Chapter V (3)

"You must also know, my dear friend, that I have finished
during the last week some verses for the first act, which
so far are not particularly immortal, verses which until
some further development, so long I mean, as they are
without your music, will hop about the world like wingless
angels. The subject-matter appeals to me extraordinarily,
and I myself am curious to know what I am really going to
make of it. I've begun all kinds of other things as well
... sketched things out ... thought things over. And to
put it shortly and with a certain amount of cheek I feel
as though a new phase were heralding itself within me.
This sounds of course greater cheek than it really is. For
chimney-sweeps, ice-cream vendors and colour-sergeants have
their phases as well. People of our temperament always
recognise it at once. What I regard as very probable is
that I shall soon leave the fantastic element in which I
now feel so much at home, and will either move up or move
down into something extremely real. What would you say,
for example, if I were to go in for a political comedy?
I feel already that the word 'real' is not quite the
right one. For in my view politics is the most fantastic
element in which persons can possibly move, the only thing
is they don't notice it.... This is the point I ought to
drive home. This occurred to me the other day when I was
present at a political meeting (untrue, I always get these
thoughts). Yes--a meeting of working men and women in the
Brigittenau in which I found myself next to Mademoiselle
Therese Golowski, and at which I was compelled to hear
seven speeches about universal suffrage. Each of the
speakers--Therese was one of them, too--spoke just as
though the solution of that question was the most important
thing in the world to him or her personally, and I don't
think that any of them had an idea that the whole question
was a matter of colossal indifference to them at the real
bottom of their hearts. Therese was very indignant of
course when I enlightened her on the point, and declared
that I had been infected by the poisonous scepticism of
Nürnberger, of whom as a matter of fact I'm seeing far too
much. She always makes a point of running him down, since
he asked her some time ago in the café whether she was
going to have her hair done high or in plaits at her next
trial for high treason. Anyway, I find it very nice seeing
a lot of Nürnberger. When I'm having my bad days, there is
no one who receives me with more kindness. Only there are
many days whose badness he doesn't suspect or doesn't want
to know of. There are various troubles which I feel that he
fails to appreciate and which I've given up talking to him
about."

"What does he mean?" interrupted Anna.

"The affair with the actress, clearly," replied George, and went on reading.

"On the other hand he is inclined to make up for that
by taking other troubles of mine too seriously. That is
probably my fault and not his. He manifested a sympathy
towards me for the loss I sustained by my father's death,
which I confess made me positively ashamed; for though
it hit me dreadfully hard we had grown so aloof from one
another quite a long time before his madness burst upon
him, that his death simply signified a further and more
ghastly barrier rather than a new experience."

"Well?" asked Anna, as George stopped.

"I've just got an idea."

"What is it?"

"Nürnberger's sister lies buried in the Cadenabbia cemetery. I told you about her. I'll run over one of these days."

Anna nodded. "Perhaps I'll go too, if I feel all right. From all I hear of him I find Nürnberger much more sympathetic than that horrible egoist your friend Heinrich."

"You think so?"

"But really, the way he writes about his father. It is almost intolerable."

"Hang it all! if people who have grown so estranged as those two----"

"All the same, I haven't really very much in common with my own parents temperamentally either, and yet.... If I.... No, no, I prefer not to talk about such things. Won't you go on reading?"

George read:

"There are more serious things than death, things which
are certainly sadder, because these other things lack the
finality which takes away the sadness of death, if viewed
from the higher standpoint. For instance, there are living
ghosts who walk about the streets in the clear daylight
with eyes that have died long ago and yet see, ghosts who
sit down next to one and talk with a human voice that has a
far more distant ring than if it came from a grave. And one
might go so far as to say that the essential awfulness of
death is revealed to a far greater extent in moments when
one has experiences like this, than at those times when one
stands near and watches somebody being lowered into the
earth ... however near that somebody was."

George involuntarily dropped the letter and Anna said with emphasis: "Well, you can certainly keep him to yourself--your friend Heinrich."

