University of Virginia Library

9. THE LADY FROM VIENNA

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. Schr 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.

"l'Il 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.