Ehrestadt lies in a plain.
The walls of the old city have been
leveled into broad promenades, shaded with nut-trees,
encircling the town as with a girdle of green.
Beyond, a new city has sprung up, spreading like a
mushroom; but within the girdle the streets are narrow
and crooked, and the houses gabled; leaning to one
another as if seeking support for their ancient foundations,
with only a line of sky in between.
At the corner of the promenade, just
where the old city and the new city meet, is a tumble-down
mill. It is called the Nonnen-Muehle, and it
has been there ever since Ehrestadt first came into
existence, as is evident from the bulging of the walls,
and the wood of the casements, rotten and worm-eaten.
The river winds underneath it, and the great spoked
wheel turns slowly, tossing the water into a cloud
of yellow foam, flinging the spray afar into the dark,
flowing stream, catching it again; playing with it,
half sportive, half fierce, like some monster alive.
As the wheel turns, the sound of its
teeth grinding is steady and rhythmical, like a theme
in the bass; and the river splashes the accompaniment,
gurgling and sighing in a minor key, as if in complaint.
It was Johannestag.
The citizens of Ehrestadt were walking
on the promenade, dressed in their best; the men strutting,
the women hanging on their arms, the children toddling
behind. In the square a band was playing; the
nut trees were in full leaf, and the air was warm
and sweet with the scent of the rose buds. The
wheel of the mill had stopped.
Just under the peak of the roof was
a small window gabled, with a broad sill, and casements
that opened outwards, overlooking the promenade.
The sill was scarlet with geraniums, and the window
itself was grown partly over and half smothered in
a veiling of ivy. Behind the window was a garret,
small like a cell; the roof sloping to the eaves.
There was nothing in the garret excepting
a pallet-bed in the corner, under the eaves, and in
the opposite corner a box on which stood a pitcher
and basin; the basin was cracked; the pitcher was without
a handle. On the wall hung a few articles of
clothing on pegs; and the slope of the roof was grey
and misty with cob-webs. Otherwise the garret
was bare.
Sitting by the window with her elbows
on the sill, framed by the ivy and the geraniums,
was a girl. Her head was propped in her hands,
and her hair glittered gold in the warm sun-light
against the green and the scarlet. She was gazing
eagerly over the throngs on the promenade, and her
blue eyes were alert as if searching for some one.
She was young and slim, and her gown
was shabby, turned back at the throat as if she suffered
from the heat; and her hair was cropped, lying in
little tendrils of gold on her neck, curling thickly
about her ears and her brow. Her cheeks were
quite pale, and there was a pinched look about the
lips, dark shadows under the eyes. She gazed
steadily.
“If I could only see him,”
she murmured to herself, half aloud, “just once if
I could see him!” Her lip trembled a little
and she caught it between her teeth: “It
is seventeen weeks a hundred and nineteen
days since we parted,” she said, “At
daybreak on Thursday it will be a third of a year a
third of a year!”
She moved her head uneasily on her
hands, and hid her eyes for a moment against the leaves
of the ivy, as if blinded by the sun-beams; “Sooner
or later he was sure to come here,” she murmured,
“All musicians come here; but when I saw his
face on the bill-board to-day and his name !”
She crouched closer against the sill, and the leaves
of the ivy fluttered from the hurried breath that
came through her lips, shaking them as with a storm.
“If he were there on the promenade,”
she said, “and I saw him walking, with his violin,
his head thrown back and his eyes dreaming Ah!”
She drew in her breath quickly and a little twist
came in her throat, like a screw turned. She
half closed her eyes.
“Ah Velasco!
My arms would go out to you in spite of my will; my
lips would cry to you! I would clinch my teeth I
would pinion my arms to my side. I would hide
here behind the casement and gaze at you between the
leaves of the geraniums and you would never
know! You would never know!”
She put both hands to her bare throat
as if to tear something away that was suffocating,
compelling; then she laughed: “He is an
artist,” she said, “a great musician,
feted, adored; he is rich and happy. He will
forget. Perhaps he has forgotten already.
