Bliss, and other stories
What a perfect grandfather he would make! Just like one out of a book!
The sun came out, the pink clouds in the sky, the strawberry clouds
were eaten by the blue. “Are they good?” asked the old man. “As good as
they look?”
When she had eaten them she felt she had known him for years. She told
him about Frau Arnholdt and how she had got the place. Did he know the
Hotel Grunewald? Frau Arnholdt would not arrive until the evening. He
listened, listened until he knew as much about the affair as she did,
until he said—not looking at her—but smoothing the palms of his brown
suède gloves together: “I wonder if you would let me show you a little
of Munich to-day. Nothing much—but just perhaps a picture gallery and
the Englischer Garten. It seems such a pity that you should have to
spend the day at the hotel, and also a little uncomfortable . . . in a
strange place. _Nicht wahr?_ You would be back there by the early
afternoon or whenever you wish, of course, and you would give an old
man a great deal of pleasure.”
It was not until long after she had said “Yes”—because the moment she
had said it and he had thanked her he began telling her about his
travels in Turkey and attar of roses—that she wondered whether she had
done wrong. After all, she really did not know him. But he was so old
and he had been so very kind—not to mention the strawberries. . . . And
she couldn’t have explained the reason why she said “No,” and it was
her _last_ day in a way, her last day to really enjoy herself in. “Was
I wrong? Was I?” A drop of sunlight fell into her hands and lay there,
warm and quivering. “If I might accompany you as far as the hotel,” he
suggested, “and call for you again at about ten o’clock.” He took out
his pocket-book and handed her a card. “Herr Regierungsrat. . . .” He
had a title! Well, it was _bound_ to be all right! So after that the
little governess gave herself up to the excitement of being really
abroad, to looking out and reading the foreign advertisement signs, to
being told about the places they came to—having her attention and
enjoyment looked after by the charming old grandfather—until they
reached Munich and the Hauptbahnhof. “Porter! Porter!” He found her a
porter, disposed of his own luggage in a few words, guided her through
the bewildering crowd out of the station down the clean white steps
into the white road to the hotel. He explained who she was to the
manager as though all this had been bound to happen, and then for one
moment her little hand lost itself in the big brown suède ones. “I will
call for you at ten o’clock.” He was gone.
“This way, Fräulein,” said a waiter, who had been dodging behind the
manager’s back, all eyes and ears for the strange couple. She followed
him up two flights of stairs into a dark bedroom. He dashed down her
dress-basket and pulled up a clattering, dusty blind. Ugh! what an
ugly, cold room—what enormous furniture! Fancy spending the day in
here! “Is this the room Frau Arnholdt ordered?” asked the little
governess. The waiter had a curious way of staring as if there was
something _funny_ about her. He pursed up his lips about to whistle,
and then changed his mind. “_Gewiss_,” he said. Well, why didn’t he go?
Why did he stare so? “_Gehen Sie,_” said the little governess, with
frigid English simplicity. His little eyes, like currants, nearly
popped out of his doughy cheeks. “_Gehen Sie sofort,_” she repeated
icily. At the door he turned. “And the gentleman,” said he, “shall I
show the gentleman upstairs when he comes?”
Over the white streets big white clouds fringed with silver—and
sunshine everywhere. Fat, fat coachmen driving fat cabs; funny women
with little round hats cleaning the tramway lines; people laughing and
pushing against one another; trees on both sides of the streets and
everywhere you looked almost, immense fountains; a noise of laughing
from the footpaths or the middle of the streets or the open windows.
And beside her, more beautifully brushed than ever, with a rolled
umbrella in one hand and yellow gloves instead of brown ones, her
grandfather who had asked her to spend the day. She wanted to run, she
wanted to hang on his arm, she wanted to cry every minute, “Oh, I am so
frightfully happy!” He guided her across the roads, stood still while
she “looked,” and his kind eyes beamed on her and he said “just
whatever you wish.” She ate two white sausages and two little rolls of
fresh bread at eleven o’clock in the morning and she drank some beer,
which he told her wasn’t intoxicating, wasn’t at all like English beer,
out of a glass like a flower vase. And then they took a cab and really
she must have seen thousands and thousands of wonderful classical
pictures in about a quarter of an hour! “I shall have to think them
over when I am alone.” . . . But when they came out of the picture
gallery it was raining. The grandfather unfurled his umbrella and held
it over the little governess. They started to walk to the restaurant
for lunch. She, very close beside him so that he should have some of
the umbrella, too. “It goes easier,” he remarked in a detached way, “if
you take my arm, Fräulein. And besides it is the custom in Germany.” So
she took his arm and walked beside him while he pointed out the famous
statues, so interested that he quite forgot to put down the umbrella
even when the rain was long over.
After lunch they went to a café to hear a gipsy band, but she did not
like that at all. Ugh! such horrible men where there with heads like
eggs and cuts on their faces, so she turned her chair and cupped her
burning cheeks in her hands and watched her old friend instead. . . .
Then they went to the Englischer Garten.
