"What," said Leo, "is it supposed to be a Sicilian melody?"
"No, it rippled to me out of the waves of the sea when I went for a
walk one morning along the shore. Being alone is particularly good for
my work, so is change of scene. That's why I promise myself all kinds
of things from my trip." He told him about Heinrich Bermann's opera
plot, which he found very stimulating. When Heinrich came back again,
Leo was to make him seriously start on the libretto.
"Don't you know yet," said Leo, "his father is dead?"
"Really? When? How do you know?"
"It was in the paper this morning."
They spoke about Heinrich's relationship to the dead man and Leo
declared that the world would perhaps get on better if parents would
more frequently learn by the experiences of their children instead of
asking their children to adapt themselves to their own hoary wisdom.
The conversation then turned on the relations between fathers and sons,
on true and false kinds of gratefulness, on the dying of people one
held dear, on the difference between mourning and grief, on the dangers
of memory and the duty of forgetting. George felt that Leo was a very
serious thinker, was very solitary and knew how to be so. He felt
almost fond of him when the door closed behind him in the late twilight
hour and the thought that this man had been Anna's first infatuation
did him good.
The remaining days passed more quickly than he anticipated, what with
purchases, arrangements and all kinds of preparations. And one evening
George and Anna drove after each other to the station in two separate
vehicles and jestingly greeted each other in the vestibule with great
politeness, as though they had been distant acquaintances who had met
by accident.
"My dear Fräulein Rosner, what a fortunate coincidence! are you also
going to Munich by any chance?"
"Yes, Herr Baron."
"Hullo, that's excellent! and have you a sleeping-car, my dear
Fräulein?"
"Oh yes, Herr Baron, berth number five."
"How strange now, I have number six."
They then walked up and down on the platform. George was in a very
good temper, and he was glad that in her English dress, narrow-brimmed
travelling hat and blue veil Anna looked like an interesting foreigner.
They went the length of the entire train until they came to the
engine, which stood outside the station and was sending violent puffs
of light-grey steam up to the dark sky. Outside green and red lamps
glowed on the track with a faint light. Nervous whistles came from
somewhere out of the distance and a train slowly struggled out of the
darkness into the station. A red light waved magically to and fro over
the ground, seemed to be miles away, stopped and was suddenly quite
near. And outside, shining and losing themselves in the invisible, the
lines went their way to near and far, into night and morning, into the
morrow, into the inscrutable.
Anna climbed into the compartment. George remained standing outside
for a while and derived amusement from watching the other travellers,
those who were in an excited rush, those who preserved a dignified
calm, and those who posed as being calm--and all the various types of
people who were seeing their friends off: the depressed, the jolly, the
indifferent.
Anna was leaning out of the window. George chatted with her, behaved
as though he had not the slightest idea of leaving and then jumped in
at the last minute. The train went away. People were standing on the
platform, incomprehensible people who were remaining behind in Vienna,
and who on their side seemed to find all the others who were now really
leaving Vienna equally incomprehensible. A few pocket-handkerchiefs
fluttered. The station-master stood there impressively and gazed
sternly after the train. A porter in a blue-and-white striped linen
blouse held a yellow bag high up and looked inquisitively into every
window. Strange, thought George casually, there are people who
are going away and yet leave their yellow bags behind in Vienna.
Everything vanished, handkerchiefs, bags, station-master, station. The
brightly-lighted signal-box, the Gloriette, the twinkling lights of
the town, the little bare gardens along the embankment; and the train
whizzed on through the night. George turned away from the window. Anna
sat in the corner. She had taken off her hat and veil. Gentle little
tears were running down her cheeks.
"Come," said George, as he embraced her and kissed her on the eyes and
mouth. "Come, Anna," he repeated even more tenderly, and kissed her
again. "What are you crying for, dear? It will be so nice."
"It's easy enough for you," she said, and the tears streamed on down
her smiling face.
