Gaslight Sonatas Part 55

"_Sey hoben ges...o...b..n far Freiheit. Sey hoben_--"

"There! That's the papers!"

To a succession of quick knocks, she flew to the door, returning with the folded evening editions under her arm.

"Now," she cried, unfolding and inserting the first of them into the quivering hands--"now, a shawl over my little mama's knees and we're fixed!"

With a series of rapid movements she flung open one of the black-cashmere shawls across the bed, folding it back into a triangle. Beside the table, bare except for the formal, unthumbed Bible, Mrs. Horowitz rattled out a paper, her near-sighted eyes traveling back and forth across the page.

Music from the ferned-in orchestra came in drifts, faint, not so faint.

From somewhere, then immediately from everywhere--beyond, below, without, the fast shouts of newsboys mingling.

Suddenly and of her own volition, and with a cry that shot up through the room, rending it like a gash, Mrs. Horowitz, who moved by inches, sprang to her supreme height, her arms, the crooks forced out, flung up.

"My darlings--what died--for it! My darlings what died for it! My darlings--Aylorff, my husband!" There was a wail rose up off her words, like the smoke of incense curling, circling around her. "My darlings what died to make free!"

"Mama! Darling! Mama! Mr. Haas! Help! Mama! My G.o.d!"

"Aylorff--my husband--I paid with my blood to make free--my blood--. My son--my--own--" Immovable there, her arms flung up and tears so heavy that they rolled whole from her face down to the black grenadine, she was as sonorous as the tragic meter of an Alexandrine line; she was like Ruth, ancestress of heroes and progenitor of kings.

"My boy--my own! They died for it! _Mein Mann! Mein Suhn_!"

On her knees, frantic to press her down once more into the chair, terrified at the rigid immobility of the upright figure, Mrs. Coblenz paused then, too, her clasp falling away, and leaned forward to the open sheet of the newspaper, its black head-lines facing her:

RUSSIA FREE

BANS DOWN 100,000 SIBERIAN PRISONERS LIBERATED

In her ears a ringing silence, as if a great steel disk had clattered down into the depths of her consciousness. There on her knees, trembling seized her, and she hugged herself against it, leaning forward to corroborate her gaze.

MOST RIGID AUTOCRACY IN THE WORLD OVERTHROWN

RUSSIA REJOICES

"Mama! Mama! My G.o.d! Mama!"

"Home, s.h.i.+la; home! My husband who died for it--Aylorff! Home now, quick!

My wreaths! My wreaths!"

"O my G.o.d! Mama!"

"Home!"

"Yes, darling--yes--"

"My wreaths!"

"Yes, yes, darling; your wreaths. Let--let me think. Freedom! O my G.o.d!

help me to find a way! O my G.o.d!"

"My wreaths!"

"Here, darling, here!"

From the floor beside her, the raffia wreath half in the making, Mrs.

Coblenz reached up, pressing it flat to the heaving old bosom.

"There, darling, there!"

"I paid with my blood--"

"Yes, yes, mama; you--paid with your blood. Mama--sit, please. Sit and--let's try to think. Take it slow, darling; it's like we can't take it in all at once. I--We--Sit down, darling. You'll make yourself terrible sick. Sit down, darling; you--you're slipping."

"My wreaths--"

Heavily, the arm at the waist gently sustaining, Mrs. Horowitz sank rather softly down, her eyelids fluttering for the moment. A smile had come out on her face, and, as her head sank back against the rest, the eyes resting at the downward flutter, she gave out a long breath, not taking it in again.

"Mama! You're fainting!" She leaned to her, shaking the relaxed figure by the elbows, her face almost touching the tallow-like one with the smile lying so deeply into it. "Mama! My G.o.d! darling, wake up! I'll take you back. I'll find a way to take you. I'm a bad girl, darling, but I'll find a way to take you. I'll take you if--if I kill for it! I promise before G.o.d I'll take you. To-morrow--now--n.o.body can keep me from taking you. The wreaths, mama! Get ready the wreaths! Mama darling, wake up! Get ready the wreaths! The wreaths!" Shaking at that quiet form, sobs that were full of voice tearing raw from her throat, she fell to kissing the sunken face, enclosing it, stroking it, holding her streaming gaze closely and burningly against the closed lids. "Mama, I swear to G.o.d I'll take you! Answer me, mama! The bank-book--you've got it! Why don't you wake up, mama? Help!"

Upon that scene, the quiet of the room so raucously lacerated, burst Mr.

Haas, too breathless for voice.

"Mr. Haas--my mother! Help--my mother! It's a faint, ain't it? A faint?"

He was beside her at two bounds, feeling of the limp wrists, laying his ear to the grenadine bosom, lifting the reluctant lids, touching the flesh that yielded so to touch.

"It's a faint, ain't it, Mr. Haas? Tell her I'll take her back. Wake her up, Mr. Haas! Tell her I'm a bad girl, but I--I'm going to take her back.

Now! Tell her! Tell her, Mr. Haas, I've got the bank-book. Please! Please!

O my G.o.d!"

He turned to her, his face working to keep down compa.s.sion.

"We must get a doctor, little lady."

She threw out an arm.

"No! No! I see! My old mother--my old mother--all her life a n.o.body--She helped--she gave it to them--my mother--a poor little widow n.o.body--She bought with her blood that freedom--she--"

"G.o.d! I just heard it down-stairs--it's the tenth wonder of the world. It's too big to take in. I was afraid--"

"Mama darling, I tell you, wake up! I'm a bad girl, but I'll take you back.

Tell her, Mr. Haas, I'll take her back. Wake up, darling! I swear to G.o.d I'll take you!"

"Mrs. Coblenz, my--poor little lady, your mother don't need you to take her back. She's gone back where--where she wants to be. Look at her face, little lady. Can't you see she's gone back?"

"No! No! Let me go. Let me touch her. No! No! Mama darling!"

"Why, there wasn't a way, little lady, you could have fixed it for that poor--old body. She's beyond any of the poor fixings we could do for her.

You never saw her face like that before. Look!"