The Woman Who Had Imagination (12 page)

A little later Herr Müller came running in and spoke to Karl in great excitement. Karl translated for Richardson:

‘The village choir are outside and they want to sing for us. He says they are very good singers and we ought to treat them.'

‘Tell him we're very honoured.'

Karl spoke with Müller.

‘He says everyone will be very amused if we have the beer brought in one big glass.'

Richardson thought it would be amusing, too, and
Karl told Müller, who ran out of the room and came back a moment later, leading the choir. There were ten or twelve brown, fair, smiling young peasants, who looked like a group of English country labourers. They grinned and made a line at the end of the room and were ready to sing when Herr Müller rushed in with an enormous boot-shaped glass running over with pale-gold beer. All the singers laughed and took long drinks and were very boisterous. Karl and Richardson drank also. Karl took a mighty drink that left the peasants gasping and at last applauding with delight. Finally the singers were ready. They began to sing, very low and in unison, a kind of ballad with a long string of verses. They sang magnificently, their voices soft and rich and humorous, the song itself something like a mountain stream, bright and gentle at first and then faster and stronger and finally deep and gorgeous and abandoned, like a torrent plunging splendidly down to a deep ravine. They ended the song on a shout and the guests laughed and applauded, and Müller ran hastily in with another boot of beer.

A little later Müller was pouring Richardson another cherry brandy. He was called suddenly away and forgot the bottle. Richardson seized another glass and filled it and then leaned over and held out the glass to Anna.

She had been looking at some music. She raised her head and looked at him with a startled expression, and then very slowly stretched out her hand and took
the glass from him. He looked straight into her face with an expression of unmistakable delight. She looked irresistible and he wanted suddenly to reach out and touch her. He sat there for a moment in a sort of faintness, overcome by his own delight and the sensation of being so near to her. She lifted up her glass and took a sip of the brandy. He watched her without a flicker of his eyes.

Suddenly someone switched out the electric light and put the room in darkness. For a moment or two he was conscious of nothing but blackness and of people laughing and groping about the room. But a second later he was aware also of something soft and warm moving very close to him and lastly of someone kissing him. The lips were warm and sensitive and the kiss itself was tremulous and eager, with a brief, unmistakable hint of tenderness. He had not time to move his hands and a second or two later the lights were on again and the lips had been drawn away.

He came to himself like a man in another world. He felt queer and intoxicated in a way that was different from the intoxication brought about by the wine. He looked straight at Anna. She was sitting half-turned to him and he thought her eyes were fixed as with a kind of tremulous, almost painful admiration.

He did not know what to do. He felt dazzled and his hands were trembling, and he felt his heart beating in a foolish, unaccountable way. He felt almost glad that he could not speak to her or make any other sign
than a long, intent look at her. And they sat absolutely motionless, gazing at each other softly and steadfastly, like two people playing a strange game of endurance with each other. A long time seemed to pass. He was vaguely conscious of the choir singing again and drinking another boot of beer and finally bowing themselves through the doorway.

At last, very suddenly, the girl got up and walked out of the room. He sat back and very slowly finished his brandy and thought in astonishment of the darkness, the soft movement of Anna's arms and lastly the kiss itself.

He finished another brandy and another hock. The elegant young man played the accordion again and five or six peasants danced across the floor. The rhythmical, swirling figures made him feel sleepier than ever. The girl did not come back. He recalled over and over again the moment of the kiss with her.

Finally the party began to break up. He shook hands with everyone, and Karl, who was a little drunk, promised to call at the inn for him in the morning.

‘We'll go up into the forest,' he said. ‘Like to see the forest, wouldn't you? The forest is lovely — lovely! My God, it's lovely!'

As the guests were trooping out Müller sprang from behind a door and terrified the women with the monkey again. There was a great deal of shrieking and shouting and laughter as the party trailed away up the dark street.

