Scarcely were they gone when the mother was again at her post.
She saw as through a veil the thin blond hair waving over her mother's forehead in the morning breeze, saw the pointed nose, red with weeping, turn now to the right, 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 against each other in nervous agitation. Then she had to retell, perhaps for the hundredth time, the story of the hand-bag and the linen chest, but her eyes closed.
And then suddenly she started up with a cry; her mother had dropped back in a swoon, and lay supine on the floor like a log of wood.
Good friends were not wanting, of course, who had for years foreseen the event. In fact, they failed to understand how he could have endured it so long--he, the man of genius, of God-given fancy, with the hall-mark of creative restlessness on his thunder-headed brow. Others called him a good-for-nothing, a dirty scoundrel, who ran after innocent girls and enticed young men to gamble. They declared Mrs. Czepanek lucky to be rid of him, and charged Lilly to erase her unworthy father from her memory.
Most unpleasant of all, however, were those who said nothing, but presented bills. Mrs. Czepanek sold or pawned all the articles of luxury left her from the middle-class comfort of her youth, or from her husband's liberal moods. But these soon gave out. Furniture, dress and linen not absolutely indispensable followed; then at last the creditors were stilled.
The singing society, to the leadership of which Kilian Czepanek had been called fifteen years before, and which, during that period, had carried off no less than six prizes, expressed its satisfaction with the accomplishments of its conductor by holding the position open for half a year and paying the salary in full to his wife.
But this period of grace also came to an end. Now began the bitter begging pilgrimages to the eminent citizens and officials of the city, the sorry pulling of bells, the anxious scraping of shoes before strangers' doors, the half-hour waitings in dark corridors, the abashed sitting down on the narrow edges of chairs, the sighs, the stammering, the wiping of eyes, which, however honestly meant, came to have somewhat the appearance of professional hypocrisy. The more it was calculated to produce an impression the more it failed of its purpose.