In a German Pension | Page 7

won't you take your coffee
out in the garden?"
"That is a very nice idea. But first I must remove my corsets and my
boots. Ah, what a relief to wear sandals again. I am needing the 'cure'
very badly this year. My nerves! I am a mass of them. During the entire
journey I sat with my handkerchief over my head, even while the guard
collected the tickets. Exhausted!"

She came into the arbour wearing a black and white spotted
dressing-gown, and a calico cap peaked with patent leather, followed
by Kathi, carrying the little blue jugs of malt coffee. We were formally
introduced. Frau Fischer sat down, produced a perfectly clean pocket
handkerchief and polished her cup and saucer, then lifted the lid of the
coffee-pot and peered in at the contents mournfully.
"Malt coffee," she said. "Ah, for the first few days I wonder how I can
put up with it. Naturally, absent from home one must expect much
discomfort and strange food. But as I used to say to my dear husband:
with a clean sheet and a good cup of coffee I can find my happiness
anywhere. But now, with nerves like mine, no sacrifice is too terrible
for me to make. What complaint are you suffering from? You look
exceedingly healthy!"
I smiled and shrugged my shoulders.
"Ah, that is so strange about you English. You do not seem to enjoy
discussing the functions of the body. As well speak of a railway train
and refuse to mention the engine. How can we hope to understand
anybody, knowing nothing of their stomachs? In my husband's most
severe illness-- the poultices--"
She dipped a piece of sugar in her coffee and watched it dissolve.
"Yet a young friend of mine who travelled to England for the funeral of
his brother told me that women wore bodices in public restaurants no
waiter could help looking into as he handed the soup."
"But only German waiters," I said. "English ones look over the top of
your head."
"There," she cried, "now you see your dependence on Germany. Not
even an efficient waiter can you have by yourselves."
"But I prefer them to look over your head."
"And that proves that you must be ashamed of your bodice."

I looked out over the garden full of wall-flowers and standard rose-trees
growing stiffly like German bouquets, feeling I did not care one way or
the other. I rather wanted to ask her if the young friend had gone to
England in the capacity of waiter to attend the funeral baked meats, but
decided it was not worth it. The weather was too hot to be malicious,
and who could be uncharitable, victimised by the flapping sensations
which Frau Fischer was enduring until six-thirty? As a gift from heaven
for my forbearance, down the path towards us came the Herr Rat,
angelically clad in a white silk suit. He and Frau Fischer were old
friends. She drew the folds of her dressing-gown together, and made
room for him on the little green bench.
"How cool you are looking," she said; "and if I may make the
remark--what a beautiful suit!"
"Surely I wore it last summer when you were here? I brought the silk
from China--smuggled it through the Russian customs by swathing it
round my body. And such a quantity: two dress lengths for my
sister-in-law, three suits for myself, a cloak for the housekeeper of my
flat in Munich. How I perspired! Every inch of it had to be washed
afterwards."
"Surely you have had more adventures than any man in Germany.
When I think of the time that you spent in Turkey with a drunken guide
who was bitten by a mad dog and fell over a precipice into a field of
attar of roses, I lament that you have not written a book."
"Time--time. I am getting a few notes together. And now that you are
here we shall renew our quiet little talks after supper. Yes? It is
necessary and pleasant for a man to find relaxation in the company of
women occasionally."
"Indeed I realise that. Even here your life is too strenuous--you are so
sought after--so admired. It was just the same with my dear husband.
He was a tall, beautiful man, and sometimes in the evening he would
come down into the kitchen and say: 'Wife, I would like to be stupid for
two minutes.' Nothing rested him so much then as for me to stroke his
head."

The Herr Rat's bald pate glistening in the sunlight seemed symbolical
of the sad absence of a wife.
I began to wonder as to the nature of these quiet little after-supper talks.
How could one play Delilah to so shorn a Samson?
"Herr Hoffmann from Berlin arrived