"Yes," replied George slowly. "He is often a bit affected, and yet ... hallo, there goes the first bell for lunch. Let's read quickly through to the end."

"But I must now tell you what happened yesterday: the most painful and yet ridiculous affair which I have come across for a long time, and I am sorry to say the persons concerned are our good friends the Ehrenbergs, father and son."

"Oh," cried Anna involuntarily.

George had quickly run through the lines which followed and shook his head.

"What is it?" inquired Anna.

"It is.... Just listen," and he went on reading.

"You are no doubt aware of the growing acuteness of the
relations between Oskar and the old man in the course of
the last year. You also know the real reasons for it, so
that I can just inform you of what has taken place without
going into the motives for it any further. Well, it's
just like this. Yesterday Oskar passes by the Church of
St. Michael about twelve o'clock midday and takes off his
hat. You know that at the present time piety is about the
smartest craze going, and so perhaps it is unnecessary to
go into any further explanation, as, for example, that
a few young aristocrats happened just to be coming out
of church and that Oskar wanted to behave as a Catholic
for their special benefit. God knows how often he has
previously been guilty of this imposture without being
found out, but as luck would have it, it happens yesterday
that old Ehrenberg comes along the road at the same moment.
He sees Oskar taking off his hat in front of the church
door ... and attacked by a fit of uncontrollable rage he
gives his offspring a box on the ears then and there. A
box on the ears! Oskar the lieutenant in the reserve!
Midday in the centre of the town! So it is not particularly
remarkable that the story was known all over the town the
very same evening. It is already in some of the papers
to-day. The Jewish ones leave it severely alone, except
for a few scandal-mongering rags, the Anti-Semitic ones
of course go for it hot and strong. The _Christliche
Volksbote_ is the best, and insists on both the Ehrenbergs
being brought before a jury for sacrilege or blasphemy.
Oskar is said to have travelled off, no one knows where,
for the time being."

"A nice family!" said Anna with conviction.

George could not help laughing against his will. "My dear girl, Else is really absolutely innocent of the whole business."

The bell rang for the second time. They went into the dining-room and took their places at a little table by the window which was always laid for them alone. Scarcely more than a dozen visitors were sitting at the long table in the middle of the room, mostly Englishmen and Frenchmen, and also a man no longer in the first flush of youth, who had been there for two days and whom George took for an Austrian officer in _mufti_. Anyway he bothered about him as little as he did about the others. George had put Heinrich's letter in his pocket. It occurred to him that he had not yet read it through to the end, and he took it out again over the coffee and perused the remainder.

"What more does he write?" asked Anna.

"Nothing special," answered George. "About people who probably wouldn't interest you particularly. He seems to have got in again with his café set; more in fact than he likes and clearly more than he owns up to."

"He'll fit in all right," said Anna flippantly.

George smiled reflectively. "It is a funny set anyway."

"And what is the news with them?" asked Anna.

George had put the letter down by the cup and now looked at it. "Little Winternitz ... you know ... the fellow who once recited his poems to me and Heinrich last winter ... is going to Berlin as reader to a newly-founded theatre. And Gleissner, the man who stared at us once so in the museum...."

"Oh yes, that abominable fellow with the eyeglass."

"Well, he declares that he is going to give up writing to devote himself exclusively to sport...."

"To sport?"

"Yes, quite a sport of his own. He plays with human souls."

"What?"

"Just listen." He read:

"This buffoon is now asserting that he is simultaneously engaged in the solution of the two following psychological problems, which supplement each other in quite an ingenious way. The first is to bring a young and innocent creature to the lowest depth of depravity, while the second is to make a prostitute into a saint, as he puts it. He promises that he will not rest until the first one finishes up in a brothel, and the second one in a cloister."

"A nice lot," remarked Anna and got up from the table.

"How the sound carries over here," said George and followed her into the grounds.

