The Hotel Occidental Amerika

On reaching the hotel Karl was at once conducted to a sort of office, in which the Manageress, with a notebook in her hand, was dictating a letter to a young stenographer sitting at a typewriter. 'The consummately precise dictation, the controlled and buoyant tapping of the keys raced on to the ticking, noticeable only now and then, of a clock standing against the wall, whose hands pointed to almost half-past eleven. There ! ’ said the Manageress, shutting the notebook; the stenographer jumped up and put the lid on the typewriter without taking her eyes from Karl during these mechanical actions. She looked like a schoolgirl still, her overall was neatly ironed, even pleated at the shoulders; her hair was piled up high; and it was a little surprising, after noting these details, to see the gravity of her face. After making a bow, first to the Manageress, then to Karl, she left the room and Karl involuntarily flung a questioning glance at the Manageress.

‘It's splendid that you’ve come after all,' said the Manageress. ‘And what about your friends?’

‘I haven’t brought them with me,’ said Karl.

They’ll be moving on very early in the morning, I suppose,’ said the Manageress, as if to explain the matter to herself.

‘But mustn’t she think in that case that I’ll have to start early too?’ Karl asked himself, and so he said to put an end to all misunderstanding : ‘We parted on bad terms.’

The Manageress seemed to constrite this as excellent news. 'So then you’re free?’ she said.

Tes, I’m free,’ said Karl, and nothing seemed more worthless than his freedom.

’Listen, wouldn’t you like to take a job here in the hotel?’ asked the Manageress.

’Very much,’ said Karl, ’but I have terribly little experience. For instance, I can’t even use a typewriter/

‘That’s not very important,' said the Manageress. ‘You’d be given only a small job to begin with, and it would be your business to work your way up by diligence and attentiveness. But in any case I think it would be better and wiser for you to settle down somewhere, instead of wandering about like this. I don’t think you’re made for that kind of thing.’

‘My uncle would subscribe to that too/ Karl told himself, nodding in agreement. At the same time he reminded himself that though the Manageress had shown such concern for him, he had not yet introduced himself. ‘Please forgive me,' he said, ‘for not having introduced myself before. My name is Karl Rossmann/

‘You’re a German, aren’t you?'

‘Yes,' said Karl, ‘I haven’t been long in America/

‘Where do you come from ? ’

‘From Prague, in Bohemia,’ said Karl.

‘Just think of that !' cried the Manageress in English with a strong German inflection, almost flinging her hands in the air. ‘Then we’re compatriots, for my name is Grete Mitzelbach and I come from Vienna. And I know Prague quite well; I worked for half a year in the “Golden Goose’’ in Wenceslaus Square. Only think of that ! ’

‘When was that?’ asked Karl.

‘Many, many years ago now.'

‘The old “Golden Goose’’/ said Karl, ‘was pulled down two years ago.’

‘Well, well,' said the Manageress, quite absorbed in her thoughts of past days.

But all at once, becoming animated again, she seized both Karl’s hands and cried: ‘Now that you turn out to be a

countryman of mine, you mustn’t go away on any account. You mustn’t offend me by doing that. How would you like, for instance, to be a lift-boy ? Just say the word and it's done. If you’ve seen something of this country, you 11 realize that it isn’t very easy to get such posts, for they’re the best start in life that you can think of. You come in contact with all the hotel guests, people are always seeing you and giving you little errands to do; in short, every day you have the chance to better yourself. I’ll fix everything up for you; leave it to me.’

'I should like quite well to be a lift-boy,’* said Karl after a slight pause. It would be very foolish to have any scruples about accepting a post as lift-boy because of his High School education. Here in America he had much more cause to be ashamed of his High School. Besides, Karl had always admired lift-boys; he thought them very ornamental.

‘Isn’t a knowledge of languages required?’ he asked next.

‘You speak German and perfectly good English; that’s quite enough.’

‘I’ve learned English only in the last two and a half months in America,’ said. Karl, for he thought he had better not conceal his one merit. ‘That’s a sufficient recommendation in itself,’ said the Manageress. ‘When I think of the difficulties I had with my English ! Of course, that’s thirty years ago now. I was talking about it only yesterday. For yesterday was my fiftieth birthday.’ And she smilingly tried to read in Karl’s face the impression which such a dignified age made upon him.

‘Then I wish you much happiness,’ said Karl.

‘Well, it always comes in useful,’ said she, shaking Karl’s hand and looking a little melancholy over the old German phrase which had come quite naturally to the tip of her tongue.

‘But I am keeping you here,' she cried all at once. ‘And you must be tired, and we can talk over%everything much better tomorrow. My pleasure in meeting a countryman has made

me forget everything else. Come, I'll show you your room/

‘I have one more favour to beg,' said Karl, glancing at the telephone which stood on the table. ‘It’s possible that tomorrow morning these one-time friends of mine may bring me a photograph which I urgently need. Would you be so kind as to telephone to the porter to send the men up to me, or else call me down?'

‘Certainly,’ said the Manageress, ‘but wouldn’t it do if they gave him the photograph? What photograph is it, if I may ask?’

‘It’s a photograph of my parents,’ said Karl. ‘No, I must speak to the men myself.’ The Manageress said nothing further and telephoned the order to the porter’s office, giving 536 as the number of Karl’s room.

