The Dream Novel by Arthur Schnitzler

Berlin, 1926

The Dream Novel

"Twenty-four brown slaves rowed the magnificent galley that was to carry Prince Amgiad to the Caliph's palace. The prince, wrapped in his purple cloak, lay alone on the deck under the dark blue, star-studded night sky, and his gaze—"

Until this point, the little girl had been reading aloud; now, almost suddenly, her eyes grew heavy. Her parents smiled at each other. Fridolin leaned over to her, kissed her blonde hair, and closed the book lying on the table that hadn't yet been cleared. The child looked up, caught in the act.

"It's nine o'clock," said the father. "It's time to go to bed."

As Albertine also bent down to the child, the parents' hands met on her beloved forehead. With a tender smile that was now meant for more than just the child, their eyes met. The governess entered and reminded the little girl to say good night to her parents. Obediently, the child stood up, offered her lips to her father and mother for a kiss, and allowed the governess to quietly lead her out of the room.

Fridolin and Albertine, now left alone under the reddish glow of the hanging lamp, suddenly felt an urgent need to resume the conversation they had started before dinner about the events of the previous ball.

This was the first ball they had attended that year, deciding to go just before Carnival ended.

When Fridolin entered the hall, he was greeted like a long-awaited friend by two women in red domino masks. He could not figure out who they were, even though they seemed to know every detail about his student days and his time at the hospital. Inviting him into a private box with warm friendliness, they promised to return very soon, unmasked. However, they stayed away so long that Fridolin, growing impatient, decided to go down to the main floor, hoping to find them again.

Despite searching everywhere, he could not spot them. Instead, without warning, another woman slipped her arm through his. It was his wife, who had just abruptly left an unknown man. This stranger, with his melancholy, world-weary demeanor and a foreign, seemingly Polish accent, had initially captivated her. But suddenly, a harsh and cheeky remark he made had hurt and even frightened her.

Now, the husband and wife sat together, secretly glad to have escaped a disappointing, banal masquerade. Surrounded by other loving couples, they sat at the buffet with oysters and champagne. They chatted happily, as if they had just met, playing a comedy of flirtation, resistance, seduction, and surrender. After a quick carriage ride through the white winter night, they arrived home and embraced, experiencing a passion they had not felt in a long time.

A gray morning woke them too soon. The husband's profession called him early to his sick patients, and the wife's duties as a mother and homemaker allowed Albertine no more rest. The hours passed soberly, consumed by daily obligations and work; the past night, both its beginning and end, had faded. Only now, after their day's work was done, the child was asleep, and no disturbance was expected, did the shadowy figures from the ball—the melancholy stranger and the women in red masks—rise again into reality. Suddenly, those seemingly insignificant events were magically and painfully filled with the deceptive glow of missed possibilities.

Harmless yet probing questions and sly, double-meaning answers passed between them. Neither failed to notice that the other was lacking in complete honesty. Thus, both felt inclined toward mild revenge. They exaggerated the attraction they supposedly felt from their unknown partners at the ball, mocked the jealous feelings the other seemed to show, and denied their own.

However, their light chatter about the trivial adventures of the previous night turned into a more serious conversation about those hidden, barely imagined desires that can sweep even the clearest and purest soul into dark and dangerous whirlpools. They spoke of secret realms toward which they felt only a faint longing, yet where the incomprehensible wind of fate might one day carry them, even if only in a dream.

Although they felt completely connected in emotion and desire, they knew that yesterday was not the first time a whisper of adventure, freedom, and danger had touched them. In a tense, self-torturing way, driven by impure curiosity, they tried to draw confessions from one another. Drawing closer anxiously, each searched within themselves for some fact, however indifferent, or some experience, however trivial, that might serve as an expression for the unsayable. Perhaps an honest confession of such a thing could free them from a tension and mistrust that was gradually becoming unbearable.

Albertine, whether she was the more impatient, the more honest, or the kinder of the two, was the first to find the courage for an open admission. With a slightly trembling voice, she asked Fridolin if he remembered the young man who, on an evening in the past summer, had sat at a neighboring table with two officers on the Danish beach. During dinner, he had received a telegram and had then hurriedly said goodbye to his friends.

Fridolin nodded. "What was it about?" he asked.

"I saw him that morning," Albertine replied. "He was hurrying up the hotel stairs with his yellow handbag. He glanced at me briefly, but a few steps higher he stopped, turned around, and our eyes met. He didn't smile; in fact, his face seemed to darken. I felt much the same way because I had never been so moved before.

All day long, I lay on the beach, lost in thought. If he had called out, I felt I wouldn't have been able to resist. I thought I was ready for anything; I believed I was almost resolved to give up you, my child, and my future. And yet—you'll understand, won't you?—you were dearer to me than ever before.

That very afternoon, you must remember, we happened to chat so intimately about a thousand things, including our future together and the child, as we hadn't done in a long time. At sunset, you and I sat on the balcony. He walked by below on the beach without looking up, but seeing him made me happy. I stroked your forehead and kissed your hair, and in my love for you, there was also a deep, painful pity.

In the evening, I looked very beautiful; you told me so yourself. I wore a white rose in my belt. Perhaps it wasn't a coincidence that the stranger sat with his friends nearby. He didn't look at me, but I played with the thought of standing up, walking over to his table, and saying: 'Here I am, my expected one, my beloved—take me.'

At that exact moment, someone brought him a telegram. He read it, turned pale, whispered a few words to the younger of the two officers, and, casting a mysterious glance in my direction, left the room."

"And?" Fridolin asked dryly when she fell silent.

"Nothing more. I only know that I woke up the next morning with a certain unease. I don't know if I was more afraid that he had already left or that he might still be there. I didn't know it then, and I don't know it now. But when he still hadn't disappeared by noon, I breathed a sigh of relief. Don't ask me any further, Fridolin; I have told you the whole truth. And you, too, must have experienced something on that beach—I know it."

Fridolin stood up and paced the room a few times before saying, "You're right." He stood by the window, his face hidden in the shadows.

"In the mornings," he began, his voice muffled and somewhat hostile, "often very early, before you were even awake, I used to walk along the shore, past the town. Even that early, the sun was always shining brightly and strongly over the sea.

As you know, there were small cottages out on the beach. Each one stood alone, a little world of its own. Some had gardens enclosed by fences; others were surrounded only by woods. The bathing huts were separated from the houses by the main road and a stretch of sand.

I rarely met anyone at such an early hour, and I never saw any swimmers.

But one morning, I suddenly noticed a female figure who had just been invisible. She was stepping carefully onto the narrow terrace of a bathing hut staked into the sand. With one foot in front of the other, her arms spread behind her against the wooden wall, she moved forward.

She was a very young girl, perhaps fifteen years old, with loose blond hair flowing over her shoulders and down one side of her delicate chest. She gazed straight ahead, down at the water, gliding slowly along the wall with her eyes cast down toward the other corner. Suddenly, she stood directly in front of me. With her arms, she reached far behind her as if trying to hold on tighter. She looked up and suddenly saw me.

A shiver ran through her body, as if she were about to collapse or flee.

However, since she could only move very slowly on the narrow board, she decided to stop. She stood there, first with a startled expression, then with an angry one, and finally with an embarrassed look.

Suddenly, she smiled—a strange smile. There was a greeting, even a wave, in her eyes, mixed with a faint mockery as she lightly brushed the water with her toes, the water that separated us.

Then, she straightened her young, slender body, proud of her beauty. It was clear she was feeling a proud and sweet excitement from the brilliance of my gaze, which she felt upon her.

We stood facing each other for perhaps ten seconds, our lips slightly parted and our eyes shimmering.

Unconsciously, I spread my arms toward her. Devotion and joy were in her gaze.

But suddenly, she shook her head violently. She released one arm from the wall and pointed commandingly for me to leave. When I couldn't bring myself to obey immediately, a plea, a desperate entreaty, came into her childlike eyes. I had no choice but to turn away.

I resumed my walk as quickly as possible. I did not look back at her even once. It wasn't out of consideration, obedience, or chivalry, but because I felt a surge of emotion beneath her final glance that was unlike anything I had ever experienced, leaving me feeling as though I were about to faint."

And he fell silent.

"And how often," Albertine asked, staring ahead without emphasis, "did you take that same path afterward?"

"What I told you happened by chance on the last day of our stay in Denmark," Fridolin replied. "I don't know what would have happened under different circumstances. Don't ask me any more, Albertine."

He remained standing by the window, motionless.

Albertine stood up, approached him. Her eyes were moist and dark, her brow slightly furrowed.

"From now on, we should always tell each other such things immediately," she said.

He nodded silently.

"Promise me."

He pulled her close.

"Don't you know that?" he asked, though his voice still sounded harsh.

She took his hands, stroked them, and looked up at him with misty eyes. Beneath the veil, he could read her thoughts. At that moment, she was thinking of his other, more real experiences, including his youthful adventures of which she had been made aware. In their early years of marriage, he had been too willing to satisfy her jealous curiosity, revealing to her, or even giving up, things he might have preferred to keep to himself.

In this hour, he knew, certain memories were forcing their way into her mind. He was hardly surprised when she, as if in a trance, spoke the half-forgotten name of one of his youthful loves. Yet, to him, it sounded like an accusation, even a faint threat.

He pressed her hands to his lips.

"In every being I thought I loved," he said, "believe me, even if it may sound cheap, I was always looking for you. I know this better than you can understand, Albertine."

She smiled sadly. "And what if I had decided to go searching first?" she asked. Her gaze changed; it grew cold and impenetrable. He let her hands slip from his, as if he had caught her in a lie, in a betrayal. But she said, "Oh, if only you knew," and then fell silent again.

"If we knew? What do you mean by that?"

With a strange harshness, she replied, "About what you are thinking, my dear."

"Albertine... so there is something you have hidden from me?"

She nodded and looked ahead with a peculiar smile.

Unfathomable, nonsensical doubts awoke in him.

"I don't quite understand," he said. "You were barely seventeen when we got engaged."

"I was sixteen, yes, Fridolin. And yet—" she looked straight into his bright eyes—"it was not my fault that I became your wife still a virgin."

"Albertine—!"

And she told him:

"It was at the Wörthersee, just before our engagement, Fridolin. On a beautiful summer evening, a very handsome young man stood at my window, which overlooked a large, wide meadow. We chatted, and during our conversation, I thought—listen to this: What a dear, delightful young man he is. If he would only speak one word, the right word, I would go out to him on the meadow and walk wherever he wished—perhaps into the forest. Or even better, we could row a boat together out onto the lake. He could have everything he desired from me that night. Yes, that is what I thought. But he did not speak that word, that delightful young man; he only gently kissed my hand. And the next morning, he asked me if I wanted to be his wife. And I said yes."

Fridolin angrily let go of her hand. "And if on that evening," he said, "a different man had stood at your window and had thought of the right word, for example—" He paused, thinking which name to use, but she immediately raised her arms in protest.

"A different person, whoever it might have been, could have said whatever they wanted, but it would have helped them little. And if it hadn't been you standing at the window," she smiled up at him, "then that summer evening wouldn't have seemed so beautiful."

He twisted his mouth in a sneer. "So you say it now, and perhaps you believe it now. But—"

There was a knock. The maid entered and announced that the housekeeper from Schreyvogelgasse was there to fetch Doctor Fridolin for the Hofrat, who was feeling very ill again. Fridolin went into the anteroom, where the messenger informed him that the Hofrat had suffered a heart attack and was in very poor condition. He promised to come immediately.

"You are leaving?" Albertine asked, as he quickly prepared to go, her tone so angry it seemed as if she believed he was wronging her on purpose.

Fridolin replied, almost surprised: "I must."

She sighed lightly.

"I hope it won't be too serious," said Fridolin. "So far, three centigrams of morphine have always helped him get through an attack."

The maid had brought his fur coat. Fridolin kissed Albertine rather distractedly, as if the conversation of the last hour had already been wiped from his memory. He kissed her on the forehead and lips and hurried away.

On the street, he had to open his coat. Sudden thaw had set in; the snow on the sidewalk had almost melted, and a breath of the coming spring blew in the air. From Fridolin's apartment in the Josefstadt, near the General Hospital, it was barely a quarter of an hour to Schreyvogelgasse. Soon, Fridolin climbed the poorly lit, winding staircase of the old house to the second floor and pulled the bell. But before the old-fashioned chime could sound, he realized the door was only slightly ajar. He stepped through the unlit hallway into the living room and immediately saw that he had arrived too late.

The green-shaded kerosene lamp hanging from the low ceiling cast a dim glow over the bedspread, beneath which a slender body lay motionless. The face of the dead man was shadowed, yet Fridolin knew it so well that he felt he could see it clearly: haggard, wrinkled, high forehead, with the white, short full beard and the strikingly ugly, white-haired ears. Marianne, the Hofrat's daughter, sat at the foot of the bed with her arms hanging loosely, as if in deep exhaustion. The air smelled of old furniture, medicine, kerosene, and the kitchen; there was also a hint of Cologne water and rose soap. Somehow, Fridolin could also detect the sweet, cloying scent of that pale girl, still young, who had been slowly fading away over months, over years, through hard domestic work, demanding nursing care, and sleepless nights.

Once the doctor entered, she turned her gaze toward him. However, in the dim light, he could barely tell if her cheeks were flushing red as they often did when he arrived.

She attempted to rise, but a gesture from Fridolin stopped her. She offered him a greeting with large, yet dim eyes.

Fridolin moved to the head of the bed. He mechanically touched the forehead of the deceased, whose arms lay across the bedspread in wide, open shirt sleeves. Then, with a slight sigh of regret, he shrugged his shoulders, slipped his hands into the pockets of his fur coat, let his gaze wander around the room, and finally rest on Marianne.

Her hair was abundant and blonde, but dry. Her neck was well-shaped and slender, yet not entirely smooth, with a yellowish tint. Her lips were thin, as if shaped by many unspoken words.

"Well," he whispered, sounding almost shy, "my dear young lady, I suppose this does not come as a complete surprise to you."

She extended her hand to him. He took it with sympathy and, out of professional duty, asked about the course of the final fatal attack. She answered briefly and factually, then spoke of the last few days, which had been relatively good, during which Fridolin had not seen the patient.

Fridolin pulled a chair closer, sat opposite Marianne, and offered her comfort, suggesting that her father had likely suffered very little in his final hours. He then asked if any relatives had been notified.

"Yes," she replied. "The housekeeper is already on her way to my uncle. And, of course, Dr. Roediger will arrive soon." She added, "He is my fiancé," and looked at Fridolin's forehead instead of into his eyes.

Fridolin merely nodded. Over the past year, he had met Dr. Roediger two or three times in this house. The overly slender, pale young man, with a short, blonde full beard and glasses, was a lecturer in history at the University of Vienna. Fridolin had liked him quite well, though he felt no particular interest in him.

She would certainly look better, Fridolin thought, if she were my lover. Her hair would not be so dry, and her lips would be redder and fuller.

How old might she be? he wondered further. When I was first called to see the Hofrat three or four years ago, she was twenty-three. At that time, her mother was still alive. She was happier then than she is now.

Didn't she take singing lessons for a short while? So, she will marry this lecturer. Why is she doing this? She is certainly not in love with him, and he probably doesn't have much money either. What kind of marriage will this be? Well, a marriage like a thousand others. What concern is it of mine?

It is possible I will never see her again, for I have nothing more to do in this house. Ah, how many people have I never seen again who were closer to me than she is.

While these thoughts passed through Fridolin's mind, Marianne began talking about the deceased. She spoke with a certain intensity, as if the simple fact of his death had suddenly made him a more remarkable person.

"So, he was only fifty-four years old?" she mused. "Of course, with so many worries and disappointments, with a wife who was always ill—and the son caused him so much trouble!"

What? She has a brother? she continued. "Certainly. She must have told the doctor about him before. The brother is living somewhere abroad now. Inside Marianne's cabinet hangs a painting he created when he was fifteen. It depicts an officer galloping down a hill. The father always acted as if he couldn't see the painting at all. But it was a good painting. The brother could have achieved much more under better circumstances."

How agitated she sounds, Fridolin thought, and how her eyes are shining! Fever? Probably. She has become thinner lately. Likely a case of bronchitis.

She continued speaking, but it seemed to him that she did not know exactly who she was talking to, or as if she were speaking only to herself.

"My brother has been away from home for twelve years," she said. "I was still a child when he suddenly disappeared. The last news came four or five years ago at Christmas, from a small Italian town. Strange, she had forgotten his name."

She chattered on like this for a while, talking about trivial things without necessity, almost without connection, until suddenly she fell silent. She sat there mute, her head in her hands.

Fridolin was tired and even more bored. He eagerly waited for someone to arrive—the relatives or the fiancé. The silence in the room weighed heavily. It felt to him as if the dead man were silent with them, not because he was now incapable of speaking, but intentionally and with a sense of malicious glee.

Fridolin glanced at the man and said, "Given how things stand now, it's good, Miss Marianne, that you won't have to stay in this apartment much longer."

She lifted her head slightly but didn't look at Fridolin.

"Your fiancé will likely get a professorship soon. The philosophy department here has much better prospects in that regard than ours."

Fridolin thought about how he had once pursued an academic career years ago. However, because he preferred a comfortable life, he had ultimately decided to practice his profession in a more practical way. Suddenly, he felt inferior to the excellent Dr. Roediger.

"We will move in the autumn," Marianne said without moving. "He has received an offer for a position in Göttingen."

"Ah," Fridolin said, and he tried to offer a congratulatory remark, but it felt inappropriate at that moment and in that setting.

He glanced at the closed window and, without asking permission as if exercising a doctor's right, he opened both shutters to let the air in. The air, which had grown warmer and more spring-like, seemed to carry a gentle scent from the distant forests coming to life.

When he turned back to the room, he saw Marianne's eyes looking at him questioningly.

He stepped closer and said, "I hope the fresh air will do you good. It has become quite warm, and last night—" he almost said, "we drove home from the ball in a snowstorm," but he quickly changed the sentence and added, "Last evening, the snow was still half a meter deep in the streets."

She hardly heard what he was saying. Her eyes grew wet, and large tears rolled down her cheeks before she buried her face in her hands again.

Unconsciously, he placed his hand on her head and stroked her forehead. He felt her body begin to tremble; she began to sob softly inside herself, gradually growing louder until she was completely overcome.

Suddenly, she slid off the chair, fell at Fridolin's feet, wrapped her arms around his knees, and pressed her face against them. Then she looked up at him with wide, painfully wild eyes and whispered intensely, "I do not want to leave here. Even if you never come back, even if I am never to see you again; I want to live near you."

He was more moved than surprised, for he had always known that she was in love with him, or at least believed she was.

"Please stand up, Marianne," he said softly. He bent down, gently helped her to her feet, and thought: Of course, there is also hysteria involved.

He glanced sideways at the dead father. Could he be hearing everything? he wondered. Perhaps he is only in a state of suspended death? Maybe everyone is in a state of suspended death during these first hours after dying?

He held Marianne in his arms, but kept her slightly away from himself, and almost unconsciously pressed a kiss to her forehead, which he himself found a bit ridiculous.

Briefly, he remembered a novel he had read years ago, in which a very young boy was seduced, or rather violated, by his mother's friend while sitting at her deathbed.

In that same instant, for no reason he could understand, he thought of his own wife. Bitterness toward her rose in him, along with a dull resentment toward the man in Denmark with the yellow suitcase on the hotel stairs.

He pulled Marianne closer, yet he felt no excitement at all. Instead, the sight of her dull, dry hair and the sickly-sweet smell of her unwashed dress gave him a slight feeling of disgust.

Suddenly, the bell rang outside. He felt relieved, quickly kissed Marianne's hand as if in gratitude, and went to open the door.

It was Dr. Roediger standing in the doorway, wearing a dark gray overcoat, overshoes, and carrying an umbrella, with a serious expression appropriate for the occasion.

The two men nodded to each other, more familiarly than their actual relationship warranted.

Then both men entered the room. Roediger, after a nervous glance at the dead man, expressed his condolences to Marianne. Fridolin went into the next room to write the official death certificate. He turned up the gas flame over the desk, and his eyes fell on a portrait of a white-uniformed officer riding down a hill with a drawn saber, facing an unseen enemy.

The portrait was set in a narrow, old-gold frame and looked no better than a modest oil print.

With the completed death certificate, Fridolin returned to the side room where the engaged couple sat at the father's bed, their hands clasped together.

The doorbell rang again. Doctor Roediger stood up and went to open it. Meanwhile, Marianne, barely audible and looking down at the floor, said, "I love you."

Fridolin replied only by saying Marianne's name, his voice gentle.

Roediger returned with an older married couple. They were Marianne's uncle and aunt. A few words were exchanged, fitting the situation, marked by the awkwardness that usually follows the presence of someone who has just died.

The small room suddenly seemed crowded with mourners. Fridolin felt superfluous, so he excused himself. Roediger accompanied him to the door, feeling compelled to offer thanks and expressing hope that they would meet again soon.

Outside the building, Fridolin looked up at the window he had once opened himself. The shutters trembled slightly in the early spring breeze. The people still inside—both the living and the dead—seemed equally ghostly and unreal to him.

He felt as though he had escaped, not so much from an experience as from a melancholy spell that he refused to let take hold of him. As the only lingering effect, he felt a strange reluctance to go home.

The snow in the streets had melted, leaving small, dirty-white piles on either side of the road. The gas lamps flickered, and from a nearby church, the clock struck eleven.

Fridolin decided to spend half an hour in a quiet corner of a coffeehouse near his home before going to sleep, and he took the path through the city park. Couples sat huddled together on shaded benches, as if spring had truly arrived, unaware that the deceptively warm air still carried hidden dangers.

On a bench, a ragged man lay stretched out at full length, his hat pulled down over his forehead.

If I woke him, Fridolin thought, and gave him money for a night's lodging? But he continued, What would that achieve? I would have to find a place for him tomorrow, or else it would be pointless. In the end, I might even be suspected of improper relations with him.

So, he quickened his pace, eager to flee any kind of responsibility or temptation.

Why him, of all people? he asked himself. There are thousands of such poor wretches in Vienna alone.

If he were to care for all of them, for the fates of every stranger—

Then the dead man he had just left came to mind. With a shudder, and not without a feeling of disgust, he thought of how, according to eternal laws, decay and decomposition had already begun their work within that long, thin body under the brown flannel sheet.

He felt grateful that he was still alive, that all these ugly things were likely far away from him for now. Indeed, he was still in the prime of his youth, possessed a charming and lovable wife, and could have one or more additional partners if he so desired.

Of course, such luxuries would require more leisure time than he had. He remembered that tomorrow he would have to be at his department by eight in the morning, visit private patients from eleven to one, hold office hours from three to five in the afternoon, and still have several more house calls scheduled for the evening.

Well, he thought, hopefully he won't be called out in the middle of the night again, as he was today.

He crossed the town square, which glowed dimly like a brownish pond, and turned toward his home in the Josefstadt district.

From a distance, he heard heavy, rhythmic footsteps. He saw a small group of university students, about six or eight of them, coming around a street corner toward him.

As the young men stepped into the light of a streetlamp, he thought he recognized the blue caps of the Alemannia student fraternity. He had never belonged to such a group himself, though he had once participated in a few sword duels during his student days.

This memory of his university years brought to mind the red domino masks that had lured him into the lodge last night and then so meanly abandoned him.

The students were now very close, talking loudly and laughing. "Perhaps you know one or two of them from the hospital?" he wondered. But the poor lighting made it impossible to clearly make out their faces.

He had to press himself close against the wall to avoid bumping into them. Once they had passed, only the last one remained. He was a tall man in an open winter coat with a bandage over his left eye. He seemed to deliberately lag behind and bumped Fridolin with his elbow, which he held out to the side.

This could not have been an accident.

"What is this guy thinking?" Fridolin thought, stopping involuntarily. The other man took two more steps and then stopped as well. For a moment, they looked at each other from a moderate distance.

Suddenly, Fridolin turned away and continued walking.

He heard a short laugh behind him. He almost turned around again to confront the young man, but he felt a strange palpitation in his chest—just as he had once, twelve or fourteen years ago, when someone had pounded so violently on his door while the charming young woman was with him. She always liked to babble about a fiancé who lived far away and probably didn't even exist. In reality, it was just the mailman pounding so menacingly.

Just like back then, his heart was pounding now.

"What is this?" he asked himself angrily, noticing that his knees were trembling slightly.

"Timid? Nonsense," he replied to himself.

"Should I confront a drunk student? I, a thirty-five-year-old man, a practicing doctor, a married father of one child? Challenge! Witnesses! Duel! And in the end, a slash to the arm over such a stupid shove? Being unable to work for a few weeks? Or having an eye knocked out? Or even blood poisoning? And in eight days lying in bed like the gentleman in Schreyvogelgasse under a brown flannel blanket? Timid? I had fought three sword duels, and I had once even been ready for a pistol duel. That earlier matter was settled amicably not because of my initiative."

"And his profession! Dangers from all sides and at every moment—he just kept forgetting about them. How long ago was it that a child with diphtheria coughed directly into his face? Three or four days, no more. That was certainly a more serious matter than a little sword play. And he hadn't thought about it at all."

"Well, if he meets that guy again, the matter can still be resolved."

He was by no means obliged to react to such a foolish student shove while walking from one patient or to one patient at midnight—that could have been the case after all. No, he was really not obliged to react to such nonsense.

If, for example, the young Dane were to come toward him now, with whom Albertine—oh no, what was he thinking?—well, it was just as if she were his lover.

It was even worse.

Yes, he should have come toward him now.

Oh, what a delight it would be to stand opposite someone in a forest clearing and point the barrel of a pistol at his forehead with its neatly combed blond hair.

Suddenly, he found himself past his destination, in a narrow alley where only a few wretched prostitutes wandered about hunting for men at night.

"Spectral," he thought.

And the students with the blue caps suddenly seemed spectral in his memory, as did Marianne, her fiancé, uncle, and aunt. He now imagined them all, hand in hand, lined up around the deathbed of the old court counselor. Albertine also appeared to him in his mind, sleeping deeply with her arms folded under her neck. Even his child, now curled up in the narrow white brass crib, and the rosy-cheeked young lady with the birthmark on her left temple—all of them had been transported into a spectral realm.

In this feeling, though it made him shudder slightly, there was simultaneously something comforting that seemed to free him from all responsibility and even from every human connection.

One of the wandering girls asked him to come along. She was a petite, very young creature, extremely pale with lipstick-colored lips. He thought it could end in death, just not that quickly! Cowardice, perhaps? In the end, yes. He heard her footsteps, then her voice, right behind him.

"Are you not coming, Doctor?"

He turned around without meaning to. "How do you know me?" he asked.

"I don't know you," she said. "But in this district, everyone is a doctor."

He hadn't had anything to do with a woman like this since his school days. Was he suddenly transported back to his boyhood, so that this girl tempted him? He remembered a fleeting acquaintance, an elegant young man who was rumored to be incredibly lucky with women. As students, they had sat together after a ball in a late-night tavern. Before the young man left with one of the professional visitors, he had answered Fridolin's surprised look with these words: "It's always the most convenient thing; and the worst of them aren't even that bad."

"What is your name?" Fridolin asked.

"No, what do we call ourselves? Mizzi, of course."

She had already turned the key in the front door, stepped into the hallway, and waited for Fridolin to follow.

"Quickly!" she said when he hesitated. Suddenly, he was beside her. The door closed behind him, she locked it, lit a small wax candle, and held it up to guide him.

Am I crazy? he asked himself. Of course, I won't touch her.

An oil lamp burned in her room. She adjusted the wick higher. It was a very cozy room, neatly kept, and certainly smelled much better than, for example, in Marianna's dwelling. Of course, an old man had not lain sick there for months. The girl smiled, approached Fridolin without being pushy, and he gently pushed her away. Then she pointed to a rocking chair, into which he gladly sank.

"You must be very tired," she said. He nodded. And while she undressed without haste:

"Well, a man who has work all day. We have it easier."

He noticed that her lips were not painted but naturally red, and he complimented her on it.

"Why should I wear makeup?" she asked. "What do you think my age is?"

"Twenty?" Fridolin guessed.

"Seventeen," she said. She sat on his lap and wrapped her arm around his neck like a child.

Who in the world would guess, he thought, that I am right now in this room? Would I have thought it possible an hour ago, ten minutes ago? And—why? Why? She searched for his lips with hers; he leaned back. She looked up at him, big-eyed and somewhat sadly, then slid off his lap. He almost felt sorry, for there had been much comforting tenderness in her embrace.

She took a red dressing gown that hung over the back of the open bed, slipped into it, and crossed her arms over her chest so that her entire figure was covered.

"Is that all right with you now?" she asked, without mockery, so shyly, as if she were trying to understand him. He hardly knew what to answer.

"You guessed right," he said finally. "I am indeed tired, and I find it very pleasant to sit here in the rocking chair and just listen to you. You have such a sweet, gentle voice. Go on, tell me something."

She sat on the bed and shook her head.

"You are afraid, aren't you?" she whispered, and then to herself, barely audible, "What a shame!"

That last word sent a hot wave through his blood. He stepped toward her, wanted to embrace her, told her that she inspired him with complete trust, and in doing so, spoke the truth. He pulled her to him, courted her as one would a girl, as a beloved woman. She resisted; he felt ashamed and finally let go.

She said:

"One can never know; something has to happen eventually. You are quite right to be afraid. And if something happens, you would curse me."

The banknotes he offered her, she refused with such determination that he could not press her further. She wrapped a narrow blue wool shawl around herself, lit a candle, held it to guide him, accompanied him downstairs, and unlocked the gate.

"I'm staying home tonight," she said. He took her hand and kissed it involuntarily. She looked up at him, surprised, almost startled, then laughed, embarrassed and happy. "Like a young lady," she said.

The door closed behind him, and Fridolin quickly memorized the house number in his memory so that he could send the dear, poor girl some wine and sweets tomorrow.

The air had grown noticeably warmer. A gentle breeze drifted down the narrow alley, carrying the scent of damp meadows and distant spring mountains.

Where should he go now? Fridolin wondered, as if going home to sleep were not the most natural thing in the world. Yet, he could not bring himself to make that decision. Since that disgusting encounter with the Alemanni—or perhaps since Marianna's confession—he had felt so homeless, so cast out. No, it had been even longer; since that evening conversation with Albertine, he had drifted further and further from his usual circle of life into some distant, strange, foreign world.

He wandered aimlessly through the night streets, letting the light Föhn wind blow across his forehead. Finally, with a determined stride as if he had reached a long-sought destination, he entered a low-class café. It was cozy in the old Viennese style, not particularly spacious, dimly lit, and sparsely visited at this late hour.

In a corner, three gentlemen were playing cards. A waiter, who had been watching them, helped Fridolin take off his fur coat, took his order, and placed illustrated newspapers and evening papers on the table. Fridolin felt a sense of security and began to skim through the papers. His gaze lingered here and there.

In a certain Bohemian city, German-language street signs had been torn down. In Constantinople, a conference regarding a railway construction in Asia Minor was underway, attended by Lord Cranford. The firm of Benies & Weingruber had gone bankrupt. A prostitute named Anna Tiger had attempted to poison her friend Hermine Drobizky with vitriol out of jealousy. That evening, a herring feast was being held in the Sophiensäle. A young girl, Marie B., living at 28 Schönbrunn Main Street, had poisoned herself with sublimate.

All these facts, both indifferent and sad, with their dry everydayness, somehow had a sobering and calming effect on Fridolin. The young girl, Marie B., pitied him; sublimate was such a foolish choice. In this very moment, while he sat comfortably in the café and Albertine slept peacefully with her arms crossed behind her neck, and the Councilor had already overcome all earthly suffering, Marie B. at 28 Schönbrunn Main Street was writhing in senseless pain.

He looked up from the newspaper. Suddenly, he noticed two eyes staring at him from a table across the room. Was it possible? Nightingale? The man had recognized him immediately, raised both arms in joyful surprise, and approached Fridolin. He was a large, rather broad, almost clumsy young man with long, slightly wavy, blond hair that was already turning gray, and a blond mustache hanging down in the Polish style.

He wore an open gray havelock coat over a somewhat greasy frock coat, a crushed shirt with three fake diamond buttons, a crumpled collar, and a fluttering white silk tie. His eyelids were red from many sleepless nights, yet his eyes shone brightly and blue.

"You are in Vienna, Nightingale?" Fridolin exclaimed.

"You don't know," said Nightingall in a soft Polish accent with a moderate Jewish inflection. "How can you not know? I am so famous."

He laughed loudly and good-naturedly, then sat down opposite Fridolin.

"How?" asked Fridolin. "Perhaps you secretly became a professor of surgery?"

Nightingale laughed even louder. "Didn't you hear me? Didn't you hear me now?"

"Hear you? Oh, yes!" It only then occurred to Fridolin that as he entered, or even earlier when he approached the café, he had heard piano music drifting up from some cellar below. "So that was you?" he cried out.

"Who else would it be?" Nightingale laughed.

Fridolin nodded.

Of course. That peculiarly energetic attack, those strange, somewhat arbitrary but pleasant harmonies played by the left hand, had seemed so familiar to him right away.

"So you've completely dedicated yourself to this?" he asked.

He remembered that Nachtigall had given up on his medical studies for good after passing his preliminary exams in zoology—twice, and successfully the second time, though seven years late. For quite some time afterward, though, he had wandered through hospitals, dissection rooms, laboratories, and lecture halls. With his blonde artist's head, his always crumpled collar, and his once-white, now fluttering tie, he had been a striking figure. He was popular in a cheerful way, liked not just by colleagues but also by some professors.

He was the son of a Jewish distiller in a small Polish town and had come to Vienna to study medicine. The small financial help from his parents had been negligible from the start and soon stopped completely. Yet, this didn't stop him from continuing to appear at the Riedhof at a regular table of medical students, a table Fridolin also frequented.

At some point, the bill for his drinks was paid by one wealthy colleague after another. He also sometimes received clothing as a gift, which he gladly accepted without any false pride. He had learned the basics of piano playing in his hometown from a stranded pianist, and in Vienna, while studying medicine, he also attended the conservatory, where he was considered a promising piano talent.

However, even there, he was not serious or diligent enough to receive proper training. Soon, he was content with his musical successes among his friends, or rather, with the pleasure his piano playing brought them. For a while, he worked as a pianist at a dance school in the suburbs.

University colleagues and drinking buddies tried to introduce him to better houses in the same role. Yet, on such occasions, he only played what he felt like and for as long as he wanted. He would engage in conversations with the young ladies that were not always innocent on his part, and he drank more than he could handle.

Once, he played for dancing at the home of a bank director.

After causing embarrassment to the young girls dancing by passing and making suggestive, flirtatious remarks, and offending their male escorts, he decided to play a wild cancan. With his powerful bass voice, he sang a double-entendre couplet to accompany it.

The bank director angrily reprimanded him.

Filled with blissful cheerfulness, Nachtigall stood up and embraced the director. The director, outraged, barked a common local insult at the pianist's face, despite being Jewish himself. Nachtigall immediately responded with a massive slap to the face, effectively ending his career in the city's better houses.

In more intimate circles, he generally behaved more decently, though on such occasions, he sometimes had to be forcibly removed from the venue late at night. Yet, the next morning, everyone involved would forgive and forget such incidents.

One day, long after all his colleagues had finished their studies, he suddenly disappeared from the city without saying goodbye. For several months, postcards from various Russian and Polish towns still arrived. Once, without further explanation, he reminded Fridolin—whom he had always held close in his heart—not just with a greeting, but with a request for a modest sum of money.

Fridolin sent the money immediately but never received a thank-you note or any other sign of life from Nachtigall.

But at that moment, at three-quarters past one in the morning, after eight years, Nachtigall insisted on making up for this omission immediately. From a rather tattered but decently filled wallet, he took out banknotes in the exact amount, so Fridolin could accept the repayment with a clear conscience.

"So you're doing well," he said with a smile, as if to calm himself.

"I can't complain," Nachtigall replied. Placing his hand on Fridolin's arm, he added, "But now tell me, how did you end up here in the middle of the night?"

Fridolin explained his late-night presence by saying he needed a cup of coffee after a late visit to a sick patient. However, he conveniently omitted the fact that the patient had already died, without knowing exactly why he felt the need to hide this truth.

He then spoke generally about his medical work at the clinic and his private practice, mentioning that he was happily married and the father of a six-year-old daughter.

Now, Nachtigall began his story. As Fridolin had suspected, he had spent the last few years traveling as a pianist through cities and towns in Poland, Romania, Serbia, and Bulgaria. In Lemberg, he had a wife and four children. He laughed loudly, as if having four children all in one place was particularly funny.

Since the previous autumn, he had been living in Vienna again. The variety theater that had hired him had gone bankrupt immediately, so now he played in various places as the situation arose, sometimes performing in two or three different spots in the same night. For example, he was playing here tonight in the basement—a not very upscale establishment, actually more like a bowling alley, he noted. As for the audience... "But when you have four children to support and a wife in Lemberg," he said, laughing again, though not quite as merrily as before.

"I also have private gigs sometimes," he added quickly. Seeing Fridolin's knowing smile, he continued, "Not with bank directors or the like, no, but in all sorts of circles, even grand, public, and secret ones."

"Secret?"

Nachtigall looked gloomy yet cunningly sharp. "I will be picked up immediately."

"What, you're playing again today?"

"Yes, they don't start until two o'clock."

"That is quite special," Fridolin said.

"Yes and no," Nachtigall laughed, but quickly became serious again.

"Yes and no?" Fridolin repeated curiously.

Nachtigall leaned over the table toward him. "I am playing in a private house tonight, but I do not know whose house it is."

"So you are playing there for the first time?" Fridolin asked, his interest growing.

"No, the third time. But it will probably be a different house again."

"I don't understand."

"Neither do I," Nachtigall laughed. "Better you don't ask."

"Hm," Fridolin replied.

"Oh, you're mistaken. Not what you think. I've seen a lot; you wouldn't believe it, especially in small towns—particularly in Romania—you experience many things. But here..." He pulled back the yellow window curtain slightly, looked out at the street, and said to himself, "Not there yet," before turning to Fridolin to explain, "It's the carriage. A carriage always picks me up, and it's always a different one."

"You're making me curious, Nachtigall," Fridolin said coolly.

"Listen," Nachtigall said after a moment's hesitation. "If I ever made a mistake in my life—but how does one go about it?" Then suddenly, he asked, "Do you have courage?"

"A strange question," Fridolin replied in the tone of an offended university student.

"I don't mean that."

"So, what do you actually mean? Why would one need special courage in this situation? What could possibly happen?" He laughed shortly and contemptuously.

"Nothing can happen to me, at most that this is my last time tonight—but perhaps that is the case too." He fell silent and looked out through the gap in the curtain again.

"Well?"

"How do you mean?" Nachtigall asked as if in a dream.

"Tell me more. Since you've already started... A secret event? A closed society? Invited guests?"

"I don't know. There were thirty people the last time, and only sixteen the first time."

"A ball?"

"Of course, a ball." He seemed to regret having spoken at all.

"And you provide the music?"

"Why for that? I don't know why. Really, I don't know. I play, I play... with my eyes covered."

"Nachtigall, Nachtigall, what kind of song are you singing!"

Nachtigall sighed softly. "But unfortunately, not completely covered. Not so that I see nothing at all. You see, I can watch through the mirror through the black silk cloth over my eyes..." And then he fell silent again.

"In short," Fridolin said impatiently and contemptuously, though he felt strangely stirred, "naked women."

"Don't call them women, Fridolin," Nachtigall replied, sounding offended. "You have never seen women like that."

Fridolin cleared his throat slightly. "And how much is the entrance fee?" he asked casually.

"You mean tickets and such? Ha, what a thought."

"So, how does one gain entry?" Fridolin asked, pressing his lips together and drumming on the table.

"You must know the password, and it changes every time."

"And what is tonight's password?"

"I don't know yet. I'll find out from the driver."

"Take me with you, Nachtigall."

"Impossible, too dangerous."

"You just said a minute ago that you intended to 'reject' me. It will be possible."

Nachtigall looked at him carefully. "Not as you are. No one knows anyone; everyone is masked, gentlemen and ladies. Do you have a mask on you? Impossible. Perhaps next time. I'll figure something out."

He listened intently, then peered through the curtain crack at the street. Breathing a sigh of relief, he said, "There's the carriage. Goodbye."

Fridolin grabbed his arm. "You're not getting away with that. You have to take me with you."

"But, colleague..."

"Leave the rest to me. I know it's 'dangerous'—perhaps that's exactly what attracts me."

"But I'm telling you, without a costume and a mask—"

"There are mask rental shops."

"At one o'clock in the morning?!"

"Listen to me, Nachtigall. There's such a place on the corner of Wickenburg Street. I pass the sign there several times a day." He spoke quickly, growing increasingly agitated. "Stay here for another fifteen minutes, Nachtigall. I'll try my luck there. The owner of the rental shop probably lives in the same building. If not, I'll give up. Fate will decide. There's a café in the same building called the Café Vindobona, I believe. Tell the coachman that you've forgotten something in the café. Go inside; I'll wait near the door. You'll give me the password quickly, then get back into your carriage. If I succeed in getting a costume, I'll quickly hire another carriage, catch up to you, and we'll figure out the rest. Your risk, Nachtigall, I swear on my honor, I will bear in any case."

Nachtigall tried to interrupt Fridolin a few times, but in vain. Fridolin threw some money on the table, along with a tip that was far too generous for the style of the night, and left.

Outside stood a closed carriage. The driver sat motionless on the box, dressed entirely in black with a tall top hat. It looked like a hearse to Fridolin.

After a few minutes of running, he reached the corner building he was looking for. He rang the bell and asked the caretaker if the mask rental owner, Gibiser, lived there. Silently, he hoped the answer would be no. But Gibiser did live there, in the floor below the rental shop. The caretaker didn't seem particularly surprised by the late visit. However, charmed by Fridolin's generous tip, he noted that during the carnival season, people often came to rent costumes even at this late hour. He lit a candle from below and kept it going until Fridolin had rung the bell on the first floor.

Mr. Gibiser opened the door himself, as if he had been waiting there. He was thin, beardless, bald, and wore an old-fashioned floral dressing gown with a Turkish cap topped with a tassel. He looked like a ridiculous old man on a stage.

Fridolin stated his request and mentioned that price was no object. Mr. Gibiser replied almost dismissively, "I demand only what is rightfully mine; nothing more."

He led Fridolin up a spiral staircase into the storage room. It smelled of silk, velvet, perfume, dust, and dried flowers. From the dim darkness, silver and red flashes emerged. Suddenly, many small lamps glowed between open cabinets in a narrow, long hallway that disappeared into the gloom behind. On both sides hung costumes of all kinds. On one side were knights, squires, peasants, hunters, scholars, Orientals, and fools; on the other, court ladies, knightly maidens, peasant women, chambermaids, and queens of the night. Above the costumes hung the corresponding headgear. To Fridolin, it felt as if he were walking through an alley of the hanged who were about to invite each other to dance.

Mr. Gibiser followed behind him. "Does the gentleman have a particular preference? Louis Quatorze? Directoire? Old German?"

"I need a dark monk's robe and a black mask, nothing else."

At that moment, a clinking of glass echoed from the far end of the hallway. Fridolin looked at the mask shop owner with a startled expression, as if the man were obligated to explain what was happening immediately. But Gibiser stood frozen, reaching for a hidden switch. Suddenly, a blinding light flooded the entire hallway, revealing a small set table at the end with plates, glasses, and bottles.

Two judges of the secret tribunal, wearing red robes, rose from chairs on either side of the table. At the same moment, a delicate, pale figure vanished. Gibiser rushed forward with long strides, reached over the table, and held a white wig in his hand. At the same time, a graceful, very young girl—almost a child—slipped out from under the table. Dressed as a Pierrot in a costume with white silk stockings, she ran down the hallway to Fridolin, who had no choice but to catch her in his arms.

Gibiser dropped the white wig on the table and grabbed the red robes of the two judges on either side. At the same time, he shouted to Fridolin, "Sir, hold onto this girl for me." The little girl pressed herself against Fridolin as if she needed him to protect her. Her small, narrow face was dusted white and decorated with beauty patches. A scent of roses and powder rose from her delicate chest. Her eyes sparkled with mischief and delight.

"Sir," Gibiser cried, "you will stay here until I hand you over to the police."

"What is the meaning of this?" the two men shouted in unison. "We simply followed an invitation from the young lady."

Gibiser let go of them and turned to Fridolin. "You will have to provide more details about this. Didn't you realize immediately that you were dealing with a madwoman?" He then turned to Fridolin and said, "Forgive the interruption, sir."

"Oh, it's nothing," Fridolin replied. He would have preferred to stay or to take the little girl with him anywhere, no matter what the consequences might be. She looked up at him with a tempting, childlike gaze, as if mesmerized. The judges at the end of the hallway were talking to each other excitedly. Gibiser turned to Fridolin and asked matter-of-factly, "What would you like, sir? A monk's robe, a pilgrim's hat, or a mask?"

"No," said the Pierrot with shining eyes, "you must give this gentleman an ermine cloak and a red silk doublet."

"You are not moving from my side," Gibiser said, pointing to a dark robe hanging between a Landsknecht costume and a Venetian senator's outfit. "This one fits your size. Here is the matching hat; take it quickly."

Then the judges spoke up again. "You must let us out immediately, Mr. Chibisier," they said. To Fridolin's surprise, Gibiser pronounced his name in French.

"There is no question of that," Gibiser replied mockingly. "For now, please be kind enough to wait for my return."

