THE INDIAN LILY

AND OTHER STORIES

BY

HERMANN SUDERMANN

TRANSLATED BY

LUDWIG LEWISOHN, M. A. 

1911

CONTENTS

THE INDIAN LILY

THE PURPOSE

THE SONG OF DEATH

THE VICTIM

AUTUMN

MERRY FOLK

THEA

THE INDIAN LILY

Chapter I. 

It was seven o'clock in the morning when Herr von Niebeldingk openedthe iron gate and stepped into the front garden whose wall ofblossoming bushes separated the house from the street. 

The sun of a May morning tinted the greyish walls with gold, andcaused the open window-panes to flash with flame. 

The master directed a brief glance at the second story whence floatedthe dull sound of the carpet-beater. He thrust the key rapidly intothe keyhole for a desire stirred in him to slip past the porter'slodge unobserved. 

"I seem almost to be--ashamed!" he murmured with a smile ofself-derision as a similar impulse overcame him in front of thehouse door. 

But John, his man--a dignified person of fifty--had observed hisapproach and stood in the opening door. The servant's mutton-chopwhiskers and admirably silvered front-lock contrasted with a repressedreproach that hovered between his brows. He bowed deeply. 

"I was delayed, " said Herr von Niebeldingk, in order to say somethingand was vexed because this sentence sounded almost like an excuse. 

"Do you desire to go to bed, captain, or would you prefer a bath?"

"A bath, " the master responded. "I have slept elsewhere. "

That sounded almost like another excuse. 

"I'm obviously out of practice, " he reflected as he entered thebreakfast-room where the silver samovar steamed among the dishes ofold Sèvres. 

He stepped in front of the mirror and regarded himself--not with theforbearance of a friend but the keen scrutiny of a critic. 

"Yellow, yellow. .. . " He shook his head. "I must apply a curb to myfeelings. "

Upon the whole, however, he had reason to be fairly satisfied withhimself. His figure, despite the approach of his fortieth year, hadremained slender and elastic. The sternly chiselled face, surroundedby a short, half-pointed beard, showed neither flabbiness nor bloat. It was only around the dark, weary eyes that the experiences of thepast night had laid a net-work of wrinkles and shadows. Ten yearsago pleasure had driven the hair from his temples, but it grewenergetically upon his crown and rose, above his forehead, in aMephistophelian curve. 

The civilian's costume which often lends retired officers a guise ofexcessive spick-and-spanness had gradually combined with an easierbearing to give his figure a natural elegance. To be sure, six yearshad passed since, displeased by a nagging major, he had definitelyhung up the dragoon's coat of blue. 

He was wealthy enough to have been able to indulge in the luxury ofthat displeasure. In addition his estates demanded more rigorousmanagement. .. . From Christmas to late spring he lived in Berlin, wherehis older brother occupied one of those positions at court that meanlittle enough either to superior or inferior ranks, but which, in acertain social set dependent upon the court, have an influence ofinestimable value. Without assuming the part of either a social lionor a patron, he used this influence with sufficient thoroughness to bepopular, even, in certain cases, to be feared, and belonged to thatclass of men to whom one always confides one's difficulties, neverone's wife. 

John came to announce to his master that the bath was ready. And whileNiebeldingk stretched himself lazily in the tepid water he let hisreflections glide serenely about the delightful occurrence of thepast night. 

That occurrence had been due for six months, but opportunity had beenlacking. "I am closely watched and well-known, " she had told him, "anddare not go on secret errands. " . .. Now at last their chance had comeand had been used with clever circumspectness. .. . Somewhere on thePolish boundary lived one of her cousins to whose wedding she waspermitted to travel alone. .. . She had planned to arrive in Berlinunannounced and, instead of taking the morning train from Eydtkuhnen, to take the train of the previous evening. Thus a night was gainedwhose history had no necessary place in any family chronicle and thememories of which could, if need were, be obliterated from one's ownconsciousness. .. . Her arrival and departure had caused a few momentsof really needless anxiety. That was all. No acquaintance had run intothem, no waiter had intimated any suspicion, the very cabby who drovethem through the dawn had preserved his stupid lack of expression whenNiebeldingk suddenly sprang from the vehicle and permitted the lady tobe driven on alone. .. . 

Before his eyes stood her picture--as he had seen her lying during thenight in his arms, fevered with anxiety and rapture . .. Ordinarilyher eyes were large and serene, almost drowsy. .. . The night had provento him what a glow could be kindled in them. Whether her broad brows, growing together over the nose, could be regarded as a beautifulfeature--that was an open question. He liked them--so muchwas certain. 

"Thank heaven, " he thought. "At last, once more--a _woman_. "

And he thought of another who for three years had been allied to himby bonds of the tenderest intimacy and whom he had thisnight betrayed. 

"Between us, " he consoled himself, "things will remain as they havebeen, and I can enjoy my liberty. "

He sprayed his body with the icy water of the douche and rang for Johnwho stood outside of the door with a bath-robe. 

When, ten minutes later, shivering comfortably, he entered thebreakfast-room, he found beside his cup a little heap of letters whichthe morning post had brought. There were two letters that gripped hisattention. 

One read:

"Berlin N. , Philippstrasse 10 a. 

DEAR HERR VON NIEBELDINGK:--

For the past week I have been in Berlin studying agriculture, since, as you know, I am to take charge of the estate. Papa made me promisefaithfully to look you up immediately after my arrival. It is merelydue to the respect I owe you that I haven't kept my promise. As I knowthat you won't tell Papa I might as well confess to you that I'vescarcely been sober the whole week. --Oh, Berlin is a deuce of a place!

If you don't object I will drop in at noon to-morrow and convey Papa'sgreetings to you. Papa is again afflicted with the gout. 

With warm regards, Your very faithful

FRITZ VON EHRENBERG. "

The other letter was from . .. Her--clear, serene, full of suchliterary reminiscences as always dwelt in her busy little head. 

"DEAR FRIEND:--

I wouldn't ask you: Why do I not see you?--you have not called forfive days--I would wait quietly till your steps led you hither withoutpersuasion or compulsion; but 'every animal loves itself' as the oldgossip Cicero says, and I feel a desire to chat with you. 

I have never believed, to be sure, that we would remain indispensableto each other. '_Racine passera comme le café_, ' Mme. De Sévigné sayssomewhere, but I would never have dreamed that we would see so littleof each other before the inevitable end of all things. 

You know the proverb: even old iron hates to rust, and I'm onlytwenty-five. 

Come once again, dear Master, if you care to. I have an excellentcigarette for you--Blum Pasha. I smoke a little myself now and then, but _c'est plus fort que moi_ and ends in head-ache. 

Joko has at last learned to say 'Richard. ' He trills the _r_cunningly. He knows that he has little need to be jealous. 

Good-bye!

ALICE. "

He laughed and brought forth her picture which stood, framed andglazed, upon his desk. A delicate, slender figure--"_blonde comme lesblés_"--with bluish grey, eager eyes and a mocking expression of thelips--it was she herself, she who had made the last years of his lifetruly livable and whose fate he administered rather than ruled. 

She was the wife of a wealthy mine-owner whose estates abutted on hisand with whom an old friendship, founded on common sports, connected him. 

One day, suspecting nothing, Niebeldingk entered the man's house andfound him dragging his young wife from room to room by the hair. .. . Niebeldingk interfered and felt, in return, the lash of a whip. .. . Time and place had been decided upon when the man's physician forbadethe duel. .. . He had been long suspected, but no certain symptoms hadbeen alleged, since the brave little woman revealed nothing of thefrightful inwardness of her married life. .. . Three days later he wasdefinitely sent to a sanitarium. But between Niebeldingk and Alice thememory of that last hour of suffering soon wove a thousand threads ofhelplessness and pity into the web of love. 

As she had long lost her parents and as she was quite defencelessagainst her husband's hostile guardians, the care of her interestsdevolved naturally upon him. .. . He released her from troublesomeobligations and directed her demands toward a safe goal. .. . Then, verytenderly, he lifted her with all the roots of her being from the old, poverty-stricken soil of her earlier years and transplanted her toBerlin where, by the help of his brother's wife--still gently pressingon and smoothing the way himself--he created a new way of lifefor her. 

In a villa, hidden by foliage from Lake Constance, her husband slowlydrowsed toward dissolution. She herself ripened in the sharp air ofthe capital and grew almost into another woman in this banal, disillusioned world, sober even in its intoxication. 

Of society, from whose official section her fate as well as hercommoner's name separated her, she saw just enough to feel theinfluence of the essential conceptions that governed it. 

She lost diffidence and awkwardness, she became a woman of the worldand a connoisseur of life. She learned to condemn one day what sheforgave the next, she learned to laugh over nothing and to grieve overnothing and to be indignant over nothing. 

But what surprised Niebeldingk more than these small adaptations tothe omnipotent spirit of her new environment, was the deep revolutionexperienced by her innermost being. 

She had been a clinging, self-effacing, timid soul. Within three yearsshe became a determined and calculating little person who lackednothing but a certain fixedness to be a complete character. 

A strange coldness of the heart now emanated from her and this wasstrengthened by precipitate and often unkindly judgment, supported inits turn by a desire to catch her own reflection in all things and toadopt witty points of view. 

Nor was this all. She acquired a desire to learn, which at firststimulated and amused Niebeldingk, but which had long grown to besomething of a nuisance. 

He himself was held, and rightly held, to be a man of intellect, lessby virtue of rapid perception and flexible thought, than by virtue ofa coolly observant vision of the world, incapable of being confused--acertain healthy cynicism which, though it never lost an element ofgood nature, might yet abash and even chill the souls of men. 

His actual knowledge, however, had remained mere wretched patchwork, his logic came to an end wherever bold reliance upon the intuitiveprocess was needed to supply missing links in the ratiocinative chain. 

And so it came to pass that Alice, whom at first he had regarded ashis scholar, his handiwork, his creature, had developed annoyinglybeyond him. .. . Involuntarily and innocently she delivered the keenestthrusts. He had, actually, to be on guard. .. . In the irresponsibledelight of intellectual crudity she solved the deepest problems ofhumanity; she repeated, full of faith, the judgments of the ephemeralrapid writer, instead of venturing upon the sources of knowledge. Yeteven so she impressed him by her faculty of adaptation and her shiningzeal. He was often silenced, for his slow moving mind could not followthe vagaries of that rapid little brain. 

What would she be at again to-day? "The old gossip Cicero. .. . " And, "Mme. De Sévigné remarks. .. . " What a rattling and tinkling. Itprovoked him. 

And her love! . .. That was a bad business. What is one to do with amistress who, before falling asleep, is capable of lecturing onSchopenhauer's metaphysics of sex, and will prove to you up to thehilt how unworthy it really is to permit oneself to be duped by natureif one does not share her aim for the generations to come?

The man is still to be born upon whom such wisdom, uttered at such anhour--by lips however sweet--does not cast a chill. 

Since that philosophical night he had left untouched the little keythat hung yonder over his desk and that give him, in her house, thesacred privileges of a husband. And so his life became once more ahunt after new women who filled his heart with unrest and with thefoolish fires of youth. 

But Alice had never been angry at him. Apparently she lackednothing. .. . 

And his thoughts wandered from her to the woman who had lain againsthis breast to-night, shuddering in her stolen joy. 

Heavens! He had almost forgotten one thing!

He summoned John and said:

"Go to the florist and order a bunch of Indian lilies. The man knowswhat I mean. If he hasn't any, let him procure some by noon. "

John did not move a muscle, but heaven only knew whether he did notsuspect the connection between the Indian lilies and the romance ofthe past night. It was in his power to adduce precedents. 

It was an old custom of Niebeldingk's--a remnant of his half out-livedDon Juan years--to send a bunch of Indian lilies to those women whohad granted him their supreme favours. He always sent the flowers nextmorning. Their symbolism was plain and delicate: In spite of what hastaken place you are as lofty and as sacred in my eyes as these pallid, alien flowers whose home is beside the Ganges. Therefore have thekindness--not to annoy me with remorse. 

It was a delicate action and--a cynical one. 

Chapter II. 

At noon--Niebeldingk had just returned from his morning canter--thevisitor, previously announced, was ushered in. 

He was a robust young fellow, long of limb and broad of shoulder. Hisface was round and tanned, with hot, dark eyes. With merry boldness, yet not without diffidence, he sidled, in his blue cheviot suit, into the room. 

"Morning, Herr von Niebeldingk. "

Enviously and admiringly Niebeldingk surveyed the athletic figurewhich moved with springy grace. 

"Morning, my boy . .. Sober?"

"In honour of the day, yes. "

"Shall we breakfast?"

"Oh, with delight, Herr von Niebeldingk!"

They passed into the breakfast-room where two covers had already beenlaid, and while John served the caviare the flood of news burst whichhad mounted in their Franconian home during the past months. 

Three betrothals, two important transfers of land, a wedding, Papa'sgout, Mama's charities, Jenny's new target, Grete's flirtation withthe American engineer. And, above all things, the examination!

"Dear Herr von Niebeldingk, it's a rotten farce. For nine years thegymnasium trains you and drills you, and in the end you don't get yourtrouble's worth! I'm sorry for every hour of cramming I did. Theyreleased me from the oral exam. , simply sent me out like a monkey whenI was just beginning to let my light shine! Did you ever hear of sucha thing? _Did_ you ever?"

"Well, and how about your university work, Fritz?"

That was a ticklish business, the youth averred. Law and politicalscience was no use. Every ass took that up. And since it was after allonly his purpose to pass a few years of his green youth profitably, why he thought he'd stick to his trade and find out how to plantcabbages properly. 

"Have you started in anywhere yet?"

Oh, there was time enough. But he had been to some lectures--agronomyand inorganic chemistry. .. . You have to begin with inorganic chemistryif you want to go in for organic. And the latter was agriculturalchemistry which was what concerned him. 

He made these instructive remarks with a serious air and poured downglass after glass of Madeira. His cheeks began to glow, his heartexpanded. "But that's all piffle, Herr von Niebeldingk, . .. All thisbook-worm business can go to the devil. .. . Life--life--life--that'sthe main thing!"

"What do you call life, Fritz?"

With both hands he stroked the velvety surface of his close-croppedskull. 

"Well, how am I to tell you? D'you know how I feel? As if I werestanding in front of a great, closed garden . .. And I know that allParadise is inside . .. And occasionally a strain of music floats out. .. And occasionally a white garment glitters . .. And I'd like to getin and I can't. That's life, you see. And I've got to standmiserably outside?"

"Well, you don't impress me as such a miserable creature?"

"No, no, in a way, not. On the coarser side, so to speak, I have agood deal of fun. Out there around _Philippstrasse_ and_Marienstrasse_ there are women enough--stylish and fine-looking andeverything you want. And my friends are great fellows, too. Every onecan stand his fifteen glasses . .. I suppose I am an ass, and perhapsit's only moral _katzenjammer_ on account of this past week. But whenI walk the streets and see the tall, distinguished houses and think ofall those people and their lives, yonder a millionaire, here aminister of state, and think that, once upon a time, they were allcrude boys like myself--well, then I have the feeling as if I'd neverattain anything, but always remain what I am. "

"Well, my dear Fritz, the only remedy for that lies in that 'book-wormbusiness' as you call it. Sit down on your breeches and work!"

"No, Herr von Niebeldingk, it isn't that either . .. Let me tell you. Day before yesterday I was at the opera. .. . They sang the_Götterddmmerung_. .. . You know, of course. There is _Siegfried_, afellow like myself, . .. Not more than twenty . .. I sat upstairs in thethird row with two seamstresses. I'd picked them up in the_Chausseestrasse_--cute little beasts, too. .. . But when _Brunhilde_stretched out her wonderful, white arms to him and sang: 'On to newdeeds, O hero!' why I felt like taking the two girls by the scruff ofthe neck and pitching them down into the pit, I was so ashamed. Because, you see, _Siegfried_ had his _Brunhilde_ who inspired him todo great deeds. And what have I? . .. A couple of hard cases picked upin the street. "

"Afterwards, I suppose, you felt more reconciled?"

"That shows how little you know me. I'd promised the girls supper. SoI had to eat with them. But when that was over I let 'em slide. Iran about in the streets and just--howled!"

"Very well, but what exactly are you after?"

"That's what I don't know, Herr von Niebeldingk. Oh, if I knew! Butit's something quite indefinite--hard to think, hard to comprehend. I'd like to howl with laughter and I don't know why . .. To shriek, andI don't know what about. "

"Blessed youth!" Niebeldingk thought, and looked at the enthusiasticboy full of emotion. . .. 

John, who was serving, announced that the florist's girl had come withthe Indian lilies. 

"Indian lilies, what sort of lilies are they?" asked Fritz overcome bya hesitant admiration. 

"You'll see, " Niebeldingk answered and ordered the girl to beadmitted. 

She struggled through the door, a half-grown thing with plump redcheeks and smooth yellow hair. Diffident and frightened, shenevertheless began to flirt with Fritz. In front of her she held thelong stems of the exotic lilies whose blossoms, like giganticnarcissi, brooded in star-like rest over chaste and alien dreams. Fromthe middle of each chalice came a sharp, green shimmer which fadedgently along the petals of the flowers. 

"Confound it, but they're beautiful!" cried Fritz. "Surely they havequite a peculiar significance. "

Niebeldingk arose, wrote the address without permitting John, whostood in suspicious proximity, to throw a glance at it, handed cardsand flowers to the girl, gave her a tip, and escorted her to thedoor himself. 

"So they do mean something special?" Fritz asked eagerly. He couldn'tget over his enthusiasm. 

"Yes, my boy. "

"And may one know. .. . "

"Surely, one may know. I give these lilies to that lady whose loftypurity transcends all doubt--I give them as a symbol of my chaste anddesireless admiration. "

Fritz's eyes shone. 

"Ah, but I'd like to know a lady like that--some day!" he cried andpressed his hands to his forehead. 

"That will come! That will come!" Niebeldingk tapped the youth'sshoulder calmingly. 

"Will you have some salad?"

Chapter III. 

Around the hour of afternoon tea Niebeldingk, true to a dear, oldhabit, went to see his friend. 

She inhabited a small second-floor apartment in the _Regentenstrasse_which he had himself selected for her when she came as a stranger toBerlin. With flowers and palms and oriental rugs she had moulded adelicious retreat, and before her bed-room windows the nightingalessang in the springtime. 

She seemed to be expecting him. In the great, raised bay, separatedfrom the rest of the drawing-room by a thicket of dark leaves, thestout tea-urn was already expectantly humming. 

In a bright, girlish dress, devoid of coquetry or pouting, Alice cameto meet him. 

"I'm glad you're here again, Richard. "

That was all. 

He wanted to launch out into the tale which he had meant to tell her, but she cut him short. 

"Since when do I demand excuses, Richard? You come and there you are. And if you don't come, I have to be content too. " "You should reallybe a little less tolerant, " he warned her. 

"A blessed lot it would help me, " she answered merrily. 

Gently she took his arm and led him to his old place. Then silently, and with that restrained eagerness that characterised all her actionsshe busied herself with the tea-urn. 

His critical and discriminating gaze followed her movements. Withswift, delicate gestures she pushed forward the Chinese dish, shookthe tea from the canister and poured the first drops of boiling waterthrough a sieve. .. . Her quick, bird-like head moved hither andthither, and the bow of the orange-coloured ribbon which surroundedher over-delicate neck trembled a little with every motion. 

"She really is the most charming of all, " such was the end of hisreflections, "if only she weren't so damnably sensible. "

Silently she took her seat opposite him, folded her white hands in herlap, and looked into his eyes with such significant archness that hebegan to feel embarrassed. 

Had she any suspicion of his infidelities?

Surely not. No jealous woman can look about her so calmly andserenely. 

"What have you been doing all this time?" he asked. 

"I? Good heavens! Look about you and you'll see. "

She pointed to a heap of books which lay scattered over the windowseat and sewing table. 

There were Moltke's letters and the memoirs of von Schön, and MaxMüller's Aryan studies. Nor was the inevitable Schopenhauer lacking. 

"What are you after with all that learning?" he asked. 

"Ah, dear friend, what is one to do? One can't always be going aboutin strange houses. Do you expect me to stand at the window and watchthe clouds float over the old city-wall?"

He had the uncomfortable impression that she was quoting somethingagain. 

"My mood, " she went on, "is in what Goethe calls the minor of thesoul. It is the yearning that reaches out afar and yet restrainsitself harmoniously within itself. Isn't that beautifully put?"

"It may be, but it's too high for me!" In laughing self-protection, hestretched out his arms toward her. 

"Don't make fun of me, " she said, slightly shamed, and arose. 

"And what is the object of your yearning?" he asked in order to leavethe realm of Goethe as swiftly as possible. "Not you, you horribleperson, " she answered and, for a moment, touched his hair withher lips. 

"I know that, dearest, " he said, "it's a long time since you've sentme two notes a day. "

"And since you came to see me twice daily, " she returned and gazed atthe floor with a sad irony. 

"We have both changed greatly, Alice. "

"We have indeed, Richard. "

A silence ensued. 

His eyes wandered to the opposite wall. .. . His own picture, framed insilvery maple-wood, hung there. .. . Behind the frame appeared a bunchof blossoms, long faded and shrivelled to a brownish, indistinguishableheap. 

These two alone knew the significance of the flowers. .. . 

"Were you at least happy in those days, Alice?"

"You know I am always happy, Richard. "

"Oh yes, yes; I know your philosophy. But I meant happy with me, through me?"

She stroked her delicate nose thoughtfully. The mocking expressionabout the corners of her mouth became accentuated. 

"I hardly think so, Richard, " she said after an interval. "I was toomuch afraid of you . .. I seemed so stupid in comparison to you and Ifeared that you would despise me. " "That fear, at least, you haveovercome very thoroughly?" he asked. 

"Not wholly, Richard. Things have only shifted their basis. Just as, in those days, I felt ashamed of my ignorance, so now I feelashamed--no, that isn't the right word. .. . But all this stuff that Istore up in my head seems to weigh upon me in my relations with you. Iseem to be a nuisance with it. .. . You men, especially mature men likeyourself, seem to know all these things better, even when you don'tknow them. .. . The precise form in which a given thought is presentedto us may be new to you, but the thought itself you have longdigested. It's for this reason that I feel intimidated whenever Iapproach you with my pursuits. 'You might better have held yourpeace, ' I say to myself. But what am I to do? I'm so profoundlyinterested!"

"So you really need the society of a rather stupid fellow, one to whomall this is new and who will furnish a grateful audience?"

"Stupid? No, " she answered, "but he ought to be inexperienced. Heought himself to want to learn things. .. . He ought not to assume acompassionate expression as who should say: 'Ah, my dear child, if youknew what I know, and how indifferent all those things are to me!' . .. For these things are not indifferent, Richard, not to me, atleast. .. . And for the sake of the joy I take in them, you . .. "

"Strange how she sees through me, " he reflected, "I wonder she clingsto me as she does. "

And while he was trying to think of something that might help her, thedear boy came into his mind who had to-day divulged to him the sorrowsof youth and whom the unconscious desire for a higher plane of lifehad driven weeping through the streets. 

"I know of some one for you. "

Her expression was serious. 

"You know of some one for me, " she repeated with painfuldeliberateness. 

"Don't misunderstand me. It's a playfellow, a pupil--something in thenature of a pastime, anything you will. "

He told her the story of _Siegfried_ and the two seamstresses. 

She laughed heartily. 

"I was afraid you wanted to be rid of me, " she said, laying herforehead for a few moments against his sleeve. 

"Shame on you, " he said, carelessly stroking her hair. "But what doyou think? Shall I bring the young fellow?"

"You may very well bring him, " she answered. There was a look of painabout her mouth. "Doesn't one even train young poodles?"

Chapter IV. 

Three days later, at the same hour of the afternoon, the student, Fritz von Ehrenberg entered Niebeldingk's study. 

"I have summoned you, dear friend, because I want to introduce you toa charming young woman, " Niebeldingk said, arising from his desk. 

"Now?" Fritz asked, sharply taken aback. 

"Why not?"

"Why, I'd have to get my--my afternoon coat first and fix myself up abit. What is the lady to think of me?"

"I'll take care of that. Furthermore, you probably know her, at leastby reputation. "

He mentioned the name of her husband which was known far and wide intheir native province. 

Fritz knew the whole story. 

"Poor lady!" he said. "Papa and Mama have often felt sorry for her. Isuppose her husband is still living. "

Niebeldingk nodded. 

"People all said that you were going to marry her. "

"Is _that_ what people said?" "Yes, and Papa thought it would be apiece of great good fortune. "

"For whom?"

"I beg your pardon, I suppose that was tactless, Herr vonNiebeldingk. "

"It was, dear Fritz. --But don't worry about it, just come. "

The introduction went smoothly. Fritz behaved as became the son of agood family, was respectful but not stiff, and answered her friendlyquestions briefly and to the point. 

"He's no discredit to me, " Niebeldingk thought. 

As for Alice, she treated her young guest with a smiling, motherlycare which was new in her and which filled Niebeldingk with quietpleasure. .. . On other occasions she had assumed toward young men atone of wise, faint interest which meant clearly: "I will exhaust yourpossibilities and then drop you. " To-day she showed a genuine sympathywhich, though its purpose may have been to test him the more sharply, seemed yet to bear witness to the pure and free humanity of her soul. 

She asked him after his parental home and was charmed with his naïverapture at escaping the psychical atmosphere of the cradle-songs ofhis mother's house. She was also pleased with his attitude toward hisyounger brothers and sisters, equally devoid, as it was, ofexaggeration or condescension. Everything about him seemed to hersimple and sane and full of ardour after information and maturity. 

Niebeldingk sat quietly in his corner ready, at need, to smooth overany outbreak of uncouth youthfulness. But there was no occasion. Fritzconfined himself within the limits of modest liberty and used his mindvigorously but with devout respect and delighted obedience. Once only, when the question of the necessity of authority came up, did hego far. 

"I don't give a hang for any authority, " he said. "Even the mildcompulsion of what are called high-bred manners may go to thedeuce for me!"

Niebeldingk was about to interfere with some reconciling remark whenhe observed, to his astonishment, that Alice who, as a rule, wasbitterly hostile to all strident unconventionality, had takenno offence. 

"Let him be, Niebeldingk, " she said. "As far as he is concerned he is, doubtless, in the right. And nothing would be more shameful than ifsociety were already to begin to make a featureless model boy of him. "

"That will never be, I swear to you, dear lady, " cried Fritz all aglowand stretching out his hands to ward off imaginary chains. Niebeldingk smiled and thought: "So much the better for him. " Then helit a fresh cigarette. 

The conversation turned to learned things. Fritz, paraphrasingTacitus, vented his hatred of the Latin civilisations. Alice agreedwith him and quoted Mme. De Staël. Niebeldingk arose, quietly meetingthe reproachful glance of his beloved. 

Fritz jumped up simultaneously, but Niebeldingk laughingly pushed himback into his seat. 

"You just stay, " he said, "our dear friend is only too eager toslaughter a few more peoples. "

Chapter V. 

When he dropped in at Alice's a few days later he found her sitting, hot-cheeked and absorbed, over Strauss's _Life of Jesus_. 

"Just fancy, " she said, holding up her forehead for his kiss, "thatyoung poodle of yours is making me take notice. He gives meintellectual nuts to crack. It's strange how this young generation--"

"I beg of you, Alice, " he interrupted her, "you are only a very fewyears his senior. "

"That may be so, " she answered, "but the little education I havederives from another epoch. .. . I am, metaphysically, as unexacting asthe people of your generation. A certain fogless freedom of thoughtseemed to me until to-day the highest point of human development. "

"And Fritz von Ehrenberg, student of agriculture, has converted you toa kind of thoughtful religiosity?" he asked, smiling good-naturedly. 

In her zeal she wasn't even aware of his irony. 

"We're not going to give in so easily. .. . But it is strange what animpression is made on one by a current of strong and naturalfeeling. .. . This young fellow comes to me and says: 'There is a God, for I feel Him and I need Him. Prove the contrary if you can. ' . .. Well, so I set about proving the contrary to him. But our poornegations have become so glib that one has forgotten the reasons forthem. Finally he defeated me along the whole line . .. So I sat down atonce and began to study up . .. Just as one would polish rusty weapons. .. Bible criticism and DuBois-Reymond and 'Force and Matter' and allthe things that are traditionally irrefutable. "

"And that amuses you?" he asked compassionately. 

A theoretical indignation took hold of her that always amused himgreatly. 

"Does it amuse me? Are such things proper subjects for amusement?Surely you must use other expressions, Richard, when one is concernedfor the most sacred goods of humanity. .. . "

"Forgive me, " he said, "I didn't mean to touch those thingsirreverently. "

She stroked his arm softly, thus dumbly asking forgiveness in herturn. 

"But now, " she continued, "I am equipped once more, and when he comesto-morrow--"

"So he's coming to-morrow?"

"Naturally, . .. Then you will see how I'll send him home sorelywhipped . .. I can defeat him with Kant's antinomies alone. .. . Andwhen it comes to what people call 'revelation, ' well! . .. But I assureyou, my dear one, I'm not very happy defending this icy, naggingcriticism. .. . To be quite sincere, I would far rather be on his side. Warmth is there and feeling and something positive to support one. Would you like some tea?"

"Thanks, no, but some brandy. "

Rapidly brushing the waves of hair from her drawn forehead she raninto the next room and returned with the bottle bearing three stars onits label from which she herself took a tiny drop occasionally--"whenmy mind loses tone for study" as she was wont to say inself-justification. 

A crimson afterglow, reflected from the walls of the houses opposite, filled the little drawing-room in which the mass of feminine ornamentsglimmered and glittered. 

"I've really become quite a stranger here, " he thought, regarding allthese things with the curiosity of one who has come after an absence. From each object hung, like a dewdrop, the memory of someexquisite hour. 

"You look about you so, " Alice said with an undertone of anxiety inher voice, "don't you like it here any longer?"

"What are you thinking of, " he exclaimed, "I like it better daily. "She was about to reply but fell silent and looked into space with asmile of wistful irony. 

"If I except the _Life of Jesus_ and the Kantian--what do you call thethings?"

"Antinomies. "

"Aha--_anti_ and _nomos_--I understand--well, if I except these dustysuperfluities, I may say that your furnishings are really faultless. The quotations from Goethe are really more appropriate, although Icould do without them. "

"I'll have them swept out, " she said in playful submission. 

"You are a dear girl, " he said playfully and passed his handcaressingly over her severely combed hair. 

She grasped his arm with both hands and remained motionless for amoment during which her eyes fastened themselves upon his with astrangely rigid gleam. 

"What evil have I done?" he asked. "Do you remember our childhood'sverse: 'I am small, my heart is pure?' Have mercy on me. "

"I was only playing at passion, " she said with the old half-wistful, half-mocking smile, "in order that our relations may not lose solidground utterly. "

"What do you mean?" he asked, pretending astonishment. "And do youreally think, Richard, that between us, things, being as theyare--are right?"

"I can't imagine any change that could take place at present. "

She hid a hot flush of shame. She was obviously of the opinion that hehad interpreted her meaning in the light of a desire for marriage. Allearthly possibilities had been discussed between them: this one alonehad been sedulously avoided in all their conversations. 

"Don't misunderstand me, " he continued, determined to skirt thedangerous subject with grace and ease, "there's no question here ofanything external, of any change of front with reference to the world. It's far too late for that. . .. Let us remain--if I may so put it--inour spiritual four walls. Given our characters or, I had better say, given your character I see no other relation between us that promisesany permanence. .. . If I were to pursue you with a kind of infatuation, or you me with jealousy--it would be insupportable to us both. "

She did not reply but gently rolled and unrolled the narrow, blue silkscarf of her gown. 

"As it is, we live happily and at peace, " he went on, "Each of us hasliberty and an individual existence and yet we know how deeply rootedour hearts are in each other. "

She heaved a sigh of painful oppression. "Aren't you content?" heasked, "For heaven's sake! Surely!" Her voice was frightened, "No one couldbe more content than I. If only----"

"Well--what?"

"If only it weren't for the lonely evenings!"

A silence ensued. This was a sore point and had always been. He knewit well. But he had to have his evenings to himself. There was nothingto be done about that. 

"You musn't think me immodest in my demands, " she went on in hastyexculpation. "I'm not even aiming my remarks at you . .. I'm onlythinking aloud. .. . But you see, I can't get any real foothold insociety until--until my affairs are more clarified. .. . To run aboutthe drawing-rooms as an example of frivolous heedlessness--that's notmy way. .. . I can always hear them whisper behind me: 'She doesn't takeit much to heart, that shows . .. ' No, I'd rather stay at home. I haveno friends either and what chance had I to make them? You were alwaysmy one and only friend. .. . My books remain. And that's very well byday . .. But when the lamps are lit I begin to throb and ache and runabout . .. And I listen for the trill of the door-bell. But no onecomes, nothing--except the evening paper. And that's only in winter. Now it's brought before dusk. And in the end there's nothing worthwhile in it. .. . And so life goes day after day. At last one creepsinto bed at half-past nine and, of course, has a wretched night. "

"Well, but how am I to help you, dear child?" he asked thoughtfully. He was touched by her quiet, almost serene complaint. "If we took topassing our evenings together, scandal would soon have us by thethroat, and then--woe to you!"

Her eager eyes gazed bravely at him. 

"Well, " she said at last, "suppose----"

"What?"

"Never mind. I don't want you to think me unwomanly. And what I'vebeen describing to you is, after all, only a symptom. There's a kindof restlessness in me that I can't explain. .. . If I were of a lessactive temper, things would be better. .. . It sounds paradoxical, butjust because I have so much activity in me, do I weary so quickly. Goethe said once----"

He raised his hands in laughing protest. 

She was really frightened. 

"Ah, yes, forgive me, " she cried. "All that was to be swept out. .. . How forgetful one can be. .. . "

Smiling, she leaned her head against his shoulder and was not to bepersuaded from her silence. 

Chapter VI

"There are delicate boundaries within the realm of the eternalwomanly, "--thus Niebeldingk reflected next day, --"in which one issorely puzzled as to what one had better put into an envelope: a poemor a cheque. "

His latest adventure--the cause of these reflections--had blossomed, the evening before, like the traditional rose on the dungheap. 

One of his friends who had travelled about the world a good deal andwho now assumed the part of the full-blown Parisian, had issuedinvitations to a house-warming in his new bachelor-apartment. He hadinvited a number of his gayer friends and ladies exclusively fromso-called artistic circles. So far all was quite Parisian. Only thejournalists who might, next morning, have proclaimed the glory of thefestivity to the world--these were excluded. Berlin, for variousreasons, did not seem an appropriate place for that. 

It was a rather dreary sham orgy. Even chaperones were present. Several ladies had carefully brought them and they could scarcely beput out. Other ladies even thought it incumbent upon them to ask afterthe wives of the gentlemen present and to turn up their noses when itappeared that these were conspicuous by their absence. It was uponthis occasion, however, that some beneficent chance assigned toNiebeldingk a sighing blonde who remained at his side all evening. 

Her name was Meta, she belonged to one of the "best families" ofPosen, she lived in Berlin with her mother who kept a boarding housefor ladies of the theatre. She herself nursed the ardent desire todedicate herself to art, for "the ideal" had always been the guidingstar of her existence. 

At the beginning of supper she expressed herself with a fineindignation concerning the ladies present into whose midst--sheassured him eagerly--she had fallen through sheer accident. Later shethawed out, assumed a friendly companionableness to these despisedindividuals and, in order to raise Niebeldingk's delight to thehighest point, admitted with maidenly frankness the indescribable andmysterious attraction toward him which she had felt at thefirst glance. 

Of course, her principles were impregnable. He mustn't doubt that. Shewould rather seek a moist death in the waves than. .. . And so forth. Although she made this solemn proclamation over the dessert, theconsequence of it all was an intimate visit to Niebeldingk's dwellingwhich came to a bitter sweet end at three o'clock in the morning withgentle tears concerning the wickedness of men in general and ofhimself in particular. .. . 

