The Strong City

by Caldwell, Taylor;

  She put her hand pleadingly on Irmgard’s large arm. “I can trust you? You will protect my mother?”

  Again, Irmgard was aware of unclean things under the surface, and she regretted her decision to remain here. She wanted no part in this ominous household. But while she hesitated again, she could not resist Ernestine’s small pleading face and wretched eyes.

  “I will do my best, fräulein,” she said.

  Ernestine averted her head. “Thank you,” she whispered. There was another silence. Irmgard saw that Ernestine’s cheek was pale, and even a little shrunken. She seemed to be struggling in herself, trying to speak, and then to prevent herself from speaking.

  Then she took courage, and looked at Irmgard directly:

  “You—you may think us an odd household, Irmgard. Mother is an invalid, and then there is my—brother. He is a cripple, and not able to go about very much.” She paused. “Then—my father. He is really a very good man, but with rather abrupt manners. Some people do not always understand him. But believe me, he is so good!” Her eyes pleaded abjectly with Irmgard.

  “If you say he is good, then I am certain he is, fräulein,” said Irmgard, becoming more and more convinced that she ought not to stay here, but unable to see how she could extricate herself.

  Ernestine sighed. She forced herself to smile, and the smile, to Irmgard, was pathetic. “That is all, then. You can come tomorrow?”

  “Yes.”

  “We live a very quiet life,” said Ernestine, leading the way to the door. Irmgard saw that she seemed to float, so light was her step, so effortless the motions of her tiny body. “You will not work too hard.”

  When she reentered the large bedroom, Irmgard saw that a stranger was there, with Mrs. Schmidt. She was so startled at the sight of him, that she recoiled a step. She saw a cripple almost half her size, with a beautiful and splendid head. He looked up at her as she stood in the doorway, and an expression of profound astonishment, and even awe, came over his colorless but arresting face. He was standing beside Mrs. Schmidt, and holding her hand in both of his. Now, he dropped the hand he held, and continued to stare as at an astonishing vision.

  Ernestine flitted to him and kissed him. “This is Irmgard Hoeller, Mama’s new maid, Baldur,” she said.

  He recovered himself, and gave her a smile of infinite sweetness.

  Ernestine said, turning to Irmgard: “This is my brother, Mr. Schmidt, Irmgard.”

  Irmgard curtseyed awkwardly. The gesture was evidently a new one with her. Her clear green eyes gazed at him straightly, and what she saw went to her heart. She knew instantly that he had been the unseen player of that lovely and mysterious music which had so strengthened and reassured her. “It will not be so hard, with him in this house,” she thought.

  Ernestine remarked briskly to her mother that she had explained the duties to Irmgard. Fortified now by the presence of both her children, Mrs. Schmidt seemed more composed. “It will be so nice to have another young person in the house,” she said. She took her daughter’s hand. “And so nice for Ernestine. I am afraid she is very lonely, sometimes.”

  Irmgard had a quick thought that all this was very strange. She was being accepted as a young friend and a companion by these miserable people, and not as a servant. They looked at her with simple openness, and seemed to draw from her some strength and hope. She felt these virtues flow out from her to them, and for the first time she was glad that she was to remain.

  She left, rather than was dismissed. She went silently down the rear stairs towards the lower landing. Then she stopped, startled. A door on the second landing opened, and Matilda stood there, breathing heavily, her face congested.

  “You will not be here long,” she said viciously, and nodded with menacing satisfaction.

  Irmgard regarded her scornfully. She lifted her heavy skirts deliberately, and passed Matilda without speaking. Just as she did so, she heard Matilda mutter a foul epithet in German. Irmgard descended the steps without hurry, and without giving any indication that she had heard. But her face was white, and her forehead was damp. The passionate temper beneath her calm exterior was aroused. She had to control herself, to keep herself from going back and striking that florid peasant face.

  Emmi was waiting impatiently. She watched Irmgard descending the steps.

  “So?” she demanded.

  “I have the position,” answered Irmgard quietly. “Shall we go now?”

