They were fond, for example, of pretending in trams that they were somebody quite different, both by indireet means and by acting the part, and they would enter upon long, bogus conversations in a dialect which otherwise they never spoke, conversations which were quite ordinary, such as the common people carry on: the most commonplace stuff about politics and the prices of food and about persons that did not exist, so that the whole tram would listen with interest and sympathy, admiring their unlimited and ordinary glibness of tongue, though with a dark suspicion that something was not quite in order here. And then they would grow still more rash and impudent and begin to tell the most horrible stories about these nonexistent persons. Ingrid, assuming a high, uncertain, vulgar treble, was capable of declaring that she was a shopgirl who had an illegitimate child, a son who was a perfect monster of sadistic cruelty and who had recently tortured a cow in such an indescribable manner that no Christian soul could have looked upon it. The manner in which she would pronounce the word “tortured” in her chirping voice would bring Bert to the verge of exploding, but he would manage to control himself and manifest a kind of ghastly interest. And then he and the unfortunate shopgirl would begin a long and dreadful talk, at once stupid and wicked, as to the nature of such pathological cruelty, until some old gentleman, sitting diagonally opposite, with his tram-ticket carefully folded and tucked between his forefinger and his seal-ring, would discover that the limit had been reached and object publicly to such young people’s discussing themes of this sort in such detail. Ingrid would thereupon pretend that she was about to dissolve into tears, and Bert would apparently be seized by a deadly rage at the old gentleman, which he would be able to suppress only by the greatest efforts, though not for any length of time. He would clench his fists and gnash his teeth, and a trembling would go through his entire body, so that the old gentleman, who had meant well enough (the thing really happened) thought it best to leave the tram hurriedly at the next stop.
Such were the amusements of the Big Ones. The telephone played a prominent part. They rang up all sorts of persons, opera singers, high officials, and princes of the church, introduced themselves as saleswomen or as Count and Countess Mannsteufel, and were very difficult to persuade that they had got the wrong number. On one occasion they emptied the tray of visiting-cards and distributed the cards higgledy-piggledy—but not without a certain feeling for the bewildering half-likelihood of things—in the letterboxes of the quarter, whence proceeded great perturbation, since suddenly God knows who appeared to have visited Heaven knows whom.
Xavier, who had taken off his white cotton serving-gloves, so that the yellow chain-ring which he wore upon his left hand was seen, now entered to clear the table, tossing his hair; and while the professor drank up his “thin beer” at eight thousand marks a bottle, and lighted a cigarette, the Little Ones could be heard scampering downstairs and along the hall. They were coming as usual to greet their parents after lunch, storming the dining-room, battling with the door, to the knob of which they clung both together with their little hands, and then came in stamping and stumbling with hurrying, awkward little legs across the carpet, their feet covered with little red slippers of felt, over which their stockings had crept down in many folds and wrinkles. Each, shouting, explaining, and chattering, steered towards his accustomed goal. Biter headed for his mother and climbed into her lap to tell her how much he had eaten and as if in testimony thereof to show her his distended stomach, while Lorie went to her “Abel”—who was so very much her own because she was so very much his own, and because she sensed the heartfelt and, like all deep emotions, somewhat melancholy tenderness with which he embraced her little feminine person and drank it in smilingly, and also the love with which he regarded her and kissed her exquisitely formed little hands, or her temples, upon which the delicate blue veins made such a tender and moving pattern.
The children revealed the strong yet indecisive similarity of a brother and sister, a likeness which was augmented by similar clothing and arrangement of the hair; and yet again, in the sense of male and female, they differed conspicuously from each other. They were a little Adam and a little Eve, that was clearly evident—evidenced especially on Biter’s side by a certain consciousness and self-reliance; he was more set in his figure, stockier, stronger, and emphasized his four-year-old manly dignity in carriage, mien, and manner of speaking by letting his arms depend athletically from his slightly raised shoulders like a young American, or, when speaking, by drawing down the corners of his mouth and attempting to give his voice a deep, cheery ring. As a matter of fact, all this dignity and manliness was a show rather than an essential part of his nature, for he had been born and nursed in times of frantic upset, and his nervous system was very sensitive and unstable; he suffered severely from the petty annoyances of life, was disposed to be irascible, and often gave way to fits of fury, to embittered and despairing floods of tears over every trifle—and was for this very reason the special pet of his mother. He had a longish little nose, a small mouth, and round eyes of chestnut-brown, which were inclined to squint a little and foretold the early wearing of a pair of corrective spectacles. The nose and the mouth were those of his father, as had become very evident since the professor had shaved off his
