You can't know the rottenness of life
there in Vienna. Olga could keep a whole supper table
laughing all evening. I can see, now, that that isn't
difficult when your audience is made up of music hall girls,
and stupid, bullet-headed officers, with their damned high
collars, and their gold braid, and their silly swords, and
their corsets, and their glittering shoes and their
miserable petty poverty beneath all the show. I thought I
was a lucky boy. I'd have pitied everybody in Winnebago, if
I'd ever thought of anybody in Winnebago. I never did,
except once in a while of you and mother when I needed
money. I kept on with my music. I had sense enough left,
for that. Besides, it was a habit, by that time. Well, we
were married."
He laughed, an ugly, abrupt little laugh that ended in a
moan, and turned his head and buried his face in Fanny's
breast. And Fanny's arm was there, about his shoulder.
"Fanny, you don't--I can't--" He stopped. Another silence.
Fanny's arm tightened its hold. She bent and kissed the top
of the stubbly head, bowed so low now.
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