Meanwhile, Fridolin put on the robe and tied the ends of the hanging white cord into a knot. Standing on a narrow ladder, Gibiser handed him a black pilgrim's hat with a wide brim, which Fridolin put on. Yet he did all of this as if forced, because he increasingly felt it was his duty to stay and help the Pierrot in what seemed like impending danger. The mask that Gibiser pressed into his hand, which he tried on immediately, smelled of a strange, somewhat unpleasant perfume.

"Go ahead of me," Gibiser told the little girl, pointing commandingly toward the stairs. The Pierrot turned around, looked toward the end of the hallway, and waved a bittersweet farewell. Fridolin followed her gaze. There were no longer any judges standing there; instead, two slender young men in tailcoats and white cravats stood there, though both still had red masks covering their faces. The Pierrot floated down the spiral staircase, followed by Gibiser, and then Fridolin.

Downstairs in the anteroom, Gibiser opened a door leading to the inner rooms and said to the Pierrot, "You will go to bed immediately, you wicked creature. We will speak again as soon as I have finished dealing with the gentlemen upstairs."

She stood in the doorway, white and delicate, and sadly shook her head with a look at Fridolin. Fridolin saw himself in a large wall mirror on the right: a thin pilgrim, and no one else. He was amazed at how naturally these strange things were unfolding.

The Pierrot had disappeared, and the old mask shop owner locked the door behind her. Then he opened the apartment door and pushed Fridolin into the stairwell.

"Forgive me," said Fridolin, "I must go..."

"Never mind, sir. Payment will be made upon return. I trust you."

But Fridolin did not move. "Will you swear to me that you will not harm the poor child?"

"What concern is that to you, sir?"

"I heard you call the girl mad earlier, and now you're calling her a wicked creature. That's a striking contradiction; you can't deny it."

"Well, sir," Gibiser replied in a theatrical tone, "isn't a madman considered wicked before God?"

Fridolin shuddered in disgust.

"As always," he remarked, "a solution can be found. I am a doctor. We will discuss this further tomorrow."

Gibiser laughed mockingly, without a sound. Suddenly, light flared up in the stairwell, the door between Gibiser and Fridolin slammed shut, and the bolt was immediately thrown. As Fridolin descended the stairs, he removed his hat, cloak, and mask, tucking them all under his arm. The housekeeper opened the gate, and the mourning carriage stood opposite, with its motionless driver on the box.

Nachtigall was just about to leave the café and seemed rather displeased that Fridolin had arrived on time.

"So you've got a proper costume?"

"As you can see. And the password?"

"So you insist on it?"

"Absolutely."

"Then—the password is Denmark."

"Are you crazy, Nachtigall?"

"Why crazy?"

"Nothing, nothing. I just happened to be on the Danish coast this past summer. So get in—but not right away, so I have time to hire a carriage over there."

Nachtigall nodded, casually lighting a cigarette, while Fridolin quickly crossed the street, hired a cab, and told his driver, in a harmless tone as if it were a joke, to follow the mourning carriage that was just pulling away.

They drove along the Alserstraße, then passed under a railway viaduct in the suburbs and continued through dimly lit, empty side streets. Fridolin worried that his driver might lose track of the carriage ahead. Yet, every time he stuck his head out of the open window into the unnaturally warm air, he saw the other carriage ahead at a moderate distance. The driver sat motionless, wearing a tall black top hat on the box. It could turn out badly, Fridolin thought. At the same time, he still smelled the roses and powder rising from Pierrette's breasts. "What strange novel am I stumbling through?" he asked himself. "I shouldn't have left, maybe I shouldn't have been allowed to. Where am I actually now?"

Between modest villas, they climbed a slow incline. Now Fridolin thought he recognized the place; years ago, walks had sometimes brought him here. It must be the Galitzinberg he was climbing. To his left, deep below, he saw the city fading into mist, shimmering with thousands of lights. He heard wheels rolling behind him and looked out the window. Two carriages were following him, which pleased him; that way, he could not possibly seem suspicious to the mourning driver.

Suddenly, with a violent jerk, the carriage turned sideways and plunged downward between fences, walls, and slopes, like into a canyon. Fridolin realized it was high time to put on his disguise. He took off his fur coat, pulled on his cloak—just as he did every morning when slipping into the linen smock of his hospital department. He thought of it as a liberating act: in a few hours, if all went well, he would be walking among his patients' beds again, just like every morning—a helpful doctor.

The carriage stopped. "What if," Fridolin thought, "I don't get out at all, but turn back immediately? But where? To little Pierrette? Or to the girl in Buchfeldgasse? Or to Marianne, the deceased's daughter? Or home? And with a slight shiver, he realized he felt less desire to go anywhere than to return home. Or was it because this path seemed the longest? No, I cannot go back," he told himself. "I must continue on my way, even if it means my death." He laughed at his own grand words, but he felt far from cheerful.

A garden gate stood wide open. The mourning carriage was just driving deeper into the ravine or into the darkness that seemed to surround it. Nachtigall must have already gotten out. Fridolin quickly jumped from the carriage and ordered the driver to wait at the bend above until he returned, no matter how long it took. To make sure the driver stayed, Fridolin paid him generously in advance and promised the same amount for the return trip. The carriages that had followed arrived. From the first one, Fridolin saw a woman, her face covered, step out. He then entered the garden, removed his mask, and followed a narrow, dimly lit path leading to the gate. The two gate wings swung open, and Fridolin found himself in a narrow, white entrance hall. Sounds of a harmonium drifted toward him. Two servants in dark uniforms, their faces covered by gray masks, stood on either side. "Password?" they whispered to him in unison. He replied, "Denmark." One servant took his fur coat and disappeared into a side room, while the other opened a door. Fridolin stepped into a dim, almost dark, high-ceilinged hall draped in black silk on all sides. Figures in religious costumes walked back and forth—sixteen to twenty people, monks and nuns. The soft, swelling harmonium music, an Italian church melody, seemed to come from above. In a corner of the hall stood a small group: three nuns and two monks. From there, they had briefly turned toward him and then, as if on purpose, turned away again. Fridolin noticed that he was the only one wearing a hat. He took off his pilgrim's hat and walked around as innocently as possible. A monk brushed past his arm and nodded a greeting, but behind the mask, a gaze drilled into Fridolin's eyes for a second. A strange, heavy scent, like that of southern gardens, surrounded him. An arm brushed against him again. This time, it was a nun. Like the others, she had wrapped a black veil around her forehead, head, and neck. Beneath the black lace of her mask, a blood-red mouth shone. Where am I? Fridolin wondered. Among the insane? Among conspirators? Had I stumbled into a gathering of some religious sect? Was Nachtigall perhaps hired or paid to bring an uninitiated person here just to be mocked? Yet, for a mere masquerade, everything seemed too serious, too monotonous, too eerie. A female voice had joined the harmonium music, and an old Italian sacred aria echoed through the room. Everyone stood still, appearing to listen, and Fridolin was captivated for a moment by the wonderfully swelling melody. Suddenly, a female voice whispered behind him, "Do not turn around. It is still time for you to leave. You do not belong here. If they discovered you, you would be in trouble."

Fridolin was startled. For a second, he considered following the warning. But curiosity, the allure, and above all his pride were stronger than any hesitation. Now I have come this far, he thought, let it end however it may. He shook his head in refusal without turning around.

Then the voice behind him whispered, "I would be sorry for you."

He turned around. Through the lace, he saw a mouth glowing blood-red, and dark eyes sank into his own.

"I'm staying," he said in a heroic tone he didn't know he possessed, then turned his face away.

The singing swelled miraculously. The harmonium played in a new way, no longer church-like but worldly, lavish, roaring like an organ. Looking around, Fridolin noticed that all the nuns had vanished; only monks remained in the hall.

The singing voice had also changed. It moved from its dark seriousness into an artfully rising trill, bright and jubilant. Instead of the harmonium, a piano had taken over, sounding earthy and bold. Fridolin immediately recognized the wild, provocative strike of the nightingale. The noble female voice that had been there before seemed to have torn itself loose in a final, glaring, lustful scream, soaring through the ceiling into infinity.

Doors on both sides swung open. On one side, Fridolin recognized the dim outline of Nightingale's figure at the piano. The opposite room, however, blazed with blinding light. Women stood motionless there, all with dark veils covering their heads, foreheads, and necks, and black lace masks over their faces, otherwise completely naked.

Fridolin's eyes wandered hungrily from lush figures to slender ones, from delicate forms to those blooming in full glory. Yet, that each of these unveiled women remained a mystery, with great eyes staring back at him from the black masks as the most unsolvable riddles, turned his unspeakable desire to look into an almost unbearable pain of longing.

But it seemed others felt the same.

The first rapturous breaths turned into sighs that sounded like deep sorrow. Somewhere a scream tore free. Suddenly, as if chased, everyone rushed out—not in their monk's robes, but in festive white, yellow, blue, and red cavalier outfits—from the dim hall toward the women, where a wild, almost evil laughter awaited them.

Fridolin was the only one who remained as a monk. He crept, somewhat anxiously, into the furthest corner where Nightingale was standing, his back turned to him.

Fridolin saw that Nightingale wore a blindfold over his eyes, yet he seemed to notice that behind that blindfold, his eyes were drilling into the tall mirror opposite, where the colorful cavaliers were dancing with their naked partners.

Suddenly, one of the women stood beside Fridolin and whispered—for no one, as if their voices were meant to remain secrets, spoke a loud word: "Why so alone? Why do you keep yourself out of the dance?"

Fridolin saw that two noblemen from another corner were watching him sharply. He suspected that the creature by his side—slim and boyish—had been sent to test him.

Nevertheless, he spread his arms to pull her close, when another woman broke away from her partner and ran straight toward Fridolin. He knew immediately that it was his old warning.

She acted as if she were seeing him for the first time. She whispered, but loud enough to be heard in the other corner: "Are you finally back?" Then, laughing cheerfully: "It's all in vain; you have been recognized."

Turning to the boyish woman, she said: "Let me have him for just two minutes. Then you can have him again until morning, if you wish." She whispered more quietly to the other, full of joy: "It is him, yes, it is him."

The other, surprised: "Really?" She floated away to the corner with the cavaliers.

"Do not ask," the woman who stayed said to Fridolin, "and wonder at nothing. I tried to mislead them, but I must tell you: it won't work in the long run. Flee before it's too late. It could be too late at any moment. And be careful that no one follows your trail. No one must find out who you are. Your calm, the peace of your existence, would be over forever. Go!"

"Will I see you again?"

"Impossible."

"Then I stay."

A shiver ran through her naked body, spreading to him and almost clouding his senses.

"Nothing matters more than my life now," he said, "and you are worth that life to me at this moment." He took her hands, trying to pull her closer.

She whispered again, desperately: "Go!"

He laughed, hearing himself as one hears oneself in a dream. "I see where I am. Surely you are all not just here so that people go mad at the sight of you! You are just playing a special trick on me to drive me completely crazy."

"It's getting too late; go!"

He didn't want to listen.

"There shouldn't be any hidden rooms where couples who have found each other can retreat? Will everyone here say goodbye with polite hand kisses? They don't look like they will."

He pointed to the couples dancing on in the brightly lit, mirror-filled side room to the wild sounds of the piano, glowing white bodies pressed against blue, red, and yellow silk.

It seemed to him that no one cared about him or the woman beside him now; they stood alone in the dim central hall.

"Futile hope," she whispered.

"There are no rooms like the ones you dream of here. It is the last minute. Flee!"

"Come with me."

She shook her head violently, as if in despair.

He laughed again, not recognizing his own laugh. "You're mocking me. Did these men and women come here only to ignite each other and then reject one another? Who can forbid you from leaving with me if you wish?"

She took a deep breath and lowered her head.

"Ah, now I understand," he said. "It is the punishment you have decreed for anyone who sneaks in uninvited. You could not have devised anything more cruel. Pardon me. Show me mercy. Impose another penance on me. Just not this one, that I must leave without you!"

"You are mad. I cannot leave here with you, any more than I could with anyone else. And anyone who tried to follow me would forfeit their life and mine."

Fridolin felt drunk, not just from her, her fragrant body, her glowing red mouth, nor just from the atmosphere of this room, the sensual secrets that surrounded him; he was intoxicated and thirsty all at once from all the experiences of this night, none of which had reached a conclusion; from himself, from his boldness, from the transformation he felt within himself. And he reached out with his hands to the veil wrapped around her head, as if to pull it down.

She seized his hands. "It was one night when someone decided to tear the veil from a dancer's forehead. They ripped the mask from his face and whipped him out."

"And... her?"

"You may have read about a beautiful young girl... it was only a few weeks ago, the day before her wedding, she took poison."

He remembered, and even the name. He said it aloud. Was it not a girl from a noble house who had been engaged to an Italian prince?

She nodded.

Suddenly, one of the cavaliers appeared, the most distinguished of all, the only one in white attire. With a short bow that was polite yet commanding, he asked the woman Fridolin was speaking with to dance. It seemed to Fridolin that she hesitated for a moment. But already the other man had embraced her and was whirling her away with the other couples in the lit side hall.

Fridolin found himself alone, and this sudden abandonment hit him like a chill. He looked around. At this moment, it seemed no one cared about him. Perhaps there was still one last chance to leave without punishment. Yet what kept him trapped in his corner, where he felt he could remain unseen and unnoticed, was the fear of a dishonorable and somewhat ridiculous retreat, the unfulfilled, tormenting desire for that wondrous female body whose scent still lingered around him; or the thought that everything that had happened so far might have been a test of his courage, and that the magnificent woman might be his prize—he didn't know himself. In any case, he was clear that this tension could no longer be endured and that he had to end this state at all costs. Whatever he decided, life would not be lost. He might be among fools, perhaps among scoundrels, but certainly not among thieves or criminals. And he had an idea: to walk among them, confess himself as an intruder, and offer himself to them in a knightly manner. Only in such a way, like a noble chord, could this night conclude, if it was to mean more than a shadowy, wild sequence of dark, gloomy, strange, and lustful adventures, none of which had ever been completed. And breathing a sigh of relief, he prepared himself.

At that moment, a whisper came from beside him: "Password!" A black-clad cavalier had suddenly approached him, and when Fridolin did not immediately reply, he asked the question a second time.

"Denmark," said Fridolin.

"Quite right, sir, that is the password for entry. The password of the house, if I may ask?"

Fridolin remained silent.

"You are not willing to be so kind as to tell us the password of the house?" It sounded sharp as a blade.

Fridolin shrugged his shoulders. The other man stepped into the center of the room, raised his hand, and the piano stopped playing. The dancing ceased. Two other gentlemen, one in yellow and the other in red, stepped forward.

"The password, sir," they both said at once.

"I have forgotten it," Fridolin replied with an empty smile, feeling perfectly calm.

"That is unfortunate," said the man in yellow. "Because it makes no difference here whether you forgot the password or never knew it at all."

Other masked men rushed in, and the doors closed behind them on both sides. Fridolin stood alone in his monk's costume in the middle of the colorful gentlemen.

"Take off the mask!" several shouted together. Fridolin held his arms out in front of him as if for protection. It would have seemed a thousand times worse to him to stand there as the only one with an uncovered face among all the masked ones than to be suddenly naked among the dressed. With a firm voice, he said, "If any of the gentlemen feel their honor is offended by my appearance, I am willing to give satisfaction in the usual manner. However, I will only take off my mask if you all do the same, gentlemen."

"This is not about satisfaction," said the gentleman in red, who had not spoken yet, "but about atonement."

"Take off the mask!" another commanded with a bright, cheeky voice, making Fridolin think of an officer's order. "You will be told what awaits you to your face, not to your mask."

"I will not take it off," Fridolin said in an even sharper tone, "and woe to anyone who dares to touch me."

Suddenly, an arm reached for his face as if to tear the mask off, when one of the doors opened. A woman stood there—Fridolin had no doubt it was her—dressed as a nun, just as he had first seen her. Behind her, in the brightly lit room, others could be seen, naked with covered faces, pressed together, silent, a frightened crowd. But the door closed immediately again.

"Let him be," the nun said. "I am ready to pay his ransom."

A short, deep silence fell, as if something terrible had happened. Then the black-clad gentleman, who had first demanded the password from Fridolin, turned to the nun and said, "You know what you are taking upon yourself."

"I know it."

A deep sigh of relief went through the room.

"You are free," the gentleman said to Fridolin. "Leave this house immediately and be careful not to search further into the secrets into whose antechamber you have sneaked. If you try to lead anyone to our trail, whether you succeed or not, you will be lost."

Fridolin stood motionless. "In what way should this woman pay my ransom?" he asked.

No one answered. Several arms pointed toward the door, signaling that he should leave at once.

Fridolin shook his head. "Do with me what you will, gentlemen; I will not allow another human being to pay for me."

"You cannot change this woman's fate," the black gentleman said gently now. "If a promise has been made here, there is no turning back."

The nun nodded slowly in confirmation. "Go!" she said to Fridolin.

"No," he replied in a raised voice. "Life has no more value for me if I must leave here without you. Where you come from, who you are, I do not ask. What does it matter to you, my unknown gentlemen, whether you finish this carnival play, even if it is set up for a serious ending? Whoever you may be, gentlemen, you are leading some other existence than this. I am playing no play here, either, and even if I was forced to do so until now, I am stopping now. I feel that I have fallen into a fate that has nothing more to do with this masquerade. I want to tell you my name; I want to take off my mask and accept all the consequences."

"Beware!" the nun cried out. "You would ruin yourself without saving me! Go!" Turning to the others, she said, "Here I am, here you have me—all of you!"

The dark clothing seemed to vanish as if by magic. Standing in the glow of her pale skin, she reached for the veil wrapped around her forehead, head, and neck, and with a graceful, circular motion, she untwisted it.

It fell to the floor, and dark hair cascaded over her shoulders, chest, and hips. Before Fridolin could catch a glimpse of her face, he was seized by irresistible arms, dragged away, and pushed toward the door. In an instant, he found himself in the hallway; the door slammed shut behind him. A masked servant brought him his fur coat, helped him put it on, and then the front gate opened.

As if driven by an invisible force, he hurried on. He stepped onto the street, the light behind him extinguished. He turned to look back at the house, which lay silent with closed windows, emitting no glow.

"I must remember every detail," he thought to himself. "I must find the house again; everything else will follow."

Night surrounded him. Somewhat distant above him, where his carriage was supposed to wait, a streetlamp glowed with a dull, reddish light. From the depths of the alley, the hearse emerged as if summoned by his call. A servant opened the carriage door.

"I have my own carriage," Fridolin said.

The servant shook his head.

"If it has already left, I will return to the city on foot," he added.

The servant answered with a hand gesture so un-servant-like that it left no room for argument. The coachman's top hat seemed absurdly tall as it rose into the night. The wind blew hard, and violet clouds raced across the sky.

Given his recent experiences, Fridolin could no longer deceive himself: his only option was to climb into the carriage, which immediately set off with him.

Fridolin resolved to investigate the mystery of this adventure at the first opportunity, regardless of the danger. His life seemed to have lost all meaning if he failed to find the incomprehensible woman who was paying the price for his rescue that very hour. What that price was, was easy to guess. But why did she feel the need to sacrifice herself for him? To sacrifice herself? Was she even a woman for whom what was about to happen, what she was enduring, could be considered a sacrifice?

If she participated in these gatherings—and tonight could not have been her first time, given how well she seemed to know the customs—what would it matter to her to please one of these gentlemen or all of them? Yes, could she possibly be anything other than a prostitute? Could all these women be anything else? Prostitutes—there was no doubt. Even if they all led some other, so-called "respectable" life alongside this one.

And wasn't everything he had just experienced likely just a vile joke played on him? A prank prepared in case an uninvited person tried to sneak in? Possibly even rehearsed? Yet, when he thought again of the woman who had warned him from the start and was now willing to pay the price for him, something in her voice, her posture, and the royal nobility of her uncovered body seemed impossible to be a lie.

Or perhaps his sudden appearance had worked like a miracle, transforming her? After everything that had happened to him that night, he held—without feeling any foolish pride in this thought—that such a miracle was not impossible.

Perhaps there are hours, nights, he thought, when a strange, irresistible magic emanates from men who, under ordinary circumstances, possess no special power over the other sex?

The carriage climbed steadily up the hill. If things had been proceeding normally, it should have turned onto the main road long ago. What were they planning with him? Where was the carriage taking him? Would the comedy continue? And what form would that continuation take? Perhaps an explanation? A joyful reunion elsewhere? A reward for successfully completing his trial, and admission into the secret society? Uninterrupted possession of the beautiful nun?

The carriage windows were closed. Fridolin tried to look out, but they were opaque. He tried to open them, right and left, but it was impossible. The glass wall between him and the driver was equally opaque and firmly sealed. He knocked on the windows, shouted, screamed, but the carriage kept moving. He tried to open the carriage doors, right and left, but they wouldn't budge. His renewed shouting was lost in the creaking of the wheels and the rushing of the wind.

The carriage began to bump along, then started going downhill, faster and faster. Fridolin, seized by unease and fear, was just about to smash one of the darkened windows when the carriage suddenly stopped. Both doors opened simultaneously, as if by a mechanism, ironically offering Fridolin a choice between right and left. He jumped out of the carriage, the doors slammed shut, and without the driver so much as glancing at Fridolin, the carriage drove off across the open field and into the night.

The sky was overcast, clouds raced across it, and the wind whistled. Fridolin stood in the snow, which cast a pale glow all around. He stood alone, his fur coat open over his monk's robe, the pilgrim hat on his head, and he did not feel particularly safe. A wide road ran a short distance away. A procession of dimly flickering lanterns marked the direction toward the city.

But Fridolin ran straight ahead, cutting across the moderately sloping, snow-covered field to take a shortcut, wanting to reach people as quickly as possible. With wet feet, he arrived in a narrow, almost unlit alley. He walked first between tall wooden fences that groaned in the storm. Turning the next corner, he entered a somewhat wider street where small, sparse houses alternated with empty construction lots. A tower clock struck three in the morning.

Someone came toward Fridolin, wearing a short jacket, hands in his pockets, head tucked between his shoulders, hat pulled low over his forehead. Fridolin braced himself as if for an attack, but unexpectedly, the ruffian suddenly turned and ran away. What did that mean? Fridolin wondered. Then he realized he must look quite frightening. He took off his pilgrim hat and buttoned his coat, under which the monk's robe hung loosely down to his ankles.

He turned another corner and entered a suburban main street. A man dressed in rural clothing passed him and greeted him as one would greet a priest. The beam of a streetlamp fell on the street sign of the corner house: Liebhartstal. So, he was not far from the house he had left barely an hour ago. For a second, he was tempted to turn back and wait nearby for further developments. But he immediately dismissed the idea, realizing he would be putting himself in greater danger and would hardly get any closer to solving the mystery.

The thought of whatever might be happening in the villa at that moment filled him with rage, despair, shame, and fear. This state of mind was so unbearable that Fridolin almost regretted not being attacked by the ruffian he had met. In fact, he almost wished he were lying dead against a fence in that lost alley with a stab wound between his ribs. At least that nonsensical night, with its silly, fragmented adventures, would have had some kind of meaning. Returning home as he was about to do seemed utterly ridiculous.

But nothing was lost yet. Tomorrow was also a day. He swore to himself that he would not rest until he found the beautiful woman again, whose blinding nakedness had intoxicated him. And now he finally thought of Albertine, but as if he still had to conquer her, as if she could not, and must not, become his again until he had deceived her along with all the others from tonight: the naked woman, Pierrette, Marianne, and the girl from the narrow alley.

And should he not also try to find the brazen student who had bumped into him, to challenge him to a duel with swords, or preferably with pistols? What did it matter to him whether it was someone else's life or his own? Should one always risk life out of duty or sacrifice, never out of whim, passion, or simply to test oneself against fate?!

Fridolin suddenly remembered that he might already be carrying the seed of a fatal illness. Was it not absurd to die from something as silly as being coughed on by a child with diphtheria? Perhaps he was already sick. Didn't he have a fever? Wasn't he lying in bed at home right now, and had everything he thought he experienced just been delirium?

Fridolin opened his eyes as wide as possible, wiped his forehead and cheek, and checked his pulse. It was barely faster than usual. Everything was fine. He was fully awake.

He continued walking down the street toward the city. A few market wagons rolled past behind him, rattling along. Occasionally, he passed poorly dressed people who were just starting their day. Behind a café window, a gas lamp flickered over a table where a fat man with a scarf around his neck sat, head in his hands, fast asleep. The houses were still shrouded in darkness, with only a few scattered windows lit. Fridolin felt as though he could sense the people slowly waking up; it seemed to him that he saw them stretching and preparing in their beds for their miserable, sour day. A day like that awaited him too, yet not one that was miserable or gloomy. With a strange, joyful pounding of his heart, he became aware that in just a few hours he would be walking among his patients in his white coat.

At the next corner stood a one-horse carriage; the driver was sleeping on the seat. Fridolin woke him, gave him his address, and stepped inside.

It was four in the morning when he climbed the stairs to his apartment. First, he went to his consulting room and carefully locked his costume away in a closet. Wanting to avoid waking Albertine, he took off his shoes and clothes before entering the bedroom. He quietly turned on the dim light of his nightstand lamp.

Albertine lay quietly, her arms folded behind her head, her lips slightly parted. Painful shadows surrounded her face—a face Fridolin did not recognize. He leaned over her forehead, which immediately wrinkled as if touched by a hand; her expression twisted strangely. Suddenly, still asleep, she burst into a shrill laugh that startled Fridolin. Without thinking, he called her name.

She laughed again, as if in response, in a completely strange and almost eerie manner. Fridolin called her name again, louder.

Now she opened her eyes slowly and with difficulty. They were wide, staring blankly at him as if she did not recognize him.

"Albertine!" he called for a third time.

Only then did she seem to come to her senses. An expression of resistance, fear, and even horror appeared in her eyes. She raised her arms, senseless and desperate, her mouth remaining open.

"What is wrong with you?" Fridolin asked, his voice trembling.

Seeing that she continued to stare at him with terror, he added gently, "It's me, Albertine."

She took a deep breath, tried to smile, and let her arms fall onto the bedspread. As if speaking from far away, she asked, "Is it already morning?"

"Almost," Fridolin replied. "It's past four. I just got home."

She fell silent. He continued, "The councilor is dead. He was already dying when I arrived, and naturally, I couldn't leave the family alone immediately."

She nodded, but seemed hardly to have heard or understood him. She stared blankly through him, and it seemed to Fridolin—absurd as the thought was—that she must already know what he had experienced that night. He leaned over her and touched her forehead. She shivered slightly.

"What is wrong with you?" he asked again.

She only slowly shook her head. He stroked her hair. "Albertine, what is wrong with you?"

"I had a dream," she said, her voice distant.

"What did you dream about?" he asked gently.

"Oh, so much. I can't quite remember."

"Perhaps you can."

"It was so confused—and I am tired. And you must be tired too, right?"

"Not at all, Albertine. I hardly want to sleep anymore. You know, when I come home so late—the most sensible thing would be for me to sit right down at my desk, especially at this hour of the morning—" He stopped himself. "But wouldn't you rather tell me about your dream?" He smiled somewhat forcedly.

She replied, "You should lie down for a little while yourself."

He hesitated for a moment, then did as she asked and lay down beside her. Yet he took care not to touch her. "A sword between us," he thought, recalling a half-joking remark he had once made in a similar situation.

Both remained silent, lying awake with their eyes open, feeling each other's presence and distance. After a while, he propped his head up on his arm and studied her for a long time, as if he could see more than just the outline of her face.

"Your dream!" he suddenly said again, as if she had been waiting for this invitation. She held out her hand to him; he took it, and habitually, more absentmindedly than tenderly, he held her slender fingers in a playful grip. Then she began:

"Do you remember the room in the small villa by Lake Wörthersee, where I stayed with my parents during the summer of our engagement?"

He nodded.

"That's how the dream started: I walked into that room, I don't know from where—like an actress stepping onto a stage. I only knew that my parents were away on a trip and had left me alone. That surprised me, since our wedding was supposed to be the next day. But the wedding dress hadn't arrived yet. Or maybe I was mistaken? I opened the closet to check, but instead of a wedding dress, there were many other dresses hanging there—costumes, really, operatic, magnificent, and Oriental. Which one should I wear for the wedding? I wondered. Suddenly, the closet closed again or disappeared; I no longer remembered. The room was very bright, but outside the window it was pitch black night. Then suddenly, you appeared there. Galley slaves had rowed you here; I saw them just disappearing into the darkness. You were dressed very expensively, in gold and silk, with a dagger hanging at your side, and you lifted me out the window. I was also dressed beautifully, like a princess. We both stood outside in the twilight, and fine gray mist reached up to our ankles. It was a familiar place: there was the lake, the mountain landscape before us, and the country houses I could see; they stood there like toys from a box. But you and I, we didn't just float; we flew over the mist, and I thought: This is our honeymoon. Soon, however, we were no longer flying. We walked along a forest path leading up to Elisabethhöhe, and suddenly we found ourselves high in the mountains in a kind of clearing surrounded by forest on three sides, while behind us a steep rock wall rose up. Above us was a starry sky so blue and vast that it didn't exist in reality, and that was the ceiling of our bridal chamber. You took me in your arms and loved me very much."

"I hope you loved me too," Fridolin said with an invisible, mischievous smile.

"I believe there is even more to it," Albertine replied seriously. "But how can I explain this to you? Even though we embraced with the deepest affection, our tenderness was heavy with a foreboding of destined suffering."

Suddenly, morning arrived. The meadow was bright and colorful, the surrounding forest dewy and sweet, and sunbeams shimmered above the rock face. Now, we had to return to the world, to the people; it was high time. But something terrible had happened. Our clothes were gone.

An unspeakable horror seized me, a burning shame that felt like total destruction, mixed with anger toward you, as if you alone were to blame for this disaster. All of this—horror, shame, anger—was so intense that nothing I have ever felt while awake could compare.

In the consciousness of your guilt, you ran off, still naked, to descend and find us some clothing. As soon as you were gone, I felt strangely light. I did not pity you, nor was I worried about you; I was simply happy to be alone. I ran happily around the meadow and sang: it was the melody of a dance we had heard at the ball. My voice sounded wonderful, and I wished people in the city below could hear me.

I did not see this city, but I knew it. It lay far beneath me, surrounded by a high wall. It was a fantastical city that I cannot describe. It was neither Oriental nor strictly Old German, yet it was a bit of both at times, certainly a city that had long and forever sunk into oblivion.

Suddenly, I found myself lying stretched out on the meadow in the sunlight—much more beautiful than I had ever been in reality. While I lay there, a man emerged from the forest. He was a young man in a light, modern suit. As I now know, he looked roughly like the Dane I told you about yesterday. He walked on his way, greeted me very politely as he passed, but paid me no further attention. He went straight toward the rock face and studied it intently, as if considering how to conquer it.

At the same time, I saw you. You hurried through the sunken city from house to house, from shop to shop, sometimes under arcades, sometimes through a kind of Turkish bazaar. You bought the most beautiful things you could find for me: clothes, linen, shoes, jewelry. You packed everything into a small, yellow-leather handbag, which still held it all.

Yet, you were constantly pursued by a crowd of people I could not see; I only heard their dull, menacing howling.

Then the other man appeared again—the Dane who had previously stopped before the rock face. Once more, he came from the forest toward me, and I knew that in the meantime, he had traveled around the whole world. He looked different than before, yet he was still the same.

He stopped before the rock face just as he had the first time, vanished, then reappeared from the forest, vanished, then appeared from the forest again. This happened two or three, or perhaps a hundred times. He was always the same and yet always different. Each time he passed me, he greeted me. Finally, he stopped in front of me, looked at me with scrutiny. I laughed seductively, more so than I had ever laughed in my life. He stretched his arms toward me. Now I wanted to flee, but I could not. He sank down onto the meadow beside me.

She fell silent. Fridolin's throat was dry. In the darkness of the room, he realized that Albertine was hiding her face in her hands.

"What a strange dream," he said. "Is it over?" When she shook her head, he added, "Then tell me more."

"It is not so easy," she began again. "These things can hardly be expressed in words. So—to me, it felt as though I had experienced countless days and nights. There was no time or space; it was no longer the clearing enclosed by woods and rocks where I had been. Instead, it was a vast, infinitely stretching field of multicolored flowers that disappeared into the horizon in every direction.

I was also long gone—strangely, that 'long gone'—from being alone with just that one man on the meadow. Whether there were three, ten, or a thousand other couples there, whether I saw them or not, whether I belonged only to him or to others as well, I could not say. But just as that earlier feeling of horror and shame at anything imaginable in waking life had far exceeded all bounds, there is certainly nothing in our conscious existence that equals the release, the freedom, the happiness I felt in this dream.

And yet, through it all, I never stopped knowing you. Yes, I saw you. I saw how you were seized, I believe, by soldiers, and some clergymen as well. Someone, a gigantic figure, bound your hands. I knew you were to be executed. I knew it without pity, without shudder, entirely from afar.

They led you into a courtyard, a kind of castle yard. There you stood with your hands bound behind your back and naked. Just as I saw you, even though I was elsewhere, you saw me, too, and the man holding me in his arms, and all the other couples—the endless flood of nakedness that washed over me, of which the man embracing me and I were merely a single wave.

While you stood in the castle yard, a young woman appeared at a high arched window between red curtains. She wore a diadem on her head and a purple cloak. It was the Princess of the land. She looked down at you with a stern, questioning gaze. You stood alone; the others, as many as they were, held back, pressed against the walls. I heard a treacherous, threatening murmur and whispering.

Then the Princess leaned over the railing. Silence fell, and the Princess gave you a sign, as if commanding you to come up to her. I knew she was determined to grant you mercy. But you did not notice her look, or perhaps you chose not to. Suddenly, still with your hands bound but wrapped in a black cloak, you stood before her—not in a room, but somehow in the open air, as if floating.

She held a sheet of parchment in her hand—your death sentence, which also recorded your guilt and the reasons for your condemnation. She asked you—I did not hear the words, but I knew—whether you were willing to become her lover. If you agreed, the death penalty would be waived. You shook your head no.

I was not surprised, for it was entirely in order and could not have been otherwise: you had to remain faithful to me at all costs and for all eternity.

The Princess shrugged, waved into the void, and suddenly you found yourself in an underground cellar. Whips cracked down upon you, though I could not see the people wielding them. Blood flowed down you like streams. I saw it flowing and was aware of my cruelty, yet I did not wonder at it.

Then the Princess approached you. Her hair was loose, flowing around her naked body; she held the diadem in both hands, offering it to you. And I knew she was the girl from the Danish shore whom you had once seen naked on the terrace of a bathing hut one morning. She spoke no words, but the meaning of her presence, indeed of her silence, was whether you wished to be her husband and the Prince of the land.

Since you refused again, she vanished suddenly. At the same moment, I saw a cross being erected for you—not down in the castle yard, but on the flower-strewn, infinite meadow where I rested in the arms of a lover, among all the other couples.

But I saw you walking alone through ancient streets, unguarded, yet I knew your path was predetermined and that escape was impossible. Now you went up the forest path. I awaited you with tension, but without any pity. Your body was covered in welts, but they no longer bled. You climbed higher and higher; the path widened, and the woods receded on both sides. Then you stood at the edge of the meadow in a vast, incomprehensible distance.

Yet you greeted me with a smile in your eyes, as if to show that you had fulfilled my wish and brought me everything I needed: clothes, shoes, and jewelry. But I found your behavior utterly foolish and meaningless. It tempted me to mock you, to laugh in your face—precisely because, out of loyalty to me, you had rejected the hand of a Princess, endured torture, and now stumbled up here to face a terrible death.

I ran to meet you, and you also quickened your pace. I began to float, and you floated in the air as well. But suddenly, we disappeared from each other's sight, and I knew: we had flown past one another.

Then I wished that you should at least hear my laughter, precisely while they were nailing you to the cross. So I laughed aloud, as shrilly and loudly as I could. That was the laughter, Fridolin, with which I awoke."

She remained silent and motionless. He too stayed still and said nothing. At that moment, either of them would have seemed weak, deceitful, and cowardly.

As she continued her story, his own experiences seemed increasingly ridiculous and trivial in comparison. He swore to himself that he would live through everything she had described, then faithfully report it back to her. He wanted to take revenge on this woman who, in her dream, had revealed her true nature: unfaithful, cruel, and treacherous. In that moment, he believed he hated her more than he had ever loved her.

Now he realized he was still holding her fingers in his hands. Despite his resolve to hate her, he felt an unchanged tenderness for those slender, cool, familiar fingers—a tenderness that had only grown more painful. Without thinking, and even against his will, before letting go of her hand, he gently touched it with his lips.

Albertine still did not open her eyes. Fridolin thought he saw her mouth, her forehead, and her entire face smiling with a blissful, radiant, and innocent expression. He felt an inexplicable urge to lean over her and press a kiss to her pale forehead. But he restrained himself, recognizing that it was merely the understandable exhaustion from the tumultuous events of the past few hours, disguised as longing tenderness in the deceptive atmosphere of the marital bedroom.

No matter how he felt at that moment or what decisions he might make in the coming hours, the urgent command of the present was to flee, at least for a while, into sleep and forgetfulness. Even on the night following his mother's death, he had slept deeply and without dreams, so he should be able to do so now. He lay down beside Albertine, who seemed already to be asleep.

"A sword between us," he thought again. "And then: we lie here side by side like mortal enemies." But it was only words.

The quiet knock of the maid woke him at seven in the morning. He cast a quick glance at Albertine. Sometimes, though not always, this knock would wake her too. Today, she lay motionless, far too motionless.

Fridolin dressed quickly. Before leaving, he wanted to see his little daughter. She lay quietly in her white bed, her hands curled into small fists in the manner of children. He kissed her forehead. Then, on tiptoe, he slipped again to the bedroom door where Albertine still lay, as still as before. Then he left.

In his black doctor's bag, kept safe, he carried a monk's robe and a pilgrim's hat. He had carefully planned his day's schedule, even with a touch of pedantry. First on the list was a visit to a seriously ill young lawyer living very nearby. Fridolin conducted a thorough examination, found the condition slightly improved, and expressed his genuine satisfaction. He then wrote out an old prescription with the usual notation for repetition.

Immediately after, he went to the house where the nightingale had played the piano in the basement the previous evening. The establishment was still closed, but the cashier in the café upstairs knew that the nightingale lived in a small hotel in the Leopoldstadt. A quarter of an hour later, Fridolin arrived there. It was a wretched inn. The hallway smelled of unventilated beds, bad tallow, and chicory coffee. A shabby-looking doorman with shifty, red-rimmed eyes, always ready for a police interrogation, willingly gave information.

Mr. Nightingale had arrived this morning at five o'clock in the company of two gentlemen who had deliberately wrapped their necks high with handkerchiefs to make their faces nearly unrecognizable. While Nightingale went to his room, the two men paid his bill for the last four weeks. When he had not reappeared after half an hour, one of the men had personally come down to get him, after which all three had driven to the North Station. Nightingale had made a very agitated impression; indeed, why should one not tell the whole truth to such a trustworthy gentleman? He had tried to slip a letter to the doorman, but the two men had prevented it immediately. Letters for Mr. Nightingale, the men had further explained, would be picked up by an authorized person.

Fridolin took his leave. He was glad to be carrying his doctor's bag as he stepped out of the front gate; this way, people would not think he was a resident of the hotel, but rather an official. For now, nothing could be done about Nightingale. They had been quite careful, and certainly had good reason to be.

Next, he drove to the costume rental shop. Mr. Gibiser opened the door himself. "Here I return the rented costume," Fridolin said, "and I wish to settle my debt." Mr. Gibiser named a moderate sum, accepted the money, made an entry in a large business ledger, and looked somewhat surprised at Fridolin, who made no move to leave.

"I am also here," Fridolin said in the tone of an investigating judge, "to speak with you about your daughter."

Something twitched around the nostrils of Mr. Gibiser; it was unclear whether it was discomfort, mockery, or anger.

"How do you mean, sir?" he asked in a tone that was equally impossible to decipher.

"You mentioned yesterday," said Fridolin, resting one hand with spread fingers on the office desk, "that your daughter is not quite mentally normal. The situation in which we encountered her made that suspicion quite natural. Since chance has made me a participant, or at least a spectator, of that strange scene, I would like to suggest, Mr. Gibiser, that you consult a doctor."

Gibiser, twirling an unnaturally long pen nib back and forth in his hand, measured Fridolin with an impudent gaze.

"And perhaps, Doctor, you would be so kind as to take over the treatment yourself?"

"I ask that you do not put words in my mouth," Fridolin replied sharply, though a bit hoarsely, "that I have not spoken."

At that moment, the door leading to the inner rooms opened, and a young man in a formal coat with an overcoat thrown open stepped out. Fridolin immediately knew it could be no one else than one of the secret judges from that very night. There was no doubt he had come from Pierrette's room. He seemed embarrassed upon seeing Fridolin but quickly recovered, gave Gibiser a brief greeting with a wave of his hand, lit a cigarette using a lighter on the office desk, and then left the apartment.

"Ah, I see," Fridolin remarked with a contemptuous twitch of his lips and a bitter taste in his mouth.

"How do you mean, sir?" asked Gibiser with perfect calm.

"So you have decided, Herr Gibiser," Fridolin said, letting his gaze drift thoughtfully from the apartment door to the other one from which the secret judge had emerged, "to refrain from contacting the police."

"We have reached an agreement through other means, Herr Doctor," Gibiser replied coolly and rose as if an audience had concluded.

Fridolin turned to leave. Gibiser hurriedly opened the door and, with an unmoving expression, said, "If Herr Doctor should need anything in the future... it doesn't necessarily have to be a monk's robe."

Fridolin slammed the door shut behind him.

This is settled, he thought, feeling a surge of anger that seemed disproportionate to him.

He hurried down the stairs and proceeded to the polyclinic without particular haste. First, he called home to ask if any patients had been sent for him, if any mail had arrived, and what else was new. Hardly had the maid given her answers when Albertine herself took the phone and greeted Fridolin. She repeated everything the maid had said, then casually mentioned that she had just woken up and wanted to have breakfast with the child.

"Give her a kiss from me," Fridolin said, "and enjoy your meal."

Her voice had comforted him, and precisely because of that, he quickly hung up. He had actually intended to ask what Albertine planned to do that morning, but what did it concern him? Deep down, he was already finished with her, regardless of how external life might continue.

A blonde nurse helped him out of his coat sleeves and handed him the white doctor's coat. While doing so, she smiled at him slightly, as they all tend to smile, whether one pays attention to them or not.

A few minutes later, he was in the ward. The chief physician had sent word that he had to travel suddenly for a consultation, and the assistant doctors were to conduct rounds without him. Fridolin felt almost happy as he moved from bed to bed, accompanied by students, performing examinations, writing prescriptions, and discussing matters professionally with junior doctors and nurses.

There were various updates. The locksmith's apprentice, Karl Rödel, had died during the night. The autopsy was scheduled for 5:00 PM. A bed in the women's ward had become free but was already occupied. The woman in bed seventeen had to be transferred to the surgical department. In between, personnel matters were also discussed. The decision regarding the new appointment for the eye department was expected the day after tomorrow; Hügelmann, now a professor in Marburg but just a second assistant to Stellwag four years ago, had the best chances.

Rapid career advancement, Fridolin thought. I will never be considered for a department head position, mainly because I lack a lecturing qualification. It's too late. Why, though? One would simply have to start working scientifically again or take up what was begun with greater seriousness. Private practice still left plenty of time.

He asked Dr. Fuchstaler to lead the outpatient clinic and had to admit that he would have preferred to stay here rather than drive to Galitzinberg. And yet, it had to be done. He was not only obligated to pursue this matter to himself; there was still other business to attend to today. Thus, he decided to entrust Dr. Fuchstaler with the evening rounds as well.

The young girl with the suspicious lace-related inflammation in the last bed smiled at him. She was the same one who, during a recent examination, had pressed her breasts trustingly against his cheek. Fridolin returned her look unfriendly and turned away with a frown.

One and the same, he thought bitterly, and Albertine is just like all of them—she is the worst of all. I will separate from her. Things can never be good again.

On the stairs, he exchanged a few words with a colleague from the surgical department. "So, how is the woman who was transferred here last night?" he asked. "In my opinion, I don't quite believe an operation is necessary. Will you report the results of the histological examination to me?"

"Of course, colleague," the other replied.

At the corner, he hailed a carriage. He consulted his notebook, a ridiculous comedy before the driver, as if he had to decide right then where to go.

"To Ottakring," he said, "the street toward Galitzinberg. I will tell you where to stop."

Suddenly, a painful, longing excitement washed over him in the carriage, almost bordering on guilt. He realized he had barely thought of his beautiful rescuer during the past few hours.

Could he find the house? That shouldn't be too difficult. But the real question was: what then? Should he call the police? That could have terrible consequences for the woman, who might have sacrificed herself or been willing to for his sake. Or should he hire a private detective? That seemed rather tacky and beneath him. But what else was left? He didn't have the time, and probably not the talent, to conduct the necessary investigation properly.

A secret society? Well, certainly secret. But did they know each other? Aristocrats, perhaps even court nobles? He thought of certain Archdukes, to whom such pranks could be attributed. And the women? Presumably... drawn from brothels. Well, that wasn't certain at all. At the very least, they were a select group. But the woman who had sacrificed herself? Sacrificed? Why did he keep convincing himself it was truly a sacrifice? It was a comedy. Naturally, the whole thing had been a comedy. He should be glad he got off so easily. Yes, he had maintained his dignity. The gentlemen could tell he wasn't just anyone. And she must have noticed it too. He was probably more to her liking than all those Archdukes or whoever else they might have been.