A dark-blue day, heavy with the sun, was resting on the tops of the trees. They stood for a while by the low balustrade which separated the garden from the street and looked over the lake to the mountains looming behind silver-grey veils that fluttered in the sunlight. They then walked deeper into the grounds, where the shade was cooler and darker, and as they walked arm-in-arm over the softly-crunching gravel along the high brown ivy-grown walls, and looked in at the old houses with their narrow windows, they chatted about the news that had arrived that day, and for the first time a slight anxiety rose up in their minds at the thought that they would so soon have to leave the friendly secrecy of foreign lands for home, where even the ordinary stereotyped day seemed full of hidden dangers. They sat down beneath the plane-tree at the white lacquered table. This place had always been kept free for them, as though it had been reserved. The newly-arrived Austrian gentleman, however, had sat there yesterday afternoon, but driven away by a disapproving glance of Anna's had gone away after a polite salutation.

George hurried up to his room and fetched a few books for Anna and a volume of Goethe's poems and the manuscript of his quintette for himself. They both sat there, read, worked, looked up at times, smiled at each other, exchanged a few words, peered again into their books, looked over the balustrade into the open, and felt peace in their souls and summer in the air. They heard the fountain plashing quite near them behind the bushes, while a few drops fell upon the surface of the water. Frequently the wheels of a carriage would crunch along on the other side of the high wall, at times faint distant whistles would sound from the lake, and less frequently human voices would ring into the garden from the road along the bank. The day, drunken to the full with sunlight, lay heavy on the tree-tops. Later on the noise and the voices increased in volume and number with the gentle wind which was wafted from the lake every afternoon. The beat of the waves on the shore was more audible. The cries of the boatman resounded: on the other side of the wall there rang out the singing of young people. Tiny drops from the fountain were sprinkled around. The breath of approaching evening woke once more human beings, land and water.

Steps were heard on the gravel. Therese, still in white, came quickly through the avenue. George got up, went a few steps to meet her and shook hands. Anna wanted to get up, too, but Therese would not allow it, embraced her, gave her a kiss on the cheek and sat down by her side. "How beautiful it is here!" she exclaimed; "but haven't I come too early?"

"What an idea! I'm really awfully glad," replied Anna.

Therese considered her with a scrutinising smile and took hold of both her hands. "Well, your appearance is reassuring," she said.

"I am very well, as a matter of fact," replied Anna, "and you look as if you were too," she joked good-humouredly.

George's eyes rested on Therese, who was again dressed in white, as she had been in the morning, though now more smartly in English embroidered linen, with a string of light pink corals round her bare throat.

While the two women were discussing the strange coincidence of their meeting George got up to give the orders for dinner. When he returned to the garden the two others were no longer there. He saw Therese on the balcony with her back leaning against the railing, talking with Anna, who was invisible and was presumably in the depths of the room. He felt in good form and walked up and down the avenue, allowed melodies to sing themselves within him, was conscious of his youth and happiness, threw an occasional glance up to the balcony or towards the street, beyond the balustrade, and at last saw Demeter Stanzides arriving. He went to meet him. "Glad to see you," he cried out in welcome from the garden gate. "The ladies are upstairs in the room but will be turning up soon. Would you like to have a look at the grounds in the meanwhile?"

"Delighted."

They went on walking together.

"Do you intend to stay much longer in Lugano?" asked George.

"No, we go to-morrow to Bellaggio, from there to Lake Maggiore, Isola Bella. A really good time never lasts. We have got to be home again in a fortnight."

"Such short leave?"

"Oh, it is not on my account, but Therese has got to go back. I am quite a free man. I have already sent in my papers."

"So you seriously mean to retire to your estate?"

"My estate?"

"Yes, I heard something to that effect at Ehrenbergs'."

"But I haven't got the estate yet, you see. It is simply in the stage of negotiations."

"And where are you going to buy one? if it is not a rude question."

"Where the foxes say good-night to each other. The last place you would think of. On the Hungarian-Croatian frontier, very lonely and remote but very remarkable. I have a certain sympathy for the district. Youthful memories. I spent three years there as a lieutenant. Of course I think I shall grow young again there. Well, who knows?"

"A fine property?"

