JUST DREAM

Chapter 8

MEANWHILE it had become even milder outside. A fragrance from dewy meadows and distant mountains drifted with the gentle breezes into the narrow street. Where shall I go now? Fridolin asked himself, as though it weren't the obvious thing to go home to bed. But he couldn't persuade himself to do so. He felt homeless, an outcast, since his annoying meeting with the students ... or was it since Marianne's confession? No, it was longer than that—ever since this evening's conversation with Albertina he was moving farther and farther away from his everyday existence into some strange and distant world. He wandered about aimlessly through the dark streets, letting the breeze blow through his hair. Finally, he turned resolutely into a third-rate coffee-house. The place was dimly lighted and not especially large, but it had an old-fashioned, cozy air about it, and was almost empty at this late hour. Three men were playing cards in a corner. The waiter who had been watching them helped Fridolin take off his fur coat, took his order and placed illustrated journals and evening papers on his table. Fridolin felt slightly more secure and began to look through the papers. His eyes were arrested here and there by some news-item. In some Bohemian city, street signs with German names had been torn down. There was a conference in Constantinople in which Lord Cranford took part about constructing a railway in Asia Minor. The firm Benies & Weingruber had gone into bankruptcy. The prostitute Anna Tiger, in a fit of jealousy, had attempted to throw vitriol on her friend, Hermine Drobizky. An Ash Wednesday fishdinner was being given that evening in Sophia Hall. Marie B., a young girl residing at No. 28 Schonbrunn Strasse, had poisoned herself with mercuric chloride.—Prosaically commonplace as they were, all these facts, the insignificant as well as the sad, had a sobering and reassuring effect on Fridolin. He felt

sorry for the young girl, Marie B. How stupid to take mercuric chloride! At this very moment, while he was sitting snugly in the cafe, while Albertina was calmly sleeping, and the Councilor had passed beyond all human suffering, Marie B., No. 28 Schonbrunn Strasse, was writhing in incredible pain. He looked up from his paper and encountered the gaze of a man seated opposite. Was it possible? Nachtigall—? The latter had already recognized him, threw up his hands in pleased surprise and joined him at his table. He was still a young man, tall, rather broad, and none too thin. His long, blond, slightly curly hair had a touch of gray in it, and his moustache drooped in Polish fashion. He was wearing an open gray top-coat, underneath which were visible a greasy dress-suit, a crumpled shirt with three false diamond studs, a crinkled collar and a dangling, white silk tie. His eyelids were inflamed, as if from many sleepless nights, but his blue eyes gleamed brightly. "You here in Vienna, Nachtigall?" exclaimed Fridolin. "Didn't you know?" said Nachtigall with a soft, Polish accent and a slightly Jewish twang. "How could you miss it, and me so famous?" He laughed loudly and good-naturedly, and sat down opposite Fridolin. "What," asked Fridolin, "have you been appointed Professor of Surgery without my hearing of it?" Nachtigall laughed still louder. "Didn't you hear me just now, just a minute ago?" "What do you mean—hear you?—Why, of course." Suddenly it occurred to him that someone had been playing the piano when he entered; in fact, he had heard music coming from some basement as he approached the cafe. "So that was you playing?" he exclaimed. "It was," Nachtigall said, laughing. Fridolin nodded. Why, of course—the strangely vigorous touch, the peculiar, but euphonious bass

chords had at once seemed familiar to him. "Are you devoting yourself entirely to it?" he asked. He remembered that Nachtigall had definitely given up the study of medicine after his second preliminary examination in zoology, which he had passed although he was seven years late in taking it. Since then he had been hanging around the hospital, the dissecting room, the laboratories and classrooms for some time afterwards. With his blond artist's head, his crinkled collar, his dangling tie that had once been white, he had been a striking and, in the humorous sense, popular figure. He had been much liked, not only by his fellow-students, but also by many professors. The son of a Jewish gin-shop owner in a small Polish town, he had left home early and had come to Vienna to study medicine. The trifling sums he received from his parents had from the very-beginning been scarcely worth mention and were soon discontinued. However, this didn't prevent his appearing in the Riedhof Hotel at the table reserved for medical students where Fridolin was a regular guest. At intervals, one after another of his more welltodo fellow-students would pay his bill. He sometimes, also, was given clothes, which he accepted gladly and without false pride. He had already learned to play in his home town from a pianist stranded there, and while he was a medical student in Vienna he had studied at the Conservatory where he was considered a talented musician of great promise. But here, too, he was neither serious nor diligent enough to develop his art systematically. He soon became entirely content with the impression he made on his acquaintances, or rather with the pleasure he gave them by his playing. For a while he had a position as pianist in a suburban dancing-school. Fellow-students and table-companions tried to introduce him into fashionable houses in the same capacity, but on such occasions he would play only what suited him and as long as he chose. His conversations with the young girls present were not always harmless, and he drank more than he