They went then through a door facing the entrance door and along a short passage, where a small lift-boy was leaning against the railing of a lift, fast asleep. ‘We can work it ourselves,’ said the Manageress softly, ushering Karl into the lift. ‘A working day of from ten to twelve hours is really rather much for a boy like that,’ she added, while they ascended. ‘But America’s a strange country. Take this boy, for instance; he came here only half a year ago with his parents; he’s an Italian. At the moment it looks as if he simply wouldn’t be able to stand the work, his face has fallen away to nothing and he goes to sleep on the job, although he’s naturally a very willing lad - but let him only go on working here or anywhere else in America for another six months and he’ll be able to take it all in his stride, and in another five years he’ll be a strong man. I could spend hours telling you about such cases. You’re not one of them, for you’re a strong lad already; you’re seventeen, aren’t you?'

‘I’ll be sixteen next month,’ replied Karl.

‘Not even sixteen !’ said the Manageress. ‘Then you don’t need to worry ! ’

At the top of the building she led Karl to a room which, being a garret, had a sloping wall, but was lit by two electric

lamps and looked most inviting. ‘Don’t be surprised at the furnishings,' said the Manageress, ‘for this isn’t a hotel room, but one of my rooms; I have three of them, so that you won’t disturb me in the least. I'll lock the connecting doors and you’ll be quite private. Tomorrow, as a new hotel employee, you will of course be given your own room. If your friends had come with you, I would have put you all in the large attic where the hotel servants sleep; but as you are alone I think you would be better here, though you’ll have nothing but a sofa to lie on. And now sleep well and gather strength for your work. Tomorrow it won’t be so very hard.’

‘Thank you very much indeed for your kindness.’

‘Wait,’ she said, stopping by the door, ‘I’ll have to keep you from being wakened up too early.’ And she went to a side door opening out of the room, knocked on it and cried: ‘Therese ! ’

‘Yes, madam,’ replied the voice of the typist.

‘When you waken me in the morning go round by the passage; there’s a guest sleeping in this room. He’s dead tired.’ She smiled at Karl while saying this. ‘Do you understand ? '

‘Yes, madam/

‘Well then, good night/

‘Good night/

‘I have slept,' said the Manageress in explanation, ‘very badly for several years. I have every right to be satisfied with my present position and don’t really need to worry. But all my earlier worries must be taking it out of me now and keeping me from sleeping. If I fall asleep by three in the morning, I can count myself lucky. But as I have to be at my post by five, or half-past five at the latest, I have to be wakened and very gently wakened, to prevent me from turning more nervous than I am already. And so Therese wakens me. But now I’ve really told you everything there is to tell and I’m not away yet. Good night.’ %And in spite of her bulk she almost flitted out of the room.

Karl was looking forward to his sleep, for the day had taken a great deal out of him. And more comfortable quarters for a long, unbroken sleep he could not wish for. The room was certainly not intended for a bedroom, it was rather the Manageress’s living-room, or more exactly reception-room, and a wash-stand had been specially put in it for his use that night; yet he did not feel like an intruder, but only that he was being well looked after. His box was there all right, waiting for him, and certainly had not been so safe for a long time. On a low chest of drawers, over which a large-meshed woollen cover had been flung, several framed photographs were standing; in making his round of the room Karl stopped to look at them. They were nearly all old photographs, mostly of girls in old-fashioned, uncomfortable clothes, a small, highcrowned hat insecurely perched on each head and the right hand resting on the handle of a sun-shade; girls who stood facing the spectator and yet refused to meet his eyes. Among the photographs of the men Karl was particularly struck by a young soldier who had laid his cap on a table and was standing erect with a thatch of wild, black hair and a look of suppressed but arrogant amusement. Someone had retouched the buttons of his uniform with dots of gold paint. All these photographs probably came from Europe, and by turning them over it would be possible to make sure, yet Karl did not want to lay a finger upon them. He would have liked to set up the photograph of his parents in the room he was going to have, just like these photographs here.

He was just stretching himself on the sofa and looking forward to his sleep after washing himself thoroughly from head to foot, which he had taken care to do as quietly as possible on account of the girl next door, when he thought he heard a low knock at a door. He could not make out at once which door it was; it might well have been only some random noise. Nor was it repeated at once, and he was half asleep by the time it came again. But now it was unmistakably a knock and it came from the door of the typist’s room. Karl

tiptoed to the door and asked so softly that, even if the girl in the next room were sleeping after all, it could not waken her: ‘Do you want anything?'

At once the reply came in an equally soft voice: 'Won't you open the door? The key is on your side.'

‘Certainly,' said Karl, 'only I must put on some clothes first.'

There was a slight pause, then the girl said: 'You don't need to do that. Unlock the door and go back to bed again; I’ll wait for a little.'

‘Good,' said Karl and did as she had suggested, except that he switched on the electric light as well. ‘I'm in bed now,' he said then, somewhat more loudly. Then the typist emerged from her dark room fully dressed as she had left the office; apparently she had not even thought of going to bed.

‘Please excuse me,' she said, drooping a little before Karl's sofa, ‘and please don't tell on me. And I won’t disturb you for long; I know you’re dead tired.'

‘I'm not so tired as all that,' said Karl, ‘but maybe it might have been better if I had put on some clothes.' He had to lie quite flat to keep himself covered to the neck, for he had no nightshirt.