An attack of _katzenjammer_--such as is scarcely ever spared worldlypeople of forty--threw a sobering shadow upon this event. The shadowcrept forward too, and presaged annoyance. 

He was such an old hand now, and didn't even know into what categoryshe really fitted. Was it, after all, impossible that behind all thisfrivolity the desire to take up the struggle for existence on cleanlyterms stuck in her little head?

At all events he determined to spare the possible wounding of outragedwomanliness and to wait before putting any final stamp upon the natureof their relations. Hence he set out to play the tender lover by meansof the well-tried device of a bunch of Indian lilies. 

When he was about to give the order for the flowers to John whoalways, upon these occasions, assumed a conscientiously stupidexpression, a new doubt overcame him. 

Was he not desecrating the gift which had brought consolation andabsolution to many a remorseful heart, by sending it to a girl who, for all he knew, played a sentimental part only as a matter of decentform? . .. Wasn't there grave danger of her assuming an undueself-importance when she felt that she was taken tragically?

"Well, what did it matter? . .. A few flowers! . .. "

Early on the evening of the next day Meta reappeared. She was dressedin sombre black. She wept persistently and made preparations to stay. 

Niebeldingk gave her to understand that, in the first place, he had nomore time for her that evening, and that, in the second place, shewould do well to go home at a proper hour and spare herself thereproaches of her mother. 

"Oh, my little mother, my little mother, " she wailed. "How shall Iever present myself to her sight again? Keep me, my beloved! I cannever approach my, mother again. "

He rang for his hat and gloves. 

When she saw that he was serious she wept a few more perfunctory tearsand went. 

Her visits repeated themselves and didn't become any more delightful. On the contrary . .. The heart-broken maiden gave him to understandthat her lost honour could be restored only by the means of a speedymarriage. This exhausted his patience. He saw that he had beenthoroughly taken in and so, observing all necessary considerateness, he sent her definitely about her business. 

Next day the "little mother" appeared on the scene. She was adignified woman of fifty, equipped as the Genius of Vengeance, exceedingly glib of tongue and by no means sentimental. 

As she belonged to one of the first families of Posen, it was her dutyto lay particular stress upon the honour of her daughter whom he hadlured to his house and there wickedly seduced. . .. She was prepared torepel any overtures toward a compromise. She belonged to one of thebest families of Posen and was not prepared to sell her daughter'svirtue. The only possible way of adjusting the matter was animmediate marriage. 

Thereupon she began to scream and scold and John, who acted as masterof ceremonies, escorted her with a patronising smile to the door. .. . 

Next came the visits of an old gentleman in a Prince Albert and theribbon of some decoration in his button-hole. --John had strict ordersto admit no strangers. But the old gentleman was undaunted. He camemorning, noon and night and finally settled down on the stairs whereNiebeldingk could not avoid meeting him. He was the uncle of MissMeta, a former servant of the government and a knight of severalhonourable orders. As such it was his duty to demand the immediaterestitution of his niece's honour, else--Niebeldingk simply turned hisback and the knight of several honourable orders trotted, grumbling, down the stairs. 

Up to this point Niebeldingk had striven to regard the whole businessin a humorous light. It now began It now began to promise seriousannoyance. He told the story at his club and the men laughedboisterously, but no one knew anything to the detriment of Miss Meta. She had been introduced by a lady who played small parts at a largetheatre and important parts at a small one. The lady was called toaccount for her protegee. She refused to speak. 

"It's all the fault of those accursed Indian lilies, " Niebeldingkgrumbled one afternoon at his window as he watched the knight ofvarious honourable orders parade the street as undaunted as ever. "HadI treated her with less delicacy, she would never have risked playingthe part of an innocent victim. "

At that moment John announced Fritz von Ehrenberg. 

The boy came in dressed in an admirably fitting summer suit. He wasradiant with youth and strength, victory gleamed in his eye; a hymn ofvictory seemed silently singing on his lips. 

"Well Fritz, you seem merry, " said Niebeldingk and patted the boy'sshoulder. He could not suppress a smile of sad envy. 

"Don't ask me! Why shouldn't I be happy? Life is so beautiful, yes, beautiful. Only you musn't have any dealings with women. That playsthe deuce with one. "

"You don't know yourself how right you are, " Niebeldingk sighed, looking out of the corner of an eye at the knight of severalhonourable orders who had now taken up his station in the shelter ofthe house opposite. 

"Oh, but I do know it, " Fritz answered. "If I could describe to youthe contempt with which I regard my former mode of life . .. Everythingis different . .. Different . .. So much purer . .. Nobler . .. I'mabsolutely a stoic now. .. . And that gives one a feeling of such peace, such serenity! And I have you to thank for it, Herr von Niebeldingk. "

"I don't understand that. To teach in the _stoa_ is a new employmentfor me. "

"Well, didn't you introduce me to that noble lady? Wasn't it you?"

"Aha, " said Niebeldingk. The image of Alice, smiling a gentlereproach, arose before him. 

In the midst of this silly and sordid business that had overtaken him, he had almost lost sight of her. More than a week had passed since hehad crossed her threshold. 

"How is the dear lady?" he asked. 

"Oh, splendid, " Fritz said, "just splendid. "

"Have you seen her often?"

"Certainly, " Fritz replied, "we're reading Marcus Aurelius togethernow. "

"Thank heaven, " Niebeldingk laughed, "I see that she's well taken careof. "

He made up his mind to see her within the next hour. 

Fritz who had only come because he needed to overflow to some one withthe joy of life that was in him, soon started to go. 

At the door he turned and said timidly and with downcast eyes. 

"I have one request to make----"

"Fire away, Fritz! How much?"

"Oh, I don't need money . .. I'd like to have the address of yourflorist . .. I'd like to send to the dear lady a bunch of the . .. TheIndian lilies. "

"What? Are you mad?" Niebeldingk cried. 

"Why do you ask that?" Fritz was hurt. "May I not also send thatsymbol to a lady whose purity and loftiness of soul I reverence. Isuppose I'm old enough!"

"I see. You're quite right. Forgive me. " Niebeldingk bit his lips andgave the lad the address. 

Fritz thanked him and went. 

Niebeldingk gave way to his mirth and called for his hat. He wanted togo to her at once. But--for better or worse--he changed his mind, foryonder in the gateway, unabashed, stood the knight of severalhonourable orders. 

Chapter VII

To be sure, one can't stand eternally in a gateway. Finally the knightdeserted his post and vanished into a sausage shop. The hour had comewhen even the most glowing passion of revenge fades gently into apassion for supper. 

Niebeldingk who had waited behind his curtain, half-amused, half-bored--for in the silent, distinguished street where everyoneknew him a scandal was to be avoided at any cost--Niebeldingk hastenedto make up for his neglect at once. 

The dark fell. Here and there the street-lamps flickered through thepurple air of the summer dusk. .. . 

The maid who opened the door looked at him with cool astonishment asthough he were half a stranger who had the audacity to pay a call atthis intimate hour. 

"That means a scolding, " he thought. 

But he was mistaken. 

Smiling quietly, Alice arose from the couch where she had been sittingby the light of a shaded lamp and stretched out her hand with all herold kindliness. The absence of the otherwise inevitable book was theonly change that struck him. 

"We haven't seen each other for a long time, " he said, making awretched attempt at an explanation. 

"Is it so long?" she asked frankly. 

"Thank you for your gentle punishment. " He kissed her hand. Then hechatted, more or less at random, of disagreeable business matters, ofpreparations for a journey, and so forth. 

"So you are going away?" she asked tensely. 

The word had escaped him, he scarcely knew how. Now that he haduttered it, however, he saw very clearly that nothing better remainedfor him to do than to carry the casual thought into action. .. . Here hepassed a fruitless, enervating life, slothful, restless andhumiliating; at home there awaited him light, useful work, dreamlesssleep, and the tonic sense of being the master. 

All that, in other days, held him in Berlin, namely, this modest, clever, flexible woman had almost passed from his life. Steady neglecthad done its work. If he went now, scarcely the smallest gap would betorn into the fabric of his life. 

Or did it only seem so? Was she more deeply rooted in his heart thanhe had ever confessed even to himself? They were both silent. Shestood very near him and sought to read the answer to her question inhis eyes. A kind of anxious joy appeared upon her slightlyworn features. 

"I'm needed at home, " he said at last. "It is high time for me. If youdesire I'll look after your affairs too. "

"Mine? Where?"

"Well, I thought we were neighbours there--more than here. Or have youforgotten the estate?"

"Let us leave aside the matter of being neighbours, " she answered, "and I don't suppose that I have much voice in the management of theestate as long as--he lives. The guardians will see to that. "

"But you could run down there once in a while . .. In the summer forinstance. Your place is always ready for you. I saw to that. "

"Ah, yes, you saw to that. " The wistful irony that he had so oftennoted was visible again. 

For the first time he understood its meaning. 

"She has made things too easy for me, " he reflected. "I should havefelt my chains. Then, too, I would have realised what I possessedin her. "

But did he not still possess her? What, after all, had changed sincethose days of quiet companionship? Why should he think of her aslost to him?

He could not answer this question. But he felt a dull restlessness. Asense of estrangement told him: All is not here as it was. 

"Since when do you live in dreams, Alice?" he asked, surveying theempty table by which he had found her. 

His question had been innocent, but it seemed to carry a sting. Sheblushed and looked past him. 

"How do you mean?"

"Good heavens, to sit all evening without books and let the light burnin vain--that was not your wont heretofore. "

"Oh, that's it. Ah well, one can't be poking in books all the time. And for the past few days my eyes have been aching. "

"With secret tears?" he teased. 

She gave him a wide, serious look. 

"With secret tears, " she repeated. 

"_Ah perfido_!" he trilled, in order to avoid the scene which hefeared . .. But he was on the wrong scent. She herself interrupted himwith the question whether he would stay to supper. 

He was curious to find the causes of the changes that he felt here. For that reason and also because he was not without compunction, heconsented to stay. 

She rang and ordered a second cover to be laid. 

Louise looked at her mistress with a disapproving glance and went. 

"Dear me, " he laughed, "the servants are against me . .. I am lost. "

"You have taken to noticing such things very recently. " She gave aperceptible shrug. 

"When a wife tells a husband of his newly acquired habits, he isdoubly lost, " he answered and gave her his arm. 

The silver gleamed on the table . .. The tea-kettle puffed out delicateclouds . .. Exquisitely tinted apples, firm as in Autumn, smiledat him. 

A word of admiration escaped him. And then, once more, he saw thattragic smile on her lips--sad, wistful, almost compassionate. 

"My darling, " he said with sudden tenderness and caressed hershoulder. 

She nodded and smiled. That was all. 

At table her mood was an habitual one. Perhaps she was a triflegentler. He attributed that to his approaching departure. 

She drank a glass of Madeira at the beginning of the meal, the lightRhine wine she took in long, thirsty draughts, she even touched thebrandy at the meal's end. 

An inner fire flared in her. He suspected that, he felt it. She hadtouched no food. But she permitted nothing to appear on the surface. On the contrary, the emotional warmth that she had shown earlierdisappeared. The play of her thoughts grew cooler, clearer, morecutting, the longer she talked. 

Twice or thrice quotations from Goethe were about to escape her, butshe did not utter them. Smiling she tapped her own lips. 

When he observed that she was really restraining a genuine impulse hebegged her to consider the protest he had once uttered as merely ajest, perhaps even an ill-considered one. But she said: "Let be, itis as well. "

They conversed, as they had often done, of the perished days of theirold love. They spoke like two beings who have long conquered all thestruggles of the heart and who, in the calm harbour of friendship, regard with equanimity the storms which they have weathered. 

This way of speaking had gradually, and with a kind of jocularmoroseness, crept into their intercourse. The exciting thing about itwas the silent reservation felt by both: We know how different thingscould be, so soon as we desired. To-day, for the first time, thisgame at renunciation seemed to become serious. 

"How strange!" he thought. "Here we sit who are dearest to each otherin all the world and a kind of futile arrogance drives us farther andfarther apart. "

Alice arose. 

He kissed her, as was his wont, upon hand and forehead and noted howshe turned aside with a slight shiver. Then suddenly she took his headin both her hands and kissed him full on the lips with a kind ofdesperate eagerness. 

"Ah, " he cried, "what is that? It's more than I have a right toexpect. "

"Forgive me, " she said, withdrawing herself at once. "We're povertystricken folk and haven't much to give each other. "

"After what I have just experienced, I'm inclined to believe thecontrary. "

But she seemed little inclined to draw the logical consequences of heraction. Quietly she gave him his wonted cigarette, lit her own, andsat down in her old place. With rounded lips she blew little clouds ofsmoke against the table-cover. 

"Whenever I regard you in this manner, " he said, carefully feeling hisway, "it always seems to me that you have some silent reservation, asthough you were waiting for something. " "It may be, " she answered, blushing anew, "I sit by the way-side, like the man in the story, andthink of the coming of my fate. "

"Fate? What fate?"

"Ah, who can tell, dear friend? That which one foresees is no longerone's fate!"

"Perhaps it's just the other way. "

She drew back sharply and looked past him in tense thoughtfulness. "Perhaps you are right, " she said, with a little mysterious sigh. "Itmay be as you say. "

He was no wiser than he had been. But since he held it beneath hisdignity to assume the part of the jealous master, he abandoned thesearch for her secrets with a shrug. The secrets could be of no greatimportance. No one knew better than himself the moderateness of herdesires, no lover, in calm possession of his beloved, had so little tofear as he. .. . 

They discussed their plans for the Summer. He intended to go to theNorth Sea in Autumn, an old affection attracted her to Thuringia. Thepossibility of their meeting was touched only in so far as courtesydemanded it. 

And once more silence fell upon the little drawing-room. Through thetwilight an old, phantastic Empire clock announced the hurryingminutes with a hoarse tick. 

In other days a magical mood had often filled this room--the presageof an exquisite flame and its happy death. All that had vibrated here. Nothing remained. They had little to say to each other. That was whattime had left. 

He played thoughtfully with his cigarette. She stared into nothingnesswith great, dreamy eyes. 

And suddenly she began to weep . .. 

He almost doubted his own perception, but the great glittering tearsran softly down her smiling face. 

But he was satiated with women's tears. In the fleeting amatoryadventures of the past weeks and months, he had seen so many--somegenuine, some sham, all superfluous. And so instead of consoling her, he conceived a feeling of sarcasm and nausea: "Now even shecarries on!". .. . 

The idea did indeed flash into his mind that this moment might bedecisive and pregnant with the fate of the future, but his horror ofscenes and explanations restrained him. 

Wearily he assumed the attitude of one above the storms of the souland sought a jest with which to recall her to herself. But before hefound it she pressed her handkerchief to her eyes and slipped fromthe room. 

"So much the better, " he thought and lit a fresh cigarette, "If shelets her passion spend itself in silence it will pass themore swiftly. "

Walking up and down he indulged in philosophic reflections concerningthe useless emotionality of woman, and the duty of man not to beinfected by it . .. He grew quite warm in the proud consciousness ofhis heart's coldness. 

Then suddenly--from the depth of the silence that was abouthim--resounded in a long-drawn, shrill, whirring voice that he hadnever heard--his own name. 

"Rrricharrd!" it shrilled, stern and hard as the command of somepaternal martinet. The voice seemed to come from subterranean depths. 

He shivered and looked about. Nothing moved. There was no living soulin the next room. 

"Richard!" the voice sounded a second time. This time the sound seemedbut a few paces from him, but it arose from the ground as though ateasing goblin lay under his chair. 

He bent over and peered into dark corners. 

The mystery was solved: Joko, Alice's parrot, having secretly stolenfrom his quarters, sat on the rung of a chair and played the evilconscience of the house. 

The tame animal stepped with dignity upon his outstretched hand andpermitted itself to be lifted into the light. .. . Its glitteringneck-feathers stood up, and while it whetted its beak on Niebeldingk'scuff-links, it repeated in a most subterranean voice: "Richard!"

And suddenly the dear feeling of belonging here, of being at home cameover Niebeldingk. He had all but lost it. But its gentle power drewhim on and refreshed him. 

It was his right and his duty to be at home here where a dear womanlived so exclusively for him that the voice of her yearning soundedeven from the tongue of the brute beast that she possessed! There wasno possibility of feeling free and alien here. 

"I must find her!" he thought quickly, "I musn't leave her aloneanother second. "

He set Joko carefully on the table and sought to reach her bed-roomwhich he had never entered by this approach. 

In the door that led to the rear hall she met him. Her demeanour hadits accustomed calm, her eyes were clear and dry. 

"My poor, dear darling!" he cried and wanted to take her in his arms. 

A strange, repelling glance met him and interrupted his beautifulemotion. Something hardened in him and he felt a new inclinationto sarcasm. 

"Forgive me for leaving you, " she said, "one must have patience withthe folly of my sex. You know that well. "

And she preceded him to his old place. 

Screaming with pleasure Joko flew forward to meet her, and Niebeldingkremained standing to take his leave. 

She did not hold him back. 

Outside it occurred to him that he hadn't told her the anecdote ofFritz and the Indian lilies. 

"It's a pity, " he thought, "it might have cheered her. " . .. 

Chapter VIII

Next morning Niebeldingk sat at his desk and reflected withconsiderable discomfort on the experience of the previous evening. Suddenly he observed, across the street, restlessly waiting in thesame doorway--the avenging spirit!

It was an opportune moment. It would distract him to make an exampleof the fellow. Nothing better could have happened. 

He rang for John and ordered him to bring up the wretched fellow and, furthermore, to hold himself in readiness for an act of vigorousexpulsion. 

Five minutes passed. Then the door opened and, diffidently, but with akind of professional dignity, the knight of several honourable ordersentered the room. 

Niebeldingk made rapid observations: A beardless, weatherworn old facewith pointed, stiff, white brows. The little, watery eyes knew how tohide their cunning, for nothing was visible in them save an expressionof wonder and consternation. The black frock coat was threadbare butclean, his linen was spotless. He wore a stock which had been thelast word of fashion at the time of the July revolution. 

"A sharper of the most sophisticated sort, " Niebeldingk concluded. 

"Before any discussion takes place, " he said sharply. "I must knowwith whom I am dealing. "

The old man drew off with considerable difficulty his torn, gray, funereal gloves and, from the depths of a greasy pocket-book, produceda card which had, evidently, passed through a good many hands. 

"A sharper, " Niebeldingk repeated to himself, "but on a pretty lowplane. " He read the card: "Kohleman, retired clerk of court. " Andbelow was printed the addition: "Knight of several orders. "

"What decorations have you?" he asked. 

"I have been very graciously granted the Order of the Crown, fourthclass, and the general order for good behaviour. "

"Sit down, " Niebeldingk replied, impelled by a slight instinctiverespect. 

"Thank you, I'll take the liberty, " the old gentleman answered and satdown on the extreme edge of a chair. 

"Once on the stairs you--" he was about to say "attacked me, " but herepressed the words. "I know, " he began, "what your business is. And now tell me frankly: Do you think any man in the world such a foolas to contemplate marriage because a frivolous young thing whoseacquaintance he made at a supper given to 'cocottes' accompanies him, in the middle of the night, to his bachelor quarters? Do you thinkthat a reasonable proposition?"

"No, " the old gentleman answered with touching honesty. "But you knowit's pretty discouraging to have Meta get into that kind of a mess. I've had my suspicions for some time that that baggage is a keener, and I've often said to my sister: 'Look here, these theatrical womenare no proper company for a girl--'"

"Well then, " Niebeldingk exclaimed, overcome with astonishment, "ifthat's the case, what are you after?"

"I?" the old gentleman quavered and pointed a funereal glove at hisbreast, "I? Oh, dear sakes alive! I'm not after anything. Do youimagine, my dear sir, that I get any fun out of tramping up and downin front of your house on my old legs? I'd rather sit in a corner andleave strange people to their own business. But what can I do? I livein my sister's house, and I do pay her a little board, for I'd nevertake a present, not a penny--that was never my way. But what I payisn't much, you know, and so I have to make myself a bit useful in theboarding-house. The ladies have little errands, you know. And they'requite nice, too, except that they get as nasty as can be if theirrooms aren't promptly cleaned in the morning, and so I help with thedusting, too . .. If only it weren't for my asthma . .. I tell, you, asthma, my dear sir--"

He stopped for an attack of coughing choked him. 

With a sudden kindly emotion Niebeldingk regarded the terrible avengerin horror of whom he had lived four mortal days. He told him tostretch his poor old legs and asked him whether he'd like a glassof Madeira. 

The old gentleman's face brightened. If it would surely give notrouble he would take the liberty of accepting. 

Niebeldingk rang and John entered with a grand inquisitorial air. Herecoiled when he saw the monster so comfortable and, for the firsttime in his service, permitted himself a gentle shake of the head. 

The old gentleman emptied his glass in one gulp and wiped his mouthwith a brownish cotton handkerchief. Fragments of tobacco flew about. He looked so tenderly at the destroyer of his family as though he hada sneaking desire to join the enemy. 

"Well, well, " he began again. "What's to be done? If my sister takessomething into her head. .. . And anyhow, I'll tell you in confidence, she is a devil. Oh deary me, what I have to put up with from her! It'sno good getting into trouble with her! . .. If you want to avoid anyunpleasantness, I can only advise you to consent right away. .. . Youcan back out later. .. . But that would be the easiest way. "

Niebeldingk laughed heartily. 

"Yes, you can laugh, " the old gentleman said sadly, "that's becauseyou don't know my sister. "

"But _you_ know her, my dear man. And do you suppose that she may haveother, that is to say, financial aims, while she----"

The old gentleman looked at him with great scared eyes. 

"How do you mean?" he said and crushed the brown handkerchief in hishollow hand. 

"Well, well, well, " Niebeldingk quieted him and poured a reconcilingsecond glass of wine. 

But he wasn't to be bribed. 

"Permit me, my dear sir, " he said, "but you misunderstand meentirely. .. . Even if I do help my sister in the house, and even if Ido go on errands, I would never have consented to go on such anone. .. . I said to my sister: It's marriage or nothing. .. . We don't goin for blackmail, of that you may be sure. " "Well, my dear man, "Niebeldingk laughed, "If that's the alternative, then--nothing!"

The old gentleman grew quite peaceable again. 

"Goodness knows, you're quite right. But you will haveunpleasantnesses, mark my word. . .. And if she has to appeal to theEmperor, my sister said. And my sister--I mention it quite inconfidence--my sister--"

"Is a devil, I understand. "

"Exactly. "

He laughed slyly as one who is getting even with an old enemy anddrank, with every evidence of delight, the second glassful of wine. 

Niebeldingk considered. Whether unfathomable stupidity or equallyunfathomable sophistication lay at the bottom of all this--thebusiness was a wretched one. It was just such an affair as would bedragged through every scandal mongering paper in the city, thoroughlyequipped, of course, with the necessary moral decoration. He couldalmost see the heavy headlines: Rascality of a Nobleman. 

"Yes, yes, my dear fellow, " he said, and patted the terrible enemy'sshoulder, "I tell you it's a dog's life. If you can avoid it anyway--never go in for fast living. "

The old gentleman shook his gray head sadly. 

"That's all over, " he declared, "but twenty years ago--"Niebeldingk cut short the approaching confidences. 

"Well, what's going to happen now?" he asked. "And what will yoursister do when you come home and announce my refusal?"

"I'll tell you, Baron. In fact, my sister required that I _should_tell you, because that is to--" he giggled--"that is to have aprofound effect. We've got a nephew, I must tell you, who's alieutenant in the army. Well, he is to come at once and challenge youto a duel. .. . Well, now, a duel is always a pretty nasty piece ofbusiness. First, there's the scandal, and then, one _might_ get hurt. And so my sister thought that you'd rather----"

"Hold on, my excellent friend, " said Niebeldingk and a great weightrolled from his heart. "You have an officer in your family? That'ssplendid . .. I couldn't ask anything better . .. You wire him at onceand tell him that I'll be at home three days running and ready to givehim the desired explanations. I'm sorry for the poor fellow for beingmixed up in such a stupid mess, but I can't help him. "

"Why do you feel sorry for him?" the old gentleman asked. "He's asgood a marksman as you are. "

"Assuredly, " Niebeldingk returned. "Assuredly a better one. .. . Only itwon't come to that. "

He conducted his visitor with great ceremony into the outer hall. 

The latter remained standing for a moment in the door. He graspedNiebeldingk's hand with overflowing friendliness. 

"My dear baron, you have been so nice to me and so courteous. Permitme, in return, to offer you an old man's counsel: Be more carefulabout flowers!"

"What flowers?"

"Well, you sent a great, costly bunch of them. That's what firstattracted my sister's attention. And when my sister gets on the trackof anything, well!" . .. 

He shook with pleasure at the sly blow he had thus delivered, drewthose funereal gloves of his from the crown of his hat and tookhis leave. 

"So it was the fault of the Indian lilies, " Niebeldingk thought, looking after the queer old knight with an amused imprecation. Thatgentleman, enlivened by the wine he had taken, pranced with a newflexibility along the side-walk. "Like the count in _Don Juan_, "Niebeldingk thought, "only newly equipped and modernised. "

The intervention of the young officer placed the whole affair uponan intelligible basis. It remained only to treat it with entireseriousness. Niebeldingk, according to his promise, remained at homeuntil sunset for three boresome days. On the morning of the fourth hewrote a letter to the excellent old gentleman telling him that he wastired of waiting and requesting an immediate settlement of thebusiness in question. Thereupon he received the following answer:

"SIR:--

In the name of my family I declare to you herewith that I give youover to the well-deserved contempt of your fellowmen. A man who canhesitate to restore the honour of a loving and yielding girl is notworthy of an alliance with our family. Hence we now sever any furtherconnection with you. 

With that measure of esteem which you deserve, I am, KOHLEMAN, _Retired Clerk of Court_. 

Knight S. H. O. 

P. S. 

Best regards. Don't mind all that talk. The duel came to nothing. Ourlittle lieutenant besought us not to ruin him and asked that his namebe not mentioned. He has left town. "

Breathing a deep sigh of relief, Niebeldingk threw the letter aside. 

Now that the affair was about to float into oblivion, he becameaware of the fact that it had weighed most heavily upon him. 

And he began to feel ashamed. 

He, a man who, by virtue of his name and of his wealth and, if hewould be bold, by virtue of his intellect, was able to live in somenoble and distinguished way--he passed his time with banalities thatwere half sordid and half humorous. These things had their place. Youth might find them not unfruitful of experience. They degraded aman of forty. 

If these things filled his life to-day, then the years of training andslow maturing had surely gone for nothing. And what would become ofhim if he carried these interests into his old age? His schoolmateswere masters of the great sciences, distinguished servants of thegovernment, influential politicians. They toiled in the sweat of theirbrows and harvested the fruits of their youth's sowing. 

He strove to master these discomforting thoughts, but every momentfound him more defenceless against them. 

And shame changed into disgust. 

To divert himself he went out into the streets and landed, finally, inthe rooms of his club. Here he was asked concerning his latestadventure. Only a certain respect which his personality inspired savedhim from unworthy jests. And in this poverty-stricken world, wherethe very lees of experience amounted to a sensation--here hewasted his days. 

It must not last another week, not another day. So much suddenly grewclear to him. 

He hurried away. Upon the streets brooded the heat of early summer. Masses of human beings, hot but happy, passed him in silent activity. 

What was he to do?

He must marry: that admitted of no doubt. In the glow of his ownhearth he must begin a new and more tonic life. 

Marry? But whom? A worn out heart can no longer be made to beat moreswiftly at the sight of some slim maiden. The senses might yet bestirred, but that is all. 

Was he to haunt watering-places and pay court to mothers on theman-hunt in order to find favour in their daughters' eyes? Was he totravel from estate to estate and alienate the affection of young_chatelaines_ from their favourite lieutenants?

Impossible!

He went home hopelessly enough and drowsed away the hours of theafternoon behind drawn blinds on a hot couch. 

Toward evening the postman brought a letter--in Alice's hand. Alice! How could he have forgotten her! His first duty should havebeen to see her. 

He opened the envelope, warmly grateful for her mere existence. 

"DEAR FRIEND:--

As you will probably not find time before you leave the city to bid mefarewell in person. I beg you to return to me a certain key which Igave into your keeping some years ago. You have no need of it and itworries me to have it lying about. 

Don't think that I am at all angry. My friendship and my gratitude areyours, however far and long we may be separated. When, some day, wemeet again, we will both have become different beings. With manyblessings upon your way, ALICE. "

He struck his forehead like a man who awakens from an obscene dream. 

Where was his mind? He was about to go in search of that which was soclose at hand, so richly his own!

Where else in all the world could he find a woman so exquisitelytempered to his needs, so intimately responsive to his desires, onewho would lead him into the darker land of matrimony through meadowsof laughing flowers?

To be sure, there was her coolness of temper, her learning, herstrange restlessness. But was not all that undergoing a change? Had henot found her sunk in dreams? And her tears? And her kiss?

Ungrateful wretch that he was!

He had sought a home and not thought of the parrot who screamed outhis name in her dear dwelling. There was a parrot like that in theworld--and he wandered foolishly abroad. What madness! What baseness!

He would go to her at once. 

But no! A merry thought struck him and a healing one. 

He took the key from the wall and put it into his pocket. 

He would go to her--at midnight. 

Chapter IX. 

He had definitely abandoned his club, the theatres were closed, therestaurants were deserted, his brother's family was in the country. Itwas not easy to pass the evening with that great resolve in his heartand that small key in his pocket. 

Until ten he drifted about under the foliage of the _Tiergarten_. Helistened to the murmur of couples who thronged the dark benches, regarded those who were quietly walking in the alleys and foundhimself, presently, in that stream of humanity which is drawnirresistibly toward the brightly illuminated pleasure resorts. 

He was moved and happy at once. For the first time in years he felthimself to be a member of the family of man, a humbly serving brotherin the commonweal of social purpose. 

His time of proud, individualistic morality was over: theever-blessing institution of the family was about to gather him to itshospitable bosom. 

To be sure, his wonted scepticism was not utterly silenced. But hedrove it away with a feeling of delighted comfort. He could haveshouted a blessing to the married couples in search of air, he couldhave given a word of fatherly advice to the couples on the benches:"Children, commit no indiscretions--marry!"

And when he thought of her! A mild and peaceable tenderness of whichhe had never thought himself capable welled up from his and heart. .. . Wide gardens of Paradise seemed to open, gardens with secret grottosand shady corners. And upon one of the palm-trees there satJoko--amiable beast--and said: "Rrricharrrd!"

He went over the coming scene in his imagination again and again: Herlittle cry of panic when he would enter the dark room and then hiswhispered reassurance: "It is I, my darling. I have come back to stayfor ever and ever. "

And then happiness, gentle and heart-felt. 

If a divorce was necessary, the relatives of her husband wouldprobably succeed in divesting her of most of the property. What did itmatter to either of them? Was he not rich and was she not sure of him?If need were, he could, with one stroke of the pen, repay herthreefold all that she might lose. But, indeed, these reflections werequite futile. For when two people are so welded together in theirsouls, their earthly possessions need no separation. From ten untilhalf past eleven he sat in a corner of the _Café Bauer_ and read thepaper of his native province which, usually, he never looked at. Withchildlike delight he read into the local notices and advertisementsthings pertinent to his future life. 

Bremsel, the delicatessen man in a neighbouring town advertised freshcrabs. And Alice liked them. "Splendid, " he thought "we won't have tobring them from far. " And suddenly he himself felt an appetite for theshell-fish, so thoroughly had he lived himself into his vision ofdomestic felicity. 

At twenty-five minutes of twelve he paid for his chartreuse and setout on foot. He had time to spare and he did not want to cause theunavoidable disturbance of a cab's stopping at her door. 

The house, according to his hope, was dark and silent. 

With beating heart he drew forth the key which consisted of twocollapsible parts. One part was for the house door, the other for adoor in her bed-room that led to a separate entrance. He had himselfchosen the apartment with this advantage in view. 

He passed the lower hall unmolested and reached the creaking stairswhich he had always hated. And as he mounted he registered an oathto pass this way no more. He would not thus jeopardise the fair fameof his betrothed. 

It would be bad enough if he had to rap, in case the night latch wasdrawn. .. . 

The outer door, at least, offered no difficulty. He touched it and itswung loose on its hinges. 

For a moment the mad idea came into his head that--in answer to herletter--Alice might have foreseen the possibility of his coming. .. . Hewas just about to test, by a light pressure, the knob of the innerdoor when, coming from the bed-room, a muffled sound of speechreached his ear. 

One voice was Alice's: the other--his breath stopped. It was not themaid's. He knew it well. It was the voice of Fritz von Ehrenberg. 

It was over then--for him. .. . And again and again he murmured: "It'sall over. "

He leaned weakly against the wall. 

Then he listened. 

This woman who could not yield with sufficient fervour to the abandonof passionate speech and action--this was Alice, his Alice, with herfine sobriety, her philosophic clearness of mind. 

And that young fool whose mouth she closed with long kisses ofgratitude for his folly--did he realise the blessedness which hadfallen to the lot of his crude youth? It was over . .. All over. 

And he was so worn, so passionless, so autumnal of soul, that he couldsmile wearily in the midst of his pain. 

Very carefully he descended the creaking stairs, locked the door ofthe house and stood on the street--still smiling. 

It was over . .. All over. 

Her future was trodden into the mire, hers and his own. 

And in this supreme moment he grew cruelly aware of his crimes againsther. 

All her love, all her being during these years had been but one secretprayer: "Hold me, do not break me, do not desert me!"

He had been deaf. He had given her a stone for bread, irony for love, cold doubt for warm, human trust! And in the end he had even despisedher because she had striven, with touching faith, to form herselfaccording to his example. 

It was all fatally clear--now. 

Her contradictions, her lack of feeling, her haughty scepticism--allthat had chilled and estranged him had been but a dutiful reflectionof his own being. 

Need he be surprised that the last remnant of her lost and corruptedyouth rose in impassioned rebellion against him and, thinking tosave itself, hurled itself to destruction?

He gave one farewell glance to the dark, silent house--the grave ofthe fairest hopes of all his life. Then he set out upon long, dreary, aimless wandering through the endless, nocturnal streets. 

Like shadows the shapes of night glided by him. 

Shy harlots--loud roysterers--benzin flames--more harlots--and hereand there one lost in thought even as he. 

An evil odour, as of singed horses' hoofs, floated over the city. .. .. The dust whirled under the street-cleaning machines. 

The world grew silent. He was left almost alone. .. .. 

Then the life of the awakening day began to stir. A sleepy dawn creptover the roofs. .. . 

It was the next morning. 

There would be no "next mornings" for him. That was over. 

Let others send Indian lilies!

THE PURPOSE

Chapter I. 

It was a blazing afternoon, late in July. The Cheruskan fraternityentered Ellerntal in celebration of their mid-summer festivity. Theyhad let the great wagon stand at the outskirts of the village and nowmarched up its street in well-formed procession, proud and vain as acompany of _Schützen_ before whom all the world bows down once a year. 

First came the regimental band of the nearest garrison, dressed incivilian's clothes--then, under the vigilance of two brightly attiredfreshmen, the blue, white and golden banner of the fraternity, nextthe officers accompanied by other freshmen, and finally the activemembers in whom the dignity, decency and fighting strength of thefraternity were embodied. A gay little crowd of elderly gentlemen, ladies and guests followed in less rigid order. Last came, as alwaysand everywhere, the barefoot children of the village. The processioncame to a halt in front of the _Prussian Eagle_, a long-drawn singlestory structure of frame. The newly added dance hall with its threegreat windows protruded loftily above the house. 

