________________________________________________
_ Two more aborigines have appeared. One of them is a
lady aborigine. They made their entrance at supper and
I forgot to eat, watching them. The new-comers are from
Vienna. He is an expert engineer and she is a woman of
noble birth, with a history. Their combined appearance
is calculated to strike terror to the heart. He is
daringly ugly, with a chin that curves in under his lip
and then out in a peak, like pictures of Punch. She wore
a gray gown of a style I never had seen before and never
expect to see again. It was fastened with huge black
buttons all the way down the breathlessly tight front,
and the upper part was composed of that pre-historic
garment known as a basque. She curved in where she
should have curved out, and she bulged where she should
have had "lines." About her neck was suspended a string
of cannon-ball beads that clanked as she walked. On her
forehead rested a sparse fringe.
"Mein Himmel!" thought I. "Am I dreaming? This
isn't Wisconsin. This is Nurnberg, or Strassburg, with
a dash of Heidelberg and Berlin thrown in. Dawn, old
girl, it's going to be more instructive than a Cook's
tour."
That turned out to be the truest prophecy I ever
made.
The first surprising thing that the new-comers did
was to seat themselves at the long table with the other
aborigines, the lady aborigine being the only woman among
the twelve men. It was plain that they had known one
another previous to this meeting, for they became very
good friends at once, and the men grew heavily humorous
about there being thirteen at table.
At that the lady aborigine began to laugh.
Straightway I forgot the outlandish gown, forgot the
cannon-ball beads, forgot the sparse fringe, forgave the
absence of "lines." Such a voice! A lilting, melodious
thing. She broke into a torrent of speech, with
bewildering gestures, and I saw that her hands were
exquisitely formed and as expressive as her voice. Her
German was the musical tongue of the Viennese, possessing
none of the gutturals and sputterings. When she crowned
it with the gay little trilling laugh my views on the
language underwent a lightning change. It seemed the most
natural thing in the world to see her open the flat,
silver case that dangled at the end of the cannon-ball
chain, take out a cigarette, light it, and smoke it there
in that little German dining room. She wore the most
gracefully nonchalant air imaginable as she blew little
rings and wreaths, and laughed and chatted brightly with
her husband and the other men. Occasionally she broke
into French, her accent as charmingly perfect as it had
been in her native tongue. There was a moment of
breathless staring on the part of the respectable
middle-class Frauen at the other tables. Then they
shrugged their shoulders and plunged into their meal
again. There was a certain little high-born air of
assurance about that cigarette-smoking that no amount of
staring could ruffle.
Watching the new aborigines grew to be a sort of
game. The lady aborigine of the golden voice, and the
ugly husband of the peaked chin had a strange fascination
for me. I scrambled downstairs at meal time in order not
to miss them, and I dawdled over the meal so that I need
not leave before they. I discovered that when the lady
aborigine was animated, her face was that of a young woman,
possessing a certain high-bred charm, but that when in
repose the face of the lady aborigine was that of a very
old and tired woman indeed. Also that her husband
bullied her, and that when he did that she looked at him
worshipingly.
Then one evening, a week or so after the appearance
of the new aborigines, there came a clumping at my door.
I was seated at my typewriter and the book was balkier
than usual, and I wished that the clumper at the door
would go away.
"Come!" I called, ungraciously enough. Then, on
second thought: "Herein!"
The knob turned slowly, and the door opened just
enough to admit the top of a head crowned with a tight,
moist German knob of hair. I searched my memory to
recognize the knob, failed utterly and said again, this
time with mingled curiosity and hospitality:
"Won't you come in?"
The apparently bodiless head thrust itself forward a
bit, disclosing an apologetically smiling face, with high
check bones that glistened with friendliness and
scrubbing.
"Nabben', Fraulein," said the head.
"Nabben'," I replied, more mystified than ever.
"Howdy do! Is there anything--"
The head thrust itself forward still more, showing a
pair of plump shoulders as its support. Then the plump
shoulders heaved into the room, disclosing a stout,
starched gingham body.
"Ich bin Frau Knapf," announced the beaming vision.
Now up to this time Frau Knapf had maintained a Mrs.
Harris-like mysteriousness. I had heard rumors of her,
and I had partaken of certain crispy dishes of German
extraction, reported to have come from her deft hands,
but I had not even caught a glimpse of her skirts
whisking around a corner.
Therefore: "Frau Knapf!" I repeated. "Nonsense!
There ain't no sich person--that is, I'm glad to see you.
