And there it was.
The waiter had seated himself in a back corner of the room; I kept perfectly quiet; the heavy voice of the old colonel went laboring through the stillness of the room like a gust of wind that precedes a storm or some serious outbreak in nature.
His eyes turned toward me as if to search me, whether I could bear to listen. He did not ask, I did not speak, but I looked at him, and my look eagerly replied: “Go on.”
But not yet did he begin; first he drew from the breast pocket of his coat a large cigar-case of hard, brown leather, took out a cigar and slowly lighted it.
“You know Berlin, of course,” said he, as he blew out the match and puffed the first cloud of smoke over the table. “No doubt you have traveled before this on the street railway—”
“Oh, yes; often.”
“H’m—well, then, as you go along behind the new Friedrich Street from Alexander Square to the Jannowiz Bridge, there stands there on the right-hand side in new Friedrich Street, a great ugly old building; it is the old military school.”
I nodded.
“The new one over there in Lichterfelde I do not know, but the old one, that I do know—yes—h’m—was even a cadet there in my time—yes—that one I do know.”
This repetition of words gave me the feeling that he knew not only the house, but probably many an event that had taken place in it.