Mary heard her own heart begin to beat. A hot flush rose into her face?

What was all that? What did it mean?

Such a look, such a smile, she had never seen in her life. And yet both seemed infinitely familiar to her. Thus a woman must look who—

She had no time to complete the thought, for a fit of coughing recalled her to Nathaniel.

A motion of his hand directed her to close the window and the shutters. It would have been better never to have opened them. Better for her, too, perhaps.

Then she sat down next to him and held his head until the paroxysm was over.

He sank back, utterly exhausted. His hand groped for hers. With abstracted caresses she touched his weary fingers.

Her thoughts dwelt with that white picture without. That poignant feeling of happiness that she had almost lost during the past few days, arose in her with a hitherto unknown might.

And now the sick man began to speak.

"You have always been good to me, Mary," he said. "You have always had patience with me."

"Ah, don't speak so," she murmured.

"And I wish I could say as full of assurance as you could before the throne of God: 'Father, I have been true to the duty which you have allotted to me.'"

Her hand quivered in his. A feeling of revulsion smothered the gentleness of their mood. His words had struck her as a reproach.

Fulfillment of duty! That was the great law to which all human kind was subject for the sake of God. This law had joined her hand to his, had accompanied her into the chastity of her bridal bed, and had kept its vigil through the years by her hearth and in her heart. And thus love itself had not been difficult to her, for it was commanded to her and consecrated before the face of God.

And he? He wished for nothing more, knew nothing more. Indeed, what lies beyond duty would probably have seemed burdensome to him, if not actually sinful.

But there was something more! She knew it now. She had seen it in that glance, moist with yearning, lost in the light.

There was something great and ecstatic and all-powerful, something before which she quailed like a child who must go into the dark, something that she desired with every nerve and fibre.

Her eye fastened itself upon the purple square of blotting paper which looked, in the light of the lamp, like glowing metal.

She did not know how long she had sat there. It might have been minutes or hours. Often enough the morning had caught her brooding thus.

The sick man's breath came with greater difficulty, his fingers grasped hers more tightly.

"Do you feel worse?" she asked.

"I am a little afraid," he said; "therefore, read me——"

He stopped, for he felt the quiver of her hand.

"You know, if you don't want to—" He was wounded in his wretched valetudinarian egotism, which was constantly on the scent of neglect.

"Oh, but I do want to; I want to do everything that might——"

She hurried to the table, pushed the glittering bottles aside, grasped the hymnal and read at random.

But she had to stop, for it was a prayer for rain that she had begun.

Then, as she was turning the leaves of the book, she heard the hall door of the next room open with infinite caution; she heard flying, trembling footsteps cross the room from the balcony.

"Chut!" whispered a trembling voice.

And the door closed as with a weary moan.

What was that?

A suspicion arose in her that brought the scarlet of shame into her cheek. The whispering next door began anew, passionate, hasty, half-smothered by anxiety and delight. Two voices were to be distinguished: a lighter voice which she knew, and a duller voice, broken into, now and then, by sonorous tones.

The letters dislimned before her eyes. The hymn-book slipped from her hands. In utter confusion she stared toward the door.

That really existed? Such things were possible in the world; possible among people garbed in distinction, of careful Christian training, to whom one looks up as to superior beings?

There was a power upon earth that could make the delicate, radiant, distinguished woman so utterly forget shame and dignity and womanliness, that she would open her door at midnight to a man who had not been wedded to her in the sight of God?

If that could happen, what was there left to cling to in this world? Where was one's faith in honour, fidelity, in God's grace and one's own human worth? A horror took hold of her so oppressive that she thought she must cry out aloud.

With a shy glance she looked at her husband. God grant that he hear nothing.

She was ashamed before him. She desired to call out, to sing, laugh, only to drown the noise of that whispering which assailed her ear like the wave of a fiery sea.

But no, he heard nothing.

His sightless eyes stared at the ceiling. He was busied with his breathing. His chest heaved and fell like a defective machine.

He didn't even expect her to read to him now. She went up to the bed and asked, listening with every nerve: "Do you want to sleep, Nathaniel?"

He lowered his eyelids in assent.

"Yes—read," he breathed.

"Shall I read softly?"

Again he assented.

"But read—don't sleep."

Fear flickered in his eyes.

"No, no," she stammered.

He motioned her to go now, and again became absorbed in the problem of breathing.

Mary took up the hymnal.

"You are to read a song of death," she said to herself, for her promise must be kept. And as though she had not understood her own admonition, she repeated: "You are to read a song of death."

But her hearing was morbidly alert, and while the golden figures on the book danced a ghostly dance before her eyes, she heard again what she desired to hear. It was like the whispering of the wind against a forbidden gate. She caught words:

"Je t'aime—follement—j'en mourrai—je t'adore—mon amour—mon amour."

Mary closed her eyes. It seemed to her again as though hot waves streamed over her. And she had lost shame, too.

For there was something in all that which silenced reproach, which made this monstrous deed comprehensible, even natural. If one was so mad with love, if one felt that one could die of it!

So that existed, and was not only the lying babble of romances?

And her spirit returned and compared her own experience of love with what she witnessed now.

She had shrunk pitifully from his first kiss. When he had gone, she had embraced her mother's knees, in fear and torment at the thought of following this strange man. And she remembered how, on the evening of her wedding, her mother had whispered into her ear, "Endure, my child, and pray to God, for that is the lot of woman." And it was that which, until to-day, she had called love.

Oh, those happy ones there, those happy ones!

"Mary," the hollow voice from the bed came.

She jumped up. "What?"

"You—don't read."

"I'll read; I'll read."

Her hands grovelled among the rough, sticky pages. An odour as of decaying foliage, which she had never noted before, came from the book. It was such an odour as comes from dark, ill-ventilated rooms, and early autumn and everyday clothes.

At last she found what she was seeking. "Kyrie eleison! Christe eleison! Dear God, Father in heaven, have mercy upon us!"

Her lips babbled what her eyes saw, but her heart and her senses prayed another prayer: "Father in Heaven, who art love and mercy, do not count for sin to those two that which they are committing against themselves. Bless their love, even if they do not desire Thy blessing. Send faithfulness into their hearts that they cleave to one another and remain grateful for the bliss which Thou givest them. Ah, those happy ones, those happy ones!"

Tears came into her eyes. She bent her face upon the yellow leaves of the book to hide her weeping. It seemed to her suddenly as though she understood the speech spoken in this land of eternal spring by sun and sea, by hedges of flowers and evergreen trees, by the song of birds and the laughter of man. The secret which she had sought to solve by day and by night lay suddenly revealed before her eyes.

In a sudden change of feeling her heart grew cold toward that sinful pair for which she had but just prayed. Those people became as strangers to her and sank into the mist. Their whispering died away as if it came from a great distance.

It was her own life with which she was now concerned. Gray and morose with its poverty stricken notion of duty, the past lay behind her. Bright and smiling a new world floated into her ken.

She had sworn to love him. She had cheated him. She had let him know want at her side.

Now that she knew what love was, she would reward him an hundred-fold. She, too, could love to madness, to adoration, to death. And she must love so, else she would die of famishment.

Her heart opened. Waves of tenderness, stormy, thunderous, mighty, broke forth therefrom.

Would he desire all that love? And understand it? Was he worthy of it? What did that matter?

She must give, give without measure and without reward, without thought and without will, else she would smother under all her riches.

And though he was broken and famished and mean of mind and wretched, a weakling in body and a dullard in soul; and though he lay there emaciated and gasping, a skeleton almost, moveless, half given over to dust and decay—what did it matter?

She loved him, loved him with that new and great love because he alone in all the world was her own. He was that portion of life and light and happiness which fate had given her.

She sprang up and stretched out her arms toward him.

"You my only one, my all," she whispered, folding her hands under her chin and staring at him.

His chest seemed quieter. He lay there in peace.

Weeping with happiness, she threw herself down beside him and kissed his hands. And then, as he took no notice of all that, a slow astonishment came over her. Also, she had an insecure feeling that his hand was not as usual.

Powerless to cry out, almost to breathe, she looked upon him. She felt his forehead; she groped for his heart. All was still and cold. Then she knew.

The bell—the waiters—the physician—to what purpose? There was no need of help here. She knelt down and wanted to pray, and make up for her neglect.

A vision arose before her: the widow's house at home; her mother; the tile oven; her old maidenish sisters rattling their wooden crocheting hooks—and she herself beside them, her blonde hair smoothed with water, a little riband at her breast, gazing out upon the frozen fields, and throttling, throttling with love. For he whom fate had given her could use her love no longer.

From the next room sounded the whispering, monotonous, broken, assailing her ears in glowing waves:

"J'en mourrai—je t'adore—mon amour."

That was his song of death. She felt that it was her own, too.



THE VICTIM

Madame Nelson, the beautiful American, had come to us from Paris, equipped with a phenomenal voice and solid Italian technique. She had immediately sung her way into the hearts of Berlin music-lovers, provided that you care to call a mixture of snobbishness, sophisticated impressionableness and goose-like imitativeness—heart. She had, therefore, been acquired by one of our most distinguished opera houses at a large salary and with long leaves of absence. I use the plural of opera house in order that no one may try to scent out the facts.

Now we had her, more especially our world of Lotharios had her. Not the younger sons of high finance, who make the boudoirs unsafe with their tall collars and short breeches; nor the bearers of ancient names who, having hung up their uniforms in the evening, assume monocle and bracelet and drag these through second and third-class drawing-rooms. No, she belonged to those worthy men of middle age, who have their palaces in the west end, whose wives one treats with infinite respect, and to whose evenings one gives a final touch of elegance by singing two or three songs for nothing.