At the end of Liebhart Valley, where the path turned sharply upward, he got out and sent the carriage away just in case. The sky was pale blue with white clouds, and the sun shone with a warm spring light. He looked back—nothing suspicious in sight. No carriage, no pedestrian. Slowly, he began to climb the hill. His coat felt heavy, so he took it off and draped it over his shoulders.

He reached the spot where the side street had to turn right, leading to the mysterious house. He couldn't miss it; it went downhill, though not as steeply as it had seemed to him during the night drive. It was a quiet alley. In a front garden, rose bushes were carefully wrapped in straw. In the next one, a child's carriage stood. A young boy, dressed entirely in blue wool, played back and forth while a young woman laughed at him from the ground-floor window. Then came an empty lot, followed by a wild, fenced-in garden, then a small villa, then a lawn. No doubt about it—this was the house he was looking for.

It didn't look particularly large or grand. It was a single-story villa in a modest Empire style, obviously renovated not long ago. Green shutters were lowered everywhere; nothing suggested the house was occupied. Fridolin looked around. No one was in the alley; only further down, two boys with books under their arms walked away. He stood before the garden gate. What now? Simply walking back? That would seem absolutely ridiculous. He looked for the electric doorbell. If someone opened the door, what would he say? Well, simply ask if the pretty country house was for rent for the summer. But before he could try, the front door opened by itself. An old servant in a simple morning uniform stepped out and slowly walked the narrow path to the garden gate. He held a letter in his hand and silently handed it to Fridolin through the gate bars, while Fridolin's heart pounded.

"For me?" he asked, his voice trembling. The servant nodded, turned, walked away, and the front door closed behind him.

What did this mean? Fridolin wondered. Perhaps the woman herself owned the house? He quickly walked up the street again. Now he noticed his name written on the envelope in tall, commanding handwriting. At the corner, he opened the letter, unfolded the sheet, and read: "Give up your investigations; they are completely useless. Consider these words a second warning. We hope, in your interest, that no further warning will be necessary."

He let the paper drop.

This message disappointed him in every way, yet it was different from what he foolishly thought possible. Still, the tone was strangely restrained, completely without sharpness. It revealed that the people who sent this message did not feel entirely secure.

Second warning? Why a second one? Oh, right, the first had come during the night. But why a second, and not the last? Did they want to test his courage again? Was there another trial for him to pass? And how did they know his name? Well, that wasn't too strange; likely they had forced Nachtigall to betray him. Besides, he couldn't help but smile at his own absentmindedness: inside the lining of his fur coat was his monogram and his exact address sewn in.

Even though he hadn't gotten any further than before, the letter had calmed him overall, even if he couldn't quite say why. Above all, he was convinced that the woman whose fate he had feared was still alive and that it was up to him to find her if he went about it with caution and cunning.

When he arrived home a bit tired but in a strangely relieved mood that he also sensed might be deceptive, Albertine and the child had already eaten lunch. They kept him company while he ate his own meal. There she sat opposite him, the woman who had calmly had him crucified tonight, with an angelic gaze, maternal and domestic. To his surprise, he felt no hatred toward her. He enjoyed his meal; he was in a slightly agitated but actually cheerful mood. True to his nature, he spoke very animatedly about the small professional experiences of the day, especially about personnel matters in the medical field, which he usually kept Albertine fully informed about.

He told her that Hügelmann's appointment was practically certain and spoke of his own intention to resume his scientific work with greater energy. Albertine knew this mood; she knew it usually didn't last long, and a faint smile revealed her doubts. Fridolin became impassioned, whereupon Albertine gently stroked his hair with a calming hand. He flinched slightly and turned toward the child, thereby avoiding further uncomfortable contact. He picked up the little girl on his lap, just about to rock her on his knees, when the maid announced that several patients were waiting. Fridolin rose as if freed, casually mentioned that Albertine and the child should use the beautiful sunny afternoon for a walk, and went into his consulting room.

During the next two hours, Fridolin saw six old patients and two new ones. In each case, he was completely focused: he examined them, took notes, and prescribed treatment. He felt glad that after the last two sleepless nights he felt so wonderfully fresh and mentally clear.

After finishing his office hours, he did as was his habit and checked on his wife and child. Not without satisfaction, he noticed that Albertine was receiving a visit from her mother and that the little girl was learning French with the young lady. Only as he was going down the stairs did he realize again that all this order, all this routine, all this security of his existence were only a façade and a lie.

Even though he had canceled his afternoon visits, he was irresistibly drawn to the department. Two cases were there that were especially relevant to the scientific work he planned above all else, and he studied them more deeply than he had before. Then he had a house call to make in the inner city, and so it was seven o'clock in the evening when he stood before the old house on Schreyvogelgasse. Now, as he looked up at Marianna's window, the image of her, though completely faded, became more vivid than ever, more than that of anyone else.

Here, he thought, he could not fail. Without much effort, he could begin his work of revenge here; there was no difficulty, no danger. And what might have made others hesitate—the betrayal of the fiancé—meant almost an added incentive for him. Yes, to betray, to deceive, to lie, to play the part, here and there, before Marianna, before Albertine, before that good doctor Roediger, before the whole world; to lead a kind of double life: at the same time being the capable, reliable, promising physician, the good husband and father, and at the same time a rake, a seducer, a cynic who played with people, men and women, as his whim dictated—this seemed to him at this moment something utterly delightful. And the most delightful part was that later, when Albertine had long felt secure in her quiet married and family life, he would coldly confess all his sins to her, thereby taking revenge for the bitter and shameful things she had done to him in a dream.

In the hallway, he encountered Dr. Roediger, who offered him a warm, harmless handshake.

"How is Fräulein Marianne?" Fridolin asked. "Has she calmed down a bit?"

Dr. Roediger shrugged. "She was prepared for the end long enough, Doctor. Only when they brought the body out around noon today—"

"Oh, has that already happened?"

Dr. Roediger nodded. "The funeral is scheduled for tomorrow at three o'clock."

Fridolin looked down at the floor. "Are the relatives with Fräulein Marianne?"

"No longer," Dr. Roediger replied. "She is alone now. I am sure she will be glad to see you, Doctor. Tomorrow, my mother and I will take her to Mödling. My parents have a small house there."

At Fridolin's polite, questioning look, he added, "Goodbye, Doctor. I have many things to attend to. There is so much to do in a case like this! I hope to find you upstairs when I return." And with that, he stepped out of the building onto the street.

Fridolin hesitated for a moment, then slowly walked up the stairs. He rang the bell, and Marianne herself opened the door. She was dressed in black and wore a black jet necklace around her neck, which he had never seen her wear before. Her face flushed slightly.

"You kept me waiting a long time," she said with a weak smile.

"Forgive me, Fräulein Marianne. I had a particularly exhausting day today."

He followed her through the room where she had died, where the bed now stood empty, and into the side room where he had written the death certificate for the councilor yesterday under the portrait of the officer in white uniform. A small lamp was already burning on the desk, casting a dim light in the room. Marianne pointed to a spot on the black leather sofa for him, then sat opposite him at the desk.

"I just met Dr. Roediger in the hallway. So, you are leaving for the country tomorrow?"

Marianne looked at him, as if surprised by his cool tone. Her shoulders slumped as he continued in a voice that was almost harsh: "I think that is very sensible." He then explained objectively how the fresh air and new surroundings would benefit her.

She sat motionless, tears streaming down her cheeks. He watched her without compassion, more with impatience. The thought that she might, in the next minute, fall at his feet again and repeat her confession from yesterday filled him with fear. Since she remained silent, he abruptly stood up.

"I am sorry, Fräulein Marianne—" He glanced at his watch.

She lifted her head and looked at Fridolin, her tears continuing. He would have liked to say something kind to her but found he could not.

"You will stay in the country for a few days, I suppose," he began, forcing his words. "I hope you will let me know how you are. By the way, Dr. Roediger told me the wedding will take place soon. Allow me to offer my congratulations today."

She did not move, as if she had not noticed his congratulations or his farewell at all. He extended his hand, which she did not take. In a tone bordering on reproach, he repeated, "So, I hope you will let me know how you are. Goodbye, Fräulein Marianne." She sat there like a statue.

He left, pausing for a moment in the doorway as if giving her one last chance to call him back. She seemed to turn her head away, and so he closed the door behind him. Outside in the hallway, he felt a strange sensation of regret. For a moment, he considered turning back, but he knew that would be ridiculous above all else.

But what now? Home? Where else? He could do nothing more today anyway. And tomorrow? What? And how? He felt clumsy and helpless; everything seemed to slip through his fingers. Everything became unreal, even his home, his wife, his child, his profession, and even himself, as he mechanically continued walking down the evening streets with his wandering thoughts.

The clock on the town hall tower struck half past seven. It was, in fact, entirely irrelevant how late it was; time seemed utterly pointless to him. Nothing and no one concerned him. He felt a faint pang of pity for himself. Suddenly, fleetingly and not as a firm intention, the idea occurred to him to go to a train station, depart, and leave for anywhere at all—to vanish from the lives of everyone who knew him, reappear in a foreign land, and start over as a completely new person. He recalled strange cases of mental illness he had read about in psychiatric books, so-called dual existences: a person would suddenly disappear from an orderly life, become lost, and return months or years later. They would have no memory of where they had been, yet someone in a distant country would recognize them. The returnee, however, would know nothing of this encounter. Such things were rare, of course, but they were documented facts. Perhaps everyone experienced a milder version of them. What about waking from a dream? Of course, one remembers... But surely there are dreams that are completely forgotten, leaving nothing behind but a mysterious mood or a strange sense of bewilderment. Or perhaps one remembers them much later and no longer knows if one truly experienced something or only dreamed it. Only—only—!

As he continued walking, he found himself unconsciously heading toward his apartment. He passed near the dark, somewhat disreputable alley where, less than twenty-four hours ago, he had followed a lost girl to her humble yet cozy home. "Lost"? Was that really the word? And was this alley truly "disreputable"? How easily we are led astray by words, labeling streets, fates, and people with lazy habits. Wasn't this young girl, in truth, the most charming, even the purest, of all the strange acquaintances he had made the previous night? Thinking of her stirred a touch of emotion in him. He also remembered his resolve from yesterday. Quickly, he bought various food items at the nearest shop. As he walked along the building walls with his small package, he felt a sense of satisfaction, convinced that he was about to perform a sensible, perhaps even commendable, act. Nevertheless, he pulled his collar up high as he entered the building's hallway. He took several steps at a time while climbing the stairs, and the apartment bell rang in his ear with an unwanted shrillness. When a poorly dressed woman informed him that Miss Mizzi was not at home, he breathed a sigh of relief. Before the woman could take the package for the absent resident, another young, quite pretty woman, wrapped in a bathrobe, entered the anteroom and asked, "Who is the gentleman looking for? Miss Mizzi? She won't be home for quite some time."

The older woman signaled her to be quiet. But Fridolin, eager to confirm what he had somehow already suspected, simply remarked, "She is in the hospital, isn't she?"

"Well, if the gentleman already knows that. But I am healthy, thank God," she cried cheerfully. She stepped very close to Fridolin, her lips slightly parted, tossing her lush figure back so that her bathrobe opened. Fridolin declined politely, "I only stopped by while passing to bring something to Mizzi," and he suddenly felt like a high school student. Then, in a new, matter-of-fact tone, he asked, "Which department is she in?"

The younger woman told him the name of a professor whose clinic Fridolin had served as a resident surgeon several years prior. Then, she added kindly, "Give it to me, the packages. I'll bring them to her tomorrow. You can rely on me not to eat any of it. And I will greet her for you and tell her that you haven't been unfaithful to her." At the same time, she stepped closer to him and laughed. When he stepped back slightly, she immediately gave up and remarked comfortingly, "In six, at the latest eight weeks, the doctor said she will be home again."

When Fridolin stepped out of his front door onto the street, he felt tears welling in his throat. But he knew this wasn't so much a sign of deep emotion as a gradual failure of his nerves. He deliberately took a quicker, livelier stride than his mood warranted.

Was this experience another, perhaps the final sign, that everything must fail for him? Why? That he had escaped such great danger could, after all, also be a good sign. And yet, was that even the point: merely to escape danger? Many other things still lay ahead of him.

He certainly had no intention of giving up the search for the mysterious woman from last night. Of course, there was no time for it now. Besides, he had to carefully consider how to continue his inquiries. Yes, if only he had someone to consult with! But he knew no one he would willingly share the adventures of the past night with. For years, he had been truly close to no one but his wife, and even with her, he could hardly discuss this matter, neither this one nor any other. For however one looked at it: last night she had betrayed him.

Now he understood why his steps, instead of leading him toward his home, had involuntarily carried him further in the opposite direction. He did not want to, and could not, face Albertine right now. The most sensible thing was to have dinner somewhere else, then check on his two patients at the hospital—and absolutely not be at home, "at home!"—before he could be sure Albertine was already asleep.

He entered a café, one of the more upscale and quiet ones near the town hall. He telephoned home to say they shouldn't expect him for dinner, hung up quickly so Albertine wouldn't answer, then sat by a window and drew the curtain shut.

In a distant corner, a man had just taken a seat; dressed in a dark overcoat, otherwise quite unremarkable. Fridolin remembered seeing this man's face somewhere earlier that day. It could have been a coincidence, of course.

He picked up an evening paper and read a few lines here and there, just as he had done the previous night in another café: reports on political events, theater, art, literature, and small and large misfortunes of all kinds. In some city in America, a name he had never heard of, a theater had burned down. Master chimney sweep Peter Korand had jumped out of a window.

It struck Fridolin as strange that chimney sweeps sometimes took their own lives, and he wondered involuntarily whether the man had washed properly beforehand or, being black from soot, had simply plunged into nothingness.

Earlier that morning, a woman had poisoned herself in an upscale hotel in the city center. She was a lady who had registered a few days earlier under the name of Baroness D.—a remarkably beautiful woman. Fridolin felt immediately stirred by a vague foreboding.

The woman had returned home at four in the morning, accompanied by two gentlemen who had said their goodbyes at the gate. Four o'clock. Exactly the hour when he had also returned home. And by midday, the report continued, she had been found unconscious in bed, showing signs of severe poisoning... A remarkably beautiful young lady... Well, there were many remarkably beautiful young ladies... There was no reason to assume that Baroness D., or rather the lady who had registered as Baroness D. in the hotel, and some other person were the same individual.

And yet—his heart pounded, and the newspaper trembled in his hand. In an upscale city hotel... which one? Why so mysterious? So discreet?

He let the paper drop and noticed that, at the same moment, the man in the distant corner had raised a large illustrated newspaper like a curtain in front of his face. Immediately, Fridolin picked up his paper again. In that instant, he knew that Baroness D. could be no one else but the woman from last night. In an upscale city hotel... There weren't many that fit the description—for a Baroness D.

And now, whatever might happen, this clue had to be followed. He called the waiter, paid, and left. At the door, he turned once more to look at the suspicious man in the corner. But strangely, the man had already disappeared.

She had suffered a severe poisoning... yet she was still alive. At the very moment she was discovered, she was breathing.

There was no reason to assume she could not be saved.