They had a beautiful time. They first stopped in Munich. They walked
about in the lofty halls of the Pinakothek, stood fascinated in front
of the old darkening pictures, wandered into the Glyptothek between
marble gods, kings and heroes; and when Anna with a sudden feeling
of exhaustion sat down on a settee she felt George's tender glance
lingering over her head. They drove through the English garden, over
broad avenues beneath the still leafless trees, nestling close to each
other, young and happy, and were glad to think that people took them
for a honeymoon couple. And they had their seats next to each other
at the opera, _Figaro_, _The Meistersingers_, and _Tristan_, and they
felt as though a resonant transparent veil were woven around them
alone out of the notes they loved so well, which separated them from
all the rest of the audience. And they sat, unrecognised by any one at
prettily-laid little restaurant tables, ate, drank and talked in the
best of spirits. And through streets that had the wondrous atmosphere
of a foreign land, they wandered home to where the gentle night waited
for them in the room they shared, slept peacefully cheek by cheek,
and when they awoke there smiled to them from the window a friendly
day with which they could do whatever they liked. They found peace in
each other as they had never done before, and at last belonged to each
other absolutely. Then they travelled further to meet the call of the
spring; through long valleys on which the snow shone and melted, then,
as though traversing one last white winter dream, over the Brenner
to Bozen, where they basked in the sunbeams at noon in the dazzling
market-place. On the weather-worn steps of the vast amphitheatre of
Verona, beneath the cool sky of an Easter evening, George found himself
at last in sight of that world of his heart's desire into which a
real true love was now vouchsafed to accompany him. His own vanished
boyhood greeted him out of the pale reddish distance together with all
the eternal memories, in which other men and women had their share
as well. Why, even a breath of those bygone days when his mother
had still lived seemed to thrill already through this air with its
familiar and yet foreign atmosphere. He was glad to see Venice, but it
had lost its magic and was as well known as though he had only left
it yesterday. He was greeted in the Piazza St. Marco by some casual
Viennese acquaintances, and the veiled lady by his side in the white
dress earned many an inquisitive glance. Once only, late at evening, on
a gondola journey through the narrow canals did the looming palaces,
which in the daylight had gradually degenerated into artificial
scenery, appear to him in all the massive splendour of the dark golden
glories of their past. Then came a few days in towns, which he scarcely
knew or did not know at all, in which he had only spent a few hours
as a boy, or had never been in at all. They walked into a dim church
out of a sultry Padua afternoon, and going slowly from altar to altar
contemplated the simple glorious pictures in which saints accomplished
their miracles and fulfilled their martyrdoms. On a dismal rainy day
a jolty gloomy carriage took them past a brick-red fort, round which
lay greenish-grey water in a broad moat, through a market-square where
negligently dressed citizens sat in front of the café; among silent
mournful streets, where grass grew between the cobble-stones, and they
had perforce to believe that this pitifully-dying petty town bore the
resounding name of Ferrara. But they breathed again in Bologna, where
the lively flourishing town does not simply content itself with a
mere pride in its bygone glories. But it was only when George gazed
at the hills of Fiesole that he felt himself greeted as it were by a
second home. This was the town in which he had ceased to be a boy,
the town in which the stream of life had begun to course through his
veins. At many places memories floated up in his mind which he kept
to himself; and when in the cathedral, where the Florentine girl had
given him her final look from beneath her bridal veil, he only spoke
to Anna about that hour in the Altlerchenfelder Church in that autumn
evening, when they had both begun to talk with some dim presentiment
about this journey, which had now become realised with such
inconceivable rapidity. He showed Anna the house in which he had lived
nine years ago. The same shops in which coral-dealers, watch-makers
and lace-dealers hawked their wares were still underneath. As the
second story was to let George would have had no difficulty in seeing
immediately the room in which his mother had died. But he hesitated
for a long time to set foot in the house again. It was only on the day
before their departure, as though feeling that he should not put it off
any more, that alone and without any previous word to Anna, he went
into the house, up the stairs and into the room. The aged porter showed
him round and did not recognise him. The same furniture was still all
there.
His mother's bedroom looked exactly the same as it had done ten
years ago, and the same brown wooden bed with its dark-green silver
embroidered velvet coverlet still stood in the same corner. But none
of the emotions which George had expected stirred within him. A tired
memory which seemed flatter and duller than it had ever been before,
ran through his soul. He stayed a long time in front of the bed with
the deliberate intention of conjuring up those emotions which he felt
it was his duty to feel. He murmured the word "mother," he tried to
imagine the way in which she had lain here in this bed for many days
and nights. He remembered the hours in which she had felt better, and
he had been able to read aloud to her or to play to her on the piano
in the adjoining room. He looked at the little round table standing
in the corner over which his father and Felician had spoken in a soft
whisper because his mother had just gone to sleep; and finally there
arose up in his mind with all the sharp vividness of a theatrical scene
the picture of that dreadful evening, when his father and brother
had gone out, and he himself had sat at his mother's bedside quite
alone with her hand in his ... he saw and heard it all over again. He
remembered how she had suddenly felt ill after an extremely quiet day,
how he had hurriedly opened the windows and the laughter and speeches
of strange people had penetrated into the room with the warm March
air, how she lay there at last with open eyes that were already blank,
while her hair that only a few seconds ago had streamed in waves over
her forehead and temple lay dry and dishevelled on the pillow, and her
left arm hung down naked over the edge of the bed with still fingers
stretched far apart. This image arose in his mind with such terrible
vividness that he saw again mentally his own boyish face and heard once
again his own long sobbing ... but he felt no pain. It was far too long
ago--nearly ten years.
"_E bellissima la vista di questa finestra_," suddenly said the porter
behind him as he opened the window--and human voices at once rang
into the room from down below just as they had done on that long-past
evening. And at the same moment he heard his mother's voice in his ear,
just as he had heard it then entreating, dying ... "George ... George"
... and out of the dark corner in the place where the pillows had used
to lie he saw something pale shine out towards him. He went to the
window and agreed: "_Bellissima vista_," but in front of the beautiful
view there lay as it were a dark veil. "Mother," he murmured, and once
again "Mother" ... but to his own amazement he did not mean the woman
who had borne him and had been buried long ago; the word was for that
other woman, who was not yet a mother but who was to be in a few months
... the mother of a child of which he was the father. And the word
suddenly rang out, as though some melody that had never been heard or
understood before, were now sounding, as though bells with mystic
chiming were swinging in the distant future. And George felt ashamed
that he had come here alone, had, as it were, almost stolen here. It
was now quite out of the question to tell Anna that he had been here.
The next day they took the train to Rome. And while George felt
fresher, more at home, more in the vein for enjoyment, with each
succeeding day, Anna began to suffer seriously from a feeling of
exhaustion with increasing frequency. She would often remain behind
alone in the hotel, while he strolled about the streets, wandered
through the Vatican, went to the Forum and the Palatine. She never kept
him back, but he nevertheless felt himself bound to cheer her up before
he went out, and got into the habit of saying: "Well, you'll keep that
for another time, I hope we shall soon be coming here again." Then she
would smile in her arch way, as though she did not doubt now that she
would one day be his wife; and he himself could not help owning that he
no longer regarded that development as impossible. For it had gradually
become almost impossible for him to realise that they were to say
goodbye for ever and to go their several ways this autumn. Yet during
this period the words with which they spoke about a remote future were
always vague. He had fear of it, and she felt that she would be doing
well not to arouse that fear, and it was just during these Roman days,
when he would often walk about alone in the foreign town for hours on
end, that he felt as though he were at times slipping away from Anna in
a manner that was not altogether unpleasant.
One evening he had wandered about amid the ruins of the Imperial Palace
until the approach of dusk and from the height of the Palatine Hill
he had seen the sun set in the Campagna with all the proud delight of
the man who is alone. He had then gone driving for a while along the
ancient wall of the city to Monte Pincio, and when as he leant back in
the corner of his carriage he swept the roofs with his look till he saw
the cupola of St. Peter's, he felt with deep emotion that he was now
experiencing the most sublime hour of the whole journey. He did not get
back to the hotel till late, and found Anna standing by the window pale
and in tears, with red spots on her swollen cheeks. She had been dying
of nervousness for the last two hours, had imagined that he had had an
accident, had been attacked, had been killed. He reassured her, but did
not find the words of affection which she wanted, for he felt in some
unworthy way a sense of being tied and not free. She felt his coldness
and gave him to understand that he did not love her enough; he answered
with an irritation that verged on despair. She called him callous and
selfish. He bit his lip, made no further answer, and walked up and down
the room. Still unreconciled they went into the dining-room, where they
took their meal in silence, and went to bed without saying good-night.