  But Emmi looked shrewdly at the girl. “You are ill,” she said, uncertainly. “I do not know if you should come here. What has happened?”

  “Nothing,” said Irmgard. She opened the door and went out into the cold rawness of the November day. She stood on the step and breathed deeply, as though she could not get enough of the clean air.

  CHAPTER 16

  Franz lay and listened restlessly to the dull night sounds, as he tried to sleep. He heard the dolorous wailing of the trains passing at the foot of the slope at the rear of the flats. It was raining furiously, and he could hear the cataracts of water rushing down the sooty windows. Faintly, he could also hear Emmi’s muffled snoring, and the lighter sounds of his father’s slumber. A cat screamed in the darkness. Hollow footsteps went slowly by on the street.

  His mind felt hot and in a turmoil. He relived the scenes with the Superintendent and with Dethloff. More and more, he was convinced that much lay behind them which was incomprehensible. He did not flatter himself that these men had discovered hidden genius in him. In dull times he was the first foreman to be laid off. It is true that he could drive his men competently, but there were other foremen who could do as much. Moreover, he knew he was no favorite with Dethloff and the Superintendent. He knew they hated him, especially the “Saxon Schweinehund.” So, what lay behind all this? Realist as he was, he shrewdly conjectured that they, too, were being caught up into something which infuriated them. He recalled, suddenly, the questions of Hans Schmidt, and he sat up in bed, thinking rapidly. But Schmidt had not seemed unduly impressed by him, and his questioning had been sharp and contemptuous. However, that was one possibility. But why? It was well known that Schmidt never interfered with the decisions of his Superintendent, and, knowing himself, Franz dismissed as ludicrous the idea that the Superintendent had eagerly recommended him.

  There was no answer to the puzzle. He could only wait and see. He lay down again and sternly closed his eyes.

  And then he knew that his intense thoughts were deliberately induced in order to shut out all thought of his cousin, Irmgard. Now that he had dismissed them, Irmgard came back into his mind with vivid force, and he stared into the darkness, his eyelids smarting with strain. His flesh felt hot and dry, as with fever, and he was aware of every inch of it, as though it ached. He sat up again in his bed, cursing audibly, hating himself for his own fever and his own inability to control himself. He looked at the door. It seemed to pulse in the dark, as though some one waited and breathed behind it. He would not allow himself to think objectively. For such objectivity brought her face before him, painted in bright colors on a black background.

  He was surprised and enraged to find himself pulling his worn robe over his night clothing, and thrusting his feet into his icy boots. He seemed to be moving under some mysterious compulsion. He opened the door. The kitchen was still warm. He stood by the stove, irresolute, wondering angrily at himself. A stupid girl, a big peasant girl! He felt no real urge for her, and her beauty had not excited him, he told himself. It was the beauty of immense and impersonal landscapes, which a man might admire, but would certainly not want to embrace! When he thought of her, an intense annoyance rose up in him, and a sort of dull anger. He had even felt a desire, more than once, to slap that pale calmness into red-printed discomfiture and fear. She was a block of ice, with fixed green eyes. He had never permitted himself to be emotionally disturbed by anyone before. But she disturbed him, and wherever he turned his restless inner eye, she was there, unmoved, inexorable, not to be avoided. He could not understand himself!
He could not understand his emotions, his urges, his angers, and his hatred. For by now he was certain that he hated her intensely. The admission humiliated him as much as a confession of passion would have humiliated him. No human being, he had long ago told himself, should ever be allowed to intrude into his mind either by the door of love, anger or hatred. The man involved in emotions, either joyous or tumultuous, was a man crippled. He had not allowed himself to hate real enemies, nor to waste time in plotting revenge. Yet, here was a stupid heavy girl, of no consequence and no visible brilliance, standing before him with compelling force, and gripping his thoughts strongly in both her large hands!

  Why? he fumed to himself, disgusted. He could recall nothing she had ever said. Yet, he heard her voice echoing in him like a wind. He could see again her pale bright hair, and the delicate curls on her neck. Her presence was so vivid that he turned around sharply in the darkness, almost expecting to see her in the flesh.

