Part 19

Talking to a little girl one day, I enquired of her concerning the health of her father. The next moment I could have bitten my tongue out, remembering that there wasn’t such a thing as a father—not an American father—in the whole street. She did not burst into tears as they do in the story-books. She said:

“He is quite well, thank you,” simply, pathetically, just like that.

“I am sure of it,” I replied with fervour, “well and happy as he deserves to be, and one day you will find him again; you will go to him.”

“Ah, yes,” she answered, a shining light, it seemed to me, upon her fair young face. “Momma says she is getting just a bit tired of this one-horse sort of place. She is quite looking forward to seeing him again.”

It touched me very deeply: this weary woman, tired of her long bereavement, actually looking forward to the fearsome passage leading to where her loved one waited for her in a better land.

For one bright breezy creature I grew to feel a real regard. All the months that I had known her, seen her almost daily, never once had I heard a single cry of pain escape her lips, never once had I heard her cursing fate. Of the many who called upon her in her charming flat, not one had ever, to my knowledge, offered her consolation or condolence. It seemed to me cruel, callous. The over-burdened heart, finding no outlet for its imprisoned grief, finding no sympathetic ear into which to pour its tale of woe, breaks, we are told; anyhow, it isn’t good for it. I decided—no one else seeming keen—that I would supply that sympathetic ear. The very next time I found myself alone with her I introduced the subject.

“You have been living here in Dresden a long time, have you not?” I asked.

“About five years,” she answered, “on and off.”

“And all alone,” I commented, with a sigh intended to invite to confidence.

“Well, hardly alone,” she corrected me, while a look of patient resignation added dignity to her piquant features. “You see, there are the dear children always round about me, during the holidays.”

“Besides,” she added, “the people here are real kind to me; they hardly ever let me feel myself alone. We make up little parties, you know, picnics and excursions. And then, of course, there is the Opera and the Symphony Concerts, and the subscription dances. The dear old king has been doing a good deal this winter, too; and I must say the Embassy folks have been most thoughtful, so far as I am concerned. No, it would not be right for me to complain of loneliness, not now that I have got to know a few people, as it were.”

“But don’t you miss your husband?” I suggested.

A cloud passed over her usually sunny face. “Oh, please don’t talk of him,” she said, “it makes me feel real sad, thinking about him.”

But having commenced, I was determined that my sympathy should not be left to waste.

“What did he die of?” I asked.

She gave me a look the pathos of which I shall never forget.

“Say, young man,” she cried, “are you trying to break it to me gently? Because if so, I’d rather you told me straight out. What did he die of?”

“Then isn’t he dead?” I asked, “I mean so far as you know.”

“Never heard a word about his being dead till you started the idea,” she retorted. “So far as I know he’s alive and well.”

I said that I was sorry. I went on to explain that I did not mean I was sorry to hear that in all probability he was alive and well. What I meant was I was sorry I had introduced a painful subject.

“What’s a painful subject?”

“Why, your husband,” I replied.

“But why should you call him a painful subject?”

I had an idea she was getting angry with me. She did not say so. I gathered it. But I had to explain myself somehow.

“Well,” I answered, “I take it, you didn’t get on well together, and I am sure it must have been his fault.”

“Now look here,” she said, “don’t you breathe a word against my husband or we shall quarrel. A nicer, dearer fellow never lived.”

“Then what did you divorce him for?” I asked. It was impertinent, it was unjustifiable. My excuse is that the mystery surrounding the American husband had been worrying me for months. Here had I stumbled upon the opportunity of solving it. Instinctively I clung to my advantage.

“There hasn’t been any divorce,” she said. “There isn’t going to be any divorce. You’ll make me cross in another minute.”