



Produced by Ema Majhut and Marc D'Hooghe at
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available by the Internet Archive.)





THE ROAD TO THE OPEN

BY

ARTHUR SCHNITZLER


AUTHORISED TRANSLATION

BY HORACE SAMUEL


LONDON: HOWARD LATIMER LIMITED

GREAT QUEEN STREET, KINGSWAY


1913




I


George von Wergenthin sat at table quite alone to-day. His elder
brother Felician had chosen to dine out with friends for the first time
after a longish interval. But George felt no particular inclination
to renew his acquaintance with Ralph Skelton, Count Schoenstein or any
of the other young people, whose gossip usually afforded him so much
pleasure; for the time being he did not feel in the mood for any kind
of society.

The servant cleared away and disappeared. George lit a cigarette
and then in accordance with his habit walked up and down the big
three-windowed rather low room, while he wondered how it was that this
very room which had for many weeks seemed to him so gloomy was now
gradually beginning to regain its former air of cheerfulness. He could
not help letting his glance linger on the empty chair at the top end of
the table, over which the September sun was streaming through the open
window in the centre. He felt as though he had seen his father, who
had died two months ago, sit there only an hour back, as he visualised
with great clearness the very slightest mannerisms of the dead man,
even down to his trick of pushing his coffee-cup away, adjusting his
pince-nez or turning over the leaves of a pamphlet.

George thought of one of his last conversations with his father which
had occurred in the late spring before they had moved to the villa
on the Veldeser Lake. George had just then come back from Sicily,
where he had spent April with Grace on a melancholy and somewhat
boring farewell tour before his mistress's final return to America.
He had done no real work for six months or more, and had not even
copied out the plaintive adagio which he had heard in the plashing
of the waves on a windy morning in Palermo as he walked along the
beach. George had played over the theme to his father and improvised
on it with an exaggerated wealth of harmonies which almost swamped
the original melody, and when he had launched into a wildly modulated
variation, his father had smilingly asked him from the other end of
the piano--"Whither away, whither away?" George had felt abashed and
allowed the swell of the notes to subside, and his father had begun a
discussion about his son's future with all his usual affection, but
with rather more than his usual seriousness. This conversation ran
through his mind to-day as though it had been pregnant with presage. He
stood at the window and looked out. The park outside was fairly empty.
An old woman wearing an old-fashioned cloak with glass beads sat on
a seat. A nursemaid walked past holding one child by the hand while
another, a little boy, in a hussar uniform, with a buckled-on sabre
and a pistol in his belt, ran past, looked haughtily round and saluted
a veteran who came down the path smoking. Further down the grounds
were a few people sitting round the kiosk, drinking coffee and reading
the papers. The foliage was still fairly thick, and the park looked
depressed and dusty and altogether far more summer-like than usual for
late September.

George rested his arms on the window-sill, leant forwards and looked at
the sky. He had not left Vienna since his father's death, though he had
had many opportunities of so doing. He could have gone with Felician to
the Schoenstein estate; Frau Ehrenberg had written him a charming letter
inviting him to come to Auhof; he could easily have found a companion
for that long-planned cycle-tour through Carinthia and the Tyrol, which
he had not the energy to undertake alone. But he preferred to stay
in Vienna and occupy his time with perusing and putting in order the
old family papers. He found archives which went as far back as his
great-grandfather Anastasius von Wergenthin, who haled from the Rhine
district and had by his marriage with a Fraeulein Recco become possessed
of an old castle near Bozen which had been uninhabitable for a long
period. There were also documents dealing with the history of George's
grandfather, a major of artillery who had fallen before Chlum in the
year 1866.

The major's son, the father of Felician and himself, had devoted
himself to scientific studies, principally botany, and had taken at
Innsbruck the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. At the age of twenty-four
he had made the acquaintance of a young girl of an old family of
Austrian officials, who had brought her up to be a singer, more
with a view to rendering her independent of the limited, not to say
impoverished, resources of the household, than because she had any real
vocation. Baron von Wergenthin saw and heard her for the first time at
a concert-performance of the Missa Solemnis and in the following May
she became his wife. Three years later the health of the Baroness began
to fail, and she was ordered South by the doctors. She did not recover
as soon as was anticipated, with the result that the house in Vienna
was given up, and the Baron and his family lived for several years a
kind of hotel-life, as they travelled from one place to another. His
business and studies frequently summoned the Baron to Vienna, but the
sons never left their mother. The family lived in Sicily, Rome, Tunis,
Corfu, Athens, Malta, Merano, the Riviera, and finally in Florence;
never in very great style, but fairly well nevertheless, and without
curtailing their expenditure sufficiently to prevent a substantial part
of the Baron's fortune being gradually eaten up. George was eighteen
when his mother died. Nine years had passed since then, but the memory
of that spring evening was still as vivid as ever, when his father and
brother had happened to be out, and he had stood alone and helpless by
his mother's death-bed, while the talk and laughter of the passers-by
had flowed in with the spring air through the hastily opened windows
with all the jar of its unwelcome noise.

The survivors took their mother's body back to Vienna. The Baron
devoted himself to his studies with new and desperate zeal. He had
formerly enjoyed the reputation of an aristocratic dilettante, but he
now began to be taken quite seriously even in academic circles, and
when he was elected honorary president of the Botanical Society he
owed that distinction to something more than the accident of a noble
name. Felician and George entered themselves as law students. But after
some time their father himself encouraged the boys to abandon their
university studies, and go in for a more general education and one
more in accordance with their musical tendencies. George felt thankful
and relieved at this new departure. But even in this sphere which he
had chosen himself, he was by no means industrious, and he would often
occupy himself for weeks on end with all manner of things that had
nothing at all to do with his musical career.

It was this same trait of dilettantism which made him now go through
the old family documents as seriously as though he were investigating
some important secrets of the past. He spent many hours busying
himself with letters which his parents had exchanged in years gone by,
wistful letters and superficial letters, melancholy letters and placid
letters, which brought back again to life not merely the departed ones
themselves but other men and women half sunk in oblivion. His German
tutor now appeared to him again with his sad pale forehead just as he
used to declaim his Horace to him on their long walks, there floated up
in his mind the wild brown boyish face of Prince Alexander of Macedon
in whose company George had had his first riding lessons in Rome; and
then the Pyramids of Cestius limned as though in a dream with black
lines on a pale blue horizon reared their peaks, just as George had
seen them once in the twilight as he came home from his first ride in
the Campagna. And as he abandoned himself still more to his reverie
there appeared sea-shores, gardens and streets, though he had no
knowledge of the landscape or the town that had furnished them to his
memory; images of human beings swept past him; some of these, whom he
had met casually on some trivial occasion, were very clear, others
again, with whom he might at some time or other have passed many days,
were shadowy and distant.

When George had finished inspecting the old letters and was putting
his own papers in order, he found in an old green case some musical
jottings of his boyhood, whose very existence had so completely
vanished from his memory, that if they had been put before him as the
records of some one else he would not have known the difference. Some
affected him with a kind of pleasant pain, for they seemed to him to
contain promises which he was perhaps never to fulfil. And yet he had
been feeling lately that something had been hatching within him. He saw
his development as a mysterious but definite line which showed the way
from those first promising notes in the green case to quite new ideas,
and this much he knew--the two songs out of the "Westoestliche Divan"
which he had set to music this summer on a sultry afternoon, while
Felician lay in his hammock and his father worked in his armchair on
the cool terrace, could not have been composed by your ordinary person.

George moved back a step from the window as though surprised by an
absolutely unexpected thought. He had never before realised with such
clearness that there had been an absolute break in his life since
his father's death down to to-day. During the whole time he had not
given a single thought to Anna Rosner to whom he had sent the songs
in manuscript. And he felt pleasurably thrilled at the thought that
he could hear her melodious melancholy voice again and accompany her
singing on that somewhat heavy piano, as soon as he wished. And he
remembered the old house in the Paulanergasse, with its low door and
badly lighted stairs which he had not been up more than three or four
times, in the mood in which a man thinks of something which he has
known very long and held very dear.

A slight soughing traversed the leaves in the park outside. Thin clouds
appeared over the spire of the Stephan Tower, which stood directly
opposite the window, on the other side of the park, and over a largish
part of the town. George was faced with a long afternoon without any
engagements. It seemed to him as though all his former friendships
during the two months of mourning had dissolved or broken up. He
thought of the past spring and winter with all their complications
and mad whirl of gaiety, and all kinds of images came back into his
memory--the ride with Frau Marianne in the closed fiacre through
the snow-covered forest. The masked ball at Ehrenberg's with Else's
subtly-naive remarks about "Hedda Gabler" with whom she insisted she
felt a certain affinity, and with Sissy's hasty kiss from under the
black lace of her mask. A mountain expedition in the snow from Edlach
up to the Rax with Count Schoenstein and Oskar Ehrenberg, who, though
very far from being a born mountaineer, had jumped at the opportunity
of tacking himself on to two blue-blooded gentlemen. The evening at
Ronacher's with Grace and young Labinski, who had shot himself four
days afterwards either on account of Grace, debts, satiety, or as a
sheer piece of affectation. The strange hot and cold conversation with
Grace in the cemetery in the melting February snow two days after
Labinski's funeral. The evening in the hot lofty fencing-room where
Felician's sword had crossed the dangerous blade of the Italian
master. The walk at night after the Paderewski concert when his father
had spoken to him more intimately than ever before of that long-past
evening on which his dead mother had sung in the Missa Solemnis in the
very hall which they had just come out of. And finally Anna Rosner's
tall quiet figure appeared to him, leaning on the piano, with the score
in her hand, and her smiling blue eyes turned towards the keys, and he
even heard her voice reverberating in his soul.

While he stood like this at the window and looked down at the park
which was gradually becoming animated, he felt a certain consolation
in the fact that he had no close ties with any human being, and that
there were so many people to whom he could attach himself once more
and whose set he could enter again as soon as the fancy took him. He
felt at the same time wonderfully rested and more in the vein for
work and happiness than he had ever been. He was full of great bold
resolutions and joyfully conscious of his youth and independence. He
no doubt felt a certain shame at the thought that at any rate at the
present moment his grief for his dead father was much alleviated; but
he found a relief for this indifference of his in the thought of his
dear father's painless end. He had been walking up and down the garden
chatting with his two sons, had suddenly looked round him as though he
heard voices in the distance, had then looked up towards the sky and
had suddenly dropped down dead on the sward, without a cry of pain or
even a twitching of the lips.

George went back into the room, got ready to go out and left the house.
He intended to walk about for a couple of hours wherever chance might
take him, and in the evening to work again at his quintette, for which
he now felt in the right mood. He crossed the street and went into the
park. The sultriness had passed. The old woman in the cloak still sat
on the seat and stared in front of her. Children were playing on the
sandy playground round the trees. All the chairs round the kiosk were
taken. A clean-shaven gentleman sat in the summer-house whom George
knew by sight and who had impressed him by his likeness to the elder
Grillparzer. By the pond George met a governess with two well-dressed
children and received a flashing glance. When he got out of the Park
into the Ringstrasse he met Willy Eissler who was wearing a long autumn
overcoat with dark stripes and began to speak to him.

"Good afternoon, Baron, so you've come back to Vienna again."

"I've been back a long time," answered George. "I didn't leave Vienna
again after my father's death."

"Yes, yes, quite so.... Allow me, once again...." And Willy shook hands
with George.

"And what have you been doing this summer?" asked George.

"All kinds of things. Played tennis, and painted, rotted about, had
some amusing times and a lot of boring ones...." Willy spoke extremely
quickly, with a deliberate though slight hoarseness, briskly and yet
nonchalantly with a combination of the Hungarian, French, Viennese and
Jewish accents. "Anyway, I came early to-day, just as you see me now,
from Przemysl," he continued.

"Drill?"

"Yes, the last one. I'm sorry to say so. Though I'm nearly an old man,
I've always found it a joke to trot about with my yellow epaulettes,
clanking my spurs, dragging my sabre along, spreading an atmosphere of
impending peril, and being taken by incompetent Lavaters for a noble
count." They walked along by the side of the railing of the Stadtpark.

"Going to Ehrenbergs' by any chance?" asked Willy.

"No, I never thought of it."

"Because this is the way. I say, have you heard, Fraeulein Else is
supposed to be engaged?"

"Really?" queried George slowly. "And whom to?"

"Guess, Baron."

"Come, Hofrat Wilt?"

"Great heavens!" cried Willy, "I'm sure it's never entered his head!
Becoming S. Ehrenberg's son-in-law might result in prejudicing his
government career--nowadays."

George went on guessing. "Rittmeister Ladisc?"

"Oh no, Fraeulein Else is far too clever to be taken in by him."

George then remembered that Willy had fought a duel with Ladisc a few
years back. Willy felt George's look, twirled somewhat nervously his
blonde moustache which drooped in the Polish fashion and began to speak
quickly and offhandedly.

"The fact that Rittmeister Ladisc and myself once had a difference
cannot prevent me from loyally recognising the fact that he is, and
always has been, a drunken swine. I have an invincible repulsion, which
even blood cannot wash out, against those people who gorge themselves
sick at Jewish houses and then start slanging the Jews as soon as they
get on the door-steps. They ought to be able to wait till they got
to the cafe. But don't exert yourself any more by guessing. Heinrich
Bermann is the lucky man."

"Impossible," said George.

"Why?" asked Eissler. "It had to be some one sooner or later. Bermann
is no Adonis, I agree, but he's a coming man, and Else's official
ideal of a mixture of gentleman-rider and athlete will never turn up.
Meanwhile she has reached twenty-four, and she must have had enough by
now of Salomon's tactless remarks and Salomon's jokes."

"Salomon?--oh, yes--Ehrenberg."

"You only know him by the initial S? S of course stands for Salomon
... and as for only S standing on the door, that is simply a concession
he made to his family. If he could follow his own fancy he would prefer
to turn up at the parties Madame Ehrenberg gives in a caftan and
side-curls."

"Do you think so? He's not so very strict?"

"Strict?... Really now! It's nothing at all to do with strictness. It
is only cussedness, particularly against his son Oskar with his feudal
ideals."

"Really," said George with a smile, "wasn't Oskar baptised long ago?
Why, he's a reserve officer in the dragoons."

"That's why ... well, I've not been baptised and nevertheless ... yes
... there are always exceptions ... with good will...." He laughed and
went on. "As for Oskar, he would personally prefer to be a Catholic.
But he thought for the time being he would have to pay too dearly for
the pleasure of being able to go to confession. There's sure to be a
provision in the will to take care that Oskar doesn't 'vert over."

They had arrived in front of the Cafe Imperial. Willy remained
standing. "I've got an appointment here with Demeter Stanzides."

"Please remember me to him."

"Thanks very much. Won't you come in and have an ice?"

"Thanks, I'll prowl about a little more."

"You like solitude?"

"It's hard to give an answer to so general a question," replied George.

"Of course," said Willy, suddenly grew serious and lifted his hat.
"Good afternoon, Baron."

George held out his hand. He felt that Willy was a man who was
continually defending a position though there was no pressing necessity
for him to do so.

"Au revoir," he said with real sincerity. He felt now as he had often
done before, that it was almost extraordinary that Willy should be a
Jew. Why, old Eissler, Willy's father, who composed charming Viennese
waltzes and songs, was a connoisseur and collector, and sometimes a
seller of antiquities, and objets d'art, and had passed in his day
for the most celebrated boxer in Vienna, was, what with his long grey
beard and his monocle, far more like a Hungarian magnate than a Jewish
patriarch. Besides, Willy's own temperament, his deliberate cultivation
of it and his iron will had made him into the deceptive counterpart
of a feudal gentleman bred and born. What, however, distinguished him
from other young people of similar race and ambition was the fact
that he was accustomed to admit his origin, to demand explanation or
satisfaction for every ambiguous smile, and to make merry himself over
all the prejudices and vanities of which he was so often the victim.

George strode along, and Willy's last question echoed in his ears. Did
he love solitude?... He remembered how he had walked about in Palermo
for whole mornings while Grace, following her usual habit, lay in bed
till noon.... Where was she now...? Since she had said goodbye to him
in Naples he had in accordance with their arrangement heard nothing
from her. He thought of the deep blue night which had swept over the
waters when he had travelled alone to Genoa after that farewell, and of
the soft strange fairy-like song of two children who, nestling closely
up against each other and wrapped, the pair of them, in one rug, had
sat on the deck by the side of their sleeping mother.

With a growing sense of well-being he walked on among the people who
passed by him with all the casual nonchalance of a Sunday. Many a glad
glance from a woman's eye met his own, and seemed as though it would
have liked to console him for strolling about alone and with all the
external appearances of mourning on this beautiful holiday afternoon.
And another picture floated up in his mind.--He saw himself on a hilly
sward, after a hot June day, late in the evening. Darkness all around.
Deep below him a clatter of men, laughter and noise, and glittering
fairy-lamps. Quite near, girls' voices came out of the darkness.... He
lit the small pipe which he usually only smoked in the country; the
flare of the vesta showed him two pretty young peasant wenches, still
almost children. He chatted to them. They were frightened because it
was so dark; they nestled up to him. Suddenly a whizz, rockets in the
air, a loud "Ah!" from down below. Bengal lights flaring violet and red
over the invisible lake beneath. The girls rushed down the hill and
vanished. Then it became dark again and he lay alone and looked up into
the darkness which swam down on him in all its sultriness. The night
before the day on which his father died had been one such as this. And
he thought of him for the first time to-day.

He had left the Ringstrasse and taken the direction of the Wieden.
Would the Rosners be at home on such a beautiful day? At all events
the distance was so short that it was worth trying, and at any rate he
fancied going there rather than to Ehrenbergs'. He was not the least
in love with Else, and it was almost a matter of indifference to him
whether or no she were really engaged to Heinrich Bermann. He had
already known her for a long time. She had been eleven, he had been
fourteen when they had played tennis with each other on the Riviera.
In those days she looked like a gipsy girl. Black-blue tresses tossed
round her cheeks and forehead, and she was as boisterous as a boy. Her
brother had already begun to play the lord, and even to-day George
could not help smiling at the recollection of the fifteen-year old boy
appearing on the promenade one day in a light grey coat with white
black-braided gloves and a monocle in his eye. Frau Ehrenberg was then
thirty-four, and had a dignified appearance though her figure was too
large; she was still beautiful, had dim eyes, and was usually very
tired.

George never forgot the day on which her husband, the millionaire
cartridge-manufacturer, had descended on his family and had by the
very fact of his appearance made a speedy end of the Ehrenbergian
aristocracy. George still remembered in his mind's eye how he had
sprung up during the breakfast on the hotel terrace; a small spare
gentleman with a trimmed beard and moustache and Japanese eyes, in
badly-creased white flannels, a dark straw hat with a red-and-white
striped ribbon on his round head and with dusty black shoes. He always
spoke very slowly and in an as it were sarcastic manner even about the
most unimportant matters, and whenever he opened his mouth a secret
anxiety would always lurk beneath the apparent calm of his wife's
face. She tried to revenge herself by making fun of him; but she
could never do anything with his inconsiderate manners. Oskar behaved
whenever he had a chance as though he didn't belong to the family at
all. A somewhat hesitating contempt would play over his features for
that progenitor who was not quite worthy of him, and he would smile
meaningly for sympathy at the young baron. Only Else in those days was
really nice to her father. She was quite glad to hang on his arm on
the promenade and she would often throw her arms round his neck before
every one.

George had seen Else again in Florence a year before his mother's
death. She was then taking drawing lessons from an old grizzled German,
about whom the legend was circulated that he had once been celebrated.
He spread the rumour about himself that when he felt his genius on the
wane he had discarded his former well-known name and had given up his
calling, though what that was he never disclosed. If his own version
was to be believed, his downfall was due to a diabolical female who had
destroyed his most important picture in a fit of jealousy; and then
ended her life by jumping out of the window. This man who had struck
the seventeen-year-old George as a kind of fool and impostor was the
object of Else's first infatuation. She was then fourteen years old,
and had all the wildness and naivete of childhood. When she stood in
front of the Titian Venus in the Uffizi Gallery her cheeks would flush
with curiosity, yearning and admiration, and vague dreams of future
experiences would play in her eyes. She often came with her mother
to the house which the Wergenthins had hired at Lungarno, and while
Frau Ehrenberg tried in her languid blase way to amuse the ailing
baroness, Else would stand at the window with George, start precocious
conversations about the art of the Pre-Raphaelites, and smile at her
old childish games. Felician too would come in sometimes, slim and
handsome, cast his cold grey eyes over the objects and people in the
room, murmur a few polite words, sit down by his mother's bedside, and
tenderly stroke and kiss her hand. He would usually soon go away again,
though not without leaving behind, so far as Else was concerned, a very
palpable atmosphere of old-time aristocracy, cold-blooded fascination
and elegant contempt of death. She always had the impression that he
was going to a gaming-table where hundreds of thousands were at stake,
to a duel to the death or to a princess with red hair and a dagger on
her dressing-table. George remembered that he had been somewhat jealous
both of the erratic drawing-master and of his brother. The master was
suddenly dismissed for reasons which were never specified, and soon
afterwards Felician left for Vienna with Baron von Wergenthin. George
now played to the ladies on the piano more frequently than before, both
his own compositions and those of others, and Else would sing from
the score easy songs from Schubert and Schumann in her small, rather
shrill voice. She visited the galleries and churches with her mother
and George; when spring came there were excursion parties up the Hill
Road or to Fiesole, and George and Else exchanged smiling glances
which were eloquent of a deeper understanding than actually existed.
Their relations went on progressing in this somewhat disingenuous
manner, when their acquaintance was renewed and continued in Vienna.
Else seemed pleasurably thrilled all over again by the equable friendly
manner with which George approached her, notwithstanding the fact that
they had not seen each other for some months. She herself, on the other
hand, grew outwardly more self-possessed and mentally more unsettled
with each succeeding year. She had abandoned her artistic aspirations
fairly early, and in the course of time she came to regard herself as
destined to the most varied careers.

She often saw herself in the future as a society woman, an organiser
of battles of flowers, a patroness of great balls, taking part in
aristocratic charity performances; more frequently she would believe
herself called to sit enthroned as a great appreciator in an artistic
salon of painters, musicians and poets. She would then dream again
of a more adventurous life: a sensational marriage with an American
millionaire, the elopement with a violin virtuoso or a Spanish officer,
a diabolical ruination of all the men who came near her. Sometimes
she would think a quiet life in the country by the side of a worthy
landowner the most desirable consummation; and then she would imagine
herself sitting with prematurely grey hair at a simply-laid table in a
circle of numerous children while she stroked the wrinkles out of the
forehead of her grave husband. But George always felt that her love
of comfort, which was deeper than she guessed herself, would save her
from any rash step. She would often confide in George without ever
being quite honest with him; for the wish which she cherished most
frequently and seriously of all was to become his wife. George was well
aware of this, but that was not the only reason why the latest piece
of intelligence about her engagement with Heinrich Bermann struck him
as somewhat incredible--this Bermann was a gaunt clean-shaven man with
gloomy eyes and straight and rather too long hair, who had recently won
a reputation as a writer and whose demeanour and appearance reminded
George, though he could not tell why, of some fanatical Jewish teacher
from the provinces; there was nothing in him which could fascinate Else
particularly or even make a pleasurable appeal.

This impression was no doubt dispelled by subsequent conversation.
George had left the Ehrenbergs' in company with him one evening last
spring, and they had fallen into so thrilling a conversation about
musical matters that they had gone on chatting till three o'clock in
the morning on a seat in the Ringstrasse.

It is strange, thought George, what a lot of things are running through
my mind to-day which I had scarcely thought of at all since they
happened. And he felt as though he had on this autumn evening emerged
out of the grievous dreary obscurity of so many weeks into the light of
day at last.

He was now standing in front of the house in the Paulanergasse where
the Rosners lived. He looked up to the second story. A window was open,
white tulle curtains pinned together in the centre fluttered in the
light breeze.

The Rosners were at home. The housemaid showed George in. Anna was
sitting opposite the door, she held a coffee-cup in her hand and her
eyes were turned towards the newcomer. On her right her father was
reading a paper and smoking a pipe. He was clean-shaven except for a
pair of narrow grizzled whiskers on his cheeks. His thin hair of a
strange greenish-grey hue was parted at the temples in front and looked
like a badly-made wig. His eyes were watery and red-lidded.

The stoutish mother, around whose forehead the memory of fairer years
seemed as it were to hover, looked straight in front of her; her hands
were contemplatively intertwined and rested on the table.

Anna slowly put down her cup, nodded and smiled in silence. The two old
people began to get up when George came in.

"Please, don't trouble, please don't," said George.

Then there was a noise from the wall at the side of the room. Josef,
the son of the house, got up from the sofa on which he had been lying.
"Charmed to see you, Herr Baron," he said in a very deep voice, and
adjusted the turned-up collar of his yellow-check rather shabby lounge
jacket.

"And how have you been all this time, Herr Baron?" inquired the old
man. He remained standing a gaunt and somewhat bowed figure, and
refused to resume his seat until George had sat down. Josef pushed a
chair between his father and sister, Anna held out her hand to the
visitor.

"We haven't seen one another for a long time," she said, and drank some
of her coffee.

"You've been going through a sad time," remarked Frau Rosner
sympathetically.

"Yes," added Herr Rosner. "We were extremely sorry to read of your
great loss--and so far as we knew your father always enjoyed the best
of health."

He spoke very slowly all the time, as if he had still something more
to say, stroking his head several times with his left hand, and nodded
while he listened to the answer.

"Yes, it came very unexpectedly," said George gently, and looked at the
faded dark-red carpet at his feet.

"A sudden death then, so to speak," remarked Herr Rosner and there was
a general silence.

George took a cigarette out of his case and offered one to Josef.

"Much obliged," said Josef as he took the cigarette and bowed while he
clicked his heels together without any apparent reason; while he was
giving the Baron a light he thought the latter was looking at him,
and said apologetically, with an even deeper voice than usual, "Office
jacket."

"Office jacket straight from the office," said Anna simply without
looking at her brother.

"The lady fancies she has the ironic gift," answered Josef merrily, but
his manifest restraint indicated that under other conditions he would
have expressed himself less agreeably.

"Sympathy was universally felt," old Rosner began again. "I read an
obituary in the _Neuen Freie Presse_ on your good father by Herr
Hoffrat Kerner, if I remember rightly; it was highly laudatory. Science
too has suffered a sad loss."

George nodded in embarrassment, and looked at his hands.

Anna began to speak about her past summer-outing. "It was awfully
pretty in Weissenfeld," she said. "The forest was just behind our house
with good level roads, wasn't it, papa? One could walk there for hours
and hours without meeting a soul."

"And did you have a piano out there?" asked George.

"Oh yes."

"An awful affair," observed Herr Rosner, "a thing fit to wake up the
stones and drive men mad."

"It wasn't so bad," said Anna.

"Good enough for the little Graubinger girl," added Frau Rosner.

"The little Graubinger girl, you see, is the daughter of the local
shopkeeper," explained Anna: "and I taught her the elements of
pianoforte, a pretty little girl with long blonde pig-tails."

"Just a favour to the shopkeeper," said Frau Rosner.

"Quite so, but I should like to remind you," supplemented Anna, "that
apart from that I gave real lessons, I mean paid-for ones."

"What, also in Weissenfeld?" asked George.

"Children on a holiday. Anyway, it's a pity, Herr Baron, that you never
paid us a visit in the country. I am sure you would have liked it."

George then remembered for the first time that he had promised Anna
that he would try to pay her a visit some time in the summer on a
cycling tour.

"I am sure the Baron would not have found a place like that really to
his liking," began Herr Rosner.

"Why not?" asked George.

"They don't cater there for the requirements of a spoilt Viennese."

"Oh, I'm not spoilt," said George.

"Weren't you at Auhof either?" Anna turned to George.

"Oh no," he answered quickly. "No, I wasn't there," he added less
sharply. "I was invited though.... Frau Ehrenberg was so kind as to ...
I had various invitations for the summer. But I preferred to stay in
Vienna by myself."

"I am really sorry," said Anna, "not to see anything more of Else. You
know of course that we went to the same boarding-school. Of course it's
a long time ago. I really liked her. A pity that one gets so out of
touch as time goes on."

"How is that?" asked George.

"Well, I suppose the reason is that I'm not particularly keen on the
whole set."

"Nor am I," said Josef, who was blowing rings into the air.... "I
haven't been there for years. Putting it quite frankly ... I've no
idea, Baron, of your views on this question ... I'm not very gone on
Israelites."

Herr Rosner looked up at his son. "My dear Josef, the Baron visits the
house and it will strike him as rather strange...."

"I?" said George courteously. "I'm not at all on intimate terms with
the Ehrenberg family, however much I enjoy talking to the two ladies."
And then he added interrogatively, "But didn't you give singing lessons
to Else last year, Fraeulein Anna?"

"Yes. Or rather ... I just accompanied her...."

"I suppose you'll do so again this year?"

"I don't know. She hasn't shown any signs of life, so far."

"Perhaps she's giving it all up."

"You think so? It would be almost better if she did," replied Anna
softly, "for as a matter of fact, it was more like squeaking than
singing. But anyway," and she threw George a look which, as it were,
welcomed him afresh, "the songs you sent me are very nice. Shall I sing
them to you?"

"You've had a look at the things already? That is nice of you."

Anna had got up. She put both her hands on her temples and stroked her
wavy hair gently, as though making it tidy. It was done fairly high,
so that her figure seemed even taller than it actually was. A narrow
golden watch-chain was twined twice round her bare neck, fell down
over her bosom, and vanished in her grey leather belt. With an almost
imperceptible nod of her head she asked George to accompany her.

He got up and said, "If you don't mind...."

"Not at all, not at all, of course not," said Herr Rosner. "Very kind
of you, Baron, to do a little music with my daughter. Very nice, very
nice."

Anna had stepped into the next room. George followed her and left the
door open. The white tulle curtains were pinned together in front
of the open window and fluttered slightly. George sat down at the
cottage-piano and struck a few chords. Meanwhile, Anna knelt down in
front of an old black partly gilded whatnot, and got out the music.
George modulated the first chords of his song. Anna joined in and sang
to George's song the Goethean words,

    Deinem Blick mich zu bequemen,
    Deinem Munde, deiner Brust,
    Deine Stimme zu vernehmen,
    War mir erst' und letzte Lust.

She stood behind him and looked over his shoulder at the music. At
times she bent a little forward, and he then felt the breath of her
lips upon his temples. Her voice was much more beautiful than he
remembered its having ever been before.

They were speaking rather too loudly in the next room. Without stopping
singing Anna shut the door. It had been Josef who had been unable to
control his voice any longer.

"I'll just pop in to the cafe for a jiffy," he said.

There was no answer. Herr Rosner drummed gently on the table and his
wife nodded with apparent indifference.

"Goodbye then." Josef turned round again at the door and said fairly
resolutely: "Oh, mamma, if you've got a minute to spare by any
chance----"

"I'm listening," said Frau Rosner. "It's not a secret, I suppose."

"No. It's only that I've got a running account with you already."

"Is it necessary to go to the cafe?" asked old Rosner simply, without
looking up.

"It's not a question of the cafe. The fact is ... you can take it from
me that I'd prefer myself not to have to borrow from you. But what is a
man to do?"

"A man should work," said old Rosner gently, painfully, and his eyes
reddened. His wife threw a sad and reproachful look at her son.

"Well," said Josef, unbuttoning his office coat, and then buttoning it
up again--"that really is ... for every single gulden-note----"

"Pst," said Frau Rosner with a glance towards the door, which was ajar,
and through which, now that Anna had finished her song, came the
muffled sound of George's piano-playing.

Josef answered his mother's glance with a deprecatory wave of his hand.
"Papa says I ought to work. As though I hadn't already proved that I
can work." He saw two pairs of questioning eyes turned towards him.
"Yes of course I proved it, and if it had only depended on me I'd have
managed to get along all right. But I haven't got the temperament to
put up with things, I'm not the kind to let myself be bullied by any
chief if I happen to come in a quarter of an hour late--or anything
like that."

"We know all about that," interrupted Herr Rosner wearily. "But after
all, as we're already on the subject, you really must start looking
round for something."

"Look round ... good ..." answered Josef. "But no one will persuade
me to go into any business run by a Jew. It would make me the
laughing-stock of all my acquaintances ... of my whole set in fact."

"Your set ..." said Frau Rosner. "What is your set? Cafe cronies?"

"Well if you don't mind, now that we are on the subject," said
Josef--"it's connected with that gulden-note, too. I've got an
appointment at the cafe now with young Jalaudek. I'd have preferred to
have told you when the thing had gone quite through ... but I see now
that I'd better show my hand straight away. Well, Jalaudek is the son
of Councillor Jalaudek the celebrated paper-merchant. And old Jalaudek
is well-known as a very influential personage in the party ... very
intimate with the publisher of the _Christliche Volksbote_: his name
is Zelltinkel. And they're looking out on the _Volksbote_ for young
men with good manners--Christians of course, for the advertisement
business. And so I've got an appointment to-day with Jalaudek at
the cafe, because he promised me his governor would recommend me to
Zelltinkel. That would be ripping ... it would get me out of my mess.
Then it wouldn't be long before I was earning a hundred or a hundred
and fifty gulders a month."

"O dear!" sighed old Rosner.

The bell rang outside.

Rosner looked up.

"That must be young Doctor Stauber," said Frau Rosner and cast an
anxious glance at the door, through which the sound of George's
piano-playing came in even softer tones than before.

"Well, mamma, what's the matter?" said Josef.

Frau Rosner took out her purse and with a sigh gave her son a silver
gulden.

"Much obliged," said Josef and turned to go.

"Josef," cried Herr Rosner, "it's really rather rude--at the very
minute when we have a visitor----"

"Oh thank you, but I mustn't have all the treats."

There was a knock, Doctor Berthold Stauber came in.

"I apologise profusely, Herr Doctor," said Josef, "I'm just going out."

"Not at all," replied Doctor Stauber coldly, and Josef vanished.

Frau Rosner invited the young doctor to sit down. He took a seat on the
ottoman and turned towards the quarter from which the piano-playing
could be heard.

"Baron Wergenthin, the composer. Anna has just been singing," explained
Frau Rosner, somewhat embarrassed. And she started to call her daughter
in.

Doctor Berthold gripped her arm lightly but firmly, and said amiably:
"No, please don't disturb Fraeulein Anna, please don't. I'm not in the
least hurry. Besides, this is a farewell visit." The latter words
seemed jerked out of his throat; but Berthold nevertheless smiled
courteously, leant back comfortably in his corner and stroked his short
beard with his right hand.

Frau Rosner looked at him as if she were positively shocked.

"A farewell visit?" Herr Rosner asked. "Has the party allowed you to
take a holiday, Herr Stauber? Parliament has only been assembled a
short time, as one sees in the papers."

"I have resigned my seat," said Berthold.

"What?" exclaimed Herr Rosner.

"Yes, resigned," repeated Berthold, and smiled nervously.

The piano-playing had suddenly stopped, the door which had been ajar
was now opened. George and Anna appeared.

"Oh, Doctor Berthold," said Anna, and held out her hand to the doctor,
who had immediately got up. "Have you been here long? Perhaps you heard
me singing?"

"No, Fraeulein, I'm sorry I was too late for that. I only caught a few
notes on the piano."

"Baron Wergenthin," said Anna, as though she were introducing. "But of
course you know each other?"

"Oh yes," answered George, and held out his hand to Berthold.

"The Doctor has come to pay us a farewell visit," said Frau Rosner.

"What?" exclaimed Anna in astonishment.

"I'm going on a journey, you see," said Berthold, and looked Anna in
the face with a serious, impenetrable expression. "I'm giving up my
political career ... or rather," he added jestingly, "I'm interrupting
it for a while."

George leant on the window with his arms crossed over his breast and
looked sideways at Anna. She had sat down and was looking quietly at
Berthold, who was standing up with his hand resting on the back of the
sofa, as though he were going to make a speech.

"And where are you going?" asked Anna.

"Paris. I'm going to work in the Pasteur Institute. I'm going back to
my old love, bacteriology. It's a cleaner life than politics."

It had grown darker. The faces became vague, only Berthold's forehead,
which was directly opposite the window, was still bathed in light.
His brows were twitching. He really has his peculiar kind of beauty,
thought George, who was leaning motionless in the window-niche and felt
himself bathed in a pleasant sense of peace.

The housemaid brought in the burning lamp and hung it over the table.

"But the papers," said Herr Rosner, "have no announcement at all so far
of your resigning your seat, Doctor Stauber."

"That would be premature," answered Berthold. "My colleagues and the
party know my intention all right, but the thing isn't official yet."

"The news is bound to create a great sensation in the circles affected
by it," said Herr Rosner--"particularly after the lively debate the
other day in which you showed such spirit and determination. I suppose
you've read about it, Baron?" He turned to George.

"I must confess," answered George, "that I don't follow the
parliamentary reports as regularly as I really ought to."

"Ought to," repeated Berthold meditatively. "There's no question
of 'ought' about it really, although the session has not been
uninteresting during the last few days--at any rate as a proof of how
low a level a public body can sink to."

"The debate was very heated," said Herr Rosner.

"Heated?... Well, yes, what we call heated here in Austria. People were
inwardly indifferent and outwardly offensive."

"What was it all about then?" inquired George.

"It was the debate arising out of the questions on the Golowski
case.... Therese Golowski."

"Therese Golowski ..." repeated George. "I seem to know the name."

"Of course you know it," said Anna. "You know Therese herself. She was
just leaving the house when you called the last time."

"Oh yes," said George, "one of your friends."

"I wouldn't go so far as to call her a friend; that seems to imply a
certain mental sympathy that doesn't quite exist."

"You certainly don't mean to repudiate Therese," said Doctor Berthold
smiling, but dryly.

"Oh no," answered Anna quickly. "I really never thought of doing that.
I even admire her; as a matter of fact I admire all people who are able
to risk so much for something that doesn't really concern them at all.
And when a young girl does that, a pretty young girl like Therese"--she
was addressing herself to George who was listening attentively--"I am
all the more impressed. You know of course that Therese is one of the
leaders of the Social Democratic Party?"

"And do you know what I took her for?" said George. "For a budding
actress."

"You're quite a judge of character, Herr Baron," said Berthold.

"She really did mean to go on the stage once," corroborated Frau Rosner
coldly.

"But just consider, Frau Rosner," said Berthold. "What young girl
is there with any imagination, especially if she lives in cramped
surroundings into the bargain, who has not at some time or other in her
life at any rate coquetted with such an idea."

"Your forgiving her is good," said Anna, smiling.

It struck Berthold too late that this remark of his had probably
touched a still sensitive spot in Anna's mind. But he continued with
all the greater deliberation. "I assure you, Fraeulein Anna, it would be
a great pity if Therese were to go on the stage, for there's no getting
away from the fact that she can still do her party a tremendous lot of
good if she isn't torn away from her career."

"Do you regard that as possible?" asked Anna.

"Certainly," replied Berthold. "Therese is between two dangers, she
will either talk her head off one fine day...."

"Or?" inquired George, who had grown inquisitive.

"Or she'll marry a Baron," finished Berthold curtly.

"I don't quite understand," said George deprecatingly.

"I only said 'Baron' for a joke, of course. Substitute Prince for Baron
and I make my meaning clearer."

"I see ... I can now get some idea of what you mean, Doctor.... But how
did Parliament come to bother about her?"

"Well, it's like this, last year--at the time of the great
coal-strike--Therese Golowski made a speech in some Bohemian hole,
which contained an expression which was alleged to be offensive to
a member of the Imperial family. She was prosecuted and acquitted.
One might perhaps draw the conclusion from this that there was no
particular substance in the prosecution. Anyway the State Prosecutor
gave notice of appeal, there was an order for a new trial, and Therese
was sentenced to two months' imprisonment, which she is now serving,
and as if that wasn't enough the Judge who had discharged her in the
Court of first instance was transferred ... to somewhere on the Russian
frontier, from where no one ever comes back. Well, we put a question
over this business, which in my view was extremely tame. The Minister
answered somewhat disingenuously amid the cheers of the so-called
Constitutional parties. I ventured to reply in possibly somewhat more
drastic terms than members are accustomed to use, and as the benches
on the other side had no facts with which to answer me they tried to
overwhelm me by shouts and abuse. And of course you can imagine what
the strongest argument was, which a certain type of Conservatives used
against my points."

"Well?" queried George.

"Hold your jaw, Jew," answered Berthold with tightly compressed lips.

"Oh," said George with embarrassment, and shook his head.

"Be quiet, Jew! Hold your jaw! Jew! Jew! Shut up!" continued Berthold,
who seemed somewhat to revel in the recollection.

Anna looked straight in front of her. George thought that this was
quite enough. There was a short, painful silence.

"So that was why?" inquired Anna slowly.

"What do you mean?" asked Berthold.

"That's why you're resigning your seat."

Berthold shook his head and smiled. "No, not because of that."

"You are, of course, above such coarse insults, Doctor," said Herr
Rosner.

"I won't go quite so far as that," answered Berthold, "but one always
has to be prepared for things like that all the same. I'm resigning my
seat for a different reason."

"May one ask what it is?" queried George.

Berthold looked at him with an air which was penetrating and yet
distrait. He then answered courteously: "Of course you may. I went
into the buffet after my speech. I met there, among others, one of the
silliest and cheekiest of our democratic popular representatives, who,
as he usually does, had made more row than any one else while I was
speaking ... Jalaudek the paper-merchant. Of course I didn't pay any
attention to him. He was just putting down his empty glass. When he saw
me he smiled, nodded and hailed me as cheerily as though nothing had
taken place at all. 'Hallo, Doctor, won't you have a drink with me?'"

"Incredible!" exclaimed George.

"Incredible?... No, Austrian. Our indignation is as little genuine as
our enthusiasm. The only things genuine with us are our malice and our
hate of talent."

"Well, and what did you answer the man?" asked Anna.

"What did I answer? Nothing, of course."

"And you resigned your seat," added Anna with gentle raillery.

Berthold smiled. But at the same time his eye-brows twitched, as was
his habit when he was painfully or disagreeably affected. It was too
late to tell her that as a matter of fact he had come to ask her for
her advice, as he used to do in the old days. And at any rate he felt
sure of this, he had done wisely in cutting off all retreat as soon
as he entered the room by announcing the resignation of his seat as
an already accomplished fact, and his journey to Paris as directly
imminent. For he now knew for certain that Anna had again escaped him,
perhaps for a long time. He did not believe for a minute that any man
was capable of winning her really and permanently, and it never entered
his head for a minute to be jealous of that elegant young artist who
was standing so quietly by the window with his crossed arms. It had
happened many times before that Anna had fluttered away for a time,
as though fascinated by the magic of an element which was strange to
her. Why only two years ago, when she was thinking seriously of going
on the stage, and had already begun to learn her parts, he had given
her up for a short time as completely lost. Subsequently when she
had been compelled to relinquish her artistic projects, owing to the
unreliability of her voice, she seemed as if she wanted to come back to
him again. But he had deliberately refused to exploit the opportunities
of that period. For he wanted before he made her his wife to have won
some triumph, either in science or in politics, and to have obtained
her genuine admiration. He had been well on the way to it. In the very
seat where she was now sitting as she looked him straight in the face
with those clear but alas! cold eyes, she had looked at the proofs of
his latest medico-philosophical work which bore the title _Preliminary
Observations on the Physiognomical Diagnosis of Diseases_. And then,
when he finally left science for politics, at the time when he made
speeches at election meetings and equipped himself for his new career
by serious studies in history and political economy, she had sincerely
rejoiced in his energy and his versatility.

All this was now over. She had grown to eye more and more severely
those faults of his of which he was quite aware himself, and
particularly his tendency to be swept away by the intoxication of
his own words, with the result that he came to lose more and more of
his self-confidence in his attitude towards her. He was never quite
himself when he spoke to her, or in her presence. He was not satisfied
with himself to-day either. He was conscious, with an irritation which
struck even himself as petty, that he had not given sufficient force to
his encounter with Jalaudek in the buffet, and that he ought to have
made his detestation of politics ring far more plausibly.

"You are probably quite right, Fraeulein Anna," he said, "if you
smile at my resigning my seat on account of that silly incident.
A parliamentary life without its share of comedy is an absolute
impossibility. I should have realised it, played up to it and taken
every opportunity of drinking with the fellow who had publicly insulted
me. It would have been convenient, Austrian--and possibly even the most
correct course to have taken." He felt himself in full swing again and
continued with animation. "What it comes to in the end is that there
are two methods of doing anything worth doing in politics. The one
is a magnificent flippancy which looks on the whole of public life
as an amusing game, has no true enthusiasm for anything, and no true
indignation against anything, and which regards the people whose misery
or happiness are ultimately at stake with consummate indifference. I
have not progressed so far, and I don't know that I should ever have
succeeded in doing so. Quite frankly, I have often wished I could have.
The other method is this: to be ready every single minute to sacrifice
one's whole existence, one's life, in the truest sense of the word, for
what one believes to be right----"

Berthold suddenly stopped. His father, old Doctor Stauber, had come in
and been heartily welcomed. He shook hands with George, who had been
introduced to him by Frau Rosner, and looked at him so kindly that
George felt himself immediately drawn towards him. He looked younger
than he was. His long reddish-yellow beard was only streaked by a few
grey hairs, and his smoothly combed long hair fell in thick locks on to
his broad neck. The strikingly high forehead gave a kind of majesty to
the somewhat thick-set figure with its high shoulders. When his eyes
were not making a special point of looking kind or shrewd they seemed
to be resting behind the tired lids as though to gather the energy for
the next look.

"I knew your mother, Herr Baron," he said to George rather gently.

"My mother, Herr Doctor...?"

"You will scarcely remember it, you were only a little boy of three or
four at the time."

"You attended her?" asked George.

"I visited her sometimes as deputy for Professor Duchegg, whose
assistant I was. You used to live then in the Habsburgergasse, in an
old house that has been pulled down long ago. I could describe to you
even to-day the furniture of the room in which I was received by your
father ... whose premature death I deeply regret.... There was a bronze
figure on the secretary, a knight in armour to be sure with a flag, and
a copy of a Vandyck from the Liechtenstein gallery hung on the wall."

"Yes, quite right," said George, amazed at the doctor's good memory.

"But I have interrupted your conversation," continued Doctor Stauber
in that droning slightly melancholy and yet superior tone which was
peculiar to him, and sat down in the corner of the sofa.

"Doctor Berthold has just been telling us, to our great astonishment,"
said Herr Rosner, "that he has decided to resign his seat."

Old Stauber directed a quiet look towards his son, which the latter
answered with equal quietness. George, who had watched this play of the
eyes, had the impression that there prevailed between these two a tacit
understanding which did not need any words.

"Yes," said Doctor Stauber. "I wasn't at all surprised. I've always
felt as though Berthold were never really quite at home in Parliament,
and I am really glad that he has now begun to pine as it were to go
back to his real calling. Yes, yes, your real calling, Berthold," he
repeated, as though to answer his son's furrowed brow. "You have not
prejudiced your future by it, in the least. Nothing makes life so
difficult as our frequent belief in consistency ... and our wasting
our time in being ashamed of a mistake, instead of owning up to it and
simply starting life again on a fresh basis."

Berthold explained that he meant to leave in eight days at the outside.
There would be no point in postponing his journey beyond that time,
it would be possible too that he might not remain in Paris. His
studies might necessitate travelling further afield. Further, he had
decided not to make any farewell visits. He had, he added by way of
explanation, completely given up all association with certain bourgeois
sets, among whom his father had an extensive practice.

"Didn't we meet each other once this winter at Ehrenbergs'?" asked
George with a certain amount of satisfaction.

"That's right," answered Berthold. "We are distantly related to the
Ehrenbergs you know. The Golowski family is curiously enough the
connecting link between us. It would be no good, Herr Baron, if I
were to make any attempt to explain it to you in greater detail. I
should have to take you on a journey through the registry offices and
congregations of Temesvar Tarnopol and similar pleasant localities--and
that you mightn't quite fancy."

"Anyway," added old Doctor Stauber in a resigned tone, "the Baron is
bound to know that all Jews are related to one another."

George smiled amiably. As a matter of fact it rather jarred on his
nerves. There was no necessity at all, in his view, for Doctor Stauber
as well officially to communicate to him his membership of the Jewish
community. He already knew it and bore him no grudge for it. He bore
him no grudge at all for it; but why do they always begin to talk about
it themselves? Wherever he went, he only met Jews who were ashamed of
being Jews, or the type who were proud of it and were frightened of
people thinking they were ashamed of it.

"I had a chat with old Frau Golowski yesterday," continued Doctor
Stauber.

"Poor woman," said Herr Rosner.

"How is she?" asked Anna.

"How is she ... you can imagine ... her daughter in prison, her son a
conscript--he is living in the barracks at the expense of the State ...
just imagine Leo Golowski as a patriot ... and the old man sits in the
cafe and watches the other people playing chess. He himself can't even
run nowadays to the ten kreuzers for the chess money."

"Therese's imprisonment must soon be over anyway," said Berthold.

"It still lasts another twelve, fourteen days," replied his father....
"Come, Annerl"--he turned towards the young girl--"it would be really
nice of you if you were to show yourself once more in Rembrandtstrasse;
the old lady has taken an almost pathetic fancy to you. I really can't
understand why," he added with a smile, while he looked at Anna almost
tenderly.

She looked straight in front of her and made no answer.

The clock on the wall struck seven. George got up as though he had
simply been waiting for the signal.

"Going so soon, Herr Baron?" said Herr Rosner, getting up.

George requested the company not to disturb themselves, and shook hands
all round.

"It is strange," said old Stauber, "how your voice reminds one of your
poor father."

"Yes, many people have said so," replied George. "I, personally, can't
see any trace of it."

"There isn't a man in the world who knows his own voice," remarked old
Stauber, and it sounded like the beginning of a popular lecture.

But George took his leave. Anna accompanied him, in spite of his slight
remonstrance, into the hall and left the door half open--almost on
purpose, so it struck George. "It's a pity we couldn't go on with our
music any longer," she said.

"I'm sorry too, Fraeulein Anna."

"I liked the song to-day even better than the first time, when I had to
accompany myself, only it falls off a bit at the end.... I don't know
how to express myself."

"Oh, I know what you mean, the end is conventional. I felt so too. I
hope soon to be able to bring you something better than that, Fraeulein
Anna."

"But don't keep me waiting for it too long."

"I certainly won't. Goodbye, Fraeulein Anna." They shook hands with each
other and both smiled.

"Why didn't you come to Weissenfeld?" asked Anna lightly.

"I am really sorry, but just consider, Fraeulein Anna, I could scarcely
get in the mood for society of any kind this year, you can quite
appreciate that."

Anna looked at him seriously. "Don't you think," she said, "that
perhaps one might have been some help to you in bearing it?"

"There's a draught, Anna," called out Frau Rosner from inside.

"I'm coming in a minute," answered Anna with a touch of impatience. But
Frau Rosner had already shut the door.

"When can I come back?" asked George.

"Whenever you like. At any rate ... I really ought to give you a
written time-table, so that you may know when I'm at home, but that
wouldn't be much good either. I often go for walks or go shopping in
town or go to picture galleries or exhibitions----"

"We might do that together one day," said George.

"Oh, yes," answered Anna, took her purse out of her pocket and then
took out a tiny note-book.

"What have you got there?" asked George.

Anna smiled and turned over the leaves of a little book. "Just wait....
I meant to go and see the Exhibition of Miniatures in the Royal Library
at eleven on Thursday. If you too are interested in miniatures, we
might meet there."

"Delighted, I'm sure."

"Right you are then, we can then arrange the next time for you to
accompany my singing."

"Done," said George and shook hands with her. It struck him that while
Anna was chatting with him here outside, young Doctor Stauber would
doubtless be getting irritated or offended inside, and he was surprised
that he should be more disturbed by this circumstance than Anna, who
struck him as on the whole a perfectly good-natured person. He freed
his hand from hers, said good-bye and went.

It was quite dark when George got into the streets. He strolled slowly
over the Elizabeth Bridge to the Opera, past the centre of the
town and undisturbed by the hubbub and traffic around him, listened
mentally to the tune of his song. He thought it strange that Anna's
voice which had so pure and sound a tone in a small room, should have
no future whatsoever before it on the stage and concert platform, and
even stranger that Anna scarcely seemed to mind this tragic fact. But
of course he was not quite clear in his mind whether Anna's calmness
really reflected her true character.

He had known her more or less casually for some years, but an evening
in the previous spring had been the first occasion when they had
become rather more intimate. A large party had been got up on that
occasion in the Waldsteingarten. They took their meal in the open air
under the high chestnut-trees, and they all experienced the pleasure,
excitement and fascination of the first warm May evening of the year.
George conjured up in his mind all the people who had come: Frau
Ehrenberg, the organiser of the party, dressed in an intentionally
matronly style, in a dark loose-fitting foulard dress; Hofrat Wilt,
wearing as it were the mask of an English statesman with all the sloppy
aristocracy of his nonchalant demeanour, and his chronic and somewhat
cheap superior manner towards everything and everybody; Frau Oberberger
who looked like a rococo marquise with her grey powdered hair, her
flashing eyes and her beauty spot on her chin; Demeter Stanzides
with his white gleaming teeth and that pale forehead that showed
all the weariness of an old race of heroes; Oskar Ehrenberg dressed
with a smartness that smacked a great deal of the head clerk in a
dressmaking establishment, a great deal of a young music-hall comedian
and something, too, of a young society man; Sissy Wyner who kept
switching her dark laughing eyes from one man to another, as though
she had a merry secret understanding with every single member of the
party; Willy Eissler who related in his hoarse jovial voice all kinds
of jolly anecdotes of his soldier days and Jewish stories as well;
Else Ehrenberg in a white English cloth dress with all the delicate
melancholy of the spring flowing around her, while her _grande dame_
movements combined with her baby-face and delicate figure to invest
her with an almost pathetic grace; Felician, cold and courteous, with
haughty eyes which gazed between the members of the party to the other
tables, and from the other tables beyond into the distance; Sissy's
mother, young, red-cheeked and a positive chatter-box, who wanted to
talk about everything at the same time and to listen to everything at
the same time; Edmund Nuernberger with his piercing eyes and his thin
mouth curving into that smile of contempt (which had almost become
a chronic mask) for that whirligig of life, which he thoroughly saw
through, though to his own amazement he frequently discovered that he
was playing in the game himself; and then finally Heinrich Bermann in a
summer suit that was too loose, with a straw hat that was too cheap and
a tie that was too light, who one moment spoke louder than the others
and at the next moment was more noticeably silent.

Last of all Anna Rosner had appeared, self-possessed and without any
escort, greeted the party with a slight nod and composedly sat down
between Frau Ehrenberg and George. "I have asked her for you," said
Frau Ehrenberg softly to George, who prior to this evening had scarcely
given Anna a single thought. These words, which perhaps only originated
in a stray idea of Frau Ehrenberg's, became true in the course of the
evening. From the moment when the party got up and started on their
merry expedition through the Volksprater George and Anna had remained
together everywhere, in the side-shows and also on the journey home to
town, which for the fun of the thing was done on foot, and surrounded
though they were by all that buzz of jollity and foolishness they had
finished by starting a perfectly rational conversation. A few days
later he called and brought her as he had promised the piano score
of "Eugen Onegin" and some of his songs; on his next visit she sang
these songs over to him as well as many of Schubert's, and he was
very pleased with her voice. Shortly afterwards they said goodbye to
each other for the summer without a single trace of sentimentalism or
tenderness. George had regarded Anna's invitation to Weissenfeld as a
mere piece of politeness, just in the same way as he had thought his
promise to come had been understood; and the atmosphere of to-day's
visit when compared with the innocence of their previous acquaintance
was bound to strike George as extremely strange.

At the Stephansplatz George saw that he was being saluted by some one
standing on the platform of a horse-omnibus. George, who was somewhat
short-sighted, did not immediately recognise the man who was saluting
him.

"It's me," said the gentleman on the platform.

"Oh, Herr Bermann, good evening." George shook hands with him. "Which
way are you going?"

"I'm going into the Prater. I'm going to dine down there. Have you
anything special on, Baron?"

"Nothing at all."

"Well, come along with me then."

George swung himself on to the omnibus, which had just begun to move
on. They told each other cursorily how they had spent the summer.
Heinrich had been in the Salzkammergut and subsequently in Germany,
from which he had only come back a few days ago.

"Oh, in Berlin?" hazarded George.

"No."

"I thought perhaps in connection with a new piece----"

"I haven't written a new piece," interrupted Heinrich somewhat rudely.
"I was in the Taunus and on the Rhine in several places."

"What's he got to do on the Rhine?" thought George, although the topic
did not interest him any further. It struck him that Bermann was
looking in front of him in a manner that was not only absent-minded but
really almost melancholy.

"And how's your work getting on, my dear Baron?" asked Heinrich with
sudden animation, while he drew closer round him the dark grey overcoat
which hung over his shoulders.[1] "Have you finished your quintette?"

"My quintette?" repeated George in astonishment. "Have I spoken to you
about my quintette, then?"

"No, not you, but Fraeulein Else told me that you were working at a
quintette."

"I see, Fraeulein Else. No, I haven't got much further with it. I didn't
feel quite in the mood, as you can imagine."

"Quite," said Heinrich, and was silent for a while. "And your father
was still so young," he added slowly.

George nodded in silence.

"How is your brother?" asked Heinrich suddenly.

"Quite well, thanks," answered George somewhat coldly.

Heinrich threw his cigarette over the rail and immediately proceeded
to light another. Then he said: "You must be surprised at my inquiring
after your brother when I have scarcely ever spoken to him. But he
interests me. He represents in my view a type which is absolutely
perfect of its kind, and I regard him as one of the happiest men going."

"That may well be," answered George hesitatingly. "But how do you come
to think so seeing that you scarcely know him?"

"In the first place his name is Felician Freiherr von
Wergenthin-Recco," said Heinrich very seriously, and blew the smoke
into the air.

George looked at him with some astonishment.

"Of course your name is Wergenthin-Recco, too," continued Heinrich,
"but only George--and that's not the same by a long way, is it?
Besides, your brother is very handsome. Of course you haven't got at
all a bad appearance. But people whose real point is that they're
handsome have really a much better time of it than others whose real
point is that they're clever. If you are handsome you are handsome
for always, while clever people, or at any rate nine-tenths of them,
spend their life without showing a single trace of talent. Yes, that's
certainly the case. The line of life is clearer so to speak when one
is handsome than when one is a genius. Of course all this could be
expressed far better."

George was disagreeably affected. What's the matter with him? he
thought. Can he perhaps be jealous of Felician ... on account of Else
Ehrenberg?

They got out at the Praterstern. The great stream of the Sunday crowd
was flowing towards them. They went towards the Hauptallee, where there
was no longer any crush, and strolled slowly on. It had grown cool.
George made remarks about the autumnal atmosphere of the evening, the
people sitting in the restaurants, the military bands playing in the
kiosks.

At first Heinrich answered offhandedly, and subsequently not at all,
and finally seemed scarcely to be paying any attention. George thought
this rude. He was almost sorry that he had joined Heinrich, all the
more so as he made it an almost invariable practice not to respond
straight away to casual invitations. The excuse he gave to himself
was that it was simply out of absent-mindedness that he had done it
on this occasion. Heinrich was walking close to him or even going a
few steps in front, as if he were completely oblivious of George's
presence. He still held tightly in both hands the overcoat which was
swung round him, wore his dark grey felt hat pressed down over his
forehead and looked extremely uncouth. His appearance suddenly began
to jar keenly on George's nerves. Heinrich Bermann's previous remarks
about Felician now struck him as in bad taste, and as quite devoid
of tact, and it occurred to him at the psychological moment that
practically all he knew of Heinrich's literary productions had gone
against the grain. He had seen two pieces of his: one where the scene
was laid in the lower strata of society, among artizans or factory
workers, and which finished up with murder and fatal blows; the other a
kind of satirical society comedy whose first production had occasioned
a scandal and which had soon been taken out of the repertoire of the
theatre. Anyway George did not then know the author personally, and had
taken no further interest in the whole thing. He only remembered that
Felician had thought the piece absolutely ridiculous, and that Count
Schoenstein had expressed the opinion that if he had anything to do with
it pieces written by Jews should only be allowed to be performed by the
Buda-Pesth Orpheum Company.[2] But Doctor von Breitner in particular,
a baptised Jew with a philosophical mind, had given vent to his
indignation that such an adventurer of a young man should have dared to
have put a world on to the stage that was obviously closed to him, and
which it was consequently impossible for him to know anything about.

While George was remembering all this his irritation at the rude
conduct and stubborn silence of his companion rose to a genuine sense
of enmity, and quite unconsciously he began to think that all the
insults which had been previously directed against Bermann had been in
fact justified. He now remembered too that Heinrich had been personally
antipathetic to him from the beginning, and that he had indulged in
some ironic remark to Frau Ehrenberg about her cleverness in having
lost no time in adding that young celebrity to the tame lions in her
drawing-room. Else, of course, had immediately taken Heinrich's part,
and explained that he was an interesting man, was in many respects
positively charming, and had prophesied to George that sooner or later
he would become good friends with him. And as a matter of fact George
had preserved, as the result of that nocturnal conversation on the seat
in the Ringstrasse in the spring of this year, a certain sympathy for
Bermann which had survived down to the present evening.

They had passed the last inns some time ago. The white high road ran by
their side out into the night on a straight and lonely track between
the trees, and the very distant music only reached them in more or less
broken snatches.

"But where are you going to?" Heinrich exclaimed suddenly, as though he
had been dragged there against his will, and stood still.

"I really can't help it," remarked George simply.

"Excuse me," said Heinrich.

"You were so deep in thought," retorted George coolly.

"I wouldn't quite like to say 'deep.' But it often happens that one
loses oneself in one's thoughts like this."

"I know," said George, somewhat reconciled.

"They were expecting you in August at Auhof," said Heinrich suddenly.

"Expected? Frau Ehrenberg was certainly kind enough to invite me, but I
never accepted. Did you stay there a fairly long time, Herr Bermann?"

"A fairly long time? No. I was up there a few times, but only for an
hour or so."

"I thought you stayed there."

"Not a bit of it. I stayed down at the hotel. I only occasionally went
up to Auhof. There was too much noise and bustle there for me.... The
house was positively packed with visitors. And I can't stand most of
the people who go there."

An open fiacre in which a gentleman and lady were sitting passed by.

"Why, that was Oskar Ehrenberg," said Heinrich.

"And the lady?" queried George, looking towards something bright that
gleamed through the darkness.

"Don't know her."

They turned their steps through a dark side-avenue. The conversation
stuck again. Finally Heinrich began: "Fraeulein Else sang a few of your
songs to me at Auhof. I'd heard some of them already too, sung by the
Bellini, I think."

"Yes, Bellini sang them last winter at a concert."

"Well, Fraeulein Else sang those songs and some others of yours as well."

"Who accompanied her, then?"

"I myself, as well as I could. I must tell you, my dear Baron, that
as a matter of fact those songs impressed me even more than when I
heard them the first time at the concert, in spite of the fact that
Fraeulein Else has considerably less voice and technique than Fraeulein
Bellini. Of course one must take into consideration on the other hand
that it was a magnificent summer afternoon when Fraeulein Else sang
your songs. The window was open, there was a view of the mountains and
the deep-blue sky opposite ... but anyway, you came in for a more than
sufficient share of the credit."

"Very flattering," said George, who felt pained by Heinrich's sarcastic
tone.

"You know," continued Heinrich, speaking as he frequently did with
clenched teeth and unnecessary emphasis, "you know it is not generally
my habit to invite people whom I happen to see in the street to join
me in an omnibus, and I prefer to tell you at once that I regarded it
as--what does one say?--a sign of fate when I suddenly caught sight of
you on the Stephansplatz."

George listened to him in amazement.

"You perhaps don't remember as well as I do," continued Heinrich, "our
last conversation on that seat in the Ringstrasse."

George now remembered for the first time that Heinrich had then made a
quite casual allusion to the libretto of an opera on which he was busy,
and that he had offered himself as the composer of the music with equal
casualness and more as a joke than anything else. He answered with
deliberate coldness: "Oh yes, I remember."

"Well, that binds you to nothing," answered Heinrich, even more coldly
than the other. "All the less so since, to tell you the truth, I've not
given my opera libretto a single thought till that beautiful summer
afternoon when Fraeulein Else sang your song. Anyway, what do you say to
our stopping here?"

The restaurant garden which they entered was fairly empty. Heinrich and
George sat down in a little arbour next to the green wooden railing and
ordered their dinner.

Heinrich leant back, stretched out his legs, looked with probing almost
cynical eyes at George, who maintained an obstinate silence, and said
suddenly: "I don't think I am making a mistake if I venture to presume
that you've not been exactly keen on the things I have done so far."

"Oh," answered George, blushing a little, "what makes you think that?"

"Well, I know my pieces ... and I know you."

"Me!" queried George, feeling almost insulted.

"Certainly," replied Heinrich in a superior manner. "Besides, I have
the same feeling with regard to most men, and I regard this faculty
as the only indisputable one I've really got. All my others, I think,
are fairly problematical. My so-called art in particular is more or
less mediocre, and a good deal too could be said against my character.
The only thing which gives me a certain amount of confidence is simply
the consciousness of being able to see right into people's souls ...
right deep down, every one, rogues and honest people, men, women
and children, heathens, Jews and Protestants, yes, even Catholics,
aristocrats and Germans, although I have heard that that is supposed to
be infinitely difficult, not to say impossible, for people like myself."

George gave a slight start. He knew that Heinrich had been subjected
to the most violent personal attacks by the clerical and conservative
press, particularly with reference to his last piece. "But what's that
got to do with me?" thought George. There was another one of them who
had been insulted! It was really absolutely impossible to associate
with these people on a neutral footing. He said politely, though
coldly, with a semi-conscious recollection of old Herr Rosner's retort
to young Dr. Stauber: "I really thought that people like you were above
attacks of the kind to which you're obviously alluding."

"Really ... you thought that?" queried Heinrich, in that cold almost
repulsive manner which was peculiar to him on many occasions. "Well,"
he went on more gently, "that is the case sometimes. But unfortunately
not always. It doesn't need much to wake up that self-contempt which is
always lying dormant within us; and once that takes place there isn't a
single rogue or a single scoundrel with whom we don't join forces, and
quite sincerely too, in attacking our own selves. Excuse me if I say
'we.'"

"Oh, I've frequently felt something of the same kind myself. Of course
I have not yet had the opportunity of being exposed to the public as
often as you and in the same way."

"Well, supposing you did ... you would never have to go through quite
what I did."

"Why not?" queried George, slightly hurt.

Heinrich looked him sharply in the face. "You are the Baron von
Wergenthin-Recco."

"So that's your reason! But you must remember that there are a whole
lot of people going about to-day who are prejudiced against one for
that very reason--and manage to cast in one's teeth the fact of one's
being a baron whenever they get a chance."

"Yes, yes, but I think you will agree with me that being ragged for
being a baron is a very different matter than being ragged for being
a 'Jew,' although the latter--you'll forgive me of course--may at
times denote the better aristocracy. Well, you needn't look at me
so pitifully," he added with abrupt rudeness. "I am not always so
sensitive. I have other moods in which nothing can affect me in any
way nor any person either. Then I feel simply this--what do you all
know--what do you know about me...." He stopped, proudly, with a
scornful look that seemed to pierce through the foliage of the arbour
into the darkness. He then turned his head, looked round and said
simply to George in quite a new tone: "Just look, we shall soon be the
only ones left."

"It is getting quite cold, too," said George.

"I think we might still stroll a bit through the Prater."

"Charmed."

They got up and went. A fine grey cloud hung over a meadow which they
passed.

"The fraud of summer doesn't last after nightfall. It'll soon all be
over," said Heinrich in a tone of unmitigated melancholy, while he
added, as though to console himself: "Well, one will be able to work."

They came into the Wurstelprater. The sound of music rang out from the
restaurants, and some of the exuberant gaiety communicated itself to
George. He felt suddenly swung out of the dismalness of an inn garden
at autumn time and a somewhat painful conversation into a new world. A
tout, in front of a merry-go-round, from which a gigantic hurdy-gurdy
sent into the open air the pot-pourri cut of the "Troubadour" with all
the effect of some fantastic organ, invited people to take a journey
to London, Atzgersdorf and Australia. George remembered again the
excursion in the spring with the Ehrenberg party. It was on this
narrow seat inside the room that Frau Oberberger had sat with Demeter
Stanzides, the lion of the evening, by her side, and had probably
told him one of her incredible stories: that her mother had been the
mistress of a Russian Grand Prince; that she herself had spent a night
with an admirer in the Hallstadt cemetery, of course without anything
happening; or that her husband, the celebrated traveller, had made
conquests of seventeen women in one week in one harem at Smyrna. It
was in this carriage upholstered in red velvet, with Hofrat Wilt as
her _vis-a-vis_, that Else had lounged with lady-like grace, just as
though she were in a carriage on Derby Day, while she yet managed to
show by her manner and demeanour that, if it came to the point, she
herself could be quite as childish as other persons of happier and less
complex temperaments. Anna Rosner with the reins nonchalantly in her
hand, looking dignified, but with a somewhat sly face, rode a white
Arab; Sissy rocked about on a black horse that not only turned round in
a circle with the other animals and carriages, but swung up and down
as well. The boldest eyes imaginable flashed and laughed beneath the
audacious _coiffure_ with its gigantic black feather hat, while her
white skirt fluttered and flew over her low-cut patent leather shoes
and open-work stockings. Sissy's appearance had produced so strange an
effect on a couple of strangers that they called out to her a quite
unambiguous invitation. There had then ensued a short mysterious
interview between Willy, who immediately came on the spot, and the two
somewhat embarrassed gentlemen, who first tried to save their faces by
lighting fresh cigarettes with deliberate nonchalance and then suddenly
vanished in the crowd.

Even the side-show with its "Illusions" and "Illuminated Pictures" had
special memories for George. It was here, while Daphne was turning
into a tree, that Sissy had whispered into his ear a gentle "remember"
and thus called to his memory that masked ball at Ehrenberg's at which
she had lifted up her lace veil for a fleeting kiss, though presumably
he had not been the only one. Then there was the hut where the whole
party had had themselves photographed: the three young girls, Anna,
Else and Sissy in the pose of classical goddesses and the men at their
feet with ecstatic eyes, so that the whole thing looked like the climax
of a transformation scene. And while George was thinking of these
little episodes there floated up through his memory the way in which
he and Anna had said goodbye to-day, and it seemed full of the most
pleasant promise.

A striking number of people stood in front of an open shooting gallery.
Now the drummer was hit in the heart and beat quick strokes upon his
drum, now the glass ball which was dancing to and fro upon a jet of
water broke with a slight click, now a _vivandiere_ hastily put her
trumpet to her mouth and blew a menacing blast, now a little railway
thundered out of a door which had sprung open, whizzed over a flying
bridge and was swallowed up by another door.

When the crowd began to thin, George and Heinrich made their way to the
front and recognised that the good shots were Oskar Ehrenberg and his
lady friend. Oskar was just aiming his gun at an eagle which was moving
up and down near the ceiling with outstretched wings, and missed for
the first time. He laid his weapon down in indignation, gazed round
him, saw the two gentlemen behind him and saluted them.

The young lady with her cheek resting on her gun threw a fleeting
glance at the new arrivals, then aimed again with great keenness, and
pressed the trigger. The eagle drooped its hit wings and did not move
any more.

"Bravo," shouted Oskar.

The lady laid the weapon before her on the table. "That's my little
lot," she said to the boy who wanted to load again. "I've won."

"How many shots were there?" asked Oskar.

"Forty," answered the boy, "that's eighty kreuzers." Oskar put his hand
into his waistcoat pocket, threw a silver gulden down and received with
condescension the thanks of the loading boy. "Allow me," he then said,
while he placed both his hands on his hips, moved the top of his body
slightly in front and put his left foot forward, "Allow me, Amy, to
introduce the gentlemen who witnessed your triumph, Baron Wergenthin,
Herr von Bermann ... Fraeulein Amelie Reiter."

The gentlemen lifted their hats, Amelie returned the greeting by
nodding a few times with her head. She wore a simple foulard dress
designed in white, and over it a light cloak of bright yellow bordered
with lace and a black but extremely lively hat.

"I know Herr von Bermann already," she said. She turned towards him.
"I saw you at the first night of your play last winter, when you came
on the stage to bow your acknowledgments. I enjoyed myself very much.
Don't think I am saying this as a mere compliment."

Heinrich thanked her sincerely.

They walked on further between side-shows which were growing quieter
and quieter, past inn gardens which were gradually becoming empty.

Oskar thrust his right arm through his companion's left and then turned
to George. "Why didn't you come to Auhof this year? We were all very
sorry."

"Unfortunately I didn't feel much in the mood for society."

"Of course, I can quite understand," said Oskar with all proper
seriousness. "I was only there myself for a few weeks. In August I
strengthened my tired limbs in the waves of the North Sea; I was in
the Isle of Wight, you know."

"That must be very nice," said George. "Who is it that always goes
there?"

"You're thinking of the Wyners," replied Oskar. "When they used to live
in London they went there regularly, but now they only go there every
two or three years."

"But they've kept the Y for Austrian consumption as well," said George
with a smile.

Oskar was serious. "Old Herr Wyner," he answered, "honestly earned
his right to the Y. He went to England in his thirteenth year, became
naturalised there and was made a partner when quite a young man in the
great steel manufacturing concern which is still called Black & Wyner."

"At any rate he got his wife from Vienna."

"Yes, and when he died seven or eight years ago she came over here with
her two children, but James will never get acclimatised here.... Lord
Antinous, you know, that's what Frau Oberberger calls him. He is now
back at Cambridge again where strangely enough he is studying Greek
scholarship. Demeter was a few days in Ventnor, too."

"Stanzides?" added George.

"Do you know Herr von Stanzides, Herr Baron?" asked Amy.

"Oh yes."

"Then he does really exist?" she exclaimed.

"Yes, but just you listen," said Oskar. "She put a lot of money on him
this spring at Freudenau, and won a lot of money, and now she inquires
if he really exists."

"What makes you have doubts about Stanzides' existence, Fraeulein?"
asked George.

"Well, you know, whenever I don't know where he is--Oskar, I mean--it's
always a case of 'I've an appointment with Stanzides' or 'I'm riding
with Stanzides in the Prater.' Stanzides this and Stanzides that, why
it sounds more like an excuse than a name."

"You be quiet now, will you?" said Oskar gently.

"Not only does Stanzides exist," explained George, "but he has the most
beautiful black moustache and the most fiery black eyes that are to be
found anywhere."

