She turned around and looked, at first just fleetingly, then she asked in turn, yes, what’s that there, yes, what is it, it seemed familiar to her, it’s the window, isn’t it, and she knew this window very well, but what else was there?
Take a look, he explained to her, at that tiny, fat, furry, black, quivering, almost metallically gleaming spot outside there in the late autumn, presumably one of the last flies of the year, it wants very insistently to get in here of all places, obviously right through the closed window.
Hardly had he spoken the word “fly” than she had sprung up in alarm to open the window as fast as possible, then he heard a barely audible, gently drawn-out singing curve into the room, after which she shut the window again right away.
It had become unmistakably clear to Burgmüller that his girlfriend felt a deep, inner, indeed very personal responsibility for the fly, otherwise she wouldn’t have leaped to the window just now with such irritation in order to let the insect come in right away, and all the objections and misgivings he then expressed weren’t even deemed worthy of the epithet “ignorant.”
While she unenthusiastically continued chewing the piece of bread and butter she had begun, she looked up with concern at the cheerlessly darkened gray dawn of the dreary kitchen ceiling, as if it had already taken much too long for her expected guest to come down from there.
Cautiously and suspiciously, as if to scout out this new location, the housefly glided down and settled at first on the window ledge, as if it wanted in advance to investigate every possible route of retreat before hopping down onto the kitchen table, where it surprisingly began to clean its frayed, transparent wings by pulling them neatly between its hind legs several times. Or was it a ritual greeting of recognition — because, as if she had been waiting to make very sure that here she’d found a long lost or absent friend again, Burgmüller’s beloved began to greet the fly in an unmistakably affable manner, she seemed to tell it how welcome it was, whispering something Burgmüller couldn’t understand, like: oh, there you are, how nice, Elvira, you found your way here after all, just in the nick of time. Then she turned briefly away from the fly to explain clearly to Burgmüller: this housefly must have had some terrible experiences, couldn’t he see how exhausted the creature was from its long trip over the treacherous ice rinks of the fragile, frozen airspace plains; it had crossed the entire, soon completely sunken autumnal continent of the sky just in time to arrive here, she explained, and put the remaining piece of her buttered bread on the table for the housefly. Think of all the terrible things this fly must have experienced in the meantime, Burgmüller’s girlfriend continued, you couldn’t even begin to dream of it. As if to demonstrate her sympathy, she approached their new pet very slowly and carefully with her right index finger, stroking first just its wings with her fingertip, and then gradually the other parts of its body. The housefly seemed to like that, no, it didn’t seem at all threatened, but it soon swung back through the air to the window and hit its head helplessly on the glass several times before crashing down to the window ledge exhausted — it hadn’t hurt itself, because right away it had flipped off its back into an upright position again and was cleaning the net-patterned surface of its eyes with its front legs.
How frightened the poor winged creature is, the woman exclaimed to Burgmüller, its nerves are shot, it’s probably completely exhausted too. She took the rest of her buttered bread from the table and went calmly to the window, to spare the housefly the necessary trip back from the window to the table, all the while whispering calming words: Don’t be afraid, Elvira, don’t be afraid, here’s the bread and butter for you.
The insect had flown into his apartment, and right away she was calling it “Elvira.” Why? Burgmüller asked himself, and why was she acting as if this Elvira was someone she knew? Admittedly someone she hadn’t seen in years, but nonetheless, a very good friend? At first he just couldn’t understand that, but neither was there any opportunity for him to ask, because she was devoting herself all too much to the housefly, and so had hardly any time to give him a detailed answer. But all this kind talk soon made Elvira feel quite sure of herself, and she hopped onto the surface of the buttered bread.
Come along, Burgmüller then heard his girlfriend say to him, let’s leave her in peace.
He hesitated, didn’t want to let a housefly drive him out of his kitchen, but then he felt his girlfriend tugging at his shirt sleeve, pulling him out the door and into the hallway.
In their room, they then discussed their new situation.
My dear, she said, we’d wanted to go to the pound anyway, today or tomorrow, to adopt a dog without a master or a cat without a mistress, but now I think we can save ourselves the trip, because Elvira has come to us.
There’s that name Elvira again, he thought, and wanted to reply that he felt left out as far as choosing her name. But before he could reply, she spoke of the great good fortune they’d had, because if Elvira had reached another window, it’s possible that the people there wouldn’t have opened it for her at all, or if they had, then with the evil intent of swatting her or of throwing her into an aquarium for their goldfish.
He probably couldn’t begin to understand, she then continued, how happy she was that Elvira had come now after all, because she had always wished for this housefly, she much preferred it to a dog or cat; and she asked how he liked Elvira.
He liked Elvira, he liked her, he replied, and now he had spoken this name for the first time, as if Elvira had always been there, as if she had always had this name, or as if they had been waiting for her for the longest time. Yes, he really liked Elvira a lot, he said, as far as he’d been able to judge in the short time he’d known her, she had a likeable nature, was quiet, cautious, not too pushy, was unassuming, charming, and so on.
But the most important thing at present, she continued, was to give Elvira a chance to rest, not to frighten her in any way, above all not to make any unnecessary noise, you know, people talk much too loudly, as she was now noticing, and if he would please just put himself in the position of the housefly; just imagine, she explained, if that huge building over there across the way suddenly started a conversation with the church tower behind it, can you imagine how loud their words would sound to you, you would think the tall building or the church was yelling at you, or that they were screaming at each other, do you understand what I mean, and when we talk with each other, it must seem about that loud to Elvira, in future we have to talk much more quietly, better yet, whisper, do you understand, nothing above a whisper! The best thing would be not to go into the kitchen at all for the rest of the day, or even tomorrow, but to leave her entirely in peace for now.
They went on to speak of their future life with Elvira, of the new issues that would now arise, for example how to care for her, how to behave toward her, how to educate her, and he emphasized that it wasn’t just that the two of them should adapt to the housefly, but also that the housefly should also adapt to them.
What are you thinking of, she said, didn’t he know that a housefly, once one had made friends with it, was consideration personified, no, Elvira would never crawl over his face if she sensed that he didn’t like that kind of thing, and yes, she could sense something like that from kilometers away, but as soon as he wanted her to land on his hand, she would immediately comply with his wish, would alight on his finger and start cleaning his signet ring, he would see how well Elvira could do that, he’d be amazed, and if they were sad and cried, she would wipe the tears from their eyes with her wings.