# The Mad Busman, and Other Stories/Little Fraulein and the Big World

... It deals with a few weeks in the life of a tiny starveling, caught and crushed between the hatreds of two countries. In this story Miss Wiley touches reality. Little can be said of it because its value is organic: its nerves and muscles cannot be dissected; it must be taken as a whole, it must be read. —The Saturday Review of Literature, 25 Sept 1926

### VI
#### Little Fräulein and the Big World

I
THE street was all grey. It was difficult to believe that there were so many tones of grey in the world. The low sky and the slanting rain, the tall, dejected houses, the shining pavements, the shop-windows, and the solitary policeman were all different and yet one-colored, so that they merged into one another and made a kind of melancholy harmony.
Even the serpent was grey.
Or, rather, it was a dragon, because it had legs—any number of them—and Fräulein Gertrude auf und zu und von Arnstein-Prütwitz—this was her full name as found in Gotha's Almanach, but fortunately most people called her Trüdchen—who had been brought up on the best fairy-stories, knew that all dragons had legs of some sort. But undoubtedly from a distance it looked more like a serpent, long and sinuous and without any of that bluff and comic violence which makes dragons almost lovable.
At any rate it was a punctual creature. Every morning at nine o'clock, when Trüdchen turned into the Kaiserstrasse—a street name that ought to have been painted out long since, but every one was too tired and worried to bother about a detail like that—there it was, and at five minutes past nine it swallowed Fräulein auf und zu and-all-the-rest-of-it, whole.
She was, as it were, almost its first morsel. But to-day things had gone wrong. They had been going wrong for a long time—ever since she could remember. It was like a tremendous toboggan-run. You started off slowly, everybody shouting and excited. Then you began to go fast—too fast—and then you lost control, and then suddenly everything seemed to go to pieces and fly off in a hundred different directions, and you knew it was the end.
This wasn't Trüdchen's description. It was her dream. The night before, it had kept on coming back. Her blanket, which was a temperamental thing full of moods and holes, was thinner than usual, and the cold had gnawed a hollow place in her middle just like that left by a sudden swoop down in an elevator. So that probably the dream was natural enough. But it was a very tiring dream, and when the grey winter's morning had crept through the grey curtains, Trüdchen hadn't wanted to get up, and when she did get up she had found a large hole in one of her long, black, woollen stockings and had begun to cry. Not loudly—hardly to notice, as you might say. The Arnstein-Prütwitzs were a very old family composed exclusively of heroes, and Trüdchen's father had worn an Iron Cross when they brought him home for the last time, and Trüdchen had learned quite early in life not to cry. But this time her mother had found her sitting on the edge of her tumbled bed, the tears trickling noiselessly down a small, white face, and the woollen stocking half off, half on, with the hole showing horribly.
Her mother had sat down beside her and held her tight. She had a letter in one hand—crunched up as though with a bitter indignation—and she, too, was trembling from head to foot.
"They don't want us, Trudi. Nobody wants us. It's all my fault, darling. I've no tact, you see. God knows what will become of us!"
And then she had caught sight of the hole and had quietly fainted.
To any one else, perhaps, it might have seemed rather absurd—fainting because of a hole in a woollen stocking. But to Trüdchen it was the only reasonable thing to do. She made no fuss about it. She just crouched down by her mother's side, stroking the pretty, faded face with its frozen look of despair, and saying "Lieb Mütterchen" over and over again as though it had been the refrain of a sad little lullaby. And indeed she did not want her mother to wake up. For when she did wake up, she would have to think about the hole, and the hole was quite hopeless—beyond repair. It was much nicer to go on sleeping.
But it so happened that Frau Hildebrandt, who ran the little haberdashery shop behind which they had their one room, came in and said, "Ach, du liebe Gott!" and picked up Frau von Arnstein in her strong arms and laid her on the bed and dashed water into her face.
"You make a cup of strong coffee, Fräulein," she commanded in her large unter-offizier's voice. "Quick!"
But Trüdchen couldn't. She could only stare hard into the empty cupboard. There wasn't any coffee. There wasn't anything (which was odd, when you realised that the Arnstein-Prütwitzs were such important people and that Frau von Arnstein Prütwitz, as an officer's widow, had a pension of so many millions that Trüdchen, who was quite good at arithmetic, couldn't count them). And then suddenly she felt frightened, as she often did. She felt she couldn't bear to see her mother's white face or tell Frau Hilderbrandt about the coffee. She took her mother's purse where it lay on the table, and her basket, and set out, walking very sedately, because of being so terribly afraid. But of course it was long past nine when she turned the corner of the Kaiserstrasse, and the dragon's head had disappeared into the baker's shop, and instead of being swallowed up, she became the last minute vertebra in the creature's tail.
It took no particular notice of her. The policeman who was there to keep an eye on its behaviour and see that it didn't get out of hand and take up too much of the pavement considered her dully. The two stout women immediately in front turned to look at her, and the raindrops from their unbrellas, which she had been anxiously avoiding, trickled down her neck.
"Ach, the little Prütwitz!" they said.
But they didn't smile. Nobody ever smiled at her, except by accident. You couldn't say that they looked angry either, but there was something at the back of their eyes which made you understand that if you touched them they would shrink away in spite of themselves. It was very puzzling, and though it had always been like that, Trüdchen never really got accustomed to it. She knew, of course, that she was a plain, disagreeable child. But then people looked at her mother, who was good and beautiful beyond question, in just the same way. And whereas Trüdchen was terribly ashamed and only wished people wouldn't look at her at all, her mother carried herself like a queen who had to live among inferior people. So that in all the little town they had only one friend—large Frau Hildebrandt who quarreled with every one.
