The Song of Songs

her father, Kilian Czepanek, the m

asionally he had slipped into the dining-room to take a cognac or arrange his Windsor necktie. He had pulled Lilly's brown curls as she sat labouring over her F

mper and with his usual appetite. He remained in the front room, where this day he neither whistled nor whined nor played out his rage on

dsome father did or did not do, let her French text

From time to time he raised his left hand and pressed it as if in despair against his soft, silky,

oist red face with wild, eager eyes, and Lill

g accounts for his lost life and wasted love, his manner of charming back the great world,

ove, with small alcoholic puffs under h

ird of paradise, who by a lucky chance had been caught between the walls of a room, and w

hen her father was seized by the holy spirit of creativeness and forgot the time set aside for her practicing, she did not begin until nearly midnight. Then she sat at the piano frozen, with heavy eyes, striking ou

d to dally with some old forbidden book, and often drove her father to despair by a false pretence at cleverness in playing a

n, when she heard a click at the door from the kitchen. She bounded away from the keyhole with on

cord, which seemed to be tied in a knot at the abdomen by a protrusion, the result of abortive child-bearing. Dull marital sorrow had l

ek hoped to satisfy he

arlour opened, and papa's dark curly head, about which the e

e said, and his eyes wandered

the surprise in store for him playing about

ep breaths, and said with the air

t one of the straps of

want it?" a

eyes continuing to rove about the room. "Suppose I were suddenly to

e towns in eastern Germany and whose train had been snow-bound near Bromberg. The committee telegraphed to papa requesting him to play

right after supper," said mama, who took good

e the mother ran to the kitchen to do the final honours

he bag in his hand. It looked rather b

he score would go into the grip crosswise?

so that, should fire break out during papa's absence, anyone

the keys, but cou

ask mama,

ody, such as Lilly had often noticed when mother was mentio

her celebrated father should himsel

t for the handle of the bag. She w

warded

lighted up as they scanned her tall, virginal body, her hips and bosom,

ps the while in intense bitterness. Then suddenly he shook himself, and with a shy, con

nd never

ummer evening remained graven

nxious eyes kept glancing up and down the street. Whenever she heard

re h

elations since her confirmation. She had already passed many a dreamy, idle hour before his altar at St. Anne's-right front, second chapel-and secretly sent up many an abstract

the last vehicle

trians, too, gre

arose, smelling of sand and th

ght watchman was heard shuffling

very wagons began to ra

of coffee for her mother, and ate up all the cold supper

thdraw from the window they serenaded her. Fine, pure voices, Lilly had to admit despite her grief; rendition good and precise, without that

one when the mother

ggled agai

ght, now to the left, according to the direction from which a sound came; saw the nightgown fluttering like a white flag, and the lean legs incessantly rubbing a

her mother had dropped back in a swoon, and