The banner was lowered, the horns of the band gave wild, sharp signalsto which no one attended, and Pastor Rhode, a sedate man of fiftydressed in the scarf and slashed cap of the order, stepped from theinn door to pronounce the address of welcome. At this moment ithappened that one of the two banner bearers who had stood at the rightand left of the flag with naked foils, rigid as statues, slowly tiltedover forward and buried his face in the green sward. 

This event naturally put an immediate end to the ceremony. Everybody, men and women, thronged around the fallen youth and were quicklypushed back by the medical fraternity men who were present in variousstages of professional development. 

The medical wisdom of this many-headed council culminated in the cry:"A glass of water!"

Immediately a young girl--hot-eyed and loose-haired, exquisite in theroundedness of half maturity--rushed out of the door and handed aglass to the gentlemen who had turned the fainting lad on hisback and were loosening scarf and collar. 

He lay there, in the traditional garb of the fraternity, like a youngcavalry man of the time of the Great Elector--with his blue, gold-braided doublet, close-fitting breeches of white leather andmighty boots whose flapping tops swelled out over his firm thighs. Hecouldn't be above eighteen or nineteen, long and broad though he was, with his cheeks of milk and blood, that showed no sign of down, noduelling scar. You would have thought him some mother's pet, had therenot been a sharp line of care that ran mournfully from the half-openlips to the chin. 

The cold water did its duty. Sighing, the lad opened his eyes--twopretty blue boy's eyes, long lashed and yet a little empty ofexpression as though life had delayed giving them the harder glowof maturity. 

These eyes fell upon the young girl who stood there, with handspressed to her heaving bosom, in an ecstatic desire to help. 

"Where can we carry him?" asked one of the physicians. 

"Into my room, " she cried, "I'll show you the way. "

Eight strong hands took hold and two minutes later the boy lay on theflowered cover of her bed. It was far too short for him, but it stood, soft and comfortable, hidden by white mull curtains in a corner ofher simple room. 

He was summoned back to full consciousness, tapped, auscultated andexamined. Finally he confessed with a good deal of hesitation that hisright foot hurt him a bit--that was all. 

"Are the boots your own, freshie?" asked one of the physicians. 

He blushed, turned his gaze to the wall and shook his head. 

Everyone smiled. 

"Well, then, off with the wretched thing. "

But all exertion of virile strength was in vain. The boot did notbudge. Only a low moan of suffering came from the patient. 

"There's nothing to be done, " said one, "little miss, let's have abread-knife. "

Anxious and with half-folded hands she had stood behind the doctors. Now she rushed off and brought the desired implement. 

"But you're not going to hurt him?" she asked with big, beseechingeyes. 

"No, no, we're only going to cut his leg off, " jested one of theby-standers and took the knife from her clinging fingers. 

Two incisions, two rents along the shin--the leather parted. A steadysurgeon's hand guided the knife carefully over the instep. At last the flesh appeared--bloody, steel-blue and badly swollen. 

"Freshie, you idiot, you might have killed yourself, " said the surgeonand gave the patient a paternal nudge. "And now, little miss, hurry--sugar of lead bandages till evening. "

Chapter II. 

Her name was Antonie. She was the inn-keeper Wiesner's only daughterand managed the household and kitchen because her mother had died inthe previous year. 

His name was Robert Messerschmidt. He was a physician's son and astudent of medicine. He hoped to fight his way into full fraternitymembership by the beginning of the next semester. This last detailwas, at present, the most important of his life and had been confidedto her at the very beginning of their acquaintanceship. 

Youth is in a hurry. At four o'clock their hands were intertwined. Atfive o'clock their lips found each other. From six on the bandageswere changed more rarely. Instead they exchanged vows of eternalfidelity. At eight a solemn betrothal took place. And when, at teno'clock, swaying slightly and mellow of mood, the physiciansreappeared in order to put the patient to bed properly, theirwedding-day had been definitely set for the fifth anniversary of thatday. Next morning the procession went on to celebrate in some otherpicturesque locality the festival of the breakfast of "themorning after. "

Toni had run up on the hill which ascended, behind her father's house, toward the high plateau of the river-bank. With dry but burning eyesshe looked after the wagons which gradually vanished in the silverysand of the road and one of which carried away into the distance herlife's whole happiness. 

To be sure, she had fallen in love with everyone whom she had met. This habit dated from her twelfth, nay, from her tenth year. But thistime it was different, oh, so different. This time it was like anaxe-blow from which one doesn't arise. Or like the felldisease--consumption--which had dragged her mother to the grave. 

She herself was more like her father, thick-set and sturdy. 

She had also inherited his calculating and planning nature. With toughtenacity he could sacrifice years of earning and saving and planningto acquire farms and meadows and orchards. Thus the girl couldmeditate and plan her fate which, until yesterday, had been fluid aswater but which to-day lay definitely anchored in the soul of astranger lad. 

Her education had been narrow. She knew the little that an oldgoverness and a comfortable pastor could teach. But she readwhatever she could get hold of--from the tattered "pony" to Homerwhich a boy friend had loaned her, to the most horriblepenny-dreadfuls which were her father's delight in his rare hoursof leisure. 

And she assimilated what she read and adapted it to her own fate. Thusher imagination was familiar with happiness, with delusion, with crime. .. . 

She knew that she was beautiful. If the humility of her play-fellowshad not assured her of this fact, she would have been enlightened bythe long glances and jesting admiration of her father's guests. 

Her father was strict. He interfered with ferocity if a travellerjested with her too intimately. Nevertheless he liked to have her comeinto the inn proper and slip, smiling and curtsying, past thewealthier guests. It was not unprofitable. 

Upon his short, fleshy bow-legs, with his suspiciously calculatingblink, with his avarice and his sharp tongue, he stood between her andthe world, permitting only so much of it to approach her as seemed, ata given moment, harmless and useful. 

His attitude was fatal to any free communication with her beloved. Heopened and read every letter that she had ever received. Had sheventured to call for one at the post-office, the information wouldhave reached him that very day. 

The problem was how to deceive him without placing herself at themercy of some friend. 

She sat down in the arbour from which, past the trees of the orchardand the neighbouring river, one had a view of the Russian forests, andput the problem to her seventeen-year old brain. And while the summerwind played with the green fruit on the boughs and the white heronsspread their gleaming wings over the river, she thought out aplan--the first of many by which she meant to rivet her belovedfor life. 

On the same afternoon she asked her father's permission to invite thedaughter of the county-physician to visit her. 

"Didn't know you were such great friends, " he said, surprised. 

"Oh, but we are, " she pretended to be a little hurt. "We were receivedinto the Church at the same time. "

With lightning-like rapidity he computed the advantages that mightresult from such a visit. The county-seat was four miles distant andif the societies of veterans and marksmen in whose committees thedoctor was influential could be persuaded to come hither for theiroutings. .. . The girl was cordially invited and arrived a week later. She was surprised and touched to find so faithful a friend in Toniwho, when they were both boarding with Pastor Rhode, had played hermany a sly trick. 

Two months later the girl, in her turn, invited Toni to the citywhither she had never before been permitted to go alone and so thelatter managed to receive her lover's first letter. 

What he wrote was discouraging enough. His father was ill, hence theexcellent practice was gliding into other hands and the means for hisown studies were growing narrow. If things went on so he might have togive up his university course and take to anything to keep his motherand sister from want. 

This prospect did not please Toni. She was so proud of him. She couldnot bear to have him descend in the social scale for the sake of breadand butter. She thought and thought how she could help him with money, but nothing occurred to her. She had to be content with encouraginghim and assuring him that her love would find ways and means forhelping him out of his difficulties. 

She wrote her letters at night and jumped out of the window in orderto drop them secretly into the pillar box. It was months before shecould secure an answer. His father was better, but life in thefraternity was very expensive, and it was a very grave questionwhether he had not better resign the scarf which he had just gainedand study on as a mere "barb. "

In Toni's imagination the picture of her beloved was brilliantlyilluminated by the glory of the tricoloured fraternity scarf, hisdesire for it had become so ardently her own, that she could not bearthe thought of him--his yearning satisfied--returning to the graycommonplace garb of Philistia. And so she wrote him. 

Spring came and Toni matured to statelier maidenhood. The plump girl, half-child, droll and naïve, grew to be a thoughtful, silent youngwoman, secretive and very sure of her aims. She condescended to theguests and took no notice of the desperate admiration which surroundedher. Her glowing eyes looked into emptiness, her infinitely temptingmouth smiled carelessly at friends and strangers. 

In May Robert's father died. 

She read it in one of the papers that were taken at the inn, andimmediately it became clear to her that her whole future was at stake. For if he was crushed now by the load of family cares, if hope weretaken from him, no thought of her or her love would be left. Only ifshe could redeem her promises and help him practically could she hopeto keep him. In the farthest corner of a rarely opened drawer layher mother's jewels which were some day to be hers--brooches andrings, a golden chain, and a comb set with rubies which had found itsway--heaven knows how--into the simple inn. 

Without taking thought she stole the whole and sent it asmerchandise--not daring to risk the evidence of registration--to helphim in his studies. The few hundred marks that the jewellery wouldbring would surely keep him until the end of the semester . .. Butwhat then? . .. 

And again she thought and planned all through the long, hot nights. 

Pastor Rhode's eldest son, a frail, tall junior who followed her, fullof timid passion, came home from college for the spring vacation. Inthe dusk he crept around the inn as had been his wont for years. 

This time he had not long to wait. 

How did things go at college? Badly. Would he enter the senior classat Michaelmas? Hardly. Then she would have to be ashamed of him, andthat would be a pity: she liked him too well. 

The slim lad writhed under this exquisite torture. It wasn't hisfault. He had pains in his chest, and growing pains. And all that. 

She unfolded her plan. 

"You ought to have a tutor during the long vacation, Emil, to help youwork. "

"Papa can do that. "

"Oh, Papa is busy. You ought to have a tutor all to yourself, astudent or something like that. If you're really fond of me ask yourPapa to engage one. Perhaps he'll get a young man from his ownfraternity with whom he can chat in the evening. You will ask, won'tyou? I don't like people who are conditioned in their studies. "

That same night a letter was sent to her beloved. 

"Watch the frat. Bulletin! Our pastor is going to look for a tutor forhis boy. See to it that you get the position. I'm longing to seeyou. "

Chapter III

Once more it was late July--exactly a year after those memorableevents--and he sat in the stage-coach and took off his crape-hung capto her. His face was torn by fresh scars and diagonally across hisbreast the blue white golden scarf was to be seen. 

She grasped the posts of the fence with both hands and felt that shewould die if she could not have him. 

Upon that evening she left the house no more, although for two hourshe walked the dusty village street, with Emil, but also alone. But onthe next evening she stood behind the fence. Their hands found eachother across the obstacle. 

"Do you sleep on the ground-floor?" she asked whispering. 

"Yes. "

"Does the dog still bark when he sees you. "

"I don't know, I'm afraid so. "

"When you've made friends with him so that he won't bark when you getout of the window, then come to the arbour behind our orchard. I'llwait for you every night at twelve. But don't mind that. Don't cometill you're sure of the dog. "

For three long nights she sat on the wooden bench of the arbour untilthe coming of dawn and stared into the bluish dusk that hid thevillage as in a cloak. From time to time the dogs bayed. She coulddistinguish the bay of the pastor's collie. She knew his hoarse voice. Perhaps he was barring her beloved's way. .. . 

At last, during the fourth night, when his coming was scarcely to behoped for, uncertain steps dragged up the hill. 

She did not run to meet him. She crouched in the darkest corner of thearbour and tasted, intensely blissful, the moments during which hefelt his way through the foliage. 

Then she clung to his neck, to his lips, demanding and accordingall--rapt to the very peaks of life. .. . 

They were together nightly. Few words passed between them. Shescarcely knew how he looked. For not even a beam of the moon couldpenetrate the broad-leaved foliage, and at the peep of dawn theyseparated. She might have lain in the arms of a stranger and not knownthe difference. 

And not only during their nightly meetings, but even by day they sliptthrough life-like shadows. One day the pastor came to the inn for aglass of beer and chatted with other gentlemen. She heard him. 

"I don't know what's the matter with that young fellow, " he said. "Hedoes his duty and my boy is making progress. But he's like a strangerfrom another world. He sits at the table and scarcely sees us. Hetalks and you have the feeling that he doesn't know what he's talkingabout. Either he's anaemic or he writes poetry. "

She herself saw the world through a blue veil, heard the voices oflife across an immeasurable distance and felt hot, alien shivers runthrough her enervated limbs. 

The early Autumn approached and with it the day of his departure. Atlast she thought of discussing the future with him which, until then, like all else on earth, had sunk out of sight. 

His mother, he told her, meant to move to Koenigsberg and earn herliving by keeping boarders. Thus there was at least a possibility ofhis continuing his studies. But he didn't believe that he would beable to finish. His present means would soon be exhausted and he hadno idea where others would come from. 

All that he told her in the annoyed and almost tortured tones of onelong weary of hope who only staggers on in fear of more vitaldegradation. 

With flaming words she urged him to be of good courage. She insistedupon such resources as--however frugal--were, after all, at hand, andcalculated every penny. She shrugged her shoulders at his gratitudefor that first act of helpfulness. If only there were something elseto be taken. But whence and how? Her suspicious father would haveobserved any shortage in his till at once and would have had the thiefdiscovered. 

The great thing was to gain time. Upon her advice he was to leaveKoenigsberg with its expensive fraternity life and pass the winter inBerlin. The rest had to be left to luck and cunning. 

In a chill, foggy September night they said farewell. Shivering theyheld each other close. Their hearts were full of the confused hopeswhich they themselves had kindled, not because there was any groundfor hope, but because without it one cannot live. 

And a few weeks later everything came to an end. 

For Toni knew of a surety that she would be a mother. .. . 

Chapter IV. 

Into the river!

For that her father would put her in the street was clear. It wasequally clear what would become of her in that case. .. . 

But no, not into the river! Why was her young head so practised inskill and cunning, if it was to bow helplessly under the first severeonslaught of fate? What was the purpose of those beautiful long nightsbut to brood upon plans and send far thoughts out toward shining aims?

No, she would not run into the river. That dear wedding-day in five, nay, in four years, was lost anyhow. But the long time could beutilised so cleverly that her beloved could be dragged across theabyss of his fate. 

First, then, she must have a father for her child. He must not beclever. He must not be strong of will. Nor young, for youth makesdemands. . .. Nor well off, for he who is certain of himself desiresfreedom of choice. 

Her choice fell upon a former inn-keeper, a down-hearted man of aboutfifty, moist of eye, faded, with greasy black hair. .. . He had failedin business some years before and now sat around in the inn, lookingfor a job. .. . 

To this her father did not object. For that man's condition was anexcellent foil to his own success and prosperity and thus he waspermitted, at times, to stay a week in the house where, otherwise, charity was scarcely at home. 

Her plan worked well. On the first day she lured him silently on. Onthe second he responded. On the third she turned sharply and rebukedhim. On the fourth she forgave him. On the fifth she met him insecret. On the sixth he went on a journey, conscience smitten forhaving seduced her. .. . 

That very night--for there was no time to be lost--she confessed withtrembling and blushing to her father that she was overcome by anunconquerable passion for Herr Weigand. As was to be expected she wasdriven from the door with shame and fury. 

During the following weeks she went about bathed in tears. Her fatheravoided her. Then, when the right moment seemed to have come, she madea second and far more difficult confession. This time her tremours andher blushes were real, her tears were genuine for her father used ahorse-whip. .. . But when, that night, Toni sat on the edge of her bedand bathed the bloody welts on her body, she knew that her planwould succeed. 

And, to be sure, two days later Herr Weigand returned--a little morefaded, a little more hesitant, but altogether, by no means unhappy. Hewas invited into her father's office for a long discussion. The resultwas that the two lovers fell into each others' arms while her father, trembling with impotent rage, hurled at them the fragments of acrushed cigar. 

The banns were proclaimed immediately after the betrothal, and amonth later Herr Weigand, in his capacity of son-in-law, could takepossession of the same garret which he had inhabited as an impecuniousguest. This arrangement, however, was not a permanent one. An inn wasto be rented for the young couple--with her father's money. 

Toni, full of zeal and energy, took part in every new undertaking, travelled hither and thither, considered prospects and dangers, butalways withdrew again at the last moment in order to await a faireropportunity. 

But she was utterly set upon the immediate furnishing of the new home. She went to Koenigsberg and had long sessions with furniture dealersand tradesmen of all kinds. On account of her delicate condition sheinsisted that she could only travel on the upholstered seats of thesecond class. She charged her father accordingly and in realitytravelled fourth class and sat for hours between market-women andPolish Jews in order to save a few marks. In the accounts she renderedheavy meals were itemized, strengthening wines, stimulating cordials. As a matter of fact, she lived on dried slices of bread which, beforeleaving home, she hid in her trunk. 

She did not disdain the saving of a tram car fare, although therebates which she got on the furniture ran into the hundreds. 

All that she sent jubilantly to her lover in Berlin, assured that hewas provided for some months. 

Thus the great misfortune had finally resulted in a blessing. For, without these unhoped for resources, he must have long fallen bythe way-side. 

Months passed. Her furnishings stood in a storage warehouse, but thehouse in which they were to live was not yet found. 

When she felt that her hour had come--her father and husband thoughtit far off--she redoubled the energy of her travels, seeking, preferably, rough and ribbed roads which other women in her conditionwere wont to shun. 

And thus, one day, in a springless vehicle, two miles distant from thecounty-seat, the pains of labour came upon her. She steeled everynerve and had herself carried to the house of the county-physicianwhose daughter was now tenderly attached to her. 

There she gave birth to a girl child which announced its equivocalarrival in this world lustily. 

The old doctor, into whose house this confusion had suddenly come, stood by her bed-side, smiling good-naturedly. She grasped him withboth hands, terror in her eyes and in her voice. 

"Dear, dear doctor! The baby was born too soon, wasn't it?"

The doctor drew back and regarded her long and earnestly. Then hissmile returned and his kind hand touched her hair. 

"Yes, it is as you say. The baby's nails are not fully developed andits weight is slightly below normal. It's all on account of yourcareless rushing about. Surely the child came too soon. "

And he gave her the proper certification of the fact which protectedher from those few people who might consider themselves partakers ofher secret. For the opinion of people in general she cared little. Sostrong had she grown through guilt and silence. 

And she was a child of nineteen! . .. 

Chapter V. 

When Toni had arisen from her bed of pain she found the place whichshe and her husband had been seeking for months with surprisingrapidity. The "Hotel Germania, " the most reputable hotel in thecounty-seat itself was for rent. Its owner had recently died. It waspalatial compared to her father's inn. There were fifteen rooms forguests, a tap-room, a wine-room, a grocery-shop and a livery-stable. 

Weigand, intimidated by misfortune, had never even hoped to aspire tosuch heights of splendour. Even now he could only grasp the measure ofhis happiness by calculating enormous profits. And he did this withpeculiar delight. For, since the business was to be run in the name ofToni's father, his own creditors could not touch him. 

When they had moved in and the business began to be straightened out, Weigand proved himself in flat contradiction of his slack and carelesscharacter, a tough and circumspect man of business. He knew thewhereabouts of every penny and was not inclined to permit his wife tomake random inroads upon his takings. 

Toni, who had expected to be undisputed mistress of the safe sawherself cheated of her dearest hopes, for the time approached when thesavings made on the purchase of her furniture must necessarily beexhausted. 

And again she planned and wrestled through the long, warm nights whileher husband, whose inevitable proximity she bore calmly, snored withthe heaviness of many professional "treats. "

One day she said to him: "A few pennies must be put by for Amanda. "That was the name of the little girl who flourished merrily in hercradle. "You must assign some little profits to me. "

"What can I do?" he asked. "For the present everything belongs to theold man. "

"I know what I'd like, " she went on, smiling dreamily, "I'd like tohave all the profits on the sale of champagne. "

He laughed heartily. There wasn't much call for champagne in thelittle county-seat. At most a few bottles were sold on the emperor'sbirthday or when, once in a long while, a flush commercial travellerwanted to regale a recalcitrant customer. 

And so Weigand fell in with what he thought a mere mood and assented. 

Toni at once made a trip to Koenigsberg and bought all kinds ofphantastic decorations--Chinese lanterns, gilt fans, artificialflowers, gay vases and manicoloured lamp-shades. With all these thingsshe adorned the little room that lay behind the room in which the mostdistinguished townspeople were wont to drink their beer. And so theplace with veiled light and crimson glow looked more like a mysteriousoriental shrine than the sitting-room of an honest Prussianinn-keeper's wife. 

She sat evening after evening in this phantastic room. She brought herknitting and awaited the things that were to come. 

The gentlemen who drank in the adjoining room, the judges, physicians, planters--all the bigwigs of a small town, in short--soon noticed themagical light that glimmered through the half-open door wheneverWeigand was obliged to pass from the public rooms into his privatedwelling. And the men grew to be curious, the more so as theinn-keeper's young wife, of whose charms many rumours were afloat, hadnever yet been seen by any. 

One evening, when the company was in an especially hilarious mood, themen demanded stormily to see the mysterious room. 

Weigand hesitated. He would have to ask his wife's permission. Hereturned with the friendly message that the gentlemen were welcome. Hesitant, almost timid, they entered as if crossing the threshold ofsome house of mystery. 

There stood--transfigured by the glow of coloured lamps--the shapelyyoung woman with the alluring glow in her eyes, and her lips that werein the form of a heart. She gave each a secretly quivering hand andspoke a few soft words that seemed to distinguish him from the others. Then, still timid and modest, she asked them to be seated and beggedfor permission to serve a glass of champagne in honour ofthe occasion. 

It is not recorded who ordered the second bottle. It may have been thevery fat Herr von Loffka, or the permanently hilarious judge. At allevents the short visit of the gentlemen came to an end at threeo'clock in the morning with wild intoxication and a sale of eighteenbottles of champagne, of which half bore French labels. 

Toni resisted all requests for a second invitation to her sanctum. Shefirst insisted on the solemn assurance that the gentlemen wouldrespect her presence and bring neither herself nor her house intoill-repute. At last came the imperial county-counsellor himself--awealthy bachelor of fifty with the manners of an injured lady killer. He came to beg for himself and the others and she dared not refuseany longer. 

The champagne festivals continued. With this difference: that Toni, whenever the atmosphere reached a certain point of heatedintoxication, modestly withdrew to her bed-room. Thus she succeeded notonly in holding herself spotless but in being praised for herretiring nature. 

But she kindled a fire in the heads of these dissatisfied Universitymen who deemed themselves banished into a land of starvation, and inthe senses of the planters' sons. And this fire burned on and createdabout her an atmosphere of madly fevered desire. .. . 

Finally it became the highest mark of distinction in the little town, the sign of real connoisseurship in life, to have drunk a bottle ofchampagne with "Germania, " as they called her, although she boregreater resemblance to some swarthier lady of Rome. Whoever was notadmitted to her circle cursed his lowliness and his futile life. 

Of course, in spite of all precautions, it could not but be that herreputation suffered. The daughter of the county-physician began toavoid her, the wives of social equals followed suit. But no one daredaccuse her of improper relations with any of her adorers. It was evenknown that the county-counsellor, desperate over her stern refusals, was urging her to get a divorce from her husband and marry him. No onesuspected, of course, that she had herself spread this rumour in orderto render pointless the possible leaking out of improprieties. .. . 

Nor did any one dream that a bank in Koenigsberg transmitted, in hername, monthly cheques to Berlin that sufficed amply to help anambitious medical student to continue his work. 

The news which she received from her beloved was scanty. 

In order to remain in communication with him she had thought out asubtle method. 

The house of every tradesman or business man in the provinces isflooded with printed advertisements from Berlin which pour out overthe small towns and the open country. Of this printed matter, which isusually thrown aside unnoticed, Toni gathered the most voluminousexamples, carefully preserved the envelopes, and sent them to Robert. Her husband did not notice of course that the same advertising mattercame a second time nor that faint, scarce legible pencil marks pickedout words here and there which, when read consecutively, made completesense and differed very radically from the message which the printedslips were meant to convey. .. . 

Years passed. A few ship-wrecked lives marked Toni's path, a fewfemale slanders against her were avenged by the courts. Otherwisenothing of import took place. 

And in her heart burned with never-lessening glow the one greatemotion which always supplied fuel to her will, which lent everyaction a pregnant significance and furnished absolution forevery crime. 

In the meantime Amanda grew to be a blue-eyed, charming child--gentleand caressing and the image of the man of whose love she was theimpassioned gift. 

But Fate, which seems to play its gigantic pranks upon men in the actof punishing them, brought it to pass that the child seemed also tobear some slight resemblance to the stranger who, bowed and servile, stupidly industrious, sucking cigars, was to be seen at hermother's side. 

Never was father more utterly devoted to the fruit of his loins thanthis gulled fellow to the strange child to whom the mother did noteven--by kindly inactivity--give him a borrowed right. The morecarefully she sought to separate the child from him, the moreadoringly and tenaciously did he cling to it. 

With terror and rage Toni was obliged to admit to herself that no sumwould ever suffice to make Weigand agree to a divorce that separatedhim definitely from the child. And dreams and visions, transplantedinto her brain from evil books, filled Toni's nights with the glitterof daggers and the stain of flowing blood. And fate seemed to urge onthe day when these dreams must take on flesh. .. . 

One day she found in the waste-paper basket which she searchedcarefully after every mail-delivery, an advertisement which commendedto the buying public a new make of type-writer. 

"Many public institutions, " thus the advertisement ran, "use our welltried machines in their offices, because these machines will bear themost rigid examination. Their reputation has crossed the ocean. TheChilean ministry has just ordered a dozen of our 'Excelsiors' bycable. Thus successfully does our invention spread over the world. Andyet its victorious progress is by no means completed. Even in Japan--"and so on. 

If one looked at this stuff very carefully, one could observe thatcertain words were lightly marked in pencil. And if one read thesewords consecutively, the following sentence resulted:

"Public--examination--just--successfully--completed. "

From this day on the room with the veiled lamps remained closed to hereager friends. From this day on the generous county-counsellor sawthat his hopes were dead. .. . 

Chapter VI. 

How was the man to be disposed of?

An open demand for divorce would have been stupid, for it would havethrown a very vivid suspicion upon any later and more drastic attempt. 

Weigand's walk and conversation were blameless. Her one hope consistedin catching him in some chance infidelity. The desire for change, shereasoned, the allurement of forbidden fruit, must inflame even thiswooden creature. 

She had never, hitherto, paid the slightest attention to the problemof waitresses. Now she travelled to Koenigsberg and hired thehandsomest women to be found in the employment bureaus. They came, oneafter another, a feline Polish girl, a smiling, radiantly blond childof Sweden--a Venus, a Germania--this time a genuine one. Next came apretended Circassian princess. And they all wandered off again, andWeigand had no glance for them but that of the master. 

Antonie was discouraged and dropped her plan. 

What now?

She had recoiled from no baseness. She had sacrificed to her lovehonour, self-respect, truth, righteousness and pride. But she hadavoided hitherto the possibility of a conflict with the law. Occasional small thefts in the house did not count. 

But the day had come when crime itself, crime that threatened remorseand the sword of judgment, entered her life. For otherwise she couldnot get rid of her husband. 

The regions that lie about the eastern boundary of the empire arehaunted by Jewish peddlers who carry in their sacks Russian drops, candied fruits, gay ribands, toys made of bark, and other pleasantthings which make them welcome to young people. But they also supplysterner needs. In the bottom of their sacks are hidden love philtresand strange electuaries. And if you press them very determinedly, youwill find some among them who have the little white powders that canbe poured into beer . .. Or the small, round discs which the commonfolk call "crow's eyes" and which the greedy apothecaries will notsell you merely for the reason that they prepare the costlierstrychnine from them. 

You will often see these beneficent men in the twilight in secretcolloquy with female figures by garden-gates and the edges of woods. The female figures slip away if you happen to appear on the road. .. . Often, too, these men are asked into the house and intimate council isheld with them--especially when husband and servants are busy in thefields. .. . 

One evening in the beginning of May, Toni brought home with her from aharmless walk a little box of arsenic and a couple of small, harddiscs that rattled merrily in one's pocket. .. . Cold sweat ran down herthroat and her legs trembled so that she had to sit down on a case ofsoap before entering the house. 

Her husband asked her what was wrong. 

"Ah, it's the spring, " she answered and laughed. 

Soon her adorers noticed, and not these only, that her lovelinessincreased from day to day. Her eyes which, under their depressedbrows, had assumed a sharp and peering gaze, once more glowed withtheir primal fire, and a warm rosiness suffused her cheeks that spreadmarvelously to her forehead and throat. 

Her appearance made so striking an impression that many a one who hadnot seen her for a space stared at her and asked, full of admiration:"What have you done to yourself?"

"It is the spring, " she answered and laughed. 

As a matter of fact she had taken to eating arsenic. 

She had been told that any one who becomes accustomed to the use ofthis poison can increase the doses to such an extent that he can takewithout harm a quantity that will necessarily kill another. And shehad made up her mind to partake of the soup which she meant, some day, to prepare for her husband. That much she held to be due a faultlessclaim of innocence. 

But she was unfortunate enough to make a grievous mistake one day, andlay writhing on the floor in uncontrollable agony. 

The old physician at once recognized the symptoms of arsenicpoisoning, prescribed the necessary antidotes and carefully draggedher back into life. The quantity she had taken, he declared, shakinghis head, was enough to slay a strong man. He transmitted theinformation of the incident as demanded by law. 

Detectives and court-messengers visited the house. The entire buildingwas searched, documents had to be signed and all reports werecarefully followed up. 

The dear romantic public refused to be robbed of its opinion that oneof Toni's rejected admirers had thus sought to avenge himself. Thesuspicion of the authorities, however, fastened itself upon awaitress, a plump, red-haired wanton who had taken the place of theimported beauties and whose insolent ugliness the men of the town, relieved of nobler delights, enjoyed thoroughly. The insight of theinvestigating judge had found in the girl's serving in the house andher apparent intimacy with its master a scent which he would by nomeans abandon. Only, because a few confirmatory details were still toseek, the suspicion was hidden not only from the public but even fromits object. 

Antonie, however, ailed continually. She grew thin, her digestion wasdelicate. If the blow was to be struck--and many circumstances urgedit--she would no longer be able to share the poison with her victim. But it seemed fairly certain that suspicion would very definitely fallnot upon her but upon the other woman. The latter would have to besacrificed, so much was clear. 

But that was the difficulty. The wounded conscience might recover, thecrime might be conquered into forgetfulness, if only that is slainwhich burdens the earth, which should never have been. But Toni feltthat her soul could not drag itself to any bourne of peace if, for herown advantage, she cast one who was innocent to lasting andirremediable destruction. 

The simplest thing would have been to dismiss the woman. In that case, however, it was possible that the courts would direct theirinvestigations to her admirers. One of them had spoken hasty andcareless words. He might not be able to clear himself, were theaccusation directed against him. 

There remained but one hope: to ascribe the unavertible death of herhusband to some accident, some heedlessness. And so she directed herunwavering purpose to this end. 

The Polish peddler had slipped into Toni's hand not only the arsenicbut also the deadly little discs called "crow's eyes. " These must helpher, if used with proper care and circumspection. 

One day while little Amanda was playing in the yard with other girls, she found among the empty kerosene barrels a few delightful, silverydiscs, no larger then a ten pfennig piece. With great delight shebrought them to her mother who, attending to her knitting, had ceasedfor a moment to watch the children. 

"What's that, Mama?"

"I don't know, my darling. "

"May we play with them?"

"What would you like to play?"

"We want to throw them. "

"No, don't do that. But I'll make you a new doll-carriage and thesewill be lovely wheels. "

The children assented and Amanda brought a pair of scissors in orderto make holes in the little wheels. But they were too hard and thepoints of the blades slipped. 

"Ask father to use his small gimlet. "

Amanda ran to the open window behind which he for whom all this wasprepared was quietly making out his monthly bills. 

Toni's breath failed. If he recognised the poisonous fruits, it wasall over with her plan. But the risk was not to be avoided. 

He looked at the discs for a moment. And yet for another. No, he didnot know their nature but was rather pleased with them. It did noteven occur to him to warn the little girl to beware of theunknown fruit. 

He called into the shop ordering an apprentice to bring him atool-case. The boy in his blue apron came and Toni observed that hiseyes rested upon the fruits for a perceptible interval. Thus therewas, in addition to the children, another witness and one who would beadmitted to oath. 

Weigand bored holes into four of the discs and threw them, jestingkindly, into the children's apron. The others he kept. "He haspronounced his own condemnation, " Toni thought as with tremblingfingers she mended an old toy to fit the new wheels. 

Nothing remained but to grind the proper dose with cinnamon, tosweeten it--according to instructions--and spice a rice-puddingtherewith. 

But fate which, in this delicate matter, had been hostile to her fromthe beginning, ordained it otherwise. 

For that very evening came the apothecary, not, as a rule, a timidperson. He was pale and showed Weigand the fruits. He had, by themerest hair-breadth, prevented his little girl Marie from nibblingone of them. 

The rest followed as a matter of course. The new wheels were takenfrom the doll-carriage, all fragments were carefully sought out andall the discs were given to the apothecary who locked them intohis safe. 

"The red-headed girl must be sacrificed after all, " Toni thought. 

She planned and schemed, but she could think of no way by which thewaitress could be saved from that destruction which hung over her. 

There was no room for further hesitation. The path had to be troddento its goal. Whether she left corpses on the way-side, whether sheherself broke down dead at the goal--it did not matter. That plan ofher life which rivetted her fate to her beloved's forever demandedthat she proceed. 

The old physician came hurrying to the inn next morning. He wasutterly confounded by the scarcely escaped horrors. 

"You really look, " he said to Toni, "as if you had swallowed some ofthe stuff, too. "

"Oh, I suppose my fate will overtake me in the end, " she answered witha weary smile. "I feel it in my bones: there will be some misfortunein our house. "

"For heaven's sake!" he cried, "Put that red-headed beast into thestreet. "

"It isn't she! I'll take my oath on that, " she said eagerly andthought that she had done a wonderfully clever thing. 

She waited in suspense, fearing that the authorities would take acloser look at this last incident. She was equipped for anysearch--even one that might penetrate to her own bed-room. For she hadput false bottoms into the little medicine-boxes. Beneath these shekept the arsenic. On top lay harmless magnesia. The boxes themselvesstood on her toilet-table, exposed to all eyes and hence withdrawnfrom all suspicion. 

She waited till evening, but nobody came. And yet the connectionbetween this incident and the former one seemed easy enough toestablish. However that might be, she assigned the final deed to thevery next day. And why wait? An end had to be made of this torture ofhesitation which, at every new scruple, seemed to freeze her veryheart's blood. Furthermore the finding of the "crow's eyes" would beof use in leading justice astray. 

To-morrow, then . .. To-morrow. .. . 

Weigand had gone to bed early. But Toni sat behind the door of thepublic room and, through a slit of the door, listened to everymovement of the waitress. She had kept near her all evening. Shescarcely knew why. But a strange, dull hope would not die in her--ahope that something might happen whereby her unsuspecting victim andherself might both be saved. 

The clock struck one. The public rooms were all but empty. Only a fewyoung clerks remained. These were half-drunk and made rough advancesto the waitress. 

She resisted half-serious, half-jesting. 

"You go out and cool yourselves in the night-air. I don't care aboutsuch fellows as you. "

"I suppose you want only counts and barons, " one of them taunted her. "I suppose you wouldn't even think the county-counsellor good enough!"

"That's my affair, " she answered, "as to who is good enough for me. Ihave my choice. I can get any man I want. "

They laughed at her and she flew into a rage. 