The dragon moved terribly slowly. First it stood on one leg and then on another. It was very cold, and the rain sogged through the paper soles of its innumerable shoes. First Trüdchen's feet hurt, and then they didn't hurt at all. The dragon gave a wriggle, and its last minute vertebra was shaken loose. Trüdchen was left behind, her eyes wide with distress and astonishment. The policeman waved a gloved paw at her.
"Now then—move on there!"
It seemed to her that the dragon turned completely round to gaze at her, and her button nose grew redder with shame.
"Oh, please—I can't——"
"What's that——? Can't——?"
"Ach, bitte, Herr Polizei, I've lost my feet——"
For a minute it seemed as though every one were going to be nice. The policeman bent down, his hands on his thick thighs, and stared about solemnly as though he were really looking for something, and one of the stout women put down her basket and rubbed the spindly little legs in the darned black stockings until they became veritable pin-cushions, so full of pins that Trüdchen couldn't stand still, but performed a jerky dance like an alarmed marionette. But it was so wonderful to have people kind to her that she didn't mind.
Then suddenly it was over. They said, "Na, so ist recht!" and stood back from her and stared in just the same old way. It was as though they had remembered something they had forgotten and were thinking, "Serve you right! Serve you right!"
They were queer themselves. Even the policeman, who seemed so large and solid, made you feel that if any one touched him too roughly he might disappear altogether. And he knew. You could see the fear of it in his round, blue eyes, and the bristling, fair moustache was somehow very sad. The people were so big, and yet they weren't quite real. They were like shadows. The street was a shadow. Trüdchen could remember—or rather it was less a memory than a picture in a whole jumble of pictures—a place full of bustling confident people, tall men in gay uniforms, and grand-dukes and princes in carriages, and bands playing music that made your heart swell, and flags flying in the sunlight, and red-cheeked boys and girls and shops that still bulged with toys and cakes and real cream. Something had happened. It was as though winter had come forever.
The clock of the Lutheran Church at the end of the street boomed twelve. By this time there was nothing left of the dragon but Trüdchen, and the woman who had rubbed her legs and said "Tsh! Tsh!" at the hole in the black stocking. They stood together in the baker's shop, which had a flustered, devastated look as though it had been swept bare by a whirlwind, and the baker's wife whispered mysteriously:
"See what I have kept for you, Frau Gephardt!" She produced a stick of bread and three shiny brown Bretzeln from under the counter.. "I thought to myself, 'Na, this time the Gephardt little ones shall have a treat. It's not much they get, poor things.'"
"God knows that's true, Frau Bäckerin!"
Trüdchen stood on tiptoe. She was nearly ten, but for some reason or other she hadn't grown much, and it was hard work getting the baker's wife even to see her.
"If you please, four little breads——"
And she held out her million-mark note pleadingly.
The baker's wife stood with her arms akimbo. She had a round, tight-skinned face that must once have been pink and jolly and wasn't any more. She was fat and pale, and you felt that if any one put a pin in her she would blow up and sink to nothing, like a balloon. She had a round, hard forehead and cold blue eyes that stared down at Trüdchen with a such a lack of expression that it was like hatred.
"There isn't a crumb left," she said. "Not a crumb. Tell your Frau Mutter that if the King of England wanted four little breads he couldn't have them. So there!"
She laughed, and her laugh terrified Trüdchen, because a minute before the baker's wife had been kind and smiling. So that it was she, Trüdchen, who made people feel wicked. But she couldn't move. She stood there, peering over the edge of the counter with wide-open eyes and mouth, and from the other side she must have looked like a hungry, rather stupid little minnow. Obviously it was of no use to repeat, "Please—four little breads!" and equally obvious she couldn't go home without them. Whatever else had failed in the grey frightening world the "little breads" had always stood firm. When meat soared out of sight or butter melted like a dream, there were still the four daily "little breads"—two for dinner and one for supper and one (stale) for breakfast. And if you dipped them in your Ersatz-Kaffee, they went further and made you feel almost full.
And now they had gone, like everything else.
The baker's wife said nothing. Her lips, thin and anemic, were pressed tight together. She wouldn't explain. She wouldn't hold out any hope. She wasn't sorry. She was glad. Inside herself she was saying, "Serve you right! Serve you right!" and her eyes were colorless and cold like the eyes of a dead fish.
Trüdchen turned slowly away. Her legs didn't seem to belong to her. They waggled this way and that under her dwarfed and wizened little body. They were much too long and thin—all out of proportion, so that they made Fräulein auf und zu, with her short plaid skirt and tam-o'-shanter, look like one of those comic penwipers that you can make out а of matches, a scrap of old duster, and a ball of wool. Only somehow she wasn't funny. Even the children in the Gymnasium where she went when she was strong enough, and who hated her, didn't laugh.
The woman with the basket stood in the doorway and looked back at her. She was frowning as though she were trying to make up her mind. Her mouth trembled. She might be going to smile or cry. Her face was full of kindness. Then suddenly she remembered—as every one did sooner or later. She snapped the lid of her basket, and tossed up her head, and stumped out angrily.
But Trüdchen knew that if she had been any other little girl, something wonderful would have happened.
II
One day Trüdchen's schoolmistress had told her class the story of Robinson Crusoe, and Trüdchen had said in her prim, grave way:
"I wish I could be wrecked on a desert island."
Every one had burst out into mocking laughter. And Trüdchen had set her teeth and sat very upright, swallowing her shame.
But in her heart she knew what she meant. She knew it was the truth. There was nothing terrible in being alone with bees and flowers and even wild beasts. But it was terrible to be alone in a world crowded with people. They might jostle you and almost knock you over, and yet they never really touched you. Wherever you went there was a barrier between you and them, and nobody ever crossed it even to scold, much less take you in their arms and pet you. On the other side they quarrelled, were happy or unhappy, but at any rate they belonged to one another. You were different—it was very difficult to understand in what way, because you seemed to yourself just like everybody else and so people hated you. When you came into a shop they stopped complaining about the price of things and looked proud and aloof. The children in the Gymnasium walked away from you and played in another corner. The teachers changed their voices when they read out that you were top of the class. They couldn't hide how hard it was for them.