Won't you come in and sit down?"
"Ach, no!" smiled the substantial Frau Knapf,
clinging tightly to the door knob. "I got no time. It
gives much to do to-night yet. Kuchen dough I must set,
und ich weiss nicht was. I got no time."
Bustling, red-cheeked Frau Knapf! This was why I had
never had a glimpse of her. Always, she got no time.
For while Herr Knapf, dapper and genial, welcomed
new-comers, chatted with the diners, poured a glass
of foaming Doppel-brau for Herr Weber or, dexterously
carved fowl for the aborigines' table, Frau Knapf was
making the wheels go round. I discovered that it was she
who bakes the melting, golden German Pfannkuchen on
Sunday mornings; she it is who fries the crisp and
hissing Wienerschnitzel; she it is who prepares the plump
ducklings, and the thick gravies, and the steaming lentil
soup and the rosy sausages nestling coyly in their bed of
sauerkraut. All the week Frau Knapf bakes and broils and
stews, her rosy cheeks taking on a twinkling crimson from
the fire over which she bends. But on Sunday night Frau
Knapf sheds her huge apron and rolls down the sleeves
from her plump arms. On Sunday evening she leaves pots
and pans and cooking, and is a transformed Frau Knapf.
Then does she don a bright blue silk waist and a velvet
coat that is dripping with jet, and a black bonnet on
which are perched palpitating birds and weary-looking
plumes. Then she and Herr Knapf walk comfortably down to
the Pabst theater to see the German play by the German
stock company. They applaud their favorite stout, blond,
German comedienne as she romps through the acts of a
sprightly German comedy, and after the play they go to
their favorite Wein-stube around the corner. There they
have sardellen and cheese sandwiches and a great deal of
beer, and for one charmed evening Frau Knapf forgets all
about the insides of geese and the thickening for gravies,
and is happy.
Many of these things Frau Knapf herself told me,
standing there by the door with the Kuchen heavy on her
mind. Some of them I got from Ernst von Gerhard when I
told him about my visitor and her errand. The errand was
not disclosed until Frau Knapf had caught me casting a
despairing glance at my last typewritten page.
"Ach, see! you got no time for talking to, ain't it?"
she apologized.
"Heaps of time," I politely assured her, "don't
hurry. But why not have a chair and be comfortable?"
Frau Knapf was not to be deceived. "I go in a
minute. But first it is something I like to ask you.
You know maybe Frau Nirlanger?"
I shook my head.
"But sure you must know. From Vienna she is, with
such a voice like a bird."
"And the beads, and the gray gown, and the fringe,
and the cigarettes?"
"And the oogly husband," finished Frau Knapf, nodding.
"Oogly," I agreed, "isn't the name for it. And so
she is Frau Nirlanger? I thought there would be a Von at
the very least."
Whereupon my visitor deserted the doorknob, took half
a dozen stealthy steps in my direction and lowered her
voice to a hissing whisper of confidence.
"It is more as a Von. I will tell you. Today comes
Frau Nirlanger by me and she says: `Frau Knapf, I wish
to buy clothes, aber echt Amerikanische. Myself, I do
not know what is modish, and I cannot go alone to buy.'"
"That's a grand idea," said I, recalling the gray
basque and the cannon-ball beads.
"Ja, sure it is," agreed Frau Knapf. "Soo-o-o, she
asks me was it some lady who would come with her by the
stores to help a hat and suit and dresses to buy.
Stylish she likes they should be, and echt Amerikanisch.
So-o-o-o, I say to her, I would go myself with you, only
so awful stylish I ain't, and anyway I got no time. But
a lady I know who is got such stylish clothes!" Frau
Knapf raised admiring hands and eyes toward heaven.
"Such a nice lady she is, and stylish, like anything!
And her name is Frau Orme."
"Oh, really, Frau Knapf--" I murmured in blushing
confusion.
"Sure, it is so," insisted Frau Knapf, coming a step
nearer, and sinking her, voice one hiss lower. "You
shouldn't say I said it, but Frau Nirlanger likes she
should look young for her husband. He is much younger as
she is--aber much. Anyhow ten years. Frau Nirlanger
does not tell me this, but from other people I have found
out." Frau Knapf shook her head mysteriously a great
many times. "But maybe you ain't got such an interest in
Frau Nirlanger, yes?"
"Interest! I'm eaten up with curiosity. You shan't
leave this room alive until you've told me!"
