Pluizer leered at Johannes in a teasing, cunning way.
"Why do you ask that? He goes his own gait—he takes whom he can catch."
Later, Johannes saw that it was otherwise. But he could not yet know whether or not Pluizer always spoke the truth.
They went out to the street, and moved with the swarming throng. The grimy men passed on, pell-mell—laughing and chatting so gaily that Johannes could not help wondering. He noticed that Pluizer nodded to many of them; but no one returned the greeting—all were looking straight forward as if they had seen nothing.
"They are going like fun now," said Pluizer, "as though not a single one of them knew me. But that is only a pretext. They cannot cut me when I am alone with them; and then they are not so jolly." Johannes became conscious that some one was following them. On looking round, he saw the tall, pale figure moving among the people with great, inaudible strides. Hein nodded to Johannes.
"Do the people also see him?" asked Johannes of Pluizer.
"Yes, certainly! all of them; but they do not wish to know him. Well, for the present I overlook this defiance."
The din and stir brought to Johannes a kind of stupor in which he forgot his troubles. The narrow streets and the high houses dividing the blue sky into straight strips—the people passing to and fro beside him—the shuffling of footsteps, and the rattling of wagons, effaced the old visions and the dream of that former night, as a storm disturbs the reflections in mirror-like water. It seemed to him that nothing else existed save walls and windows and people; as if he too must do the same, and run and rush in the restless, breathless tumult.
Then they came to a quiet neighborhood, where stood a large house with grey, gloomy windows. It looked severe and uninviting. It was very quiet within, and there came to Johannes a mingling of strange, pungent odors—a damp, cellar-like smell being the most perceptible. In a room, full of odd-looking instruments, sat a solitary man. He was surrounded with books, and glass and copper articles—all of them unfamiliar to Johannes. A stray sunbeam entered the room, passed on over his head, and sparkled on the flasks filled with pretty, tinted particles. The man was looking intently through a copper tube, and did not look up.
As Johannes came nearer, he heard him murmur, "Wistik! Wistik!"