The Hired Girl(103)

When I came to see this, I felt meaner than dirt. It was true repentance and a very dismal feeling. I said the Act of Contrition and wept bitterly for my sins. As soon as I got home, I went in search of Mrs. Rosenbach.

I found her in the parlor with her needlework. She raised her eyes to me but she didn’t smile. “What is it, Janet?”

She was so composed; it made my stomach knot up. My mouth was dry and my voice faltered, because it isn’t easy, humbling yourself. I told her I was sorry about Oskar. I said I’d been to Mass and I’d realized what I did was wrong. (I wanted her to know that it was the Church that made me repent, because it might make her think better of Christianity.)

Mrs. Rosenbach didn’t help me out. Her face didn’t soften and she didn’t say she forgave me. She just listened until my words dried up. “Thank you, Janet. You may go,” she said, and went back to her needlework.

I didn’t feel any better after that. I bet Mr. Rosenbach would have forgiven me. I wonder if she told him what I did. If she told David, perhaps that’s why he hasn’t spoken to me.

I haven’t been sleeping. I’m like a lovelorn girl in a novel, but girls in novels generally aren’t hired girls, and they don’t get in so much trouble when they oversleep.

I’ve been reading a novel called Trilby, which David told me about. It’s set in Paris and it’s all about artists. How I should like to go to Paris! It sounds so beautiful, with the gray slate roofs and the golden river. The artists there don’t seem to mind being poor; they stay up all night and drink coffee and talk about art. Trilby, the heroine, looks like me, because she’s tall and well developed, with wavy brown hair. She’s good-hearted and brave and sweet and funny, but she’s a fallen woman. The author doesn’t seem to blame her for being depraved, and neither does the hero, Little Billee. I guess things are different in Paris. I’m surprised that I found the book in Mr. Rosenbach’s library, because I think there’s anti-Semitism in it. The villain is a Jew named Svengali —

Hark! A rapping on the library door!





Monday, September the eighteenth, 1911

How strange to recall how I felt when I broke off this narrative! How sorrowful I was, and how anxious! Today my heart is singing with joy, though David has gone. He’s back in New York, showing the new sketches to Madame Marechaux. All day long, I’ve been praying and praying that he’ll get the commission. I’ll be ironing a pillowcase or slicing a tomato, and like a flock of homing pigeons, my thoughts fly to David. Then I close my eyes and pray for him — only I scorched a pillowcase, and Malka was sarcastic at my expense.

I don’t care what Malka said. So long as I can go on thinking about David, I don’t care about anything.

I will take up my tale where the last entry ended and relive every second.

I knew it was David on the other side of the door — David, rapping very gently, using the tips of his fingers. He has such beautiful hands: real artist’s hands, tapered and strong and long fingered. Just thinking about his hands makes my skin feel warm. I’m blushing as I write this, I know.

I rushed to the nearest bookcase and stowed my diary behind a row of volumes — I would die of mortification if David read my diary. Then I tiptoed to the door. “Who is it?”

“It’s David. I want to show you my latest sketch. Stand aside and I’ll slide it under the door.”

I stood back. There was a crackling, rustle-y sound, and the paper slid toward my feet. It was a copy of the sketch he’d made at the opera: my face in profile, looking rapt. The way he’d done it was clever, because he used a pinkish-buff paper and three kinds of chalk: black, red, and white. With three colors he was able to suggest the colors of my skin and eyes and hair.

I thought it was beautiful. That sounds conceited, but I don’t mean I was beautiful. A portrait can be a beautiful portrait even if the sitter isn’t good-looking. In the sketch, my eyes looked clear and thoughtful, and my lips were parted. I didn’t look stupid at all. And I didn’t look like a big ox.

“Do you like it?” whispered David.

I did, and I wished I could keep it. Then it struck me as strange that we were talking through the door. “Why don’t you come in?”

There was a low laugh. “I thought you might be in your nightgown.”

I made haste to open the door. I wanted to laugh, but I was exasperated, too. All these past nights, I’ve waited up for him, fully dressed, with my hair up — why, sometimes I’ve done up my hair three times, just to get it right. And all the while, he was afraid to come in, because he might catch me in my kimono!