Sometimes it was worse than that. Sometimes in a winter's dusk, coming down on a deserted street, Trüdchen could feel how all the bitter, terrible things people hid in their hearts slipped out of their hiding-places and closed in on her. She could almost see them and their lightless, hating eyes, almost feel their hands clutching at her, tweaking at her pig tail with cruel fingers, hear their malicious whisperings. And she walked very slowly, very upright, as though she had swallowed a poker, because she was so frightened. She knew that if she began to run, she would never stop.
It was like that to-day. The winter's sky hung so low and was so grey that the street was already in twilight. The fine rain had become a deluge which had swept everybody indoors. The big drops danced on the pavements like demons. It was of no use to hug the wall. They jumped into your shoes. They dragged your clothes about you in a dank, heavy weight so that you could hardly walk. They got onto your glasses so that you were half blinded. From the pointed roofs that looked witch-like and wicked against the grey-yellow background, they came racing down together in cascades, shouting and burbling.
A great desolation was in Trüdchen's heart. She hadn't had any breakfast, and there wouldn't be any lunch or supper—unless Frau Hildebrandt took pity on them. She was wet through and cold, and there wouldn't be any fire. She thought of her mother's poor white face when she heard that there was no bread. Perhaps she would faint again. It must be very nice to faint and forget things.
A troop of schoolchildren came swarming round the corner. They wore short mackintosh capes over the square satchels strapped on their backs, so that they looked hunchbacked and uncanny in the gloomy light, like unfriendly elves. Their faces were white and pinched, without laughter, as though the cold biting rain were the last endurable exasperation. They plodded on in silence, until suddenly a boy in the yellow cap of the Tertium caught sight of Trüdchen and raised a cry.
"Sieh da—die Prütwitz—die Prütwitz——"
She had hoped for the best. If only this time they wouldn't see her! Quite often in the summer, when the sun was shining, they would leave her alone, but when they were hungry and cold, a kind of rage got into them, and they became like a pack of hounds. With a sinking heart she saw them turn about—hesitate, and then come drifting back.
"Ah—ha—die Prütwitz——!"
The terrible snigger that was always the beginning of their worst anger curled up their lips, but left their eyes cold and pitiless. They didn't look at her as though she were another child like themselves, but as though she were a strange wild beast, with curiosity and hatred. She made no attempt to escape. She stood with her back to the wall, a quaint, bedraggled figure. Her composure and prim uprightness incensed them. It looked like superiority—as though she despised them—as though they couldn't hurt her whatever they did. She was always like that—"Trüdchen-head-in-the-air" they called her—so stiff and proper and aloof. If they had seen into her wildly beating heart with its anguish of fear and loneliness, the worst of them would have slunk away. The best might have said:
"Never mind. Come on and play with us."
But if you come of a race of heroes, you keep your wretched heart to yourself.
They hadn't touched her yet. But the circle grew narrower. They began to sharpen their stubby little forefingers at her.
"Aitch! Aitch! Aitch! Die Engländerin!—What has the little pig of an English girl got in her basket?"
"Plenty to eat—plenty to eat——"
"All the English pigs have plenty to eat——"
"—So that good Germans starve——"
"Aitch! Aitch!"
Somebody twitched the basket out of her hand. But its emptiness did not appease them. The first act of violence had set them free. They pinched her—pulled her hair—twisted her arms with little, mean, quick movements. And she made no resistance, but stood there patiently, keeping her eyes fixed hard on a point just above their heads. The pain was hard to bear. It was sharp and spiteful—the kind that makes you go wild with rage and hit out blindly. But what hurt was being alone and the terrible bigness of the world.
She wanted her mother. She wanted to run to her mother and hide against her. Her mother, who was so pale and helpless, became an overshadowing, sweet figure of refuge. Only she mustn't run—and she mustn't cry. She pressed her mouth tight, and her eyes stared out round and blank through the rain-splashed glasses.
"Who killed my brother?"
"—And my father——"
"—My three brothers——"
"—Who killed her father?"
"Aitch! Aitch——!"
"P'r'aps her mother did. They say——"
Suddenly the thing she had been most afraid of happened. She couldn't bear anything any more. She was like a little mad thing with a wild, white face and lying arms and legs, hitting out frenziedly, tearing, biting—not caring. At first it was all an inextricable confusion. Everybody tumbled over every one and screamed and tried to get out of the way, for now they were frightened of her. The next minute, almost, she was through. They didn't even try to pursue her. Perhaps in a sort of way they had got what they wanted. For now she was running and crying. At least, there were no tears, but the sobs tore their way out from the very bottom of her through her open, gasping mouth. And she ran and ran, quite blindly, up one street and down another, with the rain lashing her and the wind blowing her along like a wisp of straw.
But however desperate you are, you can't run to the end of the world. There isn't any end. It's round. And so sooner or later you have to come back to your own door.
Trüdchen stood outside. People passing would hardly have seen her, she was pressed so closely against the dripping wall. She could just see through the glass top of Frau Hildebrandt's shop window, and the jumble of goods on the counter had an eerie look in the twilight. But then Trüdchen couldn't see very well. Her glasses were broken. That meant that she could never go in. Because her mother had said:
"You mustn't break your glasses, Trudi darling—not whatever you do. You see, I couldn't buy another pair."
And now they were broken. And there was a long, terrible tear in the sleeve of her reefer coat. Poor little mother! Trüdchen wished—she wished—she didn't dare to think what she wished.
A light sprang up. It leaped through the door between the shop and their one room and was gone again. The door had opened and closed. Trüdchen could see Frau Hildebrandt's bulky form looming down upon her. It was like fate. Nothing could stop her. Nothing. Ominous and heavy she came—and yet not unkind either. Just inevitable.
