But yet, that happened. There was Magdalena Vermehren, the daughter of Vermehren the attorney, with the sweet mouth and the large, dark, glittering eyes full of earnestness and reverie. She often fell while dancing; but she came to him when partners were chosen, she knew that he wrote verses, twice she had asked him to show them to her, and often she gazed at him from a distance with her head lowered. But what did that have to do with him? He, he loved Inge Holm, the blonde cheerful Inge, who surely must despise him because he wrote bits of poetry. He would look at her, see her narrow blue eyes full of happiness and scorn, and an envious yearning, a sharp oppressive pain that he was shut away from her and must always be foreign to her lay in his breast and burned. …
“First pair en avant!” Herr Knaak said, and no words can describe how wonderfully the man brought out the nasal sound. They were practising the quadrille, and to Tonio’s profound horror he found himself in one and the same carré with Inge Holm. He avoided her as well as he could, and yet he was continually finding himself near her; he struggled to keep his eyes away from her, and yet his glance was continually falling upon her. … Now she came sliding and running by, holding to redheaded Ferdinand Matthiessen; she threw back her plait and, breathing deeply, took her place opposite him. Herr Heinzelmann, the pianist, struck the keys with his bony hands, Herr Knaak gave the command: the quadrille began.
She moved about in front of him, back and forth, stepping and turning; often he caught a fragrance which came from her hair or the delicate white stuff of her dress, and his eyes became sadder and sadder. “I love you, dear, sweet Inge,” he said inwardly, and into these words he laid his distress that she was so eagerly and cheerfully absorbed in the matter at hand and did not notice him. He suddenly recalled a beautiful poem by Storm: “I’d like to sleep, but you must dance.” He was tortured by the humiliating anomaly in this having to dance while one is loving. …
“First pair en avant!” Herr Knaak said; then came a new turn. “Compliment! Moulinet des dames! Tour de main!” and no one will explain in what a gracious manner he swallowed the mute e of the de. “Second pair en avant!” Tonio Kröger and his lady were there. “Compliment!” and Tonio Kröger bowed. “Moulinet des dames!” And Tonio Kröger, with lowered head and gloomy brows, laid his hand upon the hands of the four ladies, upon that of Inge Holm, and danced moulinet.
On all sides a giggling and laughing started up. Herr Knaak fell into a ballet posture which expressed a conventionalized horror. “Alas!” he cried. “Stop, stop! Kröger is lost among the ladies! En arrière, Miss Kröger, back, fi donc! Everyone understood it except you. Shoo! Away! Back with you!” and he pulled out his yellow silk handkerchief and with it shooed Tonio Kröger back to his place.
Everyone laughed, the boys, the girls, and the ladies beyond the portieres, for Herr Knaak had made something just too funny out of the incident, and it was as amusing as in a theatre; except that Herr Heinzelmann was waiting with a dry businesslike expression for the sign to go on playing, as he was hardened to Herr Knaak’s effects.
Then the quadrille was continued, and then there was a pause. The maid came clattering through the door with a tray of glasses full of wine jelly, and the cook followed in her wake with a cargo of plum pudding. But Tonio Kröger stole away, went secretly out into the corridor and, his hands behind his back, stood before a window with its blind drawn; it did not occur to him that absolutely nothing could be seen through this blind and that it was ridiculous therefore to stand in front of it and act as though you were looking out.
But he was looking into himself, where there were so many sorrows and longings. Why, why was he here? Why was he not sitting by the window in his room, and reading Storm’s Immensee, and looking out now and then into the half-dark garden where the old walnut-tree was groaning cumbrously? That was his place. Let the others dance and apply themselves eagerly and competently to the matter at hand! … No, no, his place was here nevertheless, where he was assured of being near Inge even though he was simply standing by himself, far off from her, and trying to distinguish from the buzzing, clatter, and laughter her voice with its ring of warm life. Your narrow blue laughing eyes, you blonde Inge! People can be as beautiful and cheerful as you only if they don’t read Immensee and are never even tempted to do such things. That is the sad part of it! …
She had to come! She had to notice that he was gone, had to feel how things were with him, had to follow him secretly, if only out of sympathy, lay her hand on his shoulder, and say: “Come in with us, be gay, I love you.” And he listened behind him and waited in unreasoning suspense for her to come. But she came by no means. Such things never happened on this earth.
Had she laughed at him too, like all the others? Yes, she had done that, though he would gladly have denied it for her sake and his own. And yet
