Then Wenk noticed that the spectacles now lying on the table were not the usual type of modern horn spectacles, but were of tortoiseshell, very artistically designed. The old gentleman slipped them into a large shagreen case, dotted over with green points. All his movements were very leisurely, so that Wenk had ample time for his observations. “Those are Chinese spectacles,” he thought to himself, recalling his own journey to China, which he had made before the war. The recollection surged up so powerfully that he uttered aloud what he had really only intended to say to himself.
The Professor, who sat opposite him, nodded to him and said in a firm voice, which he had not expected to hear from so aged a mouth, “They are from Tsi-nan-fu!”
He repeated the name, stressing it and separating the syllables, “Tsi-nan-fu.” It was as if the name had a rhythm and recollection behind it which affected him strongly, and which he enjoyed in the mere repetition of the syllables. He looked across at Wenk, as if his eyes in their large glasses were sending him a challenge. Wenk at once felt some strange connection with the old Professor.
“Tsi-nan-fu,” said the harsh voice again, as if with special meaning; indeed, as if he wanted to hurl the three syllables at something, some invisible goal behind Wenk—to reach, three times over, an invisible point in the obscurity straight above his head beyond the circle of electric light.
Wenk involuntarily raised his hand to the back of his head and turned round. Was he seeking the spot towards which the three syllables were projected, and had they reached their goal? When he looked round he observed that behind his neighbour at the gaming-table sat the lady whose mysterious flight from Schramm’s he had assisted. It seemed as if she were regarding him mockingly, and he did not know what course to pursue with regard to her, but at that moment he felt that cards were being dealt to him, and he turned again to the table to take them up. As he did so he began to feel sleepy, and felt dimly that the staring eyes of the Professor were somehow responsible for this. He forgot the beautiful unknown, and strove to banish his lassitude, sitting bolt upright and gazing at the green shagreen cover of the Chinese spectacle-case. It seemed as if the eyes of the old Professor, larger than ever behind his glasses, were fixed vaguely upon him, and some dim recollection of past days of travel flitted into his mind. One morning on his journey to China, through the porthole of his cabin he had seen a narrow strip of coastline between sky and sea, and knew it for the delta of the Yang-tse-kiang. Yes, it was the Yang-tse-kiang.
Pursuing this recollection, Wenk named his stake, won it, and left his money lying. A comfortable sense of drowsiness pervaded him, and he stretched himself out, enjoying it. Then he became wide awake once more, played his game, and continued his watch. The players were holding the bank in turns, and it seemed to Wenk as if he were only awaiting the moment when the old gentleman should take it over. “Why am I waiting for that?” he asked himself. “How strange it is that I should be. There are feelings that one cannot trace to their source.”
He finally decided that he was awaiting that moment because the Professor with the Chinese spectacles was the most interesting person present, and that this waiting sprang from a feeling of rapport and sympathy with him.
As the evening proceeded, this secret bond between him and the unknown Professor grew stronger still. “It is childish and sentimental,” he told himself; “what is it going to lead to?”
Then the old gentleman took the bank, and Wenk seemed to be released—released from a ridiculous and unnatural tension. “Now things will be all right,” he thought. He staked a small sum, trying to indicate thereby that he was no opponent of the banker, and that it was only for form’s sake he played against him. … He won, for he held eight points, and then he ascertained that he had staked a much bigger note than he had intended to. Therefore he put his stake and his winnings together and ventured both. He drew a king and a five. When he held a five he never bought another card, and this rule was so firmly established in his mind that when asked to say Yes or No, he did not even answer.
“You are taking a card?” were the words he heard in his fit of abstraction. They were uttered by a deep, compelling voice, and seemed almost threatening in tone. Strangely, too, they seemed to him to proceed from the spot behind and above him which had been the goal of the sounds “Tsi-nan-fu.”
Then he whispered hesitatingly, “Please!” and at the same instant he seemed to dissociate himself inwardly from this decision, but it was too late. He had drawn a five, and that, added to the cards he held, totalled more than twenty-one and made his hand worthless.
The banker’s hand showed a queen and a four, and as he had taken no other card, he had won the round.
“The country cousin is losing!” said a woman’s voice.
The hasty ejaculation astonished Wenk. He turned round again, trying to penetrate the obscurity; then he grew uneasy, and at the same time he seemed to feel the beating of wings above his eyes. Yes, they were wings, and he himself was in a birdcage. And now a seven was dealt him. “That’s no good,” something seemed to say to him, although it was almost certain to win. But Wenk resisted the suggestion, and said distinctly, “No other card for
