Bertha Garlan | Page 9

dignity to say that, and she added: "I don't feel any inclination to
play."
Everybody looked at her, feeling that something rather out of the

common was happening.
"Won't you come and sit by us, Bertha?" said Frau Garlan.
Elly had a vague idea that she ought to show her affection for her aunt,
and hung on her arm; and the two of them stood side by side, leaning
against the piano.
"Are you going with us to the 'Red Apple' this evening?" Frau Martin
asked of her hostess.
"No, I don't think so."
"Ah," broke in Herr Garlan, "if we must forgo our concert this
afternoon we will have one in the evening instead--your lead, Doctor."
"The military concert?" asked Doctor Friedrich's wife.
Frau Garlan rose to her feet.
"Do you really mean to go to the 'Red Apple' this evening?" she asked
her husband.
"Certainly."
"Very well," she answered, somewhat flustered, and at once went off to
the kitchen again to make fresh arrangements.
"Richard," said Garlan to his son; "you might make haste and run over
and tell the manager to have a table reserved for us in the garden."
Richard hurried off, colliding in the doorway with his mother, who was
just coming into the room. She sank down on the sofa as though
exhausted.
"You can't believe," she said to Doctor Friedrich's wife; "how difficult
it is to make Brigitta understand the simplest thing."
Frau Martin had gone and sat down beside her husband, at the same

time throwing a glance towards Bertha, who was still standing silently
with Elly beside the piano. Frau Martin stroked her husband's hair, laid
her hand on his knee and seemed to feel that she was under the
necessity of showing the company how happy she was.
"I'll tell you what. Aunt," said Elly suddenly to Bertha; "let's go into the
garden for a while. The fresh air will drive your headache away."
They went down the steps into the courtyard, in the centre of which a
small lawn had been laid out. At the back, it was shut off by a wall,
against which stood a few shrubs and a couple of young trees, which
still had to be propped up by stakes. Away over the wall only the blue
sky was to be seen; in boisterous weather the rush of the river which
flowed close by could be heard. Two wicker garden chairs stood with
their backs against the wall, and in front of them was a small table.
Bertha and Elly sat down, Elly still keeping her arm linked in her
aunt's.
"Tell you what, Elly?"
"See, I am quite a big girl now; do tell me about him."
Bertha was somewhat alarmed, for it struck her at once that her niece's
question did not refer to her dead husband, but to some one else. And
suddenly she saw before her mind's eye the picture of Emil Lindbach,
just as she had seen it in the illustrated paper; but immediately both the
vision and her slight alarm vanished, and she felt a kind of emotion at
the shy question of the young girl who believed that she still grieved
for her dead husband, and that it would comfort her to have an
opportunity for talking about him.
"May I come down and join you, or are you telling each other secrets?"
Richard's voice came at that moment from a window overlooking the
courtyard. For the first time Bertha was struck by the resemblance he
bore to Emil Lindbach. She realized, however, that it might perhaps
only be the youthfulness of his manner and his rather long hair that put
her in mind of Emil. Richard was now nearly as old as Emil had been

in the days of her studies at the conservatoire.
"I've reserved a table," he said as he came into the courtyard. "Are you
coming with us, Aunt Bertha?"
He sat down on the back of her chair, stroked her cheeks, and said in
his fresh, yet rather affected, way:
"You will come, won't you, pretty Aunt, for my sake?"
Mechanically Bertha closed her eyes. A feeling of comfort stole over
her, as if some childish hand, as if the little fingers of her own Fritz,
were caressing her cheeks. Soon, however, she felt that some other
memory as well rose up in her mind. She could not help thinking of a
walk in the town park which she had taken one evening with Emil after
her lesson at the conservatoire. On that occasion he had sat down to rest
beside her on a seat, and had touched her cheeks with tender fingers.
Was it only once that that had happened? No--much oftener! Indeed,
they had sat on that seat ten or twenty times, and he