Page:Storm Over Paris.pdf/74

was already lit, throwing its flickering rays on the red-papered walls. To all of Anna's questions Gertrude made no answer. She smiled bravely, until the tears began to roll from eyes, dimming their light blue color.

"No, Anna," she murmured finally. "Being married isn't exactly a paradise."

Anna understood; she remained silent.

She sat down at the edge of the bed and let her glance roam around the familiar poverty of the room. Tick-tock went the clock relentlessly ticking away the minutes. The peacocks on the red-papered walls gazed coldly with their stony eyes, and their befeathered tails quivered in the splutering light of the gas lamp.

Anna's glance shifted to the children's cot, standing near the head of the sick woman's bed. If the faded evidence could be believed, it must once have been painted white.

The only article of furniture that lent some grace to the domestic economy was a mahogany buffet. It had been bought at the Flea Market, and here in the room it reigned in elegant grandeur, with its shelves full of cracked porcelain, chipped glasses, cups without handles, faded photographs, children's socks, books, magazines, papers, and an assortment of other articles such as matches, razor blades, pen and ink, a comb, a brush, medicine flasks, a toy bear, a paper house. Over the room hung the ever-present grimness of unrelieved squalor.

Against the window stood a crippled table. As though occupying its own private world, it made up for its missing leg by leaning trustfully against the windowsill. On its surface, dirtied with the marks of childish hands, knives and forks lay strewn about, together with a crust of bread, a salt-cellar and a greasy newspaper. Near the blackened fireplace stood a gas range, mounted on a box. It stood proudly, as