"Why not? Men who are so almost exclusively self-centred as he is get over emotional troubles with surprising quickness. Characters of that type, and as a matter of fact other kinds of men as well, feel the slightest physical discomfort far more acutely than any kind of sentimental pain, even the faithlessness and death of the persons they happen to love. It comes no doubt from the fact that every emotional pain flatters our vanity somehow or other, and that you can't say the same thing about an attack of typhoid or a catarrh in the stomach. Then there is this additional point about artistic people, for while catarrh of the stomach provides positively no copy at all (at any rate that used to be reasonably certain a short time ago) you can get anything you jolly well like out of your emotional pains, from lyric poems down to works on philosophy."
"Emotional pains are of very different kinds, of course," replied George. "And being deceived or deserted by a mistress ... or even her dying a natural death ... is still rather a different thing to her killing herself on our account."
"Do you know for a certainty," replied Nürnberger, "that Heinrich's mistress really killed herself on his account?"
"Didn't Heinrich tell you, then?..."
"Of course, but that doesn't prove much. Even the shrewdest amongst us are always fools about the things which concern ourselves."
Such remarks as these on the part of Nürnberger produced a strangely disconcerting effect on George. They belonged to the class of which Nürnberger was rather fond, and which, as Heinrich had once observed, quite destroyed all the point of all human intercourse, and in fact of all human relations.
Nürnberger went on speaking. "We only know two facts. One is that our friend once had aliaisonwith a girl and the other that the girl in question threw herself into the water. We both of us know practically nothing about all the intervening facts, and Heinrich probably doesn't know anything more about them either. None of us can know why she killed herself, and perhaps the poor girl herself didn't know either."
George looked through the window and saw roofs, chimneys and weather-beaten pipes, while fairly near was the light-grey tower with the broken stone cupola. The sky opposite was pale and empty. It suddenly occurred to George that Nürnberger had not yet made any inquiry about Anna. What was he probably thinking? Thinking no doubt that George had deserted her, and that she had already consoled herself with another lover. Why did I come to Vienna? he thought desultorily, as though his journey had had no other purpose than to listen to Nürnberger giving him what had now turned out to be a sufficiently pessimistic analysis of life. It struck twelve. George took his leave. Nürnberger accompanied him as far as the door and thanked him for his visit. He inquired earnestly about what George was doing in his new home, about his work and his new acquaintances, as though their previous conversation on the subject had not really counted, and now learned for the first time of the accident which was responsible for George's sudden appointment in the little town.
"Yes, that's just what I always say," he then remarked. "It is not we who make our fate, but some circumstance outside us usually sees to that—some circumstance which we were not in a position to influence in any way, which we never have a chance of bringing into the sphere of our calculations. After all, do you deserve any credit...? I feel justified in putting this question, much as I respect your talent. Nor does old Eissler, whose interest in your affairs you once told me about, deserve any credit either for your being wired to from Detmold and finding your true sphere of work there so quickly. No. An innocent man, some one you don't know, had to die a sudden death to enable you to find that particular place vacant. And what a lot of other things which you were equally unable to influence, and which you were quite unable to foresee, had to come on the scene to enable you to leave Vienna with a light heart—to enable you, in fact, to leave it at all."
George felt hurt. "What do you mean by a light heart?" he asked.
"I mean a lighter heart than you would have had under other circumstances. If the little creature had remained alive who knows whether you...."
"You can take it from me that I would have gone away, even then. And Anna would have taken it quite as much as a matter of course as she does now. Don't you believe me? Why, perhaps I'd have gone with an even lighter heart if that matter had turned out otherwise. Why, it was Anna who persuaded me to accept. I was quite undecided. You have no idea what a good sensible creature Anna is."
"Oh, I don't doubt it at all. According to all you have told me about her from time to time, she certainly seems to have behaved with more dignity in her position than young ladies of her social status are usually accustomed to exhibit on such occasions."
"My dear Herr Nürnberger, the position really wasn't as dreadful as all that."
"Come, don't say that. For however much things may have been made easier by your courtesy and consideration, take it from me that the young lady is bound to have felt frequently during the last months the irregularity of her position. I am sure there isn't a single member of the feminine sex, however daring and advanced may be her views, who doesn't prefer in a case like that to have a ring on her finger. And it's all in favour, too, of your friend's sensible and dignified behaviour that she never allowed you to notice it, and that she took the bitter disillusionment at the end of these nine months, which were certainly not entirely a bed of roses, with calmness and self-possession."
"Disillusionment is rather a mild word. Pain would perhaps be more correct."
"I dare say it was both. But in this case, as in most others, the burning wound of pain heals more quickly than the throbbing piercing wound of disillusionment."
"I don't quite understand."
"Well, my dear George, you don't doubt, do you, that if the little creature had remained alive you two would have married very quickly; why, you'd even be married this very day."
"And you think that now, just because we have no child.... Yes, you seem to be of the opinion that ... that ... it's all over between us. But you are quite wrong, quite wrong, my dear friend."
"My dear George," replied Nürnberger, "both of us would prefer not to speak about the future. Neither you nor I know the place where a strand of our fate is being spun at this very moment. You didn't have the slightest inkling, either, when that conductor was attacked by a stroke, and if I now wish you luck in your future career I don't know whose death I have not conjured down by that very wish."
They took leave of each other on the landing. Nürnberger cried after George from the stairs: "Let me hear from you now and then."
George turned round once more. "And mind you do the same." He only saw Nürnberger's gesture of resigned remonstrance, smiled involuntarily, hurried down the stairs and took a conveyance at the nearest corner.
He pondered over Nürnberger and Bermann on his way to the Golowskis'. What a strange relationship it was between them. A scene which he thought he had seen some time or other in a dream came into George's mind. The two sat opposite each other, each held a mirror in front of the other. The other saw himself in it with the mirror in his hand, and in that mirror the other again with his mirror in his hand, and so on to infinity; but did either of them really know the other, did either of them really know himself? George's mind became dizzy. He then thought of Anna. Was Nürnberger right again? Was it really all over? Could it really ever end? Ever?... Life is long! But were even the ensuing months dangerous? No. That was not to be taken seriously, however it might turn out. Perhaps Micaela.... And in Easter he would be in Vienna again. Then there came the summer, they would be together, and then? Yes, what then? Engagement? Herr Rosner and Frau Rosner's son-in-law, Joseph's brother-in-law! Oh well, what did he care about the family? It was Anna after all who was going to be his wife, that good gentle sensible creature.
The fly stopped in front of an ugly fairly new house, painted yellow, in a wide monotonous street. George told the driver to wait and went into the doorway. The house looked quite dilapidated from inside. Mortar had crumbled away from the walls in many places and the steps were dirty. There was a smell of bad fat coming out of some of the kitchen windows. Two fat Jewesses were talking on the landing of the first storey in a jargon which George found positively intolerable. One of them said to a boy whom she held by the hand: "Moritz, let the gentleman pass."
Why does she say that? thought George, there's plenty of room; she obviously wants to get into conversation with me. As though I could do her any harm or any good! An expression of Heinrich's in a long-past conversation came into his mind: "An enemy's country."
A servant-girl showed him into a room which he immediately recognised as Leo's. Books and papers on the writing-table, the piano open, a Gladstone bag, which was still not completely unpacked, open on the sofa. The door opened the next minute. Leo came in, embraced his visitor and kissed him so quickly on both cheeks that the man who was welcomed with such heartiness had no time to be embarrassed.
"This is nice of you," said Leo, and shook both his hands.
"You can't imagine how glad I was ..." began George.
"I believe you.... But please come in with me. We are having dinner, you know, but it's nearly over."
He took him into the next room. The family was gathered round the table.
"I don't think you know my father yet," observed Leo, and introduced them to each other.
Old Golowski got up, put away the serviette which he had tied round his neck and held out his hand to George. The latter was surprised that the old man should look so completely different from what he had expected. He was not patriarchal, grey-bearded and venerable, but with his clean-shaven face and broad cunning features looked more like an ageing provincial comedian than anything else.
"I am very glad to make your acquaintance, Herr Baron," he said, while one could read in his crafty eyes ... "I know everything."
Therese hastily asked George the conventional questions: when he had come, how long he was staying, how he was; he answered patiently and courteously, and she looked him in the face with animation and curiosity.
Then he asked Leo about his plans for the near future.
"I must first practise the piano industriously, so as not to make a fool of myself before my pupils. People were very nice to me, of course. I had books, as many as I wanted, but they certainly didn't put a piano at my disposition." He turned to Therese. "You should certainly flog that point to death in one of your next speeches. This bad treatment of prisoners awaiting trial must be abolished."
"It was no laughing matter for him this time yesterday," said old Golowski.
"If you think by any chance," said Therese, "that the good luck which happened to come your way will alter my views you are making a violent mistake. On the contrary." And turning to George she continued: "Theoretically, you know, I am absolutely against their having let him out. If you'd simply knocked the fellow down dead, as you would have been quite entitled to do, without this abominable farce of a duel you'd never have been let out, but would have served your five to ten years for a certainty. But since you went in for this ghastly life-and-death gamble which is favoured by the State, because you cringed down to the military point of view you've been pardoned. Am I not right?" She turned again to George.
The latter only nodded and thought of the poor young man whom Leo had shot, who as a matter of fact had had nothing else against the Jews except that he disliked them just as much as most people did after all—and whose real fault had only been that he had tried it on the wrong man.
Leo stroked his sister's hair and said to her: "Look here, if you say publicly in your next speech what you've just said to-day within these four walls you'll really impress me."
"Yes, and you'll impress me," replied Therese, "if you take a ticket to Jerusalem to-morrow with old Ehrenberg."
They got up from the table. Leo invited George to come into his room with him.
"Shall I be disturbing you?" asked Therese. "I too would like to see something of him, you know."
They all three sat in Leo's room and chatted. Leo seemed to be enjoying his regained freedom without either scruples or remorse. George felt strangely affected by this. Therese sat on the sofa in a dark well-fitting dress. To-day was the first occasion on which she resembled the young lady who had drunk Asti under a plane-tree in Lugano, when she was the mistress of a cavalry officer, and who had subsequently kissed some one else. She asked George to play the piano. She had never yet heard him. He sat down, played something fromTristanand then improvised with happy inspiration. Leo expressed his appreciation.
"What a pity that he is not staying," said Therese, as she leaned against the wall and crossed her hands over her high coiffure.
"I am coming back at Easter," replied George, and looked at her.
"But only to disappear again," said Therese.
"That may be," replied George, and the thought that his home was no longer here, that he had no home at all anywhere, and would not have for a long time, suddenly overwhelmed him.
"How would it be," said Leo, "if we went on a tour together in the summer?—you, Bermann and I? I promise you that you won't be bored by theoretical conversation like you were once last autumn ... do you still remember?"
"Oh well," said Therese, stretching herself, "nothing will come of it anyway. Deeds, gentlemen!"
"And what comes of deeds?" asked Leo. "Putting them at the highest, they simply save individual situations for the time being."
"Yes, deeds which you do for yourself," said Therese. "But I only call a real deed what one is capable of doing for others, without any feeling of revenge, without any personal vanity, and if possible anonymously."
At last George had to go. What a lot of things he still had to see to.
"I'll come part of the way with you," said Therese to him.
Leo embraced him again, and said: "It really was nice of you."
Therese disappeared to fetch her hat and jacket. George went into the next room. Old Frau Golowski seemed to have been waiting for him; with a strangely anxious face she came up to him and put an envelope in his hand.
"What is that?"
"The account, Herr Baron. I didn't want to give it to Anna.... It might perhaps have upset her too much."
"Oh yes...." He put the envelope in his pocket and thought that it felt strangely different to any other....
Therese appeared with a little Spanish hat, ready to go out. "Here I am. Goodbye, mamma. Shan't be home for dinner."
She went down the stairs with George and threw him sideways a glance of pleasure.
"Where can I take you?" asked George.
"Just take me along with you. I'll get out somewhere."
They got in, the vehicle went on. She put to him all kinds of questions which he had already answered in the apartment, as though she took it for granted that he was now bound to be more candid with her than before the others. She did not learn anything except that he felt comfortable in his new surroundings and that his work gave him satisfaction. Had his appearance been a great surprise for Anna? No, not at all. He had of course given her notice of it. And was it really true that he meant to come back again at Easter? It was his definite intention....
She seemed surprised. "Do you know that I had almost imagined...."
"What?"
"That we would never see you again!"
He was somewhat moved and made no answer. The thought then ran through his mind: Would it not have been more sensible...? He was sitting quite close to Therese and felt the warmth of her body, as he had done before in Lugano. In what dream of hers might she now be living—in the dark jumbled dream of making humanity happy, or the light gay dream of a new romantic adventure? She kept looking insistently out of the window. He took her hand, without resistance, and put it to his lips.
She suddenly turned round to him and said innocently: "Yes, stop now. I'd better get out here."
He let go her hand and looked at Therese.
"Yes, my dear George. What wouldn't one fall into," she said, "if one didn't"—she gave an ironic smile—"have to sacrifice oneself for humanity? Do you know what I often think?... Perhaps all this is only a flight from myself."
"Why.... Why do you take to flight?"
"Goodbye, George."
The vehicle stopped. Therese got out, a young man stood still and stared at her, she disappeared in the crowd. I don't think she'll finish up on the scaffold, thought George. He drove to his hotel, had his midday meal, lit a cigarette, changed his clothes and went to Ehrenbergs'.
James, Sissy, Willy Eissler and Frau Oberberger were with the ladies of the house in the dining-room taking black coffee. George sat down between Else and Sissy, drank a glass of Benedictine and answered with patience and good humour all the questions which his new activities had provoked. They soon went into the drawing-room, and he now sat for a time in the raised alcove with Frau Oberberger, who looked young again to-day and was particularly anxious to hear more intimate details about George's personal experiences in Detmold. She refused to believe him when he denied having started intrigues with all the singers in the place. Of course she simply regarded theatrical life as nothing but a pretext and opportunity for romantic adventures. Anyway, she always made a point of thinking she detected the most monstrous goings-on in thecoulissesbehind the curtain, in the dressing-rooms and in the manager's office. When George had no option but to disillusion her, by his report of the simple, respectable, almost philistine life of the members of the opera, and by the description of his own hardworking life, she visibly began to go to pieces, and soon he found himself sitting opposite an aged woman, in whom he recognised the same person as had appeared to him last summer, first in the box of a little white-and-red theatre and later in a now almost forgotten dream. He then went and stood with Sissy near the marble Isis, and each sought to find in the eyes of the other during their harmless chatter a memory of an ardent hour beneath the deep shade of a dark green park in the afternoon. But to-day that memory seemed to them both to be plunged in unfathomable depths.
Then he went and sat next to Else at the little table on which books and photographs were lying. She first addressed to him some conventional questions like all the rest. But suddenly she asked quite unexpectedly and somewhat gently: "How is your child?"
"My child...." He hesitated. "Tell me, Else, why do you ask me...? Is it simply curiosity?"
"You are making a mistake, George," she replied calmly and seriously. "You usually make mistakes about me, as a matter of fact. You take me for quite superficial, or God knows what. Well, there's no point in talking about it any more. Anyway, my asking after the child is not quite so incomprehensible. I should very much like to see it sometime."
"You would like to see it?" He was moved.
"Yes, I even had another idea.... But one which you will probably think quite mad."
"Let's hear it, Else."
"I was thinking, you know, we might take it with us."
"Who, we?"
"James and I."
"To England?"
"Who's told you we're going to England? We are staying here. We've already taken a place in 'Cottage'[3]outside. No one need know that it is your child."
"What a romantic thought!"
"Good gracious, why romantic? Anna can't keep it with her, and you certainly can't. Where could you put it during the rehearsals? In the prompter's box, I suppose?"
George smiled. "You are very kind, Else."
"I'm not kind at all. I only think why should an innocent little creature pay the penalty or suffer for.... Oh well, I mean it can't help it.... After all ... is it a boy?"
"It was a boy." He paused, then he said gently: "It's dead, you know." And he looked in front of him.
"What! Oh, I see ... you want to protect yourself against my officiousness."
"No, Else, how can you?... No, Else, in matters like that one doesn't lie."
"It's true, then? But how did it...?"
"It was still-born."
She looked at the ground. "No? How awful!" She shook her head. "How awful!... And now she's lost everything quite suddenly."
George gave a slight start and was unable to answer. How every one seemed to take it for granted that the Anna affair was finished. And Else did not pity him at all. She had no idea of how the death of the child had shocked him. How could she have an idea either? What did she know of the hour when the garden had lost its colour for him and the heavens their light, because his own beautiful child lay dead within the house?
Frau Ehrenberg joined them. She declared that she was particularly satisfied with George. Anyway, she had never doubted that he would show what he was made of as soon as he once got started in a profession. She was firmly convinced, too, that they would have him here in Vienna as a conductor in three to five years. George pooh-poohed the idea. For the time being he had not thought of coming back to Vienna. He felt that people worked more and with greater seriousness outside in Germany. Here one always ran the danger of losing oneself.
Frau Ehrenberg agreed, and took the opportunity to complain about Heinrich Bermann, who had lapsed into silence as an author and now never showed himself anywhere.
George defended him and felt himself obliged to state positively that Heinrich was more industrious than he had ever been. But Frau Ehrenberg had other examples of the corrupting influence of the Vienna air, particularly Nürnberger, who now seemed to have cut himself completely off from the world. As for what had happened to Oskar ... could that have happened in any other town except Vienna? Did George know, by-the-by, that Oskar was travelling with the Prince of Guastalla? Her tone did not indicate that she regarded that as anything special, but George noticed that she was a little proud of it, and entertained the opinion somewhere at the back of her mind that Oskar had turned out all right after all.
While George was speaking to Frau Ehrenberg he noticed that Else, who had retired with James into the recess, was directing glances towards him—glances full of melancholy and of knowledge, which almost frightened him. He soon took his leave, had a feeling that Else's handshake was inconceivably cold, while those of the others were amiably indifferent, and went.
"How funny it all is," he thought in the vehicle which drove him to Heinrich's. People knew everything before he did. They had known of hisliaisonwith Anna before it had begun, and now they knew that it was over before he did himself. He had half a mind to show them all that they were making a mistake. Of course, in so vital an affair as that one should be very careful not to decide on one's course of action out of considerations of pique. It was a good thing that a few months were now before him in which he could pull himself together and have time for mature reflection. It would be good for Anna, too, particularly good for her, perhaps. Yesterday's walk with her in the rain over the brown wet streets came into his mind again, and struck him as ineffably sad. Alas, for the hours in the arched room into which the strains of the organ opposite had vibrated through the floating curtain of snow—where were they? Yes, where had these hours gone to? And so many other wonderful hours as well! He saw himself and Anna again in his mind's eye, as a young couple on their honeymoon, walking through streets which had the wonderful atmosphere of a strange land; commonplace hotel rooms, where he had only stayed with her for a few days, suddenly presented themselves before him, consecrated as it were by the perfume of memory.... Then his love appeared to him, sitting on a white seat, beneath the heavy branches, with her high forehead girdled with the deceptive presentiment of gentle motherhood. And finally she stood there with a sheet of music in her hand while the white curtain fluttered gently in the wind. And when he realised that it was the same room in which she was now waiting for him, and that not more than a year had gone by since that evening hour in the late summer when she had sung his own songs for the first time to his own accompaniment, he breathed heavily and almost anxiously in his corner.
