stay with them, but before I go, I want you to tell me who my real father is. I want to hear the truth from you.”
Maria Caecilia began to untie her apron, and then flung down her hands. “How dare you ask that question!” she cried. “What a ridiculous question! Because of a remark I made in my grief after burying my saintly Fridolin? How dare you question my respectability? Yes, you’d like to drag me down to the dirt, wouldn’t you?” Covering her face with her arm, she began to weep, her large bosom heaving.
Then, throwing her arm down, Maria Caecilia cried, “All I’ve struggled to maintain all these years, negotiating with bill collectors, managing the scorn of your father’s brother, and his whole family who thought I wasn’t good enough. Always making fun of me for my lack of education, because I didn’t understand music. ‘She can hardly read,’ they said, ‘much less understand music.’ How can you know what was between me and your father? How can you know what I suffered?” Her beautiful skin was now splotchy.
The kitchen door creaked open, and Thorwart came in, smelling of that familiar perfume he wore, which always preceded him into a room. “Why, what’s happening?” he said sternly. “I could hear your voices all the way down at the street door. I see the prodigal has returned, and at once begins to shout at her mother. Haven’t you had enough bad behavior from this young woman, Maria Caecilia? I would have the police send her away. She does no one any good here. Girl, why do you look at me?”
Josefa clutched the back of a chair. “It’s him, isn’t it, Mama? I found it out in Zell. Oh dear Lord, it’s him, this horrible man we have to call ‘uncle,’ the one we’re made to respect, who is my real father. He never could keep his hands to himself with all of us, though you wouldn’t believe us if we told you. He tried to catch me on the stair and rub himself against me, though I’m his own daughter.”
“What, what?” cried Thorwart; the kitchen was hot, and he had begun to sweat.
“I went to Zell! I spoke to your sisters, Mama. I spoke to lots of people. There was nothing respectable about you, Mama; you were wild. You hated your home; you wanted to escape. I know what happened. This disgusting man saw you coming across the courtyard at dark, and he came out and asked you to a tavern with his friends. It was two months before your marriage to Papa, who was working hard to earn money. You didn’t come home until dawn. You stayed with him that night.”
“How dare you!” cried Maria Caecilia. She tried to rush forward, but Thorwart grabbed her arm to restrain her.
“You went to your wedding with a baby inside of you, with me inside of you. It’s him, isn’t it? When I look at him I see my face; when I look into the mirror, I see his expressions. I think I would rather die than know this.”
Thorwart shook his head, releasing his hold on Maria Caecilia. He gazed coldly at Josefa’s wild hair and dirty traveling dress. “My dear girl,” he said, drawing out his handkerchief and wiping his forehead. “You have never known truth from fantasy, and as a child you made up such things no one knew what to think of you. The stage is where you belong, where you may live out your wild dreams. However, I am sorry to disillusion you about your paternity. I’m not your father. And I’m very glad I’m not, for you’re not meek and gentle the way a young woman should be, as any daughter of mine would be.”
He cleared his throat in the silent room, looked at her sternly, head to one side, and then, in a voice that touched the words only lightly, as if they were dirty, he said, “I never went to bed with your mother, though I was sorely tempted, as were my friends, for she was a flirt then. Oh yes, standing by the window in her chemise. She didn’t stay with us that night, but went off with someone else from the tavern. Excuse me for revealing it, Madame Weber, but I can’t have my name dirtied when I’m innocent. You came to me weeks later in tears because you were carrying a child. I beg you both, Madame Weber and Mademoiselle Josefa,