BUDDENBROOKS
“Impossible, dear Anna. Everything is arranged and in order. They are expecting me in Amsterdam. I couldn’t make it a day longer, no matter how much I wanted.”
“And that is so far away—so far away!”
“Amsterdam? Nonsense, that isn’t far. We can always think of each other, can’t we? And I’ll write to you. You’ll see, I’ll write directly I’ve got there.”
“Do you remember,” she said, “a year and a half ago, at the Rifle-club fair?”
He interrupted her ardently. “Do I remember? Yes, a year and a half ago! I took you for an Italian. I bought a pink and put it in my button-hole.—I still have it—I am taking it with me to Amsterdam.—What a heat: how hot and dusty it was on the meadow!”
“Yes, you bought me a glass of lemonade from the next both. I remember it like yesterday. Everything smelled of fatty-cakes and people.”
“But it was fine! We knew right away how we felt—about each other!”
“You wanted to take me on the carroussel, but I couldn’t go; I had to be in the shop. The old woman would have scolded.”
“No, I know it wouldn’t have done, Anna.”
She said softly and clearly, “But that is the only thing I’ve refused you.”
He kissed her again, on the lips and the eyes. “Adieu, darling little Anna. We must begin to say good-bye.”
“Oh, you will come back to-morrow?”
“Yes, of course, and day after to-morrow early, if I can get away.—But there is one thing I want to say to you, Anna. I am going, after all, rather far away. Amsterdam is a long way off—and you are staying here. But—don’t throw yourself away, I tell you.”
She wept into her apron, holding it up with her free hand to her face. “And you—and you?”
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