"If you weren't such a beggarly crew and had anything to bet, I'dwager you any money that I'd seduce any man I want in a week. In aweek, do I say? In three days! Just name the man. "

Antonie quivered sharply and then sank with closed eyes, against theback of her chair. A dream of infinite bliss stole through her being. Was there salvation for her in this world? Could this coarse creatureaccomplish that in which beauty and refinement had failed?

Could she be saved from becoming a murderess? Would it be granted herto remain human, with a human soul and a human face?

But this was no time for tears or weakening. 

With iron energy she summoned all her strength and quietude andwisdom. The moment was a decisive one. 

When the last guests had gone and all servants, too, had gone to theirrest, she called the waitress, with some jesting reproach, intoher room. 

A long whispered conversation followed. At its end the woman declaredthat the matter was child's play to her. 

And did not suspect that by this game she was saving her life. 

Chapter VII. 

In hesitant incredulity Antonie awaited the things that were to come. 

On the first day a staggering thing happened. The red-headed woman, scolding at the top of her voice, threw down a beer-glass at hermaster's feet, upon which he immediately gave her notice. 

Toni's newly-awakened hope sank. The woman had boasted. And what wasworse than all: if the final deed could be accomplished, her compactwith the waitress would damn her. The woman would of course use thisweapon ruthlessly. The affair had never stood so badly. 

But that evening she breathed again. For Weigand declared that thewaitress seemed to have her good qualities too and her heart-feltprayers had persuaded him to keep her. 

For several days nothing of significance took place except thatWeigand, whenever he mentioned the waitress, peered curiously aside. And this fact Toni interpreted in a favorable light. 

Almost a week passed. Then, one day, the waitress approached Toni atan unwonted hour. 

"If you'll just peep into my room this afternoon. .. . "

Toni followed directions. .. . The poor substitute crept down thestairs--caught and powerless. He followed his wife who knelt sobbingbeside their bed. She was not to be comforted, nor to be moved. Sherepulsed him and wept and wept. 

Weigand had never dreamed that he was so passionately loved. The moreviolent was the anger of the deceived wife. .. . She demanded divorce, instant divorce. .. . 

He begged and besought and adjured. In vain. 

Next he enlisted the sympathy of his father-in-law who had taken nogreat interest in the business during these years, but was content ifthe money he had invested in it paid the necessary six percent. Promptly. 

The old man came immediately and made a scene with his recalcitrantdaughter. .. . There was the splendid business and the heavy investment!She was not to think that he would give her one extra penny. He wouldsimply withdraw his capital and let her and the child starve. 

Toni did not even deign to reply. 

The suit progressed rapidly. The unequivocal testimony of the waitressrendered any protest nugatory. 

Three months later Toni put her possessions on a train, took herchild, whom the deserted father followed with an inarticulate moan, and travelled to Koenigsberg where she rented a small flat in order toawait in quiet the reunion with her beloved. 

The latter was trying to work up a practice in a village close to theRussian border. He wrote that things were going slowly and that, hence, he must be at his post night and day. So soon as he had theslightest financial certainty for his wife and child, he wouldcome for them. 

And so she awaited the coming of her life's happiness. She had littleto do, and passed many happy hours in imagining how he would rushin--by yonder passage--through this very door--tall and slender andimpassioned and press her to his wildly throbbing heart. And everagain, though she knew it to be a foolish dream, did she see the bluewhite golden scarf upon his chest and the blue and gold cap upon hisblond curls. 

Lonely widows--even those of the divorced variety--find friends andready sympathy in the land of good hearts. But Antonie avoidedeveryone who sought her society. Under the ban of her great secretpurpose she had ceased to regard men and women except as they could beturned into the instruments of her will. And her use for them wasover. As for their merely human character and experience--Toni sawthrough these at once. And it all seemed to her futile and trivial inthe fierce reflection of those infernal fires through which she hadhad to pass. 

Adorned like a bride and waiting--thus she lived quietly and modestlyon the means which her divorced husband--in order to keep his own headabove water--managed to squeeze out of the business. 

Suddenly her father died. People said that his death was due tounconquerable rage over her folly. .. . 

She buried him, bearing herself all the while with blameless filialpiety and then awoke to the fact that she was rich. 

She wrote to her beloved: "Don't worry another day. We are in aposition to choose the kind of life that pleases us. "

He wired back: "Expect me to-morrow. "

Full of delight and anxiety she ran to the mirror and discovered forthe thousandth time, that she was beautiful again. The results ofpoisoning had disappeared, crime and degradation had burned no marksinto her face. She stood there--a ruler of life. Her whole beingseemed sure of itself, kindly, open. Only the wild glance might, attimes, betray the fact that there was much to conceal. 

She kept wakeful throughout the night, as she had done through manyanother. Plan after plan passed through her busy brain. It was with aneffort that she realised the passing of such grim necessities. 

Chapter VIII. 

A bunch of crysanthemums stood on the table, asters in vases ondresser and chiffonier--colourful and scentless. 

Antonie wore a dress of black lace that had been made by the bestdressmaker in the city for this occasion. In festive array shedesired to meet her beloved and yet not utterly discard the garb offilial grief. But she had dressed the child in white, with white silkstockings and sky-blue ribands. It was to meet its father like theincarnate spirit of approaching happiness. 

From the kitchen came the odours of the choicest autumn dishes--roastduck with apples and a grape-cake, such as she alone knew how toprepare. Two bottles of precious Rhine wine stood in the cool withoutthe window. She did not want to welcome him with champagne. Thememories of its subtle prickling, and of much else connectedtherewith, nauseated her. 

If he left his village at six in the morning he must arrive at noon. 

And she waited even as she had waited seven years. This morning sevenhours had been left, there were scarcely seven minutes now. Andthen--the door-bell rang. 

"That is the new uncle, " she said to Amanda who was handling herfinery, flattered and astonished, and she wondered to note her braingrow suddenly so cool and clear. 

A gentleman entered. A strange gentleman. Wholly strange. Had she methim on the street she would not have known him. 

He had grown old--forty, fifty, an hundred years. Yet his real agecould not be over twenty-eight! . .. 

He had grown fat. He carried a little paunch about with him, round andcomfortable. And the honourable scars gleamed in round red cheeks. Hiseyes seemed small and receding. .. . 

And when he said: "Here I am at last, " it was no longer the old voice, clear and a little resonant, which had echoed and re-echoed in herspiritual ear. He gurgled as though he had swallowed dumplings. 

But when he took her hand and smiled, something slipt into hisface--something affectionate and quiet, empty and without guile orsuspicion. 

Where was she accustomed to this smile? To be sure; in Amanda. Anindubitable inheritance. 

And for the sake of this empty smile an affectionate feeling for thisstranger came into her heart. She helped him take off his overcoat. Hewore a pair of great, red-lined rubber goloshes, typical of thecountry doctor. He took these off carefully and placed them with theirtoes toward the wall. 

"He has grown too pedantic, " she thought. 

Then all three entered the room. When Toni saw him in the light of dayshe missed the blue white golden scarf at once. But it would havelooked comical over his rounded paunch. And yet its absencedisillusioned her. It seemed to her as if her friend had doffed thehalo for whose sake she had served him and looked up to him so long. 

As for him, he regarded her with unconcealed admiration. 

"Well, well, one can be proud of you!" he said, sighing deeply, and italmost seemed as if with this sigh a long and heavy burden lifteditself from his soul. 

"He was afraid he might have to be ashamed of me, " she thoughtrebelliously. As if to protect herself she pushed the little girlbetween them. 

"Here is Amanda, " she said, and added with a bitter smile: "Perhapsyou remember. "

But he didn't even suspect the nature of that which she wanted to makehim feel. 

"Oh, I've brought something for you, little one!" he cried with thedelight of one who recalls an important matter in time. With measuredstep he trotted back into the hall and brought out a flat paste-boardbox tied with pink ribands. He opened it very carefully and revealed alayer of chocolate-creams wrapped in tin-foil and offered oneto Amanda. 

And this action seemed to him, obviously, to satisfy all requirementsin regard to his preliminary relations to the child. 

Antonie felt the approach of a head-ache such as she had now and thenever since the arsenic poisoning. 

"You are probably hungry, dear Robert, " she said. 

He wouldn't deny that. "If one is on one's legs from four o'clock inthe morning on, you know, and has nothing in one's stomach but acouple of little sausages, you know!"

He said all that with the same cheerfulness that seemed to come to himas a matter of course and yet did not succeed in wholly hiding aninner diffidence. 

They sat down at the table and Antonie, taking pleasure in seeing tohis comfort, forgot for a moment the foolish ache that tugged at herbody and at her soul. 

The wine made him talkative. He related everything that interestedhim--his professional trips across country, the confinements thatsometimes came so close together that he had to spend twenty-fourhours in his buggy. Then he told of the tricks by which people whoselives he had just saved sought to cheat him out of his modest fees. And he told also of the comfortable card-parties with the judge andthe village priest. And how funny it was when the inn-keeper's tamestarling promenaded on the cards. .. . 

Every word told of cheerful well-being and unambitious contentment. 

"He doesn't think of our common future, " a torturing suspicionwhispered to her. 

But he did. 

"I should like to have you try, first of all, Toni, to live there. Itisn't easy. But we can both stand a good deal, thank God, and if wedon't like it in the end, why, we can move away. "

And he said that so simply and sincerely that her suspicion vanished. 

And with this returning certitude there returned, too, the ambitionwhich she had always nurtured for him. 

"How would it be if we moved to Berlin, or somewhere where there is auniversity?"

"And maybe aim at a professorship?" he cried with cheerful irony. "No, Tonichen, all your money can't persuade me to that. I crammed enoughin that damned medical school, I've got my income and that's goodenough for me. "

A feeling of disgust came over her. She seemed to perceive the stuffyodour of unventilated rooms and of decaying water in which flowershad stood. 

"That is what I suffered for, " involuntarily the thought came, "_that!_"

After dinner when Amanda was sleeping off the effects of the littlesip of wine which she had taken when they let her clink glasses withthem, they sat opposite each other beside the geraniums of thewindow-box and fell silent. He blew clouds of smoke from his cigarinto the air and seemed not disinclined to indulge in a nap, too. 

Leaning back in her wicker chair she observed him uninterruptedly. Atone moment it seemed to her as though she caught an intoxicatingremnant of the slim, pallid lad to whom she had given her love. Andthen again came the corroding doubt: "Was it for him, for him. .. . " Andthen a great fear oppressed her heart, because this man seemed to livein a world which she could not reach in a whole life's pilgrimage. Walls had arisen between them, doors had been bolted--doors that rosefrom the depths of the earth to the heights of heaven. .. . As he satthere, surrounded by the blue smoke of his cigar, he seemed more andmore to recede into immeasurable distances. .. . 

Then, suddenly, as if an inspiration had come to him, he pulledhimself together, and his face became serious, almost solemn. He laidthe cigar down on the window-box and pulled out of his inner pocket abundle of yellow sheets of paper and blue note-books. 

"I should have done this a long time ago, " he said, "because we'vebeen free to correspond with each other. But I put it off to ourfirst meeting. "

"Done what?" she asked, seized by an uncomfortable curiosity. 

"Why, render an accounting. "

"An accounting?"

"But dear Toni, surely you don't think me either ungrateful ordishonourable. For seven years I have accepted one benefaction afteranother from you. .. . That was a very painful situation for me, dearchild, and I scarcely believe that the circumstances, had they beenknown, would ever have been countenanced by a court of honour. "

"Ah, yes, " she said slowly. "I confess I never thought of _that_consideration. .. . "

"But I did all the more, for that very reason. And only theconsciousness that I would some day be able to pay you the last pennyof my debt sustained me in my consciousness as a decent fellow. "

"Ah, well, if that's the case, go ahead!" she said, suppressing thebitter sarcasm that she felt. 

First came the receipts: The proceeds of the stolen jewels began thelong series. Then followed the savings in fares, food and drink andthe furniture rebates. Next came the presents of the county-counsellor, the profits of the champagne debauches during which she had flungshame and honour under the feet of the drinking men. She was sparednothing, but heard again of sums gained by petty thefts fromthe till, small profits made in the buying of milk and eggs. Itwas a long story of suspense and longing, an inextricable web offalsification and trickery, of terror and lying without end. Thememory of no guilt and no torture was spared her. 

Then he took up the account of his expenditures. He sat there, eagerlyhandling the papers, now frowning heavily when he could not at oncebalance some small sum, now stiffening his double chin in satisfiedself-righteousness as he explained some new way of saving that hadoccurred to him. .. . Again and again, to the point of weariness, hereiterated solemnly: "You see, I'm an honest man. "

And always when he said that, a weary irony prompted her to reply:"Ah, what that honesty has cost me. " . .. But she held her peace. 

And again she wanted to cry out: "Let be! A woman like myself doesn'tcare for these two-penny decencies. " But she saw how deep an innernecessity it was to him to stand before her in this conventionalspotlessness. And so she didn't rob him of his childlike joy. 

At last he made an end and spread out the little blue books beforeher--there was one for each year. "Here, " he said proudly, "you can goover it yourself. It's exact. "

"It had better be!" she cried with a jesting threat and put the littlebooks under a flower-pot. 

A prankish mood came upon her now which she couldn't resist. 

"Now that this important business is at an end, " she said, "there isstill another matter about which I must have some certainty. "

"What is that?" he said, listening intensely. 

"Have you been faithful to me in all this time?"

He became greatly confused. The scars on his left cheek glowed likethick, red cords. 

"Perhaps he's got a betrothed somewhere, " she thought with a kind ofwoeful anger, "whom he's going to throw over now. "

But it wasn't that. Not at all. "Well, " he said, "there's no help forit. I'll confess. And anyhow, _you've_ even been married in themeantime. "

"I would find it difficult to deny that, " she said. 

And then everything came to light. During the early days in Berlin hehad been very intimate with a waitress. Then, when he was an assistantin the surgical clinic, there had been a sister who even wanted to bemarried. "But I made short work of that proposition, " he explainedwith quiet decision. And as for the Lithuanian servant girl whom hehad in the house now, why, of course he would dismiss her nextmorning, so that the house could be thoroughly aired before shemoved in. 

This was the moment in which a desire came upon her--half-ironic, half-compassionate--to throw her arms about him and say: "Yousilly boy!"

But she did not yield and in the next moment the impulse was gone. Only an annoyed envy remained. He dared to confess everything toher--everything. What if she did the same? If he were to leave her inhorrified silence, what would it matter? She would have freed hersoul. Or perhaps he would flare up in grateful love? It was madness toexpect it. No power of heaven or earth could burst open the doors ordemolish the walls that towered between them for all eternity. 

A vast irony engulfed her. She could not rest her soul upon thispigmy. She felt revengeful rather toward him--revengeful, because hecould sit there opposite her so capable and faithful, so truthful anddecent, so utterly unlike the companion whom she needed. 

Toward twilight he grew restless. He wanted to slip over to his motherfor a moment and then, for another moment, he wanted to drop in at thefraternity inn. He had to leave at eight. 

"It would be better if you remained until to-morrow, " she said with anemphasis that gave him pause. 

"Why?"

"If you don't feel that. .. . "

She shrugged her shoulders. 

It wasn't to be done, he assured her, with the best will in the world. There was an investigation in which he had to help the county-physician. A small farmer had died suddenly of what did not seem an entirelynatural death. "I suppose, " he continued, "one of those lovephiltres was used with which superfluous people are put underground there. It's horrible that a decent person has to liveamong such creatures. If you don't care to do it, I can hardly blameyou. " She had grown pale and smiled weakly. She restrained himno longer. 

"I'll be back in a week, " he said, slipping on his goloshes, "and thenwe can announce the engagement. "

She nodded several times but made no reply. 

The door was opened and he leaned toward her. Calmly she touched hislips with hers. 

"You might have the announcement cards printed, " he called cheerfullyfrom the stairs. 

Then he disappeared. .. . 

"Is the new uncle gone?" Amanda asked. She was sitting in her littleroom, busy with her lessons. He had forgotten her. 

The mother nodded. 

"Will he come back soon?"

Antonie shook her head. 

"I scarcely think so, " she answered. 

That night she broke the purpose of her life, the purpose that hadbecome interwoven with a thousand others, and when the morning cameshe wrote a letter of farewell to the beloved of her youth. 

THE SONG OF DEATH

With faint and quivering beats the clock of the hotel announced thehour to the promenaders on the beach. 

"It is time to eat, Nathaniel, " said a slender, yet well-filled-outyoung woman, who held a book between her fingers, to a formlessbundle, huddled in many shawls, by her side. Painfully the bundleunfolded itself, stretched and grew gradually into the form of aman--hollow chested, thin legged, narrow shouldered, attired inflopping garments, such as one sees by the thousands on the coasts ofthe Riviera in winter. 

The midday glow of the sun burned down upon the yellowish gray wall ofcliff into which the promenade of Nervi is hewn, and which slopes downto the sea in a zigzag of towering bowlders. 

Upon the blue mirror of the sea sparkled a silvery meshwork ofsunbeams. So vast a fullness of light flooded the landscape that eventhe black cypress trees which stood, straight and tall, beyond thegarden walls, seemed to glitter with a radiance of their own. The tidewas silent. Only the waters of the imprisoned springs that poured, covered with iridescent bubbles, into the hollows between the rocks, gurgled and sighed wearily. 

The breakfast bell brought a new pulsation of life to the huddledfigures on the beach. 

"He who eats is cured, " is the motto of the weary creatures whose armsare often too weak to carry their forks to their mouths. But he whocomes to this land of eternal summer merely to ease and rest his soul, trembles with hunger in the devouring sweetness of the air and canscarcely await the hour of food. 

With a gentle compulsion the young woman pushed the thin, wrinkledhand of the invalid under her arm and led him carefully through a cooland narrow road, which runs up to the town between high garden wallsand through which a treacherous draught blows even on thesunniest days. 

"Are you sure your mouth is covered?" she asked, adapting her springygait with difficulty to the dragging steps of her companion. 

An inarticulate murmur behind the heavy shawl was his only answer. 

She stretched her throat a little--a round, white, firm throat, withtwo little folds that lay rosy in the rounded flesh. Closing her eyes, she inhaled passionately the aromatic perfumes of the neighbouringgardens. It was a strange mixture of odours, like that which is waftedfrom the herb chamber of an apothecary. A wandering sunbeam glidedover the firm, short curve of her cheek, which was of almost milkywhiteness, save for the faint redness of those veins which sleeplessnights bring out upon the pallid faces of full-blooded blondes. 

A laughing group of people went swiftly by--white-breeched Englishmenand their ladies. The feather boas, whose ends fluttered in the wind, curled tenderly about slender throats, and on the reddish heads bobbedlittle round hats, smooth and shining as the tall head-gear of aGerman postillion. 

The young woman cast a wistful glance after those happy folk, andpressed more firmly the arm of her suffering husband. 

Other groups followed. It was not difficult to overtake this pair. 

"We'll be the last, Mary, " Nathaniel murmured, with the invalid'sready reproach. 

But the young woman did not hear. She listened to a soft chatting, which, carried along between the sounding-boards of these high walls, was clearly audible. The conversation was conducted in French, and shehad to summon her whole stock of knowledge in order not to lose thefull sense of what was said. "I hope, Madame, that your uncle is notseriously ill?"

"Not at all, sir. But he likes his comfort. And since walking boreshim, he prefers to pass his days in an armchair. And it's my functionto entertain him. " An arch, pouting _voila_ closed the explanation. 

Next came a little pause. Then the male voice asked:

"And are you never free, Madame?"

"Almost never. "

"And may I never again hope for the happiness of meeting you on thebeach?"

"But surely you may!"

"_Mille remerciments; Madame_. "

A strangely soft restrained tone echoed in this simple word of thanks. Secret desires murmured in it and unexpressed confessions. 

Mary, although she did not look as though she were experienced inflirtation or advances, made a brief, timid gesture. Then, as thoughdiscovered and ashamed, she remained very still. 

Those two then. .. . That's who it was. .. . 

And they had really made each others' acquaintance!

She was a delicately made and elegant Frenchwoman. Her bodice was cutin a strangely slender way, which made her seem to glide along like abird. Or was it her walk that caused the phenomenon? Or the exquisitearching of her shoulders? Who could tell? . .. She did not take hermeals at the common table, but in a corner of the dining-hall incompany of an old gouty gentleman with white stubbles on his chin andred-lidded eyes. When she entered the hall she let a smiling glanceglide along the table, but without looking at or saluting any one. Shescarcely touched the dishes--at least from the point of view of Mary'ssturdy appetite--but even before the soup was served she nibbled atthe dates meant for dessert, and then the bracelets upon herincredibly delicate wrists made a strange, fairy music. She wore awedding ring. But it had always been open to doubt whether the oldgentleman was her husband. For her demeanour toward him was that of aspoiled but sedulously watched child. 

And he--he sat opposite Mary at table. He was a very dark young man, with black, melancholy eyes--Italian eyes, one called them in herPomeranian home land. He had remarkably white, narrow hands, and asmall, curly beard, which was clipped so close along the cheeks thatthe skin itself seemed to have a bluish shimmer. He had never spokento Mary, presumably because he knew no German, but now and then hewould let his eyes rest upon her with a certain smiling emotion whichseemed to her to be very blameworthy and which filled her withconfusion. Thus, however, it had come to pass that, whenever she gotready to go to table her thoughts were busy with him, and it was notrare for her to ask herself at the opening of the door to thedining-hall: "I wonder whether he's here or will come later?"

For several days there had been noticeable in this young man aninclination to gaze over his left shoulder to the side table at whichthe young Frenchwoman sat. And several times this glance had met ananswering one, however fleeting. And more than that! She could be seenobserving him with smiling consideration as, between the fish and theroast, she pushed one grape after another between her lips. He was, ofcourse, not cognisant of all that, but Mary knew of it and wassurprised and slightly shocked. 

And they had really made each others' acquaintance!

And now they were both silent, thinking, obviously, that they had butjust come within hearing distance. 

Then they hurried past the slowly creeping couple. The lady lookeddownward, kicking pebbles; the gentleman bowed. It was done seriously, discreetly, as befits a mere neighbour at table. Mary blushed. Thathappened often, far too often. And she was ashamed. Thus it happenedthat she often blushed from fear of blushing. 

The gentleman saw it and did not smile. She thanked him for it in herheart, and blushed all the redder, for he _might_ have smiled. 

"We'll have to eat the omelettes cold again, " the invalid mumbled intohis shawls. 

This time she understood him. 

"Then we'll order fresh ones. "

"Oh, " he said reproachfully, "you haven't the courage. You're alwaysafraid of the waiters. "

She looked up at him with a melancholy smile. 

It was true. She was afraid of the waiters. That could not be denied. Her necessary dealings with these dark and shiny-haired gentlemen inevening clothes were a constant source of fear and annoyance. Theyscarcely gave themselves the trouble to understand her bad French andher worse Italian. And when they dared to smile. .. !

But his concern had been needless. The breakfast did not consist ofomelettes, but of macaroni boiled in water and mixed with long stringsof cheese. He was forbidden to eat this dish. 

Mary mixed his daily drink, milk with brandy, and was happy to see theeagerness with which he absorbed the life-giving fumes. The darkgentleman was already in his seat opposite her, and every now and thenthe glance of his velvety eyes glided over her. She was more keenlyconscious of this glance than ever, and dared less than ever to meetit. A strange feeling, half delight and half resentment, overcame her. And yet she had no cause to complain that his attention passed theboundary of rigid seemliness. 

She stroked her heavy tresses of reddish blonde hair, which curvedmadonna-like over her temples. They had not been crimped or curled, but were simple and smooth, as befits the wife of a North Germanclergyman. She would have liked to moisten with her lips the fingerswith which she stroked them. This was the only art of the toilet whichshe knew. But that would have been improper at table. 

He wore a yellow silk shirt with a pattern of riding crops. A bunch ofviolets stuck in his button-hole. Its fragrance floated acrossthe table. 

Now the young Frenchwoman entered the hall too. Very carefully shepressed her old uncle's arm, and talked to him in a stream ofcharming chatter. 

The dark gentleman quivered. He compressed his lips but did not turnaround. Neither did the lady take any notice of him. She rolled breadpellets with her nervous fingers, played with her bracelets and letthe dishes go by untouched. 

The long coat of cream silk, which she had put on, increased the tallflexibility of her form. A being woven of sunlight and morning dew, unapproachable in her serene distinction--thus she appeared to Mary, whose hands had been reddened by early toil, and whose breadth ofshoulder was only surpassed by her simplicity of heart. 

When the roast came Nathaniel revived slightly. He suffered her tofasten the shawl about his shoulders, and rewarded her with acontented smile. It was her sister Anna's opinion that at such momentshe resembled the Saviour. The eyes in their blue hollows gleamed witha ghostly light, a faint rosiness shone upon his cheek-bones, and eventhe blonde beard on the sunken cheeks took on a certain glow. 

Grateful for the smile, she pressed his arm. She was satisfied with solittle. 

Breakfast was over. The gentleman opposite made his silent bow andarose. 

"Will he salute her?" Mary asked herself with some inner timidity. 

No. He withdrew without glancing at the corner table. 

"Perhaps they have fallen out again, " Mary; said to herself. The ladylooked after him. A gentle smile played about the corners of hermouth--a superior, almost an ironical smile. Then, her eyes stillturned to the door, she leaned across toward the old gentleman ineager questioning. 

"She doesn't care for him, " Mary reasoned, with a slight feeling ofsatisfaction. It was as though some one had returned to her what shehad deemed lost. 

He had been gone long, but his violets had left their fragrance. 

Mary went up to her room to get a warmer shawl for Nathaniel. As shecame out again, she saw in the dim hall the radiant figure of theFrench lady come toward her and open the door to the left of herown room. 

"So we are neighbours, " Mary thought, and felt flattered by theproximity. She would have liked to salute her, but she did not dare. 

Then she accompanied Nathaniel down to the promenade on the beach. Thehours dragged by. 

He did not like to have his brooding meditation interrupted byquestions or anecdotes. These hours were dedicated to getting well. Every breath here cost money and must be utilised to the utmost. Herebreathing was religion, and falling ill a sin. 

Mary looked dreamily out upon the sea, to which the afternoon sun nowlent a deeper blue. Light wreaths of foam eddied about the stones. Inwide semicircles the great and shadowy arms of the mountains embracedthe sea. From the far horizon, in regions of the upper air, came fromtime to time an argent gleam. For there the sun was reflected byunseen fields of snow. 

There lay the Alps, and beyond them, deep buried in fog and winter, lay their home land. 

Thither Mary's thoughts wandered. They wandered to a sharp-gabledlittle house, groaning under great weights of snow, by the strand of afrozen stream. The house was so deeply hidden in bushes that thedepending boughs froze fast in the icy river and were not liberatedtill the tardy coming of spring. 

And a hundred paces from it stood the white church and the comfortableparsonage. But what did she care for the parsonage, even though shehad grown to womanhood in it and was now its mistress?

That little cottage--the widow's house, as the country folk calledit--that little cottage held everything that was dear to her at home. There sat by the green tile oven--and oh, how she missed it here, despite the palms and the goodly sun--her aged mother, the formerpastor's widow, and her three older sisters, dear and blonde and thinand almost faded. There they sat, worlds away, needy and laborious, and living but in each others' love. Four years had passed since thefather had been carried to the God's acre and they had had to leavethe parsonage. 

That had marked the end of their happiness and their youth. They couldnot move to the city, for they had no private means, and the gifts ofthe poor congregation, a dwelling, wood and other donations, could notbe exchanged for money. And so they had to stay there quietly and seetheir lives wither. 

The candidate of theology, Nathaniel Pogge, equipped with mightyrecommendations, came to deliver his trial sermon. 

As he ascended the pulpit, long and frail, flat-chested and narrowshouldered, she saw him for the first time. His emaciated, freckledhand which held the hymn book, trembled with a kind of fever. But hisblue eyes shone with the fires of God. To be sure, his voice soundedhollow and hoarse, and often he had to struggle for breath in themiddle of a sentence. But what he said was wise and austere, and foundfavour in the eyes of his congregation. 

His mother moved with him into the parsonage. She was a small, fussylady, energetic and very business-like, who complained of what shecalled previous mismanagement and seemed to avoid friendly relations. 

But her son found his way to the widow's house for all that. He foundit oftener and oftener, and the only matter of uncertainty was as towhich of the four sisters had impressed him. 

She would never have dreamed that his eye had fallen upon her, theyoungest. But a refusal was not to be thought of. It was rather herduty to kiss his hands in gratitude for taking her off her mother'sshoulders and liberating her from a hopeless situation. Certainly shewould not have grudged her happiness to one of her sisters; if itcould be called happiness to be subject to a suspicious mother-in-lawand the nurse of a valetudinarian. But she tried to think ithappiness. And, after all, there was the widow's house, to which onecould slip over to laugh or to weep one's fill, as the mood of thehour dictated. Either would have been frowned upon at home. 

And of course she loved him. 

Assuredly. How should she not have loved him? Had she not sworn to doso at the altar? And then his condition grew worse from day to day andneeded her love all the more. 

It happened ever oftener that she had to get up at night to heat hismoss tea; and ever more breathlessly he cowered in the sacristy afterhis weekly sermon. And that lasted until the hemorrhage came, whichmade the trip south imperative. 

Ah, and with what grave anxieties had this trip been undertaken! Asubstitute had to be procured. Their clothes and fares swallowed thesalary of many months. They had to pay fourteen francs board a day, not to speak of the extra expenses for brandy, milk, fires and drugs. Nor was this counting the physician who came daily. It was a desperatesituation. 

But he recovered. At least it was unthinkable that he shouldn't. Whatobject else would these sacrifices have had?

He recovered. The sun and sea and air cured him; or, at least, herlove cured him. And this love, which Heaven had sent her as herhighest duty, surrounded him like a soft, warm garment, exquisitelyflexible to the movement of every limb, not hindering, but yielding tothe slightest impulse of movement; forming a protection against therough winds of the world, surer than a wall of stone or a cloakof fire. 

The sun sank down toward the sea. His light assumed a yellow, metallichue, hard and wounding, before it changed and softened into violet andpurple shades. The group of pines on the beach seemed drenched in asulphurous light and the clarity of their outlines hurt the eye. Like a heavy and compact mass, ready to hurtle down, the foliage of thegardens bent over the crumbling walls. From the mountains came a gustywind that announced the approaching fall of night. 

The sick man shivered. Mary was about to suggest their going home, when she perceived the form of a man that had intruded between her andthe sinking sun and that was surrounded by a yellow radiance. Sherecognised the dark gentleman. 

A feeling of restlessness overcame her, but she could not turn hereyes from him. Always, when he was near, a strange presentiment cameto her--a dreamy knowledge of an unknown land. This impression variedin clearness. To-night she was fully conscious of it. 

What she felt was difficult to put into words. She seemed almost to beafraid of him. And yet that was impossible, for what was he to her?She wasn't even interested in him. Surely not. His eyes, his violetfragrance, the flexible elegance of his movements--these things merelyaroused in her a faint curiosity. Strictly speaking, he wasn't even asympathetic personality, and had her sister Lizzie, who had a gift forsatire, been here, they would probably have made fun of him. Theanxious unquiet which he inspired must have some other source. Herein the south everything was so different--richer, more colourful, morevivid than at home. The sun, the sea, houses, flowers, faces--uponthem all lay more impassioned hues. Behind all that there must be asecret hitherto unrevealed to her. 

She felt this secret everywhere. It lay in the heavy fragrance of thetrees, in the soft swinging of the palm leaves, in the multitudinousburgeoning and bloom about her. It lay in the long-drawn music of themen's voices, in the caressing laughter of the women. It lay in theflaming blushes that, even at table, mantled her face; in thedelicious languor that pervaded her limbs and seemed to creep into theinnermost marrow of her bones. 

But this secret which she felt, scented and absorbed with every organof her being, but which was nowhere to be grasped, looked upon orrecognised--this secret was in some subtle way connected with the manwho stood there, irradiated, upon the edge of the cliff, and gazedupon the ancient tower which stood, unreal as a piece of stagescenery, upon the path. 

Now he observed her. 

For a moment it seemed as though he were about to approach to addressher. In his character of a neighbour at table he might well haveventured to do so. But the hasty gesture with which she turned toher sick husband forbade it. 

"That would be the last inconvenience, " Mary thought, "to makeacquaintances. "

But as she was going home with her husband, she surprised herself inspeculation as to how she might have answered his words. 

"My French will go far enough, " she thought. "At need I might haverisked it. "

The following day brought a sudden lapse in her husband's recovery. 

"That happens often, " said the physician, a bony consumptive with themanners of a man of the world and an equipment in that inexpensivecourtesy which doctors are wont to assume in hopeless and poorlypaying cases. 

To listen to him one would think that pulmonary consumption ended ininvariable improvement. 

"And if something happens during the night?" Mary asked anxiously. 

"Then just wait quietly until morning, " the doctor said with the firmdecision of a man who doesn't like to have his sleep disturbed. 

Nathaniel had to stay in bed and Mary was forced to request thewaiters to bring meals up to their room. 

Thus passed several days, during which she scarcely left the sick-bedof her husband. And when she wasn't writing home, or reading to himfrom the hymn book, or cooking some easing draught upon the spiritlamp, she gazed dreamily out of the window. 

She had not seen her beautiful neighbour again. With all the moreattention she sought to catch any sound, any word that might give hera glimpse into the radiant Paradise of that other life. 

A soft singing ushered in the day. Then followed a laughing chatterwith the little maid, accompanied by the rattle of heatedcurling-irons and splashing of bath sponges. Occasionally, too, therewas a little dispute on the subject of ribands or curls or suchthings. Mary's French, which was derived from the _Histoire de Charlesdouze, _ the _Aventures de Télémaque_ and other lofty books, found anend when it came to these discussions. 

About half-past ten the lady slipped from her room. Then one couldhear her tap at her uncle's door, or call a laughing good-morning tohim from the hall. 

From now on the maid reigned supreme in the room. She straightened it, sang, rattled the curling-irons even longer than for her mistress, tripped up and down, probably in front of the mirror, and received thekindly attentions of several waiters. From noon on everything wassilent and remained silent until dusk. Then the lady returned. Thelittle songs she sang were of the very kind that one might well singif, with full heart, one gazes out upon the sea, while theorange-blossoms are fragrant and the boughs of the eucalyptus rustle. They proved to Mary that in that sunny creature, as in herself, theredwelt that gentle, virginal yearning that had always been to her asource of dreamy happiness. 

At half-past five o'clock the maid knocked at the door. Then begangiggling and whispering as of two school-girls. Again sounded therattle of the curling-irons and the rustling of silken skirts. Thefragrance of unknown perfumes and essences penetrated into Mary'sroom, and she absorbed it eagerly. 

The dinner-bell rang and the room was left empty. 

At ten o'clock there resounded a merry: "_Bonne nuit, mon oncle!_"

Angeline, the maid, received her mistress at the door and performedthe necessary services more quietly than before. Then she went out, received by the waiters, who were on the stairs. 

Then followed, in there, a brief evening prayer, carelessly and halfpoutingly gabbled as by a tired child. At eleven the keyhole grewdark. And during the hours of Mary's heaviest service, there soundedwithin the peaceful drawing of uninterrupted breath. 

This breathing was a consolation to her during the terrible, creepinghours, whose paralysing monotony was only interrupted by anxiouscrises in the patient's condition. 

The breathing seemed to her a greeting from a pure and sisterlysoul--a greeting from that dear land of joy where one can laugh by dayand sing in the dusk and sleep by night. 

Nathaniel loved the hymns for the dying. 

He asserted that they filled him with true mirth. The more he couldgibe at hell or hear the suffering of the last hours put to scorn, themore could he master a kind of grim humour. He, the shepherd of souls, felt it his duty to venture upon the valley of the shadow to which hehad so often led the trembling candidate of death, with the boldnessof a hero in battle. 

