Chapter 16

Summary

Thilde arrived at the Friedrichstraße station with the eight o’clock train early Saturday morning. She handed her valise to the baggage porter, together with her claim check, and requested that everything be brought to her apartment over there at Schulze’s, third floor. “Yes, Fräulein.” He corrected himself quickly, however, for he was an old neighbor and knew her quite well, and he promised to be there in a half hour. As she left, he looked after her for a moment. “What some good hard cash don't do! Hasn't she turned out fancy! Downright dashing— and a spyglass!” As these comments followed her, she stepped over the curb to the street and gazed at the building and up to the third floor. Nothing had changed, yet everything seemed quite different. A peculiar feeling crept over her, until she said to herself, “Be glad that it is as it is; it could be much worse. The way it was two years ago when I still had to do everything myself.” She crossed over to the right side of the street and looked up to the third floor, to see whether she might find the old lady at the window. But she saw nothing, nor anything on the other floors; everywhere the shades were still drawn. She was glad to be entirely unobserved, but in fact she was not. As she stepped up onto the curb, the counselor's wife, who had risen from the breakfast table and made a peephole in the window shade, said to her spouse, “How can you just sit there with the newspaper? You don't see something like this every day. Only her gloves are black, and she looks like she's taking a trip to Dresden and the Saxon mountains. A raincoat and a spyglass— the only thing missing is a walking stick!”

“Oh, you always have some kind of comment, Luise. If she arrived with a long mourning flag, that wouldn't suit you either.”

Thilde climbed the stairs slowly. The higher she came, the more slowly she climbed, for she dreaded seeing the old woman. Runtschen stood on the last landing and took her umbrella since she had nothing else with her. “Hello, Runtschen; how are you?”