The Devourers Part 29

I shall send you this letter when nothing that I have written in it is true any more. If we ever live through and out of it, you shall know; if not--but, of course, we shall. We must. One cannot die of poverty, can one? One does not really, actually suffer real hunger, does one, mother dear? "Zu Grunde gehen!" The sombre old German words keep rumbling in my head like far-away thunder. "Zu Grunde gehen!"

I do not suppose one really does go "_zu Grunde_." But when one has forty-five dollars in the world, and a funny little bird with its beak open expecting to be fed--and fed on chocolates and bonbons when it wants them--one becomes demoralized and frightened, and pretends to think that one might really starve.

Do not think it unkind that I did not come to Milan to kiss you and say good-bye. I had not the heart to do so. Aldo, too, said we could not afford it, and, indeed, our combined _viatiques_ and our jewellery only just enabled us to come here.

We landed three days ago. Yesterday morning I sent you a postcard: "Arrived happily." Happily! Oh, mother dear, I think there must be a second higher and happier heaven for those who are brave enough to tell untruths of this kind. Enough; we landed, Anne-Marie looking like a spoilt princess; I with my Monte Carlo hat and coat, and high-heeled, impertinent shoes; and Aldo, a pallid Antinous, with forty-five dollars in his pocket-book.

Then came the Via Crucis of looking for rooms. Mother, did I ever stay at the Hotel n.a.z.ionale in Rome, and descend languidly the red-carpeted stairs to the royal automobile that was to drive me to the Quirinal? Did I ever sit at home in Uncle Giacomo's large arm-chair and listen benignly to moon-struck poets reading their songs? Did I ever with languid fingers ring bells for servants, and order what I wanted?

"Cio avvenne forse ai tempi D'Omero e di Valmichi----"

That was another Nancy. This Nancy trudged for hours through straight and terrible streets called avenues, with a dismal husband and a tired baby at her side. Third Avenue, Fourth Avenue, then quickly across Fifth Avenue, which had nothing to do with us, and again across to Sixth Avenue ... and everywhere dirty shops, screaming children, jostling girls, rude men, trains rus.h.i.+ng overhead, street-cars screeching and clanging. Then, at last, Seventh Avenue, where there were streets full of quiet, squalid boarding-houses, fewer screaming children, fewer dirty shops, and no trains. We went into a cheap, clean-looking place that a porter had told us of. A woman opened. She looked at my hat and coat, and at my shoes, and said: "What do you want?" "A room----" began Aldo.

She shut the door without answering. At the next house a woman in a dirty silk dressing-gown opened the door. "Yes, they had rooms. Eight dollars a day. Meals a dollar." In the next house they took no children.

In the next, no foreigners. Our expensive clothes in their cheap street made them suspicious. Aldo's handsome face made them suspicious. His Italian accent frightened them. And Anne-Marie cried every time a new face appeared at a new door.

At last Aldo said: "I will go to the Italian consul. You wait here in a baker's shop." The consulate was at the other end of New York, and was closed when Aldo got there. When he returned, hara.s.sed and haggard, I had made friends with the baker's wife. She was German. I told her our History of the Wolf--that I was a poetess, and had met the Queen, and all about Monte Carlo. I don't think she believed or understood much, but she was sorry for me; and Anne-Marie, hearing us talk German, suddenly started piping: "Schlaf, Kindchen, schlaf!" The woman caught her up in her arms, and said: "Ach, du susses! How does she come to know that?" And she took us all to 28th Street to the house of her sister, who gave us this room. It is clean, and the woman is kind.

And now, what?

I have bought myself a frightful pepper-and-salt coloured dress, and a black straw hat. I look like a "deserving poor." And Anne-Marie is wearing a dark blue woolly horror belonging to the woman's daughter.

She must wear it, or Frau Schmidl would be offended. Frau Schmidl is the only friend we have in America.

For the ranch is a myth of Aldo's. He never was on a ranch in his life.

He met a Frenchman once with weak lungs, who had been in Texas, and who gave him all the romantic details that he used to recount to us. Do you remember, mother? On Lake Maggiore? He talked vaguely, and not much, it is true, of those bucking bronchoes he used to ride across the sweeping Western prairies, feeling the wind in his hair.... When I reproach him for his fables, he tells me that it was our fault. We insisted upon the details. We would hear all about it! He says Clarissa started the ranch legend, because she thought it sounded well. Then she left him to keep it up as best he could. Poor Aldo! He hates us in these clothes. And he hates the German things Frau Schmidl gives us to eat. He has gone to the Italian Consul for the third time to see if he can find some correspondence to do. I could give lessons, but it seems that there are many more people who want to give lessons than there are who want to take them. And then--there is Anne-Marie, who has to be taken care of.