‘I’ll only stay a minute,' she said, looking about for a chair. ‘May I sit beside the sofa?' Karl nodded. She set her chair so close to the sofa that Karl had to squeeze against the wall to look up at her. She had a round, regularly formed face, except that the brow looked unusually high, but that might have been an effect of the way her hair was done, which did not quite suit her. Her dress was very clean and neat. In her left hand she was crushing a handkerchief.

‘Are you going to stay here long ? ' she asked.

‘It isn’t quite settled yet/ replied Karl, ‘but I think I’m going to stay.'

‘That would be splendid,' she said, passing the handkerchief over her face, ‘for I feel so lonelyTiere.'

‘I'm surprised at that,' said Karl. ‘The Manageress is very

kind to you, isn’t she? She doesn’t treat you like an employee at all. I actually thought you were a relation of hers/

‘Oh no,' she said, ‘my name is Therese Berchtold; I come from Pomerania/

Karl also introduced himself. At that, she looked him full in the face for the first time, as if he had become a Little more strange to her by mentioning his name. They were both silent for a while. Then she said: ‘You mustn’t think that I’m ungrateful. If it weren’t for the Manageress I'd be in a much worse state. I used to be a kitchen-maid here in the hotel and in great danger of being dismissed too, for I wasn’t equal to the heavy work. They expect a lot from you here. A, month ago a kitchen-maid simply fainted under the strain and had to lie up in hospital for fourteen days. And I’m not: very strong, I was often ill as a child, and so I’ve been slow in catching up; you would never think, would you, that I’m eighteen? But I’m getting stronger now/

The work here must really be very tiring,' said Karl. ‘E saw a lift-boy downstairs standing sleeping on his feet/

‘The lift-boys have the best of it, all the same,' she said. They make quite a lot in tips and in spite of that they don’t have to work nearly so hard as the girls in the kitchen. But for once in my life I really was lucky, for one day the Manageress needed a girl to arrange the table-napkins for a banquet and she sent down for a kitchen-maid; now there are about fifty kitchen-maids here and I just happened to be handy; well, I gave her great satisfaction, for I have always been very good at arranging table-napkins. And so from that day she kept me with her and trained me by stages till I became her secretary. And I’ve learned a great deal/

‘Is there so much writing to be done here, then?’ asked Karl.

‘Oh, a great deal,' she replied, ‘more than you would imagine. You saw yourself that I was working up to half-past eleven tonight, and that’s quite usual. Of course, I don’t type all the time, for I do lots of errands in the town as well.’

‘What's the name of this town ? ' asked Karl.

‘Don’t you know?’ she said. ‘Rameses/

‘Is it a big town ? ’ asked Karl.

‘Very big,' she replied. ‘I -don’t enjoy visiting it. But wouldn’t you really like to go to sleep now ? ’

‘No, no,' said Karl, ‘you haven’t told me yet why you came to see me/

‘Because I have no one to talk to. I’m not complaining, but there’s really no one, and it makes me happy to find someone at last who will let me talk. I saw you below in the saloon, I was just coming to fetch the Manageress when she took you off to the store-room.'

‘That saloon is a terrible place,' said Karl.

‘I don’t even notice it these days,’ she replied. ‘But I only wanted to say that the Manageress is as kind to me as if she were my mother. Yet there’s too great a difference between our positions for me to speak freely to her. I used to have good friends among the kitchen-maids, but they’ve all left here long ago and I scarcely know the new girls. And besides, it often seems to me that the work I’m doing now is a greater strain than what I did before, that I don’t even do it so well as the other, and that the Manageress keeps me on merely out of charity. After all, it really needs a better education than I have had to be a secretary. It’s a sin to say it, but often and often I feel it’s driving me out of my mind. For God’s sake,’ she burst out, speaking much more rapidly and hastily touching Karl’s shoulder, since he kept his hands below the blankets, ‘don’t tell the Manageress a word of this, or else I’m really done for. If besides worrying her by my work, I were to cause her actual pain as well, that would really be too much.'

‘Of course I won't tell her anything/ replied Karl.

.‘Then that’s all right,' she said, ‘and you must go on staying here. I’d be glad if you would, and if you like we could be friends. As soon as I saw you, I felt I could trust you. And yet - you see how wicked I am - I was afraid too that the

Manageress might make you her secretary in my place and dismiss me. It took me a long time, sitting by myself next door, while you were below in the office, to straighten it all out in my mind until I saw that it might actually be a very good thing if you were to take over my work, for you certainly would understand it better. If you didn’t want to do i the errands in the town, I could keep that job for myself. But apart from that, I would certainly be of much more use in the kitchen, especially as I’m stronger now than I used I to be.’

‘It’s all settled already,' said Karl, ‘I’m to be a lift-boy and I you’re to go on being secretary. But if you even hint at these : plans of yours to the Manageress, I’ll tell her all you’ve told I me tonight, sorry as I would be to do it/

Karl’s tone alarmed Therese so greatly that she flung; herself down beside the sofa, weeping and hiding her face in i the bed-clothes.

‘Oh, I shan’t tell,' said Karl, ‘but you mustn’t say anything; either/

Now he could not help coming a little out from under his i coverings, and stroked her arm softly, but he did not find the: right words to say and could only reflect that this girl’s life; was a bitter one. Finally he comforted her so far that she: grew ashamed of her weeping, looked at him gratefully, , advised him to sleep long next morning, and promised, if she; could find time, to come up at eight o’clock and waken him.,

‘You are so clever at wakening people,' said Karl.