Richardson went back into the inn. Herr Müller and his wife shook hands with him and smiled on him with great broad smiles. He did not see Anna. He lingered about in the guest-room, pretending to look for something, but she did not come, and finally he went slowly upstairs and into his room and shut the door.

He awoke between seven and eight o'clock and got out of bed and went to the window. He knew at once from the look of the sky, very soft, cloudless and tranquil, that the day would be hot again. The sun was already brilliant on the painted white walls of the inn and the flags of the courtyard beyond the shade of the mulberry tree. The shadows of the tall houses zigzagged across the street and up the white walls of the houses opposite with dark, sharp angles, as though cut out with scissors. He leaned out of the window and saw on the flags the red smears of the mulberries that the guests had crushed under their feet the night before. He remembered Anna. The courtyard and the street were deserted, but voices were talking downstairs and there was a fragrance of fresh bread and coffee.

He went downstairs and Frau Müller gave him his coffee in a little room adorned with yellowing family portraits and big oleographs of battle-scenes and bright coloured paintings on glass. While he was drinking
his coffee Herr Müller came in and smiled on him and shook hands. He looked more jovial and droll and potbellied than ever.

He finished his breakfast and went out into the courtyard. There was no sign of Anna. He lingered about in the sunshine, hoping she would come out, but she did not come. Once or twice he thought he could hear her voice but he was never sure and at last he walked slowly away up the street to look for Karl. He met no one but a few children and an old peasant woman and a youth with a reaping-machine drawn by an old bony red cow. They all said ‘Guten morgen' and the youth raised his hat to him.

He recognised the house with the grape-vine and went into the courtyard and up the steps to the kitchen door. The young girl and Maria were in the kitchen, scraping a big earthenware bowl of potatoes. Maria got up at once and wiped her hands on her skirt and smiled. He smiled at her in return and said in a questioning tone:

‘Karl?'

She nodded and ran at once to the stairs and shouted ‘Karl! Karl!' but there was no answer, and finally she beckoned him and led him upstairs and showed him into a bedroom.

Karl was lying in a huge wooden bed. His dark head was just visible. The pillows had fallen to the floor and the great covering bolster was lying askew and crumpled and the rest of the bedclothes were
tangled about his body. He looked as though he had spent the night struggling and wrestling with something. When Richardson bent down and shook his shoulder he groaned and buried his face in the sheets and told him to go away.

‘What about the forest?' said Richardson.

‘God, what about it?'

‘What's the matter with you? You didn't drink very much at the inn.'

‘We had another party here afterwards.'

‘You look like ten parties.'

His hair was tangled and matted over his forehead and his eyes looked swollen and unhappy. ‘How far is the forest? I'll go myself.'

‘Two miles.'

‘I'll go and be back for you soon. Is that all right?'

‘God, I don't care what you do.'

He groaned again and struggled with the sheets and turned away.

Richardson went downstairs and through the courtyard and down the street again. The crimson mattresses hanging out of the bedroom windows looked brilliant in the sunshine. The sky was wonderfully blue and cloudless and the sun itself was hot and dazzling on his face.

When he reached the inn again a door in the wall of the courtyard was standing open and beyond he could see an orchard and a patch of flower-garden. He thought he could hear voices also and out of curiosity he walked in. The orchard was very small and the
trees were old and strangely shaped and stooping. In the flower-garden nothing but a few ragged crimson dahlias were growing and a scarlet salvia or two, very handsome and brilliant by the wall in the sunshine. The dahlias had been staked and tied and the stakes were hooded with flower-pots for earwigs. He touched the heavy heads of the dahlias as he passed along the path into the orchard itself. The grass under the trees, very long and thick, was scattered with fallen plums and pears. The air was full of a smell of the dank grass and a heavy scent, like wine, of the fruit that lay rotting everywhere in the bright sunshine.

