The Strong City

by Caldwell, Taylor;

  Then, though the coachman opened the carriage door, he found he could not move for weakness. He was taken by a peculiar fright. He wanted to order the coachman to turn about, and drive the carriage away, with himself huddled and hiding on the seat. He thought to himself that this was an impudent and inexcusable intrusion, that he was like an exigent man bursting into the bedroom of some strange woman. It was impertinent! But beneath this thought was his fear of seeing Irmgard again, of dissipating the bright cold dream, which, like the moon at its full, had lighted the darkness and creeping shadows of his life. Mingled with this was a powerful and mournful yearning to hear her voice again, and an aching sorrow.

  The coachman stared at him curiously. He was a young man, new to this employment, and had never seen Irmgard in the Schmidt house. He wondered, with some contempt, what this miserable cripple was doing in this remote countryside, and he sensed his excitement and fear. He saw the moisture on the thin white face, and the distended sockets of the strained eyes.

  Then, shaking visibly, Baldur stepped slowly and painfully from the carriage. He saw, in his confusion, that a tall bony woman had come to the door, and was standing there. He had never seen her before, but instantly, as he saw her, all his doubts vanished. She was a woman, and aging, but he saw Franz’s own lineaments there, and he was sure. He was surprised, however, to see that in some way she recognized him, and that she was visibly agitated. She stepped out upon the white doorstep, and closed the door tightly behind her. She waited for him to approach, now her lips were drawn grimly together.

  He removed his broad black hat, and tried to smile, as he came up the walk.

  “Mrs. Darmstadter?” he murmured, politely, giving his sad parody of a bow.

  The woman’s lips parted hastily, as though she would deny something, then remained open, silent. Her pale eyes fixed themselves on him, inimically. Then, after a prolonged moment, she said harshly, in her strongly accented voice:

  “What is it you wish? Please.”

  He saw that she was very frightened, and alarmed. She kept glancing at the waiting carriage. He did not know what it was that made him say quickly: “I am quite alone.”

  She relaxed, and her expression became less inimical. But it was no less cold and harsh.

  “You wish to see some one?” she asked.

  He bowed again. “I am Mr. Schmidt,” and paused.

  She was not surprised. She merely stared at him, still waiting, still unbending.

  Then he said, boldly: “I should like to see Irmgard, if I may.”

  There was a prolonged silence, while they gazed at each other steadfastly. A strong look of dislike deepened on the woman’s face, and with it, fear. He studied her with calm curiosity, and with his own personal dislike, because of her uncanny resemblance to Franz Stoessel. There were the same hard eyes, the same line of harsh jaw and flat but wide cheek-planes, the same look of implacability and strength. But in this woman’s face, he saw that there was no craft, no cruelty, and his dislike lessened. He smiled at her encouragingly.

  “Please believe me, I am her friend,” he said, gently. “She must have spoken of me to you. We have corresponded frequently.” He spoke in German, and the rigidity of her expression slowly relaxed. “She is not expecting me, but I have something of importance to say to her. I should not have come, but for this.”

  And now he saw an intense expression of anxiety appear in her eyes. She took a step towards him. He saw that she desperately wanted to ask him a question, but dared not. But her eyes searched his face hungrily, pathetically. He became quite bold now, and said, clearly: “No, there is nothing wrong with Franz.”

  He watched her closely, as he said this. He saw her face clear of its great pain and anxiety, and become almost flabby in its relief. He heard her draw a deep breath. Then, quite suddenly, she was angry, and her eyes flashed.

  “Then, she lied to me? She told you?” Her voice was loud, unrestrained.

  Baldur lifted his eyebrows. “Irmgard told me nothing,” he replied, with conciliation. “It was just this morning that I guessed. I have a portrait of Irmgard, which I painted. Franz saw it for the first time this morning, and I immediately saw the resemblance between them. Also, he betrayed himself by his eagerness, and his questioning of me.”