When he was in Heinrich's room a few minutes afterwards he asked him not to look upon this as a visit. He only wanted to shake hands with him. He would fetch him for a walk to-morrow morning if that suited him.... Yes—the idea occurred to him while he was speaking—for a kind of farewell walk in the Salmansdorf Forest.
Heinrich agreed, but asked him to stay just a few minutes. George asked him jestingly if he had already recovered from his failure of this morning.
Heinrich pointed to the secretary, on which were lying loose sheets covered with large nervous writing. "Do you know what that is? I have taken upÄgidiusagain, and just before you came I thought of an ending which was more or less feasible. I'll tell you more about it to-morrow if it will interest you."
"By all means. I am quite excited about it. It's a good thing, too, that you have settled down to a definite piece of work again."
"Yes, my dear George, I don't like being quite alone, and must create some society for myself as quickly as possible, people I choose myself ... otherwise, any one who wants to come along, and one is not keen on being at home to every chance ghost."
George told him that he had called on Leo and found him in far better spirits than he had ever expected.
Heinrich leaned against the secretary with both his hands buried in his trouser pockets and his head slightly bent; the shaded lamp made uncertain shadows on his face. "Why didn't you expect to find him in good spirits? If it had been us ... if it had been me, at any rate, I should probably have felt exactly the same."
George was sitting on the arm of a black leather arm-chair with crossed legs and his hat and stick in his hand. "Perhaps you are right," he said, "but I must confess all the same that when I saw his cheerful face I found it very strange to realise that he had a human life on his conscience."
"You mean," said Heinrich, beginning to walk up and down the room, "that it is one of those cases where the relationship of cause and effect is so illuminating that you are justified in saying quietly 'he has killed' without its looking like a mere juggle of words.... But speaking generally, George, don't you think that we regard these matters a little superficially? We must see the flash of a dagger or hear the whistle of a bullet in order to realise that a murder has been committed. As though any man who let any one else die would be in most cases different from a murderer in anything else except having managed the business more comfortably and being more of a coward...."
"Are you really reproaching yourself, Heinrich? If you had really believed that it was bound to turn out like that ... I am sure you would not have ... let her die."
"Perhaps ... I don't know. But I can tell you one thing, George: if she were still alive—I mean if I had forgiven her, to use the expression you are so fond of using now and then—I should regard myself as guiltier than I do to-day. Yes, yes, that's how it is. I will confess to you, George, there was a night ... there were a few nights, when I was practically crushed by grief, by despair, by.... Other people would have taken it for remorse, but it was nothing of the kind. For amid all my grief, all my despair, I knew quite well that this death meant a kind of redemption, a kind of reconciliation, a kind of cleanness. If I had been weak or less vain ... as you no doubt regard it ... if she had been my mistress again, something far worse than that death would have happened for her as well ... loathing and anguish, rage and hate, would have crawled around our bed ... our memories would have rotted bit by bit—why, our love would have decomposed whilst its body was still alive. It had no right to be. It would have been a crime to have protracted the life of this love affair which was sick unto death, just as it is a crime—and what is more, will be regarded so in the future—to protract the life of a man who is doomed to a painful death. Any sensible doctor will tell you as much. And that is why I'm very far from reproaching myself. I don't want to justify myself before you or before any one else in the world, but that is just how it is. Ican'tfeel guilty. I often feel very bad, but that hasn't the least thing in the world to do with any consciousness of guilt."
"You went there just afterwards?" asked George.
"Yes, I went there. I even stood by when they lowered the coffin into the ground. Yes, I trained there with the mother." He stood by the window, quite in the darkness, and shook himself. "No, I shall never forget it. Besides, it is only a lie to say that people come together in a common sorrow. People never come together if they're not natural affinities. They feel even further away from each other in times of trouble. That journey! When I remember it! I read nearly the whole time, too. I found it positively intolerable to talk to the silly old creature. There is no one one hates more than some one who is quite indifferent to you and requires your sympathy. We stood together by her grave, too, the mother and I—I, the mother, and a few actors from the little theatre.... And afterwards I sat in the inn with her alone, after the funeral—atête-à-têtewake. A desperate business, I can tell you. Do you know, by-the-by, where she lies buried? By your lake, George. Yes. I have often found myself driven to think of you. You know of course where the churchyard is? Scarcely a hundred yards from Auhof. There's a delightful view on to our lake, George; of course, only if one happens to be alive."
George felt a slight horror. He got up. "I am afraid I must leave you, Heinrich. I am expected. You'll excuse me?"
Heinrich came up to him out of the darkness of the window. "Thank you very much for your visit. Well, to-morrow, isn't it? I suppose you are going to Anna now? Please give her my best wishes. I hear she is very well. Therese told me."
"Yes, she looks splendid. She has completely recovered."
"I'm very glad. Well, till to-morrow then. I'm extremely glad that I shall be able to see you again before you leave. You must still have all kinds of things to tell me. I've done nothing again but talk about myself."
George smiled. As though he hadn't grown used to this with Heinrich. "Good-bye," he said, and went.
Much of what Heinrich had said echoed in George's mind when he sat again in his fiacre. "We must see the flash of a dagger in order to realise that a murder has been committed." George felt that there was a kind of subterranean connection, but yet one which he had guessed for a long time, between the meaning of these words and a certain dull sense of discomfort which he had frequently felt in his own soul. He thought of a past hour when he had felt as though a gamble over his unborn child was going on in the clouds, and it suddenly struck him as strange that Anna had not yet spoken a word to him about the child's death, that she had even avoided in her letters any reference, not only to the final misfortune, but also to the whole period when she had carried the child under her bosom.
The conveyance approached its destination. Why is my heart beating? thought George. Joy?... Bad conscience?... Why to-day all of a sudden? She can't have any grievance against me.... What nonsense! I am run down and excited at the same time, that's what it is. I shouldn't have come here at all. Why have I seen all these people again? Wasn't I a thousand times better off in the little town where I had started a new life, in spite of all my longings?... I ought to have met Anna somewhere else. Perhaps she will come away with me.... Then everything will still come right in the end. But is anything wrong?... Are our relations really in a bad way? And is it a crime to prolong them?... That may be a convenient excuse on certain occasions.
When he went into Rosners' the mother, who was sitting alone at the table, looked up from her book and shut it with a snap. The light of a lamp that was swinging gently to and fro flowed from overhead on to the table, distributing itself equally in all directions. Josef got up from a corner of the sofa. Anna, who had just come out of her room, stroked her high wavy hair with both hands, welcomed George with a light nod of the head and gave him at this moment the impression of being rather an apparition than real flesh and blood. George shook hands with every one and inquired after Herr Rosner's health.
"He is not exactly bad," said Frau Rosner, "but he finds it difficult to stand up."
Josef apologised at being found sleeping on the sofa. He had to use the Sunday in order to rest himself. He was occupying a position on his paper which often kept him there till three o'clock in the morning.
"He is working very hard now," said his mother corroboratively.
"Yes," said Josef modestly, "when a fellow gets real scope, so to speak...." He went on to observe that theChristliche Volksbotewas enjoying a larger and larger circulation, particularly in Germany. He then addressed some questions to George about his new home, and showed a keen interest in the population, the condition of the roads, the popularity of cycling and the surrounding neighbourhood.
Frau Rosner, on her side, made polite inquiries about the composition of the repertoire. George supplied the information and a conversation was soon in progress, in which Anna also played a substantial part, and George found himself suddenly paying a visit to a middle-class and conventional family where the daughter of the house happened to be musical. The conversation finally finished up in George feeling himself bound to express a wish to hear the young lady sing once more—and he had as it were to pull himself together to realise that the woman whose voice he had asked to hear was really his own Anna.
Josef made his excuses; he was called away by an appointment with club friends in the café. "Do you still remember, Herr Baron ... the classy party on the Sophienalp?"
"Of course," replied George, smiling, and he quoted: "Der Gott, der Eisen wachsen liess...."
"Der wollte keine Knechte," added Josef. "But we have left off singing that now for a long time. It is too like the 'Watch on the Rhine,' and we don't want to have it cast in our teeth any more that we have a sneaking fancy for the other side of the frontier. We had great fights about it on the committee. One gentleman even sent in his resignation. He's a solicitor, you know, in the office of Doctor Fuchs, the National German Deputy. Yes, it's all politics, you know." He winked. They must not think, of course, that now that he himself had an insight into the machinery of public life he still took the swindle seriously. With the scarcely surprising remark that he could tell a tale or two if he wanted, he took his leave. Frau Rosner thought it time to go and look after her husband.
George sat alone with Anna, opposite her by the round table, over which the hanging lamp shed its light.
"Thank you for the beautiful roses," said Anna. "I have them inside in my room." She got up, and George followed her. He had quite forgotten that he had sent her any flowers. They were standing in a high glass in front of the mirror. They were dark red and their reflection was opaque and colourless. The piano was open, some music stood ready and two candles were burning at the side. Apart from that all the light in the room was what came from the adjoining apartment through the wide opening left by the door.
"You've been playing, Anna?" He came nearer. "The Countess's Aria? Been singing, too?"
"Yes—tried to."
"All right?"
"It is beginning to ... I think so. Well, we'll see. But first tell me what you have been doing all to-day."
"In a minute. We haven't welcomed each other at all so far." He embraced and kissed her.
"It is a long time since——" she said, smiling past him.
"Well?" he asked keenly, "are you coming with me?"
Anna hesitated. "But what do you really think of doing, George?"
"Quite simple. We can go away to-morrow afternoon. You can choose the place. Reichenau, Semmering, Brühl, anywhere you like.... And I'll bring you back in the morning the day after to-morrow." Something or other kept him back from mentioning the telegram which gave him three whole days to do what he liked with.
Anna looked in front of her. "It would be very nice," she said tonelessly, "but it really won't be possible, George."
"On account of your father?"
She nodded.
"But he is surely better, isn't he?"
"No, he is not at all well. He is so weak. They wouldn't of course reproach me directly in any way. But I ... I can't leave mother alone now, for that kind of excursion."
He shrugged his shoulders, feeling slightly wounded at the designation which she had chosen.
"Come, be frank," she added in a jesting manner. "Are you really so keen on it?"
He shook his head, almost as if in pain, but he felt that this gesture also was lacking in sincerity. "I don't understand you, Anna," he said, more weakly than he really meant. "To think that a few weeks of being away from each other, to think of ... well, I don't know what to call it.... It is as though we had got absolutely out of touch. It's really me, Anna, it's really me...." he repeated in a vehement but tired voice. He got up from the chair in front of the piano. He took her hands and put them to his lips, feeling nervous and somewhat moved.
"What wasTristanlike?" she inquired.
He gave her a conscientious account of the performance and did not leave out his visit to the Ehrenbergs' box. He spoke of all the people whom he had seen and conveyed to her Heinrich Bermann's wishes. He then drew her on to his knee and kissed her. When he removed his face from hers he saw tears running over her cheeks. He pretended to be surprised, "What's the matter, child?... But why, why...?"
She got up and went to the window with her face turned away from him.
He stood up too, feeling somewhat impatient, walked up and down the room once or twice, then went up to her, pressed her close to him, and then immediately began again in great haste: "Anna, just think it over and see if you really can't come with me! It would all be so different from what it is here. We could really talk things over thoroughly. We have got such important matters to discuss. I need your advice as well, about the plans I am to make for next year. I've written to you about it, haven't I? It is very probable, you see, that I shall be asked to sign a three years' contract in the next few days."
"What am I to advise you?" she said. "After all, you know best whether it suits you there or not."
He began to tell her about the kind and talented manager who clearly wished to have him for a collaborator; about the old and sympathetic conductor who had once been so famous; about a very diminutive stage-hand who was called Alexander the Great; about a young lady with whom he had studied the Micaela, and who was engaged to a Berlin doctor; and about a tenor, who had already been working at the theatre for twenty-seven years and hated Wagner violently. He then began to talk about his own personal prospects, artistic and financial. There was no doubt that he could soon attain an excellent and assured position at the little Court Theatre. On the other hand one had to bear in mind that it was dangerous to bind oneself for too long; a career like that of the old conductor would not be to his taste. Of course ... temperaments varied. He for his part believed himself safe from a fate like that.
Anna looked at him all the time, and finally said in a half jesting, half meditative tone, as though she were speaking to a child: "Yes, isn't he trying hard?"
