MARCH began badly for Thea. She had a cold during
the first week, and after she got through her church
duties on Sunday she had to go to bed with tonsilitis. She
was still in the boarding-house at which young Ottenburg
had called when he took her to see Mrs. Nathanmeyer.
She had stayed on there because her room, although it
was inconvenient and very small, was at the corner of the
house and got the sunlight.
Since she left Mrs. Lorch, this was the first place where
she had got away from a north light. Her rooms had all
been as damp and mouldy as they were dark, with deep
foundations of dirt under the carpets, and dirty walls. In
her present room there was no running water and no clothes
closet, and she had to have the dresser moved out to
make room for her piano. But there were two windows,
one on the south and one on the west, a light wall-paper
with morning-glory vines, and on the floor a clean matting.
The landlady had tried to make the room look cheerful,
because it was hard to let. It was so small that Thea could
keep it clean herself, after the Hun had done her worst.
She hung her dresses on the door under a sheet, used the
washstand for a dresser, slept on a cot, and opened both
the windows when she practiced. She felt less walled in
than she had in the other houses.
Wednesday was her third day in bed. The medical stu-
dent who lived in the house had been in to see her, had left
some tablets and a foamy gargle, and told her that she
could probably go back to work on Monday. The land-
lady stuck her head in once a day, but Thea did not en-
courage her visits. The Hungarian chambermaid brought
her soup and toast. She made a sloppy pretense of put-
ting the room in order, but she was such a dirty crea-
ture that Thea would not let her touch her cot; she got
up every morning and turned the mattress and made the
bed herself. The exertion made her feel miserably ill, but
at least she could lie still contentedly for a long while
afterward. She hated the poisoned feeling in her throat,
and no matter how often she gargled she felt unclean and
disgusting. Still, if she had to be ill, she was almost glad
that she had a contagious illness. Otherwise she would
have been at the mercy of the people in the house. She
knew that they disliked her, yet now that she was ill, they
took it upon themselves to tap at her door, send her mes-
sages, books, even a miserable flower or two. Thea knew
that their sympathy was an expression of self-righteous-
ness, and she hated them for it. The divinity student,
who was always whispering soft things to her, sent her
"The Kreutzer Sonata."
The medical student had been kind to her: he knew that
she did not want to pay a doctor. His gargle had helped
her, and he gave her things to make her sleep at night. But
he had been a cheat, too. He had exceeded his rights. She
had no soreness in her chest, and had told him so clearly.
All this thumping of her back, and listening to her breath-
ing, was done to satisfy personal curiosity. She had watched
him with a contemptuous smile. She was too sick to care;
if it amused him-- She made him wash his hands before
he touched her; he was never very clean. All the same,
it wounded her and made her feel that the world was a
pretty disgusting place. "The Kreutzer Sonata" did not
make her feel any more cheerful. She threw it aside with
hatred. She could not believe it was written by the same
man who wrote the novel that had thrilled her.
Her cot was beside the south window, and on Wednesday
afternoon she lay thinking about the Harsanyis, about old
Mr. Nathanmeyer, and about how she was missing Fred
Ottenburg's visits to the studio. That was much the worst
thing about being sick. If she were going to the studio
every day, she might be having pleasant encounters with
Fred. He was always running away, Bowers said, and he
might be planning to go away as soon as Mrs. Nathan-
meyer's evenings were over. And here she was losing all
this time!
After a while she heard the Hun's clumsy trot in the hall,
and then a pound on the door. Mary came in, making her
usual uncouth sounds, carrying a long box and a big basket.
Thea sat up in bed and tore off the strings and paper. The
basket was full of fruit, with a big Hawaiian pineapple in
the middle, and in the box there were layers of pink roses
with long, woody stems and dark-green leaves. They filled
the room with a cool smell that made another air to breathe.
Mary stood with her apron full of paper and cardboard.
When she saw Thea take an envelope out from under the
flowers, she uttered an exclamation, pointed to the roses,
and then to the bosom of her own dress, on the left side.
Thea laughed and nodded. She understood that Mary as-
sociated the color with Ottenburg's BOUTONNIERE. She pointed
to the water pitcher,--she had nothing else big enough
to hold the flowers,--and made Mary put it on the window
sill beside her.
After Mary was gone Thea locked the door. When the
landlady knocked, she pretended that she was asleep. She
lay still all afternoon and with drowsy eyes watched the
roses open. They were the first hothouse flowers she had
ever had. The cool fragrance they released was soothing,
and as the pink petals curled back, they were the only things
between her and the gray sky. She lay on her side, putting
the room and the boarding-house behind her. Fred knew
where all the pleasant things in the world were, she re-
flected, and knew the road to them. He had keys to all the
nice places in his pocket, and seemed to jingle them from
time to time. And then, he was young; and her friends had
always been old. Her mind went back over them. They
had all been teachers; wonderfully kind, but still teachers.
Ray Kennedy, she knew, had wanted to marry her, but
he was the most protecting and teacher-like of them all.
She moved impatiently in her cot and threw her braids
away from her hot neck, over her pillow. "I don't want him
for a teacher," she thought, frowning petulantly out of the
window. "I've had such a string of them. I want him for
a sweetheart."
Read next: PART III. STUPID FACES#Chapter 6
Read previous: PART III. STUPID FACES#Chapter 4
Table of content of Song of the Lark
GO TO TOP OF SCREEN
Post your reviewYour review will be placed after the table of content of this book