"That's quite possible, but when I saw him he looked more like a
jack-in-the-box, yellow jacket, green cap, violet sleeves."

"And she won forty gulden on him," added Oskar facetiously.

"And where are the forty gulden?" sighed Fraeulein Amelie.... Then she
suddenly stood still and exclaimed: "But I've never yet been on it."

"Well, that can be remedied," said Oskar simply.

The Great Wheel was turning slowly and majestically in front of them
with its lighted carriages. The young people passed the turnstile,
climbed into an empty compartment and swept upwards.

"Do you know, George, whom I got to know this summer?" said Oskar. "The
Prince of Guastalla."

"Which one?" asked George.

"The youngest, of course, Karl Friedrich. He was there incognito. He's
very thick with Stanzides, an extraordinary man. You take my word for
it," he added softly, "if people like us said one hundredth part of the
things the prince says, we'd never get out of prison our whole life
long."

"Look, Oskar," cried Amy, "at the tables and the people down there. It
looks just like a little box, doesn't it? And that mass of lights over
there, far off. I'm sure that's going to Prague, don't you think so,
Herr Bermann?"

"Possibly," answered Heinrich, knitting his forehead as he stared
through the glass wall out into the night.

When they left the compartment and got out into the open air the Sunday
hubbub was subsiding.

"Poor little girl," said Oskar Ehrenberg to George, while Amy went on
in front with Heinrich, "she has no idea that this is the last time we
are going out together in the Prater."

"But why the last time?" asked George, not feeling particularly
interested.

"It's got to be," replied Oskar. "Things like this oughtn't to last
longer than a year at the outside. Any way, you might buy your gloves
from her after December," he added brightly, though with a certain
touch of melancholy. "I am setting her up, you know, in a little
business. I more or less owe her that, for I took her away from a
fairly safe situation."

"A safe one?"

"Yes, she was engaged, to a case-maker. Did you know that there were
such people?"

In the meanwhile Amy and Heinrich were standing in front of a narrow
moving staircase that went boldly up to a platform and waited for the
others. All agreed that they ought not to leave the Prater before going
for a ride on the switchback.

They whizzed through the darkness down and up again in the groaning
coach under the black tree-tops; and George managed to discover a
grotesque motif in 3/4 time in the heavy rhythmic noise.

While he was going down the moving staircase with the others, he knew
that the melody should be introduced by an oboe and clarionet and
accompanied by a cello and contra bass. It was clearly a _scherzo_
probably for a symphony.

"If I were a capitalist," expounded Heinrich with emphasis, "I would
have a switchback built four miles long to go over fields and hills,
through forests and dancing-halls; I would also see that there were
surprises on the way." Anyway, he thought that the time had come to
develop more elaborately the fantastic element in the Wurstelprater. He
himself, he informed them, had a rough idea for a merry-go-round that
by means of some marvellous machinery was to revolve spiral-fashion
above the ground, winding higher and higher till eventually it reached
the top of a kind of tower.

Unfortunately he lacked the necessary technical knowledge to explain
it in greater detail. As they went on he invented burlesque figures
and groups for the shooting galleries, and finally declared that there
was a pressing need for a magnificent Punch and Judy show for which
original authors should write pieces at once profound and frivolous.

In this way they came to the end of the Prater where Oskar's carriage
was waiting. Squashed, but none the less good-tempered, they drove to
a wine-restaurant in the town. Oskar ordered champagne in a private
room, George sat down by the piano and improvised the theme that had
occurred to him on the switchback. Amy lounged back in the corner of
the sofa, while Oskar kept whispering things into her ears which made
her laugh. Heinrich had grown silent again and twirled his glass slowly
between his fingers. Suddenly George stopped playing and let his hands
lie on the keys. A feeling of the dreamlike and purposeless character
of existence came over him, as it frequently did when he had drunk
wine. Ages seemed to have passed since he had come down a badly-lighted
staircase in the Paulanergasse, and his walk with Heinrich in the dark
autumn avenue lay far away in the distant past. On the other hand he
suddenly remembered, as vividly as though the whole thing had happened
yesterday, a very young and very depraved individual, with whom he had
spent many years ago a few weeks of that happy-go-lucky life which
Oskar Ehrenberg was now leading with Amy. She had kept him waiting
too long one evening in the street, he had gone away impatiently and
had neither heard nor seen anything of her again. How easy life was
sometimes....

He heard Amy's soft laugh and turned round. His look encountered that
of Oskar, who seemed to be trying to catch his eye over Amy's blonde
head. He felt irritated by that look and deliberately avoided it and
struck a few chords again in a melancholy ballad-style. He felt a
desire to describe all that had happened to him to-day, and looked at
the clock over the door. It was past one. He caught Heinrich's eye and
they both got up. Oskar pointed to Amy, who had gone to sleep on his
shoulder, and intimated by a smile and a shrug of his shoulders that
under such circumstances he could not think of going for the present.
The two others shook hands with him, whispered good-night and slipped
away.

"Do you know what I've done?" said Heinrich. "While you were
improvising so extraordinarily finely on that ghastly piano I tried to
get the real hang of that libretto that I spoke to you about in the
spring."

"Oh, the opera libretto! that _is_ interesting. Won't you tell me?"

Heinrich shook his head. "I should like to, but the unfortunate thing
is, as you've already seen, that it's really not yet finished--like
most of my other so-called plots."

George looked at him interrogatively. "You had a whole lot of things on
hand last spring, when we saw each other last."

"Yes, I have made a lot of notes, but to-day I've done nothing more
than sentences ... no words, no, just letters on white paper. It's just
as if a dead hand had touched everything. I'm frightened the next time
I tackle the thing that it will all fall to pieces like tinder. Yes,
I've been going through a bad time, and who knows if there's a better
one in store for me?"

George was silent. Then he suddenly remembered the notice in the
papers which he had read somewhere or other about Heinrich's father,
the former deputy, Doctor Bermann. He suspected that that might be the
reason. "Your father is ill, isn't he?" he asked.

Heinrich answered without looking at him. "Yes, my father has been in a
mental home since June."

George shook his head sympathetically.

Heinrich continued: "Yes, it's an awful business, even though I
wasn't on very intimate terms with him during the last months it is
indescribably awful, and goes on being so."

"I can quite understand," said George, "not making any headway with
one's work under circumstances like that."

"Yes," answered Heinrich hesitatingly. "But it's not that alone. To be
quite frank that business plays a comparatively subordinate part in my
present mental condition. I don't want to make myself out better than I
am. Better...! Should I be better...!" He gave a short laugh and then
went on speaking. "Look here, yesterday I still thought that it was the
accumulation of every possible misfortune that depressed me so. But
to-day I've had an infallible proof that things of no importance at
all, positively silly things in fact, affect me more deeply than very
real things like my father's illness. Disgusting, isn't it?"

George looked in front of him. Why do I still go on walking with him,
he thought, and why does he take it quite for granted that I should?

Heinrich went on speaking with clenched teeth and unnecessary vehemence
of tone. "I received two letters this afternoon. Two letters, yes ...
one from my mother, who had visited my father yesterday in the home.
This letter contained the news that he is bad--very bad; to come to
the point he won't last much longer"--he gave a deep breath--"and as
you can imagine that involves all kinds of troubles, responsibilities
for my mother and my sister and for myself. But just think of it,
another letter came at the same time as that one; it contained nothing
of importance so to speak--a letter from a person with whom I have been
intimate for two years--and there was a passage in that letter which
struck me as a little suspicious--one isolated passage ... otherwise
the letter was very affectionate and very nice, like all her other
letters ... and now, just imagine, the memory of that one suspicious
passage, which another man wouldn't have noticed at all, has been
haunting me and torturing me the whole day. I've not been thinking
about my father in the lunatic asylum, nor about my mother and sister
who are in despair, but only about that unimportant passage in that
silly letter from a really by no means brilliant female. It eats up all
my strength, it makes me incapable of feeling like a son, like a human
being ... isn't it ghastly?"

George listened coldly. It struck him as strange that this taciturn
melancholy man should suddenly confide in so casual an acquaintance as
himself, and he could not help feeling a painful sense of embarrassment
when confronted with this unexpected revelation. He did not have the
impression either that any particular sympathy for him on Heinrich's
part was the real reason for all these confessions. He rather felt
inclined to put it down to a want of tact, a certain natural lack
of self-control, something which seemed very well described by
the expression "bad breeding," which he had once heard applied to
Heinrich--wasn't it by Hofrat Wilt? They went as far as the Burg gate.
A starless sky lay over the silent town, there was a slight rustle in
the trees of the park, they could hear somewhere or other the noise of
a rolling carriage as it drove away into the distance.

As Heinrich was silent again, George stood still and said in as kind a
tone as he could: "I must now really say good-bye, dear Herr Bermann."

"Oh," exclaimed Heinrich, "I now see that you've come with me quite a
long way--and I've been tactless enough to tell you, or rather myself
in your presence, a lot of things which can't interest you in the
least.... Forgive me!"

"What is there to forgive?" answered George gently. He felt a little
moved by this self-reproach of Heinrich's and held out his hand.

Heinrich took it, said "Good-bye, my dear Baron," and rushed off in a
hurry, as though he had suddenly decided that any further word would be
bound to be importunate.

George looked after him with a mixture of sympathy and repulsion, and
suddenly a free and almost happy mood came over him. He felt young,
devoid of care and destined for the most brilliant future. He rejoiced
at the winter which was coming, there were all kinds of possibilities:
work, amusement, sentiment, while he was absolutely indifferent as to
who it was from whom these joys might come. He lingered a moment by the
Opera-house. If he went home through the Paulanergasse it would not be
appreciably out of his way. He smiled at the memory of the serenades
of his earlier years. Not far from here lay the street where he had
looked up many a night at a window behind whose curtains Marianne had
been accustomed to show herself when her husband had gone to sleep.
This woman who was always playing with dangers in whose seriousness
she herself did not believe had never really been worthy of George....
Another memory more distant than this one was much more gracious. When
he was a boy of seventeen in Florence he had walked to and fro many a
night before the window of a beautiful girl, the first creature of the
other sex who had given her virgin self to him as yet untouched. And
he thought of the hour when he had seen his beloved step on the arm of
her bridegroom up to the altar, where the priest was to consecrate the
marriage, of the look of eternal farewell which she had sent to him
from under her white veil....

He had now arrived at his goal. The lamps were still burning at both
ends of the short street, so that it was quite dark where he stood
opposite the house. The window of Anna's room was open, and the pinned
curtains fluttered lightly in the wind, just as in the afternoon. It
was quite dark below. A soft tenderness began to stir in George's
heart. Of all the beings who had ever refrained from hiding their
inclination for him he thought Anna the best and the purest. She was
also the first who brought the gift of sympathy for his artistic
aspirations. She was certainly more genuine than Marianne, whose tears
would roll over her cheeks whatever he happened to play on the piano;
she was deeper too than Else Ehrenberg, who no doubt only wanted to
confirm herself in the proud consciousness of having been the first
to recognise his talent. And if any person was positively cut out to
counteract his tendency to dilettantism and nonchalance and to keep
him working energetically, profitably and with a conscious object that
person was Anna. He had thought only last winter of looking out for a
post as a conductor or accompanist at some German Opera; at Ehrenbergs'
he had casually spoken of his intentions, which had not been taken very
seriously. Frau Ehrenberg, woman of the world that she was, had given
him the motherly advice rather to undertake a tour through the United
States as a composer and conductor, whereupon Else had cut in, "And an
American heiress shouldn't be sniffed at either." As he remembered this
conversation he was very pleased with the idea of knocking about the
world a bit, he wished to get to know foreign towns and foreign men, to
win love and fame somewhere out in the wide world, and finally came to
the conclusion that his life was slipping away from him on the whole in
far too quiet and monotonous a fashion.

He had long ago left the Paulanergasse, without having taken mentally
any farewell of Anna, and was soon home.

As he stepped into the dining-room he saw a light shining from
Felician's room.

"Good evening, Felician," he cried out.

The door was opened and Felician came out still fully dressed.

The brothers shook hands with each other.

"Only just got home?" said Felician. "I thought you had been asleep
quite a long time." As he spoke he looked past him, as his manner was,
and nodded his head towards the right. "What have you been doing, then?"

"I've been in the Prater," answered George.

"Alone?"

"No, I met people. Oskar Ehrenberg with his girl and Bermann the
author. We shot and went on the switchback. It was quite jolly.... What
have you got in your hand?" he said, interrupting his narrative. "Have
you been out for a walk like that?" he added jestingly.

Felician let the sword which he held in his right hand shine in the
light of the lamp. "I've just taken it down from the wall, I begin
to-morrow again in earnest. The tournament is in the middle of
November, and I want to try what I can do this year against Forestier."

"By Jove!" cried George.

"A piece of cheek, you think, what? But it's still a long time before
the middle of November. And the strange thing is I've got the feeling
as though I had learnt something fresh in the very six weeks of this
summer when I didn't have the thing in my hand at all. It's as though
my arm had got new ideas in the meanwhile. I can't explain it properly."

"I follow what you mean."

Felician held the sword stretched out in front of him and looked at it
affectionately. He then said: "Ralph inquired after you, so did Guido
... a pity you weren't there."

"You spent the whole day with them?"

"Oh no, I remained at home after dinner. You must have gone out
straight away. I've been studying."

"Studying?"

"Yes, I must really do something serious now. I want to pass my
Diplomatic exam, by May at the outside."

"So you've quite made up your mind?"

"Absolutely. There's no point in my remaining on any more in the
Stadthalterei. The longer I stay there the clearer it becomes. Anyway,
the time won't have been wasted. They don't mind at all if one has
spent a year or two in Home Service."

"So you'll probably be leaving Vienna in the autumn."

"Presumably."

"And where will they send you?"

"If one only knew."

George looked in front of him. "So the parting is as near as that?" But
why did it affect him so much all of a sudden?... Why, he himself had
determined to go away, and had quite recently spoken to his brother
about his plans for next year. Was he still as sceptical as ever
of his seriousness? If only they could have a good frank brotherly
heart-to-heart talk as they had had on that evening after their
father's funeral. As a matter of fact, it was only when life revealed
its gloomy side to them that they felt absolutely in touch. Otherwise
there was always this strange constraint between them both. There was
obviously no help for it. They just had to talk more or less discreetly
to each other like fairly intimate friends. And as though resigned to
the situation George went on with his questions. "What did you do in
the evening?"

"I had supper with Guido and an interesting young lady."

"Really?"

"He's in silken dalliance again, you know."

"Who is it, then?"

"Conservatoire, Jewess, violin. But she didn't bring it with her. Not
particularly pretty, but clever. She improves him and he respects her;
he wants her to be baptised. A humorous affair I can tell you. You
would have had quite a good time."

George turned his eyes towards the sword which Felician still held in
his hand. "Would you like to fence a bit?" he asked.

"Why not?" answered Felician and fetched a second foil out of his room.
Meanwhile George had moved the big table in the middle up against the
wall.

"I haven't had a thing in my hand since May," he said as he took hold
of his sword. They took off their coats and crossed blades. George
cried _touche_ the next second.

"Come on," cried George, and thought himself lucky that it was his
brother whom he had to face as he stood in an awkward position with the
slender flashing weapon in his hand.

Felician hit him as often as he wanted to without himself being touched
a single time. He then lowered his sword and said: "You're too tired
to-day, there's no point in it. But you should come more often to the
club. I assure you it's a pity, with your talent."

George was pleased by his brotherly praise. He laid his sword down on
the table, took a deep breath and went to the wide centre window which
was open. "What wonderful air," he said. A lonely lamp was shining from
the park, there was absolute silence.

Felician came up to George, and while the latter leant with both hands
on the sill the elder brother remained upright and swept over street,
park and town with one of his proud quiet glances. They were both
silent for a long time. And they knew they were each thinking of the
same thing: a May night of last spring when they had gone home together
through the park and their father had greeted them with a silent nod of
his head from the very same window by which they were now standing.
And both felt a little shocked at the thought that they had enjoyed the
whole day with such full gusto, without any painful memories of the
beloved man who now lay beneath the ground.

"Well, good-night," said Felician in a softer tone than usual as he
held out his hand to George. He pressed it in silence and each went
into his own room.

George arranged the table lamp, took out some music paper and began to
write. It was not the scherzo which had occurred to him when he had
whizzed through the night with the others under the black tree-tops
a few hours ago; and it was not the melancholy folk-ballad of the
restaurant either; but a quite new _motif_ that swam up slowly and
continuously as though from secret depths. George felt as though he had
to allow some mysterious element to take its course. He wrote down the
melody, which he thought should be sung by an _alto_ voice or played
on the viola, and at the same time a strange accompaniment rang in his
ears, which he knew would never vanish from his memory.

It was four o'clock in the morning when he went to bed with the
calmness of a man to whom nothing evil can ever come in all his life
and for whom neither solitude nor poverty nor death possess any terror.


[1] A special way of wearing a coat affected in Viennese artistic
circles.

[2] A company celebrated for its risque plays.





II


Frau Ehrenberg sat with her knitting on the green velvet sofa in the
raised bow-window. Opposite her Else was reading a book. The white
head of the marble Isis gleamed from out the far dark part of the
room behind the piano, while a streak of light from the next room
played through the open door over the grey carpet. Else looked up
from her book through the window to the high tops of the trees in
the Schwarzenberg Park which were waving in the autumn wind and said
casually: "We might perhaps ring up George Wergenthin, to know if he's
coming this evening."

Frau Ehrenberg let her knitting fall on her lap. "I don't know," she
said. "You remember what a really charming condolence letter I wrote
him and what a pressing invitation I gave him to come to Auhof. He
didn't come and the coldness of his answer was quite marked. I wouldn't
ring him up."

"One shouldn't treat him like other people," answered Else. "He belongs
to the people whom one has occasionally to remind that one is still
alive. When he has been reminded he is extremely glad."

Frau Ehrenberg went on with her knitting. "It really won't come to
anything," she said quietly.

"It's not meant to come to anything," retorted Else. "I thought you
knew that by this time, mamma. We're good friends, nothing more--and
even that only at intervals; or do you really think that I'm in love
with him, mamma? Yes, when I was a little girl I was, in Nice, when we
played tennis together, but that is long past."

"Well--and Florence?"

"In Florence--I was more in love with Felician."

"And now?" asked Frau Ehrenberg slowly.

"Now ... you're probably thinking of Heinrich Bermann ... but you're
making a mistake, mother."

"I prefer to be making a mistake. But this summer I really quite had
the impression that----"

"I tell you," interrupted Else a little impatiently, "it isn't anything
and never was anything. On one solitary occasion, when we went out
boating on a sultry afternoon, you saw us from your balcony with your
opera-glasses, no doubt--it was only then that it became a little
dangerous. And even supposing we had fallen on each other's neck--which
as a matter of fact we never did--it wouldn't have meant anything. It
was simply a summer flirtation."

"And besides, he's supposed to be involved in a very serious
love-affair," said Frau Ehrenberg.

"You mean ... with that actress, mamma?"

Frau Ehrenberg looked up. "Did he tell you anything about her?"

"Tell...? Not in so many words, but when we went for walks together in
the park or went out in the evening on the lake, why, he practically
spoke of nothing but her--of course without mentioning her name ... and
the better he liked me--men really are such awfully funny people--the
more jealous he became about the other woman.... But if it were only
that? What young man isn't involved in a serious love affair? Do you
think by any chance, mamma, that George Wergenthin is not?"

"In a serious one ... no, that will never happen to him. He's too cold,
too superior for that ... he hasn't got enough temperament."

"That's exactly why," explained Else, airing her knowledge of human
nature. "He'll slip into some whirlpool or other and get taken out of
his depth without his having noticed it, and some fine day he'll get
married ... out of sheer indolence ... to some person or other who'll
probably be absolutely indifferent to him."

"You must have a definite suspicion," said Frau Ehrenberg.

"I have."

"Marianne?"

"Marianne! but that's been over a long time, mamma. And that was never
anything particularly serious, either."

"Well, who is it then?"

"Well whom do you think, mamma?"

"I have no idea."

"It's Anna," said Else curtly.

"Which Anna?"

"Anna Rosner, of course."

"But...."

"You can say 'but' as much as you like--it's a fact."

"Else, you don't seriously think that Anna with her reserved character
could so far forget herself as to----"

"So far forget herself...? Really, mamma, the number of expressions
you keep on using--anyway, I don't think that's quite a case of one's
forgetting oneself."

Frau Ehrenberg smiled, not without a certain pride.

The bell rang outside.

"It's he at last," said Else.

"It might quite as well be Demeter Stanzides," observed Frau Ehrenberg.

"Stanzides was to bring the Prince along sometime," said Else casually.

"Do you think that will come off?" inquired Frau Ehrenberg, letting her
knitting fall into her lap.

"Why shouldn't it come off?" said Else. "They are so intimate."

The door opened. As a matter of fact it was none of the expected
visitors who came in, but Edmund Nuernberger. He was dressed, as
always, with the greatest care, though not after the latest fashion.
His tail coat was a little too short and an emerald pin was stuck in
his voluminous satin tie. He bowed as soon as he had got to the door,
though his demeanour expressed at the same time a certain irony at his
own politeness. "Am I the first?" he inquired. "No one here yet? Not a
Hofrat--nor a count--nor an author--nor a diabolical female?"

"Only a woman who never was one, I'm sorry to say," answered Frau
Ehrenberg as she shook hands with him.

"And one ... who will perhaps become one sometime."

"Oh, I am convinced," said Nuernberger, "that if she only takes it
seriously, Fraeulein Else will succeed in that." He stroked his smooth
black somewhat glossy hair slowly with his left hand.

Frau Ehrenberg expressed her regret that their expectation of his
coming to Auhof had not been realised. Had he really spent the whole
summer in Vienna?

"Why do you wonder so much, my dear madam? Whether I am walking up and
down among mountain scenery or by the shore of the sea or in my own
room, it doesn't really matter much in the end."

"But you must have felt quite lonely," said Frau Ehrenberg.

"You certainly realise solitude more clearly when there's no one in
the neighbourhood who shows any desire of talking to you.... But let's
talk of more interesting and promising men than I am. How are all the
numerous friends of your popular family?"

"Friends!" repeated Else. "I should like first to know what you mean by
the word?"

"Well, all the people who say something agreeable to you from whatever
motive, and whom you believe in when they say it."

The door of the bedroom opened, Herr Ehrenberg appeared and greeted
Nuernberger.

"Are you ready packed?" asked Else.

"Packed and ready," answered Ehrenberg, who had on a grey suit that was
far too loose and was biting a fat cigar between his teeth. He turned
to Nuernberger to explain.... "I'm off to-day, just as I am, to Corfu
... for the time being; the season is beginning and the Ehrenberg 'at
homes' make me feel sick."

"No one asks you," replied Frau Ehrenberg gently, "to honour them with
your presence."

"Cute answer, eh," said Ehrenberg, puffing at his cigar. "I don't mind,
of course, staying away from your real 'at homes.' But when I'd like
to dine quietly at home on a Thursday and there's an attache sitting
in one corner and a hussar in the other, and some one over there is
playing his own compositions and some one else on the sofa is being
funny, while by the window Frau Oberberger is fixing up an assignation
with any one who happens to come along ... well, it really gets on my
nerves. One can stand it once, but not a second time."

"Do you think you'll remain away all the winter?" asked Nuernberger.

"It's possible. I intend, you know, to go further, to Egypt, to Syria,
probably to Palestine as well. Yes, it's perhaps only because one's
getting older, perhaps because one reads so much about Zionism and so
forth, but I can't help it, I should like to see Jerusalem before I
die."

Frau Ehrenberg shrugged her shoulders.

"Those are matters," said Ehrenberg, "which my wife don't
understand--and my children even less so. What do you know about it,
Else? no, you don't know anything either. But when one reads what's
going on in the world it often makes one inclined to think that there's
no other way out for us."

"For us?" repeated Nuernberger. "I've not observed up to the present
that Anti-Semitism has done you any particular harm."

"You mean because I've grown a rich man? Well if I were to tell you
that I don't give any shakes for money, you would, of course, not
believe me, and quite right too. But as sure as you see me here, I
swear to you that I would give half my fortune to see the worst of our
enemies on the gallows."

"I'm only afraid," remarked Nuernberger, "that you would have the wrong
ones hanged."

"There's not much danger," replied Ehrenberg. "Even if you don't catch
the man you're after, the man you do catch is bound to be one of them,
too, right enough."

"This is not the first time, my dear Herr Ehrenberg, that I observe
that your standpoint towards this question is not ideally objective."

Ehrenberg suddenly bit through his cigar and with fingers shaking with
rage put it on the ash-tray. "If any one here's to tell me ... and even
... excuse me ... or perhaps you're baptised...? One can really never
tell nowadays."

"I'm not baptised," replied Nuernberger quietly. "But on the other
hand I am certainly not a Jew either. I've ceased to belong to the
congregation for a long time, for the simple reason that I never felt
myself to be a Jew."

"If some one were to bash in your top hat in the Ringstrasse because,
if you will allow me to say so, you have a somewhat Jewish nose,
you'd realise pretty quick that you were insulted because you were a
Yiddisher fellow. You take my word for it."

"But, papa, how excited you are getting," said Else, and stroked him on
his bald reddish shiny head.

Old Ehrenberg took her hand, stroked it and asked, apparently without
any connection with what he had been saying before: "By-the-bye, shall
I have the pleasure of seeing my son and heir before I leave?"

Frau Ehrenberg answered: "Oskar's bound to be home soon."

Ehrenberg turned to Nuernberger. "You will doubtless be glad to know
that my son Oskar is an Anti-Semite as well."

Frau Ehrenberg sighed gently. "It's a fixed idea of his," she said to
Nuernberger. "He sees Anti-Semites everywhere, even in his own family."

"That is the latest Jewish national disease," said Nuernberger. "I
myself have only succeeded up to the present in making the acquaintance
of one genuine Anti-Semite. I'm afraid I am bound to admit, dear Herr
Ehrenberg, that it was a well-known Zionist leader."

Ehrenberg could only make an eloquent gesture.

Demeter Stanzides and Willy Eissler came in and immediately spread
an atmosphere of vivid brilliancy around them. Demeter wore his
uniform lightly and magnificently, as though it were a fancy costume
rather than a military dress; Willy stood there in a dinner jacket
looking tall and pale and as if he had been keeping late hours, and
then immediately gathered up the reins of the conversation, while
his pleasantly hoarse voice rasped through the air with amiable
imperiousness.

He gave an account of the preparations for an aristocratic theatrical
performance in which he was adviser, producer and actor, just as he had
been last year, and described a meeting of the young lords, where, if
his account was to be believed, every one had behaved as though they
were in a lunatic asylum, and then went on to treat them to a humorous
dialogue between two countesses whose mannerisms he managed to take off
in a most delightful way. Ehrenberg was always very amused by Willy
Eissler. The vague feeling that this Hungarian Jew managed somehow
or other to outwit and make a fool of that whole feudal set, whom
personally he hated so much, filled him with respect for the young man.

Else sat at the little table in the corner with Demeter and made him
tell her about the _Isle of Wight_. "You were there with your friend?"
she inquired, "weren't you, Prince Karl Friedrich?"

"My friend the Prince?... that's not quite right, Fraeulein Else. The
Prince has no friends, nor have I. We're neither of us the type to have
friends."

"He must be an interesting man according to all one hears."

"Interesting--I don't know about that. At any rate he's thought over a
lot of things which people in his position are not usually accustomed
to bother their heads about very much. Perhaps he'd have managed to do
all kinds of things too, if he'd been left to himself. Well, who knows,
it was perhaps better for him that they kept a tight hold on him, for
him and for the country too in the long run. One man alone can do
nothing--never in this life. That's why it's best to let matters slide
and get out of things, as he did."

Else looked at him somewhat coldly. "You're so philosophical to-day,
what is it? It seems to me that Willy Eissler has spoilt you."

"Willy spoilt me?"

"Yes, you know you shouldn't associate with such clever people."

"Why not?"

"You should simply be young, shine, live, and then when there's nothing
more to do, do whatever you like ... but without bothering about
yourself and the world."

"You should have told me that before, Fraeulein Else; once a man's
started getting clever...."

Else shook her head. "But perhaps in your case it might have been
avoided," she said quite seriously. And then they both had to laugh.

The chandelier was lighted up. George Wergenthin and Heinrich Bermann
had come in. Invited by a smile George sat down by Else's side.

"I knew that you would come," she said disingenuously but warmly as
she pressed his hand; she was more glad than she thought she would have
been that he should sit opposite to her after so long an interval, that
she could see again his proud gracious face and hear again his somewhat
gentle yet warm voice.

Frau Wyner appeared, a little woman with a high colour, jolly and
awkward. Her daughter Sissy was with her. The groups got broken up in
the "general post" of mutual greetings.

"Well, have you composed that song for me yet?" Sissy asked George with
laughing eyes and laughing lips, as she played with one of her gloves
and moved about like a snake in her dark-green shimmering dress.

"A song?" asked George. He really didn't remember.

"Or waltz or something. But you promised me to dedicate something
to me." While she spoke her looks were wandering round. They glowed
into the eyes of Willy, passed caressingly by Demeter and addressed
a sphinx-like question to Heinrich Bermann. It seemed as though
will-o'-the-wisps were dancing through the drawing-room.

Frau Wyner suddenly came up to her daughter. She flushed deeply. "Sissy
is really so silly.... What are you thinking of, Sissy? Baron George
has had more important things to do this year than to compose things
for you."

"Oh not at all," said George politely.

"You buried your father, that's no trifle."

George looked straight in front of him.

But Frau Wyner went on speaking quite unperturbed. "And your father
wasn't old, was he? And such a handsome man.... Is it true that he was
a chemist?"

"No," answered George calmly. "He was President of the Botanical
Society." Heinrich with one arm on the shut piano-top was speaking to
Else.

"So you've been in Germany?" she asked.

"Yes," replied Heinrich. "I've been back a fairly long time, four or
five weeks."

"And when are you going back again?"

"I don't know, perhaps never."

"Come, you don't believe that yourself--what are you working at?" she
added quickly.

"All kinds of things," he answered. "I'm going through a rather
restless time. I sketch out a lot but I finish nothing. I'm very rarely
keen on completing things, obviously I lose all my interest in things
too quickly."

"And people too," added Else.

"Possibly. Only unhappily one's emotions remain attached to people
after one's reason has long ago decided to have nothing more to do
with them. A poet--if you will allow me to use the expression--must
go away from every one who no longer presents any riddle to him ...
particularly from any one whom he loves."

"They say," suggested Else, "that it is just those whom we know least
that we love."

"That's what Nuernberger makes out, but it's not quite right. If it
were really so, my dear Else, then life would probably be much more
beautiful than it is. No, we know those whom we love much better
than we do other people--but we know them with a feeling of shame,
bitterness and with the fear that others may know them as well as
we do. Love means this--being afraid that the faults which we have
discovered in the person we love may be revealed to others. Love means
this--being able to look into the future and curse this very gift....
Love means this--knowing some one so that it smashes one."

Else leant on the piano in her childish lady-like way and listened to
him curiously. How much she liked him in moments like this! She would
have liked to have stroked his hair again consolingly, as she had done
before on the lake when he had been torn by his love for that other
woman, but when he suddenly retired into his shell, coldly and drily,
and looked as though all his fire had been extinguished she felt that
she could never live with him, and she would be bound to run away
after a few weeks ... with a Spanish officer or a violin _virtuoso_.
"It is a good thing," she said somewhat condescendingly, "that you see
something of George Wergenthin. He'll have a sound influence on you. He
is quieter than you are. I don't think that he is so gifted as you are,
and I am sure that he is not so clever."

"What do you know about his gifts?" interrupted Heinrich almost rudely.

George came up and asked Else if they couldn't have the pleasure
to-night of hearing one of her songs. She didn't want to. Besides
she was principally studying opera parts nowadays. That interested
her more. As a matter of fact she was far from having a lyrical
temperament. George asked her jokingly if she didn't have perhaps the
secret intention of going on the stage?

"With my little bit of a voice!" said Else.

Nuernberger was standing near them. "That wouldn't be an obstacle,"
he observed. "Why, I feel quite positive that a modern critic would
soon turn up who would boom you as an important singer for the very
reason that you have no voice, but who would discover some other
gift in you by way of compensation, as, for instance, your gift for
characterisation, just as we have to-day certain painters who have
no sense of colour but only intellect; and celebrated authors who
never have the vaguest ideas but who succeed in discovering the most
unsuitable epithets for every noun they use."

Else noticed that Nuernberger's manner of speaking got on George's
nerves. She turned to him. "I should like to show you something," she
said, and took a few steps towards the music-case.

George followed her.

"Here is a collection of old Italian folksongs. I should like you to
show me the best. I myself don't know enough about it."

"I can't understand," said George gently, "how you can stand any one
like that man Nuernberger near you. He spreads around him an absolute
atmosphere of distrust and malice."

"As I've often told you, George, you're no judge of character. After
all, what do you know about him? He's different from what you think he
is; just ask your friend Heinrich Bermann."

"Oh, I know well enough that he raves about him, too," replied George.

"You're speaking about Nuernberger?" asked Frau Ehrenberg, who had just
joined them.

"George can't stand him," said Else in her casual way.

"Well, you're doing him a great injustice, if that's the case. Have you
ever read anything of his?"

George shook his head.

"Not even his novel which made so great a sensation fifteen or sixteen
years ago? That is really a shame. We've just lent it to Hofrat Wilt.
I tell you he was quite flabbergasted at the way in which the whole of
present-day Austria is anticipated in that book, written all that time
ago."

"Really, is that so?" said George, without conviction.

"You have no idea," continued Frau Ehrenberg, "of the applause with
which Nuernberger was then hailed; one could go so far as to say that
all doors sprang open before him."

"Perhaps he found that enough," observed Else, with an air of
meditative wisdom.

Heinrich was standing by the piano engaged in conversation with
Nuernberger, and was making an effort, as he frequently did, to persuade
him to undertake a new work or to bring out an edition of previous
writings.

Nuernberger would not agree. He was filled with positive horror at
the thought of seeing his name a prey to publicity again, of plunging
again into a literary vortex which seemed to him as repulsive as it was
fatuous. He had no desire to enter the competition. What was the point?
Intriguing cliques that no longer made any attempt at concealment were
at work everywhere. Did there remain a single man of sound talent and
honest aspirations who did not have to face every minute the prospect
of being dragged down into the dirt? Was there a blockhead in the
country who could not boast of having been hailed as a genius in some
rag or other? Had celebrity in these days anything at all to do with
honour, and was being ignored and forgotten worth even a single shrug
of regret? And who could know after all what verdicts would pass as the
correct ones in the future? Were not the fools really the geniuses and
the geniuses really the fools? It would be ridiculous to allow himself
to be tempted to stake his peace of mind and even his self-respect on
a game where even the greatest possible win held out no promise of any
satisfaction.

"None at all?" queried Heinrich. "I'll grant you as much as you like
about fame, wealth, world-wide influence--but for a man, simply because
all these things are of dubious advantage, to relinquish something so
absolutely indubitable as the moments of inner consciousness of one's
own power----"

"Inner consciousness of power? Why don't you say straight away the
happiness of creating?"

"It does exist, Nuernberger."

"It may be so; why, I even think I remember that I felt something
like that myself now and then, a very long time ago ... only, as you
no doubt know, as the years went by I completely lost the faculty of
deceiving myself."

"Perhaps you only think so," replied Heinrich. "Who knows if it is not
that very faculty of self-deception which you have developed more
strongly than any other as the years went by?"

Nuernberger laughed. "Do you know how I feel when I hear you talk like
that? just like a fencing-master feels who gets a thrust in the heart
from one of his own pupils."

"And not even one of his best," said Heinrich.

Herr Ehrenberg suddenly appeared in the doorway, to the astonishment of
his wife, who had presumed that he would be by now on his way to the
station. He led a young lady by the hand. She was dressed simply in
black, and had her hair done extraordinarily high after a fashion that
was now out of date. Her lips were full and red, the eyes in the pale
vivid face had a clear hard gaze.

"Come along," said Ehrenberg with some malice in his small eyes, and
led the visitor straight up to Else, who was chatting with Stanzides.
"I've brought a visitor for you."

Else held out her hand. "But this is nice." She introduced them--"Herr
Demeter Stanzides--Fraeulein Therese Golowski."

Therese bowed slightly and let her gaze rest on him for a while with a
little embarrassment as though she were scrutinising a beautiful beast,
then she turned to Else: "If I had known that you had such a lot of
visitors."

"Do you know what she looks like?" said Stanzides softly to George.
"Like a Russian student, don't you think?"

George nodded. "That's about it. I know her. She is a school-friend
of Fraeulein Else's, and now she's playing a leading part among
the Socialists. Just think of it! she's just been in prison for
_lese-majeste_, I believe."

"Yes, I think I've read something about it," replied Demeter. "One
should really get to know a person of that type more intimately. She's
pretty. Her face might be made of ivory."

"And her features show a lot of energy," added George. "Her brother
too is an extraordinary fellow, a pianist and a mathematician, and the
father's supposed to be a ruined Jewish skin-dealer."

"It's really a strange race," observed Demeter.

In the meanwhile Frau Ehrenberg had come up to Therese. She considered
it correct not to show any surprise. "Sit down, Therese," she said.
"And how have you been getting on all this time? Since you've devoted
yourself to political life you don't bother about your old friends any
more."

"Yes, I'm afraid my work gives me very little time to pay private
visits," replied Therese, thrusting out her chin, in a way that made
her face look masculine and almost ugly.

Frau Ehrenberg vacillated as to whether she should or should not make
any reference to the term of imprisonment which Therese had just
served. It was certainly to be borne in mind there was scarcely another
house in Vienna where ladies who had been locked up a short time ago,
were allowed to call.

"And how is your brother?" asked Else.

"He's doing his service this year," answered Therese. "You can imagine
pretty well how he's getting on." And she looked ironically at
Demeter's hussar uniform.

"I suppose he doesn't get much opportunity there for playing the
piano," said Frau Ehrenberg.

"Oh, he's given up all thoughts of being a pianist," replied Therese.
"He's all for politics now." And turning with a smile to Demeter she
added: "Of course you won't give him away, Herr Oberlieutenant?"

Stanzides laughed somewhat awkwardly.

"What do you mean by politics?" asked Herr Ehrenberg. "Does he want to
get into the Cabinet?"

"Not in Austria at any rate," replied Therese. "He is a Zionist, you
know."

"What?" exclaimed Ehrenberg, and his visage beamed.

"That's certainly a subject on which we don't quite agree," added
Therese.

"My dear Therese ..." began Ehrenberg.

"You'll miss your train, my dear," interrupted his wife.

"I'm not going to miss my train, and anyway, another one goes
to-morrow. My dear Therese, this is the only thing I want to say--each
person should find happiness in his own way. But in this case your
brother and not you is the cleverer of you two. Excuse me, I'm perhaps
a layman in politics, but I assure you, Therese, exactly the same thing
will happen to you Jewish Social Democrats as happened to the Jewish
Liberals and German Nationalists."

"How do you mean?" asked Therese haughtily. "In what way will the same
thing happen to us?"

"In what way...? I'll tell you soon enough. Who created the Liberal
movement in Austria?... the Jews. By whom have the Jews been betrayed
and deserted? By the Liberals. Who created the National-German
movement in Austria? the Jews. By whom were the Jews left in the
lurch?... what--left in the lurch!... Spat upon like dogs!... By the
National-Germans, and precisely the same thing will happen in the case
of Socialism and Communism. As soon as you've drawn the chestnuts out
of the fire they'll start driving you away from the table. It always
has been so and always will be so."

"We will wait and see," Therese replied quietly.

George and Demeter looked at each other like two friends marooned
together on a desert island.

Oskar, who had come in during the middle of his father's speech,
compressed his lips and was very embarrassed. But they all felt a kind
of deliverance when Ehrenberg suddenly looked at his watch and took his
leave.

"We certainly shan't agree to-day," he said to Therese.

Therese smiled. "Scarcely. Hope you will enjoy your journey and I want
once more to ... to thank you in the name of...."

"Hush!" said Ehrenberg and vanished.

"What are you thanking papa for?" said Else.

"For a gift of money for which I came to ask him in the most shameless
manner. Apart from him there is not a single rich man in the circle of
my acquaintances. I am not in a position to speak of the purpose for
which it is wanted."

Frau Ehrenberg came up to Bermann and Nuernberger, who were continuing
their conversation over the top of the piano, and said softly: "Of
course you know that she"--then she looked at Therese--"has just been
released from prison."

"I read about it," said Heinrich.

Nuernberger half shut his eyes and cast a glance at the group in the
corner where the three girls were talking to Stanzides and Willy
Eissler and shook his head.

"What cynicism are you suppressing?" said Frau Ehrenberg.

"I was just thinking how easily it might have come about for Fraeulein
Else to have languished two months in prison and for Fraeulein Therese
to have held receptions in a stylish drawing-room as daughter of the
house."

"Easily come about?"

"Herr Ehrenberg has had good luck, Herr Golowski bad luck.... Perhaps
that is the only difference."

"Look here, now, Nuernberger," said Heinrich, "you're not going to deny
that such a thing as individuality exists in the world.... Else and
Therese are rather different characters you know."

"I think so too," observed Frau Ehrenberg.

Nuernberger shrugged his shoulders. "They are both young girls, quite
gifted, quite pretty ... everything else is more or less of an
accidental appanage, just as it is with most young women--most people,
in fact."

Heinrich shook his head energetically. "No, no," he said, "life is
really not as simple as all that."

"That doesn't make it simpler, my dear Heinrich."

Frau Ehrenberg turned her eyes towards the door and beamed.

Felician had just come in. With all the sureness of a sleep-walker he
walked up to the hostess and kissed her hand. "I have just had the
pleasure of meeting Herr Ehrenberg on the steps; he told me he was
going off to Corfu. It must be awfully beautiful out there."

"You know Corfu?"

"Yes, a memory of my childhood." He greeted Nuernberger and Bermann, and
they all talked about the South for which Bermann longed and in which
Nuernberger did not believe.

George gave his brother a hand-shake which meant a salutation and a
goodbye at the same time. As he unobtrusively disappeared through the
open door of the dining-room he looked round again, noticed Marianne
sitting in the furthest corner of the drawing-room and looking at
him ironically through her lorgnette. This woman had always had the
mysterious gift of suddenly being present without one realising where
she came from. And then a veiled lady came up to him on the steps.
"Don't be in such a hurry, you can surely wait another moment," she
said. "One really shouldn't spoil women so.... I wonder if you'd be
in such a hurry, you know, if you were going to keep an appointment
with me...? But you prefer to be non-committal. Probably because
you're afraid that my husband will shoot you when he comes back from
Stockholm. I mean he's probably got as far as Copenhagen to-day. But
he places absolute confidence in me. And he's quite right too. For I'm
able to swear to you that no one has managed to get any further than a
kiss on my hand.... No, to tell the full truth, on my neck, here. Of
course, you believe, too, that I have had an affair with Stanzides?
No, he wouldn't be at all in my line! I positively loathe handsome men.
I couldn't find anything in your brother Felician either...."

One could form no idea when the veiled lady would leave off speaking,
for it was Frau Oberberger. Similar conduct in other women would
have betokened a specific overture, but that was not so in her case.
In spite of the dubious impression created by her whole manner the
world had never been able to fix her so far with a single lover. She
lived in a strange, but apparently happy, childless marriage. Her
brilliant handsome husband, a geologist by profession, had undertaken
scientific expeditions in days gone by, when, so Hofrat Wilt used to
assert, he had set more store by the good travelling and facilities and
unimpeachable cooking of the districts in question than on their being
actually unexplored. But for some years past he had given up travelling
in favour of lecturing and ladykilling. When he was at home he lived
with his wife in the best _camaraderie_. George had frequently, though
never seriously, considered the possibility of a liaison with Frau
Oberberger. He was even one of those who had kissed her neck, a fact
which she probably did not remember herself. And as she threw back
her veil now George again surrendered himself with pleasure to the
fascination of this face, which though no longer in its first flush
of youth was yet both charming and animated. He wanted to take up the
conversation, but she went on speaking. "Do you know you're very pale?
a nice life you must be leading. What kind of a woman is it who is
responsible for taking you away from me this time?"

Hofrat Wilt, with his usual silent step, suddenly stood by them. With
a casual air of gallantry and superiority he threw them a "Good-day,
beauteous lady, Hullo, Baron," and started to go on.

But Frau Oberberger thought it fitting to inform him first that Baron
George was just going to one of his usual orgies--she then followed
Hofrat up to the second story at the risk, as she remarked, of his
being taken for her ninety-fifth lover if he presented himself at
Ehrenberg's at the same time as she did.

It was seven o'clock before George could settle himself in a fly
and drive to Mariahilf. He felt quite exhausted by the two hours at
Ehrenberg's and he was even more than usually glad at the meeting
with Anna which was before him. Since that morning at the miniature
exhibition they had seen each other nearly every day; in parks,
picture-galleries, at her house. They usually talked about the little
incidents of their life or gossiped about books or music. They did not
often talk of the past, but when they did it was without doubts or
misgivings. For so far as Anna was concerned the adventures from which
George had just come were far from being surrounded with the uncanny
atmosphere of mystery; while George gathered from her own jesting
allusions that she herself had already experienced more than one
infatuation, though that did not cause him to lose the serenity of his
good spirits or even to ask her any further questions.

He had kissed her for the first time eight days ago, in an empty room
in the Liechtentein Gallery, and from that moment Anna had employed the
familiar 'du,' as though a less intimate appellation would have rung
somewhat false. The fly stopped at a street corner. George got out, lit
a cigarette and walked up and down opposite the house out of which Anna
was due to come.

After a few minutes she came out of the door, he rushed across the
street to meet her and kissed her hand ecstatically. Following her
habit, for she was in the habit of reading on her journeys, she carried
a book with her in a pressed leather cover.

"It is quite cool, Anna," said George, took the book out of her hand
and helped her into the jacket which she had been carrying over her arm.

"I was a little bit late you see," she said, "and I was very impatient
to see you. Yes," she added with a smile, "one's temperament will break
out now and again. What do you think of my new dress?" she added as
they walked on.

"It suits you very well."

"They thought at my lesson that I looked like a lady-in-waiting."

"Who thought so?"

"Frau Bittner herself and her two daughters whom I am teaching."

"I should rather say, like an Arch-Duchess."

Anna nodded with satisfaction.

"And now tell me, Anna, all that's happened to you since yesterday."

She began quite seriously: "Twelve o'clock, after I left you at the
door of our house, dinner in the family circle. Rested a little in
the afternoon, and thought about you. Pupils from four to six-thirty,
then read 'Gruener Heinrich,' and the evening paper. Too lazy to go out
again, messed about at home. Supper. The usual domestic scene."

"Your brother?" queried George.

She answered with a "Yes" that ruled out all further questions. "A
little music after supper.... Even tried to sing."

"Were you satisfied?"

"It was quite good enough for me, anyway," she said, and George thought
he detected a slight note of melancholy in her tone. She quickly went
on with her report. "Went to bed at half-past ten, slept well, got up
early at eight ... one can't lie in bed any longer in our house ...
dressed till half-past nine, was about the house till eleven...."

"... Messing about," added George.

"Right. Then went on to Weils, gave the boy a lesson."

"How old is he?" asked George.

"Thirteen," replied Anna.

"Well, after all that is not so young."

"Quite so," said Anna. "But you can set your mind at rest when I inform
you that he loves his Aunt Adele, a sentimental blonde of thirty-three,
and is not thinking for the time being of breaking his troth to her....
Well, to continue the record. Got home at one-thirty, had my meal
alone, thank Heaven! Father already at the office, mamma in a state of
sleep. Rested again from three to four, thought even more about you,
and more seriously too, than yesterday, then went shopping in town,
gloves, safety pins and something for mamma, and then drove on the
tram, reading all the way to Mariahilf, to the two Bittner kiddies....
So now you know all. Satisfied?"

"Except for the boy of thirteen."

"Well, I agree that that might be a bit upsetting. But now we should
like to know if you haven't got even more sinister confessions to make
to me."

They were in a narrow silent street, which seemed quite strange to
George, and Anna took his arm.

"I have just come from Ehrenbergs'," he began.

"Well?" queried Anna. "Did they try very much to inveigle you?"

"No, I can't go so far as that. Of course they seemed a little hurt
that I did not go to Auhof this summer," he added.

"Did dear little Else perform?" Anna asked.

"No; of course I don't know what happened after I left."

"It won't be worth the trouble now," said Anna with exuberant mirth.

"You are wrong, Anna. There are people there for whom it is quite worth
while singing."

"Who?"

"Heinrich Bermann, Willy Eissler, Demeter Stanzides...."

"Oh, Stanzides!" exclaimed Anna. "Now I am really sorry that I wasn't
there too."

"It seems to me," said George, "that that is a true word spoken in
jest."

"Quite so," replied Anna. "I think Demeter is really desperately
handsome."

George was silent for a few seconds and suddenly asked, with more
emotion than he usually manifested: "Is it he then...?"

"What 'he' do you mean?"

"The one you ... loved more than me."

She smiled, nestled closer up to him and answered simply, though a
little ironically: "Am I really supposed to have been fonder of any one
else than of you?"

"You confessed it to me yourself," replied George.

"But I also confess to you that I should love you in time more than I
have loved or ever could love any one else."

"Are you quite sure about that, Anna?"

"Yes, George, I am quite certain of it."

They had now come again into a more lively street and reluctantly let
go of each other's arms.

They remained standing in front of various shops. They discovered a
photographer's show-case by a house-door and were very much amused
by the laboriously-natural poses in which golden and silver wedding
couples, cadets, cooks in their Sunday best and ladies in masked fancy
dress were taken.

George asked again in a lighter tone: "So it was Stanzides?"

"What an idea! I have never spoken a hundred words to him in my life."

They went on walking.

"Leo Golowski, then?" asked George.

She shook her head and smiled. "That was calf-love," she replied. "That
really doesn't count. I should like to know the girl of sixteen who
wouldn't have fallen in love in the country with a handsome youth who
fights a duel with a real Count and then goes about for eight days with
his arm in a sling."

"But he didn't do it on your account, but for his sister's honour, as
it were."

"For Therese's honour? What makes you think that?"

"You told me that the young man had spoken to Therese in the forest
while she was studying '_Emilia Galotti_.'"

"Yes, that is quite true. Anyway, she was quite glad to be spoken to.
The only thing Leo objected to was that the young Count belonged to
a club of young men who really behaved rather cheekily, and I think
showed a touch of Anti-Semitism. So when Therese once went with her
brother for a walk by the lake, and the Count came up and spoke to
Therese as though he had known her for ages, while he mumbled his name
off-handedly, for the benefit of Leo, Leo made a bow and introduced
himself like this: 'Leo Golowski, Cracow Jew.' I don't know exactly
what happened further; there was an exchange of words and the duel took
place next day in the cavalry barracks at Klagenfurt."

"So I am quite right," persisted George humorously. "He did fight for
his sister's honour."

"No, I tell you. I was there when he once discussed the matter with
Therese, and said to her: 'So far as I am concerned you can do whatever
amuses you. You can flirt with any one you like'...."

"Only it's got to be a Jew, I suppose...." added George.

Anna shook her head. "He's really not like that."

"I know," replied George gently. "We have become quite good friends
lately, your Leo and I.

"Why, only yesterday evening we met at the cafe again and he was really
quite condescending to me. I think he really forgives me my lineage.
Besides, I haven't told you that Therese was at Ehrenbergs', too."
And he described the appearance of the young girl in the Ehrenberg
drawing-room and the impression she had made on Demeter.

Anna smiled with pleasure.

Later on, when they were again walking arm-in-arm in a quieter street,
George began again. "But I still don't know who your great passion was."

Anna was silent and looked straight in front of her.

"Come, Anna, you promised me, didn't you?"

Without looking at him she replied: "If you only had an idea how
strange the whole thing seems to me to-day."

"Why strange?"

"Because the man you're trying to find out was quite an old man."

"Thirty-five," said George jestingly; "isn't that so?"

She shook her head seriously. "He was fifty-eight or sixty."

"And you?" asked George slowly.

"It is two years ago last summer. I was then twenty-one."

George suddenly stood still. "I know now, it was your singing-master.
Wasn't it?"

Anna did not answer.

"So it was he, then?" said George, without being really surprised, for
he was aware that all the celebrated master's pupils fell in love with
him in spite of his grey hairs.

"And did you love him most," asked George, "of all the men you had come
across?"

"Strange, isn't it? but it's a fact all the same."

"Did he know it?"

"I think so."

They had arrived at an open space with a small garden ... that was only
scantily lighted. At the back there towered a church with a reddish
glow. As though drawn to a quieter place they wandered on under dark
softly-waving branches.

"And what actually was there between you, if it is not a rude question?"

Anna was silent, and that moment George felt that everything was
possible--even that Anna should have been that man's mistress. But
underneath the disquiet which he felt at that thought the desire arose
gently and unconsciously to hear his fear confirmed. For if Anna had
already belonged to some one else before she became his, the adventure
could proceed as lightly and irresponsibly as possible.

"I will tell you the whole story," said Anna at last. "It is really not
so awful."

"Well?" asked George, strangely excited.

"Once, after the lesson," Anna began hesitatingly, "he gallantly helped
me into my jacket. And then suddenly he drew me to him, took me in his
arms and kissed me."

"And you...?"

"I ... I was quite intoxicated."

"Intoxicated?..."

"Yes, it was something indescribable. He kissed me on the forehead and
the hair, and then he took my hand and murmured all sorts of things
that I didn't hear properly...."

"And...."

"And then ... then voices came near, he let go my hand and it was all
over."

"All over?"

"Yes, over ... of course it was all over."

"I certainly don't think it such a matter of course. You saw him again,
no doubt."

"Of course, I still went on learning with him."

"And...?"

"I tell you it was over ... absolutely ... as though it had never
happened."

George was surprised that he should feel reassured. "And he never tried
again?" he asked.

"Never. It would have been so ridiculous, and as he was very clever he
knew that quite well himself. It is quite true that up to then I had
been very much in love with him, but after this episode he was nothing
more to me than my old teacher. In some way he seemed even older than
he really was. I don't know if you can really understand what I mean.
It was as though he had spent all the remains of his youth in that
moment."

"I quite understand," said George. He believed her and loved her more
than before. They went into the church. It was almost dark within the
large building. There were only some dim candles burning in front of
a side altar, and opposite, behind the small statue of a saint, there
shone a feeble light. A broad stream of incense flowed between the dome
and the flagstones. The verger was walking, jangling his keys softly.
Motionless figures appeared vaguely on the seats at the back. George
slowly walked forward with Anna and felt like a young husband on his
honeymoon going sight-seeing in a church with his young wife. He said
so to Anna. She only nodded.

"But it would be very much nicer," whispered George, as they stood
nestling close together in front of the chancel, "if we really were
together somewhere abroad...."

She looked at him ecstatically and yet interrogatively: and he was
frightened at his own words. Supposing Anna had taken it as a serious
declaration or as a kind of wooing? Was he not obliged to enlighten her
that he had not meant it in that way?... He remembered the conversation
which they had had a short time ago, when they had gone out hanging on
to one umbrella on a rainy windy day in the direction of Schoenbrunn. He
had suggested to her she should drive into the town with him and dine
with him in a private room in some restaurant; she had answered with
that iciness in which her whole being was sometimes frozen: "I don't do
that kind of thing." He had not pressed her further.

And yet a quarter of an hour later she had said to him, apropos no
doubt of a conversation about George's mode of life, but yet with a
smile of many possibilities: "You have no initiative, George." And he
had suddenly felt at that moment as though depths in her soul were
revealing themselves, undreamt-of and dangerous depths, which it would
be a good thing to beware of. He could not help now thinking of this
again. What was passing within her mind?... What did she want and what
was she ready for?... And what did he desire, what did he feel himself?

Life was so incalculable. Was it not perfectly possible that he should
go travelling about the world with her, live with her a period of
happiness and finally part from her just as he had parted from many
another?... Yet when he thought of the end that was inevitably bound to
come, whether death brought it or life itself, he felt a gentle grief
in his heart.... She still remained silent. Did she think again that
he was lacking in initiative?... Or did she think perhaps "I am really
going to succeed, I shall be his wife?..."

He then felt her hand stroke his very gently, with a kind of new
tenderness that did him great good.

"George," she said.

"What is it?" he asked.

"If I were religious," she replied, "I should like to pray for
something now."

"What for?" said George, feeling almost nervous.

"For you to do something, George--something that really counted. For
you to become a genuine artist, a great artist."

He could not help looking at the floor, as though for very shame that
her thoughts had travelled on paths that were so much cleaner than his
own.

A beggar held open the thick green curtain. George gave the man a coin;
they were in the open air. The street lights shone up, the noise of
vehicles and closing shutters suddenly grew near. George felt as if a
fine veil which the twilight of the church had woven around him and
her had now been torn, and in a tone of relief he suggested a little
ride. Anna agreed with alacrity. They got into an open fiacre, had the
top pulled down over them, drove through the streets, then drove round
the Ring, without seeing much of the buildings and gardens, spoke not
a word and nestled closer and closer to each other. They were both
conscious of each other's impatience and their own, and they knew it
was no longer possible to go back.

When they were near Anna's home George said: "What a pity that you have
got to go home now."

She shrugged her shoulders and smiled strangely. The depths, thought
George again, but without fear and almost gaily. Before the vehicle
stopped at the corner they arranged an appointment for the following
morning in the Schwarzenberggarten and then got out. Anna rushed home
and George slowly strolled towards the town.

He considered whether he should go into the cafe. He did not really
feel keen on it. Bermann would probably stay to supper at the
Ehrenbergs' to-day, one could rarely count on Leo Golowski coming:
and George was not much attracted by the other young people, most of
them Jewish writers, with whom he had recently struck up a casual
acquaintance, even though he had thought many of them not at all
uninteresting. Speaking broadly, he found their tone to each other now
too familiar, now too formal, now too facetious, now too sentimental:
not one of them seemed really free and unembarrassed with the others,
scarcely indeed with himself.

Heinrich too had declared only the other day that he didn't want to
have anything more to do with the whole set, who had become thoroughly
antagonistic to him since his successes. George regarded it as
perfectly possible that Heinrich, with his characteristic vanity
and hypochondria, was scenting enmity and persecution where it was
perhaps merely a case of indifference or antipathy. He for his part
knew that it was not so much friendship that attracted him to the
young author, as the curiosity to get to know a strange man more
intimately. Perhaps also the interest of looking into a world which
up to the present had been more or less foreign to him. For while he
himself had remained somewhat reserved and had specially avoided any
reference to his own relations with women, Heinrich had not only told
him of his distant mistress, for whom he asserted he suffered pangs of
jealousy, but also of a blonde and pretty young person with whom he
had recently got into the habit of spending his evenings--merely to
deaden his feelings as he ironically added; he not only told him of his
life as a student and journalist in Vienna, which did not lie so far
back, but also of his childhood and boyhood in that little provincial
town in Bohemia where he had come into the world thirty years ago.
The half-affectionate and half-disgusted tone, with its mixture of
attachment and detachment, in which Heinrich spoke of his family and
especially of his suffering father, who had been an advocate in that
little town and a member of Parliament for a considerable period,
struck George as strange and at times as almost painful. Why, he seemed
to be even a little proud of the fact that when he was only twenty
years old he had prophesied his blissfully confident parent's fate to
the old man himself, exactly as it had subsequently fulfilled itself.
After a short period of popularity and success the growth of the
Anti-Semitic movement had driven him out of the German Liberal party,
most of his friends had deserted and betrayed him, and a dissipated
'corps' student, who described at public meetings the Tschechs and Jews
as the most dangerous enemies of Germanism, propriety and morality,
while at home he thrashed his wife and had children by his servants,
was his successor in the confidence of the electors and in Parliament.
Heinrich, who had always felt a certain amount of irritation at his
father's phrases, honest though they were, about Pan-Germanism, liberty
and progress, had at first gloated over the spectacle of the old man's
downfall. And it was only when the lawyer who had once been so much in
demand began to lose his practice into the bargain, and the financial
position of the family got worse from day to day, that the son began
to experience a somewhat belated sympathy. He had given up his legal
studies early enough, and had been compelled to come to the help of his
family with his daily journalistic work. His first literary successes
raised no echo in the melancholy household. There were sinister signs
that madness was looming over his father, while now that the latter was
falling into mental darkness his mother, for whom state and fatherland
had ceased to exist, when her husband was not elected to Parliament,
lost her grip of life and of the world. Heinrich's only sister, once a
buxom clever girl, had developed melancholia after an unhappy passion
for a kind of provincial Don Juan, and with morbid perverseness she put
the blame for the family misfortune on the shoulders of her brother,
though she had always got on with him perfectly well in her youth.
Heinrich also told George about other relations whom he remembered in
his early days, and a half-grotesque, half-pathetic series of strict
bigoted old-fashioned Jews and Jewesses swept by George like shadows
from another world. He eventually realised that Heinrich did not feel
himself any homesickness for that small town with its miserable petty
squabbles, or any call to return to the gloomy narrowness of his almost
ruined family, and saw that Heinrich's egoism was at once his salvation
and his deliverance.

It was striking nine from the tower of the Church of St. Michael when
George stood in front of the cafe. He saw Rapp the critic sitting by a
window not completely covered by the curtain, with a pile of papers in
front of him on the table. He had just taken his glasses off his nose
and was polishing them, and the dull eyes brought a look of absolute
deadness into a face that was usually so alive with clever malice.
Opposite him with gestures that swept over vacancy sat Gleissner the
poet in all the brilliancy of his false elegance, with a colossal black
cravat in which a red stone scintillated. When George, without hearing
their voices, saw the lips of these two men move, while their glances
wandered to and fro, he could scarcely understand how they could stand
sitting opposite each other for a quarter of an hour in that cloud of
hate. It flashed across him at once that this was the atmosphere in
which the life of the whole set played its comedy, and through which
there darted many a redeeming flash of wit and self-analysis.

What had he in common with these people? A kind of horror seized on
him, he turned away and decided to look up his club once again instead
of going into the cafe, the rooms of which he had not been in for
months past. It was only a few steps away. George was soon walking up
the broad marble staircase, went into the little dining-room with the
light green curtain and was greeted as a long-lost friend by Ralph
Skelton, the attache of the English Embassy, and Doctor von Breitner.
They talked about the tournament which was going to take place and
about the banquet that was going to be organised in honour of the
foreign fencing-masters; they gossiped about the new operetta at the
Wiedner Theatre where Fraeulein Lovan as a bayadere had come on to
the stage almost naked, and about the duel between the manufacturer
Heidenfeld and Lieutenant Novotny, in which the injured husband had
fallen. George had a game of billiards with Skelton after the meal and
won. He felt in better spirits and resolved henceforth to pay more
frequent visits to these airy prettily-furnished rooms frequented by
pleasant well-bred young men with whom one could converse lightly and
pleasantly.

Felician appeared, told his brother that it had been very amusing at
the Ehrenbergs' and that Frau Marianne sent her regards. Breitner, with
one of his celebrated huge cigars in his mouth, joined the brothers,
and began to speak about the hanging of the portraits of some of those
members of the club who had conferred services on it, mentioning
particularly the one of young Labinski who had ended all by suicide
in the previous year. And George could not help thinking of Grace, of
that strange hot-and-cold conversation with her in the cemetery in the
melting February snow and of that wonderful night on the moonlit deck
of the steamer that had brought them both from Palermo to Naples. He
scarcely knew which woman he longed for the most at this particular
moment: for Marianne whom he had deserted, for Grace who had vanished,
or for the fair young creature with whom he had walked about in a dusky
church a few hours ago like a honeymoon couple in a foreign town, and
who had wanted to pray to heaven for him to become a great artist. The
memory stirred a gentler emotion. Was it not almost as though she set
more store by his artistic future than by him himself?... No.... Not
more. She had only just spoken out what had lain slumbering all the
time at the bottom of her soul. It was simply that he forgot as it
were only too frequently that he was an artist. But all that must be
changed. He had begun and prepared so much. Just a little industry and
success was assured. And next year he would go out into the world. He
would soon get a post as conductor and with a sudden leap he would find
himself launched in a profession that brought both money and prestige.
He would get to know new people, a different sky would shine above him
and white unknown arms stretched towards him mysteriously as though
from distant clouds. And while the young people at his side were
weighing very seriously the chances of the champions at the approaching
tournament, George went on dreaming in his corner of a future full of
work, fame and love.

At the same time Anna was lying in her dark room. She was not asleep
and her wide-open eyes were turned towards the ceiling. She had for the
first time in her life the infallible feeling that there was a man in
the world who could do anything he liked with her. Her mind was firmly
made up to take all the happiness or all the sorrow that might lie in
front of her, and she had a gentle hope, more beautiful than all her
dreams of the past, of a serene and abiding happiness.




III


George and Heinrich dismounted from their cycles. The last villas lay
behind them and the broad road with its gradual upward incline led
into the forest. The foliage still hung fairly thickly on the trees,
but every slight puff of wind brought away some leaves which slowly
fluttered down. The shimmer of autumn floated over the yellow-reddish
hills. The road ascended higher past an imposing restaurant garden
approached by a flight of stone steps. Only a few people sat in the
open air, most of them were in the glass verandah, as though they did
not quite trust themselves to the faltering warmth of this late October
day, through which a dangerous and chilly draught kept on penetrating.

George thought of the melancholy memory of the winter evening on which
he and Frau Marianne had paid a visit here, and had had the place to
themselves. He had been bored as he had sat by her side and listened
impatiently to her prattle about yesterday's concert in which Fraeulein
Bellini had sung songs; and when he had been obliged to get out of the
carriage in a suburban street on his way back on account of Marianne's
nervousness, he had taken a deep breath of deliverance. A similar
feeling of release, of course, almost invariably came over him whenever
he left a mistress, even after some more or less beautiful hours.
Even when he had left Anna on her doorstep a few days ago, after the
first evening of complete happiness, the first emotion of which he was
conscious was the joy of being alone again. And immediately in its
train, even before the feeling of gratitude and the dim realisation of
a genuine affinity with this gentle creature who enveloped his whole
being with such intimate tenderness had managed to penetrate his soul,
there fluttered through it a wistful dream of voyages over a shimmering
sea, of coasts which approached seductively, of walks along shores
which would vanish again on the next day, of blue distances, freedom
from responsibility and solitude.

The next morning, when the atmosphere of the previous evening, pregnant
as it was with memory and with presage, enveloped him as he woke up,
the journey was of course put off to a later but not so distant though
of course more convenient time. For George knew at this very hour,
though without any touch of horror, that this adventure was predestined
to have an end however sincerely and picturesquely it had begun.
Anna had given herself to him without indicating by a word, a look
or gesture that so far as she was concerned, what was practically a
new chapter in her life was now beginning. And in the same way George
felt quite convinced that the farewell to her, too, would be devoid
of melancholy or of difficulty; a pressure of the hand, a smile and a
quiet "it was very beautiful"; and he felt still easier in his mind
when she came to him at their next meeting with a simple intimate
greeting, quite free from that uneasy tone of nestling sorrow or
accomplished fate which he had heard thrilling in the voice of many
another woman, who had woken up to such a morning, though not for the
first time in her life.

A faintly-defined line of mountains appeared in the distance and then
vanished again as the road mounted through thick-wooded country up to
the heights. Pine-wood and leaf-bearing wood grew peacefully next to
each other, and the foliage of beeches and birch-trees shimmered with
its autumn tints through the quieter tints of the firs. Ramblers could
be seen, some with knapsack, alpine-stock and nailed shoes, as though
equipped for serious mountaineering; now and again cyclists would come
whizzing down the road in a feverish rush. Heinrich told his companion
of a cycle-tour which he had made along the Rhine at the beginning of
September.

"Isn't it strange," said George, "I have knocked about the world a fair
bit, but I do not yet know the district where my ancestors' home was."

"Really?" queried Heinrich, "and you feel no emotion when you hear the
word Rhine spoken?"

George smiled. "After all it is nearly a hundred years since my
great-grandparents left Biebrich."

"Why do you smile, George? It's a much longer time since my ancestors
wandered out of Palestine, and yet many otherwise quite rational people
insist on my heart throbbing with homesickness for that country."

George shook his head irritably. "Why do you always keep bothering
about those people? It will really soon become a positive obsession
with you."

"Oh, you think I mean the Anti-Semites? Not a bit of it. I am not
touchy any more about them, not usually, at any rate. But you just go
and ask our friend Leo what his views are on this question."

"Oh, you mean him, do you? Well, he doesn't take it so literally but
more or less symbolically ... or from the political standpoint," he
added uncertainly.

Heinrich nodded. "Both these ideas are very intimately connected
in brains of that character." He sank into meditation for a while,
thrust his cycle forward with slight impatient spurts and was soon
a few paces in front again. He then began to talk again about his
September tour. He thought of it again with what was almost emotion.
Solitude, change of scene, movement: had he not enjoyed a threefold
happiness? "I can scarcely describe to you," he said, "the feeling
of inner freedom which thrilled through me. Do you know those moods
in which all one's memories near or distant lose, as it were, their
oppressive reality? all the people who have meant anything in one's
life, whether it be grief, care or tenderness, seem to sweep by more
like shadows, or, to put it more precisely, like forms which one has
imagined oneself? And the creations of one's own imagination also come
on the scene, of course, and are certainly quite as vivid as the people
whom one remembers as having been real; and then one gets the most
extraordinary complications between the figures of reality and of one's
imagination. I could describe to you a conversation which took place
between my great-uncle who is a rabbi and the Duke Heliodorus, the
character you know who is the centre of my opera plot--a conversation
which was amusing and profound to a degree which, speaking generally,
neither life nor any opera libretto scarcely ever reaches.... Yes,
such journeys are really wonderful, and so one goes on through towns
which one has never seen before, and perhaps will never see again,
past absolutely unknown faces which speedily vanish again for all
eternity.... Then one whizzes again into the street between the rivers
and the vineyards. Such moods really cleanse the soul. A pity that they
are so rarely vouchsafed to one."

George always felt a certain embarrassment whenever Heinrich became
tragic. "Perhaps we might go on a bit," he said, and they jumped on to
their machines.

A narrow bumpy byroad between the forest and fields soon led them to a
bare unimpressive two-storied house, which they recognised to be an inn
by its brown surly signboard. On the green, which was separated from
the house by the street, stood a large number of tables, many covered
with cloths which had once been white, others with cloths which were
embroidered. Ten or twelve young men who were members of a cycling club
sat at some pushed-back tables. Several of them had taken off their
coats, others with an affectation of smartness wore them with their
sleeves hanging down. Designs in magnificent red and green knitting
blazed on the sky-blue sweaters with their yellow edges.

A chorus rang out to the sky with more power than purity: "Der Gott der
Eisen wachsen liess, der wollte keine Knechte."

Heinrich surveyed the company with a quick glance, half shut his eyes
and said to George with clenched teeth and vehement emphasis: "I don't
know if these youths are staunch, true and courageous, which they
certainly think they are; but there is no doubt that they smell of wool
and perspiration, and so I am all for our sitting down at a reasonable
distance from them."

What _does_ he want? thought George. Would he find it more congenial if
a party of Polish Jews were to sit here and sing psalms?

Both pushed their machines to a distant table and sat down. A waiter
appeared in black evening dress sprinkled with the relics of grease and
vegetables, cleared the table energetically with a dirty napkin, took
their orders and went off.

"Isn't it lamentable," said Heinrich, "that in the immediate outskirts
of Vienna nearly all the inns should be in such a state of neglect? It
makes one positively depressed."

George thought that this exaggerated regret was out of place. "Oh well,
in the country," he said, "you have got to take things as you find
them. It is almost part of the whole thing."

Heinrich would not admit the soundness of this point of view. He began
to develop a plan for the erection of seven hotels on the borders of
the Wienerwald, and was calculating that one would need at the outside
three or four millions, when Leo Golowski suddenly appeared. He was in
_mufti_, which, as was frequently the case with him, was not without
a certain element of bizarreness. He wore to-day, in addition to a
light-grey lounge suit, a blue velvet waistcoat and a yellow silk
cravat with a smooth steel tie-ring. Both the others greeted him with
delight and expressed their astonishment.

Leo sat down by them. "I heard you fixing up your excursion yesterday
evening, and when we were discharged from the barracks at nine o'clock
to-day, I at once thought how nice it would be to have a chat for an
hour or so in the open air with a couple of keen and congenial men.
So I went home, threw myself into mufti and started off." He spoke
in his usual tone, which always fascinated George with its charm and
semi-naivete, though when he thought of it afterwards it always seemed
to possess a certain touch of irony, of insincerity in fact. He had
a knack of conducting serious conversations with a cut-and-dried
definiteness that really impressed George. He had recently had an
opportunity of listening to discussions in the cafe between Leo and
Heinrich on questions dealing with the theory of art, especially the
relation between the laws of music and mathematics. Leo thought he
was on the track of the fundamental cause of major and minor keys
affecting the human soul in such different ways. George took pleasure
in following the chain of his acute and lucid analysis, even though he
was instinctively on his guard against the audacious attempt to ascribe
all the magic and mystery of sound to the rule of laws, which were as
inexorable as those in accordance with which the earth and the planets
revolved, and must necessarily spring from the same origin as those
eternal principles. It was only when Heinrich tried to carry Leo's
theories still further, and to apply them for instance to the products
of literary style, that George became impatient and immediately felt
himself tacit ally of Leo who invariably smiled gently at Heinrich's
tangled and fantastic expositions.

The meal was served and the young men ate with appetite; Heinrich
not less than the others, in spite of the fact that he expressed his
opinion of the inferiority of the cooking in the most disparaging
terms, and was inclined to regard the conduct of the proprietor, not
merely as a sign of his personally low mind, but as characteristic of
the decay of Austria in many other spheres. The conversation turned
on the military position of the country, and Leo gave a satirical
description of his comrades and superiors, with which both the others
were very much amused. Much merriment, especially, was occasioned by a
First-Lieutenant who had introduced himself to the volunteer contingent
with the ominous words: "I shan't give you anything to laugh about, I
am a fiend in human form."

While they were still eating a gentleman came up to the table, clicked
his heels together, put his hand to his cycle cap by way of salutation,
addressed them with a facetious "All hail," added a friendly "Hallo"
for the benefit of Leo, and introduced himself to Heinrich. "My name
is Josef Rosner." He then cheerily began the conversation with these
words: "I suppose you gentlemen are also on a cycling expedition...."
As no one answered him he continued: "One must make the best of the
last fine days, the splendid weather won't last much longer."

"Won't you sit down, Herr Rosner?" asked George politely.

"Much obliged but...." He pointed to his party.... "We have only just
started out, we have still got a lot in front of us; going to ride
down to Tull and then via Stockerau to Vienna. Excuse me, gentlemen."
He took a wooden vesta from the table and lighted his cigarette with
dignity.

