“Not much has come of that for me with younger ladies,” I explained. “These days a woman can rarely find a relationship with a poor man.”
“Yes, I’m very sorry,” she said, “that I wasn’t able to make my proposal more attractive to you.”
“No, madam, don’t be sorry,” I consoled her. “You did all you possibly could, but it’s not a matter of you or your lovely proposal; only of me, believe me. I have undertaken to try and stand on my own feet for once, but, permit me, my attempt won’t remain just an intention. However, if the day ever comes when I really need help, then you, my dear lady, will be the first one I turn to.”
“Do you promise?” she asked, almost moved.
“I promise,” I said.
“Then I forgive you all your sins,” said the lady, with a lightened heart.
And so we parted to meet again very rarely and fleetingly, although we lived in the same house, and heard each other’s footsteps on the stairs or elsewhere. But if I believed that the matter was now settled and peace would prevail in the house, I was soon to discover my error. It was no time before a new emergency occurred: the trouble with a servant I described earlier. And what the landlady failed to achieve was achieved by her maid, and one might say that she did it almost with ease, only because she was in my opinion so shabby and pitiful – even shabbier and more pitiful than I was myself in my own opinion at the time. Yet that secret bringing of food for me became more embarrassing and repellent every day, partly because I thought that sooner or later the landlady would find the servant out, and how could I then show my face or move about the house! So one day I said to the maid, let today be the last time, I wouldn’t eat her stolen food any more, because I no longer needed it.
“So, sir, you’ll start coming down to lunch again?” asked the maid.
“Why would I come down?” I responded, astonished because I was struck by the thought that it didn’t matter whether I ate with the others downstairs or alone upstairs. “How can you even ask?”
“Why can’t you then, if you say I shouldn’t bring you any more food?” replied the girl.
“I’ll eat elsewhere,” I said.
“How come elsewhere, all of a sudden?” asked the girl, uncomprehending. “But where am I supposed to put this food? Who’ll eat it up?”
“But you said you have a cat or a dog,” I exclaimed.
“The cat has run away God knows where, or some dog has killed it, and I don’t dare to give any more to the dog, the lady strongly forbade it. She said the dog will get fat and sleepy, won’t hear anything or bother to bark when it needs to.”
“Well, then eat it yourself, but don’t bring me any more,” I said.
“No, I won’t eat such fatty food as our landlady makes,” said the girl.
“Then throw the food in the rubbish bin, but leave me in peace!” I finally shouted, because the girl was like an annoying fly or mosquito, buzzing around my ear.
“Fatty food like our landlady makes can’t be thrown in the bin,” exclaimed the girl, standing by the door. “And they’ll soon find the chunks of meat, and it’ll finally come out that I’ve been taking them.”
“But for pity’s sake, what’s it got to do with me?” I turned on the maid.
“How can it not have, when up until today you’ve been eating up everything I brought you?” the girl replied with a very naive expression.
“I told you – I won’t eat any more, and that’s that!”
“But what am I supposed to do?” asked the girl in desperation.
“Do whatever you like,” I replied. “The simplest thing would be to tell the lady that you can’t eat such fatty food, and ask for something leaner instead.”
“I can’t do that,” exclaimed the girl, “because then she’ll ask straight away, ‘How have you been able to eat until now?’ And I can’t answer, ‘I didn’t eat it, I gave it to the dog.’ Sir, you don’t know our landlady. If I told her that I’d given the roast chops, beefsteaks, cutlets and meatloaves she’s been cooking to the dog, first she would knock me to the floor and then she would drive me out the door with my rags. Nor can I say that I’ve been secretly bringing food up to you and you’ve been eating it.”
“Well I never!” I shouted. “If you really do, Loona, I’ll wring your neck, remember that. Crying and begging me like a heap of misery, and when I finally accept, then…”
“No, sir, when you accept, as you did until today, then I don’t say anything, but then I don’t need to, but if you don’t accept any more, then I don’t know what…”
“I don’t, that is as certain as an ‘amen’ in church,” I interrupted her.
“Then I really don’t know what to do. I’ll have to look for a new position, I suppose, I have no other choice,” said the girl, and started to cry.
“Loona, you’ve gone crazy!” I shouted, getting up from my chair and stepping over to her. “Because the mistress makes such fatty food, you have to look for a new job, is that it? Come to your senses, for goodness sake.”
“You won’t eat the food because I bring you it; if someone else did…” she snuffled.
“Believe me, Loona, I wouldn’t take that food from anyone,” I consoled her.
“So you want me to go away from here,” she went on crying.
“No, I only want you to leave me alone … stop bringing this food.”
“But I can’t do that anyway if I have to look for a new job,” sniffled the girl. “I’ll have nothing else to say to the lady but that you won’t accept food any more.”
“Devil take you – look for a new job!” I shouted.
“But there are no jobs like this to be found anywhere!” whined the girl. “There are no jobs to be had if I go looking, because no one will have me.”
“What the devil can I do about it?” I said forcefully, because the business was starting to annoy me. “In the end, if you have no other way out, go and tell madam that you stole food from her and brought it secretly to me. And so that it would be more believable and likely, you can add that you’ve been coming up here to sleep or that I encourage you steal the food.”
Now the girl’s heart was full, and she suddenly turned to me, looked straight at me angrily with wet eyes and said, “I’m not a liar and a cheat, as you think, that I should say such things about myself and others. And I haven’t been stealing either. If I have lied, it was only on madam’s orders and from what she taught me.”
Suddenly I felt my heart going cold in my chest, as if something icy had been put around it. Only after a little while did I dare to ask, “So what was your lie about from the lady’s instructions?”
“Do you really believe, sir, that it was my idea to start bringing up food for you?” she responded in amazement.
I looked at her like a pillar of salt, then turned around and sat down in a chair.
“What a swine!” I finally blurted out through clenched teeth. “What wretchedness!”
“That’s what I say too,” the girl agreed. “It’s simply a sin to lie and cheat like that!”
“But why did you do it then, the devil take you?” I shouted, turning around in my chair and looking angrily at the girl.
“The lady told me to,” she replied. “First of all the lady asked me if I liked you at all, sir, and when I answered that I do – for what was I supposed to say? – she went on and asked if I wanted you to stay alive, sir, and when I answered that I did – for why would I wish you dead? – the lady said that you had had two big misfortunes, sir, that might kill you if the two of us, meaning the lady and me, didn’t come to your aid.”
“What misfortunes were those supposed to be?” I asked, feeling ice around my heart again.
“You lost your job, sir, and your girlfriend left you,” replied the girl.
“I did lose my job, but I don’t know anything about a girlfriend,” I exclaimed.
“No, madam said that your girlfriend had left you, sir,” affirmed the girl, “and by girlfriend she meant our miss, who came here before Christmas. Madam also said she was a baroness.”