Trüdchen said aloud:
"Oh, please-please, don't!" though she knew it was no good.
The shop-door opened with a tinkle of the bell. Frau Hildebrandt looked up the street and down the street. And then she saw Trüdchen crouched against the wall, and stood back with a nod. Trüdchen crept in. But Frau Hildebrandt laid a heavy hand on her shoulder.
"Armes Kindchen!" she said.
She was crying.
And so Trüdchen knew that her wish had been given her and that her little mother was dead.
III
It seemed that when people are dead you forgive them everything. But it was rather difficult to understand why. What have the dead done? Perhaps the dead don't care anyway. But the living would have been so glad.
Trüdchen, in her new black dress and her black hat with crêpe and her new black shoes and stockings, couldn't help thinking how pleased and astonished her mother would have been at her own wonderful funeral. The Kriegsverein sent a deputation to walk behind the coffin with a wreath, and three officers from Hauptmann von Arnstein-Prütwitz's old regiment (in brand-new uniforms with shining epaulettes) came with another wreath and an inscription.
"To the Widow of our heroic Comrade."
The Frau Bäckerin sent a tiny bunch of flowers.
Trüdchen couldn't be really unhappy, because she felt that for the first time her poor, lonely, little mother was among friends, at peace.
On the day of the funeral there came a letter from England. Trüdchen, who had learned English from her mother, could just read it. It was very stiff and clear. It said that of course, since her German relations would have nothing to do with her, it was necessary that Trüdchen should come to England. There was money enclosed. And would whoever was looking after Trüdchen let her grandfather, Sir Ambrose Hampden, know when and where to expect her. Although it was such a simple matter-of-fact letter, any one could have told that the writer was very bitter and unhappy about something and didn't want Trüdchen in the least.
The night before Trüdchen left for England, she and Frau Hildebrandt had a long talk about it all. Trüdchen sat up very straight and stiff at Frau Hildebrandt's table and looked through her new glasses with dry eyes. Although she was so small and poor-looking physically, she had always been top of her class, and she could think things out and understand. And she wanted to understand.
Frau Hildebrandt had been servant to Hauptmann von Arnstein-Prütwitz and his young English wife when they had first married. So she knew everything. She told Trüdchen how happy every one had been. One particular Christmas she could remember. There had been a sort of gathering of the clans. The Arnstein-Prütwitz (auf und zu und von) had come, and the Hampdens had come, and there had been tremendous jollifications with toast ing, drinking and joking about "Der Tag."
"Der Tag" was to be Trüdchen's first birthday. But before "Der Tag" came they were all killing one another.
At first, the war hadn't seemed to matter so much. They wrote to one another through a neutral country, and said it was a War of Governments and that it shouldn't make any difference to individuals. Then the Hampdens' only son was killed—murdered, so her father wrote—and then one by one the Prütwitz family was wiped out, and a great, implacable bitterness spread like an ulcer. And when the young English wife wrote home, she defended her new countrymen and accused her own people, and when the old Prütwitzs came, she quarreled with them so that they never came again. She fought every one—poor, exiled, uprooted, little woman, breaking her heart, until at last she had no one in the world but Trüdchen and her husband. For him, too, there was no joy left. People said he was glad of that final bullet.
All this Frau Hildebrandt told in her own way, mopping up the last drop of her Ersatz-Kaffee with the last fragment of a Zwieback. And Trüdchen watched her and thought earnestly, trying to make everything clear to herself.
"But am I really English?" she asked.
Frau Hildebrandt opened her eyes wide in horror. "Gott bewahre! What puts such a dreadful thought in that silly head?"
"But I must be—just a little."
"Na—just a little, perhaps."
"And that's why every one hates me."
"Ach, Kindchen, it's a bad, queer world. We poor Germans—we've suffered. The English couldn't rest until they had ruined us. God knows we are kind and easy-going. But when one is always hungry, it is difficult to forgive."
"Are all the English bad, Frau Hildebrandt?"
Frau Hildebrandt fidgeted. She was a truthful woman. It went against her principles to tell lies—even to children. "Well, God made them, Kindchen. He must have had His reasons. The French are worse, perhaps."
"But my mother——?"
"Ah, there now! She was a sweet soul. If only she could have been a good German! But she couldn't. Blood is blood, my dear. You can't get away from that."
"What does it mean—blood being blood, Frau Hildebrandt?"
"Eh—what? Na, it just means you are what you are. That's what it means."
"What am I?"
Frau Hildebrandt looked across the table. A vague alarm stirred at the bottom of her good natured soul. She said solemnly and reassuringly:
"You are Fräulein auf und zu und von Arnstein Prütwitz. You must never forget that. You must carry your head high, Kindche'. You must be your father's daughter—a real German little girl."
But Trüdchen sat very still. It was of no use. She didn't ask any more questions Frau Hildebrandt wouldn't tell her the truth. She would have to find it out for herself. Even now she was beginning to understand. Because of her poor little mother there was a terrible wicked taint in her blood. So that she couldn't live any more in her own country, and her own people could never love her
IV
Perhaps going away was a little like dying. People were sorry. The Frau Bäckerin came to the station with Frau Hildebrandt and brought three Brezel.
"Because," she said solemnly, "it is a long journey, and you will be hungry."
And she was fidgety and rather cross as though she were worried about something.
Frau Hildebrandt tied a label round Trüdchen's neck with her name and English address and felt her pockets to see that the purse and the precious passport were all safe. Without the passport, evidently, one came to a bad end. And the guard took his tip and said, "Jawohl," and looked at Trüdchen earnestly so that he should recognise her. She was so small that she might be easily overlooked. And then Trüdchen sat in her corner by the window, and the platform slid away, carrying with it two stout women, one of whom was crying. And Trüdchen would have cried, too, if she hadn't been Fräulein auf-und-zu and all the rest of it, because Frau Hildebrandt, in spite of everything, was fond of her. And that was wonderful. But instead she sat stiffly with her hands in their little black cotton gloves folded on her lap, and her mouth compressed, and cried inside. Which, as everybody knows, is so much, much worse.