"What kind of a club are you in then, old chap?" asked Leo, and George
was surprised at the "old chap," till it occurred to him that they had
both known each other from boyhood.

"This is the Sechshauser Cycle Club," replied Josef. In spite of the
fact that no astonishment was expressed, he added: "Of course you are
surprised, gentlemen, at a real Viennese like myself belonging to this
suburban club, but it is only because a great friend of mine is the
captain there. You see that fat chap there, just slipping into his
coat. That is Jalaudek, the son of the town councillor and member of
Parliament."

"Jalaudek ..." repeated Heinrich with obvious loathing in his voice,
and said nothing more.

"Oh yes," said Leo, "that's the man, you know, who in a recent debate
about the popular education board gave this magnificent definition of
science. Didn't you read it?" He turned to the others.

They did not remember.

"'Science,'" quoted Leo, "'Science is what one Jew copies from
another.'"

All laughed. Even Josef, who, however, immediately started explaining:
"He is really not that sort at all--I know him quite well--only he is
so crude in political life ... simply because the opposing parties
scratch each other's eyes out in our beloved Austria. But in ordinary
life he is a very affable gentleman. The boy is much more Radical."

"Is your club Christian Socialist or National German?" asked Leo
courteously.

"Oh, we don't make any distinction. Only of course as things are going
nowadays...." He stopped with sudden embarrassment.

"Come, come," said Leo encouragingly. "It is perfectly obvious that
your club is not tainted by a single Jew. Why, one notices that a mile
off."

Josef thought it was best form to laugh. He then said: "Excuse me, no
politics in the mountains! Anyway, as we are on this topic you are
labouring under a delusion, gentlemen. For instance, we have a man in
the club who is engaged to a Jewish girl. But they are beckoning to me
already. Goodbye, gentlemen; so long, Leo; goodbye, all." He saluted
again and swaggered off.

The others, smiling in spite of themselves, followed him with their
eyes. Then Leo suddenly turned to George and asked: "And how is his
sister getting on with her singing?"

"What?" said George, startled and blushing slightly.

"Therese has been telling me," went on Leo quietly, "that you and Anna
do music together sometimes. Is her voice all right now?"

"Yes," replied George, hesitating, "I believe so; at any rate I
think it is very pleasant, very melodious, especially in the deeper
registers. It is a pity in my view that it is not big enough for larger
rooms."

"Not big enough?" repeated Leo meditatively.

"How would you describe it?"

Leo shrugged his shoulders and looked quietly at George. "It is like
this," he said. "I personally like the voice very much, but even when
Anna had the idea of going on the stage ... to speak quite frankly, I
never thought anything would come of it."

"You probably knew," replied George with deliberate casualness, "that
Fraeulein Anna suffers from a peculiar weakness of the vocal chords."

"Yes, of course I knew that, but if she were cut out for an artistic
career, really had it in her, I mean, she would certainly have overcome
that weakness."

"You think so?"

"Yes, I do. That is my decided opinion. That's why I think that
expressions like 'peculiar weakness' or 'her voice is not big enough'
are more or less euphemisms for something more fundamental, more
psychological. It's quite clear that her fate line says nothing about
her being an artist, that's a fact. She was, so to speak, predestined
from the beginning to end her days in respectable domesticity."

Heinrich enthusiastically caught up the theory of the fate line, and
led their thoughts in his own erratic way from the sphere of cleverness
to the sphere of sophistry, and from the sphere of sophistry to the
sphere of the nonsensical.

He then suggested that they should bask for half an hour in the meadow
in the sun. "It will probably not shine so warm again during this year."

The others agreed.

A hundred yards from the inn George and Leo stretched themselves out on
their cloaks. Heinrich sat down on the grass, crossed his arms over his
knees, and looked in front of him. At his feet the sward sloped down to
the forest. Still deeper down rested the villas of Neuwaldegg, buried
in loose foliage. The spire-crosses and dazzling windows of the town
shone out from the bluish-grey clouds, and far away, as though lifted
up by a moving haze, the plain swept away to a gradual darkness.

Pedestrians were walking over the fields towards the inn. Some gave
them a greeting as they passed, and one of them, a slim young man who
led a child by the hand, remarked to Heinrich: "This is a really fine
day, just like May."

Heinrich felt at first his heart go out as it were involuntarily,
as it often did towards casual and unexpected friendliness of this
description. But he immediately pulled himself together, for of course
he realised that the young man was only intoxicated, as it were,
with the mildness of the day and the peace of the landscape; that at
the bottom of his soul he too felt hostile to him, just like all the
others who had strolled past him so harmlessly, and he himself found
difficulty in understanding why the view of these gently sloping hills
and the town merging into twilight should affect him with so sweet a
melancholy, in view of the fact that the men who lived there meant
so little good by him, and meant him even that little but rarely.
The cycling club whizzed along the street which was quite close to
them. The jauntily-worn coats fluttered, the badges gleamed and crude
laughter rang out over the fields.

"Awful people," said Leo casually without changing his place.

Heinrich motioned down below with a vague movement of his head. "And
fellows like that," he said with set teeth, "imagine that they are more
at home here than we are."

"Oh, well," answered Leo quietly, "they aren't so far out in that,
those fellows there."

Heinrich turned scornfully towards him: "Excuse me, Leo, I forgot for a
moment that you yourself wish to count as only here on sufferance."

"I don't wish that for a minute," replied Leo with a smile, "and you
need not misunderstand me so perversely. One really can't bear a grudge
against these people if they regard themselves as the natives and you
and me as the foreigners. After all, it is only the expression of their
healthy instinct for an anthropological fact which is confirmed by
history. Neither Jewish nor Christian sentimentalism can do anything
against that and all the consequences which follow from it." And
turning to George he asked him in a tone which was only too courteous:
"Don't you think so too?"

George reddened and cleared his throat, but had no opportunity of
answering, for Heinrich, on whose forehead two deep furrows now
appeared, immediately began to speak with considerable bitterness.

"My own instinct is at any rate quite as much a rule of conduct for me
as the instinct of Herren Jalaudek Junior and Senior, and that instinct
tells me infallibly that my home is here, just here, and not in some
land which I don't know, the description of which doesn't appeal to
me the least bit and which certain people now want to persuade me is
my fatherland on the strength of the argument that that was the place
from which my ancestors some thousand years ago were scattered into the
world. One might further observe on that point that the ancestors of
the Herren Jalaudek and even of our friend Baron von Wergenthin were
quite as little at home here as mine and yours."

"You mustn't be angry with me," retorted Leo, "but your standpoint in
these matters is really somewhat limited. You are always thinking about
yourself and the really quite irrelevant circumstance ... excuse my
saying irrelevant circumstance, that you are an author who happens to
write in the German language because he was born in a German country,
and happens to write about Austrian people and Austrian conditions
because he lives in Austria. But the primary question is not about you,
or about me either, or even about the few Jewish officials who do not
get promoted, the few Jewish volunteers who do not get made officers,
the Jewish lecturers who either get their Professorship too late or not
at all--those are sheer secondary inconveniences so to speak; we have
to deal, in considering this question, with quite another class of men
whom you know either imperfectly or not at all. We have to deal with
destinies to which, I assure you, my dear Heinrich, that in spite of
your real duty to do so, I am sure you have not yet given sufficient
thorough thought. I am sure you haven't.... Otherwise you wouldn't
be able to discuss all these matters in the superficial and the ...
egoistic way you are now doing."

He then told them of his experiences at the Bale Zionist Congress in
which he had taken part in the previous year, and where he had obtained
a deeper insight into the character and psychological condition of the
Jewish people than he had ever done before. With these people, whom he
saw at close quarters for the first time, the yearning for Palestine,
he knew it for a fact, was no artificial pose. A genuine feeling was
at work within them, a feeling that had never become extinguished and
was now flaming up afresh under the stress of necessity. No one could
doubt that who had seen, as he had, the holy scorn shine out in their
looks when a speaker exclaimed that they must give up the hope of
Palestine for the time being and content themselves with settlements in
Africa and the Argentine. Why, he had seen old men, not uneducated men
either, no, learned and wise old men, weeping because they must needs
fear that that land of their fathers, which they themselves would never
be able to tread, even in the event of the realisation of the boldest
Zionist plans, would perhaps never be open to their children and their
children's children.

George listened with surprise, and was even somewhat moved.

But Heinrich, who had been walking up and down the field during Leo's
narrative, exclaimed that he regarded Zionism as the worst affliction
that had ever burst upon the Jews, and that Leo's own words had
convinced him of it more profoundly than any previous argument or
experience.

National feeling and religion, those had always been the words which
had embittered him with their wanton, yes malignant, ambiguity.
Fatherland.... Why, that was nothing more than a fiction, a political
idea floating in the air, changeable, intangible. It was only the home,
not the fatherland which had any real significance ... and so the
feeling of home was synonymous with the right to a home. And so far
as religions were concerned, he liked Christian and Jewish mythology
quite as much as Greek and Indian; but as soon as they began to force
their dogmas upon him, he found them all equally intolerable and
repulsive. And he felt himself akin with no one, no, not with any one
in the whole world: with the weeping Jews in Ble as little as with the
bawling Pan-Germans in the Austrian Parliament; with Jewish usurers
as little as with noble robber-knights; with a Zionist bar-keeper as
little as with a Christian Socialist grocer. And least of all would
the consciousness of a persecution which they had all suffered, and
of a hatred whose burden fell upon them all, make him feel linked
to men from whom he felt himself so far distant in temperament. He
did not mind recognising Zionism as a moral principle and a social
movement, if it could honestly be regarded in that light, but the idea
of the foundation of a Jewish state on a religious and national basis
struck him as a nonsensical defiance of the whole spirit of historical
evolution. "And you too, at the bottom of your heart," he explained,
standing still in front of Leo, "you don't think either that this goal
will ever prove attainable; why, you don't even wish it, although
you fancy yourself in your element trying to get there. What is your
home-country, Palestine? A geographical idea. What does the faith of
your father mean to you? A collection of customs which you have now
ceased to observe and some of which seem as ridiculous and in as bad
taste to you, as they do to me."

They went on talking for a long time, now vehemently and almost
offensively, then calmly, and in the honest endeavour to convince each
other. Frequently they were surprised to find themselves holding the
same opinion, only again to lose touch with each other the next moment
in a new contradiction. George, stretched on his cloak, listened to
them. His mind soon took the side of Leo, whose words seemed to thrill
with an ardent pity for the unfortunate members of his race, and who
would turn proudly away from people who would not treat him as their
equal. Soon he felt nearer again in spirit to Heinrich, who treated
with anger and scorn the attempt, as wild as it was short-sighted,
to collect from all the corners of the world the members of a race
whose best men had always merged in the culture of the land of their
adoption, or had at any rate contributed to it, and to send them all
together to a foreign land, a land to which no homesickness called
them. And George gradually appreciated how difficult those same picked
men about whom Heinrich had been speaking, the men who were hatching
in their souls the future of humanity, would find it to come to a
decision. How dazed must be their consciousness of their existence,
their value and their rights, tossed to and fro as they were between
defiance and exhaustion, between the fear of appearing importunate and
their bitter resentment at the demand that they must needs yield to an
insolent majority, between the inner consciousness of being at home
in the country where they lived and worked, and their indignation at
finding themselves persecuted and insulted in that very place. He saw
for the first time the designation Jew, which he himself had often used
flippantly, jestingly and contemptuously, in a quite new and at the
same time melancholy light. There dawned within him some idea of this
people's mysterious destiny, which always expressed itself in every one
who sprang from the race, not less in those who tried to escape from
that origin of theirs, as though it were a disgrace, a pain or a fairy
tale that did not concern them at all, than in those who obstinately
pointed back to it as though to a piece of destiny, an honour or an
historical fact based on an immovable foundation.

And as he lost himself in the contemplation of the two speakers,
and looked at their figures, which stood out in relief against
the reddish-violet sky in sharply-drawn, violently-moving lines,
it occurred to him, and not for the first time, that Heinrich who
insisted on being at home here, resembled both in figure and gesture
some fanatical Jewish preacher, while Leo, who wanted to go back to
Palestine with his people, reminded him in feature and in bearing of
the statue of a Greek youth which he had once seen in the Vatican or
the Naples museum. And he understood again quite well, as his eye
followed with pleasure Leo's lively aristocratic gestures, how Anna
could have experienced a mad fancy for her friend's brother years ago
in that summer by the seaside.

Heinrich and Leo were still standing opposite each other on the
grass, while their conversation became lost in a maze of words. Their
sentences rushed violently against each other, wrestled convulsively,
shot past each other and vanished into nothingness, and George noticed
at some moment or other that he was only listening to the sound of the
speeches, without being able to follow their meaning.

A cool breeze came up from the plain, and George got up from the
sward with a slight shiver. The others, who had almost forgotten his
presence, were thus called back again to actualities, and they decided
to leave. Full daylight still shone over the landscape, but the sun was
couched faint and dark on the long strip of an evening cloud.

"Conversations like this," said Heinrich, as he strapped his cloak
on to his cycle, "always leave me with a sense of dissatisfaction,
which even goes as far as a painful feeling in the neighbourhood of
the stomach. Yes really. They just lead absolutely nowhere. And after
all, what do political views matter to men who don't make politics
their career or their business? Do they exert the slightest influence
on the policy and moulding of existence? You, Leo, are just like
myself; neither of us will ever do anything else, can ever do anything
else, than just accomplish that which, in view of our character and
our capacities, we are able to accomplish. You will never migrate to
Palestine all your life long, even if Jewish states were founded and
you were offered a position as prime-minister, or at any rate official
pianist----"

"Oh, you can't know that," interrupted Leo.

"I know it for a certainty," said Heinrich. "That's why I'll admit,
into the bargain, that in spite of my complete indifference to every
single form of religion I would positively never allow myself to be
baptised, even if it were possible--though that is less the case to-day
than ever it was--of escaping once and for all Anti-Semitic bigotry and
villainy by a dodge like that."

"Hum," said Leo, "but supposing the mediaeval stake were to be lighted
again."

"In that case," retorted Heinrich, "I hereby solemnly bind myself to
take your advice implicitly."

"Oh," objected George, "those times will certainly not come again."

Both the others were unable to help laughing at George being kind
enough to reassure them in that way about their future, in the name, as
Heinrich observed, of the whole of Christendom.

In the meanwhile they had crossed the field.

George and Heinrich pushed their cycles forward up the bumpy by-road,
while Leo at their side walked on the turf with his cloak fluttering in
the wind. They were all silent for quite a time, as though exhausted.
At the place where the bad path turned off towards the broad high road,
Leo remained stationary and said: "We will have to leave each other
here, I am afraid." He shook hands with George and smiled. "You must
have been pretty well bored to-day," he said.

George blushed. "I say now, you must take me for a...."

Leo held George's hand in a firm grip. "I take you for a very shrewd
man and also for a very good sort. Do you believe me?"

George was silent.

"I should like to know," continued Leo, "whether you believe me,
George. I am keen on knowing." His voice assumed a tone of genuine
sincerity.

"Why, of course I believe you," replied George, still, however, with a
certain amount of impatience.

"I am glad," said Leo, "for I really feel a sympathy between us,
George." He looked straight into his eyes, then shook hands once more
with him and Heinrich and turned to go.

But George suddenly had the feeling that this young man who with his
fluttering cloak and his head slightly bent forward was striding
down-hill in the middle of the broad street was not waiting to any
"home," but to some foreign sphere somewhere, where no one could
follow him. He found this feeling all the more incomprehensible since
he had not only spent many hours recently with Leo in conversation at
the cafe, but had also received all possible information from Anna
about him, his family and his position in life. He knew that that
summer at the seaside, which now lay six years back, as did Anna's
youthful infatuation, had marked the last summer which the Golowski
family had enjoyed free from trouble, and that the business of the old
man had been completely ruined in the subsequent winter. It had been
extraordinary, according to Anna's account, how all the members of the
family had adapted themselves to the altered conditions, as though they
had been long prepared for this revolution. The family removed from
their comfortable house in the Rathaus quarter to a dismal street in
the neighbourhood of the Augarten. Herr Golowski undertook all kinds of
commission business while Frau Golowski did needlework for sale.

Therese gave lessons in French and English and at first continued to
attend the dramatic school. It was a young violin player belonging
to an impoverished noble Russian family who awakened her interest
in political questions. She soon abandoned her art, for which, as
a matter of fact, she had always shown more inclination than real
talent, and in a short time she was in the full swing of the Social
Democratic movement as a speaker and agitator. Leo, without agreeing
with her views, enjoyed her fresh and audacious character. He often
attended meetings with her, but as he was not keen on being impressed
by magniloquence, whether it took the form of promises which were never
fulfilled or of threats which disappeared into thin air, he found it
good fun to point out to her, on the way home, with an irresistible
acuteness, the inconsistencies in her own speeches and those of the
members of her party. But he always made a particular point of trying
to convince her that she would never have been able to forget so
completely her great mission for days and weeks on end, if her pity
for the poor and the suffering were really as deep an emotion as she
imagined.

Leo's own life, moreover, had no definite object. He attended technical
science lectures, gave piano lessons, sometimes went so far as to plan
out a musical career, and practised five or six hours a day for weeks
on end. But it was still impossible to forecast what he would finally
decide on. Inasmuch it was his way to wait almost unconsciously for a
miracle to save him from anything disagreeable, he had put off his year
of service till he was face to face with the final time-limit, and now
in his twenty-fifth year he was serving for the first time.

Their parents allowed Leo and Therese to go their own way, and in spite
of their manifold differences of opinion there seemed to be no serious
discord in the Golowski family. The mother usually sat at home, sewed,
knitted and crocheted, while the father went about his business with
increasing apathy, and liked best of all to watch the chess-players in
the cafe, a pleasure which enabled him to forget the ruin of his life.
Since the collapse of his business he seemed unable to shake off a
certain feeling of embarrassment towards his children, so that he was
almost proud when Therese would give him now and again an article which
she had written to read, or when Leo was good enough to play a game on
Sundays with him on the board he loved so well.

It always seemed to George as though his own sympathy for Leo were
fundamentally connected with Anna's long-past fancy for him. He felt,
and not for the first time, curiously attracted to a man to whom a soul
which now belonged to him, had flown in years gone by.

George and Heinrich had mounted their cycles, and were riding along a
narrow road through the thick forest that loomed darker and darker. A
little later, as the forest retreated behind them again on both sides,
they had the setting sun at their back, while the long shadows of their
bodies kept running along in front of their cycles. The <DW72> of the
road became more and more pronounced and soon led them between low
houses which were overhung with reddish foliage. A very old man sat in
a seat in front of the door, a pale child looked out of an open window.
Otherwise not a single human being was to be seen.

"Like an enchanted village," said George.

Heinrich nodded. He knew the place. He had been here with his love on
a wonderful summer day this year. He thought of it and burning longing
throbbed through his heart. And he remembered the last hours that he
had spent with her in Vienna in his cool room with the drawn-down
blinds, through whose interstices the hot August morning had glittered
in: he remembered their last walk through the Sunday quiet of the cool
stone streets and through the old empty courtyards--and the complete
absence of any idea that all this was for the last time. For it was
only the next day that the letter had come, the ghastly letter in which
she had written that she had wished to spare him the pain of farewell,
and that when he read these words, she would already be quite a long
way over the frontier on her journey to the new foreign town.

The road became more animated. Charming villas appeared encircled with
cosy little gardens, wooded hills sloped gently upwards behind the
houses. They saw once again the expanse of the valley as the waning day
rested over meadows and fields. The lamps had been lit in a great empty
restaurant garden. A hasty darkness seemed to be stealing down from
every quarter simultaneously. They were now at the cross-roads. George
and Heinrich got off and lit cigarettes.

"Right or left?" asked Heinrich.

George looked at his watch. "Six,... and I've got to be in town by
eight."

"So I suppose we can't dine together?" said Heinrich.

"I am afraid not."

"It's a pity. Well, we'll take the short cut then through Sievering."

They lit their lamps and pushed their cycles through the forest in a
long serpentine. One tree after another in succession sprang out of the
darkness into the radiance of the globes of light and retreated again
into the night. The wind soughed through the foliage with increased
force and the leaves rustled underneath. Heinrich felt a quite gentle
fear, such as frequently came over him when it was dark in the open
country. He felt, as it were, disillusioned at the thought of having to
spend the evening alone. He was in a bad temper with George, and was
irritated into the bargain at the latter's reserve towards himself.
He resolved also, and not for the first time, not to discuss his own
personal affairs with George any more. It was better so. He did not
need to confide in anybody or obtain anybody's sympathy. He had always
felt at his best when he had gone his own way alone. He had found
that out often enough. Why then reveal his soul to another? He needed
acquaintances to go walks and excursions with, and to discuss all the
manifold problems of life and art in cold shrewd fashion--he needed
women for a fleeting embrace; but he needed no friend and no mistress.
In that way his life would pass with greater dignity and serenity. He
revelled in these resolutions, and felt a growing consciousness of
toughness and superiority. The darkness of the forest lost its terror,
and he walked through the gently rustling night as though through a
kindred element.

The height was soon reached. The dark sky lay starless over the grey
road and the haze-breathing fields that stretched on both sides towards
the deceptive distance of the wooded hills. A light was shining from a
toll-house quite near them. They mounted their cycles again and rode
back as quickly as the darkness permitted. George wished to be soon
at the journey's end. It struck him as strangely unreal that he was
to see again in an hour and a half that quiet room which no one else
knew of besides Anna and himself; that dark room with the oil-prints on
the wall, the blue velvet sofa, the cottage piano, on which stood the
photographs of unknown people and a bust of Schiller in white plaster;
with its high narrow windows, opposite which the old dark grey church
towered aloft.

Lamps were burning all the way along. The roads again became more open
and they were given a last view of the heights. Then they went at top
speed, first between well-kept villas, finally through a populous noisy
main road until they got deeper into the town. They got off at the
Votive Church.

"Good-bye," said George, "and I hope to see you again in the cafe
to-morrow."

"I don't know ..." replied Heinrich, and as George looked at him
questioningly he added: "It is possible that I shall go away."

"I say, that is a sudden decision."

"Yes, one gets caught sometimes by...."

"Lovesickness," filled in George with a smile.

"Or fear," said Heinrich with a short laugh.

"You certainly have no cause for that," said George.

"Do you know for certain?" asked Heinrich.

"You told us so yourself."

"What!"

"That you have news every day."

"Yes, that is quite true, every day. I get tender ardent letters.
Every day by the same post. But what does that prove? Why, I write
letters which are yet more ardent and even more tender and yet...."

"Yes," said George, who understood him. And he hazarded the question:
"Why don't you stay with her?"

Heinrich shrugged his shoulders. "Tell me yourself, George, wouldn't it
strike you as slightly humorous for a man to burn his boats on account
of a love affair like that and trot about the world with a little
actress...."

"Personally, I should regret it very much ... but humorous ... where
does the humour come in?"

"No, I have no desire to do it," said Heinrich in a hard voice.

"But if you ... but if you were to take it very seriously ... if you
asked her point blank ... mightn't the young lady perhaps give up her
career?"

"Possibly, but I am not going to ask her, I don't want to ask her. No,
better pain than responsibility."

"Would it be such a great responsibility?" asked George. "What I mean
is ... is the girl's talent so pronounced, is she really so keen on her
art, that it would be really a sacrifice for her to give the thing up."

"Has she got talent?" said Heinrich. "Why, I don't know myself. Why, I
even think she is the one creature in the world about whose talent I
would not trust myself to give an opinion. Every time I have seen her
on the stage her voice has rung in my ears like the voice of an unknown
person, and as though, too, it came from a greater distance than all
the other voices. It is really quite remarkable.... But you are bound
to have seen her act, George. What's your impression? Tell me quite
frankly."

"Well, quite frankly ... I don't remember her properly. You'll excuse
me, I didn't know then, you see.... When you talk of her I always see
in my mind's eye a head of reddish-blonde hair that falls a little over
the forehead--and very big black roving eyes with a small pale face."

"Yes, roving eyes," repeated Heinrich, bit his lips and was silent for
a while. "Good-bye," he said suddenly.

"You'll be sure to write to me?" asked George.

"Yes, of course. Any way I am bound to be coming back again," he added,
and smiled stiffly.

"_Bon voyage_," said George, and shook hands with him with unusual
affection. This did Heinrich good. This warm pressure of the hand
not only made him suddenly certain that George did not think him
ridiculous, but also, strangely enough, that his distant mistress was
faithful to him and that he himself was a man who could take more
liberties with life than many others.

George looked after him as he hurried off on his cycle. He felt again
as he had felt a few hours before, on Leo's departure, that some one
was vanishing into an unknown land; and he realised at this moment that
in spite of all the sympathy he felt for both of them he would never
attain with either that unrestrained sense of intimacy which had united
him last year with Guido Schoenstein and previously with poor Labinski.

He reflected whether perhaps the fundamental reason for this was not
perhaps the difference of race between him and them, and he asked
himself whether leaving out of account the conversation between the
two of them, he would of his own initiative have realised so clearly
this feeling of aloofness. He doubted it. Did he not as a matter of
fact feel himself nearer, yes even more akin, to these two and to many
others of their race than to many men who came from the same stock as
his own? Why, did he not feel quite distinctly that deep down somewhere
there were many stronger threads of sympathy running between him and
those two men, than between him and Guido or perhaps even his own
brother? But if that was so, would he not have been bound to have taken
some opportunity this afternoon to have said as much to those two men?
to have appealed to them? "Just trust me, don't shut me out. Just try
to treat me as a friend...." And as he asked himself why he had not
done it, and why he had scarcely taken any part in their conversation,
he realised with astonishment that during the whole time he had not
been able to shake off a kind of guilty consciousness of having not
been free during his whole life from a certain hostility towards the
foreigners, as Leo called them himself, a kind of wanton hostility
which was certainly not justified by his own personal experience, and
had thus contributed his own share to that distrust and defiance with
which so many persons, whom he himself might have been glad to take an
opportunity to approach, had shut themselves off from him. This thought
roused an increasing _malaise_ within him which he could not properly
analyse, and which was simply the dull realisation that clean relations
could not flourish even between clean men in an atmosphere of folly,
injustice and disingenuousness.

He rode homewards faster and faster, as though that would make him
escape this feeling of depression. Arrived home, he changed quickly, so
as not to keep Anna waiting too long. He longed for her as he had never
done before. He felt as though he had come home from a far journey to
the one being who wholly belonged to him.




IV


George stood by the window. The stone backs of the bearded giants
who bore on their powerful arms the battered armorial bearings of a
long-past race were arched just beneath him. Straight opposite, out of
the darkness of ancient houses the steps crept up to the door of the
old grey church which loomed amid the falling flakes of snow as though
behind a moving curtain. The light of a street lamp on the square
shone palely through the waning daylight. The snowy street beneath,
which, though centrally situated, was remote from all bustle, was even
quieter than usual on this holiday afternoon, and George felt once
more, as indeed he always did when he ascended the broad staircase of
the old palace that had been transformed into an apartment house, and
stepped into the spacious room with its low-arched ceiling, that he was
escaping from his usual world and had entered the other half of his
wonderful double life.

He heard a key grating in the door and turned round. Anna came in.
George clasped her ecstatically in his arms, and kissed her on the
forehead and mouth. Her dark-blue jacket, her broad-rimmed hat, her fur
boa were all covered with snow.

"You have been working then," said Anna, as she took off her things and
pointed to the table where music paper with writing on it lay close to
the green-shaded lamp.

"I have just looked through the quintette, the first movement, there is
still a lot to do to it."

"But it will be extraordinarily fine then."

"We'll hope so. Do you come from home, Anna?"

"No, from Bittner's."

"What, to-day, Sunday?"

"Yes, the two girls have got a lot behind-hand through the measles, and
that has to be made up. I am very pleased too, for money reasons for
one thing."

"Making your fortune!"

"And then one escapes for an hour or two at any rate from the happy
home."

"Yes," said George, put Anna's boa over the back of a chair and stroked
the fur nervously with his fingers. Anna's remark, in which he could
detect a gentle reproach, as it were, a reproach too which he had
heard before, gave him an unpleasant feeling. She sat down on the
sofa, put her hands on her temples, stroked her dark blonde wavy hair
backwards and looked at George with a smile. He stood leaning on the
chest of drawers, with both hands in his jacket pocket, and began to
tell her of the previous evening, which he had spent with Guido and his
violinist. The young lady had, at the Count's wish, been for some weeks
taking instruction in the Catholic religion with the confessor of an
Arch-duchess; she, on her side, made Guido read Nietzsche and Ibsen.
But according to George's account the only result of this course of
study which one could report so far was that the Count had developed
the habit of nicknaming his Mistress "the Rattenmamsell," after that
wonderful character out of _Little Eyolf_.

Anna had nothing very bright to communicate about her last evening.
They had had visitors. "First," Anna told him, "my mother's two
cousins, then an office friend of my father's to play tarok. Even Josef
was domesticated for once and lay on the sofa from three to five. Then
his latest pal, Herr Jalaudek, who paid me quite a lot of attention."

"Really, really."

"He _was_ fascinating. I'll just tell you: a violet cravat with yellow
spots which puts yours quite into the shade. He paid me the honour too
of suggesting that I should help him in a so-called charity-performance
at the 'Wild Man,' for the benefit of the Wahringer Church Building
Society."

"Of course you accepted?"

"I excused myself on account of my lack of voice and want of religious
feeling."

"So far as the voice is concerned...."

She interrupted him. "No, George," she said lightly, "I have given up
that hope at last."

He looked at her and tried to read her glance, but it remained clear
and free. The organ from the church sounded softly and dully.

"Right," said George, "I have brought you the ticket for to-morrow's
'Carmen.'"

"Thanks very much," she answered, and took the card. "Are you going
too, dear?"

"Yes, I have a box in the third tier, and I have asked Bermann to come.
I am taking the music with me, as I did the other day at Lohengrin, and
I shall practise conducting again. At the back, of course. You can have
no idea what you learn that way. I should like to make a suggestion,"
he added hesitatingly. "Won't you come and have supper somewhere with
me and Bermann after the theatre?"

She was silent.

He continued: "I should really like it if you got to know him better.
With all his faults he is an interesting fellow and...."

"I am not a Rattenmamsell," she interrupted sharply, while her face
immediately assumed its stiff conventional expression.

George compressed the corners of his mouth. "That doesn't apply to me,
my dear child. There are many points of difference between Guido and
me. But as you like." He walked up and down the room.

She remained sitting on the ottoman. "So you are going to Ehrenbergs'
this evening?" she asked.

"You know I am. I have already refused twice recently, and I couldn't
very well do so this time."

"You needn't make any excuses, George, I am invited too."

"Where to?"

"I am going to Ehrenbergs' too."

"Really?" he exclaimed involuntarily.

"Why are you so surprised?" she asked sharply; "it is clear that they
don't yet know that I am not fit to be associated with any more."

"My dear Anna, what is the matter with you to-day? Why are you so
touchy? Supposing they did know ... do you think that would prevent
people from inviting you? Quite the contrary. I am convinced that you
would really go up in Frau Ehrenberg's respect."

"And the sweet Else, I suppose, would positively envy me. Don't you
think so? Anyway, she wrote me quite a nice letter. Here it is. Won't
you read it?" George ran his eye over it, thought its kindness was
somewhat deliberate, made no further remark and gave it back to Anna.

"Here is another one too, if it interests you."

"From Doctor Stauber. Indeed? Would he mind if he knew that you gave it
to me to read?"

"Why are you so considerate all of a sudden?" and as though to punish
him she added, "there are probably a great many things that he would
mind."

George read the letter quickly through to himself. Berthold described
in his dry way, with an occasional tinge of humour, the progress of
his work at the Pasteur Institute, his walks, his excursions and the
theatres he had visited, and quite a lot of remarks also of a general
character. But in spite of his eight pages the letter did not contain
the slightest allusion to either past or future. George asked casually
"How long is he staying in Paris?"

"As you see he doesn't write a single word about his return."

"Your friend Therese was recently of opinion that his colleagues in the
party would like to have him back again."

"Oh, has she been in the cafe again?"

"Yes. I spoke to her there two or three days ago. She really amuses me
a great deal."

"Really?"

"She starts off, of course, by always being very superior, even with
me. Presumably because I am one of those who rot away their life with
art and silly things like that, while there are so many more important
things to do in the world. But when she warms up a bit it turns out
that she is every bit as interested as we ordinary people in all kinds
of silly things."

"She easily gets warmed up," said Anna imperturbably.

George walked up and down and went on speaking. "She was really
magnificent the other day at the fencing tournament in the Musikverein
rooms. By-the-bye, who was the gentleman who was up there in the
gallery with her?"

Anna shrugged her shoulders. "I did not have the privilege of being at
the tournament, and besides, I don't know all Therese's cavaliers."

"I presume," said George, "it was a comrade, in every sense of the
term. At any rate he was very glum and was pretty badly dressed.
When Therese clapped Felician's victory he positively collapsed with
jealousy."

"What did Therese really tell you about Doctor Berthold?" asked Anna.

"Ho, ho!" said George jestingly, "the lady still appears to be keenly
interested."

Anna did not answer.

"Well," reported George, "I can give you the information that they want
to make him stand in the autumn for the Landtag. I can quite understand
it too, in view of his brilliant gifts as a speaker."

"What do you know about it? Have you ever heard him speak?"

"Of course I have; don't you remember? At your place."

"There is really no occasion for you to make fun of him."

"I assure you I'd no idea of doing so."

"I noticed at once that he struck you at the time as somewhat funny. He
and his father, too. Why, you immediately ran away from them."

"Not at all, Anna. You are doing me a great injustice in making such
insinuations."

"They may have their weaknesses, both of them, but at any rate they
belong to the people whom one can count on. And that is something."

"Have I disputed that, Anna? Upon my word, I have never heard you talk
so illogically. What do you want me to do then? Did you want me by any
chance to be jealous about that letter?"

"Jealous? that would be the finishing touch. You with your past."

George shrugged his shoulders. Memories swam up in his mind of similar
wrangles in the course of previous relationships, memories of those
mysterious sudden discords and estrangements which usually simply meant
the beginning of the end. Had he really got as far as all that already
with his good sensible Anna? He walked up and down the room moodily and
almost depressed. At times he threw a fleeting glance towards his love
who sat silent in her corner of the sofa, rubbing her hands lightly as
though she were cold. The organ rang out more heavily than before in
the silence of the room that had suddenly become so melancholy; the
voices of singing men became audible and the window-panes rattled
softly. George's glance fell on the little Christmas-tree which stood
on the sideboard and whose candles had burnt the evening before last
for the benefit of Anna and himself. Half-bored, half-nervous, he took
a wooden vesta out of his pocket and began to light the little candles
one after another.

Then Anna's voice suddenly rang out to him. "There is no one I should
prefer to old Doctor Stauber to confide in about anything serious."

George turned coldly towards her and blew out a burning vesta which
he still held in his hand. He knew immediately what Anna meant, and
felt surprised that he had never given it another thought since their
last meeting. He went up to her and took hold of her hand. Now for the
first time she looked up. Her expression was impenetrable, her features
immobile. "I say, Anna...." He sat down by her side on the ottoman with
both her hands in his.

She was silent.

"Why don't you speak?"

She shrugged her shoulders. "There is nothing new to tell you," she
explained simply.

"I see," he said slowly. It passed through his mind that her strange
sensitiveness to-day was to be regarded as symptomatic of the condition
to which she was alluding, and the uneasiness in his soul increased.
"But you can't tell definitely for a good time yet," he said in a
somewhat cooler tone than he really meant. "And ... even supposing ..."
he added with artificial cheerfulness.

"So you would forgive me?" she asked with a smile.

He pressed her to him and suddenly felt quite transported. A vivid and
almost pathetic feeling of love flamed up in him for the soft good
creature whom he held in his arms, and who could never occasion him,
he felt deeply convinced, any serious suffering. "It really wouldn't
be so bad," he said cheerily, "you would just leave Vienna for a time,
that's all."

"Well, it certainly wouldn't be as simple as you seem all of a sudden
to think it would."

"Why not? You can soon find an excuse; besides, whom does it concern?
Us two. No one else. But as far as I am concerned. I can get away any
day as you know; can stay away too as long as I want to. I have not
yet signed any contract for next year," he added with a smile. He then
got up to put out the Christmas candles, whose tiny flames had almost
burnt down to the end, and went on speaking with increasing liveliness.
"It would be positively delightful; just think of it, Anna! We should
go away at the end of February or the beginning of March. South, of
course, Italy, or perhaps the sea. We would stay at some quiet place
where no one knows us, in a beautiful hotel with enormous grounds. And
wouldn't one be able to work there, by Jove?"

"So that's why!" she said, as though she suddenly understood him. He
laughed, held her more tightly in his arms and she pressed herself
against his breast. There was no longer any noise from outside. The
last sounds of the organ and the men's voices had died away. The snow
curtains swept down in front of the window.... George and Anna were
happy as they had never been before.

While they were at peace in the darkness he spoke about his musical
plans for the near future, and told her, so far as he was able, about
Heinrich's opera plot. The room became filled with shimmering shadows.
The clatter of a wedding-feast swept through the fantastic hall of an
ancient king. A passionate youth stole in and thrust his dagger into
the prince. A dark sentence was pronounced more sinister than death
itself. A sluggish ship sailed on a darkling flood towards an unknown
goal. At the youth's feet there rested a princess, who had once been
the betrothed of a duke. An unknown man approached the shining boat
with strange tidings; fools, star-gazers, dancers, courtiers swept
past. Anna had listened in silence. When he had finished George was
curious to learn what impression the fleeting pictures had made upon
her.

"I can't say properly," she replied. "I certainly feel quite puzzled
to-day, how you are going to make anything real out of this more or
less fantastic stuff."

"Of course you can't realise it yet to-day--particularly after just
hearing me describe it.... But you do feel, don't you? the musical
atmosphere. I have already noted down a few _motifs_--and I should be
really very glad if Bermann would soon get to work seriously."

"If I were you, George ... may I tell you something?"

"Of course, fire ahead."

"Well, if I were you, I'd first get the quintette really finished. It
can't want much doing to it now."

"Not much, and yet ... besides, you mustn't forget that I've started
all kinds of other things lately. The two pianoforte pieces, then the
orchestra _scherzo_--I've already got pretty far with that. But it
certainly ought to be made part of a symphony."

Anna made no answer. George noticed that her thoughts were roving, and
he asked her where she had run away to this time.

"Not so far," she replied; "it only just passed through my mind what a
lot of things can happen before the opera is really ready."

"Yes," said George slowly, with a slight trace of embarrassment. "If
one could just look into the future."

She sighed quite softly and he pressed her nearer to him, almost as
though he pitied her. "Don't worry, my darling, don't worry," he said.
"I am here all right, and I always shall be here." He thought he felt
what she was thinking; can't he say anything better than that?...
anything stronger? anything to take away all my fear--take it away from
me for ever? And he asked her disingenuously, as though conscious of
running a risk: "What are you thinking of?" And as she was obstinately
silent he said once more: "Anna, what are you thinking of?"

"Something very strange," she answered gently.

"What is it?"

"That the house is already built, where it will come into the
world--that we have no idea where ... that is what I couldn't help
thinking of."

"Thinking of that!" he said, strangely moved. And pressing her to his
heart with a love that flamed up afresh, "I will never desert you, you
two...."

When the room was lighted again they were in very good spirits,
plucked the last forgotten sweets from the branches of the little
Christmas-tree and looked forward to their next meeting among people
who were absolutely indifferent to them, as though it were quite a
jolly adventure, laughed and talked exuberant nonsense.

As soon as Anna had gone away George locked his music manuscript up in
a drawer, put out the lamp and opened the window. The snow was falling
lightly and thinly. An old man was coming up the steps and his laboured
breathing sounded through the still air. Opposite the silent church
towered aloft ... George remained awhile standing at the window. He
felt almost convinced at this moment that Anna was mistaken in her
surmise. He felt almost reassured as there came into his mind that
remark of Leo Golowski's that Anna was destined to end her days in
respectable middle-class life. Having a child by a lover really could
not be part of her fate line. It was not part of his fate line either
to carry the burden of serious obligation, to be tied fast from to-day
and perhaps for all time to a person of the other sex; to become a
father when he was still so young, a father ... the word sank into his
soul, oppressive, almost sinister.

He went into the Ehrenbergs' drawing-room at eight o'clock in the
evening. He was met by the sound of waltz music. Old Eissler sat at the
piano with his long grey beard almost drooping on to the keys. George
remained at the entrance in order not to disturb him, and met welcoming
glances from every quarter. Old Eissler was playing his celebrated
Viennese dances and songs with a soft touch and powerful rhythm, and
George enjoyed, as he always did, the sweet crooning melodies.

"Splendid," said Frau Ehrenberg, when the old man got up.

"Keep your big words for great occasions, Leonie," answered Eissler,
whose time-honoured privilege it was to call all women and girls by
their Christian names. And it seemed to do everybody good to hear
themselves spoken to by this handsome old man with his deep ringing
voice, in which there quivered frequently, as it were, a sentimental
echo of the vivid days of his youth.

George asked him if all his compositions had appeared in print.

"Very few, dear Baron. Unfortunately I can scarcely write a single
note."

"It would certainly be an awful pity if these charming melodies were to
be absolutely lost."

"Yes, I have often told him that," put in Frau Ehrenberg, "but
unfortunately he is one of those men who have never taken themselves
quite seriously."

"No, that is a mistake, Leonie. You know how I began my artistic
career: I wanted to compose a great opera. Of course I was seventeen
years old at the time and madly in love with a great singer."

Frau Oberberger's voice rang out from the table towards the corner: "I
am sure it was a chorus girl."

"You are making a mistake, Katerina," answered Eissler. "Chorus girls
were never my line. It was, as a matter of fact, a platonic love, like
most of the great passions of my life."

"Were you so clumsy?" queried Frau Oberberger.

"I was often that as well," replied Eissler, in his sonorous voice and
with dignity. "For as far as I can see I could have had as much luck as
a hussar riding-master, but I don't regret having been clumsy."

Frau Ehrenberger nodded appreciatively.

"Then one would not be making a mistake, Herr Eissler," remarked
Nuernberger, "if one attributed the chief part in your life to
melancholy memories?"

Frau Ehrenberger nodded again. She was delighted whenever any one was
witty in her drawing-room.

"Why did you say," she inquired, "that you could have had as much
happiness as a hussar riding-master? It is not true for a minute
that officers have any particular luck with women, even though my
sister-in-law once had an affair with a First-Lieutenant...."

"I don't believe in platonic love," said Sissy, and beamed through the
room.

Frau Wyner gave a slight shriek.

"Fraeulein Sissy is probably right," said Nuernberger; "at any rate I am
convinced that most women take platonic love either as an insult or an
excuse."

"There are young girls here," Frau Ehrenberg reminded him gently.

"One sees that already," said Nuernberger, "from the fact of their
joining in the conversation."

"All the same, I would like to take the liberty of adding a little
anecdote to the chapter of platonic love," said Heinrich.

"But not a Jewish one," put in Else.

"Of course not. A blonde little girl...."

"That proves nothing," interrupted Else.

"Please let him finish his story," remonstrated Frau Ehrenberg.

"Well then, a blonde little girl," began Heinrich again, "once
expressed her conviction to me, quite different, you see, from Fraeulein
Sissy, that platonic love did, as a matter of fact, exist, and do you
know what she suggested as a proof of it? giving ... an experience out
of her own life. She had, you know, once spent a whole hour in a room
with a lieutenant and...."

"That is enough!" cried Frau Ehrenberg nervously.

"And," finished Heinrich, quite unperturbed and in a reassuring voice,
"nothing at all happened in that hour."

"So the blonde girl says," added Else.

The door opened. George saw a strange lady enter in a clear blue
square-cut dress, pale, simple and dignified. It was only when she
smiled that he realised that the lady was Anna Rosner, and he felt
something like pride in her.

When he shook hands with his love he felt Else's look turn towards him.

They went into the next room, where the table was laid with a moderate
show of festivity. The son of the house was not there. He was at
Neuhaus at his father's factory. But Herr Ehrenberg suddenly turned up
at the table when the supper was served. He had just come back from
his travels, which as a matter of fact had taken him to Palestine.
When he was asked by Hofrat Wilt about his experiences he was at first
reluctant to let himself go; finally it turned out that he had been
disappointed in the scenery, annoyed by the fatigue of the journey, and
had practically seen nothing of the Jewish settlements which, according
to reliable information, were in process of springing up.

"So we have some ground to hope," remarked Nuernberger, "that we may
keep you here even in the event of a Jewish state being founded in the
imminent future?"

Ehrenberg answered brusquely: "Did I ever tell you that I intended to
emigrate? I am too old for that."

"Really," said Nuernberger, "I didn't know that you had only visited
the district for the benefit of Fraeulein Else and Herr Oskar."

"I am not going to quarrel with you, my dear Nuernberger. Zionism is
really too good to serve as small talk at meals."

"We'll take it for granted," said Hofrat Wilt, "that it is too good,
but it is certainly too complicated, if only for the reason that
everybody understands something different by it."

"Or wants to understand," added Nuernberger, "as is usually the case
with most catchwords, not only in politics either--that's why there is
so much twaddle talked in the world."

Heinrich explained that of all human creatures the politician
represented in his eyes the most enigmatic phenomenon. "I can
understand," he said, "pickpockets, acrobats, bank--directors,
hotel--proprietors, kings ... I mean I can manage without any
particular trouble to put myself into the souls of all these people.
Of course the logical result is that I should only need certain
alterations in degree, though no doubt enormous ones, to qualify myself
to play in the world the role of acrobat, king or bank-director. On
the other hand I have an infallible feeling that even if I could
raise myself to the _n_th power I could never become what one calls a
politician, a leader of a party, a member, a minister."

Nuernberger smiled at Heinrich's theory of the politician representing
a particular type of humanity, inasmuch as it was only one of the
superficial and by no means essential attributes of his profession
to pose as a special human type, and to hide his greatness or his
insignificance, his feats or his idleness behind labels, abstractions
and symbols. What the nonentities or charlatans among them represented,
why, that was obvious: they were simply business people or swindlers or
glib speakers, but the people who really counted, the people who did
things--the real geniuses of course, they at the bottom of their souls
were simply artists. They too tried to create a work, and one, too,
that raised in the sphere of ideas quite as much claim to immortality
and permanent value as any other work of art. The only difference was
that the material in which they worked was one that was not rigid or
relatively stable, like tones or words, but that, like living men, it
was in a continual state of flux and movement.

Willy Eissler appeared, apologised to his hostess for being late, sat
down between Sissy and Frau Oberberger and greeted his father like a
friend long lost. It turned out that though they both lived together
they had not seen each other for several days.

Willy was complimented all round on his success in the aristocratic
amateur performance where he had played the part of a marquis with the
Countess Liebenburg-Rathony in a French one-act play. Frau Oberberger
asked him, in a voice sufficiently loud for her neighbours to catch it,
where his assignations with the countess took place and if he received
her in the same _pied-a-terre_ quarter as his more middle-class flames.
The conversation became more lively, dialogues were exchanged and
became intertwined all over the room.

But George caught isolated snatches, including part of a conversation
between Anna and Heinrich which dealt with Therese Golowski. He noticed
at the same time that Anna would occasionally throw a dark inquisitive
look at Demeter Stanzides, who had appeared to-night in evening
dress with a gardenia in his buttonhole; and though he had no actual
consciousness of jealousy he felt strangely affected. He wondered if
at this moment she was really thinking that she was perhaps bearing
a child by him under her bosom. The idea of "the depths ..." came to
him again. She suddenly looked over to him with a smile, as though she
were coming home from a journey. He felt an inner sense of relief and
appreciated with a slight shock how much he loved her. Then he raised
his glass to his lips and drank to her. Else, who up to this time had
been chatting with her other neighbour Demeter, now turned to George.
With her deliberately casual manner and with a look towards Anna she
remarked: "She does look pretty, so womanly. But that's always been her
line. Do you still do music together?"

"Frequently," replied George coolly.

"Perhaps I'll ask you to start accompanying me again at the beginning
of the new year. I don't know why we have not done so before."

George was silent.

"And how are you getting on"--she threw a look at Heinrich--"with your
opera?"

"Nothing is done so far. Who knows if anything will come of it?"

"Of course nothing will come of it."

George smiled. "Why are you so stern with me to-day?"

"I am very angry with you."

"With me! Why?"

"That you always go on giving people occasion to regard you as a
dilettante."

This was a home thrust. George actually felt a slight sense of malice
against Else, then quickly pulled himself together and answered: "That
perhaps is just what I am. And if one isn't a genius it is much better
to be an honest dilettante than ... than an artist with a swollen head."

"Nobody wants you to do great things all at once, but all the same one
really should not let oneself go in the way you do in both your inner
and your outward life."

"I really don't understand you, Else. How can one contend.... Do you
know that I am going to Germany in the autumn as a conductor?"

"Your career will be ruined by your not turning up to the rehearsals at
ten o'clock sharp."

The taunt was still gnawing at George. "And who called me a dilettante,
if I may ask?"

"Who did? Good gracious, why it has already been in the papers."

"Really," said George feeling reassured, for he now remembered that
after the concert in which Fraeulein Bellini had sung his songs a critic
had described him as an aristocratic dilettante. George's friends had
explained at the time that the reason for this malicious critique
was that he had omitted to call on the gentleman in question, who
was notoriously vain. So that was it once again. There were always
extrinsic reasons for people criticising one unfavourably, and Else's
touchiness to-day, what was it at bottom but sheer jealousy....

The table was cleared. They went into the drawing-room.

George went up to Anna, who was leaning on the piano, and said gently
to her: "You do look beautiful, dear."

She nodded with satisfaction.

He then went on to ask: "Did you have a pleasant talk with Heinrich?
What did you speak about? Therese, isn't that so?"

She did not answer, and George noticed with surprise that her eyelids
suddenly drooped and that she began to totter. "What is the matter?" he
asked, frightened.

She did not hear him, and would have fallen down if he had not quickly
caught hold of her by the wrists. At the same moment Frau Ehrenberg and
Else came up to her.

"Did they notice us?" thought George.

Anna had already opened her eyes again, gave a forced smile and
whispered: "Oh, it is nothing. I often stand the heat so badly."

"Come along!" said Frau Ehrenberg in a motherly tone. "Perhaps you will
lie down for a moment."

Anna, who seemed dazed, made no answer and the ladies of the house
escorted her into an adjoining room.

George looked round. The guests did not seem to have noticed anything.
Coffee was handed round. George took a cup and played nervously with
his spoon. "So after all," he thought, "she will not finish up in
middle-class life." But at the same time he felt as far away from her
psychologically, as though the matter had no personal interest for him.

Frau Oberberger came up to him. "Well, what do you really think about
platonic love? You are an expert, you know."

He answered absent-mindedly. She went on talking, as was her way,
without bothering whether he was listening or answering. Suddenly Else
returned. George inquired how Anna was, with polite sympathy.

"I am certain it is not anything serious," said Else and looked him
strangely in the face.

Demeter Stanzides came in and asked her to sing.

"Will you accompany me?" She turned to George.

He bowed and sat down at the piano.

"What shall it be?" asked Else.

"Anything you like," replied Wilt, "but nothing modern." After supper
he liked to play the reactionary at any rate in artistic matters.

"Right you are," said Else, and gave George a piece of music.

She sang the _Das Alte Bild_ of Hugo Wolf in her small well-trained and
somewhat pathetic voice. George played a refined accompaniment, though
he felt somewhat _distrait_. In spite of his efforts he could not help
feeling a little annoyed about Anna. After all no one seemed to have
really noticed the incident except Frau Ehrenberg and Else.

After all, what did it really come to?... Supposing they did all
know?... Whom did it concern? Yes, who bothered about it? Why, they are
all listening to Else now, he continued mentally, and appreciating the
beauty of this song. Even Frau Oberberger, though she is not a bit
musical, is forgetting that she is a woman for a few minutes and her
face is quiet and sexless. Even Heinrich is listening spell-bound and
perhaps for the moment is neither thinking of his work, nor of the fate
of the Jews, nor of his distant mistress. Is perhaps not even giving
a single thought to his present mistress, the little blonde girl, to
please whom he has recently begun to dress smartly. As a matter of
fact he does not look at all bad in evening dress, and his tie is not
a ready-made one, such as he usually wears, but is carefully tied....
Who is standing so close behind me? thought George, so that I can feel
her breath over my hair.... Perhaps Sissy.... If the world were to be
destroyed to-morrow morning it would be Sissy whom I should choose
for to-night. Yes, I am sure of it. And there goes Anna with Frau
Ehrenberg; it seems I am the only one who notices it, although I have
got to attend simultaneously to both my own playing and Else's singing.
I welcome her with my eyes. Yes, I welcome you, mother of my child....
How strange life is!...

The song was at an end. The company applauded and asked for more.
George played Else's accompaniment to some other songs by Schumann,
by Brahms; and finally, by general request, two of his own, which had
become distasteful to him personally, since somebody or other had
suggested that they were reminiscent of Mendelssohn.

While he was accompanying he felt that he was losing all touch with
Else and therefore made a special effort in his playing to win back
again her sense of sympathy. He played with exaggerated sensibility, he
specifically wooed her and felt that it was in vain. For the first time
in his life he was her unhappy lover.

The applause after George's songs was great.

"That was your best period," said Else gently to him while she put the
music away, "two or three years ago."

The others made kind remarks to him without going into distinctions
about the periods of his artistic development.

Nuernberger declared that he had been most agreeably disillusioned by
George's songs. "I will not conceal the fact from you," he remarked,
"that going by the views I have frequently heard you express, my dear
Baron, I should have imagined them considerably less intelligible."

"Quite charming, really," said Wilt, "all so simple and melodious
without bombast or affectation."

"And he is the man," thought George grimly, "who dubbed me a
dilettante."

Willy came up to him. "Now you just say, Herr Hofrat, that you can
manage to whistle them, and if I know anything about physiognomy the
Baron will send two gentlemen to see you in the morning."

"Oh no," said George, pulling himself together and smiling;
"fortunately, the songs were written in a period which I have long
since got over, so I don't feel wounded by any blame or by any praise."

A servant brought in ices, the groups broke up and Anna stood alone
with George by the pianoforte.

He asked her quickly "What does it really mean?"

"I don't know," she replied, and looked at him in astonishment.

"Do you feel quite all right now?"

"Absolutely," she answered.

"And is to-day the first time you have had anything like it?" asked
George, somewhat hesitatingly.

She answered: "I had something like it yesterday evening at home. It
was a kind of faintness. It lasted some time longer, while we were
sitting at supper, but nobody noticed it."

"But why did you tell me nothing about it?"

She shrugged her shoulders lightly.

"I say, Anna dear," he said, and smiled guiltily, "I would like to
have a word with you at any rate. Give me a signal when you want to
go away. I will clear out a few minutes before you, and will wait by
the Schwarzenbergplatz till you come along in a fly. I'll get in and we
will go for a little drive. Does that suit you?"

She nodded.

He said: "Good-bye, darling," and went into the smoking-room.

Old Ehrenberg, Nuernberger and Wilt had sat down at a green card-table
to play tarok. Old Eissler and his son were sitting opposite each
other in two enormous green leather arm-chairs and were utilising the
opportunity to have a good chat with one another after all this time.
George took a cigarette out of a box, lighted it and looked at the
pictures on the wall with particular interest. He saw Willy's name
written in pale red letters down below in the corner on the green field
in a water-colour painted in the grotesque style, that represented
a hurdle race ridden by gentlemen in red hunting-coats. He turned
involuntarily to the young man and said: "I never knew that one before."

"It is fairly new," remarked Willy lightly.

"Smart picture, eh?" said old Eissler.

"Oh, something more than that," replied George.

"Yes, I hope to be able to look forward to doing something better than
that," said Willy.

"He is going to Africa, lion hunting," explained old Eissler, "with
Prince Wangenheim. Felician is also supposed to be of the party, but he
has not yet decided."

"Why not?" asked Willy.

"He wants to pass his diplomatic examination in the spring."

"But that could be put off," said Willy; "lions are dying out, but
unfortunately one can't say the same thing of professors."

"Book me for a picture, Willy," called out Ehrenberg from the
card-table.

"You play the Maecenas later on, father Ehrenberg?" said Willy. "As I've
said, I'll take you two on."[1]

"Raise you," replied Ehrenberg, and continued: "If I can order anything
for myself, Willy, please paint me a desert landscape showing Prince
Wangenheim being gobbled up by the lions ... but as realistic as
possible."

"You are making a mistake about the person, Herr Ehrenberg," said
Willy; "the celebrated Anti-Semite you are referring to is the cousin
of my Wangenheim."

"For all I care," replied Ehrenberg, "the lions, too, may be making a
mistake. Every Anti-Semite, you know, isn't bound to be celebrated."

"You will ruin the party if you don't look out," admonished Nuernberger.

"You should have bought an estate and settled in Palestine," said
Hofrat Wilt.

"God save me from that," replied Ehrenberg.

"Well, since he has done that in everything up to the present," said
Nuernberger, and put down his hand.

"It seems to me, Nuernberger, that you are reproaching me again for not
goin' about peddlin' ole clo'."

"Then you would certainly have the right to complain of Anti-Semitism,"
said Nuernberger, "for who feels anything of it in Austria except the
peddlars ... only they, one might almost say."

"And some people with a sense of self-respect," retorted Ehrenberg.
"Twenty-seven ... thirty-one ... thirty-eight.... Well, who's won the
game?"

Willy had gone back into the drawing-room again. George sat smoking
on the arm of an easy-chair. He suddenly noticed old Eissler's look
directed towards him in a strange benevolent manner and felt himself
reminded of something without knowing what.

"I had a few words the other day," said the old gentleman, "with your
brother Felician at Schoenstein's; it is striking how you resemble your
poor father, especially to one like me, who knew your father as a young
man."

It flashed across George at once what old Eissler's look reminded him
of. Old Doctor Stauber's eyes had rested on him at Rosner's with the
same fatherly expression.

"These old Jews!" he thought sarcastically, but in a remote corner
of his soul he felt somewhat moved. It came into his mind that his
father had often gone for morning walks in the Prater with Eissler, for
whose knowledge of art he had had a great respect. Old Eissler went on
speaking.

"You, George, take after your mother more, I think."

"Many say so. It is very hard to judge, oneself."

"They say your mother had such a beautiful voice."

"Yes, in her early youth. I myself never really heard her sing. Of
course she tried now and again. Two or three years before her death a
doctor in Meran even advised her to practise singing. The idea was that
it should be a good exercise for her lungs, but unfortunately it wasn't
much of a success."

Old Eissler nodded and looked in front of him. "I suppose you probably
won't be able to remember that my poor wife was in Meran at the same
time as your late mother?"

George racked his memory. It had escaped him.

"I once travelled in the same compartment as your father," said old
Eissler, "at night time. We were both unable to sleep. He told me a
great deal about you two--you and Felician I mean."

"Really...."

"For instance, that when you were a boy you had played one of your own
compositions to some Italian _virtuoso_, and that he had foretold a
great future for you."

"Great future.... Great heavens, but it wasn't a virtuoso, Herr
Eissler. It was a clergyman, from whom, as a matter of fact, I learned
to play the organ."

Eissler continued: "And in the evening, when your mother had gone to
bed, you would often improvise for hours on end in the room."

George nodded and sighed quietly. It seemed as though he had had much
more talent at that time. "Work!" he thought ardently, "work!..."

He looked up again. "Yes," he said humorously, "that is always the
trouble, infant prodigies so seldom come to anything."

"I hear you want to be a conductor, Baron."

"Yes," replied George resolutely, "I am going to Germany next autumn.
Perhaps as an accompanist first in the municipal theatre of some little
town, just as it comes along."

"But you would not have any objection to a Court theatre?"

"Of course not. What makes you say that, Herr Eissler? if it is not a
rude question."

"I know quite well," said Eissler with a smile, as he dropped his
monocle, "that you have not sought out my help, but I can quite
appreciate on the other hand that you would not mind perhaps being able
to get on without the intermediaryship of agents and others of that
kind.... I don't mean because of the commissions."

George remained cold. "When one has once decided to take up a
theatrical career one knows at the same time all that one's bargaining
for."

"Do you know Count Malnitz by any chance?" inquired Eissler, quite
unconcerned by George's air of worldly wisdom.

"Malnitz! Do you mean Count Eberhard Malnitz, who had a suite performed
a few years ago?"

"Yes, I mean him."

"I don't know him personally, and as for the suite...."

With a wave of the hand Eissler dismissed the composer Malnitz. "He has
been manager at Detmold since the beginning of this season," he then
said. "That is why I asked you if you knew him. He is a great friend
of mine of long standing. He used to live in Vienna. For the last ten
or twelve years we have been meeting every year in Carlsbad or Ischl.
This year we want to make a little Mediterranean trip at Easter. Will
you allow me, my dear Baron, to take an opportunity of mentioning
your name to him, and telling him something about your plans to be a
conductor?"

George hesitated to answer, and smiled politely.

"Oh please don't regard my suggestion as officious, my dear Baron. If
you don't wish it, of course I will sit tight."

"You misunderstand my silence," replied George amiably, but not without
_hauteur_; "but I really don't know...."

"I think a little Court theatre like that," continued Eissler, "is
just the right place for you for the beginning. The fact of your
belonging to the nobility won't hurt you at all, not even with my
friend Malnitz, however much he likes to play the democrat, or even at
times the anarchist ... with the exception of bombs, of course; but he
is a charming man and really awfully musical.... Even though he isn't
exactly a composer."

"Well," replied George, somewhat embarrassed, "if you would have the
kindness to speak to him.... I can't afford to let any chance slip. At
any rate, I thank you very much."

"Not at all, I don't guarantee success, it is just a chance, like any
other."

Frau Oberberger and Sissy came in, escorted by Demeter.

"What interesting conversation are we interrupting?" said Frau
Oberberger. "The experienced platonic lover and the inexperienced rake?
One should really have been there."

"Don't upset yourself, Katerina," said Eissler, and his voice had again
its deep vibrating ring. "One sometimes talks about other things, such
as the future of the human race."

Sissy put a cigarette between her lips, allowed George to give her a
light and sat down in the corner of the green leather sofa. "You are
not bothering about me at all to-day," she began with that English
accent of hers which George liked so well. "As though I positively
didn't exist. Yes, that's what it is. I am really a more constant
nature than you are, am I not?"

"You constant, Sissy?"... He pushed an arm-chair quite near to her.
They spoke of the past summer and the one that was coming.

"Last year," said Sissy, "you gave me your word you would come wherever
I was, and you didn't do it. This year you must keep your word."

"Are you going into the Isle of Wight again?"

"No, I am going into the mountains this time, to the Tyrol or the
Salzkammergut. I will let you know soon. Will you come?"

"But you are bound to have a large following anywhere."

"I won't trouble about any one except you, George."

"Even supposing Willy Eissler happens to stay in your vicinity?"

"Oh," she said, with a wanton smile and put out her cigarette by
pressing it violently upon the glass ash-tray.

They went on talking. It was just like one of those conversations
they had had so often during the last few years. It began lightly and
flippantly, and eventually finished in a blaze of tender lies which
were true for just one moment. George was once again fascinated by
Sissy.

"I would really prefer to go travelling with you," he whispered quite
near her.

She just nodded. Her left arm rested on the broad back of the ottoman.
"If one could only do as one wanted," she said, with a look that dreamt
of a hundred men.

He bent down over her trembling arm, went on speaking and became
intoxicated with his own words. "Somewhere where nobody knows us, where
nobody bothers about any one, that is where I should like to be with
you, Sissy, many days and nights."

Sissy shuddered. The word "nights" made her shudder with fear.

Anna appeared in the doorway, signalled to George with a look and then
disappeared again. He felt an inward sense of reluctance, and yet he
felt that this was just the psychological moment to leave Sissy.

In the doorway of the drawing-room he met Heinrich, who accosted him.
"If you are going you might tell me, I should like to speak to you."

"Delighted! But I must ... promised to see Fraeulein Rosner home, you
see. I'll come straight to the cafe, so till then...."

A few minutes later he was standing on the Schwarzenberg bridge. The
sky was full of stars, the streets stretched out wide and silent.
George turned up his coat collar, although it was no longer cold, and
walked up and down. Will anything come of the Detmold business? he
thought. Oh well, if it is not in Detmold it will be in some town or
other. At any rate I mean real business now, and a great deal, a great
deal will then lie behind me.

He tried to consider the matter quietly. How will it all turn out?
We are now at the end of December. We must go away in March--at the
latest. We shall be taken for a honeymoon couple. I shall go walking
with her arm-in-arm in Rome and Posilippo, in Venice.... There are
women who grow very ugly in that condition ... but not she, no,
not she.... There was always a certain touch of the mother in her
appearance.... She must stay the summer in some quiet neighbourhood
where no one knows her ... in the Thuringian Forest perhaps, or by
the Rhine.... How strangely she said that to-day. The house in which
the child will come into the world is already in existence. Yes....
Somewhere in the distance, or perhaps quite near here, that house is
standing.... And people are living there whom we have never seen. How
strange.... When will it come into the world? At the end of the summer,
about the beginning of September. By that time, too, I am bound to
have gone away. How shall I manage it?... And a year from to-day the
little creature will be already four months old. It will grow up ...
become big. There will be a young man there one fine day, my son, or a
young girl; a beautiful little girl of seven, my daughter.... I shall
be forty-four then.... When I am sixty-four I can be a grandfather ...
perhaps a director of an opera or two and a celebrated composer in
spite of Else's prophecies; but one has got to work for that, that is
quite true. More than I have done so far. Else is right, I let myself
go too much, I must be different ... I shall too. I feel a change
taking place within me. Yes, something new is taking place within me
also.

A fly came out of the Heugasse, some one bent out of the window. George
recognised Anna's face under the white shawl. He was very glad, got
in and kissed her hand. They enjoyed their talk, joked a little about
the party from which she had just come and found it really ridiculous
to spend an evening in so inept a fashion. He held her hands in his
and was affected by her presence. He got out in front of her house and
rung. He then came to the open door of the carriage and they arranged
an appointment for the following day.

"I think we have got a lot to talk about," said Anna.

He simply nodded. The door of the house was open. She got out of the
fly, gave George a long look full of emotion and disappeared into the
hall.

My love! thought George, with a feeling of happiness and pride. Life
lay before him like something serious and mysterious, full of gifts and
full of miracles.

When he went into the cafe, Heinrich was sitting in a window niche.
Next to him was a pale young beardless man whom George had casually
spoken to several times, in a dinner-jacket with a velvet collar but
with a shirt-front of doubtful cleanliness.

When George came in the young man looked up with ardent eyes from a
paper that he was holding in his restless and not very well-kept hands.

"Am I disturbing you?" said George.

"Oh, not a bit of it," replied the young man, with a crazy laugh, "the
larger the audience the better."

"Herr Winternitz," explained Heinrich, as he shook hands with George,
"was just reading me a series of his poems, but we will break off now."
Slightly touched by the disappointed expression of the young man George
assured him that he would be delighted to hear the poems if he might be
permitted to do so.

"It won't last much longer," explained Winternitz gratefully. "It is
only a pity that you missed the beginning. I could----"

"What! Does it all hang together?" said Heinrich in astonishment.

"What, didn't you notice?" exclaimed Winternitz, and laughed again
crazily.

"I see," said Heinrich. "So it's always the same woman character whom
your poems deal with. I thought it was always a different one."

"Of course it is always the same one, but her special characteristic is
that she always seems to be a fresh person."

Herr Winternitz read softly but insistently, as though inwardly
consumed. It appeared from his series that he had been loved as never
a man had been loved before, but also deceived as never a man had been
deceived before, a circumstance which was to be attributed to certain
metaphysical causes and not at all to any deficiencies in his own
personality. He showed himself, however, in his last poem completely
freed of his passion, and declared that he was now ready to enjoy all
the pleasures, which the world could offer him. This poem had four
stanzas; the last verse of every stanza began with a "hei," and it
concluded with the exclamation: "Hei, so career I through the world."

George could not help recognising that the recitation had to a certain
extent impressed him, and when Winternitz put the book down and looked
around him with dilated pupils, George nodded appreciatively and said:
"Very beautiful!"

Winternitz looked expectantly at Heinrich, who was silent for a few
seconds and finally remarked: "It is fairly interesting on the whole
... but why do you say 'hei,' if it isn't a rude question? Positively,
no one will believe it."

"What do you mean?" exclaimed Winternitz.

"Rather ask your own conscience, if you honestly mean that 'hei.' I
believe all the rest which you read to me, I mean I believe it in
the highest sense of the term, although not a single word is true. I
believe you when you tell me that you have been seducing a girl of
fifteen, that you have been behaving like a hardened Don Juan, that you
have been corrupting the poor creature in the most dreadful way. That
she deceived you with ... what was it now?..."

"A clown, of course," exclaimed Winternitz, with a mad laugh.

"That a clown was the man she deceived you with, that on account of
that creature you had adventures which grew more and more sinister,
that you wanted to kill your mistress and yourself as well, and that
finally you get fed up with the whole business and go travelling about
the world, or even careering as far as Australia for all I care: yes,
I can believe all that, but that you are the kind of man to cry out
'hei,' that, my dear Winternitz, is a rank swindle."

Winternitz defended himself. He swore that this 'hei' had come from
his most inward being, or at any rate from a certain element in his
most inward being. When Heinrich made further objections, he gradually
became more and more reserved, and finally declared that some time or
other he hoped to win his way to that inward freedom where he would be
allowed to cry out "hei."

"That time will never come," replied Heinrich positively. "You may
perhaps get some time to the epic or the dramatic 'hei,' but the
lyrical or subjective 'hei' will remain, my dear Winternitz, a closed
book to people like you and me for all eternity."

Winternitz promised to alter the last poem, to make a point of
continuing his development and to work at his inward purification.

He stood up, a proceeding which caused his starched shirt front to
crack and a stud to break, held out his somewhat clammy hand to
Heinrich and George, and went off to the literary men's table at the
back.

George expressed discreet appreciation of the poems which he had heard.

"I like him the best of the whole set, at any rate personally," said
Heinrich. "He at least has the good sense to maintain with me a certain
mutual reserve in really intimate matters. Yes, you need not look at me
again as though you were catching me in an attack of megalomania, but I
can assure you, George, I have had nearly enough of the sort of people"
(he swept the further table with a cursory glance) "who have always got
an 'ae soi' on their lips."

"What is always on their lips?"

Heinrich smiled. "You must know the story of the Polish Jew who was
sitting in a railway compartment with an unknown man and behaved very
conventionally--until he realised by some remark of the other's that
he was a Jew too, and on the strength of it immediately proceeded to
stretch out his legs on the seat opposite with an 'ae soi' of relief."

"Quite good," said George.

"It is more than that," explained Heinrich sternly, "it is deep; like
so many other Jewish stories it gives a bird's-eye view into the
tragi-comedy of present-day Judaism. It expresses the eternal truth
that no Jew has any real respect for his fellow Jew, never. As little
as prisoners in a hostile country have any real respect for each other,
particularly when they are hopeless. Envy, hate, yes frequently,
admiration, even love; all that there can be between them, but never
respect, for the play of all their emotional life takes place in an
atmosphere of familiarity, so to speak, in which respect cannot help
being stifled."

"Do you know what I think?" remarked George. "That you are a more
bitter Anti-Semite than most of the Christians I know."

"Do you think so?" he laughed; "but not a real one. Only the man who
is really angry at the bottom of his heart at the Jews' good qualities
and does everything he can to bring about the further development of
their bad ones is a real Anti-Semite. But you are right up to a certain
point, but I must finish by confessing that I am also an Anti-Aryan.
Every race as such is naturally repulsive, only the individual manages
at times to reconcile himself to the repulsive elements in his race by
reason of his own personal qualities. But I will not deny that I am
particularly sensitive to the faults of Jews. Probably the only reason
is that I, like all others--we Jews, I mean--have been systematically
educated up to this sensitiveness. We have been egged on from our
youth to look upon Jewish peculiarities as particularly grotesque
or repulsive, though we have not been so with regard to the equally
grotesque and repulsive peculiarities of other people. I will not
disguise it--if a Jew shows bad form in my presence, or behaves in a
ridiculous manner, I have often so painful a sensation that I should
like to sink into the earth. It is like a kind of shame that perhaps is
akin to the shame of a brother who sees his sister undressing. Perhaps
the whole thing is egoism too. One gets embittered at being always made
responsible for other people's faults, and always being made to pay the
penalty for every crime, for every lapse from good taste, for every
indiscretion for which every Jew is responsible throughout the whole
world. That of course easily makes one unjust, but those are touches
of nervousness and sensitiveness, nothing more. Then one pulls oneself
together again. That cannot be called Anti-Semitism. But there are Jews
whom I really hate, hate as Jews. Those are the people who act before
others, and often before themselves, as though they did not belong to
the rest at all. The men who try to offer themselves to their enemies
and despisers in the most cowardly and cringing fashion, and think
that in that way they can escape from the eternal curse whose burden
is upon them, or from what they feel is equivalent to a curse. There
are of course always Jews like that who go about with the consciousness
of their extreme personal meanness, and consequently, consciously or
unconsciously, would like to make their race responsible. Of course
that does not help them the least bit. What has ever helped the Jews?
the good ones and the bad ones. I mean, of course," he hastily added,
"those who need something in the way of material or moral help." And
then he broke off in a deliberately flippant tone: "Yes, my dear
George, the situation is somewhat complicated and it is quite natural
that every one who is not directly concerned with the question should
not be able to understand it properly."

"No, you really should not...."

Heinrich interrupted him quickly. "Yes, I should, my dear George, that
is just how it is. You don't understand us, you see. Many perhaps get
an inkling, but understand? no. At any rate we understand you much
better than you do us. Although you shake your head! Do we not deserve
to? We have found it more necessary, you see, to learn to understand
you than you did to learn to understand us. This gift of understanding
was forced to develop itself in the course of time ... according to
the laws of the struggle for existence if you like. Just consider, if
one is going to find one's way about in a foreign country, or, as I
said before, in an enemy's country, to be ready for all the dangers and
ambushes which lurk there, it is obvious that the primary essential
is to get to know one's enemies as well as possible--both their good
qualities and their bad."

"So you live among enemies? Among foreigners! You would not admit as
much to Leo Golowski. I don't agree with him either, not a bit of it.
But how strangely inconsistent you are when you----"

Heinrich interrupted him, genuinely pained. "I have already told
you the problem is far too complicated to be really solved. To find
a subjective solution is almost impossible. A verbal solution even
more so. Why, at times one might believe that things are not so
bad. Sometimes one really is at home in spite of everything, feels
one is as much at home here--yes, even more at home--than any of
your so-called natives can ever feel. It is quite clear that the
feeling of strangeness is to some extent cured by the consciousness
of understanding. Why, it becomes, as it were, steeped in pride,
condescension, tenderness; becomes dissolved--sometimes, of course, in
sentimentalism, which is again a bad business."

