Dream Story Read Free Page A

like this for a while, almost incoherently. Suddenly she stopped and sat there silently, her head resting in her hands. Fridolin was tired and even more bored. He was anxiously waiting for some one to come, her relatives, or her fiance. The silence in the room was oppressive. It seemed to him that the dead man joined in the silence, deliberately and with malicious joy.
    With a side glance at the corpse, he said: "At any rate, Fraulein Marianne, as things are now, it is fortunate that you won't have to stay in this house very much longer." And when she raised her head a little, without, however, looking at Fridolin, he continued: "I suppose your fiance will soon get a professorship. The chances for promotion are more favorable in the Faculty of Philosophy than with us in Medicine." He was thinking that, years ago, he also had aspired to an academic career, but because he wanted a comfortable income, he had finally decided to practice medicine. Suddenly he felt that compared with this noble Doctor Roediger, he was the inferior.
    "We shall move soon," said Marianne listlessly, "he has a post at the University of Gottingen."
    "Oh," said Fridolin, and was about to congratulate her but it seemed rather out of place at the moment. He glanced at the closed window, and without asking for permission but availing himself of his privilege as a doctor, he opened both casements and let some air in. It had become even warmer and more spring-like, and the breeze seemed to bring with it a slight fragrance of the distant awakening woods. When he turned back into the room, he saw Marianne's eyes fixed upon him with a questioning look. He moved nearer to her and said: "I hope the fresh air will be good for you. It has become quite warm, and last night"—he was about to say: we drove home from the masquerade in a snowstorm, but he quickly changed the sentence and continued: "Last night the snow was still lying on the streets a foot and a half deep."
    She hardly heard what he said. Her eyes became moist, large tears streamed down her cheeks and again she buried her face in her hands. In spite of himself, he placed his hand on her head, caressing it. He could feel her body beginning to tremble, and her sobs which were at first very quiet, gradually became louder and finally quite unrestrained. All at once she slipped down from her chair and lay at Fridolin's feet, clasping his knees with her arms and pressing her face against them. Then she looked up to him with large eyes, wild with grief, and whispered ardently: "I don't want to leave here. Even if you never return, if I am never to see you again, I want, at least, to live near you."
    He was touched rather than surprised, for he had always known that she either was, or imagined herself to be, in love with him.
    "Please—get up, Marianne," he said softly and bending down he gently raised her. Of course, she is hysterical, he remarked to himself and he glanced at her dead father. I wonder if he hears everything, he thought. Perhaps he isn't really dead. Perhaps everyone in the first hours after passing away, is only in a coma. He put his arms about her in a very hesitating embrace, and almost against his will he kissed her on the forehead, an act that somehow seemed rather ridiculous. He had a fleeting recollection of reading a novel years ago in which a young man, still almost a boy, had been seduced, in fact, practically raped, by the friend of his mother at the latter's deathbed. At the same time he thought of his wife, without knowing why, and he was conscious of some bitterness and a vague animosity against the man with the yellow hand-bag on the hotel stairs in Denmark. He held Marianne closer, but without the slightest emotion. The sight of her lustreless, dry hair, the indefinite, sweetish scent of her unaired dress gave him a slight feeling of revulsion. The bell outside rang again, and feeling he was released, he hastily kissed Marianne's hand, as if in gratitude, and went to open the