This poor, timid soul, who had never been able to endure the angrybarking of a dog, played with the terror of death like a bull-neckedgladiator. 

"Read me a song of death, but a strengthening one, " he would sayrepeatedly during the day, but also at night, if he could not sleep. He needed it as a child needs its cradle song. Often he was angrywhen in her confusion and blinded by unshed tears, she chose a wrongone. Like a literary connoisseur who rolls a Horatian ode or aGoethean lyric upon his tongue--even thus he enjoyed thesesombre stanzas. 

There was one: "I haste to my eternal home, " in which the beyond waslikened to a bridal chamber and to a "crystal sea of blessednesses. "There was another: "Greatly rejoice now, O my soul, " which would admitno redeeming feature about this earth, and was really a prayer forrelease. And there was one filled with the purest folly ofChristendom: "In peace and joy I fare from hence. " And this onepromised a smiling sleep. But they were all overshadowed by thatrejoicing song: "Thank God, the hour has come!" which, like a cry ofvictory, points proudly and almost sarcastically to the conqueredmiseries of the earth. 

The Will to Live of the poor flesh intoxicated itself with these piouslies as with some hypnotic drug. But at the next moment it recoiledand gazed yearningly and eager eyed out into the sweet and sinfulworld, which didn't tally in the least with that description of it asa vale of tears, of which the hymns were so full. 

Mary read obediently what he demanded. Close to her face she held thenarrow hymn-book, fighting down her sobs. For he did not think ofthe tortures he prepared for his anxiously hoping wife. 

Why did he thirst for death since he knew that he _must_ not die?

Not yet. Ah, not yet! Now that suddenly a whole, long, unlived lifelay between them--a life they had never even suspected. 

She could not name it, this new, rich life, but she felt itapproaching, day by day. It breathed its fragrant breath into her faceand poured an exquisite bridal warmth into her veins. 

It was on the fourth day of his imprisonment in his room. Thephysician had promised him permission to go out on the morrow. 

His recovery was clear. 

She sat at the window and inhaled with quivering nostrils the sharpfragrance of the burning pine cones that floated to her inbluish waves. 

The sun was about to set. An unknown bird sat, far below, in theorange grove and, as if drunk with light and fragrance, chirpedsleepily and ended with a fluting tone. 

Now that the great dread of the last few days was taken from her, thatsweet languor the significance of which she could not guess came overher again. 

Her neighbour had already come home. She opened her window and closedit, only to open it again. From time to time she sang a few brieftones, almost like the strange bird in the grove. 

Then her door rattled and Angeline's voice cried out with jubilantlaughter: "_Une lettre, Madame, une lettre_!"

"_Une lettre--de qui?_"

"_De lui!_"

Then a silence fell, a long silence. 

Who was this "he?" Surely some one at home. It was the hour of themail delivery. 

But the voice of the maid soon brought enlightenment. 

She had managed the affair cleverly. She had met him in the hall andsaluted him so that he had found the courage to address her. And justnow he had pressed the envelope, together with a twenty-franc piece, into her hand. He asserted that he had an important communication tomake to her mistress, but had never found an opportunity to addresshimself to her in person. 

"_Tais-toi donc--on nous entend_!"

And from now on nothing was to be heard but whispering and giggling. 

Mary felt now a wave of hotness, started from her nape and overflowingher face. 

Listening and with beating heart, she sat there. 

What in all the world could he have written? For that it was he, shecould no longer doubt. 

Perhaps he had declared his love and begged for the gift of her hand. A dull feeling of pain, the cause of which was dark to her, oppressed her heart. 

And then she smiled--a smile of renouncement, although there wassurely nothing here for her to renounce!

And anyhow--the thing was impossible. For she, to whom such an offeris made does not chat with a servant girl. Such an one flees into somelonely place, kneels down, and prays to God for enlightenment andgrace in face of so important a step. 

But indeed she did send the girl away, for the latter's slippers couldhe heard trailing along the hall. 

Then was heard gentle, intoxicated laughter, full of restrainedjubilation and arch triumph: "_O comme je suis heureuse! Comme je suisheureuse!"_

Mary felt her eyes grow moist. She felt glad and poignantly sad at thesame time. She would have liked to kiss and bless the other woman, fornow it was clear that he had come to claim her as his bride. 

"If she doesn't pray, I will pray for her, " she thought, and foldedher hands. Then a voice sounded behind her, hollow as the roll offalling earth; rasping as coffin cords:

"Read me a song of death, Mary. "

A shudder came over her. She jumped up. And she who had hithertotaken up the hymn-book at his command without hesitation or complaint, fell down beside his bed and grasped his emaciated arm: "Have pity--Ican't! I can't!"

Three days passed. The sick man preferred to stay in bed, although hisrecovery made enormous strides. Mary brewed his teas, gave him hisdrops, and read him his songs of death. That one attempt at rebellionhad remained her only one. 

She heard but little of her neighbour. It seemed that that letter hadput an end to her talkative merriment. The happiness which she had sojubilantly confessed seemed to have been of brief duration. 

And in those hours when Mary was free to pursue her dreams, she sharedthe other's yearning and fear. Probably the old uncle had madedifficulties; had refused his consent, or even demanded the separationof the lovers. 

Perhaps the dark gentleman had gone away. Who could tell?

"What strange eyes he had, " she thought at times, and whenever shethought that, she shivered, for it seemed to her that his hot, veiledglance was still upon her. 

"I wonder whether he is really a good man?" she asked herself. Shewould have liked to answer this question in the affirmative, but there was something that kept her from doing so. And there was anothersomething in her that took but little note of that aspect, but onlyprayed that those two might be happy together, happy as she herselfhad never been, happy as--and here lay the secret. 

It was a Sunday evening, the last one in January. 

Nathaniel lay under the bed-clothes and breathed with difficulty. Hisfever was remarkably low, but he was badly smothered. 

The lamp burned on the table--a reading lamp had been procured withdifficulty and had been twice carried off in favour of wealthierguests. Toward the bed Mary had shaded the lamp with a piece of redblotting paper from her portfolio. A rosy shimmer poured out over thecouch of the ill man, tinted the red covers more red, and caused adeceptive glow of health to appear on his cheek. 

The flasks and vials on the table glittered with an equivocalfriendliness, as though something of the demeanour of him who hadprescribed their contents adhered to them. 

Between them lay the narrow old hymnal and the gilt figures, "1795"shimmered in the middle of the worn and shabby covers. 

The hour of retirement had come. The latest of the guests, returningfrom the reading room, had said good-night to each other in thehall. Angeline had been dismissed. Her giggles floated away intosilence along the bannisters and the last of her adorers tiptoed by toturn out the lights. 

From the next room there came no sound. She was surely asleep, although her breathing was inaudible. 

Mary sat at the table. Her head was heavy and she stared into theluminous circle of the lamp. She needed sleep. Yet she was not sleepy. Every nerve in her body quivered with morbid energy. 

A wish of the invalid called her to his side. 

"The pillow has a lump, " he said, and tried to turn over on his otherside. 

Ah, these pillows of sea-grass. She patted, she smoothed, she did herbest, but his head found no repose. 

"Here's another night full of the torment and terror of the flesh, " hesaid with difficulty, mouthing each word. 

"Do you want a drink?" she asked. 

He shook his head. 

"The stuff is bitter--but you see--this fear--there's the air and itfills everything--they say it's ten miles high--and a man like myselfcan't--get enough--you see I'm getting greedy. " The mild jest uponhis lips was so unwonted that it frightened her. 

"I'd like to ask you to open the window. "

She opposed him. 

"The night air, " she urged; "the draught----"

But that upset him. 

"If you can't do me so small a favour in my suffering--"

"Forgive me, " she said, "it was only my anxiety for you--"

She got up and opened the French window that gave upon a narrowbalcony. 

The moonlight flooded the room. 

Pressing her hands to her breast, she inhaled the first aromaticbreath of the night air which cooled and caressed her hot face. 

"Is it better so?" she asked, turning around. 

He nodded. "It is better so. "

Then she stepped out on the balcony. She could scarcely drink her fillof air and moonlight. 

But she drew back, affrighted. What she had just seen was like anapparition. 

On the neighbouring balcony stood, clad in white, flowing garments oflace, a woman's figure, and stared with wide open eyes into themoonlight. 

It was she--her friend. 

Softly Mary stepped out again and observed her, full of shy curiosity. The moonlight shone full upon the delicate slim face, that seemed toshine with an inner radiance. The eye had a yearning glow. A smile, ecstatic and fearful at once, made the lips quiver, and the hands thatgrasped the iron railing pulsed as if in fear and expectation. 

Mary heard her own heart begin to beat. A hot flush rose into herface?

What was all that? What did it mean?

Such a look, such a smile, she had never seen in her life. And yetboth seemed infinitely familiar to her. Thus a woman must look who--

She had no time to complete the thought, for a fit of coughingrecalled her to Nathaniel. 

A motion of his hand directed her to close the window and theshutters. It would have been better never to have opened them. Betterfor her, too, perhaps. 

Then she sat down next to him and held his head until the paroxysm wasover. 

He sank back, utterly exhausted. His hand groped for hers. Withabstracted caresses she touched his weary fingers. 

Her thoughts dwelt with that white picture without. That poignantfeeling of happiness that she had almost lost during the past fewdays, arose in her with a hitherto unknown might. 

And now the sick man began to speak. 

"You have always been good to me, Mary, " he said. "You have alwayshad patience with me. "

"Ah, don't speak so, " she murmured. 

"And I wish I could say as full of assurance as you could before thethrone of God: 'Father, I have been true to the duty which you haveallotted to me. '"

Her hand quivered in his. A feeling of revulsion smothered thegentleness of their mood. His words had struck her as a reproach. 

Fulfillment of duty! That was the great law to which all human kindwas subject for the sake of God. This law had joined her hand to his, had accompanied her into the chastity of her bridal bed, and had keptits vigil through the years by her hearth and in her heart. And thuslove itself had not been difficult to her, for it was commanded to herand consecrated before the face of God. 

And he? He wished for nothing more, knew nothing more. Indeed, whatlies beyond duty would probably have seemed burdensome to him, if notactually sinful. 

But there was something more! She knew it now. She had seen it in thatglance, moist with yearning, lost in the light. 

There was something great and ecstatic and all-powerful, somethingbefore which she quailed like a child who must go into the dark, something that she desired with every nerve and fibre. 

Her eye fastened itself upon the purple square of blotting paper whichlooked, in the light of the lamp, like glowing metal. 

She did not know how long she had sat there. It might have beenminutes or hours. Often enough the morning had caught herbrooding thus. 

The sick man's breath came with greater difficulty, his fingersgrasped hers more tightly. 

"Do you feel worse?" she asked. 

"I am a little afraid, " he said; "therefore, read me----"

He stopped, for he felt the quiver of her hand. 

"You know, if you don't want to--" He was wounded in his wretchedvaletudinarian egotism, which was constantly on the scent of neglect. 

"Oh, but I do want to; I want to do everything that might----"

She hurried to the table, pushed the glittering bottles aside, graspedthe hymnal and read at random. 

But she had to stop, for it was a prayer for rain that she had begun. 

Then, as she was turning the leaves of the book, she heard the halldoor of the next room open with infinite caution; she heard flying, trembling footsteps cross the room from the balcony. 

_"Chut!"_ whispered a trembling voice. 

And the door closed as with a weary moan. 

What was that?

A suspicion arose in her that brought the scarlet of shame into hercheek. The whispering next door began anew, passionate, hasty, half-smothered by anxiety and delight. Two voices were to bedistinguished: a lighter voice which she knew, and a duller voice, broken into, now and then, by sonorous tones. 

The letters dislimned before her eyes. The hymn-book slipped from herhands. In utter confusion she stared toward the door. 

_That_ really existed? Such things were possible in the world;possible among people garbed in distinction, of careful Christiantraining, to whom one looks up as to superior beings?

There was a power upon earth that could make the delicate, radiant, distinguished woman so utterly forget shame and dignity andwomanliness, that she would open her door at midnight to a man who hadnot been wedded to her in the sight of God?

If that could happen, what was there left to cling to in this world?Where was one's faith in honour, fidelity, in God's grace and one'sown human worth? A horror took hold of her so oppressive that shethought she must cry out aloud. 

With a shy glance she looked at her husband. God grant that he hearnothing. 

She was ashamed before him. She desired to call out, to sing, laugh, only to drown the noise of that whispering which assailed her ear likethe wave of a fiery sea. 

But no, he heard nothing. 

His sightless eyes stared at the ceiling. He was busied with hisbreathing. His chest heaved and fell like a defective machine. 

He didn't even expect her to read to him now. She went up to the bedand asked, listening with every nerve: "Do you want to sleep, Nathaniel?"

He lowered his eyelids in assent. 

"Yes--read, " he breathed. 

"Shall I read softly?"

Again he assented. 

"But read--don't sleep. "

Fear flickered in his eyes. 

"No, no, " she stammered. 

He motioned her to go now, and again became absorbed in the problem ofbreathing. 

Mary took up the hymnal. 

"You are to read a song of death, " she said to herself, for herpromise must be kept. And as though she had not understood her ownadmonition, she repeated: "You are to read a song of death. "

But her hearing was morbidly alert, and while the golden figures onthe book danced a ghostly dance before her eyes, she heard again whatshe desired to hear. It was like the whispering of the wind against aforbidden gate. She caught words:

"_Je t'aime--follement--j'en mourrai--je t'adore--mon amour--monamour. _"

Mary closed her eyes. It seemed to her again as though hot wavesstreamed over her. And she had lost shame, too. 

For there was something in all that which silenced reproach, whichmade this monstrous deed comprehensible, even natural. If one was somad with love, if one felt that one could die of it!

So that existed, and was not only the lying babble of romances?

And her spirit returned and compared her own experience of love withwhat she witnessed now. 

She had shrunk pitifully from his first kiss. When he had gone, shehad embraced her mother's knees, in fear and torment at the thought offollowing this strange man. And she remembered how, on the evening ofher wedding, her mother had whispered into her ear, "Endure, my child, and pray to God, for that is the lot of woman. " And it was thatwhich, until to-day, she had called love. 

Oh, those happy ones there, those happy ones!

"Mary, " the hollow voice from the bed came. 

She jumped up. "What?"

"You--don't read. "

"I'll read; I'll read. "

Her hands grovelled among the rough, sticky pages. An odour as ofdecaying foliage, which she had never noted before, came from thebook. It was such an odour as comes from dark, ill-ventilated rooms, and early autumn and everyday clothes. 

At last she found what she was seeking. "Kyrie eleison! Christeeleison! Dear God, Father in heaven, have mercy upon us!"

Her lips babbled what her eyes saw, but her heart and her sensesprayed another prayer: "Father in Heaven, who art love and mercy, donot count for sin to those two that which they are committing againstthemselves. Bless their love, even if they do not desire Thy blessing. Send faithfulness into their hearts that they cleave to one anotherand remain grateful for the bliss which Thou givest them. Ah, thosehappy ones, those happy ones!"

Tears came into her eyes. She bent her face upon the yellow leaves ofthe book to hide her weeping. It seemed to her suddenly as thoughshe understood the speech spoken in this land of eternal spring by sunand sea, by hedges of flowers and evergreen trees, by the song ofbirds and the laughter of man. The secret which she had sought tosolve by day and by night lay suddenly revealed before her eyes. 

In a sudden change of feeling her heart grew cold toward that sinfulpair for which she had but just prayed. Those people became asstrangers to her and sank into the mist. Their whispering died away asif it came from a great distance. 

It was her own life with which she was now concerned. Gray and morosewith its poverty stricken notion of duty, the past lay behind her. Bright and smiling a new world floated into her ken. 

She had sworn to love him. She had cheated him. She had let him knowwant at her side. 

Now that she knew what love was, she would reward him an hundred-fold. She, too, could love to madness, to adoration, to death. And she mustlove so, else she would die of famishment. 

Her heart opened. Waves of tenderness, stormy, thunderous, mighty, broke forth therefrom. 

Would he desire all that love? And understand it? Was he worthyof it? What did that matter?

She must give, give without measure and without reward, withoutthought and without will, else she would smother under all her riches. 

And though he was broken and famished and mean of mind and wretched, aweakling in body and a dullard in soul; and though he lay thereemaciated and gasping, a skeleton almost, moveless, half given over todust and decay--what did it matter?

She loved him, loved him with that new and great love because he alonein all the world was her own. He was that portion of life and lightand happiness which fate had given her. 

She sprang up and stretched out her arms toward him. 

"You my only one, my all, " she whispered, folding her hands under herchin and staring at him. 

His chest seemed quieter. He lay there in peace. 

Weeping with happiness, she threw herself down beside him and kissedhis hands. And then, as he took no notice of all that, a slowastonishment came over her. Also, she had an insecure feeling that hishand was not as usual. 

Powerless to cry out, almost to breathe, she looked upon him. Shefelt his forehead; she groped for his heart. All was still and cold. Then she knew. 

The bell--the waiters--the physician--to what purpose? There was noneed of help here. She knelt down and wanted to pray, and make up forher neglect. 

A vision arose before her: the widow's house at home; her mother; thetile oven; her old maidenish sisters rattling their wooden crochetinghooks--and she herself beside them, her blonde hair smoothed withwater, a little riband at her breast, gazing out upon the frozenfields, and throttling, throttling with love. For he whom fate hadgiven her could use her love no longer. 

From the next room sounded the whispering, monotonous, broken, assailing her ears in glowing waves:

"_J'en mourrai--je t'adore--mon amour. _"

That was his song of death. She felt that it was her own, too. 

THE VICTIM

Madame Nelson, the beautiful American, had come to us from Paris, equipped with a phenomenal voice and solid Italian technique. She hadimmediately sung her way into the hearts of Berlin music-lovers, provided that you care to call a mixture of snobbishness, sophisticated impressionableness and goose-like imitativeness--heart. She had, therefore, been acquired by one of our most distinguishedopera houses at a large salary and with long leaves of absence. I usethe plural of opera house in order that no one may try to scent outthe facts. 

Now we had her, more especially our world of Lotharios had her. Notthe younger sons of high finance, who make the boudoirs unsafe withtheir tall collars and short breeches; nor the bearers of ancientnames who, having hung up their uniforms in the evening, assumemonocle and bracelet and drag these through second and third-classdrawing-rooms. No, she belonged to those worthy men of middle age, whohave their palaces in the west end, whose wives one treats withinfinite respect, and to whose evenings one gives a final touch ofelegance by singing two or three songs for nothing. 

Then she committed her first folly. She went travelling with anItalian tenor. "For purposes of art, " was the official version. Butthe time for the trip--the end of August--had been unfortunatelychosen. And, as she returned ornamented with scratches administered bythe tenor's pursuing wife--no one believed her. 

Next winter she ruined a counsellor of a legation and magnate's son sothoroughly that he decamped to an unfrequented equatorial region, leaving behind him numerous promissory notes of questionable value. 

This poor fellow was revenged the following winter by a dark-hairedRoumanian fiddler, who beat her and forced her to carry her jewels toa pawnshop, where they were redeemed at half price by their originaldonour and used to adorn the plump, firm body of a stupid littleballet dancer. 

Of course her social position was now forfeited. But then Berlinforgets so rapidly. She became proper again and returned to herearlier inclinations for gentlemen of middle life with extensivepalaces and extensive wives. So there were quite a few houses--none ofthe strictest tone, of course--that were very glad to welcome theradiant blonde with her famous name and fragrant and modestgowns--from Paquin at ten thousand francs a piece. 

At the same time she developed a remarkable business instinct. Herconnections with the stock exchange permitted her to speculate withoutthe slightest risk. For what gallant broker would let a lovely womanlose? Thus she laid the foundation of a goodly fortune, which was madeto assume stately proportions by a tour through the United States, andwas given a last touch of solidity by a successful speculation inDresden real estate. 

Furthermore, it would be unjust to conceal the fact that her mostrecent admirer, the wool manufacturer Wormser, had a considerableshare in this hurtling rise of her fortunes. 

Wormser guarded his good repute carefully. He insisted that hisillegitimate inclinations never lack the stamp of highest elegance. Hedesired that they be given the greatest possible publicity atrace-meets and first nights. He didn't care if people spoke with adegree of rancour, if only he was connected with the temporary lady ofhis heart. 

Now, to be sure, there was a Mrs. Wormser. She came of a goodFrankfort family. Dowry: a million and a half. She was modern to thevery tips of her nervous, restless fingers. 

This lady was inspired by such lofty social ideals that she wouldhave considered an inelegant _liaison_ on her husband's part, aninsult not only offered to good taste in general, but to her own inparticular. Such an one she would, never have forgiven. On the otherhand, she approved of Madame Nelson thoroughly. She considered her themost costly and striking addition to her household. Quitefiguratively, of course. Everything was arranged with the utmostpropriety. At great charity festivals the two ladies exchanged afriendly glance, and they saw to it that their gowns were never madeafter the same model. 

Then it happened that the house of Wormser was shaken. It wasn't aserious breakdown, but among the good things that had to be thrownoverboard belonged--at the demand of the helping Frankforters--MadameNelson. 

And so she waited, like a virgin, for love, like a man in the weatherbureau, for a given star. She felt that her star was yet to rise. 

This was the situation when, one day, Herr von Karlstadt had himselfpresented to her. He was a captain of industry; internationalreputation; ennobled; the not undistinguished son of a great father. He had not hitherto been found in the market of love, but it was saidof him that notable women had committed follies for his sake. All inall, he was a man who commanded the general interest in quite adifferent measure from Wormser. 

But artistic successes had raised Madame Nelson's name once more, too, and when news of the accomplished fact circulated, society found ithard to decide as to which of the two lent the other a more brilliantlight, or which was the more to be envied. 

However that was, history was richer by a famous pair of lovers. 

But, just as there had been a Mrs. Wormser, so there was a Mrs. VonKarlstadt. 

And it is this lady of whom I wish to speak. 

Mentally as well as physically Mara von Karlstadt did not belong tothat class of persons which imperatively commands the attention of thepublic. She was sensitive to the point of madness, a little sensuous, something of an enthusiast, coquettish only in so far as good tastedemanded it, and hopelessly in love with her husband. She was in lovewith him to the extent that she regarded the conquests whichoccasionally came to him, spoiled as he was, as the inevitableconsequences of her fortunate choice. They inspired her with a certainwoeful anger and also with a degree of pride. 

The daughter of a great land owner in South Germany, she had beenbrought up in seclusion, and had learned only very gradually how toglide unconcernedly through the drawing-rooms. A tense smile upon herlips, which many took for irony, was only a remnant of her olddiffidence. Delicate, dark in colouring, with a fine cameo-likeprofile, smooth hair and a tawny look in her near-sighted eyes--thusshe glided about in society, and few but friends of the house took anynotice of her. 

And this woman who found her most genuine satisfaction in thepeacefulness of life, who was satisfied if she could slip into hercarriage at midnight without the annoyance of one searching glance, ofone inquiring word, saw herself suddenly and without suspecting thereason, become the centre of a secret and almost insulting curiosity. She felt a whispering behind her in society; she saw from her box thelenses of many opera glasses pointing her way. 

The conversation of her friends began to teem with hints, and into thetone of the men whom she knew there crept a kind of tender compassionwhich pained her even though she knew not how to interpret it. 

For the present no change was to be noted in the demeanour of herhusband. His club and his business had always kept him away from homea good deal, and if a few extra hours of absence were now added, itwas easy to account for these in harmless ways, or rather, not toaccount for them at all, since no one made any inquiry. 

Then, however, anonymous letters began to come--thick, fragrant oneswith stamped coronets, and thin ones on ruled paper with the smudgesof soiled fingers. 

She burned the first batch; the second she handed to her husband. 

The latter, who was not far from forty, and who had trained himself toan attitude of imperious brusqueness, straightened up, knotted hisbushy Bismarck moustache, and said:

"Well, suppose it is true. What have you to lose?"

She did not burst into tears of despair; she did not indulge in fitsof rage; she didn't even leave the room with quiet dignity; her soulseemed neither wounded nor broken. She was not even affrighted. Sheonly thought: "I have forgiven him so much; why not forgive himthis, too?"

And as she had shared him before without feeling herself degraded, soshe would try to share him again. 

But she soon observed that this logic of the heart would prove wantingin this instance. 

In former cases she had concealed his weakness under a veil of careand considerateness. The fear of discovery had made a conscious butsilent accessory of her. When it was all over she breathed deep reliefat the thought; "I am the only one who even suspected. "

This time all the world seemed invited to witness the spectacle. 

For now she understood all that, in recent days had tortured her likean unexplained blot, an alien daub in the face which every one seesbut he whom it disfigures. Now she knew what the smiling hints of herfriends and the consoling desires of men had meant. Now she recognisedthe reason why she was wounded by the attention of all. 

She was "the wife of the man whom Madame Nelson . .. "

And so torturing a shame came upon her as though she herself were thecause of the disgrace with which the world seemed to overwhelm her. 

This feeling had not come upon her suddenly. At first a stabbingcuriosity had awakened in her a self-torturing expectation, notwithout its element of morbid attraction. Daily she asked herself:"What will develope to-day?"

With quivering nerves and cramped heart, she entered evening afterevening, for the season was at its height, the halls of strangers onher husband's arm. 

And it was always the same thing. The same glances that passed fromher to him and from him to her, the same compassionate sarcasm uponaverted faces, the same hypocritical delicacy in conversation, thesame sudden silence as soon as she turned to any group of people tolisten--the same cruel pillory for her evening after evening, nightafter night. 

And if all this had not been, she would have felt it just the same. 

And in these drawing-rooms there were so many women whose husbands'affairs were the talk of the town. Even her predecessor, Mrs. Wormser, had passed over the expensive immorality of her husband with aself-sufficing smile and a condescending jest, and the world had boweddown to her respectfully, as it always does when scenting atemperament that it is powerless to wound. 

Why had this martyrdom come to her, of all people?

Thus, half against her own will, she began to hide, to refuse this orthat invitation, and to spend the free evenings in the nursery, watching over the sleep of her boys and weaving dreams of a newhappiness. The illness of her older child gave her an excuse forwithdrawing from society altogether and her husband did notrestrain her. 

It had never come to an explanation between them, and as he was alwaysconsiderate, even tender, and as sharp speeches were not native toher temper, the peace of the home was not disturbed. 

Soon it seemed to her, too, as though the rude inquisitiveness of theworld were slowly passing away. Either one had abandoned the criticalcondition of her wedded happiness for more vivid topics, or else shehad become accustomed to the state of affairs. 

She took up a more social life, and the shame which she had felt inappearing publicly with her husband gradually died out. 

What did not die out, however, was a keen desire to know the natureand appearance of the woman in whose hands lay her own destiny. Howdid she administer the dear possession that fate had put in her power?And when and how would she give it back?

She threw aside the last remnant of reserve and questioned friends. Then, when she was met by a smile of compassionate ignorance, sheasked women. These were more ready to report. But she would not andcould not believe what she was told. He had surely not degradedhimself into being one of a succession of moneyed rakes. It was clearto her that, in order to soothe her grief, people slandered the womanand him with her. 

In order to watch her secretly, she veiled heavily and drove to thetheatre where Madame Nelson was singing. Shadowlike she coweredin the depths of a box which she had rented under an assumed name andfollowed with a kind of pained voluptuousness the ecstasies of lovewhich the other woman, fully conscious of the victorious loveliness ofher body, unfolded for the benefit of the breathless crowd. 

With such an abandoned raising of her radiant arms, she threw herselfupon _his_ breast; with that curve of her modelled limbs, she laybefore _his_ knees. 

And in her awakened a reverent, renouncing envy of a being who had somuch to give, beside whom she was but a dim and poor shadow, wearywith motherhood, corroded with grief. 

At the same time there appeared a California mine owner, amulti-millionaire, with whom her husband had manifold businessdealings. He introduced his daughters into society and himself gave anumber of luxurious dinners at which he tried to assemble guests ofthe most exclusive character. 

Just as they were about to enter a carriage to drive to the "Bristol, "to one of these dinners, a message came which forced Herr vonKarlstadt to take an immediate trip to his factories. He begged hiswife to go instead, and she did not refuse. 

The company was almost complete and the daughter of the mine ownerwas doing the honours of the occasion with appropriate grace when thedoors of the reception room opened for the last time and through theopen doorway floated rather than walked--Madame Nelson. 

The petrified little group turned its glance of inquisitive horrorupon Mrs. Von Karlstadt, while the mine owner's daughter adjusted thenecessary introductions with a grand air. 

Should she go or not? No one was to be found who would offer her hisarm. Her feet were paralysed. And she remained. 

The company sat down at table. And since fate, in such cases, neverdoes its work by halves, it came to pass that Madame Nelson wasassigned to a seat immediately opposite her. 

The people present seemed grateful to her that they had not beenforced to witness a scene, and overwhelmed her with delicate signs ofthis gratitude. Slowly her self-control returned to her. She dared tolook about her observantly, and, behold, Madame Nelson appealedto her. 

Her French was faultless, her manners equally so, and when theCalifornian drew her into the conversation, she practised the delicateart of modest considerateness to the extent of talking past Mrs. VonKarlstadt in such a way that those who did not know were notenlightened and those who knew felt their anxiety depart. 

In order to thank her for this alleviation of a fatally painfulsituation, Mrs. Von Karlstadt occasionally turned perceptibly towardthe singer. For this Madame Nelson was grateful in her turn. Thustheir glances began to meet in friendly fashion, their voices tocross, the atmosphere became less constrained from minute to minute, and when the meal was over the astonished assembly had come to theconclusion that Mrs. Von Karlstadt was ignorant of the true stateof affairs. 

The news of this peculiar meeting spread like a conflagration. Herwomen friends hastened to congratulate her on her strength of mind;her male friends praised her loftiness of spirit. She went through thedegradation which she had suffered as though it were a triumph. Onlyher husband went about for a time with an evil conscience and afrowning forehead. 

Months went by. The quietness of summer intervened, but the memory ofthat evening rankled in her and blinded her soul. Slowly the thoughtarose in her which was really grounded in vanity, but looked, in itsexecution, like suffering love--the thought that she would legitimiseher husband's irregularity in the face of society. 

Hence when the season began again she wrote a letter to Madame Nelsonin which she invited her, in a most cordial way, to sing at anapproaching function in her home. She proffered this request, not onlyin admiration of the singer's gifts, but also, as she put it, "torender nugatory a persistent and disagreeable rumour. "

Madame Nelson, to whom this chance of repairing her fair fame was verywelcome, had the indiscretion to assent, and even to accept thecondition of entire secrecy in regard to the affair. 

The chronicler may pass over the painful evening in question withsuitable delicacy of touch. Nothing obvious or crass took place. Madame Nelson sang three enchanting songs, accompanied by a first-ratepianist. A friend of the house of whom the hostess had requested thisfavour took Madame Nelson to the _buffet_. A number of guilelessindividuals surrounded that lady with hopeful adoration. An ecstaticmood prevailed. The one regrettable feature of the occasion was thatthe host had to withdraw--as quietly as possible, of course--onaccount of a splitting head-ache. 

Berlin society, which felt wounded in the innermost depth of itsethics, never forgave the Karlstadts for this evening. I believe thatin certain circles the event is still remembered, although yearshave passed. 

Its immediate result, however, was a breach between man and wife. Mara went to the Riviera, where she remained until spring. 

An apparent reconciliation was then patched up, but its validity waspurely external. 

Socially, too, things readjusted themselves, although people continuedto speak of the Karlstadt house with a smile that asked forindulgence. 

Mara felt this acutely, and while her husband appeared oftener andmore openly with his mistress, she withdrew into the silence of herinner chambers. 

 * * * * *

Then she took a lover. 

Or, rather, she was taken by him. 

A lonely evening . .. A fire in the chimney . .. A friend who came in byaccident . .. The same friend who had taken care of Madame Nelson forher on that memorable evening . .. The fall of snow without . .. A burstof confidence . .. A sob . .. A nestling against the caressing hand . .. It was done . .. 

Months passed. She experienced not one hour of intoxication, not oneof that inner absolution which love brings. It was moral slackness andweariness that made her yield again. .. . 

Then the consequences appeared. 

Of course, the child could not, must not, be born. And it was notborn. One can imagine the horror of that tragic time: the criminalflame of sleepless nights, the blood-charged atmosphere of guiltydespair, the moans of agony that had to be throttled behindclosed doors. 

What remained to her was lasting invalidism. 

The way from her bed to an invalid's chair was long and hard. 

Time passed. Improvements came and gave place to lapses in hercondition. Trips to watering-places alternated with visits tosanatoriums. 

In those places sat the pallid, anaemic women who had been torturedand ruined by their own or alien guilt. There they sat and engaged inwretched flirtations with flighty neurasthenics. 

And gradually things went from bad to worse. The physicians shruggedtheir friendly shoulders. 

And then it happened that Madame Nelson felt the inner necessity ofrunning away with a handsome young tutor. She did this less out ofpassion than to convince the world--after having thoroughly fleecedit--of the unselfishness of her feelings. For it was her ambition tobe counted among the great lovers of all time. 

 * * * * *

One evening von Karlstadt entered the sick chamber of his wife, satdown beside her bed and silently took her hand. She was aware ofeverything, and asked with a gentle smile upon her white lips:

"Be frank with me: did you love her, at least?"

He laughed shrilly. "What should have made me love this--businesslady?"

They looked at each other long. Upon her face death had set its seal. His hair was gray, his self-respect broken, his human worthsquandered. .. . 

And then, suddenly, they clung to each other, and leaned theirforeheads against each other, and wept. 

AUTUMN

Chapter I. 

It was on a sunny afternoon in October. Human masses streamed throughthe alleys of the _Tiergarten_. With the desperate passion of anageing woman who feels herself about to be deserted, the giant cityreceived the last caresses of summer. A dotted throng that was notunlike the chaos of the _Champs Élysées_, filled the broad, gray roadthat leads to Charlottenburg. 

Berlin, which cannot compete with any other great European city, asfar as the luxury of vehicular traffic is concerned, seemed to havesent out to-day all it possessed in that kind. The weather was toobeautiful for closed _coupés_, and hence the comfortable family landauwas most in evidence. Only now and then did an elegant victoria glidealong, or an aristocratic four-in-hand demand the respectful yieldingof the crowd. 

A dog-cart of dark yellow, drawn by a magnificent trotter, attractedthe attention of experts. The noble animal, which seemed to feel thesecurity of the guiding hand, leaned, snorting, upon its bit. With farout-reaching hind legs, it flew along, holding its neck moveless, asbecame a scion of its race. 

The man who drove was sinewy, tall, about forty, with clear, grayeyes, sharply cut profile and a close-clipped moustache. In his thin, brownish cheeks were several deep scars, and between the straight, narrow brows could be seen two salient furrows. 

His attire--an asphalt-gray, thick-seamed overcoat, a coloured shirtand red gloves--did not deny the sportsman. His legs, which pressedagainst the footboard, were clad in tight, yellow riding boots. 

Many people saluted him. He returned their salutations with thatcareless courtesy which belongs to those who know themselves to havetranscended the judgment of men. 

If one of his acquaintances happened to be accompanied by a lady, hebowed deeply and respectfully, but without giving the ladies inquestion a single glance. 

People looked after him and mentioned his name: Baron von Stueckrath. 

Ah, that fellow . .. 

And they looked around once more. 

At the square of the _Great Star_ he turned to the left, drove alongthe river, passed the well-known resort called simply _The Tents_, and stopped not far from the building of the general staff of the armyand drew up before a large distinguished house with a fenced frontgarden and cast-iron gate to the driveway. 

He threw the reins to the groom, who sat statuesquely behind him, andsaid: "Drive home. "

Jumping from the cart, he observed the handle of the scraper stickingin the top of one of his boots. He drew it out, threw it on the seat, and entered the house. 

The janitor, an old acquaintance, greeted him with the servileintimacy of the tip-expecting tribe. 