He sat there with deep furrows in his forehead and looked in front of
him.

"Does he really understand me better?" thought George, "than I do him,
or is it simply another piece of megalomania...?"

Heinrich suddenly started as though emerging from a dream. He looked
at his watch. "Half-past two! And my train goes at eight to-morrow."

"What, you are going away?"

"Yes, that is what I wanted to speak to you about so much. I shall have
to say goodbye to you for a goodish time, I'm sorry to say. I am going
to Prague. I am taking my father away, out of the asylum home to our
own house."

"Is he better, then?"

"No, but he is in that stage when he is not dangerous to those near
him.... Yes, that came quite quickly too."

"And about when do you think you will be back?"

Heinrich shook his shoulders. "I can't tell to-day, but however the
thing develops, I certainly cannot leave my mother and sisters alone
now."

George felt a genuine regret at being deprived of Heinrich's society in
the near future. "It's possible that you won't find me in Vienna again
when you come back. I shall probably go away this spring, you see." And
he almost felt a desire to take Heinrich into his confidence.

"I suppose you are travelling south?" asked Heinrich.

"Yes, I think so. To enjoy my freedom once again, just for a few
months. Serious life begins next autumn, you see. I am looking out for
a position in Germany at some theatre or other."

"Really?"

The waiter came to the table. They paid and went.

They met Rapp and Gleissner together in the doorway. They exchanged a
few words of greeting.

"And what have you been doing all this time, Herr Rapp?" asked George
courteously.

Rapp took off his pince-nez. "Oh, my melancholy old job all the time. I
am engaged in demonstrating the vanity of vanities."

"You might make a change, Rapp," said Heinrich. "Try your luck for once
and praise the splendour of splendours."

"What is the point?" said Rapp, and put on his glasses.

"That will prove itself in the course of time. But as a rule rotten
work only keeps alive during its good fortune and its fame, and when
the world at last realises the swindle, it has either been in the grave
for a long time or has taken refuge in its presumable immortality."

They were now in the street and all turned up their coat collars, since
it had begun again to snow violently.

Gleissner, who had had his first great dramatic success a few weeks
ago, quickly told them that the seventh performance of his work, which
had taken place to-day, had also been sold out.

Rapp used that as a peg on which to hang malicious observations on the
stupidity of the public. Gleissner answered with gibes at the impotence
of the critic when confronted with true genius--and so they walked away
through the snow with turned-up collar, quite enveloped in the steaming
hate of their old friendship.

"That Rapp has no luck," said Heinrich to George. "He'll never forgive
Gleissner for not disappointing him."

"Do you consider him so jealous?"

"I wouldn't go as far as that. Matters are rarely sufficiently simple
to be disposed of in a single word. But just think what a fate it is
to go about the world in the belief that you carry with you as deep
a knowledge of it as Shakespeare had, and to feel at the same time
that you aren't able to express as much of it as, for instance, Herr
Gleissner, although perhaps one is quite as much good as he is--or even
more."

They walked on together for a time in silence. The trees in the Ring
were standing motionless with their white branches. It struck three
from the tower of the Rathaus. They walked over the empty streets and
took the way through the silent park. All around them the continuous
fall of snow made everything shine almost brightly.

"By the way, I have not told you the latest news," started Heinrich
suddenly, looking in front of him and speaking in a dry tone.

"What is it?"

"That I have been receiving anonymous letters for some time."

"Anonymous letters? What are the contents?"

"Oh, you can guess."

"I see." It was clear to George that it could only be something about
the actress. Heinrich had returned in greater anguish than ever from
the foreign town, where he had seen his mistress act the part of a
depraved creature in a new play, with a truth and realism which he
found positively intolerable. George knew that he and she had since
then been exchanging letters full of tenderness and scorn, full of
anger and forgiveness, full of broken anguish and laboured confidence.

"The delightful messages," explained Heinrich, "have been coming along
every morning for eight days. Not very pleasant, I can assure you."

"Good gracious, what do they matter to you? You know yourself anonymous
letters never contain the truth."

"On the contrary, my dear George, they always do, but letters like
that always contain a kind of higher truth, the great truth of
possibilities. Men haven't usually got sufficient imagination to create
things out of nothing."

"That is a charming way of looking at things. Where should we all get
to, then? It makes things a bit too easy for libellers of all kinds."

"Why do you say libellers? I regard it as highly improbable that there
are any libels contained in the anonymous letters which I have been
receiving. No doubt exaggerations, embellishments, inaccuracies...."

"Lies."

"No, I am sure they are not lies; some, no doubt, but in a case like
this how is one to separate the truth from the lies?"

"There is a very simple way of dealing with that. You go there."

"Me go there?"

"Yes, of course that is what you ought to do. When you are on the spot
you are bound to get at once to the real truth."

"It would certainly be possible."

They were walking under arcades on the wet stone. Their voices
and steps echoed. George began again. "Instead of going on being
demoralised with all this annoyance, I should try and convince myself
personally as to how matters stood."

"Yes, that would certainly be the soundest thing to do."

"Well, why don't you do it?"

Heinrich remained stationary and jerked out with clenched teeth: "Tell
me, my dear George, have you not really noticed that I am a coward?"

"Nonsense, one doesn't call that being a coward."

"Call it whatever you like. Words never hit things off exactly. The
more precisely they pretend to do so the less they really do. I know
what I am. I would not go there for anything in the world. To make a
fool of myself once more, no, no, no...."

"Well, what will you do?"

Heinrich shook his shoulders as though the matter really did not
concern him.

Somewhat irritated, George went on questioning him. "If you will allow
me to make a remark, what does the ... lady chiefly concerned have to
say?"

"The lady who is chiefly concerned, as you call her, with a wit, which
though unconscious is positively infernal, does not know for the time
being anything about my getting anonymous letters."

"Have you left off corresponding with her?"

"What an idea! We write daily to each other as we did before. She
the most tender and lying letters, I the meanest you can possibly
imagine--disingenuous, reserved letters, that torture me to the quick."

"Look here, Heinrich, you are really not a very noble character."

Heinrich laughed out loud. "No, I am not noble. I clearly was not born
to be that."

"And when one thinks that after all these are sheer libels----"
George for his part had of course no doubt that the anonymous letters
contained the truth. In spite of that he was honestly desirous that
Heinrich should travel to the actual spot, convince himself, do
something definite, box somebody's ears or shoot somebody down. He
imagined Felician in a similar position, or Stanzides or Willy Eissler.
All of them would have taken it better or in a different way, one for
which he certainly could have felt more sympathy. Suddenly the question
ran through his brain as to what he would probably do, if Anna were to
deceive him. Anna deceive him ... was that really possible? He thought
of her look that evening, that dark questioning look which she had
sent over to Demeter Stanzides. No, that did not signify anything, he
was sure of it, and the old episodes with Leo and the singing-master,
they were harmless, almost childish. But he thought of something that
was different and perhaps more significant--a strange question which
she had put to him the other day when she had stayed unduly late in
his company and had had to hurry off home with an excuse. Was he not
afraid, she had asked him, to have it on his conscience that he was
making her into a liar? It had rung half like a reproach and half like
a warning, and if she herself was so little sure of herself could
he trust her implicitly? Did he not love her? He ... and did he not
deceive her in spite of it, or was ready to do so at any moment, which,
after all, came to the same thing?

Only an hour ago, in the fly, when he held her in his arms and kissed
her, she had of course no idea that he had other thoughts than for her.
And yet at a certain moment, with his lips on hers, he had longed for
Sissy. Why should it not happen that Anna should deceive him? After
all, it might have already happened ... without his having an idea of
it.... But all these ideas had as it were no substance, they swept
through his mind, like fantastic almost amusing possibilities. He was
standing with Heinrich in front of the closed door in the Floriani
Gassi and shook hands with him.

"Well, God bless you," he said; "when we see each other again I hope
you will be cured of your doubts."

"And would that be much good?" asked Heinrich. "Can one reassure
oneself with certainties in matters of love? The most one can do is
to reassure oneself with bad news, for that lasts, but being certain
of something good is at the best an intoxication.... Well, goodbye,
old chap. I hope we will see each other again in May. Then, whatever
happens, I shall come here for a time, and we can talk again about our
glorious opera."

"Yes, if I shall be back again in Vienna in May. It may be that I shall
not come back before the autumn."

"And then go off again on your new career?"

"It is quite possible that it will turn out like that," and he looked
Heinrich in the face with a kind of childlike defiant smile that seemed
to say: "I'm not going to tell you."

Heinrich seemed surprised. "Look here, George, perhaps this is the very
last time we are standing together in front of this door. Oh, I am far
from thrusting myself into your confidence. This somewhat one-sided
relationship will no doubt have to go on on its present lines. Well, it
doesn't matter."

George looked straight in front of him.

"I hope things go all right," said Heinrich as the door opened, "and
drop me a line now and then."

"Certainly," answered George, and suddenly saw Heinrich's eyes resting
upon him with an expression of real sympathy which he had never
expected. "Certainly ... and you must write to me, too. At any rate
give me news of how things are at home and what you are working at. At
all events," he added sincerely, "we must continue to keep in touch
with each other."

The porter stood there with dishevelled hair and an angry sleepy
expression, in a greenish-brown dressing-gown, with slippers on his
bare feet.

Heinrich shook hands with George for the last time. "Goodbye, my
dear friend," he said, and then in a gentler voice, as he pointed to
the porter: "I cannot keep him waiting any longer. You will find no
particular difficulty in reading in his noble physiognomy, which is
obviously the genuine native article, the names he is calling me to
himself at this particular moment. Adieu."

George could not help laughing. Heinrich disappeared. The door clanged
and closed.

George did not feel the least bit sleepy and determined to go home on
foot. He was in an excited exalted mood. He was envisaging the days
which were now bound to come with a peculiar sense of tension. He
thought of to-morrow's meeting with Anna, the things they were going to
talk over, the journey, the house that already stood somewhere in the
world, which his imagination had already roughly pictured like a house
out of a box of toys, light-green with a bright red roof and a black
chimney. His own form appeared before him like a picture thrown on a
white screen by a magic lantern: he saw himself sitting on a balcony in
happy solitude, in front of a table strewn with music paper. Branches
rocked in front of the railings. A clear sky hung above him, while
below at his feet lay the sea, with a dreamy blueness that was quite
abnormal.


[1] A reference to the Faro game.




V


George gently opened the door of Anna's room. She still lay asleep in
bed and breathed deeply and peacefully. He went out of the slightly
darkened room, back again into his own and shut the door. Then he
went to the open window and looked out. Clouds bathed in sunshine
were sweeping over the water. The mountains opposite with their
clearly-defined lines were floating in the brilliancy of the heavens,
while the brightest blue was glittering over the gardens and houses of
Lugano.

George was quite delighted to breathe in once more the air of this June
morning, which brought to him the moist freshness of the lake and the
perfume of the plane-trees, magnolias and roses in the hotel park; to
look out upon this view, whose spring-like peace had welcomed him like
a fresh happiness every morning for the last three weeks.

He drank his tea quickly, ran down the stairs as quickly and
expectantly as he had once, when a boy, hurried off to his play, and
took his accustomed way along the bank in the grey fragrance of the
early shade. Here he would think of his own lonely morning walks
at Palermo and Taormina in the previous spring, walks which he had
frequently continued for hours on end, since Grace was very fond of
lying in bed with open eyes until noon.

That period of his life, over which a recent though no doubt
much-desired farewell seemed to squat like a sinister cloud, usually
struck him as more or less bathed in melancholy. But this time all
painful things seemed to lie in the far distance, and at any rate he
had it in his power to put off the end as long as he wanted, if it did
not come from fate itself.

He had left Vienna with Anna at the beginning of March, as it was no
longer possible to conceal her condition. In January, in fact, George
had decided to speak to her mother. He had more or less prepared
himself for it, and was consequently able to make his communication
quietly and in well-turned phraseology. The mother listened in silence
and her eyes grew large and moist. Anna sat on the sofa with an
embarrassed smile and looked at George as he spoke, with a kind of
curiosity. They sketched out the plan for the ensuing months. George
wanted to stay abroad with Anna until the early summer. Then a house
was to be taken in the country in the neighbourhood of Vienna, so
that her mother should not be far away in the time of greatest need,
and the child could without difficulty be given out to nurse in
the neighbourhood of the town. They also thought out an excuse for
officious inquisitive people for Anna's departure and absence.

As her voice had made substantial progress of late--which was perfectly
true--she had gone off to a celebrated singing mistress in Dresden, to
complete her training.

Frau Rosner nodded several times, as though she agreed with everything,
but the features of her face became sadder and sadder. It was not
so much that she was oppressed by what she had just learnt, as
she was by the realisation that she was bound to be so absolutely
defenceless, poor middle-class mother that she was, sitting opposite
the aristocratic seducer.

George, who noticed this with regret, endeavoured to assume a lighter
and more sympathetic tone. He came closer to the good woman, he took
her hand and held it for some seconds in his own. Anna had scarcely
contributed a word to the whole discussion, but when George got ready
to go she got up, and for the first time in front of her mother she
offered him her lips to kiss, as though she were now celebrating her
betrothal to him.

George went downstairs in better spirits, as though the worst were
now really over. Henceforth he spent whole hours at the Rosners' more
frequently than before, practising music with Anna, whose voice had now
grown noticeably in power and volume. The mother's demeanour to George
became more friendly. Why, it often seemed to him as though she had to
be on her guard against a growing sympathy for him, and there was one
evening in the family circle when George stayed for supper, improvised
afterwards to the company from the Meistersingers and Lohengrin with
his cigar in his mouth, could not help enjoying the lively applause,
particularly from Josef, and was almost shocked to notice as he went
home that he had felt quite as comfortable, as though it had been a
home he had recently won for himself.

When he was sitting over his black coffee with Felician a few days
later the servant brought in a card, the receipt of which made a
slight blush mount to his cheek. Felician pretended not to notice his
brother's embarrassment, said good-bye and left the room. He met old
Rosner in the doorway, inclined his head slightly in answer to his
greeting and took no further notice.

George invited Herr Rosner, who came in in his winter coat with his hat
and umbrella, to sit down, and offered him a cigar. Old Rosner said:
"I have just been smoking," a remark which somehow or other reassured
George, and sat down, while George remained leaning on the table.

Then the old man began with his accustomed slowness: "You will probably
be able to imagine, Herr Baron, why I have taken the liberty of
troubling you. I really wanted to speak to you in the earlier part of
the day, but unfortunately I could not get away from the office."

"You would not have found me at home in the morning, Herr Rosner,"
answered George courteously.

"All the better then that I didn't have my journey for nothing. My wife
has told me this morning ... what has happened...." He looked at the
floor.

"Yes," said George, and gnawed at his upper lip. "I myself intended....
But won't you take off your overcoat? It is very warm in the room."

"No thank you, thank you, it is not at all too warm for me. Well, I was
horrified when my wife gave me this information. Indeed I was, Herr
Baron.... I never would have thought it of Anna ... never thought it
possible ... it is ... really dreadful...." He spoke all the time in
his usual monotonous voice, though he shook his head more often than
usual.

George could not help looking all the time at his head with its thin
yellow-grey hair, and felt nothing but a desolate boredom. "Really,
Herr Rosner, the thing is not dreadful," he said at last. "If you knew
how much I ... and how sincere my affection for Anna is, you would
certainly be very far from thinking the thing dreadful. At any rate, I
suppose your wife has told you about our plans for the immediate future
... or am I making a mistake...?"

"Not at all, Herr Baron, I have been informed of everything this
morning. But I must say that I have noticed for some weeks that
something was wrong in the house. It often struck me that my wife was
very nervous and was often on the point of crying."

"On the point of crying! There is really no occasion for that, Herr
Rosner. Anna herself, who is more concerned than any one else, is very
well and is in her usual good spirits...."

"Yes, Anna at any rate takes it very well, and that, to speak frankly,
is more or less my consolation. But I cannot describe to you, Baron,
how hard hit ... how, I could almost say ... like a bolt from the blue
... I could never, no, never have ... have believed it...." He could
not say any more. His voice trembled.

"I am really very concerned," said George, "that you should take the
matter like this, in spite of the fact that your wife is bound to have
explained everything to you, and that the measures we have taken for
the near future presumably meet with your approval. I would prefer not
to talk about a time which is further, though I hope not too far off,
because phrases of all kinds are more or less distasteful to me, but
you may be sure, Herr Rosner, that I certainly shall not forget what I
owe to a person like Anna.... Yes, what I owe to myself." He gulped.

In all his memory there was no moment in his life in which he had felt
less sympathy for himself. And now, as is necessarily the case in all
pointless conversations, they repeated themselves several times, until
Herr Rosner finally apologised for having troubled him, and took his
leave of George, who accompanied him to the stairs.

George felt an unpleasant aftermath in his soul for some days after
this visit. The brother would be the finishing touch, he thought
irritably, and he could not help imagining a scene of explanation
in the course of which the young man would endeavour to play the
avenger of the family honour, while George put him in his place with
extraordinarily trenchant expressions.

George nevertheless felt a sense of relief after the conversation with
Anna's parents had taken place, and the hours which he spent with his
beloved alone in the peaceful room opposite the church were full of a
peculiar feeling of comfort and safety. It sometimes seemed to them
both as though time stood still.

It was all very well for George to bring guide-books, Burckhardt's
_Cicerone_, and even maps to their meetings, and to plan out with Anna
all kinds of routes; he did not as a matter of fact seriously think
that all this would ever be realised.

So far, however, as the house in which the child was to be born was
concerned, they were both impressed with the necessity of its being
found and taken before they left Vienna. Anna once saw an advertisement
in the paper which she was accustomed to read carefully for that very
object, of a lodge near the forest, and not far from a railway station,
which could be reached in one and a half hours from Vienna. One morning
they both took the train to the place in question and they had a
memory of a snow-covered lonely wooden building with antlers over the
door, an old drunken keeper, a young blonde girl, a swift sleigh-ride
over a snowy winter street, an extraordinarily jolly dinner in an
enormous room in the inn, and then home in a badly-lighted over-heated
compartment. This was the only time that George tried to find with Anna
the house that must be standing somewhere in the world and waiting to
be decided upon. Otherwise he usually went alone by train or tramway
to look round the summer resorts which were near Vienna. Once, on a
spring day that had come straight into the middle of the winter, George
was walking through one of the small places situated quite near town,
which he was particularly fond of, where village buildings, unassuming
villas and elegant country houses lay close upon each other. He had
completely forgotten, as often happened, why he had taken the journey,
and was thinking with emotion of the fact that Beethoven and Schubert
had taken the same walk as he, many years ago, when he unexpectedly ran
up against Nuernberger. They greeted each other, praised the fine day,
which had enticed them so far out into the open, and expressed regret
that they so rarely saw each other since Bermann had left Vienna.

"Is it long since you heard anything of him?" asked George.

"I have only had a card from him," replied Nuernberger, "since he left.
It is much more likely he would correspond regularly with you than with
me."

"Why is it more likely?" inquired George, somewhat irritated by
Nuernberger's tone, as indeed be frequently was.

"Well, at any rate you have the advantage over me of being a new
acquaintance, and consequently offering more exciting subject-matter
for his psychological interest than I can."

George detected in the accustomed flippancy of these words a certain
sense of grievance which he more or less understood, for, as a matter
of fact, Heinrich had bothered very little about Nuernberger of late,
though he had previously seen a great deal of him, it being always his
way to draw men to him and then drop them with the greatest lack of
consideration, according as their character did or did not fit in with
his own mood.

"In spite of that I am not much better off than you," said George. "I
haven't had any news of him for some weeks either. His father, too,
appears to be in a bad way according to the last letter."

"So I suppose it will soon be all up with the poor old man now."

"Who knows? According to what Bermann writes me, he can still last for
months."

Nuernberger shook his head seriously.

"Yes," said George lightly. "The doctors ought to be allowed in cases
like that ... to shorten the matter."

"You are perhaps right," answered Nuernberger, "but who knows whether
our friend Heinrich, however much the sight of his father's incurable
malady may put him off his work and perhaps many other things as
well--who knows whether he might not all the same refuse the suggestion
of finishing off this hopeless matter by a morphia injection?"

George felt again repulsed by Nuernberger's bitter, ironic tone,
and yet when he remembered the hour when he had seen Heinrich more
violently upset by a few obscure words in the letter of a mistress than
by his father's madness, he could not drive out the impression that
Nuernberger's opinion of their friend was correct. "Did you know old
Bermann?" he asked.

"Not personally, but I still remember the time when his name was known
in the papers, and I remember, too, many extremely sound and excellent
speeches which he made in Parliament. But I am keeping you, my dear
Baron. Goodbye. We will see each other no doubt one of these days in
the cafe, or at Ehrenbergs'."

"You are not keeping me at all," replied George with deliberate
courtesy. "I am quite at large, and I am availing myself of the
opportunity of looking at houses for the summer."

"So you are going in the country, near Vienna this year?"

"Yes, for a time probably, and apart from that a family I know has
asked me if I should chance to run across...." He grew a little red,
as he always did when he was not adhering strictly to the truth.
Nuernberger noticed it and said innocently: "I have just passed by some
villas which are to let. Do you see, for instance, that white one with
the white terrace?"

"It looks very nice. We might have a look at it, if you won't find it
too dull coming with me. Then we can go back together to town."

The garden which they entered sloped upwards and was very long and
narrow. It reminded Nuernberger of one in which he had played as a
child. "Perhaps it is the same," he said. "We lived for years and years
you know in the country in Grinzing or Heiligenstadt."

This "we" affected George in quite a strange way. He could scarcely
realise Nuernberger's ever having been quite young, ever having lived as
a son with his father and mother, as a brother with his sisters, and he
felt all of a sudden that this man's whole life had something strange
and hard about it.

At the top of the garden an open arbour gave a wonderfully fine view
of the town, which they enjoyed for some time. They slowly went down,
accompanied by the caretaker's wife, who carried a small child wrapped
in a grey shawl in her arms. They then looked at the house--low musty
rooms with cheap battered carpets on the floor, narrow wooden beds,
dull or broken mirrors.

"Everything will be done up again in the spring," explained the
caretaker, "then it will look very cheerful." The little child suddenly
held out its tiny hand towards George, as if it wanted him to take it
up in his arms. George was somewhat moved and smiled awkwardly.

As he rode with Nuernberger into the town on the platform of the tramway
and chatted to him he felt that he had never got so close to him on
all the many previous occasions when they had been together, as during
this hour of clear winter sunshine in the country. When they said
goodbye it was quite a matter of course that they should arrange a new
excursion on a day in the immediate future. And so it came about that
George was several times accompanied by Nuernberger, when he continued
his househunting in the neighbourhood of Vienna. On these occasions
the fiction was still kept up that George was looking for a house for
a family whom he knew, that Nuernberger believed it and that George
believed that Nuernberger believed it.

On these excursions Nuernberger frequently came to speak of his
youth, to speak about the parents whom he had lost very early, of a
sister who had died young and of his elder brother, the only one of
his relatives who was still alive. But he, an ageing bachelor like
Edmund himself, did not live in Vienna, but in a small town in Lower
Austria, where he was a teacher in a public school, where he had been
transferred fifteen years ago as an assistant. He could easily have
managed afterwards to have got an appointment again in the metropolis,
but after a few years of bitterness, and even defiance, he had become
so completely acclimatised to the quiet petty life of the place where
he was staying that he came to regard a return to Vienna as more a
sacrifice than anything else, and he now lived on, passionately devoted
to his profession and particularly to his studies in philology, far
from the world, lonely, contented, a kind of philosopher in the little
town. When Nuernberger spoke of this distant brother George often felt
as though he were hearing him speak about some one who had died, so
absolutely out of the question seemed every possibility of a permanent
reunion in the future. It was in quite a different tone, almost as
though he were speaking of a being who could return once again, that
he would talk with a perpetual wistfulness of the sister who had been
dead several years. It was on a misty February day, while they were at
the railway station waiting for the train to Vienna, and walking up and
down with each other on the platform, that Nuernberger told George the
story of this sister, who when a child of sixteen had become possessed
as it were by a tremendous passion for the theatre, and had run away
from home without saying goodbye in a fit of childish romanticism. She
had wandered from town to town, from stage to stage, for ten years,
playing smaller and smaller parts, since neither her talent nor her
beauty appeared to be sufficient for the career which she had chosen,
but always with the same enthusiasm, always with the same confidence in
her future, in spite of the disillusions which she experienced and the
sorrow which she saw. In the holidays she would come to the brothers,
who were still living together, sometimes for weeks, sometimes only for
days, and tell them about the provincial halls in which she had acted
as though they were great theatres; about her few successes as though
they were triumphs which she had won, about the wretched comedians at
whose side she worked as though they were great artists, tell them
about the petty intrigues that took place around her as though they
were powerful tragedies of passion. And instead of gradually realising
the miserable world in which she was living a life which was as much
to be pitied as that of any one else, she spun every year the essence
of her soul into more and more golden dreams. This went on for a long
time, until at last she came home, feverish and ill. She lay in bed
for months on end with flushed cheeks, raving in her delirium of a
fame and happiness which she had never experienced, got up once again
in apparent health, and went away once more, only to come back home,
this time after a few weeks, in complete collapse with death written
on her forehead. Her brother now travelled with her to the South; to
Arco, Meran, to the Italian Lakes, and it was only as she lay stretched
out in southern gardens beneath flowering trees, far away from the
whirl that had dazed and intoxicated her throughout the years that
she realised at last that her life had been simply a racketing about
beneath a painted sky and between paper walls--that the whole essence
of her existence had been an illusion. But even the little everyday
incidents, the apartments and inns of the foreign town, seemed to her
memory simply scenes which she had played in as an actress by the
footlights, and not scenes which she had really lived, and as she
approached nearer and nearer to the grave, there awoke within her an
awful yearning for that real life which she had missed, and the more
surely she knew that it was lost to her for ever, the clearer became
the gaze with which she realised the fullness of the world. And the
strangest touch of all was the way in which, in the last weeks of her
life, that talent to which she had sacrificed her whole existence
without ever really possessing it manifested itself with diabolic
uncanniness.

"It seems to me, even to-day," said Nuernberger, "that I have never
heard verses so declaimed, never seen whole scenes so acted, even
by the greatest actress, as I did by my sister in the hotel room at
Cadenabbia, looking out on to the Lake of Como, a few days before she
died. Of course," he added, "it is possible, even probable, that my
memory is deceiving me."

"But why?" asked George, who was so pleased with this _finale_ that
he did not want to have it spoiled. And he endeavoured to convince
Nuernberger, who listened to him with a smile, that he could not have
made a mistake, and that the world had lost a great actress in that
strange girl who lay buried in Cadenabbia.

George did not find on his excursions with Nuernberger the house in the
country for which he was looking. In fact it seemed to become more
difficult to find every time he went out. Nuernberger made occasional
jokes about George's exacting requirements. He seemed to be looking
for a villa which was to be faced in front by a well-kept road, while
it was to have at the back a garden door which led into the natural
forest. Eventually George himself did not seriously believe that he
would now succeed in finding the desired house, and relied on the
pressure of necessity after his return from his travels.

It seemed more essential to get as soon as possible into touch with a
doctor, but George put this off too from one day to another. But one
evening Anna informed him that she had been suddenly panic-stricken by
a new attack of faintness, had visited Doctor Stauber and explained
her condition to him. He had been very nice, had not expressed any
astonishment, had thoroughly reassured her and only expressed the wish
to speak to George before they went away.

A few days afterwards George went to see the doctor in accordance with
his invitation.

The consultation hours were over. Doctor Stauber received him with
the friendliness which he had anticipated, seemed to treat the whole
matter as being as regular and as much a matter of course as it could
possibly be, and spoke of Anna just as though she had been a young
wife, a method of procedure which affected George in a strange but not
unpleasant way.

When the practical discussion was over the doctor inquired about
the destination of their journey. George had not yet mapped out any
programme, only this much was decided, that the spring was to be spent
in the south, probably in Italy. Doctor Stauber took the opportunity
to talk about his last stay in Rome, which was ten years back. He had
been in personal touch on this occasion, as he had been once before,
with the director of the excavations and spoke to George in almost
ecstatic terms of the latest discoveries on the Palatine, about which
he had written monographs as a young man, which he had published in the
antiquarian journals. He then showed George, and not without pride,
his library, which was divided into two sections, medicine and the
history of art, and took out and offered to lend him a few rare books,
one printed in the year 1834 on the Vatican collections and also a
history of Sicily. George felt highly excited as he realised with such
vividness the rich days that lay in front of him. He was overcome by
a kind of homesickness for places which he knew well and had missed
for a long time. Half-forgotten pictures floated up in his memory, the
pyramids of Cestius stood on the horizon in sharp outlines, as they
had appeared to him when he had ridden back as a boy into the town at
evening with the prince of Macedon; the dim church, where he had seen
his first mistress step up to the altar as a bride, opened its doors;
a bark under a dark sky with strange sulphur yellow sails drew near to
the coast.... He began to speak about the several towns and landscapes
of the south which he had seen as a boy and as a youth, explained the
longing for those places which often seized on him like a genuine
homesickness, his joy at being able to take in with mature appreciation
all the differing things which he had longed for, reserved for himself
and then forgotten, and many new things besides, and this time too in
the society of a being who was able to appreciate and enjoy everything
with him, and whom he held dear.

Doctor Stauber, who was in the act of putting a book back on the shelf,
turned round suddenly to George, looked gently at him and said: "I am
very glad of that." As George answered his look with some surprise he
added: "It was the first tender allusion to your relationship to Annerl
that I have noticed in the course of the last hour. I know, I know that
you are not the kind of man to take a comparative stranger into your
confidence, but if only because I had no reason to expect it, it has
really done me good. It came straight from your heart, one could see
it; and I should have been really sorry for Annerl--excuse me, I always
call her that--if I had been driven to think that you are not as fond
of her as she deserves."

"I really don't know," replied George coolly, "what gave you cause to
doubt it, doctor."

"Did I say anything about doubts?" replied Stauber good-humouredly.
"But, after all, it has happened before that a young man who has had
all kinds of experiences does not appreciate a sacrifice of this kind
sufficiently, for it still is a sacrifice, my dear Baron. We can be as
superior to all prejudices as much as we like--but it is not a trifle
even to-day for a young girl of good family to make up her mind to do a
thing like that, and I won't conceal it from you--of course I did not
let Annerl notice anything--it gave even me a slight shock when she
came to me the other day and told me all about it."

"Excuse me, Herr Doctor," replied George, irritated but yet polite,
"if it gave you a shock that is surely some proof against your being
superior to prejudices...."

"You are right," said Stauber with a smile, "but perhaps you will
overlook this lapse when you consider that I am somewhat older than
you and belong to another age. Even a more or less independent man ...
which I flatter myself I am ... cannot quite escape from the influence
of his age. It is a strange thing, but believe me, even among the young
people, who have grown up on Nietzsche and Ibsen, there are quite as
many Philistines as there were thirty years ago. They won't own up to
it, but it does go against the grain with them, for instance, if some
one goes and seduces their sister, or if one of their worthy wives
suddenly takes it into her head that she wants to live her own life....
Many, of course, are consistent and carry their pose through ... but
that is more a matter of self-control than of their real views, and
in the old days, you know, the age to which I belong, when ideas were
so immovably hide-bound, when every one for instance was quite sure
of things like this: one has to honour one's parents or else one is a
knave ... or ... one only loves really once in one's life ... or it's
a pleasure to die for one's fatherland ... in that time, mind you,
when every decent man held up some flag or other, or at any rate had
something written on his banner ... believe me, the so-called modern
ideas had more adherents than you suspect. The only thing was that
those adherents did not quite know it themselves, they did not trust
their own ideas, they thought themselves, as it were, debauchees or
even criminals. Shall I tell you something, Herr Baron? There are
really no new ideas at all. People feel with a new intensity--that's
what it is. But do you seriously think that Nietzsche discovered the
superman, Ibsen the fraud of life and Anzengruber the truth that the
parents who desire love and honour from their children ought to 'come
up to the scratch' themselves? Not a bit of it. All the ethical ideas
have always been there, and one would really be surprised if one knew
what absolute blockheads have thought of the so-called great new
truths, and have even frequently given them expression long before
the geniuses to whom we owe these truths, or rather the courage to
regard these truths as true. If I have gone rather too far forgive
me. I really only wanted to say ... and you will believe me, I am
sure.... I know as well as you, Baron, that there is many a virgin
girl who is a thousand times more corrupt than a so-called fallen
woman; and that there is many a young man who passes for respectable
who has worse things on his conscience than starting a _liaison_ with
an innocent girl. And yet ... it is just the curse of my period ..."
he interpolated with a smile, "I could not help it, the first moment
Annerl told me her story certain unpleasant words which in their day
had their own fixed meaning began to echo through my old head in their
old tones, silly out-of-date words like ... libertine ... seduction
... leaving in the lurch ... and so on, and that is why I must ask
you once more to forgive me, now that I have got to know you somewhat
more intimately ... that is why I felt that shock which a modern man
would certainly not own that he experienced. But to talk seriously
once again, just consider a minute how your poor father, who did not
know Anna, would have taken the matter. He was certainly one of the
shrewdest and most unprejudiced men whom one can imagine ... and all
the same you have not the slightest doubt that the matter would not
have passed off without his feeling something of a shock as well."

George could not help holding out his hand to the doctor. The
unexpectedness of this sudden allusion caused so intense a longing to
spring up within him that the only thing he could do to assuage it was
to begin to talk of him who had passed away. The doctor was able to
tell him of many meetings with the late baron, mostly chance casual
encounters in the street, at the sessions of the scientific academy, at
concerts. There came another of those moments in which George thought
himself strangely guilty in his attitude towards the dead man and
registered a mental vow to become worthy of his memory.

"Remember me kindly to Annerl," said the doctor as he said goodbye,
"but I would rather you did not tell her anything about the shock. She
is a very sensitive creature, that you know well enough, and now it is
particularly important to save her any excitement. Remember, my dear
Baron, there is only one question before us now--to see that a healthy
child comes into the world, everything else.... Well, give her my best
regards. I hope we shall all see each other again in the summer in the
best of health."

George went away with a heightened consciousness of his
responsibilities towards the being who had given herself to him and to
that other who would wake up to existence in a few months. He thought
first of making a will and leaving it behind with a lawyer. But on
further consideration he thought it more proper to confide in his
brother, who after all stood nearer to him in sentiment than any one
else. But with that peculiar embarrassment which was characteristic of
the really intimate relationship between the brothers he let day after
day go by, until at last Felician's departure on the hunting expedition
in Africa was quite imminent.

The night before, on the way home from the club, George informed his
brother that he was thinking of taking a long journey in the near
future.

"Really! For how long shall you be away?" asked Felician.

George caught the note of a certain anxiety in these words and felt
that it was incumbent on him to add: "It will probably be the last
long journey I shall take for some years. I hope to find myself in a
permanent position in the autumn."

"So you have quite made up your mind?"

"Yes, of course."

"I am very glad, George, for different reasons, as you can imagine,
that you want at last to do something serious. And besides, it's a very
sound thing, that it is not a case of one of us going out into the
world while the other remains at home alone. That would really have
been rather sad."

George knew quite well that Felician would get a foreign diplomatic
post in the following autumn, but he had never realised so clearly that
in a few months that brotherly life which had lasted for so many years,
that common life in the old house opposite the park, yes, his whole
youth so to speak, would be irrevocably over and done with. He saw life
lying in front of him, serious, almost menacing. "Have you any idea,"
he asked, "where they will send you?"

"There is some chance of Athens."

"Would you like that?"

"Why not? The society ought to be fairly interesting. Bernburg was
there for three years and was sorry to leave. And they have transferred
him to London, too, and that's certainly not to be sniffed at."

They walked in silence for a while and took their usual way through the
park. An atmosphere suggesting the approaching spring was around them,
although small white flakes of snow still gleamed on the lawns.

"So you are going to Italy?" asked Felician.

"Yes."

"As far down South as last spring?"

"I don't know yet."

Again a short silence. Suddenly Felician's voice came out of the
darkness. "Have you heard anything of Grace since then?"

"Of Grace?" repeated George, somewhat surprised, for it had been a long
time since Felician had mentioned that name. "I have heard nothing more
of Grace. Besides, that is what we arranged. We took farewell of each
other for ever at Genoa. That is already more than a year ago...."

A gentleman was sitting on a seat quite in the darkness in a fur coat
with a top hat and white gloves. "Ah, Labinski," thought George for a
whole minute; the next minute he of course remembered that he had shot
himself. This was not the first time that he had thought he had seen
him. A man had sat in broad daylight in the botanical garden at Palermo
under a Japanese ash-tree whom George had taken for a whole second for
Labinski; and recently George had thought he had recognised the face of
his dead father behind the shut windows of a fiacre.

The houses gleamed behind the leafless branches. One of them was the
house in which the brothers lived. The time has come, thought George,
for me to mention the matter at last. And to bring matters to a head,
he observed lightly: "Besides, I am not going to Italy alone this year."

"Hm! Hm!" said Felician, and looked in front of him.

George felt at the same moment that he had not taken the right tone. He
was apprehensive of Felician's thinking something like this: "Oh yes,
he has got an adventure again with some shady person or other." And he
added seriously: "I say, Felician, I have something serious I should
like to talk to you about."

"What! Serious!"

"Yes."

"Well, George," said Felician gently, and looked at him sideways, "what
is up, then? You are not thinking of marrying by any chance?"

"Oh no," replied George, and then felt irritated that he had repudiated
that possibility with such definiteness. "No, it is not a question of
marriage, but of something much more vital."

Felician remained standing for a moment. "You have a child?" he asked
seriously.

"No, not yet. That's just it, that is why we are leaving."

"Indeed," said Felician.

They had got out of the park. Involuntarily both looked up to the
window of their house, from which only a year ago their father had
so often nodded his welcome to them both. Both felt with sorrow that
somehow since their father's death they had gradually slipped away
from each other--and felt at the same time a slight fear of how much
further from each other life could still take them.

"Come into my room," said George when they got upstairs. "That's the
most comfortable place."

He sat down on his comfortable chair by his secretary. Felician lounged
in the corner on a little green leather ottoman which was near the
writing-table and listened quietly.

George told him the name of his mistress, spoke of her with heartfelt
sympathy, and asked Felician, in case anything should happen to him,
George, in the near future to undertake to look after the mother and
her child. He left so much of his fortune as was still available to the
child, of course. The mother was to have the usufruct until the child
became of age.

When George had finished Felician said with a smile after a short
silence: "Oh well, you've got every reason to hope that you will come
back as whole and sound from your journey as I will from Africa, and so
our conversation has probably only an academic significance."

"I hope so too, of course. But at any rate it reassures me, Felician,
that you know all about my secret, and that I can be free from anxiety
in every way."

"Yes, of course you can." He shook hands with his brother. Then he
got up and walked up and down the room. Finally he said: "You have no
thought of legitimising your relationship?"

"Not for the time being. One can never tell what the future may bring
forth."

Felician remained standing. "Well...."

"Are you in favour of my marrying?" exclaimed George with some
astonishment.

"Not at all."

"Felician, be frank, please."

"Look here, one should not advise any one in affairs like that. Not
even one's own brother."

"But if I ask you, Felician? It seems to me as though there is
something in the business you didn't quite like."

"Well, it is like this, George.... You won't misunderstand me.... I
know of course that you are not thinking of leaving her in the lurch.
On the contrary, I am convinced that you will behave all through far
more nobly than any ordinary man in your position. But the question is
really this, would you have let yourself go into the thing if you had
considered the consequences from every point of view?"

"That of course is very hard to answer," said George.

"I mean just this: Did you intend ... not to make her your companion
for life, but to have a child by her all the same?"

"Great heavens, who thinks of that? Of course if one had wanted to be
so absolutely on the safe side----"

Felician interrupted him. "Does she know that you are not thinking of
marrying her?"

"Why, you don't think, surely, I promised her marriage?"

"No. But you did not promise to leave her stranded either."

"It would have been equally mean if I had promised, Felician. The whole
thing came about as affairs like that always do, developed without any
definite plan right up to the present time."

"Yes, that is all right. The only question is whether one is not more
or less under an obligation to have definite plans in really vital
matters."

"Possibly.... But that was never my line, unfortunately."

Felician remained standing in front of George, looked at him
affectionately and nodded a few times.

"That is quite true, George. You are not angry with me.... But now that
we are talking about it.... Of course I am not suggesting I have any
right to lecture you on your mode of life...."

"Go ahead, Felician.... I mean if.... It really does me good." He
stroked him lightly on the hand which lay on the back of the ottoman.

"Well, there is not much more to be said. I only mean that in
everything you do there is just ... the same lack of system. Look here,
to talk of another important matter, I personally am quite convinced
of your talent and many others are, too. But you really work damned
little, don't you? And fame doesn't come of itself, even when one...."

"Quite so. But I don't work as little as you think, Felician, it
is only that work is such a peculiar business with people of my
temperament. Frequently when one is out for a walk or even asleep one
gets all kinds of ideas.... And then in the autumn...."

"Yes, yes, we hope so, though I am afraid that you won't be able to
live on your salary at the commencement, and it is very questionable
how long your little money will hold out with your mode of life. I tell
you candidly, when you mentioned a few moments ago the sum which you
were able to leave to your child I had quite a shock."

"Be patient, Felician. In three or five years, when I have my opera
finished...." He spoke in an ironical tone.

"Are you really writing an opera, George?"

"I am beginning one shortly."

"Who is doing the libretto for you?"

"Heinrich Bermann. Of course you scowl again."

"My dear George, I have always been very far from lecturing you in any
way about the people you associate with. It is quite natural that you
with your intellectual tastes should live in a different set and mix
with different people to those I do, people whom I should probably find
rather less to my taste. But so long as Herr Bermann's libretto is good
you have my blessing ... and Herr Bermann, of course, too."

"The libretto is not ready yet, only the scenario."

Felician could not help laughing. "So that's how your opera stands! I
only hope the theatre is already built at which you are going to get a
post as conductor."

"Come, come," said George, somewhat hurt.

"Forgive me," replied Felician, "I have not really any doubts about
your future. I should only like you yourself to do a bit more towards
it. I really should be so ... proud, George, if you were to do anything
great, and it, I'm sure, only depends on yourself. Willy Eissler, who
is a man of genuine musical gifts, told me again only the other day
that he thinks more of you than of most of the young composers."

"On the strength of the few songs of mine which he knows? You're a good
fellow, Felician, but there is really no need for you to encourage me.
I already know what I have got in me, only I must be more industrious,
and my going away will do me quite a lot of good. It does one good to
get out of one's usual surroundings for a time, like this. And this
time it is quite different from last. It is the first time, Felician,
that I have had anything to do with a person who is absolutely my
equal, who is more ... whom I can treat as a true friend as well, and
the consciousness that I am going to have a child, and by her, too, is,
in spite of all the accompanying circumstances, rather pleasant."

"I can quite understand that," said Felician, and contemplated George
seriously and affectionately.

The clock on the writing-table struck two.

"What, so late already," cried Felician, "and I have got to pack early
to-morrow. Well, we can talk over everything at breakfast to-morrow.
Well, good-night, George."

"Good-night, Felician. Thank you," he added with emotion.

"What are you thanking me for, George? You really are funny!" They
shook hands and then kissed each other, which they had not done for
quite a long time, and George resolved to call his child Felician if it
was to be a boy, and he rejoiced at the good omen of a name which had
so happy a ring.

After his brother's departure George felt as deserted as though he had
never had another friend. Living in the great lonely house, where he
seemed to be weighed down by a mood like that which had followed the
first weeks after his father's death, made him feel depressed.

He regarded the days which still had to elapse before the departure as
a transition period, in which it was not worth while starting anything.
The hours he spent with his mistress in the room opposite the church
became colourless and blank. A psychological change, too, seemed to be
now taking place in Anna herself. She was frequently irritable, then
taciturn again, almost melancholy, and George was often overcome by
so great a sense of _ennui_ when he was with her that he felt quite
nervous of the next month in which they would be thrown completely into
each other's society. Of course the journey in itself promised change
enough, but how would it be in the subsequent months which would have
to be spent somewhere in the neighbourhood of Vienna? He must also
think about a companion for Anna; but he was still putting off speaking
to her about it, when Anna herself came to him with a piece of news
which was calculated to remove that difficulty, and at the same time to
raise another one, in the simplest way conceivable. Anna had recently,
particularly since she had gradually given up her lessons, become more
and more intimate with Therese, and had confided everything to her, and
so it soon came about that Therese's mother was also in the secret.
This lady was much more congenial to Anna than her own mother, who
after a slight glimmer of understanding had held aloof, aggrieved and
depressed, from her erring daughter.

Frau Golowski not only declared herself ready to live with Anna in the
country, but even promised to discover the little house which George
had not been able to find, while the young couple were away. However
much this willingness suited George's convenience, he found it none
the less somewhat painful to be under an obligation to this old woman,
who was a stranger to him, and in moments when he was out of temper
it struck him as almost grotesque that it should be Leo's mother and
Berthold's father, of all people, who should be fated to play so
important a part in so momentous an event in Anna's life.

George paid his farewell visit at Ehrenbergs' on a fine May afternoon
three days before he went away.

He had only rarely shown himself there since that Christmas celebration
and his conversations with Else had remained on the most innocent of
footings. She confessed to him, as though to a friend who could not
now misunderstand remarks of that character, that she felt more and
more unsettled at home. In particular the atmosphere of the house, as
George had frequently noticed before, seemed to be permanently overcast
by the bad relations between father and son. When Oskar came in at the
door with his nonchalant aristocratic swagger and began to talk in his
Viennese aristocratic accent, his father would turn scornfully away, or
would be unable to suppress allusions to the fact that he could make
an end this very day of all that aristocracy by stopping or lowering
his so-called allowance, which as a matter of fact was neither more
nor less than pocket-money. If, on his side, his father began to talk
Yiddish, as he was most fond of doing in front of company, and with
obvious malice, Oskar would bite his lips and make a point of leaving
the room. So it was only very rarely during the last few months that
father and son stayed in Vienna or in Neuhaus at the same time. They
both found each other's presence almost intolerable.

When George came in to Ehrenbergs' the room was almost in darkness. The
marble Isis gleamed from behind the pianoforte, and the twilight of the
late afternoon was falling in the alcove where mother and daughter sat
opposite each other. For the first time the appearance of these two
women struck George as somewhat strangely pathetic. A vague feeling
floated up in his mind that perhaps this was the last time he would
see this picture, and Else's smile shone towards him with such sweet
melancholy, that he thought for a whole minute: might I not have found
my happiness here, after all?

He now sat next to Frau Ehrenberg (who was going on quietly knitting)
opposite Else, smoked a cigarette and felt quite at home. He explained
that, fascinated by the tempting spring weather, he was starting on
his projected journey earlier than he had intended, and that he would
probably prolong it until the summer.

"And we are going to Auhof as early as the middle of May this time,"
said Frau Ehrenberg, "and we certainly count upon seeing you down there
this year."

"If you are not elsewhere engaged," added Else with a perfectly
straight face.

George promised to come in August, at any rate for some days. The
conversation then turned on Felician and Willy, who had started with
their party a few days ago from Biskra on their hunting expedition in
the desert; on Demeter Stanzides, who announced his immediate intention
of resigning from the army and retiring to an estate in Hungary; and
finally on Heinrich Bermann of whom no one had had any news for some
weeks.

"Who knows if he will ever come back to Vienna at all?" said Else.

"Why shouldn't he? What makes you think that, Fraeulein Else?"

"Upon my word, perhaps he'll marry that actress and trot about the
world with her."

George shrugged his shoulders ... he didn't know personally of any
actress with whom Heinrich was mixed up, and he ventured to express
a doubt whether Heinrich would ever marry any one, whether she was a
Princess or a circus rider.

"It would be rather a pity if Bermann were to," said Frau Ehrenberg,
without taking any notice of George's discretion. "I certainly think
that young people take these matters either too lightly or too
seriously."

Else followed up the idea: "Yes, it is strange, all you men are either
cleverer or much sillier in these matters than in any other, although
really it is just in such crucial moments of one's life, that one ought
as far as possible to be one's ordinary self."

"My dear Else," said George casually, "once one's passions are set
going----"

"Yes, when they are set going," emphasised Frau Ehrenberg.

"Passions!" exclaimed Else. "I believe that like all other great things
in the world, they are really something quite rare."

"What do you know, my child?" said Frau Ehrenberg.

"At any rate I've never so far seen anything of that kind in my
immediate environment," explained Else.

"Who knows if you would discover it," remarked George, "even though it
did come once in a way quite near you? Viewed from outside a flirtation
and a life's tragedy may sometimes look quite the same."

"That is certainly not true," said Else. "Passion is something that is
bound to betray itself."

"How do you manage to know that, Else?" objected Frau Ehrenberg.
"Passions can often conceal themselves deeper than any ordinary
trumpery little emotion, for the very reason that there is usually more
at stake."

"I think," replied George, "that it is a very personal matter. There
are, of course, people who have everything written on their forehead,
and others who are impenetrable; being impenetrable is quite as much a
talent as anything else."

"It can be trained too, like anything else," said Else.

The conversation stuck for a moment, as is apt to occur when the
personal application that lies behind some general observation flashes
out only too palpably.

Frau Ehrenberg started a new topic. "Have you been composing anything
nice, George?" she asked.

"A few trifles for the piano. My quintette will soon be ready too."

"The quintette is beginning to grow mythical," said Else discontentedly.

"Else!" said her mother.

"Well, it really would be a good thing, if he were to be more
industrious."

"You are perhaps right about that," replied George.

"I think artists used to work much more in former days than they do
now."

"The great ones," qualified George.

"No, all," persisted Else.

"Perhaps it is a good thing that you are going to travel," said Frau
Ehrenberg, "for apparently you've too many distractions here."

"He'll let himself be distracted anywhere," asserted Else sternly.
"Even in Iglau, or wherever else he happens to be next year."

"That's why I've never yet thought of your going away," said Frau
Ehrenberg and shook her head; "and your brother will be in Sophia or
Athens next year and Stanzides in Hungary ... it's really a great pity
to think of all the nicest men being scattered like this to the four
corners of the world."

"If I were a man," said Else, "I would scatter too."

George smiled. "You're dreaming of a journey round the world in a white
yacht, Madeira, Ceylon, San Francisco."

"Oh no, I shouldn't like to be without a profession, but I should
probably have been an officer in the merchant service."

"Won't you be kind enough"--Frau Ehrenberg turned to George--"to play
us one or two of your new things?"

"Delighted, I'm sure." He got up from the recess and walked towards the
window into the darkness of the room. Else got up and turned on the
light on top. George opened the piano, sat down and played his ballads.

Else had sat down in an arm-chair and as she sat there, with her arm
resting on the side of the chair and her head resting on her arm in
the pose of a _grande dame_ and with the melancholy expression of a
precocious child, George felt again strangely thrilled by her look. He
was not feeling very satisfied with his ballad to-day, and was fully
conscious that he was endeavouring to help out its effect by putting
too much expression into his playing.

Hofrat Wilt stepped softly into the room and made a sign that they
were not to disturb themselves. He then remained standing by the door
leaning against the wall, tall, superior, good-natured, with his
closely-cropped grey hair, until George ended his performance with
some emphatic harmonies. They greeted each other. Wilt congratulated
George on being a free man and being now able to travel South. "I'm
sorry to say I can't do it," he added, "and all the same one has at
times a vague notion that even though one were not to visit one's
office for a year on end, not the slightest change would take place in
Austria." He talked with his usual irony about his profession and his
Fatherland. Frau Ehrenberg retorted that there was not a man who was
more patriotic, and took his calling more seriously than he himself.
He agreed. But he regarded Austria as an infinitely complicated
instrument, which only a master could handle properly, and said that
the only reason for its sounding badly so often was that every muddler
tried his art upon it. "They'll go on knocking it about," he said
dismally, "until all the strings break and the frame too."

When George went Else accompanied him into the empty room. She still
had a few words to say to him about his ballads. She had particularly
liked the middle movement. It had had such an inner glow. Anyway, she
hoped he would have a good time on his journey.

He thanked her.

"So," she said suddenly, when he already had his hat in his hand, "it's
really a case now of saying a final farewell to certain dreams."

"What dreams?" he asked in surprise.

"Mine of course, which you are bound to have known about by this time."

George was very astonished. She had never been so specific. He smiled
awkwardly and sought for an answer. "Who knows what the future will
bring forth?" he said at last lightly.

She puckered her forehead. "Why aren't you at any rate as straight with
me as I am with you? I know quite well that you are not travelling
alone ... I also know who is going with you ... what is more I know the
whole thing. Good gracious, what haven't I known since we have known
each other?"

And George heard grief and rage quivering below the surface of her
words. And he knew that if he ever did make her his wife, she would
make him feel that she had had to wait for him too long. He looked in
front of him and maintained a silence that seemed at once guilty and
defiant.

Then Else smiled brightly, held out her hand and said once again: "_Bon
voyage_."

He pressed her hand as though he were bound to make some apology. She
took it away from him, turned round and went back into the room. He
still waited for a few seconds standing by the door and then hurried
into the street. On the same evening George saw Leo Golowski again in
the cafe, for the first time for many weeks. He knew from Anna that
Leo had recently had to put up with a great deal of unpleasantness
as a volunteer and that that "fiend in human form" in particular had
persecuted him with malice, with real hatred in fact. It occurred to
George to-day that Leo had greatly altered during the short time in
which he had not seen him. He looked distinctly older.

"I'm very glad to get a chance of seeing you again before I leave,"
said George and sat down opposite him at the cafe table.

"You are glad," replied Leo, "that you happened to run across me
again, while I positively needed to see you once again, that is the
difference." His voice had even a tenderer note than usual. He looked
George in the face with a kind, almost fatherly expression.

At this moment George no longer had any doubt that Leo knew everything.
He felt as embarrassed for a few seconds as though he were responsible
to him, was irritated at his own embarrassment and was grateful to
Leo for not appearing to notice it. This evening they talked about
practically nothing except music. Leo inquired after the progress of
George's work, and it came about during the course of the conversation
that George declared himself quite willing to play one of his newest
compositions to Leo on the following Sunday afternoon. But when they
took leave of each other, George suddenly had the unpleasant feeling
of having passed with comparative success a theoretical examination,
and of being faced to-morrow with a practical examination. What did
this young man, who was so mature for his years, really want of him?
Was George to prove to him that his talent entitled him to be Anna's
lover or her child's father? He waited for Leo's visit with genuine
repugnance. He thought for a minute of refusing to see him. But when
Leo appeared with all that innocent sincerity which he so frequently
liked to affect, George's mood soon became less harsh. They drank tea
and smoked cigarettes and George showed him his library, the pictures
which were hanging in the house, the antiquities and the weapons, and
the examination feeling vanished. George sat down at the pianoforte,
played a few of his earlier pieces and also his latest ones as well as
the ballads, which he rendered much better than he had done yesterday
at Ehrenbergs', and then some songs, while Leo followed the melody with
his fingers, but with sure musical feeling. Eventually he started to
play the quintette from the score. He did not succeed and Leo stationed
himself at the window with the music and read it attentively.

"One can't really tell at all so far," he said. "A great deal of it
indicates a dilettante with a lot of taste, other parts an artist
without proper discipline. It's rather in the songs that one feels ...
but feels what?... talent ... I don't know. One feels at any rate that
you have distinction, real musical distinction."

"Well, that's not so much."

"As a matter of fact it's pretty little, but it doesn't prove anything
against you either, since you have worked so little--worked very little
and felt little."

"You think ..." George forced a sarcastic laugh.

"Oh, you've probably lived a great deal but felt ... you know what I
mean, George?"

"Yes, I can imagine well enough, but you're really making a mistake;
why I rather think that I have a certain tendency to sentimentalism,
which I ought to combat."

"Yes, that's just it. Sentimentalism, you know, is something which
is the direct antithesis to feeling, something by means of which
one reassures oneself about one's lack of feeling, one's essential
coldness. Sentimentalism is feeling which one has obtained, so to
speak, below cost price. I hate sentimentalism."

"Hm, and yet I think that you yourself are not quite free from it."

"I am a Jew, it's a national disease with us. Our respectable members
are working to change it into rage or fury. It's a bad habit with the
Germans, a kind of emotional slovenliness so to speak."

"So there is an excuse for you, not for us."

"There is no excuse for diseases either if, fully realising what one is
doing, one has missed one's opportunity of protecting oneself against
them. But we are beginning to babble in aphorism and are consequently
only on the way to half or quarter truths. Let's go back to your
quintette. I like the theme of the adagio best."

George nodded. "I heard it once in Palermo."

"What," said Leo, "is it supposed to be a Sicilian melody?"

"No, it rippled to me out of the waves of the sea when I went for a
walk one morning along the shore. Being alone is particularly good for
my work, so is change of scene. That's why I promise myself all kinds
of things from my trip." He told him about Heinrich Bermann's opera
plot, which he found very stimulating. When Heinrich came back again,
Leo was to make him seriously start on the libretto.

"Don't you know yet," said Leo, "his father is dead?"

"Really? When? How do you know?"

"It was in the paper this morning."

They spoke about Heinrich's relationship to the dead man and Leo
declared that the world would perhaps get on better if parents would
more frequently learn by the experiences of their children instead of
asking their children to adapt themselves to their own hoary wisdom.
The conversation then turned on the relations between fathers and sons,
on true and false kinds of gratefulness, on the dying of people one
held dear, on the difference between mourning and grief, on the dangers
of memory and the duty of forgetting. George felt that Leo was a very
serious thinker, was very solitary and knew how to be so. He felt
almost fond of him when the door closed behind him in the late twilight
hour and the thought that this man had been Anna's first infatuation
did him good.

The remaining days passed more quickly than he anticipated, what with
purchases, arrangements and all kinds of preparations. And one evening
George and Anna drove after each other to the station in two separate
vehicles and jestingly greeted each other in the vestibule with great
politeness, as though they had been distant acquaintances who had met
by accident.

"My dear Fraeulein Rosner, what a fortunate coincidence! are you also
going to Munich by any chance?"

"Yes, Herr Baron."

"Hullo, that's excellent! and have you a sleeping-car, my dear
Fraeulein?"

"Oh yes, Herr Baron, berth number five."

"How strange now, I have number six."

They then walked up and down on the platform. George was in a very
good temper, and he was glad that in her English dress, narrow-brimmed
travelling hat and blue veil Anna looked like an interesting foreigner.
They went the length of the entire train until they came to the
engine, which stood outside the station and was sending violent puffs
of light-grey steam up to the dark sky. Outside green and red lamps
glowed on the track with a faint light. Nervous whistles came from
somewhere out of the distance and a train slowly struggled out of the
darkness into the station. A red light waved magically to and fro over
the ground, seemed to be miles away, stopped and was suddenly quite
near. And outside, shining and losing themselves in the invisible, the
lines went their way to near and far, into night and morning, into the
morrow, into the inscrutable.

Anna climbed into the compartment. George remained standing outside
for a while and derived amusement from watching the other travellers,
those who were in an excited rush, those who preserved a dignified
calm, and those who posed as being calm--and all the various types of
people who were seeing their friends off: the depressed, the jolly, the
indifferent.

Anna was leaning out of the window. George chatted with her, behaved
as though he had not the slightest idea of leaving and then jumped in
at the last minute. The train went away. People were standing on the
platform, incomprehensible people who were remaining behind in Vienna,
and who on their side seemed to find all the others who were now really
leaving Vienna equally incomprehensible. A few pocket-handkerchiefs
fluttered. The station-master stood there impressively and gazed
sternly after the train. A porter in a blue-and-white striped linen
blouse held a yellow bag high up and looked inquisitively into every
window. Strange, thought George casually, there are people who
are going away and yet leave their yellow bags behind in Vienna.
Everything vanished, handkerchiefs, bags, station-master, station. The
brightly-lighted signal-box, the Gloriette, the twinkling lights of
the town, the little bare gardens along the embankment; and the train
whizzed on through the night. George turned away from the window. Anna
sat in the corner. She had taken off her hat and veil. Gentle little
tears were running down her cheeks.

"Come," said George, as he embraced her and kissed her on the eyes and
mouth. "Come, Anna," he repeated even more tenderly, and kissed her
again. "What are you crying for, dear? It will be so nice."

"It's easy enough for you," she said, and the tears streamed on down
her smiling face.

They had a beautiful time. They first stopped in Munich. They walked
about in the lofty halls of the Pinakothek, stood fascinated in front
of the old darkening pictures, wandered into the Glyptothek between
marble gods, kings and heroes; and when Anna with a sudden feeling
of exhaustion sat down on a settee she felt George's tender glance
lingering over her head. They drove through the English garden, over
broad avenues beneath the still leafless trees, nestling close to each
other, young and happy, and were glad to think that people took them
for a honeymoon couple. And they had their seats next to each other
at the opera, _Figaro_, _The Meistersingers_, and _Tristan_, and they
felt as though a resonant transparent veil were woven around them
alone out of the notes they loved so well, which separated them from
all the rest of the audience. And they sat, unrecognised by any one at
prettily-laid little restaurant tables, ate, drank and talked in the
best of spirits. And through streets that had the wondrous atmosphere
of a foreign land, they wandered home to where the gentle night waited
for them in the room they shared, slept peacefully cheek by cheek,
and when they awoke there smiled to them from the window a friendly
day with which they could do whatever they liked. They found peace in
each other as they had never done before, and at last belonged to each
other absolutely. Then they travelled further to meet the call of the
spring; through long valleys on which the snow shone and melted, then,
as though traversing one last white winter dream, over the Brenner
to Bozen, where they basked in the sunbeams at noon in the dazzling
market-place. On the weather-worn steps of the vast amphitheatre of
Verona, beneath the cool sky of an Easter evening, George found himself
at last in sight of that world of his heart's desire into which a
real true love was now vouchsafed to accompany him. His own vanished
boyhood greeted him out of the pale reddish distance together with all
the eternal memories, in which other men and women had their share
as well. Why, even a breath of those bygone days when his mother
had still lived seemed to thrill already through this air with its
familiar and yet foreign atmosphere. He was glad to see Venice, but it
had lost its magic and was as well known as though he had only left
it yesterday. He was greeted in the Piazza St. Marco by some casual
Viennese acquaintances, and the veiled lady by his side in the white
dress earned many an inquisitive glance. Once only, late at evening, on
a gondola journey through the narrow canals did the looming palaces,
which in the daylight had gradually degenerated into artificial
scenery, appear to him in all the massive splendour of the dark golden
glories of their past. Then came a few days in towns, which he scarcely
knew or did not know at all, in which he had only spent a few hours
as a boy, or had never been in at all. They walked into a dim church
out of a sultry Padua afternoon, and going slowly from altar to altar
contemplated the simple glorious pictures in which saints accomplished
their miracles and fulfilled their martyrdoms. On a dismal rainy day
a jolty gloomy carriage took them past a brick-red fort, round which
lay greenish-grey water in a broad moat, through a market-square where
negligently dressed citizens sat in front of the cafe; among silent
mournful streets, where grass grew between the cobble-stones, and they
had perforce to believe that this pitifully-dying petty town bore the
resounding name of Ferrara. But they breathed again in Bologna, where
the lively flourishing town does not simply content itself with a
mere pride in its bygone glories. But it was only when George gazed
at the hills of Fiesole that he felt himself greeted as it were by a
second home. This was the town in which he had ceased to be a boy,
the town in which the stream of life had begun to course through his
veins. At many places memories floated up in his mind which he kept
to himself; and when in the cathedral, where the Florentine girl had
given him her final look from beneath her bridal veil, he only spoke
to Anna about that hour in the Altlerchenfelder Church in that autumn
evening, when they had both begun to talk with some dim presentiment
about this journey, which had now become realised with such
inconceivable rapidity. He showed Anna the house in which he had lived
nine years ago. The same shops in which coral-dealers, watch-makers
and lace-dealers hawked their wares were still underneath. As the
second story was to let George would have had no difficulty in seeing
immediately the room in which his mother had died. But he hesitated
for a long time to set foot in the house again. It was only on the day
before their departure, as though feeling that he should not put it off
any more, that alone and without any previous word to Anna, he went
into the house, up the stairs and into the room. The aged porter showed
him round and did not recognise him. The same furniture was still all
there.

His mother's bedroom looked exactly the same as it had done ten
years ago, and the same brown wooden bed with its dark-green silver
embroidered velvet coverlet still stood in the same corner. But none
of the emotions which George had expected stirred within him. A tired
memory which seemed flatter and duller than it had ever been before,
ran through his soul. He stayed a long time in front of the bed with
the deliberate intention of conjuring up those emotions which he felt
it was his duty to feel. He murmured the word "mother," he tried to
imagine the way in which she had lain here in this bed for many days
and nights. He remembered the hours in which she had felt better, and
he had been able to read aloud to her or to play to her on the piano
in the adjoining room. He looked at the little round table standing
in the corner over which his father and Felician had spoken in a soft
whisper because his mother had just gone to sleep; and finally there
arose up in his mind with all the sharp vividness of a theatrical scene
the picture of that dreadful evening, when his father and brother
had gone out, and he himself had sat at his mother's bedside quite
alone with her hand in his ... he saw and heard it all over again. He
remembered how she had suddenly felt ill after an extremely quiet day,
how he had hurriedly opened the windows and the laughter and speeches
of strange people had penetrated into the room with the warm March
air, how she lay there at last with open eyes that were already blank,
while her hair that only a few seconds ago had streamed in waves over
her forehead and temple lay dry and dishevelled on the pillow, and her
left arm hung down naked over the edge of the bed with still fingers
stretched far apart. This image arose in his mind with such terrible
vividness that he saw again mentally his own boyish face and heard once
again his own long sobbing ... but he felt no pain. It was far too long
ago--nearly ten years.

"_E bellissima la vista di questa finestra_," suddenly said the porter
behind him as he opened the window--and human voices at once rang
into the room from down below just as they had done on that long-past
evening. And at the same moment he heard his mother's voice in his ear,
just as he had heard it then entreating, dying ... "George ... George"
... and out of the dark corner in the place where the pillows had used
to lie he saw something pale shine out towards him. He went to the
window and agreed: "_Bellissima vista_," but in front of the beautiful
view there lay as it were a dark veil. "Mother," he murmured, and once
again "Mother" ... but to his own amazement he did not mean the woman
who had borne him and had been buried long ago; the word was for that
other woman, who was not yet a mother but who was to be in a few months
... the mother of a child of which he was the father. And the word
suddenly rang out, as though some melody that had never been heard or
understood before, were now sounding, as though bells with mystic
chiming were swinging in the distant future. And George felt ashamed
that he had come here alone, had, as it were, almost stolen here. It
was now quite out of the question to tell Anna that he had been here.

The next day they took the train to Rome. And while George felt
fresher, more at home, more in the vein for enjoyment, with each
succeeding day, Anna began to suffer seriously from a feeling of
exhaustion with increasing frequency. She would often remain behind
alone in the hotel, while he strolled about the streets, wandered
through the Vatican, went to the Forum and the Palatine. She never kept
him back, but he nevertheless felt himself bound to cheer her up before
he went out, and got into the habit of saying: "Well, you'll keep that
for another time, I hope we shall soon be coming here again." Then she
would smile in her arch way, as though she did not doubt now that she
would one day be his wife; and he himself could not help owning that he
no longer regarded that development as impossible. For it had gradually
become almost impossible for him to realise that they were to say
goodbye for ever and to go their several ways this autumn. Yet during
this period the words with which they spoke about a remote future were
always vague. He had fear of it, and she felt that she would be doing
well not to arouse that fear, and it was just during these Roman days,
when he would often walk about alone in the foreign town for hours on
end, that he felt as though he were at times slipping away from Anna in
a manner that was not altogether unpleasant.

One evening he had wandered about amid the ruins of the Imperial Palace
until the approach of dusk and from the height of the Palatine Hill
he had seen the sun set in the Campagna with all the proud delight of
the man who is alone. He had then gone driving for a while along the
ancient wall of the city to Monte Pincio, and when as he leant back in
the corner of his carriage he swept the roofs with his look till he saw
the cupola of St. Peter's, he felt with deep emotion that he was now
experiencing the most sublime hour of the whole journey. He did not get
back to the hotel till late, and found Anna standing by the window pale
and in tears, with red spots on her swollen cheeks. She had been dying
of nervousness for the last two hours, had imagined that he had had an
accident, had been attacked, had been killed. He reassured her, but did
not find the words of affection which she wanted, for he felt in some
unworthy way a sense of being tied and not free. She felt his coldness
and gave him to understand that he did not love her enough; he answered
with an irritation that verged on despair. She called him callous and
selfish. He bit his lip, made no further answer, and walked up and down
the room. Still unreconciled they went into the dining-room, where they
took their meal in silence, and went to bed without saying good-night.

The following days were under the shadow of this scene. It was only
on the journey to Naples, when they were alone in the compartment,
that in their joy over the new scenery to which they were flying
they found each other again. From henceforward he scarcely left her
a single minute, she seemed to him helpless and somewhat pathetic.
He gave up visiting museums since she could not accompany him. They
drove together to Posilippo and walked in the Villa Nationale. In
the excursion through Pompeii he walked next to her sedan-chair like
a patient affectionate husband, and while the guide was giving his
descriptive account in bad French, George took Anna's hand, kissed it
and endeavoured in enthusiastic words to make her share in the delight
that he himself felt once more in this mysterious roofless town, which
after a burial of two thousand years had gradually returned street by
street, house by house, to meet the unchanging light of that azure
sky. And when they stopped at a place where some labourers were just
engaged in extricating with careful movements of their shovels a broken
pillar out of the ashes he pointed it out to Anna with eyes which shone
as brightly as though he had been storing up this sight for her for
a long time, and as though everything which had happened before had
simply been leading up to the fulfilment of his purpose of taking her
to this particular place at this particular minute and showing her this
particular wonder.

On a dark blue May night they lay in two chairs covered with tarpaulins
on the deck of the ship that was taking them to Genoa. An old Frenchman
with clear eyes, who had sat opposite them at dinner, stood near them
for a while and drew their attention to the stars that hung in the
infinitude like heavy silver drops. He named some of them by name,
politely and courteously, as though he felt it incumbent upon him to
introduce to each other the shining wanderers of heaven and the young
married couple. He then said good-night and went down into his cabin.
But George thought of his lonely journey over the same route and under
the same sky in the previous spring after his farewell from Grace. He
had told Anna about her, not so much from any emotional necessity, as
in order to free his past from that atmosphere of sinister mystery
in which it often seemed to Anna to disappear, by the conjuring up
into life of a specific shape and the designation of a specific name.
Anna knew of Labinski's death, of George's conversation with Grace at
Labinski's grave, of George's stay with her in Sicily. He had even
shown her a picture of Grace; and yet he thought to himself with a
slight shudder how little Anna herself knew of this very epoch of his
life, which he had described to her with an almost reckless lack of
reserve; and he felt how impossible it was to give any other person any
idea of a period which that person had not actually lived through, and
of the contents of so many days and nights every minute of which had
been full of vivid life. He realised the comparative insignificance of
the little lapses from truth of which he frequently allowed himself to
be guilty in his narrative, compared with that ineradicable taint of
falseness to which every memory gives birth on its short journey from
the lips of one person to the ear of another. And if Anna herself at
some later time wanted to describe to some friend, some new lover, as
honestly as she possibly could, the time which she spent with George,
what after all could that friend really learn? Not much more than a
story such as he had read hundreds of times over in books: a story of
a young creature who had loved a young man, had travelled about with
him, had felt ecstasy and at times tedium, had felt herself at one with
him, and yet had frequently felt lonely. And even if she should make
an attempt to give a specific account of every minute ... there still
remained an irrevocable past, and for him who has not lived through it
himself the past can never be the truth.

The stars glistened above him. Anna's head had sunk slowly upon his
breast and he supported it gently with his hands. Only the slight
ripple in the depths betrayed that the ship was sailing onward. But it
still went on towards the morning, towards home, towards the future.

The _hour_ which had loomed over them so long in silence seemed now
about to strike and to begin. George suddenly felt that he no longer
had his fate in his own hand. Everything was going its course. And he
now felt in his whole body, even to the hairs of his head, that the
ship beneath his feet was relentlessly hurrying forward.

They only remained a day in Genoa. Both longed for rest, and George for
his work as well. They meant to stay only a few weeks at an Italian
lake and to travel home in the middle of June. The house in which Anna
was going to live would be bound to be ready by then. Frau Golowski had
found out half-a-dozen suitable ones, sent specific details to Anna
and was waiting for her decision, though she still continued looking
for others in case of emergency. They travelled from Milan to Genoa,
but they could not stand the noisy life of a town any longer and left
for Lugano the very next day.

They had been staying here for a period of four weeks and every morning
George went along the road which took him, as it did to-day, along
the cheerful shore of the lake, past _Paradiso_ to the bend, where
there was a view which every time he longed to see again. Only a few
days of their stay were still before them. In spite of the excellent
state of Anna's health since the beginning of their stay the time had
arrived to return to the vicinity of Vienna, so as to be able to be
ready confidently for all emergencies. The days in Lugano struck George
as the best he had experienced since his departure from Vienna. And
he asked himself during many a beautiful moment, if the time he was
spending here was not perhaps the best time of his whole life. He had
never felt himself so free from desire, so serene both in anticipation
and memory, and he saw with joy that Anna also was completely happy.
Expectant gentleness shone in her forehead, her eyes gleamed with arch
merriment, as at the time when George had wooed for their possession.
Without anxiety, without impatience and lifted by the consciousness
of her budding motherhood far above the memory of home prejudices or
any question of future complications, she anticipated with ecstasy the
great hour when she was to give back to the waiting world as an animate
creature, that which her body had drunk in during a half-conscious
moment of ecstasy. George saw with joy the maturing in her of the
comrade that he had hoped to find in her from the beginning, but who
had so frequently escaped him in the course of the last few months. In
their conversations about his works (all of which she had carefully
gone through), about the theory of the song, about the more general
musical questions, she revealed to him more knowledge and feeling
than he had ever suspected she had in her. And he himself, though he
did not actually compose much, felt as though he were making real
strides forward. Melodies resounded within him, harmonies heralded
their approach, and he remembered with deep understanding a remark
of Felician's, who had once said after he had not had a sword in his
hand for months on end, that his arm had had some good ideas during
this period. The future, too, occasioned him no anxiety. He knew that
serious work would begin as soon as he got back to Vienna, and then his
way would lie before him, clear and unencumbered.