The thrust went home. "In what way am I trying hard?"
"Look here, George, you don't owe me explanations of any kind."
"Explanations? But you are really.... Really, I'm not giving you any explanations, Anna. I'm simply describing to you how I live and what kind of people I have to deal with ... because I flatter myself that these things interest you, in the same way that I told you where I had been yesterday and to-day."
She was silent, and George felt again that she did not believe him, that she was justified in not believing him—even though now and again the truth happened to come from his lips. All kinds of words were on the tip of his tongue, words of wounded pride, of rage, of gentle persuasion—each seemed to him equally worthless and empty. He made no reply, sat down at the piano and gently struck some notes and chords. He now felt again as though he loved her very much and was simply unable to tell it her, and as though this hour of meeting would have been quite different if they had celebrated it elsewhere. Not in this room, not in this town; in a place, for preference, which they neither of them knew, in a new strange environment, yes, then perhaps everything would have been again just as it had been once before. Then they would have been able to have rushed into each other's arms—as once before, with real yearning, and found delight—and peace. The idea occurred to him: "If I were to say to her now 'Anna! Three days and three nights belong to us!' If I were to beg her ... with the right words.... Entreat her at her feet.... 'Come with me, come!'... She would not hold out long! She would certainly follow me...." He knew it. Why did he not speak the right words? Why did he not entreat her? Why was he silent, as he sat at the piano and gently struck notes and chords...? Why?... Then he felt her soft hand upon his head. His fingers lay heavy on the notes, some chord or other vibrated. He did not dare to turn round. She knows it, too, he felt. What does she know?... Is it true, then...? Yes ... it is true. And he thought of the hour after the birth of his dead child—when he had sat by her bed and she had lain there in silence, with her looks turned towards the gloomy garden.... She had known it even then—earlier than he—that all was over. And he lifted his hands from the piano, took hers, which were still lying on his head, guided them to his cheeks, drew her to him till she was again quite close, and she slowly dropped down on to his knees. And he began again, shyly: "Anna ... perhaps ... you could manage to.... Perhaps I too could manage for a few days' more leave if I were to telegraph. Anna dear ... just listen.... It would be really so beautiful...." A plan came to him from the very depths of his consciousness. If he really were to go travelling with her for some days, and were to take the opportunity honestly to say to her, "It must end, Anna, but the end of our love must be beautiful like the beginning was. Not dim and gloomy like these hours in your people's house...." If I were honestly to say that to her—somewhere in the country—would it not be more worthy of her and mine—and our past happiness...? And with this plan in his mind he grew more insistent, bolder, almost passionate.... And his words had the same ring again as they had had a long, long time ago.
Sitting on his knees, with her arms around his neck, she answered gently: "George, I am not—going to go through it another time...."
He already had a word upon his lips with which he could have dissipated her alarm. But he kept it back, for if put in so many words it would have simply meant that while he was thinking of course of living again a few hours of delight with her, he did not feel inclined to take any responsibility upon himself. He felt it. All he need say to avoid wounding her was this one thing: "You belong to me for ever!—You really must have a child by me—I'll fetch you at Christmas or Easter at the outside. And we will never be parted from each other any more." He felt the way in which she waited for these words with one last hope, with a hope in whose realisation she had herself ceased to believe. But he was silent. If he had said aloud the words she was yearning for he would have bound himself anew, and ... he now realised more deeply than he had ever realised before that he wanted to be free.
She was still resting on his knees, with her cheek leaning on his. They were silent for a long time and knew that this was the farewell. Finally George said resolutely: "Well, if you don't want to come with me, Anna, then I'll go straight back—to-morrow, and we'll see each other again in the spring. Until then there are only letters. Only in the event of my coming at Christmas if I can...."
She had got up and was leaning against the piano. "The boy's mad again," she said. "Isn't it really better if we don't see each other till after Easter?"
"Why better?"
"By then—everything will be so much clearer."
He tried to misunderstand her. "You mean about the contract?"
"Yes...."
"I must make up my mind in the next few weeks. The people want of course to know where they are. On the other hand, even if I did sign for three years, and other chances came along, they wouldn't keep me against my will. But up to the present it really seems to me that staying in that small town has been an extremely sound thing for me. I have never been able to work with such concentration as there. Haven't I written to you how I have often sat at my secretary after the theatre till three o'clock in the morning, and woken up fresh at eight o'clock after a sound sleep?"
She gazed at him all the time with a look at once pained and reflective, which affected him like a look of doubt. Had she not once believed in him! Had she not spoken those words of trust and tenderness to him in a twilight church: "I will pray to Heaven that you become a great artist"? He felt again as though she did not think anything like as much of him as in days gone by. He felt troubled and asked her uncertainly: "You'll allow me, of course, to send you my violin sonata as soon as it is finished? You know I don't value anybody else's criticism as much as I do yours." And he thought: If I could only just keep her as a friend ... or win her over again ... as a friend ... is it possible?
She said: "You have also spoken to me about a few new fantasies you have written just for the pianoforte."
"Quite right; but they are not yet quite ready. But there's another one which I ... which I ..." he himself found his hesitations foolish—"composed last summer by the lake where that poor girl was drowned, Heinrich's mistress you know, which you don't know yet either. Couldn't I ... I'll play it to you quite gently; would you like me to?"
She nodded and shut the door. There, just behind him, she stood motionless as he began.
And he played. He played the little piece with all its passionate melancholy which he had composed by that lake of his, when Anna and the child had been completely forgotten. It was a great relief to him that he could play it to her. She must be bound to understand the message of these notes. It was impossible for her not to understand. He heard himself as it were speaking in the notes; he felt as though it was only now that he understood himself. Farewell, my love, farewell. It was very beautiful. And now it is over ... farewell, my love.... We have lived through what was fated for both of us. And whatever the future may hold for me and for you we shall always mean something to each other which we can neither of us ever forget. And now my life goes another way.... And yours too. It must be over ... I have loved you. I kiss your eyes.... I thank you, you kind, gentle, silent one. Farewell, my love ... farewell.... The notes died away. He had not looked up from the keys while he was playing: he now turned slowly round. She stood behind him solemn and with lips which quivered slightly. He caught her hands and kissed them. "Anna, Anna ..." he exclaimed. He felt as if his heart would break.
"Don't quite forget me," she said softly.
"I'll write to you as soon as I'm there again."
She nodded.
"And you'll write to me, too, Anna ... everything ... everything ... you understand?"
