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, harassed 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 süsses! 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 Embassy. 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 passed 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:
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. Titian's "Bella" looked down at me blandly with her reddened eyelids.
"What message was that you sent?" she asked, with her graceful head on one side.
My voice had almost left me. "I said Hugo Wolff told me to come in. I heard you singing 'Der Musikant'...."
She laughed, and said: "Are you a musician?"
I said: "No." And I thought of telling her the History of the Wolf. But I feared she might know my name, and tell the Italians in New York. And the Italo-Americano would print an article about it—and the Corriere della Sera in Milan would reprint it....
"Is there anything I can do for you?" she said.
I nodded.
"Money?" she asked softly.
I nodded.
"How much do you need?"
"Five dollars," I said.
She smiled, and said: "Is that all? I should willingly do more for a friend of Hugo Wolff's!"
She went out of the room, and closed the door behind her. She left me in my shabby clothes, in my black straw hat and my need of five dollars, in her gorgeous drawing-room, scattered with priceless ornaments in silver and gold, jewelled frames and trinkets lying all about the tables. I covered my face with my hands, and the tears rolled through my fingers. She came back a few minutes afterwards with a gold twenty-dollar piece in her hand. She gave it to me, and said, "For luck!" and added: