The Strong City

  “Mr. Baldur, your mother—she is a sick lady. A very sick lady. She should not stir from her bed.”

  “Are you, or are you not, going to obey Miss Ernestine?” he asked, inexorably.

  She hesitated. Her large bosom heaved with violence, and her face became congested. Then she took Mrs. Schmidt by her trembling arm, and Irmgard took the poor woman’s other arm. They helped her up the immense winding stairway, and slowly and painfully disappeared into the upper reaches.

  Ernestine said, with shaking lips, to her brother: “That creature is impossible. I shall speak to father tonight, about her.”

  Without thinking, as he might have done after a moment’s reflection, Baldur said cynically: “What good will that do? The Sultana will have the last word after all.”

  He was immediately alarmed and ashamed, for Ernestine looked at him, stricken, shame and grief and horror making her face vivid in the dim light.

  “No,” she said in a low voice, and then louder, as if in anguish: “No! No!” She wrung her hands in her gloves, and her pale mouth twisted.

  “I am sorry,” said Baldur, with gloom and embarrassment.

  “Baldur, what shall we do?”

  He shrugged, slipping the heavy cape from his deformed shoulders.

  “She will try to get rid of Irmgard tonight. You are the only one who has influence with my father.” He paused. “The trouble with all of us is that we have no courage, no fortitude. You might try them, Ernestine.”

  “But—Papa and Matilda,” she whispered. Suddenly she was weeping. “Oh, I cannot bear it. I cannot bear it, Baldur! Mama—”

  “I don’t think she knows. Perhaps, there is nothing to know. Don’t have the vapors, Tina,” he added, gently. “You had better go to your room and lie down before dinner.” His embarrassment increased before his sister. He had had no right, he reflected, to smudge that virginal innocence, no right to dull its bright shining purity. But he considered the modern denial of earthy facts sheer affectation and hypocrisy. How could a woman live to be Ernestine’s age so utterly unconscious of sexual urgencies, and the dark subterranean flood, so primordial and exigent, beneath the niceties of an artificial life? Did no desire ever disturb the fragile flesh of his sister? Did no dusky heat ever possess that immature little body? He looked at her, tear-stained and disheveled in the sombre gaslight, weighted with rich concealing garments, and wondered, not now with embarrassment, but with intense interest.

  He thought of his father, lusty, virile, strong with earth, not with his usual amused hatred, but with a sudden understanding and sympathy. How could such a one endure the life he led within these thick lightless walls, without madness, unless he had an escape into the body of such as Matilda, who was like the earth, also? His poor mother—What man could desire her now?

  He put his arm about his sister, almost with impatience. “These things go on, Tina. You are not a child.”

  “But mama,” she stammered, sobbing. “It is so dreadful for mama.” She put her hands to her suddenly scarlet face. “She—she is his wife.”

  “No,” he said through hard lips. “She was never really his wife. Just as we are not really his children. He was cheated, too. There. Do not be a fool, Tina. Go and wash your face.” He added: “And you will be a greater fool, if you let it make any difference between you and father.”

  He pushed her gently towards the stairs. Then, when she had gone, still weeping, he stood beneath the flickering gaslights, thinking deeply.

  What is to become of all of us? he thought. Is there nothing living for us in all the world? Must we continue this endurance, hardly half alive, like corpses growing slowly cold?

  He was greatly perturbed. Not for years had he had thoughts like this. Not for years had life so impinged itself upon him, with its old torment and bitterness. He had thought he had quieted it all. For a long time he had lived in a lofty suspension of all exigent thought, a remote removal from all desire. What had happened to him? He looked at the empty staircase, and suddenly it seemed to him that Irmgard stood there, filling the dark chasm with light and glory.

  But now the glory was made cold by the old catastrophic thoughts he had believed he had buried years ago. The glory was made cold by the threat of tomorrow, by time which clouded everything by its steaming breath. What of Irmgard, and tomorrow? Today, there had only been today, and joy and peace. But there was tomorrow, and its long spectral shadow was falling over Irmgard.

