Dream Story Read Free

watches.
    When the doctor entered she looked up, but because of the dim light he could not see whether she had blushed, as usual, when he appeared. She started to rise, but he stopped her with a movement of his hand, and so she merely greeted him with a nod, her eyes large and sad. He stepped to the head of the bed and mechanically placed his hands on the forehead of the dead man and on the arms which were lying on the bed-spread in loose and open shirt sleeves. His shoulders drooped with a slight expression of regret. He stuck his hands into the pockets of his coat and his eyes wandered about the room until they finally rested on Marianne. Her hair was blond and thick, but dry; her neck well-formed and slender, although a little wrinkled and rather yellow; and her lips were thin and firmly pressed together.
    "Well, my dear Marianne," he said in a slightly embarrassed whisper, "you weren't entirely unprepared for this."
    She held out her hand to him. He took it sympathetically and inquired about the particulars of the final, fatal attack. She reported briefly and to the point, and then spoke of her father's last comparatively easy days, during which Fridolin had not seen him. Drawing up a chair, he sat down opposite her, and tried to console her by saying that her father must have suffered very little at the last. He then asked if any of her relatives had been notified. Yes, she said, the housekeeper had already gone to tell her uncle, and very likely Doctor Roediger would soon appear. "My fiance," she added, and did not look him straight in the eye.
    Fridolin simply nodded. During the year he had met Doctor Roediger two or three times in the Councilor's house. The pale young man—an instructor in History at the University of Vienna—was of an unusually slender build with a short, blond beard and spectacles, and had made quite a good impression upon him, without, however, arousing his interest beyond that. Marianne would certainly look better, he thought to himself, if she were his mistress. Her hair would be less dry, her lips would be fuller and redder. I wonder how old she is, he reflected. The first time I attended the Councilor, three or four years ago, she was twentv-three. At that time her mother was still living and she was more cheerful than now. She even took singing lessons for a while. So she is going to marry this instructor! I wonder why? She surely isn't in love with him, and he isn't likely to have much money either. What kind of a marriage will it turn out to be? Probably like a thousand others. But it's none of my business. It's quite possible that I shall never see her again, since there's nothing more for me to do here. Well, many others that I cared for have gone the same way.
    As these thoughts passed through his mind, Marianne began to speak of her father—with fervor—as if his death had suddenly made him a more remarkable person. Then he was really only fifty-four years old? Well, of course, he had had so many worries and disappointments—his wife always ill—and his son such a grief! What, she had a brother? Certainly, she had once told the doctor about him. Her brother was now living somewhere abroad. A picture that he had painted when he was fifteen was hanging over there in Marianne's room. It represented an officer galloping down a hill. Her father had always pretended not to see it although it wasn't bad. Oh yes, if he'd had a chance her brother might have made something of himself.
    How excitedly she speaks, Fridolin thought, and how bright her eyes are! Is it fever? Quite possibly. She's grown much thinner. Probably has tuberculosis.
    She kept up her stream of talk, but it seemed to him that she didn't quite know what she was saying. It was twelve years since her brother had left home. In fact, she had been a child when he disappeared. They had last heard from him four or five years ago, at Christmas, from a small city in Italy. Strange to say, she had forgotten the name. She continued