"
"The youngest, eh? eh? a-a-ha!" she laughed out all at once, loudly,
heartily, like a child. "Oh, how sly you are; you only said that just to
get me to raise my veil, didn't you? Ah, I thought so; but you may just
wait till you are blue first ... just for punishment."
We began to laugh and jest; we talked incessantly all the time. I do not
know what I said, I was so happy. She told me that she had seen me once
before, a long time ago, in the theatre. I had then comrades with me, and
I behaved like a madman; I must certainly have been tipsy that time too,
more's the shame.
Why did she think that?
Oh, I had laughed so.
"Really, a-ah yes; I used to laugh a lot in those days."
"But now not any more?"
"Oh yes; now too. It is a splendid thing to exist sometimes."
We reached Carl Johann. She said: "Now we won't go any farther," and we
returned through University Street. When we arrived at the fountain once
more I slackened my pace a little; I knew that I could not go any farther
with her.
"Well, now you must turn back here," she said, and stopped.
"Yes, I suppose I must."
But a second after she thought I might as well go as far as the door with
her. Gracious me, there couldn't be anything wrong in that, could there?
"No," I replied.
But when we were standing at the door all my misery confronted me clearly.
How was one to keep up one's courage when one was so broken down? Here I
stood before a young lady, dirty, ragged, torn, disfigured by hunger,
unwashed, and only half-clad; it was enough to make one sink into the
earth.
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