Dinner was eaten earlier than usual; and supper likewise they took sooner than ever before, in the music room, since in the hall preparations for the ball were already under way: everything had been plunged into such glorious disorder. Then, when it was dark and Tonio Kröger was sitting in his room, things became lively again on the boulevard and in the house. The excursionists were returning. In fact, from the direction of Helsingör new guests were arriving on bicycles and in wagons; and already he could hear a violin tuning up in the house downstairs, and a clarinet was nasally executing some trial runs. … All indications were that it would be a brilliant ball.
Now the little orchestra struck up a march; it carried up to him in a subdued steady rhythm; they were opening the dance with a polonaise. Tonio Kröger sat still for quite a while and listened. But when he heard the march tempo change into a waltz rhythm, he arose and slipped noiselessly out of his room.
From the corridor he could go down the back stairs to the side entrance of the hotel, and from there, without touching a room, reach the glass veranda. He took this route, quietly and stealthily, as though he were on forbidden paths; he felt his way carefully through the darkness, irresistibly drawn by this stupid and soulfully swaying music, whose tones already came to him clear and unsubdued.
The veranda was empty and unlighted, but the glass door was open into the hall, where the two large petroleum lamps with polished reflectors were shining brightly. He crept up softly; his skin tingled with thievish delight as he dared to stand here in the darkness and to spy unseen on her dancing in the light. Hastily and greedily he sent his glances after the two he was seeking. …
The general merriment seemed to have developed with perfect freedom, although the festivity had been opened hardly half an hour before. But they had already come here warm and excited, after having spent the whole day together, carefree, happy, and in perfect accord. In the music room, which Tonio Kröger could see into if he ventured a little closer, several elderly gentlemen had gathered at cards, smoking and drinking. But others, with their wives, were sitting in the foreground, on the plush chairs and against the walls of the hall, watching the dance. They spread their knees, and supported their hands on them, and puffed out their cheeks with an expression of well-being, while the mothers, wearing bonnets, their hands crossed beneath their breasts, and their heads bent sideways, were looking into the swarm of young people. A podium had been erected against one of the longer walls of the room, and there the musicians were doing their best. There was even a trumpet here; it blew with a certain cautious hesitancy, as though it were afraid of its own voice, which nevertheless was continually breaking down and tumbling all over itself. … The couples undulated, weaving in and out among one another, while others wandered about the room arm-in-arm. No one was dressed for a ball, but only as for some Sunday spent in the country during the summer: the cavaliers in ordinary suits which showed signs of having been spared throughout the week, and the young girls in light and cheerful dresses with bouquets of wild flowers on their bodices. Also a few children were in the room and danced with one another after their fashion, even when the music stopped. A long-legged man in a swallowtailed coat, a provincial lion with eyeglass and singed hair, a postal assistant or something of the sort, and like some fat comic figure out of a Danish novel, seemed to be master of ceremonies and head of the ball. Hurried, sweating, and with his whole soul in the matter, he was everywhere at once, waddling through the room in high importance, stepping forward artistically on the tips of his toes and intricately crossing his feet, which were encased in smooth pointed military boots. He swung his arms in the air, gave orders, called for music, clapped his hands. And through it all, the ribbons of the large variegated bow, which was fastened to his shoulder as a mark of his dignity and towards which he often turned his head lovingly, fluttered irregularly behind him.
Yes, they were there, the two who had passed by Tonio Kröger today in the sunlight; he saw them again, and gasped with pleasure as he caught sight of them both almost simultaneously. Here was Hans Hansen standing quite near him, close by the door. Bent forward a little, with his legs spread, he was carefully eating a large piece of sponge-cake, while holding his open hand beneath his chin to catch the crumbs. And there against the wall sat Ingeborg Holm, blonde Inge, and the assistant was just now waddling up to them, to invite them to the dance by a recherché bow, whereupon he placed one hand on his back and shoved the other gracefully into his bosom; but she shook her head, and made a sign that she was out of breath and would have to rest a little. Then the assistant took a seat next to her.
Tonio Kröger watched them, these two for whom he had suffered love in times past—Hans and Ingeborg. They were not this so much by reason of specific attributes and similarity of dress, as through the identity of race and type, this light, steel-blue-eyed, and blonde-haired sort which created an impression of purity, of serene good nature, and of a modesty at once proud and homely. He looked at them; saw Hans Hansen standing there in his sailor suit as smart and well-formed as ever, broad in the shoulders and small in the