Then she committed her first folly. She went travelling with an Italian tenor. "For purposes of art," was the official version. But the time for the trip—the end of August—had been unfortunately chosen. And, as she returned ornamented with scratches administered by the tenor's pursuing wife—no one believed her.

Next winter she ruined a counsellor of a legation and magnate's son so thoroughly that he decamped to an unfrequented equatorial region, leaving behind him numerous promissory notes of questionable value.

This poor fellow was revenged the following winter by a dark-haired Roumanian fiddler, who beat her and forced her to carry her jewels to a pawnshop, where they were redeemed at half price by their original donour and used to adorn the plump, firm body of a stupid little ballet dancer.

Of course her social position was now forfeited. But then Berlin forgets so rapidly. She became proper again and returned to her earlier inclinations for gentlemen of middle life with extensive palaces and extensive wives. So there were quite a few houses—none of the strictest tone, of course—that were very glad to welcome the radiant blonde with her famous name and fragrant and modest gowns—from Paquin at ten thousand francs a piece.

At the same time she developed a remarkable business instinct. Her connections with the stock exchange permitted her to speculate without the slightest risk. For what gallant broker would let a lovely woman lose? Thus she laid the foundation of a goodly fortune, which was made to assume stately proportions by a tour through the United States, and was given a last touch of solidity by a successful speculation in Dresden real estate.

Furthermore, it would be unjust to conceal the fact that her most recent admirer, the wool manufacturer Wormser, had a considerable share in this hurtling rise of her fortunes.

Wormser guarded his good repute carefully. He insisted that his illegitimate inclinations never lack the stamp of highest elegance. He desired that they be given the greatest possible publicity at race-meets and first nights. He didn't care if people spoke with a degree of rancour, if only he was connected with the temporary lady of his heart.

Now, to be sure, there was a Mrs. Wormser. She came of a good Frankfort family. Dowry: a million and a half. She was modern to the very tips of her nervous, restless fingers.

This lady was inspired by such lofty social ideals that she would have considered an inelegant liaison on her husband's part, an insult not only offered to good taste in general, but to her own in particular. Such an one she would, never have forgiven. On the other hand, she approved of Madame Nelson thoroughly. She considered her the most costly and striking addition to her household. Quite figuratively, of course. Everything was arranged with the utmost propriety. At great charity festivals the two ladies exchanged a friendly glance, and they saw to it that their gowns were never made after the same model.

Then it happened that the house of Wormser was shaken. It wasn't a serious breakdown, but among the good things that had to be thrown overboard belonged—at the demand of the helping Frankforters—Madame Nelson.

And so she waited, like a virgin, for love, like a man in the weather bureau, for a given star. She felt that her star was yet to rise.

This was the situation when, one day, Herr von Karlstadt had himself presented to her. He was a captain of industry; international reputation; ennobled; the not undistinguished son of a great father. He had not hitherto been found in the market of love, but it was said of him that notable women had committed follies for his sake. All in all, he was a man who commanded the general interest in quite a different measure from Wormser.

But artistic successes had raised Madame Nelson's name once more, too, and when news of the accomplished fact circulated, society found it hard to decide as to which of the two lent the other a more brilliant light, or which was the more to be envied.

However that was, history was richer by a famous pair of lovers.

But, just as there had been a Mrs. Wormser, so there was a Mrs. von Karlstadt.

And it is this lady of whom I wish to speak.

Mentally as well as physically Mara von Karlstadt did not belong to that class of persons which imperatively commands the attention of the public. She was sensitive to the point of madness, a little sensuous, something of an enthusiast, coquettish only in so far as good taste demanded it, and hopelessly in love with her husband. She was in love with him to the extent that she regarded the conquests which occasionally came to him, spoiled as he was, as the inevitable consequences of her fortunate choice. They inspired her with a certain woeful anger and also with a degree of pride.

The daughter of a great land owner in South Germany, she had been brought up in seclusion, and had learned only very gradually how to glide unconcernedly through the drawing-rooms. A tense smile upon her lips, which many took for irony, was only a remnant of her old diffidence. Delicate, dark in colouring, with a fine cameo-like profile, smooth hair and a tawny look in her near-sighted eyes—thus she glided about in society, and few but friends of the house took any notice of her.

And this woman who found her most genuine satisfaction in the peacefulness of life, who was satisfied if she could slip into her carriage at midnight without the annoyance of one searching glance, of one inquiring word, saw herself suddenly and without suspecting the reason, become the centre of a secret and almost insulting curiosity. She felt a whispering behind her in society; she saw from her box the lenses of many opera glasses pointing her way.

The conversation of her friends began to teem with hints, and into the tone of the men whom she knew there crept a kind of tender compassion which pained her even though she knew not how to interpret it.

For the present no change was to be noted in the demeanour of her husband. His club and his business had always kept him away from home a good deal, and if a few extra hours of absence were now added, it was easy to account for these in harmless ways, or rather, not to account for them at all, since no one made any inquiry.

Then, however, anonymous letters began to come—thick, fragrant ones with stamped coronets, and thin ones on ruled paper with the smudges of soiled fingers.

She burned the first batch; the second she handed to her husband.

The latter, who was not far from forty, and who had trained himself to an attitude of imperious brusqueness, straightened up, knotted his bushy Bismarck moustache, and said:

"Well, suppose it is true. What have you to lose?"

She did not burst into tears of despair; she did not indulge in fits of rage; she didn't even leave the room with quiet dignity; her soul seemed neither wounded nor broken. She was not even affrighted. She only thought: "I have forgiven him so much; why not forgive him this, too?"

And as she had shared him before without feeling herself degraded, so she would try to share him again.

But she soon observed that this logic of the heart would prove wanting in this instance.

In former cases she had concealed his weakness under a veil of care and considerateness. The fear of discovery had made a conscious but silent accessory of her. When it was all over she breathed deep relief at the thought; "I am the only one who even suspected."

This time all the world seemed invited to witness the spectacle.

For now she understood all that, in recent days had tortured her like an unexplained blot, an alien daub in the face which every one sees but he whom it disfigures. Now she knew what the smiling hints of her friends and the consoling desires of men had meant. Now she recognised the reason why she was wounded by the attention of all.

She was "the wife of the man whom Madame Nelson ..."

And so torturing a shame came upon her as though she herself were the cause of the disgrace with which the world seemed to overwhelm her.

This feeling had not come upon her suddenly. At first a stabbing curiosity had awakened in her a self-torturing expectation, not without its element of morbid attraction. Daily she asked herself: "What will develope to-day?"

With quivering nerves and cramped heart, she entered evening after evening, for the season was at its height, the halls of strangers on her husband's arm.

And it was always the same thing. The same glances that passed from her to him and from him to her, the same compassionate sarcasm upon averted faces, the same hypocritical delicacy in conversation, the same sudden silence as soon as she turned to any group of people to listen—the same cruel pillory for her evening after evening, night after night.

And if all this had not been, she would have felt it just the same.

And in these drawing-rooms there were so many women whose husbands' affairs were the talk of the town. Even her predecessor, Mrs. Wormser, had passed over the expensive immorality of her husband with a self-sufficing smile and a condescending jest, and the world had bowed down to her respectfully, as it always does when scenting a temperament that it is powerless to wound.

Why had this martyrdom come to her, of all people?

Thus, half against her own will, she began to hide, to refuse this or that invitation, and to spend the free evenings in the nursery, watching over the sleep of her boys and weaving dreams of a new happiness. The illness of her older child gave her an excuse for withdrawing from society altogether and her husband did not restrain her.

It had never come to an explanation between them, and as he was always considerate, even tender, and as sharp speeches were not native to her temper, the peace of the home was not disturbed.

Soon it seemed to her, too, as though the rude inquisitiveness of the world were slowly passing away. Either one had abandoned the critical condition of her wedded happiness for more vivid topics, or else she had become accustomed to the state of affairs.

She took up a more social life, and the shame which she had felt in appearing publicly with her husband gradually died out.

What did not die out, however, was a keen desire to know the nature and appearance of the woman in whose hands lay her own destiny. How did she administer the dear possession that fate had put in her power? And when and how would she give it back?

She threw aside the last remnant of reserve and questioned friends. Then, when she was met by a smile of compassionate ignorance, she asked women. These were more ready to report. But she would not and could not believe what she was told. He had surely not degraded himself into being one of a succession of moneyed rakes. It was clear to her that, in order to soothe her grief, people slandered the woman and him with her.

In order to watch her secretly, she veiled heavily and drove to the theatre where Madame Nelson was singing. Shadowlike she cowered in the depths of a box which she had rented under an assumed name and followed with a kind of pained voluptuousness the ecstasies of love which the other woman, fully conscious of the victorious loveliness of her body, unfolded for the benefit of the breathless crowd.

With such an abandoned raising of her radiant arms, she threw herself upon his breast; with that curve of her modelled limbs, she lay before his knees.

And in her awakened a reverent, renouncing envy of a being who had so much to give, beside whom she was but a dim and poor shadow, weary with motherhood, corroded with grief.

At the same time there appeared a California mine owner, a multi-millionaire, with whom her husband had manifold business dealings. He introduced his daughters into society and himself gave a number of luxurious dinners at which he tried to assemble guests of the most exclusive character.

Just as they were about to enter a carriage to drive to the "Bristol," to one of these dinners, a message came which forced Herr von Karlstadt to take an immediate trip to his factories. He begged his wife to go instead, and she did not refuse.

The company was almost complete and the daughter of the mine owner was doing the honours of the occasion with appropriate grace when the doors of the reception room opened for the last time and through the open doorway floated rather than walked—Madame Nelson.

The petrified little group turned its glance of inquisitive horror upon Mrs. von Karlstadt, while the mine owner's daughter adjusted the necessary introductions with a grand air.

Should she go or not? No one was to be found who would offer her his arm. Her feet were paralysed. And she remained.

The company sat down at table. And since fate, in such cases, never does its work by halves, it came to pass that Madame Nelson was assigned to a seat immediately opposite her.

The people present seemed grateful to her that they had not been forced to witness a scene, and overwhelmed her with delicate signs of this gratitude. Slowly her self-control returned to her. She dared to look about her observantly, and, behold, Madame Nelson appealed to her.

Her French was faultless, her manners equally so, and when the Californian drew her into the conversation, she practised the delicate art of modest considerateness to the extent of talking past Mrs. von Karlstadt in such a way that those who did not know were not enlightened and those who knew felt their anxiety depart.

In order to thank her for this alleviation of a fatally painful situation, Mrs. von Karlstadt occasionally turned perceptibly toward the singer. For this Madame Nelson was grateful in her turn. Thus their glances began to meet in friendly fashion, their voices to cross, the atmosphere became less constrained from minute to minute, and when the meal was over the astonished assembly had come to the conclusion that Mrs. von Karlstadt was ignorant of the true state of affairs.

The news of this peculiar meeting spread like a conflagration. Her women friends hastened to congratulate her on her strength of mind; her male friends praised her loftiness of spirit. She went through the degradation which she had suffered as though it were a triumph. Only her husband went about for a time with an evil conscience and a frowning forehead.

Months went by. The quietness of summer intervened, but the memory of that evening rankled in her and blinded her soul. Slowly the thought arose in her which was really grounded in vanity, but looked, in its execution, like suffering love—the thought that she would legitimise her husband's irregularity in the face of society.

Hence when the season began again she wrote a letter to Madame Nelson in which she invited her, in a most cordial way, to sing at an approaching function in her home. She proffered this request, not only in admiration of the singer's gifts, but also, as she put it, "to render nugatory a persistent and disagreeable rumour."

Madame Nelson, to whom this chance of repairing her fair fame was very welcome, had the indiscretion to assent, and even to accept the condition of entire secrecy in regard to the affair.

The chronicler may pass over the painful evening in question with suitable delicacy of touch. Nothing obvious or crass took place. Madame Nelson sang three enchanting songs, accompanied by a first-rate pianist. A friend of the house of whom the hostess had requested this favour took Madame Nelson to the buffet. A number of guileless individuals surrounded that lady with hopeful adoration. An ecstatic mood prevailed. The one regrettable feature of the occasion was that the host had to withdraw—as quietly as possible, of course—on account of a splitting head-ache.

Berlin society, which felt wounded in the innermost depth of its ethics, never forgave the Karlstadts for this evening. I believe that in certain circles the event is still remembered, although years have passed.

Its immediate result, however, was a breach between man and wife. Mara went to the Riviera, where she remained until spring.

An apparent reconciliation was then patched up, but its validity was purely external.

Socially, too, things readjusted themselves, although people continued to speak of the Karlstadt house with a smile that asked for indulgence.

Mara felt this acutely, and while her husband appeared oftener and more openly with his mistress, she withdrew into the silence of her inner chambers.

* * * * *

Then she took a lover.

Or, rather, she was taken by him.

A lonely evening ... A fire in the chimney ... A friend who came in by accident ... The same friend who had taken care of Madame Nelson for her on that memorable evening ... The fall of snow without ... A burst of confidence ... A sob ... A nestling against the caressing hand ... It was done ...

Months passed. She experienced not one hour of intoxication, not one of that inner absolution which love brings. It was moral slackness and weariness that made her yield again....

Then the consequences appeared.

Of course, the child could not, must not, be born. And it was not born. One can imagine the horror of that tragic time: the criminal flame of sleepless nights, the blood-charged atmosphere of guilty despair, the moans of agony that had to be throttled behind closed doors.

What remained to her was lasting invalidism.

The way from her bed to an invalid's chair was long and hard.

Time passed. Improvements came and gave place to lapses in her condition. Trips to watering-places alternated with visits to sanatoriums.

In those places sat the pallid, anaemic women who had been tortured and ruined by their own or alien guilt. There they sat and engaged in wretched flirtations with flighty neurasthenics.

And gradually things went from bad to worse. The physicians shrugged their friendly shoulders.

And then it happened that Madame Nelson felt the inner necessity of running away with a handsome young tutor. She did this less out of passion than to convince the world—after having thoroughly fleeced it—of the unselfishness of her feelings. For it was her ambition to be counted among the great lovers of all time.

* * * * *

One evening von Karlstadt entered the sick chamber of his wife, sat down beside her bed and silently took her hand. She was aware of everything, and asked with a gentle smile upon her white lips:

"Be frank with me: did you love her, at least?"

He laughed shrilly. "What should have made me love this—business lady?"

They looked at each other long. Upon her face death had set its seal. His hair was gray, his self-respect broken, his human worth squandered....

And then, suddenly, they clung to each other, and leaned their foreheads against each other, and wept.



AUTUMN



Chapter I.

It was on a sunny afternoon in October. Human masses streamed through the alleys of the Tiergarten. With the desperate passion of an ageing woman who feels herself about to be deserted, the giant city received the last caresses of summer. A dotted throng that was not unlike the chaos of the Champs Elysees, filled the broad, gray road that leads to Charlottenburg.

Berlin, which cannot compete with any other great European city, as far as the luxury of vehicular traffic is concerned, seemed to have sent out to-day all it possessed in that kind. The weather was too beautiful for closed coupes, and hence the comfortable family landau was most in evidence. Only now and then did an elegant victoria glide along, or an aristocratic four-in-hand demand the respectful yielding of the crowd.

A dog-cart of dark yellow, drawn by a magnificent trotter, attracted the attention of experts. The noble animal, which seemed to feel the security of the guiding hand, leaned, snorting, upon its bit. With far out-reaching hind legs, it flew along, holding its neck moveless, as became a scion of its race.

The man who drove was sinewy, tall, about forty, with clear, gray eyes, sharply cut profile and a close-clipped moustache. In his thin, brownish cheeks were several deep scars, and between the straight, narrow brows could be seen two salient furrows.

His attire—an asphalt-gray, thick-seamed overcoat, a coloured shirt and red gloves—did not deny the sportsman. His legs, which pressed against the footboard, were clad in tight, yellow riding boots.

Many people saluted him. He returned their salutations with that careless courtesy which belongs to those who know themselves to have transcended the judgment of men.

If one of his acquaintances happened to be accompanied by a lady, he bowed deeply and respectfully, but without giving the ladies in question a single glance.

People looked after him and mentioned his name: Baron von Stueckrath.

Ah, that fellow ...

And they looked around once more.

At the square of the Great Star he turned to the left, drove along the river, passed the well-known resort called simply The Tents, and stopped not far from the building of the general staff of the army and drew up before a large distinguished house with a fenced front garden and cast-iron gate to the driveway.

He threw the reins to the groom, who sat statuesquely behind him, and said: "Drive home."

Jumping from the cart, he observed the handle of the scraper sticking in the top of one of his boots. He drew it out, threw it on the seat, and entered the house.

The janitor, an old acquaintance, greeted him with the servile intimacy of the tip-expecting tribe.

On the second floor he stopped and pulled the bell whose glass knob glittered above a neat brass plate.

"Ludovika Kraissl," was engraved upon it.

A maid, clad with prim propriety in a white apron and white lace cap, opened the door.

He entered and handed her his hat.

"Is Madame at home?"

"No, sir."

He looked at her through half-closed lids, and observed how her milk-white little madonna's face flushed to the roots of her blonde hair.

"Where did she go?"

"Madame meant to go to the dressmaker," the girl stuttered, "and to make some purchases." She avoided his eyes. She had been in service only three months and had not yet perfected herself in lying.

He whistled a tune between his set teeth and entered the drawing-room.

A penetrating perfume streamed forth.

"Open the window, Meta."

She passed noiselessly through the room and executed his command.

Frowning, he looked about him. The empty pomp of the light woman offended his taste. The creature who lived here had a gift for filling every corner with banal and tasteless trivialities.

When he had turned over the flat to her it had been a charming little place, full of delicate tints and the simple lines of Louis Seize furniture. In a few years she had made a junk shop of it.

"Would you care for tea, sir, or anything else?" the girl asked.

"No, thank you. Pull off my boots, Meta. I'll change my dress and then go out again."

Modestly, almost humbly, she bowed before him and set his spurred foot gently on her lap. Then she loosened the top straps. He let his glance rest, well pleased, upon her smooth, silvery blonde hair.

How would it work if he sent his mistress packing and installed this girl in her place?

But he immediately abandoned the thought. He had seen the thing done by some of his friends. In a single year the chastest and most modest servant girl was so thoroughly corrupted that she had to be driven into the streets.

"We men seem to emit a pestilential air," he reflected, "that corrupts every woman."

"Or at least men of my kind," he added carefully.

"Have you any other wishes, sir?" asked the girl, daintily wiping her hands on her apron.

"No, thank you."

She turned to the door.

"One thing more, Meta. When did Madame say she would be back?"

Her face was again mantled with blood.

"She didn't say anything definite. I was to make her excuses. She intended to return home by evening, at all events."

He nodded and the girl went with a sigh of relief, gently closing the door behind her.

He continued to whistle, and looked up at a hanging lamp, which defined itself against the window niche by means of a wreath of gay artificial flowers.

In this hanging lamp, which hung there unnoticed and unreachable from the floor, he had, a year ago, quite by accident, discovered a store of love letters. His mistress had concealed them there since she evidently did not even consider the secret drawer of her desk a sufficiently safe repository.

