Three Comrades

  "By the beer-glass, if you like," said Grau.

  "You don't stand an earthly, Herr Braumüller," declared Alfons. "I've never yet seen Köster blued."

  "I've never seen Karl in front of me before, either," retorted Braumüller. "Except to-day."

  "Bear it with dignity," said Grau. "Here's a glass for you. We'll drink to the overthrow of culture by the machine."

  When we broke up we decided to take along with us what was left over of Alfons' provisions. There must be enough for several men still. But we found only the paper.

  "Zum Dormenvetter—" said Lenz. "Aha!" He pointed to Jupp, who grinned sheepishly, his hands still full and with a belly that stood off him like a drum. "Another record."

  At the supper at Alfons' Pat was having too much success for my liking. I caught Grau once again in the act of proposing to paint her. She laughed and said it took too long for her; photographing would be more convenient.

  "And that's more his line too," said I amiably. "Perhaps he will paint you from a photograph."

  "Calm yourself, Bob," replied Ferdinand unperturbed, gazing at Pat out of his immense, blue child's eyes. "Schnapps makes you bad-tempered—me human. That's the difference between our generations."

  "He's quite ten years older than I," I interposed.

  "That is a generation's difference these days," Ferdinand continued. "A lifetime's difference. A thousand years' difference. What do you children understand of existence? You're afraid even of your own feelings. You don't write letters—you telephone; you don't dream—you go for week-end excursions; you are rational in love and irrational in politics—a pitiable race."

  I was listening with one ear; with the other I was trying to hear what Braumüller was saying. Already a little tipsy, he was explaining to Patricia Hollmann that she simply must let him teach her to drive. He would show her all his tricks.

  At the first opportunity I took him aside. "It's unhealthy, Oscar, for a sportsman to bother too much about women."

  "Not for me," observed Braumüller, "I've a wonderful constitution."

  "Very well. In that case I'll tell you something that definitely would be unhealthy for you—if you got one from this bottle on the top of the head."

  He grinned. "Put up your dagger, boy. Do you know how one knows a cavalier when one sees him? He always behaves decently when he is drunk. And what do you think I am?"

  "A Renommist," I replied and left him standing.

  I had no fear that any of them really meant to try anything—that was not done amongst us. But I didn't know so well how it might be with the girl—it could very well be that one of the others might suit her admirably. We knew each other too little for me to be sure of that. How could one be sure anyway?

  "Should we vanish quietly?" I asked her.

  She nodded.

  We walked through the streets. It had turned damp. Mists were rising slowly over the city, green and silver mists. I took her hand and put it in my coat pocket. Thus we walked a long while.

  "Tired?" I asked.

  She shook her head and smiled.

  I pointed to the cafés we were passing. "Would you like to go in somewhere?"

  "No. Not again yet."

  We walked on. Then we came to the graveyard. The trees rustled, their tops were no longer visible. As the mist continued to thicken the fairy light began. May bugs came reeling drunk out of the limes and buzzed heavily against the wet panes of the street lamps. The mist transformed everything, lifted it up and bore it away, the hotel opposite was already afloat like an ocean liner with lighted cabins on the black mirror of the asphalt, the grey shadow of the church behind it became a ghostly sailing-ship with tall masts, lost in the grey-red light; and now the houses, like.a long line of barges, came adrift and began to move.

  We sat side by side in silence. The mist made everything unreal—ourselves included. I looked at the girl—the light from the street lamps glinted in her wide-open eyes. "Come," said I, "come close to me—else the mist will bear you away."

  She turned her face toward me. She was smiling, her lips slightly open; her teeth gleamed, her big eyes were looking in my direction; and yet I felt she was not seeing me at all—as if she were smiling past, beyond me into the grey, silver flowing, as if she had been stirred in some ghostly way by the wind moving in the treetops, by the moist trickle down the trunks; as if she were listening to some dark, inaudible summons behind the trees, behind the world; as if she must rise up at once and go away, through the mist, aimless and sure, and follow it, the dark mysterious call of the earth and of life.

  Never will I forget that face—never forget how it then inclined toward me, how it won expression, how it filled silently with tenderness and compassion, with a shining quietness, as if it flowered—never will I forget how her lips came toward mine, how her eyes approached mine, how they stood close in front of me and looked at me, questioning, solemn, big and shining—and then how they slowly closed as if surrendering themselves. . . .

  The mist drifted and drifted. The crosses of the gravestones stood pale above the billows, I wrapped my coat about us. The city had completely foundered. Time was dead.

  We sat so a long time. Gradually the wind began to blow stronger and shadows loomed through the grey air in front of us. I heard steps crunching and a soft murmuring between. Then the stifled strumming of guitars. I raised my head. The shadows came nearer, turned into dark figures and formed a circle. Quiet. And suddenly loud singing: "Jesus bids you come—"

  I sat up with a start and listened. What was it? where were we? On the moon? It was a choir, by Jove—a female, two-part choir!

