He shrugged his shoulders, feeling slightly wounded at the designation which she had chosen.
"Come, be frank," she added in a jesting manner. "Are you really so keen on it?"
He shook his head, almost as if in pain, but he felt that this gesture also was lacking in sincerity. "I don't understand you, Anna," he said, more weakly than he really meant. "To think that a few weeks of being away from each other, to think of ... well, I don't know what to call it.... It is as though we had got absolutely out of touch. It's really me, Anna, it's really me...." he repeated in a vehement but tired voice. He got up from the chair in front of the piano. He took her hands and put them to his lips, feeling nervous and somewhat moved.
"What was Tristan like?" she inquired.
He gave her a conscientious account of the performance and did not leave out his visit to the Ehrenbergs' box. He spoke of all the people whom he had seen and conveyed to her Heinrich Bermann's wishes. He then drew her on to his knee and kissed her. When he removed his face from hers he saw tears running over her cheeks. He pretended to be surprised, "What's the matter, child?... But why, why...?"
She got up and went to the window with her face turned away from him.
He stood up too, feeling somewhat impatient, walked up and down the room once or twice, then went up to her, pressed her close to him, and then immediately began again in great haste: "Anna, just think it over and see if you really can't come with me! It would all be so different from what it is here. We could really talk things over thoroughly. We have got such important matters to discuss. I need your advice as well, about the plans I am to make for next year. I've written to you about it, haven't I? It is very probable, you see, that I shall be asked to sign a three years' contract in the next few days."
"What am I to advise you?" she said. "After all, you know best whether it suits you there or not."
He began to tell her about the kind and talented manager who clearly wished to have him for a collaborator; about the old and sympathetic conductor who had once been so famous; about a very diminutive stage-hand who was called Alexander the Great; about a young lady with whom he had studied the Micaela, and who was engaged to a Berlin doctor; and about a tenor, who had already been working at the theatre for twenty-seven years and hated Wagner violently. He then began to talk about his own personal prospects, artistic and financial. There was no doubt that he could soon attain an excellent and assured position at the little Court Theatre. On the other hand one had to bear in mind that it was dangerous to bind oneself for too long; a career like that of the old conductor would not be to his taste. Of course ... temperaments varied. He for his part believed himself safe from a fate like that.
Anna looked at him all the time, and finally said in a half jesting, half meditative tone, as though she were speaking to a child: "Yes, isn't he trying hard?"