He had carefully kept the secret of the lamp to himself, and had only fed his grim humour from time to time by observing the changes of her heart by means of added missives. In this way he had been able to observe the number of his excellent friends with whom she deceived him.

Thus his contempt for mankind assumed monstrous proportions, but this contempt was the one emotional luxury which his egoism was still capable of.

He grasped a chair and seemed, for a moment about to mount to the lamp to inspect her latest history. But he let his hand fall. After all, it was indifferent with whom she was unfaithful to-day....

And he was tired. A bad day's work lay behind him. A three-year-old full-blooded horse, recently imported from Hull, had proven itself abnormally sensitive and had brought him to the verge of despair by its fearfulness and its moods. He had exercised it for hours, and had only succeeded in making the animal more nervous than before. Great sums were at stake if the fault should prove constitutional and not curable.

He felt the impulse to share his worries with some one, but he knew of no one. From the point of view of Miss Ludi's naive selfishness, it was simply his duty to be successful. She didn't care for the troublesome details. At his club, again, each one was warily guarding his own interests. Hence it was necessary there to speak carefully, since an inadvertent expression might affect general opinion.

He almost felt impelled to call in the maid and speak to her of his worries.

Then his own softness annoyed him.

It was his wont to pass through life in lordly isolation and to astonish the world by his successes. That was all he needed.

Yawning he stretched himself out on the chaise longue. Time dragged.

Three hours would pass until Ludi's probable return. He was so accustomed to the woman's society that he almost longed for her. Her idle chatter helped him. Her little tricks refreshed him. But the most important point was this: she was no trouble. He could caress her or beat her, call to her and drive her from him like a little dog. He could let her feel the full measure of his contempt, and she would not move a muscle. She was used to nothing else.

He passed two or three hours daily in her company, for time had to be killed somehow. Sometimes, too, he took her to the circus or the theatre. He had long broken with the families of his acquaintance and could appear in public with light women.

And yet he felt a sharp revulsion at the atmosphere that surrounded him. A strange discomfort invaded his soul in her presence. He didn't feel degraded. He knew her to be a harlot. But that was what he wanted. None but such an one would permit herself to be so treated. It was rather a disguised discouragement that held him captive.

Was life to pass thus unto the very end? Was life worth living, if it offered a favourite of fortune, a master of his will and of his actions, nothing better than this?

"Surely I have the spleen," he said to himself, sprang up, and went into the next room to change his clothes. He had a wardrobe in Ludi's dressing room in order to be able to go out from here in the evening unrestrainedly.



Chapter II.

It was near four o'clock.

The sun laughed through the window. Its light was deep purple, changing gradually to violet. Masses of leaves, red as rust, gleamed over from the Tiergarten. The figure of Victory upon the triumphal column towered toward heaven like a mighty flame.

He felt an impulse to wander through the alleys of the park idly and aimlessly, at most to give a coin to a begging child.

He left the house and went past the Moltke monument and the winding ways that lead to the Charlottenburg road.

The ground exhaled the sweetish odour of decaying plants. Rustling heaps of leaves, which the breezes of noon had swept together, flew apart under his tread. The westering sun threw red splotches of light on the faint green of the tree trunks that exuded their moisture in long streaks.

Here it was lonely. Only beyond the great road, whose many-coloured pageant passed by him like a kinematograph, did he hear again in the alleys the sounds of children's voices, song and laughter.

In the neighbourhood of the Rousseau Island he met a gentleman whom he knew and who had been a friend of his youth. Stout of form, his round face surrounded by a close-clipped beard, he wandered along, leading two little girls in red, while a boy in a blue sailor suit rode ahead, herald-like, on his father's walking-stick.

The two men bowed to each other coolly, but without ill-will. They were simply estranged. The busy servant of the state and father of a family was scarcely to be found in those circles were the daily work consists in riding and betting and gambling.

Stueckrath sat down on a bench and gazed after the group. The little red frocks gleamed through the bushes, and Papa's admonishing and restraining voice was to be heard above the noise of the boy who made a trumpet of his hollow hand.

"Is that the way happiness looks?" he asked himself. "Can a man of energy and action find satisfaction in these banal domesticities?"

And strangely enough, these fathers of families, men who serve the state and society, who occupy high offices, make important inventions and write good books—these men have red cheeks and laughing eyes. They do not look as though the burden which they carry squeezes the breath of life out of them. They get ahead, in spite of the childish hands that cling to their coats, in spite of the trivialities with which they pass their hours of leisure.

An indeterminate feeling of envy bored into his soul. He fought it down and went on, right into the throng that filled the footpaths of the Tiergarten. Groups of ladies from the west end went by him in rustling gowns of black. He did not know them and did not wish to know them.

Here, too, he recognized fewer of the men. The financiers who have made this quarter their own appear but rarely at the races.

Accompanying carriages kept pace with the promenaders in order to explain and excuse their unusual exertion. For in this world the continued absence of one's carriage may well shake one's credit.

The trumpeting motor-cars whirred by with gleaming brasses. Of the beautiful women in them, little could be seen in the swift gleams. It was the haste of a new age that does not even find time to display its vanity.

Upon the windows of the villas and palaces opposite lay the iridescent glow of the evening sun. The facades took on purple colours, and the decaying masses of vines that weighed heavily upon the fences seemed to glow and shine from within with the very phosphorescence of decay.

Flooded by this light, a slender, abnormally tall girl came into Stueckrath's field of vision. She led by the arm an aged lady, who hobbled with difficulty along the pebbly path. A closed carriage with escutcheon and coronet followed the two slowly.

He stopped short. An involuntary movement had passed through his body, an impulse to turn off into one of the side paths. But he conquered himself at once, and looked straight at the approaching ladies.

Like a mere line of blackness, thin of limb and waist, attired with nun-like austerity in garments that hung as if withering upon her, she stood against the background of autumnal splendour.

Now she recognised him, too. A sudden redness that at once gave way to lifeless pallor flashed across her delicate, stern face.

They looked straight into each other's eyes.

He bowed deeply. She smiled with an effort at indifference.

"And so she is faded, too," he thought. To be sure, her face still bore the stamp of a simple and severe beauty, but time and grief had dealt ungently with it. The lips were pale and anaemic, two or three folds, sharp as if made with a knife, surrounded them. About the eyes, whose soft and lambent light of other days had turned into a hard and troubled sharpness, spread concentric rings, united by a net-work of veins and wrinkles.

He stood still, lost in thought, and looked after her.

She still trod the earth like a queen, but her outline was detestable.

Only hopelessness bears and attires itself thus.

He calculated. She must be thirty-six. Thirteen years ago he had known her and—loved her? Perhaps....

At least he had left her the evening before their formal betrothal was to take place because her father had dared to remark upon his way of life.

He loved his personal liberty more than his beautiful and wealthy betrothed who clung to him with every fibre of her delicate and noble soul. One word from her, had it been but a word of farewell, would have recalled him. That word remained unspoken.

Thus her life's happiness had been wrecked. Perhaps his, too. What did it matter?

Since then he had nothing but contempt for the daughters of good families. Other women were less exacting; they did not attempt to circumscribe his freedom.

He gazed after her long. Now groups of other pedestrians intervened; now her form reappeared sharp and narrow against the trees. From time to time she stooped lovingly toward the old lady, who, as is the wont of aged people, trod eagerly and fearfully.

This fragile heap of bones, with the dull eyes and the sharp voice—he remembered the voice well: it had had part in his decision. This strange, unsympathetic, suspicious old woman, he would have had to call "Mother."

What madness! What hypocrisy!

And yet his hunger for happiness, which had not yet died, reminded him of all that might have been.

A sea of warm, tender and unselfish love would have flooded him and fructified and vivified the desert of his soul. And instead of becoming withered and embittered, she would have blossomed at his side more richly from day to day.

Now it was too late. A long, thin, wretched little creature—she went her way and was soon lost in the distance.

But there clung to his soul the yearning for a woman—one who had more of womanliness than its name and its body, more than the harlot whom he kept because he was too slothful to drive her from him.

He sought the depths of his memory. His life had been rich in gallant adventures. Many a full-blooded young woman had thrown herself at him, and had again vanished from his life under the compulsion of his growing coldness.

He loved his liberty. Even an unlawful relation felt like a fetter so soon as it demanded any sacrifice of time or interests. Also, he did not like to give less than he received. For, since the passing of his unscrupulous youth, he had not cared to receive the gift of a human destiny only to throw it aside as his whim demanded.

And therefore his life had grown quiet during the last few years.

He thought of one of his last loves ... the very last ... and smiled.

The image of a delicately plump brunette little woman, with dreamy eyes and delicious little curls around her ears, rose up before him. She dwelt in his memory as she had seemed to him: modest, soulful, all ecstatic yielding and charming simple-heartedness.

She did not belong to society. He had met her at a dinner given by a financial magnate. She was the wife of an upper clerk who was well respected in the business world. With adoring curiosity, she peeped into the great strange world, whose doors opened to her for the first time.

He took her to the table, was vastly entertained by the lack of sophistication with which she received all these new impressions, and smilingly accepted the undisguised adoration with which she regarded him in his character of a famous horseman and rake.

He flirted with her a bit and that turned her head completely. In lonely dreams her yearning for elegant and phantastic sin had grown to enormity. She was now so wholly and irresistibly intoxicated that he received next morning a deliciously scribbled note in which she begged him for a secret meeting—somewhere in the neighbourhood of the Arkona Place or Weinmeisterstrasse, regions as unknown to him as the North Cape or Yokohama.

Two or three meetings followed. She appeared, modest, anxious and in love, a bunch of violets for his button-hole in her hand, and some surprise for her husband in her pocket.

Then the affair began to bore him and he refused an appointment.

One evening, during the last days of November, she appeared, thickly veiled, in his dwelling, and sank sobbing upon his breast. She could not live without seeing him; she was half crazed with longing; he was to do with her what he would. He consoled her, warmed her, and kissed the melting snow from her hair. But when in his joy at what he considered the full possession of a jewel his tenderness went beyond hers, her conscience smote her. She was an honest woman. Horror and shame would drive her into her grave if she went hence an adulteress. He must have pity on her and be content with her pure adoration.

He had the requisite pity, dismissed her with a paternal kiss upon her forehead, but at the same time ordered his servant to admit her no more.

Then came two or three letters. In her agony over the thought of losing him, she was willing to break down the last reserve. But he did not answer the letters.

At the same time the thought came to him of going up the Nile in a dahabiyeh. He was bored and had a cold.

On the evening of his departure he found her waiting in his rooms.

"What do you want?"

"Take me along."

"How do you know?"

"Take me along."

She said nothing else.

The necessity of comforting her was clear. A thoroughgoing farewell was celebrated, with the understanding that it was a farewell forever.

The pact had been kept. After his return and for two years more she had given no sign of life. He now thought of this woman. He felt a poignant longing for the ripe sweetness of her oval face, the veiled depth of her voice. He desired once more to be embraced by her firm arms, to be kissed by her mad, hesitating lips.

Why had he dropped her? How could he have abandoned her so rudely?

The thought came into his head of looking her up now, in this very hour.

He had a dim recollection of the whereabouts of her dwelling. He could soon ascertain its exact situation.

Then again the problems of his racing stable came into his head. The thought of "Maidenhood," the newly purchased horse, worried him. He had staked much upon one throw. If he lost, it would take time to repair the damage.

Suddenly he found himself in a tobacconist's shop, looking for her name in the directory. Friedrich-Wilhelm Strasse was the address. Quite near, as he had surmised.

He was not at loss for an excuse. Her husband must still be in his office at this hour. He would not be asked for any very strict accounting for his action. At worst there was an approaching riding festival, for which he could request her cooperation.

Perhaps she had forgotten him and would revenge herself for her humiliation. Perhaps she would be insulted and not even receive him. At best he must count upon coldness, bitter truths and that appearance of hatred which injured love assumes.

What did it matter? She was a woman, after all.

The vestibule of the house was supported by pillars; its walls were ornately stuccoed; the floor was covered with imitation oriental rugs. It was the rented luxury with which the better middle-class loves to surround itself.

He ascended three flights of stairs.

An elderly servant in a blue apron regarded the stranger suspiciously.

He asked for her mistress.

She would see. Holding his card gingerly, she disappeared.

Now he would see....

Then, as he bent forward, listening, he heard through the open door a cry—not of horrified surprise, but of triumph and jubilation, such a cry of sudden joy as only a long and hopeless and unrestrainable yearning can send forth.

He thought he had heard wrong, but the smiling face of the returning servant reassured him.

He was to be made welcome.



Chapter III.

He entered. With outstretched hands, tears in her eyes, her face a-quiver with a vain attempt at equanimity—thus she came forward to meet him.

"There you are ... there you are ... you...."

Overwhelmed and put to shame by her forgiveness and her happiness, he stood before her in silence.

What could he have said to her that would not have sounded either coarse or trivial?

And she demanded neither explanation nor excuse.

He was here—that was enough for her.

As he let his glance rest upon her, he confessed that his mental image of her fell short of the present reality.

She had grown in soul and stature. Her features bore signs of power and restraint, and of a strong inner tension. Her eyes sought him with a steady light; in her bosom battled the pent-up joy.

She asked him to be seated. "In that corner," she said, and led him to a tiny sofa covered with glittering, light-green silk, above which hung a withered palm-leaf fan.

"I have sat there so often," she went on, "so often, and have thought of you, always—always. You'll drink tea, won't you?"

He was about to refuse, but she interrupted him.

"Oh, but you must, you must. You can't refuse! It has been my dream all this time to drink tea with you here just once—just once. To serve you on this little table and hand you the basket with cakes! Do you see this little lacquer table, with the lovely birds of inlaid mother-of-pearl? I had that given to me last Christmas for the especial purpose of serving you tea on it. For I said to myself: 'He is accustomed to the highest elegance.' And you are here and are going to refuse? No, no, that's impossible. I couldn't bear that."

And she flew to the door and called out her orders to the servant.

He regarded her in happy astonishment. In all her movements there was a rhythm of unconscious loveliness, such as he had rarely seen in any woman. With simple, unconscious elegance, her dress flowed about her taller figure, whose severe lines were softened by the womanly curves of her limbs. And all that belonged to him.

He could command this radiant young body and this radiant young soul. All that was one hunger to be possessed by him.

"Bind her to yourself," cried his soul, "and build yourself a new happiness!"

Then she returned. She stopped a few paces from him, folded her hands under her chin, gazed at him wide-eyed and whispered: "There he is! There he is!"

He grew uncomfortable under this expense of passion.

"I should wager that I sit here with a foolish face," he thought.

"But now I'm going to be sensible," she went on, sitting down on a low stool that stood next to the sofa. "And while the tea is steeping you must tell me how things have gone with you all this long time. For it is a very long time since ... Ah, a long time...."

It seemed to him that there was a reproach behind these words. He gave but a dry answer to her question, but threw the more warmth into his inquiries concerning her life.

She laughed and waved her hand.

"Oh, I!" she cried. "I have fared admirably. Why should I not? Life makes me as happy as though I were a child. Oh, I can always be happy.... That's characteristic of me. Nearly every day brings something new and usually something delightful.... And since I've been in love with you.... You mustn't take that for a banal declaration of passion, dear friend.... Just imagine you are merely my confidant, and that I'm telling you of my distant lover who takes little notice of a foolish woman like myself. But then, that doesn't matter so long as I know that he is alive and can fear and pray for him; so long as the same morning sun shines on us both. Why, do you know, it's a most delicious feeling, when the morning is fair and the sun golden and one may stand at the window and say: 'Thank God, it is a beautiful day for him.'"

He passed his hand over his forehead.

"It isn't possible," he thought. "Such things don't exist in this world."

And she went on, not thinking that perhaps he, too, would want to speak.

"I don't know whether many people have the good fortune to be as happy as I. But I am, thank God. And do you know, the best part of it all and the sunniest, I owe to you. For instance: Summer before last we went to Heligoland, last summer to Schwarzburg.... Do you know it? Isn't it beautiful? Well, for instance: I wake up; I open my eyes to the dawn. I get up softly, so as not to disturb my husband, and go on my bare feet to the window. Without, the wooded mountains lie dark and peaceful. There is a peace over it all that draws one's tears ... it is so beautiful ... and behind, on the horizon, there shines a broad path of gold. And the fir-trees upon the highest peaks are sharply defined against the gold, like little men with many outstretched arms. And already the early piping of a few birds is heard. And I fold my hands and think: I wonder where he is.... And if he is asleep, has he fair dreams? Ah, if he were here and could see all this loveliness. And I think of him with such impassioned intensity that it is not hard to believe him here and able to see it all. And at last a chill comes up, for it is always cool in the mountains, as you know.... And then one slips back into bed, and is annoyed to think that one must sleep four hours more instead of being up and thinking of him. And when one wakes up for a second time, the sun throws its golden light into the windows, and the breakfast table is set on the balcony. And one's husband has been up quite a while, but waits patiently. And his dear, peaceful face is seen through the glass door. At such moments one's heart expands in gratitude to God who has made life so beautiful and one can hardly bear one's own happiness—and—there is the tea."

The elderly maid came in with a salver, which she placed on the piano, in order to set the little table properly. A beautiful napkin of damask silk lay ready. The lady of the house scolded jestingly. It would injure the polish of the piano, and what was her guest to think of such shiftlessness.

The maid went out.

She took up the tea-kettle, and asked in a voice full of bliss.

"Strong or weak, dear master?"

"Strong, please."

"One or two lumps of sugar?"

"Two lumps, please."

She passed him the cup with a certain solemnity.

"So this is the great moment, the pinnacle of all happiness as I have dreamed of it! Now, tell me yourself: Am I not to be envied? Whatever I wish is fulfilled. And, do you know, last year in Heligoland I had a curious experience. We capsised by the dunes and I fell into the water. As I lost consciousness, I thought that you were there and were saving me. Later when I lay on the beach, I saw, of course, that it had been only a stupid old fisherman. But the feeling was so wonderful while it lasted that I almost felt like jumping into the water again. Speaking of water, do you take rum in your tea?"

He shook his head. Her chatter, which at first had enraptured him, began to fill him with sadness. He did not know how to respond. His youthfulness and flexibility of mind had passed from him long ago: he had long lost any inner cheerfulness.

And while she continued to chat, his thoughts wandered, like a horse, on their accustomed path on the road of his daily worries. He thought of an unsatisfactory jockey, of the nervous horse.

What was this woman to him, after all?

"By the way," he heard her say, "I wanted to ask you whether 'Maidenhood' has arrived?"

He sat up sharply and stared at her. Surely he had heard wrong.

"What do you know about 'Maidenhood'?"

"But, my dear friend, do you suppose I haven't heard of your beautiful horse, by 'Blue Devil' out of 'Nina'? Now, do you see? I believe I know the grandparents, too. Anyhow, you are to be congratulated on your purchase. The English trackmen are bursting with envy. To judge by that, you ought to have an immense success."

"But, for heaven's sake, how do you know all this?"

"Dear me, didn't your purchase appear in all the sporting papers?"

"Do you read those papers?"

"Surely. You see, here is the last number of the Spur, and yonder is the bound copy of the German Sporting News."

"I see; but to what purpose?"

"Oh, I'm a sporting lady, dear master. I look upon the world of horses—is that the right expression?—with benevolent interest. I hope that isn't forbidden?"

"But you never told me a word about that before!"

She blushed a little and cast her eyes down.

"Oh, before, before.... That interest didn't come until later."

He understood and dared not understand.

"Don't look at me so," she besought him; there's nothing very remarkable about it. I just said to myself: "Well, if he doesn't want you, at least you can share his life from afar. That isn't immodest, is it? And then the race meets were the only occasions on which I could see you from afar. And whenever you yourself rode—oh, how my heart beat—fit to burst. And when you won, oh, how proud I was! I could have cried out my secret for all the world to hear. And my poor husband's arm was always black and blue. I pinched him first in my anxiety and then in my joy."

"So your husband happily shares your enthusiasm?"

"Oh, at first he wasn't very willing. But then, he is so good, so good. And as I couldn't go to the races alone, why he just had to go with me! And in the end he has become as great an enthusiast as I am. We can sit together for hours and discuss the tips. And he just admires you so—almost more than I. Oh, how happy he'd be to meet you here. You mustn't refuse him that pleasure. And now you're laughing at me. Shame on you!"

"I give you my word that nothing—"

"Oh, but you smiled. I saw you smile."

"Perhaps. But assuredly with no evil intention. And now you'll permit me to ask a serious question, won't you?"

"But surely!"

"Do you love your husband?"

"Why, of course I love him. You don't know him, or you wouldn't ask. How could I help it? We're like two children together. And I don't mean anything silly. We're like that in hours of grief, too. Sometimes when I look at him in his sleep—the kind, careworn forehead, the silent serious mouth—and when I think how faithfully and carefully he guides me, how his one dreaming and waking thought is for my happiness—why, then I kneel down and kiss his hands till he wakes up. Once he thought it was our little dog, and murmured 'Shoo, shoo!' Oh, how we laughed! And if you imagine that such a state of affairs can't be reconciled with my feeling for you, why, then you're quite wrong. That is upon an entirely different plane."

"And your life is happy?"

"Perfectly, perfectly."

Radiantly she folded her hands.

She did not suspect her position on the fearful edge of an abyss. She had not yet realised what his coming meant, nor how defenceless she was.

He had but to stretch out his arms and she would fly to him, ready to sacrifice her fate to his mood. And this time there would be no returning to that well-ordered content.

A dull feeling of responsibility arose in him and paralysed his will. Here was all that he needed in order to conquer a few years of new freshness and joy for the arid desert of his life. Here was the spring of life for which he was athirst. And he had not the courage to touch it with his lips.



Chapter IV.

A silence ensued in which their mood threatened to darken and grow turbid.

Then he pulled himself together.

"You don't ask me why I came, dear friend."

She shrugged her shoulders and smiled.

"A moment's impulse—or loneliness. That's all."

"And a bit of remorse, don't you think so?"

"Remorse? For what? You have nothing with which to reproach yourself. Was not our agreement made to be kept?"

"And yet I couldn't wholly avoid the feeling as if my unbroken silence must have left a sting in your soul which would embitter your memory of me."

Thoughtfully she stirred her tea.

"No," she said at last, "I'm not so foolish. The memory of you is a sacred one. If that were not so, how could I have gone on living? That time, to be sure, I wanted to take my life. I had determined on that before I came to you. For that one can leave the man with whom.... I never thought that possible.... But one learns a good deal—a good deal.... And now I'll tell you how it came to pass that I didn't take my life that night. When everything was over, and I stood in the street before your house, I said to myself: 'Now the river is all that is left.' In spite of rain and storm, I took an open cab and drove out to the Tiergarten. Wasn't the weather horrible! At the Great Star I left the cab and ran about in the muddy ways, weeping, weeping. I was blind with tears, and lost my way. I said to myself that I would die at six. There were still four minutes left. I asked a policeman the way to Bellevue, for I did remember that the river flows hard behind the castle. The policeman said: 'There it is. The hour is striking in the tower now.' And when I heard the clock strike, the thought came to me: 'Now my husband is coming home, tired and hungry, and I'm not there. If at least he wouldn't let his dinner get cold. But of course he will wait. He'd rather starve than eat without me. And he'll be frightened more and more as the hours pass. Then he'll run to the police. And next morning he'll be summoned by telegram to the morgue. There he'll break down helplessly and hopelessly and I won't be able to console him.' And when I saw that scene in my mind, I called out: 'Cab! cab!' But there was no cab. So I ran back to the Great Star, and jumped into the street-car, and rode home and rushed into his arms and cried my fill."

"And had your husband no questions to ask? Did he entertain no suspicion?"

"Oh, no, he knows me, I am taken that way sometimes. If anything moves or delights me deeply—a lovely child on the street—you see, I haven't any—or some glorious music, or sometimes only the park in spring and some white statue in the midst of the greenery. Oh, sometimes I seem to feel my very soul melt, and then he lays his cool, firm hand on my forehead and I am healed."

"And were you healed on that occasion, too?"

"Yes. I was calmed at once. 'Here,' I said to myself, 'is this dear, good man, to whom you can be kind. And as far as the other is concerned, why it was mere mad egoism to hope to have a share in his life. For to give love means, after all, to demand love. And what can a poor, supersensitive thing like you mean to him? He has others. He need but stretch forth his hand, and the hearts of countesses and princesses are his!'"

"Dear God," he thought, and saw the image of the purchasable harlot, who was supposed to satisfy his heart's needs.

But she chatted on, and bit by bit built up for him the image of him which she had cherished during these two years. All the heroes of Byron, Poushkine, Spielhagen and Scott melted into one glittering figure. There was no splendour of earth with which her generous imagination had not dowered him.

He listened with a melancholy smile, and thought: "Thank God, she doesn't know me. If I didn't take a bit of pleasure in my stable, the contrast would be too terrible to contemplate."

And there was nothing forward, nothing immodest, in this joyous enthusiasm. It was, in fact, as if he were a mere confidant, and she were singing a hymn in praise of her beloved.

And thus she spared him any feeling of shame.

But what was to happen now?

It went without saying that this visit must have consequences of some sort. It was her right to demand that he do not, for a second time, take her up and then fling her aside at the convenience of a given hour.

Almost timidly he asked after her thoughts of the future.

"Let's not speak of it. You won't come back, anyhow."

"How can you think...."

"Oh, no, you won't come back. And what is there here for you? Do you want to be adored by me? You spoiled gentlemen soon tire of that sort of thing.... Or would you like to converse with my husband? That wouldn't amuse you. He's a very silent man and his reserve thaws only when he is alone with me.... But it doesn't matter.... You have been here. And the memory of this hour will always be dear and precious to me. Now, I have something more in which my soul can take pleasure."

A muffled pain stirred in him. He felt impelled to throw himself at her feet and bury his head in her lap. But he respected the majesty of her happiness.

"And if I myself desired...."

That was all he said; all he dared to say. The sudden glory in her face commanded his silence. Under the prudence which his long experience dictated, his mood grew calmer.

But she had understood him.

In silent blessedness, she leaned her head against the wall. Then she whispered, with closed eyes: "It is well that you said no more. I might grow bold and revive hopes that are dead. But if you...."

She raised her eyes to his. A complete surrender to his will lay in her glance.

Then she raised her head with a listening gesture.

"My husband," she said, after she had fought down a slight involuntary fright, and said it with sincere joy.

Three glowing fingers barely touched his. Then she hastened to the door.

"Guess who is here," she called out; "guess!"

On the threshold appeared a sturdy man of middle size and middle age. His round, blonde beard came to a grayish point beneath the chin. His thin cheeks were yellow, but with no unhealthful hue. His quiet, friendly eyes gleamed behind glasses that sat a trifle too far down his nose, so that in speaking his head was slightly thrown back and his lids drawn.

With quiet astonishment he regarded the elegant stranger. Coming nearer, however, he recognised him at once in spite of the twilight, and, a little confused with pleasure, stretched out his hand.

Upon his tired, peaceful features, there was no sign of any sense of strangeness, any desire for an explanation.

Stueckrath realized that toward so simple a nature craft would have been out of place, and simply declared that he had desired to renew an acquaintance which he had always remembered with much pleasure.

"I don't want to speak of myself, Baron," the man replied, "but you probably scarcely realise what pleasure you are giving my wife." And he nodded down at her who stood beside him, apparently unconcerned except for her wifely joy.

A few friendly words were exchanged. Further speech was really superfluous, since the man's unassailable innocence demanded no caution. But Stueckrath was too much pleased with him to let him feel his insignificance by an immediate departure.

Hence he sat a little longer, told of his latest purchases, and was shamed by the satisfaction with which the man rehearsed the history of his stable.

He did not neglect the courtesy of asking them both to call on him, and took his leave, accompanied by the couple to the door. He could not decide which of the two pressed his hand more warmly.

When in the darkness of the lower hall he looked upward, he saw two faces which gazed after him with genuine feeling.

* * * * *

Out amid the common noises of the street he had the feeling as though he had returned from some far island of alien seas into the wonted current of life.

He shuddered at the thought of what lay before him.

Then he went toward the Tiergarten. A red afterglow eddied amid the trees. In the sky gleamed a harmony of delicate blue tints, shading into green. Great white clouds towered above, but rested upon the redness of the sunset.

The human stream flooded as always between the flickering, starry street-lamps of the Tiergartenstrasse. Each man and woman sought to wrest a last hour of radiance from the dying day.

Dreaming, estranged, Stueckrath made his way through the crowd, and hurriedly sought a lonely footpath that disappeared in the darkness of the foliage.

Again for a moment the thought seared him: "Take her and rebuild the structure of your life."

But when he sought to hold the thought and the accompanying emotion, it was gone. Nothing remained but a flat after taste—the dregs of a weary intoxication.

The withered leaves rustled beneath his tread. Beside the path glimmered the leaf-flecked surface of a pool.

"It would be a crime, to be sure," he said to himself, "to shatter the peace of those two poor souls. But, after all, life is made up of such crimes. The life of one is the other's death; one's happiness the other's wretchedness. If only I could be sure that some happiness would result, that the sacrifice of their idyl would bring some profit."

But he had too often had the discouraging and disappointing experience that he had become incapable of any strong and enduring emotion. What had he to offer that woman, who, in a mixture of passion, and naive unmorality of soul, had thrown herself at his breast? The shallow dregs of a draught, a power to love that had been wasted in sensual trifling—emptiness, weariness, a longing for sensation and a longing for repose. That was all the gift he could bring her.

And how soon would he be satiated!

Any sign of remorse or of fear in her would suffice to make her a burden, even a hated burden!

"Be her good angel," he said to himself, "and let her be." He whistled and the sound was echoed by the trees.

He sought a bench on which to sit down, and lit a cigarette. As the match flared up, he became conscious of the fact that night had fallen.

A great quietude rested upon the dying forest. Like the strains of a beautifully perishing harmony the sound of the world's distant strife floated into this solitude.

Attentively Stueckrath observed the little point of glowing fire in his hand, from which eddied upward a wreath of fragrant smoke.

"Thank God," he said, "that at least remains—one's cigarette."

Then he arose and wandered thoughtfully onward.

Without knowing how he had come there, he found himself suddenly in front of his mistress's dwelling.

Light shimmered in her windows—the raspberry coloured light of red curtains which loose women delight in.

"Pah!" he said and shuddered.

But, after all, up there a supper table was set for him; there was laughter and society, warmth and a pair of slippers.

He opened the gate.

A chill wind rattled in the twigs of the trees and blew the dead leaves about in conical whirls. They fluttered along like wandering shadows, only to end in some puddle ...

Autumn ...



MERRY FOLK

The Christmas tree bent heavily forward. The side which was turned to the wall had been hard to reach, and had hence not been adorned richly enough to keep the equilibrium of the tree against the weighty twigs of the front.

Papa noted this and scolded. "What would Mamma say if she saw that? You know, Brigitta, that Mamma doesn't love carelessness. If the tree falls over, think how ashamed we shall be."

Brigitta flushed fiery red. She clambered up the ladder once more, stretched her arms forth as far as possible, and hung on the other side of the tree all that she could gather. There had been very little there. But then one couldn't see....

And now the lights could be lit.

"Now we will look through the presents," said Papa. "Which is Mamma's plate?"

Brigitta showed it to him.

This time he was satisfied. "It's a good thing that you've put so much marchpane on it," he said. "You know she always loves to have something to give away." Then lie inspected the polished safety lock that lay next to the plate and caressed the hard leaves of the potted palm that shadowed Mamma's place at the Christmas table.

"You have painted the flower vase for her?" he asked.

Brigitta nodded.

"It is exclusively for roses," she said, "and the colours are burned in and will stand any kind of weather."

"What the boys have made for Mamma they can bring her themselves. Have you put down the presents from her?"

Surely she had done so. For Fritz, there was a fishing-net and a ten-bladed knife; for Arthur a turning lathe with foot-power, and in addition a tall toy ship with a golden-haired nymph as figurehead.

"The mermaid will make an impression," said Papa and laughed.

There was something else which Brigitta had on her conscience. She stuck her firm little hands under her apron, which fell straight down over her flat little chest, and tripped up and down on her heels.

"I may as well betray the secret," she said. "Mamma has something for you, too." Papa was all ear. "What is it?" he asked, and looked over his place at the table, where nothing was noticeable in addition to Brigitta's fancy work.

Brigitta ran to the piano and pulled forth from under it a paper wrapped box, about two feet in height, which seemed singularly light for its size.

When the paper wrappings had fallen aside, a wooden cage appeared, in which sat a stuffed bird that glittered with all the colours of the rainbow. His plumage looked as though the blue of the sky and the gold of the sun had been caught in it.

"A roller!" Papa cried, clapping his hands, and something like joy twitched about his mouth. "And she gives me this rare specimen?"

"Yes," said Brigitta, "it was found last autumn in the throstle springe. The manager kept it for me until now. And because it is so beautiful, and, one might really say, a kind of bird of paradise, therefore Mamma gives it to you."

Papa stroked her blonde hair and again her face flushed.

"So; and now we'll call the boys," he said.

"First let me put away my apron," she cried, loosened the pin and threw the ugly black thing under the piano where the cage had been before. Now she stood there in her white communion dress, with its blue ribands, and made a charming little grimace.

"You have done quite right," said Papa. "Mamma does not like dark colours. Everything about her is to be bright and gay."

Now the boys were permitted to come in.

They held their beautifully written Christmas poems carefully in their hands and rubbed their sides timidly against the door-posts.

"Come, be cheerful," said Papa. "Do you think your heads will be torn off to-day?"

And then he took them both into his arms and squeezed them a little so that Arthur's poetry was crushed right down the middle.

That was a misfortune, to be sure. But Papa consoled the boy, saying that he would be responsible since it was his fault.

Brueggemann, the long, lean private tutor, now stuck his head in the door, too. He had on his most solemn long coat, nodded sadly like one bidden to a funeral, and sniffed through his nose:

"Yes—yes—yes—yes—"

"What are you sighing over so pitiably, you old weeping-willow?" Papa said, laughing. "There are only merry folk here. Isn't it so, Brigitta?"

"Of course that is so," the girl said. "And here, Doctor, is your Christmas plate." She led him to his place where a little purse of calf's leather peeped modestly out from, under the cakes.

"This is your present from Mamma," she continued, handing him a long, dark-covered book. "It is 'The Three Ways to Peace,' which you always admired so much."

The learned gentleman hid a tear of emotion but squinted again at the little pocket-book. This represented the fourth way to peace, for he had old beer debts.

The servants were now ushered in, too. First came Mrs. Poensgen, the housekeeper, who carried in her crooked, scarred hands a little flower-pot with Alpine violets.

"This is for Mamma," she said to Brigitta, who took the pot from her and led her to her own place. There were many good things, among them a brown knitted sweater, such as she had long desired, for in the kitchen an east wind was wont to blow through the cracks.

Mrs. Poensgen saw the sweater as rapidly as Brueggemann had seen the purse. And when Brigitta said: "That is, of course, from Mamma," the old woman was not in the least surprised. For in her fifteen years of service she had discovered that the best things always came from Mamma.

The two boys, in the meantime, were anxious to ease their consciences and recite their poems. They stood around Papa.

He was busy with the inspectors of the estate, and did not notice them for a moment. Then he became aware of his oversight and took the sheets from their hands, laughing and regretting his neglect. Fritz assumed the proper attitude, and Papa did the same, but when the latter saw the heading of the poem: "To his dear parents at Christmastide," he changed his mind and said: "Let's leave that till later when we are with Mamma."

And so the boys could go on to their places. And as their joy expressed itself at first in a happy silence, Papa stepped up behind them and shook them and said: "Will you be merry, you little scamps? What is Mamma to think if you're not!"

That broke the spell which had held them heretofore. Fritz set his net, and when Arthur discovered a pinnace on his man-of-war, the feeling of immeasurable wealth broke out in jubilation.

But this is the way of the heart. Scarcely had they discovered their own wealth but they turned in desire to that which was not for them.

Arthur had discovered the shiny patent lock that lay between Mamma's plate and his own. It seemed uncertain whether it was for him or her. He felt pretty well assured that it was not for him; on the other hand, he couldn't imagine what use she could put it to. Furthermore, he was interested in it, since it was made upon a certain model. It is not for nothing that one is an engineer with all one's heart and mind.

Now, Fritz tried to give an expert opinion, too. He considered it a combination Chubb lock. Of course that was utter nonsense. But then Fritz would sometimes talk at random.

However that may be, this lock was undoubtedly the finest thing of all. And when one turned the key in it, it gave forth a soft, slow, echoing tone, as though a harp-playing spirit sat in its steel body.

But Papa came and put an end to their delight.

"What are you thinking of, you rascals?" he said in jesting reproach. "Instead of giving poor Mamma something for Christmas, you want to take the little that she has."

At that they were mightily ashamed. And Arthur said that of course they had something for Mamma, only they had left it in the hall, so that they could take it at once when they went to her.

"Get it in," said Papa, "in order that her place may not look so meager." They ran out and came back with their presents.

Fritz had carved a flower-pot holder. It consisted of six parts, which dove-tailed delicately into each other. But that was nothing compared to Arthur's ventilation window, which was woven of horse hair.

Papa was delighted. "Now we needn't be ashamed to be seen," he said. Then, too, he explained to them the mechanism of the lock, and told them that its purpose was to guard dear Mamma's flowers better. For recently some of her favourite roses had been stolen and the only way to account for it was that some one had a pass key.

"So, and now we'll go to her at last," he concluded. "We have kept her waiting long. And we will be happy with her, for happiness is the great thing, as Mamma says.... Get us the key, Brigitta, to the gate and the chapel."

And Brigitta got the key to the gate and the chapel.



THEA

A Phantasy over the Samovar



Chapter I.

She is a faery and yet she is none.... But she is my faery surely.

She has appeared to me only in a few moments of life when I least expected her.

And when I desired to hold her, she vanished.