Anne-Marie! Frau Schmidl loves her because of her name. She says it is echt deutsch! She is a stout, fair woman, who speaks English strangely.

When she enters the room, she says, nodding and laughing, "Now, and what makes the Anne-Marie?"

The Anne-Marie likes the sound of the language, and imitates her. I dread to think what English the Anne-Marie will learn.

Aldo has found nothing to do. The Americans will have nothing to do with an Italian, and Italians will have still less to do with an Italian. We have eight dollars left.

If I write to you for money you will send it. And then? A few weeks hence we shall be where we are now. We must fight our battles alone.

We have nothing left.

Mr. Schmidl says he will let us keep the room--"for another week or two," he added gruffly; but his wife is not to feed us. "At least--not all of you," he added still more gruffly. "Only you--and the Anne-Marie." He is a poor man. He is quite right. But what about Aldo?

We have sold the Monte Carlo clothes for twelve dollars. We feel that we are rehabilitated. And what have I been dreaming of? I can write. I shall send an article to the _Giornale Italo-Americano_. Unsigned, of course. I shall write it to-night.

It is done.

It is accepted.

It is printed.

It seems that that is all. They have told Aldo that they never pay for articles that are sent to them from the outside--even if they are as brilliant and original as this one. They only pay their own staff. Have they room on their staff for a brilliant and original writer? Plenty of room. But no money.

Aldo is living on dates and a little rice. He speaks less than ever. I do not know what his thoughts are. I am afraid for him.

To-day as I was taking Anne-Marie for a run in front of the house I met a man whom we knew in Italy, a Dr. Fioretti. He was an old friend of Nino's. Do you remember? He looked at me, and past me, blankly, unrecognizing. I thanked the fates. My knees ached with fear lest he should stop and say: "You here! What are you doing? Where do you live?"

Where do I live? In this vile street near the negro quarter. What am I doing? Starving. Are we dreaming, mother? Oh, mother! mother! when did I fall asleep? I should like to wake up a little girl again in England.

Was there not another little girl called Edith, with yellow hair? Surely I remember her. What became of her?... Or was she the girl who died?...

Aldo will not leave the house any more. He will not speak to us any more. He sits and stares at us. I am afraid of him. I shall telegraph to you if I can find the money to do so. Mrs. Schmidl keeps Anne-Marie downstairs in her kitchen. But she is afraid of Aldo, too. I think they will turn us out. But they will keep the child, and take care of her.

I shall go out. I shall ask everybody, anybody, to help me....

I have been to the Italian Church, to the Italian Consul, to the Italian Emba.s.sy. They will see. They will do what they can. There are many pitiable cases. Are we a "pitiable case"? How strange! They would not give me any money to send a telegram. They said they would telegraph themselves, after they had come to see us, and made inquiries....

I stopped a woman in the street, and said, "I beg your pardon. Will you----" and then my courage failed and I asked where West 28th Street was. She directed me, and I turned back and walked in the direction I had come from.

I came to Fifth Avenue, and walked up it in my shabby clothes. I pa.s.sed rows of large houses. One of them had the windows open, and someone inside was playing "Der Musikant" of Hugo Wolff. And a woman's voice was singing:

"Wenn wir zwei zusammen waren Wurd' das Singen mir vergeh'n."

I stopped. I turned back, and walked up the wide stone steps. I rang the visitors' bell, and a manservant in ornate livery opened at once.

"I wish to speak to the lady who is singing," I said.

"Oh," said the man. I knew he thought me a beggar, and was going to send me away.

"Tell her--tell her quickly," I said, "that--that Hugo Wolff told me I might come."

Something in my face--oh, my despairing face, mother!--touched something human in the pompous automaton. He went straight into the drawing-room and gave my message. There was a basket of Easter lilies on the hall-table.

The music stopped, and almost at once on the threshold of the drawing-room a lady appeared. She was young--hardly older than I--and beautiful, dressed in soft mauve cloth. She looked at me curiously, and then said suddenly:

"Will you come in?"

I went into the large, luxurious drawing-room. t.i.tian's "Bella" looked down at me blandly with her reddened eyelids.