As he went forward under the trees he heard voices again, and coming suddenly to an open space he found Anna and her sister gathering the fruit of a giant pear tree. They were standing on a ladder, the elder girl just under the lowest branches and Anna at the ladder head, only her blue-striped skirt and stockings visible among the leaves.

He stood still and watched them. He had come up quite noiselessly and for a minute or two they chattered to each other among the branches without knowing he was there. But suddenly he moved and the elder girl turned and saw him and uttered a little cry.

A moment later she was climbing hastily down the ladder. He gave her one quick smile and then looked up at Anna. She was climbing down also, step by step, very slowly, with her back against the ladder, the basket of pears half-resting against her knees. She
had to come down a step or two before the leaves had swung clear of her face and the first sight of Richardson at the foot of the ladder was so sudden that she stopped involuntarily and stared at him in shy astonishment before breaking into a little smile. He smiled also. Against the curtain of dark shining pear-leaves she looked pale, fair and curiously far away. He thought she looked very happy and entrancing too. He felt a strange sensation of pleasure surge up in him at the mere sight of her, a faint, delicious feeling of the most perfect joy.

A moment later he remembered something. He wanted to take her photograph. He would take her standing on the ladder, among the pear-leaves, with the basket held just below her breast. He turned at once and called involuntarily, ‘Wait a moment', and hurried out of the orchard into the house.

When he returned with the camera they were trying to move the ladder. They wanted it to reach the branches where the pears were growing thickest, in the crown of the tree. He helped them move the ladder and made it firm against a branch, and when Anna took the basket and climbed up he picked up the camera and focused her. The elder girl uttered a little shriek of delight. Anna turned and saw the camera facing her. She blushed furiously, and he motioned her to come down a little and she turned and sat on a rung of the ladder, smoothing her hands quickly across her breast and skirt and hair until he was ready.

He took a long time over the photograph. It gave him the greatest pleasure to see the clear, pale image of her in the camera and then to look up at her, sitting like an image also, watching him with an attentive half-smile, like someone listening to something very lovely and illuminating.

He remained for a long time in the orchard with them. He took photographs of them sitting together on the ladder and another of Anna alone, half-lying in the grass among the fallen pears. After the photographs he climbed up into the highest branches of the tree, where the girls were a little afraid of venturing, and helped them to gather the pears. He liked the sensation of being far up in the tree, moving precariously from branch to branch in the sunlight, swaying the branches so that the pears swung back into his hands. He liked the stillness of the garden also, the scent of the ripe fruit, the voices of the girls breaking up the stillness, the face of Anna looking furtively up at him through the lacework of leaves.

Somewhere about eleven o'clock Herr Müller himself came into the orchard and called them into the courtyard for a glass of wine. In the courtyard was a young peasant who had come in to see Richardson. He had been a prisoner in England and could speak a little English and it would be a great honour to meet an Englishman again.

The wine was red and very cold and sharp. They drank it sitting at the tables or lounging in the shade of
the mulberry tree. The young peasant was very shy and began protesting:

‘I cannot the English no more speak — not now.'

‘But that's very good,' said Richardson.

‘I forget.'

‘But it will come back.'

‘For ten years I do not say.'

‘But you remember it perfectly.'

‘Ja?' He was delighted. ‘You think?'

Gradually he lost his shyness and they talked of England, and Richardson asked him to have some beer. ‘Ein bier, Herr Müller,' he called and everyone laughed.

They talked English over the beer and the wine while the Müllers stood listening. The peasant had come straight from the fields. He and his mother were harvesting their wheat; he had mown enough for her to rake and band, but she was very quick and he must soon go back to her. Richardson said that he would like to go into the fields that afternoon to see him mowing and to take photographs of him and his mother among the sheaves.

The peasant was overjoyed and began trying to explain the way Richardson must take in order to reach his land. He tried to explain in English but failed, and blushing and laughing at himself, he finally appealed to Anna. They talked together for a moment or two, and Anna nodded her head and Richardson felt his heart begin to beat excitedly even before the peasant said to him: