them. They were apparently waiting for a report. They sent out numerous riders who disappeared at a gallop up a steeply ascending side-street opening off the square.
None had yet returned.
The city official Bruder, still a young man but wearing a full beard, had joined the group at the window. Since he enjoyed higher rank and was held in particular esteem
because of his abilities, they all bowed courteously and made way for him at the window ledge. “This must be the end,” he said, looking down on the square. “It is only
too apparent.”
“Then it is your opinion, Councillor,” said an arrogant young man who in spite of Bruder’s approach had not stirred from his place and now stood close to him in such a
way that it was impossible for them to look at each other; “then it is your opinion that the battle has been lost?”
“Certainly. There can be no doubt of it. Speaking in confidence, our leadership is bad. We must pay for all sorts of old sins. This of course is not the time to talk of it,
everybody must look out for himself now. We are indeed face to face with final collapse. Our visitors may be here by this evening. It may be that they won’t even
wait until evening but will arrive here in half an hour.”
I step out of the house for a short stroll. The weather is beautiful but the street is startlingly empty, except for a municipal employee in the distance who is holding a
hose and playing a huge arc of water along the street. “Unheard of,” I say, and test the tension of the arc. “An insignificant municipal employee,” I say, and again look
at the man in the distance.
At the corner of the next intersection two men are fighting; they collide, fly far apart, guardedly approach one another and are at once locked together in struggle again.
“Stop fighting, gentlemen,” I say.
The student Kosel was studying at his table. He was so deeply engrossed in his work that he failed to notice it getting dark; in spite of the brightness of the May day,
dusk began to descend at about four o’clock in the afternoon in this ill-situated back room. He read with pursed lips, his eyes, without his being aware of it, bent close to
the book. Occasionally he paused in his reading, wrote short excerpts from what he had read into a little notebook, and then, closing his eyes, whispered from memory
what he had written down. Across from his window, not five yards away, was a kitchen and in it a girl ironing clothes who would often look across at Karl.
Suddenly Kosel put his pencil down and listened. Someone was pacing back and forth in the room above, apparently barefooted, making one round after another. At
every step there was a loud splashing noise, of the kind one makes when one steps into water. Kosel shook his head. These walks which he had had to endure for
perhaps a week now, ever since a new roomer had moved in, meant the end, not only of his studying for today, but of his studying altogether, unless he did something in
his own defense.
There are certain relationships which I can feel distinctly but which I am unable to perceive. It would be sufficient to plunge down a little deeper; but just at this point
the upward pressure is so strong that I should think myself at the very bottom if I did not feel the currents moving below me. In any event, I look upward to the surface
whence the thousand-times-refracted brilliance of the light falls upon me. I float up and splash around on the surface, in spite of the fact that I loathe everything up
there and—
“Herr Direktor, a new actor has arrived,” the servant was heard distinctly to announce, for the door to the anteroom was wide open. “I merely wish to become an
actor,” said Karl in an undertone, and in this way corrected the servant’s announcement. “Where is he?” the director asked, craning his neck.
The old bachelor with the altered cut to his beard.