"Not bad. I saw it again two months ago. I knew it of course in the old days, it then belonged to Count Jaczewicz, finally to a manufacturer. Then his wife died. He now feels lonely down there and wants to get rid of it."

"I don't know," said George, "but I imagine the neighbourhood a little melancholy."

"Melancholy! Well, it seems to me that at a certain period of one's life every neighbourhood acquires a melancholy appearance." And he looked round the balcony, as though to evolve from his surroundings a new proof of the truth of his words.

"At what period?"

"Well, when one begins to get old."

George smiled. Demeter struck him as so handsome and as still young in spite of the grey hairs on his temple. "How old are you then, Herr Stanzides? if it isn't a rude question."

"Thirty-seven. I don't say I am old, but I am getting old. Men usually begin to talk about getting old when they have been old for a long time."

They sat down on the seat at the end of the garden, just where it runs into the wall. They had a view of the hotel and of the great terrace on the garden. The upper storeys with their verandahs were hidden from them by the foliage of the trees. George offered Demeter a cigarette and took one himself. And both were silent for a while.

"I heard that you, too, are leaving Vienna," said Demeter.

"Yes, that's very probable ... if of course I get a job in some opera. Well, even if it isn't this year it is bound to be next."

Demeter sat with legs crossed over each other, gripped one of them tightly by the knee, and nodded. "Yes, yes," he said, and blew the smoke slowly through his lips in driblets. "It is really a fine thing to have a talent. In that case one is bound to feel a bit different sometimes, even about beginning to grow old. That is really the one thing I could envy a man for."

"You have no reason to at all. Anyway, people with talent are not really to be envied. At any rate, only people with genius. And I envy them probably even more than you do. But I think that talents like yours are something much more definite, something much sounder so to speak. Of course one doesn't always happen to be in form.... But at any rate, one always achieves something quite respectable if one can do anything at all, while people in my line, if they are not in form are no better than old age pensioners."

Demeter laughed. "Yes, but an artistic talent like yours lasts longer and develops more and more as the years go on. Take Beethoven, for instance. The Ninth Symphony is really the finest thing he did. Don't you think so. And what about the second part of _Faust_?... While we are bound to go back as the years go on--we can't help it--even the Beethovens amongst us. And how early it begins, apart from quite rare exceptions! I was at my prime for instance at twenty-five. I've never done again what I had in me at twenty-five. Yes, my dear Baron, those were times."

"Come, I remember seeing you win a race two years ago against Buzgo, who was the favourite then.... Why, I even betted on him...."

"My dear Baron," interrupted Stanzides, "you take it from me, I know the reason why I left off improving. One can feel a thing like that oneself. And that's why no one knows so well as the sportsman when he's beginning to grow old. And then no further training is any good. The whole thing then becomes purely artificial. And if any one tells you that that's not the case, then he's simply ... but here come the ladies."

They both got up. Therese and Anna were approaching arm-in-arm, one all in white, the other in a black dress, which falling to the ground in wide folds completely hid her figure. The couples met by the fountain.

Demeter kissed Anna's hand. "What a beautiful spot I have the good fortune to see you again in, my dear lady."

"It is a pleasant surprise to me, too," replied Anna, "quite apart from the scenery."

"Do you know," said George to Anna, "that these good people are travelling off again to-morrow?"

"Yes, Therese has told me."

"We want to see as much as possible," explained Demeter, "and so far as my recollection goes the other lakes in upper Italy are even more magnificent than the one here."

"I don't know anything about the others," said Anna. "We haven't done them yet."

"Well, perhaps you will take the opportunity," said Demeter, "and make up a party with us for a little tour: Bellaggio, Pallanza, Isola Bella."

Anna shook her head. "It would be very nice but unfortunately I can't get about enough. Yes, I am incredibly lazy. There are whole days when I never go out of the grounds. But if George fancies running away from me for a day or two, I don't mind at all."

"I have no intention at all of running away from you," said George. He threw a quick glance at Therese, whose eyes were sparkling and laughing.