The carriage was jammed tight with people. They were all strangers, and yet they were so like everybody else that Trüdchen felt she knew them large grey-colored people who hardly spoke, but every now and then sighed and stirred in their places like tired cattle.
The train rumbled heavily along. It didn't go very fast. It seemed jaded and reluctant like everything else. The fir-clad hills of the Black Forest dwindled till at last their black crests just peered over the horizon, as though they were saying, "Good-by—good-by, Trüdchen," and were having a last sad look at her. Then the dusk came and wiped everything out, and presently there was nothing left but a rushing darkness and the streaming torches of the station lights as they fled past. For the train was going fast now. It was desperate. It didn't care any more.
The grey people took out bags of paper and began to eat. Under the dim lamp they looked more than ever as though they were half-dead. Trüdchen couldn't eat—not even a Brezel. There was a hollow place where her heart was—a terrible, dragging feeling as though something very important in her inside had been torn out and she were bleeding to death. Once she sobbed aloud, and the stout, kindly-looking man opposite her looked up from his Butterbrötchen in astonishment. But her eyes were dry, and she put up her hand to her mouth and said "Verzeihung" very solemnly so that he should think it had been a hiccough.
Every now and then the guard came in and took great bites out of her ticket. And each time he nodded to her and said:
"Na, wie geht's?"
And Trüdchen said, "Quite well, thank you."
He was a little, fair, bustling fellow with snappy, blue eyes, and Trüdchen thought how angry he would look if he knew the truth. It was terrible to think how every one would shrink away from her. She felt like a small black lie sitting there among all these sad, friendly people.
The stout man leaned forward. Something in his expression told her that the hiccough had been no good.
"Are you going a long way, little Fräulein?"
"Yes—sir."
"It must be very lonely."
"Yes."
"Haven't you any people?"
She shook her head. If only he wouldn't ask any more questions! Every one was looking at her so kindly. They saw that she was in mourning. Poor, forlorn, little girl! The stout man leaned across and took the label and read aloud:
"Fräulein auf und zu und von Arnstein-Prütwitz, bei Sir Ambrose Hampden, Stanten Court, Ayrsdale, Cheshire, Holland—Dover." He looked up at her, smiling, puzzled. "All that way, Mädel?"
"Yes."
"To England?"
They were all listening now. They had even stopped eating, with their Butterbrötchen halfway to their mouths, and in a minute that queer, withdrawn look would come into their faces. It was a terrible thing to be very small and belong to a family of heroes who were never afraid.
"Yes."
"Have you people there?"
And then suddenly, before she knew what she was doing, she had said in a high, squeaky voice, "My mother was English."
"Ah!—I see."
The stout man nodded and sat back. Every one went on eating. Trüdchen knew just what they felt. It was like that in class when some one had done or said something wrong. One was ashamed for them in one's very bones.
Of course, it was just chance that a few minutes later, when they slid into a big station, every one should begin to gather up their possessions. They lumbered out into the dark one after another. They didn't look at Trüdchen—except the stout man, who turned back and patted her on the shoulder.
"Poor little Fräulein," he said.
Of course—just chance. And yet it was as though they were getting up and leaving her because they couldn't bear it. Without them the carriage grew cold and filled with shadows. The whole train seemed to have died, and the guard's voice coming down the corridor had a terrifying, hollow sound.
"Passports—get your passports ready, please."
He peered in. She was so small—so blotted out in her corner—that he had to look twice before he saw her.
"I get off here. It's the French frontier. Good luck, Fräulein."
"Danke," she said. "Danke schön."
He couldn't help laughing. She was such a prim, composed little thing.
The door slammed. The train jerked forward, throwing out a long, melancholy whistle into the darkness. In a moment they would have passed over that mysterious line. Fräulein von Arnstein-Prütwitz scrambled down from her seat. She flung herself against the closed door. All the brave ancestors were forgotten. She fought with the stiff handle that wouldn't yield.
"Oh, please—please let me outlet me go home!"
She didn't know what home meant.
A French official opened the door. He stared down at her. She looked queer enough in the dingy half-light—a comic child's figure with a crêpe hat over one ear and a dead-white face and round eyes behind round spectacles.
"Passports, please."
She gave him hers. He looked at it, comparing the photograph with the original. Ugly little German brat! He gave it back to her with a malicious ceremonious touch to his képi.
"Merci, Madamoiselle."
She stood there in the middle of the carriage, very still, very upright, swallowing her gasps.
At least, she was glad that she hadn't really cried.
V
Monsieur Jules Leforges, member of the French Senate, got in at the next station. He had no idea that anything particular was going to happen to him. He arranged his traps, spread his overcoat over his knees, and folded his gloved hands over his newspaper with the air of an experienced traveller settling himself down to a comfortable journey. At first sight he looked an easy-going, genial gentleman, rather stout, with a full, grey-bearded face and sparkling blue eyes, deep-set. But at second sight one wasn't so sure. The broad shoulders were held aggressively, the mouth was tightly closed, and the eyes had a harsh, fierce stare in them even when he smiled. One plump hand was a neat replica of its companion, except that it wasn't flexible. It wasn't real.
Monsieur Leforges glanced round him, as a traveller will, to see who his fellow travellers are and whether they are likely to annoy him. He saw a little girl in the far corner by the window. He saw her, but he really couldn't be said to have noticed her. She passed in and out of his vision without reaching his consciousness, as it were. She was too small.
As to Trüdchen, she didn't see him at all. She was sitting bolt upright, with her hands clasped in her lap, staring intently at nothing.
So they chanced on each other.