George stood for a long time by the bend in the road which had been the
object of his walk. A short broad tongue of land, thickly overgrown
with low shrubs, stretched from here straight into the lake, while a
narrow gently sloping path led in a few steps to a wooden seat which
was invisible from the street and on which George was always accustomed
to sit down a little before returning to the hotel.

"How many more times," he could not help thinking to-day. "Five or six
times perhaps and then back to Vienna again." And he asked himself
what would happen if they did not go back, if they settled down in
some house somewhere in Italy or Switzerland, and began to build up
with their child a new life in the double peacefulness of Nature and
distance. What would happen?... Nothing. Scarcely any one would be
particularly surprised. And no one would miss either him or her, miss
them with real grief. These reflections made his mood flippant rather
than melancholy; the only thought that made him depressed was that he
was frequently overcome by a kind of homesickness, a kind of desire
in fact to see certain specific persons. And even now, while he was
drinking in the lake air, surrendering himself to the blue of this half
foreign, half familiar sky above him and enjoying all the pleasure of
solitude and retirement, his heart would beat when he thought of the
woods and hills around Vienna, of the Ringstrasse, the club and his big
room with the view of the Stadtpark. And he would have felt anxious
if his child had not been going to be born in Vienna. It suddenly
occurred to him that another letter from Frau Golowski must have
arrived to-day together with many other communications from Vienna, and
he therefore decided to take the road round by the post-office before
going back to the hotel. For following his habit during the whole trip
he had his letters addressed there and not to the hotel, since he felt
that this would give him a freer hand in dealing with any outside
emergency. He did not, as a matter of fact, get many letters from
Vienna. There was usually in spite of their brevity a certain element
in Heinrich's letters which, as George quite appreciated, was less due
to any particular need of sympathy on the part of the author than to
the circumstance that it was an integral part of his literary calling
to breathe the breath of life into all the sentences which he wrote.
Felician's letters were as cool as though he had completely forgotten
that last heartfelt talk in George's room and that brotherly kiss with
which they had taken leave of each other.... He presumes, no doubt,
thought George, that his letters will be read by Anna too, and does not
feel himself bound to give this stranger an insight into his private
affairs and his private feelings. Nuernberger had sent a few short
answers to George's picture-postcards, while in answer to a letter from
Rome, in which George had referred to his sincere appreciation of the
walks they had had together in the early spring, Nuernberger expressed
his regret in ironically apologetic phrases that he had told George
on those excursions such a lot about his own family affairs which
could not interest him in the slightest. A letter from old Eissler
had reached him at Naples, informing him that there was no prospect
of a vacancy for the following year at the Detmold Court Theatre,
but that George had been invited through Count Malnitz to be present
at the rehearsals and performances as a "visitor by special request,"
and that this was an opportunity which might perhaps pave the way to
something more definite in the future. George had given the proposition
his polite consideration, but had little inclination for the time being
to stay in the foreign town for any length of time with such vague
prospects, and had decided to look out for a permanent appointment as
soon as he arrived at Vienna.

Apart from this there was no personal note in any of the letters from
home. The remembrances to him which Frau Rosner felt in duty bound
to append to her letters to her daughter made no particular appeal,
although recently they had been addressed not to the Herr Baron but to
George. He felt certain that Anna's parents were simply resigned to
what they could not alter, but that they felt it grievously all the
same, and had not shown themselves as broad-minded as would have been
desirable.

In accordance with his habit George did not go back along the bank.
Passing through narrow streets between garden walls, then under arcades
and finally over a wide space from which there was another clear view
of the lake, he arrived in front of the post-office, whose bright
yellow paint reflected the dazzling rays of the sun. A young lady
whom George had already seen in the distance walking up and down the
pavement, remained standing as he approached. She was dressed in white
and carried a white sunshade spread out over a broad straw hat with a
red ribbon. When George was quite near she smiled, and he now suddenly
saw a well-known face beneath the white spotted tulle veil.

"Is it really you, Fraeulein Therese?" he exclaimed as he took the hand
which she held out to him.

"How do you do, Baron?" she replied innocently, as though this meeting
were the most ordinary event imaginable. "How is Anna?"

"Very well, thanks. Of course you will come and see her?"

"If I may."

"But tell me now, what are you doing here? Can it be that you"--and his
glance swept her in amazement from top to toe--"are making a political
tour?"

"I can't exactly say that," she replied, pushing out her chin, without
that movement having its usual effect of making her face appear ugly,
"it's more of a holiday jaunt." And her face shone with a genuine smile
as she saw George's glance turn towards the door, from which Demeter
Stanzides had just come out in a striped black-and-white flannel suit.
He lifted his grey felt hat in salutation and shook hands with George.

"Good-morning, Baron. Glad to see you again."

"I am very glad, too, Herr Stanzides."

"No letter for me?" Therese turned to Demeter.

"No, Therese. Only a few cards for me," and he put them in his pocket.

"How long have you been here?" inquired George, endeavouring to exhibit
as little surprise as possible.

"We arrived yesterday," replied Demeter.

"Straight from Vienna?" asked George.

"No, from Milan. We have been travelling for eight days. We were first
in Venice, that is the orthodox thing to do," added Therese, pulled
down her veil and took Demeter's arm.

"You been away much longer?" said Demeter. "I saw a card from you some
weeks back at Ehrenbergs', the house of the Vettii, Pompeii."

"Yes, I've had a wonderful trip."

"Well, we'll have a look round the place a bit," said Therese, "and
besides, we don't want to detain the Baron any more. I am sure he wants
to go and fetch his letters."

"Oh, there is no hurry about that. Anyway, we'll see each other again."

"Will you give us the pleasure, Baron," said Demeter, "of lunching with
us to-day at the Europe? That's where we put up."

"Thanks very much, but I'm afraid it's impossible. But ... but perhaps
you could manage to dine with ... with ... us at the Park Hotel, yes?
At half-past seven if that's all right for you. I'll have it served in
the garden, under an awfully fine plane-tree, where we usually take our
meals."

"Yes," said Therese, "we accept with thanks. Perhaps I'll come in an
hour earlier and have a quiet chat with Anna."

"Good," replied George, "she will be very glad."

"Well, till the evening, Baron," said Demeter, shook hands with him
heartily and added: "Please give my kind regards at home."

Therese flashed George an appreciative look, and then went on her way
with Demeter towards the bank of the lake.

George looked after them. If I hadn't known her, he thought, Demeter
could have introduced her to me straight away as his wife, nee Princess
X. How strange, those two.... He then went into the hall, had his
correspondence given to him at the counter and ran cursorily through
it. The first thing which caught his eye was a card from Leo Golowski.
There was nothing on it except "Dear George, mind you have a good
time." Then there was a card from the Waldsteingarten in the Prater,
"We have just emptied our glasses to the health of our runaway friend.
Guido Schoenstein, Ralph Skelton, the Rattenmamsell."

George wanted to read the letters from Felician, Frau Rosner and
Heinrich quietly at home with Anna. He was also in a hurry to inform
Anna of the news of the strange couple's arrival. He was not quite
free from anxiety, for Anna's conventional instincts had a knack of
waking up occasionally in a quite unexpected manner. Anyway, George
decided to tell her of his invitation to Demeter and Therese as though
it were an absolute matter of course and was quite ready, in case she
should feel hurt or irritated or even have doubts about the matter, to
oppose such an attitude firmly and resolutely. He himself was very glad
of the evening which was before him after the many weeks that he had
spent exclusively in Anna's society. He almost felt a little envious
of Demeter, who was on an irresponsible pleasure-trip like he himself
when he had gone travelling with Grace in the previous year. Then it
occurred to him that he liked Therese better than ever. In spite of the
numerous pretty women whom he had met in the course of the last month
he had never felt seriously tempted, even though Anna was losing more
and more of her womanly grace. To-day for the first time he felt a
desire for new embraces.

He soon saw Anna's light-blue morning dress shining through the
railings of the balcony. George whistled the first notes of Beethoven's
Fifth Symphony, which was his usual method of announcing himself, and
the pale gentle face of his beloved immediately appeared over the
railings and her big eyes greeted him with a smile. He held up the
packet of letters, she nodded with pleasure and he hurried quickly up
to her room and on to the balcony. She was reclining in a cane chair
in front of the little table with the green coverlet, on which some
needlework was lying, as was nearly always the case when George came
home from his morning walk. He kissed her on the forehead and on the
mouth. "Well, whom do you think I met?" he asked hurriedly.

"Else Ehrenberg," answered Anna, without considering.

"What an idea? How could she get here?"

"Well," said Anna slyly, "she might have travelled off to find you."

"She might, but she didn't. So guess again. I give you three guesses."

"Heinrich Bermann."

"Nowhere near it. Besides there is a letter from him. So guess again."

She reflected. "Demeter Stanzides," she then said.

"What, do you really know something?"

"What should I know? Is he really here?"

"By Jove, you are positively blushing. Ho ho!" He knew of her weakness
for Demeter's melancholy cavalier beauty but did not feel the slightest
trace of jealousy.

"So it is Stanzides?" she asked.

"Yes, it is Stanzides right enough. But with all the will in the world
I can't find anything remarkable about that. It's not remarkable,
either. But if you guess whom he is with...."

"With Sissy Wyner."

"But...."

"Well, I was thinking of marriage.... That happens too sometimes."

"No, not with Sissy, and not married, but with your friend Therese, and
as unmarried as possible."

"Get along...."

"I tell you, with Therese. They've been travelling for eight days. What
have you got to say to that? They have been in Venice and Milan. Had
you any idea of it?"

"No."

"Really not?"

"Really not. You know of course that Therese only once wrote me a line,
and you read her letter with your well-known interest."

"You're not astonished enough."

"Good gracious, I always knew that she had good taste."

"So has Demeter," exclaimed George with conviction.

"Elective affinities," remarked Anna, elevating her eyebrows, and went
on crocheting.

"And so this is the mother of my child," said George, with a merry
shake of his head.

She looked at him with a smile. "When is she coming to see me, then?"

"In the afternoon about six, I think. And ... and Stanzides is coming
too ... a bit later. They are going to dine with us. You don't mind?"

"Mind? I'm very glad," replied Anna simply.

George was agreeably surprised. If Anna in her present condition had
met Stanzides in Vienna!... he thought. How being away from one's
usual environment frees and purifies!

"What news did they tell you?" asked Anna.

"We stood chatting together at the post-office for scarcely three
minutes. He sends his regards to you, by the way."

Anna made no answer and it seemed to George as though her thoughts were
travelling again on extremely conventional lines.

"Have you been up long?" he asked quickly.

"Yes, I have been sitting here on the balcony for quite a long time. I
even went to sleep a bit, the air is so enervating to-day somehow. And
I dreamed, too."

"What did you dream about?"

"Of the child," she said.

"Again?"

She nodded. "Just the same as the other day. I was sitting here on the
balcony in my dream, and had it in my arms at the breast...."

"But what was it, a boy or a girl?"

"I don't know. Just a child. So tiny and so sweet. And the joy was
so.... No I won't give it up," she said softly with closed eyes.

He stood leaning on the railing and felt the light noon wind stroke his
hair. "If you don't want to give it out to nurse," he said, "well you
mustn't." And the thought ran through his mind, "Wouldn't it be the
most convenient thing to marry her?..." But something or other kept him
back from saying so. They were both silent. He had laid the letters in
front of him on the table. He now took them up and opened one. "Let's
see, first, what your mother writes?" he said.

Frau Rosner's letter contained the news that all was well at home, that
they would all be very glad to see Anna again, and that Josef had got
a post on the staff of the _Volksbote_ with a salary of fifty gulden a
month. Further, an inquiry had come from Frau Bittner as to when Anna
was coming back from Dresden, and if it was really certain that she
would be back again next autumn, because otherwise they would of course
have to look about for a new teacher.... Anna stood motionless and
expressed no opinion.

Then George read out Heinrich's letter. It ran as follows:

     "Dear George,

     "I am very glad that you will be back so soon, and prefer
     to tell you so to-day, because once you are there I shall
     never tell you how very glad I shall be to see you. A
     few days ago, when I went for a lonely cycle ride along
     the Danube, I genuinely missed you. What an overwhelming
     atmosphere of loneliness these banks have! I remember
     having once felt like that five or six years ago on
     a Sunday, when I was in what is technically known as
     'jolly company,' and was sitting in the Kloster-neuburger
     beer-house in the large garden with its view of the
     mountains and the fields. How it ascends from the depths
     of the waters, loneliness I mean, which certainly is quite
     a different thing to what one usually thinks it is. It is
     very far from being the opposite of society. Yet it is
     only perhaps when one is with other people that one has a
     right to feel lonely. Just take this as an aphoristical
     humorously untrue special supplement, or treat it as such
     and lay it aside. To come back to my ride along the banks
     of the Danube--it was on that same rather sultry evening
     that I had all kinds of good ideas, and I hope soon to be
     able to tell you a lot of startling news about Aegidius, for
     that's the name that the murderous melancholy youth has got
     at last, about the deep-thinking impenetrable prince, about
     the humorous Duke Heliodorus, the name by which I have the
     honour of introducing to you the Princess's betrothed, and
     especially about the princess herself, who seems to be a
     far more remarkable person than I originally supposed."

"That's to do with the opera plot?" asked Anna, dropping her work.

"Of course," replied George, and went on reading.

     "You must also know, my dear friend, that I have finished
     during the last week some verses for the first act, which
     so far are not particularly immortal, verses which until
     some further development, so long I mean, as they are
     without your music, will hop about the world like wingless
     angels. The subject-matter appeals to me extraordinarily,
     and I myself am curious to know what I am really going to
     make of it. I've begun all kinds of other things as well
     ... sketched things out ... thought things over. And to
     put it shortly and with a certain amount of cheek I feel
     as though a new phase were heralding itself within me.
     This sounds of course greater cheek than it really is. For
     chimney-sweeps, ice-cream vendors and colour-sergeants have
     their phases as well. People of our temperament always
     recognise it at once. What I regard as very probable is
     that I shall soon leave the fantastic element in which I
     now feel so much at home, and will either move up or move
     down into something extremely real. What would you say,
     for example, if I were to go in for a political comedy?
     I feel already that the word 'real' is not quite the
     right one. For in my view politics is the most fantastic
     element in which persons can possibly move, the only thing
     is they don't notice it.... This is the point I ought to
     drive home. This occurred to me the other day when I was
     present at a political meeting (untrue, I always get these
     thoughts). Yes--a meeting of working men and women in the
     Brigittenau in which I found myself next to Mademoiselle
     Therese Golowski, and at which I was compelled to hear
     seven speeches about universal suffrage. Each of the
     speakers--Therese was one of them, too--spoke just as
     though the solution of that question was the most important
     thing in the world to him or her personally, and I don't
     think that any of them had an idea that the whole question
     was a matter of colossal indifference to them at the real
     bottom of their hearts. Therese was very indignant of
     course when I enlightened her on the point, and declared
     that I had been infected by the poisonous scepticism of
     Nuernberger, of whom as a matter of fact I'm seeing far too
     much. She always makes a point of running him down, since
     he asked her some time ago in the cafe whether she was
     going to have her hair done high or in plaits at her next
     trial for high treason. Anyway, I find it very nice seeing
     a lot of Nuernberger. When I'm having my bad days, there is
     no one who receives me with more kindness. Only there are
     many days whose badness he doesn't suspect or doesn't want
     to know of. There are various troubles which I feel that he
     fails to appreciate and which I've given up talking to him
     about."

"What does he mean?" interrupted Anna.

"The affair with the actress, clearly," replied George, and went on
reading.

     "On the other hand he is inclined to make up for that
     by taking other troubles of mine too seriously. That is
     probably my fault and not his. He manifested a sympathy
     towards me for the loss I sustained by my father's death,
     which I confess made me positively ashamed; for though
     it hit me dreadfully hard we had grown so aloof from one
     another quite a long time before his madness burst upon
     him, that his death simply signified a further and more
     ghastly barrier rather than a new experience."

"Well?" asked Anna, as George stopped.

"I've just got an idea."

"What is it?"

"Nuernberger's sister lies buried in the Cadenabbia cemetery. I told you
about her. I'll run over one of these days."

Anna nodded. "Perhaps I'll go too, if I feel all right. From all I
hear of him I find Nuernberger much more sympathetic than that horrible
egoist your friend Heinrich."

"You think so?"

"But really, the way he writes about his father. It is almost
intolerable."

"Hang it all! if people who have grown so estranged as those two----"

"All the same, I haven't really very much in common with my own parents
temperamentally either, and yet.... If I.... No, no, I prefer not to
talk about such things. Won't you go on reading?"

George read:

     "There are more serious things than death, things which
     are certainly sadder, because these other things lack the
     finality which takes away the sadness of death, if viewed
     from the higher standpoint. For instance, there are living
     ghosts who walk about the streets in the clear daylight
     with eyes that have died long ago and yet see, ghosts who
     sit down next to one and talk with a human voice that has a
     far more distant ring than if it came from a grave. And one
     might go so far as to say that the essential awfulness of
     death is revealed to a far greater extent in moments when
     one has experiences like this, than at those times when one
     stands near and watches somebody being lowered into the
     earth ... however near that somebody was."

George involuntarily dropped the letter and Anna said with emphasis:
"Well, you can certainly keep him to yourself--your friend Heinrich."

"Yes," replied George slowly. "He is often a bit affected, and yet ...
hallo, there goes the first bell for lunch. Let's read quickly through
to the end."

"But I must now tell you what happened yesterday: the most painful
and yet ridiculous affair which I have come across for a long time,
and I am sorry to say the persons concerned are our good friends the
Ehrenbergs, father and son."

"Oh," cried Anna involuntarily.

George had quickly run through the lines which followed and shook his
head.

"What is it?" inquired Anna.

"It is.... Just listen," and he went on reading.

     "You are no doubt aware of the growing acuteness of the
     relations between Oskar and the old man in the course of
     the last year. You also know the real reasons for it, so
     that I can just inform you of what has taken place without
     going into the motives for it any further. Well, it's
     just like this. Yesterday Oskar passes by the Church of
     St. Michael about twelve o'clock midday and takes off his
     hat. You know that at the present time piety is about the
     smartest craze going, and so perhaps it is unnecessary to
     go into any further explanation, as, for example, that
     a few young aristocrats happened just to be coming out
     of church and that Oskar wanted to behave as a Catholic
     for their special benefit. God knows how often he has
     previously been guilty of this imposture without being
     found out, but as luck would have it, it happens yesterday
     that old Ehrenberg comes along the road at the same moment.
     He sees Oskar taking off his hat in front of the church
     door ... and attacked by a fit of uncontrollable rage he
     gives his offspring a box on the ears then and there. A
     box on the ears! Oskar the lieutenant in the reserve!
     Midday in the centre of the town! So it is not particularly
     remarkable that the story was known all over the town the
     very same evening. It is already in some of the papers
     to-day. The Jewish ones leave it severely alone, except
     for a few scandal-mongering rags, the Anti-Semitic ones
     of course go for it hot and strong. The _Christliche
     Volksbote_ is the best, and insists on both the Ehrenbergs
     being brought before a jury for sacrilege or blasphemy.
     Oskar is said to have travelled off, no one knows where,
     for the time being."

"A nice family!" said Anna with conviction.

George could not help laughing against his will. "My dear girl, Else is
really absolutely innocent of the whole business."

The bell rang for the second time. They went into the dining-room and
took their places at a little table by the window which was always laid
for them alone. Scarcely more than a dozen visitors were sitting at the
long table in the middle of the room, mostly Englishmen and Frenchmen,
and also a man no longer in the first flush of youth, who had been
there for two days and whom George took for an Austrian officer in
_mufti_. Anyway he bothered about him as little as he did about the
others. George had put Heinrich's letter in his pocket. It occurred to
him that he had not yet read it through to the end, and he took it out
again over the coffee and perused the remainder.

"What more does he write?" asked Anna.

"Nothing special," answered George. "About people who probably wouldn't
interest you particularly. He seems to have got in again with his cafe
set; more in fact than he likes and clearly more than he owns up to."

"He'll fit in all right," said Anna flippantly.

George smiled reflectively. "It is a funny set anyway."

"And what is the news with them?" asked Anna.

George had put the letter down by the cup and now looked at it. "Little
Winternitz ... you know ... the fellow who once recited his poems to
me and Heinrich last winter ... is going to Berlin as reader to a
newly-founded theatre. And Gleissner, the man who stared at us once so
in the museum...."

"Oh yes, that abominable fellow with the eyeglass."

"Well, he declares that he is going to give up writing to devote
himself exclusively to sport...."

"To sport?"

"Yes, quite a sport of his own. He plays with human souls."

"What?"

"Just listen." He read:

"This buffoon is now asserting that he is simultaneously engaged in the
solution of the two following psychological problems, which supplement
each other in quite an ingenious way. The first is to bring a young and
innocent creature to the lowest depth of depravity, while the second
is to make a prostitute into a saint, as he puts it. He promises that
he will not rest until the first one finishes up in a brothel, and the
second one in a cloister."

"A nice lot," remarked Anna and got up from the table.

"How the sound carries over here," said George and followed her into
the grounds.

A dark-blue day, heavy with the sun, was resting on the tops of the
trees. They stood for a while by the low balustrade which separated
the garden from the street and looked over the lake to the mountains
looming behind silver-grey veils that fluttered in the sunlight. They
then walked deeper into the grounds, where the shade was cooler and
darker, and as they walked arm-in-arm over the softly-crunching gravel
along the high brown ivy-grown walls, and looked in at the old houses
with their narrow windows, they chatted about the news that had arrived
that day, and for the first time a slight anxiety rose up in their
minds at the thought that they would so soon have to leave the friendly
secrecy of foreign lands for home, where even the ordinary stereotyped
day seemed full of hidden dangers. They sat down beneath the plane-tree
at the white lacquered table. This place had always been kept free
for them, as though it had been reserved. The newly-arrived Austrian
gentleman, however, had sat there yesterday afternoon, but driven
away by a disapproving glance of Anna's had gone away after a polite
salutation.

George hurried up to his room and fetched a few books for Anna and
a volume of Goethe's poems and the manuscript of his quintette for
himself. They both sat there, read, worked, looked up at times, smiled
at each other, exchanged a few words, peered again into their books,
looked over the balustrade into the open, and felt peace in their
souls and summer in the air. They heard the fountain plashing quite
near them behind the bushes, while a few drops fell upon the surface
of the water. Frequently the wheels of a carriage would crunch along
on the other side of the high wall, at times faint distant whistles
would sound from the lake, and less frequently human voices would ring
into the garden from the road along the bank. The day, drunken to the
full with sunlight, lay heavy on the tree-tops. Later on the noise and
the voices increased in volume and number with the gentle wind which
was wafted from the lake every afternoon. The beat of the waves on the
shore was more audible. The cries of the boatman resounded: on the
other side of the wall there rang out the singing of young people.
Tiny drops from the fountain were sprinkled around. The breath of
approaching evening woke once more human beings, land and water.

Steps were heard on the gravel. Therese, still in white, came quickly
through the avenue. George got up, went a few steps to meet her and
shook hands. Anna wanted to get up, too, but Therese would not allow
it, embraced her, gave her a kiss on the cheek and sat down by her
side. "How beautiful it is here!" she exclaimed; "but haven't I come
too early?"

"What an idea! I'm really awfully glad," replied Anna.

Therese considered her with a scrutinising smile and took hold of both
her hands. "Well, your appearance is reassuring," she said.

"I am very well, as a matter of fact," replied Anna, "and you look as
if you were too," she joked good-humouredly.

George's eyes rested on Therese, who was again dressed in white, as she
had been in the morning, though now more smartly in English embroidered
linen, with a string of light pink corals round her bare throat.

While the two women were discussing the strange coincidence of their
meeting George got up to give the orders for dinner. When he returned
to the garden the two others were no longer there. He saw Therese
on the balcony with her back leaning against the railing, talking
with Anna, who was invisible and was presumably in the depths of the
room. He felt in good form and walked up and down the avenue, allowed
melodies to sing themselves within him, was conscious of his youth and
happiness, threw an occasional glance up to the balcony or towards
the street, beyond the balustrade, and at last saw Demeter Stanzides
arriving. He went to meet him. "Glad to see you," he cried out in
welcome from the garden gate. "The ladies are upstairs in the room but
will be turning up soon. Would you like to have a look at the grounds
in the meanwhile?"

"Delighted."

They went on walking together.

"Do you intend to stay much longer in Lugano?" asked George.

"No, we go to-morrow to Bellaggio, from there to Lake Maggiore, Isola
Bella. A really good time never lasts. We have got to be home again in
a fortnight."

"Such short leave?"

"Oh, it is not on my account, but Therese has got to go back. I am
quite a free man. I have already sent in my papers."

"So you seriously mean to retire to your estate?"

"My estate?"

"Yes, I heard something to that effect at Ehrenbergs'."

"But I haven't got the estate yet, you see. It is simply in the stage
of negotiations."

"And where are you going to buy one? if it is not a rude question."

"Where the foxes say good-night to each other. The last place you
would think of. On the Hungarian-Croatian frontier, very lonely and
remote but very remarkable. I have a certain sympathy for the district.
Youthful memories. I spent three years there as a lieutenant. Of course
I think I shall grow young again there. Well, who knows?"

"A fine property?"

"Not bad. I saw it again two months ago. I knew it of course in the old
days, it then belonged to Count Jaczewicz, finally to a manufacturer.
Then his wife died. He now feels lonely down there and wants to get rid
of it."

"I don't know," said George, "but I imagine the neighbourhood a little
melancholy."

"Melancholy! Well, it seems to me that at a certain period of one's
life every neighbourhood acquires a melancholy appearance." And he
looked round the balcony, as though to evolve from his surroundings a
new proof of the truth of his words.

"At what period?"

"Well, when one begins to get old."

George smiled. Demeter struck him as so handsome and as still young
in spite of the grey hairs on his temple. "How old are you then, Herr
Stanzides? if it isn't a rude question."

"Thirty-seven. I don't say I am old, but I am getting old. Men usually
begin to talk about getting old when they have been old for a long
time."

They sat down on the seat at the end of the garden, just where it runs
into the wall. They had a view of the hotel and of the great terrace
on the garden. The upper storeys with their verandahs were hidden from
them by the foliage of the trees. George offered Demeter a cigarette
and took one himself. And both were silent for a while.

"I heard that you, too, are leaving Vienna," said Demeter.

"Yes, that's very probable ... if of course I get a job in some opera.
Well, even if it isn't this year it is bound to be next."

Demeter sat with legs crossed over each other, gripped one of them
tightly by the knee, and nodded. "Yes, yes," he said, and blew the
smoke slowly through his lips in driblets. "It is really a fine thing
to have a talent. In that case one is bound to feel a bit different
sometimes, even about beginning to grow old. That is really the one
thing I could envy a man for."

"You have no reason to at all. Anyway, people with talent are not
really to be envied. At any rate, only people with genius. And I envy
them probably even more than you do. But I think that talents like
yours are something much more definite, something much sounder so to
speak. Of course one doesn't always happen to be in form.... But at any
rate, one always achieves something quite respectable if one can do
anything at all, while people in my line, if they are not in form are
no better than old age pensioners."

Demeter laughed. "Yes, but an artistic talent like yours lasts longer
and develops more and more as the years go on. Take Beethoven, for
instance. The Ninth Symphony is really the finest thing he did. Don't
you think so. And what about the second part of _Faust_?... While we
are bound to go back as the years go on--we can't help it--even the
Beethovens amongst us. And how early it begins, apart from quite rare
exceptions! I was at my prime for instance at twenty-five. I've never
done again what I had in me at twenty-five. Yes, my dear Baron, those
were times."

"Come, I remember seeing you win a race two years ago against Buzgo,
who was the favourite then.... Why, I even betted on him...."

"My dear Baron," interrupted Stanzides, "you take it from me, I know
the reason why I left off improving. One can feel a thing like that
oneself. And that's why no one knows so well as the sportsman when
he's beginning to grow old. And then no further training is any good.
The whole thing then becomes purely artificial. And if any one tells
you that that's not the case, then he's simply ... but here come the
ladies."

They both got up. Therese and Anna were approaching arm-in-arm, one all
in white, the other in a black dress, which falling to the ground in
wide folds completely hid her figure. The couples met by the fountain.

Demeter kissed Anna's hand. "What a beautiful spot I have the good
fortune to see you again in, my dear lady."

"It is a pleasant surprise to me, too," replied Anna, "quite apart from
the scenery."

"Do you know," said George to Anna, "that these good people are
travelling off again to-morrow?"

"Yes, Therese has told me."

"We want to see as much as possible," explained Demeter, "and so far
as my recollection goes the other lakes in upper Italy are even more
magnificent than the one here."

"I don't know anything about the others," said Anna. "We haven't done
them yet."

"Well, perhaps you will take the opportunity," said Demeter, "and make
up a party with us for a little tour: Bellaggio, Pallanza, Isola Bella."

Anna shook her head. "It would be very nice but unfortunately I can't
get about enough. Yes, I am incredibly lazy. There are whole days when
I never go out of the grounds. But if George fancies running away from
me for a day or two, I don't mind at all."

"I have no intention at all of running away from you," said George. He
threw a quick glance at Therese, whose eyes were sparkling and laughing.

They all strolled slowly through the garden while it gradually became
dusk, and chatted about the places they had recently seen. When they
came back to the table under the plane-tree it was laid for dinner and
the fairy-lights were burning in the glass holders. The waiter was just
bringing the Asti in a bucket. Anna sat down on the seat, which had
the trunk of the plane-tree for its back. Therese sat opposite her and
George and Demeter on either side.

The meal was served and the wine poured out. George inquired after
their Viennese acquaintances. Demeter told them that Willy Eissler had
brought back from his trip some brilliant caricatures both of hunters
and of beasts. Old Ehrenberg had bought the pictures.

"Do you know about the Oskar affair yet?" said George.

"What affair?"

"Oh, the affair with his father in front of St. Michael's Church." He
remembered that he had thought of telling Demeter the story some time
back before the ladies had appeared, but that he had thought it right
to suppress it. It was the wine, no doubt, which now loosened his
tongue against his will. He told them briefly what Heinrich had written
him.

"But this is an extremely sad business," said Demeter, very much moved,
and all the others immediately felt more serious.

"Why is it a sad business?" asked Therese. "I think it is enough to
make one laugh till one cried."

"My dear Therese, you don't consider the consequences it may have for
the young man."

"Good gracious, I know well enough. It will make him impossible in a
certain set, but that won't do more than make him realise what a silly
ass he has been up to the present."

"Well," said George, "if Oskar really is one of those people who can be
made to realise anything.... But I really don't think so."

"Apart from the fact, my dear Therese," added Demeter, "that what you
call realising doesn't necessarily mean seeing things in their proper
light. All sets of people have their prejudices. Even you are not free
from them."

"And what prejudices have we got, I should like to know?" cried
Therese, and emptied her glass of wine angrily. "We only want to clear
away certain prejudices, particularly the prejudice that there is this
privileged caste who regard it as a special honour...."

"Excuse, me, Therese dear, but you are not at a meeting now, and I am
afraid that the applause at the conclusion of your speech will turn
out much fainter than you are accustomed to."

"Look here," Therese turned to Anna, "this is how a cavalry officer
argues."

"I beg your pardon," said George, "the whole business has scarcely
anything at all to do with prejudices. A box on the ears in the public
street, even though it is from one's own father.... I don't think one
has got to be an officer in the reserve or a student."

"That box on the ears," cried Therese, "gives me a real sense of
relief. It represents the well-merited conclusion of a ridiculous and
superfluous existence."

"Conclusion! We hope it's not that," said Demeter.

"My letter says," replied George, "that Oskar has travelled off, no one
knows where."

"If I am sorry for any one in the business," said Therese, "it is
certainly for the old man, who, good-hearted fellow that he is, is
probably regretting this very day the unpleasant position in which he
has placed his beastly snob of a son."

"Good-hearted!" exclaimed Demeter. "A millionaire! A factory owner!...
My dear Therese...!"

"Yes, it does happen sometimes. He happens to be one of those people
who are at one with us at the bottom of their soul. You remember the
evening, Demeter, when you had the pleasure of seeing me for the first
time. Do you know why I was at Ehrenbergs' then?... And do you know the
object for which he gave me straight away a thousand gulden...? To...."
She bit her lips. "I mustn't say, that was the condition."

Suddenly Demeter got up and bowed to somebody who had just passed. It
was the Austrian gentleman who had arrived yesterday. He lifted his hat
and vanished in the darkness of the garden.

"Do you know that man?" asked George, after a few seconds. "I also seem
to know him, but who is it?"

"The Prince of Guastalla," said Demeter.

"Really!" exclaimed Therese involuntarily, and her eyes pierced into
the darkness.

"What are you looking at him for?" said Demeter. "He is just a man like
any one else."

"He is supposed to be banished from Court," said George, "isn't he?"

"I know nothing about that," replied Demeter, "but he is certainly
not a favourite there. He recently published a pamphlet about certain
conditions in our army, particularly the life of the officers in the
provinces. It went very much against him, although as a matter of fact
there is nothing really bad in it."

"He should have applied to me about that," said Therese. "I could have
given him a tip or two."

"My dear child," said Demeter deprecatingly, "what you are probably
referring to again is simply an exceptional case. You shouldn't jump at
once into generalities."

"I am not generalising, but a case like that is sufficient to damn the
whole...."

"Don't make a speech, Therese...."

"I am speaking about Leo." Therese turned to George. "It is really
awful what he has been going through this year."

George suddenly remembered that Therese was Leo's sister, as though it
were a most remarkable thing which he had completely forgotten. Did he
know that she was here and whom she was with?

Demeter bit his lips somewhat nervously.

"There is an Anti-Semitic First-Lieutenant, you know," said Therese,
"who rags him in a particularly mean way because he knows how Leo
despises him."

George nodded. He knew all about it.

"My dear child," said Demeter, "I can't make it out, as I have already
told you several times. I happen to know First-Lieutenant Sefranek, and
I assure you it is possible to get on with him. He is not particularly
clever, and it may be quite right to say that he has got no particular
liking for the Israelites, but after all one must admit that there are
a lot of so-called opprobrious Anti-Semitic expressions which really
have no significance at all, and which, so far as my experience goes,
are used by Jews quite as much as by Christians. And your worthy
brother certainly suffers from a morbid sensitiveness."

"Sensitiveness is never morbid," retorted Therese. "It is only lack
of sensitiveness which is a disease, and the most loathsome one I
know as a matter of fact. It is notorious that I am as far apart as
possible from my brother in my political views. You know that best
of all, George. I hate Jewish bankers quite as much as feudal landed
proprietors, and orthodox Rabbis quite as much as Catholic priests;
but if a man feels himself superior to me because he belongs to
another creed or another race than I do, and being conscious of his
greater power makes me feel that superiority, I would.... Well, I
don't know what I would do to a man like that. But anyway I should
quite understand Leo if he were to take the next opportunity of going
tooth-and-nail for Herr Sefranek."

"My dear child," said Demeter, "if you have the slightest influence
with your brother you should try and stop this tooth-and-nail business
at any price. In my view by far the best thing to do in a case like
that is to go about things in the respectable, I mean the regulation
way. It is really not at all true that that never does any good. The
superior officers are mostly quiet people, at any rate they are correct
and...."

"But Leo did that long ago ... as far back as February. He went to
the Major, the Major was very nice to him, and as appears from many
indications gave the First-Lieutenant a good talking to; the only thing
is it unfortunately wasn't the slightest use. On the contrary, the next
chance he had the First-Lieutenant made a special point of starting
his beastly tricks again, and he is continuing them with the most
refined malice. I assure you, Baron, I am afraid every single day that
some misfortune will happen."

Demeter shook his head. "We live in a mad age. I assure you"--he turned
to George--"First-Lieutenant Sefranek is no more of an Anti-Semite than
you or I. He visits at Jewish houses. I even know that he was extremely
intimate for years with a Jewish regimental doctor. It really seems as
though everybody were going mad."

"You may be right in that," said Therese.

"Oh, well, Leo is so reasonable," said George. "He is so sensible in
spite of all his temperament that I am convinced that he won't let
himself be swept away by any foolish impulse. After all he must know
that it will all be over in a few months; one can manage to put up with
it for that time."

"Do you know, by-the-by, Baron," said Therese, while following the
example of the men she took a cigarette out of a box which the waiter
had brought, "do you know that Leo was quite charmed with your
compositions?"

"What, charmed?" said George, while he gave Therese a light. "I really
hadn't noticed it at all."

"Well, he liked some things," qualified Therese, "and that's
practically the same as somebody else being delighted with them."

"Have you composed anything on your trip?" asked Demeter courteously.

"Only a few songs."

"I suppose we shall hear them in the autumn?" said Demeter.

"Good gracious, don't let's talk about the autumn," said Therese. "We
may be dead or in prison before then."

"Well, if one really wants to one can manage to avoid the latter
alternative," exclaimed Demeter.

Therese shrugged her shoulders. George was sitting near her and
believed he could feel the warmth of her body. Lights were shining from
the hotel windows and a long reddish strip reached the table at which
the two couples were sitting.

"I suggest," said George, "that we make the best of the fine evening
and go for another walk along the shore."

"Or take a boat," exclaimed Therese.

They all agreed. George ran up to the room to fetch wraps. When he came
down again he found the others standing by the door of the grounds
ready to start. He helped Anna into her light-grey cloak, hung his
own long overcoat over Therese's shoulders and kept a dark-green rug
over his arm. They went slowly through the avenue to the place where
the boats were moored. Two boatmen took the party with quick strokes
of their oars out of the darkness of the shore into the black shining
water. The mountains towered up to the sky, monstrous and gigantic.
The stars were not very numerous. Tiny bluish-grey clouds hung in the
air. The rowers sat on two cross benches; in the middle of the boat
on narrow seats the two couples sat opposite each other: George and
Anna, Demeter and Therese. All were quite silent at first, it was only
after some minutes that George broke the silence. He told them the name
of the mountain which separated the lake from the South, drew their
attention to a village, which though it seemed infinitely far away as
it nestled up to the <DW72> of a cliff could nevertheless be reached
in a quarter of an hour; he recognised the white shining house on the
height above Lugano as the hotel in which Demeter and Therese were
staying and told them about a walk far into the country between sunny
vineyards which he had taken the other day.

While he spoke Anna kept hold of his hand underneath the rug. Demeter
and Therese sat next to each other staidly and correctly, and not at
all like lovers who had only found each other a short time ago. It was
only now that George gradually recovered his fancy for Therese, which
had almost vanished during her loud violent speechifying.

How long will this Demeter affair last? he thought. Will it be over
when the autumn comes or will it after all last as long or longer than
my affair with Anna? Will this row on the dark lake be some time in
the future just a memory of something that has completely vanished,
just like my row on the Veldeser Lake with that peasant girl, which
now comes into my mind again for the first time for years?... Or like
my voyage with Grace across the sea? How strange! Anna is holding my
hand, I am pressing it, and who knows if she isn't feeling at this very
minute something similar with regard to Demeter to what I am feeling
about Therese? No, I am sure not.... She carries a child under her
heart which has already quickened.... That's why.... Hang it all!...
Why, it's my child as well.... Our child is now going for a row on
the lake of Lugano.... Shall I tell it one day that it went for a row
round the lake of Lugano before it was born? How will it all turn out?
We shall be back in Vienna again in a few days. Does Vienna really
exist? It will only slowly begin to come into existence again as we
train back.... Yes, that's how it is.... As soon as I'm home work will
start seriously. I shall remain quietly at my home in Vienna and just
visit Anna from time to time; I won't live with her in the country....
Or at all events only just before ... and the autumn.... Shall I be
in Detmold? And where will Anna be? And the child?... With strangers
somewhere in the country. How improbable the whole thing seems!... But
it was also very improbable a year ago to-day that I and Stanzides
should go for a row on the lake of Lugano with Fraeulein Anna Rosner
and Fraeulein Therese Golowski respectively. And now the whole thing
couldn't be more of a matter of course.... He suddenly heard with
abnormal clearness, as though he had just woken up, Demeter's voice
quite near him.

"When does our boat leave to-morrow?"

"Nine o'clock in the morning," replied Therese.

"She maps out the plan of campaign you know," said Demeter. "I don't
need to bother about anything."

The moon suddenly shone out over the lake.

It seemed as though it had waited behind the mountains and were now
coming out to say goodbye. That infinitely distant village by the
mountain-<DW72> suddenly lay quite close in all its whiteness. The boat
beached. Therese got up. She was shrouded in the night and looked
strikingly tall. George sprang out of the boat and helped her to
disembark. He felt her cool fingers, which did not tremble, in his
hand, but moved softly as though on purpose, and caught the breath from
her lips quite close. Demeter got out after her, then came Anna, tired
and awkward. The boatman thanked them for their generous tip and both
couples started to walk homewards. The Prince was sitting on a seat in
a long dark cloak in the avenue along the bank. He was smoking a cigar,
seemed to be looking out on to the nocturnal lake and turned away his
head with the obvious intention of avoiding being saluted.

"A man like that could tell a tale," said Therese to George, with whom
she had fallen further and further behind, while Demeter and Anna went
on in front of them.

"So you are going back to Vienna as soon as all that?" asked George.

"A fortnight. Do you think that so soon? At any rate you will be home
before us, won't you?"

"Yes, we shall leave in a few days. We can't put it off any longer.
Besides, we shall have to break the journey a few times. Anna doesn't
stand travelling well."

"Do you know yet that I found the villa for Anna just before I left?"
said Therese.

"Really, you? Did you go looking, too?"

"Yes, I went into the country a few times with my mother. It is a small
fairly old house in Salmansdorf with a beautiful garden, which leads
straight out to the fields and forest, and the bit of ground in front
of the house is quite overgrown.... Anna will tell you more about it. I
believe it is the last house in the place. Then there comes an inn, but
a fair distance away from it."

"I must have overlooked that house on my house-hunting expeditions in
the spring."

"Clearly, or you would have taken it. There is a little clay figure
standing on a lawn near the garden hedge."

"Can't remember. But do you know, Therese, it is really nice of you to
have taken all this trouble for us, as well as your mother. More than
nice." He thought of adding "when one takes your strenuous life into
consideration," but suppressed it.

"Why are you surprised?" asked Therese. "I am very fond of Anna."

"Do you know what I once heard some one say about you?" replied George
after a short pause.

"Well, what?"

"That you would either finish up on the scaffold or as a princess."

"That's a phrase of Doctor Berthold Stauber. He once told it me
himself, you know. He is very proud of it, but it is sheer nonsense."

"The betting at present is certainly more on the princess."

"Who says so? The princess dream will soon be over!"

"Dream?"

"Yes, I am just beginning to wake up. It is rather like the morning air
streaming into a bedroom."

"And then I suppose the other dream will begin?"

"What do you mean, the other dream?"

"This is what I take to be the case with you. When you are in the
public eye again, making speeches, sacrificing yourself for some cause
or other, then at some moment or other the whole thing strikes you like
a dream, doesn't it? And you think real life is somewhere else."

"There is really something in what you say."

At this moment Demeter and Anna, who were standing by the garden gate,
turned round towards them both and immediately took the broad avenue
towards the entrance of the hotel. George and Therese also went on
further, unseen outside the railing, into the darkest depths of the
shade.

George suddenly seized hold of his companion's hand. As though
astonished she turned towards him and both now stood opposite each
other, enveloped by the darkness and closer than they could understand.
They did not know how ... they scarcely meant to, but their lips rested
on each other for a short moment that was more charged with the doleful
joy of deception than with any other emotion. They then went on,
silent, unsatisfied, desirous, and stepped through the garden door.

The two others, who were in front of the hotel, now turned round and
came to meet them.

Therese quickly said to George: "Of course you don't come with us?"

George nodded slightly. They were now all standing in the broad quiet
light of the arc-lamps.

"It was really a beautiful evening," said Demeter, kissing Anna's hand.

"Goodbye then till Vienna," said Therese and embraced Anna.

Demeter turned to George. "I hope we shall see each other to-morrow
morning on the boat."

"Possibly, but I won't promise."

"Goodbye," said Therese and shook hands with George.

She and Demeter then turned round to go away.

"Are you going with them?" asked Anna, as they went through the door
into the lounge, where men and women were sitting, smoking, drinking,
talking.

"What an idea?" replied George. "I never thought of it."

"Herr Baron," suddenly called some one behind him. It was the porter,
who held a telegram in his hand.

"What is this?" asked George, somewhat alarmed, opening it quickly.
"Oh, how awful!" he exclaimed.

"What is it?" asked Anna.

He read it out while she looked at the piece of paper. "Oskar Ehrenberg
tried to commit suicide early this morning in the forest at Neuhaus.
Shot himself in the temples, little hope of saving his life, Heinrich."

Anna shook her head. They went up the stairs in silence and into Anna's
room. The balcony door was wide open. George stepped into the open air.
A heavy perfume of magnolias and roses streamed in out of the darkness.
Not a trace of the lake was visible. The mountains towered up as though
they had grown out of the abyss. Anna came up to George. He laid his
arm on her shoulder and loved her very much. It was as though the
serious event of which he had just had tidings, had compelled him to
realise the true significance of his own experiences. He knew once more
that there was nothing more important for him in the whole world than
the well-being of this beloved woman who was standing with him on the
balcony and who was to bear him a child.




VI


When George stepped on to the summer heat of the pavement out of the
cool central restaurant where he had been accustomed to take his meals
for some weeks, and started on his way to Heinrich's apartment, his
mind was made up to start his trip into the mountains within the next
few days. Anna was quite prepared for it, and appreciating that the
monotonous life of the last few weeks was beginning to make him feel
bored and mentally restless had even herself advised him to go away for
a few days.

They had returned to Vienna six weeks ago on a rainy evening and George
had taken Anna straight from the station to the villa, where Anna's
mother and Frau Golowski had been waiting for the overdue travellers
for the last two hours in a large but fairly empty room, with a
dilapidated yellowish carpet under the dismal light of a hanging lamp.
The door on to the garden verandah stood open. Outside the pattering
rain fell on to the wooden floor and the warm odour of moist leaves
and grass swept in. George inspected the resources of the house by the
light of a candle which Frau Golowski carried in front of him, while
Anna reclined exhausted in the corner of the large sofa covered with
fancy calico and was only able to give tired answers to her mother's
questions. George had soon taken leave of Anna with mingled emotion and
relief, stepped with her mother into the carriage which was waiting
outside, and while they rode over the dripping streets into the town
he had given the embarrassed woman a faithful if forced account of
the unimportant events of the last days of their trip. He was at home
an hour after midnight, refrained from waking up Felician, who was
already asleep, and with an undreamt-of joy stretched himself out in
his long-lost bed for his first sleep at home after so many nights.

Since then he had gone out into the country to see Anna nearly every
day. If he did not feel tempted to make little trips round the summer
resorts in the neighbourhood he could easily get to her in an hour
on his cycle. But he more frequently took the horse tram and would
then walk through the little villages till he came to the low green
painted railings behind which stood the modest country house with its
three-cornered wooden gable in the small slightly sloping garden.
Frequently he would choose a way which ran above the village between
garden and fields and would enjoy climbing up the green <DW72> till
he came to a seat on the border of the forest, from which he could
get a clear view of the straggling little place lying in the tiny
valley. He saw from here straight on to the roof beneath which Anna
lived, deliberately allowed his gentle longing for the love who was so
near him to grow gradually more and more vivid till he hurried down,
opened the tiny door and stepped over the gravel straight through the
garden towards the house. Frequently, in the more sultry hours of the
afternoon, when Anna was still asleep, he would sit in the covered
wooden verandah which ran along the back of the house in a comfortable
easy-chair covered with embroidered calico, take out of his pocket a
book he had brought with him and read. Then Frau Golowski in her neat
simple dark dress would step out of the dark inner room and in her
gentle somewhat melancholy voice, with a touch of motherly kindness
playing around her mouth, would report to him about Anna's health,
particularly whether she had had a good appetite and if she had
had a proper walk up and down the garden. When she had finished she
always had something to see to in the kitchen or about the house and
disappeared. Then while George was going on with his reading a fine
St. Bernard dog which belonged to people in the neighbourhood would
come out, greet George with serious tearful eyes, allow him to stroke
her short-haired skin and lie down gratefully at his feet. Later, when
a certain stern whistle which the animal knew well rang out, it would
get up with all the clumsiness of its condition, seem to apologise by
means of a melancholy look for not being able to stay longer and slink
away. Children laughed and shouted in the garden next door. Now and
again an indiarubber ball came over the wall. A pale nursemaid would
then appear at the bottom gate and shyly request to have the ball
thrown back again. Finally, when it had grown cooler, Anna's face would
show itself at the window that opened on to the verandah, her quiet
blue eyes would greet George, and soon she would come out herself in a
light house-dress. They would then walk up and down the garden along
the faded lilac-bushes and the blooming currant-bushes, usually on
the left side, which was bounded by the open meadow, and they would
take their rest on the white seat close to the top end of the garden,
underneath the pear-tree. It was only when supper was served that Frau
Golowski would appear again, shyly take her place at the table and tell
them if asked all the news about her family; about Therese, who had
now gone on to the staff of a Socialist journal; about Leo, who being
less occupied by his military duties than before was enthusiastically
pursuing his mathematical studies; and about her husband, who while he
looked on with resignation from the corner of a smoky cafe at the chess
battles of the indefatigable players, always saw new vistas of regular
employment display themselves only to close again immediately. Frau
Rosner only paid an occasional visit and usually went away soon after
George's appearance. On one occasion, on a Sunday afternoon, the father
had come as well and had a conversation with George about the weather
and scenery, just as though they had met by chance at the house of a
mutual acquaintance who happened to be ill. It was only to humour her
parents that Anna kept herself in complete retirement in the villa. For
she herself had grown to lose all consciousness of any false position,
feeling just as though she had been George's wedded wife, and when the
latter, tired of the monotonous evenings, asked her for permission
to bring Heinrich along sometimes she had agreeably surprised him by
immediately expressing her agreement.

Heinrich was the only one of George's more intimate friends who still
remained in town in these oppressive July days. Felician, who had been
as affectionate with his brother since his return home as though the
comradeship of their boyhood had been kindled afresh, had just taken
his diplomatic examination and was staying with Ralph Skelton on the
North Sea. Else Ehrenberg, who had spoken to George once soon after his
return by her brother's sick-bed in the sanatorium, had been for a long
time at Auhof am See with her mother. Oskar too, whom his unfortunate
attempt at suicide had cost his right eye, though it was said to have
saved him his lieutenant's commission, had left Vienna with a black
shade over his blinded eye. Demeter Stanzides, Willy Eissler, Guido
Schoenstein, Breitner, all were away, and even Nuernberger, who had
declared so solemnly that he did not mean to leave the town this year,
had suddenly vanished.

George had visited him before any one else after he came back, to
bring him some flowers from his sister's grave in Cadenabbia. He had
read Nuernberger's novel on his journey. The scene was laid in a period
which was now almost past; the same period, so it seemed to George, as
that of which old Doctor Stauber had once spoken to him. Nuernberger
had thrown a grim light over that sickly world of lies in which adult
men passed for mature, old men for experienced, and people who did
not offend against any written law for righteous; in which love of
freedom, patriotism and humanitarianism passed _ipso facto_ for virtue,
even though they had grown out of the rotten soil of thoughtlessness
or cowardice. He had chosen for the hero of his book a sterling and
energetic man who, carried away by the hollow phrases of the period,
saw things as they were from the height which he had reached and seized
with horror at the realization of his own dizzy ascent, precipitated
himself into the void out of which he had come. George was considerably
astonished that a man who had created this strong and resounding piece
of work should subsequently confine himself to casual cynical comments
on the progress of the age, and it was only a phrase of Heinrich's
to the effect that wrath but not loathing was fated to be fertile
that made him understand why Nuernberger's work had been stopped for
ever. The lonely hour in the Cadenabbia cemetery on that dark blue
late afternoon had made as strange and deep an impression upon George
as though he had actually known and appreciated the being by whose
grave he stood. It had hurt him that the gold lettering on the grey
stone should have grown faint and that the beds of turf should have
been overgrown with weeds, and after he had plucked a few yellow-blue
<DW29>s for his friend he had gone away with genuine emotion. He had
cast a glance from the other side of the cemetery door through the open
window of the death-chamber, and saw a female body on a bier between
high burning candles, covered with a black pall as far as her lips,
while the daylight and candlelight ran into one another over its small
waxen face.

Nuernberger had not been unmoved by this sympathetic attention on
the part of George and on that day they spoke to each other more
intimately than they had ever done before.

The house in which Nuernberger lived was in a narrow gloomy street
which led out of the centre of the town and mounted in terraces
towards the Danube. It was ancient, narrow and high. Nuernberger's
apartment was on the fifth and top storey, which was reached by a
staircase with numerous turns. In the low though spacious room into
which George stepped out of a dark hall stood old but well-preserved
furniture, while an odour of camphor and lavender came insistently out
of the alcove in the recess in front of which a pale green curtain
had been let down. Portraits of Nuernberger's parents in their youth
hung on the wall together with brown engravings of landscapes after
the Dutch masters. Numerous old photographs in wooden frames stood on
the sideboard. Nuernberger fetched a portrait of his dead sister out
of a secretary-drawer where it lay beneath some letters that had been
yellowed by time. It showed her as a girl of eighteen in a child's
costume which seemed to have a kind of historical atmosphere, holding
a ball in her hand, and standing in front of a hedge, behind which
there towered a background of cliffs. Nuernberger introduced all these
unknown faraway and dead persons to his friend to-day by means of their
portraits, and spoke of them in a tone which seemed to make the gulf of
time between the then and the now both wider and deeper.

George's glance often swept out over the narrow street towards the
grey masonry of ancient houses. He saw small cobwebbed panes with all
kinds of household utensils behind them. Flower-pots with miserable
plants stood on a window-ledge, while fragments of bottles, broken-up
barrels, scraps of paper, mouldy vegetables lay in a gutter between
two houses, a battered pipe ran down between all this rubbish and
disappeared behind a chimney. Other chimneys were visible to right and
left, the back of a yellowish stone gable could be seen, towers reared
up towards the pale blue heaven and a light grey spire with a broken
stone cupola which George knew very well, appeared unexpectedly near.
Automatically his eyes tried to find the quarter where he might be able
to fix the position of the house in whose entrance the two stone giants
bore on their powerful shoulders the armorial bearings of a vanished
stock, and in which his child, which was to come into the world in a
few weeks, had been begotten.

George gave an account of his trip. He felt the spirit of this hour
so deeply that he would have thought himself petty if he had let
the matter rest at half-truths. But Nuernberger had known the story,
and in its entirety too, long ago, and when George showed a little
astonishment at this he smiled mockingly.

"Don't you still remember," he asked, "that morning when we looked over
a summer residence in Grinzing?"

"Of course."

"And don't you remember too that a woman with a little child in her
arms took us round the house and garden?"

"Yes."

"Before we went away the child held out its arms towards you, and you
looked at it with a certain amount of emotion in your expression."

"And that's what made you conclude that I...."

"Oh well, you know, you're not the man to go in for thrills over the
sight of small children, a bit unwashed, too, into the bargain, if they
are not linked on to associations of a personal character."

"One must beware of you," said George jestingly, but not without some
sense of uneasiness.

The slight irritation, which he always felt again and again at
Nuernberger's superior manner, was far from preventing him from
cultivating his society more and more. He frequently fetched him
from home to go for walks in the streets and parks, and he felt a
sense of satisfaction, a sense in fact of personal triumph, when he
managed to draw him from the rarefied regions of bitter wisdom into
the gentler fields of affectionate intercourse. George's walks with
him had become such a pleasant habit that he felt as though his daily
life had been impoverished when he found one morning that Nuernberger's
apartment was closed. Some days afterwards came a card of apology from
Salzburg, which was also signed by a married couple, a manufacturer
and his wife, good-natured cheery people, whom George had once got to
know slightly through Nuernberger in Graben. According to Heinrich's
malicious description the common friend of this married couple had been
dragged down the stairs, of course after a desperate resistance, made
to sit down in a carriage and been transported to the station more
or less like a prisoner. According to Heinrich, too, Nuernberger had
several friends of this innocent kind who felt the need of getting the
celebrated cynic to let a few drops of his malice trickle into their
palatable cup of life, while Nuernberger on his side liked to recuperate
in their free-and-easy society from the strain of his acquaintances in
literary and psychological circles.

The meeting with Heinrich had meant a disillusionment to George.
After the first words of greeting the author had as usual only spoken
about himself, and that, too, in tones of the deepest contempt. He
had come at last to the conclusion that he did not really possess any
talent but only intelligence, though that of course to an enormous
degree. The thing about himself that he cursed the most violently was
the lack of harmony in the various phases of his character, which
as he well knew not only occasioned suffering to himself but to all
who came near him. He was heartless and sentimental, flippant and
melancholic, sensitive and callous, an impossible companion and yet
drawn towards his fellow-beings ... at any rate at times. A person with
such characteristics could only justify his existence by producing
something immense, and if the masterpiece which he felt obliged to
create did not appear on the scene very soon he would feel that as
a decent man he would be obliged to shoot himself. But he was not a
decent man.... There lay the rub. "Of course you won't shoot yourself,"
thought George, "principally because you haven't got the pluck to do
so." Of course he did not give expression to this thought but on the
contrary was very sympathetic. He talked of the moods to which after
all every artist is liable, and inquired kindly about the material
conditions of Heinrich's life. It soon transpired that he wasn't in
such a bad way by any means. He was even leading a life which as it
appeared to George was freer from anxiety than it had ever been before.
The maintenance of his mother and sisters for the ensuing years had
been assured by a small legacy. In spite of all the hostile influences
which were at work against him the fame of his name was increasing from
day to day. The miserable affair with the actress seemed to be finished
once and for all, and a quite new relationship with a young lady
which was as free and easy as could possibly be desired, was actually
bringing a certain amount of gaiety into his life. Even his work was
making good progress. The first act of the opera libretto was as good
as ready, and he had made numerous notes for his political comedy.
He intended next year to visit the sittings of Parliament and attend
meetings, and coquetted with the admittedly childish fantastic plan
of posing as a member of the social democratic party, trying to tack
himself on to the leaders and getting himself taken on, if he could get
the chance, as an active member of some organisation or other, simply
so as to get a complete insight into the party machinery. Still, you
know, when he had been talking to any one for five minutes on end, why
he had got him absolutely. He would find in some casual word, whose
significance would completely escape any one else, a kind of whirlwind
which tore the veil from off the souls of men. His dream was to prove
himself a master of imagination in his opera poem and a master of
realism in his comedy, and thus show the world that he was equally at
home both in heaven and on earth. At a subsequent meeting George got
him to read as much of the first act of the opera as he had finished.
He found the verses very singable and asked Heinrich to allow him to
take the manuscript to Anna. Anna could not bring herself to fancy much
what George read out to her; but he asserted, though without any real
conviction, that what she felt was just the very longing for these
verses to be set to music, and that that must necessarily strike her as
a weakness.

When George came into Heinrich's room to-day the latter was sitting at
the big table in the middle of the room, which was covered over with
papers and letters. Written papers of all kinds lay about on the piano
and on the ottoman. Heinrich still had a sheet of faded yellow paper in
his hand when he got up and hailed George with the words, "Well, how
goes the country?"

This was the way in which he was accustomed to inquire after Anna's
health, a way which George felt afresh every single time to be unduly
familiar.

"Quite well, thanks," he replied. "I have just come to ask you if
perhaps you would care to come out there with me to-day."

"Oh yes, I should like to very much. The thing is, though, that I am
just in the middle of putting various papers in order. I can't come
before the evening about seven or so. Will that suit you?"

"Quite," said George. "But I see I am disturbing you," he added as he
pointed to the littered table.

"Not at all," replied Heinrich. "I am only tidying up, as I just told
you. They're my father's posthumous papers. Those there are letters to
him and here are rough notes more or less like a diary, written for
the most part during his parliamentary period. Tragic, I tell you!
How that man loved his country! And how did they thank him? You've no
idea of the refinement with which they drove him out of his party. A
complicated network of intrigue, bigotry, brutality.... Thoroughly
German, to put the matter in a nutshell."

George felt a sense of antagonism. "And he dares," he thought, "to hold
forth about Anti-Semitism. Is he any better? any juster? Does he forget
that I am a German myself...?"

Heinrich went on speaking. "But I will give this man a memorial.... He
and no other shall be the hero of my political drama. He is the truly
tragi-comic central figure which I have always been wanting."

George's antagonism became intensified. He felt a great desire to
protect old Bermann against his son. "A tragi-comic figure," he
repeated, almost aggressively.

"Yes," retorted Heinrich unhesitatingly, "a Jew who loves his
country.... I mean in the way my father did, with a real feeling of
solidarity, with real enthusiasm for the dynasty, is without the
slightest question a tragi-comic figure. I mean ... he belonged to that
Liberalising epoch of the seventies and eighties when even shrewd men
were overcome by the catch-words of the age. A man like that to-day
would certainly appear merely comic. Yes, even if he had finished up by
hanging himself on the first nail he came across I could not regard his
fate as anything else."

"It is a mania of yours," replied George. "You really very often give
one the impression that you have quite lost the capacity of seeing
anything else in the world except the Jewish question, you always see
it everywhere. If I were as discourteous as you happen to be at times,
I would ... you'll forgive me of course, say that you were suffering
from persecution-mania."

"Persecution-mania ..." replied Heinrich dully, as he looked at the
wall. "I see, so you call it persecution-mania, that.... Oh well." And
then he continued suddenly with clenched teeth: "I say, George, I want
to ask you something on your conscience."

"I'm listening."

He placed himself straight in front of George, and with his eyes
pierced his forehead. "Do you think there's a single Christian in
the world, even taking the noblest, straightest and truest one you
like, one single Christian who has not in some moment or other of
spite, temper or rage, made at any rate mentally some contemptuous
allusion to the Jewishness of even his best friend, his mistress or
his wife, if they were Jews or of Jewish descent?" And without waiting
for George's answer: "There isn't one, I assure you. You can try
another test also if you like. Read for instance the letters of any
celebrated and otherwise perfectly shrewd and excellent man and observe
the passages which contain hostile and ironic expressions about his
contemporaries. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred it simply deals with
an individual without taking any account of his descent or creed. In
the hundredth case, where the miserable victim has the misfortune to
be a Jew, the writer will certainly not forget to mention that fact.
That's just how the thing is, I can't help it. What you choose to call
persecution-mania, my dear George, is in reality simply an extremely
intense consciousness that has been kept continuously awake of a
condition in which we Jews happen to find ourselves. And as for talking
about persecution-mania, why it would be much more logical to talk
about a mania for being hidden, a mania for being left alone, a mania
for being safe; which though perhaps a less sensational form of disease
is certainly a much more dangerous one for its victims. My father
suffered from it, like many others of his generation. He at any rate
made such a radical cure that he went mad in the process."

Deep furrows appeared on Heinrich's forehead and he looked again
towards the wall, straight past George, who had sat down on the hard
black leather ottoman.

"If that's your way of looking at things," replied George, "why, you
have no other logical alternative but to join Leo Golowski...."

"And migrate to Palestine with him. Is that what you think? As a matter
of symbolical politics or actually--what?" He laughed. "Have I ever
said that I want to get away from here? That I would prefer to live
anywhere else except here? Above all, have I ever said that I liked
living among Jews? So far as I at any rate am concerned that would be a
purely objective solution of an essentially subjective problem."

"I really think so also. And that's why, to tell the truth, I
understand less than ever what you want, Heinrich. I had the impression
last autumn, when you had your tussle with Golowski on the Sophienalp,
that you looked at the matter far more hopefully."

"More hopefully?" repeated Heinrich in an injured tone.

"Yes. One felt bound to think then that you believed in the possibility
of a gradual assimilation."

Heinrich contemptuously contracted the corners of his mouth.
"Assimilation.... A phrase.... Yes, that'll come all right some time
or other ... in a very very long time. It won't come at all in the
way many want it to--it won't come either in the way many are afraid
it will.... Further, it won't be exactly assimilation ... but perhaps
something that beats in the heart of that particular word so to
speak. Do you know what it will probably look like in the end? That
we, we Jews I mean, have been a kind of ferment in the brewing of
humanity--yes, perhaps that'll come out in anything from one to two
thousand years from now. It is a consolation too. Don't you think so?"
He laughed again.

"Who knows," said George reflectively, "if you won't be regarded as
right--in a thousand years? But till then?"

"Why, my dear George, there won't be anything in the way of a solution
of the question before then. In our time there won't be any solution,
that's absolutely positive. No universal solution at any rate. It
will rather be a case of a million different solutions. For it's
just a question which for the time being every one has got to settle
for himself as best he can. Every one must manage to find an escape
for himself out of his vexation or out of his despair or out of
his loathing, to some place or other where he can breathe again in
freedom. Perhaps there are really people who would like to go as far
as Jerusalem to find it ... I only fear that many of them, once they
arrive at their official goal, would then begin to realise that they
had made an utter mistake. I don't think for a minute that migrations
like that into the open should be gone in for in parties.... For the
roads there do not run through the country outside but through our own
selves. Every one's life simply depends on whether or not he finds his
mental way out. To do that of course it is necessary to see as clearly
as possible into oneself, to throw the searchlight into one's most
hidden crannies, to have the courage to be what one naturally is--not
to be led into a mistake. Yes, that should be the daily prayer of every
decent man: to make no mistake."

Where is he getting to again now? thought George. He is quite as morbid
in his way as his father was. And at the same time one can't say that
he has been personally through bad times. And he has asserted on one
occasion that he felt there was no one with whom he had anything in
common. It is not a bit true. He feels he has something in common with
all Jews and he stands nearer to the meanest of them than he does to
me. While these thoughts were running through his mind his glance fell
on a big envelope lying on the table, and he read the following words
written on it in large Roman capitals: "Don't forget. Never forget."

Heinrich noticed George's look and took the envelope up in his hand.
Three strong grey seals could be seen on its back. He then threw it
down again on the table, drooped his underlip contemptuously and said:
"I've tidied up that business as well, you know, to-day. There are days
like this when one goes in for a great cleaning-up. Other people would
have burnt the stuff. What's the point? I shall perhaps read it again
with pleasure. The anonymous letters I once told you about are in this
envelope, you know."

George was silent. Up to the present Heinrich had vouchsafed no
information as to the circumstances under which his relations with the
actress had come to an end. Only one passage in his letter to Lugano
had hinted at the fact that it had not been without a certain deep-felt
horror that he had seen his former mistress again. Almost against his
own will the following words came out of George's mouth: "You know, of
course, the story of Nuernberger's sister who lies buried in Cadenabbia?"

Heinrich answered in the affirmative. "What makes you think of that?"

"I visited her grave a few days before I came back." He hesitated.
Heinrich was looking fixedly at him with a violently interrogative
expression which compelled George to go on speaking. "Just think
now, isn't it strange? since that time those two persons are always
associated together in my memory, though I have never seen one of them
and have only caught a glimpse of the other one at the theatre--as you
know. I mean Nuernberger's dead sister and ... this actress."

Heinrich grew pale to his very lips. "Are you superstitious?" he asked
scornfully, but it sounded as though he were asking himself.

"Not at all," cried George. "Besides, what has superstition to do with
this matter?"

"I'll only tell you that everything that has any connection at all with
mysticism goes radically against the grain with me. Lots of twaddle is
passed off in the world for science, but talking about things which
one can't know anything about, things whose very essence is that one
can never know anything about them, is in my view the most intolerable
twaddle of the whole lot."

"Can she have died, this actress?" thought George.

Suddenly Heinrich took up the envelope again in his hand, and said in
that dry tone which he liked to assume at those very moments when he
was most deeply harrowed: "Writing out these words here is childish
tomfoolery or affectation if you like. I could also have added the
words Daudet put before his Sappho: 'To you, my son, when you are
twenty years of age....' Too silly, anyway. As though the experiences
of one man could be the slightest use to another man. The experiences
of one man can often be amusing for another, more often bewildering,
but never instructive.... And do you know why it is that both those
figures are associated in your brain? I'll tell you why. Simply because
in one of my letters I employed the expression 'Ghost' with reference
to my former mistress. So that clears up this mysterious embroglio."

"That's not impossible," replied George. From somewhere or other came
the indistinct sound of bad piano-playing. George looked out. The sun
lay on the yellow wall opposite. Many windows were open. A boy sat
at one of them, his arms resting on the window-ledge, and read. From
another two young girls looked down into the garden courtyard. The
clattering of utensils was audible. George longed for the open air,
for his seat on the border of the forest. Before he turned to go it
occurred to him to say: "I wanted to tell you, Heinrich, that Anna too
liked your verses very much. Have you written any more?"

"Not many."

"It would be nice if you brought along to-day all you have done of the
libretto and read it to us." He stood by the piano and struck a couple
of chords.

"What's that?" asked Heinrich.

"A theme," replied George "that's just occurred to me for the second
act. It is meant to accompany the moment in which the remarkable
stranger appears on the ship."

Heinrich shut the window, George sat down and started to go on playing.
There was a knock at the door, and Heinrich automatically cried: "Come
in."

A young lady came in in a light cloth skirt with a red silk blouse
and a white velvet ribbon with a little gold cross round her neck. A
Florentine hat trimmed with roses shaded with its broad brim the pale
little face from which two big black eyes peered out.

"Good afternoon," said the strange lady in a low voice, which
sounded at the same time both defiant and embarrassed. "Excuse me,
Herr Bermann, I didn't know that you had visitors," and she looked
inquisitively at George, who had at once recognised her.

Heinrich grew paler and puckered his forehead. "I certainly had no
idea," he began. He then introduced them and said to the lady: "Won't
you sit down?"

"Thanks," she answered curtly and remained standing. "Perhaps I'll come
again later."

"Please don't," cut in George. "I am just on the point of running off."

He watched the look of the actress roving round the room and felt a
strange pity for her, such as one frequently feels in dreams for dead
people who do not know that they have died. He then saw Heinrich's
glance rest on this pale little face with inconceivable hardness.
He now remembered very clearly seeing her on the stage, with the
reddish-blonde hair that fell over her forehead and her roving eyes.
"That's not how persons look," he thought, "who are fated to belong
only to _one_ man. And to think of Heinrich, who plumes himself so much
on his knowledge of character, never having felt that! What did he
really want of her? It was vanity which burnt in his soul, nothing more
than vanity."

George walked along the street, which was like a dry oven. The walls
of the houses threw back into the air the summer heat which they had
absorbed. George took the horse-tram to the hills and woods, and
breathed more freely when he was in the country. He walked slowly on
between the gardens and villas, then passing the churchyard he took
a white road with a gradual incline called Sommerhaidenweg, which he
regarded as a good omen, and which was used by practically nobody
during this late hour of a sunny afternoon. No shade came from the
wooded line of heights on his left, only a gentle purring of breezes
which had gone to sleep in the leaves. On the right a green incline
sloped downwards towards the long stretch of valley where roofs were
gleaming between the boughs and tree-tops. Further down vineyards and
tilled fields struggled up behind garden fences towards meadows and
quarries, over which shrubbery and bushes hung in the glittering sun.
The path along which George was accustomed to wander was just a thin
straight line often lost among the fields, and his eye sought the place
on the border of the forest where his favourite seat was situated:
meadows and wooded heights at the end of the valley with fresh vales
and hills. George felt himself strangely wedded to this landscape and
the thought that his own career and his own will called him abroad
often wove farewell moods around his lonely walks even now.

But at the same time a presentiment of a richer life stirred within
him. It was as though many things were coming to birth in his soul
which he had no right to disturb by anxious reflection; and there was a
murmur of the melodies of days to come in the lower depths of his soul,
though it was not yet vouchsafed to him to hear them clearly. He had
not been idle, either, in drafting out clearly the rough plan of his
future. He had written a letter of polite thanks to Detmold, in which
he placed himself with reservation at the disposition of the manager
for the coming autumn. He had also looked up old Professor Viebiger,
explained his plans to him and requested him if the opportunity
presented itself to remember his former pupil. But even though contrary
to his expectations he failed to find a position in the autumn he was
determined to leave Vienna, to retire for the time being to a small
town or into the country, and to go on working by himself amid the
quietness. He had not clearly worked out how his relations to Anna
would shape under these circumstances. He only knew that they must
never end. He thought vaguely that he and Anna would visit each other
and go on journeys together at some convenient time; subsequently no
doubt she would move to the place where he lived and worked. But it
struck him as useless to go deeply into these matters before the actual
hour arrived, since his own life had been definitely decided at any
rate for the coming year.

The Sommerhaidenweg ran into the forest, and George took the broad
Villenweg, which crossed the valley at this point and curved downwards.
In a few minutes he found himself in the street, at the end of which
stood the little villa in which Anna lived. It was close to the forest,
near unpretentious yellow bungalows and only raised above their level
by its attic and balcony with its triangular wooden gable. He crossed
the plot of ground in front of the house where the little blue clay
angel welcomed him on its square pedestal in the middle of the lawn
between the flower-beds, and went through the narrow passage near
which the kitchen lay, and the cool middle room on whose floor the
rays of the sun were playing through the dilapidated green Venetian
blinds and stepped on to the verandah. He turned towards the left
and cast a glance through the open window into Anna's room, which he
found empty. He then went into the garden and walking along the lilac
and currant-bushes towards the bottom, soon saw Anna some way off,
sitting on the white seat under the pear-tree in her loose blue dress.
She did not see him coming, but seemed quite plunged in thought. He
slowly approached. She still did not look up. He loved her very much at
moments like this when she thought she was unobserved and the goodness
and peacefulness of her character floated serenely around her clear
forehead. The grasshoppers chirruped on the gravel at their feet.
Opposite them on the grass the strange St. Bernard dog lay sleeping.
It was the animal which first noticed George's arrival as it woke up.
It got up and jogged clumsily towards George. Anna now looked up and a
happy smile swept over her features. Why am I so seldom here? was the
thought which ran through George's mind. Why don't I live out here and
work on top on the balcony under the gable, which has a beautiful view
on to the Sommerhaidenweg? His forehead had grown damp, for the late
afternoon sun was still blazing.

He stood in front of Anna, kissed her on the eyes and mouth and sat
down at her side. The animal had slunk after him and stretched itself
out at his feet. "How are you, my darling?" he asked, while he put his
arm around her neck.