It would be better if he had forgotten already.”
She laughed again strangely, glancing about the
garret with its low eaves, and the cob-webs hanging;
at the pallet, and the cracked basin, and the pitcher
with its handle missing.
The doves came flying about the mill,
twittering and chirping as if seeking for food on
the sill; clinging to the ivy with their tiny, pink
claws, looking at her expectantly out of their bright,
roving eyes, pruning their feathers. The girl
shook her head:
“I have nothing for you,”
she said, “No not a crumb. The
last went yesterday. Poor birds! It is
terrible to be hungry, to have your head swim, and
your limbs tremble, and the world grow blind and dim
before your eyes. Is it so with you, dear doves?”
She rose slowly and a little unsteadily,
crossing the garret to the pegs where the clothes
hung.
“There may be a few Pfennigs
left,” she said, “without touching that.
No no, there is nothing!”
She felt in the pockets of the cloak,
pressing deep into the corners with the tips of her
fingers, searching. “No,” she repeated
helplessly, “there is nothing; still
I can’t touch the other not to-day!
I will go out and try again.”
She took down the cloak from the peg
and wrapped it about her, in spite of the heat, covering
her throat. There was a hat also on the peg;
she put it on, hiding her yellow curls, and drew the
veil over her face.
“If I could only get a hearing!”
she said to herself, “There must be someone
in Ehrestadt, who would listen to my voice and give
me an opening. I will try once more, and then ”
She buttoned the cloak with her fingers
trembling, and went out.
“Is the Herr Kapellmeister in?”
“Yes, Madame.”
The rosy cheeked maid hesitated a
little, and her eyes wandered doubtfully from the
veil to the cloak and the shabby skirt.
“Kapellmeister Felix Ritter, I mean.”
“He is in, Madame, but he is engaged.”
“May I come in and wait?”
The maid hesitated again: “What name shall
I say, Madame?”
“My name,” said Kaya, “is Mademoiselle
de de Poussin.”
The German words came stumbling from
her lips. She crossed the threshold and entered
a large salon, divided by curtains from a room beyond.
There was a grand piano in the corner of the salon,
and about the walls were shelves piled high with music;
propped against the piano stood a cello.
Kaya looked at the instrument; then
she sank down on the divan close to the piano, and
put out her fingers, touching it caressingly.
From the next room, beyond the curtain, came the
sound of cups rattling, and a sweet, rich aroma as
of coffee, mingling with the fragrance of cigars freshly
lighted.
The girl threw back her veil, scenting
it as a doe the breeze when it is thirsty and cannot
drink. She smiled a little, still caressing the
keys with her fingers. “It is strange to
be hungry,” she said, “The Countess Mezkarpin
was never hungry!” Then suddenly she started
and turned white to the lips, swaying forward with
her eyes dilated.
From behind the curtain came voices
talking together; one was harsh and rather loud, and
the other Kaya’s eyes were fixed
on the curtain; she rose slowly from the divan and
crept forward on tip-toe, a step at a time.
The other! She listened. No, it was
the harsh voice talking rapidly, loudly in German,
and what he was saying she could not understand; then
came the clatter of cups again, and silence, and a
fresh whiff of cigar smoke floating, wafted through
the curtain.
She crept closer, still listening,
her hands clasped together, the cloak flung back from
her shoulders.
“The other there!”
She put out her hand and touched the
curtain, pulling it aside slightly, timidly, and pressing
her face, her eyes to the opening. She was faint
for a moment and could see nothing; there was a mist
before her eyes and the smoke filled the room; then
gradually, out of the mist, she saw a grey-haired
man with his back to the curtain, and he was bending
forward with a coffee cup to his lips. Beside
him, facing her, leaning far back in his chair, with
his cigar poised and his eyes half closed, his dark
head pressing restlessly against the cushion was
“Oh, my God!” she breathed, “My
God, it is Velasco!”
