In a German Pension | Page 5

expect, I hope you will sleep well to-night," the Herr Oberlehrer said
reverently.
"Yes."
The poet from Munich never took his eyes off the pair. He allowed his
tie to absorb most of his coffee while he gazed at them exceedingly
soulfully.
Unyoking Pegasus, thought I. Death spasms of his Odes to Solitude!
There were possibilities in that young woman for an inspiration, not to
mention a dedication, and from that moment his suffering temperament
took up its bed and walked.
They retired after the meal, leaving us to discuss them at leisure.
"There is a likeness," mused the Frau Doktor. "Quite. What a manner
she has. Such reserve, such a tender way with the child."
"Pity she has the child to attend to," exclaimed the student from Bonn.
He had hitherto relied upon three scars and a ribbon to produce an
effect, but the sister of a Baroness demanded more than these.
Absorbing days followed. Had she been one whit less beautifully born

we could not have endured the continual conversation about her, the
songs in her praise, the detailed account of her movements. But she
graciously suffered our worship and we were more than content.
The poet she took into her confidence. He carried her books when we
went walking, he jumped the afflicted one on his knee--poetic licence,
this--and one morning brought his notebook into the salon and read to
us.
"The sister of the Baroness has assured me she is going into a convent,"
he said. (That made the student from Bonn sit up.) "I have written these
few lines last night from my window in the sweet night air--"
"Oh, your DELICATE chest," commented the Frau Doktor.
He fixed a stony eye on her, and she blushed.
"I have written these lines:
"'Ah, will you to a convent fly, So young, so fresh, so fair? Spring like
a doe upon the fields And find your beauty there.'"
Nine verses equally lovely commanded her to equally violent action. I
am certain that had she followed his advice not even the remainder of
her life in a convent would have given her time to recover her breath.
"I have presented her with a copy," he said. "And to-day we are going
to look for wild flowers in the wood."
The student from Bonn got up and left the room. I begged the poet to
repeat the verses once more. At the end of the sixth verse I saw from
the window the sister of the Baroness and the scarred youth
disappearing through the front gate, which enabled me to thank the poet
so charmingly that he offered to write me out a copy.
But we were living at too high pressure in those days. Swinging from
our humble pension to the high walls of palaces, how could we help but
fall? Late one afternoon the Frau Doktor came upon me in the

writing-room and took me to her bosom.
"She has been telling me all about her life," whispered the Frau Doktor.
"She came to my bedroom and offered to massage my arm. You know,
I am the greatest martyr to rheumatism. And, fancy now, she has
already had six proposals of marriage. Such beautiful offers that I
assure you I wept--and every one of noble birth. My dear, the most
beautiful was in the wood. Not that I do not think a proposal should
take place in a drawing-room--it is more fitting to have four walls--but
this was a private wood. He said, the young officer, she was like a
young tree whose branches had never been touched by the ruthless
hand of man. Such delicacy!" She sighed and turned up her eyes.
"Of course it is difficult for you English to understand when you are
always exposing your legs on cricket-fields, and breeding dogs in your
back gardens. The pity of it! Youth should be like a wild rose. For
myself I do not understand how your women ever get married at all."
She shook her head so violently that I shook mine too, and a gloom
settled round my heart. It seemed we were really in a very bad way.
Did the spirit of romance spread her rose wings only over aristocratic
Germany?
I went to my room, bound a pink scarf about my hair, and took a
volume of Morike's lyrics into the garden. A great bush of purple lilac
grew behind the summer-house. There I sat down, finding a sad
significance in the delicate suggestion of half mourning. I began to
write a poem myself.
"They sway and languish dreamily, And we, close pressed, are kissing
there."
It ended! "Close pressed" did not sound at all fascinating. Savoured of
wardrobes. Did my wild rose then already trail in the dust? I chewed a
leaf