  He was more surprised and enraged than ever when he found himself in the dark chill parlor, whose blackness was lighted only by the feeble glow of a street-lamp penetrating into the court. Then his heart seemed to move and lift in his chest. He saw a thin pencil of lamplight under Irmgard’s door. He held his breath and listened. He heard faint sounds behind the door, the swish of garments. No doubt the girl was packing her clothing, for she was to leave early in the morning.

  He watched the pencil of light. All at once it was blotted out, as she apparently stood between the lamp and the door. He heard her sigh, a deep and clearly audible sigh. To his dull amazement, his heart beat painfully, and the fever in his flesh increased to a thrilling fire. He moved silently to the door. He put his hand on the wood. He knew that she stood only a few inches away from him, separated from him only by the flimsy wood. The door seemed alive under his hot hand. It appeared to pulse, like a sheath of flesh. His ears rang with loud noises, and he heard a deep far thudding which he knew was his heart. He had the strange impression that something of his inexplicable passion had communicated itself to the girl behind the door, that she had been caught by it as though in a trap, and that she was helplessly palpitating. He knew he had made no sound, yet he was mysteriously sure she felt his presence, and that she was holding her breath. She was not moving. He could feel her behind the door, and knew that she was staring at it. They stood, less than a foot apart, and the door was only a more intense path of communication between them. It vibrated between them like a struck gong, involving them in waves of electric sound.

  It seemed to him that timeless eons passed. He could not think. His hand was still on the door. Now he could hear her breathing, and the sound was fast and agitated. He pressed his own lips tightly together, and breathed lightly. His hand on the door appeared to have established some electric contact, and he could not move. His will was powerless in its surging waves. He was not a man any longer. He was only a swirling mass of impulses, a vortex of fiery sparks which struck through the wood of the door into the body of the girl beyond. As steel is drawn irresistibly to a magnet, so he felt that she was being drawn to him, that the very door would dissolve in its resistless energy, and they would cleave together with sudden violence, their own wills dissipated, their own desires annihilated in a single destructive flame.

  As though her own emotions had become too fierce, the girl suddenly flung the door open and confronted him. They looked at each other in a ringing silence. The dim lamp behind her threw her into relief, and made a halo about her majestic head. He could barely see her face, but he knew it was white and tense and rigid.

  Then she said, in a low voice: “What is it you want?”

  You, he said silently. The passionate word seemed to have struck the air like a violent sound, and to have come from him involuntarily. He was so appalled at it that he could do nothing but stare at her, paralyzed, as if he had admitted something of terrible implication for himself.

  He heard himself saying: “May I come in for a moment?”

  She hesitated. The air between them was charged with shock. And then he knew that she was trying to deny him something of much more importance than mere entry into her room.

  “Just a moment,” he urged, smiling.

  Her hand was on the door. She looked at him with white gravity. The lamplight lay on his face, and she saw the strong rectangular planes of his features, sharp as though drawn with a charcoal pencil. Some mysterious force sprang at her from his body, enclosed her in a capsule of paralysis. It was more to escape this force than to assent to his request that she fell back from the doorway.

  He stepped inside the room and closed the door quickly behind him. A deep flush ran over the girl’s cheeks. She continued to move away from him. He looked about the room, smiling casually, seeing her half-packed boxes on the narrow white bed, and the chair.

  “I will not see you tomorrow,” he said. “So I came to say goodbye tonight.”

  The walls of the room enclosed strong but unseen charges. Irmgard’s eyelids flickered, as if with sudden and primitive terror. But she looked at him, fascinated, her lips slightly fallen apart. Her hands were clasped tightly together. Franz stared at her. He saw her open fear of him, and the emotion which prompted it. He was excited, as a beast of prey is excited, at the scent of fear from the hunted. He was filled with exultation. He moved towards her. He was now so close to her that he could see the faint throbbing in her temples, and the gleam of her teeth between her parted lips. She was deathly pale again.

