The Young Lions Read Online Free PDF Page A

told him. She didn't tell him about Frederick, but about the singing the night before and the Nazi toasts, and that she couldn't stay there for another day, no matter what. Joseph kissed her forehead absently and stroked her cheek. His face lost the gaiety it had had when he got off the train. The fine bones of his cheeks and jaw suddenly showed sharp and hard under the skin, and his eyes looked sunken and deep as he spoke to her. "Ah," he said, "here, too. Indoors, outdoors, city, country…" He shook his head. "Margaret, Baby," he said gently, "I think you had better get away from Europe. Go home. Go back to America."
    "No," she said, letting it come out, without thinking about it. "I want to stay here. I want to marry you and stay here."
    Joseph shook his head, the soft, closely cropped hair, greying a little, glistening where some drops of melting snow had fallen on it. "I must visit America," he said softly. "I must visit the country that produces girls like you."
    "I said I want to marry you." Margaret held his arms tight and hard.
    "Some other time, Sweet," Joseph said tenderly. "We'll discuss it some other time."
    But they never did.
    They went back to Langermans', and had a huge breakfast, sitting quietly before a sparkling, sunny window, with the Alps a majestic background for the bacon and eggs and potatoes and pancakes and Viennese coffee, with globs of whipped cream. Frederick waited on them, discreetly and politely. He held Margaret's chair when she sat down and was quick to refill Joseph's cup when it was empty.
    After breakfast Margaret packed, and told Mrs Langerman that she and her friend had to leave. Mrs Langerman clucked and said, "What a shame!" and presented the bill.
    There was an item on the bill of nine schillings.
    "I don't understand this," Margaret said. She was standing at the shiny oak desk in the lobby as she pointed out the neatly inked entry on the bill. Mrs Langerman, bobbing, starched and brilliantly scrubbed, behind the desk, ducked her head and peered near-sightedly at the piece of paper.
    "Oh." She looked up and stared without expression at Margaret. "Oh, that's for the torn sheet, Liebchen."
    Margaret paid. Frederick was helping with her bags. She tipped him. He bowed as he helped her into the cab and said, "I hope you have enjoyed your visit."
    Margaret and Joseph left their bags at the station and walked around, looking at the shops until it was time to get their train.
    As the train pulled out she thought she saw Diestl, graceful and dark, at the end of the platform, watching. She waved, but the figure didn't wave back. Somehow though, she felt it would be like him to come down to the station and, without even greeting her, watch her go off with Joseph.
    The inn Diestl had recommended was small and pretty, and the people charming. It snowed two of the three nights and there was fresh cover on the trails in the morning. Joseph had never been gayer or more delightful. Margaret slept secure and warm, with his arms around her all night, in the huge feather bed that seemed to have been made for mountain honeymoons. They didn't talk about anything serious, and they didn't mention marriage again. The sun shone in the clear sky over the peaks, all day long, every day, and the air was winey and intoxicating in the lungs. Joseph sang Schubert lieder for the other guests in front of the fire at night, his voice sweet and searching. There was a smell of cinnamon always in the house. Both of them were burned a deep brown, and more freckles than ever before came out on her nose. Margaret found herself crying when she went down to the station on the fourth day because they had to get back to Vienna. The holiday was over.

CHAPTER TWO
    IN New York City, too, the shining new year of 1938 was being welcomed. The taxicabs were bumper to bumper in the wet streets, their horns swelling and roaring, as though they were all some newly invented species of tin-and-glass animal, penned in the dark stone and