The American Lady(3)
“I really thought I was going to suffocate,” she said when she had finished. She was still badly shaken. “Poor Magnus was scared almost out of his wits when I screamed!” She heaved a great sigh. “Thank God it really was a dream. I still feel awful just thinking about it.”
Sawatzky scratched his head. “Sigmund Freud would love to hear about a dream like that,” he said dryly.
Marie looked askance at him. “Don’t get started with Mr. Freud and his theories of the subconscious! I have to wonder why he can’t discover something useful instead.” Her voice was dripping with scorn. When Sawatzky didn’t reply, she went on, “Something that makes people’s lives easier. Machines or some such thing . . .”
Not for the first time, the bookseller thought how strange it was that Marie always reacted so strongly to any mention of psychoanalysis and its founder. In other matters she was quite happy to hear about new ideas.
“As far as we can tell, knowledge of the subconscious has great potential to make people’s lives easier,” he replied rather pedantically. “But let’s not argue on your birthday. Or if we do, let’s at least have an argument that leads somewhere.”
He put down his glass. “Do you know what? You go ahead and find a book that you like and that can be your present!” If he didn’t manage to bring a smile to her face today, his name wasn’t Alois Sawatzky. Seeing her hesitate, he added, “It could even be one of those expensive illustrated volumes you like so much.” He raised his hands when he saw Marie open her mouth to speak. “No, I won’t hear a word of protest!”
She stood up hesitantly. But she had not even looked through the first shelf of books when she turned back to Sawatzky. “There’s no point.” She shook her head and went back to her chair, fighting back the tears as she sat down. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me. Now I’m spoiling your fun . . .”
He didn’t say a word.
Marie lifted her head at last, almost in despair. “It wasn’t so long ago that I believed I would find the whole world in these books. I read every line devoutly, and I spent hours studying the pictures. Sometimes I felt a real connection with all those painters and artists. But what good did it do me? I wanted to better myself. To make something of my artistic gifts. Hah!”
He had been expecting just such an outburst for some time now. Any fool could see that Marie Steinmann wasn’t happy. All the same, he was shocked by the bitterness in her voice.
“So much for discovering the world! There are others who can do that. Your Sigmund Freud has discovered the subconscious, Franz Marc paints his blue horses, and just last week you were telling me about Alfred Döblin and his story ‘The Murder of a Buttercup’—now how in the world does anyone get an idea like that?” She looked over at Sawatzky almost accusingly. “Meanwhile, I paint stars and posies and bells and baubles for Christmas trees. Just the way I always have.” She swallowed hard. “And I don’t even paint well anymore.” Marie gazed into space.
Marie Steinmann. The youngest of the Steinmann sisters. The first woman who had ever dared to sit down at the lamp to blow glass. While the other women of Lauscha had been content to paint the finished wares as they had done for centuries in the glass workshops and to marry the men who blew the glass, Marie had sat down at her dead father’s lamp when she was just a young girl and practiced and practiced, in secret and at dead of night, until she had mastered the craft. And gradually she had begun making the loveliest Christmas tree decorations that Lauscha had ever seen. Glass baubles so beautiful, so imaginative, and so finely crafted that they made even the humblest home a palace when the holidays came around. There had been envy and gossip, of course, but success as well; it had started as a family business, with Marie as glassblower and her sisters, Johanna and Ruth, doing the rest of the jobs, but now they employed more than twenty workers. The Steinmann-Maienbaum workshop sold tens of thousands of baubles every year worldwide. Most glassblowers in Lauscha grumbled about the state of the economy and their waning orders, but with Johanna keeping the books and Marie bubbling over with new ideas, the Steinmann sisters were doing brisk enough business to expand. Even their critics had to concede that they had not done badly for themselves—especially for a business in which the women ruled the roost. And Ruth, the middle sister, who had followed her heart and left Lauscha years ago to be with the man she loved in America, also did her bit to help the business by taking care of their partners and purchasers stateside.