The following days were under the shadow of this scene. It was only
on the journey to Naples, when they were alone in the compartment,
that in their joy over the new scenery to which they were flying
they found each other again. From henceforward he scarcely left her
a single minute, she seemed to him helpless and somewhat pathetic.
He gave up visiting museums since she could not accompany him. They
drove together to Posilippo and walked in the Villa Nationale. In
the excursion through Pompeii he walked next to her sedan-chair like
a patient affectionate husband, and while the guide was giving his
descriptive account in bad French, George took Anna's hand, kissed it
and endeavoured in enthusiastic words to make her share in the delight
that he himself felt once more in this mysterious roofless town, which
after a burial of two thousand years had gradually returned street by
street, house by house, to meet the unchanging light of that azure
sky. And when they stopped at a place where some labourers were just
engaged in extricating with careful movements of their shovels a broken
pillar out of the ashes he pointed it out to Anna with eyes which shone
as brightly as though he had been storing up this sight for her for
a long time, and as though everything which had happened before had
simply been leading up to the fulfilment of his purpose of taking her
to this particular place at this particular minute and showing her this
particular wonder.
On a dark blue May night they lay in two chairs covered with tarpaulins
on the deck of the ship that was taking them to Genoa. An old Frenchman
with clear eyes, who had sat opposite them at dinner, stood near them
for a while and drew their attention to the stars that hung in the
infinitude like heavy silver drops. He named some of them by name,
politely and courteously, as though he felt it incumbent upon him to
introduce to each other the shining wanderers of heaven and the young
married couple. He then said good-night and went down into his cabin.
But George thought of his lonely journey over the same route and under
the same sky in the previous spring after his farewell from Grace. He
had told Anna about her, not so much from any emotional necessity, as
in order to free his past from that atmosphere of sinister mystery
in which it often seemed to Anna to disappear, by the conjuring up
into life of a specific shape and the designation of a specific name.
Anna knew of Labinski's death, of George's conversation with Grace at
Labinski's grave, of George's stay with her in Sicily. He had even
shown her a picture of Grace; and yet he thought to himself with a
slight shudder how little Anna herself knew of this very epoch of his
life, which he had described to her with an almost reckless lack of
reserve; and he felt how impossible it was to give any other person any
idea of a period which that person had not actually lived through, and
of the contents of so many days and nights every minute of which had
been full of vivid life. He realised the comparative insignificance of
the little lapses from truth of which he frequently allowed himself to
be guilty in his narrative, compared with that ineradicable taint of
falseness to which every memory gives birth on its short journey from
the lips of one person to the ear of another. And if Anna herself at
some later time wanted to describe to some friend, some new lover, as
honestly as she possibly could, the time which she spent with George,
what after all could that friend really learn? Not much more than a
story such as he had read hundreds of times over in books: a story of
a young creature who had loved a young man, had travelled about with
him, had felt ecstasy and at times tedium, had felt herself at one with
him, and yet had frequently felt lonely. And even if she should make
an attempt to give a specific account of every minute ... there still
remained an irrevocable past, and for him who has not lived through it
himself the past can never be the truth.
The stars glistened above him. Anna's head had sunk slowly upon his
breast and he supported it gently with his hands. Only the slight
ripple in the depths betrayed that the ship was sailing onward. But it
still went on towards the morning, towards home, towards the future.
The _hour_ which had loomed over them so long in silence seemed now
about to strike and to begin. George suddenly felt that he no longer
had his fate in his own hand. Everything was going its course. And he
now felt in his whole body, even to the hairs of his head, that the
ship beneath his feet was relentlessly hurrying forward.
They only remained a day in Genoa. Both longed for rest, and George for
his work as well. They meant to stay only a few weeks at an Italian
lake and to travel home in the middle of June. The house in which Anna
was going to live would be bound to be ready by then. Frau Golowski had
found out half-a-dozen suitable ones, sent specific details to Anna
and was waiting for her decision, though she still continued looking
for others in case of emergency. They travelled from Milan to Genoa,
but they could not stand the noisy life of a town any longer and left
for Lugano the very next day.
They had been staying here for a period of four weeks and every morning
George went along the road which took him, as it did to-day, along
the cheerful shore of the lake, past _Paradiso_ to the bend, where
there was a view which every time he longed to see again. Only a few
days of their stay were still before them. In spite of the excellent
state of Anna's health since the beginning of their stay the time had
arrived to return to the vicinity of Vienna, so as to be able to be
ready confidently for all emergencies. The days in Lugano struck George
as the best he had experienced since his departure from Vienna. And
he asked himself during many a beautiful moment, if the time he was
spending here was not perhaps the best time of his whole life. He had
never felt himself so free from desire, so serene both in anticipation
and memory, and he saw with joy that Anna also was completely happy.
Expectant gentleness shone in her forehead, her eyes gleamed with arch
merriment, as at the time when George had wooed for their possession.
Without anxiety, without impatience and lifted by the consciousness
of her budding motherhood far above the memory of home prejudices or
any question of future complications, she anticipated with ecstasy the
great hour when she was to give back to the waiting world as an animate
creature, that which her body had drunk in during a half-conscious
moment of ecstasy. George saw with joy the maturing in her of the
comrade that he had hoped to find in her from the beginning, but who
had so frequently escaped him in the course of the last few months. In
their conversations about his works (all of which she had carefully
gone through), about the theory of the song, about the more general
musical questions, she revealed to him more knowledge and feeling
than he had ever suspected she had in her. And he himself, though he
did not actually compose much, felt as though he were making real
strides forward. Melodies resounded within him, harmonies heralded
their approach, and he remembered with deep understanding a remark
of Felician's, who had once said after he had not had a sword in his
hand for months on end, that his arm had had some good ideas during
this period. The future, too, occasioned him no anxiety. He knew that
serious work would begin as soon as he got back to Vienna, and then his
way would lie before him, clear and unencumbered.
George stood for a long time by the bend in the road which had been the
object of his walk. A short broad tongue of land, thickly overgrown
with low shrubs, stretched from here straight into the lake, while a
narrow gently sloping path led in a few steps to a wooden seat which
was invisible from the street and on which George was always accustomed
to sit down a little before returning to the hotel.
"How many more times," he could not help thinking to-day. "Five or six
times perhaps and then back to Vienna again." And he asked himself
what would happen if they did not go back, if they settled down in
some house somewhere in Italy or Switzerland, and began to build up
with their child a new life in the double peacefulness of Nature and
distance. What would happen?... Nothing. Scarcely any one would be
particularly surprised. And no one would miss either him or her, miss
them with real grief. These reflections made his mood flippant rather
than melancholy; the only thought that made him depressed was that he
was frequently overcome by a kind of homesickness, a kind of desire
in fact to see certain specific persons. And even now, while he was
drinking in the lake air, surrendering himself to the blue of this half
foreign, half familiar sky above him and enjoying all the pleasure of
solitude and retirement, his heart would beat when he thought of the
woods and hills around Vienna, of the Ringstrasse, the club and his big
room with the view of the Stadtpark. And he would have felt anxious
if his child had not been going to be born in Vienna. It suddenly
occurred to him that another letter from Frau Golowski must have
arrived to-day together with many other communications from Vienna, and
he therefore decided to take the road round by the post-office before
going back to the hotel. For following his habit during the whole trip
he had his letters addressed there and not to the hotel, since he felt
that this would give him a freer hand in dealing with any outside
emergency. He did not, as a matter of fact, get many letters from
Vienna. There was usually in spite of their brevity a certain element
in Heinrich's letters which, as George quite appreciated, was less due
to any particular need of sympathy on the part of the author than to
the circumstance that it was an integral part of his literary calling
to breathe the breath of life into all the sentences which he wrote.
