“Come back to the pension and faint as much as you please. But you
can’t faint here. All the shops are closed. There is nobody about.
Please don’t be so foolish.”
“Here and here only!” She indicated the exact spot and dropped quite
beautifully, lying motionless.
“Very well,” I said, “faint away; but please hurry over it.”
She did not move. I began to walk home, but each time I looked behind
me I saw the dark form of the modern soul prone before the
hairdresser’s window. Finally I ran, and rooted out the Herr Professor
from his room. “Fräulein Sonia has fainted,” I said crossly.
“Du lieber Gott! Where? How?”
“Outside the hairdresser’s shop in the Station Road.”
“Jesus and Maria! Has she no water with her?”—he seized his
carafe—“nobody beside her?”
“Nothing.”
“Where is my coat? No matter, I shall catch a cold on the chest.
Willingly, I shall catch one.... You are ready to come with me?”
“No,” I said; “you can take the waiter.”
“But she must have a woman. I cannot be so indelicate as to attempt to
loosen her stays.”
“Modern souls oughtn’t to wear them,” said I. He pushed past me and
clattered down the stairs.
When I came down to breakfast next morning there were two places vacant
at table. Fräulein Sonia and Herr Professor had gone off for a day’s
excursion in the woods.