“Here?” Minna asked herself doubtfully. “They’ve sent me to the wrong place again!”
She peered through the gateway into the large yard, which certainly did not look very inviting with its mountains of rusty old iron, its multitude of dirty bottles and its heap of burst mattresses. “Look out!” shouted a young scamp dashing into the yard with a dog-drawn barrow, missing her by a hair’s-breadth.
Minna followed him hesitatingly. But on her asking at a shed for Fräulein Ledig she was answered readily: “She’s by the rags. Over there at the back—the black hut!”
Poor thing! thought Minna. I suppose she must be finding it hard to scrape up a bit of a living. It was frightfully dirty in the old hut, and the stink was even more frightful. With a feeling of comfort she thought of her pretty clean kitchen. And if Petra was really stuck in here, she was three times as sorry for her. “Fräulein Ledig!” she shouted into the gloom where figures crouched and dust whirled, making her cough.
“Yes?”
She wore a bluish-green overall and looked queerly changed, but there was still the simple clear face.
“Lord, Petra, child, is it really you?” said Minna staring at her.
“Minna!” cried Petra in joyful surprise. “Have you really found me then?”
(And neither had an inkling that they were suddenly using the informal “du” with each other, which they’d never done before. But that’s life: There are people who only notice how much they like each other when they meet again, after not having seen each other for a long time.)
“Petra!” And Minna, of course, at once blurted out: “Look at you! You aren’t—?”
“Yes, I am,” she smiled.
“When?”
“At the beginning of December, I think,” replied Petra.
“I must write and tell Wolfi about it at once!”
“You are not to tell him about it in any circumstances!”
“Petra,” said Minna imploringly, “you’re not angry with him, are you?” Petra merely smiled. “You don’t bear him a grudge, do you? I would never have thought it of you.” They regarded each other silently for a while in the dusty rag hut, where women monotonously sorted the rags. They looked critically, as if they wanted to see how much the other had changed. “Come out of the bad air, Petra. We can’t talk here.”
“Is he outside?” Petra thought of what Ma Krupass had once said, that she would run to him if he were standing on the other side of the street. She did not want to. Minna looked at Petra guardedly. Suddenly she knew that it was of no little importance what sort of stepdaughter she would have been. Wolfgang’s mother had already born enough sorrow.
“Do you want us to stand till we take root in this muck and filth?” cried Minna, stamping her foot. “If he is outside he won’t bite you!”
Petra turned pale. But she said firmly: “If he’s outside then I am not going out. I promised.”
“You won’t go out, eh? That’s a nice thing. You won’t go to the father of your child? Whom do you promise such things to?”
“Oh, do be quiet, Minna.” This time it was Petra who stamped her foot. “Why is he sending you, then? I thought he would have become a bit different, but that’s the way he always was. If he found anything unpleasant to do, he got others to do it.”
“You mustn’t excite yourself so, Petra. That can’t be good for it.”
“I’m not excited in the least!” said Petra, growing ever angrier. “But can you expect anyone not to be annoyed if he never learns anything and never changes? I suppose he’s crept under his mother’s skirts again. It’s all just as Ma Krupass said it would be.”
“Ma Krupass?” asked Minna jealously. “Is that the widow whose name is on the fence outside? Do you tell her all the doings of our Wolfi? I would never have thought it of you, Petra!”
“One must have someone to talk to,” said Petra firmly. “I couldn’t go on waiting for you. What’s he doing now?” And she motioned with her head toward the street.
“So you are really afraid of him and don’t want to see him?” said Minna, terribly angry. “After all, he is the father of your child!”
But suddenly it seemed as if some thought had wiped all doubt, all fear and worry from Petra’s face. Its former clear character traits were apparent again; in times of greatest distress at Madam Po’s Minna had never seen that face look either angry or tearful. And there was the old tone in her voice, the old ring. It was the ring of the old bell—trust, love, patience. Petra quietly took Minna’s shaking hand between her own and said, “You know him, too, Minna, you saw him grow up, and you know that one can’t be angry with him when he laughs and cracks his jokes with us poor women.… Your heart goes out to him straight away, you feel happy and think no more of anything he might have done to you …”
“Yes, God knows!”
“But, Minna, now he’ll have to be a father and think of others. It mustn’t just be that everyone should look happy when he is there; he must help in sharing troubles and work and also put up with an angry face sometimes, instead of running off at once for the day. And Ma Krupass is right, I’ve thought of it hundreds of times these past weeks: he must become a man before he can be a father. At present he’s merely a child whom we’ve all spoiled.”
“You are right, Petra, God knows.”
“And if I stand here with you and go all hot and cold, it isn’t because I’m angry or bear him a grudge or want to punish him! If he came in here, Minna, and gave me his hand and smiled at me in his old way, I know that the first thing I’d do would be to hug him, I’d be so happy. But, Minna, that must not be. I’ve realized that I mustn’t make things so easy for him again. In the first hour it would be wonderful, but in the next I should be thinking: Is my child to have such a spoiled darling for its father, one for whom I have no proper respect? No, Minna, God forbid! Even if I have to run away from here, run away from him and from my own weakness! I promised Ma Krupass and myself: he must first be something. Even if it’s only something quite small. And anyway I don’t want to see him at all for six months.” She paused for a moment. “But now he’s again crept under the skirts of you old women!”
“But he hasn’t, Petra!” cried old Minna joyfully. “What silly ideas you’ve got! He hasn’t done that at all.”
“Now you’re lying, Minna. You just told me yourself.”
“I said nothing of the sort! No, just come out with me now. I’ve had enough of your stink and dust.”
“I’m not going out. I’m not going to him!”
“But he isn’t outside! You’re just imagining it.”
“You said it yourself, Minna—please, let us stay here.”
“I said I wanted to write to him that you are expecting a baby. How can I want to write to him if he’s standing outside? You’re just imagining it all, Petra, because you are afraid, afraid of your own heart and afraid for the child. And because you’re afraid, everything’s all right. And now just let anyone, madam or anyone else, say anything against you—I know different. I’m glad you’ve spoken this way. I know now what I have to write to him, not too much and not too little. Now ask for an hour off and come out, there must be something like a café in the neighborhood. I pinched his letter for you, and madam didn’t say a word although she saw me. But you must give it back; you can copy it quickly if you like. Well, where shall we go? Can you get the time off?”