  A curious change passed over the woman’s face, as though her thoughts were deeply agitated and disturbed. He saw anger, contempt, longing, uncertainty, in that change. Then she recovered herself with visible effort. She said: “I think it best that you go, Herr Schmidt. If Irmgard did not ask you to come, she will be very annoyed.”

  “Nevertheless, I will see her,” he answered in a firm hard voice, and she saw, for the first time, that the large melancholy eyes, which she had thought too feminine in their blue gentleness, had become as smooth and cold as blue stone. She was both angered and abashed by them, and looked away with anxious sullenness. Then another thought must have occurred to her, and she looked at him quickly, with real if furtive alarm.

  “I cannot prevent you from seeing her, mein Herr. But I strongly advise against it. It will embarrass her, believe me. I cannot tell you why, but it is so. You will do her a great harm, and distress her. You say you are her friend. If you are, you will go at once.”

  Her perturbation was sincere, he discerned, and he frowned a little. However, he said: “I cannot believe that the sight of me will embarrass Irmgard. I must see her.”

  She was silent, regarding him piercingly. She told herself, reluctantly, that Irmgard had not exaggerated when she had told her of this man. There was no viciousness in him, though there could be a coldness and a danger. She saw that he was kind and even noble, and firmly obstinate. She sighed, shrugged.

  “Then, there is nothing I can do, Herr Schmidt. You will understand, however, why I have prevented you from seeing her. You will wait here while I call her? She is in the garden.”

  He smiled. “No, do not call her. I will go to her myself.”

  He bowed politely, and started away towards the rear of the house. He heard her quick footsteps behind him, and felt her pluck his sleeve. He turned and looked inquiringly up into her face. Her features were working, and her eyes were dim.

  “Forgive me,” she murmured. “But I must ask you. Franz? He is happy?”

  He was filled with pity, and said gently: “Franz will always have what he wants. That is his happiness.”

  Her pale thin mouth trembled, and her look was sharp and urgent.

  “Those are only words. He is happy? Please? He loves his wife? His children? They are my grandsons—”

  Baldur was much moved, and he felt a deep anger and contempt for Franz.

  “My sister loves him very much, Frau Stoessel. She lives only for him. Franz—is very amiable to her. The children are healthy. But Sigmund is my favorite. A lovely child. One of these days I shall bring him to see you.” He paused. “I think he is what you would have your son be.”

  She smiled, and he was hurt by that smile. She wrung her hands in her apron. “Sigmund,” she murmured. “He is good? He is talented? He is a dear child?”

  “Yes, yes,” he said, and he touched the clutching fingers on his arm. “But do not think Joseph is lacking. He is a very lively child, and intelligent. You will love them both very much.”

  He left her then. Her pale withering face was radiant. His anger against Franz increased, until there was a throbbing pain in his temples. That foul man! That smiling handsome swine! Baldur saw that no virtue was needed to attract love. “A man may smile and smile, and be a villain,” he quoted to himself. Those who were evil, selfish, cruel, brutal and greedy seemed to have some magic in them which inspired adoration, while the worthy, the pure, the good and the kind apparently attracted only enemies. There was some flaw in human nature—

  He came to the rear of the house, and stood still a moment, looking at the view beyond. A valley dipped below him, rimmed in the far purple haze of hills. The trees in the valley floated in a radiant mist, crowned with
misty light. He saw distant fields, green as jewels, and the pewter glint of a winding river. He heard sleepy sounds from the barnyard, the drowsy clucking of fowl. The sun was a cataract of light. He saw white fences about the garden, heavy with rambler roses. He smelled the damp fecund earth, and the exhalations of growing things. In one corner of the large garden a young woman was kneeling, and beside her knelt a child, gravely and solemnly handing her trowels and bulbs and small plants. They were murmuring together in deep confidence. Baldur saw the sunlight on her smooth pale hair, and on her large strong shoulders. The child’s yellow head was like a daffodil.

  It was the little boy who saw him first, and he lifted his head and turned his face to Baldur with startled shyness. Baldur halted a moment, and tightened his lips. So, he thought, that is it. I understand, now.

