While he lay there and rested, he heard the doorbell ring repeatedly, heard the garden gate fall to, and each time felt the sting of a slight excitement, of expectation and oppression at the thought that the young people were arriving and were beginning to fill the lower hall. These tiny shocks caused him to smile, and yet he knew that these smiles were essentially only the expression of a nervousness, which was naturally compact also of a certain exhilaration, for who would not feel joy at the prospect of a merrymaking? At half past four (it was already evening) he arose and freshened himself up at the washstand. The washbowl had been cracked for more than a year. It was a hanging basin, made to tip, but the pivot was out at one side and could not be repaired because a workman could not be had, nor could it be replaced, because no shop could supply another. It was therefore suspended provisionally over the outlet on the edges of the marble slab, and could be emptied only by being lifted with both hands and poured out. Scarcely a day passed but Cornelius shook his head over this washbowl, as he again did now. He then finished tidying himself—very carefully—polished his glasses under the ceiling light until they were clear and transparent, and started down to the dining-room.
As he descended the stairs, he heard the voices below, already a medley, and the gramophone already set going. His features assumed a polite and conciliatory company expression. He decided to say: “Please don’t disturb yourselves!” and then to go right into the dining-room and have his tea. This formula appeared to him the proper one in the circumstances, serene and considerate in its external effect, as well as a good defence for himself.
The hall was brightly illuminated; all the electric bulbs of the electrolier were aflame, all save one that was burnt out. Cornelius stood still on one of the lower steps of the stairs and surveyed the hall. It made a pretty picture in the mellow light, with the copy of an old master over the brick fireplace, with the panelling, which was of soft wood, and with the red carpet, on which the guests were standing about, teacup in hand, chatting and eating small sandwiches spread with anchovy paste. The atmosphere was quite festive, a slight aura of dresses, hair, and warm presences pervaded the hall—something that was characteristic and charged with memories. The door of the cloakroom stood open, for new guests were still arriving.
Such social scenes dazzle at first; the professor received only a general impression. He had not noticed that Ingrid, in a dark silk dress with a white accordion-pleated cape-collar and bare arms, was standing close in front of him, surrounded by her friends, at the bottom of the steps. She nodded to him and smiled, showing her fine teeth.
“Have you had a good rest?” she asked softly, as though between themselves. And then, after he had recognized her with a surprise that seemed unjustified, she introduced him to her friends.
“May I introduce Herr Zuber?” she asked. “And this is Fräulein Plaichinger.”
Herr Zuber was not much to look at; the Plaichinger girl, on the other hand, was a valkyrie, blonde, full-bosomed, and loosely dressed, with a pug-nose and the high treble of buxom femininity, as became evident when she replied to the professor’s polite greeting.
“You are surely most welcome,” he said. “It is awfully nice of you to give us this pleasure. You are a classmate of Ingrid’s?”
Herr Zuber was a member of Ingrid’s golf club. He was preparing for a business career, and was employed in the office of his uncle’s brewery. The professor made a few jokes about the “thin beer,” in which he pretended to overrate to an excessive degree the influence of young Zuber upon the quality of this beer.
“Now, don’t let yourselves be disturbed in any way,” he remarked, and was about to cross over to the dining-room.
“And here comes Max!” said Ingrid. “Say, old man, what do you mean, barging in here so late, after the dance is on?”
The “du” or familiar “thou” form of address was common to all these young people, and their forms of intercourse were strange to their elders—there was little trace of strict breeding, gallantry, or drawing-room manners.
A young fellow with an exposure of white shirtfront and a small dress tie advanced from the cloakroom towards the staircase and saluted them. He was dark, but with rosy, smooth-shaven cheeks and with slight sideburns close to his ears, a really handsome youth, not ridiculously nor gaudily pretty, like a gipsy violinist, but masculinely handsome in a very agreeable, well-bred, winning manner, with friendly black eyes. His dinner-jacket still sat a bit awkwardly upon him.
“Now, now, don’t scold me, Cornelia,” he said, using the feminine form of her family name. “It was that confounded lecture.” Ingrid presented him to her father: Herr Hergesell.
So this was Herr Hergesell. He thanked the master of the house in a courteous manner for having invited him, and they shook hands. “I’m