  He went into the vast dark library, where only the street lamps threw any light. He sat down in an immense chair, and his feet swung above the floor. He closed his eyes, and again, he thought sharply and cruelly, and the thoughts were almost intolerable, like the thoughts of a man who is slowly emerging from a prolonged drinking bout where everything had been roseate, possible, suspended and warm.

  He asked himself simple questions, and writhed under them: I am a cripple: how dare I think of myself as a man? How can I expect so young and beautiful a creature to look at me, and not think of me as an object for commiseration, but as a man? What have I to give her? Money? I know she cares nothing for that. I can’t buy her. If I could buy her, I would not want her. She is intelligent and thoughtful, she has shown she likes my company. We speak without words. Is that enough for her?

  His features worked in the darkness. In bed, would she be revolted by me? Would she see that under the ruin I am still a man, with a man’s potentialities? Could she endure the thought of bearing me children who might be like me?

  He thought of his twisted collapsed body lying beside hers, so smooth and strong and lovely, and even to him it seemed sacrilege. Nevertheless, the thought flooded all his flesh with fire, and a wild cry of bitter yearning rose from his heart, a longing like a devouring flame. I am a man! clamored his heart. Under all this, I am a man. I cannot be shut out of life, like this! I cannot go back to my life in death!

  Someone had thrown open a door upon light and ecstasy, and he stood in his room of drugged softness and looked out. If he had ever known pain before, it was nothing like this pain now. Every nerve thrilled and wrenched with it, until it seemed to him that he must really die.

  Perhaps one has only to will death, he said to himself. He knew, from his own experience, that very often men die or live by will alone. He had, perhaps, only to let go, to sink down, not to breathe, not to struggle.

  And then he knew that he could not die. Not so long as Irmgard lived, could he die. Perhaps, after all, it was better to suffer like this, hopelessly and madly, than never to suffer at all.

  The high hot tide of mingled suffering and joy swirled over him again, as he thought of Irmgard, her sympathy, her gentleness, her understanding and patience. He knew she was young. Yet, in spirit, she was not young. Under her serenity, her immobility, he felt a stern repression and iron self-control. He was overcome with compassion. My darling, he thought, but his lips moved with the words, I cannot give you a straight body or strong shoulders. But I can give you my soul. I can give you all my life. I can take from you the fear you will not acknowledge, the deep hidden fear of living, which might give you pain. I know all about this pain. I have had it, myself.

  He must have slept, from sheer exhaustion of mind and body, for when he opened his eyes once more, he was surprised to see that a distant glass lamp, hung with glittering prisms, had been lit.

  Darkness and fog hung outside. The promise of the December sunlight was gone. Rain washed and rattled against the black window-panes, which reflected the vast library, its massive sombre furniture lit only by that distant lamp. There was no sound but the rain, insistent and melancholy. Baldur lay deep in his plushy chair. Under the lamp, yards away, sat his father, doggedly reading his evening paper, a dull low red fire hissing and snarling beside him.

  Had he noticed the small deformed figure in its chair? Baldur did not know. The chair was half-turned away, in semidarkness. He looked at his father, saw the short fat figure in its black broadcloth, the belly distended, the thick thighs spreading
on the cushions. The lamplight shone on his pinkish skull, showing through the bristling gray-yellow hairs. The paper partially hid his face, but Baldur saw half of it, sour, thickened and bellicose, the moist skin darkly flushed. The pince-nez hid the eyes, but the expression about them was frowning in chronic anger and concentration. At intervals he shook the paper with a loud crackling noise, as though it infuriated him dully. His watch-chain flashed in the lamplight, as did the diamond in the stickpin which indented his rich crimson cravat, and the diamond in the single ring on his small fat white hand.

  Through his half-closed lids Baldur watched his father, his tormentor, his enemy. But now through his usual amused hatred ran a pale golden thread of compassion and understanding. The great dreary house, silent and sinister, loomed all about and above them, like the crushing weight of stones forming a mighty tomb. What joy had this little fighting man, so brutal and ruthless, in his failing beloved business, in his sick shrinking wife who rarely saw him, in his fragile repressed daughter without health of body or desire, in his deformed son who lived immured like a monk from all life and love? What joy he had was in the ignorant arms of a peasant woman, who could give him nothing but her clean flesh. He had no friends, no intimates, hardly any acquaintances. He lived, surrounded by gloom and emptiness, and enemies. Even his own were his enemies, even Ernestine who loved him. He had a joyless, cold and lightless life, this peasant who loved earth and health, strength and robust competition and struggle. He, no less than any other member of his family, was a prisoner. They submitted, silently. He roared at his walls, and impotently kicked his doors.