Felician's letters were as cool as though he had completely forgotten
that last heartfelt talk in George's room and that brotherly kiss with
which they had taken leave of each other.... He presumes, no doubt,
thought George, that his letters will be read by Anna too, and does not
feel himself bound to give this stranger an insight into his private
affairs and his private feelings. Nürnberger had sent a few short
answers to George's picture-postcards, while in answer to a letter from
Rome, in which George had referred to his sincere appreciation of the
walks they had had together in the early spring, Nürnberger expressed
his regret in ironically apologetic phrases that he had told George
on those excursions such a lot about his own family affairs which
could not interest him in the slightest. A letter from old Eissler
had reached him at Naples, informing him that there was no prospect
of a vacancy for the following year at the Detmold Court Theatre,
but that George had been invited through Count Malnitz to be present
at the rehearsals and performances as a "visitor by special request,"
and that this was an opportunity which might perhaps pave the way to
something more definite in the future. George had given the proposition
his polite consideration, but had little inclination for the time being
to stay in the foreign town for any length of time with such vague
prospects, and had decided to look out for a permanent appointment as
soon as he arrived at Vienna.
Apart from this there was no personal note in any of the letters from
home. The remembrances to him which Frau Rosner felt in duty bound
to append to her letters to her daughter made no particular appeal,
although recently they had been addressed not to the Herr Baron but to
George. He felt certain that Anna's parents were simply resigned to
what they could not alter, but that they felt it grievously all the
same, and had not shown themselves as broad-minded as would have been
desirable.
In accordance with his habit George did not go back along the bank.
Passing through narrow streets between garden walls, then under arcades
and finally over a wide space from which there was another clear view
of the lake, he arrived in front of the post-office, whose bright
yellow paint reflected the dazzling rays of the sun. A young lady
whom George had already seen in the distance walking up and down the
pavement, remained standing as he approached. She was dressed in white
and carried a white sunshade spread out over a broad straw hat with a
red ribbon. When George was quite near she smiled, and he now suddenly
saw a well-known face beneath the white spotted tulle veil.
"Is it really you, Fräulein Therese?" he exclaimed as he took the hand
which she held out to him.
"How do you do, Baron?" she replied innocently, as though this meeting
were the most ordinary event imaginable. "How is Anna?"
"Very well, thanks. Of course you will come and see her?"
"If I may."
"But tell me now, what are you doing here? Can it be that you"--and his
glance swept her in amazement from top to toe--"are making a political
tour?"
"I can't exactly say that," she replied, pushing out her chin, without
that movement having its usual effect of making her face appear ugly,
"it's more of a holiday jaunt." And her face shone with a genuine smile
as she saw George's glance turn towards the door, from which Demeter
Stanzides had just come out in a striped black-and-white flannel suit.
He lifted his grey felt hat in salutation and shook hands with George.
"Good-morning, Baron. Glad to see you again."
"I am very glad, too, Herr Stanzides."
"No letter for me?" Therese turned to Demeter.
"No, Therese. Only a few cards for me," and he put them in his pocket.
"How long have you been here?" inquired George, endeavouring to exhibit
as little surprise as possible.
"We arrived yesterday," replied Demeter.
"Straight from Vienna?" asked George.
"No, from Milan. We have been travelling for eight days. We were first
in Venice, that is the orthodox thing to do," added Therese, pulled
down her veil and took Demeter's arm.
"You been away much longer?" said Demeter. "I saw a card from you some
weeks back at Ehrenbergs', the house of the Vettii, Pompeii."
"Yes, I've had a wonderful trip."
"Well, we'll have a look round the place a bit," said Therese, "and
besides, we don't want to detain the Baron any more. I am sure he wants
to go and fetch his letters."
"Oh, there is no hurry about that. Anyway, we'll see each other again."
"Will you give us the pleasure, Baron," said Demeter, "of lunching with
us to-day at the Europe? That's where we put up."
"Thanks very much, but I'm afraid it's impossible. But ... but perhaps
you could manage to dine with ... with ... us at the Park Hotel, yes?
At half-past seven if that's all right for you. I'll have it served in
the garden, under an awfully fine plane-tree, where we usually take our
meals."
