“Comme toute la Pologne! As drunk as the whole of Poland!” he affirmed. But he only gave it as an opinion, adding no sign of particular indignation. He was beaming with greedy generosity at his great Amoureuse.
“Ah! here he comes again!” said Fräulein Lipmann at the door. (It was when Kreisler had started up in search of Soltyk).
So Kreisler disappeared in the doorway. He passed through the refreshment-room. In a small room beyond he sat down by an open window.
Anastasya had at last got into line with him. She had been startled, awakened, and had also laughed. This was an exact and complete response to Kreisler at the present. Something difficult to understand and which should have been alarming for a woman, the feel of the first tugs of the maelstrom he was producing and conducting all on his own, and which required her for its heart: and then laughter, necessarily, once one was in that atmosphere, like laughing gas, with its gusty tickling.
But this was not how Kreisler felt about it. He was boiling and raging. That laugh had driven him foaming, fugitive and confused, into the nearest chair. He could not turn round and retaliate at the time. The door being in front of him, he vanished as Mephistopheles might sink with suddenness into the floor, at the receipt of some affront, to some sulphurous regions beneath, in a second; come to a stop alone, upright; stick his fingers in his mouth, nearly biting them in two, his eyes staring: so stand stock still, breathless and haggard for some minutes: then shoot up again, head foremost, in some other direction, like some darting and skulking fish, to the face of the earth. He did not even realize that the famous contact was established, so furious was he. He would go and strike her across the mouth, spit in her face, kiss her in the middle of the dance, where the laugh had been! Yet he didn’t move, but sat on staring in front of him, quite forgetful where he was and how long he had sat there, in the midst of a hot riot of thoughts.
He suddenly sat up and looked round, like a man who has been asleep and for whom work is waiting; got up with certain hesitation, and again made for the door. Well, life and work (his business) must he proceeded with all the same. He glanced reflectively and solemnly about, and perceived the Widow talking to a little reddish Englishman.
“May I take the Widow away for a little?” he asked her companion.
He always addressed her as “Widow”: he began all his discourses with a solemn “Widow!” occasionally alternating it with “Derelict!” But this, all uttered in a jumbled tongue, lost some of its significance.
The little Englishman on being addressed gave the English equivalent of a jump—a sudden moving of his body and shuffling of his feet, still looking at the floor, where he had cast his eyes as Kreisler approached.
“What? I⸺”