Then he took the paper knife and slowly, one might say luxuriously, inserted the blunt point into the small gap under the flap. His gaze was intent; a light, satisfied smile hovered about his thick lips. Yes, he could open the letter. By careful pushing, lifting, pressing, he loosened the carelessly stuck flap and saw a corner of the writing. There were tiny fibers which did not want to yield—but at the same time he saw Vi as he had just seen her on the deck chair … She stretched her body, her plump white flesh quivered … she threw up her arms and tiny curls glistened in the armpits.…
Black Meier groaned.
He was staring at the letter which he had opened meantime—but he was absent, half a mile away on a flat sun-baked roof—flesh to flesh, skin to skin, hair to hair. “Dearest!”
A wave subsided, shining with the colors of beautiful, living human flesh lit up by the evening sun.… Black Meier groaned again. “Well, I never,” he wondered. “That bitch must have made me quite crazy. But it’s the heat as well.”
The envelope had opened without tearing. It would not be necessary to gum the flap—Fräulein Violet had fastened it so carelessly. Well, let us read it.… But first he wiped his hands on his jacket—they were wet with perspiration again.
He drew the paper out of the envelope and unfolded it. The letter was not very long but, for all that, it was full of meat.
Dearest! My dearest darling! My only one! You have only just gone and again I am quite crazy about you. I tremble all over and vibrate, so that I have to shut my eyes over and over again. Then I see you. I love you sooo much. Papa definitely does not come home today, so I will wait for you between eleven and twelve at the pond by the swan-house. See to it that the silly meeting is finished by then. I am longing so terribly for you.
100,000,000 kisses and even more. I press you to my heart which beats quite madly.
Yours, VIOLET.
“God,” said little Meier and stared at the sheet. “She really loves him. Loves him so with three o’s and yours underlined. A kid still wearing her nappies! He’ll play her up. Well, all the better.”
He copied the letter on the typewriter, meticulously counting the noughts in the sum of kisses. (“Sheer inflation—she’s up to date”) and refastened the envelope.
The copy he put into Volume 1900 of the District Gazette, the letter itself in his coat pocket. And now he was completely satisfied. And quite ready to carry on with the farming. He looked at the barometer. It had again dropped a little.
Would there be a storm? Should he get in the crop? Nonsense, she was talking rubbish.
He went out to his mowing machine.
VII
“I thought you would look me up today, my poor Mathilde.”
Frau von Anklam, over seventy, the white-haired and shapeless widow of a major general, had emerged with difficulty from the easy-chair in which she was passing her afternoon nap. She held her visitor’s hand in hers and looked compassionately and anxiously out of her large brown eyes, still beautiful. At the moment she spoke in a dramatic manner, as if at a death; but she could also speak in another key—that of the regimental commander’s wife who keeps the ladies of the regiment in order and propriety.
“We’re getting old, but our burdens don’t lighten. Our children tread on our laps when they are young. Later, on our hearts.”
(Frau von Anklam had never had children. Nor could she bear with them.)
“Come, sit on the sofa, Mathilde. I’ll ring—Fräulein will bring us coffee and cake. Today I sent out for a Hilbrich cake; he still has the best. Only it isn’t worthwhile for myself alone—forty thousand marks in fares, you understand, forty thousand! Robbers, that’s what they are. Yes, Fräulein, pastry and coffee, very strong—my cousin has had bad news. Yes, dear Mathilde, I’ve been sitting in my chair and thinking about things. Fräulein thinks I’ve been sleeping, but of course I haven’t. I hear every sound in the kitchen, and when a plate’s broken in the washing-up I’m there at once. Does your Minna break much, too? It’s still the old Nymphenburg china which Grandfather Kuno received on his diamond wedding from the dear late Emperor—there’s enough left for an old woman, but one has to think of one’s heirs. I really promised it to Irene, but lately I’ve not been sure. Irene has such strange views about the bringing-up of children. Perfectly—how shall I describe it?—revolutionary.”
“And the news is absolutely true, Betty?” asked Frau Pagel, erect and slender. However sympathetic a close relative might be, it could not be told from her face and behavior that she had wept.
“The news? What news? Oh, the news. But dear Mathilde, when I especially wrote to you about it.” This rather as commander’s wife, but yet sympathetic. “Certainly it’s true. Eitel-Fritz happened to be there and read it with his own eyes. The banns, they call it, don’t they? Not that I know what business he had there, of course. I was so excited that I didn’t ask him. But you know Eitel-Fritz, he’s so original, he goes to the oddest places. Attention! La Servante!”
Fräulein appeared with the tray and the coffee set of Nymphenburg china from grandfather’s diamond wedding. The ladies became silent. Without a sound, Fräulein, elderly and mouse-gray, laid the table.
She was always “Fräulein”—all these changing faces were nameless at Frau Major General von Anklam’s. Fräulein set the table, and Fräulein darned. Fräulein read aloud and Fräulein described something; above all, Fräulein listened. Fräulein listened from morn till even. Stories of regimental ladies long dead and forgotten (“I told her: ‘Dear child, I decide what tact is’ ”); stories of children long ago in possession of their own children (“And then the sweet little angel said to me”); stories of relatives long alienated; tales of promotion and dismissals; of orders and decorations; of wounds; of marriage tangles and divorces—the rag, tag, and bobtail of a life spent entirely in gossip and tittle-tattle about intimate, the most intimate, things.
Fräulein, colorless and mouse-gray, listened, said: “Yes,” “Oh, no,” “Really,” “Charming”; but when Her Excellency had visitors she heard nothing. Frau Major General whispered with the last remnants of her Lausanne finishing-school French: “Attention! La Servante!” and the ladies fell silent. When there were visitors Fräulein had no existence, as was fitting. (When the visitors were gone everything was recounted to her.)
But after the first silence Frau von Anklam did not remain silent by any means—that was not done either. She talked of the weather. (“It is close today, perhaps we shall have a storm; perhaps yes, perhaps no.”) She’d once had a Fräulein with rheumatic twinges in her big toe before a storm—very strange, was it not?
“It always came true, and once when Fräulein was on her holiday (you know we had our estate at that time) we had a tremendous hailstorm which smashed down the whole crop. Well, if Fräulein hadn’t been on holiday we should have known about it in advance-and that would have been so good, wouldn’t it, dear Mathilde? But, of course, Fräulein was on her holiday.”
“Yes, everything is all right, Fräulein, thanks. You may now press the lace frill on my black taffeta dress. It’s already pressed I know, Fräulein. It’s not necessary to tell me that. But it’s not done as I like it. I like it to be as light as a breath of air. Fräulein, as light as air! So please do that, Fräulein.”
And the door had hardly closed behind Fräulein before Frau von Anklam turned sympathetically to Frau Pagel. “I’ve considered and reconsidered the matter, dear Mathilde, and I stick to my opinion. She is simply a low, vulgar creature.”