I looked at my watch, and suddenly I remembered that I was to meet Mitzi at the Northern Station. It was very late, perhaps too late. Still by making haste I might arrive in time. So I speedily went away. But as it is always when you are in a hurry, the taxi took a long, circuitous route, what they call a short cut, and I arrived too late. The train had arrived nearly ten minutes ago, and I could find no trace of Mitzi at the station.
Heaven knows what gave me the idea that something was wrong. When I came back to the Karlsgasse, I saw the light in the windows of the salon as they had been when I had left. I ascended the stairs and rang the bell. Nearly at once I heard Doblana's dragging step, who came to open the door.
"Alone?" he cried, in a state of utmost anxiety.
Mitzi had not arrived.
The nervousness of the poor man was terrible. Exhausted as he was I did not dare to leave him, and I passed with him the worst night of my life. I have only to think of it to find any night in the trenches, amidst the roaring of the shells, restful by comparison.
At the earliest hour in the morning we went to a telephone office where we asked for communication with the Grand Hotel in Brünn. After a long half-hour we got through, only to learn that Fräulein had not been seen on the previous day at the hotel.
We tried the theatre. The one thing we heard was that she had been very successful as always and had left immediately after the performance.
We returned to the Karlsgasse. Mitzi had not arrived. Only the postman had called and brought several letters. None of them being from her, Doblana threw them carelessly into his pocket and asked me whether I was coming with him to Brünn. Of course, I acquiesced. But I will confess that I, so to say, made a condition of our having some breakfast before. It may be that youth is more hungry, but I could not go on without food.
At last we sat in the train. We had more than an hour before us.