  He should have a gay and vital mistress, thought Baldur. Some one of light and luxury, some one who could laugh and chide and dance, and amuse him. He did not have even this. His money had bought him nothing but frustration and despair. Whose was the fault? His own? Perhaps. But a man who is a victim of himself deserves no less pity than the man who is the victim of others. Perhaps he had brutalized all joy and love from his life. But it was he who sat among the ruins, hating and growling, and suffering.

  Baldur, overcome with his compassion, and forcing himself to forget past torments, sat forward in his chair. “Good evening, father,” he said, in his quiet and beautiful voice.

  Hans did not look at him. He rattled the paper viciously. His thighs contracted, relaxed. He grunted. He continued to read. But the dark flush deepened on his face.

  Baldur paused. What did one say to an enemy, who had done his best to destroy one, but whom one could only pity? For weeks, they had neither seen nor spoken to each other. Sometimes they had passed in halls, without a glance or a word.

  “We all went driving today,” said Baldur, looking for words.

  This time not even a grunt answered him, but only the rain.

  Baldur bit his lips. He pulled himself together. “I should like to go, through the mills soon, father, if I might.”

  He was not prepared for what followed. Hans dropped the paper with a loud report like a pistol. He glared at his son, and all his hatred, his detestation, his savage disappointment, and his ridicule, blazed at Baldur through the pince-nez. And with it all was a complete and devastating amazement, as though a rabbit had spoken to him. The pink skull turned crimson; the fat brutal face swelled.

  “You!” he cried, finally, in a loud and ferocious voice. “You!” he cried again, and in that voice was now a choking sound, as though the mind behind it seethed with the accumulation of years of frustration, despair and hatred.

  Baldur was silent. He turned pale. His eyes widened in their sockets with a measureless pain. He pushed himself slowly from his chair. He stood before his father, small, misshapen, humped, impotent. Suddenly Hans burst into loud and brutelike laughter, his fat body shaking violently.

  Baldur went from the room, walking with dignity and quietness. He ascended the stairway. His father’s laughter followed him, like the cracking of whips, like the blows of a stick. But under the laughter he heard a lifetime of misery and hopelessness.

  His hand slid along the mahogany banister, and the small palm was wet and shaking.

  CHAPTER 21

  Gillespie, the English butler, knocked discreetly on Irmgard’s door. There were two doors to her room, one leading into Mrs. Schmidt’s apartments, and the rear opening on the back servants’ hall. It was this latter door upon which Gillespie knocked.

  It was nine o’clock. Mrs. Schmidt was already asleep after her warm bath and hot milk, and Irmgard had been sitting under her quiet oil lamp, reading. She had brought little to America in the way of clothing or money, but she had brought all her father’s books, four or five large boxes of them, the best of Goethe and Schiller, Heine and Lessing, with many German translations of Shakespeare, Hugo, Boswell, Dickens, Dumas, Voltaire, Emerson and Thoreau, and innumerable others. She had read them all, over and over, but she never tired of them. Of them all, Thoreau was her favorite. It was Thoreau she was reading now, infusing strength from him for herself.

  At Gillespie’s knock, she opened the door, and looked at his smiling and apologetic face in silence.

  “The master would like to see you, Irmgard,” he whispered cautiously. He coughed gently behind his hand. “In Matilda’s apartments.”

  Irmgard said nothing, but her expression became strained and a little hard. She closed her door again, tiptoed into Mrs. Schmidt’s chamber. That lady was sleeping peacefully, a look of complete relaxation on her worn dark face. Irmgard blew out the candles on the night-table, drew a blanket over her mistress’ exposed arm. Then she went out into the great corridor. All color had gone from her face, even her lips.

