520
PARTISAN REVIEW
had not seemed to change things much. Freytag said good humoredly
that a few little things had happened, just the same, that might make
changes in the long run. Mrs. Treadwell privately considered the
few little things she had observed and decided that perhaps silence
would be, as usual, best.
Hen Lutz, alone and at his ease, peered at their trays. "Ha,"
said he, wagging his head at them, "Eating again, eh? Three times a
day so long as we are lucky, what?"
Mrs. Treadwell's plate seemed to her at once too full, the food
somewhat coarse. Freytag was piling butter and honey on his roll.
"How true," he responded cheerfully and engulfed the hearty morsel.
Too handsome, Mrs. Treadwell decided, too carefully dressed, too
healthy entirely, not an idea in his head, and it was a sad fact that
often the very nicest Germans wolfed their food. It had been com–
mented upon by travellers through the ages, really. Freytag turned
to her innocently, enjoying himself.
"I like breakfast best of all," he told her, "at home we used to
have it English style, with all kinds of hot things, chops and scrambled
eggs and broiled mushrooms on the sideboard where you helped
yourself, with a big urn of coffee steaming away. My wife--"
English stvle of course, for breakfast, and French style for dinner
no doubt, and other imported styles for other occasions, with just
now and then a comfortable lapse into native custom. "What a hard–
trying people it is," thought Mrs. Treadwell, "and all their style,
whether their own or imported, comes out in lumps just the same.
a
<J
ch bin die fesche Lola','-'
she hummed, suddenly, and was inter–
rupted by Freytag's perfectly friendly laugh.
"'\'here did you hear that?" he asked. "It's a favorite of mine."
"In Berlin, when I was there last," said Mrs. Treadwell, "Mar–
lene Dietrich being comic in her wonderful bull contralto. How much
nicer she was then."
He agreed, and added, "My wife collects that kind of disc, we
have hundreds." He went on to say what a knack she had for making
everybody comfortable, and gay too. "Life, in fact," he said, "goes
on easily wherever she is."
Mrs. Treadwell tried for an instant to imagine his life, a
moment-by-moment affair, no doubt, running along day and night
between four walls, with much hearty lovemaking under the feather
quilts, and oceans of food; with a smooth rosy wife on the large scale,
pouring out comfort and fun like thick crusty soup into deep bowls,
her hair in a braided crown. There would be an occasional theater
party; with plenty of wine and beer drinking on birthdays and mar-