Monsieur Leforges' secretary, a bright, smooth young man, glanced at her, too, and glanced away again. He liked children—particularly little girls—but he didn't care for this one. She was quite unattractive, almost half-witted looking. He smiled across at his employer, of whom he stood in some awe.
"Looks as though we might have the carriage to ourselves," he said. "A good ending to a good day, Monsieur."
Monsieur Leforges nodded. He settled his big shoulders more comfortably in their corner and made a little, growling, satisfied noise in his throat. Oh, yes, it had been a good day, a satisfying day. He saw again, in his mind's eye, that afternoon's scene in the Rathaus. He could congratulate himself. As the representative of the Republic he had behaved with dignity and restraint. No venom, no anger, none of your blustering, brutal Prussianism. He had shown them how a Frenchman behaves to a beaten enemy. He ran his tongue over his lips, as though he were remembering a delicious wine. How the leader of the deputation—little, mean rat of a fellow—had winced and cringed under his remorseless suavity!
"You ask for milk for your children, Messieurs. My little son was at Rouse during your occupation. There was no milk for French children there. And so my son died. As to your invalids, I myself was prisoner for two years in one of your camps. They amputated my arm there—without anæsthetics. It appears there was some temporary shortage, and your own people came first. Naturally. Chacun à son tour, Messieurs."
And they had withered away before him, cringing, beaten, with hollow, aghast eyes. And he had made them a little bow, perfectly courteous.
Oh, yes, that had done him good. It was like a feast after a long hunger. During those endless years of horror he had dreamed of just such a scene, rehearsing it over and over again, adding a touch here and there. As a Frenchman one had to observe the decencies. One was civilised. One used the rapier. One made elegant gestures. But one killed all the same.
Yes, very satisfying. He sighed and shifted his position. But it was like a feast that never satisfied you. You got up from the table with a kind of rage—a more terrible rage each time, so that it was difficult to restrain yourself. You saw red—you wanted to take some one by the throat. He knew that it was bad for him. It was bad for any one to be constantly frustrated. What he really wanted was to be at peace—to live in the country quietly with his wife—to keep chickens—to be a bluff and kindly fellow, loved by every one. But he couldn't go. Not until he was satisfied. It was the War. The Germans. The swine——
"The swine!" he said aloud.
His secretary leaned toward him with a little, deprecating gesture of understanding. "That's what they are—" he said, "swine!"
Monsieur Leforges threw back his head. He talked rather loudly and emphatically, as though he were addressing a public meeting:
"There must be no sentimentalism," he said. "Sentimentalists are more dangerous than scoundrels. They knock a murderer down, and then they help him up again so that he can murder some one else. We are at least a logical people. We know what the Germans are—we have experienced them in our flesh. Any man who has seen what I have seen——!"
He gave an exclamation, bitter and ironic. There was no need to convince his secretary, and yet he felt himself driven by an odd necessity to convince some one.
"Look what they have done!" he said. He threw out his hand. With swift, dramatic sentences he painted a world in ruins. He had his race's gift for self-expression, and one saw the red horror of it all—the torture, the bestiality, the grey misery. "Let them died," he said. "Let the children die. They are a bad people. They are like rats. They breed like rats. If I find a baby rat in my house, I don't wait for it to grow up. I stamp on it."
He nodded and looked about him, strong and convinced. But there was only one other person in the carriage besides the secretary—the little girl with the absurd crêpe hat over one ear, and the black gloved hands, and the dangling, black legs. She was looking at him, too. It was oddly disconcerting. Her eyes behind the round glasses stared as though they were looking beyond him to something else something terrifying. Well, that was natural. He had forgotten her. He had said things unfit for a child's ears. He shrugged his shoulders in the loose-fitting overcoat, and cleared his throat, and felt for his cigar case.. Then a whimsical kindliness over came him. After all, even a plain child was a child. He bent toward her gallantly, as though she had been a grown woman.
"Vous permettez, Mademoiselle?"
She started violently. "Ich verstehe nicht."
He sat back, frowning. German—a a German little girl.
"Ah, you don't understand French?"
"Mais—mais, oui, Monsieur."
She continued to stare at him. Was the child an imbecile, he wondered angrily. For he was very angry—bitterly, absurdly angry. He made a sound that was meant for a laugh, and grimaced at his companion with a rudeness that he had been careful not to show to that deputation. Then he lit his cigar and smoked in silence. He went on with his thoughts. But they had lost their clarity. It was as though some one had rudely interrupted him. Besides, he was tired. It had been a satisfying but a hard day. He composed himself to sleep.
But he couldn't sleep either. Each time he opened his eyes, there was the little girl in her dim corner, like a black image of an unutterable sorrow, staring at him.
VI
The train drew alongside the quay at midnight, and instantly the sleeping carriages burst into a distracted activity. The passengers leaned out of the windows and supplicated the porters, and the porters stormed along the corridors, banging the luggage against the sides and not caring in the least. Trüdchen had never seen a confusion like that. A big man in a blue-green blouse seized her Handgepäck from her and yelled a number which she didn't hear. She was quite sure that her little bag was lost forever. Nothing would ever find itself again.
It was raining. The long, slanting lines shone in the lamplight. The platform gleamed blackly. Men pushing great trolleys or staggering under impossible loads lurched in and out of the dripping darkness like lost souls. Every one looked pale and tired and irritable. The air was bitter and sticky with a strange scent. Trüdchen had never smelled the sea before. It frightened her. It lay outside her there in the night like a wild beast, waiting.
People eddied fretfully. Nobody saw the little girl in black—or if they did, they did not think about her. Of course, she belonged to somebody. They jostled her and carried her along like a piece of driftwood, to the passport barrier. Every one showed his passport. It was just a friendly formality. But when Trüdchen came, the official grew more official. He read her name out, and compared it with a list, and looked at her hard, as though he were making up his mind to remember her next time. The people behind fidgeted. Every one saw that she was different.
