Page:The Masses, Volume 1, Number 2.pdf/7

 

She tried to shake him off and turned scarlet—ashamed of him.

Then the ladies got the table ready for coffee. Fresh red waffles—preserves after the Russian fashion—a gleaming damask—and knives and spoons with buckhorn handles. The fine blue smoke of charcoal puffed up from the chimney of the brass coffee machine, and made everything still cosier.

We sat there drinking our coffee. Old Krakow blustered, the Baroness smiled a fine, melancholy smile, and Iolanthe made eyes at me.

Yes, gentlemen, made eyes at me. You may be at the time of life when that sort of thing happens to you none too rarely. But just you get to be well on in the forties, conscious to the very depths of your soul of your fatness and baldness, and you will see how grateful you'll be to a housemaid or a barmaid for taking the trouble to ogle you.

And what if she should be a choice creature like this one, a creature given to us by God's grace.

At first I thought I hadn't seen straight, then I stuck my red hands in my pockets, then I got a fit of coughing, then I swore at myself—you idiot! you donkey!—then I wanted to bolt, and finally I took to staring into my empty coffee cup.

Like a little schoolgirl.

But when I looked up—I had to look up every now and then—I always met those great, light-blue, languishing eyes. They seemed to say:

"Don't you know I'm an enchanted princess whom you are to set free?"

"Do you know why I gave her that crazy name?" the old man asked, grinning at her slyly.

She turned her head scornfully and stood up. She seemed to know his jokes.

"This is how it was. She was a week old. She lay in her cradle kicking her legs—legs like little sausages. And her little buttocks, you know"

Ye gods! I scarcely risked looking up, I was so embarrassed. The Baroness behaved as if she heard nothing, and Iolanthe left the room.

But the old man shook with laughter.

"Ha—ha—such a rosy mite—such tenderness, and a shape like a rose leaf. Well, when I saw all that, I said, in my young father's joy, 'That girl's going to be beautiful and will kick her legs the whole of her life. She must have a very poetic name—then she'll rise in value with the suitors.' So I looked up names in the dictionary. Thekla, Hero, Elsa, Angelica—no, they were all too soft, like persimmons—with a name of that sort she'll languish away for some briefless lawyer. Then Rosaura, Carmen, Beatrice, Wana—nixy—too passionate—would elope with some butler or other—you know a person's name is his fate. Finally I found Iolanthe. Iolanthe melts so sweetly on your tongue—just the name for lovers—and yet it does not provoke people to do silly things. It is both ticklish and dignified. It lures a man on, but inspires him with serious intentions. That's the way I calculated, and my calculation has turned out quite right so far, if after all she does not remain an old maid on my hands for all her good looks."

Iolanthe now entered the room again. Her eyes were half closed, and she was smiling like a child who has gotten an undeserved scolding. I was sorry for the poor, pretty creature, and to turn the conversation quickly I began to speak about the business I had come for.

The ladies silently cleared the table, and the old man filled the half-charred bowl of his pipe. He seemed inclined to listen patiently.

But scarcely did the name Pütz cross my lips when he sprang up and dashed his pipe against the stove, so that the burning tobacco leaves flew about in all directions. The mere sight of his face was enough to frighten you. It turned red and blue and swelled up as if he had been seized with a stroke of apoplexy.

"Sir-r-r!" he shouted. "Is that the reason you visited me—to poison my home? Don't you know that d name is not to breathed in this house? Don't you know I curse the fellow in his grave, and curse his brood, and curse all"

At this point he choked and coughed and had to sink down into his upholstered chair. And the Baroness gave him sweetened water to drink.

I took up my hat without saying anything. Then I happened to notice Iolanthe standing there white as chalk. She held her hands folded and looked at me as if in all her shame and misery she wanted to beg my pardon, or expected something like help from me.

I wanted to say good-by at least. So I waited quietly until I felt I might assume that the old man, who was lying there groaning and panting, was in a condition to understand me. Then I said:

"Baron von Krakow, you must understand, of course, that after such an attack upon my friend and his son, whom I love as my own, our relations"

He pounded with his hands and feet as a sign to me not to go on speaking, and after he had tried several times in vain to catch his breath he finally succeeded in saying:

"That asthma—the devil take it—like a halter around your neck—snap—your throat goes shut. But what's that you're cackling about our relations? Our relations, that is, your and my relations—there never has been anything wrong with them, my dear sir. They are the best relations in the world. If I insulted that litigious fellow, the—the—noble man, I take it all back, and call myself a dog. Only nobody must speak to me about him. I don't want anybody to remind me that he has a son and heir to his name. To me he's dead, you see—he's dead, dead, dead."

He cut the air three times with his fist, and looked at me triumphantly, as if he had dealt my friend Pütz his deathblow.

"Nevertheless, Baron" I started to say.

"No neverthelessing here. You are my friend! You are the friend of my family—look at my womenfolk—completely smitten. Don't be ashamed, Iolanthe! Just make eyes at him, child. Do you think I don't see anything, goosie?"

She did not blush, nor did she seem to be abashed, but just raised her folded hands up to 