On the second floor he stopped and pulled the bell whose glass knobglittered above a neat brass plate. 

"Ludovika Kraissl, " was engraved upon it. 

A maid, clad with prim propriety in a white apron and white lace cap, opened the door. 

He entered and handed her his hat. 

"Is Madame at home?"

"No, sir. "

He looked at her through half-closed lids, and observed how hermilk-white little madonna's face flushed to the roots of herblonde hair. 

"Where did she go?"

"Madame meant to go to the dressmaker, " the girl stuttered, "and tomake some purchases. " She avoided his eyes. She had been in serviceonly three months and had not yet perfected herself in lying. 

He whistled a tune between his set teeth and entered the drawing-room. 

A penetrating perfume streamed forth. 

"Open the window, Meta. "

She passed noiselessly through the room and executed his command. 

Frowning, he looked about him. The empty pomp of the light womanoffended his taste. The creature who lived here had a gift for fillingevery corner with banal and tasteless trivialities. 

When he had turned over the flat to her it had been a charming littleplace, full of delicate tints and the simple lines of Louis Seizefurniture. In a few years she had made a junk shop of it. 

"Would you care for tea, sir, or anything else?" the girl asked. 

"No, thank you. Pull off my boots, Meta. I'll change my dress and thengo out again. "

Modestly, almost humbly, she bowed before him and set his spurred footgently on her lap. Then she loosened the top straps. He let his glancerest, well pleased, upon her smooth, silvery blonde hair. 

How would it work if he sent his mistress packing and installed thisgirl in her place?

But he immediately abandoned the thought. He had seen the thing doneby some of his friends. In a single year the chastest and most modestservant girl was so thoroughly corrupted that she had to be driveninto the streets. 

"We men seem to emit a pestilential air, " he reflected, "that corruptsevery woman. "

"Or at least men of my kind, " he added carefully. 

"Have you any other wishes, sir?" asked the girl, daintily wiping herhands on her apron. 

"No, thank you. "

She turned to the door. 

"One thing more, Meta. When did Madame say she would be back?"

Her face was again mantled with blood. 

"She didn't say anything definite. I was to make her excuses. Sheintended to return home by evening, at all events. "

He nodded and the girl went with a sigh of relief, gently closing thedoor behind her. 

He continued to whistle, and looked up at a hanging lamp, whichdefined itself against the window niche by means of a wreath of gayartificial flowers. 

In this hanging lamp, which hung there unnoticed and unreachable fromthe floor, he had, a year ago, quite by accident, discovered a storeof love letters. His mistress had concealed them there since sheevidently did not even consider the secret drawer of her desk asufficiently safe repository. 

He had carefully kept the secret of the lamp to himself, and had onlyfed his grim humour from time to time by observing the changes of herheart by means of added missives. In this way he had been able toobserve the number of his excellent friends with whom shedeceived him. 

Thus his contempt for mankind assumed monstrous proportions, but thiscontempt was the one emotional luxury which his egoism was stillcapable of. 

He grasped a chair and seemed, for a moment about to mount to the lampto inspect her latest history. But he let his hand fall. After all, itwas indifferent with whom she was unfaithful to-day. .. . 

And he was tired. A bad day's work lay behind him. A three-year-oldfull-blooded horse, recently imported from Hull, had proven itselfabnormally sensitive and had brought him to the verge of despair byits fearfulness and its moods. He had exercised it for hours, and hadonly succeeded in making the animal more nervous than before. Greatsums were at stake if the fault should prove constitutional andnot curable. 

He felt the impulse to share his worries with some one, but he knew ofno one. From the point of view of Miss Ludi's naïve selfishness, itwas simply his duty to be successful. She didn't care for thetroublesome details. At his club, again, each one was warily guardinghis own interests. Hence it was necessary there to speak carefully, since an inadvertent expression might affect general opinion. 

He almost felt impelled to call in the maid and speak to her of hisworries. 

Then his own softness annoyed him. 

It was his wont to pass through life in lordly isolation and toastonish the world by his successes. That was all he needed. 

Yawning he stretched himself out on the _chaise longue_. Time dragged. 

Three hours would pass until Ludi's probable return. He was soaccustomed to the woman's society that he almost longed for her. Heridle chatter helped him. Her little tricks refreshed him. But the mostimportant point was this: she was no trouble. He could caress her orbeat her, call to her and drive her from him like a little dog. Hecould let her feel the full measure of his contempt, and she would notmove a muscle. She was used to nothing else. 

He passed two or three hours daily in her company, for time had to bekilled somehow. Sometimes, too, he took her to the circus or thetheatre. He had long broken with the families of his acquaintance andcould appear in public with light women. 

And yet he felt a sharp revulsion at the atmosphere that surroundedhim. A strange discomfort invaded his soul in her presence. He didn'tfeel degraded. He knew her to be a harlot. But that was what hewanted. None but such an one would permit herself to be so treated. Itwas rather a disguised discouragement that held him captive. 

Was life to pass thus unto the very end? Was life worth living, if itoffered a favourite of fortune, a master of his will and of hisactions, nothing better than this?

"Surely I have the spleen, " he said to himself, sprang up, and wentinto the next room to change his clothes. He had a wardrobe in Ludi'sdressing room in order to be able to go out from here in the eveningunrestrainedly. 

Chapter II. 

It was near four o'clock. 

The sun laughed through the window. Its light was deep purple, changing gradually to violet. Masses of leaves, red as rust, gleamedover from the _Tiergarten_. The figure of Victory upon the triumphalcolumn towered toward heaven like a mighty flame. 

He felt an impulse to wander through the alleys of the park idly andaimlessly, at most to give a coin to a begging child. 

He left the house and went past the Moltke monument and the windingways that lead to the Charlottenburg road. 

The ground exhaled the sweetish odour of decaying plants. Rustlingheaps of leaves, which the breezes of noon had swept together, flewapart under his tread. The westering sun threw red splotches of lighton the faint green of the tree trunks that exuded their moisture inlong streaks. 

Here it was lonely. Only beyond the great road, whose many-colouredpageant passed by him like a kinematograph, did he hear again in thealleys the sounds of children's voices, song and laughter. 

In the neighbourhood of the _Rousseau Island_ he met a gentleman whomhe knew and who had been a friend of his youth. Stout of form, hisround face surrounded by a close-clipped beard, he wandered along, leading two little girls in red, while a boy in a blue sailor suitrode ahead, herald-like, on his father's walking-stick. 

The two men bowed to each other coolly, but without ill-will. Theywere simply estranged. The busy servant of the state and father of afamily was scarcely to be found in those circles were the daily workconsists in riding and betting and gambling. 

Stueckrath sat down on a bench and gazed after the group. The littlered frocks gleamed through the bushes, and Papa's admonishing andrestraining voice was to be heard above the noise of the boy who madea trumpet of his hollow hand. 

"Is that the way happiness looks?" he asked himself. "Can a man ofenergy and action find satisfaction in these banal domesticities?"

And strangely enough, these fathers of families, men who serve thestate and society, who occupy high offices, make important inventionsand write good books--these men have red cheeks and laughing eyes. They do not look as though the burden which they carry squeezes thebreath of life out of them. They get ahead, in spite of the childishhands that cling to their coats, in spite of the trivialities withwhich they pass their hours of leisure. 

An indeterminate feeling of envy bored into his soul. He fought itdown and went on, right into the throng that filled the footpaths ofthe _Tiergarten_. Groups of ladies from the west end went by him inrustling gowns of black. He did not know them and did not wish toknow them. 

Here, too, he recognized fewer of the men. The financiers who havemade this quarter their own appear but rarely at the races. 

Accompanying carriages kept pace with the promenaders in order toexplain and excuse their unusual exertion. For in this world thecontinued absence of one's carriage may well shake one's credit. 

The trumpeting motor-cars whirred by with gleaming brasses. Of thebeautiful women in them, little could be seen in the swift gleams. Itwas the haste of a new age that does not even find time to displayits vanity. 

Upon the windows of the villas and palaces opposite lay the iridescentglow of the evening sun. The façades took on purple colours, and thedecaying masses of vines that weighed heavily upon the fences seemedto glow and shine from within with the very phosphorescence of decay. 

Flooded by this light, a slender, abnormally tall girl came intoStueckrath's field of vision. She led by the arm an aged lady, whohobbled with difficulty along the pebbly path. A closed carriage withescutcheon and coronet followed the two slowly. 

He stopped short. An involuntary movement had passed through his body, an impulse to turn off into one of the side paths. But he conqueredhimself at once, and looked straight at the approaching ladies. 

Like a mere line of blackness, thin of limb and waist, attired withnun-like austerity in garments that hung as if withering upon her, shestood against the background of autumnal splendour. 

Now she recognised him, too. A sudden redness that at once gave way tolifeless pallor flashed across her delicate, stern face. 

They looked straight into each other's eyes. 

He bowed deeply. She smiled with an effort at indifference. 

"And so she is faded, too, " he thought. To be sure, her face stillbore the stamp of a simple and severe beauty, but time and grief haddealt ungently with it. The lips were pale and anaemic, two or threefolds, sharp as if made with a knife, surrounded them. About the eyes, whose soft and lambent light of other days had turned into a hard andtroubled sharpness, spread concentric rings, united by a net-work ofveins and wrinkles. 

He stood still, lost in thought, and looked after her. 

She still trod the earth like a queen, but her outline was detestable. 

Only hopelessness bears and attires itself thus. 

He calculated. She must be thirty-six. Thirteen years ago he had knownher and--loved her? Perhaps. .. . 

At least he had left her the evening before their formal betrothal wasto take place because her father had dared to remark upon his wayof life. 

He loved his personal liberty more than his beautiful and wealthybetrothed who clung to him with every fibre of her delicate and noblesoul. One word from her, had it been but a word of farewell, wouldhave recalled him. That word remained unspoken. 

Thus her life's happiness had been wrecked. Perhaps his, too. What didit matter?

Since then he had nothing but contempt for the daughters of goodfamilies. Other women were less exacting; they did not attempt tocircumscribe his freedom. 

He gazed after her long. Now groups of other pedestrians intervened;now her form reappeared sharp and narrow against the trees. From timeto time she stooped lovingly toward the old lady, who, as is the wontof aged people, trod eagerly and fearfully. 

This fragile heap of bones, with the dull eyes and the sharp voice--heremembered the voice well: it had had part in his decision. Thisstrange, unsympathetic, suspicious old woman, he would have had tocall "Mother. "

What madness! What hypocrisy!

And yet his hunger for happiness, which had not yet died, reminded himof all that might have been. 

A sea of warm, tender and unselfish love would have flooded him andfructified and vivified the desert of his soul. And instead ofbecoming withered and embittered, she would have blossomed at his sidemore richly from day to day. 

Now it was too late. A long, thin, wretched little creature--she wenther way and was soon lost in the distance. 

But there clung to his soul the yearning for a woman--one who had moreof womanliness than its name and its body, more than the harlot whomhe kept because he was too slothful to drive her from him. 

He sought the depths of his memory. His life had been rich in gallantadventures. Many a full-blooded young woman had thrown herself at him, and had again vanished from his life under the compulsion of hisgrowing coldness. 

He loved his liberty. Even an unlawful relation felt like a fetter sosoon as it demanded any sacrifice of time or interests. Also, he didnot like to give less than he received. For, since the passing of hisunscrupulous youth, he had not cared to receive the gift of a humandestiny only to throw it aside as his whim demanded. 

And therefore his life had grown quiet during the last few years. 

He thought of one of his last loves . .. The very last . .. And smiled. 

The image of a delicately plump brunette little woman, with dreamyeyes and delicious little curls around her ears, rose up before him. She dwelt in his memory as she had seemed to him: modest, soulful, allecstatic yielding and charming simple-heartedness. 

She did not belong to society. He had met her at a dinner given by afinancial magnate. She was the wife of an upper clerk who was wellrespected in the business world. With adoring curiosity, she peepedinto the great strange world, whose doors opened to her for thefirst time. 

He took her to the table, was vastly entertained by the lack ofsophistication with which she received all these new impressions, andsmilingly accepted the undisguised adoration with which she regardedhim in his character of a famous horseman and rake. 

He flirted with her a bit and that turned her head completely. Inlonely dreams her yearning for elegant and phantastic sin had grown toenormity. She was now so wholly and irresistibly intoxicated that hereceived next morning a deliciously scribbled note in which she beggedhim for a secret meeting--somewhere in the neighbourhood of the_Arkona Place_ or _Weinmeisterstrasse_, regions as unknown to him asthe North Cape or Yokohama. 

Two or three meetings followed. She appeared, modest, anxious and inlove, a bunch of violets for his button-hole in her hand, and somesurprise for her husband in her pocket. 

Then the affair began to bore him and he refused an appointment. 

One evening, during the last days of November, she appeared, thicklyveiled, in his dwelling, and sank sobbing upon his breast. She couldnot live without seeing him; she was half crazed with longing; he wasto do with her what he would. He consoled her, warmed her, and kissedthe melting snow from her hair. But when in his joy at what heconsidered the full possession of a jewel his tenderness went beyondhers, her conscience smote her. She was an honest woman. Horror andshame would drive her into her grave if she went hence an adulteress. He must have pity on her and be content with her pure adoration. 

He had the requisite pity, dismissed her with a paternal kiss upon herforehead, but at the same time ordered his servant to admit herno more. 

Then came two or three letters. In her agony over the thought oflosing him, she was willing to break down the last reserve. But he didnot answer the letters. 

At the same time the thought came to him of going up the Nile in adahabiyeh. He was bored and had a cold. 

On the evening of his departure he found her waiting in his rooms. 

"What do you want?"

"Take me along. "

"How do you know?"

"Take me along. "

She said nothing else. 

The necessity of comforting her was clear. A thoroughgoing farewellwas celebrated, with the understanding that it was a farewell forever. 

The pact had been kept. After his return and for two years more shehad given no sign of life. He now thought of this woman. He felt apoignant longing for the ripe sweetness of her oval face, the veileddepth of her voice. He desired once more to be embraced by her firmarms, to be kissed by her mad, hesitating lips. 

Why had he dropped her? How could he have abandoned her so rudely?

The thought came into his head of looking her up now, in this veryhour. 

He had a dim recollection of the whereabouts of her dwelling. He couldsoon ascertain its exact situation. 

Then again the problems of his racing stable came into his head. Thethought of "Maidenhood, " the newly purchased horse, worried him. Hehad staked much upon one throw. If he lost, it would take time torepair the damage. 

Suddenly he found himself in a tobacconist's shop, looking for hername in the directory. _Friedrich-Wilhelm Strasse_ was the address. Quite near, as he had surmised. 

He was not at loss for an excuse. Her husband must still be in hisoffice at this hour. He would not be asked for any very strictaccounting for his action. At worst there was an approaching ridingfestival, for which he could request her cooperation. 

Perhaps she had forgotten him and would revenge herself for herhumiliation. Perhaps she would be insulted and not even receive him. At best he must count upon coldness, bitter truths and that appearanceof hatred which injured love assumes. 

What did it matter? She was a woman, after all. 

The vestibule of the house was supported by pillars; its walls wereornately stuccoed; the floor was covered with imitation oriental rugs. It was the rented luxury with which the better middle-class loves tosurround itself. 

He ascended three flights of stairs. 

An elderly servant in a blue apron regarded the stranger suspiciously. 

He asked for her mistress. 

She would see. Holding his card gingerly, she disappeared. 

Now _he_ would see. .. . 

Then, as he bent forward, listening, he heard through the open door acry--not of horrified surprise, but of triumph and jubilation, such acry of sudden joy as only a long and hopeless and unrestrainableyearning can send forth. 

He thought he had heard wrong, but the smiling face of the returningservant reassured him. 

He was to be made welcome. 

Chapter III. 

He entered. With outstretched hands, tears in her eyes, her facea-quiver with a vain attempt at equanimity--thus she came forwardto meet him. 

"There you are . .. There you are . .. You. .. . "

Overwhelmed and put to shame by her forgiveness and her happiness, hestood before her in silence. 

What could he have said to her that would not have sounded eithercoarse or trivial?

And she demanded neither explanation nor excuse. 

He was here--that was enough for her. 

As he let his glance rest upon her, he confessed that his mental imageof her fell short of the present reality. 

She had grown in soul and stature. Her features bore signs of powerand restraint, and of a strong inner tension. Her eyes sought him witha steady light; in her bosom battled the pent-up joy. 

She asked him to be seated. "In that corner, " she said, and led him toa tiny sofa covered with glittering, light-green silk, above whichhung a withered palm-leaf fan. 

"I have sat there so often, " she went on, "so often, and have thoughtof you, always--always. You'll drink tea, won't you?"

He was about to refuse, but she interrupted him. 

"Oh, but you must, you must. You can't refuse! It has been my dreamall this time to drink tea with you here just once--just once. Toserve you on this little table and hand you the basket with cakes! Doyou see this little lacquer table, with the lovely birds of inlaidmother-of-pearl? I had that given to me last Christmas for theespecial purpose of serving you tea on it. For I said to myself: 'Heis accustomed to the highest elegance. ' And you are here and are goingto refuse? No, no, that's impossible. I couldn't bear that. "

And she flew to the door and called out her orders to the servant. 

He regarded her in happy astonishment. In all her movements there wasa rhythm of unconscious loveliness, such as he had rarely seen in anywoman. With simple, unconscious elegance, her dress flowed about hertaller figure, whose severe lines were softened by the womanly curvesof her limbs. And all that belonged to him. 

He could command this radiant young body and this radiant young soul. All that was one hunger to be possessed by him. 

"Bind her to yourself, " cried his soul, "and build yourself a newhappiness!"

Then she returned. She stopped a few paces from him, folded her handsunder her chin, gazed at him wide-eyed and whispered: "There he is!There he is!"

He grew uncomfortable under this expense of passion. 

"I should wager that I sit here with a foolish face, " he thought. 

"But now I'm going to be sensible, " she went on, sitting down on a lowstool that stood next to the sofa. "And while the tea is steeping youmust tell me how things have gone with you all this long time. For itis a very long time since . .. Ah, a long time. .. . "

It seemed to him that there was a reproach behind these words. He gavebut a dry answer to her question, but threw the more warmth into hisinquiries concerning her life. 

She laughed and waved her hand. 

"Oh, I!" she cried. "I have fared admirably. Why should I not? Lifemakes me as happy as though I were a child. Oh, I can always behappy. .. . That's characteristic of me. Nearly every day bringssomething new and usually something delightful. .. . And since I've beenin love with you. .. . You mustn't take that for a banal declaration ofpassion, dear friend. .. . Just imagine you are merely my confidant, andthat I'm telling you of my distant lover who takes little notice of afoolish woman like myself. But then, that doesn't matter so long as Iknow that he is alive and can fear and pray for him; so long as thesame morning sun shines on us both. Why, do you know, it's a mostdelicious feeling, when the morning is fair and the sun golden and onemay stand at the window and say: 'Thank God, it is a beautiful dayfor him. '"

He passed his hand over his forehead. 

"It isn't possible, " he thought. "Such things don't exist in thisworld. "

And she went on, not thinking that perhaps he, too, would want tospeak. 

"I don't know whether many people have the good fortune to be as happyas I. But I am, thank God. And do you know, the best part of it alland the sunniest, I owe to you. For instance: Summer before last wewent to Heligoland, last summer to Schwarzburg. .. . Do you know it?Isn't it beautiful? Well, for instance: I wake up; I open my eyes tothe dawn. I get up softly, so as not to disturb my husband, and go onmy bare feet to the window. Without, the wooded mountains lie dark andpeaceful. There is a peace over it all that draws one's tears . .. Itis so beautiful . .. And behind, on the horizon, there shines a broadpath of gold. And the fir-trees upon the highest peaks are sharplydefined against the gold, like little men with many outstretched arms. And already the early piping of a few birds is heard. And I fold myhands and think: I wonder where he is. .. . And if he is asleep, has hefair dreams? Ah, if he were here and could see all this loveliness. And I think of _him_ with such impassioned intensity that it is nothard to believe him here and able to see it all. And at last a chillcomes up, for it is always cool in the mountains, as you know. .. . Andthen one slips back into bed, and is annoyed to think that one mustsleep four hours more instead of being up and thinking of him. Andwhen one wakes up for a second time, the sun throws its golden lightinto the windows, and the breakfast table is set on the balcony. Andone's husband has been up quite a while, but waits patiently. And hisdear, peaceful face is seen through the glass door. At such momentsone's heart expands in gratitude to God who has made life so beautifuland one can hardly bear one's own happiness--and--there is the tea. "

The elderly maid came in with a salver, which she placed on the piano, in order to set the little table properly. A beautiful napkin ofdamask silk lay ready. The lady of the house scolded jestingly. Itwould injure the polish of the piano, and what was her guest to thinkof such shiftlessness. 

The maid went out. 

She took up the tea-kettle, and asked in a voice full of bliss. 

"Strong or weak, dear master?"

"Strong, please. "

"One or two lumps of sugar?"

"Two lumps, please. "

She passed him the cup with a certain solemnity. 

"So this is the great moment, the pinnacle of all happiness as I havedreamed of it! Now, tell me yourself: Am I not to be envied? WhateverI wish is fulfilled. And, do you know, last year in Heligoland I had acurious experience. We capsised by the dunes and I fell into thewater. As I lost consciousness, I thought that you were there and weresaving me. Later when I lay on the beach, I saw, of course, that ithad been only a stupid old fisherman. But the feeling was so wonderfulwhile it lasted that I almost felt like jumping into the water again. Speaking of water, do you take rum in your tea?"

He shook his head. Her chatter, which at first had enraptured him, began to fill him with sadness. He did not know how to respond. Hisyouthfulness and flexibility of mind had passed from him long ago: hehad long lost any inner cheerfulness. 

And while she continued to chat, his thoughts wandered, like a horse, on their accustomed path on the road of his daily worries. He thoughtof an unsatisfactory jockey, of the nervous horse. 

What was this woman to him, after all?

"By the way, " he heard her say, "I wanted to ask you whether'Maidenhood' has arrived?"

He sat up sharply and stared at her. Surely he had heard wrong. 

"What do you know about 'Maidenhood'?"

"But, my dear friend, do you suppose I haven't heard of your beautifulhorse, by 'Blue Devil' out of 'Nina'? Now, do you see? I believe Iknow the grandparents, too. Anyhow, you are to be congratulated onyour purchase. The English trackmen are bursting with envy. To judgeby that, you ought to have an immense success. "

"But, for heaven's sake, how do you know all this?"

"Dear me, didn't your purchase appear in all the sporting papers?"

"Do you read those papers?"

"Surely. You see, here is the last number of the _Spur_, and yonder isthe bound copy of the _German Sporting News_. "

"I see; but to what purpose?"

"Oh, I'm a sporting lady, dear master. I look upon the world ofhorses--is that the right expression?--with benevolent interest. Ihope that isn't forbidden?"

"But you never told me a word about that before!"

She blushed a little and cast her eyes down. 

"Oh, before, before. .. . That interest didn't come until later. "

He understood and dared not understand. 

"Don't look at me so, " she besought him; there's nothing veryremarkable about it. I just said to myself: "Well, if he doesn't wantyou, at least you can share his life from afar. That isn't immodest, is it? And then the race meets were the only occasions on which Icould see you from afar. And whenever you yourself rode--oh, how myheart beat--fit to burst. And when you won, oh, how proud I was! Icould have cried out my secret for all the world to hear. And my poorhusband's arm was always black and blue. I pinched him first in myanxiety and then in my joy. "

"So your husband happily shares your enthusiasm?"

"Oh, at first he wasn't very willing. But then, he is so good, sogood. And as I couldn't go to the races alone, why he just had to gowith me! And in the end he has become as great an enthusiast as I am. We can sit together for hours and discuss the tips. And he justadmires you so--almost more than I. Oh, how happy he'd be to meet youhere. You mustn't refuse him that pleasure. And now you're laughing atme. Shame on you!"

"I give you my word that nothing--"

"Oh, but you smiled. I saw you smile. "

"Perhaps. But assuredly with no evil intention. And now you'll permitme to ask a serious question, won't you?"

"But surely!"

"Do you love your husband?"

"Why, of course I love him. You don't know him, or you wouldn't ask. How could I help it? We're like two children together. And I don'tmean anything silly. We're like that in hours of grief, too. Sometimeswhen I look at him in his sleep--the kind, careworn forehead, thesilent serious mouth--and when I think how faithfully and carefully heguides me, how his one dreaming and waking thought is for myhappiness--why, then I kneel down and kiss his hands till he wakes up. Once he thought it was our little dog, and murmured 'Shoo, shoo!' Oh, how we laughed! And if you imagine that such a state of affairs can'tbe reconciled with my feeling for you, why, then you're quite wrong. _That_ is upon an entirely different plane. "

"And your life is happy?"

"Perfectly, perfectly. "

Radiantly she folded her hands. 

She did not suspect her position on the fearful edge of an abyss. Shehad not yet realised what his coming meant, nor how defencelessshe was. 

He had but to stretch out his arms and she would fly to him, ready tosacrifice her fate to his mood. And this time there would be noreturning to that well-ordered content. 

A dull feeling of responsibility arose in him and paralysed his will. Here was all that he needed in order to conquer a few years of newfreshness and joy for the arid desert of his life. Here was the springof life for which he was athirst. And he had not the courage to touchit with his lips. 

Chapter IV. 

A silence ensued in which their mood threatened to darken and growturbid. 

Then he pulled himself together. 

"You don't ask me why I came, dear friend. "

She shrugged her shoulders and smiled. 

"A moment's impulse--or loneliness. That's all. "

"And a bit of remorse, don't you think so?"

"Remorse? For what? You have nothing with which to reproach yourself. Was not our agreement made to be kept?"

"And yet I couldn't wholly avoid the feeling as if my unbroken silencemust have left a sting in your soul which would embitter yourmemory of me. "

Thoughtfully she stirred her tea. 

"No, " she said at last, "I'm not so foolish. The memory of you is asacred one. If that were not so, how could I have gone on living? Thattime, to be sure, I wanted to take my life. I had determined on thatbefore I came to you. For that one can leave the man with whom. .. . Inever thought that possible. .. . But one learns a good deal--a gooddeal. .. . And now I'll tell you how it came to pass that I didn't takemy life that night. When everything was over, and I stood in thestreet before your house, I said to myself: 'Now the river is all thatis left. ' In spite of rain and storm, I took an open cab and drove outto the _Tiergarten_. Wasn't the weather horrible! At the _Great Star_I left the cab and ran about in the muddy ways, weeping, weeping. Iwas blind with tears, and lost my way. I said to myself that I woulddie at six. There were still four minutes left. I asked a policemanthe way to _Bellevue_, for I did remember that the river flows hardbehind the castle. The policeman said: 'There it is. The hour isstriking in the tower now. ' And when I heard the clock strike, thethought came to me: 'Now my husband is coming home, tired and hungry, and I'm not there. If at least he wouldn't let his dinner get cold. But of course he will wait. He'd rather starve than eat without me. And he'll be frightened more and more as the hours pass. Then he'llrun to the police. And next morning he'll be summoned by telegram tothe morgue. There he'll break down helplessly and hopelessly and Iwon't be able to console him. ' And when I saw that scene in my mind, Icalled out: 'Cab! cab!' But there was no cab. So I ran back to the_Great Star_, and jumped into the street-car, and rode home and rushedinto his arms and cried my fill. "

"And had your husband no questions to ask? Did he entertain nosuspicion?"

"Oh, no, he knows me, I am taken that way sometimes. If anything movesor delights me deeply--a lovely child on the street--you see, Ihaven't any--or some glorious music, or sometimes only the park inspring and some white statue in the midst of the greenery. Oh, sometimes I seem to feel my very soul melt, and then he lays his cool, firm hand on my forehead and I am healed. "

"And were you healed on that occasion, too?"

"Yes. I was calmed at once. 'Here, ' I said to myself, 'is this dear, good man, to whom you can be kind. And as far as the other isconcerned, why it was mere mad egoism to hope to have a share in hislife. For to give love means, after all, to demand love. And what cana poor, supersensitive thing like you mean to him? He has others. Heneed but stretch forth his hand, and the hearts of countesses andprincesses are his!'"

"Dear God, " he thought, and saw the image of the purchasable harlot, who was supposed to satisfy his heart's needs. 

But she chatted on, and bit by bit built up for him the image of himwhich she had cherished during these two years. All the heroes ofByron, Poushkine, Spielhagen and Scott melted into one glitteringfigure. There was no splendour of earth with which her generousimagination had not dowered him. 

He listened with a melancholy smile, and thought: "Thank God, shedoesn't know me. If I didn't take a bit of pleasure in my stable, thecontrast would be too terrible to contemplate. "

And there was nothing forward, nothing immodest, in this joyousenthusiasm. It was, in fact, as if he were a mere confidant, and shewere singing a hymn in praise of her beloved. 

And thus she spared him any feeling of shame. 

But what was to happen now?

It went without saying that this visit must have consequences of somesort. It was her right to demand that he do not, for a second time, take her up and then fling her aside at the convenience of agiven hour. 

Almost timidly he asked after her thoughts of the future. 

"Let's not speak of it. You won't come back, anyhow. "

"How can you think. .. . "

"Oh, no, you won't come back. And what is there here for you? Do youwant to be adored by me? You spoiled gentlemen soon tire of that sortof thing. .. . Or would you like to converse with my husband? Thatwouldn't amuse you. He's a very silent man and his reserve thaws onlywhen he is alone with me. .. . But it doesn't matter. .. . You have beenhere. And the memory of this hour will always be dear and precious tome. Now, I have something more in which my soul can take pleasure. "

A muffled pain stirred in him. He felt impelled to throw himself ather feet and bury his head in her lap. But he respected the majesty ofher happiness. 

"And if I myself desired. .. . "

That was all he said; all he dared to say. The sudden glory in herface commanded his silence. Under the prudence which his longexperience dictated, his mood grew calmer. 

But she had understood him. 

In silent blessedness, she leaned her head against the wall. Then shewhispered, with closed eyes: "It is well that you said no more. Imight grow bold and revive hopes that are dead. But if you. .. . "

She raised her eyes to his. A complete surrender to his will lay inher glance. 

Then she raised her head with a listening gesture. 

"My husband, " she said, after she had fought down a slight involuntaryfright, and said it with sincere joy. 

Three glowing fingers barely touched his. Then she hastened to thedoor. 

"Guess who is here, " she called out; "guess!"

On the threshold appeared a sturdy man of middle size and middle age. His round, blonde beard came to a grayish point beneath the chin. Histhin cheeks were yellow, but with no unhealthful hue. His quiet, friendly eyes gleamed behind glasses that sat a trifle too far downhis nose, so that in speaking his head was slightly thrown back andhis lids drawn. 

With quiet astonishment he regarded the elegant stranger. Comingnearer, however, he recognised him at once in spite of the twilight, and, a little confused with pleasure, stretched out his hand. 

Upon his tired, peaceful features, there was no sign of any sense ofstrangeness, any desire for an explanation. 

Stueckrath realized that toward so simple a nature craft would havebeen out of place, and simply declared that he had desired to renew anacquaintance which he had always remembered with much pleasure. 

"I don't want to speak of myself, Baron, " the man replied, "but youprobably scarcely realise what pleasure you are giving my wife. " Andhe nodded down at her who stood beside him, apparently unconcernedexcept for her wifely joy. 

A few friendly words were exchanged. Further speech was reallysuperfluous, since the man's unassailable innocence demanded nocaution. But Stueckrath was too much pleased with him to let him feelhis insignificance by an immediate departure. 

Hence he sat a little longer, told of his latest purchases, and wasshamed by the satisfaction with which the man rehearsed the history ofhis stable. 

He did not neglect the courtesy of asking them both to call on him, and took his leave, accompanied by the couple to the door. He couldnot decide which of the two pressed his hand more warmly. 

When in the darkness of the lower hall he looked upward, he saw twofaces which gazed after him with genuine feeling. 

 * * * * *

Out amid the common noises of the street he had the feeling as thoughhe had returned from some far island of alien seas into the wontedcurrent of life. 

He shuddered at the thought of what lay before him. 

Then he went toward the _Tiergarten_. A red afterglow eddied amid thetrees. In the sky gleamed a harmony of delicate blue tints, shadinginto green. Great white clouds towered above, but rested upon theredness of the sunset. 

The human stream flooded as always between the flickering, starrystreet-lamps of the _Tiergartenstrasse_. Each man and woman sought towrest a last hour of radiance from the dying day. 

Dreaming, estranged, Stueckrath made his way through the crowd, andhurriedly sought a lonely footpath that disappeared in the darkness ofthe foliage. 

Again for a moment the thought seared him: "Take her and rebuild thestructure of your life. "

But when he sought to hold the thought and the accompanying emotion, it was gone. Nothing remained but a flat after taste--the dregs of aweary intoxication. 

The withered leaves rustled beneath his tread. Beside the pathglimmered the leaf-flecked surface of a pool. 

"It would be a crime, to be sure, " he said to himself, "to shatter thepeace of those two poor souls. But, after all, life is made up of suchcrimes. The life of one is the other's death; one's happiness theother's wretchedness. If only I could be sure that some happinesswould result, that the sacrifice of their idyl would bringsome profit. "

But he had too often had the discouraging and disappointing experiencethat he had become incapable of any strong and enduring emotion. Whathad he to offer that woman, who, in a mixture of passion, and naïveunmorality of soul, had thrown herself at his breast? The shallowdregs of a draught, a power to love that had been wasted in sensualtrifling--emptiness, weariness, a longing for sensation and a longingfor repose. That was all the gift he could bring her. 

And how soon would he be satiated!

Any sign of remorse or of fear in her would suffice to make her aburden, even a hated burden!

"Be her good angel, " he said to himself, "and let her be. " He whistledand the sound was echoed by the trees. 

He sought a bench on which to sit down, and lit a cigarette. As thematch flared up, he became conscious of the fact that nighthad fallen. 

A great quietude rested upon the dying forest. Like the strains of abeautifully perishing harmony the sound of the world's distant strifefloated into this solitude. 

Attentively Stueckrath observed the little point of glowing fire inhis hand, from which eddied upward a wreath of fragrant smoke. 

"Thank God, " he said, "that at least remains--one's cigarette. "

Then he arose and wandered thoughtfully onward. 

Without knowing how he had come there, he found himself suddenly infront of his mistress's dwelling. 

Light shimmered in her windows--the raspberry coloured light of redcurtains which loose women delight in. 

"Pah!" he said and shuddered. 

But, after all, up there a supper table was set for him; there waslaughter and society, warmth and a pair of slippers. 

He opened the gate. 

A chill wind rattled in the twigs of the trees and blew the deadleaves about in conical whirls. They fluttered along like wanderingshadows, only to end in some puddle . .. 

Autumn . .. 

MERRY FOLK

The Christmas tree bent heavily forward. The side which was turned tothe wall had been hard to reach, and had hence not been adorned richlyenough to keep the equilibrium of the tree against the weighty twigsof the front. 

Papa noted this and scolded. "What would Mamma say if she saw that?You know, Brigitta, that Mamma doesn't love carelessness. If the treefalls over, think how ashamed we shall be. "

Brigitta flushed fiery red. She clambered up the ladder once more, stretched her arms forth as far as possible, and hung on the otherside of the tree all that she could gather. There _had_ been verylittle there. But then one couldn't see. .. . 

And now the lights could be lit. 

"Now we will look through the presents, " said Papa. "Which is Mamma'splate?"

Brigitta showed it to him. 

This time he was satisfied. "It's a good thing that you've put so muchmarchpane on it, " he said. "You know she always loves to havesomething to give away. " Then lie inspected the polished safety lockthat lay next to the plate and caressed the hard leaves of the pottedpalm that shadowed Mamma's place at the Christmas table. 

"You have painted the flower vase for her?" he asked. 

Brigitta nodded. 

"It is exclusively for roses, " she said, "and the colours are burnedin and will stand any kind of weather. "

"What the boys have made for Mamma they can bring her themselves. Haveyou put down the presents from her?"

Surely she had done so. For Fritz, there was a fishing-net and aten-bladed knife; for Arthur a turning lathe with foot-power, and inaddition a tall toy ship with a golden-haired nymph as figurehead. 

"The mermaid will make an impression, " said Papa and laughed. 

There was something else which Brigitta had on her conscience. Shestuck her firm little hands under her apron, which fell straight downover her flat little chest, and tripped up and down on her heels. 

"I may as well betray the secret, " she said. "Mamma has something foryou, too. " Papa was all ear. "What is it?" he asked, and looked overhis place at the table, where nothing was noticeable in addition toBrigitta's fancy work. 

Brigitta ran to the piano and pulled forth from under it a paperwrapped box, about two feet in height, which seemed singularly lightfor its size. 

When the paper wrappings had fallen aside, a wooden cage appeared, inwhich sat a stuffed bird that glittered with all the colours of therainbow. His plumage looked as though the blue of the sky and the goldof the sun had been caught in it. 

"A roller!" Papa cried, clapping his hands, and something like joytwitched about his mouth. "And she gives me this rare specimen?"

"Yes, " said Brigitta, "it was found last autumn in the throstlespringe. The manager kept it for me until now. And because it is sobeautiful, and, one might really say, a kind of bird of paradise, therefore Mamma gives it to you. "

Papa stroked her blonde hair and again her face flushed. 

"So; and now we'll call the boys, " he said. 

"First let me put away my apron, " she cried, loosened the pin andthrew the ugly black thing under the piano where the cage had beenbefore. Now she stood there in her white communion dress, with itsblue ribands, and made a charming little grimace. 

"You have done quite right, " said Papa. "Mamma does not like darkcolours. Everything about her is to be bright and gay. "

Now the boys were permitted to come in. 

They held their beautifully written Christmas poems carefully in theirhands and rubbed their sides timidly against the door-posts. 

"Come, be cheerful, " said Papa. "Do you think your heads will be tornoff to-day?"

And then he took them both into his arms and squeezed them a little sothat Arthur's poetry was crushed right down the middle. 

That was a misfortune, to be sure. But Papa consoled the boy, sayingthat he would be responsible since it was his fault. 

Brueggemann, the long, lean private tutor, now stuck his head in thedoor, too. He had on his most solemn long coat, nodded sadly like onebidden to a funeral, and sniffed through his nose:

"Yes--yes--yes--yes--"

"What are you sighing over so pitiably, you old weeping-willow?" Papasaid, laughing. "There are only merry folk here. Isn't it so, Brigitta?"

"Of course that is so, " the girl said. "And here, Doctor, is yourChristmas plate. " She led him to his place where a little purse ofcalf's leather peeped modestly out from, under the cakes. 

"This is your present from Mamma, " she continued, handing him a long, dark-covered book. "It is 'The Three Ways to Peace, ' which you alwaysadmired so much. "

The learned gentleman hid a tear of emotion but squinted again at thelittle pocket-book. This represented the fourth way to peace, for hehad old beer debts. 

The servants were now ushered in, too. First came Mrs. Poensgen, thehousekeeper, who carried in her crooked, scarred hands a littleflower-pot with Alpine violets. 

"This is for Mamma, " she said to Brigitta, who took the pot from herand led her to her own place. There were many good things, among thema brown knitted sweater, such as she had long desired, for in thekitchen an east wind was wont to blow through the cracks. 

Mrs. Poensgen saw the sweater as rapidly as Brueggemann had seen thepurse. And when Brigitta said: "That is, of course, from Mamma, " theold woman was not in the least surprised. For in her fifteen years ofservice she had discovered that the best things always camefrom Mamma. 

The two boys, in the meantime, were anxious to ease their consciencesand recite their poems. They stood around Papa. 

He was busy with the inspectors of the estate, and did not notice themfor a moment. Then he became aware of his oversight and took thesheets from their hands, laughing and regretting his neglect. Fritzassumed the proper attitude, and Papa did the same, but when thelatter saw the heading of the poem: "To his dear parents atChristmastide, " he changed his mind and said: "Let's leave that tilllater when we are with Mamma. "

And so the boys could go on to their places. And as their joyexpressed itself at first in a happy silence, Papa stepped up behindthem and shook them and said: "Will you be merry, you little scamps?What is Mamma to think if you're not!"

That broke the spell which had held them heretofore. Fritz set hisnet, and when Arthur discovered a pinnace on his man-of-war, thefeeling of immeasurable wealth broke out in jubilation. 

But this is the way of the heart. Scarcely had they discovered theirown wealth but they turned in desire to that which was not for them. 

Arthur had discovered the shiny patent lock that lay between Mamma'splate and his own. It seemed uncertain whether it was for him or her. He felt pretty well assured that it was not for him; on the otherhand, he couldn't imagine what use she could put it to. Furthermore, he was interested in it, since it was made upon a certain model. It isnot for nothing that one is an engineer with all one's heart and mind. 

Now, Fritz tried to give an expert opinion, too. He considered it acombination Chubb lock. Of course that was utter nonsense. But thenFritz would sometimes talk at random. 

However that may be, this lock was undoubtedly the finest thing ofall. And when one turned the key in it, it gave forth a soft, slow, echoing tone, as though a harp-playing spirit sat in its steel body. 

But Papa came and put an end to their delight. 

"What are you thinking of, you rascals?" he said in jesting reproach. "Instead of giving poor Mamma something for Christmas, you want totake the little that she has. "

At that they were mightily ashamed. And Arthur said that of coursethey had something for Mamma, only they had left it in the hall, sothat they could take it at once when they went to her. 

"Get it in, " said Papa, "in order that her place may not look someager. " They ran out and came back with their presents. 

Fritz had carved a flower-pot holder. It consisted of six parts, whichdove-tailed delicately into each other. But that was nothing comparedto Arthur's ventilation window, which was woven of horse hair. 

Papa was delighted. "Now we needn't be ashamed to be seen, " he said. Then, too, he explained to them the mechanism of the lock, and toldthem that its purpose was to guard dear Mamma's flowers better. Forrecently some of her favourite roses had been stolen and the only wayto account for it was that some one had a pass key. 

"So, and now we'll go to her at last, " he concluded. "We have kept herwaiting long. And we will be happy with her, for happiness is thegreat thing, as Mamma says. .. . Get us the key, Brigitta, to the gateand the chapel. "

And Brigitta got the key to the gate and the chapel. 

THEA

_A Phantasy over the Samovar_

Chapter I. 

She is a faery and yet she is none. .. . But she is my faery surely. 

She has appeared to me only in a few moments of life when I leastexpected her. 

And when I desired to hold her, she vanished. 

Yet has she often dwelt near me. I felt her in the breath of winterwinds sweeping over sunny fields of snow; I breathed her presence inthe morning frost that clung, glittering, to my beard; I saw theshadow of her gigantic form glide over the smoky darkness of heavenwhich hung with the quietude of hopelessness over the dull whitefields; I heard the whispering of her voice in the depths of theshining tea urn surrounded by a dancing wreath of spirit flames. 

But I must tell the story of those few times when she stood bodilybefore me--changed of form and yet the same--my fate, my future as itshould have been and was not, my fear and my trust, my good and myevil star. 

Chapter II. 

It was many, many years ago on a late evening near Epiphany. 

Without whirled the snow. The flakes came fluttering to the windowslike endless swarms of moths. Silently they touched the panes and thenglided straight down to earth as though they had broken their wings inthe impact. 

The lamp, old and bad for the eyes, stood on the table with itspolished brass foot and its raveled green cloth shade. The oil in thetank gurgled dutifully. Black fragments gathered on the wick, whichlooked like a stake over which a few last flames keep watch. 

Yonder in the shabby upholstered chair my mother had fallen into adoze. Her knitting had dropped from her hands and lay on theflower-patterned apron. The wool-thread cut a deep furrow in the skinof her rough forefinger. One of the needles swung behind her ear. 

The samovar with its bellied body and its shining chimney stood on aside table. From time to time a small, pale-blue cloud of steamwhirled upward, and a gentle odour of burning charcoal tickledmy nostrils. 

Before me on the table lay open Sallust's "Catilinarian Conspiracy!"But what did I care for Sallust? Yonder on the book shelf, laughingand alluring in its gorgeous cover stood the first novel that I everread--"The Adventures of Baron Muenchausen!"

Ten pages more to construe. Then I was free. I buried my hands deepinto my breeches pockets, for I was cold. Only ten pages more. 

Yearningly I stared at my friend. 

And behold, the bookbinder's crude ornamentation--ungracefularabesques of vine leaves which wreathe about broken columns, a risingsun caught in a spider's web of rays--all that configuration begins tospread and distend until it fills the room. The vine leaves tremble ina morning wind; a soft blowing shakes the columns, and higher andhigher mounts the sun. Like a dance of flickering torches his raysshoot to and fro, his glistening arms are outstretched as though theywould grasp the world and pull it to the burning bosom of the sun. Anda great roaring arises in the air, muffled and deep as distant organstrains. It rises to the blare of trumpets, it quivers with the clashof cymbals. 

Then the body of the sun bursts open. A bluish, phosphorescent flamehisses forth. Upon this flame stands erect in fluttering _chiton_ awoman, fair and golden haired, swan's wings at her shoulders, a harpheld in her hand. 

She sees me and her face is full of laughter. Her laughter soundssimple, childlike, arch. And surely, it is a child's mouth from whichit issues. The innocent blue eyes look at me in mad challenge. Thefirm cheeks glow with the delight of life. Heavens! What is thischild's head doing on that body? She throws the harp upon the clouds, sits down on the strings, scratches her little nose swiftly with herleft wing and calls out to me: "Come, slide with me!"

I stare at her open-mouthed. Then I gather all my courage and stammer:"Who are you?"

"My name is Thea, " she giggles. 

"But _who_ are you?" I ask again. 

"Who? Nonsense. Come, pull me! But no; you can't fly. I'll pull you. That will go quicker. "

And she arises. Heavens! What a form! Magnificently the hips curveover the fallen girdle; in how noble a line are throat and bosommarried. No sculptor can achieve the like. 

With her slender fingers she grasps the blue, embroidered riband thatis attached to the neck of the harp. She grasps it with the gesture ofone who is about to pull a sleigh. 

"Come, " she cries again. I dare not understand her. Awkwardly I crouchon the strings. 

"I might break them, " I venture. 

"You little shaver, " she laughs. "Do you know how light you are? Andnow, hold fast!"

I have scarcely time to grasp the golden frame with both hands. I heara mighty rustling in front of me. The mighty wings unfold. My sleighfloats and billows in the air. Forward and upward goes theroaring flight. 

Far, far beneath me lies the paternal hut. Scarcely does its lightpenetrate to my height. Gusts of snow whirl about my forehead. Nextmoment the light is wholly lost. Dawn breaks through the night. A warmwind meets us and blows upon the strings so that they tremble gentlyand lament like a sleeping child whose soul is troubled by a dream ofloneliness. 

"Look down!" cried my faery, turning her laughing little head towardme. 

Bathed in the glow of spring I see an endless carpet of woods andhills, fields and lakes spread out below me. The landscape gleams witha greenish silveriness. My glance can scarcely endure the richness ofthe miracle. 

"But it has become spring, " I say trembling. 

"Would you like to go down?" she asks. 

"Yes, yes. "

At once we glide downward. "Guess what that is!" she says. 

An old, half-ruined castle rears its granite walls before me. .. . Athousand year old ivy wreathes about its gables. .. . Black and whiteswallows dart about the roofs. .. . All about arises a thicket ofhawthorn in full bloom. .. . Wild roses emerge from the darkness, innocently agleam like children's eyes. A sleepy tree bends its boughsabove them. 

There is life at the edge of the ancient terrace where broad-leavedclover grows in the broken urns. A girlish form, slender and lithe, swinging a great, old-fashioned straw hat, having a shawl woundcrosswise over throat and waist, has stepped forth from the decayingold gate. She carries a little white bundle under her arm, and lookstentatively to the right and to the left as one who is about to go ona journey. 

"Look at her, " says my friend. 

The scales fall from my eyes. 

"That is Lisbeth, " I cried out in delight, "who is going to themayor's farm. "

Scarcely have I mentioned that farm but a fragrance of roasting meatrises up to me. Clouds of smoke roll toward me, dim flames quiver upfrom it. There is a sound of roasting and frying and the seething fatspurts high. No wonder; there's going to be a wedding. "Would youlike to see the executioner's sword?" my friend asks. 

A mysterious shudder runs down my limbs. 

"I'd like to well enough, " I say fearfully. 

A rustle, a soft metallic rattle--and we are in a small, barechamber. .. . Now it is night again and the moonlight dances on therough board walls. 

"Look there, " whispers my friend and points to a plump old chest. 

Her laughing face has grown severe and solemn. Her body seems to havegrown. Noble and lordly as a judge she stands before me. 

I stretch my neck; I peer at the chest. 

There it lies, gleaming and silent, the old sword. A beam of moonlightglides along the old blade, drawing a long, straight line. But what dothose dark spots mean which have eaten hollows into the metal?

"That is blood, " says my friend and crosses her arms upon her breast. 

I shiver but my eyes seem to have grown fast to the terrible image. 

"Come, " says Thea. 

"I can't. "

"Do you want it?"

"What? The sword?"

She nods. "But may you give it away? Does it belong to you?"

"I may do anything. Everything belongs to me. "

A horror grips me with its iron fist. "Give it to me!" I cryshuddering. 

The iron lightening gleams up and it lies cold and moist in my arms. It seems to me as though the blood upon it began to flow afresh. 

My arms feel dead, the sword falls from them and sinks upon thestrings. These begin to moan and sing. Their sounds are almost likecries of pain. 

"Take care, " cries my friend. "The sword may rend the strings; it isheavier than you. "

We fly out into the moonlit night. But our flight is slower thanbefore. My friend breathes hard and the harp swings to and fro like apaper kite in danger of fluttering to earth. 

But I pay no attention to all that. Something very amusing captures mysenses. 

Something has become alive in the moon which floats, a golden disc, amid the clouds. Something black and cleft twitches to and fro on hernether side. I look more sharply and discover a pair of oldriding-boots in which stick two long, lean legs. The leather on theinner side of the boots is old and worn and glimmers with a dulldiscoloured light. "Since when does the moon march on legs throughthe world?" I ask myself and begin to laugh. And suddenly I seesomething black on the upper side of the moon--something that wagsfunnily up and down. I strain my eyes and recognise my old friendMuenchausen's phantastic beard and moustache. He has grasped the edgesof the moon's disc with his long lean fingers and laughs, laughs. 

"I want to go there, " I call to my friend. 

She turns around. Her childlike face has now become grave and madonnalike. She seems to have aged by years. Her words echo in my ear likethe sounds of broken chimes. 

"He who carries the sword cannot mount to the moon. "

My boyish stubbornness revolts. "But I want to get to my friendMuenchausen. "

"He who carries the sword has no friend. "

I jump up and tug at the guiding riband. The harp capsises. .. . I fallinto emptiness . .. The sword above me . .. It penetrates my body . .. Ifall . .. I fall. .. . 

"Yes, yes, " says my mother, "why do you call so fearfully? I amawake. "

Calmly she took the knitting-needle from behind her ear, stuck it intothe wool and wrapped the unfinished stocking about it. 

Chapter III. 

Six years passed. Then Thea met me again. She had been gracious enoughto leave her home in the island valley of Avilion, to play thesoubrette parts in the theatre of the university town in which I wasfencing and drinking for the improvement of my mind. 

Upon her little red shoes she tripped across the stage. She let herabbreviated skirts wave in the boldest curves. She wore black silkstockings which flowed about her delicate ankles in ravishing linesand disappeared all too soon, just above the knee, under the hem ofher skirt. She plaited herself two thick braids of hair the blueribands of which she loved to chew when the modesty that belonged toher part overwhelmed her. She sucked her thumb, she stuck out hertongue, she squeaked and shrieked and turned up her little nose. And, oh, how she laughed. It was that sweet, sophisticated, vicioussoubrette laughter which begins with the musical scale and ends ina long coo. 

Show me the man among us whom she cannot madden into love with all thetraditional tricks of her trade. Show me the student who did not keepglowing odes deep-buried in his lecture notes--deep-buried as thegigantic grief of some heroic soul. .. . 

And one afternoon she appeared at the skating rink. She wore agleaming plush jacket trimmed with sealskin, and a fur cap which satjauntily over her left ear. The hoar frost clung like diamond dust tothe reddish hair that framed her cheeks, and her pink little nosesniffed up the cold air. 

After she had made a scene with the attendant who helped her on withher shoes, during which such expressions as "idiot, " had escaped hersweet lips, she began to skate. A child, just learning to walk, couldhave done better. 

We foolish boys stood about and stared at her. 

The desire to help her waxed in us to the intensity of madness. Butwhen pouting she stretched out her helpless arms at us, we recoiled asbefore an evil spirit. Not one of us found the courage simply toaccept the superhuman bliss for which he had been hungering by day andnight for months. 

Then suddenly--at an awful curve--she caught her foot, stumbled, wavered first forward and then backward and finally fell into the armsof the most diffident and impassioned of us all. 

And that was I. 

Yes, that was I. To this day my fists are clenched with rage at thethought that it might have been another. 

Among those who remained behind as I led her away in triumph there wasnot one who could not have slain me with a calm smile. 

Under the impact of the words which she wasted upon my unworthy self, I cast down my eyes, smiling and blushing. Then I taught her how toset her feet and showed off my boldest manoeuvres. I also told herthat I was a student in my second semester and that it was my ambitionto be a poet. 

"Isn't that sweet?" she exclaimed. "I suppose you write poetryalready?"

I certainly did. I even had a play in hand which treated of the fateof the troubadour Bernard de Ventadours in rhymeless, irregular verse. 

"Is there a part for me in it?" she asked. 

"No, " I answered, "but it doesn't matter. I'll put one in. "

"Oh, how sweet that is of you!" she cried. "And do you know? You mustread me the play. I can help you with my practical knowledge ofthe stage. "

A wave of bliss under which I almost suffocated, poured itself outover me. 

"I have also written poems--to you!" I stammered. The wave carried meaway. "Think of that, " she said quite kindly instead of boxing myears. "You must send them to me. "

"Surely. ". .. 

And then I escorted her to the door while my friends followed us at aseemly distance like a pack of wolves. 

The first half of the night I passed ogling beneath her window; thesecond half at my table, for I wanted to enrich the packet to be senther by some further lyric pearls. At the peep of dawn I pushed theenvelope, tight as a drum with its contents, into the pillar box andwent to cool my burning head on the ramparts. 

On that very afternoon came a violet-tinted little letter which had anexceedingly heady fragrance and bore instead of a seal a golden lyretransfixed by a torch. It contained the following lines:

"DEAR POET:

"Your verses aren't half bad; only too fiery. I'm really in a hurry tohear your play. My old chaperone is going out this evening. I will beat home alone and will, therefore, be bored. So come to tea at seven. But you must give me your word of honour that you do not give awaythis secret. Otherwise I won't care for you the least bit. 

"Your THEA. " Thus did she write, I swear it--she, my faery, my Muse, my Egeria, she to whom I desired to look up in adoration to the lastdrawing of my breath. 

Swiftly I revised and corrected and recited several scenes of my play. I struck out half a dozen superfluous characters and added adozen others. 

At half past six I set out on my way. A thick, icy fog lay in the air. Each person that I met was covered by a cloud of icy breath. 

I stopped in front of a florist's shop. 

All the treasures of May lay exposed there on little terraces of blackvelvet. There were whole beds of violets and bushes of snow-drops. There was a great bunch of long-stemmed roses, carelessly heldtogether by a riband of violet silk. 

I sighed deeply. I knew why I sighed. 

And then I counted my available capital: Eight marks and seventypfennigs. Seven beer checks I have in addition. But these, alas, aregood only at my inn--for fifteen pfennigs worth of beer a piece. 

At last I take courage and step into the shop. 

"What is the price of that bunch of roses?" I whisper. I dare notspeak aloud, partly by reason of the great secret and partly throughdiffidence. "Ten marks, " says the fat old saleswoman. She lets thepalm leaves that lie on her lap slip easily into an earthen vessel andproceeds to the window to fetch the roses. 

I am pale with fright. My first thought is: Run to the inn and try toexchange your checks for cash. You can't borrow anything two daysbefore the first of the month. 

Suddenly I hear the booming of the tower clock. 

"Can't I get it a little cheaper?" I ask half-throttled. 

"Well, did you ever?" she says, obviously hurt. "There are ten rosesin the bunch; they cost a mark a piece at this time. We throw inthe riband. "

I am disconsolate and am about to leave the shop. But the oldsaleswoman who knows her customers and has perceived the tale of lovelurking under my whispering and my hesitation, feels a human sympathy. 

"You might have a few roses taken out, " she says. "How much would youcare to expend, young man?"

"Eight marks and seventy pfennigs, " I am about to answer in my folly. Fortunately it occurs to me that I must keep out a tip for her maid. The ladies of the theatre always have maids. And I might leave late. "Seven marks, " I answer therefore. 

With quiet dignity the woman extracts _four_ roses from my bunch and Iam too humble and intimidated to protest. 

But my bunch is still rich and full and I am consoled to think that awooing prince cannot do better. 

Five minutes past seven I stand before her door. 

Need I say that my breath gives out, that I dare not knock, that theflowers nearly fall from my nerveless hand? All that is a matter ofcourse to anyone who has ever, in his youth, had dealings with faeriesof Thea's stamp. 

It is a problem to me to this day how I finally did get into her room. But already I see her hastening toward me with laughter and buryingher face in the roses. 

"O you spendthrift!" she cries and tears the flowers from my hand inorder to pirouette with them before the mirror. And then she assumes asolemn expression and takes me by a coat button, draws me nearer andsays: "So, and now you may kiss me as a reward. "

I hear and cannot grasp my bliss. My heart seems to struggle out at mythroat, but hard before me bloom her lips. I am brave and kiss her. "Oh, " she says, "your beard is full of snow. "

"My beard! Hear it, ye gods! Seriously and with dignity she speaks ofmy beard. "

A turbid sense of being a kind of Don Juan or Lovelace arises in me. My self-consciousness assumes heroic dimensions, and I begin to regardwhat is to come with a kind of daemonic humour. 

The mist that has hitherto blurred my vision departs. I am able tolook about me and to recognise the place where I am. 

To be sure, that is a new and unsuspected world--from the rosy silkengauze over the toilet mirror that hangs from the beaks of two floatingdoves, to the row of exquisite little laced boots that stands in theopposite corner. From the candy boxes of satin, gold, glass, saffron, ivory, porcelain and olive wood which adorn the dresser to the edgesof white billowy skirts which hang in the next room but have beencaught in the door--I see nothing but miracles, miracles. 

A maddening fragrance assaults my senses, the same which her noteexhaled. But now that fragrance streams from her delicate, gracefulform in its princess gown of pale yellow with red bows. She dances andflutters about the room with so mysterious and elf-like a grace asthough she were playing Puck in the "Midsummer Night's Dream, " thepart in which she first enthralled my heart. 

Ah, yes, she meant to get tea. 

"Well, why do you stand there so helplessly, you horrid creature?Come! Here is a tablecloth, here are knives and forks. I'll light thespirit lamp in the meantime. "

And she slips by me not without having administered a playful tap tomy cheek and vanishes in the dark room of mystery. 

I am about to follow her, but out of the darkness I hear a laughingvoice: "Will you stay where you are, Mr. Curiosity?"

And so I stand still on the threshold and lay my head against thosebillowy skirts. They are fresh and cool and ease my burning forehead. 

Immediately thereafter I see the light of a match flare up in thedarkness, which for a moment sharply illuminates the folds of herdress and is then extinguished. Only a feeble, bluish flame remains. This flame plays about a polished little urn and illuminates dimly thesecrets of the forbidden sanctuary. I see bright billowy garments, bunches of flowers and wreaths of leaves, with long, silken, shimmering bands--and suddenly the Same flares high. .. . 

"Now I've spilt the alcohol, " I hear the voice of my friend. But herlaughter is full of sarcastic arrogance. "Ah, that'll be a play offire!" Higher and higher mount the flames. 

"Come, jump into it!" she cries out to me, and instead of quenchingthe flame she pours forth more alcohol into the furious conflagration. 

"For heaven's sake!" I cry out. 

"Do you know now who I am?" she giggles. "I'm a witch!"

With jubilant screams she loosens her hair of reddish gold which nowfalls about her with a flaming glory. She shows me her white sharpteeth and with a sudden swift movement she springs into the flamewhich hisses to the very ceiling and clothes the chamber in a garbof fire. 

I try to call for help, but my throat is tied, my breath stops. I amthrottled by smoke and flames. 

Once more I hear her elfin laughter, but now it comes to me fromsubterranean depths. The earth has opened; new flames arise andstretch forth fiery arms toward me. 

A voice cries from the fires: "Come! Come!" And the voice is like thesound of bells. Then suddenly the night enfolds me. 

 * * * * *

The witchery has fled. Badly torn and scarred I find myself again onthe street. Next to me on the ground lies my play. "Did you not meanto read that to some one?" I ask myself. 

A warm and gentle air caresses my fevered face. A blossoming lilacbush inclines its boughs above me and from afar, there where the dawnis about to appear, I hear the clear trilling of larks. 

I dream no longer. .. . But the spring has come. .. . 

Chapter IV

And again the years pass by. 

It was on an evening during the carnival season and the world, thatis, the world that begins with the baron and ends with thestockjobber, floated upon waves of pleasure as bubbles of fat float onthe surface of soup. 

Whoever did not wallow in the mire was sarcastically said not to beable to sustain himself on his legs. 

There were those among my friends who had not gone to bed till morningfor thirty days. Some of them slept only to the strains of aworld-famous virtuoso; others only in the cabs that took them fromdinner to supper. 

Whenever three of them met, one complained of shattered nerves, thesecond of catarrh of the stomach, the third of both. 

That was the pace of our amusement. 

Of mine, too. 

It was nearly one o'clock in the morning. I sat in a _café_, thatfamous _café_ which unacknowleged geniuses affirm to be the verycentre of all intellectual life. No spot on earth is said to have sofruitful an effect upon one's genius. Yet, strangely enough, howevereager for inspiration I might lounge about its red upholstery, howeverardently aglow for inspiration I might drink expensive champagnesthere, yet the supreme, immense, all-liberating thought did not come. 

Nor would that thought come to me to-day. Less than ever, in fact. Redcircles danced before my eyes and in my veins hammered the throbs offever. It wasn't surprising. For I, too, could scarcely remember tohave slept recently. It is an effort to raise my lids. The hand thatwould stroke the hair with the gesture of genius--alas, how thin thehair is getting--sinks down in nerveless weakness. 

But I may not go home. Mrs. Elsbeth--we bachelors call her so when herhusband is not by--Mrs. Elsbeth has ordered me to be here. .. . Sheintended to drop in at midnight on her return from dinner with herhusband. The purpose of her coming is to discuss with me the surpriseswhich I am to think up for her magic festival. 

She is exacting enough, the sweet little woman, but the world has itthat I love her. And in order to let the world be in the right a manis not averse to making a fool of herself. 

The stream of humanity eddies about me. Like endless chains rotatingin different directions, thus seem the two lines of those who enterand those who depart. There are dandies in coquettish furs, their silkhats low on their foreheads, their canes held vertically in theirpockets. There are fashionable ladies in white silk opera cloaks setwith ermine, their eyes peering from behind Spanish veils in proudcuriosity. And all are illuminated by the spirit of festivity. 

Also one sees shop-girls, dragged here by some chance admirer. Theywear brownish cloaks, ornamented with knots--the kind that looks wornthe day it is taken from the shop. And there are ladies of thatspecies whom one calls "ladies" only between quotation marks. Thesewear gigantic picture hats trimmed with rhinestones. The hems of theirdresses are torn and flecked with last season's mud. There arestudents who desire to be intoxicated through the lust of the eye;artists who desire to regain a lost sobriety of vision; journalistswho find stuff for leader copy in the blue despatches that are postedhere; Bohemians and loungers of every station, typical of every degreeof sham dignity and equally sham depravity. They all intermingle inmanicoloured waves. It is the mad masque of the metropolis. .. . 

A friend comes up to me, one of the three hundred bosom friends withwhom I am wont to swap shady stories. He is pallid withsleeplessness, deep horizontal lines furrow his forehead, his browsare convulsively drawn. So we all look. .. . 

"Look here, " he says, "you weren't at the Meyers' yesterday. "

"I was invited elsewhere. "

"Where?"

I've got to think a minute before I can remember the name. We allsuffer from weakness in the head. 

"Aha, " he cries. "I'm told it was swell. Magnificent women . .. Andthat fellow . .. Er . .. Thought reader and what's her name . .. Yes . .. The Sembrich . .. Swell . .. You must introduce me there some day. .. . "

Stretching his legs he sinks down at my side on the sofa. 

Silence. My bosom friend and I have exhausted the common stock ofinterests. 

He has lit a cigarette and is busy catching the white clouds which heblows from his nose with his mouth. This employment seems to satisfyhis intellect wholly. 

I, for my part, stare at the ceiling. There the golden bodies ofsnakes wind themselves in mad arabesques through chains of roses. Thepretentious luxury offends my eye. I look farther, past thecandelabrum of crystal which reflects sharp rainbow tints over all, past the painted columns whose shafts end in lily leaves as sometorturing spear does in flesh. 

My glance stops yonder on the wall where a series of fresco pictureshas been painted. 

The forms of an age that was drunk with beauty look down on me intheir victorious calm. They are steeped in the glow of a southernheaven. The rigid splendour of the marble walls is contrasted with themagnificent flow of long garments. 

It is a Roman supper. Rose-crowned men lean upon Indian cushions, holding golden beakers in their right hands. Women in yieldingnakedness cower at their feet. Through the open door streams in aBacchic procession with fauns and panthers, the drunken Pan in itsmidst. Brown-skinned slaves with leopard skins about their loins makemad music. Among them is one who at once makes me forget the tumult. She leans her firm, naked body surreptitiously against the pillar. Herform is contracted with weariness. Thoughtlessly and with tired lipsshe blows the _tibia_ which her nerveless hands threaten to drop. Hercheeks are yellow and fallen in, her eyes are glassy, but upon herforehead are seen the folds of lordship and about her mouth wreaths astony smile of irony. Who is she? Whence does she come? I ask myself. But I feel a dull thud against my shoulder. My bosom friend has fallenasleep and is using me as a pillow. 

"Look here, you!" I call out to him, for I have for the momentforgotten his name. "Go home and go to bed. "

He starts up and gazes at me with swimming eyes. 

"Do you mean me?" he stutters. "That's a good joke. " And next momenthe begins to snore. 

I hide him as well as possible with my broad back and bend down overthe glittering samovar before me. The fragrant steam prickles my nose. 

It is time that the little woman turn up if I am to amuse her guests. 

I think of the brown-skinned woman yonder in the painting. 

I open my eyes. Merciful heaven! What is that?

For the woman stands erect now in all the firm magnificence of heryoung limbs, presses her clenched fists against her forehead andstares down at me with glowing eyes. 

And suddenly she hurls the flutes from her in a long curve and crieswith piercing voice: "No more . .. I will play no more!" It is thevoice of a slave at the moment of liberation. 

"For heaven's sake, woman!" I cry. "What are you doing? You will beslain; you will be thrown to the wild beasts!"

She points about her with a gesture that is full of disgust andcontempt. 

Then I see what she means. All that company has fallen asleep. The menlie back with open mouths, the goblets still in their hands. Goldencascades of wine fall glittering upon the marble. The women writhe inthese pools of wine. But even in the intoxication of their dreams theytry to guard their elaborate hair dress. The whole mad band, musiciansand animals, lies there with limbs dissolved, panting for air, overwhelmed by heavy sleep. 

"The way is free!" cries the flute player jubilantly and buries hertwitching fingers into the flesh of her breasts. "What is there tohinder my flight?"

"Whither do you flee, mad woman?" I ask. 

A gleam of dreamy ecstasy glides over her grief-worn face which seemsto flush and grow softer of outline. 

"Home--to freedom, " she whispers down to me and her eyes burn. 

"Where is your home?"

"In the desert, " she cries. "Here I play for their dances; there I amqueen. My name is Thea and it is resonant through storms. They chainedme with golden chains; they lured me with golden speeches until I leftmy people and followed them to their prison that is corroded withlust. .. . Ah, if you knew with my knowledge, you would not sit hereeither. .. . But the slave of the moment knows not liberty. "

"I have known it, " I say drearily and let my chin sink upon the table. 

"And you are here?"

Contemptuously she turns her back to me. 

"Take me with you, Thea, " I cry, "take me with you to freedom. "

"Can you still endure it. "

"I will endure the glory of freedom or die of it. "

"Then come. "

A brown arm that seems endless stretches down to me. An iron grasplifts me upward. Noise and lights dislimn in the distance. 

Our way lies through great, empty, pillared halls which curve above uslike twilit cathedrals. Great stairs follow which fall into blackdepths like waterfalls of stone. Thence issues a mist, green withsilvery edges. .. . 

A dizziness seizes me as I strive to look downward. 

I have a presentiment of something formless, limitless. A vague aweand terror fill me. I tremble and draw back but an alien handconstrains me. 

We wander along a moonlit street. To the right and left extend pallidplains from which dark cypress trees arise, straight as candles. 

It is all wide and desolate like those halls. 

In the far distance arise sounds like half smothered cries of thedying, but they grow to music. 

Shrill jubilation echoes between the sounds and it too grows to music. 

But this music is none other than the roaring of the storm whichlashes us on when we dare to faint. 

And we wander, wander . .. Days, weeks, months. Who knows how long?

Night and day are alike. We do not rest; nor speak. 

The road is far behind us. We wander upon trackless wastes. 

Stonier grows the way, an eternal up and down over cliffs and throughchasms. .. . The edges of the weathered stones become steps for ourfeet. Breathlessly we climb the peaks. Beyond them we clatter intonew abysms. 

My feet bleed. My limbs jerk numbly like those of a jumping-jack. Anearthy taste is on my lips. I have long lost all sense of progress. One cliff is like another in its jagged nakedness; one abysm dark andempty as another. Perhaps I wander in a circle. Perhaps this brownhand is leading me wildly astray, this hand whose grasp has penetratedmy flesh, and has grown into it like the fetter of a slave. 

Suddenly I am alone. 

I do not know how it came to pass. 

I drag myself to a peak and look about me. 

There spreads in the crimson glow of dawn the endless, limitless rockydesert--an ocean turned to stone. 

Jagged walls tower in eternal monotony into the immeasurable distancewhich is hid from me by no merciful mist. Out of invisible abysmsarise sharp peaks. A storm from the south lashes their flanks fromwhich the cracked stone fragments roll to become the foundations ofnew walls. 

The sun, hard and sharp as a merciless eye, arises slowly in thisparched sky and spreads its cloak of fire over this dead world. 

The stone upon which I sit begins to glow. 

The storm drives splinters of stone into my flesh. A fiery stream ofdust mounts toward me. Madness descends upon me like a fiery canopy. 

Shall I wander on? Shall I die?

I wander on, for I am too weary to die. At last, far off, on a ledgeof rock, I see the figure of a man. 

Like a black spot it interrupts this sea of light in which the veryshadows have become a crimson glow. 

An unspeakable yearning after this man fills my soul. For his stepsare secure. His feet are scarcely lifted, yet quietly does he faredown the chasms and up the heights. I want to rush to meet him but agreat numbness holds me back. 

He comes nearer and nearer. 

