Edna Ferber

“ Vienna for you, and Milwaukee and cheese sandwiches for me. Please pass the mustard.”
But the hold on my wrists grew firmer. Von Gerhard’s eyes were steady as they gazed into mine. “Dawn, Vienna, and the whole world is waiting for you, if you will but take it. Vienna—and happiness—with me—”
I wrenched my wrists free with a dreadful effort and rose, sick, bewildered, stunned. My world—my refuge of truth, and honor, and safety and sanity that had lain in Ernst von Gerhard’s great, steady hands, was slipping away from me. ”

“ Around its edge were flutings and scrolls of white icing, and on its broad breast reposed cherries, and stout butterflies of jelly, and cunning traceries of colored sugar. It was quite the dressiest cake I had ever beheld. Surely no human hand could be wanton enough to guide a knife through all that magnificence. But in the center of all this splendor was an inscription in heavy white letters of icing: “Charlottens Geburtstag.”
Reluctantly I tore my gaze from this imposing example of the German confectioner’s art, for Blackie was tugging impatiently at my sleeve. ”

“ I have a husband.”
“You can call that unfortunate wretch your husband! He does not know that he has a wife. He will not know that he has lost a wife. Come, Dawn—small one—be not so foolish. You do not know how happy I will make you. You have never seen me except when I was tortured with doubts and fears. You do not know what our life will be together. There shall be everything to make you forget—everything that thought and love and money can give you. ”

“ For a long half-minute they stood thus, the faded blue eyes of the wife gazing into the sullen black eyes of the husband, and his were the first to drop, for all the noble blood in Anna Nirlanger’s veins, and all her long line of gently bred ancestors were coming to her aid in dealing with her middle-class husband.
“You forget,” she said, very slowly and distinctly. “If this were Austria, instead of Amerika, you would not forget. In Austria people of your class do not speak in this manner to those of my caste.”
“Unsinn!” laughed Konrad Nirlanger. “This is Amerika.” ”

“ The shabby blue office coat hangs on the hook in the little sporting room where Blackie placed it. No one dreams of moving it. There it dangles, out at elbows, disreputable, its pockets burned from many a hot pipe thrust carelessly into them, its cuffs frayed, its lapels bearing the marks of cigarette, paste-pot and pen.
It is that faded old garment, more than anything else, which makes us fail to realize that its owner will never again slip into its comfortable folds. We cannot believe that a lifeless rag like that can triumph over the man of flesh and blood and nerves and sympathies. ”

“ When the green car stopped before the Old Folks’ Home I was in seraphic mood. I had bathed, donned clean linen and a Dutch-necked gown. The result was most soul-satisfying. My spirits rose unaccountably. Even the sight of Von Gerhard, looking troubled and distrait, did not quiet them. We darted away, out along the lake front, past the toll gate, to the bay road stretching its flawless length along the water’s side. It was alive with swift-moving motor cars swarming like twentieth-century pilgrims toward the mecca of cool breezes and comfort. There were proud limousines; comfortable family cars ”

“ But it was not necessary that I live in Milwaukee a year or so in order to understand its peculiarities, for I had a personal conductor and efficient guide in the new friend that had come into my life with the first day of my work on the Post. Surely no woman ever had a stronger friend than little “Blackie” Griffith, sporting editor of the Milwaukee Post. We became friends, not step by step, but in one gigantic leap such as sometimes triumphs over the gap between acquaintance and liking. ”

“ Together Von Gerhard and I had visited Alma Pflugel’s cottage, and the garden was blooming in all its wonder of color and scent as we opened the little gate and walked up the worn path. We found them in the cool shade of the arbor, the two women sewing, Bennie playing with the last wonderful toy that Blackie had given him. They made a serene and beautiful picture there against the green canopy of the leaves. We spoke of Frau Nirlanger, and of Blackie, and of the strange snarl of events which had at last been unwound to knit a close friendship between us. ”

“ We laid Peter to rest in that noisy, careless, busy city that he had loved so well, and I think his cynical lips would have curled in a bitterly amused smile, and his somber eyes would have flamed into sudden wrath if he could have seen how utterly and completely New York had forgotten Peter Orme. He had been buried alive ten years before—and Newspaper Row has no faith in resurrections. Peter Orme was not even a memory. Ten years is an age in a city where epochs are counted by hours.
Now, after two weeks of Norah’s loving care, I was back in the pretty little city by the lake. ”

“ Three or four stout, blond girls plodded back and forth, from tables to front shop, bearing trays of cakes and steaming cups of coffee. There was a rumble and clatter of German. Every one seemed to know every one else. A game of chess was in progress at one table, and between moves each contestant would refresh himself with a long-drawn, sibilant mouthful of coffee. There was nothing about the place or its occupants to remind one of America. This dim, smoky, cake-scented cafe was Germany.
“Time!” said Blackie. ”

“ It is impossible to avoid becoming round-cheeked when one is working on a paper that allows one to shut one’s desk and amble comfortably home for dinner at least five days in the week. Everybody is at least plump in this comfortable, gemutlich town, where everybody placidly locks his shop or office and goes home at noon to dine heavily on soup and meat and vegetables and pudding, washed down by the inevitable beer and followed by forty winks on the dining room sofa with the German Zeitung spread comfortably over the head as protection against the flies. ”