She was very well, as usual, and to-day was a particularly fine day.
She had been left quite to herself since the morning, for Frau Golowski
had to go to town again to look after her family. It was really not
so bad to be so completely alone with oneself. One could sink then
into one's dreams undisturbed. They were of course always the same,
but they were so sweet that one did not get tired of them. She had
let herself dream about her child. How much she loved it to-day, even
before it was born! She would never have considered it possible. Did
George understand it too?... And as he nodded absent-mindedly she shook
her head. No, no ... a man could not understand that, even the very
best and kindest man. Why, she could feel the little being already
moving, could detect the beating of its tender heart, could feel this
new incomprehensible soul breathe within her, just in the same way as
she felt the flowering and awakening within her of its fresh young
body. And George looked in front of him as though ashamed that she
was facing the near future. It was true of course that a being would
exist, begotten by himself, like himself and itself destined again to
give life to new beings; it was true that within the blessed body of
that woman, for which he had ceased for a long time now to feel any
desire, there was swelling, according to the eternal laws, a life that
only a year ago had been undreamt-of, unwished-for, lost in infinity,
but which now was forcing its way up to the light like something
predestined from time immemorial; it was true that he knew that he was
irresistibly drawn into that forged chain that stretched from primal
ancestor to future descendant and which he grasped as it were with
both hands ... but he did not feel that this miracle made so potent an
appeal to him as it really ought.

And they spoke to-day more seriously than usual about what was to
happen after the child's birth. Anna, of course, would keep it with
her during the first week, but then they would have to give it to
strangers; but at any rate it should live quite near, so that Anna
could see it at any time without any difficulty.

"I say, dear," she said quite lightly and suddenly, "will you often
come and visit us?"

He looked into her arch smiling face, took both her hands and kissed
her. "Dearest, what am I to do? Tell me yourself. You can imagine how
hard it will be for me. But what else is there for me to do? I've got
to make a beginning. I've already told you we've given notice to leave
the apartment," he added hastily, as though that cut off all retreat.
"Felician is probably going to Athens. Yes, it would of course be fine
if I could take you with me. But I am afraid that isn't possible.
There ought above all to be something more or less certain, I mean one
ought--ought at least to be certain that I shall remain in the same
place for a longish time."

She had listened with quiet seriousness. She then started to speak
about her latest idea. He must not believe, she said, that she was
thinking of putting the whole burden of responsibility upon him. She
was determined as soon as it was feasible to found a music-school. If
he left her alone for a long time the school would be here in Vienna.
If he soon came to fetch her it would be wherever she and he had their
home. And when she was once in an independent position she meant to
take and keep her child whether she was his wife or not. She was very
far from being ashamed of it, he knew that quite well. She was rather
proud ... yes, proud of being a mother.

He took her hands in his and stroked them. It would all come right
enough, he said, feeling somewhat depressed. He suddenly saw himself
sitting at supper between wife and child, beneath the modest light of a
hanging lamp in an extremely simple home. And this family scene of his
imagination wafted towards him, as it were, an atmosphere of troubled
boredom. Come, it was still too early for that, he was still too young.
Was it possible, then, that she was to be the last woman whom he was
to embrace? Of course it might come in years, even in months, but not
to-day. As for bringing lies and deceit into a well-ordered home, he
had a horror of the idea. Yet the thought of rushing away from her to
others whom he desired, with the consciousness that he would find Anna
again just as he had left her, was at once tempting and reassuring.

The well-known whistle was heard from outside. The dog got up, made
George stroke her yellow-spotted back once again and sadly slunk away.

"By Jove," said George, "I had almost forgotten all about it. Heinrich
will be here any minute." He told Anna about his visit and did not
suppress the fact that he had made the acquaintance of the faithless
actress.

"Did she succeed then?" exclaimed Anna, who did not fancy ladies with
roving eyes.

"I don't think that she succeeded at all," replied George. "Heinrich
was rather annoyed at her turning up, so far as I could see."

"Well, perhaps he'll bring her along too," said Anna jestingly, "then
you will have some one to flirt with again, as you did with the
regicide at Lugano."

"Upon my word," said George innocently, and then added casually: "But
what's the matter with Therese? why doesn't she come to see you any
more? Demeter is no longer in Vienna. She would have plenty of time."

"She was here only a few days ago. Why, I told you so. Don't pretend."

"I'd really forgotten it," he answered honestly. "What did she tell you
then?"

"All there was to tell. The Demeter affair is over. Her heart is
throbbing once more only for the poor and the miserable--until it is
called back." And Anna confided Therese's winter plans to him under the
seal of a most rigid silence. Disguised as a poor woman she meant to
undertake expeditions through shelters, soup- and tea-kitchens, refuges
for the homeless and workmen's dwellings, with a view to shedding a
light into the most hidden corners for the benefit of the so-called
golden heart of Vienna. She seemed quite ready for it and was perhaps a
little sanguine of discovering some horrors.

George looked in front of him. He remembered the stylish lady in the
white dress who had stood in the sunshine in Lugano in front of the
post-office, far from all the cares of the world. "Strange creature,"
he thought.

"Of course she'll make a book out of it," said Anna. "But mind you
don't tell any one, not even your friend Bermann."

"Shouldn't think of it! But I say, Anna, hadn't you better get
something ready for this evening?"

She nodded. "Come, take me downstairs. I'll see what there is and
consult Marie too ... so far as is possible to do so."

They got up. The shadows had lengthened. The children were making a
noise in the next garden. Anna took her lover's arm and walked slowly
with him. She told him the newest instances of the fantastic stupidity
of the maid.

The idea of my being a husband, thought George, and listened
reflectively. When they got to the house he announced his intention of
going to meet Heinrich, left Anna and went into the street.

At this precise moment a one-horse carriage jogged up. Heinrich got
out and paid the driver. "Hallo!" he said to George, "have you really
waited for me after all? It's not so late then?"

"Not at all. You're very punctual. We'll go for a short walk if it
suits you."

"Delighted."

They walked on into the forest past the yellow inn with the red
terraces.

"It is wonderful here," said Heinrich, "and your villa too looks
awfully nice. Why don't you live out here?"

"Yes, it's absurd not to," agreed George without further explanation.
Then they were silent for a while.

Heinrich was in a light grey summer suit and carried his cloak over
his arm, letting it trail a little behind him. "Did you recognise her
again?" he asked suddenly, without looking up.

"Yes," replied George.

"She only came up for one day from her summer engagement. She goes back
by train to-night. A surprise attack, so to speak. But it didn't come
off." He laughed.

"Why are you so hard?" asked George, and thought of the big envelope
with the grey seals and the silly inscription. "There is really no
occasion for you to be so. It is only a fluke that she did not get
anonymous letters just like you did, Heinrich. And who knows, if you
hadn't left her alone for God knows what reasons...."

Heinrich shook his head and looked at George almost as though he pitied
him. "Do you mean by any chance that it is my intention to punish her
or avenge myself? Or do you think I'm one of those mugs who don't
know what to make of the world because something has happened to them
which they know has already happened to thousands before them and will
happen to thousands after them? Do you think I despise the 'faithless
woman' or that I hate her? Not a bit of it. Of course I don't mean
to say that I don't at times assume the pose of hatred and contempt,
only of course to produce better results upon her. But as a matter of
fact I understand all that has happened far too well for me to...." He
shrugged his shoulders.

"Well, if you do understand it?..."

"But, my dear friend, understanding a thing is no earthly good at all.
Understanding is a game like anything else. A very 'classy' game and a
very expensive one. One can spend one's whole soul over it and finish
up a poor devil. But understanding hasn't got the least thing in the
world to do with our feelings, almost as little as it has to do with
our actions. It doesn't protect us from suffering, from revulsion,
from ruin. It leads absolutely nowhere. It's a kind of _cul-de-sac_.
Understanding always signifies the end."

As they walked slowly and silently up a side path with a moderate
incline, each one engrossed in his own thoughts, they emerged out
of the woods into open meadowland, which gave a clear view of the
valley. They looked out over the town and then further on towards the
haze-breathing plain through which the river ran shining; they looked
towards the far line of the mountains, over which a thin haze was
spreading. Then in the peace of the evening sun they walked on further
towards George's favourite seat on the border of the forest. The sun
was not visible. George watched the track of the Sommerhaidenweg on the
other side of the valley run along the wooded hills; it looked pale and
cooled. He then looked down and knew that in the garden at his feet
there was a pear-tree, beneath which he had sat a few hours before with
some one who was very dear to him, and who carried his child under her
bosom, and he felt moved. He felt a slight contempt for the women who
were perhaps waiting for him somewhere, but that did not extinguish his
desire for them. Summer visitors were walking about down below on the
path between the garden and the meadows. A young girl looked up and
whispered something to another.

"You are certainly a popular personality in the place here," remarked
Heinrich, contracting the corners of his mouth ironically.

"Not that I know of."

"Those pretty girls looked at you with great interest. People always
find an inexhaustible source of excitement in other people not being
married. Those holiday-makers down there are bound to look upon you as
a kind of Don Juan and ... your friend as a seduced maiden who has gone
wrong, don't you think so?"

"I don't know," said George, anxious to cut short the conversation.

"And I wonder what I represented," continued Heinrich unperturbed, "to
the theatrical people in the little town. Clearly the deceived lover.
Consequently an absolutely ridiculous character. And she? Well, one can
imagine. Things are awfully simple for lookers-on. But when one gets
to close quarters everything looks utterly different. But the question
is whether the complexion it has in the distance isn't the right one?
Whether one does not persuade oneself into believing a lot of rot, if
one's got a part to play in the comedy oneself?"

He might quite as well have stayed at home, thought George. But as he
could not send him home, and with the object at any rate of changing
the conversation, he asked him quickly: "Do you hear anything from the
Ehrenbergs?"

"I had a rather sad letter from Fraeulein Else a few days ago," replied
Heinrich.

"You correspond with her?"

"No, I don't correspond with her. At any rate I have not yet answered
her."

"She is taking the Oskar business much more to heart than she will
own," said George. "I spoke to her once in the nursing-home. We
remained standing quite a time outside in the passage in front of the
white varnished door behind which poor Oskar was lying. At that time
they were afraid of the other eye as well. It's really a tragic affair."

"Tragi-comic," corrected Heinrich with hardness.

"You see the tragi-comic in everything. I'll tell you why, too. Because
you're more or less callous. But in this case the comic element takes a
back seat."

"You make a mistake," replied Heinrich. "Old Ehrenberg's box on the
ear was a piece of crudeness, Oskar's suicide a piece of stupidity,
his making such a bad shot at himself a piece of bungling. These
elements certainly can't produce anything really tragic. It is a rather
disgusting business, that's all."

George shook his head angrily. He had felt genuine sympathy for Oskar
since his misfortune. He was also sorry for old Ehrenberg, who had
been staying in Neuhaus since then, was only living for his work and
refused to see any one. They had both paid their penalty, which was
heavier than they had deserved. Couldn't Heinrich see that and feel
it just as he did? They really got on one's nerves at times, these
people, with their exaggerated Jewish smartness and their relentless
psychology--these Bermanns and Nuernbergers. Their principal object in
life was to be surprised by nothing whatsoever. What they lacked was
kindness. It was only when they grew older that a certain gentleness
came over them. George thought of old Doctor Stauber, of Frau Golowski,
of old Eissler, but so long as they were young ... they always kept
on the _qui vive_. Their one ideal was not to be scored off! A
disagreeable lot. He felt more and more that he missed Felician and
Skelton, who as a matter of fact were really quite clever enough. He
even missed Guido Schoenstein.

"But in spite of all her melancholy," said Heinrich after a time,
"Fraeulein Else seems to be having a pretty good time of it. They are
having people down again at Auhof. The Wyners were there the other
day, Sissy and James. James got his doctor's degree the other day at
Cambridge. Classy, eh?"

The word Sissy darted through George's heart like a flashing dagger. He
realised it all of a sudden. He would be with her in a few days. His
desire surged up so strongly that he himself scarcely understood it.

The dusk came down. George and Heinrich got up, went down the fields
and entered the garden. They saw Anna come down the centre path
accompanied by a gentleman.

"Old Doctor Stauber," said George. "You know him, I suppose?"

They exchanged greetings.

"I am very glad," said Anna to Heinrich, "that you should come and see
us at last."

"Us!" repeated George to himself, with a sense of surprise which he
immediately repudiated. He went in front with Doctor Stauber. Heinrich
and Anna slowly followed.

"Are you satisfied with Anna?" George asked the doctor.

"Things couldn't be going on better," replied Stauber, "only she must
continue to take exercise regularly and properly."

It struck George, who had not seen the doctor before since his return,
that he had not yet given him back the books which he had borrowed and
he made his apologies.

"There's time enough for that," replied Stauber. "I am only too glad if
they came in handy." And he asked what impressions he had brought home
from Rome.

George told him of his wanderings through the old imperial palaces,
of his drives through the Campagna in the evening light, of a sultry
hour in Hadrian's garden just before a storm. Doctor Stauber begged him
to stop, otherwise he might be induced to leave all his patients here
in the lurch so as to run away at once to the city he loved so much.
Then George made polite inquiries after Doctor Berthold. Was there any
foundation for the rumour that he would be engaged again in active
political life in the approaching winter?

Doctor Stauber shrugged his shoulders. "He comes back in September,
that's the only thing certain so far. He has been very industrious at
Pasteur's and he wants to elaborate at the pathological institute
here a great piece of serum research work which he began in Paris.
If he takes my advice he'll stick to it, for in my humble opinion
what he is now doing is much more important for humanity than the
most glorious revolution. Of course talents vary, and I've certainly
nothing to say against revolutions now and again. But speaking between
ourselves, my son's talent is far more on the scientific side. It's
rather his temperament which drives him in the other direction ...
perhaps only his temper. Well, we shall see. But how about your plans
for the autumn?" he added suddenly, as he looked at George with his
good-natured fatherly expression. "Where are you going to swing your
baton?"

"I only wish I knew myself," replied George.

Doctor Stauber was walking by his side, his lids half closed and his
cigar in his mouth, and while George told him about his efforts and
his prospects with self-important emphasis he thought he felt that
Doctor Stauber simply regarded everything he said as nothing more than
an attempted justification of his putting off his marriage with Anna.
A slight irritation against her arose within him; she seemed to be
standing behind them and perhaps was enjoying quietly that he was, as
it were, being cross-examined by Doctor Stauber.

He deliberately assumed a lighter and lighter tone, as though his own
personal plans for the future had nothing at all to do with Anna, and
finished up by saying merrily: "Why, who knows where I shall be this
time next year? I may finish up in America."

"You might do worse," replied Doctor Stauber quietly. "I have a cousin
who is a violinist in Boston, a man named Schwarz, who earns there at
least six times as much as he gets here at the opera."

George did not like being compared with violinists of the name of
Schwarz and asserted with an emphasis which he himself thought rather
exaggerated that it was not at all a question of money-making, at any
rate at the beginning. Suddenly, he did not know where the thought came
from, the idea ran through his mind: "Supposing Anna dies.... Supposing
the child were her death...." He felt deeply shocked, as though he had
committed a crime by the very thought, and he saw in his imagination
Anna lying there with the shroud drawn over her chin and he saw the
candlelight and daylight streaming over her wax-pale face. He turned
round almost anxiously, as though to assure himself that she was there
and alive. The features of her face were blurred in the darkness and
this frightened him. He remained standing with the doctor till Anna
arrived with Heinrich. He was happy to have her so near him. "You must
be quite tired now, dear," he said to her in his tenderest tone.

"I've certainly honestly performed my day's work," she replied.
"Besides," and she pointed to the verandah, where the lamp with the
green paper shade was standing on the laid table, "supper will soon be
ready. It would be so nice, Doctor, if you could stay; won't you?"

"I'm afraid it's impossible, my dear child. I ought to have been back
in town ages ago. Remember me kindly to Frau Golowski. See you again
soon. Good-bye, Herr Bermann. Come," he added, "is one going to get
another chance soon of seeing or reading one of your fine pieces of
work?"

Heinrich shrugged his shoulders, vouchsafed a social smile and was
silent. Why, he thought, are even the best-bred men usually tactless
when they meet people like myself? Do I ask him about his affairs?

The doctor went on to express in a few words his sympathy with Heinrich
over old Bermann's death. He remembered the dead man's celebrated
speech in opposition to the introduction of Tschech as the judicial
language in certain Bohemian districts. At that time the Jewish
provincial advocate had come within an ace of being Minister of
Justice. Yes, times had changed.

Heinrich started to listen. After all this could be made use of in the
political comedy.

Doctor Stauber took his leave. George accompanied him to the carriage
which was waiting outside, and availed himself of the opportunity to
ask the doctor some medical questions. The latter was able to reassure
him in every respect.

"It's only a pity," he continued, "that circumstances do not allow Anna
to nurse the child herself."

George stood still meditatively. It could not hurt her, could it?... At
any rate, only the child? Or her as well?... He asked the doctor.

"Why talk about it, my dear Baron, if it's not practicable? That's
all right, don't you worry," he added, with one foot already in the
carriage. "One needn't be nervous about the child of people like you
two."

George looked him straight in the eye and said: "I will at any rate
take care that he lives the first years of his life in healthy air."

"That's very nice," said Doctor Stauber gently. "But speaking generally
there is no healthier air in the world for children than their parents'
home."

He shook hands with George and the carriage rolled away.

George remained standing for a moment and felt a lively irritation
against the doctor. He vowed mentally that he would never allow the
conversation with him to take a turn that would as it were entitle him
to give unsolicited advice or make veiled reproaches. What did the old
man know? What did he really understand about the whole thing? George's
antagonism became more and more violent. When I choose to, he said to
himself, I will marry her. Can't she have the child with her anyway?
Hasn't she said herself that she will be proud of having a child? I
am not going to repudiate it either, and I will do everything in my
power. And later on sometime.... But I should be doing an injustice to
myself, to her, to the child if I were to make up my mind to-day to do
something which at any rate is still premature.

He had slowly walked past the short side of the house into the garden.
He saw Anna and Heinrich sitting on the verandah. Marie was just coming
out of the house, very red in the face, and putting a warm dish on the
table, from which the steam mounted up. How quiet Anna sits there,
thought George, and remained standing in the darkness. How serene, how
free from care, as though she could trust me implicitly, as though
there were no such things as death, poverty, treacherous desertion, as
though I loved her as much as she deserves. And again he felt alarmed.
Do I love her less? Is she not right in trusting me? When I sit over
there on my seat on the edge of the forest so much tenderness often
wells up in me that I can scarcely stand it. Why do I feel so little of
that now? He was standing only a few paces away and watched her first
carve and then stare into the darkness out of which he was to come,
while her eyes began to shine as he stepped suddenly into the light. My
one true love, he thought.

When he sat down by the others Anna said to him: "You've had a very
long consultation with the doctor."

"It wasn't a consultation. We were chatting. He also told me about his
son who is coming back soon."

Heinrich inquired after Berthold. The young man interested him and
he hoped very much to make his acquaintance next winter. His speech
last year on the Therese Golowski case, together with his open letter
to his constituents, in which he had explained the reasons for his
resignation, yes, they had been really first-class performances....
Yes, and more than that--documents of the period.

A light almost proud smile flew over Anna's face. She looked down to
her place and then quickly up to George. George also was smiling. Not a
trace of jealousy stirred within him. Did Berthold have any idea...? Of
course. Did he suffer?... Probably. Could he forgive Anna? To think of
having to forgive at all! What nonsense.

A dish of mushrooms was served. On its appearance Heinrich could not
refrain from asking if it were at all poisonous.

George laughed.

"You needn't make fun of me," said Heinrich. "If I wanted to kill
myself I wouldn't choose either poisoned mushrooms or decayed sausage,
but a nobler and swifter poison. At times one is sick of life, but
one is never sick of health, even in one's last quarter of an hour.
And besides, nervousness is a perfectly legitimate, though usually
shamefully repudiated, daughter of reason. What does nervousness
really mean? considering all the possibilities that may result from an
action, the bad and good ones equally. And what is courage? I mean,
of course, real courage, which is manifested far more rarely than one
thinks. For the courage which is affected or the result of obedience
or simply a matter of suggestion doesn't count. True courage is often
really nothing else than the expression of an as it were metaphysical
conviction of one's own superfluity."

"Oh, you Jew!" thought George, though without malice, and then said to
himself, "Perhaps he isn't so far out after all."

They found the beer so good, although Anna did not drink any, that they
sent Marie to the inn for a second jugful. Their mood became genial.
George described his trip again. The days at Lugano in the broiling
sun, the journey over the snowy Brenner, the wandering through the
roofless city, which after a night of two thousand years had surged
up again to the light; he conjured up again the minute in which
they had been present, he and Anna, when workmen were carefully and
laboriously excavating a pillar out of the ashes. Heinrich had not yet
seen Italy. He meant to go there next spring. He explained that he was
frequently torn by a desire for, if not exactly Italy, at any rate
foreign lands, distance, the world. When he heard people talking about
travels he often got heart palpitation like a child the evening before
its birthday. He doubted whether he was destined to end his life in his
home. It might be, perhaps, that after wandering about for years on end
he would come back and find in a little house in the country the peace
of his later manhood. Who knew--life was so full of coincidences--if he
were not destined to finish his life in this very house in which he was
now a guest and felt better than he had for a long time?

Anna thanked him with an air which indicated that she was not merely
the hostess of the country house but of the whole world itself with its
evening calm.

A soft light began to shine out of the darkness of the garden. A warm
moist odour came from the grass and flowers. The long fields which ran
down to the railing swept into view in the moonlight and the white
seat under the pear-tree shimmered as though very far away. Anna
complimented Heinrich on the verses in the opera libretto which George
had read to her the other day.

"Quite right," remarked George, smoking a cigar with his legs
comfortably crossed, "have you brought us anything fresh?"

Heinrich shook his head. "No, nothing."

"What a pity!" said Anna, and suggested that Heinrich should tell them
the plot consecutively and in detail. She had been wanting to know
about it for a long time. She was unable to get any clear idea of it
from George's account.

They looked at each other. There came up in their minds that sweet
dark hour when they had lain in peace with breast close to breast in
a dark room in front of whose windows, behind its floating curtain of
snow, a grey church had loomed, and into which the notes of an organ
had boomed heavily. Yes, they now knew where the house stood in which
the child was to come into the world. Perhaps another house, too,
thought George, stands somewhere or other in which the child that has
not yet been born will end its life. Death! As a man--or as an old man,
or.... Oh, what an idea, away with it ... away with it!

Heinrich declared his readiness to fulfil Anna's wish, and stood up. "I
shall perhaps find it useful myself," he said apologetically.

"But mind you don't suddenly switch off into your political
tragi-comedy," remarked George. And then, turning to Anna: "He's
writing a piece, you know, with a National German corps student for its
hero who poisons himself with mushrooms through despair of emancipation
of the Jews."

Heinrich nodded dissent. "One glass of beer less and you'd never have
made that epigram."

"Jealousy!" replied George. He felt extraordinarily pleased with life,
particularly now that he had firmly made up his mind to leave the day
after to-morrow. He sat quite close to Anna, held her hand in his
and seemed to hear the melody of future days singing in the deepest
recesses of his soul.

Heinrich had suddenly gone into the garden outside the verandah,
reached over the railing, took his cloak from the chair and threw it
romantically around him. "I'm going to begin," he said. "Act I."

"First, an overture in D. minor," interrupted George. He whistled an
impressive melody, then a few notes and finished with an "and so on."

"The curtain rises," said Heinrich. "Feast in the King's garden.
Night. The princess is to be married to the Duke Heliodorus next day. I
call him Heliodorus for the time being, he will probably have another
name though. The king adores his daughter and can't stand Heliodorus,
who is a kind of popinjay with the tastes of a mad Caesar. The king
has really given the feast to annoy Heliodorus, and not only are all
the nobles in the land invited but the youth of all classes, in so
far as they have won a right to be invited by their beauty. And on
this evening the princess is to dance with any one who pleases her.
And there is some one in particular, his name is Aegidius, with whom
she seems quite infatuated. And no one is more pleased about it than
the king. Jealousy on the part of Heliodorus. Increased pleasure on
the part of the king. Scene between Heliodorus and the king. Scorn.
Enmity. Then something highly unexpected takes place. Aegidius draws his
dagger against the king. He wants to murder him. The motives for this
attempted murder of course would have to be very carefully worked in
if you had not been kind enough, my dear George, to set the thing to
music! So it will be enough to hint that the youth hates tyrants, is
a member of a secret society, is perhaps a fool or a hero off his own
bat. I don't know yet, you see. The attempted murder fails. Aegidius is
arrested. The king wishes to be left alone with him. Duet. The youth is
proud, self-possessed, great. The king superior, cruel, inscrutable.
That's about my idea of him. He had already sent many men to their
death and already seen many die, but his own inner consciousness is
so awfully vivid and intense that all other men seem to him to be
living in a state of mere semi-consciousness, so that their death has
practically no other significance except the step from twilight into
gloom. A death like that strikes him as too gentle or too banal for a
case like this. He wishes to plunge this youth from a daylight such as
no mortal has yet enjoyed into the most dreadful darkness. Yes, that's
how his mind works. How much he says or sings about this I don't yet
know of course. Aegidius is taken away just like a prisoner condemned,
so everybody thinks, to immediate death, and on the very same ship,
too, as that on which Heliodorus was to have started on his journey
with the princess in the evening. The curtain falls. The second act
takes place on the deck. The ship under weigh. Chorus. Isolated figures
come up. Their significance is only revealed later. Dawn. Aegidius is
led up from the hold below. To his death, as he is bound, of course,
to think. But it turns out otherwise. His fetters are loosed. All bow
down to him. He is hailed as a prince. The sun rises. Aegidius has an
opportunity of noticing that he is in the very best society--beautiful
women, nobles. A sage, a singer, a fool, are intended for important
parts. But who should come out of the chorus of women but the princess
herself; she belongs absolutely to Aegidius, like everything else on the
ship."

"What a splendid father and king!" said George.

"No price is too dear for him to pay!" explained Heinrich, "for a
really ingenious idea. That's his line. There follows a splendid duet
between Aegidius and the princess. Then they sit down to the meal. After
the meal dancing. High spirits. Aegidius naturally thinks he has been
saved. He is not inordinately surprised, because his hatred for the
king was always to a great extent inspired by admiration. The twilight
begins to loom. Suddenly a stranger is at Aegidius' side. Perhaps he has
been there for a long time, one among the many, unnoticed, mute. He has
a word to say to Aegidius. The feasting and dancing proceed meanwhile.
Aegidius and the stranger. 'All this is yours,' says the stranger. 'You
can rule according to your humour. You can take possession and kill
just as you wish. But to-morrow ... or in two or seven years or in one
year or in ten, or still later, this ship will approach an island on
whose shore a marble hall towers aloft upon a cliff. And there death
waits for you--death. Your murderer is with you on the ship. But only
the one whose mission it is to be your murderer knows it. Nobody else
knows who he is. Nay, nobody else on this ship has any inkling that
you are consecrated to death. Remember that. For when you let any one
notice that you yourself know your fate you are doomed to death that
very hour.'"

Heinrich spoke these words with exaggerated pathos, as though to
conceal his embarrassment. He went on more simply. "The stranger
vanishes. Perhaps I shall have him disembarked on the mainland by two
silent attendants who have accompanied him. Aegidius remains among the
hundreds of men and women of which one or the other is his murderer.
Which one? The sage or the fool? The star-gazer yonder? One of those
yonder, ruminating in the darkness? Those men stealing up the steps
yonder? One of the dancers? The princess herself? She comes up to him
again, is very tender, nay, passionate. Hypocrite? Murderess? His love?
Does she know? At any rate she is his. All this is to be his to-day.
Night on the sea. Terror. Delight. The ship goes slowly on towards that
shore that lies hours or years away in the distance of the far-off
mist. The princess is nestling at his feet. Aegidius stares into the
night and watches." Heinrich stopped as though personally affected.

Melodies rang in George's ear. He heard the music for the scene when
the stranger disappears escorted by the mutes, and then gradually the
noise of the feast comes to the front of the stage. He did not feel
it within him as a mere melody, but he already felt it with all its
fulness of instruments. Were there not flutes sounding and oboes and
clarionets? Was not the 'cello singing and the violin? Was not a faint
beat of a drum droning out of a corner of the orchestra? Involuntarily
he held up his right arm, as though he had his conductor's baton in
his hand.

"And the third act?" asked Anna, as Heinrich remained silent.

"The third act," repeated Heinrich, and there was a touch of depression
in his voice. "The scene of the third act, of course, will be laid in
that hall on the cliff--don't you think so? It must, I think, begin
with a dialogue between the king and the stranger. Or with a chorus?
There are no choruses on uninhabited islands. Anyway, the king is there
and the ship is in sight. But look here, why should the island be
uninhabited?" He stopped.

"Well?" asked George impatiently.

Heinrich laid both his arms on the railing of the verandah. "I'll tell
you something. This isn't an opera at all...."

"What do you mean?"

"There are very good reasons for my not getting as far as this part of
it. It is a tragedy clearly. I just haven't got the courage to write
it. Do you know what would have to be described? The inner change in
Aegidius would have to be described. That is clearly both the difficulty
and the beauty of the subject-matter. In other words it is a thing
which I daren't do. The opera idea is simply a way of getting out of
it, and I don't know if I ought to take on anything like that." He was
silent.

"But at any rate," said Anna, "you must tell us the end of the opera
as you have got it in your mind. I must really admit that I'm quite
excited."

Heinrich shrugged his shoulders and answered in a tired voice: "Well,
the ship hoves to. Aegidius lands. He is to be hurled into the sea."

"By whom?" asked Anna.

"I've no idea at all," replied Heinrich unhappily. "From this point my
mind is an absolute blank."

"I thought it would be the princess," said Anna, and waving her hand
through the air executed a death signal.

Heinrich smiled gently. "I thought of that, of course, also, but...."
He broke off and suddenly looked up to the night sky in a state of
nervous tension.

"It was to finish with a kind of pardon, so far as your original draft
went," remarked George irritably. "But that, of course, is only good
enough for an opera. But now, as your Aegidius is the hero of a tragedy,
of course he will have to be really hurled into the sea."

Heinrich raised his forefinger mysteriously and his features became
animated again. "I think something is just dawning upon me. But don't
let's talk about it for the time being, if you don't mind. It's perhaps
really been a sound thing that I told you the beginning."

"But if you think that I am going to do _entr'acte_ music for you,"
said George, without particular emphasis, "you are under a delusion."

Heinrich smiled, guiltily, indifferently and yet quite good-humouredly.
Anna felt with concern that the whole business had fizzled out. George
was uncertain whether he ought to be irritated at his hopes being
disappointed or be glad at being relieved of a kind of obligation. But
Heinrich felt as though the creations of his own mind were deserting
him in shadowy confusion, mockingly, without farewell and without
promising to come again.

He found himself alone and deserted in a melancholy garden, in the
society of quite a nice man whom he knew very well, and a young lady
who meant nothing at all to him. He could not help thinking all
of a sudden of a person who was travelling at this very hour in a
badly-lighted compartment in despair and with eyes red with crying,
towards dark mountains, worrying whether she would get there in time
to-morrow for her rehearsal. He now felt again that since that had come
to an end he was going downhill, for he had nothing left, he had no
one left. The suffering of that wretched person, the victim of his own
agonizing hatred, was the only thing in the world. And who knew? She
might be smiling at another the very next day, with those tearful eyes
of hers, with her grief and longing still in her soul and a new _joie
de vivre_ already in her blood.

Frau Golowski appeared on the verandah. She was flurried and somewhat
late, and still carried her umbrella and had her hat on. Therese sent
her remembrances from town and wanted to arrange to come and see Anna
again the next day or so.

George, who was leaning up against a wooden pillar of the verandah,
turned to Frau Golowski with that studious politeness which he always
ostentatiously assumed when talking to her. "Won't you ask Fraeulein
Therese in both our names if she wouldn't care to stay out here for
a day or two? The top room is quite at her service. I'm on the point
of going into the mountains for a short time, you know," he added, as
though he regularly slept in the little room at all other times.

Frau Golowski expressed her thanks. She would tell Therese. George
looked at his watch and saw that it was time to start for home. He and
Heinrich then said good-bye. Anna accompanied both of them as far as
the garden door, remained standing a little while and watched them till
they got on to the height where the Sommerhaidenweg began.

The little village at the bottom of the valley flowed past them in
the moonlight. The hills loomed pale like thin walls. The forest
breathed darkness. In the distance thousands of lights glittered out
of the night mist of the summer town. Heinrich and George walked by
each other in silence and a sense of estrangement arose between them.
George remembered that walk in the Prater in the previous autumn, when
their first almost confidential talk had brought them near to each
other. How many talks had they not had since? But had they not all, as
it were, gone into thin air? And to-day, too, George was unable to
walk through the night with Heinrich without exchanging a word, as he
used to do many a time with Guido or with Labinski without feeling any
loss of real sympathy. The silence became a strain. He began to talk
of old Stauber, as that was the first subject to occur to him, and
praised his reliability and versatility. Heinrich was not very taken
with him and thought him somewhat intoxicated with the sense of his own
kindness, wisdom and excellence. That was another kind of Jew which
he could not stand--the self-complacent kind. The conversation then
turned on young Stauber, whose vacillation between politics and science
had something extremely attractive about it for Heinrich. From that
they turned into a conversation about the composition of parliament,
about the squabbles between the Germans and the Tschechs and the
attacks of the Clericals on the Minister of Education. They talked
with that strained assiduousness with which one is accustomed to talk
about things which are absolutely indifferent to one in one's heart of
hearts. Finally they discussed the question whether the Minister ought
to remain in office or not after the dubious figure he had cut over
the civil marriage question, and had the vaguest ideas after they had
finished as to which of them had been in favour of his resignation and
which of them against it. They walked along the churchyard. Crosses
and gravestones towered over the walls and floated in the moonlight.
The path inclined downwards to the main road. They both hurried so as
to catch the last tram, and standing on the platform in the sultry
scented night air drove towards the town. George explained that he
thought of doing the first part of his tour on his cycle. Obeying a
sudden impulse, he asked Heinrich if he wouldn't like to join him.
Heinrich agreed and after a few minutes manifested great keenness. They
got out at the Schottentor, found out a neighbouring cafe and after an
exhaustive consultation managed, with the help of special maps which
they found in encyclopaedias, to decide on every possible route. When
they left each other their plan was not indeed quite definite, but they
already knew that they would leave Vienna early, the day after the
next, and would mount their cycles at Lambach.

George stood quite a long time by the open window of his bedroom. He
felt intensely awake. He thought of Anna, from whom he was to part
to-morrow for a few days, and visualised her as sleeping at this hour
out there in the country in the pale twilight between the moonlight and
the morning. But he felt dully as though this image had nothing at all
to do with his own fate, but with the fate of some unknown man, who
himself knew nothing about it. And he was absolutely unable to realise
that within that slumbering being there slept another being in still
deeper mystery, and that this other being was to be his own child. Now
that the sober mood of the early dawn stole almost painfully through
his senses the whole episode seemed more remote and improbable than
it had ever been before. A clearer and clearer light showed above the
roofs of the town, but it would be a long time before the town woke up.
The air was perfectly motionless. No breeze came from the trees in the
park opposite, no perfume from the withered flower-beds. And George
stood by the window; unhappy and without comprehension.




VII


George slowly climbed up from the hold on narrow carpeted steps between
long oblique mirrors and wrapped in a long dark green rug which trailed
behind him, wandered up and down on the empty deck beneath the starry
sky. Motionless as ever, Labinski stood in the stern and turned the
wheel, while his gaze was directed towards the open sea. "What a
career!" thought George. "First a dead man, then a minister, then a
little boy with a muff and now a steersman. If he knew that I were on
this ship he would certainly hail me." "Look out!" cried behind George
the two blue girls, whom he had met on the sea-shore, but he rushed
on, wrapped himself in his rug and listened to the flapping of white
gulls over his head. Immediately afterwards he was in the saloon, down
below, sitting at the table, which was so long that the people at the
end were quite small. A gentleman near him, who looked like the elder
Grillparzer, remarked irritably: "This boat's always late. We ought to
have been in Boston a long time ago." George then felt very nervous;
for if he could not show the three music scores in the green cover when
he disembarked, he would certainly be arrested for high treason. That
was why the prince who had been rushing all over the deck with the
wheel all day long often cast such strange side-glances at him. And to
intensify his suspicions still more he was compelled to sit at table in
his shirtsleeves while all the other gentlemen wore generals' uniforms,
as they always did on boats, and all the ladies wore red velvet
dresses. "We shall soon be in America," said a raucous steward who was
serving asparagus. "Only one more station."

"The others can sit there quietly," thought George. "They have
nothing to do, but I must swim to the theatre straight away." The
coast appeared opposite him in the great mirror; nothing but houses
without roofs, whose tiers of terraces towered higher and higher,
and the orchestra was waiting impatiently up above in a quiet kiosk
with a broken stone cupola. The bell on the deck pealed and George
tumbled down the steps into the park with his green rug and two pocket
handkerchiefs. But they had shipped the wrong one across; it was
the Stadtpark, as a matter of fact; Felician was sitting on a seat,
an old lady in a cloak close to him put her fingers on her lips,
whistled very loudly and Felician said, with an unusually deep voice:
"Kemmelbach--Ybs." "No," thought George, "Felician never uses a word
like that ..." rubbed his eyes and woke up.

The train was just starting again. Two red lamps were shining in front
of the closed window of the compartment. The night ran past, silent and
black. George drew his travelling rug closer round him and stared at
the green shaded lamp in the ceiling. "What a good thing that I'm alone
in the compartment," he thought. "I have been sound asleep for at least
four or five hours. What a strange confused dream that was!" The white
gulls first came back into his memory. Did they have any significance?
Then he thought of the old woman in the cloak, who of course was no
other than Frau Oberberger. The lady would not feel particularly
flattered. But really, hadn't she looked quite like an old lady, when
he had seen her a few days ago by the side of her beaming husband in
the box of the little red-and-white theatre of the watering-place?
And Labinski, too, had appeared to him in his dream as a steersman,
strangely enough. And the girls in blue dresses, also, who had looked
out of the hotel garden into the piano room through the window as soon
as they heard him playing. But what was the really ghostly element in
that dream?

Not the girls in blue, not even Labinski, and not the Prince of
Guastalla, who had rushed like mad to the wheel over the deck. No, it
was his own figure which had appeared to him so ghostly as it had slunk
along by his side multiplied a hundred times over in the long oblique
mirrors on both sides. He began to feel cold. The cool night air
penetrated into the compartment through the ventilator in the ceiling.
The deep black darkness outside gradually changed into a heavy grey
and there suddenly rang in George's ears in a sad whisper the words he
had heard only a few hours ago in a woman's low voice: How soon will
it take you to forget me?... He did not wish to hear those words. He
wished they had already become true, and in desperation he plunged back
into the memory of his dream. It was quite clear that the steamer on
which he had gone to America on his concert tour really meant the ship
on which Aegidius had sailed towards his sinister fate. And the kiosk
with the orchestra was the hall where Aegidius had waited for death. The
starry sky which spread over the sea had been really wonderful. The
air had been bluer and the stars more silvery than he had ever seen
them in waking life, even on the night when he had sailed with Grace
from Palermo to Naples. Suddenly the voice of the woman he loved rang
through the darkness again, whispering and mournful: "How long will it
take you to forget me?"... And he now visualised her as he had seen her
a few hours ago, pale and naked, with her dark hair streaming over the
pillows. He did not want to think of it, conjured up other images from
the depths of his memory and deliberately chased them past him. He saw
himself going round a cemetery in the thawing February snow with Grace;
he saw himself riding with Marianne over a white country road towards
the wintry forest. He saw himself walking with his father over the
Ringstrasse in the late evening; and finally a merry-go-round whirled
past him. Sissy with her laughing lips and eyes was rocking about on
a brown wooden horse. Else, graceful and ladylike, was sitting in a
little red carriage, and Anna rode an Arab with the reins nonchalantly
in her hand. Anna! How young and graceful she looked! Was that really
the same being whom he was to see again in a few hours? and had he
really only been away from her for ten days? And was he ever to see
again all that he had left ten days ago? The little angel in blue
clay between the flower-beds, the verandah with the wooden gable, the
silent garden with the currant- and the lilac-bushes? It all seemed
absolutely inconceivable. She will wait for me on the white seat under
the pear-tree, he thought, and I will kiss her hands as though nothing
had happened.

"How are you, George dear?" she will ask me. "Have you been true to
me?" No.... That's not her way of asking, but she will feel without
asking at all or my answering that I have not come back the same as I
went away. If she only does feel it! If I am only saved from having to
lie! But haven't I done so already? And he thought of the letters which
he had written from the lake, letters full of tenderness and yearning,
which had really been nothing but lies. And he thought of how he had
waited at night with a beating heart, his ear glued to the door, till
all was quiet in the inn; of how he had then stolen over the passage
to that other woman who lay there pale and naked, with her dark eyes
wide open, enveloped in the perfume and bluish shimmer of her hair.
And he thought of how he and she one night, half drunken with desire
and audacity, had stepped out on to the verandah, beneath which the
water plashed so seductively. If any one had been out on the lake in
the deep darkness of this hour he would have seen their white bodies
shining through the night. George thrilled at the memory. We were out
of our senses, he thought; how easily it might have happened that I
should be lying to-day with a bullet through my heart six feet under
the ground. Of course there's still a chance of it. They all know.
Else knew first, though she scarcely ever came down from Auhof into
the village. James Wyner, who saw me with the other woman one evening
standing on the landing-stage is bound to have told her. Will Else
marry him? I can understand her liking him so much. He is handsome,
that chiselled face, those cold grey eyes which look shrewd and
straight into the world, a young Englishman. Who knows if he wouldn't
have turned into a kind of Oskar Ehrenberg in Vienna? And George
remembered what Else had told him about her brother. He had struck
George as so self-possessed, almost mature in fact, on his sick-bed
in the nursing-home. And now he was said to be leading a wild life in
Ostend, to be gambling and gadding about with the most evil associates,
as though he wanted to go thoroughly to the dogs. Did Heinrich still
find the matter so tragi-comic? Frau Ehrenberg had grown quite white
with grief. And Else had cried her eyes out in front of George one
morning in the grounds; but had she only been crying about Oskar?

The grey in front of the compartment window slowly cleared. George
watched the telegraph wires outside sweeping and shifting across each
other with swift movements and he thought of how, yesterday afternoon,
his own lying words to Anna had travelled across one of these wires:
"Shall be with you early to-morrow morning. Fondest love, your own
George."... He had hurried back straight from the post-office to an
ardent and desperate final hour with the other woman, and he could
not realise that even at this very minute, when he had already been
away from her for a whole eternity, she should still be lying asleep
and dreaming in that same room with the fast-closed windows. And she
will be home this evening with her husband and children. Home--just
as he would be. He knew that it was so and he could not understand
it. For the first time in his life he had been near doing something
which people would probably have had to call madness. Only one word
from her ... and he would have gone out with her into the world,
have left everything behind, friends, mistress and his unborn child.
And was he not still ready to do so? If she called him would he not
go? And if he did do so would he not be right? Was he not far more
cut out for adventures of that kind than for the quiet life full of
responsibilities which he had chosen for himself? Was it not rather
his real line to career boldly and unhesitatingly about the world than
to be stuck somewhere or other with his wife and child, with all the
bothers about bread-and-butter, his career and at the best a little
fame? In the days from which he had just come he had felt that he was
living, perhaps for the first time. Each moment had been so rich and
so full, and not only those spent in her arms. He had suddenly grown
young again. The country had flowered with a greater splendour, the
arc of the sky had grown wider, the air which he drank had exhaled
a finer spice and strength, and melodies had rippled within him as
never before. Had he ever composed anything better than that wordless
song to be sung on the water with its sprightly rocking melody? And
that fantasy had risen strangely by the shore of the lake one hour
out of depths of his which he had never dreamt of, after he had seen
the wondrous woman for the first time. Well, Herr Hofrat Wilt would
no longer have occasion to regard him as a dilettante. But why did he
think of him of all people? Did the others know what kind of a man he
was any better? Didn't it often seem to him as though even Heinrich,
who had once wanted to write an opera libretto for him, had failed to
judge him any more accurately? And he heard again the words which the
author had spoken to him that morning when they had cycled from Lambach
to Gmunden through the dew-wet forest. "You need not do creative work
in order to realise yourself ... you do not need work ... only the
atmosphere of your art...." He suddenly remembered an evening in the
keeper's lodge on the Alamsee when a huntsman of seventy-three had sung
some jolly songs and Heinrich had wondered at any one of that age being
still so jolly, since one would be bound to feel oneself so near one's
death. Then they had gone to bed in an enormous room which echoed all
their words, philosophised about life and death for a long time, and
suddenly fallen asleep.

George was still motionless as he lay stretched out in his rug and
considered whether he should tell Heinrich anything about his meeting
with his actress. How pale she had grown when she had suddenly seen
him. She had listened, with roving eyes, to his account of the cycle
tour with Heinrich and then begun to tell him straight away about her
mother and her little brother who could draw so wonderfully finely.
And the other members of the company had kept staring all the time
from the stage door, particularly a man with a green tyrol hat, in
which a chamois' beard was stuck. And George had seen her play the same
evening in a French farce, and asked himself if the pretty young person
who acted and pranced about so wildly down on the stage of the little
holiday theatre could really be so desperate as Heinrich imagined. Not
only he but James and Sissy as well had liked her very much. What a
jolly evening it had been! And the supper after the theatre with James,
Sissy, old mother Wyner and Willy Eissler! And next day the ride in the
four-in-hand of old Baron Loewenstein, who drove himself. In less than
an hour they had reached the lake. A boat was rowing near the bank
in the early sunshine. And the woman he loved sat on the rowing-seat
with a green silk shawl over her shoulders. But how was it that Sissy
also had divined the relationship between him and her? And then the
merry dinner at the Ehrenbergs' up at Auhof! George sat between Else
and Sissy, and Willy told one funny story after the other. And then
on the afternoon, George and Sissy had found each other without any
rendezvous in the dark green sultriness of the park amid the warm scent
of the moss and the pines, while all the others were resting. It had
been a wonderful hour, which had floated through this day as lightly
as a dream, without vows of troth and without fear of fulfilment. How
I like thinking every single minute of it all over again, savouring
it to the full, that golden day! I see both of us, Sissy and myself,
going down over the fields to the tennis-court, hand in hand. I think
I played better than I ever did in my life.... And I see Sissy again
lounging in a cane chair, with a cigarette between her lips and old
Baron Loewenstein at her side, while her looks flamed towards Willy.
What had become of me at that moment, so far as she was concerned? And
the evening! How we swam out in the twilight into the lake, while the
warm water caressed me so deliciously. What a delight that was! And
then the night ... the night....

The train stopped again. It was already quite light outside. George
lay still, as before. He heard the name of the station called out;
the voices of waiters, conductors and travellers; heard steps on the
platform, station-signals of all kinds, and he knew that in an hour he
would be in Vienna.... Supposing Anna had received information about
him, just as Heinrich had about his mistress the previous winter? He
could not imagine that a thing like that could make Anna lose control
of herself, even if she believed in it. Perhaps she would cry, but
certainly only to herself, quite quietly. He resolved firmly not to
let her notice anything. Was not that his plain duty? What was the
important thing now? Only this, that Anna should spend the last weeks
quietly and without excitement, and that a healthy child should come
into the world. That was all that mattered. How long had it been since
he had heard Doctor Stauber say those words? The child...! How near
the hour was, the child.... He thought again; but he could think of
nothing except the mere word. He then endeavoured to imagine a tiny
living being. But as though to mock him figures of small children kept
appearing, who looked as though they had stepped out of a picture-book,
drawn grotesquely and in crude colours. Where will it spend its first
years? he thought. With peasants in the country, in a house with a
little garden. But one day we will fetch it and take it home with us.
It might, too, turn out differently. One gets a letter like this: Your
Excellency, I have the honour to inform you that the child is seriously
ill.... Or.... What is the point of thinking about things like that?
Even though we kept it with us it might fall ill and die.

Anyway, it must be given to people who are highly responsible. I'll
see about it myself.... He felt as though he were confronted with new
duties which he had never properly considered and which he had not yet
grown able to cope with. The whole business was beginning, as it were,
over again. He came out of a world in which he had not bothered about
all these things, where other laws had prevailed than those to which he
must now submit.

And had it not been as though the other people, too, had felt that
he was not really one of them, as though they had been steeped in
a kind of respect, as though they had been seized by a feeling of
veneration for the power and holiness of a great passion, whose sway
they witnessed in their own neighbourhood? He remembered an evening on
which the hotel visitors had disappeared from the piano-room one after
another, as though they had been conscious of their duty to leave him
alone with her. He had sat down at the piano and begun to improvise.
She had remained in her dark corner in a big arm-chair. First of all
he had seen her smile, then the dark shining of her eyes, then only
the lines of her figure, then nothing more at all. But he had been
conscious the whole time "She is there!" Lights flashed out on the
other bank opposite. The two girls in the blue dresses had peered in
through the window and had quickly disappeared again. Then he stopped
playing and remained sitting by the pianoforte in silence. Then she
had come slowly out of the corner like a shadow and had put her hand
upon his head. How ineffably beautiful that had been! And it all came
into his mind again. How they had rested in the boat in the middle of
the lake, with shipped oars, while his head was in her lap! And they
had walked through the forest paths on the opposite bank until they
came to the seat under the oak. It had been there that he had told her
everything--everything as though to a friend. And she had understood
him, as never another woman had understood him before. Was it not
she whom he had always been seeking? she who was at once mistress
and comrade, with a serious outlook upon everything in the world,
and yet made for every madness and for every bliss? And the farewell
yesterday.... The dark brilliance of her eyes, the blue-black stream
of her loosened hair, the perfume of her white naked body.... Was it
really possible that this was over for ever? that all this was never,
never to come again?

George crumpled the rug between his fingers in his helpless longing and
shut his eyes. He no longer saw the softly moving lines of the wooded
hills, which swept by in the morning light, and as though for one last
happiness he dreamed himself back again into the dark ecstasies of
that farewell hour. Yet against his will he was overcome by fatigue
after the jar and racket of the night in the train, and he was swept
away out of the images which he had himself called up, in a route of
wild dreams which it was not vouchsafed him to control. He walked
over the Sommerhaidenweg in a strange twilight that filled him with a
deep sadness. Was it morning? Was it evening? Or just a dull day? Or
was it the mysterious light of some star over the world that had not
yet shone for any one except him? He suddenly stood upon a great open
meadow where Heinrich Bermann ran up and down and asked him: Are you
also looking for the lady's castle? I have been expecting you for a
long time. They went up a spiral staircase, Heinrich in front, so that
George could only see a tail of the overcoat which trailed behind.
Above, on an enormous terrace which gave a view of the town and the
lake, the whole party was assembled. Leo had started his dissertation
on minor harmonies, stopped when George appeared, came down from his
desk and himself escorted him to a vacant chair which was in the first
row and next to Anna. Anna smiled ecstatically when George appeared.
She looked young and brilliant in a splendid _decolletee_ evening
dress. Just behind her sat a little boy with fair hair, in a sailor
suit with a broad white collar, and Anna said "That's he." George made
her a sign to be silent, for it was supposed to be a secret. In the
meanwhile Leo played the _C sharp minor_ Nocturne by Chopin in order
to prove his theory, and behind him old Boesendorfer leaned against
the wall in his yellow overcoat, tall, gaunt and good-natured. They
all left the concert-room in a great crush. Then George put Anna's
opera cloak round her shoulders and looked sternly at the people round
him. He then sat in the carriage with her, kissed her, experienced a
great delight in doing so and thought: "If it could only be like this
always." Suddenly they stopped in front of the house in Mariahilf.
There were already many pupils waiting upstairs by the window and
beckoning. Anna got out, said good-bye to George with an arch
expression and vanished behind the door, which slammed behind her.

"Excuse me, sir. Ten minutes more," some one said. George turned round.
The conductor stood in the doorway and repeated: "We shall be in Vienna
in ten minutes."

"Thank you," said George and got up, with a more or less confused
head. He opened the window and was glad it was fine weather outside in
the world. The fresh morning air quite cheered him up. Yellow walls,
signal-boxes, little gardens, telegraph poles, streets, flew past him,
and finally the train stood in the station. A few minutes later George
was driving in an open fiacre to his apartment, saw workmen, shop girls
and clerks going to their daily callings; heard the rattle of rolling
shutters and in spite of all the anxiety which awaited him, in spite of
all the desire which drew him elsewhere, he experienced the deep joy of
once more being at home.

When he went into his room he felt quite hidden. The old secretary,
covered with green baize, the malachite letter-weight, the glass
ash-tray with its burnt-in cavalier, the slim lamp with the broad green
thick glass shade, the portrait of his father and mother in the narrow
mahogany frames, the round little marble table in the corner with its
silver case for cigars, the Prince of the Electorate, after Vandyck on
the wall, the high bookcase with its olive- curtains; they all
gave him a hearty greeting. And how it did one good to have that good
home look over the tree tops in the park, towards the spires and roofs.
An almost undreamt-of happiness streamed towards him from everything
which he found again here, and he felt sore at heart that he would
have to leave it all in a few weeks. And how long would it last until
one had a home, a real home? He would have liked to have stopped for a
few hours in his beloved room but he had no time. He had to be in the
country before noon.

He had thrown off his clothes and let the warm water swirl round him
deliciously in his white bath. To avoid going to sleep in his bath he
chose a means he had often employed before. He rehearsed in his mind
note by note a fugue of Bach's. He thought of a pianoforte that would
have to be diligently practised and music scores which would have to
be read. Wouldn't it really be more sensible to devote another year to
study? Not to enter into negotiations straight away or to take a post,
which he would turn out to be unable to fill? Rather to stay here and
work. Stay here? But where? Notice had been given. It occurred to him
for a moment to take the apartment in the old house opposite the grey
church, where he had spent such beautiful hours with Anna, and it was
as though he were remembering a long-past episode, an adventure of his
youth, gay and yet a little mysterious, that had been over long ago....

He went back into his room, refreshed and wearing a brand-new suit,
the first light one which he had put on since his father's death. A
letter lay on the secretary which had just arrived by the first post,
from Anna. He read it. It was only a few words: "You are here again, my
love--I welcome you. I do long to see you. Don't keep me waiting too
long. Your Anna...."

George got up. He did not himself know what it was in the short letter
that touched him so strangely. Anna's letters had always retained, in
spite of all their tenderness, a certain precise, almost conventional
element, and he had frequently jokingly called them "proclamations."
This was couched in a tone that reminded him of the passionate girl
of by-gone days, of that love of his whom he had almost forgotten,
and a strangely unexpected anxiety seized on his heart. He rushed
downstairs, took the nearest fiacre and drove to the country. He soon
felt agreeably distracted by the sight of the people in the streets
who meant nothing to him at all; and later, when he was near the
wood, he felt soothed by the charm of the blue summer day. Suddenly,
sooner than George had anticipated, the vehicle stopped in front of
the country house. Involuntarily George first looked up to the balcony
under the gable. A little table was standing there with a white cover
and a little basket on it. Oh yes, Therese had been staying here for a
few days. He now remembered for the first time. Therese...! Where was
it now? He got out, paid the carriage and went into the front garden
where the blue angel stood on its unpretentious pedestal amid the faded
flower-beds. He stepped into the house. Marie was just laying the table
in the large centre room. "Madam's over there in the garden," she said.

The verandah door was open. The planks of its floor creaked underneath
George's feet. The garden with its perfume and its sultriness received
him. It was the old garden. During all the days in which George had
been far away it had lain there silently, just as it was lying at this
minute; in the dawn, in the sunshine, in the twilight, in the darkness
of night; always the same.... The gravel path cut straight through the
field to the heights. There were children's voices on the other side
of the bushes from which red berries were hanging. And over there on
the white seat, with her elbow on its arm, very pale, in her flowing
blue morning dress, yes, that was Anna. Yes, really she. She had seen
him now. She tried to get up. He saw it, and saw at the same time that
she found it difficult. But why? Was she spell-bound by excitement? Or
was the hour of trial so near? He signed to her with his hand that she
was to remain seated, and she really did sit down again, and only just
stretched out her arms lightly towards him. Her eyes were shining with
bliss. George walked very quickly, with his grey felt hat in his hand,
and now he was at her side.

"At last," she said, and it was a voice which came from as far back as
those words in her letter of this morning. He took her hands, shook
them in a strange clumsy way, felt a lump in his throat, but was still
unable to articulate anything and just nodded and smiled. And suddenly
he knelt before her on the grass, with her hands in his and his head in
her lap. He felt her lightly taking her hands away, and putting them on
his head; and then he heard himself crying quite softly. And he felt as
though he were in a sweet vague dream, a little boy again and lying at
his mother's feet, and this moment were already a mere memory, painful
and far away, even while he was living it.




VIII


Frau Golowski came out of the house. George could see her from the
top end of the garden as she stepped on to the verandah. He hurried
excitedly towards her, but as soon as she saw him in the distance she
shook her head.

"Not yet?" asked George.

"The Professor thinks," replied Frau Golowski, "some time before dark."

"Some time before dark," said George and looked at his watch. And now
it was only three.

She held out her hand sympathetically and George looked into her kind
eyes, which were somewhat tired by her nocturnal vigils. The white
transparent curtain in front of Anna's window had just been slightly
drawn back. Old Doctor Stauber appeared by the window, threw George a
friendly reassuring glance, disappeared again and the curtains were
drawn. Frau Rosner was sitting in the large centre room by the round
table. George could only see from the verandah the outlines of her
figure; her face was quite in the shade. Then a whimpering and then a
loud groan forced their way from the room in which Anna lay. George
stared up at the window, stood still for a while, then turned round
and walked for the hundredth time to-day up the path to the top of the
garden. It is clear that she is already too weak to shriek, he thought;
and his heart pained him. She had lain in labour for two whole days and
two whole nights. The third day was now approaching its end,--and now
it was still to last until evening came. On the evening of the first
day Doctor Stauber had called in the Professor, who had been there
twice yesterday and had remained in the house since noon to-day. While
Anna had gone to sleep for a few minutes, and the nurse was watching by
her bed, he had walked up and down in the garden with George and had
endeavoured to explain to him all the peculiar features of the case.
For the time being there was no ground for anxiety. They could hear the
child's heart beating quite clearly. The Professor was a still fairly
young man with a long blonde beard, and his words trickled gently and
kindly like drops of some anodyne drug. He spoke to the sick woman like
a child, stroked her over the hair and forehead, caressed her hands and
gave her pet names. George had learned from the nurse that this young
doctor exhibited the same devotion and same patience at every sick-bed.
What a profession! thought George, who had once, during these three
bad days, fled to Vienna for a few hours, which enabled a man to have
a sound dreamless sleep for six good hours up there in the attic this
very night while Anna was writhing in pain.

He walked along by the faded lilac-bushes, tore off leaves,
crunched them in his hand and threw them on the ground. A lady in a
black-and-white striped morning dress was walking in the next garden
on the other side of the low bushes. She looked at George seriously
and almost sympathetically. Quite so! thought George. Of course she
heard Anna's screams the day before yesterday, yesterday and to-day.
The whole place in fact knew of what was happening there; even the
young girls in the _outre_ Gothic villa, who had once taken him for
the interesting seducer; and there was real humour in the fact that a
strange gentleman with a reddish pointed beard, who lived two houses
away, should have suddenly greeted him yesterday in the village with
respectful understanding.

Remarkable, thought George, how one can make oneself popular with
people. But Frau Rosner let it be seen that even though she did
not regard George as mainly responsible for the seriousness of the
position she certainly regarded him as somewhat callous. He did not
bear any grudge for this against the poor good woman. She could not
of course have any idea how much he loved Anna. It was not long
since he had known it himself. She had not addressed any question to
him on that morning of his arrival when George had lifted his head
off her lap after a long silent fit of weeping, but he had read in
the painful surprise of her eyes that she guessed the truth, and he
thought he understood why she did not question him. She must realise
how completely she possessed him again, how henceforth he belonged to
her more than he had ever done before, and when he told her in the
subsequent hours and days of the time which he had spent far away from
her, and that now fateful name resounded casually but yet insistently
out of the catalogue of the women whom he had met, she smiled, no
doubt, in her slightly mocking way, but scarcely differently than when
he spoke of Else or Sissy, or the little girls in their blue dresses
who had peeped into the music-room when he was playing.

He had been living in the villa for two weeks, had been feeling well
and in good form for serious work. He spread out every morning on the
little table, where Therese's needlework had lain a short time ago,
scores, works on musical theory, musical writing-paper, and occupied
himself with solving problems in harmony and counterpoint. He often lay
down in the meadow by the edge of the forest and read some favourite
book or other, let melodies ring within him, indulged in day-dreams and
was quite happy, with the rustling of the trees and the brilliance of
the sun. In the afternoon, when Anna was resting, he would read aloud
or talk to her. They often talked with affectionate anticipation about
the little creature that was soon to come into the world, but never
about their own future, whether distant or immediate. But when he
sat by her bed, or walked up and down the garden with her arm-in-arm,
or sat by her side on the white seat under the pear-tree, where the
shining stillness of the late summer day rested above them, he knew
they were tied fast to each other for all time, and that even the
temporary separation with which they were faced could have no power to
affect them in view of the certain feeling that they were all in all to
each other.

It was only since the pains had come upon her that she seemed removed
from him to a sphere where he could not follow her. Yesterday he had
sat by her bed for hours and had held her hand in his. She had been
patient, as always, had anxiously inquired if he were quite comfortable
in the house, had begged him to work and go for walks as he had done
before, since after all he could not help her, and had assured him that
since she was suffering she loved him even more. And yet she was not
the same, George felt, as she had been during these days. Particularly
when she screamed out--as she had this morning in her worst pains--her
soul was so far away from him that he felt frightened.

He was near the house again. No noise came from Anna's room, in front
of the window of which the curtains moved slightly. Old Doctor Stauber
was standing on the verandah. George hastened towards him with a dry
throat. "What is it?" he asked hastily.

Doctor Stauber put his hand on his shoulder. "Going on nicely."

A groan came from within, grew louder, grew into a wild frenzied
scream. George passed his hand over his damp forehead and said to the
doctor with a bitter smile: "Is that what you mean by going on nicely?"

Stauber shrugged his shoulders. "It is written, 'With pain shalt
thou....'"

George felt a certain sense of resentment. He had never believed in
the God of the childishly pious, who was supposed to reveal himself as
the fulfiller of the wishes of wretched men and women, as the avenger
and forgiver of miserable human sins. The Nameless One which he felt
in the infinite beyond his senses, and transcending all understanding,
could only regard prayer and blasphemy as poor words out of a human
mouth. Not even when his mother had died, after the senseless martyrdom
of her suffering, not even when his father had died, passing away
painlessly so far as he could understand, had he presumed to indulge in
the belief that his own personal misfortunes in the world's progress
signified more than the falling of a leaf. He had not bowed down in
cowardly humility to any inscrutable solution of the riddle, nor had he
foolishly murmured against an ungracious power of whose decrees he was
the personal victim.

To-day he felt for the first time as though somewhere or other in the
clouds an incomprehensible game was being played in which his own
fortunes were the stakes. The scream within had died away and only
groans were audible.

"And the beating of the heart?" asked George.

Doctor Stauber looked at him. "It could still be heard clearly ten
minutes ago."

George fought against a dreadful thought which had been hounded up out
of the depths of his soul. He was healthy, she was healthy, two strong
young people.... Could anything like that be really possible?

Doctor Stauber put his hand on his shoulder again. "Go for a walk," he
said. "We'll call you as soon as it's time." And he turned away.

George remained standing on the verandah for another minute. He saw
Frau Rosner sitting huddled up in solitary brooding on the sofa near
the wall in the large room that was beginning to grow dim in the shade
of the late afternoon. He went away, walked round the house and went
up the wooden stairs into his attic. He threw himself on the bed and
shut his eyes. After a few minutes he got up, walked up and down in
the room, but gave up doing so as the floor creaked. He went on to the
balcony. The score of _Tristan_ lay open on the table. George looked
at the music. It was the prelude to the third act. The music rang in
his ears. The sea waves were beating heavily on a cliff shore, and out
of the mournful distance rang the sad melody of an English horn. He
looked over the pages far away into the silver-white brilliance of the
daylight. There was sunshine everywhere--on the roofs, paths, gardens,
hills and forests. The sky was spread out in its azure vastness and the
smell of the harvest floated up from the depths. How were things with
me a year ago? thought George. I was in Vienna, quite alone. I had not
an idea. I had sent her a song ... '_Deinem Blick mich zu bequemen_'
... but I scarcely gave her a thought ... and now she lies down there
dying.... He gave a violent start. He had meant to say mentally ...
"She is lying in labour," and the words "lies dying" had as it were
stolen their way on to his lips. But why was he so frightened? How
childish! As though there existed presentiments like that! And if there
really were danger, and the doctors had to decide, then of course they
would have to save the mother. Why, Doctor Stauber had only explained
that to him a few days ago. What, after all, is a child that hasn't
yet lived? Nothing. He had begotten it at some moment or other without
having wished it, without having even thought of the possibility that
he might have become a father. How did he know either that in that
dark hour of ecstasy, behind closed blinds a few weeks ago he had not
... also become a father without having wished it, without having even
thought of the possibility; and perhaps it might have happened without
his ever knowing!

He heard voices and looked down; the Professor's coachman had caught
hold of the arm of the housemaid, who was only slightly resisting.
Perhaps the foundations are being laid here too of a new human life,
thought George, and turned away in disgust. Then he went back into his
room, carefully filled his cigarette-case out of the box that stood
on the table, and it suddenly seemed to him that his excitement was
baseless and even childish, and it occurred to him: "My mother, too,
once lay like that before I came into the world, just as Anna is doing
now. I wonder if my father walked about as nervously as I am doing? I
wonder if he would be here now if he were still alive? I wonder if I
would have told him at all? I wonder if all this would have happened
if he had lived?" He thought of the beautiful serene summer days by
the Veldeser Lake. His comfortable room in his father's villa swept
up in his memory and in some vague way, almost dreamwise, the bare
attic with the creaking floor in which he now found himself seemed to
typify his whole present existence in contrast to that former life
which had been so free from care and responsibility. He remembered a
serious talk about the future which he had had a few days ago with
Felician. Immediately after this thought there came into his mind the
conversation which he had had with a woman in the country, who had
introduced herself with the offer to take charge of the child. She and
her husband possessed a small property near the railway, only an hour
away from Vienna, and her only daughter had died in the previous year.
She had promised that the little one should be well looked after, as
well, in fact, as though it were not a stranger's at all, and as George
thought of this he suddenly felt as though his heart were standing
still. It will be there before dark.... The child.... His child, but a
strange woman was waiting somewhere to take it away with her. He was
so tired after the excitement of the last few days that his knees hurt
him. He remembered having previously felt similar physical sensations,
the evening after his "leaving-examination" and the time when he had
learnt of Labinski's suicide. How different, how joyful, how full of
hope had been his mood three days ago, just before the pains began! He
now felt nothing except an unparalleled dejection, while he found the
musty smell of the attic more and more unpleasant. He lit a cigarette
and stepped on to the balcony again. The warm silent air did him good.
The sunshine still lay on the Sommerhaidenweg and a gilded cross shone
over the walls from the direction of the churchyard.

He heard a noise beneath him. Steps? Yes, steps and voices too. He
left the balcony and the room and rushed down over the creaking wooden
staircase. A door opened, steps were hurrying over the floor. The next
moment he was on the bottom step opposite Frau Golowski. His heart
stood still. He opened his mouth without asking.

"Yes," she nodded, "a boy."

He gripped both her hands and felt, while he was beaming all over, a
stream of happiness was running through his soul with a potency and
intense warmth that he had never anticipated. He suddenly noticed that
Frau Golowski's eyes were not shining as brightly as they certainly
ought to have. The stream of happiness within him ebbed back. Something
choked his throat. "Well?" he said. Then he added, almost menacingly:
"Does it live?"

"It just breathed once.... The Professor hopes...."

George pushed the woman on one side, reached the great centre room in
three strides and stood still as though spell-bound. The Professor, in
a long white linen apron, held a small creature in his arms and rocked
it hurriedly to and fro. George stood still. The Professor nodded to
him and went on undisturbed with what he was doing. He was examining
the little creature in his arms with scrutinising eyes, he put it on
the table, over which a white linen cloth had been spread, made the
child's limbs execute violent exercises, rubbed its breast and face,
then lifted it high up several times in succession, and George always
saw how the child's head drooped heavily on to its breast. Then the
doctor put it on to the linen cloth, listened with his ear on its
bosom, got up, put one hand on its little body and motioned gently with
the other to George to approach.

Involuntarily holding his breath George came quite near him. He looked
first at the doctor and then at the little creature which lay on the
white linen. It had its eyes quite open, strangely big blue eyes, like
those of Anna. The face looked quite different from what George had
expected, not wrinkled and ugly like that of an old dwarf, no; it was
really a human face, a silent beautiful child-face, and George knew
that these features were the image of his own.

The Professor said gently: "I've not heard its heart beat for the last
hour."

George nodded. Then he asked hoarsely: "How is she?"

"Quite well, but you mustn't go in yet, Herr Baron."

"No," replied George and shook his head. He stared at the immobile
little body with its bluish shimmer and knew that he was standing in
front of the corpse of his own child. Nevertheless he looked at the
doctor again and asked: "Can nothing more be done?"

He shrugged his shoulders.

George breathed deeply and pointed to the closed bedroom door. "Does
she know yet----" He asked the doctor.

"Not yet. Let's be thankful for the time being that it is over. She has
gone through a lot, poor girl. I only regret that it should turn out to
have been for nothing."

"You expected it, Herr Professor?"

"I feared it since this morning."

"And why ... why?"

The doctor answered softly and gently: "A very exceptional case, as I
told you before."

"You told me...?"

"Yes, I tried to explain to you that this possibility ... it was
strangled, you see, by the umbilical cord. Scarcely one or two per
cent. of births end like that." He was silent.

George gazed at the child. Quite right, the Professor had prepared him
in advance only he had not taken it seriously. Frau Rosner was standing
by him with helpless eyes. George held out his hand to her and they
looked at each other like persons whom the sore stress of circumstances
has made companions in misfortune. Then Frau Rosner sank down on a
chair by the wall.

The Professor said to George: "I will now go and just have a look at
the mother."

"Mother!" repeated George, and gazed at him.

The doctor looked away.

"You will tell her?" asked George.

"No, not at once. Anyway, she will be ready for it. She asked several
times in the course of the day if it was still alive. It will not have
so dreadful an effect upon her as you fear, Herr Baron ... at any rate
during the first hours, the first days. You mustn't forget what she has
gone through."

He pressed George's limply-hanging hand and went.

George stood there motionless. He was gazing continually at the little
creature, and it seemed to him a picture of undreamt-of beauty. He
touched its cheeks, shoulders, arms, hands, fingers. How mysteriously
complete it all was! And there it lay, having died without having
lived, destined to go from one darkness into another, through a
senseless nothingness. There it lay, the sweet tiny body which was
ready for life and yet was unable to move. There they shone, those big
blue eyes, as though with desire to drink in the light of heaven, and
completely blind before they had seen a ray. And there was the small
round mouth which was open as though with thirst, but yet could never
drink at a mother's breast. There it gazed, that white child-face with
its perfect human features, which was never to receive or feel the
kiss of a mother, the kiss of a father. How he loved this child! How
he loved it, now that it was too late! A choking despair rose within
his throat. He could not cry. He looked around him. No one was in the
room and it was quite still next door. He had no desire to go into that
other room, nor had he any fear. He only felt that it would have been
rather senseless. His eye returned to the dead child, and suddenly the
poignant question thrilled through him whether it was really bound to
be true. Could not every one make a mistake, a physician as much as a
layman? He held his open palm before the child's open lips and it was
as though something cool was breathed towards him. And then he held
both hands over the child's breast and again it seemed as though a
light puff were playing over the tiny body. But it felt just the same
as in the other place: no breath of life had blown towards him. He
now bent down again and his lips touched the child's cool forehead.
Something strange, something he scarcely felt tingled through his body
to the very tips of his toes. He knew it now; he had lost the game up
there in the clouds, his child was dead. Then he slowly lifted his
head and turned away. The sight of the garden tempted him into the
open. He stepped on to the verandah and saw Doctor Stauber and Frau
Rosner sitting on the seat that was propped against the wall--both
silent. They looked at him. He turned away as though he did not know
them and went into the garden. The shadow of the house fell obliquely
over the lawn, there was still sunlight higher up but it was dull
and as though without the strength to illumine the air. Why did he
want to think of that light which was sun and yet did not shine, that
blue in the heights which was heaven and yet did not bless him? What
was the point of the silence of this garden, which should console
and comfort him, and yet received him to-day as though it were some
strange inhospitable place? It gradually occurred to him that just
such a twilight had enveloped him in a dream a short time ago with a
dreariness of which he had previously had no idea, and had filled his
soul with incomprehensible melancholy. What now? he said to himself
aloud. He did not seek for any answer, and only knew that something
unforeseen and unalterable had happened that must change the face of
the world for him for all time. He thought of the day when his father
had died. A wild grief had overwhelmed him then; yet he had been
able to cry and the world had not suddenly become dark and void. His
father had really lived, had once been young, had worked, loved, had
children, experienced joys and sorrows. And the mother who had borne
him had not suffered in vain. And even if he himself should have to die
to-day, however early it might be, he had nevertheless a life behind
him, a life full of light and music, happiness and suffering, hope and
anxiety, steeped in all the fulness of the world. And even if Anna had
passed away to-day, in the hour when she gave life to a new being, she
would as it were have fulfilled her lot and her end would have had its
terrible but none the less deep significance. But what had happened to
his child was senseless, was revolting--a piece of irony from somewhere
or other, whither one could send no question and no answer. What was
the point of it all? What had been the significance of these past
months with all their dreams, their troubles and their hopes? For he
knew, all in a flash, that the expectation of the wonderful hour in
which his child was to be born had always lain in the depths of his
soul every single day, even those which were most matter-of-fact,
those which were most vacant, or those which were most wanton. And he
felt ashamed, impoverished, miserable.

He stood by the garden fence at the top end and looked towards the
edge of the forest, towards his seat on which he had rested so often,
and he felt as though forest and field and seat had previously been
his possessions, and that he must now surrender them too, like so
much else. In a corner of the garden stood a dark grey neglected
summer-house with three little window-apertures and a narrow opening
for a door. He had always disliked it, and had only gone in once for a
few moments. To-day he felt drawn inside. He sat down on the cracked
seat and suddenly felt hidden and soothed, as though all that had
happened were less true or could in some inconceivable way be undone.
Yet this hallucination soon vanished, he left the inhospitable room and
stepped into the open.

