"You must know, there's a man living in our little town who has an album, or rather a portfolio, of engravings, and that's how I know the picture. His name is Rupius, he is very infirm; just fancy, he is quite paralysed."
She felt obliged to tell Emil all this, for it seemed to her as though his eyes were unceasingly questioning her.
"That might be a chapter, too," he said, with a smile, when she had come to an end; then he added more softly, as though ashamed of his indelicate joke: "There must certainly also be gentlemen in that little town who are not paralysed."
She felt that she had to take poor Herr Rupius under her protection.
"He is a very unhappy man," she said, and, remembering how she had sat with him on the balcony the previous day, a feeling of great compassion seized her.
But Emil was following his own train of thought.
"Yes," he said; "that is what I should really like to know—what experiences you have had."
"You know them, already."
"I mean, since the death of your husband."
She understood now what he meant, and was a little offended.