In a German Pension | Page 3

was a lady from the
Spanish Court here in the summer; she had a liver. We often spoke
together."
I looked gratified and humble.
"Now, in England, in your 'boarding 'ouse', one does not find the First
Class, as in Germany."

"No, indeed," I replied, still hypnotised by the Baron, who looked like a
little yellow silkworm.
"The Baron comes every year," went on the Herr Oberlehrer, "for his
nerves. He has never spoken to any of the guests--YET! A smile
crossed his face. I seemed to see his visions of some splendid upheaval
of that silence--a dazzling exchange of courtesies in a dim future, a
splendid sacrifice of a newspaper to this Exalted One, a "danke schon"
to be handed down to future generations.
At that moment the postman, looking like a German army officer, came
in with the mail. He threw my letters into my milk pudding, and then
turned to a waitress and whispered. She retired hastily. The manager of
the pension came in with a little tray. A picture post card was deposited
on it, and reverently bowing his head, the manager of the pension
carried it to the Baron.
Myself, I felt disappointed that there was not a salute of twenty-five
guns.
At the end of the meal we were served with coffee. I noticed the Baron
took three lumps of sugar, putting two in his cup and wrapping up the
third in a corner of his pocket-handkerchief. He was always the first to
enter the dining-room and the last to leave; and in a vacant chair beside
him he placed a little black leather bag.
In the afternoon, leaning from my window, I saw him pass down the
street, walking tremulously and carrying the bag. Each time he passed a
lamp-post he shrank a little, as though expecting it to strike him, or
maybe the sense of plebeian contamination...
I wondered where he was going, and why he carried the bag. Never had
I seen him at the Casino or the Bath Establishment. He looked forlorn,
his feet slipped in his sandals. I found myself pitying the Baron.
That evening a party of us were gathered in the salon discussing the
day's "kur" with feverish animation. The Frau Oberregierungsrat sat by
me knitting a shawl for her youngest of nine daughters, who was in that

very interesting, frail condition..."But it is bound to be quite
satisfactory," she said to me. "The dear married a banker--the desire of
her life."
There must have been eight or ten of us gathered together, we who
were married exchanging confidences as to the underclothing and
peculiar characteristics of our husbands, the unmarried discussing the
over-clothing and peculiar fascinations of Possible Ones.
"I knit them myself," I heard the Frau Lehrer cry, "of thick grey wool.
He wears one a month, with two soft collars."
"And then," whispered Fraulein Lisa, "he said to me, 'Indeed you please
me. I shall, perhaps, write to your mother.'"
Small wonder that we were a little violently excited, a little
expostulatory.
Suddenly the door opened and admitted the Baron.
Followed a complete and deathlike silence.
He came in slowly, hesitated, took up a toothpick from a dish on the
top of the piano, and went out again.
When the door was closed we raised a triumphant cry! It was the first
time he had ever been known to enter the salon. Who could tell what
the Future held?
Days lengthened into weeks. Still we were together, and still the
solitary little figure, head bowed as though under the weight of the
spectacles, haunted me. He entered with the black bag, he retired with
the black bag--and that was all.
At last the manager of the pension told us the Baron was leaving the
next day.
"Oh," I thought, "surely he cannot drift into obscurity--be lost without
one word! Surely he will honour the Frau Oberregierungsrat of the Frau

Feldleutnantswitwe ONCE before he goes."
In the evening of that day it rained heavily. I went to the post office,
and as I stood on the steps, umbrellaless, hesitating before plunging
into the slushy road, a little, hesitating voice seemed to come from
under my elbow.
I looked down. It was the First of the Barons with the black bag and an
umbrella. Was I mad? Was I sane? He was asking me to share the latter.
But I was exceedingly nice, a trifle diffident, appropriately reverential.
Together we walked through the mud and slush.
Now, there is something peculiarly intimate in sharing an umbrella.
It is apt to put one on the same footing as brushing a man's coat for
him--a little daring, naive.
I longed to know why he sat alone, why he carried the bag, what he did
all day. But he himself volunteered some