Tes, some things I can do,' she said, ran her hand softly i over the bed-clothes in farewell, and rushed off to her room, j

Next day Karl insisted on beginning work at once, although the Manageress wanted him to take the day off and have a look round the town. He told her frankly that he would have plenty of opportunities for sightseeing later, butt that for the moment the most important thing for him wa<- to make a start with his job, for he had already broken off one career in Europe to no purpose and was now beginning;

again as a lift-boy at an age when his contemporaries, if they were ambitious, had every expectation of being promoted to more responsible work. It was right and needful for him to begin as a lift-boy, but equally needful for him to advance with extra rapidity. In these circumstances he would take no pleasure at all in strolling idly through Rameses. He would not even consent to go for a short walk with Therese, when she suggested it. He could not rid his mind of the idea that if he did not work hard he might sink as low as Delamarche and Robinson.

The hotel tailor fitted him for a lift-boy’s uniform, which was resplendent enough with gold buttons and gold braid, but made him shudder a little when he put it on, for under the arms particularly the short jacket was cold, stiff and incurably damp with the sweat of the many boys who had worn it before him. The jacket had to be altered for Karl, especially over the chest, since not one of the ten spare jackets would even meet upon him. Yet in spite of the stitching that needed to be done, and although the mastertailor seemed to be. exacting in his standards - twice he pitched the uniform back into the workshop after it was apparently finished - the fitting was completed in barely five minutes, and Karl left the tailor’s room already clad in closely fitting trousers and a jacket which, in spite of the mastertailor’s categorical assurances to the contrary, was very tight indeed and tempted Karl to indulge in breathing exercises, for he wanted to see if it was still possible to breathe at all.

Then he reported to the Head Waiter, under whose direction he was to be, a slender, handsome man with a big nose, who might well have been in the forties. The Head Waiter had no time to exchange even a word with him and simply rang for a lift-boy, who chanced to be the very one that Karl had seen yesterday. The Head Waiter called him only by his first name, Giacomo, but it took Karl some time to identify the name, for in the English pronunciation it was unrecognizable. The boy was instructed to show Karl all the duties

of a lift-boy, but he was so shy and hasty that, little as there was actually to be shown, Karl could scarcely make out that little from him. No doubt Giacomo was annoyed too because he had been removed from the lift service, apparently on Karl's account, and had been assigned to help the chambermaids, which seemed degrading in his eyes because of certain experiences, which, however, he did not divulge. Karl's deepest disappointment was the discovery that a lift-boy had nothing to do with the machinery of the lift but to set it in motion by simply pressing a button, while all repairs were done exclusively by the mechanics belonging to the hotel; for example, in spite of half a year's service on the lift, Giacomo had never seen with his own eyes either the dynamo in the cellar or the inner mechanism of the lift, although, as he said himself, that would have delighted him. Indeed the work was monotonous, and the twelve-hours' shifts, alternately by day and night, were so exhausting that according to Giacomo one simply could not bear it if one did not sleep on one's feet for a few minutes now and then. Karl made no comment, but he was perfectly aware that that very trick had cost Giacomo his post.

Karl was very pleased that the lift he had to attend to was reserved for the upper floors, since he would not have to deal with the wealthy guests, who were the most exacting. Still, he would not learn so much as at the other lifts, and it was good only for a beginning.

After the very first week he realized that he was quite equal to the job. The brasswork in his lift was the most brightly polished of all; none of the thirty other lifts had anything to compare with it, and it might have been still brighter if the other boy who partnered him had come anywhere near him in thoroughness and had not felt confirmed in his negligence by Karl's strict attention to duty. He was a native American of the name of Rennell, a conceited youth i with dark eyes and smooth, somewhat hollow cheeks. He had an elegant suit of his own which he wore on his free

evenings, when he hurried off to the town faintly smelling of perfume; now and then he would even ask Karl to take his duty of an evening, saying that he had been called away on family business and paying little heed to the contradiction between such pretexts and his festive appearance. All the same, Karl liked him quite well and was pleased to see Rennell stopping beside the lift in his fine suit before going out on one of these evenings, making his excuses again while he pulled on his gloves, and then stalking off along the corridor. Besides, Karl thought it only natural that he should oblige an older colleague in this way at the start; he had no intention of making it a permanent arrangement. For running the lift up and down was tiring enough in itself, and especially during the evening; there was almost no respite from it.

