VIII
In his home city a pleasant surprise awaited Doctor Graesler. Though he had only at the last moment announced his arrival, he found his quarters not only in the best of order, but also furnished in much more friendly fashion than he had left them a year before. Only now did he remember that during the past autumn Friederike had stayed there by herself for a few days. She had, as she told him later, purchased some new furniture and assigned to some reliable workmen certain contracts regarding whose completion she had been in communication with his friend Boehlinger during the winter months. And when Graesler had appraised the dwelling a second time, and finally entered his dead sister's bed-chamber which faced upon the court, he sighed softly—a little in deference to the compositor's wife who had taken care of the house for years and who was now leading him through it, but also in truly mournful memory of the departed who had not been destined again to see that familiar room, newly and agreeably appointed, in the glow of the electric lights.
Doctor Graesler unpacked, intermittently walked here and there through the rooms, occasionally took down one or another book from a library shelf only to put it back in its place again unread, and looked down into the narrow street. It was barely astir and on the moist pavement a corner lamp was mirrored. He sat in the old chair which went with the writing-table inherited from his father, read the paper, and felt with a melancholy sense of astonishment that he was so distant from Sabine—not only that many miles lay between him and her, but as if the letter in which she had offered him her hand and which had driven him to flight had reached him not the day before, but many weeks ago. When he brought it forth a pungent and disquieting scent seemed to him to rise from it, and,
