“I don’t know whether we shall be as well off in the old country in the future as we have been in the past,” said Crammon, who occasionally had pessimistic attacks and forebodings. “Hitherto we haven’t suffered. Our larders and cellars have been well-stocked, nor have the higher needs been neglected. But times are getting worse, and, unless I mistake, clouds are gathering on the political horizon. So I can’t call it a bad idea, my dear Stettner, to slip away quietly and amiably. I only hope that you’ll find some secure position over there from which you may calmly watch the spectacle of our débâcle. And when the waves rise very high, you might think of us and have a mass said for us, that is for me, because Christian has been expelled from the bosom of Holy Church.”
Stettner smiled at this speech. But he became serious again at once. “It seems to me too that, in a sense, we’re all trapped here. Yet I have never felt myself so deeply and devotedly a German as at this moment when I am probably leaving my fatherland forever. But in that feeling there is a stab of pain. It seems to me as though I should hurry from one to another and sound a warning. But what to warn them of, or why warn them at all—I don’t know.”
Crammon answered weightily. “My dear old Aglaia wrote me the other day that she had dreamed of black cats all night long. She is deep, she has a prophetic soul, and dreams like that are of evil presage. I may enter a monastery. It is actually within the realm of the possible. Don’t laugh, Christian; don’t laugh, my dearest boy! You don’t know all my possibilities.”
It had not occurred to Christian to laugh.
Stettner stopped and gave his hands to his friends. “Good-bye, Crammon,” he said cordially. “I’m grateful that you accompanied me. Good-bye, dear Christian, good-bye.” He pressed Christian’s hand long and firmly. Then he tore himself away, hastened toward the gang-plank, and was lost in the crowd.
“A nice fellow,” Crammon murmured. “A very nice fellow. What a pity!”
When the car met them Christian said: “I’d like to walk a bit, either back to the hotel or somewhere else. Will you come, Bernard?”
“If you want me, yes. Toddling along is my portion.”
Christian dismissed his car. He had a strange foreboding, as though something fateful were lying in wait for him.