"Be jolly, children," I said. "Lothar, tell us something funny--out of your own life. Come on now. Have you anything to smoke? No? Wait a moment, I'll get you something."
And in my anguish I made for the cigar cabinet in the next room, as though a good smoke would bring everything to a happy ending.
And then, gentlemen, when I came back with the box under my arm, I saw something through the open door that stopped the blood in my veins.
Only once in my life have I experienced a similar shock. That was one evening when I was still a young cuirassier and I came home from a jolly party to find a telegram for me with the pleasant message, "Father just died."
But now as to what it was that I saw, gentlemen.
The two young people were sitting still and stiff on their chairs, as before, but they had, so to speak, dipped their eyes into each other's, and there was a wild, despairing, insane glow in them such as I had never thought could shine out of human eyes. It was like two flames darting sparks into each other.
So there I was. Not yet my wife, and already my friend, my son, my favourite, betraying me with her.
Adultery in the house even before the marriage had really been consummated.
In that look my whole future--an existence of suspicion, and dread and gloom and ridicule, full of grey days and sleepless nights--lay unrolled before me like a map.
What was I to do, gentlemen?