  "Sinner, sinner, arise!" it echoed over the graveyard to the time of a military march.

  I stared at Pat. "What do you make of it?" said I.

  '"Come to the mercy seat—" it continued at a brisk pace.

  At once I realized. "Lieber Gott! The Salvation Army!"

  "Let not sin unbridled run—" exhorted the shadows anew in a crescendo.

  Lights were dancing in Pat's brown eyes. Her lips twitched and her shoulders heaved.

  Irresistibly it went on fortissimo:—

  Burning hell and fiery pain

  Are the reward of sin;

  Jesus calls—ere 'tis too late

  Come, prodigal, repent.

  "Dry up, for Christ's sake," suddenly shouted an indignant voice out of the mist.

  A moment of startled silence. But the Salvation Army was used to trouble. With renewed vigour the chorus began again.

  "What wilt thou in the world alone—" it pleaded in unison.

  "Cuddle," bawled the indignant voice again; "can't a man have peace here even?"

  "Where Satan's wiles would thee seduce—" came the sudden shrill rejoinder.

  "Like to see you old screws seduce me," was the prompt reply out of the mist.

  I exploded. And Pat could not contain herself any longer. We shook with laughter at this duel in the graveyard. The Salvation Army was aware that the benches here were the refuge of couples who did not know where else they could go to be alone in all the city's noise. So they had resolved upon a telling blow. They would make a Sunday raid to save souls. Pious, fanatical and loud the unschooled voices shrieked their message, while the guitars strummed out a steady wumba-wumba.

  The graveyard came to life. Giggles and shouts issued from the mist. Every bench seemed to be occupied. The solitary rebel of love received invisible reinforcements of like-minded men on every hand. A protest choir took shape. There must have been an old soldier among them, whom the march music had excited—for soon arose from powerful lungs the immortal song: "I have been to Hamburg and seen the blooming world."

  "Harden your hearts no longer . . ." came through shrilly from the ascetic choir once more, for the Salvation Army with its nodding shovel bonnets was in a state of extreme alarm.

  But the wicked triumphed. "My name, I will not tell it,"—from a dozen lusty throats came the ringing counterblast—"for I am a girl off the
street. . . ."

  "I think we'd better be going now," said I to Pat. "I know that song. It has a lot of verses, each steeper than the last. Come on."

  The city was there again with its clamour of horns and roar of wheels. But it still remained enchanted. The mist turned the omnibuses into great fabulous beasts, cars into prowling cats of light, and shop windows into gay caves of Aladdin.

  We went down the street skirting the graveyard and crossed the amusemant park. The roundabouts reached up into the misty air like whirling towers of music, the devil's wheel spouted purple and gold and laughter, and the maze was aglow with blue fire.

  "Blessed maze!" said I.

  "Why?" asked Pat.

  "We were together in there once." .

  She nodded.

  "It feels an endless long time ago."

  "Shall we go again now?"

  "No," said I, "not again. Would you like something to drink?"

  She shook her head. She looked lovely. The mist was like a faint perfume, that made her still more beautiful.

  "Aren't you tired too?" I asked.

  "No, not yet."

  We came to the booths with the rings and hooks. Carbide lamps with white, sputtering light were hanging in front. Pat looked at me. "No," said I, "I'm not throwing to-day. Not a single ring. Not though all Alexander the Great's schnapps cellar were to be won."

  We walked on, across the square and through the municipal park. "The Daphne indica must be somewhere about here," said Pat.

  "Yes, you can smell it already away across the lawn. Quite distinctly. Or do you think not?"

  She looked at me. "Sure," said she.

  "It must be in flower. You can smell it all over the city now."

  I looked cautiously to right and left to see if there was a seat anywhere vacant. But whether the Daphne indica was to blame or Sunday, or ourselves, I found none. Every one was occupied. I looked at my watch. It was already past twelve.

  "Come," said I. "We'll go to my place—there we will be alone."

  She did not answer, but we went back. At the graveyard we saw something unexpected. The Salvation Army had called up reinforcements. The choir was now four-deep: not only sisters, but two rows of uniformed brothers as well. The singing sounded no longer two-part and shrill, but four-part like an organ. To waltz time "Jerusalem the Golden" boomed over the gravestones.

  Of the opposition not a sound was to be heard. It was swept away. "Perseverance," as my old rector, Hillermann, used to say. "Perseverance and diligence are better than genius and license."

  I closed the door. I considered a moment. Then I switched on the light. The tube of the passage yawned yellow and hideous.

  "Shut your eyes," said I softly to Pat. "It is a sight only for rested nerves." I picked her up and at my usual stride, as if I were alone, walked slowly past trunks and gas rings to my room.

  "Dreadful, eh?" said I sheepishly, staring at the sea of plush that spread itself to greet us. The brocade armchairs, the carpet, the Hasses' lamp, were gone.

  "It isn't dreadful at all," said Pat.

