Fair, with delicate, slightly pinched features, and large melancholy gray eyes, exquisitely neat and exact in his apparel, he looked from head to foot like a cavalry officer in citizen's dress, and in poor circumstances, that is like a man who knew how to invest with a certain distinction even the shabbiness to which fate condemned him.
"You cannot imagine what pleasure your visit gives me! When I see one of you it really seems almost as if one of my dear ones had descended from heaven to press my hand," he said with emotion and Truyn replied:
"I should have come before, but I expected certainly that you .... that ...."
"That I ...." Fritz smiled significantly, "no, Erich, you could hardly ...."
"Well, well, and how are you? How are you?" said Truyn quickly.
"I still live," Fritz replied, and looked away.
Just then a voice was heard outside inquiring for "Count Malzin."
"I am not at home, Lotti, do you hear, not at home to any body," Malzin called into the next room. "Come, Erich!" and he conducted his guest out of what answered as a drawing-room into a very shabbily-furnished apartment which he called his 'den,' and where Truyn at once felt quite at home.
"That was young Capriani," Fritz explained hurriedly, "he probably came to talk with me about the burial vault. Perhaps you know that my late father had the vault reserved for us in the contract for the sale of Schneeburg. Capriani, whom usually nothing escapes, oddly enough overlooked the fact that the vault is in the park, and now he wants me to sell it to him. Let him try it--the vault he shall not have--it is the last spot of home that is left to me. I choose at least to lie in the grave with my people! But let us talk of something pleasanter. You are all well, are you not?--but there is no need to ask, I can see it by looking at you. And I know all about your domestic affairs from Ossi."
"He comes to see you often?"