The Complete Stories (forword by John Updike)

Now an electric tramcar stopped in front of Raban and many people around him pushed toward the steps, with slightly open, pointed umbrellas, which they held upright with their hands pressed to their shoulders. Raban, who was holding his suitcase under his arm, was dragged off the pavement and stepped hard into an unseen puddle. Inside the tram a child knelt on a seat, pressing the tips of all its fingers to its lips as though it were saying goodbye to someone going away. Some passengers got out and had to walk a few paces along the tram in order to work their way out of the crowd. Then a lady climbed onto the first step, her long skirt, which she hitched up with both hands, stretched tightly around her legs. A gentleman held on to a brass rod and, with lifted head, recounted something to the lady. All the people who wanted to get in were impatient. The conductor shouted.

Raban, who now stood on the edge of the waiting group, turned around, for someone had called out his name.

"Ah, Lement," he said slowly and held out to a young man coming toward him the little finger of the hand in which he was holding the umbrella.

"So this is the bridegroom on his way to his bride. He looks frightfully in love," Lement said and then smiled with his mouth shut.

"Yes, you must forgive my going today," Raban said. "I wrote to you this afternoon, anyway. I should, of course, have liked very much to travel with you tomorrow; but tomorrow is Saturday, everything'll be so crowded, it's a long journey."

"Oh, that doesn't matter. You did promise, but when one's in love. . . I shall just have to travel alone." Lement had set one foot on the pavement and the other on the cobbles, supporting his body now on one leg, now on the other. "You were going to get into the tram. There it goes. Come, we'll walk, I'll go with you. There's still plenty of time."

"Isn't it rather late, please tell me?"

"It's no wonder you're nervous, but you really have got plenty of time. I'm not so nervous, and that's why I've missed Gillemann now."

"Gillemann? Won't he be staying out there, too?"

"Yes, with his wife; it's next week they mean to go, and that's just why I promised Gillemann I'd meet him today when he leaves the office. He wanted to give me some instructions regarding the furnishing of their house, that's why I was supposed to meet him. But now somehow I'm late, I had some errands to do. And just as I was wondering whether I shouldn't go to their apartment, I saw you, was at first astonished at the suitcase, and spoke to you. But now the evening's too far gone for paying calls, it's fairly impossible to go to Gillemann now."

"Of course. And so I shall meet people I know there, after all. Not that I have ever seen Frau Gillemann, though."

"And very beautiful she is. She's fair, and pale now after her illness. She has the most beautiful eyes I've ever seen."

"Do please tell me, what do beautiful eyes look like? Is it the glance? I've never found eyes beautiful."

"All right, perhaps I was exaggerating slightly. Still, she's a pretty woman."

Through the windowpane of a ground-floor café, close to the window, gentlemen could be seen sitting, reading and eating, around a three-sided table; one had lowered a newspaper to the table, held a little cup raised, and was looking into the street out of the corners of his eyes. Beyond these window tables all the furniture and equipment in the large restaurant were hidden by the customers, who sat side by side in little circles. [Two pages missing]. . . "As it happens, however, it's not such an unpleasant business, is it? Many people would take on such a burden, I think."

They came into a fairly dark square, which began on their side of the street, for the opposite side extended farther. On the side of the square along which they were walking, there was an uninterrupted row of houses, from the corners of which two — at first widely distant — rows of houses extended into the indiscernible distance in which they seemed to unite. The pavement was narrow by the houses, which were mostly small; there were no shops to be seen, no carriage passed. An iron post near the end of the street out of which they came had several lamps on it, which were fixed in two rings hanging horizontally, one over the other. The trapeze-shaped flame between conjoined sheets of glass burned in this towerlike wide darkness as in a little room, letting darkness assert itself a few steps farther on.

"But now I am sure it is too late; you have kept it a secret from me, and I shall miss the train. Why?" [Four pages missing]

. . . "Yes, at most Pirkershofer — well, for what he's worth."

"The name's mentioned, I think, in Betty's letters, he's an assistant railway-clerk, isn't he?"