"And now, please, will you do something for me? Will you telegraph to your mother and ask her if it is true that—Rachel Welt is to be married next week—?"
"What? Did you hear that she was?"
"Never mind just now—I'll tell you all afterward; but now, pray, go at once and send off the telegram. Beg for an immediate answer—immediate, you understand. Have mercy on me, and go!"
His words, and the repressed pain in his voice, had all the more effect on me from their contrast with the habitual coldness and reserve of his manner. I went into the office and sent off the telegram. Somehow or other it never occurred to me until after I had dispatched the message, that my people would think it strange that I should be so much interested in the fate of Rachel Welt, and I almost smiled at the thought. But all desire to smile forsook me when I rejoined Adolf. His face was now flushed, his eyes were shining, and every now and then he shivered as though with ague....
"You are ill," I once more exclaimed. "Come...." And, seizing him by the arm, I took him to the nearest café—the snow, meanwhile, had begun to fall thick and fast.
"It's nothing," he answered. "It's only a slight feverish attack—I must have had a chill—I have been wandering all night long in the streets. I know what you're going to say—it was foolish of me, I am quite aware of that, my medical studies have taught me how foolish it was; but I couldn't help it—I couldn't keep still.... When do you expect an answer to your telegram?" he added, suddenly and quickly.
"Late in the afternoon—perhaps not till nightfall."
"Not till then?"
"Remember that Barnow is a hundred and fifty miles[6] from here, that there is a dreadful snow-storm, and that—what is perhaps more to the purpose—Herr Michalski, the telegraph officer at home, is generally drunk, and is in the habit of keeping back telegrams till it suits him to deliver them. But you may trust me to bring you the answer as soon as it arrives."
"Thank you," he said. "You can not tell what I have suffered since I was startled by the sudden intelligence."