She nodded again.
"And ... and ... I'll see you again early to-morrow."
She shook her head. He wanted to make some reply as though he were astonished—as if it were really a matter of course that he should see her again before his departure. She lightly lifted her hand as though requesting him to be silent. He stood up, pressed her to him, kissed her mouth, which was cool and did not answer his kiss, and left the room. She stayed behind standing with limp arms and shut eyes. He hurried down the stairs. He felt down below in the street as though he must go up again—and say to her: "But it's all untrue! That was not our goodbye. I really do love you. I belong to you. It can't be over...."
But he felt that he ought not to. Not yet. Perhaps to-morrow. She would not escape him between this evening and to-morrow morning ... and he rushed aimlessly about the empty streets as though in a slight delirium of grief and freedom. He was glad he had made no appointments with any one and could remain alone. He dined somewhere far off in an old low smoky inn in a silent corner while people from another world sat at the neighbouring tables, and it seemed to him that he was in a foreign town: lonely, a little proud of his loneliness and a little frightened of his pride.
The following day George was walking with Heinrich about noon through the avenues of the Dornbacher Park. An air which was heavy with thin clouds enveloped them, the sodden leaves crackled and slid underneath their feet, and through the shrubbery there glistened that very road on which they had gone the year before towards the reddish-yellow hill. The branches spread themselves out without stirring, as though oppressed by the distant sultriness of the greyish sun.
Heinrich was just describing the end of his drama, which had occurred to him yesterday. Ägidius had been landed on the island ready after his death-journey to undergo within seven days his foretold doom. The prince gives him his life. Ägidius does not take it and throws himself from the cliffs into the sea.
George was not satisfied: "Why must Ägidius die?" He did not believe in it.
Heinrich could not understand the necessity for any explanation at all. "Why, how can he go on living?" he exclaimed. "He was doomed to death. It was with his hand before his eyes that he lived the most splendid, the most glorious days that have ever been vouchsafed to man as the uncontrolled lord upon the ship, the lover of the Princess, the friend of the sages, singers and star-gazers, but always with the end before his eyes. All this richness would, so to speak, lose its point: why, his sublime and majestic expectation of his last minute would be bound to become transformed in Ägidius's memory into a ridiculous dupe's fear of death, if all this death-journey were to turn out in the end to be an empty joke. That's why he must die."
"Then you think it's true?" asked George, with even greater doubt than before. "I can't help it—I don't."
"That doesn't matter," replied Heinrich. "If you thought it true now, things would be too easy for me. But it would have become true as soon as the last syllable of my piece is written. Or...." He did not go on speaking. They walked up a meadow, and soon the expanse of the familiar valley spread out at their feet. The Sommerhaidenweg gleamed on the hill-slope on their right, on the other side hard by the forest the yellow-painted inn was visible with its red wooden terraces, and not far off was the little house with the dark grey gable. The town could be descried in an uncertain haze, the plain floated still further towards the heights and far in the distance loomed the pale low drawn outlines of the mountains. They now had to cross a broad highway and at last a footpath took them down over the fields and meadows. Remote on either side slumbered the forest.
George felt a presentiment of the yearning with which in the years to come, perhaps on the very next day, he would miss this landscape which had now ceased being his home.
At last they stood in front of the little house with the gable which George had wanted to see one last time. The door and windows were boarded up; battered by the weather, as though grown old before its time, it stood there and had no truck with the world.
"Well, so this is what is called saying goodbye," said George lightly. His look fell upon the clay figure in the middle of the faded flower-beds. "Funny," he said to Heinrich, "that I've always taken the blue boy for an angel. I mean I called him that, for I knew, of course, all the time what he looked like and that he was really a curly-headed boy with bare feet, tunic and girdle."
"You will swear a year from to-day," said Heinrich, "that the blue boy had wings."
George threw a glance up to the attic. He felt as though there existed a possibility of some one suddenly coming out on the balcony: perhaps Labinski who had paid him no visits since that dream; or he himself, the George von Wergenthin of days gone by; the George of that summer who had lived up there. Silly fancies. The balcony remained empty, the house was silent and the garden was deep asleep. George turned away disappointed. "Come," he said to Heinrich. They went and took the road to the Sommerhaidenweg.
"How warm it's grown!" said Heinrich, took off his overcoat and threw it over his shoulder, as was his habit.
George felt a desolate and somewhat arid sense of remembrance. He turned to Heinrich: "I'd prefer to tell you straight away. The affair is over."
Heinrich threw him a quick side-glance and then nodded, not particularly surprised.
"But," added George, with a weak attempt at humour, "you are earnestly requested not to think of the angel boy."
Heinrich shook his head seriously. "Thank you. You can dedicate the fable of the blue boy to Nürnberger."
"He's turned out right, once again," said George.
"He always turns out right, my dear George. One can positively never be deceived if one mistrusts everything in the world, even one's own scepticism. Even if you had married Anna he would have turned out right ... or at any rate you would have thought so. But at any rate I think ... you don't mind my saying so, I suppose ... it's sound that it's turned out like this."
"Sound? I've no doubt it is for me," replied George with intentional sharpness, as though he were very far from having any idea of sparing his conduct. "It was perhaps even a duty, in your sense of the term, Heinrich, which I owed to myself to bring it to an end."
"Then it was certainly equally your duty to Anna," said Heinrich.
"That remains to be seen. Who knows if I have not spoilt her life?"
"Her life? Do you still remember Leo Golowski saying about her that she was fated to finish up in respectable life? Do you think, George, that a marriage with you would have been particularly respectable? Anna was perhaps cut out to be your mistress—not your wife. Who knows if the fellow she is going to marry one day or other wouldn't really have every reason to be grateful to you if only men weren't so confoundedly silly? People only have pure memories when they have lived through something—this applies to women quite as much as men."
They walked further along the Sommerhaidenweg in the direction of the town, which towered out of the grey haze, and approached the cemetery.
"Is there really any point," asked George hesitatingly, "in visiting the grave of a creature that has never lived?"
"Does your child lie there?"
George nodded. His child! How strange it always sounded! They walked along the brown wooden palings above which rose the gravestones and crosses, and then followed a low brick wall to the entrance. An attendant of whom they inquired showed them the way over the wide centre path which was planted with willows. There were rows of little oval plates, each one with two short prongs stuck into the ground, on little mounds like sand-castles, close to the planks in a fairly large plot of ground. The mound for which George was looking lay in the middle of the field. Dark red roses lay on it. George recognised them. His heart stood still. What a good thing, he thought, that we didn't meet each other! Did she hope to, I wonder?
