The Sleepwalkers Read Free Page A

dancing-hall than he looked searchingly around for him. But of course Bertrand was not there: on the contrary Joachim found two officers from his own regiment, and now he remembered for the first time that it had been himself who had incited them to come to the casino, so that he might not be left alone with his father, or with his father and Bertrand.
    In acknowledgment of his age and position Herr von Pasenow was greeted with a slight, stiff bow and a click of the heels, as if he were a military superior, and it was indeed with the air of a commanding general that he inquired if the gentlemen were enjoying themselves: he wouldfeel honoured if they would drink a glass of champagne with him; whereupon the gentlemen made known their agreement by clicking their heels again. A new bottle of champagne was brought. They all sat stiffly and dumbly in their chairs, drank to each other in silence, and regarded the hall, the white-and-gilt decorations, the gas flames that hissed, surrounded by tobacco smoke, on the branches of the great circular chandelier, and stared at the dancers who were revolving in the middle of the floor. At last Herr von Pasenow said: “Well, gentlemen, I hope that you aren’t refraining from the company of the fair sex on my account.” Bows and smiles. “Some pretty girls here too. As I was coming upstairs I met a very promising piece, black hair, and with eyes that you young fellows couldn’t remain indifferent to.” Joachim was so ashamed that he could have throttled the old man to suppress such unseemly words, but already one of his comrades was replying that it must have been Ruzena, really an unusually pretty girl, and one couldn’t deny her a certain elegance either; anyhow, most of the ladies here were better than might be expected, for the management were very strict in selecting their girls and laid a great deal of importance on the maintenance of a refined tone. Meanwhile Ruzena had returned to the dancing-hall; she had taken the arm of a fair girl, and as they sauntered past the tables and boxes with their high coiffures and tight-laced figures they actually produced an elegant impression. As they were passing Herr von Pasenow’s table they were asked jestingly whether Ruzena’s ears had not been tingling, and Herr von Pasenow added that, to judge from her name, he must be addressing a fair Pole, consequently almost a countrywoman of his. No, she was not Polish, said Ruzena, but Bohemian, or as people said in this country, Czech; but Bohemian was more correct, for the proper name of her country was Bohemia. “All the better,” said Herr von Pasenow, “the Poles are no good … unreliable.… Well, it doesn’t matter.”
    Meanwhile the two girls had sat down, and Ruzena began to talk in a deep voice, laughing at herself, for she had not yet learned to speak German correctly. Joachim was annoyed at his father for conjuring up the memory of the Polish maids, but was forced himself to think of one of the harvest workers who, when he was a little boy, had lifted him up on to the wagon with the sheaves. Yet though in her hard, staccato pronunciation she made hay of the German language, still she was a young lady, stiffly corseted, who lifted her champagne-glass to her lips with a proper air, and so was not in the least like a Polish harvest worker; whetherthe talk about his father and the maids were true or not. Joachim had nothing to do with that, but this gentle girl wasn’t to be treated by the old man in the way he was probably accustomed to. All the same Joachim was unable to envisage the life of a Bohemian girl as any different from that of a Polish one—indeed even among German civilians it was difficult to divine the individual behind the puppet—and when he tried to imagine Ruzena as coming out of a good home, with a good matronly mother and a decent suitor with gloves on, it did not fit her; and he could not get rid of the feeling that in Bohemia life must be wild and low, as