They all strolled slowly through the garden while it gradually became dusk, and chatted about the places they had recently seen. When they came back to the table under the plane-tree it was laid for dinner and the fairy-lights were burning in the glass holders. The waiter was just bringing the Asti in a bucket. Anna sat down on the seat, which had the trunk of the plane-tree for its back. Therese sat opposite her and George and Demeter on either side.

The meal was served and the wine poured out. George inquired after their Viennese acquaintances. Demeter told them that Willy Eissler had brought back from his trip some brilliant caricatures both of hunters and of beasts. Old Ehrenberg had bought the pictures.

"Do you know about the Oskar affair yet?" said George.

"What affair?"

"Oh, the affair with his father in front of St. Michael's Church." He remembered that he had thought of telling Demeter the story some time back before the ladies had appeared, but that he had thought it right to suppress it. It was the wine, no doubt, which now loosened his tongue against his will. He told them briefly what Heinrich had written him.

"But this is an extremely sad business," said Demeter, very much moved, and all the others immediately felt more serious.

"Why is it a sad business?" asked Therese. "I think it is enough to make one laugh till one cried."

"My dear Therese, you don't consider the consequences it may have for the young man."

"Good gracious, I know well enough. It will make him impossible in a certain set, but that won't do more than make him realise what a silly ass he has been up to the present."

"Well," said George, "if Oskar really is one of those people who can be made to realise anything.... But I really don't think so."

"Apart from the fact, my dear Therese," added Demeter, "that what you call realising doesn't necessarily mean seeing things in their proper light. All sets of people have their prejudices. Even you are not free from them."

"And what prejudices have we got, I should like to know?" cried Therese, and emptied her glass of wine angrily. "We only want to clear away certain prejudices, particularly the prejudice that there is this privileged caste who regard it as a special honour...."

"Excuse, me, Therese dear, but you are not at a meeting now, and I am afraid that the applause at the conclusion of your speech will turn out much fainter than you are accustomed to."

"Look here," Therese turned to Anna, "this is how a cavalry officer argues."

"I beg your pardon," said George, "the whole business has scarcely anything at all to do with prejudices. A box on the ears in the public street, even though it is from one's own father.... I don't think one has got to be an officer in the reserve or a student."

"That box on the ears," cried Therese, "gives me a real sense of relief. It represents the well-merited conclusion of a ridiculous and superfluous existence."

"Conclusion! We hope it's not that," said Demeter.

"My letter says," replied George, "that Oskar has travelled off, no one knows where."

"If I am sorry for any one in the business," said Therese, "it is certainly for the old man, who, good-hearted fellow that he is, is probably regretting this very day the unpleasant position in which he has placed his beastly snob of a son."

"Good-hearted!" exclaimed Demeter. "A millionaire! A factory owner!... My dear Therese...!"

"Yes, it does happen sometimes. He happens to be one of those people who are at one with us at the bottom of their soul. You remember the evening, Demeter, when you had the pleasure of seeing me for the first time. Do you know why I was at Ehrenbergs' then?... And do you know the object for which he gave me straight away a thousand gulden...? To...." She bit her lips. "I mustn't say, that was the condition."

Suddenly Demeter got up and bowed to somebody who had just passed. It was the Austrian gentleman who had arrived yesterday. He lifted his hat and vanished in the darkness of the garden.

"Do you know that man?" asked George, after a few seconds. "I also seem to know him, but who is it?"

"The Prince of Guastalla," said Demeter.

"Really!" exclaimed Therese involuntarily, and her eyes pierced into the darkness.

"What are you looking at him for?" said Demeter. "He is just a man like any one else."

"He is supposed to be banished from Court," said George, "isn't he?"

"I know nothing about that," replied Demeter, "but he is certainly not a favourite there. He recently published a pamphlet about certain conditions in our army, particularly the life of the officers in the provinces. It went very much against him, although as a matter of fact there is nothing really bad in it."

"He should have applied to me about that," said Therese. "I could have given him a tip or two."

"My dear child," said Demeter deprecatingly, "what you are probably referring to again is simply an exceptional case. You shouldn't jump at once into generalities."