  The child touched his mother, and Irmgard turned her head sharply. For a long moment the man and woman regarded each other in a strange prolonged silence. Baldur could see her face clearly. He saw that it was an older face, and a gentler, and somewhat worn. Those serene, cool green eyes had softened, become almost sweet and tender, and there was a shadow in them as of great old pain. The large rosy mouth he remembered had become tighter, thinner, as though compressed to restrain weeping and the sound of suffering. She was thinner, yet, as she slowly rose to her feet, he saw that the heroic and majestic lines of her body had become more pronounced, and, standing in the garden with her basket at her feet, she might have been Ceres startled in the midst of her work, and gravely displeased.

  “Irmgard,” said Baldur.

  She came towards him, in her much-washed and voluminous blue cotton dress, and the basque tight across her high breasts, her skirt trailing on the brown wet earth. She held her head loftily, and walked without hurry or agitation. She reached him, looking down at him, and smiled. Then, simply, she gave him her earth-stained hand.

  “Baldur,” she replied.

  He felt her hand in his, warm, strong, calloused. Her physical presence overpowered him, made him faint. She smelled of the earth, the sun, the young plants, the flowering trees, and the strong bright wind. His grip on her hand tightened, and his fingers rubbed her flesh in an instinctive hunger and ecstasy.

  “You must forgive me for coming without permission,” he said, his voice thick in his throat. “But I felt I must.”

  “I am glad you came,” she replied, quietly. He still held her hand. She regarded him with serene affection, without embarrassment. The tightness of her lips relaxed, and she smiled again, as if with sudden delight. “I ought to have asked you to come before this. You are such a friend to me!”

  He did not answer. His heart was beating rapidly, with mingled pain and joy. His eyes fixed themselves upon her, and he suddenly experienced a sensation of ineffable and inconsolable loss, and ancient grief. He knew now how much he had missed her, and how much more unendurable life was to be without her.

  “Let us find a seat in the shade,” she said, calmly, and still allowing him to hold her hand, she led him to a great elm tree at the end of the garden, which was surrounded by a wooden seat. They sat down, side by side, their hands clasped, smiling breathlessly at each other. The child slowly followed. He stood before his mother and the strange misshapen stranger. Baldur regarded him intently. Such a small round face, rosy, grave and quiet! Such level blue eyes, without embarrassment or awkwardness! It was Franz’s face, become refined and true and pure. The thick curling hair, as yellow as butter, was crested with light on the large round head. The child’s body was strong and tall, well-shaped, beautiful, and his bare legs and sturdy arms and hands were brown as autumn apples.

  The two, man and child, stared at each other with great gravity and piercing search. Then, simultaneously, they smiled. Baldur held out his free hand, and the little boy took it, with a small laugh. He leaned against Baldur’s knee. His eyes, so brilliant, so shining and blue, danced in a beam of sunlight. Baldur turned his head and asked a question of Irmgard with his eyes, and she nodded slightly. Then she said: “How did you know?”

  “It was this morning,” he replied. “Franz came into my rooms. He saw your portrait. Then, I discerned the resemblance between you clearly. For four years, there was something about him which tantalized me with a vague familiarity. Now, I saw. He tried to pretend he had never known you, nor seen you. But from his questioning, his agitation, I guessed the truth. He was very disturbed.”

  She had lost color a little, and no longer smiled. She looked at her child with a peculiar sternness. Baldur drew the child closer to him, put his arm about him. Now his own face turned pale, even cold.

  “You might have trusted me, Irmgard,” he said.

  “Why should I have disturbed you?” she muttered, not looking at him. “She—she is your sister. Would it have made you happier?”

  He was silent. He paled even more, and his expression became dark. He knew she was waiting eagerly for him to say more, but perversely, he kept his silence. Now he was conscious of an anger against her, a resentment, a sickness of jealousy and outrage.

  Finally he said, his arm loosening about the child: “I was a fool. I thought you were writing to me because of friendship, and regard, for me. I might have remembered, knowing that every one is activated only by self-interest, that perhaps you might too be so activated. I might have known that you would write to me so regularly, not out of affection for me, but for some secret reason of your own. You have made a fool of me, Irmgard.”