"A baby rat!" That was what the big Frenchman had said. You put your foot on it, and the little bones went crunch-crunch. She began to shake all over. It was very cold. And she had always been so frightened of rats. This great barn-like place might be full of them. She was a baby rat herself—black, scurrying, terrified, amid all these big people who hated her. And at any moment one of them might——
She slipped out of the shed on to the open quay. A wet wind swept across its terrifying emptiness and nearly blew her off her feet. She saw the sinister gleam of water, and lights that swung with a wicked magic in the black air. A ship loomed over her. She didn't think of it as a ship. It was a live thing full of bright eyes that stared malevolently. She hustled up a narrow plank into its very jaws. She didn't know where to go. The people round her seemed to be growing bigger and bigger. They were trampling on her. She beat against them with her hands, saying, "Oh, please—please——" trying to escape. They looked down at her, half impatient. They thought she was lost and looking for some one. But there was no one for her to look for.
Then she was quite alone in the dark. She couldn't escape. A barrier high as her head stopped her short, and underneath she could hear something talking to her very softly. She couldn't quite hear what it said, but she felt that if she listened very hard, she would understand, and she didn't want to. She put her hands to her ears and crouched down on a coil of rope, hiding.
Gradually the tumult died down. The passengers had gone to their quarters. The gangways were being withdrawn. The great ship shook itself and began to churn the water into foam. The gurgling intermittent whisper stopped and then became a hiss. They were moving. Trüdchen sat up and saw the dock lights slide away behind them. It was almost as though the land had been her home. Something inside her was being torn out.
Her teeth chattered. But she wasn't crying. Crying wouldn't ward off the horror that was creeping all around her, closer and closer. She could hear its soft, fluttering footfalls. Its myriad soft, black bodies whisked against her—rats—big rats—baby rats. Why, her father must have been a rat—a huge, horrible creature that did horrible things until at last some one had stamped on him, too. He had seemed so splendid—she had been so proud of him. Often the thought of his wonderfulness had kept her brave when she had been cold and hungry. But perhaps rats were like that. Perhaps they were proud of themselves and of each other. They didn't know how every one hated them or why—they didn't see they were different. Frau Hildebrandt and the Frau Bäckerin—they seemed like every one else—ordinary people. But you couldn't tell—you thought you were just ordinary, yourself. But you weren't—every one else knew. And they said it would have been better if you hadn't been born, so that you wouldn't grow up. They wanted to put their foot on you and crunch the life out of you, they hated you so.
The rats had hated her mother. They had hated her. There wasn't anywhere in the world where you could go—to escape——
She stood up. The ship lurched and flung her heavily against the bulwarks. She could hear the water talking to her underneath. The foam was like a white woman gliding alongside and beckoning. Perhaps her mother——
Her father and mother were dead. They were safe. When you were dead, people didn't worry about you any more. They let you go. She remembered a mouse they had killed in their house once. Her father's Bursche had trapped it in the kitchen, and every one had screamed at the poor thing, trembling and shrinking in its corner, and said, "How disgusting—how filthy!" But when it was dead—all limp and quiet and not afraid any more—they had just picked it up and put it in the dustbin and forgotten it.
It was easy to be dead. Death was just round the corner. There was little Franz Schumacher, her classmate, who had thrown himself out of the window because he couldn't do his lessons. His teachers had been so cross and cruel to him. But afterward they were sorry. They saw how unhappy he had been. They sent wreaths to his funeral.
The small rain had soaked the crêpe hat through and through, so that it hung comically about her ears. It soaked through the thin coat to her little, starving bones. But she didn't know. She didn't even know that she was thinking vast, terrible thoughts about life and death, or that she, Gertrude auf und zu und von Arnstein-Prütwitz, was trying to find a way out from men's hatred of one another.
VII
The crossing from the Hook to Southampton is an all-night affair, and Monsieur Leforges went straight down to his cabin. He was very tired. But before he had taken off his overcoat, he knew that he would not be able to sleep. It had been a wonderful day. But it often happened that after he had been peculiarly successful, he would toss the whole night through. Nerves, of course. It was high time he retired. Only a sense of duty kept him going. The war had deprived men of their youth and their old age, too.
"I shall go for a stroll on deck," he told his secretary, who intruded a sleek head to inquire after his well-being. "The fresh air will quiet me down."
The deck was deserted. The wind swept it with an invisible broom. You could see the water scud ding before it. The ship pitched heavily, and the stern lights rose and fell like the tail of a seesaw. Monsieur Leforges was an old sea-dog. He liked a storm—a fight. But to-night he was too tired. He would have been glad of a little quiet.
He pulled his cap well down, dug his hands into his pockets. He had plenty to occupy his mind—there was the meeting with an English Cabinet Minister to-morrow, and the task of telling that gentleman in the suavest possible manner that he was a sentimentalist and a fool. An amusing, satisfying task well suited to Monsieur Leforges' temper. But instead he thought about his little dead son.
There wasn't anything new in that. He was always thinking about him, but in terms of a glacial, relentless passion. He wore his memory like a hair-shirt that exasperated him to fresh energy. But to-night he thought of him as himself—as the little boy he had known. He wondered what he had looked like before the end. He must have had a small, sunken, white face and round, staring eyes. He must have looked at his captors and tyrants with just that expression of bewilderment and grief—not angry, but with the tragic resignation of childhood. And his captors had rattled their sabers and thought, "Starve and be damned to you, little French swine!"
Monsieur Leforges walked up and down, up and down. He seemed to himself utterly alone on a phantom-ship steaming to an unknown destination. A wonderful day—the culmination of all his ambition. But his heart was tired—dead tired.
What had become of her—of that little girl? How she had stared at him from her dim corner! He had seen her once since then—standing on the quay, blown about by the wind and the rain like a stray wisp of unregarded life—so utterly forlorn. He had nearly spoken to her. But not quite.