Yet has she often dwelt near me. I felt her in the breath of winter winds sweeping over sunny fields of snow; I breathed her presence in the morning frost that clung, glittering, to my beard; I saw the shadow of her gigantic form glide over the smoky darkness of heaven which hung with the quietude of hopelessness over the dull white fields; I heard the whispering of her voice in the depths of the shining tea urn surrounded by a dancing wreath of spirit flames.

But I must tell the story of those few times when she stood bodily before me—changed of form and yet the same—my fate, my future as it should have been and was not, my fear and my trust, my good and my evil star.



Chapter II.

It was many, many years ago on a late evening near Epiphany.

Without whirled the snow. The flakes came fluttering to the windows like endless swarms of moths. Silently they touched the panes and then glided straight down to earth as though they had broken their wings in the impact.

The lamp, old and bad for the eyes, stood on the table with its polished brass foot and its raveled green cloth shade. The oil in the tank gurgled dutifully. Black fragments gathered on the wick, which looked like a stake over which a few last flames keep watch.

Yonder in the shabby upholstered chair my mother had fallen into a doze. Her knitting had dropped from her hands and lay on the flower-patterned apron. The wool-thread cut a deep furrow in the skin of her rough forefinger. One of the needles swung behind her ear.

The samovar with its bellied body and its shining chimney stood on a side table. From time to time a small, pale-blue cloud of steam whirled upward, and a gentle odour of burning charcoal tickled my nostrils.

Before me on the table lay open Sallust's "Catilinarian Conspiracy!" But what did I care for Sallust? Yonder on the book shelf, laughing and alluring in its gorgeous cover stood the first novel that I ever read—"The Adventures of Baron Muenchausen!"

Ten pages more to construe. Then I was free. I buried my hands deep into my breeches pockets, for I was cold. Only ten pages more.

Yearningly I stared at my friend.

And behold, the bookbinder's crude ornamentation—ungraceful arabesques of vine leaves which wreathe about broken columns, a rising sun caught in a spider's web of rays—all that configuration begins to spread and distend until it fills the room. The vine leaves tremble in a morning wind; a soft blowing shakes the columns, and higher and higher mounts the sun. Like a dance of flickering torches his rays shoot to and fro, his glistening arms are outstretched as though they would grasp the world and pull it to the burning bosom of the sun. And a great roaring arises in the air, muffled and deep as distant organ strains. It rises to the blare of trumpets, it quivers with the clash of cymbals.

Then the body of the sun bursts open. A bluish, phosphorescent flame hisses forth. Upon this flame stands erect in fluttering chiton a woman, fair and golden haired, swan's wings at her shoulders, a harp held in her hand.

She sees me and her face is full of laughter. Her laughter sounds simple, childlike, arch. And surely, it is a child's mouth from which it issues. The innocent blue eyes look at me in mad challenge. The firm cheeks glow with the delight of life. Heavens! What is this child's head doing on that body? She throws the harp upon the clouds, sits down on the strings, scratches her little nose swiftly with her left wing and calls out to me: "Come, slide with me!"

I stare at her open-mouthed. Then I gather all my courage and stammer: "Who are you?"

"My name is Thea," she giggles.

"But who are you?" I ask again.

"Who? Nonsense. Come, pull me! But no; you can't fly. I'll pull you. That will go quicker."

And she arises. Heavens! What a form! Magnificently the hips curve over the fallen girdle; in how noble a line are throat and bosom married. No sculptor can achieve the like.

With her slender fingers she grasps the blue, embroidered riband that is attached to the neck of the harp. She grasps it with the gesture of one who is about to pull a sleigh.

"Come," she cries again. I dare not understand her. Awkwardly I crouch on the strings.

"I might break them," I venture.

"You little shaver," she laughs. "Do you know how light you are? And now, hold fast!"

I have scarcely time to grasp the golden frame with both hands. I hear a mighty rustling in front of me. The mighty wings unfold. My sleigh floats and billows in the air. Forward and upward goes the roaring flight.

Far, far beneath me lies the paternal hut. Scarcely does its light penetrate to my height. Gusts of snow whirl about my forehead. Next moment the light is wholly lost. Dawn breaks through the night. A warm wind meets us and blows upon the strings so that they tremble gently and lament like a sleeping child whose soul is troubled by a dream of loneliness.

"Look down!" cried my faery, turning her laughing little head toward me.

Bathed in the glow of spring I see an endless carpet of woods and hills, fields and lakes spread out below me. The landscape gleams with a greenish silveriness. My glance can scarcely endure the richness of the miracle.

"But it has become spring," I say trembling.

"Would you like to go down?" she asks.

"Yes, yes."

At once we glide downward. "Guess what that is!" she says.

An old, half-ruined castle rears its granite walls before me.... A thousand year old ivy wreathes about its gables.... Black and white swallows dart about the roofs.... All about arises a thicket of hawthorn in full bloom.... Wild roses emerge from the darkness, innocently agleam like children's eyes. A sleepy tree bends its boughs above them.

There is life at the edge of the ancient terrace where broad-leaved clover grows in the broken urns. A girlish form, slender and lithe, swinging a great, old-fashioned straw hat, having a shawl wound crosswise over throat and waist, has stepped forth from the decaying old gate. She carries a little white bundle under her arm, and looks tentatively to the right and to the left as one who is about to go on a journey.

"Look at her," says my friend.

The scales fall from my eyes.

"That is Lisbeth," I cried out in delight, "who is going to the mayor's farm."

Scarcely have I mentioned that farm but a fragrance of roasting meat rises up to me. Clouds of smoke roll toward me, dim flames quiver up from it. There is a sound of roasting and frying and the seething fat spurts high. No wonder; there's going to be a wedding. "Would you like to see the executioner's sword?" my friend asks.

A mysterious shudder runs down my limbs.

"I'd like to well enough," I say fearfully.

A rustle, a soft metallic rattle—and we are in a small, bare chamber.... Now it is night again and the moonlight dances on the rough board walls.

"Look there," whispers my friend and points to a plump old chest.

Her laughing face has grown severe and solemn. Her body seems to have grown. Noble and lordly as a judge she stands before me.

I stretch my neck; I peer at the chest.

There it lies, gleaming and silent, the old sword. A beam of moonlight glides along the old blade, drawing a long, straight line. But what do those dark spots mean which have eaten hollows into the metal?

"That is blood," says my friend and crosses her arms upon her breast.

I shiver but my eyes seem to have grown fast to the terrible image.

"Come," says Thea.

"I can't."

"Do you want it?"

"What? The sword?"

She nods. "But may you give it away? Does it belong to you?"

"I may do anything. Everything belongs to me."

A horror grips me with its iron fist. "Give it to me!" I cry shuddering.

The iron lightening gleams up and it lies cold and moist in my arms. It seems to me as though the blood upon it began to flow afresh.

My arms feel dead, the sword falls from them and sinks upon the strings. These begin to moan and sing. Their sounds are almost like cries of pain.

"Take care," cries my friend. "The sword may rend the strings; it is heavier than you."

We fly out into the moonlit night. But our flight is slower than before. My friend breathes hard and the harp swings to and fro like a paper kite in danger of fluttering to earth.

But I pay no attention to all that. Something very amusing captures my senses.

Something has become alive in the moon which floats, a golden disc, amid the clouds. Something black and cleft twitches to and fro on her nether side. I look more sharply and discover a pair of old riding-boots in which stick two long, lean legs. The leather on the inner side of the boots is old and worn and glimmers with a dull discoloured light. "Since when does the moon march on legs through the world?" I ask myself and begin to laugh. And suddenly I see something black on the upper side of the moon—something that wags funnily up and down. I strain my eyes and recognise my old friend Muenchausen's phantastic beard and moustache. He has grasped the edges of the moon's disc with his long lean fingers and laughs, laughs.

"I want to go there," I call to my friend.

She turns around. Her childlike face has now become grave and madonna like. She seems to have aged by years. Her words echo in my ear like the sounds of broken chimes.

"He who carries the sword cannot mount to the moon."

My boyish stubbornness revolts. "But I want to get to my friend Muenchausen."

"He who carries the sword has no friend."

I jump up and tug at the guiding riband. The harp capsises.... I fall into emptiness ... the sword above me ... it penetrates my body ... I fall ... I fall....

"Yes, yes," says my mother, "why do you call so fearfully? I am awake."

Calmly she took the knitting-needle from behind her ear, stuck it into the wool and wrapped the unfinished stocking about it.



Chapter III.

Six years passed. Then Thea met me again. She had been gracious enough to leave her home in the island valley of Avilion, to play the soubrette parts in the theatre of the university town in which I was fencing and drinking for the improvement of my mind.

Upon her little red shoes she tripped across the stage. She let her abbreviated skirts wave in the boldest curves. She wore black silk stockings which flowed about her delicate ankles in ravishing lines and disappeared all too soon, just above the knee, under the hem of her skirt. She plaited herself two thick braids of hair the blue ribands of which she loved to chew when the modesty that belonged to her part overwhelmed her. She sucked her thumb, she stuck out her tongue, she squeaked and shrieked and turned up her little nose. And, oh, how she laughed. It was that sweet, sophisticated, vicious soubrette laughter which begins with the musical scale and ends in a long coo.

Show me the man among us whom she cannot madden into love with all the traditional tricks of her trade. Show me the student who did not keep glowing odes deep-buried in his lecture notes—deep-buried as the gigantic grief of some heroic soul....

And one afternoon she appeared at the skating rink. She wore a gleaming plush jacket trimmed with sealskin, and a fur cap which sat jauntily over her left ear. The hoar frost clung like diamond dust to the reddish hair that framed her cheeks, and her pink little nose sniffed up the cold air.

After she had made a scene with the attendant who helped her on with her shoes, during which such expressions as "idiot," had escaped her sweet lips, she began to skate. A child, just learning to walk, could have done better.