"Yes,"she assented,"that's true.Girls have a lot to learn."Wedged in between these two fat old women,the Frau had no hope of being asked to dance.She watched the couples going round and round;she forgot her five babies and her man and felt almost like a girl again.The music sounded sad and sweet.Her roughened hands clasped and unclasped themselves in the folds of her skirt.While the music went on she was afraid to look anybody in the face,and she smiled with a little nervous tremor round the mouth.
"But,my God,"Frau Rupp cried,"they've given that child of Theresa's a piece of sausage.It's to keep her quiet.There's going to be a presentation now--your man has to speak."Frau Brechenmacher sat up stiffly.The music ceased,and the dancers took their places again at the tables.
Herr Brechenmacher alone remained standing--he held in his hands a big silver coffee-pot.Everybody laughed at his speech,except the Frau;everybody roared at his grimaces,and at the way he carried the coffee-pot to the bridal pair,as if it were a baby he was holding.
She lifted the lid,peeped in,then shut it down with a little scream and sat biting her lips.The bridegroom wrenched the pot away from her and drew forth a baby's bottle and two little cradles holding china dolls.As he dandled these treasures before Theresa the hot room seemed to heave and sway with laughter.
Frau Brechenmacher did not think it funny.She stared round at the laughing faces,and suddenly they all seemed strange to her.She wanted to go home and never come out again.She imagined that all these people were laughing at her,more people than there were in the room even--all laughing at her because they were so much stronger than she was.
They walked home in silence.Herr Brechenmacher strode ahead,she stumbled after him.White and forsaken lay the road from the railway station to their house--a cold rush of wind blew her hood from her face,and suddenly she remembered how they had come home together the first night.Now they had five babies and twice as much money;BUT--"Na,what is it all for?"she muttered,and not until she had reached home,and prepared a little supper of meat and bread for her man did she stop asking herself that silly question.
Herr Brechenmacher broke the bread into his plate,smeared it round with his fork and chewed greedily.
"Good?"she asked,leaning her arms on the table and pillowing her breast against them.
"But fine!"
He took a piece of the crumb,wiped it round his plate edge,and held it up to her mouth.She shook her head.
"Not hungry,"she said.
"But it is one of the best pieces,and full of the fat."He cleared the plate;then pulled off his boots and flung them into a corner.
"Not much of a wedding,"he said,stretching out his feet and wriggling his toes in the worsted socks.
"N--no,"she replied,taking up the discarded boots and placing them on the oven to dry.
Herr Brechenmacher yawned and stretched himself,and then looked up at her,grinning.
"Remember the night that we came home?You were an innocent one,you were.""Get along!Such a time ago I forget."Well she remembered.
"Such a clout on the ear as you gave me.But I soon taught you.""Oh,don't start talking.You've too much beer.Come to bed."He tilted back in his chair,chuckling with laughter.
"That's not what you said to me that night.God,the trouble you gave me!"But the little Frau seized the candle and went into the next room.The children were all soundly sleeping.She stripped the mattress off the baby's bed to see if he was still dry,then began unfastening her blouse and skirt.
"Always the same,"she said--"all over the world the same;but,God in heaven--but STUPID.
Then even the memory of the wedding faded quite.She lay down on the bed and put her arm across her face like a child who expected to be hurt as Herr Brechenmacher lurched in.
