“That’s good,” I said, “now it’s the three of us against the whole family.”
“Yes, now there are three of us,” she repeated in agreement, but in a tone as if she didn’t believe at all that we really were three sticking together. Rather I would conclude from her tone of voice that there weren’t even two of us any more, but each of us separate – myself, herself and grandfather. We were all enduring the same thing, but each in our own way and with our own thoughts and feelings.
The next day Erika was absent from the lunch table and the landlady said, by way of explanation, “The young lady wrote that yesterday evening she had to go out in the rain, got her feet wet and got a bad cold with a little fever. She’ll have to stay in bed for a couple of days, and she begs to be excused.”
Since no one apart from the children reacted to these words, she continued, “The young lady has been a bit strange generally recently – terribly absent-minded! She must have started courting.”
“There’s nothing else for you but love,” remarked the landlord.
“What else could there be for a pretty young girl?” replied the landlady.
“Is that the only worry in life?”
“No, but young girls don’t feel any other worries,” she explained.
“That’s how it was when you were young, but nowadays young people are different,” countered her husband.
“Yes, nowadays young people are more practical,” I said, endorsing the landlord.
“Are you, Mr Studious, so practical?” asked the landlady, turning the tables on me.
“I’m not a young girl, and the talk was of girls,” I parried by way of answer.
“So why do you think that girls are more practical than boys?” asked the landlady.
“Women are always more practical than men,” I explained.
“Women grasp situations quicker,” opined the landlord. “Now is a practical age, so that…“
“… women are practical,” continued the landlady mockingly. “I don’t understand where you men get it from. The papers are saying that German girls are staying single because of a shortage of men, but why don’t they marry Estonians, if they’re so practical?”
“Estonians don’t want them,” said the landlord.
“Don’t imagine it,” cried the landlady. “Estonians want them right enough, but German girls don’t want them, because they’re not practical. They require an Estonian man to be young, educated and rich, but there aren’t enough such men even for Estonian girls. A practical girl should be satisfied with much less. Lucky if a man has one of those qualities. If he’s rich, he doesn’t have much education or youth, and if he’s educated, well then, she’d have to give up on the youth and the wealth, while youth sometimes wins over good education and wealth. That’s what a practical woman would think. And yet nobody wants to think like that, so don’t talk to me about practicality! We were talking recently about corporations, which both boys and girls can join. Is that very practical? You should know, Mr Studious.”
“It isn’t practical at all,” I said.
“So why does everyone try to do it, if it’s a practical age and people are becoming practical with the times, as my husband thinks?”
“I don’t know,” I replied. “Perhaps because of some idea or fashion.”
“Well, you see, young people aren’t practical at all, if they run around because of an idea or fashion,” decided the landlady. “That’s what I think of German girls too, including our miss. If I could give her advice, I would tell her, Why fuss uselessly about your emotions; you’re better of falling on the neck of some man, and if there are no Germans, find an Estonian.”
“According to your advice she would soon have a child on her lap, but she’d have to demand child support from a court,” said the landlord.
“No, my dear man, you don’t know yourself and your brothers as well as we women do. There’s no need to make men worse than they really are. There are still enough among you to instil love and fidelity in a woman. The only problem is that there’s so little fidelity around these days. If I were a young girl now, I wouldn’t fear for a moment that I wouldn’t find a man in my whole life.”
“And we haven’t buried each other yet,” joked her husband.
“But we will, I don’t doubt that for a moment,” said the landlady gravely. “Listen, you men, you aren’t as wise and strong as you think you are. And as for women’s practicality these days, allow me to doubt it. I think that whatever else happens, the most practical thing a woman has is love.”
“But if women don’t love any more, what then?” asked her husband.
“Don’t blame men, at least,” replied the landlady. “But of course that’s silly! A woman loves as she always did; only foolish school learning, literal book knowledge, has driven them to believe that maybe something could replace love and fidelity.”
“My dear lady, do you believe what you’re saying?” I asked.
“But of course,” she replied unhesitatingly.
“The facts speak against you, though,” I opined.
“What facts?” she asked. “Divorce proceedings? Claims for child support? Don’t believe what people, especially women, say in front of courts, let alone when they talk about love and alimony. If they often love in order to get alimony, they mostly make claims when they’re not in love. But all these are distant things that leave us cold. Don’t you want to answer one question from me? But you, old man, don’t butt in; the children have left the table, and let me say what I think. So therefore, Mr Studious, if a nice lass like ours, even if she is German, were to lay her hand on your shoulder – of course she’d have to know how to do it – and say that you’re the beginning and end of her life, you’re a blessing on her soul, her redemption on earth…”
“This sounds like your own declaration of love at the dinner table,” remarked the landlord, while I felt a blush coming unbidden to my face.
“I asked you not to butt into our chat,” said the landlady, turning back to me: “What do you think – what would you do with a nice girl, such as our young lady, if she said that to you? Could you really just drop her?”
“I really don’t know, because my income…” I wanted to explain.
“Ah, what income!” interposed the landlady. “You pull yourself together, start working, worry about your income, when a girl really does know how to put her hand on your neck.”
“You should open an introduction agency,” remarked her husband.
“Quite surely, a good introduction agency would be much more useful than bad employment agencies, of which we have more than enough,” the landlady told her spouse.
“Yes, that’s true,” he replied, “but have you ever thought that usually every hand that’s placed on the neck of a man is heavier than a yoke on a bull?”
“If that were so,” she replied, “then why are people killing themselves for love more often than they used to?”
“The growth in suicides isn’t only explained by love,” said the man, somewhat disdainfully.
“Well, what then?” she asked. “The economy? Well, only you men could believe that. But, young man, answer me frankly, what would drive you most easily to suicide – hunger for food or for love?”
“It would be worst for me, I think, if both hungers came at once,” I replied, for I felt that I should easily deal with both together.
“Of course, the two together would be worst, but taken one at a time, hunger for love is more painful than hunger for food, because you can steal food, but not love. Once you start believing that your life’s happiness is in somebody’s eyes, there’s nothing for it but to…“
“… get a bullet in the head, a noose around the neck, dive into the water or under wheels,” her husband finished her sentence.