So Karl also learned how to make the quick, low bow which was expected of lift-boys, and to accept tips with lightning speed. They vanished into his waistcoat pocket, and no one could have told from his expression whether they were big or small. For ladies he opened the door with a little air of gallantry and swung himself into the lift slowly after them, since in their anxiety about their hats, dresses and fal-lals they took a longer time than men to get inside. While working the lift he stood close beside the door, since that seemed the most unobtrusive place, with his back to his passengers, holding the door-lever in his hand so that he was ready the instant they arrived to slide the door sideways without delaying or startling them. Only seldom did anyone tap him on the shoulder during a journey to ask some little piece of information; then he would turn round smartly as if he had been expecting the request and give the answer in a loud voice. Often, particularly after the theatres or the arrival of certain express trains, there was such a rush, in spite of the numerous lifts, that as soon as he had deposited one set of passengers on the top floor he had to fly back again for those who were waiting below. It'was possible, by pulling on a wire cable which passed through the lift, to increase its

ordinary speed, though this was forbidden by the regulations and was also supposed to be dangerous. So Karl never did it while he was carrying passengers, but as soon as he had unloaded them upstairs and was returning for more, he had no scruples at all and hauled on the cable with strong, rhythmical heaves like a sailor. Besides, he knew that the other lift-boys did it as well, and he did not want to lose his passengers to them. Individual guests who had been staying in the hotel for quite a long time - a common habit here - showed occasionally by a smile that they recognized Karl as their lift-boy. These marks of kindness Karl accepted gravely but with gratitude. Sometimes, if he were not so rushed as usual, he could take on little errands as well, fetching some trifle or other which a guest had forgotten in his room and did not want the trouble of going up for; then Karl would soar aloft all by himself in the lift, which seemed peculiarly his own at such times, enter the strange room, where curious things which he had never seen before were lying about or hanging on clothes-pegs, smell the characteristic odour of some unfamiliar soap or perfume or toothpaste and hurry back, not lingering even a moment, with the required object, though he usually got the vaguest instructions for finding it. He often regretted that he could not go on longer errands, which were reserved for special attendants and message-boys equipped with bicycles, even with motor-bicycles. The utmost he could do was to undertake commissions to the dining-room or the gambling-rooms.

After a twelve-hours’ shift, coming off duty at six o’clock in the evening for three days and for the next three at six o’clock in the morning, he was so weary that he went straight to bed without heeding anyone. His bed was in the lift-boys’ dormitory; the Manageress, who turned out to be not quite so influential as he had thought on the first evening, had indeed tried to get him a room for himself, and might even have succeeded in doing so, but when Karl saw what difficulties it caused and that she had to keep ringing up his

immediate superior, the busy Head Waiter, on his account, he refused it and convinced her of the sincerity of his refusal by telling her that he did not want to make the other boys jealous through receiving a privilege which he had not really earned.

As a quiet place to sleep in, the dormitory certainly left much to be desired. For each boy had his own time-table for eating, sleeping, recreation and incidental services during his free twelve hours; so that the place was always in a turmoil. Some would be lying asleep with blankets pulled over their ears to deaden noises, and if one of them were roused he would yell with such fury about the din made by the rest that all the other sleepers, no matter how soundly they slept, were bound to waken up. Almost every boy had a pipe, which was indulged in as a sort of luxury, and Karl got himself one too and soon acquired a taste for it. Now smoking was of course forbidden on duty, and the consequence was that in the dormitory everyone smoked if he was not actually asleep. As a result, each bed stood in its own smoke cloud and the whole room was enveloped in a general haze. Although fhe majority agreed in principle that lights should be kept burning only at one end of the room during the night, it was impossible to enforce this. Had the suggestion been carried out, those who wanted to sleep could have done so in peace in the half of the room which lay in darkness - it was a huge room with forty beds - while the others in the lighted part could have played at dice or cards and done all the other things for which light was needed. A boy whose bed was in the lighted half of the room and who wanted to sleep could have lain down in one of the vacant beds in the dark half; for there were always enough beds vacant, and no boy objected to another’s making a temporary u$e of his bed. But it was impossible to stick to this arrangement for even a single night. There would always be a couple of boys, for instance, who had taken advantage of the darkness to snatch some sleep and then felt inclined for a game of

cards on a board stretched between their beds; naturally enough they switched on the nearest electric light, which wakened up those who were sleeping with their faces turned towards its glare. Of course, one could squirm away from the light for a while, but in the end the only thing to do was to start a game of cards with one’s own wakeful neighbour and switch on another light. And that meant pipes going too, all round. Here and there, to be sure, some determined sleepers - among whom Karl was usually to be counted - burrowed their heads under the pillows instead of lying on j top of them; but how was one to go on sleeping if the boy in the next bed got up in the very middle of the night for a i few hours’ roistering in the town before going on duty and washed his face with a clatter and much scattering of water : at the wash-basin fixed at the head of one's own bed, if hei not only put on his boots noisily but even stamped them on i the floor to get his feet thoroughly into them - most of the! boys' boots were too narrow, in spite of the shape of American footwear - and if he finally, not being able to find some trifle or other to complete his toilet, simply lifted one’s pillow off one's face, the pillow beneath which one had of course long given up trying to sleep and was waiting merely to let fly at him? Now the boys were also great lovers of sport, and most of them young, strong lads who wanted to miss no chance of training their bodies. So if you were startled out of your sleep in the night by an uproar, you were sure tc find a boxing-match in full career on the floor beside your bed, while expert spectators in shirts and drawers stood on all the beds round about, with every light turned on. It happened once that in such a midnight boxing-match one ol the combatants fell over Karl as he was sleeping, and the first thing that he saw on opening his eyes was a stream oi blood from the boy's nose which, before anything could be done about it, bespattered all the bed-clothes. Karl often spent nearly the whole of his twelve hours in trying to ge a few hours’ sleep. He was strongly enough tempted to take

part in the general fun; but then it always came into his mind that the others had gained a better start in life and that he must catch up on them by harder work and a little renunciation. So, although he was eager to get sufficient sleep, chiefly on account of his work, he complained neither to the Manageress nor to Therese about the conditions in the dormitory; for all the other boys suffered in the same way without really grumbling about it, and besides, the tribulations of the dormitory were a necessary part of the job which he had gratefully accepted from the hands of the Manageress.

