The Complete Stories (forword by John Updike)

"Yes, an assistant railway-clerk and an unpleasant person. You'll see I'm right as soon as you've got a glimpse of that small thick nose. I tell you, walking through the dreary fields with that fellow. . . Anyway, he's been transferred now and he goes away from there, as I believe and hope, next week."

"Wait, you said just now you advised me to stay here tonight. I've thought it over; it couldn't very well be managed. I've written to say I'm coming this evening; they'll be expecting me."

"That's quite easy, send a telegram."

"Yes, that could be done — but it wouldn't be very nice if I didn't go — and I'm tired, yes, I'll go all right. If a telegram came, they'd get a fright, into the bargain. — And what for, where would we go, anyway?"

"Then it's really better for you to go. I was only thinking. . . Anyway I couldn't go with you today, as I'm sleepy, I forgot to tell you that. And now I shall say goodbye, for I don't want to go through the wet park with you, as I should like to drop in at Gillemann's, after all. It's a quarter to six, so not too late, after all, for paying calls on people you know fairly well. Addio. Well, a good journey, and remember me to everyone!"

Lement turned to the right and held out his right hand to say goodbye, so that for a moment Raban was walking against Lement's outstretched arm.

"Adieu." Raban said.

From a little distance Lement then called back: "I say, Eduard, can you hear me? Do shut your umbrella; it stopped raining ages ago. I didn't have a chance to tell you."

Raban did not answer, shut his umbrella, and the sky closed over him in pallid darkness.

"If at least," Raban thought, "I were to get into a wrong train. Then it would at any rate seem to me that the whole enterprise had begun, and if later, after the mistake had been cleared up, I were to arrive in this station again on my way back, then I should certainly feel much better. If the scenery does turn out to be boring, as Lement says, that need not be a disadvantage at all. One will spend more time in the rooms and really never know for certain where all the others are, for if there is a ruin in the district, there will probably be a walk all together to that ruin; it will have been agreed upon some time before. Then, however, one must look forward to it; for that very reason one mustn't miss it. But if there is no such sight to be seen, then there will be no discussion beforehand either, for all will be expected to get together quite easily if suddenly, against all the usual practice, a larger expedition is considered right, for one only has to send the maid into the others' apartments, where they are sitting over a letter or books and are delighted by this news. Well, it is not difficult to protect oneself against such invitations. And yet I don't know whether I shall be able to, for it is not so easy as I imagine it now when I am still alone and can still do everything, can still go back if I want to, for I shall have no one there whom I could pay calls on whenever I like, and no one with whom I could make more strenuous expeditions, no one there who could show me how his crops are doing or show me a quarry he is working there. For one isn't at all sure even of acquaintances of long standing. Wasn't Lement nice to me today? — he explained some things to me, didn't he, and described everything as it will appear to me. He came up and spoke to me and then walked with me, in spite of the fact that there was nothing he wanted to find out from me and that he himself still had something else to do. But now all of a sudden he has gone away, and yet I can't have offended him even with a single word. I did refuse to spend the evening in town, but that was only natural, that can't have offended him, for he is a sensible person."