  Her lips trembled. Her head dropped. “Forgive me,” she whispered. Then she lifted her head and looked at him directly. She spoke very quickly: “But, even if it had not been for—him—I should have written to you! Please believe it. It is true I have been very selfish, waiting only to hear about—him. But under any other circumstances, I should have written, I should have wanted to see you!”

  He saw that her eyes were filled with tears, that her mouth was shaking. He said to himself, bitterly: She is lying. She is saying this out of shame and pity. But he could not quite believe it. Nevertheless, he wanted to punish her, though he was deeply touched, and relieved. His jealousy, his heart-ache, his suffering, demanded alleviation by tormenting her.

  “Why did you not ask me directly? Why did you not trust me? Why were you dishonest? You could have written me: ‘Franz Stoessel is my cousin, my lover, the father of my child. I wish to know of him. I must know of him.’”

  She colored deeply. “But there was your sister. She was his wife. You have troubles enough. How, could I know but what you would go to him and denounce him?”

  “Could you trust me that little?” he asked, quick with pain.

  She sighed. “Perhaps, too, I was ashamed.”

  He shook his head to himself, as though with bewildered denial. “You were not ashamed,” he said, coldly.

  She wrung her hands together, with a gesture of wretchedness. “You do not understand!” she exclaimed. “I was ashamed that I had loved such a one! I felt degraded, debased! Surely you believe that?”

  Despite himself, his expression softened, and he smiled with sudden, almost disbelieving relief, and his jealousy lessened.

  “Then,” he said, watching her closely, “he is nothing to you now?”

  Her lips parted, and he saw how pale they were. Her profile, outlined against the bright lucidity of the sky, was stern, yet shaken. She did not answer. His original anger returned, and his original anguish. He exclaimed involuntarily:

  “How can you think of him! He is everything that is detestable! Have you no pride, Irmgard!”

  She wrung her hands again, but did not turn to him.

  “I have told myself that, a thousand times. But it does no good. No good at all. I remember that he promised to marry me, that he said he loved me. I remember that he deserted me, and that he told me calmly that money meant the world to him, and that if he could, he would marry your sister. I remember—”

  But Baldur cried out, turning a dark infuriated red: “You knew this, and you ha
d no loyalty to us, to Ernestine, who loved you? You had no courage, no affection, which might force you to come to us and tell us the truth? You allowed Tina to marry your cousin, knowing what he was, and that he was plotting to marry her for his own advantage, no matter what it might do to her? You could not bring yourself to warn us, Irmgard?”

  His voice was so harsh and loud, his manner so threatening, that the child shrank from him, and crept away to his mother’s side. But she did not notice him. She was looking at this strange, malformed man with an expression the boy had never seen before.

  “You have called me selfish,” she said, and now there was a cold anger in her words. “Do you not realize that you are selfish? At this moment you are not thinking of me. You are thinking of your dear sister, and some imagined wrong which you believe I have done her. You think I should have humiliated myself, that I should have gone on my knees to your dear sister, and have said: ‘This man you are to marry: he is the lover of your servant. He has degraded himself with me. He is not good enough for you.’”

  Her eyes flashed upon him like green flame, and there was hatred in her look. She began to rise from her seat, with pride and haste. But he caught her hand, and pulled her back again. They regarded each other, breathing quick and audibly.

  “You have not thought of me,” she said, in a muffled voice. “You have not considered that I was wounded, heart-broken. You have not thought that my only impulse was to run away, and hide. No, you have not thought these things. You believe that I should have been more than human. Noble, self-sacrificing, thinking only of your sister. And what is your sister to me? You say she loved me.” Her lips curled with bitter pain. “It was the casual love of a mistress for a dog. I refused to be her dog any longer. No, you have never thought of me.” She breathed deeply, as though with difficulty. “It is you who have failed me. It is you who have disappointed me. At the last, it is your family pride, your sister, which means everything to you. I am nothing.” She struggled with the huskiness in her throat. “I must ask you to go now.”