"Yes," said Therese, "we accept with thanks. Perhaps I'll come in an
hour earlier and have a quiet chat with Anna."
"Good," replied George, "she will be very glad."
"Well, till the evening, Baron," said Demeter, shook hands with him
heartily and added: "Please give my kind regards at home."
Therese flashed George an appreciative look, and then went on her way
with Demeter towards the bank of the lake.
George looked after them. If I hadn't known her, he thought, Demeter
could have introduced her to me straight away as his wife, née Princess
X. How strange, those two.... He then went into the hall, had his
correspondence given to him at the counter and ran cursorily through
it. The first thing which caught his eye was a card from Leo Golowski.
There was nothing on it except "Dear George, mind you have a good
time." Then there was a card from the Waldsteingarten in the Prater,
"We have just emptied our glasses to the health of our runaway friend.
Guido Schönstein, Ralph Skelton, the Rattenmamsell."
George wanted to read the letters from Felician, Frau Rosner and
Heinrich quietly at home with Anna. He was also in a hurry to inform
Anna of the news of the strange couple's arrival. He was not quite
free from anxiety, for Anna's conventional instincts had a knack of
waking up occasionally in a quite unexpected manner. Anyway, George
decided to tell her of his invitation to Demeter and Therese as though
it were an absolute matter of course and was quite ready, in case she
should feel hurt or irritated or even have doubts about the matter, to
oppose such an attitude firmly and resolutely. He himself was very glad
of the evening which was before him after the many weeks that he had
spent exclusively in Anna's society. He almost felt a little envious
of Demeter, who was on an irresponsible pleasure-trip like he himself
when he had gone travelling with Grace in the previous year. Then it
occurred to him that he liked Therese better than ever. In spite of the
numerous pretty women whom he had met in the course of the last month
he had never felt seriously tempted, even though Anna was losing more
and more of her womanly grace. To-day for the first time he felt a
desire for new embraces.
He soon saw Anna's light-blue morning dress shining through the
railings of the balcony. George whistled the first notes of Beethoven's
Fifth Symphony, which was his usual method of announcing himself, and
the pale gentle face of his beloved immediately appeared over the
railings and her big eyes greeted him with a smile. He held up the
packet of letters, she nodded with pleasure and he hurried quickly up
to her room and on to the balcony. She was reclining in a cane chair
in front of the little table with the green coverlet, on which some
needlework was lying, as was nearly always the case when George came
home from his morning walk. He kissed her on the forehead and on the
mouth. "Well, whom do you think I met?" he asked hurriedly.
"Else Ehrenberg," answered Anna, without considering.
"What an idea? How could she get here?"
"Well," said Anna slyly, "she might have travelled off to find you."
"She might, but she didn't. So guess again. I give you three guesses."
"Heinrich Bermann."
"Nowhere near it. Besides there is a letter from him. So guess again."
She reflected. "Demeter Stanzides," she then said.
"What, do you really know something?"
"What should I know? Is he really here?"
"By Jove, you are positively blushing. Ho ho!" He knew of her weakness
for Demeter's melancholy cavalier beauty but did not feel the slightest
trace of jealousy.
"So it is Stanzides?" she asked.
"Yes, it is Stanzides right enough. But with all the will in the world
I can't find anything remarkable about that. It's not remarkable,
either. But if you guess whom he is with...."
"With Sissy Wyner."
"But...."
"Well, I was thinking of marriage.... That happens too sometimes."
"No, not with Sissy, and not married, but with your friend Therese, and
as unmarried as possible."
"Get along...."
"I tell you, with Therese. They've been travelling for eight days. What
have you got to say to that? They have been in Venice and Milan. Had
you any idea of it?"
"No."
"Really not?"
"Really not. You know of course that Therese only once wrote me a line,
and you read her letter with your well-known interest."
"You're not astonished enough."
"Good gracious, I always knew that she had good taste."
"So has Demeter," exclaimed George with conviction.
"Elective affinities," remarked Anna, elevating her eyebrows, and went
on crocheting.
"And so this is the mother of my child," said George, with a merry
shake of his head.