  But, she was stronger than he thought. At the moment he put out his hands to take her, she stepped back again. She leaned against the bed. Her eyes repudiated him through her fear.

  “Goodbye,” she said, almost inaudibly.

  Frustrated, and both angered and amused, he exclaimed softly: “Why do you dislike me, Irmgard?”

  She exhaled loudly. “I do not know,” she said. And then she turned quickly from him, and picked up a shawl, folded it, and laid it in her box. Her hands shook visibly. But her movements were sure. Her back was to him, and he saw her erect firm shoulders and the slender stem of her compact waist. He was seized with a primitive and overpowering hunger for her, which drove out all logic and all sanity, and which was all the more intense because of his real hatred for her, a hatred which rose from the acknowledgment that she could do this to him.

  “You will come here often, to visit us?”

  She did not answer. He repeated the question, in a louder voice. Then she glanced at him fearfully over her shoulder. “Hush! Your mother will hear. She will not understand why you are in my room at this hour.”

  “Then, you must be polite enough to answer me.”

  She flung aside the garment she had picked up, and faced him with great agitation. Her eyes flashed like ice which had been struck by an arctic sun. “I did not ask you to come here, and annoy me! I need not answer you! Please go. I am tired, and I must get up very early.”

  Her voice was thick and stifled, as though she was trying to control some inner torment. He looked at her, pleased and surprised. He had not thought this calm and stolid girl capable of such visible and frantic emotion, which was all out of proportion both to his words and his mere presence in her room.

  He pretended contrition. “I am sorry, then, that I have intruded upon you, if you are so tired. But I am more sorry to see that you dislike me so. What have I done to you? We agree upon many things. Last night you hurt my mother because you agreed with me. Is it impossible for us to be friends?”

  “Impossible!” she cried, and shrank back from him, putting the narrow bed between them.

  “Why?” he asked, softly and reasonably.

  She was silent. She averted her head. He saw the white straining tendons in her throat. Her hands were pressed flat to the wall behind her.

  “What have I done?” he urged, even more softly.

  Her lips moved, and she whispered: “It is not what you have done. It is what you are.” But still she kept her tense profile to him.

  He laug
hed gently. He took a furtive step or two towards her, so that his knees pressed against the bed.

  “And what am I?”

  She turned her face to him, and he was surprised and amused to see it so extravagantly tragic. This expression gave her a younger, weaker, more vulnerable look, like that of a harried child.

  “You have no heart,” she said, through shaking lips. “You are only a machine. You are not even wicked. You—you are just empty. I am not afraid of wicked people, or malicious people. Sometimes I find things in them to like. But I cannot like empty people. They—they do not even live!” Now, there was a real horror in her eyes, and this took him aback. “You are like a nightmare!” she exclaimed, and her voice was suddenly loud and clear. “You have no human thoughts. You are not human at all! You move like a man, and speak like a man, and smile like one. But you are not really alive!”

  To his concern, Franz heard a cessation in his mother’s snoring, a peevish murmur, and the creak of a bed. Irmgard had not heard it. She was now completely overwrought, and breathing stormily. She opened her mouth to speak again, but in a second he had run around the bed, seized her, and put his hand over her mouth. Over the edge of his hand her emerald eyes extended, dilated, with complete terror and rage. She clutched his wrist to thrust away his hand, but it was too powerful. He looked into her eyes, and his own were hard and gleaming.

  “Be quiet!” he whispered. “My mother has heard you!”

  They stood in rigid silence, listening intently. Irmgard ceased her struggling. Her eyes did not leave his, but a dim film came over them and her lids drooped. His arm was about her, crushing her to him. Her flesh was soft but firm, and a faint fresh scent came from her body, warm and maddening. The girl did not move. She was faint, and she felt as though she were floating in dreamlike waters. She leaned against him, and suddenly closed her eyes. She was conscious of nothing except her heart, which seemed like a molten ball of fire, sending streams of heated blood throughout all her veins. She had never experienced anything like this, and it was so profound, so terrible, that she could not resist it. A scarlet light glowed against her closed lids.