For a moment she thought she had screamed;
and she covered her eyes waiting, sick, frightened,
her heart throbbing. Then she forgot where she
was and thought only of him, and a strange little thrill
went over her; she shivered slightly, and it seemed
to her as if already she was in his arms; and when
she heard his voice, it was calling to her, crying
her name.
“Yes yes, it is Kaya! I
am here!” she was saying, “Come to me Velasco!
Velasco!”
Already she was stumbling into his
arms; she was clinging to him and then
she awoke. Her brain cleared suddenly and she
knew that she had not moved; no sound had come from
her lips. She was standing like a statue, dumb,
with her hands clasped, gazing; and Velasco lay back
in his chair with his eyes half closed, blowing a
wreath from his cigar, watching it idly as it floated
away, listening as the harsh voice of his host talked
on not five feet away! If she stretched
out her hand, if she sighed or moved the
curtain Ah!
She struggled with herself.
She was faint; she was weak with hunger; she was alone
and desolate and he loved her. She
fought madly, desperately. It was as if two
creatures were within her fighting for life; and they
both loved him.
When the one grew stronger, her eyes
brightened and her pulses quickened; it was as if
she would leap through the curtain, and her heart
was sick for the touch of his hand. Then she
beat down the longing and stifled it, and the other
self came to the front and gripped her scornfully,
pointing to her hands with the blood on them, her
soul with its curse. Was her life to mingle with
his and ruin it, and bring it to shame?
“Never,” she breathed,
“Never! So long as I live!” And
the self of her that loved him the most crushed the
other self and smothered it strangled it.
She gazed at him through the curtain,
and it seemed to her that something within her was
gasping and dying. And suddenly she turned and
ran from the curtain, clasping her cloak to her bosom
and running, stumbling, out of the room, the house,
the street.
The promenades were gay with people
and crowded. The men strutting along in their
Sunday clothes, the women hanging on their arms, the
children toddling behind. The band was playing
on the square. It was warm and the sun was shining;
the air was sweet with the scent of the rose buds.
Kaya fled past them all like a wraith.
They turned and stared after her, but she was gone.
She climbed the stairs of the mill to the roof, and
opened the door, and shut it again, and fell on her
knees before the box. The pitcher was there
without a handle, and the basin cracked. She
lifted them away and opened the box.
In it lay a velveteen jacket folded,
a scarf, scarlet and spotted. Inside the scarf
lay a mass of coins, copecks, ten, twenty hundreds
of them, and roubles round and heavy. She fingered
them tenderly, one after the other, then thrust them
aside.
“To-morrow ”
she said, “I have come to that to
live on a gypsey’s wages! I can sing no
longer; I can only dance and pass the cap and
give the copecks for bread for bread!
I thought some day when I was old, when
we were both old, I would show them to Velasco,
and he would remember and laugh: ‘Ah, that
was long ago,’ he would say, ’when I was
a boy, and you were a boy, and we tramped together
through the cold and the snow and I loved
you, and you loved me! Ah it
was sweet, Kaya! I have lived a long life since
then, with plenty of fame, and success, and happiness and
the years have been full; but nothing quite so sweet
as that! Nothing quite so sweet as
that!’”
She was sobbing now and staring into
the box: “To-morrow,” she said, “I
will buy some bread and feed the doves and
soon it will be gone!” She began to count the
coins rapidly, dropping them through her fingers into
the scarf; and as she counted she smiled through her
tears.
“We earned it together he
and I!” she said, “He played and I danced.
He would like me to live on it as long as I can, and
then after that he will not blame
me!”
Her body swayed slightly and she fell
forward against the box. The sun shone on the
geraniums; and on the sill, the doves pecked at the
worm-eaten casement, clinging to the ivy with their
tiny claws, gazing about with their bright, roving
eyes and cooing.
Below, the water splashed against
the wheel; but it was silent.