  As always, the vast house was silent. But as Irmgard went noiselessly down the corridor, Baldur began to play in his room. Irmgard paused by his door. She pressed her palm against the wood, and listened. A sound like mighty winds filled with echoes rose in the room beyond, blew through the door, filled the upper reaches of the house. Irmgard held her breath, listening.

  When the wind of passionate music subsided, she went on. She mounted the stairs to Matilda’s apartments, and knocked sharply on the door. Matilda herself opened it, fat, fair, gloating and triumphant in her black silk, the basque of which strained over her large breasts, the skirt looped and bustled and draped elaborately, the rustling skirt bordered with rows of silk braid. She was heavily scented. Her light hair was piled in coils and puffs and curls over her head, and in her ears were clusters of tiny pearls and filigree gold. About her neck hung a necklace of gold and small pearls, and chains dangled on her wrists. She was, now, no longer the soberly clad and efficient housekeeper.

  She stood aside, and Irmgard entered the hot room. It was Matilda’s parlor, crowded with furniture. A blazing fire burned high on the white-tiled hearth. In each of the four corners stood a huge vase, filled with peacock feathers and plumes. The mantel was draped in fringed red velvet, and upon it stood a gilt clock, several vases, and a number of Dresden figures'. On the wall behind it, a large gilt-framed mirror reflected the light of a number of prism-hung lamps, each prism trembling slightly in the heat, and throwing back little slivers of radiance. There were a number of crowded tables about, covered with ball-fringed red velvet “throws,” and heaped with numerous small ornaments. It was a hot, ugly and vulgar room, in the lamplight and firelight. In a crimson-plush chair near the fire sat Hans Schmidt. He still wore his black broadcloth. But he had removed his boots. His feet, in their black silk socks, were stretched to the leaping heat of the hearth. Near him, on another table, stood a silver tray with a silver coffee pot, “kuchen,” and two cups and saucers. His fat thighs were liberally sprinkled with crumbs, and as Irmgard entered, he was wiping his pursy mouth with a white napkin.

  Irmgard, immobile of face, stood in the center of the room, and then curtseyed briefly. Her hands were clasped before her. She waited. She had seen her master only a few times before, and had spoken to him only once. Matilda sat down, fat and triumphant and hating, in a chair on the other side of the fire
. Irmgard was struck with the racial resemblance between these peasants, so strong and healthy and lusty. She had seen them often in the fields of home, bending over plows and planting seed. The thought of Mrs. Schmidt was incongruous, and she felt a sudden sympathy for Hans.

  He was regarding her, not without good humor. He spoke to her in “low Dutch,” the language of the peasant.

  “So! You are the girl who is causing this household much trouble, eh?”

  Irmgard replied quietly, trying to keep her words simple, in order not to arouse the peasant’s instinctive antagonism against her class.

  “I am sorry if I have caused trouble. I did not mean to, Mein Herr. If I did, it was without my knowledge.”

  Hans grunted. He picked a large luscious crumb from his knees and put it into his mouth. He rolled the crumb appreciatively on his tongue, and stared at Irmgard narrowly. He was delighted at her beauty. His tiny blue eyes wandered to her throat, to her breast and hips, then back to her mouth, where they remained, lecherously.

  But now Matilda could not contain herself. She colored violently, and cried in a loud voice: “That is not true! You are a sneak, my girl. You disobeyed my orders behind my back, and took Frau Schmidt into the cold, after she has not been out of her bed for many days. If she had died, you would have been the murderer!” She beat her fat fists against her knees, and repeated: “Murderer!” Her eyes were full of fear and hatred.

  “Quiet, woman,” said Hans, in a still louder voice, turning savagely upon Matilda, and glaring at her with even more savagery. He looked at Irmgard again, and smiled, though his face was still congested and damp. “Speak, girl,” he said. Matilda subsided, breathing hoarsely, rage darkening her features.

  Irmgard’s fingers pressed themselves tightly together. She looked directly at Hans. She had always accepted her beauty with indifference, and had never used it before. She saw she must use it now, and with self-loathing, she made herself smile radiantly, opening wide her strange green eyes so that the light of the lamps could shine in them.