Once a week, on changing from day to night duty, he had a free period of twenty-four hours, part of which he devoted to seeing the Manageress once or twice and exchanging a few words with Therese, usually in some corner or other, or in a corridor, very rarely indeed in her room, whenever he caught her off duty for a moment or two. Sometimes too he escorted her on her errands to the town, which had all to be executed at top speed. They would rush to the nearest underground station almost at a run, Karl carrying the basket; the journey flashed past in a second, as if the train were being pulled through a vacuum, and they were already getting out and clattering up the stairs at the other end without waiting for the lift, which was too slow for them; then the great squares appeared, from which the streets rayed out starfashion,’ bringing a tumult of steadily streaming traffic from every side; but Karl and Therese stuck close together and hurried to the different offices, laundries, warehouses and shops to do the errands which could not easily be attended to by telephone, mostly purchases of a minor nature or trifling complaints. Therese soon noticed that Karl’s assistance was not to be despised; indeed, that in many cases it greatly expedited matters. In his company she had never to stand waiting, as at other times, for the overdriven shopkeepers to attend to her. He marched up to the counter and rapped on it with his knuckles until someone came; in his newly acquired and still somewhat pedantic English, easy to distinguish

from a hundred other accents, he shouted across high walls of human beings; he went up to people without hesitation, even if they were haughtily withdrawn into the recesses of the longest shops. He did all this not out of arrogance, nor from any lack of respect for difficulties, but because he felt himself in a secure position which gave him certain rights; the Hotel Occidental was not to be despised as a customer, and after all, Therese sorely needed help in spite of her business experience.

Tou should always come with me,' she often said, laughing happily, when they returned from a particularly successful expedition.

During the month and a half that Karl stayed at Rameses, he was only thrice in Therese’s room for long visits of a few hours at a time. It was naturally smaller than the Manageress’s rooms; the few things in it were crowded round the window; but after his experiences in the dormitory Karl could appreciate the value of a private, relatively quiet room, and though he never expressly said so, Therese could see how much he liked being there. She had no secrets from him, and indeed it would not have been very easy to keep secrets from him after that visit of hers on the first night. She was an illegitimate child; her father was a foreman mason who had sent for her and her mother from Pomerania; but as if that I had been his whole duty, or as if the work-worn woman and the sickly child whom he met at the landing-stage had disappointed his expectations, he had gone off to Canada without much explanation shortly after their arrival, and they had received neither a letter nor any other word from him, which indeed was not wholly surprising, for they were lost beyond discovery among the tenements in the east end of New York.

On one occasion Therese told Karl - he was standing beside her at the window looking down at the street - of her' mother’s death. How her mother and she one winter evening - she must have been about five then - were hurrying! through the streets, each carrying a bundle, to find some:

shelter for the night. How her mother had at first taken her hand - there was a snowstorm and it was not easy to make headway - until her own hand grew numb and she let Therese go without even looking to see what had become of her, so that the child had to make shift to hang on by herself to her mother^ skirts. Often Therese stumbled and even fell, but her mother seemed to be beyond herself and went on without stopping. And what snowstorms you got in the long, straight streets of New York ! Karl had no experience of what winter in New York was like. If you walked against the wind, which kept whirling round and round, you could not open your eyes even for a minute, the wind lashed the snow into your face all the time, you walked and walked but got no farther forward; it was enough to make you desperate. A child naturally was at an advantage compared with a grown-up; it could duck under the wind and get through and even find a little pleasure in the struggle. So that night Therese was hardly able to understand her mother’s situation, and she was now firmly convinced that if she had only acted then more wisely towards her mother - of course, she was such a very little girl - her mother might not have had to die such a wretched death. Her mother had had no work at all for two days; her last coin was gone; they had passed the day in the open without a bite, and the bundles they carried contained nothing but useless odds and ends which, perhaps out of superstition, they did not dare to throw away. There was a prospect of work the very next morning at a new building, but Therese’s mother was afraid, as she had tried to explain the whole day, that she might not be able to take advantage of the chance, for she felt dead tired and that very morning had coughed up a great deal of blood in the street to the alarm of passers-by; her only wish was to get into some place where she could be warm and rest. And just that evening it was impossible to find even a corner. Sometimes a janitor would not let them inside the doorway of a building, where they might at least have sheltered a little