Regardless of whether she was alive or dead, he would find her. And he would see her—either way, whether dead or alive. He would see her; no one on earth could stop him from seeing the woman who, for his sake, had gone to her death.

He was responsible for her death—solely responsible—if it was indeed her death.

Yes, it was her.

She had returned home at four in the morning, accompanied by two gentlemen. They were likely the same men who had taken the "Nightingale" to the train station a few hours later. Those gentlemen did not have clean consciences.

He stood on the vast square in front of the city hall, looking in every direction. Only a few people were within his sight; the suspicious man from the café was not among them. Even if he were there, those men feared him, for he was the superior.

Fridolin hurried on. On the Ring road, he took a carriage, first driving to the Bristol Hotel. He asked the doorman, as if he had the authority or official duty to do so, whether Baroness D., who had famously poisoned herself that morning, had stayed at the hotel.

The doorman did not seem particularly surprised. Perhaps he thought Fridolin was a police officer or some other official. In any case, he politely replied that the sad incident had not happened here, but at the Archduke Karl Hotel.

Fridolin immediately drove to the specified hotel and learned that Baroness D. had been taken directly to the General Hospital upon being found.

Fridolin asked how the suicide attempt had been discovered. What reason was there to concern themselves with a lady at noon, when she had only arrived home at four in the morning?

It was quite simple: two gentlemen (again, two gentlemen!) had inquired about her at eleven in the morning.

Since the lady did not answer her repeated phone calls, the chambermaid knocked on the door. When nothing happened and the door remained locked from the inside, they had no choice but to break it down. That was when they found Baroness D. unconscious in her bed.

They immediately contacted the rescue team and the police.

"And the two gentlemen?" Fridolin asked sharply, feeling like a secret agent.

Yes, those gentlemen were indeed suspicious; they had vanished without a trace.

Furthermore, it was certainly not a Baroness Dubieski for whom the lady had registered at the hotel. She had stayed at this hotel for the first time, and there was no family by that name at all, certainly no noble family.

Fridolin thanked them for the information and left quickly. One of the hotel directors who had just approached was eyeing him with unpleasant curiosity. He got back into the carriage and ordered the driver to take him to the hospital.

A few minutes later, at the admission office, he learned not only that the supposed Baroness Dubieski had been admitted to the second internal ward, but that she had died at five in the afternoon, despite all medical efforts, without regaining consciousness.

Fridolin took a deep breath, but it felt more like a heavy sigh escaping him.

The duty officer looked up at him with some surprise.

Fridolin quickly composed himself, bid the man farewell politely, and was outside within the next minute. The hospital garden was almost deserted.

In a nearby alley under a streetlamp, a nurse in a blue-and-white striped uniform and a white cap was walking.

"Dead," Fridolin muttered to himself.

—If it is her.

And if it is not? If she is still alive, how can I find her?

At this moment, he could easily answer the question of where the unknown corpse lay. Since she had died only a few hours ago, she was certainly in the morgue, just a few hundred steps away. As a doctor, he naturally faced no difficulty gaining entry at this late hour.

But what did he want to do there? He only knew her body; he had never seen her face. He had caught only a fleeting glimpse of it the moment he left the ballroom tonight—or rather, was thrown out of it.

The reason he hadn't considered this fact until now was that, in the hours since he read the newspaper notice, he had unconsciously pictured the woman who had taken her own life as Albertine, whose face he did not know. He now realized with a shudder that throughout this entire time, his wife had been the image constantly before his eyes, the woman he was searching for.

Once again, he asked himself what he actually intended to do in the morgue. If he had found her alive today, tomorrow, or even years from now, in any setting, he was convinced he would have recognized her beyond a doubt by her walk, her posture, and above all, her voice.

But now he was only meant to see a body—a dead woman's body—and a face about which he knew nothing but her eyes. Eyes that were now broken.

Yes, he knew those eyes, and he knew the hair that had suddenly come loose in that final moment before they threw him out of the hall, covering her naked form. Would that be enough to tell him with certainty whether it was her or not?

With slow, hesitant steps, he made his way through the familiar courtyards toward the Pathological-Anatomical Institute. The gate was unlocked, so he didn't need to ring the bell. The stone floor echoed under his footsteps as he walked down the dimly lit corridor. A familiar, almost home-like scent of various chemicals, which seemed to be the building's true essence, enveloped Fridolin.

He knocked on the door of the histology lab, assuming an assistant might still be working there. At a somewhat gruff "Come in," Fridolin entered the high room, which was lit almost festively. As he had almost expected, his old study colleague, Dr. Adler, the institute's assistant, rose from his chair, just taking his eyes off the microscope.

"Oh, dear colleague," Adler greeted him, still a bit grumpy but also surprised, "what brings me the honor of a visit at such an unusual hour?"

"Excuse the disturbance," Fridolin said. "You are right in the middle of your work."

"Indeed," Adler replied in that sharp tone he had retained from his student days. Then, with a lighter tone, he added, "What else would one be doing in these holy halls at midnight? But of course, you aren't disturbing me at all. How can I help?"

Since Fridolin didn't answer immediately, Adler continued: "The Addison case you sent us tonight is still lying there untouched. The autopsy is scheduled for 8:30 tomorrow morning."

Upon Fridolin's negative gesture, he added, "Ah, so—the pleural tumor! Well, the histological examination has unequivocally revealed a sarcoma. You needn't worry about that."

Fridolin shook his head again. "It is not a matter of official business."

"Well, that's even better," Adler said. "I thought maybe your conscience was driving you down here at night."

"It's related to a conscience, or at least a conscience in general," Fridolin replied.

"Oh!"

"Long story short," he said, striving for a harmlessly dry tone, "I would like information about a woman who died tonight from morphine poisoning at the second clinic and is likely down here now. A certain Baroness Dubieski. I have a suspicion that this so-called Baroness Dubieski is someone I vaguely knew years ago. I would be interested to know if my suspicion is correct."

"Suicide?" Adler asked.

Fridolin nodded. "Yes. Suicide," he translated, as if wishing to give the matter a more private character.

Adler pointed at Fridolin with a humorously outstretched index finger. "Unhappy love for your Excellency?"

Fridolin denied it somewhat angrily. "The suicide of this Baroness Dubieski has nothing to do with me."

"Please, please, I don't want to be indiscreet. We can check right away. As far as I know, no request has come from the forensic medicine department tonight. So certainly—"

A judicial autopsy flashed through Fridolin's mind. That could indeed be the case. Who knew if her suicide was even voluntary? The two gentlemen who had vanished so suddenly from the hotel after hearing about the suicide attempt came back to him. This matter could well develop into a first-rate criminal case. And would he—Fridolin—be summoned as a witness? Yes, was he not actually obligated to report voluntarily to the court?

He followed Dr. Adler down the hallway to the opposite door, which stood slightly ajar. The bare, high room was dimly lit by two open, slightly dimmed flames of a two-armed gas chandelier. Of the twelve or fourteen morgue tables, only a few were occupied. Some bodies lay naked, while others were covered with linen sheets.

Fridolin stepped to the first table near the door and carefully pulled the sheet away from the head of the corpse. A bright beam of light from Dr. Adler's electric flashlight suddenly fell upon it. Fridolin saw a yellow, gray-bearded man's face and immediately covered it again with the sheet. On the next table lay a lean, naked young man's body.

Dr. Adler, coming from another table, said, "One between sixty and seventy, so it probably isn't her either."

But Fridolin, as if suddenly drawn, walked to the far end of the hall, where a woman's body gleamed palely at him. Her head was tilted to the side; long, dark strands of hair fell almost to the floor. Unconsciously, Fridolin reached out to straighten her head, but with a hesitation foreign to him as a doctor, he pulled his hand back.

Dr. Adler had approached and, pointing behind him, said, "None of these count... so, this one?" He shone his electric lamp on the woman's head, which Fridolin, overcoming his hesitation, had just grasped with both hands and slightly lifted.

A pale face with half-closed eyes stared back at him. His lower jaw hung loosely, and the narrow, upturned upper lip revealed bluish gums and a row of white teeth. Whether this face had ever been beautiful, or perhaps even yesterday, Fridolin could not say. It was a completely insignificant, empty, dead face. It could have belonged to an eighteen-year-old or a thirty-eight-year-old just as easily.

"Is it her?" Dr. Adler asked.

Fridolin bent down involuntarily, as if his piercing gaze could wrench an answer from the rigid features. Yet he knew that even if it were truly her face, her eyes—those same eyes that had shone so full of life into his just yesterday—he would not know. He might not even want to know. Gently, he laid her head back on the table and let his gaze wander over the dead body, guided by the moving beam of the electric lamp.

Was it her body? The wonderful, blooming one he had so painfully longed for just yesterday? He saw a yellowish, wrinkled neck; he saw two small, yet somewhat flaccid girl's breasts, between which, as if decay had already begun, the breastbone was marked with cruel clarity beneath the pale skin. He saw the curve of the dull-brown abdomen, how well-formed thighs opened indifferently from a dark, now mysterious and meaningless shadow, he saw the slightly outward-turned knee joints, the sharp edges of the shins, and the slender feet with toes curved inward.

All of this quickly sank back into the darkness one by one, as the light cone of the electric lamp returned along its path with multiple speed, until it finally rested lightly, trembling, over the pale face.

Unconsciously, yes, as if compelled and guided by an invisible power, Fridolin touched the forehead, cheeks, shoulders, and arms of the dead woman with both hands. Then he interlaced his fingers with hers as if in a lover's game. Even though they were stiff, it seemed to him that they were trying to move, to grasp his; yes, it seemed to him that a distant, colorless gaze wandered from beneath the half-closed eyelids toward his own. Magically drawn, he leaned down.

Suddenly, a voice whispered behind him: "But what are you doing?"

Fridolin suddenly came to his senses. He pulled his fingers away from the dead woman's grasp, gripped her slender wrists, and carefully, almost with a touch of pedantry, placed her ice-cold arms alongside her body.

It seemed to him that she had just died in that very moment.

Then he turned away, guided his steps toward the door, and walked down the echoing corridor back into the office they had left earlier.

Doctor Adler followed him in silence and locked the door behind them.

Fridolin went to the sink. "You don't mind," he said, and carefully washed his hands with Lysol and soap.

Meanwhile, Doctor Adler seemed ready to resume his interrupted work without hesitation. He turned on the appropriate light, adjusted the micrometer screw, and looked into the microscope.

When Fridolin approached to say goodbye, Doctor Adler was completely absorbed in his work.

"Would you like to take a look at the specimen?" he asked.

"Why?" Fridolin asked absentmindedly.

"Well, to calm your conscience," Doctor Adler replied, acting as if Fridolin's visit had only had a medical-scientific purpose.

"Do you find your way around?" he asked while Fridolin looked through the microscope. "It's a fairly new staining technique."

Fridolin nodded, keeping his eye fixed on the glass. "Simply ideal," he remarked. "A vividly colorful image, you could say."

He then asked about various details of the new technique.

Doctor Adler provided the requested explanations, and Fridolin expressed the opinion that this new method would likely be very useful for work he planned to do in the near future. He asked for permission to return tomorrow or the day after to learn more.

"Always at your service," Doctor Adler said. He walked with Fridolin across the echoing stone tiles to the gate, which had been locked, and unlocked it with his own key.

"You're staying?" Fridolin asked.

"Of course," Doctor Adler replied. "Those are truly the most beautiful hours of work—from midnight until early morning. At least then you are fairly safe from interruptions."

"Well," Fridolin said with a faint, almost guilty smile.

Doctor Adler placed a reassuring hand on Fridolin's arm, then asked with some hesitation: "So... was it her?"

Fridolin hesitated for a moment, then nodded wordlessly. He was hardly aware that this affirmation might be a lie.

For whether the woman lying there in the mortuary was the same one he had held naked in his arms twenty-four hours earlier to the wild sounds of Nightingale's piano playing, or whether this dead woman was someone else, a stranger he had never met before, he knew this: even if the woman he had sought, the woman he had desired, the woman he had perhaps loved for an hour, was still alive and living her life as she always had—what lay behind him in the vaulted hall, under the flickering gaslights, a shadow among shadows, dark, senseless, and mysterious like her—meant, and could mean nothing else to him, but the pale corpse of the past night, destined for irreversible decay.

Through the dark, empty streets, he hurried home. A few minutes later, just as he had twenty-four hours before, after undressing in his consultation room, he quietly entered his marital bedroom.

He heard Albertine's steady, calm breathing and saw the outline of her head against the soft pillow. A feeling of tenderness, even of safety, washed over his heart—a feeling he hadn't expected.

He decided to tell her the story of the previous night soon, perhaps even tomorrow. He would tell it as if everything he experienced were just a dream. Then, once she had felt and understood the utter emptiness of his adventures, he would admit that they were real.

Real? he asked himself. At that moment, he noticed something dark and distinct right next to Albertine's face on the cushion beside him. It looked like the shadowed lines of a human face.

For a moment, his heart stopped. In the next instant, he knew what it was. He reached for the cushion and held in his hand the mask he had worn the night before. He hadn't noticed it slipping from his hand while he rolled up the package that morning, and it must have been found by the maid or by Albertine herself.

Now he couldn't doubt that Albertine had guessed something after finding it. She likely suspected more, and perhaps something worse, than what had actually happened.

However, the way she showed him this, her idea to place the dark mask next to her on the pillow—as if it represented her husband's now-mysterious face—gave Fridolin sure hope. Her joking, almost mischievous manner seemed to express a mild warning along with a willingness to forgive. She was probably remembering her own dream, whatever it might have been, and was inclined not to take things too seriously.

Suddenly exhausted, Fridolin let the mask slip to the floor. He burst into loud, painful sobs, surprising even himself, and sank down beside the bed, weeping softly into the pillows.

After a few seconds, he felt a soft hand stroking his hair. He lifted his head, and from the depths of his heart, he said, "I will tell you everything."

She first raised her hand slightly, as if in gentle protest. He took her hand, held it in his, and looked up at her with a questioning and pleading gaze. She nodded to him, and he began.

Morning light grayly filtered through the curtains as Fridolin finished his story. Not once had Albertine interrupted him with a curious or impatient question. She felt that he wanted to, and could, tell her nothing he had kept hidden.

She lay there calmly, her arms folded behind her neck, and remained silent for a long time even after Fridolin had finished. Finally, as he lay stretched out beside her, he leaned over her. In her motionless face, with its large bright eyes where the morning light now seemed to rise, he asked, hesitantly yet hopefully: "What should we do, Albertine?"

She smiled. After a brief hesitation, she replied, "I think we should be grateful to fate that we have come through all the adventures safely—both the real ones and the dreamed ones."

"Do you know that for certain?" he asked.

"As certain as I suspect that the reality of a night, yes, even the reality of an entire human life, does not simultaneously represent its innermost truth."

"And no dream," he sighed softly, "is completely a dream."

She took his head in both hands and nestled it gently against her chest. "Now we are truly awake," she said, "for a long time."

Forever, he wanted to add, but before he could speak the words, she placed a finger on his lips. As if speaking to herself, she whispered, "Never ask about the future."

So they lay there together, silent, perhaps both a little drowsy, and close to each other without dreams—until, as every morning at seven o'clock, a knock came at the door. With the familiar sounds from the street, a triumphant ray of light through the curtain crack, and a burst of bright children's laughter from the room next door, the new day began.