I see a pallid, bearded countenance with high cheek-bones, andemaciated cheeks. .. . The mouth, delicate and gentle as a girl's, isdrawn in a quiet smile. A bitterness that has grown into love, intorenunciation, even into joy, shines in this smile. 

And at the sight of it I feel warm and free. 

And then I see his eye which is round and sharp as though open throughthe watches of many nights. With moveless clearness of vision hemeasures the distances, and is careless of the way which his footfinds without groping. In this look lies a dreaming glow which turnsto waking coldness. 

A tremour of reverence seizes my body. 

And now I know who this man is who fares through the desert insolitary thought, and to whom horror has shown the way to peace. Helooks past me! How could it be different?

I dare not call to him. Movelessly I stare after him until his formhas vanished in the guise of a black speck behind the burning cliffs. 

Then I wander farther . .. And farther . .. And farther. .. . 

 * * * * *

It was on a grayish yellow day of autumn that I sat again after aninterval on the upholstery of the famous _café_, I looked gratefullyup at the brown slave-girl in the picture who blew upon her flutes assleepily and dully as ever. I had come to see her. 

I start for I feel a tap on my shoulder. 

In brick-red gloves, his silk-hat over his forehead, a little moretired and world-worn than ever, that bosom friend whose name I havenow definitely forgotten stood before me. 

"Where the devil have you been all this time?" he asks. 

"Somewhere, " I answer laughing. "In the desert. " . .. 

"Gee! What were you looking for there?"

"_Myself_. ". .. 

Chapter V. 

And ever swifter grows the beat of time's wing. My breath can nolonger keep the same pace. 

Thoughtless enjoyment of life has long yielded to a life and deathstruggle. 

And I am conquered. 

Wretchedness and want have robbed me of my grasping courage and of mylaughing defiance. The body is sick and the soul droops its wings. 

 * * * * *

Midnight approaches. The smoky lamp burns more dimly and outside onthe streets life begins to die out. Only from time to time the snowcrunches and groans under the hurrying foot of some belated andfreezing passer-by. The reflection of the gas lamps rests upon thefrozen windows as though a yellow veil had been drawn before them. 

In the room hovers a dull heat which weighs upon my brain and evenamid shivering wrings the sweat from my pores. 

I had the fire started again toward night for I was cold. Now I am nolonger cold. 

"Take care of yourself, " my friend the doctor said to me, "you haveworked yourself to pieces and must rest. "

"Rest, rest"--the word sounds like a gnome's irony from all thecorners of my room, for my work is heaping up on all sides andthreatens to smother me. 

"Work! Work!" This is the voice of conscience. It is like the voice ofa brutal waggoner that would urge a dead ass on to new efforts. 

My paper is in its place. For hours I have sat and stared at itbrooding. It is still empty. 

A disagreeably sweetish odour which arises impudently to my nose makesme start. 

There stands the pitcher of herb tea which my landlady brought in atbedtime. 

The dear woman. 

"Man must sweat, " she had declared. "If the whole man gets into asweat then the evil humours are exuded, and the healthy sap gets achance to circulate until one is full of it. "

And saying that she wiped her greasy lips for she likes to eat a pieceof rye bread with goose grease before going to bed. 

Irritatedly I push the little pitcher aside, but its grayish greensteam whirls only the more pertinaciously about me. The clouds assumestrange forms, which tower over each other and whirl into each otherlike the phantoms over a witch's cauldron. 

And at last the fumes combine into a human form, at first misty andwithout outlines but gradually becoming more sharply defined. 

Gray, gray, gray. An aged woman. So she seems, for she creeps along bythe help of a crutch. But over her face is a veil which falls to theground over her arms like the folded wings of a bat. 

I begin to laugh, for spirits have long ceased to inspire me withreverence. 

"Is your name by any chance Thea, O lovely, being?" I ask. 

"My name is Thea, " she answers and her voice is weary, gentle and alittle hoarse. A caressing shimmer as of faintly blue velvet, aninsinuating fragrance as of dying mignonette--both lie in this voice. The voice fills my heart. But I won't be taken in, least of all bysome trite ghost which is in the end only a vision of one's ownsick brain. 

"It seems that the years have not changed you for the better, charmingThea, " I say and point sarcastically to the crutch. 

"My wings are broken and I am withered like yourself. "

I laugh aloud. "So that is the meaning of this honoured apparition! Amirror of myself--spirit of ruin--symbolic poem on the course of myideas. Pshaw! I know that trick. Every brainless Christmas poet knowsit, too. You must come with a more powerful charm, O Thea, spirit ofthe herb tea! Good-bye. My time is too precious to be wasted byallegories. "

"What have you to do that is so important?" she asks, and I seem tosee the gleam of her eyes behind the folds of the veil, whether inlaughter or in grief I cannot tell. 

"If I have nothing more to do, I must die, " I answer and feel with joyhow my defiance steels itself in these words. 

"And that seems important to you?"

"Moderately so. "

"Important to whom?"

"To myself, I should think, if to no one else. "

"And your creditor--the world?"

That was the last straw. "The world, oh, yes, the world. And what, pray, do I owe it?"

"Love. "

"Love? To that harlot? Because it sucked the fire from my veins andpoured poison therein instead? Behold me here--wrecked, broken, aplaything of any wave. That is what the world has made of me!"

"That is what you have made of yourself! . .. The world came to youas a smiling guide. .. . With gentle finger it touched your shoulder anddesired you to follow. But you were stubborn. You went your own way indark and lonely caverns where the laughing music of the fight thatsounds from above becomes a discordant thunder. You were meant to bewise and merry; you became dull and morose. "

"Very well; if that is what I became, at least the grave will releaseme from my condition. "

"Test yourself thoroughly. "

"What is the use of that now? Life has crippled me. .. . What of joy ithas to offer becomes torture to me. .. . I am cut loose from all thekindly bonds that bind man to man. .. . I cannot bear hatred, neithercan I bear love. .. . I tremble at a thousand dangers that have neverthreatened and will never threaten me. A very straw has become a cliffto me against which I founder and against which my weary limbs aredashed in pieces. .. . And this is the worst of all. My vision seesclearly that it is but a straw before which my strength writhes in thedust. .. . You have come at the right time, Thea. Perhaps you carry inthe folds of your robe some little potion that will help me to hurryacross the verge. "

Again I see a gleam behind the veil--a smiling salutation from somefar land where the sun is still shining. And my heart seems about toburst under that gleam. But I control myself and continue to gaze ather with bitter defiance. 

"It needs no potion, " she says and raises her right hand. I have neverseen such a hand. .. . It seem to be without bones, formed of the petalsof flowers. The hand might seem deformed, dried and yet swollen aswith disease, were it not so delicate, so radiant, so lily-like. Anunspeakable yearning for this poor, sick hand overcomes me. I want tofall on my knees before it and press my lips to it in adoration. Butalready the hand lays itself softly upon my hair. Gentle and cool as aflake of snow it rests there. But from moment to moment it waxesheavier until the weight of mountains seems to lie upon my head. I canbear the pressure no longer. I sink . .. I sink . .. The earth opens. .. . Darkness is all about me. .. . 

Recovering consciousness, I find myself lying in a bed surrounded byimpenetrable night. 

"One of my stupid dreams, " I say to myself and grope for the matcheson my bed side table to see the time. .. . But my hand strikes hardagainst a board that rises diagonally at my shoulder. I grope fartherand discover that my couch is surrounded by a cloak of wood. And thatcloak is so narrow, so narrow that I can scarcely raise my head afew inches without knocking against it. 

"Perhaps I am buried, " I say to myself. "Then indeed my wish wouldhave fulfilled itself promptly. "

A fresh softly prickling scent of flowers, as of heather and roses, floats to me. 

"Aha, " I say to myself, "the odour of the funeral flowers. Myfavourites have been chosen. That was kind of people. " And, as I turnmy head the cups of flowers nestle soft and cool against my cheek. 

"You are buried amid roses, " I say to myself, "as you always desired. "And then I touch my breast to discover what gift has been placed uponmy heart. My fingers touch hard, jagged leaves. 

"What is that?" I ask myself in surprise. And then I laugh shrilly. Itis a wreath of laurel leaves which has been pressed with its rough, woodlike leaves between my body and the coffin lid. 

"Now you have everything that you so ardently desired, you fool offame, " I cry out and a mighty irony takes hold of me. 

And then I stretch out my legs until my feet reach the end of thecoffin, nestle my head amid the flowers, and make ready to enjoy mygreat peace with all my might. I am not in the least frightened orconfounded, for I know that air to breathe will never again belacking now for I need it no longer. I am dead, properly and honestlydead. Nothing remains now but to flow peacefully and gently into therealm of the unconscious, and to let the dim dream of the All surgeover me to eternity. 

"Good-night, my dear former fellow-creatures, " I say and turncontemptuously on my other side. "You can all go to the dickens forall I care. "

And then I determine to lie still as a mouse and discover whether Icannot find some food for the malice that yet is in me, by listeningto man's doings upon the wretched earth above me. 

At first I hear nothing but a dull roaring. But that may proceed aswell from the subterranean waters that rush through the earthsomewhere in my neighbourhood. But no, the sound comes from above. Andfrom time to time I also hear a rattling and hissing as of dried peaspoured out over a sieve. 

"Of course, it's wretched weather again, " I say and rub my handscomfortably, not, to be sure, without knocking my elbows against theside of the coffin. 

"They could have made this place a little roomier, " I say to myself. But when it occurs to me that, in my character of an honest corpse, Ihave no business to move at all if I want to be a credit to mynew station. 

But the spirit of contradiction in me at once rebels against thisimputation. 

"There are no classes in the grave and no prejudices, " I cry. "In thegrave we are all alike, high and low, poor and rich. The rags of thebeggar, my masters, have here just the same value as the purple cloakthat falls from the shoulders of a king. Here even the laurel losesits significance as the crown of fame and is given to many a one. "

I cease, for my fingers have discovered a riband that hangs from thewreath. Upon it, I am justified in assuming, there is written someflattering legend. The letters are just raised enough to beindistinctly felt. 

I am about to call for matches, but remember just in time that it isforbidden to strike a light in the grave or rather, that it iscontrary to the very conception of the grave to be illuminated. 

This thought annoys me and I continue: "The laurel is given here notto the distinguished alone. I must correct that expression. Are not wecorpses distinguished _per se_ as compared to the miserable plebeianliving? Is not this noble rest in which we dwell an unmistakable signof true aristocracy? And the laurel that is given to the dead, thatlaurel, my masters, fills me with as high a pride as would the diademof a king. "

I ceased. For I could rightly expect enthusiastic applause at theclose of this effective passage. But as everything remained silent Iturned my thoughts once more upon myself, and considered, too, that myfinest speeches would find no public here. 

"It is, besides, in utter contradiction to the conception of death todeliver speeches, " I said to myself, but at once I began another inorder to establish an opposition against myself. 

"Conception? What is a conception? What do I care for conceptionshere? I am dead. I have earned the sacred right to disregard suchthings. If those two-penny living creatures cannot imagine the graveotherwise than dark or the dead otherwise than dumb--why, I surelyhave no need to care for that. "

In the meantime my fingers had scratched about on the riband in thevain hope of inferring from the gilt and raised letters on the silktheir form and perhaps the significance of the legend. My effortswere, however, without success. Hence I continued outraged: "In orderto speak first of the conception of the grave as dark, I should liketo ask any intelligent and expert corpse: 'Why is the gravenecessarily dark?' Should not we who are dead rather demand of an agethat has made such enormous progress in illumination, which has notonly invented gas and electric lighting and complied with theregulations for the illumination of streets, but has at a slight costsucceeded in giving to every corner of the world the very light ofday--may we not demand of such an age that it put an end to theold-fashioned darkness of the grave? It would seem as if the mostelementary piety would constrain the living to this improvement. Butwhen did the living ever feel any piety? We must enforce from them thenecessaries of a worthy existence in death. Gentlemen, I close withthe last, or, I had better say, the first words of our great Goethewhose genius with characteristic power of divination foresaw theunworthy condition of the inner grave and the necessities of a trulynoble and liberal minded corpse. For what else could be the meaning ofthat saying which I herewith inscribe upon our banner: 'Light, morelight!' That must henceforth be our device and our battlecry. "

This time, too, silence was my only answer. Whence I inferred that inthe grave there is neither striving nor crying out. Nevertheless Icontinued to amuse myself and made many a speech against themanagement of the cemetery, against the insufficiency of the method offlat pressure upon the dead now in use, and similar outrages. In themeantime the storm above had raged and the rain lashed its fill and apeaceful silence descended upon all things. 

Only from time to time did I hear a short, dull uniform thunder, whichI could not account for until it occurred to me that it was producedby the footsteps of passers-by, the noise of which was thus echoed andmultiplied in the earth. 

And then suddenly I heard the sound of human voices. 

The sound came vertically down to my head. 

People seemed to be standing at my grave. 

"Much I care about you, " I said, and was about to continue to reflecton my epoch-making invention which is to be called: _Helminothanatos_, 'that is to say, 'Death by Worms' and which, so soon as it is completedis to be registered in the patent office as number 156, 763. But mydesire to know what was thought of me after my death left me no rest. Hence I did not hesitate long to press my ear to the inner roof of thecoffin in order that the sound might better reach me thus. 

Now I recognised the voices at once. 

They belonged to two men to whom I had always been united by bonds ofthe tenderest sympathy and whom I was proud to call my friends. Theyhad always assured me of the high value which they set upon me andthat their blame--with which they had often driven me to secretdespair--proceeded wholly from helpful and unselfish love. 

"Poor devil, " one of them said, in a tone of such humiliatingcompassion that I was ashamed of myself in the very grave. 

"He had to bite the dust pretty early, " the other sighed. "But it wasbetter so both for him and for myself. I could not have held him abovewater much longer. " . .. 

From sheer astonishment I knocked my head so hard against the side ofthe coffin that a bump remained. 

"When did you ever hold me above water?" I wanted to cry out but Iconsidered that they could not hear me. 

Then the first one spoke again. 

"I often found it hard enough to aid him with my counsel withoutwounding his vanity. For we know how vain he was and how takenwith himself. "

"And yet he achieved little enough, " the other answered. "He ran afterwomen and sought the society of inferior persons for the sake of theirflattery. It always astonished me anew when he managed to producesomething of approximately solid worth. For neither his character norhis intelligence gave promise of it. "

"In your wonderful charity you are capable of finding somethingexcellent even in his work, " the other replied. "But let us be frank:The only thing he sometimes succeeded in doing was to flatter thecrude instincts of the mob. True earnestness or conviction he neverpossessed. "

"I never claimed either for him, " the first eagerly broke in. "Only Ididn't want to deny the poor fellow that bit of piety which isdemanded. _De mortuis_----"

And both voices withdraw into the distance. 

"O you grave-robbers!" I cried and shook my fist after them. "Now Iknow what your friendship was worth. Now it is clear to me how youhumiliated me upon all my ways, and how when I came to you in hours ofdepression you administered a kick in order that you might increase instature at my expense! Oh, if I could only. ". .. 

I ceased laughing. 

"What silly wishes, old boy!" I admonished myself. "Even if you couldmaster your friends; your enemies would drive you into the grave athousand times over. "

And I determined to devote my whole thought henceforth to theepoch-making invention of my impregnating fluid called"_Helminothanatos"_ or "Death by Worms. "

But new voices roused me from my meditation. 

I listened. 

"That's where what's his name is buried, " said one. 

"Quite right, " said the other. "I gave him many a good hit while hewas among us--more than I care to think about to-day. But he was anable fellow. His worst enemy couldn't deny that. "

I started and shuddered. 

I knew well who he was: my bitterest opponent who tortured me so longwith open lashes and hidden stabs that I almost ended by thinking Ideserved nothing else. 

And he had a good word to say for me--_he?_

His voice went on. "To-day that he is out of our way we may as wellconfess that we always liked him a great deal. He took life and workseriously and never used an indecent weapon against us. And if thetactics of war had not forced us to represent his excellences asfaults, we might have learned a good deal from him. "

"It's a great pity, " said the other. "If, before everything was atsixes and sevens, he could have been persuaded to adopt our views, wecould perhaps have had the pleasure of receiving him into ourfighting lines. "

"With open arms, " was the answer. And then in solemn tone:

"Peace be to his ashes. "

The other echoed: "Peace . .. "

And then they went on. .. . 

I hid my face in my hands. My breast seemed to expand and gently, verygently something began to beat in it which had rested in silentnumbness since I lay down here. 

"So that is the nature of the world's judgment, " I said to myself. "Ishould have known that before. With head proudly erect I would havegone my way, uninfluenced by the glitter of false affection as by theblindness of wildly aiming hatred. I would have shaken praise andblame from me with the same joyous laugh and sought the norm ofachievement in myself alone. Oh, if only I could live once more! Ifonly there were a way out of these accursed six boards!"

In impotent rage I pounded the coffin top with my fist and onlysucceeded in running a splinter into my finger. 

And then there came over me once more, even though it camehesitatingly and against my will, a delightful consciousness of thateternal peace into which I had entered. 

"Would it be worth the trouble after all, " I said to myself, "toreturn to the fray once more, even if I were a thousand times certainof victory? What is this victory worth? Even if I succeed in being thefirst to mount some height untrod hitherto by any human foot, yet thenext generation will climb on my shoulders and hurl me down into theabysm of oblivion. There I could lie, lonely and helpless, until thesix boards are needed again to help me to my happiness. And so let mebe content and wait until that thing in my breast which has began tobeat so impudently, has become quiet once more. "

I stretched myself out, folded my hands, and determined to hold nomore incendiary speeches and thus counteract the trade of the worms, but rather to doze quietly into the All. 

Thus I lay again for a space. 

Then arose somewhere a strange musical sound, which penetrated mydreamy state but partially at first before it awakened me wholly frommy slumber. 

What was that? A signal of the last day?

"It's all the same to me, " I said and stretched myself. "Whether it'sheaven or hell--it will be a new experience. "

But the sound that had awakened me had nothing in common with themetallic blare of trumpets which religious guides have taught usto expect. 

Gentle and insinuating, now like the tones of flutes played bychildren, now like the sobbing of a girl's voice, now like thecaressing sweetness with which a mother speaks to her little child--soinfinitely manifold but always full of sweet and yearning magic--alienand yet dear and familiar--such was the music that came to my ear. 

"Where have I heard that before?" I asked myself, listening. 

And as I thought and thought, an evening of spring arose before mysoul--an evening out of a far and perished time. .. . I had wanderedalong the bank of a steaming river. The sunset which shone through thejagged young leaves spread a purple carpet over the quiet waters uponwhich only a swift insect would here and there create circular eddies. At every step I took the dew sprang up before me in gleaming pearls, and a fragrance of wild thyme and roses floated through the air. .. . 

There it must have been that I heard this music for the first time. 

And now it was all clear: The nightingale was singing . .. Thenightingale. 

And so spring has come to the upper world. 

Perhaps it is an evening of May even as that which my spirit recalls. 

Blue flowers stand upon the meadows. .. . Goldenrod and lilac mix theirblossoms into gold and violet wreaths. .. . Like torn veils thedelicate flakings of the buttercups fly through the twilight. .. . 

Surely from the village sounds the stork's rattle . .. And surely thedistant strains of an accordion are heard. .. . 

But the nightingale up there cares little what other music may bemade. It sobs and jubilates louder and louder, as if it knew that inthe poor dead man's bosom down here the heart beats once more stormilyagainst his side. 

And at every throb of that heart a hot stream glides through my veins. It penetrates farther and farther until it will have filled my wholebody. It seems to me as though I must cry out with yearning andremorse. But my dull stubbornness arises once more: "You have what youdesired. So lie here and be still, even though you should be condemnedto hear the nightingale's song until the end of the world. "

The song has grown much softer. 

Obviously the human steps that now encircle my grave with their sullenresonance have driven the bird to a more distant bush. 

"Who may it be, " I ask myself, "that thinks of wandering to my placeof rest on an evening of May when the nightingales are singing. "

And I listen anew. It sounds almost as though some one up there wereweeping. 

Did I not go my earthly road lonely and unloved? Did I not die in thehouse of a stranger? Was I not huddled away in the earth by strangers?Who is it that comes to weep at my grave?

And each one of the tears that is shed above there falls glowing uponmy breast. .. . 

And my breast rises in a convulsive struggle but the coffin lid pushesit back. I strain my head against the wood to burst it, but it liesupon me like a mountain. My body seems to burn. To protect it I burrowin the saw-dust which fills mouth and eyes with its biting chaff. 

I try to cry out but my throat is paralysed. 

I want to pray but instead of thoughts the lightnings of madness shootthrough my brain. 

I feel only one thing that threatens to dissolve all my body into astream of flame and that penetrates my whole being with immeasurablemight: "I must live . .. Live. .. !"

There, in my sorest need, I think of the faery who upon my desirebrought me by magic to my grave. 

"Thea, I beseech you. I have sinned against the world and myself. Itwas cowardly and slothful to doubt of life so long as a spark of lifeand power glowed in my veins. Let me arise, I beseech you, from thetorments of hell--let me arise!"

And behold: the boards of the coffin fall from me like a wornoutgarment. The earth rolls down on both sides of me and unites beneathme in order to raise my body. 

I open my eyes and perceive myself to be lying in dark grass. Throughthe bent limbs of trees the grave stars look down upon me. The blackcrosses stand in the evening glow, and past the railings ofgrave-plots my eyes blink out into the blossoming world. 

The crickets chirp about me in the grass, and the nightingale beginsto sing anew. 

Half dazed I pull myself together. 

Waves of fragrance and melting shadows extend into the distance. 

Suddenly I see next to me on the grave mound a crouching gray figure. Between a veil tossed back I see a countenance, pallid and lovely, with smooth dark hair and a madonna-like face. About the softlysmiling mouth is an expression of gentle loftiness such as is seen inthose martyrs who joyfully bleed to death from the mightiness oftheir love. 

Her eyes look down upon me in smiling peace, clear and soulful, themeasure of all goodness, the mirror of all beauty. 

I know the dark gleam of those eyes, I know that gray, soft veil, Iknow that poor sick hand, white as a blossom, that leans upona crutch. 

It is she, my faery, whose tears have awakened me from the dead. 

All my defiance vanishes. 

I lie upon the earth before her and kiss the hem of her garment. 

And she inclines her head and stretches her hand out to me. 

With the help of that hand I arise. 

Holding this poor, sick hand, I stride joyfully back into life. 

Chapter VI. 

I sought my faery and I found her not. 

I sought her upon the flowery fields of the South and on the raggedmoors of the Northland; in the eternal snow of Alpine ridges and inthe black folds of the nether earth; in the iridescent glitter of theboulevard and in the sounding desolation of the sea. .. . And Ifound her not. 

I sought her amid the tobacco smoke and the cheap applause of popularassemblies and on the vanity fair of the professional social patron;in the brilliance of glittering feasts I sought her and in the twilitsilence of domestic comfort. .. . And I found her not. 

My eye thirsted for the sight of her but in my memory there was nomark by which I could have recognised her. Each image of her wasconfused and obliterated by the screaming colours of a new epoch. 

Good and evil in a thousand shapes had come between me and my faery. And the evil had grown into good for me, the good into evil. 

But the sum of evil was greater than the sum of good. I bent lowunder the burden, and for a long space my eyes saw nothing but theground to which I clung. 

And therefore did I need my faery. 

I needed her as a slave needs liberation, as the master needs a highermaster, as the man of faith needs heaven. 

In her I sought my resurrection, my strength to live, my defiantillusion. 

And therefore was I famished for her. 

My ear listened to all the confusing noises that were about me, butthe voice of my faery was not among them. My hand groped after alienhands, but the faery hand was not among them. Nor would I haverecognised it. 

And then I went in quest of her to all the ends of the earth. 

First I went to a philosopher. 

"You know everything, wise man, " I said, "can you tell me how I mayfind my faery again?"

The philosopher put the tips of his five outstretched fingers againsthis vaulted forehead and, having meditated a while, said: "You mustseek, through pure intuition, to grasp all the conceptual essence ofthe being of the object sought for. Therefore withdraw into yourselfand listen to the voice of your mind. " I did as I was told. But therushing of the blood in the shells of my ears affrighted me. Itdrowned every other voice. 

Next I went to a very clever physician and asked him the samequestion. 

The physician who was about to invent an artificially digested porridgein order to save the modern stomach any exertion, let his spoon fallfor a moment and said: "You must take only such foods as will tend toadd phosphorous matter to the brain. The answer to your question willthen come of itself. "

I followed his directions but instead of my faery a number ofconfusing images presented themselves. I saw in the hearts of thosewho were about me faery gardens and infernos, deserts and turnipfields; I saw a comically hopping rainworm who was nibbling at agraceful centipede; I saw a world in which darkness was lord. I sawmuch else and was frightened at the images. 

Then I went to a clergyman and put my question to him. 

The pious man comfortably lit his pipe and said: "You will find nofaeries mentioned in the catechism, my friend. Hence there are none, and it is sin to seek them. But perhaps you can help me bring back thedevil into the world, the old, authentic devil with tail and horns andsulphurous stench. He really exists and we need him. "

After I had made inquiry of a learned jurist who advised me to have myfaery located by the police, I went to one of my colleagues, a poet ofthe classic school. 

I found him clad in a red silk dressing gown, a wet handkerchief tiedaround his forehead. Its purpose was to keep his all too stormy wealthof inspiration in check. Before him on the table stood a glassful ofMalaga wine and a silver salver full of pomegranates and grapes. Thegrapes were made of glass and the pomegranates of soap. But thecontemplation of them was meant to heighten his mood. Near him, nailedto the floor, stood a golden harp on which was hung a laurel wreathand a nightcap. 

Timidly I put my question and the honoured master spoke: "The muse, myworthy friend--ask the muse. Ask the muse who leads us poor childrenof the dust into the divine sanctuary; carried aloft by whose wingsinto the heights of ether we feel truly human--ask her!"

As it would have been necessary for me, first of all, to look up thisunknown lady, I went to another colleague--one of the modernseekers of truth. 

I found him at his desk peering through a microscope at a dying fleewhich he was studying carefully. He noted each of its movements uponthe slips of paper from which he later constructed his works. Next tohim stood some bread and cheese, a little bottle full of ether and abox of powders. 

When I had explained my business he grew very angry. 

"Man, don't bother me with such rot!" he cried. "Faeries and elves andideas and the devil knows what--that's all played out. That's worsethan iambics. Go hang, you idiot, and don't disturb me. "

Sad at seeing myself and my faery so contemned, I crept away and wentto one of those modern artists in life, who had tasted with epicureanfineness all the esctasies and sorrows of earthly life in order tobroaden his personality. .. . I hoped that he would understand me, too. 

I found him lying on a _chaise longue_, smoking a cigarette, andturning the leaves of a French novel. It was _Là-bas_ by Huysmans, andhe didn't even cut the leaves, being too lazy. 

He heard my question with an obliging smile. "Dear friend, let's behonest. The thing is simple. A faery is a woman. That is certain. Well, take up with every woman that runs into your arms. Love themall--one after another. You'll be sure then to hit upon your faerysome day. "

As I feared that to follow this advice I would have to waste thebetter part of my life and all my conscience, I chose a last anddesperate method and went to a magician. 

If Manfred had forced Astarte back into being, though only for afleeting moment, why could I not do the same with the dear ruler of myhigher will?

I found a dignified man with the eyes of an enthusiast and filthylocks. He was badly in need of a change of linen. And so I had everyreason to consider him an idealist. 

He talked a good real of "Karma, " of "materialisations" and of the"plurality of spheres. " He used many other strange words by means ofwhich he made it clear to me that my faery would reveal herself to meonly by his help. 

With beating heart I entered a dark room at the appointed hour. Themagician led me in. 

A soft, mysterious music floated toward me. I was left alone, pressedto the door, awaiting the things that were to come in breathless fear. 

Suddenly, as I was waiting in the darkness, a gleaming, bluish needleprotruded from the floor. It grew to rings and became a snake whichbreathed forth flames and dissolved into flame . .. And the tongues ofthese flames played on all sides and finally parted in curves like theleaves of an opening lotus flower, out of whose calix white veilsarose slowly, very slowly, and became as they glided upward thegarments of a woman who looked at me, who was lashed by fear, withsightless eyes. 

"Are you Thea?" I asked trembling. 

The veils inclined in affirmation. 

"Where do you dwell?"

The veils waved, shaken by the trembling limbs. 

"Ask me after other things, " a muffled voice said. 

"Why do you no longer appear to me?"

"I may not. "

"Who hinders you?"

"You. " . .. 

"By what? Am I unworthy of you?"

"Yes. "

In deep contrition I was about to fall at her feet. But, comingnearer, I perceived that my faery's breath smelled of onions. 

This circumstance sobered me a bit, for I don't like onions. 

I knocked at the locked door, paid my magician what I owed him andwent my way. 

From now on all hope of ever seeing her again vanished. But my soulcried out after her. And the world receded from me. Its figuresdislimned into things that have been, its noise did not thunder at mythreshold. A solitariness half voluntary and half enforced dragged itssteps through my house. Only a few, the intimates of my heart andbrothers of my blood, surrounded my life with peace and kept watchwithout my doors. 

 * * * * *

It was a late afternoon near Advent Sunday. 

But no message of Christmas came to my yearning soul. 

Somewhere, like a discarded toy, lay amid rubbish the motive power ofmy passions. My heart was dumb, my hand nerveless, and even need--thatlast incentive--had slackened to a wild memory. 

The world was white with frost. .. . The dust of ice and the rain ofstar-light filled the world. .. Cloths of glittering white covered theplains. .. . The bare twigs of the trees stretched upwards like stavesof coral. .. . The fir trees trembled like spun glass. 

A red sunset spread its reflection over all. But the sunset itself waspoverty stricken. No purple lights, no gleam of seven colours warmedthe whiteness of the world. Not like the gentle farewell of the sunbut cruel as the threat of paralysing night did the bloody stripestare through my window. 

It is the hour of afternoon tea. The regulations of the house demandthat. 

Grayish blue steam whirls up to the shadowed ceiling and moistens withfalling drops the rounded silver of the tea urn. 

The bell rings. 

From the housekeeper's rooms floats an odour of fresh baked breads. They are having a feast there. Perhaps they mean to prepare one forthe master, too. 

A new book that has come a great distance to-day is in my hand. 

I read. Another one has made the great discovery that the world beginswith him. 

Ah, did it not once begin with me, too?

To be young, to be young! Ah, even if one suffers need--only to beyoung!

But who, after all, would care to retrace the difficult road?

Perhaps you, O woman at my side?

I would wager that even you would not. 

And I raise a questioning glance though I know her to be far . .. Andwho stands behind the kettle, framed by the rising of thebluish steam?

Ah child, have I not seen you often--you with the brownish locks andthe dark lashes over blue eyes . .. You with the bird-like twitter inthe throbbing whiteness of your throat, and the light-hearted step?

And yet, did I ever see you? Did I ever see that look which surroundsme with its ripe wisdom and guesses the secrets of my heart? Did Iever see that mouth so rich and firm at once which smiles upon me fullof reticent consolation and alluring comprehension?

Who are you, child, that you dare to look me through and through, asthough I had laid my confidence at your feet? Who are you that youdare to descend wingless into the abysms of my soul, that you cansmile away my torture and my suffocation?

Why did you not come earlier in your authentic form? Why did you notcome as all that which you are to me and will be from this hour on?

Why do you hide yourself in the mist which renders my recognitionturbid and shadows your outlines?

Come to me, for you are she whom I seek, for whom my heart's bloodyearns in order to flow as sacrifice and triumph!

You are the faery who clarifies my eye and steels my will, who bringsto me upon her young hands my own youth! Come to me and do not leaveme again as you have so often left me!

I start up to stretch out my arms to her and see how her glancebecomes estranged and her smile as of stone. As one who is asleep withopen eyes, thus she stands there and stares past me. 

I try to find her, to clasp her, to force her spirit to see me. Without repulsing me she glides softly from me. .. . The walls open. . .. The stones of the stairs break. .. . We flee out into the wintrysilence. .. . 

She glides before me over the pallid velvet of the road . .. Over thetinkling glass of the frozen heath . .. Through the glittering boughs. She smiles--for whom?

The hilly fields, hardened by the frost, the bushes scatteringice--everything obstructs my way. I break through and follow her. 

But she glides on before me, scarcely a foot above the ground, butfarther, farther . .. Over the broken earth, down the precipice . .. Tothe lake whose bluish surface of new ice melts in the distance intothe afterglow. 

Now she hangs over the bank like a cloud of smoke, and the wind thatblows upon my back, raises the edges of her dress like triangularpennants. "Stay, Thea. .. . I cannot follow you across the lake! . .. The water will not upbear a mortal. ". .. 

But the rising wind pushes her irresistibly on. 

Now I stand as the edge of the lake. The thin ice forces upward greathollow bubbles. .. . 

Will it suffer my groping feet? Will it break and whelm me in brackishwater and morass?

There is no room for hesitation. For already the wind is sweeping herafar. 

And I venture out upon the glassy floor which is no floor at all, butwhich a brief frost threw as a deceptive mirror across the deep. 

It bears me up for five paces, for six, for ten. Then suddenly the cryof harps is in my ear and something like an earthquake quivers throughmy limbs. And this sound grows into a mighty crunching and waxes intothunder which sounds afar and returns from the distance in echoingdetonation. 

But at my left hand glitters a cleft which furrows the ice withmanicoloured splinters and runs from me into the invisible. 

What is to be done? On. .. On. .. !

And again the harps cry out and a great rattling flies forth andreturns as thunder. And again a great cleft opens its brilliant huesat my side. On, on . .. To seek her smiling, even though the smile isnot for me. It will be for me if only I can grasp the hem ofher garment. 

A third cleft opens; a fourth crosses it, uniting it to the first. 

I must cross. But I dare not jump, for the ice must not crumble lestan abysm open at my feet. 

It is no longer a sheet of ice upon which I travel--it is a net-workof clefts. Between them lies something blue and all but invisible thatbears me by the merest chance. I can see the tangled water grasseswind about and the polished fishes dart whom my body will feed unlessa miracle happens. 

Lit by the gathering afterglow a plain of fire stretches out beforeme, and far on the horizon the saving shore looms dark. 

Farther . .. Farther!

Sinister and deceptive springs arise to my right and left and hurltheir waters across my path. .. . A soft gurgling is heard and at lastdrowns the resonant sound of thunder. 

Farther, farther. .. . Mere life is at stake. 

There in the distance a cloud dislimns which but now lured me to deathwith its girlish smile. What do I care now?

The struggle endures for eternities. The wind drives me on. I avoidthe clefts, wade through the springs; I measure the distances, for nowI have to jump. .. . The depths are yawning about me. 

The ice under my feet begins to rock. It rocks like a cradle, heavingand falling at every step . .. It would be a charming game were it nota game with death. 

My breath comes flying . .. My heart-beats throttle me . .. Sparksquiver before my eyes. 

Let me rock . .. Rock . .. Rock back to the dark sources of being. 

A springing fountain, higher than all the others, hisses up beforeme. .. . Edges and clods rise into points. 

One spring . .. The last of all . .. Hopeless . .. Inspired by thedesperate will to live. 

Ah, what is that?

Is that not the goodly earth beneath my feet--the black, hard, stableearth?

It is but a tiny islet formed of frozen mud and roots; it is scarcelytwo paces across, but large enough to give security to mysinking body. 

I am ashore, saved, for only a few arm lengths from me arises thereedy line of the shore. 

A drove of wild ducks rises in diagonal flight. . .. Purple radiancepours through the twigs of trees. .. . From nocturnal heavens the firststars shine upon me. 

The ghostly game is over! The faery hunt is as an end. 

One truth I realise: He who has firm ground under his feet needs nofaeries. 

And serenely I stride into the sunset world.