Swept and Garnished

(January 1915)

When the first waves of feverish cold stole over Frau Ebermann she very
wisely telephoned for the doctor and went to bed. He diagnosed the
attack as mild influenza, prescribed the appropriate remedies, and left
her to the care of her one servant in her comfortable Berlin flat. Frau
Ebermann, beneath the thick coverlet, curled up with what patience she
could until the aspirin should begin to act, and Anna should come back
from the chemist with the formamint, the ammoniated quinine, the
eucalyptus, and the little tin steam-inhaler. Meantime, every bone in
her body ached; her head throbbed; her hot, dry hands would not stay the
same size for a minute together; and her body, tucked into the smallest
possible compass, shrank from the chill of the well-warmed sheets.

Of a sudden she noticed that an imitation-lace cover which should have
lain mathematically square with the imitation-marble top of the radiator
behind the green plush sofa had slipped away so that one corner hung
over the bronze-painted steam pipes. She recalled that she must have
rested her poor head against the radiator-top while she was taking off
her boots. She tried to get up and set the thing straight, but the
radiator at once receded toward the horizon, which, unlike true
horizons, slanted diagonally, exactly parallel with the dropped lace
edge of the cover. Frau Ebermann groaned through sticky lips and
lay still.

'Certainly, I have a temperature,' she said. 'Certainly, I have a grave
temperature. I should have been warned by that chill after dinner.'

She resolved to shut her hot-lidded eyes, but opened them in a little
while to torture herself with the knowledge of that ungeometrical thing
against the far wall. Then she saw a child--an untidy, thin-faced little
girl of about ten, who must have strayed in from the adjoining flat.
This proved--Frau Ebermann groaned again at the way the world falls to
bits when one is sick--proved that Anna had forgotten to shut the outer
door of the flat when she went to the chemist. Frau Ebermann had had
children of her own, but they were all grown up now, and she had never
been a child-lover in any sense. Yet the intruder might be made to serve
her scheme of things.

'Make--put,' she muttered thickly, 'that white thing straight on the top
of that yellow thing.'

The child paid no attention, but moved about the room, investigating
everything that came in her way--the yellow cut-glass handles of the
chest of drawers, the stamped bronze hook to hold back the heavy puce
curtains, and the mauve enamel, New Art finger-plates on the door. Frau
Ebermann watched indignantly.

'Aie! That is bad and rude. Go away!' she cried, though it hurt her to
raise her voice.