  "Oh, yes it is," I replied going to the window. "But the view at least is pretty. Let's pull the armchairs to the window."

  Pat walked around the room. '"It's not so bad. Above all, it's beautifully warm."

  "Are you frozen?"

  "I like to be warm," said she. "I can't stand cold and rain."

  "Good heavens—and we've been sitting out in the mist all this time—"

  "Only makes it so much better to be here now."

  She stretched, and again with her beautiful walk made the tour of the room. I was very embarrassed and looked quickly around—thank God, there was not much lying around. My broken house-slippers I sent with a smart back kick flying under the bed.

  Pat stopped in front of the wardrobe and looked up. On top lay an old trunk which Lenz had given me. It was plastered all over with coloured labels from his travels. "Rio de Janeiro," she read; "Manaos—Santiago, Buenos Aires—Las Palmas—"

  She pushed the trunk back and came toward me. "Have you been all over there?"

  I mumbled something. She took my arm, "Come, tell me about it, tell me about all those cities, it must have been grand, to travel so far—"

  And I? I saw her before me, beautiful, young, expectant, a butterfly that by a happy accident had flown into my down-at-heels, shabby room, into my insignificant, meaningless life, with me and yet not with me—a breath merely, and it might rise and fly away again. . . . Blame me, condemn me; I couldn't, I simply could not say No, could not say that I had never been there; not yet. . . .

  We were standing by the window, the mist pressed and broke in waves against the panes—and I felt that behind it lurked again the secret, the hidden, the past things, the damp days of horror, the desolation, the filth, the shreds of a waste life, the perplexity, the misguided frittering away of strength in an aimless existence; but here, before me in the shadow, disconcertingly near, the quiet breathing, the unseizable present—warmth, clear living—I must hold it, I must win it.

  "Rio—" said I. "Rio de Janeiro—a harbour out of a fairy tale. The sea swings in around the bay in seven sweeps and the city mounts white and shining above it. . . ." I began to tell of the hot cities and endless plains, of the yellow floods of the great rivers, of shimmering islands, of crocodiles, of forests devouring roads, of the cry of the jaguar by night, as the river boat glided through the sultry, vanilla-and-orchid-scented putrefaction of darkness. I had heard it all from Lenz, but now it almost seemed as if it had been I myself, so curiously intermixed were the memory and the desire to lend some glamour to the petty and obscure nothingness of my life, in order not to lose this incredibly lovely face, this sudden hope, this blessed flowering, for which alone I was much too little. Later I could explain it all, later when I should be more, when everything was more secure—later, but not now.

  "Manaos," said I. "Buenos Aires . . ." And each word was a plea and a vow.

  Night. Outside it began to rain. The drops fell softly and gently. They no longer pattered as they had done a month ago when they encountered only the bare branches of the lime trees—now they rustled lightly down among the young, yielding leaves; they pressed toward them and ran down them, a mystic festival and secret flowing down to the roots, whence they would mount again and themselves become leaves that would again await the coming of the rain in the nights of early spring.

  It had become quiet. The noise of the street was silenced; a solitary street lamp flickered on the sidewalk. The young leaves of the trees, lighted from below, looked almost white, almost transparent, and the tops of the trees were shimmering, bright sails. . .

  "Listen to the rain, Pat—"

  "Yes."

  She lay beside me. Her hair stood out dark against the white pillow. Her face appeared very pale below the darkness of the hair. One shoulder was raised, it gleamed from some light or other like chased bronze, and a narrow strip of light fell on her arm also.

  "Just look—" said she, and lifted her hands into it too.

  "I fancy it comes from the street lamp outside," said I.

  She sat up. Now her face also was in light, it ran over her shoulders and breasts, yellow, like the glow of wax tapers, it changed, melted, flowed together, turned to orange; blue circles flitted through it, and then suddenly a warm red stood behind her like a halo, slid higher and wandered slowly over the ceiling of the room.

  "It's the cigarette advertisement across the way," said I.

  "See now how beautiful your room is," said she.

  "It's beautiful because you are here," said I. "It will never be again the room it used to be—because you have been here."

  She knelt up in bed, completely bathed in pale blue. "But," said she, "I will often be here now—often."

  I lay still and looked at her. I saw everything as in a gentle, clear sleep—relaxed, resolved, calm and very happy.

  "How beautiful you are like that, Pat. Much more beautiful than in any clothes.
"

  She smiled and bent down to me. "You must love me, Robby. Very much. I need lots of love. I don't know what I should do without love."

  Her eyes held me. Her face was close above me. It was excited, completely frank, full of a passionate strength.

  "You must hold me," she whispered, "I need someone to hold me. I shall fall otherwise. I am afraid."

  "You don't look afraid," I replied.

  "I am though. I only pretend not to be. I am often afraid."

  "I will hold you, Pat," said I, still in that unreal waking dream, that hovering clear sleep. "I will hold you right enough, Pat. You will be surprised."