He sauntered back and forth through the rooms. He went out into the corridor. A couple of Knights of Vasa were sitting on the wood-box talking about business while they gesticulated with two big cigars, on which they had left the labels. They grew silent as he passed.
He came into a greenish room that was half dark. From the roof on a narrow cord hung a single electric light, its glow shaded by blue and green fringes. On a dressing-table with a marble top an old Chinese mandarin of porcelain sat sleeping on his crossed legs.
How strangely far off the music sounded, as if from underneath!
He set the mandarin’s head in motion with a little punch of his little finger. Two mirrors repeated in unending succession the pale and lethargic nods of the yellow head.
Now it was quiet, the music.
All at once she stood there, in the middle of the room. He had not heard her enter. She held out both hands to him. He took them and drew her to him for a kiss, but she freed herself almost immediately.
“Somebody’s coming,” she said.
They listened. Voices approached and moved away again.
When all was quiet around them, he pressed her to him in a long kiss. And he thought while she kissed him: This is life! This is eternity!
Far away in the green darkness nodded the pale head of the mandarin.