And strangely enough, these fathers of families, men who serve the state and society, who occupy high offices, make important inventions and write good books—these men have red cheeks and laughing eyes. They do not look as though the burden which they carry squeezes the breath of life out of them. They get ahead, in spite of the childish hands that cling to their coats, in spite of the trivialities with which they pass their hours of leisure.
An indeterminate feeling of envy bored into his soul. He fought it down and went on, right into the throng that filled the footpaths of the Tiergarten. Groups of ladies from the west end went by him in rustling gowns of black. He did not know them and did not wish to know them.
Here, too, he recognized fewer of the men. The financiers who have made this quarter their own appear but rarely at the races.
Accompanying carriages kept pace with the promenaders in order to explain and excuse their unusual exertion. For in this world the continued absence of one's carriage may well shake one's credit.
The trumpeting motor-cars whirred by with gleaming brasses. Of the beautiful women in them, little could be seen in the swift gleams. It was the haste of a new age that does not even find time to display its vanity.
Upon the windows of the villas and palaces opposite lay the iridescent glow of the evening sun. The façades took on purple colours, and the decaying masses of vines that weighed heavily upon the fences seemed to glow and shine from within with the very phosphorescence of decay.
Flooded by this light, a slender, abnormally tall girl came into Stueckrath's field of vision. She led by the arm an aged lady, who hobbled with difficulty along the pebbly path. A closed carriage with escutcheon and coronet followed the two slowly.
He stopped short. An involuntary movement had passed through his body, an impulse to turn off into one of the side paths. But he conquered himself at once, and looked straight at the approaching ladies.
Like a mere line of blackness, thin of limb and waist, attired with nun-like austerity in garments that hung as if withering upon her, she stood against the background of autumnal splendour.
Now she recognised him, too. A sudden redness that at once gave way to lifeless pallor flashed across her delicate, stern face.