I must now go back into the house again, he thought with a sense of
exhaustion, and could not quite realise that the dead body of his
child must be resting in the dark room, which he could see from here
stretching behind the verandah like an unfathomable darkness. He walked
slowly down the garden. Anna's mother was standing with a gentleman
on the verandah. George recognised old Rosner. He stood there in his
overcoat, he had laid his hat in front of him on the table. He passed a
pocket handkerchief over his forehead and his red-lidded eyes twitched.
He went towards George and pressed his hand. "What a pity that it
turned out differently," he said, "than we had all hoped and expected!"

George nodded. He then remembered that the old gentleman's heart had
not been quite right during the past week and inquired after his health.

"It is kind of you to ask, Herr Baron. I am a little better, only I
find going uphill rather troublesome."

George noticed that the glass door that led to the centre room was
closed. "Excuse me," he said to old Rosner, strode straight to the
door, opened it and quickly closed it behind him. Frau Golowski and
Doctor Stauber were standing near the table and speaking to each other.
He walked up to them and they suddenly stopped talking.

"Well?" he inquired.

Doctor Stauber said: "We have been speaking about the ... formalities.
Frau Golowski will be kind enough to see to all that."

"Thank you," replied George and held out his hand to Frau Golowski.

"All that," he thought. A coffin, a funeral, a notification to the
local registry; a son born of Anna Rosner, spinster, died on the same
day. Nothing about the father of course. Yes, his part was finished.
Only to-day? Had it not been finished the very second when quite by
chance he became a father?

He looked at the table. The cloth was spread over the tiny corpse. Oh,
how quick! he thought bitterly. Am I never to see it again? I suppose
I may be allowed to, once. He drew the cloth a little away from the
body and held it high up. He saw a pale child-face which was quite
familiar to him, only since then some one had closed the eyes. The old
grandfather's clock in the corner ticked. Six o'clock. Scarcely an hour
had passed since his child had been born and died: the fact was already
as indisputably certain as though it could never have been otherwise.

He felt a light touch on the shoulder.

"She took it quietly," said Doctor Stauber, standing behind him.

George dropped the cloth over the child's face and turned his head
towards the side. "She already knows, then...?"

Doctor Stauber nodded. Frau Golowski had turned away.

"Who told her?" asked George.

"It wasn't necessary to tell her," replied Doctor Stauber, "was it?" He
turned to Frau Golowski.

The latter explained: "When I went in to her she just looked at me, and
then I saw at once that she already knew."

"And what did she say?"

"Nothing--nothing at all. She turned her eyes towards the window and
was quite still. She asked where you had gone, Herr Baron, and what you
were doing."

George breathed deeply. The door of Anna's room opened. The Professor
came out in a black coat. "She is quite quiet," he said to George. "You
can go in to her."

"Did she speak to you about it?" asked George.

The Professor shook his head. Then he said: "I am afraid I must go into
town now; you'll excuse me, won't you? I hope things will go on all
right. I shall be here early to-morrow any way. Good-bye, dear Herr
Baron." He pressed his hand sympathetically. "You'll drive in with me,
Doctor Stauber, won't you?"

"Yes," said Doctor Stauber, "I only want to say good-bye to Anna." He
went.

George turned to the Professor. "May I ask you something?"

"Please do."

"I should very much like to know, Herr Professor, whether this is
simply imagination. It seems to me, you know"--and he again lifted up
the cloth from the tiny corpse--"as though this child did not look like
a new-born one, more beautiful, so to speak. I feel as though the faces
of new-born children were bound to be more wrinkled, more like old men.
I can't tell you whether I have ever seen one or whether I've only read
about it."

"You are quite right," replied the Professor. "It is just in cases of
this kind, and also of course when things turn out more fortunately,
that the features of the children are not distorted, are frequently,
in fact, quite beautiful." He contemplated the little face with
professional sympathy, nodded a few times: "Pity, pity" ... let the
cloth fall down again, and George knew that he had seen his child's
face for the last time. What name would it have had? Felician....
Good-bye, little Felician!

Doctor Stauber came out of the next room and gently closed the door.
"Anna is expecting you," he said to George. The latter gave him his
hand, shook hands with the Professor again, nodded to Frau Golowski and
went into the next room.

The nurse got up from Anna's side and disappeared out of the room.
Opposite the door hung a mirror in which George saw an elegant young
gentleman who was pale and was smiling. Anna lay in her bed, which
stood clear in the middle of the room, with big clear eyes, which
looked straight at George.

"What kind of a figure do I cut?" he thought. He pushed the chair close
to her bed with some ceremoniousness, sat down, grasped her hand, put
it to his forehead and then kissed her fingers long and almost ardently.

Anna was the first to speak. "You were in the garden?" she asked.

"Yes, I was in the garden."

"I saw you come down from the top some time ago."

"You had better not talk, Anna. Don't you feel it a strain?"

"These few words! Oh no. But you can tell me something...."

He was holding her hand in his all the time and looking at her fingers.
Then he said: "Do you know that there is a little summer-house at the
top end of the garden? Yes, of course you know.... I only mean, we'd
never properly realised it."

"I was in there a few times during the first week," said Anna. "I don't
like it."

"No, indeed!"

"Have you done any work this morning?" she then asked.

"What an idea, Anna!"

She shook her head quite gently. "And recently you have been getting on
so well with it."

He smiled.

She remained serious. "You were in town yesterday?" she asked.

"You know I was."

"Did you find any letters? I mean important ones."

"You should really not talk so much, Anna. I'll tell you everything
right enough. Well then, I found no letters of any importance. There
was nothing from Detmold either. Anyway, I'll go and see Professor
Viebiger one of these days. But we can talk about these things another
time, don't you think? And so far as work goes ... I've been having
another look at _Tristan_ this morning. I even know it down to the
smallest detail. I could trust myself to conduct it to-day, if it came
to the point."

She was silent and looked at him.

He remembered the evening when he had sat by her side at the Munich
opera, as though enveloped in a transparent veil of the notes he loved
so well. But he said nothing about it.

It grew dark. Anna's features began to grow dim. "Are you going to town
to-day?" she asked.

He had not thought of doing so. But he now felt as though a kind of
relief were beckoning to him. Yes, he would go in. What, after all,
could he do out here? But he did not answer at once.

Anna began again: "I think you would perhaps like to speak to your
brother."

"Yes, I should like to very much. I suppose you are going to sleep
soon?"

"I hope so."

"How tired you must be," he said as he stroked her arm.

"No, it is rather different. I feel so awake ... I can't tell you how
awake I feel.... It seems as though I had never been so awake in my
whole life. And I know at the same time that I'm going to sleep more
deeply than I ever have ... as soon as I've once closed my eyes."

"Yes, of course you will. But may I stay a bit longer with you? I'd
really like to go on sitting here till you've fallen asleep."

"No, George, if you are here I can't go to sleep. But just stay a bit
longer. It's so nice."

He held her hand all the time and looked out on to the garden, which
was now lying in the twilight.

"You weren't very much up at Auhof this year?" said Anna indifferently,
as though simply making conversation.

"Oh yes, nearly every day. Didn't I tell you?--I think Else will marry
James Wyner and go with him to England."

He knew that she was not thinking of Else but of some one quite
different. And he asked himself: Does she perhaps mean ... that that is
the reason?

A warm puff blew in from outside. Children's voices rang in. George
looked out. He saw the white seat gleaming under the pear-tree and
thought of how Anna had waited for him there in her flowing dress,
beneath the fruit-laden branches, girdled by the gentle miracle of
her motherhood. And he asked himself: "Was it fated then that it must
end like this? Or was it after all so fated at the moment when we
embraced each other for the first time?" The Professor's remark that
one to two per cent. of all births ended like that came into his mind.
So it was a fact that since people had started being born one or two
in every hundred must perish in this senseless fashion at the very
moment when they were brought into the light! And so many must die in
their first years, and so many in the flower of their youth, and so
many as men. And again a fated number put an end to their own lives,
like Labinski. And so many were doomed to fail in their attempt, as in
Oskar Ehrenberg's case. Why search for reasons? Some law is at work,
incomprehensible and inexorable, which we men cannot struggle against.
Who is entitled to complain? why should I be the victim? If it doesn't
happen to one, it will happen to another ... whether innocent or guilty
like he was. One to two per cent. get hit, that is heavenly justice.
The children who were laughing in the garden opposite, they were
allowed to live. Allowed? No, they _must_ live, even as his own child
had had to die, after the first breath it drew, doomed to travel from
one darkness into another, through a senseless nothingness.

It was twilight outside and it was almost night in the room. Anna lay
still and motionless. Her hand did not move in George's, but when
George got up he saw that her eyes were open. He bent down, hesitated
a moment, then put his arm round her neck and kissed her on her lips,
which were hot and dry and did not answer his touch. Then he went.
In the next room the hanging lamp was alight over the table on which
the dead child had lain some while back. The green tablecloth was now
spread out as though nothing had happened. The door of Frau Golowski's
room was open. The light of a candle shone in, and George knew that his
child was sleeping in there, its first and last sleep.

Frau Golowski and Frau Rosner sat next to each other on the sofa by the
wall, dumb, and as though huddled together. George went up to them.
"Has Herr Rosner gone already?" He turned to Frau Rosner.

"Yes, he rode into the town with the doctors," she answered, and looked
at him questioningly.

"She is quiet." George answered her look. "I think she will sleep
soundly."

"Won't you take something?" asked Frau Golowski. "You haven't since one
o'clock had...."

"No thanks, I'm going into town now. I want to speak to my brother.
I am also expecting important letters. I'll be here again early
to-morrow." He took his leave, went up to his attic, fetched the
_Tristan_ score from the balcony into the room, took his stick and
overcoat, lit a cigarette and left the house. As soon as he was in the
street he felt freer. An awful upheaval lay behind him. It had ended
unhappily, but at any rate it had ended. And Anna was bound to be all
right. Of course with mothers as well there was the fated percentage.
But it was clear that the possibility of an unfortunate issue was
according to the law of probabilities necessarily much less than if the
child had remained alive.

He walked through the straggling village with swift strides, tried not
to think of anything and looked with forced attention at every single
house by which he passed. They were all mean, most of them positively
dreary and squalid. Behind them little gardens sloped up to vineyards,
cultivated fields and meadows in the evening mist. In an almost empty
inn garden a few musicians were sitting by a long table, playing a
melancholy waltz on violins, guitars and a concertina. Later on he
passed more presentable houses, and he looked in through open windows
into decently lighted rooms in which there were tables laid for dinner.
He eventually took his seat in a cheerful inn garden, as far away as
possible from the other not very numerous customers. He took his meal
and soon felt a salutary fatigue come over him. On the tram he almost
dozed off in his corner. It was only when the conveyance was driving
through more lively streets that he thoroughly woke up and remembered
what had happened, with an agonising but arid precision. He got out and
walked home through the moist sultriness of the Stadtpark. Felician was
not at home. He found a telegram lying on his secretary. It was from
Detmold and ran as follows: "We request you kindly to inform us if you
can possibly come to us within the next three days. This offer is to be
considered for the time being as binding on neither party; travelling
expenses paid in any event.--Faithfully, Manager of the Hoftheater."
Next to it lay the red form for the answer.

George was in a state of nervous tension. What should he answer now?
The telegram clearly indicated that there was a vacancy for the post
of conductor. Should he ask for a postponement? After eight days it
would be quite easy to go there for an interview and then come back
at once. He found thinking about it a strain. At any rate the matter
could wait till to-morrow, and if that was too late then there would
be no essential change in the position after all. He would always be
welcomed as a special visitor, he knew that already. It was perhaps
better not to bind himself ... to go on working at his training
somewhere, without yet taking obligations or responsibilities upon
himself, and then to be ready and equipped for the following year. But
what paltry considerations these were, when compared with the terrible
event of his life which had occurred to-day! He took up the malachite
paper-weight and put it on the telegram. What now...? he asked himself.
Go to the club and rout out Felician? Yet that was not quite the place
to tell him about the matter. It would really be best to stay at home
and wait for him. It was in fact a little tempting to undress at once
and lie down. But he certainly would not be able to sleep. So he came
to think of tidying up his papers a little once again. He opened the
drawer in his secretary, sorted bills and letters and made notes in his
note-book. The noise of the street came in through the open windows
as though from a distance. He thought of how he had read the letters
of his dead parents in the same place in the previous summer after
his father's death, and how the same noise of the town and the same
perfume from the park had streamed in to him just like to-day. The
year that had elapsed since then seemed in his tired mind to extend
into eternities, then contracted again into a short span of time, and
something kept whispering in his soul: What for ... what for? His child
was dead. It would be buried in the churchyard by the Sommerhaidenweg.
It would rest there in consecrated ground, from the toilsome journey
which it was fated to take from one darkness into another through a
senseless nothingness. It would lie under a little cross, as though it
had lived and suffered a whole human life.... As though it had lived!
It had really lived from the moment when its heart had already begun
to beat in its mother's body. No, even earlier.... It had belonged to
the realm of the living from the very moment when its mother's body had
received it. And George thought of how many children of men and women
were fated to perish even earlier than his own child, how many, wished
and unwished, were fated to die in the first days of their life without
their own mothers even having an idea. And while he dozed with shut
eyes, half asleep and half awake, in front of his secretary, he saw
nothing but shining crosses standing up on tiny mounds, as though it
were a toy cemetery and a reddish yellow toy sun were shining over it.
But suddenly the image represented the Cadenabbia cemetery. George was
sitting like a little boy on the stone wall which surrounded it, and
suddenly turned his gaze down towards the lake. And then there rode in
a very long narrow boat, beneath dull yellow sails, with a green shawl
on her shoulders, a woman, sitting motionless on the rowing bench, a
woman whose face he tried to recognise with vague and almost painful
efforts.

The bell rang. George got up. What was it? Oh, of course, there was no
one there to open. The servant had been discharged since the first day
of the month, and the porter's wife, who now looked after the brothers,
was not in the apartment at this hour. George went into the hall and
opened the door. Heinrich Bermann was standing in the hall.

"I saw a light in your room from down below," he said. "It was a good
idea my first going past your house. I was going, as a matter of fact,
to drive out to your place in the country."

Is his manner really so excited? thought George, or do I only think it
is? He asked him to come in and sit down.

"Thanks, thanks, I prefer to walk up and down. No, don't light the high
lamp. The table lamp's quite enough.... Anyway--how are you getting on
out there?"

"A child was born this morning," replied George quietly. "But
unfortunately it was dead."

"Still-born?"

"I don't know if one can say that," replied George with a bitter smile;
"for it is supposed to have drawn one breath according to the doctor.
The pains lasted for three days on end. It was ghastly. Now it's all
over."

"Dead! I'm very sorry--I really am." He held out his hand to George.

"It was a boy," said George, "and strangely enough, very beautiful.
Quite different from what new-born children usually look like." He
then told him, too, how he had stayed quite a time in an inhospitable
summer-house which he had never gone into before, and the strange way
in which the lighting of the country had suddenly altered. "It was
a light," said George, "that places in one's dreams sometimes have.
Quite indefinite ... like twilight ... but rather mournful." While he
said this, he knew that he would have described the whole matter quite
differently to Felician.

Heinrich sat in the corner of the ottoman and let the other speak. He
then began: "It is strange. All this affects me very much, of course,
and yet ... it calms me at the same time."

"Calms you?"

"Yes. As though certain things which I unhappily had to fear had
suddenly grown less probable."

"What kind of things?"

Without listening to him Heinrich went on speaking with set teeth. "Or
is it only because I am in the presence of another man's grief? Or is
it because I am somewhere else, in a strange flat? That would be quite
possible. Haven't you noticed that even one's own death strikes one
as something highly improbable, when one is travelling for instance;
frequently in fact when one is out for a walk. Man is subject to
incomprehensible illusions like that."

Heinrich turned round after a few seconds, as though he had regained
his self-control, but remained standing by the window with both hands
resting on the sill behind him, and said laconically in a hard voice:
"There's the possibility, you see, of the girl whose acquaintance you
casually made the other day at my place having committed suicide.
Please don't look so startled. As you know, many of her letters hinted
that she would do it."

"Well?" said George.

Heinrich lifted his hand deprecatingly. "I never took it seriously at
all. But I got a letter this morning which, I don't quite know how to
express it, had an uncanny ring of truth about it. As a matter of fact
there is nothing in it which she hasn't already written to me ten or
twenty times over; but the tone ... the tone.... To come to the point,
I am as good as convinced that it has happened this time. Perhaps at
this very minute!" He stopped and stared in front of him.

"No, Heinrich." George stepped up to him and put his hand on his
shoulder. "No!" he added, more firmly, "I don't believe it at all.
I spoke to her a few weeks ago. You know about that. And then she
certainly did not give me the impression ... I also saw her playing
comedy.... If you had seen her acting in that impudent farce, you
wouldn't believe it either, Heinrich. She only wants to revenge herself
on you for your cruelty. Unconsciously, perhaps. Probably she has
convinced herself on many occasions that she cannot go on living, but
the fact that she has stuck it out till to-day.... Of course, if she
had done it at once...."

Heinrich shook his head impatiently. "Just listen, George. I
telegraphed to the Summer Theatre. I inquired if she were still there,
suggesting that it was a question of a new part for her, rehearsal of a
new piece of mine, or something like that. I have been waiting at home
... till now ... but there is no answer. If I don't get one, or not a
satisfactory one, I'll certainly go there."

"Yes, but why didn't you simply ask if she...."

"If she has killed herself? One doesn't want to make oneself
ridiculous, George. I might have asked for news on that point every
other day or so, of course.... It would certainly have had a kind of
grotesque humour right enough."

"Look here now--you don't believe it yourself?"

"I'll go home now to see if there's a telegram there. Good-bye, George.
Forgive me. I couldn't stand it any more at home, you see.... I am
really sorry to have bothered you with my own affairs at a time like
this. Once more, I ask you to forgive me."

"You had no idea.... And even if you had known.... In my case,
it's quite--a finished chapter, so to speak. In my case, there is
unfortunately nothing more to do."

He looked excitedly out of the window, over the tops of the trees,
towards the red spires and roofs which towered up out of the faint
red light of the evening town. Then he said: "I'll come with you,
Heinrich. I can't start anything at home. I mean.... If you don't mind
my society."

"Mind!... My dear George!..." He pressed his hand.

They went. At first they walked along the park in silence. George
remembered his walk with Heinrich through the Prater Allee last autumn,
and immediately after that he remembered the May evening when Anna
Rosner had appeared in the Waldsteingarten later than the others, and
Frau Ehrenberg had whispered to him, "I have asked her specially for
you." Yes, for him. If it had not been for that evening Anna would
never have become his mistress, and none of all the events which lay
heavy on him to-day would ever have happened. Was there some law at
work in this? Of course! So many children had to come into the world
every year, and a certain number of those out of wedlock, and good Frau
Ehrenberg had imagined that inviting Fraeulein Anna Rosner for Baron von
Wergenthin had been a matter of her own personal fancy.

"Is Anna quite out of danger?" asked Heinrich.

"I hope so," replied George. Then he spoke about the pain which she
had suffered, her patience, and her goodness. He felt the need of
describing her as a perfect angel, as though he could thereby atone a
little for the wrong he had done her.

Heinrich nodded. "She really seems to be one of the few women who are
made to be mothers. It isn't true, you know, that there are many of
that kind. Having children--that's what they're all there for; but
being mothers! And to think of her, of all people, having to suffer
like that! I really never had an idea that anything like that could
happen."

George shrugged his shoulders. Then he said: "I had been expecting to
see you out there again. I think you even made some promise to that
effect when you dined with us and Therese a week ago."

"Oh yes. Didn't we squabble dreadfully, Therese and I? It got even
more violent on the way home. Really quite funny. We walked, you know,
right into the town. The people who met us are absolutely bound to have
taken us for a couple of lovers, we quarrelled so dreadfully."

"And who won in the end?"

"Won? Does it ever happen that any one wins? One only argues to
convince oneself, never to convince the other person. Just imagine
Therese eventually realising that a rational person can never become
a member of any party! Or if I had been driven to confess that my
independence of party betokened a lack of philosophy of life, as she
contended! Why, we could both have shut up shop straight away. But what
do you think of all this talk about a philosophy of life? As though a
philosophy of life were anything else than the will and the capacity
to see life as it really is. I mean, to envisage it without being led
astray by any preconceived idea, without having the impulse to deduce
a new law straight away from our particular experience, or to fit our
experience into some existing law. But people mean nothing more by the
expression 'philosophy of life' than a higher kind of devotion to a pet
theory, devotion to a pet theory within the sphere of the infinite, so
to speak. Or they go on talking about a gloomy or cheerful philosophy
according to the colours in which their individual temperament and the
accidents of their personal life happen to paint the world for them.
People in the full possession of their senses have a philosophy of
life and narrow-minded people haven't. That's how the matter stands.
As a matter of fact, one doesn't need to be a metaphysician to have a
philosophy of life.... Perhaps in fact one shouldn't be one at all. At
any rate, metaphysics have nothing at all to do with the philosophy
of life. Each of the philosophers really knew in his heart of hearts
that he simply represented a kind of poet. Kant believed in the Thing
In Itself, and Schopenhauer in the World as Will and Representation,
just like Shakespeare believed in Hamlet, and Beethoven in the Ninth
Symphony. They knew that another work of art had come into the world,
but they never imagined for a single minute that they had discovered
a final 'truth.' Every philosophical system, if it has any rhythm or
depth, represents another possession for the world. But why should it
alter a man's relationship to the world if he himself has all his wits
and senses about him?" He went on speaking with increasing excitement
and fell, as it seemed to George, into a feverish maze. George then
remembered that Heinrich had once invented a merry-go-round that turned
in spirals higher and higher above the earth, to end finally in the top
of a tower.

They chose a way through suburban streets, with few people and only
moderate lighting. George felt as though he were walking about in a
strange town. Suddenly a house appeared that was strangely familiar
to him, and he now noticed for the first time that they were passing
the house of the Rosner family. There were lights in the dining-room.
Probably the old man was sitting there alone, or in the company of his
son. Is it possible, thought George, that in a few weeks Anna will be
sitting there again at the same table as her mother and father and
brother as though nothing had happened? That she will sleep again night
after night behind that window with its closed blinds and leave that
house day after day to give her wretched lessons.... That she will take
up that miserable life again as though nothing at all had changed? No.
She should not go back to her family. It would be quite senseless. She
must come to him, live with him, the man she belonged to. The Detmold
telegram! He had almost forgotten it, but he must talk it over with
her. It showed hope and prospects. Living was cheap in a little town
like that. Besides, George's own fortune was a long way from being
eaten up. One would be justified in chancing it. Besides, this post
simply represented the beginning. Perhaps he would get another one soon
in a larger town. In a single night one might be a success without
expecting it--that was always the way--and one would have a name, not
only as a conductor, but also as a composer, and it need only be two or
three years before they could have the child with them.... The child
... how the thought raged through his brain!... To think of one being
able to forget a thing like that even for a minute.

Heinrich went on speaking all the time. It was quite obvious that he
wanted to stupefy himself. He continued to annihilate philosophers.
He had just degraded them from poets to jugglers. Every system, yes,
every philosophic system and every moral system was nothing but a
juggle of words, a flight from the animated fulness of phenomena into
the marionette fixity of categories. But that was the very thing which
mankind desired. Hence all the philosophies, all the religions, all the
moral laws. They were all taking part in that identical flight.

A few, a very few, were given the awful inner faculty of being ready to
feel every experience as new and individual--were given the strength
to endure standing in a new world as it were, every single minute. And
the truth was this: only the man who conquered the cowardly impulse
of imprisoning all experiences in words was shown life--that manifold
unity, that wondrous thing, in its own true shape.

George had the feeling that Heinrich, with all his talk, was simply
trying to succeed in shaking off any sense of responsibility towards
a higher law by refusing to recognise any. And with a kind of growing
antagonism to Heinrich's silly and extraordinary behaviour he felt that
the scheme of the world that had threatened some hours ago to fall to
pieces was gradually beginning to put itself together again within his
own soul. He had only recently rebelled against the senselessness of
the fate which had struck him, and yet he already began to feel vaguely
that even what had appeared to him as a grievous misfortune had not
been precipitated upon his head out of the void, but that it had come
to him along a way which, though darker, was quite as preordained as
that which approached him along a far more visible road and which he
was accustomed to call necessity.

They were in front of the house in which Heinrich lived. The concierge
stood at the door and informed them that he had put a telegram in
Heinrich's room a short time ago.

"Oh," said Heinrich indifferently, and slowly went up the stairs.
George followed. Heinrich lit a candle in the hall. The telegram lay on
the little table. Heinrich opened it, held it near to the flickering
light, read it himself and then turned to George. "She's expected for
the rehearsal to-morrow, and has not yet turned up." He took the light
in his hand and followed by George went into the next room, put the
light on the secretary, and walked up and down. George heard through
the open window the strumming of a piano resounding over the dark
courtyard.

"Is there nothing else in the telegram?" he asked.

"No. But it's obvious that not only has she been absent from the
rehearsal, but that she wasn't to be found in her lodgings either.
Otherwise, they would certainly have telegraphed that she was ill, or
given some explanation or other. Yes, my dear George," he breathed
deeply, "it has happened this time."

"Why? There is no proof of it. Scarcely anything to go on."

Heinrich cut short the other's remarks with a curt gesture. He then
looked at his watch and said: "There are no more trains to-day....
Yes.... What should one do first?" He stopped, remained standing, and
suddenly said: "I'll go to her mother's. Yes. That's the best....
Perhaps--perhaps...."

They left the apartment. They took a conveyance at the next corner.

"Did the mother know anything?" asked George.

"Damn it all," said Heinrich, "about as much as mothers usually know.
It is incredible the small amount of thought people give to what is
taking place under their very noses, if they are not compelled to do
so by some actual occasion. And most people have no idea how much they
really know at the bottom of their hearts without owning up to it. The
good woman is bound of course to be somewhat surprised at my springing
up so suddenly.... I haven't seen her for a long time."

"What will you say to her?"

"Yes, what will I say to her?" repeated Heinrich, and bit at his cigar.
"I say, I've got a splendid idea. You'll come with me, George. I'll
introduce you as a manager, eh? You are travelling through, have got to
catch a special train for St. Petersburg at eleven o'clock this very
day. You've heard somewhere or other that the young lady is staying in
Vienna, and I as an old friend of the family have been kind enough to
introduce you."

"Do you feel in the mood for comedies like that?" asked George.

"Please forgive me, George, it's really not at all necessary. I'll
just ask the old woman if she has any news.... What do you say?... How
sultry it is to-night!"

They drove over the Ring, through the echoing Burghof, through the
streets of the town. George felt in a strange state of tension.
Supposing the actress were now really sitting quietly at home with her
mother? He felt that it would mean a kind of disillusionment for him.
And then he felt ashamed of that emotion. Do I look upon the whole
thing as simply a distraction? he thought. What happens to other people
... is rarely more than that, Nuernberger would say.... A strange way
of distracting oneself in order to forget the death of one's child....
But what is one to do?... I can't alter things. I shall be going away
in a few days, thank heaven.

The vehicle stopped in front of a house in the neighbourhood of the
Praterstern. A train was growling over the viaduct opposite; underneath
the avenues of the Prater ran into the darkness. Heinrich dismissed the
conveyance. "Thank you very much," he said to George. "Good-bye."

"I'll wait for you here."

"Will you really? Well, I should be awfully grateful if you would."

He disappeared through the door. George walked up and down.

In spite of the lateness of the hour it was still fairly lively in the
street. The strains of a military band in the Prater carried to the
place where he was. A man and a woman went past him; the man carried
in his arms a sleeping child, which had slung its hands round its
father's neck. George thought of the garden in Grinzinger, of the
unwashed little thing which had stretched out its tiny hands to him
from its mother's arms. Had he been really touched then, as Nuernberger
had asserted? No, it was certainly not emotion. Something else perhaps.
The vague consciousness of standing with both hands linked in that
riveted chain which stretches from ancestors to descendants, of
participating in the universal human destiny. Now, he stood suddenly
released again, alone ... as though spurned by a miracle whose call he
had heard without sufficient veneration. It struck ten o'clock from a
neighbouring church tower. Only five hours, thought George, and how far
away it all seemed! Now he was at liberty to knock about the world as
he had done before.... Was he really at liberty?

Heinrich came out of the doorway. The door closed behind him.
"Nothing," he said. "The mother has no idea. I asked her for the
address, as though I had something important to communicate to her.
I had just come from the Prater, and it had occurred to me ... and
so on. A nice old woman. The brother sits at a table and copies on
a drawing-board out of an illustrated paper a mediaeval castle with
innumerable turrets."

"Be candid, for once in a way," said George. "If you could save her by
doing so, wouldn't you forgive her now?"

"My dear George, don't you see yet that it is not a question of whether
I want to forgive her or not? Just remember this, I could just have
stopped loving her, which can frequently happen without one's being
deceived at all. Imagine this--a woman who loves you pursuing you, a
woman whose contact for some reason or other makes you shudder swearing
to you that she'll kill herself if you reject her. Would it be your
duty to give in? Could you reproach yourself the slightest bit if she
really went to her death, through the so-called pangs of despised love?
Would you regard yourself as her murderer? It is sheer nonsense, isn't
it? But if you think that it's what other people call conscience which
is now torturing me, you are making a mistake. It is simply anxiety
about what has happened to a person who was once very dear to me, and
is I suppose still very dear to me. The uncertainty...." He suddenly
stared fixedly in one direction.

"What is the matter with you?" asked George.

"Don't you see? A telegraph messenger is coming towards the door of the
house." Before the man had time to ring Heinrich was at his side, and
said a few words which George could not understand.

The messenger seemed to be making objections. Heinrich was answering
and George, who had come nearer, could hear him.

"I have been waiting for you here in front of the door because the
doctor gave me stringent orders to do so. This telegram contains ...
perhaps ... bad news ... and it might be the death of my mother. If you
don't believe me, you just ring and I'll go into the house with you."
But he already had the telegram in his hands, opened it hurriedly and
started to read it by the light of the street lamp. His face remained
absolutely immobile. Then he folded the telegram together again, handed
it to the messenger, pressed a few silver coins into his hand. "You
must now take it in yourself."

The messenger was surprised, but the tip put him in a better temper.

Heinrich rang and turned away. "Come!" he said to George. They went
silently down the street. After a few minutes Heinrich said: "It has
happened."

George felt more violently shocked than he had anticipated. "Is it
possible...?" he exclaimed.

"Yes," said Heinrich. "She drowned herself in the lake--where you spent
a few days this summer," he added in a tone which seemed to imply that
George too was somehow partly responsible for what had happened.

"What's in the telegram?" inquired George.

"It's from the manager. It contains the news that she has had a fatal
accident while out boating. Requests her mother to give further
directions."

He spoke in a cool hard voice, as though he were reading an
announcement out of a paper.

"That poor woman! I say, Heinrich, oughtn't you to...."

"What!... Go to her? What should I be doing there?"

"Who is there, except you, who can at a time like this stand by her ...
ought to, in fact?"

"Who except me?" He remained standing. "You think that because it
happened more or less on my account? I tell you positively that I feel
absolutely innocent. The boat out of which she let herself drop, and
the waves which received her could not feel more innocent than I do. I
just want to settle that point.... But that I should go in and see the
mother.... Yes, you are quite right about it." And he turned again in
the direction of the house.

"I will remain with you if you like," said George.

"What an idea, George! Just go quietly home. What more am I to ask you
to do? And remember me to Anna, and tell her how sorry I am.... Well,
you know that.... Ah, here we are. You don't mind my keeping you a
few seconds more before I...." He stood silently there. He then began
again, and his features became distorted. "I'll tell you something,
George. It's like this. It's a great happiness that at certain times
one doesn't know what has really happened to one. If one immediately
realised the awfulness of moments like this, you know, to the extent
one realises them afterwards in one's memory, or realises them before
in anticipation--one would go mad. Even you, George--yes, even you.
And many do really go mad. Those are probably the people who are
granted the gift of realising straight away.... My mistress has drowned
herself, do you see? That's all one can say. Has the same kind of thing
really happened to any one else before? Oh no. Of course you think
that you have read or heard of something similar. It is not true.
To-day is the first time--the first time since the world's been in
existence--that anything like this has ever happened."

The door opened and closed again. George was alone in the street. His
head was dazed, his heart oppressed. He went a few steps, then took
a fly and drove home. He saw the dead woman in front of him, just as
she had stood in front of the stage door on that bright summer day in
her red blouse and short white skirt, with the roving eyes beneath the
reddish hair. He would have sworn at the time that she had a _liaison_
with the comedy actor who looked like Guido. Perhaps that really was
the case. That might be _one_ kind of love and what she felt for
Heinrich another. Really there were far too few words. You go to your
death for one man, you go to bed with another--perhaps the very night
before you drown yourself for the first. And what, after all, does a
suicide really mean? Only perhaps that at some moment or other one has
failed to appreciate death. How many tried again if they had failed
once? The conversation with Grace came into his mind, that hot-and-cold
conversation by Labinski's grave on the sunny February day in the
thawing snow.

She had confessed to him then that she had not felt any fear or horror
when she had found Labinski shot in front of the door of her flat.
And when her little sister had died many years ago she had watched
the whole night by the death-bed without feeling even a trace of what
other people called horror. But, so she told George, she had learned
to feel in men's embraces something that might be rather like that
feeling. At first the thing had puzzled her acutely, subsequently she
thought she could understand it, but according to what the doctors said
she was doomed to barrenness, and that must be the reason why it came
about that the moment of supreme delight, which was rendered as it
were pointless by this fate, plunged her in terror and apprehension.
This had struck George at the time as a piece of affectation. To-day
he felt a breath of truth in it for the first time. She had been a
strange creature. Would he ever meet again a person of a similar type?
Why not? Quite soon, as a matter of fact. A new epoch in his life
was now beginning and the next adventure was perhaps waiting for him
somewhere or other. Adventure...? Had he a right still to think about
such things?... Were not, from to-day onwards, his responsibilities
more serious than they had ever been? Did he not love Anna more than
he had ever done before? The child was dead, but the next one would
live.... Heinrich had spoken the truth: Anna was simply cut out to be
a mother. A mother.... But he thought with a shiver: Was she cut out
at the same time to be the mother of _my_ children? The fly stopped.
George got out and went up the two storeys to his apartment. Felician
was not yet home. Who knows when he will come? thought George. I can't
wait for him, I'm too tired. He undressed quickly, sank into bed, and a
deep sleep enveloped him.

When he woke up his eyes tried to find through the window a white
line between field and forest, the Sommerhaidenweg which he had been
accustomed to look at for some days. But he only saw the bluish empty
sky which a tower was piercing, and suddenly realised that he was at
home, and all that he had lived through yesterday came into his mind.
Yet he felt fresh and alert in mind and body, and it seemed to him
as though apart from the calamity which had befallen him there was a
piece of good fortune which he had to remember. Oh yes, the Detmold
telegram.... Was it really so lucky? He had not thought so yesterday
evening.

There was a knock at his door. Felician came into the room with his
hat and stick in his hand. "I didn't know that you slept at home last
night," he said. "Glad to see you. Well, what's the news out there?"

George rested his arm on the pillow and looked up towards his brother.
"It's over," he said; "a boy, but dead," and he looked straight in
front of him.

"Not really," said Felician with emotion, came up to him and
instinctively put his hand upon his brother's head. He then put hat
and stick on one side and sat down on the bed by him, and George could
not help thinking of the morning hours of the years of his childhood,
when he had often seen his father sitting like that on the edge of the
bed when he woke up. He explained to Felician how it had all happened,
laying especial stress on Anna's patience and gentleness; but he felt
with a certain sense of misgiving that he had to force himself a bit
to keep the tone of seriousness and depression which was appropriate
to his news. Felician listened sympathetically, then got up and walked
up and down the room. Then George got up, began to dress and told his
brother of the remarkable developments of the rest of the evening.
He spoke about his walks and drives with Heinrich Bermann and of the
strange way in which they had learned at last of the actress's suicide.

"Oh, that's the one," said Felician. "It's already in the papers, you
know."

"Well, what happened?" asked George curiously.

"She rowed out into the lake and slipped into the water out of the
boat.... Well, you can read it.... I suppose you're now going straight
out into the country again?" he added.

"Of course," replied George, "but I have still got something to tell
you, Felician, something which may interest you." And he told his
brother about the Detmold telegram.

Felician seemed surprised. "This is getting serious," he exclaimed.

"Yes, it's getting serious," replied George.

"You have not yet answered?"

"No, how could I?"

"And what do you mean to do?"

"Frankly, I don't know. You understand I can't go straight away,
particularly under circumstances like this."

Felician looked reflective. "A little delay probably wouldn't hurt," he
said then.

"I agree. I must first find out how they're getting on out there. Of
course I should also like to talk it over with Anna."

"Where have you put the telegram? Can I read it?"

"It's lying on the secretary," said George, who was at the moment
engaged in tying up his shoes.

Felician went into the next room, took the telegram in his hand and
read it. "It is much more urgent," he observed, "than I thought."

"It seems to me, Felician, that it still strikes you as strange that I
am shortly going to have a real profession."

Felician stood at his brother's side again and stroked his hair. "It
is perhaps rather providential that the telegram should have come
yesterday."

"Providential! How so?"

"I mean that after such a sad business the prospect of practical
occupation ought to do you twice as much good.... But I am afraid I
must leave you now. I've still got quite a lot to do. Farewell visits
among other things."

"When are you going then, Felician?"

"A week to-day. I say, George, I suppose you are probably coming back
from the country to-day?"

"Certainly, if everything is all right out there."

"Perhaps we might see each other again in the evening."

"I should like to very much, Felician."

"Well then, if it suits you I'll be at home at seven. We might go and
have supper together--but alone, not at the club."

"Yes, with pleasure."

"And you might do me a favour," began Felician again after a short
silence. "Remember me out there very very kindly ... tell her that I
sympathise most sincerely."

"Thank you, Felician. I will tell her."

"Really, George, I can't tell you how much it touched me," continued
Felician with warmth. "I only hope that she'll soon get over it.... And
you, too."

George nodded. "Do you know," he said gently, "what it was going to be
called?"

Felician looked at his brother's eyes very seriously, then he pressed
his hand. "Next time," he said with a kindly smile. He shook hands
with his brother again and went.

George looked after him, torn by varying emotions. Yet he's not
altogether sorry, he thought, that it should have turned out like that.

He got ready quickly and decided to cycle into the country again
to-day. It was only when he had got past most of the traffic that he
really became conscious of himself. The sky had grown a little dull
and a cool wind blew from the hills towards George, like an autumn
greeting. He did not want to meet any one in the little village where
yesterday's events were bound to be already known, and took the upper
road between the meadows and the garden to the approach from the
back. The nearer the moment came when he was to see Anna again, the
heavier his heart grew. At the railing he dismounted from his cycle and
hesitated a little. The garden was empty. At the bottom lay the house
sunk in silence. George breathed deeply and painfully. How different it
might have been! he thought, walked down and heard the gravel crunch
beneath his feet. He went on to the verandah, leaned his cycle against
the railing and looked into the room through the open window. Anna lay
there with open eyes. "Good morning," he cried, as cheerfully as he
could.

Frau Golowski, who was sitting by Anna's bed, got up and said at once:
"We've had a good sleep, a good sound sleep."

"That's right," said George, and vaulted over the railing into the room.

"You're very enterprising to-day," said Anna with her arch smile, which
reminded George of long-past times. Frau Golowski informed him that
the Professor had been early in the morning, had expressed himself
completely satisfied and taken Frau Rosner with him in his carriage
into the town. She then went away with a kindly glance.

George bent down over Anna, kissed her with real feeling on the
eyes and mouth, pushed the chair nearer, sat down and said: "My
brother--sends you his sincere wishes."

Her lips quivered imperceptibly. "Thank you," she replied gently, and
then remarked: "So you came out on your cycle?"

"Yes," he replied. "One has to keep a look-out you know on the way, and
there are times when it's rather a sound thing one has to do so." He
then told her how last evening had finished up. He related the whole
thing as an exciting story, and it was only in the orthodox way at the
end that Anna was allowed to find out how Heinrich's mistress had ended
her life. He expected to see her moved, but she kept a strangely hard
expression about her mouth. "It's really dreadful," said George. "Don't
you think so?"

"Yes," replied Anna shortly, and George felt that her kindness
completely failed her here. He saw the loathing flowing out of her
soul, not tepidly, as though from one person to another, but strong and
deep like a stream of hate from world to world.

He dropped the subject and began again. "Now for something important,
my child." He was smiling but his heart beat a little.

"Well?" she asked tensely.

He took the Detmold telegram out of his breast pocket and read it to
her. "What do you think of that?" he asked with affected pride.

"And what did you answer?"

"Nothing so far," he replied casually, as though he had never thought
of taking the matter seriously. "Of course I wanted first to talk it
over with you."

"Well, what do you think?" she asked imperturbably.

"I ... shall refuse of course. I'll wire that I ... at any rate, can't
come yet awhile." And he seriously explained to her that nothing would
be lost by a postponement, that he would at any rate be welcomed as
a special visitor, and that this pressing request was only due to an
accident that one had no right to expect.

She let him go on speaking for a while, then she said: "There you go
being casual again. I think you should have made a special point of
answering at once and...."

"Well, and...."

"Perhaps have even taken the train there straight away this morning."

"Instead of coming out to see you--eh?" he jested.

She remained serious. "Why not?" she said, and noticing him jerk his
head up in surprise, "I'm getting on very well, thank heaven, George.
And even if I were a bit worse you couldn't do any good, so...."

"Yes, my child," he interrupted, "it seems to me you don't appreciate
what it really means! Going there, of course, is a fairly simple
matter--but--staying there! Staying there at least till Easter! The
season lasts till then."

"Well, George, I think it quite right that you haven't gone away
without first saying goodbye to me. But look here, you've got to go
anyway, haven't you? Even though we didn't actually speak about it
during the last weeks we were both quite well aware of it. For whether
you go away in a month's time or the day after to-morrow--or to-day...."

George now began to argue seriously. It was not at all the same thing
whether he went away in a month's time or to-day. One could manage to
get used to certain thoughts in the course of a month, and besides,
talk over everything properly--with regard to the future.

"What is there so much to talk over?" she replied in a tired voice.
"Why, in a month's time you'll be.... You'll have as little chance of
taking me with you as you have to-day. I even think that there won't
be any point in our talking seriously about anything until after your
return. A great deal will be bound to be cleared up by then.... At any
rate, with regard to your prospects...." She looked out of the window
into the garden.

George showed mild indignation at her matter-of-fact coolness, which
never deserted her, even at a moment like that. "Yes, indeed," he said,
"when one considers--what it means for you to stay here, and me...."

She looked at him. "I know what it means," she said.

Instinctively he avoided her look, took her hands and kissed them.
He felt inwardly harrowed. When he looked up again he saw her eyes
resting on him quite maternally, and she spoke to him like a mother.
She explained to him that it was _just_ because of the future--and
there swept around that word a gentle suggestion of actual hope--that
he should not miss an opportunity like that. In two or three weeks he
could come back from Detmold to Vienna for a few days, for the people
there would certainly appreciate that he must put his affairs over here
in order. But above all it was necessary to give them a proof of his
seriousness. And if he set any store by her advice there was only one
thing to do: take the train that very evening. He need have no anxiety
about her. She felt that she was quite out of danger. She felt that
quite unmistakably. Of course he would hear from her every day, twice a
day if he liked, morning and evening.

He did not yield at once, coming back again to the point that the
unexpectedness of this separation would occasion a relapse. She
answered that she would much prefer a quick separation like this to
the prospect of another four weeks spent in anxiety, emotion and the
fear of losing him. And the essential point remained that it was not
a question of more than half the year, so they had half the year for
themselves, and if everything went all right there would not be many
periods of separation for the--the future.

He now began again: "And what will you do in this half-year, while I'm
away? It is really...."

She interrupted him. "For the time being it will go on just as it has
been going on for years; but I have been thinking this morning about a
lot of things."

"The school for singing?"

"That, too. Although of course that is neither so easy nor so simple.
And besides," she added, with her arch expression, "it would be a pity
if one had to shut it up again too soon. But we'll talk about all that
later on. You go now and telegraph."

"Yes, but what!" he exclaimed in such desperation that she could not
help laughing.

Then she said: "Quite simple, 'Shall have the honour to present myself
at your office to-morrow noon. Yours very obediently or faithfully ...
or very proudly....'"

He looked at her. Then he kissed her hand and said: "You're certainly
the cleverer of us two."

His tone seemed to hint "the cooler too." But a gentle, tender and
somewhat mocking look from her turned away the _innuendo_.

"Well, I'll be back again in ten minutes." He left her with a cheerful
face, went into the next room and shut the door. Opposite, in that
other room, it now occurred to him again forcibly--his dead child lay
in its coffin.... For the necessary steps, to use Doctor Stauber's
expression of yesterday, were bound to have been already taken. He felt
a paroxysm of grievous yearning.

Frau Golowski came out of the hall. She came up to him and spoke with
admiration of Anna's resignation and calmness.

George listened somewhat absent-mindedly. His looks kept always
glancing through the doorway and at last he said gently: "I should like
to see it once more."

She looked at him, at first slightly shocked and then sympathetically.

"Nailed down already?" he asked anxiously.

"Sent away already," replied Frau Golowski slowly.

"Sent away!" His face became convulsed with such agony that the old
woman laid her hands on his arm as though to calm him.

"I went to notify it quite early," she said, "and then the other matter
took place very quickly. They took it away an hour ago to the mortuary."

"To the mortuary ..." George shuddered. He was silent for a long time
as though unnerved from having just learned a terrible and completely
unexpected piece of news. When he recovered himself again he still
felt Frau Golowski's friendly hand upon his arm and saw her kind eyes
with their tired lines resting on his face. "So it's all finished," he
said, with an indignant look upwards, as though his last hope had been
maliciously stolen from him. He then shook hands with Frau Golowski.
"And you've undertaken all this, dear lady.... I really don't know ...
how I can ever...."

A gesture from the old woman deprecated any further thanks.

George left the house, threw a contemptuous glance at the little blue
angel, which seemed to look anxiously down at the faded flower-beds,
and went into the street. On his way to the post-office he worried over
the wording of the telegram that was to announce his arrival at the
place of his new profession and his new prospects.




IX


Old Doctor Stauber and his son sat over their coffee. The old man held
a paper in his hand and seemed to be trying to find something. "The
hearing of the case," he said, "is not yet fixed."

"Really!" replied Berthold, "Leo Golowski thinks that it will take
place in the middle of November, that is to say in about three weeks.
Therese, you know, visited her brother a few days ago in prison. They
say he is perfectly calm and in quite good spirits."

"Well, who knows? perhaps he will be acquitted," said the old man.

"That's highly improbable, father. He ought to be glad, on the other
hand, that he isn't being prosecuted for ordinary murder. An attempt
was certainly made to get him prosecuted for it."

"You certainly can't call it a serious attempt, Berthold. You see
the Treasury didn't bother about the silly libel to which you are
referring."

"But if they had regarded it as a libel," retorted Berthold sharply,
"they would have been under an obligation to prosecute the libellers.
Beside, it is common knowledge that we are living in a state where no
Jew is safe from being convicted to death for ritual murder; so why
should the authorities shrink from taking official cognisance of the
theory that Jews when they fight duels with pistols with Christians
manage--perhaps for religious reasons--to ensure for themselves a
criminal advantage? That the Court didn't lack the good-will to take
another opportunity of doing a service to the party in power is best
seen by the fact that he still remains under arrest pending the trial,
in spite of the fact that the high bail was tendered."

"I don't believe the story about the bail," said the old doctor.
"Where's Leo Golowski to get fifty thousand gulden from?"

"It wasn't fifty thousand, father, but a hundred thousand, and so far
Leo Golowski knows nothing about it. I can tell you in confidence,
father, that Salomon Ehrenberg put up the money."

"Indeed! Well, I'll tell you something in confidence too, Berthold."

"Well?"

"It's possible that it won't go to trial at all. Golowski's advocate
has presented a petition to quash the proceedings."

Berthold burst out laughing. "On those grounds! And do you think,
father, that that can have the slightest prospect of success? Yes, if
Leo had fallen and the First-Lieutenant had survived ... then perhaps."

The old man shook his head impatiently. "You must always make
opposition speeches, my boy, at any price."

"Forgive me, father," said Berthold, twitching his brows. "Every one
hasn't got the enviable gift of being able to ignore certain tendencies
in public life when they don't concern him personally."

"Is that what I am in the habit of doing, then?" retorted the old man
vehemently, and the half-shut eyes beneath the high forehead opened
almost bitterly. "But it is you, Berthold, much more than I, who
refuse to look where you don't want to see. I think you're beginning
to brood over your ideas. You're getting morbid. I had hoped that a
stay in another city, in another country, would cure you of certain
petty narrow ideas, but they have grown worse instead. I notice it. I
can neither understand nor approve any one starting fighting like Leo
Golowski did. But to go on standing with your clenched fist in your
pocket, so to speak--what's the point of it? Pull yourself together,
man. Character and industry always pull through in the end. What's
the worst that can happen to you? That you get your professorship a
few years later than any one else. I don't think it is so great a
misfortune. They won't be able to ignore your work if it is worth
anything...."

"It is not only a question of myself," objected Berthold.

"But it is mostly a matter of second-class interests of that kind. And
to come back to our previous topic, it is really very questionable
whether if it had been the First-Lieutenant who had shot down Leo
Golowski and Ehrenberg, or Ehrenmann[1] for that matter, would have
turned up with a hundred thousand gulden for him. Yes, to be sure, and
now you are quite at liberty to take me for an Anti-Semite too, if it
amuses you, although I am driving straight into the Rembrandtstrasse
to see old Golowski. Well, good-bye, try and come to reason at last."
He held out his hand to his son. The latter took it without changing
countenance. The old man turned to go. At the door he said: "I suppose
we shall see each other this evening at the Medical Society?"

Berthold shook his head. "No, father, I am spending this evening in
a less edifying place--the 'Silberne Weintraube,' where there is a
meeting of the Social Political Union."

"Which you can't miss?"

"Impossible."

"Well, I wish you would tell me straight out. Are you going to stand
for the Landtag?"

"I ... am going to stand."

"Indeed! You think you're capable now of being able to face the ...
unpleasantness which you ran away from last year?"

Berthold looked through the window at the autumn rain. "You know,
father," he replied, twitching his brows, "that I wasn't in the right
frame of mind then. I now feel strong and armed, in spite of your
previous remarks, which have really touched the actual point. And above
all I know precisely what I want."

The old man shrugged his shoulders. "I can't understand how any one can
give up a definite work ... and you will certainly have to give it up,
for a man can't serve two masters ... to think of dropping something
definite to ... to make speeches to people whose profession, so to
speak, it is to have preconceived opinions--to fight for opinions which
are usually not even believed in by the man who puts you forward to
represent them."

Berthold shook his head. "I assure you, father, I'm not tempted this
time by any oratorical or dialectical ambition. This time I have
discovered the sphere in which I hope it will be possible for me to do
quite as definite work as in the laboratory. I intend, you know, if I
do any good at all, to bother about nothing else except questions of
public health. Perhaps I can count on your blessing, father, for this
kind of political activity."

"On mine ... yes. But how about your own?"

"What do you mean?"

"The blessing to which one might give the name of the inner call."

"You doubt even that," replied Berthold, really hurt.

The servant came in and gave the old doctor a visiting card. He read
it. "Tell him I'll be glad to see him in a minute."

The servant went away.

Berthold went on speaking in a state of some excitement. "I feel
justified in saying that my training, my knowledge...."

His father interrupted him as he played with the card. "I don't doubt
your knowledge or your energy or your industry, but it seems to me
that to be able to do any particular good in the sphere of public
health you need as well as those excellent qualities another one too,
which in my view you only have to a very small extent: kindness, my
dear Berthold, love of mankind."

Berthold shook his head vehemently. "I regard the love of humanity
which you mean, father, as absolutely superfluous and rather injurious.
Pity--and what else can loving people whom one doesn't personally know
really be?--necessarily leads to sentimentalism, to weakness. And when
one wants to help whole groups of men then, above all, you must be
able to be hard at times, hard to individuals--yes, be ready in fact
to sacrifice them if the common good demands it. You only need to
consider, father, that the most honest and consistent social hygiene
would have the direct result of annihilating diseased people, or at any
rate excluding them from all enjoyment of life, and I don't deny that I
have all kinds of ideas tending in that way which may seem cruel at the
first glance. But the future, I think, belongs to ideas. You needn't
be afraid, father, that I shall begin straight away to preach the
murder of the unhealthy and the superfluous. But theoretically that's
certainly what my programme leads to. Do you know, by the way, whom I
had a very interesting conversation with the other day on this very
subject?"

"What subject do you mean?"

"To put it precisely, a conversation on the right to kill. With
Heinrich Bermann the author, the son of the late Deputy."

"But where did you get the opportunity of seeing him then?"

"The other day at a meeting. Therese Golowski brought him along. You
know him, too, don't you, father?"

"Yes," replied the old man, "I've known him for quite a long time."
And he added: "I met him again this year in the summer at Anna
Rosner's."

Berthold's eyebrows again twitched violently. Then he said
sarcastically: "I thought it was something like that. Bermann
mentioned, you know, that he had seen you some time ago, but he
wouldn't remember exactly where. I concluded that it must have been
a case of--discretion. I see. So the Herr Baron thought he would
introduce his friends into her house."

"My dear Berthold, your tone seems to suggest that you have not got
over a certain matter as completely as you previously hinted."

Berthold shrugged his shoulders. "I have never denied that I have an
antipathy for Baron Wergenthin. That is why the whole business was so
painful to me from the very beginning."

"Is that why?"

"Yes."

"And yet I think, Berthold, that you would regard the matter
differently if you were to meet Anna Rosner again some time or other as
a widow--even assuming that her late husband was even more antipathetic
to you than Baron von Wergenthin."

"That's possible. One can certainly presume that she has been loved--or
at any rate respected, not just taken and--chucked away as soon as the
spree was over. I'd have found that rather.... Well, I won't put it any
more definitely."

The old man shook his head as he looked at his son. "It really seems as
though all the advanced views of you young people break down as soon as
your passions and vanities come into question."

"So far as certain questions of cleanness or cleanliness are concerned
I do not know that I am guilty of any so-called advanced views, father,
and I don't think that you would be particularly delighted either if
I felt any desire to be the successor of a more or less dead Baron
Wergenthin."

"Certainly not, Berthold. For her sake, especially, for you would
torture her to death."

"Don't be uneasy," replied Berthold, "Anna's in no peril from my
quarter. It's all over."

"That's a good reason. But, happily, there's an even better one. Baron
Wergenthin's neither dead nor has he cleared out...."

"It doesn't matter, you know, about the actual word."

"He has, as you know, a position as a conductor in Germany...."

"What a piece of luck! He has really been very fortunate over the whole
thing. Not even having to provide for a child."

"You have two faults, Berthold. In the first place you are really
an unkind man, and in the second place you never let one finish. I
was just on the point of saying that it doesn't seem to be anything
like all over between Anna and Baron Wergenthin. Only the day before
yesterday she gave me his kind regards."

Berthold shrugged his shoulders as though the matter were finished so
far as he was concerned. "How's old Rosner?" he asked.

"He'll pull through all right this time," replied the old man. "Anyway,
I hope that you've retained a sufficient sense of detachment to realise
that his attacks are not due to his grief about the prodigal daughter,
but to a sclerosis of the arteries that is unfortunately fairly far
advanced."

"Is Anna giving lessons again?" asked Berthold after some hesitation.

"Yes," replied the old man, "but perhaps not much longer." And he
showed his son the visiting card which he was still holding in his hand.

Berthold contracted the corners of his mouth. "Do you think," he asked
ironically, "he has come here to celebrate his wedding, father?"

"I shall soon find that out," replied the old man. "At any rate I'm
very glad to see him again--for I assure you he's one of the most
charming young men I've ever met."

"Extraordinary!" said Berthold. "A quite unique winner of hearts. Even
Therese raves about him. And Heinrich Bermann the other day, it was
almost funny.... Oh well, a slim handsome blonde young man, a baron, a
German, a Christian--what Jew could withstand the magic?... Goodbye,
father."

"Berthold!"

"Well, what?" He bit his lips.

"Pull yourself together! Remember what you are."

"I ... remember."

"No, you don't. Otherwise you couldn't forget so often who the others
are."

Berthold lifted his head interrogatively.

"You should really go to Rosner's some time. It is not worthy of you
to let Anna see your disapproval in so--childish a fashion. Goodbye
... hope you'll have a good time in the 'Silberne Weintraube." He
shook hands with his son and then went into his consulting-room. He
opened the door of the waiting-room and with a friendly nod of the head
invited George von Wergenthin, who was turning over the leaves of an
album, to come in.

"I must first apologise to you, Herr Doctor," said George, after he
had sat down. "My departure was so sudden.... Unfortunately I had no
opportunity of saying goodbye to you, of thanking you personally for
your great...."

Doctor Stauber deprecated his thanks. "I am very glad to see you
again," he said, "I suppose you are here in Vienna on leave?"

"Of course," replied George. "I've only got three days' leave; they
need me there so urgently, you see," he added with a modest smile.

Doctor Stauber sat opposite him in the chair behind his secretary
and contemplated him kindly. "You feel very satisfied with your new
position, so Anna says."

"Oh yes; of course there are all kinds of difficulties when one plunges
into a new kind of life like I did. But taking it all round everything
has turned out much easier than I expected."

"So I hear. And that you have already had a very good introduction at
Court."

George smiled. "Anna of course imagines that episode to be more
magnificent than it really was. I played once at the Hereditary
Prince's and a lady member of the theatre sang two songs of mine there;
that's all. But what is much more important is that I have a chance of
being appointed conductor this very season."

"I thought you were already."

"No, Herr Doctor, not yet officially. I have already conducted a few
times as deputy, _Freischuetz_ and _Undine_, but for the time being I am
only accompanist."

In response to further questions from the doctor he told him some more
about his activities at the Detmold Opera. He then got up and said
goodbye.

"Perhaps I can give you a lift part of the way in my carriage," said
the doctor. "I am driving to the Rembrandtstrasse to the Golowskis'."

"Thanks very much, Herr Doctor, but that's not on my way. Anyway, I
intend to visit Frau Golowski in the course of to-morrow. She's not
ill, is she?"

"No. Of course the excitement of the last weeks is bound to have had
some effect upon her."

George mentioned that he had written a few words to her and also to Leo
immediately after the duel. "When one thinks that it might have turned
out differently ..." he added.

Doctor Stauber looked in front of him. "Having children," he said, "is
a happiness which one pays for by instalments."

At the door George began somewhat hesitatingly: "I also wanted ... to
inquire of you, Herr Doctor, about the real state of Herr Rosner's
health.... I must say I found him looking better than I had expected
from Anna's letters."

"I hope that he will get all right again," replied Stauber. "But of
course one must remember that he's an old man. He's even old for his
years."

"But it's not a case of anything serious?"

"Old age is a serious business in itself," replied Doctor Stauber,
"especially as his whole antecedent life, his youth and manhood, were
not particularly cheerful."

George, whose eyes had been roving round the room, suddenly exclaimed:
"I've just thought of it, Herr Doctor. I've never sent you back the
books you were good enough to lend me in the spring. And now I'm afraid
all our things are at the depository, silver, furniture, pictures and
the books as well. So I must ask you, Herr Doctor, to have patience
till the spring."

"If you have no worse troubles than that, my dear Baron...."

They went slowly down the stairs and Doctor Stauber inquired after
Felician.

"He's in Athens," replied George, "I've heard from him twice, not yet
in any great detail.... How strange it is, Herr Doctor, coming back
as a stranger to a town where one was at home a short time ago, and
staying at an hotel as a gentleman from Detmold!..."

Doctor Stauber got into his carriage. George asked him to give his very
best regards to Frau Golowski.

"I'll tell her. And I wish you all further success, my dear Baron.
Goodbye."

It was five by the Stephanskirche clock. George was faced with an
empty hour. He decided to stroll slowly into the suburb in the thin
tepid autumn rain. He had scarcely slept at all in the train and he
had been at the Rosners' two hours after his arrival. Anna herself had
opened the door to him, greeted him with an affectionate kiss, and
quickly taken him into the room, where her parents welcomed him with
more politeness than sincerity. The mother, who preserved her usual
embarrassed and slightly injured tone, did not say much. The father,
sitting in the corner of the ottoman, with a blue- rug over his
knees, felt it incumbent on him to inquire about the social and musical
conditions of the little capital from which George had come. Then he
had remained alone awhile with Anna. They first exchanged question and
answer with undue quickness, and subsequently endearments, which were
both flat and awkward, and they both seemed disappointed that they
did not feel the happiness of seeing each other again with anything
like the intensity which their love had given them to expect. Very
soon a pupil of Anna's put in an appearance. George took his leave and
hurriedly arranged an appointment for the evening with his mistress. He
would fetch her from Bittner's and then take her to the opera to see
the performance of _Tristan_.

He had then taken his midday meal by the big window of a restaurant in
the Ringstrasse, made purchases and given orders at his tradesmen's,
looked up Heinrich, whom he did not find at home, and finally,
obeying a sudden idea, decided to pay his "return-thanks" visit to
Doctor Stauber. He now walked on slowly through the streets which
he knew so well and which already seemed to have an atmosphere of
strangeness; and he thought of the town from which he came and in
which he was feeling at home far more quickly than he had expected.
Count Malnitz had received him with great kindness from the very
first moment. He had the plan of reforming the opera in accordance
with modern ideas and wanted to win George to him, so the latter
thought, as a collaborator and friend in his far-reaching projects.
For the first conductor, excellent musician no doubt though he might
be, was nowadays more of a court official than an artist. He had been
appointed when he was five-and-twenty and had now been stationed in
the little town for thirty years, a paterfamilias with six children,
respected, contented and without ambition. Soon after his arrival
George heard songs sung at a concert which a long time ago had spread
the fame of the young conductor throughout almost the whole world.
George was unable to understand the impression produced by these quite
out-of-date pieces, but none the less warmly complimented the composer
with a kindly sympathy for the ageing man in whose eyes there seemed
to shine the distant glamour of a richer and more promising past.
George frequently asked himself if the old conductor still thought of
the fact that he had once been taken for a man who was destined to go
far, and whether he, like so many other of the inhabitants, regarded
the little town as a hub from which the rays of influence and of
fame fell far around. George had only found in a few any desire for
a larger and more complex sphere of activity; it often seemed to him
as though they rather treated him with a kind of good-natured pity
because he came from a great town, and in particular from Vienna.
Whenever the name of that town was mentioned in front of people George
noticed in their smug and somewhat sarcastic manner that almost as
regularly as harmonies accompany the bass, certain other words would
be immediately switched into the conversation, even though they were
not specifically mentioned: waltzes ... cafe ... _suesses Maedel_[2]
... grilled chicken ... fiacre ... parliamentary scandal. George was
often irritated by this and made up his mind to do all he could to
improve his countrymen's reputation in Detmold. He had been asked to
come because the third conductor, a quite young man, had suddenly died,
and so George, on the very first day, had to sit at the piano in the
little rehearsal-room and perform singing accompaniments. It went off
excellently. He rejoiced in his gifts, which were stronger and surer
than he had himself hoped, and it seemed to him, so far as he could
recollect, that Anna had slightly underestimated his talent. Apart from
this he threw himself more seriously into his compositions than he had
ever done before. He worked at an overture which had originated out of
the _motifs_ of Bermann's opera. He had begun a violin sonata, and the
mythical quintette, as Else had called it once, was nearly finished.
It was going to be performed this very winter in one of the Court
_soirees_, which were under the direction of the deputy-conductor of
the Detmold orchestra, a talented young man, the only person in fact in
his new home with whom George had so far become at all intimate, and
with whom he was accustomed to take his meals at the "Elephant."

George still inhabited a fine room in this inn, with a view on to the
big square planted with lindens, and from day to day put off taking
an apartment. He was quite uncertain whether he would be still in
Detmold next year and he also had the feeling that it would be bound
to wound Anna, if he were to do anything which looked like settling
down as a bachelor for any length of time. Yet he had said no word in
his letters to her about any of the prospects of the future, just as
she, on her side, left off addressing to him doubting or impatient
questions. They practically only communicated to each other actual
facts. She wrote of her gradual return into her old groove of life,
and he of all the new surroundings among which he must first settle
down. Although there was practically nothing which he had to keep from
her, he made a special point of slurring over many things that might
easily lead to a misunderstanding. How was one to express in words
the strange atmosphere which permeated in the morning the rehearsals
in the half-dark body of the theatre, when the odour of cosmetics,
perfumes, dresses, gas, old wood and fresh paint came down from the
stage to the stalls, when figures which one did not at first recognise
hopped to and fro between the rows of seats in ordinary or stage dress,
when some breath which was heavy and scented blew gently against one's
neck? And how was one to describe a glance which flashed down from the
eyes of a young singer while one looked up to her from the keys...?
Or when one saw this young singer home through the Theaterplatz and
the Koenigsstrasse in the broad light of noon and used the opportunity
not merely to talk about the part of Micaela, which one had just been
studying with her, but also about all kinds of other, though no doubt
fairly innocent, things? Could one recount this to one's mistress in
Vienna without her reading something suspicious between the lines? And
even if one had laid stress on the fact that Micaela was engaged to a
young doctor in Berlin who adored her as much as she did him it would
scarcely have improved matters, for that would really have looked as
though one felt obliged to answer and reassure.

How strange, thought George, that it is just this very evening that
she is singing the Micaela which I practised with her, and that I
am going here along this same road out to Mariahilf which I used to
take a year ago so frequently and so gladly. He thought of a specific
evening when he had fetched Anna from out there, walked about with her
in the quiet streets, looked at funny photographs in a doorway and
finally walked with her on the cool stone flags of an ancient church,
in a soft but how ominous conversation about an unknown future.... And
now all had turned out quite differently to what he had hoped--quite
differently.... Why did it strike him like that?... What had he
anticipated then at that time?... Had not the year that had just passed
been wonderfully rich and beautiful with its happiness and its grief?
And did he not love Anna to-day better and more deeply than ever? And
had he not frequently yearned for her in that fresh town as hotly
as though for a woman who had never yet belonged to him? To-day's
early meeting with its flat and awkward endearments in the sinister
atmosphere of a grey hour really ought not to lead him astray....

He was at the appointed place. When he looked up to the lighted
windows, behind which Anna was giving her lesson, a slight emotion
came over him, and when she came out of the door the next minute, in a
simple English dress and a grey felt hat on her rich dark blonde hair,
holding a book in her hand, just as she had appeared a year ago, an
unexpected feeling of happiness suddenly streamed over him. She did
not see him at once, for he was standing in the shadow of a house. She
opened her umbrella and went as far as the corner where she had been in
the habit of waiting for him the previous year. He gazed at her for a
while and was glad that she looked so fine and distinguished. Then he
followed her quickly, and caught her up in a few strides. She informed
him at once that she could not go to the opera with him. Her father had
been taken ill this afternoon.

George was very disappointed. "Won't you at any rate come with me for
the first act?"

She shook her head. "No, I am not very keen on that sort of thing. It
is much better for you to give the seat to some friend. Go and fetch
Nuernberger or Bermann."

"No," he replied, "if you can't come with me I'd rather go alone. I
should have enjoyed it so much. I am not very keen on the performance
personally. I'd prefer to stay with you ... so far as I am concerned,
even at your people's; but I must go. I have--to make a report."

Anna backed him up. "Of course you must go," and she added: "I
wouldn't advise you, too, to spend an evening with us. It's really not
particularly jolly."

He had taken the umbrella out of her hand and held it over her, while
she held his arm. "I say, Anna," he said, "I should like to make a
suggestion!" He was surprised that he should be looking for a way of
leading up to it, and began hesitatingly: "My few days in Vienna are,
of course, more or less unsettled and cut up--and now there's this
depressed atmosphere at your people's as well.... We are not really
managing to see anything of each other: don't you agree?"

She nodded without looking at him.

"So wouldn't you like to come part of the way with me, Anna, when I go
back again?"

She looked at him sideways in her arch way and did not answer.

He went on speaking. "I can, you see, quite well manage to get an extra
day's leave if I wire to the theatre. It would really be awfully nice
if we had a few hours all to ourselves."

She consented with sincerity but not enthusiasm and made her decision
depend on the state of her father's health. She then asked him how he
had spent the day.

He told her in detail, and also added his programme for to-morrow. "So
we two will see each other in the evening," he said. "I'll come to your
place if that's convenient, and then we'll arrange further details."

"Yes," said Anna, and looked in front of her down the damp brown-grey
street.

He tried again to persuade her to come to the opera with him, but it
was futile. He then inquired about her singing lessons and followed
that up by speaking about his own activity, as though he had to
convince her that after all he was not having a much better time than
she was. And he referred to his letters, in which he had written about
everything in full detail.

"So far as that's concerned ..." she said suddenly in quite a hard
voice.... And when, hurt by her tone, he could not help throwing back
his head, she proceeded: "What is there really in letters, however
detailed they are?"

He knew what she was thinking about--he felt a certain heaviness at
heart. Was there not in the very inexorableness of this silence all
that she refused to voice aloud?--question, reproach and rage. He had
already felt this morning and now felt again that a certain sense of
positive enmity to himself was rising within her, against which she
herself seemed to be struggling in vain. Was this morning the first
time...? Had it not dated far longer back? Perhaps it had been always
there, from the very first moment when they had belonged to each other,
and even in the moments of their supreme happiness? Had not this
hostile feeling been present when she pressed her bosom against his
behind dark curtains to the music of the organ, when she waited for
him in the room at the hotel in Rome, with eyes red with tears, while
he had been watching with delight from Monte Pincio the sun setting
in the Campagna, and had realised that he was finding this hour of
solitary enjoyment the most wonderful in the whole journey? Had it not
been present when he ran down the gravel path on a hot morning, dropped
down at her feet and cried in her lap as though it had been the lap of
a mother? And when he had sat by her bedside and looked out into the
garden at eventime, while the dead child she had borne an hour ago lay
silent on the white linen cloth, had it not been there again, drearier
than ever, so that it would have been almost unbearable, if they had
not long ago managed to put up with it, in the way one manages to
endure so much of the unsatisfactoriness and so much of the sorrow that
comes up out of the depths of human intercourse? And now how painfully
did he feel this sense of hostility as he walked arm-in-arm with her,
holding the umbrella carefully over her, down the damp streets? It was
there again--menacing and familiar. The words which she had spoken
were still ringing in his ears: "What is there really in letters,
however detailed they are?"... But even more solemnly there rang in
his ears the unspoken words: What does the most ardent kiss in which
body and soul seem to fuse really come to? What does the fact that we
travelled together for months through strange lands really come to?
What does the fact that I had a child by you come to? What does the
fact that you cried out in my lap your remorse for your deception? What
does it all come to, when you still go and leave me quite alone?...
Why, I was alone at the very moment when my body drank in the germ of
life which I carried within me for nine months, which was intended to
live amongst strangers, though our own child, and which did not wish to
remain on earth!

But while all this sank heavily into his soul he agreed in a light tone
that she was really quite right and that letters--even though they were
actually twenty pages long--could not contain much in particular; and
while a harrowing pity for her sprang up in him he gently expressed
the hope that there would be a time in which they would neither of
them any longer be thrown back upon mere letters. And then he found
words of greater tenderness, told her of those lonely walks of his in
the outskirts of the strange town when he thought of her; told her
of the hours in that meaningless hotel room, with its view of the
linden-planted square, and of his yearning for her, which was always
present whether he sat alone at his work or accompanied singers at the
pianoforte or chatted with new acquaintances. But when he stood with
her in front of the house door, with her hand in his, and looked up
into her eyes as he murmured a bright goodbye, he was shocked to see
in them the flickering out of a jaded sense of disillusionment that
had almost ceased to be painful. And he knew that all the words which
he had spoken to her had meant nothing to her, had meant less than
nothing, since the one word, the word she scarcely hoped for any more,
and yet longed for all the time, had not come.

A quarter of an hour later George was sitting in his stall at the
opera. He was first a little depressed and limp, but the pleasure of
enjoyment soon began to course through his veins. And when Brangaene
threw the king's cloak over her mistress's shoulders, Kurwenal
announced the king's approach and the ship's crew on the deck hailed
the land amid all the glory of the resplendent heavens, George had long
ago forgotten a bad night in the train, some boring commissions, an
extremely forced conversation with an old Jewish doctor and a walk on
the wet pavement which mirrored the light of the lamps by the side of
a young lady who looked decent, distinguished and somewhat depressed.
And when the curtain fell for the first time and the light streamed
through the enormous room, upholstered in red and gold, he did not
feel any unpleasant sense of being brought back to sober life, but
he rather felt as though he were plunging his head out of one dream
into another; while a reality which was full of all kinds of wretched
complications flew impotently past somewhere outside. The atmosphere of
this house, so it seemed to him, had never made him so intensely happy
as it did to-day. He had never felt so palpably that all the audience,
so long as they were here, were protected in some mystic way against
all the pain and all the dirt of life. He stood up in his corner seat,
which was in front by the middle gangway, saw many a pleased glance
turn towards him and felt conscious of looking handsome, elegant and
even somewhat unusual. And besides that he was--and this filled him
with satisfaction--a man who had a profession, a position, a man who
sat in this very theatre with a responsible commission to perform,
as a kind of envoy from a German court theatre. He looked round with
his opera-glass. From the back of the stalls Gleissner greeted him
with a somewhat too familiar nod of his head and seemed immediately
afterwards to be expatiating on George's personal characteristics to
the young lady who sat next to him. Who could she be? Was it the harlot
which the author, with his hobby for experimenting on souls, wanted to
make into a saint, or was it the saint whom he wanted to make into a
harlot? Hard to say, thought George. They'd both look about the same,
halfway.

George felt the lens of an opera-glass burning on the top of his head.
He looked up. It was Else, who was looking down to him from a box in
the first tier. Frau Ehrenberg sat near her and between them there
bowed over the front of the box a tall young man who was no other than
James Wyner. George bowed and two minutes later stepped into the box,
to find himself greeted with friendliness but not a trace of surprise.
Else, in a low-cut black velvet dress, with a small pearl necklet round
her throat and a somewhat strange though interesting coiffure, held out
her hand to him. "And how did you manage to get here? On leave? Sacked?
Run away?"

George explained, briefly and good-humouredly.

"It was very nice of you," said Frau Ehrenberg, "to have sent us a line
from Detmold."

"He really shouldn't have done that, either," remarked Else. "It was
quite calculated to make one think that he had gone off to America with
some one or other."

James was standing in the middle of the box, tall and gaunt, with his
chiselled face and his dark smooth hair parted at the side. "Well,
George, how do you like Detmold?"

Else was looking at him with dropped eyelashes. She seemed delighted
with his way of still always speaking German as though he had to
translate it to himself out of English. Anyway, she employed the
occasion to make a joke and said: "How George likes it in Detmold! I am
afraid your question is indiscreet, James." Then she turned to George.
"We are engaged, you know."

