Dream Story Read Free Page B

door. Doctor Roediger stood there, in a dark gray top-coat, an umbrella in his hand and a serious face, appropriate to the occasion. The two men greeted each other much more cordially than was called for by their actual state of acquaintance. Then they stepped into the room. After an embarrassed look at the deceased, Roediger expressed his sympathy to Marianne, while Fridolin went into the adjoining room to write out the official death-certificate. He turned up the gas-light over the desk and his eyes fell upon the picture of the white-uniformed officer, galloping down hill, with drawn sabre, to meet an invisible enemy. It hung in a narrow frame of dull gold and rather resembled a modest chromo-lithograph.
    With his death-certificate filled out, Fridolin returned to the room where the engaged couple sat, hand in hand, by the bed of the dead Councilor.
    Again the door-bell rang and Doctor Roediger rose to answer it. While he was gone, Marianne, with her eyes on the floor, said, almost inaudibly: "I love you," and Fridolin answered by pronouncing her name tenderly. Then Roediger came back with an elderly couple, Marianne's uncle and aunt, and a few words, appropriate to the occasion, were exchanged, with the usual embarrassment in the presence of one who has just died. The little room suddenly seemed crowded with mourners. Fridolin felt superfluous, took his leave and was escorted to the door by Roediger who said a few words of gratitude and expressed the hope of seeing him soon again.

3
    WHEN Fridolin stood on the street in front of the house, he looked up at the window which he himself had opened a little while before. The casements were swaying slightly in the wind of early spring, and the people who remained behind them up there, the living as well as the dead, all seemed unreal and phantomlike. He felt as if he had escaped from something, not so much from an adventure, but rather from a melancholy spell the power of which he was trying to break. He felt strangely disinclined to go home. The snow in the streets had melted, except where little heaps of dirty white had been piled up on either side of the curb. The gas-flame in the street lamps flickered and a nearby church bell struck eleven. Fridolin decided that before going to bed, he would spend a half hour in a quiet nook of a cafe near his residence. As he walked through Rathaus Park he noticed here and there on benches standing in the shadow, that couples were sitting, clasped together, just as if Spring had actually arrived and no danger were lurking in the deceptive, warm air. A tramp in tattered clothes was lying full length on a bench with his hat over his face. Suppose I wake him and give him some money for a night's lodging, Fridolin thought. But what good would that do? Then I would have to provide for the next night, too, or there'd be no sense in it, and in the end I might be suspected of having criminal relations with him. He quickened his steps to escape as rapidly as possible from all responsibility and temptation. And why only this one? he asked himself. There are thousands of such poor devils in Vienna alone. It's manifestly impossible to help all of them or to worry about all the poor wretches! He was reminded of the dead man he had just left, and shuddered; in fact, he felt slightly nauseated at the thought that decay and decomposition, according to eternal laws, had already begun their work in the lean body under the brown flannel blanket. He was glad that he was still alive, and in all probability these ugly things were still far removed from him. He was, in fact, still in the prime of youth, he had a charming and lovable wife and could have several women in addition, if he happened to want them, although, to be sure, such affairs required more leisure than was his. He then remembered that he would have to be in his ward at the hospital at eight in the morning, visit his private patients from eleven to one, keep office hours from three to five, and