from the cold; but if they did get past the janitor they, scurried through oppressive, icy corridors, climbed countlessi stairs, circled narrow balconies overlooking courtyards, beating upon doors at random, at one moment not daring to speak to anyone and at another imploring everyone they, met; and once or twice her mother sat down breathlessly on a step in some quiet stairway, drew Therese, who was almost i reluctant, to her breast and kissed her with painful insistence on the lips. When Therese realized afterwards that these were her mother’s last kisses, she could not understand how* she could have been so blind as not to know it, small creature though she was. Some of the doors they passed by stood open to let out a stifling fug; in the smoky reek which filled; these rooms, as if they were on fire, nothing could be discerned but some figure looming in the doorway who dis-i couraged them, either by stolid silence or by a curt word i from expecting accommodation within. On looking back Therese thought it was only in the first few hours that hen mother was really seeking for a place of shelter, for after about midnight she spoke to no one at all, although she wan on her feet, with brief interruptions, until dawn, and although these tenements never locked their doors all nighi and there was a constant traffic of people whom she coulc not help meeting. Of course, they were not actually running about from place to place, but they were moving as fast a.*! their strength would permit, perhaps in reality at a kind oi\ crawling shuffle. And Therese could not tell whether between! midnight and five o’clock in the morning they had been ii j twenty buildings, or in two, or only in one. The corridors 03 these tenements were cunningly contrived to save space, bu ■ not to make it easy to find one’s way about; likely enougl ] they had trailed again and again through the same corridor 1 Therese had a dim recollection of emerging from the door 0“ a house which they had been traversing endlessly, only t( i turn back, or so it seemed to her, when they had reached the street, and plunge again into it. For a child like her it wa^

of course an incomprehensible torture to be dragged along, sometimes holding her mother’s hand, sometimes clinging to her skirts, without a single word of comfort, and in her bewilderment the only explanation she could find was that her mother wanted to run away from her. So for safety’s sake Therese clutched all the more firmly at her mothers skirts with one hand even when her mother was holding her by the other hand, and sobbed at intervals. She did not want to be left behind among these people who went stamping up the stairs before them or came behind them, invisibly, round the next turn of ' the stairway below, people who stood quarrelling in the corridors before a door and pushed each other into it by turns. Drunk men wandered about the place dolefully singing, and Therese’s mother was lucky to slip with her through' their hands, which almost barred the way. At such a late hour of night, when no one was paying much attention to anything and rights were no longer insisted on, she could certainly have cadged a place in one of the common doss-houses run by private owners, several of which they passed, but Therese was unaware of this and her mother was past all thought of resting. Morning found them, at the dawn of a fine winter day, both leaning against a house wall; perhaps they had slept for a little while there, perhaps only stared about them with open eyes. It appeared that Therese had lost her bundle, and her mother made to beat her as a punishment for her negligence; but Therese neither heard nor felt any blow. Then they went on again through the wakening streets, Therese’s mother next to the wall; they crossed a bridge, where her mother’s hand brushed rime from the railing, and at length - Therese accepted it as a matter of course at the time but now she could not understand it - they fetched up at the very building where her mother had been asked to report that morning. She did not tell Therese whether to wait or go away, and" Therese took this as a command to wait, since that was what she preferred to do. So she sat down on a heap of bricks and looked on

while her mother undid her bundle, took out a gay scrap of material, and bound it round the head-cloth which she had I been wearing all night. Therese was too tired even to think of helping her mother. Without giving in her name at the foreman’s office, as was customary, and without inquiring of anyone, her mother began to climb a ladder, as if she already knew the task that was allotted to her. Therese was| surprised at this, since the hod-women usually worked om ground level, mixing the lime, carrying the bricks and performing other simple duties. So she thought that her mother was going to do some better-paid kind of work today, and! sleepily smiled up to her. The building was not very high i yet, it had hardly reached the first storey, though the tall I scaffolding for the rest of the structure, still without its connecting boards, rose up into the blue sky. Reaching the top of the wall, her mother skilfully skirted round the bricklayers, who went on stolidly setting brick on brick and fori some incomprehensible reason paid no attention to her; with gentle fingers she felt her way cautiously along a wooden partition which served as a railing, and Therese; dozing below, was amazed at such skill and fancied that heri mother glanced at her kindly. But in her course her mother now came to a little heap of bricks, beyond which the railing and obviously also the wall came to an end; yet she did no* stop for that but walked straight on to the heap of bricks and there her skill seemed to desert her, for she knocket down the bricks and fell sheer over them to the ground. A shower of bricks came after her and then, a good few minute* later, a heavy plank detached itself from somewhere and crashed down upon her. Therese’s last memory of her mothe^ was seeing her lying there in her checked skirt, which hao come all the way from Pomerania, her legs thrown wide: almost covered by the rough plank atop of her, while people came running up from every side and a man shouted dowr angrily from the top of the wall.

It was late when Therese finished her story. She had toU

it with a wealth of detail unusual for her, and notably at quite unimportant passages, such as when she described the scaffolding poles each rising to heaven by itself, she had been compelled to stop now and then with tears in her eyes. The most trifling circumstance of that morning was still stamped exactly on her memory after more than ten years, and because the sight of her mother on the half-finished house-wall was the last living- memory of her mother, and she wanted to bring it still more vividly before her friend, she tried to return to it again after she had ended her story, but then she faltered, put her face in her hands and said not another word.

Still, they had merry hours too in Therese's room. On his first visit Karl had seen a text-book of commercial correspondence lying there and had asked leave to borrow it. They arranged at the 'same time that Karl should write out the exercises in the book and bring them to Therese, who had already studied them as far as her own work required, for correction. Now Karl lay for whole nights in his bed in the dormitory with cotton-wool in his ears, shifting into every conceivable posture to relax himself, and read the book and scribbled the exercises in a little notebook with a fountain pen which the Manageress had given him in reward for drawing up methodically and writing out neatly a long inventory of hers. He managed to turn to his advantage most of the distracting1 interruptions of the other boys by perpetually asking them for advice on small points of the English language, so that they grew tired of it and left him in peace. Often he was amazed that the others were so reconciled to their present lot, that they did not feel its provisional character, nor even realize the need to come to a decision about their future occupations, and in spite of Karl's example read nothing at all except tattered and filthy copies of detective stories which were passed from bed to bed.

