When little Herr Friedemann, in an immaculate dress-suit, with a shining white shirt-bosom projecting pointedly, entered his box—box thirteen—he started back, at the same time making a movement with his hand towards his forehead, while his nostrils expanded convulsively for a moment. But then he sat down on his chair, the seat to the left of Frau von Rinnlingen.
She looked at him a moment as he sat down, protruding her under lip, and then turned to exchange a few words with her husband, who stood behind her. He was a tall, broad-shouldered man with turned-up moustaches and a bronzed, good-natured face.
When the overture began and Frau von Rinnlingen leaned over the railing, Herr Friedemann shot a hasty side-glance at her. She wore a light-coloured evening dress and was even a trifle décolleté—the only one among the ladies present. Her sleeves were very wide and puffy, and her white gloves reached to her elbows. There was something voluptuous about her figure tonight, something that was not noticeable the other day, when she wore the wide jacket; her full bosom rose and sank slowly and the coils of ruddy-blond hair lay low and heavy upon her neck.
Herr Friedemann was pale, much paler than usual, and beneath his smoothly parted brown hair small beads of perspiration stood on his forehead. Frau von Rinnlingen had stripped her glove from her left arm, which lay on the red velvet of the balustrade, and this round, dull-white arm, which like the unadorned hand was traversed by pale-blue veins, he saw always before him; there was no help for that.
The fiddles sang, the trumpets came in crashingly, Telramund fell, general jubilation reigned in the orchestra, and little Herr Friedemann sat immovably, pale and still, his head sunk deep between his shoulders, a forefinger pressed to his lips and his other hand under the lapel of his coat.
When the curtain fell, Frau von Rinnlingen rose and left the box with her husband. Herr Friedemann saw this without looking in that direction, passed his handkerchief lightly across his forehead, stood up suddenly, walked as far as the door leading to the corridor, turned back again, sat down in his place, and remained there motionless in the position which he had assumed before.
When the signal bell tinkled and his neighbours came back, he felt that Frau von Rinnlingen’s eyes rested on him, and without really willing it he raised his head. As their glances met, she did not by any means look aside, but continued to regard him attentively without a trace of embarrassment, until he himself, conquered and humiliated, lowered his eyes. He had grown still paler, and a strange, sweetish, biting anger began to rise in him.—The music began.
Towards the end of this act it happened that Frau von Rinnlingen let her fan slip from her hand and that this fell to the floor beside Herr Friedemann. Both bent down at the same time, but she seized it herself and said with a smile which had mockery in it: “I thank you.”
Their heads had been close together and for a moment he had been forced to breathe the warm perfume of her breast. His face was distorted, his whole body contracted, and his heart pounded with such horribly heavy and powerful beats that his breath almost left him. He sat for another half-minute; then he pushed back his chair, stood up noiselessly, and noiselessly went out.
He walked, followed by the strains of the music, across the corridor, received his silk hat, his light overcoat, and his cane at the coatroom, and strode down the steps to the street.
It was a warm, still evening. In the light of the gas lamps the grey, gabled houses stood silently against the heavens, which were glistening with bright, mild stars. The steps of the few people who passed Herr Friedemann echoed upon the pavement. Somebody greeted him, but he did not see it; he held his head low, and his high, pointed chest trembled, so heavily did he breathe. Now and then he said to himself softly: “My God! My God!”
He looked into his heart with horror-stricken and anxious eyes, and saw how his emotions, which he had cultivated so tenderly, had always treated so mildly and wisely, were now torn up, whirled about, twisted inside out.—And suddenly, quite overpowered, in a condition of dizziness, intoxication, longing, and torture, he leaned against a lamppost and with trembling lips whispered: “Gerda!”
Everything remained quiet. Far and wide at this moment there was no human being to be seen. Little Herr Friedemann pulled himself together and walked on. He had gone along the street in which the theatre stood and which pitched rather steeply towards the river, and now he followed the Hauptstrasse towards the north, towards his home.
How she had looked at him! How? She had conquered him, forced him to lower his eyes? She had humiliated him with a look? Was she not a woman and he a man? And had not her remarkable brown eyes really trembled for joy during all this?
Once again he felt this impotent, almost voluptuous hatred rise within him, but then he thought of the moment when her head had touched his own, when he had breathed the fragrance of her body, and he stood still for the second time, bent back his deformed chest and shoulders, drew his breath through his teeth, and then murmured once more, utterly bewildered, despairing, beyond himself: “My God! My God!”
And again he strode mechanically on, slowly,