"I am not generalising, but a case like that is sufficient to damn the whole...."

"Don't make a speech, Therese...."

"I am speaking about Leo." Therese turned to George. "It is really awful what he has been going through this year."

George suddenly remembered that Therese was Leo's sister, as though it were a most remarkable thing which he had completely forgotten. Did he know that she was here and whom she was with?

Demeter bit his lips somewhat nervously.

"There is an Anti-Semitic First-Lieutenant, you know," said Therese, "who rags him in a particularly mean way because he knows how Leo despises him."

George nodded. He knew all about it.

"My dear child," said Demeter, "I can't make it out, as I have already told you several times. I happen to know First-Lieutenant Sefranek, and I assure you it is possible to get on with him. He is not particularly clever, and it may be quite right to say that he has got no particular liking for the Israelites, but after all one must admit that there are a lot of so-called opprobrious Anti-Semitic expressions which really have no significance at all, and which, so far as my experience goes, are used by Jews quite as much as by Christians. And your worthy brother certainly suffers from a morbid sensitiveness."

"Sensitiveness is never morbid," retorted Therese. "It is only lack of sensitiveness which is a disease, and the most loathsome one I know as a matter of fact. It is notorious that I am as far apart as possible from my brother in my political views. You know that best of all, George. I hate Jewish bankers quite as much as feudal landed proprietors, and orthodox Rabbis quite as much as Catholic priests; but if a man feels himself superior to me because he belongs to another creed or another race than I do, and being conscious of his greater power makes me feel that superiority, I would.... Well, I don't know what I would do to a man like that. But anyway I should quite understand Leo if he were to take the next opportunity of going tooth-and-nail for Herr Sefranek."

"My dear child," said Demeter, "if you have the slightest influence with your brother you should try and stop this tooth-and-nail business at any price. In my view by far the best thing to do in a case like that is to go about things in the respectable, I mean the regulation way. It is really not at all true that that never does any good. The superior officers are mostly quiet people, at any rate they are correct and...."

"But Leo did that long ago ... as far back as February. He went to the Major, the Major was very nice to him, and as appears from many indications gave the First-Lieutenant a good talking to; the only thing is it unfortunately wasn't the slightest use. On the contrary, the next chance he had the First-Lieutenant made a special point of starting his beastly tricks again, and he is continuing them with the most refined malice. I assure you, Baron, I am afraid every single day that some misfortune will happen."

Demeter shook his head. "We live in a mad age. I assure you"--he turned to George--"First-Lieutenant Sefranek is no more of an Anti-Semite than you or I. He visits at Jewish houses. I even know that he was extremely intimate for years with a Jewish regimental doctor. It really seems as though everybody were going mad."

"You may be right in that," said Therese.

"Oh, well, Leo is so reasonable," said George. "He is so sensible in spite of all his temperament that I am convinced that he won't let himself be swept away by any foolish impulse. After all he must know that it will all be over in a few months; one can manage to put up with it for that time."

"Do you know, by-the-by, Baron," said Therese, while following the example of the men she took a cigarette out of a box which the waiter had brought, "do you know that Leo was quite charmed with your compositions?"

"What, charmed?" said George, while he gave Therese a light. "I really hadn't noticed it at all."

"Well, he liked some things," qualified Therese, "and that's practically the same as somebody else being delighted with them."

"Have you composed anything on your trip?" asked Demeter courteously.

"Only a few songs."

"I suppose we shall hear them in the autumn?" said Demeter.

"Good gracious, don't let's talk about the autumn," said Therese. "We may be dead or in prison before then."

"Well, if one really wants to one can manage to avoid the latter alternative," exclaimed Demeter.

Therese shrugged her shoulders. George was sitting near her and believed he could feel the warmth of her body. Lights were shining from the hotel windows and a long reddish strip reached the table at which the two couples were sitting.

"I suggest," said George, "that we make the best of the fine evening and go for another walk along the shore."

"Or take a boat," exclaimed Therese.