At their conferences Therese now corrected Karl's exercises, perhaps rather too painstakingly. Differences of opinion arose. Karl adduced his great New York professor in his

support, but that gentleman counted for as little with Therese as the grammatical theories of the lift-boys. She would take the fountain pen from Karl’s hand and score out the passages which she was convinced were erroneous. But in such dubious cases, although the matter could hardly be brought before a higher authority than Therese, Karl would score out, for the sake of accuracy, the strokes which Therese had made against him. Sometimes the Manageress would turn up and give the decision in Therese’s favour, yet that was not definite, as Therese was her secretary. At the same time, however, she would establish a general amnesty, for tea would be made, cakes sent for and Karl urged to tell stories about Europe, with many interruptions from the Manageress, who kept inquiring and exclaiming, so that he realized how many things had been radically changed in a relatively short time, and how much had probably changed since his own departure and would always go on changing.

Karl might have been about a month in Rameses when one evening Rennell said to him in passing that a man called Delamarche had stopped him in front of the hotel and questioned him about Karl. Having no cause to make a secret of it, Rennell had replied, truthfully that Karl was a lift-boy but had prospects of getting a much better post because of the interest the Manageress took in him. Karl noted how carefully Delamarche had handled Rennell, for he had actually invited him to a meal that evening.

T want nothing more to do with Delamarche,' said Karl, ‘and you’d better be on your guard against him too !’

‘Me?’ said Rennell, stretching himself and hurrying off. He was the best-looking youngster in the hotel, and it was rumoured among the other boys, though no one knew who had started the story, that a fashionable lady who had been staying in the hotel for some time had kissed him, to say the least of it, in the lift. Those who knew this rumour found it very titillating to watch the self-possessed lady passing by with her calm, light step, her filmy veil and tightly laced

figure, for her external appearance gave not the slightest indication that such behaviour was possible on her part. She stayed on the first floor, which was not served by Rennell’s lift, but one could not of course forbid guests to enter another lift if their own lifts were engaged at the moment. So now and then it happened that she used Karl's and Rennell’s lift, yet only when Rennell was on duty. This might have been chance, but nobody believed it, and when the lift started off with the two of them, there was an almost uncontrollable excitement among the lift-boys which actually made it necessary once for the Head Waiter to intervene. Now, whether the lady or the rumour was the cause, the fact remained that Rennell was changing, he had become much more selfconfident, he left the polishing of the lift entirely to Karl, who was only waiting for the chance of a radical explanation on this point, and no longer. was to be seen in the dormitory. No other boy had so completely deserted the community of the lift-boys, for, at least in questions concerning their work, they generally held strictly together and had an organization of their own which was recognized by the hotel management.

All this flashed through Karl’s mind, together with reflections on Delamarche, but he went on with his work as usual. Towards midnight he had a little diversion, for Therese, who often surprised him with small gifts, brought him a big apple and a bar of chocolate. They talked together for a while, scarcely conscious of the interruptions caused by the lift journeys. They came to speak of Delamarche, and Karl realized that he must really have’ let himself be influenced by Therese in coming to the conclusion that he was a dangerous man, for after what Karl had told her that was Therese’s opinion of him. Karl himself believed that he was only a shiftless creature who had let himself be demoralized by ill-luck and would be easy enough to get on with. But Therese contradicted him Violently, and in a long harangue insisted that he should promise never to speak to Delamarche again. Instead of giving the promise, Karl kept

urging her to go to bed, for midnight was long since past, and when she refused, he threatened to leave his post and take her to her room. When at last she was ready to go, he said : ‘Why bother yourself so needlessly, Therese? If it will make you sleep any better. I’m ready to promise that I won'tspeak to Delamarche unless I can’t avoid it.' Then came a crowd of passengers, for the boy in the neighbouring lift had been withdrawn for some other duty and Karl had to attend to both lifts. Some of the guests grumbled at the dislocation, and a gentleman who was escorting a lady actually tapped Karl lightly with his walking cane to make him hurry, an admonition which was quite unnecessary. It would not have been so bad if the guests, when they saw that one lift was unattended, had made directly for Karl’s lift; but instead ol that they drifted to the next lift and stood there holding the handle of the door or even walked right into the lift, an aci which the lift-boys were expressly forbidden by the regula . tions to permit in any circumstances. So Karl had to rush up] and down until he was quite exhausted, without earning the consciousness that he was efficiently fulfilling his duty. Or top of this, towards three o’clock in the morning a luggage porter, an old man with whom he was on fairly friendly terms, asked some slight help from him which he could no give, for guests were standing before both his lifts and i required all his presence of mind to decide immediately which group to take first. He was consequently relieve* when the other boy came back, and he called out a few word of reproach to him because he had stayed away so long although it was probably no fault of his.

After four o’clock a lull set in which Karl badly needed. He leant wearily against the balustrade beside his lift slowly eating the apple, which gave out a strong fragrance as soon as he bit into it, and gazed down into a lighted shaft surrounded by the great windows of the store-rooms, behind which hanging masses of bananas gleamed faintly in the

darkness.