Again later a postcard full of Signatur as was pushed towards me, with the request that I should sign my name too—and the pencil dropped out of my hand—and then again I couldn't manage, because a wench poured a glass of champagne over my cuffs.
But I remember distinctly, how all of us became suddenly sober, searching in our pockets, on and below the table, and on our chairs for the postcard, which Lord Hopeless wanted to have back by all means, but which had vanished and remained vanished for good. . . .
"I took the whitest flow-ower
To cheer my darkest hou-our,"
The violins screeched the refrain and submerged our consciousness in the darkness again and again.
If one closed one's eyes, one seemed to be lying on a thick, black, velvety carpet, from which flamed forth a few isolated ruby-red flowers.
"I want something to eat," I heard someone call. "What? What? Caviar?. . . Nonsense! Bring me . . . bring me . . . well . . . bring me some preserved mushrooms."
And all of us ate of those sour mushrooms, which were swimming in a clear, stringy liquid, spiced with some aromatic herb.
"I took the whitest flow-ower
To cheer my darkest hou-our,
Tra-la, tra-la, tra-la,
Tra—la-la-la—tra-la."
***
All at once a strange-looking acrobat, dressed in a coverall tricot which was much too large and wabbled crazily about him, was at our table and at his right sat a masqued hunchback with a white flaxen wig.
Next to him was a woman; and they all laughed.
How in the world did he get in here—with those? And I turned around: the hall was empty, except for ourselves.
Oh, well, I thought—never mind. . . .
The table at which we sat was very long, and most of its tablecloth shone as white as a sheet—empty of plates and glasses.
"Monsieur Phalloides, won't you please dance for us?" said one of the gentlemen, patting the acrobat on his shoulder.
They must know each other well—it went through my head in a sort of a dream—very probably he's been sitting here a long time already, that—that tricot.
And then I looked at the hunchback next to him, and our eyes met. He wore a mask glazed with white lacquer and a greenish, faded jacket, badly neglected and full of crude patches.
Picked up from the street!
When he laughed, it sound like a cross between a wheeze and a rattle.
"Crotalus!—Crotalus Horridus." That phrase which I must have heard or read somewhere some time went through my mind; I could not remember its meaning, but I shuddered nevertheless, as I whisperedit to myself.
And then I felt the fingers of that young wench touching my knees under the table.
"My name is Albina Veratrina," she whispered to me falteringly as if she were confiding a secret to me, while I seized her hand.
She moved very close to me; and I remembered darkly that she had once poured a glass of champagne over my cuff. Her dresses exuded a biting odor; one could hardly keep from sneezing when she made a movement.
"Her name is Germer, of course—Miss Germer, you know," said Doctor Zitterbein aloud.
Whereupon the acrobat gave a