They all agreed. George ran up to the room to fetch wraps. When he came down again he found the others standing by the door of the grounds ready to start. He helped Anna into her light-grey cloak, hung his own long overcoat over Therese's shoulders and kept a dark-green rug over his arm. They went slowly through the avenue to the place where the boats were moored. Two boatmen took the party with quick strokes of their oars out of the darkness of the shore into the black shining water. The mountains towered up to the sky, monstrous and gigantic. The stars were not very numerous. Tiny bluish-grey clouds hung in the air. The rowers sat on two cross benches; in the middle of the boat on narrow seats the two couples sat opposite each other: George and Anna, Demeter and Therese. All were quite silent at first, it was only after some minutes that George broke the silence. He told them the name of the mountain which separated the lake from the South, drew their attention to a village, which though it seemed infinitely far away as it nestled up to the slope of a cliff could nevertheless be reached in a quarter of an hour; he recognised the white shining house on the height above Lugano as the hotel in which Demeter and Therese were staying and told them about a walk far into the country between sunny vineyards which he had taken the other day.

While he spoke Anna kept hold of his hand underneath the rug. Demeter and Therese sat next to each other staidly and correctly, and not at all like lovers who had only found each other a short time ago. It was only now that George gradually recovered his fancy for Therese, which had almost vanished during her loud violent speechifying.

How long will this Demeter affair last? he thought. Will it be over when the autumn comes or will it after all last as long or longer than my affair with Anna? Will this row on the dark lake be some time in the future just a memory of something that has completely vanished, just like my row on the Veldeser Lake with that peasant girl, which now comes into my mind again for the first time for years?... Or like my voyage with Grace across the sea? How strange! Anna is holding my hand, I am pressing it, and who knows if she isn't feeling at this very minute something similar with regard to Demeter to what I am feeling about Therese? No, I am sure not.... She carries a child under her heart which has already quickened.... That's why.... Hang it all!... Why, it's my child as well.... Our child is now going for a row on the lake of Lugano.... Shall I tell it one day that it went for a row round the lake of Lugano before it was born? How will it all turn out? We shall be back in Vienna again in a few days. Does Vienna really exist? It will only slowly begin to come into existence again as we train back.... Yes, that's how it is.... As soon as I'm home work will start seriously. I shall remain quietly at my home in Vienna and just visit Anna from time to time; I won't live with her in the country.... Or at all events only just before ... and the autumn.... Shall I be in Detmold? And where will Anna be? And the child?... With strangers somewhere in the country. How improbable the whole thing seems!... But it was also very improbable a year ago to-day that I and Stanzides should go for a row on the lake of Lugano with Fräulein Anna Rosner and Fräulein Therese Golowski respectively. And now the whole thing couldn't be more of a matter of course.... He suddenly heard with abnormal clearness, as though he had just woken up, Demeter's voice quite near him.

"When does our boat leave to-morrow?"

"Nine o'clock in the morning," replied Therese.

"She maps out the plan of campaign you know," said Demeter. "I don't need to bother about anything."

The moon suddenly shone out over the lake.

It seemed as though it had waited behind the mountains and were now coming out to say goodbye. That infinitely distant village by the mountain-slope suddenly lay quite close in all its whiteness. The boat beached. Therese got up. She was shrouded in the night and looked strikingly tall. George sprang out of the boat and helped her to disembark. He felt her cool fingers, which did not tremble, in his hand, but moved softly as though on purpose, and caught the breath from her lips quite close. Demeter got out after her, then came Anna, tired and awkward. The boatman thanked them for their generous tip and both couples started to walk homewards. The Prince was sitting on a seat in a long dark cloak in the avenue along the bank. He was smoking a cigar, seemed to be looking out on to the nocturnal lake and turned away his head with the obvious intention of avoiding being saluted.

"A man like that could tell a tale," said Therese to George, with whom she had fallen further and further behind, while Demeter and Anna went on in front of them.

"So you are going back to Vienna as soon as all that?" asked George.

"A fortnight. Do you think that so soon? At any rate you will be home before us, won't you?"