“ The brandisher had always annoyed me. Now I thought of him with tenderness in my heart and reproached myself for my fastidiousness. I should have wept if I had not had a walking boot in one hand, and a satin blouse in the other. A walking boot is but a cold comfort. And my thriftiness denied my tears the soiling of the blouse. So I sat up on my knees and finished the unpacking.
Just before dinner time I donned a becoming gown to chirk up my courage, groped my way down the long, dim stairs, and telephoned to Von Gerhard. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Blackie’s little cubby-hole of an office is always blue with smoke, and cluttered with a thousand odds and ends—photographs, souvenirs, boxing-gloves, a litter of pipes and tobacco, a wardrobe of dust-covered discarded coats and hats, and Blackie in the midst of it all, sunk in the depths of his swivel chair, and looking like an amiable brown gnome, or a cheerful little joss-house god come to life. There is in him an uncanny wisdom which only the streets can teach. ”

“ Von Gerhard went on. “Why not go where the newspaper work will not be so nerve-racking? where you still might find time for this other work that is dear to you, and that may bring its reward in time.” He reached out and took my hand, into his great, steady clasp. “Come to the happy, healthy, German town called Milwaukee, yes? Ach, you may laugh. But newspaper work is newspaper work the world over, because men and women are just men and women the world over. But there you could live sanely, and work not too hard, and there would be spare hours for the book that is near your heart. ”

“ Frau Nirlanger’s white face was lifted from the shelter of her arms. The stricken look was still upon it, but there was no cowering in her attitude now. Slowly she rose to her feet. I had not realized that she was so tall.
“The gown does not go back,” she said.
“So?” he snarled, with a savage note in his voice. “Now hear me. There shall be no more buying of gowns and fripperies. You hear? It is for the wife to come to the husband for the money; not for her to waste it wantonly on gowns, like a creature of the streets. ”

“ Von Gerhard warned me, “with no gauzy blouses or sleeveless gowns. The air cuts like a knife, but it feels good against the face. And a little road-house I know, where one is served great steaming plates of hot oyster stew. How will that be for a lark, yes?”
And so I had swathed myself in wrappings until I could scarcely clamber into the panting little car, and we had darted off along the smooth lake drives, while the wind whipped the scarlet into our cheeks, even while it brought the tears to our eyes. ”

“ There were counterparts of my aborigines at Knapf’s—thick spectacled engineers with high foreheads—actors and actresses from the German stock company—reporters from the English and German newspapers—business men with comfortable German consciences—long-haired musicians—dapper young lawyers—a giggling group of college girls and boys—a couple of smartly dressed women nibbling appreciatively at slices of Nusstorte—low-voiced lovers whose coffee cups stood untouched at their elbows, while no fragrant cloud of steam rose to indicate that there was warmth within. ”

“ Every evening at eight o’clock three anxious-browed women hold low-spoken conclave about the quaint old bed, while its occupant sleeps and smiles as he sleeps, and clasps to his breast a chewed-looking woolly dog. For a new joy has come to the sad little Frau Nirlanger, and I, quite by accident, was the cause of bringing it to her. The queer little blue bed, with its faded roses, was brought down from the attic by Frau Knapf, for she is one of the three foster mothers of the small occupant of the bed. ”

“ I took Max’s big hand in mine and gathered courage from it.
“But you have been working,” wailed Norah, “every morning. And I thought the book was coming on beautifully. And I’m sure it will be a wonderful book, Dawn dear. You are so clever.”
“Oh, the book—it is too uncertain. Perhaps it will go, but perhaps it won’t. And then—what? It will be months before the book is properly polished off. And then I may peddle it around for more months. No; I can’t afford to trifle with uncertainties. Every newspaper man or woman writes a book. It’s like having the measles. ”

“ Von Gerhard stared a moment, a curious look on his face. Then he laughed one of those rare laughs of his, and I joined him because I was strangely young, light, and happy to be alive.
“You walk and enjoy walking, yes?” asked Von Gerhard, scanning my face. “Your cheeks they are like—well, as unlike the cheeks of the German girls as Diana’s are unlike a dairy maid’s. And the nerfs? They no longer jump, eh?”
“Oh, they jump, but not with weariness. They jump to get into action again. From a life of too much excitement I have gone to the other extreme. ”

“ Dear one, I care so much that I have the strength to do as I would do if I had to face my mother, and Norah tonight. I don’t ask you to understand. Men are not made to understand these things; not even a man such as you, who are so beautifully understanding. I only ask that you believe in me—and think of me sometimes—I shall feel it, and be helped. Will you take me home now, Dr. von Gerhard?”
The ride home was made in silence. The wind was colder, sharper. I was chilled, miserable, sick. Von Gerhard’s face was quite expressionless as he guided the little car over the smooth road. ”

“ Next to buying pretty things for myself there is nothing I like better than choosing them for some one else. And when that some one else happens to be a fascinating little foreigner who coos over the silken stuffs in a delightful mixture of German and English; and especially when that some one else must be made to look so charming that she will astonish her oogly husband, then does the selecting of those pretty things cease to be a task, and become an art. ”

“ Scarcely am I settled in my cubby-hole, typewriter before me, the working plan of a story buzzing about in my brain, when I hear my name called in muffled tones, as though the speaker were laboring with a mouthful of hairpins. I pay no attention. I have just given my heroine a pair of calm gray eyes, shaded with black lashes and hair to match. A voice floats down from the upstairs regions.
“Dawn! Oh, Dawn! Just run and rescue the cucumbers out of the top of the ice-box, will you? The iceman’s coming, and he’ll squash ’em.” ”

“ O Baumbach’s, with your deliciously crumbling butter cookies and your kaffee kuchen, and your thick cream, and your thicker waitresses and your cockroaches, and your dinginess and your dowdy German ladies and your black, black Kaffee, where in this country is there another like you! ”