"We haven't yet sent out any cards, you know," added Frau Ehrenberg.

George offered his congratulations.

"Lunch with us to-morrow," said Frau Ehrenberg. "You will only meet a
few people. I'm sure they'll all be very glad to see you again--Sissy,
Frau Oberberger, Willy Eissler."

George excused himself. He could not bind himself to any specific time,
but if he possibly could he would very much like to look in during the
course of the afternoon.

"Quite so," said Else in a low voice, without looking at him, while her
arm, in its long white glove, lay carelessly on the ledge of the box.
"You are probably spending the middle of the day in the family circle."

George pretended not to hear and praised to-night's performance. James
declared that he liked _Tristan_ better than all the other operas by
Wagner, including the _Meistersingers_.

Else simply remarked: "It's awfully fine, but as a matter of fact I'm
all against love-philtres and things in that line."

George explained that the love-philtre was to be regarded as a symbol,
whereupon Else declared that she had a distaste for symbols as well.
The first signal for the second act was given. George took his leave
and rushed downstairs with only just enough time to take his place
before the curtain rose. He remembered again the semi-official capacity
in which he was sitting in the theatre to-night, and determined not
to surrender himself unreservedly to his impressions. He soon managed
to discover that it was possible to produce the love-scene quite
differently from the way in which it was being done to-night. Nor did
he think it right that Melot, by whose hand Tristan was doomed to die,
should be represented by a second-rate singer, as was nearly always
the case. After the fall of the curtain on the second act he got up
with a kind of increased self-consciousness, stood up in his seat and
looked frequently up to the box in the first tier, from which Frau
Ehrenberg nodded to him benevolently, while Else spoke to James, who
was standing still behind her with crossed arms. It struck George
that he would see James's sister again to-morrow. Did she still often
think of that wonderful hour in the park in the afternoon, amid the
dark green sultriness of the park, in the warm perfume of the moss and
the pines? How far away that was! He then remembered a fleeting kiss
in the nocturnal shadow of the garden wall at Lugano. How far away
that was too! He thought of the evening under the plane-tree, and the
conversation about Leo came again into his mind. A remarkable fellow
that Leo, really. How consistently he had stuck to his plan! For he
must have formed it a long time ago. And obviously Leo had only waited
for the day when he could doff his uniform to put it into execution.
George had received no answer to the letter which he had immediately
written him after hearing about the duel. He resolved to visit Leo in
prison if it were possible.

A man in the first row greeted him. It was Ralph Skelton. George
arranged by pantomimic signs to meet him at the end of the performance.

The lights were extinguished, the prelude to the third act began.
George heard the tired sea-waves surging against the desolate beach
and the grievous sighs of a mortally wounded hero were wafted through
the blue thin air. Where had he heard this last? Hadn't it been in
Munich...? No, it couldn't be so far back. And he suddenly remembered
the hour when the sheets of the _Tristan_ music had been spread open
before him on a balcony beneath a wooden gable. A sunny path opposite
ran to the churchyard between field and forest, while a cross had
flashed with its golden light; down in the house a woman he loved
had groaned in agony and he had felt sick at heart. And yet this
memory, too, had its own melancholy sweetness, like all else that had
completely passed. The balcony, the little blue angel between the
flowers, the white seat under the pear-tree, where was it all now? He
would see the house again once more, once more before he left Vienna.

The curtain rose. The shawm rang out yearningly beneath the pale
expanse of an unsympathetic heaven. The wounded hero slumbered in
the shade of the linden branches, and by his head watched Kurwenal
the faithful. The shawm was silent, the herdsman bent questioningly
over the wall and Kurwenal made answer. By Jove, that was a voice of
unusual timbre! If we only had a baritone like that, thought George.
And many other things, too, which we need! If he were only given the
requisite power he felt himself able, in the course of time, to turn
the modest theatre at which he worked into a first-class stage. He
dreamed of model performances to which people would stream from far
and wide. He no longer sat there as an envoy, but as a man to whom it
was perhaps vouchsafed to be himself a leader in not too distant days.
Further and higher coursed his hopes. Perhaps just a few years--and
his own original harmonies would be ringing through a spacious hall of
a musical festival, and the audience would be listening as thrilled
as the one to-day, while somewhere outside a hollow reality would be
flowing impotently past. Impotently? That was the question. Did he
know whether it was given him to compel human beings by his art as it
had been given to the master to whom they were listening to-day--to
triumph over the difficulty, wretchedness and awfulness of everyday
life? Impatience and doubt tried to rise out of his soul; but his will
and common-sense quickly banished them and he now felt again the pure
happiness he always experienced when he heard beautiful music, without
thinking of the fact that he often wished himself to do creative work
and obtain recognition for doing it.

In moments like this the only relation to his beloved art of which
he was conscious was that he was able to understand it with deeper
appreciation than any other human being. And he felt that Heinrich
had spoken the truth when they had ridden together through a forest
damp with the morning dew: it was not creative work--it was simply the
atmosphere of his art which was necessary to his existence. He was not
one of the damned, like Heinrich, who always felt driven to catch hold
of things, to mould them, to preserve them, and who found his world
fall to pieces whenever it tried to escape from his creative hand.

Isolde in Brangaene's arms had dropped dead over Tristan's body, the
last notes were dying away, the curtain fell. George cast a glance
up to the box in the first tier. Else stood by the ledge with her
look turned towards him, while James put her dark-red cloak over her
shoulders, and it was only now, that after a nod of the head as quick
as though she had meant no one to notice it, she turned towards the
exit. Remarkable, thought George from a distance: there is a certain
... melancholy romantic something about the way she carries herself,
about many of her movements. It is then that she reminds me most of
the gipsy girl of Nice, or the strange young person with whom I stood
in front of the Titian Venus in Florence.... Did she ever love me? No.
And she doesn't love her James either. Who is it then?... Perhaps ...
it was really that mad drawing-master in Florence. Or no one at all. Or
Heinrich, of all people?...

He met Skelton in the _foyer_. "Back again?" queried the latter.

"Only for a few days," replied George.

It transpired that Skelton had not really known what George was
doing and had thought that he was on a kind of musical tour through
the German towns for the purposes of study. He was now more or
less surprised to hear that George was here on leave and had been
practically commissioned by the manager to inspect the new production
of _Tristan_. "Will this suit you?" said Skelton. "I've got an
appointment with Breitner; at the '_Imperial_,' the white room."

"Excellent," replied George. "I'm staying there."

Doctor von Breitner was already smoking one of his celebrated big
cigars when the two men appeared at his table. "What a surprise!"
he exclaimed, when George greeted him. He had heard that George was
engaged as conductor in Duesseldorf.

"Detmold," said George, and he thought: "The people here don't bother
about me particularly.... But what does it matter?"

Skelton described the _Tristan_ performance and George mentioned that
he had spoken to the Ehrenbergs.

"Do you know that Oskar Ehrenberg is on his way to India or Ceylon?"
asked Doctor von Breitner.

"Really!"

"And whom do you think with?"

"Some woman, I suppose?"

"Oh, of course. I've even heard they've got five or seven women with
them."

"Who?--'they.'"

"Oskar Ehrenberg ... and ... have a guess.... Well, the Prince of
Guastalla!"

"Impossible!"

"Funny, eh? They became very thick this year at Ostend or at Spa....
_Cherchez_ ... et cetera. It seems that just as there are women, you
know, for whom people fight duels there's also another class across
whom, as it were, you shake hands. Now they've left Europe together.
Perhaps they'll found a kingdom on some island or other and Oskar
Ehrenberg will be prime minister."

Willy Eissler appeared. His complexion was sallow, his voice hoarse and
he looked as if he had been keeping late hours. "Hullo, Baron! Forgive
me not being thunderstruck but I have already heard that you are here.
Some one or other saw you in the Kaertnerstrasse."

George requested Willy to remember Count Malnitz to his father. He
himself, he was sorry to say, had no time on this occasion to look up
the old gentleman, to whom, as he observed with a pretty mock-modesty,
he owed his position in Detmold.

"So far as your future is concerned, Baron," said Willy, "I never had
any anxiety about it, particularly since I heard Bellini sing your
songs last year--or was it further back? But it is quite a good idea
of yours, deciding to leave Vienna. You'd have been bound to have been
taken for a dilettante here for a cool twenty or thirty years. That's
always the way in Vienna. I know it. When people know that a man comes
of a good family, has a taste too for pretty ties, good cigarettes and
various other amenities of life, they don't believe that he has real
artistic capacity. You wouldn't be taken seriously here without proof
from outside.... So hurry up and furnish us with a brilliant one,
Baron."

"I'll make an effort to," said George.

"By the way, have you heard the latest, gentlemen?" began Willy again.
"Leo Golowski, the one-year-volunteer who shot First-Lieutenant
Sefranek, is free."

"Let out on bail?" asked George.

"No, he's quite free. His advocate addressed a petition to the Emperor
to quash the proceedings, and it turned out successful to-day."

"Incredible!" exclaimed Breitner.

"Why are you so surprised, Breitner?" said Willy. "It is possible, you
know, for something sensible to happen in Austria once in a blue moon."

"A duel is never sensible," said Skelton, "and therefore a pardon for a
duel can't be sensible either."

"A duel, my dear Skelton, is either something very much worse or
something very much better than sensible," replied Willy. "It is
either a ghastly folly or a relentless necessity, either a crime or an
act of deliverance. It is not sensible and doesn't need to be so. In
exceptional cases, one can't make any headway at all with common-sense,
and I am sure you too will concede, Skelton, that in a case like the
one of which we have just been speaking a duel was inevitable."

"Absolutely," said Breitner.

"I can imagine a polity," observed Skelton, "in which differences of
that kind were settled by a court."

"Differences of that kind settled by a court! Oh, I say!... Do you
really think, Skelton, that in a case where there is no question of
right or of possession at issue, but where men confront each other with
a stupendous hate, do you really think that a proper settlement could
be arrived at by means of a fine or imprisonment? The fact, gentlemen,
that refusal to fight a duel in such cases is regarded as a piece of
cowardice by all people who possess temperament, honour and honesty has
a fairly deep significance. In the case of Jews at any rate," he added.
"So far as the Catholics are concerned it is well known that it is only
their orthodoxy which keeps them from fighting."

"That's certainly the case," said Breitner simply.

George wanted to know details of the affair between Leo Golowski and
the First-Lieutenant.

"Quite so," said Willy. "Of course you've only just arrived. Well, the
First-Lieutenant gave him a fine ragging for the whole year, and as a
matter of fact----"

"I know the prelude," interrupted George. "Part of it from first-hand
information."

"Really! Well, the prelude, to stick to that expression, was over on
the first of October. I mean Leo Golowski had finished his year of
service. And on the second he placed himself in front of the barracks
early in the morning and quietly waited till the First-Lieutenant
came out of the door. As soon as he did he stepped up to him; the
First-Lieutenant reached for his sword, but Leo Golowski grabs hold
of his hand, doesn't let it go, puts his other fist in front of his
forehead. There is a story, too, that Leo is supposed to have flung the
following words at the First-Lieutenant.... I don't know if it's true."

"What words?" asked George curiously.

"'You were worth more than I was yesterday, Herr First-Lieutenant; now
we are on an equality for the time being--but one of us will be worth
more than the other again by this time to-morrow.'"

"Somewhat Talmudic," remarked Breitner.

"You, of course, must be the best judge of that, Breitner," replied
Willy, and went on with his story. "Well, the duel took place next
morning in the fields by the Danube--three exchanges of ball at twenty
paces without advancing. If that proved abortive the sword till one or
other was _hors de combat_.... The first shots missed on both sides,
and after the second ... after the second, I say, Golowski was really
worth more than the First-Lieutenant, for the latter was worth nothing,
less than nothing--a dead man."

"Poor devil," said Breitner.

Willy shrugged his shoulders. "He just happened to have caught a
tartar. I'm sorry, too, but one must admit that Austria would be a
different place in many respects if all Jews would behave like Leo
Golowski in similar cases. Unfortunately...."

Skelton smiled. "You know, Willy, I don't like any one to say anything
against the Jews when I am there. I like them, and I should be sorry if
people wanted to solve the Jewish question by a series of duels, for
when it was all over there wouldn't be a single male specimen left of
that excellent race."

At the end of the conversation Skelton had to admit that the duel could
not be abolished in Austria for the present. But he reserved the right
of putting the question whether that fact was really an argument in
favour of the duel, and not rather an argument against Austria, since
many other countries--he refrained from mentioning any out of a sense
of modesty--had discarded the duel for centuries. And did he go too
far if he ventured to designate Austria--the country, too, in which
he had felt really at home for the last six years--as the country of
social shams? In that country more than anywhere else there existed
wild disputes without a touch of hate and a kind of tender love without
the need of fidelity. Quite humorous personal likings existed or came
into existence between political opponents; party colleagues, on the
other hand, reviled, libelled and betrayed each other. You would only
find a few people who would vouchsafe specific views on men and things,
and anyway even these few would be only too ready to make reservations
and admit exceptions. The political conflict there gave one quite
the impression as though the apparently most bitter enemies, while
exchanging their most virulent abuse, winked to each other: "It's not
meant so seriously."

"What do you think, Skelton?" asked Willy. "Would you wink, too, if the
bullets were flying on both sides?"

"You certainly would, Willy, unless death were staring you in the face.
But that circumstance, I think, doesn't affect one's mood but only
one's demeanour."

They went on sitting together for a long time and continued gossiping.
George heard all kinds of news. He learned among other things that
Demeter Stanzides had concluded the purchase of the estate on the
Hungarian-Croatian frontier, and that the Rattenmamsell was looking
forward to a happy event. Willy Eissler was much excited at the result
of this crossing of the races, and amused himself in the meanwhile by
inventing names for the expected child, such as Israel Pius or Rebecca
Portiuncula.

Subsequently the whole party betook itself to the neighbouring cafe.
George played a game of billiards with Breitner and then went up to his
room. He made out in bed a time-table for the next day and finally
sank into a deliciously deep sleep.

The paper he had ordered the day before was brought in with the tea
in the morning, together with a telegram. The manager requested him
to report on a singer. To George's delight it was the one he had
heard yesterday in Kurwenal. He was also allowed to stay three days
beyond his specified leave, "in order to put his affairs in order
at his convenience," since an alteration of the programme happened
to allow it. Excellent, really, thought George. It struck him that
he had completely forgotten his original intention of wiring for a
prolongation of his leave. I have got even more time for Anna now than
I thought, he reflected. We might perhaps go into the mountains. The
autumn days are fine and mild, and at this time one would be pretty
well alone and undisturbed anywhere. But supposing there is an accident
again--an--accident--again!... Those were the very words in which the
thought had flown through his mind. He bit his lips. Was that how he
had suddenly come to regard the matter? An accident.... Where was
the time when he had thought of himself almost with pride as a link
in an endless chain which went from the first ancestors to the last
descendants? And for a few moments he seemed to himself like a failure
in the sphere of love, somewhat dubious and pitiable.

He ran his eye over the paper. The proceedings against Leo Golowski had
been quashed by an Imperial pardon. He had been discharged from prison
last evening. George was very glad and decided to visit Leo this very
day. He then sent a telegram to the Count, and made out a report with
due formality and detail on yesterday's performance. When he got out
into the street it was nearly eleven. The air had the cool clearness
of autumn. George felt thoroughly rested, refreshed and in a good
temper. The day lay before him rich with hopes and promised all kinds
of excitement. Only something troubled him without his immediately
knowing what it was.... Oh yes, the visit in the Paulanergasse, the
depressing rooms, the ailing father, the aggrieved mother. I'll simply
fetch Anna, he thought, take her for a walk and then go and have supper
somewhere with her. He passed a flower shop, bought some wonderful
dark-red roses and had them sent to Anna with a card on which he wrote:
"A thousand wishes. Goodbye till the evening." When he had done this he
felt easier in his mind. He then went through the streets in the centre
of the town to the old house in which Nuernberger lived. He climbed up
the five storeys. A slatternly old servant with a dark cloth over her
head opened the door and ushered him into her master's room. Nuernberger
was standing by the window with his head slightly bent, in the brown
high-cut lounge-suit which he liked to wear at home. He was not alone.
Heinrich, of all people, got up from the old arm-chair in front of the
secretary with a manuscript in his hand. George was heartily welcomed.

"Has your being in Vienna anything to do with the crisis in the
management of the opera?" asked Nuernberger. He refused to allow this
observation to be simply passed over as a joke. "Look here," he said,
"if little boys who a short time ago were only in a position to give
formal proof of their connection with German literature on the strength
of the regularity of their visits to a literary cafe, are invited to
take appointments as readers on the Berlin stage, well, in an age like
this I see no occasion for astonishment if Baron Wergenthin is fetched
in triumph to the Vienna opera after his no doubt strenuous six weeks'
career as the conductor of a German Court theatre."

George paid a tribute to truth by explaining that he had only obtained
a short leave to put his Vienna affairs in order, and did not forget to
mention that he had seen the new production of _Tristan_ yesterday as a
kind of agent for his manager, but he smiled ironically at himself all
the time. Then he gave a short and fairly humorous description of his
experiences up to the present in the little capital. He even touched
jestingly on the Court concerts as though he were far from taking his
position, his present successes, the theatre, or indeed life in general
with any particular seriousness.

Conversation then turned on Leo Golowski's release from prison.
Nuernberger rejoiced at this unhoped-for issue, but yet firmly refused
to be surprised at it, for the most highly improbable things always
happened in life, and particularly in Austria, as they all knew very
well. But when George mentioned the rumour of Oskar Ehrenberg's
yachting trip with the Prince as a new proof of the soundness of
Nuernberger's theory, he was at first inclined nevertheless to be
slightly sceptical. Yet he finished by admitting its possibility,
since his imagination, as he had known for a long time, was invariably
surpassed by reality.

Heinrich looked at the time. It was time for him to say goodbye.

"Haven't I disturbed you, gentlemen?" asked George. "I think you were
reading something, Heinrich, when I came in?"

"I had already finished," replied Heinrich.

"You'll read me the last act to-morrow, Heinrich?" said Nuernberger.

"I have no intention of doing so," replied Heinrich with a laugh. "If
the first two acts are as great a frost in the theatre as they were
with you, my dear Nuernberger, it will be positively impossible to play
the thing through to the end. We'll assume, Nuernberger, that you rush
indignantly out of the stalls into the open air. I'll let you off the
cat-calls and the rotten eggs."

"Hang it all!" exclaimed George.

"You're exaggerating again, Heinrich," said Nuernberger. "I only
ventured to make a few objections," he said, turning to George,
"that's all. But he's an author, you know."

"It all depends on what you mean by 'objection,'" said Heinrich. "After
all, it is only an objection to the life of a fellow human being if you
cut his head open with a hatchet; only it's a fairly effective one." He
pointed to his manuscript and turned to George. "You know what that is?
My political tragi-comedy. No wreaths, by request."

Nuernberger laughed. "I assure you, Heinrich, you could still make
something really splendid out of your subject. You can even keep the
whole scenario and a number of the characters. All you need to do is to
make up your mind to be less fair when you revise your draft."

"But surely his fairness is a fine thing," said George.

Nuernberger shook his head. "One may be anywhere else, only not in the
drama," and turning to Heinrich again, "In a piece like that, which
deals with a question of the day, or indeed several questions, as you
really intended, you'll never do any good with a purely objective
treatment. The theatre public demands that the subjects tackled by the
author should be definitely settled, or that at any rate some illusion
of that kind should be created. For of course there never is any real
solution, and an apparent solution can only be made by a man who has
the courage or the simplicity or the temperament to take sides. You'll
soon appreciate the fact, my dear Heinrich, that fairness is no good in
the drama."

"Do you know, Nuernberger," said Heinrich, "one perhaps might do some
good even with fairness. I think I simply haven't got the right kind.
As a matter of fact, you know, I've no desire at all to be fair. I
imagine it must be so wonderfully nice to be unfair. I think it would
be the most healthy gymnastic exercise for one's soul that one could
possibly practise. It must do one such a lot of good to be able really
to hate the man whose views you are combating. It saves one, I'm sure,
a great deal of inner strength which you can expend far better yourself
in the actual fight. Yes, if one still preserves fairness of heart....
But my fairness is here," and he pointed to his forehead. "I do not
stand above parties either, but I belong to them all in a kind of way,
or am against them all. I have not got the divine but the dialectical
fairness. And that's why"--he held his manuscript high up--"it has
resulted in such a boring and fruitless lot of twaddle."

"Woe to the man," said Nuernberger, "who is rash enough to write
anything like that about you."

"Well, you see," replied Heinrich with a smile, "if some one else were
to say it, one couldn't suppress the slight suspicion that he might be
right. But now I must really go. Good-bye, George. I'm very sorry that
you missed me yesterday. When are you leaving again?"

"To-morrow."

"Anyway, I shall see you before you leave. I'm home to-day the whole
afternoon and evening. You will find a man who has resolutely turned
away from the questions of the day and devoted himself again to
the eternal problems, death and love.... Do you believe in death,
by-the-bye, Nuernberger? I am not asking you about love."

"That somewhat cheap joke from a man in your position," said
Nuernberger, "makes me suspect that in spite of your very dignified
demeanour my criticism has...."

"No, Nuernberger, I swear to you that I am not wounded. I have rather a
comfortable sensation of the whole thing being finished with."

"Finished with, why so? It is still quite possible that I've made
a mistake, and that this very piece, which I didn't think quite a
success, will have a success on the stage which will make you into a
millionaire. I should be deeply grieved if on account of my criticism,
which may be very far from being authoritative...."

"Quite so, quite so, Nuernberger. We must all of us always admit the
possibility that we may be mistaken. And the next time I'll write
another piece, and one with the following title too: '_Nobody's going
to take me in_,' and you shall be the hero of it, Nuernberger."

Nuernberger smiled. "... I? That means you'll take a man whom you
imagine you know, that you'll try to describe those sides of his
character which suit your game--that you'll suppress others which are
no use to you, and the result...."

"The result," interrupted Heinrich, "will be a portrait taken by a mad
photographer with a spoilt camera during an earthquake and an eclipse
of the sun. Is that right, or is there anything missing?"

"The psychology ought to be exhaustive," said Nuernberger.

Heinrich took his leave in boisterous spirits and went away with his
rolled-up manuscript. When he had gone George remarked: "His good
temper strikes me as a bit of a pose, you know."

"Do you think so? I have always found him in remarkably good form
lately."

"In really good form? Do you seriously think so? After what he has gone
through?"

"Why not? Men who are so almost exclusively self-centred as he is
get over emotional troubles with surprising quickness. Characters of
that type, and as a matter of fact other kinds of men as well, feel
the slightest physical discomfort far more acutely than any kind of
sentimental pain, even the faithlessness and death of the persons they
happen to love. It comes no doubt from the fact that every emotional
pain flatters our vanity somehow or other, and that you can't say the
same thing about an attack of typhoid or a catarrh in the stomach. Then
there is this additional point about artistic people, for while catarrh
of the stomach provides positively no copy at all (at any rate that
used to be reasonably certain a short time ago) you can get anything
you jolly well like out of your emotional pains, from lyric poems down
to works on philosophy."

"Emotional pains are of very different kinds, of course," replied
George. "And being deceived or deserted by a mistress ... or even her
dying a natural death ... is still rather a different thing to her
killing herself on our account."

"Do you know for a certainty," replied Nuernberger, "that Heinrich's
mistress really killed herself on his account?"

"Didn't Heinrich tell you, then?..."

"Of course, but that doesn't prove much. Even the shrewdest amongst us
are always fools about the things which concern ourselves."

Such remarks as these on the part of Nuernberger produced a strangely
disconcerting effect on George. They belonged to the class of which
Nuernberger was rather fond, and which, as Heinrich had once observed,
quite destroyed all the point of all human intercourse, and in fact of
all human relations.

Nuernberger went on speaking. "We only know two facts. One is that our
friend once had a _liaison_ with a girl and the other that the girl in
question threw herself into the water. We both of us know practically
nothing about all the intervening facts, and Heinrich probably doesn't
know anything more about them either. None of us can know why she
killed herself, and perhaps the poor girl herself didn't know either."

George looked through the window and saw roofs, chimneys and
weather-beaten pipes, while fairly near was the light-grey tower
with the broken stone cupola. The sky opposite was pale and empty.
It suddenly occurred to George that Nuernberger had not yet made any
inquiry about Anna. What was he probably thinking? Thinking no doubt
that George had deserted her, and that she had already consoled herself
with another lover. Why did I come to Vienna? he thought desultorily,
as though his journey had had no other purpose than to listen to
Nuernberger giving him what had now turned out to be a sufficiently
pessimistic analysis of life. It struck twelve. George took his leave.
Nuernberger accompanied him as far as the door and thanked him for
his visit. He inquired earnestly about what George was doing in his
new home, about his work and his new acquaintances, as though their
previous conversation on the subject had not really counted, and now
learned for the first time of the accident which was responsible for
George's sudden appointment in the little town.

"Yes, that's just what I always say," he then remarked. "It is not we
who make our fate, but some circumstance outside us usually sees to
that--some circumstance which we were not in a position to influence
in any way, which we never have a chance of bringing into the sphere
of our calculations. After all, do you deserve any credit...? I feel
justified in putting this question, much as I respect your talent.
Nor does old Eissler, whose interest in your affairs you once told me
about, deserve any credit either for your being wired to from Detmold
and finding your true sphere of work there so quickly. No. An innocent
man, some one you don't know, had to die a sudden death to enable you
to find that particular place vacant. And what a lot of other things
which you were equally unable to influence, and which you were quite
unable to foresee, had to come on the scene to enable you to leave
Vienna with a light heart--to enable you, in fact, to leave it at all."

George felt hurt. "What do you mean by a light heart?" he asked.

"I mean a lighter heart than you would have had under other
circumstances. If the little creature had remained alive who knows
whether you...."

"You can take it from me that I would have gone away, even then. And
Anna would have taken it quite as much as a matter of course as she
does now. Don't you believe me? Why, perhaps I'd have gone with an
even lighter heart if that matter had turned out otherwise. Why, it was
Anna who persuaded me to accept. I was quite undecided. You have no
idea what a good sensible creature Anna is."

"Oh, I don't doubt it at all. According to all you have told me about
her from time to time, she certainly seems to have behaved with more
dignity in her position than young ladies of her social status are
usually accustomed to exhibit on such occasions."

"My dear Herr Nuernberger, the position really wasn't as dreadful as all
that."

"Come, don't say that. For however much things may have been made
easier by your courtesy and consideration, take it from me that the
young lady is bound to have felt frequently during the last months
the irregularity of her position. I am sure there isn't a single
member of the feminine sex, however daring and advanced may be her
views, who doesn't prefer in a case like that to have a ring on her
finger. And it's all in favour, too, of your friend's sensible and
dignified behaviour that she never allowed you to notice it, and that
she took the bitter disillusionment at the end of these nine months,
which were certainly not entirely a bed of roses, with calmness and
self-possession."

"Disillusionment is rather a mild word. Pain would perhaps be more
correct."

"I dare say it was both. But in this case, as in most others, the
burning wound of pain heals more quickly than the throbbing piercing
wound of disillusionment."

"I don't quite understand."

"Well, my dear George, you don't doubt, do you, that if the little
creature had remained alive you two would have married very quickly;
why, you'd even be married this very day."

"And you think that now, just because we have no child.... Yes, you
seem to be of the opinion that ... that ... it's all over between us.
But you are quite wrong, quite wrong, my dear friend."

"My dear George," replied Nuernberger, "both of us would prefer not
to speak about the future. Neither you nor I know the place where a
strand of our fate is being spun at this very moment. You didn't have
the slightest inkling, either, when that conductor was attacked by a
stroke, and if I now wish you luck in your future career I don't know
whose death I have not conjured down by that very wish."

They took leave of each other on the landing. Nuernberger cried after
George from the stairs: "Let me hear from you now and then."

George turned round once more. "And mind you do the same." He only saw
Nuernberger's gesture of resigned remonstrance, smiled involuntarily,
hurried down the stairs and took a conveyance at the nearest corner.

He pondered over Nuernberger and Bermann on his way to the Golowskis'.
What a strange relationship it was between them. A scene which he
thought he had seen some time or other in a dream came into George's
mind. The two sat opposite each other, each held a mirror in front of
the other. The other saw himself in it with the mirror in his hand,
and in that mirror the other again with his mirror in his hand, and
so on to infinity; but did either of them really know the other, did
either of them really know himself? George's mind became dizzy. He
then thought of Anna. Was Nuernberger right again? Was it really all
over? Could it really ever end? Ever?... Life is long! But were even
the ensuing months dangerous? No. That was not to be taken seriously,
however it might turn out. Perhaps Micaela.... And in Easter he would
be in Vienna again. Then there came the summer, they would be together,
and then? Yes, what then? Engagement? Herr Rosner and Frau Rosner's
son-in-law, Joseph's brother-in-law! Oh well, what did he care about
the family? It was Anna after all who was going to be his wife, that
good gentle sensible creature.

The fly stopped in front of an ugly fairly new house, painted yellow,
in a wide monotonous street. George told the driver to wait and went
into the doorway. The house looked quite dilapidated from inside.
Mortar had crumbled away from the walls in many places and the steps
were dirty. There was a smell of bad fat coming out of some of the
kitchen windows. Two fat Jewesses were talking on the landing of the
first storey in a jargon which George found positively intolerable.
One of them said to a boy whom she held by the hand: "Moritz, let the
gentleman pass."

Why does she say that? thought George, there's plenty of room; she
obviously wants to get into conversation with me. As though I could do
her any harm or any good! An expression of Heinrich's in a long-past
conversation came into his mind: "An enemy's country."

A servant-girl showed him into a room which he immediately recognised
as Leo's. Books and papers on the writing-table, the piano open, a
Gladstone bag, which was still not completely unpacked, open on the
sofa. The door opened the next minute. Leo came in, embraced his
visitor and kissed him so quickly on both cheeks that the man who was
welcomed with such heartiness had no time to be embarrassed.

"This is nice of you," said Leo, and shook both his hands.

"You can't imagine how glad I was ..." began George.

"I believe you.... But please come in with me. We are having dinner,
you know, but it's nearly over."

He took him into the next room. The family was gathered round the table.

"I don't think you know my father yet," observed Leo, and introduced
them to each other.

Old Golowski got up, put away the serviette which he had tied round
his neck and held out his hand to George. The latter was surprised
that the old man should look so completely different from what he had
expected. He was not patriarchal, grey-bearded and venerable, but with
his clean-shaven face and broad cunning features looked more like an
ageing provincial comedian than anything else.

"I am very glad to make your acquaintance, Herr Baron," he said, while
one could read in his crafty eyes ... "I know everything."

Therese hastily asked George the conventional questions: when he had
come, how long he was staying, how he was; he answered patiently
and courteously, and she looked him in the face with animation and
curiosity.

Then he asked Leo about his plans for the near future.

"I must first practise the piano industriously, so as not to make
a fool of myself before my pupils. People were very nice to me, of
course. I had books, as many as I wanted, but they certainly didn't
put a piano at my disposition." He turned to Therese. "You should
certainly flog that point to death in one of your next speeches. This
bad treatment of prisoners awaiting trial must be abolished."

"It was no laughing matter for him this time yesterday," said old
Golowski.

"If you think by any chance," said Therese, "that the good luck which
happened to come your way will alter my views you are making a violent
mistake. On the contrary." And turning to George she continued:
"Theoretically, you know, I am absolutely against their having let
him out. If you'd simply knocked the fellow down dead, as you would
have been quite entitled to do, without this abominable farce of a
duel you'd never have been let out, but would have served your five
to ten years for a certainty. But since you went in for this ghastly
life-and-death gamble which is favoured by the State, because you
cringed down to the military point of view you've been pardoned. Am I
not right?" She turned again to George.

The latter only nodded and thought of the poor young man whom Leo had
shot, who as a matter of fact had had nothing else against the Jews
except that he disliked them just as much as most people did after
all--and whose real fault had only been that he had tried it on the
wrong man.

Leo stroked his sister's hair and said to her: "Look here, if you say
publicly in your next speech what you've just said to-day within these
four walls you'll really impress me."

"Yes, and you'll impress me," replied Therese, "if you take a ticket to
Jerusalem to-morrow with old Ehrenberg."

They got up from the table. Leo invited George to come into his room
with him.

"Shall I be disturbing you?" asked Therese. "I too would like to see
something of him, you know."

They all three sat in Leo's room and chatted. Leo seemed to be
enjoying his regained freedom without either scruples or remorse.
George felt strangely affected by this. Therese sat on the sofa in
a dark well-fitting dress. To-day was the first occasion on which
she resembled the young lady who had drunk Asti under a plane-tree
in Lugano, when she was the mistress of a cavalry officer, and who
had subsequently kissed some one else. She asked George to play the
piano. She had never yet heard him. He sat down, played something from
_Tristan_ and then improvised with happy inspiration. Leo expressed his
appreciation.

"What a pity that he is not staying," said Therese, as she leaned
against the wall and crossed her hands over her high coiffure.

"I am coming back at Easter," replied George, and looked at her.

"But only to disappear again," said Therese.

"That may be," replied George, and the thought that his home was no
longer here, that he had no home at all anywhere, and would not have
for a long time, suddenly overwhelmed him.

"How would it be," said Leo, "if we went on a tour together in the
summer?--you, Bermann and I? I promise you that you won't be bored by
theoretical conversation like you were once last autumn ... do you
still remember?"

"Oh well," said Therese, stretching herself, "nothing will come of it
anyway. Deeds, gentlemen!"

"And what comes of deeds?" asked Leo. "Putting them at the highest,
they simply save individual situations for the time being."

"Yes, deeds which you do for yourself," said Therese. "But I only
call a real deed what one is capable of doing for others, without
any feeling of revenge, without any personal vanity, and if possible
anonymously."

At last George had to go. What a lot of things he still had to see to.

"I'll come part of the way with you," said Therese to him.

Leo embraced him again, and said: "It really was nice of you."

Therese disappeared to fetch her hat and jacket. George went into the
next room. Old Frau Golowski seemed to have been waiting for him; with
a strangely anxious face she came up to him and put an envelope in his
hand.

"What is that?"

"The account, Herr Baron. I didn't want to give it to Anna.... It might
perhaps have upset her too much."

"Oh yes...." He put the envelope in his pocket and thought that it felt
strangely different to any other....

Therese appeared with a little Spanish hat, ready to go out. "Here I
am. Goodbye, mamma. Shan't be home for dinner."

She went down the stairs with George and threw him sideways a glance of
pleasure.

"Where can I take you?" asked George.

"Just take me along with you. I'll get out somewhere."

They got in, the vehicle went on. She put to him all kinds of questions
which he had already answered in the apartment, as though she took
it for granted that he was now bound to be more candid with her
than before the others. She did not learn anything except that he
felt comfortable in his new surroundings and that his work gave him
satisfaction. Had his appearance been a great surprise for Anna? No,
not at all. He had of course given her notice of it. And was it really
true that he meant to come back again at Easter? It was his definite
intention....

She seemed surprised. "Do you know that I had almost imagined...."

"What?"

"That we would never see you again!"

He was somewhat moved and made no answer. The thought then ran through
his mind: Would it not have been more sensible...? He was sitting quite
close to Therese and felt the warmth of her body, as he had done before
in Lugano. In what dream of hers might she now be living--in the dark
jumbled dream of making humanity happy, or the light gay dream of a new
romantic adventure? She kept looking insistently out of the window. He
took her hand, without resistance, and put it to his lips.

She suddenly turned round to him and said innocently: "Yes, stop now.
I'd better get out here."

He let go her hand and looked at Therese.

"Yes, my dear George. What wouldn't one fall into," she said, "if one
didn't"--she gave an ironic smile--"have to sacrifice oneself for
humanity? Do you know what I often think?... Perhaps all this is only a
flight from myself."

"Why.... Why do you take to flight?"

"Goodbye, George."

The vehicle stopped. Therese got out, a young man stood still and
stared at her, she disappeared in the crowd. I don't think she'll
finish up on the scaffold, thought George. He drove to his hotel, had
his midday meal, lit a cigarette, changed his clothes and went to
Ehrenbergs'.

James, Sissy, Willy Eissler and Frau Oberberger were with the ladies
of the house in the dining-room taking black coffee. George sat down
between Else and Sissy, drank a glass of Benedictine and answered with
patience and good humour all the questions which his new activities had
provoked. They soon went into the drawing-room, and he now sat for a
time in the raised alcove with Frau Oberberger, who looked young again
to-day and was particularly anxious to hear more intimate details about
George's personal experiences in Detmold. She refused to believe him
when he denied having started intrigues with all the singers in the
place. Of course she simply regarded theatrical life as nothing but a
pretext and opportunity for romantic adventures. Anyway, she always
made a point of thinking she detected the most monstrous goings-on in
the _coulisses_ behind the curtain, in the dressing-rooms and in the
manager's office. When George had no option but to disillusion her, by
his report of the simple, respectable, almost philistine life of the
members of the opera, and by the description of his own hardworking
life, she visibly began to go to pieces, and soon he found himself
sitting opposite an aged woman, in whom he recognised the same person
as had appeared to him last summer, first in the box of a little
white-and-red theatre and later in a now almost forgotten dream. He
then went and stood with Sissy near the marble Isis, and each sought to
find in the eyes of the other during their harmless chatter a memory
of an ardent hour beneath the deep shade of a dark green park in the
afternoon. But to-day that memory seemed to them both to be plunged in
unfathomable depths.

Then he went and sat next to Else at the little table on which
books and photographs were lying. She first addressed to him some
conventional questions like all the rest. But suddenly she asked quite
unexpectedly and somewhat gently: "How is your child?"

"My child...." He hesitated. "Tell me, Else, why do you ask me...? Is
it simply curiosity?"

"You are making a mistake, George," she replied calmly and seriously.
"You usually make mistakes about me, as a matter of fact. You take me
for quite superficial, or God knows what. Well, there's no point in
talking about it any more. Anyway, my asking after the child is not
quite so incomprehensible. I should very much like to see it sometime."

"You would like to see it?" He was moved.

"Yes, I even had another idea.... But one which you will probably think
quite mad."

"Let's hear it, Else."

"I was thinking, you know, we might take it with us."

"Who, we?"

"James and I."

"To England?"

"Who's told you we're going to England? We are staying here. We've
already taken a place in 'Cottage'[3] outside. No one need know that it
is your child."

"What a romantic thought!"

"Good gracious, why romantic? Anna can't keep it with her, and you
certainly can't. Where could you put it during the rehearsals? In the
prompter's box, I suppose?"

George smiled. "You are very kind, Else."

"I'm not kind at all. I only think why should an innocent little
creature pay the penalty or suffer for.... Oh well, I mean it can't
help it.... After all ... is it a boy?"

"It was a boy." He paused, then he said gently: "It's dead, you know."
And he looked in front of him.

"What! Oh, I see ... you want to protect yourself against my
officiousness."

"No, Else, how can you?... No, Else, in matters like that one doesn't
lie."

"It's true, then? But how did it...?"

"It was still-born."

She looked at the ground. "No? How awful!" She shook her head. "How
awful!... And now she's lost everything quite suddenly."

George gave a slight start and was unable to answer. How every one
seemed to take it for granted that the Anna affair was finished. And
Else did not pity him at all. She had no idea of how the death of the
child had shocked him. How could she have an idea either? What did she
know of the hour when the garden had lost its colour for him and the
heavens their light, because his own beautiful child lay dead within
the house?

Frau Ehrenberg joined them. She declared that she was particularly
satisfied with George. Anyway, she had never doubted that he would show
what he was made of as soon as he once got started in a profession. She
was firmly convinced, too, that they would have him here in Vienna as a
conductor in three to five years. George pooh-poohed the idea. For the
time being he had not thought of coming back to Vienna. He felt that
people worked more and with greater seriousness outside in Germany.
Here one always ran the danger of losing oneself.

Frau Ehrenberg agreed, and took the opportunity to complain about
Heinrich Bermann, who had lapsed into silence as an author and now
never showed himself anywhere.

George defended him and felt himself obliged to state positively that
Heinrich was more industrious than he had ever been. But Frau Ehrenberg
had other examples of the corrupting influence of the Vienna air,
particularly Nuernberger, who now seemed to have cut himself completely
off from the world. As for what had happened to Oskar ... could that
have happened in any other town except Vienna? Did George know,
by-the-by, that Oskar was travelling with the Prince of Guastalla? Her
tone did not indicate that she regarded that as anything special, but
George noticed that she was a little proud of it, and entertained the
opinion somewhere at the back of her mind that Oskar had turned out all
right after all.

While George was speaking to Frau Ehrenberg he noticed that Else,
who had retired with James into the recess, was directing glances
towards him--glances full of melancholy and of knowledge, which almost
frightened him. He soon took his leave, had a feeling that Else's
handshake was inconceivably cold, while those of the others were
amiably indifferent, and went.

"How funny it all is," he thought in the vehicle which drove him to
Heinrich's. People knew everything before he did. They had known of
his _liaison_ with Anna before it had begun, and now they knew that
it was over before he did himself. He had half a mind to show them
all that they were making a mistake. Of course, in so vital an affair
as that one should be very careful not to decide on one's course of
action out of considerations of pique. It was a good thing that a few
months were now before him in which he could pull himself together
and have time for mature reflection. It would be good for Anna, too,
particularly good for her, perhaps. Yesterday's walk with her in the
rain over the brown wet streets came into his mind again, and struck
him as ineffably sad. Alas, for the hours in the arched room into which
the strains of the organ opposite had vibrated through the floating
curtain of snow--where were they? Yes, where had these hours gone to?
And so many other wonderful hours as well! He saw himself and Anna
again in his mind's eye, as a young couple on their honeymoon, walking
through streets which had the wonderful atmosphere of a strange land;
commonplace hotel rooms, where he had only stayed with her for a few
days, suddenly presented themselves before him, consecrated as it were
by the perfume of memory.... Then his love appeared to him, sitting
on a white seat, beneath the heavy branches, with her high forehead
girdled with the deceptive presentiment of gentle motherhood. And
finally she stood there with a sheet of music in her hand while the
white curtain fluttered gently in the wind. And when he realised that
it was the same room in which she was now waiting for him, and that
not more than a year had gone by since that evening hour in the late
summer when she had sung his own songs for the first time to his own
accompaniment, he breathed heavily and almost anxiously in his corner.

When he was in Heinrich's room a few minutes afterwards he asked him
not to look upon this as a visit. He only wanted to shake hands with
him. He would fetch him for a walk to-morrow morning if that suited
him.... Yes--the idea occurred to him while he was speaking--for a kind
of farewell walk in the Salmansdorf Forest.

Heinrich agreed, but asked him to stay just a few minutes. George asked
him jestingly if he had already recovered from his failure of this
morning.

Heinrich pointed to the secretary, on which were lying loose sheets
covered with large nervous writing. "Do you know what that is? I have
taken up _Aegidius_ again, and just before you came I thought of an
ending which was more or less feasible. I'll tell you more about it
to-morrow if it will interest you."

"By all means. I am quite excited about it. It's a good thing, too,
that you have settled down to a definite piece of work again."

"Yes, my dear George, I don't like being quite alone, and must create
some society for myself as quickly as possible, people I choose myself
... otherwise, any one who wants to come along, and one is not keen on
being at home to every chance ghost."

George told him that he had called on Leo and found him in far better
spirits than he had ever expected.

Heinrich leaned against the secretary with both his hands buried in
his trouser pockets and his head slightly bent; the shaded lamp made
uncertain shadows on his face. "Why didn't you expect to find him in
good spirits? If it had been us ... if it had been me, at any rate, I
should probably have felt exactly the same."

George was sitting on the arm of a black leather arm-chair with crossed
legs and his hat and stick in his hand. "Perhaps you are right," he
said, "but I must confess all the same that when I saw his cheerful
face I found it very strange to realise that he had a human life on his
conscience."

"You mean," said Heinrich, beginning to walk up and down the room,
"that it is one of those cases where the relationship of cause and
effect is so illuminating that you are justified in saying quietly
'he has killed' without its looking like a mere juggle of words....
But speaking generally, George, don't you think that we regard these
matters a little superficially? We must see the flash of a dagger or
hear the whistle of a bullet in order to realise that a murder has been
committed. As though any man who let any one else die would be in most
cases different from a murderer in anything else except having managed
the business more comfortably and being more of a coward...."

"Are you really reproaching yourself, Heinrich? If you had really
believed that it was bound to turn out like that ... I am sure you
would not have ... let her die."

"Perhaps ... I don't know. But I can tell you one thing, George: if she
were still alive--I mean if I had forgiven her, to use the expression
you are so fond of using now and then--I should regard myself as
guiltier than I do to-day. Yes, yes, that's how it is. I will confess
to you, George, there was a night ... there were a few nights, when I
was practically crushed by grief, by despair, by.... Other people would
have taken it for remorse, but it was nothing of the kind. For amid all
my grief, all my despair, I knew quite well that this death meant a
kind of redemption, a kind of reconciliation, a kind of cleanness. If
I had been weak or less vain ... as you no doubt regard it ... if she
had been my mistress again, something far worse than that death would
have happened for her as well ... loathing and anguish, rage and hate,
would have crawled around our bed ... our memories would have rotted
bit by bit--why, our love would have decomposed whilst its body was
still alive. It had no right to be. It would have been a crime to have
protracted the life of this love affair which was sick unto death,
just as it is a crime--and what is more, will be regarded so in the
future--to protract the life of a man who is doomed to a painful death.
Any sensible doctor will tell you as much. And that is why I'm very far
from reproaching myself. I don't want to justify myself before you or
before any one else in the world, but that is just how it is. I _can't_
feel guilty. I often feel very bad, but that hasn't the least thing in
the world to do with any consciousness of guilt."

"You went there just afterwards?" asked George.

"Yes, I went there. I even stood by when they lowered the coffin into
the ground. Yes, I trained there with the mother." He stood by the
window, quite in the darkness, and shook himself. "No, I shall never
forget it. Besides, it is only a lie to say that people come together
in a common sorrow. People never come together if they're not natural
affinities. They feel even further away from each other in times of
trouble. That journey! When I remember it! I read nearly the whole
time, too. I found it positively intolerable to talk to the silly old
creature. There is no one one hates more than some one who is quite
indifferent to you and requires your sympathy. We stood together by
her grave, too, the mother and I--I, the mother, and a few actors from
the little theatre.... And afterwards I sat in the inn with her alone,
after the funeral--a _tete-a-tete_ wake. A desperate business, I can
tell you. Do you know, by-the-by, where she lies buried? By your lake,
George. Yes. I have often found myself driven to think of you. You know
of course where the churchyard is? Scarcely a hundred yards from Auhof.
There's a delightful view on to our lake, George; of course, only if
one happens to be alive."

George felt a slight horror. He got up. "I am afraid I must leave you,
Heinrich. I am expected. You'll excuse me?"

Heinrich came up to him out of the darkness of the window. "Thank you
very much for your visit. Well, to-morrow, isn't it? I suppose you are
going to Anna now? Please give her my best wishes. I hear she is very
well. Therese told me."

"Yes, she looks splendid. She has completely recovered."

"I'm very glad. Well, till to-morrow then. I'm extremely glad that I
shall be able to see you again before you leave. You must still have
all kinds of things to tell me. I've done nothing again but talk about
myself."

George smiled. As though he hadn't grown used to this with Heinrich.
"Good-bye," he said, and went.

Much of what Heinrich had said echoed in George's mind when he sat
again in his fiacre. "We must see the flash of a dagger in order to
realise that a murder has been committed." George felt that there was a
kind of subterranean connection, but yet one which he had guessed for a
long time, between the meaning of these words and a certain dull sense
of discomfort which he had frequently felt in his own soul. He thought
of a past hour when he had felt as though a gamble over his unborn
child was going on in the clouds, and it suddenly struck him as strange
that Anna had not yet spoken a word to him about the child's death,
that she had even avoided in her letters any reference, not only to the
final misfortune, but also to the whole period when she had carried the
child under her bosom.

The conveyance approached its destination. Why is my heart beating?
thought George. Joy?... Bad conscience?... Why to-day all of a sudden?
She can't have any grievance against me.... What nonsense! I am run
down and excited at the same time, that's what it is. I shouldn't
have come here at all. Why have I seen all these people again? Wasn't
I a thousand times better off in the little town where I had started
a new life, in spite of all my longings?... I ought to have met Anna
somewhere else. Perhaps she will come away with me.... Then everything
will still come right in the end. But is anything wrong?... Are our
relations really in a bad way? And is it a crime to prolong them?...
That may be a convenient excuse on certain occasions.

When he went into Rosners' the mother, who was sitting alone at the
table, looked up from her book and shut it with a snap. The light of a
lamp that was swinging gently to and fro flowed from overhead on to the
table, distributing itself equally in all directions. Josef got up from
a corner of the sofa. Anna, who had just come out of her room, stroked
her high wavy hair with both hands, welcomed George with a light nod of
the head and gave him at this moment the impression of being rather an
apparition than real flesh and blood. George shook hands with every one
and inquired after Herr Rosner's health.

"He is not exactly bad," said Frau Rosner, "but he finds it difficult
to stand up."

Josef apologised at being found sleeping on the sofa. He had to use the
Sunday in order to rest himself. He was occupying a position on his
paper which often kept him there till three o'clock in the morning.

"He is working very hard now," said his mother corroboratively.

"Yes," said Josef modestly, "when a fellow gets real scope, so to
speak...." He went on to observe that the _Christliche Volksbote_ was
enjoying a larger and larger circulation, particularly in Germany. He
then addressed some questions to George about his new home, and showed
a keen interest in the population, the condition of the roads, the
popularity of cycling and the surrounding neighbourhood.

Frau Rosner, on her side, made polite inquiries about the composition
of the repertoire. George supplied the information and a conversation
was soon in progress, in which Anna also played a substantial part,
and George found himself suddenly paying a visit to a middle-class and
conventional family where the daughter of the house happened to be
musical. The conversation finally finished up in George feeling himself
bound to express a wish to hear the young lady sing once more--and he
had as it were to pull himself together to realise that the woman whose
voice he had asked to hear was really his own Anna.

Josef made his excuses; he was called away by an appointment with club
friends in the cafe. "Do you still remember, Herr Baron ... the classy
party on the Sophienalp?"

"Of course," replied George, smiling, and he quoted: "Der Gott, der
Eisen wachsen liess...."

"Der wollte keine Knechte," added Josef. "But we have left off singing
that now for a long time. It is too like the 'Watch on the Rhine,' and
we don't want to have it cast in our teeth any more that we have a
sneaking fancy for the other side of the frontier. We had great fights
about it on the committee. One gentleman even sent in his resignation.
He's a solicitor, you know, in the office of Doctor Fuchs, the National
German Deputy. Yes, it's all politics, you know." He winked. They must
not think, of course, that now that he himself had an insight into the
machinery of public life he still took the swindle seriously. With
the scarcely surprising remark that he could tell a tale or two if he
wanted, he took his leave. Frau Rosner thought it time to go and look
after her husband.

George sat alone with Anna, opposite her by the round table, over which
the hanging lamp shed its light.

"Thank you for the beautiful roses," said Anna. "I have them inside in
my room." She got up, and George followed her. He had quite forgotten
that he had sent her any flowers. They were standing in a high glass
in front of the mirror. They were dark red and their reflection was
opaque and colourless. The piano was open, some music stood ready and
two candles were burning at the side. Apart from that all the light in
the room was what came from the adjoining apartment through the wide
opening left by the door.

"You've been playing, Anna?" He came nearer. "The Countess's Aria? Been
singing, too?"

"Yes--tried to."

"All right?"

"It is beginning to ... I think so. Well, we'll see. But first tell me
what you have been doing all to-day."

"In a minute. We haven't welcomed each other at all so far." He
embraced and kissed her.

"It is a long time since----" she said, smiling past him.

"Well?" he asked keenly, "are you coming with me?"

Anna hesitated. "But what do you really think of doing, George?"

"Quite simple. We can go away to-morrow afternoon. You can choose the
place. Reichenau, Semmering, Bruehl, anywhere you like.... And I'll
bring you back in the morning the day after to-morrow." Something or
other kept him back from mentioning the telegram which gave him three
whole days to do what he liked with.

Anna looked in front of her. "It would be very nice," she said
tonelessly, "but it really won't be possible, George."

"On account of your father?"

She nodded.

"But he is surely better, isn't he?"

"No, he is not at all well. He is so weak. They wouldn't of course
reproach me directly in any way. But I ... I can't leave mother alone
now, for that kind of excursion."

He shrugged his shoulders, feeling slightly wounded at the designation
which she had chosen.

"Come, be frank," she added in a jesting manner. "Are you really so
keen on it?"

He shook his head, almost as if in pain, but he felt that this gesture
also was lacking in sincerity. "I don't understand you, Anna," he said,
more weakly than he really meant. "To think that a few weeks of being
away from each other, to think of ... well, I don't know what to call
it.... It is as though we had got absolutely out of touch. It's really
me, Anna, it's really me...." he repeated in a vehement but tired
voice. He got up from the chair in front of the piano. He took her
hands and put them to his lips, feeling nervous and somewhat moved.

"What was _Tristan_ like?" she inquired.

He gave her a conscientious account of the performance and did not
leave out his visit to the Ehrenbergs' box. He spoke of all the people
whom he had seen and conveyed to her Heinrich Bermann's wishes. He
then drew her on to his knee and kissed her. When he removed his face
from hers he saw tears running over her cheeks. He pretended to be
surprised, "What's the matter, child?... But why, why...?"

She got up and went to the window with her face turned away from him.

He stood up too, feeling somewhat impatient, walked up and down the
room once or twice, then went up to her, pressed her close to him, and
then immediately began again in great haste: "Anna, just think it over
and see if you really can't come with me! It would all be so different
from what it is here. We could really talk things over thoroughly. We
have got such important matters to discuss. I need your advice as well,
about the plans I am to make for next year. I've written to you about
it, haven't I? It is very probable, you see, that I shall be asked to
sign a three years' contract in the next few days."

"What am I to advise you?" she said. "After all, you know best whether
it suits you there or not."

He began to tell her about the kind and talented manager who clearly
wished to have him for a collaborator; about the old and sympathetic
conductor who had once been so famous; about a very diminutive
stage-hand who was called Alexander the Great; about a young lady
with whom he had studied the Micaela, and who was engaged to a Berlin
doctor; and about a tenor, who had already been working at the theatre
for twenty-seven years and hated Wagner violently. He then began to
talk about his own personal prospects, artistic and financial. There
was no doubt that he could soon attain an excellent and assured
position at the little Court Theatre. On the other hand one had to bear
in mind that it was dangerous to bind oneself for too long; a career
like that of the old conductor would not be to his taste. Of course ...
temperaments varied. He for his part believed himself safe from a fate
like that.

Anna looked at him all the time, and finally said in a half jesting,
half meditative tone, as though she were speaking to a child: "Yes,
isn't he trying hard?"

The thrust went home. "In what way am I trying hard?"

"Look here, George, you don't owe me explanations of any kind."

"Explanations? But you are really.... Really, I'm not giving you any
explanations, Anna. I'm simply describing to you how I live and what
kind of people I have to deal with ... because I flatter myself that
these things interest you, in the same way that I told you where I had
been yesterday and to-day."

She was silent, and George felt again that she did not believe him,
that she was justified in not believing him--even though now and
again the truth happened to come from his lips. All kinds of words
were on the tip of his tongue, words of wounded pride, of rage, of
gentle persuasion--each seemed to him equally worthless and empty. He
made no reply, sat down at the piano and gently struck some notes and
chords. He now felt again as though he loved her very much and was
simply unable to tell it her, and as though this hour of meeting would
have been quite different if they had celebrated it elsewhere. Not in
this room, not in this town; in a place, for preference, which they
neither of them knew, in a new strange environment, yes, then perhaps
everything would have been again just as it had been once before. Then
they would have been able to have rushed into each other's arms--as
once before, with real yearning, and found delight--and peace. The
idea occurred to him: "If I were to say to her now 'Anna! Three days
and three nights belong to us!' If I were to beg her ... with the
right words.... Entreat her at her feet.... 'Come with me, come!'...
She would not hold out long! She would certainly follow me...." He
knew it. Why did he not speak the right words? Why did he not entreat
her? Why was he silent, as he sat at the piano and gently struck notes
and chords...? Why?... Then he felt her soft hand upon his head. His
fingers lay heavy on the notes, some chord or other vibrated. He did
not dare to turn round. She knows it, too, he felt. What does she
know?... Is it true, then...? Yes ... it is true. And he thought of
the hour after the birth of his dead child--when he had sat by her bed
and she had lain there in silence, with her looks turned towards the
gloomy garden.... She had known it even then--earlier than he--that
all was over. And he lifted his hands from the piano, took hers, which
were still lying on his head, guided them to his cheeks, drew her to
him till she was again quite close, and she slowly dropped down on
to his knees. And he began again, shyly: "Anna ... perhaps ... you
could manage to.... Perhaps I too could manage for a few days' more
leave if I were to telegraph. Anna dear ... just listen.... It would
be really so beautiful...." A plan came to him from the very depths of
his consciousness. If he really were to go travelling with her for some
days, and were to take the opportunity honestly to say to her, "It must
end, Anna, but the end of our love must be beautiful like the beginning
was. Not dim and gloomy like these hours in your people's house...."
If I were honestly to say that to her--somewhere in the country--would
it not be more worthy of her and mine--and our past happiness...? And
with this plan in his mind he grew more insistent, bolder, almost
passionate.... And his words had the same ring again as they had had a
long, long time ago.

Sitting on his knees, with her arms around his neck, she answered
gently: "George, I am not--going to go through it another time...."

He already had a word upon his lips with which he could have dissipated
her alarm. But he kept it back, for if put in so many words it would
have simply meant that while he was thinking of course of living again
a few hours of delight with her, he did not feel inclined to take any
responsibility upon himself. He felt it. All he need say to avoid
wounding her was this one thing: "You belong to me for ever!--You
really must have a child by me--I'll fetch you at Christmas or Easter
at the outside. And we will never be parted from each other any more."
He felt the way in which she waited for these words with one last hope,
with a hope in whose realisation she had herself ceased to believe. But
he was silent. If he had said aloud the words she was yearning for he
would have bound himself anew, and ... he now realised more deeply than
he had ever realised before that he wanted to be free.

She was still resting on his knees, with her cheek leaning on his.
They were silent for a long time and knew that this was the farewell.
Finally George said resolutely: "Well, if you don't want to come with
me, Anna, then I'll go straight back--to-morrow, and we'll see each
other again in the spring. Until then there are only letters. Only in
the event of my coming at Christmas if I can...."

She had got up and was leaning against the piano. "The boy's mad
again," she said. "Isn't it really better if we don't see each other
till after Easter?"

"Why better?"

"By then--everything will be so much clearer."

He tried to misunderstand her. "You mean about the contract?"

"Yes...."

"I must make up my mind in the next few weeks. The people want of
course to know where they are. On the other hand, even if I did sign
for three years, and other chances came along, they wouldn't keep me
against my will. But up to the present it really seems to me that
staying in that small town has been an extremely sound thing for me. I
have never been able to work with such concentration as there. Haven't
I written to you how I have often sat at my secretary after the theatre
till three o'clock in the morning, and woken up fresh at eight o'clock
after a sound sleep?"

She gazed at him all the time with a look at once pained and
reflective, which affected him like a look of doubt. Had she not once
believed in him! Had she not spoken those words of trust and tenderness
to him in a twilight church: "I will pray to Heaven that you become
a great artist"? He felt again as though she did not think anything
like as much of him as in days gone by. He felt troubled and asked
her uncertainly: "You'll allow me, of course, to send you my violin
sonata as soon as it is finished? You know I don't value anybody else's
criticism as much as I do yours." And he thought: If I could only just
keep her as a friend ... or win her over again ... as a friend ... is
it possible?

She said: "You have also spoken to me about a few new fantasies you
have written just for the pianoforte."

"Quite right; but they are not yet quite ready. But there's another
one which I ... which I ..." he himself found his hesitations
foolish--"composed last summer by the lake where that poor girl was
drowned, Heinrich's mistress you know, which you don't know yet either.
Couldn't I ... I'll play it to you quite gently; would you like me to?"

She nodded and shut the door. There, just behind him, she stood
motionless as he began.

And he played. He played the little piece with all its passionate
melancholy which he had composed by that lake of his, when Anna and the
child had been completely forgotten. It was a great relief to him that
he could play it to her. She must be bound to understand the message
of these notes. It was impossible for her not to understand. He heard
himself as it were speaking in the notes; he felt as though it was only
now that he understood himself. Farewell, my love, farewell. It was
very beautiful. And now it is over ... farewell, my love.... We have
lived through what was fated for both of us. And whatever the future
may hold for me and for you we shall always mean something to each
other which we can neither of us ever forget. And now my life goes
another way.... And yours too. It must be over ... I have loved you. I
kiss your eyes.... I thank you, you kind, gentle, silent one. Farewell,
my love ... farewell.... The notes died away. He had not looked up from
the keys while he was playing: he now turned slowly round. She stood
behind him solemn and with lips which quivered slightly. He caught her
hands and kissed them. "Anna, Anna ..." he exclaimed. He felt as if his
heart would break.

"Don't quite forget me," she said softly.

"I'll write to you as soon as I'm there again."

She nodded.

"And you'll write to me, too, Anna ... everything ... everything ...
you understand?"

She nodded again.

"And ... and ... I'll see you again early to-morrow."

She shook her head. He wanted to make some reply as though he were
astonished--as if it were really a matter of course that he should
see her again before his departure. She lightly lifted her hand as
though requesting him to be silent. He stood up, pressed her to him,
kissed her mouth, which was cool and did not answer his kiss, and left
the room. She stayed behind standing with limp arms and shut eyes. He
hurried down the stairs. He felt down below in the street as though
he must go up again--and say to her: "But it's all untrue! That was
not our goodbye. I really do love you. I belong to you. It can't be
over...."

But he felt that he ought not to. Not yet. Perhaps to-morrow. She would
not escape him between this evening and to-morrow morning ... and he
rushed aimlessly about the empty streets as though in a slight delirium
of grief and freedom. He was glad he had made no appointments with any
one and could remain alone. He dined somewhere far off in an old low
smoky inn in a silent corner while people from another world sat at
the neighbouring tables, and it seemed to him that he was in a foreign
town: lonely, a little proud of his loneliness and a little frightened
of his pride.

The following day George was walking with Heinrich about noon through
the avenues of the Dornbacher Park. An air which was heavy with thin
clouds enveloped them, the sodden leaves crackled and slid underneath
their feet, and through the shrubbery there glistened that very road
on which they had gone the year before towards the reddish-yellow
hill. The branches spread themselves out without stirring, as though
oppressed by the distant sultriness of the greyish sun.

Heinrich was just describing the end of his drama, which had occurred
to him yesterday. Aegidius had been landed on the island ready after
his death-journey to undergo within seven days his foretold doom. The
prince gives him his life. Aegidius does not take it and throws himself
from the cliffs into the sea.

George was not satisfied: "Why must Aegidius die?" He did not believe in
it.

Heinrich could not understand the necessity for any explanation at all.
"Why, how can he go on living?" he exclaimed. "He was doomed to death.
It was with his hand before his eyes that he lived the most splendid,
the most glorious days that have ever been vouchsafed to man as the
uncontrolled lord upon the ship, the lover of the Princess, the friend
of the sages, singers and star-gazers, but always with the end before
his eyes. All this richness would, so to speak, lose its point: why,
his sublime and majestic expectation of his last minute would be bound
to become transformed in Aegidius's memory into a ridiculous dupe's fear
of death, if all this death-journey were to turn out in the end to be
an empty joke. That's why he must die."

"Then you think it's true?" asked George, with even greater doubt than
before. "I can't help it--I don't."

"That doesn't matter," replied Heinrich. "If you thought it true now,
things would be too easy for me. But it would have become true as
soon as the last syllable of my piece is written. Or...." He did not
go on speaking. They walked up a meadow, and soon the expanse of the
familiar valley spread out at their feet. The Sommerhaidenweg gleamed
on the hill-<DW72> on their right, on the other side hard by the forest
the yellow-painted inn was visible with its red wooden terraces, and
not far off was the little house with the dark grey gable. The town
could be descried in an uncertain haze, the plain floated still further
towards the heights and far in the distance loomed the pale low drawn
outlines of the mountains. They now had to cross a broad highway and at
last a footpath took them down over the fields and meadows. Remote on
either side slumbered the forest.

George felt a presentiment of the yearning with which in the years to
come, perhaps on the very next day, he would miss this landscape which
had now ceased being his home.

At last they stood in front of the little house with the gable which
George had wanted to see one last time. The door and windows were
boarded up; battered by the weather, as though grown old before its
time, it stood there and had no truck with the world.

"Well, so this is what is called saying goodbye," said George lightly.
His look fell upon the clay figure in the middle of the faded
flower-beds. "Funny," he said to Heinrich, "that I've always taken the
blue boy for an angel. I mean I called him that, for I knew, of course,
all the time what he looked like and that he was really a curly-headed
boy with bare feet, tunic and girdle."

"You will swear a year from to-day," said Heinrich, "that the blue boy
had wings."

George threw a glance up to the attic. He felt as though there existed
a possibility of some one suddenly coming out on the balcony: perhaps
Labinski who had paid him no visits since that dream; or he himself,
the George von Wergenthin of days gone by; the George of that summer
who had lived up there. Silly fancies. The balcony remained empty, the
house was silent and the garden was deep asleep. George turned away
disappointed. "Come," he said to Heinrich. They went and took the road
to the Sommerhaidenweg.

"How warm it's grown!" said Heinrich, took off his overcoat and threw
it over his shoulder, as was his habit.

George felt a desolate and somewhat arid sense of remembrance. He
turned to Heinrich: "I'd prefer to tell you straight away. The affair
is over."

Heinrich threw him a quick side-glance and then nodded, not
particularly surprised.

"But," added George, with a weak attempt at humour, "you are earnestly
requested not to think of the angel boy."

Heinrich shook his head seriously. "Thank you. You can dedicate the
fable of the blue boy to Nuernberger."

"He's turned out right, once again," said George.

"He always turns out right, my dear George. One can positively never
be deceived if one mistrusts everything in the world, even one's own
scepticism. Even if you had married Anna he would have turned out right
... or at any rate you would have thought so. But at any rate I think
... you don't mind my saying so, I suppose ... it's sound that it's
turned out like this."

"Sound? I've no doubt it is for me," replied George with intentional
sharpness, as though he were very far from having any idea of sparing
his conduct. "It was perhaps even a duty, in your sense of the term,
Heinrich, which I owed to myself to bring it to an end."

"Then it was certainly equally your duty to Anna," said Heinrich.

"That remains to be seen. Who knows if I have not spoilt her life?"

"Her life? Do you still remember Leo Golowski saying about her that
she was fated to finish up in respectable life? Do you think, George,
that a marriage with you would have been particularly respectable? Anna
was perhaps cut out to be your mistress--not your wife. Who knows if
the fellow she is going to marry one day or other wouldn't really have
every reason to be grateful to you if only men weren't so confoundedly
silly? People only have pure memories when they have lived through
something--this applies to women quite as much as men."

They walked further along the Sommerhaidenweg in the direction of the
town, which towered out of the grey haze, and approached the cemetery.

"Is there really any point," asked George hesitatingly, "in visiting
the grave of a creature that has never lived?"

"Does your child lie there?"

George nodded. His child! How strange it always sounded! They walked
along the brown wooden palings above which rose the gravestones and
crosses, and then followed a low brick wall to the entrance. An
attendant of whom they inquired showed them the way over the wide
centre path which was planted with willows. There were rows of little
oval plates, each one with two short prongs stuck into the ground, on
little mounds like sand-castles, close to the planks in a fairly large
plot of ground. The mound for which George was looking lay in the
middle of the field. Dark red roses lay on it. George recognised them.
His heart stood still. What a good thing, he thought, that we didn't
meet each other! Did she hope to, I wonder?

"There where the roses are?" asked Heinrich.

George nodded.

They remained silent for a while. "Isn't it a fact," asked Heinrich,
"that during the whole time you never once thought of the possibility
of its ending like this?"

"Never? I don't quite know. All kinds of possibilities run through
one's mind. But of course I never seriously thought of it. Besides, how
could one?" He told Heinrich, and not for the first time, of how the
Professor had explained the child's death. It had been an unfortunate
accident through which one to two per cent. of unborn children were
bound to perish. As to why this accident should have taken place in
this particular case, that, of course, the Professor had not been able
to explain. But was accident anything more than a word? Was not even
that accident bound to have its cause?

Heinrich shrugged his shoulders. "Of course.... One cause after the
other and its final cause in the beginning of all things. We could of
course prevent the happening of many so-called accidents if we had more
perception, more knowledge and more power. Who knows if your child's
death could not have been prevented at some moment or other?"

"And perhaps it may have been in my own power," said George slowly.

"I don't understand. Was there any premonitory symptom or...."

George stood there staring fixedly at the little mound. "I'll ask you
something, Heinrich, but don't laugh at me. Do you think it possible
that an unborn child can die from one not longing for it to come, in
the way one ought to--dying, as it were, of too little love?"

Heinrich put his hand on his shoulder. "George, how does a sensible man
like you manage to get hold of such metaphysical ideas?"

"You can call it whatever you like, metaphysical or silly; for some
time past I haven't been able to shake off the thought that to some
extent I bear the blame for it having ended like that."

"You?"

"If I said a minute ago that I did not long for it enough I didn't
express myself properly. The truth is this: that I had quite forgotten
that little creature that was to have come into the world. In the last
few weeks immediately before its birth, especially, I had absolutely
forgotten it. I can't put it any differently. Of course I knew all the
time what was going to happen, but it didn't concern me, as it were. I
went on with my life without thinking of it. Not the whole time, but
frequently, and particularly in the summer by the lake, my lake as you
call it ... then I was.... Yes, when I was there I simply knew nothing
about my going to have a child."

"I've heard all about it," said Heinrich, looking past him.

George looked at him. "You know what I mean then? I was not only far
away from the child, the unborn child, but from the mother too, and in
so strange a way that with the best will in the world I can't describe
it to you, can't even understand it myself to-day. And there are
moments when I can't resist the thought that there must have been some
connection between that forgetting and my child's death. Do you think
anything like that so absolutely out of the question?"

Heinrich's forehead was furrowed deeply. "Quite out of the question?
one can't go as far as that. The roots of things are often so deeply
intertwined that we find it impossible to look right down to the
bottom. Yes, perhaps there even are connections like that. But even if
there are ... they are not for you, George! Even if such connections
did exist they wouldn't count so far as you were concerned."

"Wouldn't count for me?"

"The whole idea which you just tell me, well, it doesn't fit in with my
conception of you. It doesn't come out of your soul. Not a bit of it.
An idea of that kind would never have occurred to you your whole life
long if you hadn't been intimate with a person of my type, and if it
hadn't been your way sometimes not to think your own thoughts but those
of men who were stronger--or even weaker than you are. And I assure
you, whatever turn your life may have taken even down by that lake,
your lake ... our lake ... you haven't incurred any so-called guilt.
It might have been guilt in the case of some one else. But with a man
like you whose character--you don't mind my saying this--is somewhat
frivolous and a little unconscientious there would certainly be no
sense of guilt. Shall I tell you something? As a matter of fact you
don't feel guilty about the child at all, but the discomfort which you
feel only comes from your thinking yourself under an obligation to feel
guilty. Look here, if I had gone through anything like your adventure
I might perhaps have been guilty because I might possibly have felt
myself guilty."

"Would you have been guilty in a case like mine, Heinrich?"

"No, perhaps I wouldn't. How can I know? You're probably now thinking
of the fact that I recently drove a creature straight to her death and
in spite of that felt, so to speak, quite guiltless."

"Yes, that's what I'm thinking of. And that's why I don't
understand...."

Heinrich shrugged his shoulders. "Yes. I felt quite guiltless.
Somewhere or other in my soul and somewhere else, perhaps deeper down,
I felt guilty.... And deeper down still, guiltless again. The only
question is how deep we look down into ourselves. And when we have
lit the lights in all the storeys, why, we are everything at the same
time: guilty and guiltless, cowards and heroes, fools and wise men.
'We'--perhaps that's putting it rather too generally. In your case, for
example, George, there are far less of these complications, at any rate
when you're outside the influence of the atmosphere which I sometimes
spread around you. That's why, too, you are better off than I am--much
better off. My look-out is ghastly, you know. You surely must have
noticed it before. What's the good to me of the lights burning in all
my storeys? What's the good to me of my knowledge of human nature and
my splendid intelligence? Nothing.... Less than nothing. As a matter of
fact there's nothing I should like better, George, than that all the
ghastly events of the last months had not happened, just like a bad
dream. I swear to you, George, I would give my whole future and God
knows what if I could make it undone. But if it were undone ... then I
should probably be quite as miserable as I am now."

His face became distorted as though he wanted to scream. But
immediately afterwards he stood there again, stiff, motionless, pale,
as though all his fire had gone out. And he said: "Believe me, George,
there are moments when I envy the people with a so-called philosophy
of life. As for me, whenever I want to have a decently ordered world I
have always first got to create one for myself. That's rather a strain
for any one who doesn't happen to be the Deity."

He sighed heavily. George left off answering him. He walked with him
under the willows to the exit. He knew that there was no help for
this man. It was fated that some time or other he should precipitate
himself into the void from the top of a tower which he had circled up
in spirals; and that would be the end of him. But George felt in good
form and free. He made the resolve to use the three days which still
belonged to him as sensibly as possible. The best thing to do was to
be alone in some quiet beautiful country-side, to rest himself fully
and recuperate for new work. He had taken the manuscript of the violin
sonata with him to Vienna. He was thinking of finishing that before all
others.

They crossed the doorway and stood in the street. George turned round,
but the cemetery wall arrested his gaze. It was only after a few steps
that he had a clear view of the valley. All he could do now was to
guess where the little house with the grey gables was lying; it was no
longer visible from here. Beyond the reddish-yellow hills which shut
off the view of the landscape the sky sank down in the faint autumn
light. A gentle farewell was taking place within George's soul of much
happiness and much sorrow, the echoes of which he heard as it were in
the valley which he was now leaving for a long time; and at the same
time there was within his soul the greeting of days as yet unknown,
which rang to his youth from out the wideness of the world.


[1] A pun on the word _Ehre_ which means honour.

[2] Literally "sweet girl." The phrase was invented by Schnitzler
himself.

[3] A fashionable district in Vienna.





End of Project Gutenberg's The Road to the Open, by Arthur Schnitzler

*** 