"Yes, we shall leave in a few days. We can't put it off any longer. Besides, we shall have to break the journey a few times. Anna doesn't stand travelling well."

"Do you know yet that I found the villa for Anna just before I left?" said Therese.

"Really, you? Did you go looking, too?"

"Yes, I went into the country a few times with my mother. It is a small fairly old house in Salmansdorf with a beautiful garden, which leads straight out to the fields and forest, and the bit of ground in front of the house is quite overgrown.... Anna will tell you more about it. I believe it is the last house in the place. Then there comes an inn, but a fair distance away from it."

"I must have overlooked that house on my house-hunting expeditions in the spring."

"Clearly, or you would have taken it. There is a little clay figure standing on a lawn near the garden hedge."

"Can't remember. But do you know, Therese, it is really nice of you to have taken all this trouble for us, as well as your mother. More than nice." He thought of adding "when one takes your strenuous life into consideration," but suppressed it.

"Why are you surprised?" asked Therese. "I am very fond of Anna."

"Do you know what I once heard some one say about you?" replied George after a short pause.

"Well, what?"

"That you would either finish up on the scaffold or as a princess."

"That's a phrase of Doctor Berthold Stauber. He once told it me himself, you know. He is very proud of it, but it is sheer nonsense."

"The betting at present is certainly more on the princess."

"Who says so? The princess dream will soon be over!"

"Dream?"

"Yes, I am just beginning to wake up. It is rather like the morning air streaming into a bedroom."

"And then I suppose the other dream will begin?"

"What do you mean, the other dream?"

"This is what I take to be the case with you. When you are in the public eye again, making speeches, sacrificing yourself for some cause or other, then at some moment or other the whole thing strikes you like a dream, doesn't it? And you think real life is somewhere else."

"There is really something in what you say."

At this moment Demeter and Anna, who were standing by the garden gate, turned round towards them both and immediately took the broad avenue towards the entrance of the hotel. George and Therese also went on further, unseen outside the railing, into the darkest depths of the shade.

George suddenly seized hold of his companion's hand. As though astonished she turned towards him and both now stood opposite each other, enveloped by the darkness and closer than they could understand. They did not know how ... they scarcely meant to, but their lips rested on each other for a short moment that was more charged with the doleful joy of deception than with any other emotion. They then went on, silent, unsatisfied, desirous, and stepped through the garden door.

The two others, who were in front of the hotel, now turned round and came to meet them.

Therese quickly said to George: "Of course you don't come with us?"

George nodded slightly. They were now all standing in the broad quiet light of the arc-lamps.

"It was really a beautiful evening," said Demeter, kissing Anna's hand.

"Goodbye then till Vienna," said Therese and embraced Anna.

Demeter turned to George. "I hope we shall see each other to-morrow morning on the boat."

"Possibly, but I won't promise."

"Goodbye," said Therese and shook hands with George.

She and Demeter then turned round to go away.

"Are you going with them?" asked Anna, as they went through the door into the lounge, where men and women were sitting, smoking, drinking, talking.

"What an idea?" replied George. "I never thought of it."

"Herr Baron," suddenly called some one behind him. It was the porter, who held a telegram in his hand.

"What is this?" asked George, somewhat alarmed, opening it quickly. "Oh, how awful!" he exclaimed.

"What is it?" asked Anna.

He read it out while she looked at the piece of paper. "Oskar Ehrenberg tried to commit suicide early this morning in the forest at Neuhaus. Shot himself in the temples, little hope of saving his life, Heinrich."

Anna shook her head. They went up the stairs in silence and into Anna's room. The balcony door was wide open. George stepped into the open air. A heavy perfume of magnolias and roses streamed in out of the darkness. Not a trace of the lake was visible. The mountains towered up as though they had grown out of the abyss. Anna came up to George. He laid his arm on her shoulder and loved her very much. It was as though the serious event of which he had just had tidings, had compelled him to realise the true significance of his own experiences. He knew once more that there was nothing more important for him in the whole world than the well-being of this beloved woman who was standing with him on the balcony and who was to bear him a child.