Of course, she hadn't understood a word. It wasn't likely. He had talked fast and angrily. Not a clever child either—half-witted, probably, with those round, unflinching eyes that hadn't seemed to see him at all. And yet there had been a look of rather awful understanding. Well, what did it matter? He had spoken the truth.
How old was she? She was so stunted looking you couldn't tell. Eight or ten, perhaps. She and Robert might have played together. They might have played the same games with the same toys. Children did—all over the world. There was a sort of understanding between children. Later on, something happened to them.
He stood still, staring down at the black, rolling water. He was more than tired. He was unhappy. He knew now that he was a desperately unhappy man. It seemed to him that his heart lay like an aching stone in his breast. Other people lost their children. They grew resigned. Their memories were golden and lovely. His had turned to poison. They were slowly killing him.
Oh, Robert—little Robert——
Bitter tears came into his eyes. He turned away, ashamed, and walked on. He had passed beyond the shelter of the upper deck and was battling against the full force of the wind when he saw her——
At first, he didn't believe. It was a shadow—an hallucination—a phantom among the phantoms of his brain. But his breath had stopped. Then he knew—knew with a horror of certainty that choked the cry in his throat. He was like a man in a nightmare. It seemed that whole minutes elapsed before he began to run. And then his feet were leaden. They stumbled and slipped. The wind pushed him back with invisible hands. It caught his voice and flung it behind him. All the time he could see her. She was climbing slowly, painfully. She might have been trying to climb over a stile. There was something so simple and innocent about her movements. Only the sea and the wind and the tossing ship were sinister. Now she was standing almost upright—like a small, fantastic figurehead against the flying darkness. She seemed to be looking intently at something far beneath her. Her glasses dropped off—he saw them fall—then her little hands went up, covering her eyes.
He never knew whether she heard him shout. He reached her. He caught the short, dripping skirt. He dragged her back, and she fell against him. A ship's lantern threw its ghostly light into their two faces, as they stared aghast at one another. For that moment they were not man and child, but two equals, considering the whole grief and pitifulness of existence.
Her hands were pressed against his chest. She said, simply, with an odd dignity, "Please—let me go——"
But he held her closer to him. He felt as though he were fighting her. He spoke in German—hardly knowing that he did so.
"Poor little girl—armes kleins Mädchen——"
Her arms dropped. Something seemed to break in her. He could almost hear it—like the snapping of a taut wire. The next instant she was clinging to him. The little, terrible hands groped and clutched at him as though they were seeking his very heart. And she cried. He had never dreamed that a child could cry like that. He thought her whole body must be torn asunder. And Monsieur Leforges cried, too. His own heart melted in an answering anguish.
"Don't—don't—there, it's all right now. God forgive us all——"
He sat down on the dripping coil of rope. He drew her close to him under the shelter of his coat. He kissed her. All the German tendernesses he had ever heard of came to his stiff lips. He could feel how she grew quiet—listening. She was like a little bird, warming its half-dead body against his.
"Tell me—why did you—how could you—you poor baby——"
They had forgotten the wind and the rain. They were like two lovers. They clung together. They were quite alone. For a while they were silent, and then very slowly and haltingly Fräulein Gertrude von Arnstein-Prütwitz opened her heart to Monsieur Jules Leforges.
She told him about the rats—the baby rats.
And Monsieur Leforges stared into the darkness and grieved over himself and the whole world.
VIII
Among those who waited on the station platform was a tall, grey-haired man—military in type—who looked as though the Continental train, then curling round the bend, was bringing him no happiness. He, too, was thinking of his dead son and of Gertrude auf und zu und von Arnstein-Prütwitz. He was hating her. It seemed to him an ironic insult to his grief that he should have to bring into his home a child bearing that name.
But as the great train drew to a standstill, he squared his shoulders. After all, he had made up his mind. It was his duty. He had to go through with it. He wouldn't show what he felt. Anyhow, she would be in the hands of governesses—you couldn't send a child with that name to school—not yet. He himself would go abroad.
There were few passengers. No children. He stood looking about him perplexedly. A square-built foreigner stared at him and then lifted his cap. He spoke in careful English.
"Are you, by any chance, Sir Ambrose Hampden?"
The tall man bowed.
"You are awaiting your grandchild?" the Frenchman persisted.
Sir Ambrose flinched. He had never thought of Gertrude von Arnstein-Prütwitz as a grandchild. He nodded. "She doesn't seem to be here," he said coldly.
"She is here—in my charge. But first, I want a word with you."
It was all very peremptory and astonishing. But there was something about this Frenchman—something rather desperate, as though the man didn't care what happened so long as he did what he had to do. The two strangers walked up and down the platform. The Frenchman talked rapidly with a rare but expressive gesture. The English Cabinet Minister was waiting for him. That didn't matter. And then, all at once, both men stood still, facing each other. The Englishman had not so much as lifted a hand. But he had said, "Good God!" and Monsieur Leforges drew a long breath of relief.
"So you see why I had to speak to you first. After all—I have lost my son, too. But if you do not want her—say so. She shall be in his place. I can not bear any more unhappy children."
Sir Ambrose Hampden blinked his grey lashes. "Better go and pick her up, hadn't we?" he said.
They found her sleeping in her corner. What had he expected? Some monster of insolent hideousness? He hardly knew. At least, not this little, black, crumpled heap of broken-hearted weariness. Her hat—what was left of it—lay on the seat beside her. Her head drooped. Not beautiful in any way, but with a kind of dignity—the dignity of much sorrow. He bent over her and touched her gently. Her eyes opened. They looked at him short-sightedly, and he saw that they were his daughter's eyes—his son's eyes. His own face broke like a mask. He laid his big hand on her starved one.
"Trüdchen——" he said, "—so you've come home at last!"