“I wonder what the time is,” asked the little governess. “My watch has
stopped. I forgot to wind it in the train last night. We’ve seen such a
lot of things that I feel it must be quite late.” “Late!” He stopped in
front of her laughing and shaking his head in a way she had begun to
know. “Then you have not really enjoyed yourself. Late! Why, we have
not had any ice cream yet!” “Oh, but I have enjoyed myself,” she cried,
distressed, “more than I can possibly say. It has been wonderful! Only
Frau Arnholdt is to be at the hotel at six and I ought to be there by
five.” “So you shall. After the ice cream I shall put you into a cab
and you can go there comfortably.” She was happy again. The chocolate
ice cream melted—melted in little sips a long way down. The shadows of
the trees danced on the table cloths, and she sat with her back safely
turned to the ornamental clock that pointed to twenty-five minutes to
seven. “Really and truly,” said the little governess earnestly, “this
has been the happiest day of my life. I’ve never even imagined such a
day.” In spite of the ice cream her grateful baby heart glowed with
love for the fairy grandfather.
So they walked out of the garden down a long alley. The day was nearly
over. “You see those big buildings opposite,” said the old man. “The
third storey—that is where I live. I and the old housekeeper who looks
after me.” She was very interested. “Now just before I find a cab for
you, will you come and see my little ‘home’ and let me give you a
bottle of the attar of roses I told you about in the train? For
remembrance?” She would love to. “I’ve never seen a bachelor’s flat in
my life,” laughed the little governess.
The passage was quite dark. “Ah, I suppose my old woman has gone out to
buy me a chicken. One moment.” He opened a door and stood aside for her
to pass, a little shy but curious, into a strange room. She did not
know quite what to say. It wasn’t pretty. In a way it was very ugly—but
neat, and, she supposed, comfortable for such an old man. “Well, what
do you think of it?” He knelt down and took from a cupboard a round
tray with two pink glasses and a tall pink bottle. “Two little bedrooms
beyond,” he said gaily, “and a kitchen. It’s enough, eh?” “Oh, quite
enough.” “And if ever you should be in Munich and care to spend a day
or two—why there is always a little nest—a wing of a chicken, and a
salad, and an old man delighted to be your host once more and many many
times, dear little Fräulein!” He took the stopper out of the bottle and
poured some wine into the two pink glasses. His hand shook and the wine
spilled over the tray. It was very quiet in the room. She said: “I
think I ought to go now.” “But you will have a tiny glass of wine with
me—just one before you go?” said the old man. “No, really no. I never
drink wine. I—I have promised never to touch wine or anything like
that.” And though he pleaded and though she felt dreadfully rude,
especially when he seemed to take it to heart so, she was quite
determined. “No, _really_, please.” “Well, will you just sit down on
the sofa for five minutes and let me drink your health?” The little
governess sat down on the edge of the red velvet couch and he sat down
beside her and drank her health at a gulp. “Have you really been happy
to-day?” asked the old man, turning round, so close beside her that she
felt his knee twitching against hers. Before she could answer he held
her hands. “And are you going to give me one little kiss before you
go?” he asked, drawing her closer still.
It was a dream! It wasn’t true! It wasn’t the same old man at all. Ah,
how horrible! The little governess stared at him in terror. “No, no,
no!” she stammered, struggling out of his hands. “One little kiss. A
kiss. What is it? Just a kiss, dear little Fräulein. A kiss.” He pushed
his face forward, his lips smiling broadly; and how his little blue
eyes gleamed behind the spectacles! “Never—never. How can you!” She
sprang up, but he was too quick and he held her against the wall,
pressed against her his hard old body and his twitching knee and,
though she shook her head from side to side, distracted, kissed her on
the mouth. On the mouth! Where not a soul who wasn’t a near relation
had ever kissed her before. . . .
She ran, ran down the street until she found a broad road with tram
lines and a policeman standing in the middle like a clockwork doll. “I
want to get a tram to the Hauptbahnhof,” sobbed the little governess.
“Fräulein?” She wrung her hands at him. “The Hauptbahnhof.
There—there’s one now,” and while he watched very much surprised, the
little girl with her hat on one side, crying without a handkerchief,
sprang on to the tram—not seeing the conductor’s eyebrows, nor hearing
the _hochwohlgebildete Dame_ talking her over with a scandalized
friend. She rocked herself and cried out loud and said “Ah, ah!”
pressing her hands to her mouth. “She has been to the dentist,”
shrilled a fat old woman, too stupid to be uncharitable. “_Na, sagen
Sie ’mal_, what toothache! The child hasn’t one left in her mouth.”
While the tram swung and jangled through a world full of old men with
twitching knees.
When the little governess reached the hall of the Hotel Grunewald the
same waiter who had come into her room in the morning was standing by
table, polishing a tray of glasses. The sight of the little governess
seemed to fill him out with some inexplicable important content. He was
ready for her question; his answer came pat and suave. “Yes, Fräulein,
the lady has been here. I told her that you had arrived and gone out
again immediately with a gentleman. She asked me when you were coming
back again—but of course I could not say. And then she went to the
manager.” He took up a glass from the table, held it up to the light,
looked at it with one eye closed, and started polishing it with a
corner of his apron. “. . . ?” “Pardon, Fräulein? Ach, no, Fräulein.
The manager could tell her nothing—nothing.” He shook his head and
smiled at the brilliant glass. “Where is the lady now?” asked the
little governess, shuddering so violently that she had to hold her