After a while someone knocked at the door, and Amadeus Voss entered. His courtesy was exaggerated, but he seemed in no wise astonished to find Johanna here, nor did it seem to annoy him. He said he wanted to talk to Christian Wahnschaffe. Thüngen replied that no one knew when Christian would return or whether he would return on that day at all.
Voss said drily that he had time and could wait.
Johanna felt paralysed. She could not will to go away. All she wanted to avoid was any demonstration, any scene. Like an animal that slinks to a hiding-place, she cowered in the corner of the sofa, and gnawed her lip with her little teeth.
Suddenly the thought flashed into her mind—“death, death, that’s the only thing.”
XXVII
The festivities were over; the guests had departed; Eva and Susan remained alone in the castle.
The fullness of spring had come thus early to that southern coast. The festivals had been festivals of spring amid a tropical wealth of flowers and in that heroic landscape. The flight from the winter of the North had been so swift that no dignity could withstand its effects. It had intoxicated every soul. They had given themselves up to the mere delight of breathing, to the astonishment of the senses. Some had felt like carousers and gluttons merely, others like liberated prisoners, and all had been conscious of the brevity of their respite; and this consciousness breathed a breath of melancholy over all delight.
The atmosphere still echoed the thrill of impassioned words and the tread and laughter of women; the sounds had not yet quite died away, and in the night the darkness of the silent park still yearned for the glow of lights which the stars above could not cause it to forget.
But they were all gone.
The Grand Duke had accepted the invitation of an Austrian Archduke to shoot on his estates. In April Eva was to meet him in Vienna and accompany him to Florence. She had asked none of her friends to stay longer, no woman, no artist, and no paladin. It had become a very hunger of her soul to be alone once more. She had not been alone for four years.