Frau Knapf shook with silent mirth. "Now you make
jokings, ain't? Well, I tell you. In Vienna, Frau
Nirlanger was a widow, from a family aber hoch edel--very
high born. From the court her family is, and friends
from the Emperor, und alles. Sure! Frau Nirlanger, she
is different from the rest. Books she likes, und
meetings, und all such komisch things. And what you
think!"
"I don't know," I gasped, hanging on her words, "what
DO I think?"
"She meets this here Konrad Nirlanger, and
falls with him in love. Und her family is mad! But
schrecklich mad! Forty years old she is, and from a
noble family, and Konrad Nirlanger is only a student from
a university, and he comes from the Volk. Sehr gebildet
he is, but not high born. So-o-o-o-o, she runs with him
away and is married."
Shamelessly I drank it all in. "You don't mean it!
Well, then what happened? She ran away with him--with
that chin! and then what?"
Frau Knapf was enjoying it as much as I. She drew a
long breath, felt of the knob of hair, and plunged once
more into the story.
"Like a story-book it is, nicht? Well, Frau
Nirlanger, she has already a boy who is ten years old,
and a fine sum of money that her first husband left her.
Aber when she runs with this poor kerl away from her
family, and her first husband's family is so schrecklich
mad that they try by law to take from her her boy and her
money, because she has her highborn family disgraced, you
see? For a year they fight in the courts, and then it
stands that her money Frau Nirlanger can keep, but her
boy she cannot have. He will be taken by her highborn
family and educated, and he must forget all about his
mamma. To cry it is, ain't it? Das arme Kind! Well,
she can stand it no longer to live where her boy is,
and not to see him. So-o-o-o, Konrad Nirlanger he gets
a chance to come by Amerika where there is a big
engineering plant here in Milwaukee, and she begs her
husband he should come, because this boy she loves very
much--Oh, she loves her young husband too, but different,
yes?"
"Oh, yes," I agreed, remembering the gay little
trilling laugh, and the face that was so young when
animated, and so old and worn in repose. "Oh, yes.
Quite, quite different."
Frau Knapf smoothed her spotless skirt and shook her
head slowly and sadly. "So-o-o-o, by Amerika they come.
And Konrad Nirlanger he is maybe a little cross and so,
because for a year they have been in the courts, and it
might have been the money they would lose, and for money
Konrad Nirlanger cares--well, you shall see. But Frau
Nirlanger must not mourn and cry. She must laugh and
sing, and be gay for her husband. But Frau Nirlanger has
no grand clothes, for first she runs away with Konrad
Nirlanger, and then her money is tied in the law. Now
she has again her money, and she must be young--but
young!"
With a gesture that expressed a world of pathos and
futility Frau Knapf flung out her arms. "He must not
see that she looks different as the ladies in this
country. So Frau Nirlanger wants she should buy
here in the stores new dresses--echt Amerikanische.
All new and beautiful things she would have, because
she must look young, ain't it? And perhaps her boy
will remember her when he is a fine young man, if
she is yet young when he grows up, you see? And too,
there is the young husband. First, she gives up her old
life, and her friends and her family for this man, and
then she must do all things to keep him. Men, they are
but children, after all," spake the wise Frau Knapf in
conclusion. "They war and cry and plead for that which
they would have, and when they have won, then see! They
are amused for a moment, and the new toy is thrown
aside."
"Poor, plain, vivacious, fascinating little Frau
Nirlanger!" I said. "I wonder just how much of pain and
heartache that little musical laugh of hers conceals?"
"Ja, that is so," mused Frau Knapf. Her eyes look
like eyes that have wept much, not? And so you will be
so kind and go maybe to select the so beautiful clothes?"
"Clothes?" I repeated, remembering the original
errand. "But dear lady! How, does one select clothes
for a woman of forty who would not weary her husband?
That is a task for a French modiste, a wizard, and a
fairy godmother all rolled into one."
"But you will do it, yes?" urged Frau Knapf.
"I'll do it," I agreed, a bit ruefully, "if only to
see the face of the oogly husband when his bride is
properly corseted and shod."
Whereupon Frau Knapf, in a panic, remembered the
unset Kuchen dough and rushed away, with her hand on her
lips and her eyes big with secrecy. And I sat staring at
the last typewritten page stuck in my typewriter and I
found that the little letters on the white page were
swimming in a dim purple haze. _
Read next: CHAPTER X - A TRAGEDY OF GOWNS
Read previous: CHAPTER VIII - KAFFEE AND KAFFEEKUCHEN
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