"There where the roses are?" asked Heinrich.
George nodded.
They remained silent for a while. "Isn't it a fact," asked Heinrich, "that during the whole time you never once thought of the possibility of its ending like this?"
"Never? I don't quite know. All kinds of possibilities run through one's mind. But of course I never seriously thought of it. Besides, how could one?" He told Heinrich, and not for the first time, of how the Professor had explained the child's death. It had been an unfortunate accident through which one to two per cent. of unborn children were bound to perish. As to why this accident should have taken place in this particular case, that, of course, the Professor had not been able to explain. But was accident anything more than a word? Was not even that accident bound to have its cause?
Heinrich shrugged his shoulders. "Of course.... One cause after the other and its final cause in the beginning of all things. We could of course prevent the happening of many so-called accidents if we had more perception, more knowledge and more power. Who knows if your child's death could not have been prevented at some moment or other?"
"And perhaps it may have been in my own power," said George slowly.
"I don't understand. Was there any premonitory symptom or...."
George stood there staring fixedly at the little mound. "I'll ask you something, Heinrich, but don't laugh at me. Do you think it possible that an unborn child can die from one not longing for it to come, in the way one ought to—dying, as it were, of too little love?"
Heinrich put his hand on his shoulder. "George, how does a sensible man like you manage to get hold of such metaphysical ideas?"
"You can call it whatever you like, metaphysical or silly; for some time past I haven't been able to shake off the thought that to some extent I bear the blame for it having ended like that."
"You?"
"If I said a minute ago that I did not long for it enough I didn't express myself properly. The truth is this: that I had quite forgotten that little creature that was to have come into the world. In the last few weeks immediately before its birth, especially, I had absolutely forgotten it. I can't put it any differently. Of course I knew all the time what was going to happen, but it didn't concern me, as it were. I went on with my life without thinking of it. Not the whole time, but frequently, and particularly in the summer by the lake, my lake as you call it ... then I was.... Yes, when I was there I simply knew nothing about my going to have a child."
"I've heard all about it," said Heinrich, looking past him.
George looked at him. "You know what I mean then? I was not only far away from the child, the unborn child, but from the mother too, and in so strange a way that with the best will in the world I can't describe it to you, can't even understand it myself to-day. And there are moments when I can't resist the thought that there must have been some connection between that forgetting and my child's death. Do you think anything like that so absolutely out of the question?"
Heinrich's forehead was furrowed deeply. "Quite out of the question? one can't go as far as that. The roots of things are often so deeply intertwined that we find it impossible to look right down to the bottom. Yes, perhaps there even are connections like that. But even if there are ... they are not for you, George! Even if such connections did exist they wouldn't count so far as you were concerned."
"Wouldn't count for me?"
"The whole idea which you just tell me, well, it doesn't fit in with my conception of you. It doesn't come out of your soul. Not a bit of it. An idea of that kind would never have occurred to you your whole life long if you hadn't been intimate with a person of my type, and if it hadn't been your way sometimes not to think your own thoughts but those of men who were stronger—or even weaker than you are. And I assure you, whatever turn your life may have taken even down by that lake, your lake ... our lake ... you haven't incurred any so-called guilt. It might have been guilt in the case of some one else. But with a man like you whose character—you don't mind my saying this—is somewhat frivolous and a little unconscientious there would certainly be no sense of guilt. Shall I tell you something? As a matter of fact you don't feel guilty about the child at all, but the discomfort which you feel only comes from your thinking yourself under an obligation to feel guilty. Look here, if I had gone through anything like your adventure I might perhaps have been guilty because I might possibly have felt myself guilty."
"Would you have been guilty in a case like mine, Heinrich?"
"No, perhaps I wouldn't. How can I know? You're probably now thinking of the fact that I recently drove a creature straight to her death and in spite of that felt, so to speak, quite guiltless."
"Yes, that's what I'm thinking of. And that's why I don't understand...."
Heinrich shrugged his shoulders. "Yes. I felt quite guiltless. Somewhere or other in my soul and somewhere else, perhaps deeper down, I felt guilty.... And deeper down still, guiltless again. The only question is how deep we look down into ourselves. And when we have lit the lights in all the storeys, why, we are everything at the same time: guilty and guiltless, cowards and heroes, fools and wise men. 'We'—perhaps that's putting it rather too generally. In your case, for example, George, there are far less of these complications, at any rate when you're outside the influence of the atmosphere which I sometimes spread around you. That's why, too, you are better off than I am—much better off. My look-out is ghastly, you know. You surely must have noticed it before. What's the good to me of the lights burning in all my storeys? What's the good to me of my knowledge of human nature and my splendid intelligence? Nothing.... Less than nothing. As a matter of fact there's nothing I should like better, George, than that all the ghastly events of the last months had not happened, just like a bad dream. I swear to you, George, I would give my whole future and God knows what if I could make it undone. But if it were undone ... then I should probably be quite as miserable as I am now."
His face became distorted as though he wanted to scream. But immediately afterwards he stood there again, stiff, motionless, pale, as though all his fire had gone out. And he said: "Believe me, George, there are moments when I envy the people with a so-called philosophy of life. As for me, whenever I want to have a decently ordered world I have always first got to create one for myself. That's rather a strain for any one who doesn't happen to be the Deity."
He sighed heavily. George left off answering him. He walked with him under the willows to the exit. He knew that there was no help for this man. It was fated that some time or other he should precipitate himself into the void from the top of a tower which he had circled up in spirals; and that would be the end of him. But George felt in good form and free. He made the resolve to use the three days which still belonged to him as sensibly as possible. The best thing to do was to be alone in some quiet beautiful country-side, to rest himself fully and recuperate for new work. He had taken the manuscript of the violin sonata with him to Vienna. He was thinking of finishing that before all others.
They crossed the doorway and stood in the street. George turned round, but the cemetery wall arrested his gaze. It was only after a few steps that he had a clear view of the valley. All he could do now was to guess where the little house with the grey gables was lying; it was no longer visible from here. Beyond the reddish-yellow hills which shut off the view of the landscape the sky sank down in the faint autumn light. A gentle farewell was taking place within George's soul of much happiness and much sorrow, the echoes of which he heard as it were in the valley which he was now leaving for a long time; and at the same time there was within his soul the greeting of days as yet unknown, which rang to his youth from out the wideness of the world.